This collection of essays by Alexandra Walsham, Professor of Modern History at Cambridge University, illustrates the best, latest scholarship on the survival strategies of the Roman Catholic Church in sixteenth and seventeenth century Britain. In the first long introductory chapter, “In the Lord's Vineyard: Catholic Reformation in Protestant Britain” (1-49), Walsham lays out her central themes. First, contrary to previous scholarship in this area, she broadens her subject to include the context of “wider international initiatives for the rejuvenation of the Catholic faith, for the recovery of territories and peoples temporarily lost to the forces of heresy and for the evangelical conversion of the indigenous peoples of Asia and the Americas to Christianity.” Conversely, she seeks to gain insights into what developments in Britain might contribute to Catholic renewal on the continent (2). Second, Waltham examines the “powerful reciprocal influence” of Catholicism and anti-Catholicism, protestantism and anti-protestantism. Third, her essays “emphasise [sic] the degree to which the condition of being a proscribed and persecuted minority constrained and shaped the experience of British Catholics and left lasting scars on the memory of subsequent generations” (3). These three themes are examined primarily between the accession of Queen Elizabeth in 1558 and the beginning of the Civil War 1642. But Walsham sketches in the first half of the sixteenth and the last half of the seventeenth centuries as well.

The rest of chapter 1 (4-49) is divided into “a more detailed historiography and analytical framework framework for the essays that follow” (4).

After the first chapter, the essays are arranged in four parts: “Conscience and Conformity” or the various strategies that Catholics employed to finesse the law that required them to attend services in what came to be termed Anglian churches. “Miracles and Missionaries” takes a fresh look at the influx of Jesuits and secular priests into England to provide the beleaguered Catholic laity with sacraments and guidance. “Communication and Conversion” assesses the impact of printing and the increased literacy that resulted plus the problem of translating the Vulgate and allowing laity to possess their own bibles. “Translation and Transmutation” examines the ritual life of Catholics and “the curious mixture of handicap and advantage attendant upon becoming a Church under the cross.”

Walsham writes with authority; she relishes challenging earlier scholarship whether protestant or Catholic, regarding recusant history—almost ignored by protestant scholars—and pursued almost exclusively by Catholic scholars. In fact, Walsham says that it was “a subfield, if not a ghetto.” Its subject was primarily stories of martyrs, hence Catholics who less spectacularly persevered in their faith, perhaps working out modi vivendi, were largely ignored. But not by Walsham who rejoices in the new fervor among scholars for a more thorough and integrated history. This new interest includes and is a part of the recent surge of interest in the Society of Jesus. Indeed the Jesuits have a notable place in Walsham's work; chapter 10 is entitled “This New Army of Satan: the Jesuit Mission and the Formation of Public Opinion.” The other area Walsham pursues is the influence of continental Catholicism on the British scene and, intriguingly, the influence of British Catholicism on developments in Italy, France, the Holy Roman Empire and even the Americas and Asia.

What professor of history has not had to deal with entrenched anachronistic attitudes among students and even colleagues? Walsham provides an excellent correction regarding exporting our contemporary conceptions of the place and power of the individual conscience into the early modern period. She writes, “The ubiquity of the word ‘conscience’ in the records and texts of this period can beguile us into assuming that it carried the same meanings that it does in the present . . . Respect for the integrity and sovereignty of a person's autonomous inner moral voice is one of [the] most precious tenets of the Western liberal tradition, a human right enshrined in constitutions and bills of rights and a principle which organizations like Amnesty International strive to defend and uphold. It is not the nature of the beliefs espoused by an individual that determines whether or not he or she acts in ‘good conscience’ but rather the sincerity with which they [are] held” (104). She then goes on to describe the attitude prevalent in the sixteenth century. Religious truth was not relative, but taught by the “one true Church.” Conscience was considered the arbiter and judge, indeed “the Lord's lieutenant . . . implanted in the soul . . . an invisible witness to give sentence against sin, as well as an instrument of divine vengeance and wrath.” Walsham illustrates this notion of conscience by quoting Shakespeare and then summarizing the doctrine taught by Thomas Aquinas, delving even into the sophisticated relation of conscience and synderesis. The law to which conscience had to be conformed was scripture for protestants and scripture together with ecclesiastical tradition for Catholics.

This book provides a fine basic text for understanding how prejudice influences historical writing and how careful scholarship can correct the record. I could foresee its use in a graduate course in historiography since nearly all of the twelve chapters begin by setting forth scholars' long accepted assumptions followed by Walsham's proposal to set the record straight. She discusses the older theories and their proponents, followed by those who question those theories. She supports her own position by documented cases of how Catholics sustained their faith supported by the missionary priests sent from the continent. Footnotes take up a third to a half of each page and reflect the bibliography of primary sources (399-424) and secondary sources (425-471). An index follows (473-490).