One of the reasons for the two men's deaths was religion. By the 1640s, the once radically Protestant Book of Common Prayer was, in the eyes of the Puritans, practically a Missal. To them, Laud's "ritualism" was Romish and his chalice would have been proof of ongoing Popish superstition. Yet Laud's chalice is markedly plain in comparison to the continent's extravagant Catholic baroque masterpieces of the same time. Nobody today would immediately think the chalice looked "Catholic" by 17th-century standards.

In short, such a comparison underlines the vacuity of those who unthinkingly trumpet the current political buzzword: progress. In the name of Protestant progress, the radical Prayer Book of the 1550s was a sign of superstitious backwardness by the 1640s. When somebody calls for progress, the next question should always be, "From what — the last generation's ‘progress'?" It means that in a short space of time the unthinkable can become the acceptable and can then become the norm.

 It comes at things backwards, constantly changing the end goal rather than the world, particularly when this reversed thinking is applied to religion. Rather than the world striving for higher ideals, it is the religion that is told that it should "progress" to fit with the passing mores of the day.