[6] Sheldon gravitated towards the Great Tew circle of Lucius Cary (Falkland), and was on friendly terms with Edward Hyde; he had no Puritan sympathies.

[6] During this period he became with Henry Hammond one of the churchmen closest to the king, and attended him as Clerk of the Closet in Oxford, later in Newmarket, Suffolk and finally in the Isle of Wight.

[4] He lived quietly for a dozen years in the Midlands, at Snelston in Derbyshire or with friends in Staffordshire, Nottinghamshire and Glamorgan, where he stayed with Sir John Aubrey.

Since William Juxon was now Archbishop of Canterbury, but was aged and infirm, Sheldon in practical terms exercised many of the powers of the archbishopric in the period to 1663, and he was on the privy council.

In his formulation, Puritan objections should be set out and considered; the point of the Conference was liturgical, to look into reform of the Book of Common Prayer.

[4] The Act was a sequel to Sheldon's successful orchestration of opposition to Charles II's intended Declaration of Indulgence, earlier in 1662.

[10] He accepted much purely secular work, acting as arbiter on petitions presented through him, and taking up investigations passed on by the king, especially in connection with the navy.

Sheldon lost political influence after the fall of Clarendon in 1667, and by making Charles's philandering a matter of religious reproach.

A later entry in Pepys' Diary praises the Archbishop as a "stout and high spirited man", who openly spoke his mind to the King on matters of morality.