This is an admirable collection of essays, and although art and literature play their parts, the central theme of the volume is the tension generated by the Reformation in Sussex. Some of the county’s peculiarities are highlighted by the editors in the introduction: the dominance of Catholic families in county government for much of Elizabeth’s reign, its two distinct religious cultures – the Protestant east and the conservative Catholic west – its relative isolation as a result of poor roads where travel was indeed travail, with Lord Burghley noting ‘more dangerous rocks and valleys and… much worse ground’ than the Peak district, and with its long coast line, making it look outwards to continental Europe, porous for covert contacts and vulnerable to invasion. Less particular to Sussex is the fact that the battle over religion explored in this volume was not just Catholics pitched against Protestants, but also a dynamic intra-confessional struggle for control within each group. Indeed, though this is not fully acknowledged, several essays effectively hammer another nail into the coffin of the ‘county community’ thesis: of East Sussex looking towards the weald of Kent, whether it be for religious influences in the early Reformation, or gentry ties and co-operation in Elizabeth’s reign; of Chichester cathedral’s role as an intellectual powerhouse drawing on connections beyond the county, in London and the universities; and of county borders making little sense in the ideological struggles or patronage networks of Catholics and Protestants. The introduction and afterword aside, there are nine chapters, opening with Caroline Adams’s account of Elizabeth I’s progresses into Sussex in 1573 and 1591, based on her recent PhD thesis. It is a mark of county’s relative isolation that the queen only visited Sussex twice, once to the east and once to the west, each occasion being part of a broader tour. While her visit to the catholic conformist Viscount Montague at Cowdray in 1591 has been well-covered elsewhere, Adams provides a valuable analysis of the mechanics and significance of both progresses, and draws attention to a distinctive feature of each: Elizabeth’s habit of staying with lesser gentry, of various religious persuasions, as well as with aristocratic grandees. Matthew Dimmock and Andrew Hadfield provide a lively comparison of two Sussex authors, the evangelical Thomas Drant and the quixotic Catholic Anthony Copley, both literary innovators with conflicting religious agendas. More could have been made of Drant as a protégé (and chaplain) of Grindal and more seriously, as Andrew Foster notes (p. 104) later in the volume, it appears that Drant resided mostly in London, which somewhat vitiates his alleged role as a principal opponent of Catholicism in Sussex. Lambert Barnard is best known for his vast paintings of the ‘Charter Histories’ and ‘Early Monarchs’ in Chichester Cathedral, and Karen Coke gives us a fascinating account of his entire oeuvre for Bishop Sherborne, that remarkable Henrician bishop – administrative reformer, builder and patron. The ‘Charter Histories’ probably date from the 1530s and, though they can be read as endorsing the newly-minted royal supremacy, Coke proposes that they contain a subtext in defence of the Roman church, characteristic of the ageing Sherborne’s conservative stance. Certainly here, as elsewhere, Lambert’s designs disclose intellectual input from his learned patron. In Chapter four, Andrew Foster breaks new ground by examining cathedrals as centres of intellectual networks, Oxbridge colleges in the provinces, consisting of bishops, chaplains, deans, chapters and diocesan chancellors. Chichester itself, numbering eighteen or so, rather surprisingly emerges as one of the largest of such communities, and much the same size as many college fellowships. The model needs applying elsewhere, to cathedrals with fuller records, which may demonstrate collegiality and scholarly collaboration. Certainly, a focal point would be the cathedral library, and Bishop Henry King’s own collection bequeathed by his son to Chichester cathedral is the subject of a marvellous essay by Daniel Starza Smith. Properly acknowledging the pioneering work of Mary Hobbs, Starza Smith examines the present King library and uses evidence of provenance to show how the present collection contains many books acquired after the original bequest, including volumes which were probably originally owned by the bishop. Many others have been sold or dispersed, and it is sobering that only 300 of King’s 1000 books listed in the 1735 catalogue now remain in the cathedral library. Elizabeth McCutcheon gives us an insight into the humanist education of Mary Arundel, daughter of the 12^th Earl of Arundel, who married the 4^th Duke of Norfolk and died, at the tender age of 16, in 1557. Although there is little here on religion, the author provides a detailed account of Mary’s translations from English and Greek into Latin of moral aphorisms or sententiae, probably successive New Years’ gifts to her father, in which we can trace her growing confidence, sophistication and voice. In Chapter seven, Michael Questier writes with characteristic authority and verve about the considerable tensions amongst Catholics generated by the ‘approbation’ controversy of the late 1620s, as Richard Smith, bishop of Chalcedon, attempted to impose episcopal discipline on his clergy, a move which threatened the autonomy of both chaplains and patrons, and acknowledged the opportunities seemingly opened by a French catholic consort, Henrietta Maria. Paul Quinn explores divisions within Edwardian Protestantism with a careful study of John Foxe’s account of Sussex martyrs in Mary’s reign. In his Acts and Monuments, Foxe was keen to construct a narrative which concealed doctrinal differences between the martyrs and presented them as conformists, had they lived, to the settlement of 1559. Having little information to hand, Foxe used the case of Richard Woodman, burnt in 1557, to demonstrate a stable Protestant orthodoxy in east Sussex that scarcely existed. Quinn plausibly suggests that Lollard influences from the weald of Kent help explain the distinctive characteristics of protestant divisions in East Sussex. In Chapter nine, Nigel Llewellyn provides a rich survey of tombs and monuments in early modern East Sussex, some of which proclaimed and others concealed various political and religious allegiances. His overarching theme is the shift from text to figure and from public to personal, a juxtaposition most clearly seen in two monuments erected in the 1670s in Ashburnham church. This essay, like several others in the volume, is well-illustrated; the collection has few significant slips (one being ‘George Vicar’ rather ‘Thomas Vicars’ as incumbent of Cuckfield), and will be of real interest to undergraduates as well as their teachers.