Moving beyond the familiar focus on the radical puritan reaction, Chapter 3 examines the full range of expressed opposition to the Laudian programme, not just from hard-line puritans, but also from conformists including those in the senior ranks of the Church. These arguments consistently adopted a remarkably conservative mode of defending established orthodoxy in doctrine and practice against recent Laudian innovations, with even puritans invoking the Prayer Book and the 1604 Canons. Even radical presses run by sectarians abroad could juggle with more conservative rhetoric. Most of the arguments of the famous anti-Laudian puritans Henry Burton, John Bastwick and William Prynne still followed more conservative lines (despite the violence of their language) although they radicalised after their punishments. The Scottish opposition to the new Prayer Book, it is argued, was mostly directed against pre-Laudian grievances (with the exception of Robert Baillie’s Ladensium Autokatakrisis which was aimed at English MPs in the Short Parliament). The chapter also analyses the Short Parliament and opposition to the etcetera oath, noting that tactical moderation still meant that the pre-eminent (although not the sole) mode of public debate concerning the Church of England was a conservative one that left the door open for moderate reforms.

This chapter describes and explains the early weakening of consensual decision-making in the Commons between the opening of the Short Parliament and December 1642. The political conflicts of these years were not able, in themselves, to topple the consensual tradition prevailing in Parliament, but some of them further revealed the conditions under which consensual decisions become increasingly infeasible. Divisions that did occur often involved ideological conflict, but ideological conflict was insufficient for causing majoritarian decisions. Instead, divisions in the House were overwhelmingly related to perceived threats to the honor, privilege, existence, or authority of the House of Commons, the Parliament as whole, or its members in particular. Conflicts over what course of action best conduced to maintaining the status of the House were what consistently led to divisions.