William the Conqueror attempted to create one unified centralised kingdom in the British Isles on a scale which had never been realised before. The king employed both his military power and his influence on the Church to achieve this ambitious end. William had a congenial archbishop of Canterbury at his side who, in turn, attempted to raise his metropolitan see to the position of the spiritual capital of the whole island. Yet what looked like success during Lanfranc's lifetime began to crumble already under Anselm; the third post-conquest archbishop of Canterbury, Ralph d'Escures (1114–22), had to witness the collapse of Lanfranc's system. The idea of Canterbury's primacy was still alive, but it clashed more and more with actual events.

The mills of the papacy grind slowly. It is close on a hundred years since, in 1874, the Cause of the English Martyrs was officially opened. From those who suffered between 1535 and 1681, 360 names were submitted to the Holy See. Twelve years later, in 1886, 316 of these names were approved; the remaining 44 were postponed for further consideration (dilati). Of the 316 approved, 54 were beatified; the remaining 262 were declared worthy of veneration. In 1895, nine more martyrs were beatified, making a total of 63; 253 remained Venerable. All those beatified on these two occasions suffered during the first third (1535–83) of the period of persecution. In 1923, a Commission was appointed to sit at Westminster; and, in 1929, the process of beatification was renewed: 136 more martyrs were then beatified, making a total of 199; 117 remained Venerable. Of these 136, all but four suffered during the last two thirds (1584–1681) of the period of persecution. The proportion of the number of those beatified in the two groups (63:136) is close to the proportion of the number of years in the two periods (48:96). This may be coincidental, rather than fair or ‘wooden’.

Recent studies of English Catholicism from the accession of Elizabeth i onwards demonstrate quite clearly the value and necessity of intensive studies of Catholicism at the local level. H. Aveling's detailed studies of Catholicism in the Yorkshire Ridings are excellent examples of the way in which local studies have contributed to a fuller understanding of how and why Catholicism survived in England after the Reformation. The present study of the Catholic laity under Charles i is based upon an investigation of Catholicism in London and eight counties, drawing mainly upon central sources. The counties have been chosen with the object of including as much variety as possible, both in geographical region and in the state of Catholicism in the country as a whole. Not only have counties with a large and, in some cases, flourishing Catholic survival been selected, but counties where Catholics formed a tiny, and even dwindling minority have also been included. If these local studies are a reasonable sample of the country as a whole, in both extent and variety, then they could be regarded as anindication of the national picture.

The Barebones Parliament occupies a unique place in the parliamentary history of England. It is probably the only parliament in English history whose members were not chosen by the electorate. Unlike other English parliaments, its members were selected by Cromwell and his Council of Officers and selected, in the main, from the Congregational communities in the nation. According to the principle professed at the time, they were chosen not because of their estates, their family connexions or their political patrons, but rather because of their reputation as ‘men of integrity, fearing God and hating covetousness’.Although the Barebones Parliament turned out to be a failure, with little or almost nothing accomplished after a short but tempestuous session, it was none the less important as a political experiment in Puritan utopianism.

In one passage of his A Chapter of Autobiography (1868), Gladstone looked back thirty years to the time when he had published The State in its Relations with the Church. Then he had ‘believed that the Church of England, through the medium of a regenerated clergy and an intelligent and attached laity, would not only hold her ground, but would even in great part probably revive the love and allegiance both of the masses who were wholly falling away from religious observances, and of those large and powerful nonconforming bodies’. Yet, within a dozen years of 1838 ‘at least a moiety of the most gifted sons, whom Oxford had reared for the service of the Church of England, would be hurling at her head the hottest bolts of the Vatican; that, with their deviation on the one side, there would arise a not less convulsive rationalistic movement on the other. Since that time, the Church of England may be said to have bled in every pore; and at this hour it seems occasionally to quiver to its very base’.