[1] This was the practice in Gordon's day, however, most of the sixteenth and seventeenth century English theoreticians of Presbyterianism, such as Thomas Cartwright, John Paget, the Westminster Assembly of Divines and the London Provincial Assembly, envisaged a Presbyterian system composed of congregations, classes and synods.
Some of these Elizabethan puritans began to campaign for ecclesiastical reform from within the established (i.e. state-supported) Church of England.
[3] English Presbyterianism itself dates to the tumultuous year 1641, which saw the execution of the Earl of Stafford, the Imprisonment of the Twelve Bishops, the publication of the Grand Remonstrance, and most importantly the beginning of a great debate within and without Parliament on the subject of church government.
On 11 December 1640, 15,000 Londoners presented the Root and Branch petition to Parliament, which led to the Westminster Assembly of Divines.
English Presbyterians came to be representative of those Puritans who still cherished further reformation in church, but were unwavering in their fundamental loyalty to the Crown.
[4] Following the Restoration of the monarchy under King Charles II, and of the episcopal (bishop-led) system within the Church of England, Anglican ministers who favoured a Presbyterian polity found themselves in a dilemma.
In general, the ejected ministers continued to preach to dispersed congregations, making use of now unused chapels of ease (most of which had been built with privately donated funds), and from their own homes.
It was this attitude which, at first, caused particular animosity towards Presbyterians from some Anglicans, who regarded them as schismatics, actively seeking to divide the Church in England.