With its lively narration, succinct definitions of theological terms and up-to-date bibliography primarily directed towards an undergraduate audience Alec Ryrie's study of the interaction of politics and religion in the British Isles in the sixteenth century cannot also fail to stimulate specialists in the field. The great strength of the book lies in its illuminating comparisons between the progression of the Protestant Reformation in the two still fiercely independent kingdoms of England and Scotland. While the monarchs of both countries usually took the initiative the author places much emphasis upon the importance of governing elites in implementing the Protestant revolution in the localities, which was obviously the case in Scotland but true also for England where at least from 1558 influential sectors of the nobility, gentry and bourgeoisie showed themselves consistently more committed to Reformed Christianity than their queen. In the one country, Ireland, where in reaction to the plantation of English and Scottish Protestant settlers the subjugated indigenous nobility turned their faces against the new religion, the Reformation failed. Despite instances of genuine idealism, with individuals sacrificing their lives for their beliefs, politicians kept the upper hand, and this consistently engaging survey ends with the somewhat bleak conclusion that ‘the central story of the Tudor realms was the formation of states, not the Reformation of Churches’.