According to historian Michael Winship, Vane's experiences in Massachusetts significantly radicalized his religious views, in which he came to believe that clergy of all types, including Puritan ministers, "were the second beast of Revelations 13:11", "pretending to visible Saintship". This conviction drove his political activities in England, where he sought to minimise the power and influence of all types of clergy. Biographer Violet Rowe writes that "Vane's guiding principles in religious policy seem to have been two: a rooted distrust of clerical power, whether of bishops or presbyters, and a belief that the State should abstain from interference in church matters altogether."