Loades explores England's religious cultures during the reign of Mary Tudor. He investigates how conflicting traditions of conformity and dissent negotiated the new spiritual, political and legal landscape which followed her reintroduction of Catholicism to England.

Introduction; Chapter 1 The Structure of Coercion; Chapter 2 Elite Religion; Chapter 3 Popular Religion; Chapter 4 Religion and Daily Life; Chapter 5 Heresy and Dissent; Chapter 6 The Training of Clergy; Chapter 7 The Face of Persecution; Chapter 8 The Imagery of John Foxe; Chapter 9 Postscript: The Early Elizabethan Church;