"This is an excellent book; original in conception, penetrating in analysis, broad in its range of reference, and vivid in the telling." Susan Brigden, Lincoln College, Oxford "[This book contains] a great deal to fascinated and stimulate debate." Times Literary Supplement "Jones provides the reader with portraits of the Reformation's impact on people across the social and political spectrum. This is social history at its best. It is detailed without being cluttered and engaging without being gossipy. Highly recommended for general readers, upper-division undergraduates, graduate students, researchers and faculty." D.M. Whitford, Claflin University, in Choice, Nov. 2002 "Norman Jones is a formidable scholar of political history. The last chapter on private virtue stands out as a thoughtful and intricate examination of the difficulties Elizabethans experienced in appealing to conscience as the arbiter of virtue and truth while remaining loyal members of a state run church... Jones writes very well [and] the book is a reliable guide to the process of reformation" Ben Lowe, Florida Atlantic University "Jones' concluding remarks capture the profound significance for the later English and British history of the Protestant culture that was born under the flexible religious policies that prevailed in Elizabeth I's long reign. In its focus on conscience this culture contained within the itself both the source of future conflict and a model for its resolution. It would be most welcome now to extend these deep and important insights about the culture of England's elite into the lives of the lower and middling sort." Renaissance Quarterly