So we were launched by the Elizabethan seamen upon our long career of adventure across the seas: adventure leading to discovery, discovery to explora… - A. L. Rowse

Within the the authorities had increasing difficulties to contend with from the puritans in these middle years of the reign: at their height from 1571 to 1584. The strength of puritanism was that it was the ideology, or if you prefer, the religion, of the forward-looking gentry and middle class.

... I suggested that he write for Oldham's Press, which I was advising, a biography of Mountjoy: Elizabethan General. This was a congenial subject, which made the most of. ...
... 's long liaison with , the wife of , was recognised by society, until Mountjoy married the lady, when social humbug made a scandal of it. All this appealed to Cyril, who had a soldierly gallantry for the fair sex.

We must put these things in the perspective of the age, its ubiquitous cruelty: flogging and beating were frequent, schoolmasters believed in beating learning into their pupils' heads — the exemplary was frequently beaten for her book. For scolds there were s or gags across the mouth, spiked chastity-belts for unreliable wives, s for women who made nuisances of themselves.