not to just one group but to many. Historians still debate a precise definition of Puritanism. Originally, Puritan was a pejorative term characterizing certain Protestant groups as extremist. Thomas Fuller, in his Church History, dates the first use of the word to 1564. Archbishop Matthew Parker of that time used it and precisian with a sense similar to the modern stickler. Puritans, then, were distinguished for being "more intensely protestant than their protestant neighbors or even the Church of England". As a term of abuse, Puritan was not used by Puritans themselves. Those referred to as Puritan called themselves terms such as "the godly", "saints", "professors", or "God's children". "Non-separating Puritans" were dissatisfied with the Reformation of the Church of England but remained within it, advocating for further reform; they disagreed among themselves about how much further reformation was possible or even necessary. Others, who were later termed "Nonconformists", "Separatists", or "separating Puritans", thought the Church of England was so corrupt that true Christians should separate from it altogether. In its widest historical sense, the term Puritan includes both groups. Puritans should not be confused with other radical Protestant groups of the 16th and 17th centuries, such as Quakers, Seekers, and Familists, who believed that individuals could be directly guided by the Holy Spirit and prioritized direct revelation over the Bible. In current English, puritan often means "against pleasure". In such usage, hedonism and puritanism are antonyms. William Shakespeare described the vain, pompous killjoy Malvolio in Twelfth Night as "a kind of Puritan". H. L. Mencken defined Puritanism as "the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy." Puritans embraced sexuality but placed it in the context of marriage. Peter Gay writes of the Puritans' standard reputation for "dour prudery" as a "misreading that went unquestioned in the nineteenth century", commenting how unpuritanical they were in favour of married sexuality, and in opposition to the Catholic veneration of virginity, citing Edward Taylor and John Cotton. One Puritan settlement in western Massachusetts banished a husband because he refused to fulfill his sexual duties to his wife. History Puritanism had a historical importance over a period of a century, followed by fifty years of development in New England. It changed character and emphasis almost decade by decade over that time. Elizabethan Puritanism The Elizabethan Religious Settlement of 1559 established the Church of England as a Protestant church and brought the English Reformation