Other contributions to the series Religious Cultures in the Early Modern World are quite apparently products of the ‘New Cultural History’, concerning as they do themes such as childhood deformity and exorcism, but this monograph has a different focus. David Loades's long standing interest in the reigns of the Tudor monarchs is evidenced in its account of the ‘religious culture’ over which Mary Tudor and her regime presided between 1553 and 1558. Discussing the structure of a culture which existed for only five years presents such difficulties that the book is in essence an account of that of the entire Tudor period and a great many of its 209 pages are not directly concerned with its ostensible subject: Loades is keen to reverse the ‘tendency to see the Marian period in isolation’ (p. viii). Those parts of his book which do address Mary's reign exhibit a preoccupation with the ‘culture of obedience to the law’ which the author discerns in the speed with which the regime was able to implement its agenda (p. 16). Yet the argument is problematic. As Loades himself acknowledges, initially the evangelical legislation passed under Edward vi ‘remained unchanged’ but ‘in the meantime churches up and down the country … were restoring the mass, in defiance of the law’ (p. 23). A ‘culture of obedience to the law’ there may have been, but invoking it cannot really be expected to explain the popular uprisings in support of Mary's claim to the throne. Loades acknowledges that Mary's intentions in religious policy were not clearly established at her accession. Why then this popular return to the old religion in defiance of the Edwardian legislation? The most obvious answer, that the laity, and especially those in positions of local authority, were predominantly Catholic is ruled out by Loades's contention that they ‘were not committed to any set of convictions’ but merely ‘obedient’ (p. 77). Such suppositions about the inner thoughts of the Tudor laity abound. For example ‘they saw themselves as Christians, but were uncertain as to quite what that meant’ and ‘the religious mentality of the English tended to be basic’. Much is also made of a theoretical counterposition between ‘elite’ and ‘parish level’ religion (p. viii). Neither these terms, nor Loades's employment of the word ‘culture’ is subject to any sustained definition. Curiously, the author does not engage with the ongoing debate, especially that between Lucy Wooding and William Wizeman, over the theological nature of Marian Catholicism. Despite these lacunae this is a novel and timely attempt by a revered political historian of the period to integrate cultural and political history in discussing the five years of Mary Tudor's reign.