ABSTRACT
Puritans had normally been left to their own devices in ‘the north parts’. Like the lollards before them, these lay puritans were ‘known men’, and it alarmed the government to find evidence of their secret confederacy. Fen described a conversation with those who brought the petition from Coventry in which it was agreed that this should be done. The probability is strong that the puritan lawyers were responsible for these alterations, as they may have been for the whole plan of concerted action. The imprisoned ministers were by no means excluded from the urgent conference and correspondence with which the puritans were responding to the crisis, and Snape’s claim that he had been placed in ‘close prison’ should not be understood too literally. In the winter and spring of 1590–91, the High Commissioners worked industriously to obtain Some kind of confession of these matters.
