In The Scarlet Letter the core of the plot revolves around a movement known as the Puritan. The Puritan movement began when King Henry declared England's independence from the Church of Rome and appointed himself head of the new Church of England. King Henry did this because he wanted to divorce his wife Catherine of Aragon to marry Anne Boleyn. By appointing himself head of the Church of England he was able to grant himself the divorce that the Pope would not have granted him. At first there was little difference between the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church, but later with the rise of Protestant reformers such as John Calvin the church began to change. Some people thought that the Church of England retained too many of the superstitious practices of the Roman Catholic Church. They wanted simpler truths and less structured forms of worship like the early Christians, because they wanted to purify the Church of England, they took the name Puritans. John Geree describes the Puritans as "one who honored God above all things, and God gave to each his due"! These Puritans followed a very strict code of conduct; they were greatly influenced by the Bible, their ministers, and the government. Sometimes they seemed to follow their codes of conduct a little too seriously and sometimes they seemed almost hypocritical and far-fetched, for example during the time of the Salem witch trials. The history of the Puritan Society itself describes the Puritan society and its leaders as having the right intentions for a stable and necessary environment, the fact that they were trying to live "purely", shows that they had their hearts in the right place, but it was never it was their intention to create a hypocritical society..