ABSTRACT
Until at least the late 1980s, it was received wisdom that the death of Robert earl of Leicester in September 1588 proved a watershed in the fortunes of English puritanism: only then did Archbishop Whitgift and Lord Chancellor Hatton finally find themselves in a position to mount a full-scale attack upon nonconformity in all its Hydra-headed guises.1 The most far-reaching consequence of their efforts (with Richard Bancroft acting as their trained bloodhound) was the destruction of John Field’s network of clerical conferences which for many years had been holding clandestine meetings throughout the home counties and the midlands. As a corollary it was possible for Patrick Collinson to argue, as late as 1967, that Lord Burghley, who at Leicester’s death still had a full decade of royal service ahead of him, was overtaken by these events and little inclined to resist a development which had the broad approval of the queen.2 Thus did ‘political’ puritanism retreat into quiescence in the English parishes for the rest of the reign.3
