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Marian Protestantism: Six Studies. By ANDREW PETTEGREE. St. Andrews Studies in Reformation History. Hampshire, U.K.: Scolar Press, 1996. viii + 213 pp. $76.95.
It is generally recognized, given the revisionism of recent English Reformation historiography, that England did not become Protestant until the Elizabethan Settlement, and that the changes made by the Edwardian regime and remade by Elizabeth finally took root in the second half of the sixteenth century. Andrew Pettegree of the University of St. Andrews is well aware of what has been happening in recent historiography on the English Reformation, but he is concerned that not enough attention has been given to the seeds planted earlier and which later emerged to make the English church a distinctive part of the European evangelical movement. His case is made, at least partially, by mitigating the overconcentration on the exiles and martyrs during Mary Tudor's reign with the question, What of those reformers left behind during Mary's reign? True, it was mostly the exiles who ensured that English Protestantism remained securely bonded into the European evangelical movement, but the European dimension did not die with Mary's accession. On a personal level, where would the Elizabethan church have been without that "celebrated trio of 'Nicodemites', Parker. Cecil and Elizabeth herself" (. 6)?
Thus Marian Protestantism is a collection of six essays which attempts to answer the question of who remained in England during Mary's reign and the character of their...