Patrick Collinson is the leading historian of English religion in the years after the Reformation. This collection of essays ranges from Thomas Cranmer, who was burnt at the stake after repeated recantations in 1556, to William Sancroft, the only other post-Reformation archbishop of Canterbury to have been deprived of office. Patrick Collinson's work explores the complex interactions between the inclusive and exclusive tendencies in English Protestantism, focusing both on famous figures, such as John Foxe and Richard Hooker, and on the individual reactions of lesser figures to the religious challenges of the time. Two themes throughout are the importance of the Bible and the emergence of Puritanism inside the Church of England.

Acknowledgements; Introduction; 1 Thomas Cranmer and the Truth 2 Godly Preachers and Zealous Magistrates in Elizabethan East Anglia: The Roots of Dissent; 3 Shepherds, Sheepdogs and Hirelings: The Pastoral Ministry in Post-Reformation England; 4 England and International Calvinism, 1558-1640; 5 The Puritan Character: Polemics and Polarities in Early Seventeenth-Century English Culture

Patrick Collinson is Regius Professor of Modern History, Emeritus, in the University of Cambridge, and a Fellow of Trinity College. He is the author of The Elizabethan Puritan Movement and two earlier collections of essays, Godly People and Elizabethans.