Hitherto, this study has concentrated on capturing the harmonies and dissonances inherent in the puritanism of Laurence Chaderton. In the process it has discussed the concerns and issues that traditionally stand at the centre of any definition of puritanism. Certainly Chaderton was a presbyterian. But in this present section I want to discuss the career of another moderate – William Whitaker – who possessed none of the distinguishing marks normally assumed to be characteristic of precisian opposition to the status quo but who, I shall argue, must be seen as a puritan if that term is to retain any real meaning or significance for an analysis of Elizabethan religious opinion. Central to this argument will be a discussion of the links of thought and feeling, of personal friendship and ideological solidarity that bound Whitaker to the mainstream of puritan thought. In order to do so it will prove necessary to deal with committed presbyterians like Walter Travers and Thomas Cartwright and, by means of a comparison between their attitudes and those of Whitaker, to arrive at a view of the moderate puritan middle ground.

Central to this analysis is the protestant perception of the threat from Rome. For it was that which underwrote and sustained the consciousness shared by both precisians and conformists of their common identity in the face of the Romish Antichrist.