The English Puritans

Many English Protestants felt that Martin Luther had not gone far enough in his reforms and objected to the continuing "remnants of popery" that emanated from English cathedrals. Those Protestants insisted that the church be further purified of Catholic influence. The most vociferous of these were known as Puritans, who divided themselves into two camps, Puritans and Separatists.

The Puritans were those who stayed in England during the reign of Henry's heirs, especially during that of Queen Elizabeth, the daughter of Henry and Anne Boleyn. They remained within the Anglican Church and worked to reform it from within. They were willing to conform to the political demands of the church, for church and state were one, because the king was head of both. To defy the church too openly was considered treason.

The Separatists, however, being more radical, were unwilling to continue to live under the domination of the Anglican church and sought their salvation elsewhere. One group of Separatists eventually moved to Holland and eventually became the Pilgrims who settled in Plymouth in 1620. The group we identify as Puritans were the great mass of people who came to America's shores in Massachusetts Bay, beginning in 1630, during the reign of Charles I, who had little tolerance for Puritan ways. The influence of the Puritans and the Anglican faith and many other religious convictions that colonial Britons brought with them from England and other countries has become part of the legacy of American religious history.