Mounting the pulpit of Durham Cathedral in July 1628, Peter Smart let loose a blistering critique of the changes he had witnessed in his cathedral church in recent years. Smart was incensed that since the arrival of Bishop Richard Neile, a cadre of clergy had reoriented devotional patterns and thus the theological position of the established Church of England at Durham. Smart questioned the legality of this newly instituted ceremonialist programme: the dean had erected a stone altar, the clergy were wearing copes with images and the quire was surfeited with candles and statues. History, for the most part, has recorded Peter Smart as a puritan when in reality he was nothing of the sort. About a generation ago John Hoffman and Michael Tillbrook, in separate articles, demonstrated that this Durham prebend was, until the 1640s, a prayer book conformist and a loyal episcopalian. In fact, his was the churchmanship that flourished in the reign of Elizabeth Tudor. Far from unique, this man and his argument clarify sharply the thesis advanced by scholars like Nicholas Tyacke, Kenneth Fincham and Peter Lake: the Laudians were not run-of-the-mill conformists perhaps a bit overzealous in pressing prayer book rituals, but rather a cluster (even a party) with an agenda for serious change.