Historians of early modern England benefit from a rich and varied array of contemporary accounts by individuals that shed light on the local, regional, and wider impact of religious and other policies of successive monarchs. These include the narrative of Robert Parkyn, a Yorkshire priest, of the years 1532–54, Rose Hickman's recollections of Protestant life during the reign of Mary Tudor, to the chronicle of Henry Machyn in 1550–1563, to name but a few. More broadly, too, the history of the book and its import in illuminating various aspects of medieval and early modern popular culture, devotion, piety, reading practices and other related topics has been widely recognised. They have been successfully mined in recent years by various scholars of medieval and early modern England, Ireland, and beyond, from Eamon Duffy to Salvador Ryan and Raymond Gillespie.

In the account of his missionary work, the Jesuit John Gerard (1564–1637) famously explained how, after a few years of penury in ‘Mass equipment’, Catholic houses had become so well equipped that priests were able to set about their work immediately upon their arrival. He recalled that in the last two years of his work (1604–06), he no longer needed to lodge in taverns but always found friendly dwellings to shelter him on his way. Most of these were run by women, whose prominence in the activity of harbouring was pointed out in many documents, including the minutes of the confession given to the Privy Council by the appellant priest Anthony Sherlock, who turned informer after his capture in 1606:

Historians have paid little attention to the controversy provoked when Edward VII, in conformity with the Bill of Rights (1689) and Act of Settlement (1701) made the ‘Declaration against Transubstantiation’ which grossly insulted the Roman Catholic faith. Angry protests by Catholics in England were replicated even more strongly throughout the empire and issues of constitutional importance were raised which remain alive to the present day. The records of the lengthy parliamentary debates on this matter between 1901 and 1910 show that despite lingering suspicion of the Roman Catholic Church, and determination that no one professing that faith should ever occupy the throne, most members of both houses regarded Catholics as loyal citizens who should no longer be affronted at the beginning of the sovereign's reign by language born of a bygone age. Even so, to devise a formula which while removing what gave offence could satisfy the diverse interests involved when the religious and political spheres impinged on each other proved extremely difficult. The difficulty was increased because a large proportion of the general public regarded the declaration as a vital safeguard to the Protestant succession to the throne which made politicians hesitant to tamper with what had become ‘woven into the very texture of religious belief and adhesion’ in the country. It is worthwhile, therefore, to examine the various attempts to deal with this ‘thorny and difficult question’, which finally led to a revised declaration being forced in great haste through the House of Commons amid loud protests at what was considered unprecedented procedure.

In October 1970, amidst jubilant celebrations at St Peter's in Rome, Pope Paul VI canonised forty English and Welsh martyrs as saints. Auberon Waugh called it ‘the biggest moment for English Catholicism since Catholic emancipation in 1829’. It marked the culmination of a long campaign which had begun in earnest in the mid-nineteenth century under Cardinals Wiseman and Manning, shortly after the restoration of the Catholic hierarchy. By 1935 nearly two hundred Reformation martyrs had been beatified, but only two of these had been canonised, John Fisher and Thomas More—the first Englishmen to be made saints since John of Bridlington in 1401. After the hiatus of the Second World War, the cause was revived in 1960 seeking the canonisation of another forty English martyrs. All were Roman Catholics executed under the Tudor and Stuart monarchs or the Puritan Commonwealth, ranging from Carthusian monks who fell foul in 1535 of Henry VIII's Act of Supremacy, to seminary priests who were caught up in the ‘Popish Plot’ against Charles II in 1679. All but six of the forty had been hung, drawn and quartered, many of them on the gallows at Tyburn.