The life and career of Archbishop Edwin Sandys (c. 1519–88) offers an insight into some of the most significant moments in sixteenth-century Protestantism. Vice-chancellor of Cambridge University under Edward vi, Sandys went into exile during Mary's reign when he was involved in the infamous ‘Frankfurt Stirs’. On Elizabeth's succession, he returned to England becoming bishop of Worcester despite misgivings about the pace of reform, and eventually found himself persecuting former allies for their refusal to wear vestments. Despite Sandys's significance in the Elizabethan Church, he has been overlooked by successive historians from John Strype onwards, in part because of what Patrick Collinson described as ‘archival lacunae’. Sarah L. Bastow's study of Edwin Sandys is therefore the first major account of this important figure. Sandys's career sheds light on the influence of Edwardian Reformers in the Elizabethan settlement, and highlights tensions within the Elizabethan Protestant community over the use of vestments, the extent of royal power and Presbyterianism. Bastow rejects Patrick Collinson's suggestion that Sandys was a ‘Puritan’ bishop (p. 115). Instead, she stresses his development from committed evangelical under Edward to a conformist bishop and archbishop who set himself against those people whom he defined as ‘puritans’ (p. 146). Bastow argues that while Sandys supported ‘preaching, education, and the removal of idolatrous images’, his opposition to Presbyterianism and to Genevan-style church reform means we should not see him as ‘holding Puritan sympathies’(p. 116). Her work is a timely reminder of the sometimes contradictory nature of contemporary and historical definitions, and stresses the extent to which Sandys saw conformity as an essential part of the ‘godly cause’ and the drive against Catholicism. (pp. 135, 145). Edwin Sandys is perhaps best known to early modern historians as a querulous and pugnacious figure, alienating friend and foe alike. As Bastow notes, Sandys could often be found ‘seeking out battle if one failed to present itself’ (p. 1). It is a good corrective to read a sympathetic account of some of his most well-known arguments. For example, by the time Bastow finishes her account of Sandys's struggle to reclaim the archiepiscopal palace in Bishopthorpe from the earl of Huntingdon Sandys emerges as the injured party. This skirmish also helps to explain some of the tensions with Dean Matthew Hutton and Huntingdon, as well as influencing later conflicts with the dean and chapter of Durham and courtly patrons. Bastow has written elsewhere about Edwin Sandys, addressing his struggles with John Bourne and the ‘affair’ with the innkeeper's wife in more detail. What she does well here is to show how his tarnished reputation led him to seek rehabilitation through what are now our best sources for Sandys and his ministry. Bastow suggests that Sandys provided details of his Marian exile for the final edition of Foxe's Acts and monuments (1583) and sees Sandys's publication of his sermons in 1585 as an effort to restore his reputation.