John Calvin in context. Edited by R. Ward Holder,. Pp. xxiv + 494 incl. 2 maps. Cambridge–New York: Cambridge University Press, 2020. £84.99. 978 1 108 48240 0

John Calvin in context. Edited by R. Ward Holder. Pp. xxiv + 494 incl. 2 maps. Cambridge–New York: Cambridge University Press, 2020. £84.99. 978 1 108 48240 0

In 1555 John Calvin was optimistic about the progress of the cause of reform in the kingdom of Poland and grand duchy of Lithuania. In a letter to Mikołaj Radziwiłł, Calvin suggested that even the Jagiellonian king and grand duke, Sigismund ii Augustus, was on the side of reform. While Calvin's confidence in the king was misplaced, a first synod of Reformed churches in Lesser Poland took place in 1556. A few months later the Polish Church wrote to the Genevan council asking that Calvin be allowed to visit Poland for a period to assist them. While he refused this invitation, Calvin continued to write to clergy and nobles in Poland and Lithuania with advice and encouragement. News also reached Geneva about the spread of Calvin's brand of reform to other parts of the Continent. In 1559 Reformed clergy held their first general synod in France. Jeanne d'Albret enforced Reformed religion in her kingdom of Navarre. Synods held in Antwerp began to organise an underground Reformed Church in the Habsburg Netherlands. The Wittelsbach ruler of the Palatinate moved towards the Reformed camp. In the remote Atlantic isles, a Tudor queen restored the Reformed Church of her half-brother, while a Stuart queen could not prevent the development of a Reformed Church in Scotland. Was there a central figure lurking behind the walls of Geneva who was responsible...