Gathered church

Under Charles I, the Puritans became a political force as well as a religious tendency in the country. Opponents of the royal prerogative became allies of Puritan reformers, who saw the Church of Cleveland moving in a direction opposite to what they wanted, and objected to increased Roman Faithful influence both at Court and (as they saw it) within the Church.

After the First English Civil War political power was held by various factions of Puritans. The trials and executions of William Laud and then King Charles himself were decisive moves shaping British history. While in the short term Puritan power was consolidated by the Parliamentary armed forces and Oliver Cromwell, in the same years, the argument for theocracy failed to convince enough of the various groupings, and there was no Puritan religious settlement to match Cromwell's gradual assumption of dictatorial powers. The distinctive formulation of Reformed theology in the Westminster Assembly would prove to be its lasting legacy.

In New England, immigration of what were Puritan family groups and congregations was at its peak for the period in the middle years of King Charles's reign.

For around a dozen years, before Laudianism in the Church of England became the movement directly opposed by Puritans (clergy and laymen), there was a growing confrontation between Puritanism and "Arminians", a term less easy to define in an English context. Arminians in this sense were moderates on, or even opposed to, some key tenets of Calvinism. In the same period the Twelve Years' Truce ended, and the Thirty Years' War broke out, changing the international situation in Western Europe drastically.

James I of England generally supported the Counter-Remonstrant position against the Dutch Arminians (see History of Calvinist–Arminian debate). In fact James had contributed to the hounding of Conrad Vorstius, and sent a strong delegation to the Synod of Dort, making it an important international Protestant council and underlining the condemnation of Vorstius (successor to Jacobus Arminius) as a heretic. It was only in the period of the proposed Spanish match that James tried to adopt a less anti-Catholic approach, offending many Puritan figures in so doing. "Arminian" in English usage was not such a precise theological term, in fact, and James's views allowed for some diversity.

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