The root of conflict

If you skip any of Chapter 1, I recommend that you still read pages 30-32. It's here that Gardiner lays out his view of how the State religion—and by extension the system of episcopacy—became divorced from the national or popular religion of England.

I'll try to paraphrase, but Gardner is very clear on these points.

The spirit of Calvinism—remember that Calvinism was a movement of the clergy—was closely tied to preaching and teaching. The thing most appealing about Calvinism to the non-clergy was that that its tenets explained things around them. The laity could not understand how well current events were explained without being shown, and that's where preaching came in.

The State (or the Queen herself if we follow Gardiner) didn't want doctrinal light shown on current events, at least not very often. In England the two strongest constitutional entities were the Crown and the Church, and no monarch could fail to see the danger of allowing the Church to reassert itself in the realm of state policy.

The government's reaction was to ban religious teaching outside the context of the church hierarchy. Teachers in schools and preaching clergy must be licensed. There numbers would be held to a minimum, and their actions closely monitored. Except in a few cases, topical sermons were replaced with the reading of approved homilies, which were more than enough edification for the laity. (If you have not read those excellent pieces of conventional wisdom known as the Homilies, browse them at the Anglican Library.)

The impulse of Calvinism towards freer speech and action was unstoppable. The position of the government was irreversible. The conflict was inevitable.