Peter Lake is University Distinguished Professor of History and Professor of the History of Christianity, Divinity School at Vanderbilt University, USA. From 1993-2009 he was Professor of History at Princeton University, USA. He is the author of many books including The Boxmaker's Revenge and a forthcoming volume on Shakespeare's history plays. Michael Questier is Professor of Early Modern History at Queen Mary, University of London, UK. He is the author of Catholicism and Community in Early Modern England (CUP), Conversion, Politics and Religion in England 1580-1625 (CUP), and co-authored with Peter Lake The Antichrist's Lewd Hat: Protestants, Papists and Players in Post-Reformation England (Yale).

‘The authors do a superb job of analysing these fault line. They take the time to place Clitherow's story in the context of her family life and political events but they are not afraid of drawing broader conclusions. In their hands Clitherow's sorry tale reasserts itself as one of the most important prisms through which to view the puzzling internecine struggles of Elizabethan Catholicism as well as the contours of early-modern martyrdom. We'll continue to argue about Clitherow; was she saintly or stubborn? The best place to begin any study of this conundrum is this outstanding book.'

• Acknowledgements \ Preface \ Abbreviations \ 1. The Controversial Mrs Clitherow \ 2. The Radicalisation of the mid-Elizabethan Catholics \ 3. Mrs Clitherow, her Catholic household and her Catholic enemies \ 4. The Quarrels of the Catholic Community \ 5. Recusancy and its Discontents \ 6. Thomas Bell and his Enemies \ 7. Christianity sans Eglise: the Religion of the Heart among Catholics and Puritans \ 8. Fainthearted Catholics and Real Catholics: Mrs Clitherow and the Local Politics of Conformity \ 9. The Reckoning: Arrest, Trial and Execution \ 10. Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know? \ 11. Appealing to the Court of Public Opinion \ 12. Endgame: from Life to Death \ Mrs Clitherow and the Catholic Community after 1586 \ 13. Aftermath of Execution \ 14. The Tyrant and the Quisling \ 15. Between Resistance and Compromise? Thomas Bell's Revenge and the 1591 Proclamation \ 16. Thomas Bell changes Sides \ 17. Acting on Information received \ 18. Reading against the Grain; or what Thomas Bell had really been doing in Lancashire Clitherow Vindicated; The Church under the Cross and the Resort to the Public 19. \ Thomas Bell and the Politics of Failure \ 20. Mrs Clitherow entirely vindicated as the Epitome of Catholic Order \ Aftermath \ Bibliography \ Conclusion \ Index