As a member of the nonconformist faction in the Vestments controversy Turner was famous for making an adulterer do public penance wearing a square cap and for teaching his dog to steal such caps from bishop's heads. His scholarly pursuits had other, distinctly political, implications. According to Tudor historian Lacey Baldwin Smith, for instance, "Religious discontent and civil rebellion were obviously walking hand in hand when William Turner dared speak out against VIII's proclamation of 1543 limiting the reading of the Bible to men of social standing. What kind of ungodly belly wisdom was it, he demanded, to say that 'rich men and the nobles are wiser than the poor people?'"