ABSTRACT
Historians of the Interregnum point to the popularity of 'Prayer Book Anglicanism', which suggests that some of Laud's policies may have actually met a need. Close attention to the minutiae of policy, implementation, and analysis of varying degrees of successful enforcement can lead to cynicism about the real effectiveness of central government. Well aware that economic policy, if handled inflexibly, could jeopardize relations with local people and hence other aspects of church policy, it appears that Archbishop Richard Neile disagreed with his friend William Laud over the new lease orders. Neile's interest in church music was of long standing, for he had brought about changes at Westminster Abbey in 1606 and had been instrumental in the provision of a new organ at Durham Cathedral. Equally revealing of the attitude of the times was the plotting between Neile and Bridgeman to send pursuivants to raid the house of a Puritan lawyer named Bostock while he was away in London in 1637.
