To avoid the tender ministrations of Archbishop?

Does "to avoid the tender ministrations of Archbishop" mean "to avoid the moderate control (religiously) by Archbishop"?

Background info:

But that should be understandable. Even before the foundation of the United States, the North American colonies have become a havem for religious dissenters. Massachusetts Bay, of course, became a haven for Puritans seeking to avoid the tender ministrations of Archbishop Laud. Those among their number who were accounted heretical, or even just doctrinally incorrect found a have in the colony of Rhode Island. When Charles and James Stuart prepared to leave the continent to return to England in 1660, they borrowed 15,000 pounds from Admiral Penn. Unable to repay the debt before Penn's death, Charles gave a huge swath of North America to his son, William Penn, who had become a member of the Society of Friends--the Quakers. His privately-owned colony was religiously tolerant, and sectaries of all types found a haven there. Huguenots fleeing France after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes found havens in Holland, German, England and the new colony of North Carolina. Baptists, so widely despised in Europe, found a have in the North American colonies.