This major new study re-examines one of the most controversial issues in early modern history: the impact of the English Reformation upon the English people. It represents an advance from the conventional reign-by-reign narrative to a more incisively thematic approach. Drawing on the author's own research in church arts as well as in written records, like wills and parish accounts, and evaluating the findings of other recent historian, it forcefully challenges several of the currently fashionable interpretations of this crucial era.