Marshall is one of our finest Reformation historians and this study of the English Reformation is a masterpiece. Mature scholarship is evident throughout; the extensive range of cited sources assures that Marshall has read everything. His account of the zigs and zags of reformation efforts in England is encyclopedic in breadth and built on primary materials and quotations that engage us and immerse us in the story of real people who faced decisions with effects that changed society and their own faith and life.

The arguments Marshall proposes about the English Reformation include his basic “unapologetic assumption” that “the conflicts of the Reformation were indeed principally about religion; that questions of faith were not merely a convenient covering for more fundamental or ‘real’ concerns about political power, social domination or economic assets” (xi). Marshall fully covers the complex interplays of religion with other aspects of human existence. But religion had profound effects “across the entire spectrum of organized social activity and lived human experience” throughout the whole period (xii). Through the continuities and changes of “official religion” under Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary, and Elizabeth, Marshall argues “the Reformation succeeded as an agent of social transformation precisely because of how little it actually managed to change, and how slowly it managed to change it” (575). He says, “The Reformation, whether we choose to recognize it or not, is a foundational fact of modern England and Britain, as also, at a remove, of America and other places around the globe where British people have settled over the centuries” (577). Its real significance, claims Marshall, “lies not in the achievement, but in the struggle itself” (577).

Why? Because “the Reformation nonetheless, from first to last” was “a vocal, vibrant national conversation, about issues of uttermost importance, and one from which few voices were ever entirely excluded” (577, 578). Marshall's book is a full telling of the struggles from pre-Reformation times to the end of the sixteenth century and countless conversations about issues of Christian faith which featured many voices. They advocated viewpoints that at points came to influence the nation. A central argument of the book is that “a constantly changing diet of religious proclamations, injunctions, articles, catechisms, liturgies, homilies, iconoclastic spectacles and rearrangements of church interiors had a cumulative effect, to a hitherto unprecedented degree, of informing and educating English people about contested religious and doctrinal issues” (xiv). There is “a great degree of evidence, from all levels of society, for people thinking very seriously about questions of faith and salvation, and being prepared to discuss them with others: in their homes, on the road, after church services and sermons, in alehouses, marketplaces and shops” (xiv). Pluralism and diversity would emerge. For a comprehensive and wide-ranging treatment of ways convictions took shape, Marshall's book is unrivaled.

Marshall's narrative moves chronologically. His four parts are: “Reformations Before Reformations,” “Separations,” “New Christianities,” and “Unattainable Prizes.” These march us through the contours of a familiar history but with detailed looks at main personalities, events, and theological questions that were continually being asked and answered in varying ways.

Marshall's book is elegantly and engagingly written. His strong writing style and lively descriptions add zest to his account. He describes the ambiguous Ten Articles of 1536 as “a theological camel, the proverbial horse designed by a committee” (238). “On the crunch question of justification, the articles were—frankly—confusing,” says Marshall, leading him to comment: “If he still had a head, Thomas More would have been shaking it in puzzlement” (239). In the political maneuverings over The Act of Six Articles, passed into law in June 1539, Marshall notes of Thomas Cranmer that “despite losing many tricks, Cranmer still had an ace up his sleeve” (276). Though he pled innocent to treason, Thomas Cromwell was sentenced to death. Marshall writes: “Cromwell went to the block on 28 July [1540]; a mercy of sorts to be beheaded as a high-ranking traitor, not burned as a heretic” (280).

Issues that from the “outside” might seem like quibbling or theological hairsplitting are shown to have more far-reaching importance. In the divisive Vestments Controversy (1565–1567) over the proper liturgical attire for clergy, Marshall notes that “the squabble with Cranmer and Ridley over rochet and chimere was more than a storm in an episcopal teacup. It went to the heart of whether the Church could designate ceremonies as ‘indifferent’ (neither necessary for salvation nor prohibited by the Word of God), and require everyone to observe them” (341). Through subsequent theological disagreements on this and other issues, “Puritanism” began to emerge. From the start, it faced “an existential dilemma: should it work to restore a defective Church from within, or abandon it for the purity and pleasure of underground worship?” (476).

The political question of monarchical succession was fraught with unsettling questions when Mary Queen of Scotland was recognized as having a potential claim to the throne should Queen Elizabeth die. Mary was appealing to religious Roman Catholic conservatives. But, says Marshall, “to Protestants like William Cecil, the possible advent of a second Catholic Mary was the stuff of nightmares” (455).

From the days of Henry VIII's break from Rome, through the reign of “Bloody Mary,” to Elizabeth, religion in England was related to the particular faith of the monarch. Marshall details moves made throughout the so-called “Elizabethan Settlement,” noting of Elizabeth that: