Puritan iconoclasm found its most violent expression in attacks on cathedral churches. This is not surprising – as centre-pieces of the Laudian ideal of the beauty of holiness and as the seats of the bishops they were potent symbols of a religious regime which had alienated many, both Puritans and non-Puritans. The war on cathedrals represented a war on Laudian values and on prelacy in general, now seen by the zealous as irredeemably corrupt. In a wider sense it was also an expression of the fear and hatred of Roman Catholicism with which the Caroline church was becoming associated in the popular imagination.

Cathedrals were especially important to Laudians who considered them to be ‘mother churches’ and places of special holiness, and many had been beautified during the 1620s and 1630s. In 1628, Peter Smart had preached against the introduction of superstitious ceremonies, altars and images at Durham Cathedral, accusing fellow prebendary John Cosin, an enthusiastic supporter of Laud, of decking the quire with ‘strange Babylonish ornaments’ and setting up and restoring ‘many gorgeous images and pictures’. Particular offence was taken at a large baptismal font, decorated with images of the Holy Ghost in the form of a dove, and images of Christ and the four evangelists. In 1638 at Exeter Cathedral, William Heylar, archdeacon of Barnstaple, made alterations against the wishes of some of the canons, including the erection of a painted reredos depicting Moses and Aaron flanking the table of the Ten Commandments and Saints Peter and Paul.