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© 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 The Historical Association and Blackwell Publishing.

experienced by country dwellers with access to land and other resources. Heraccount of the region’s export trade is particularly instructive, as it emphasizesthe continued concentration on raw materials or semi-finished products, the latefifteenth-century dependence on Genoese merchants and the disruptive impactof Henry VIII’s continental wars. Given the inclusion of Kent in this study, sheis also at pains to emphasize the economic impact of the arrival of beer brewing,as well as the persistence of women in the production of ale. It is also encourag-ing to see a detailed consideration of trends in the Surrey and Sussex customaryand Kentish freehold land markets. In the customary land markets alienationand consolidation was well under way by the early sixteenth century, while frag-mentation and leasing (often to Londoners) was commonplace among the free-holders of Kent, and the duration of leases was beginning to shorten.

The study will be particularly valuable to students seeking an understandingof the mechanisms of economic development and social change. These are pre-sented in concrete form with plentiful examples, and provide an in-depth ‘feel’of the workings of, and the constraints on, urban and rural life, employment,production, retail, distribution, export and farming in the early sixteenth century.The author’s understanding of corporate, ecclesiastical and manorial records allowsher to weave these together to provide a considered and convincing regional history.

The weakness of this study is that it lacks a sustained thesis about how far theperiod witnessed a distinct step towards capitalist development, or what might havecaused it. Her conclusion is that ‘rather than [being] pivotal, this period should beseen as one displaying considerable economic vitality that provided the base forfuture developments’. In some respects, though, this might be said of any other periodin history. It would have been interesting to see some assessment of the developmentalimpact of contemporary economic and social constraints, such as populationstagnation, relatively buoyant subsistence farming, heavy reliance on non-finishedexports and overseas merchants. It would also have been worthwhile to considerthe positives, such as high wages, product substitution (beef for bread, beer for ale),increased urban leisure provision, and some increases in material consumption.While historians of this period may rightly fear to climb the perilous conceptualheights once dominated by Brenner or Hilton, this account is weakened by itsreluctance to seek out some broader thematic perspectives. That does not diminishthe value of its research, but it does restrict the wider applicability of its findings.University of Exeter H. R. FRENCH

Elizabeth’s Spy Master: Francis Walsingham and the Secret War that SavedEngland. By Robert Hutchinson. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. 2006. 399pp. £20.00.

As can be seen from its sensationalist title, this book is targeting the generalreader rather than historians. Any doubts about this are dispelled by the‘Author’s Note’ where Hutchinson describes Walsingham as ‘one of the greatunknown heroes of English history’ and his story as ‘a grim, dramatic tale ofsubversion, cruelty, greed, disloyalty and deception’ (p. 9). Not only are histori-ans well aware of Walsingham’s importance, even if no one yet has embarked onthe daunting task of updating Conyers Read’s magisterial three-volume biographyproduced in 1925, but also few scholars would feel comfortable about describingWalsingham’s political career in such florid (or even lurid) language, a styleHutchinson retains throughout the book. Hutchinson goes on to appeal to his

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© 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 The Historical Association and Blackwell Publishing.

targeted readership with devices such as describing cases of torture in somedetail and drawing parallels between the anti-terrorism campaign of contem-porary governments and the anti-Catholicism of Elizabethan England. Yet, despitethese populist touches, this work lacks the narrative drive that makes the histo-ries written by David Starkey and John Guy so compelling.

Hutchinson’s approach to Walsingham is generally sound. He is keen to rescuethe secretary from accusations that he was a fanatical persecutor of Catholics.He points out that Walsingham did not seek ‘the wholesale slaughter of capturedmissionary priests’ and, besides, ‘was merely prosecuting government policy tothe best of his ability’ (p. 63). Walsingham is contrasted favourably to the ‘noto-rious and odious’ Richard Topcliffe who derived sadistic and sexual pleasurefrom torturing Catholics (pp. 74–5). Hutchinson shows that Walsingham set thetrap for Mary Queen of Scots but portrays her as no innocent. Some other viewsHutchinson holds, however, are more controversial. For example, he has no timefor the argument that the Elizabethan government exaggerated, or even manu-factured, the Catholic threat. He also describes a more efficient spy-catchingmachine than most historians would accept existed, and claims that Walsingham’sintelligence-gathering ‘played a major role in defeating the Spanish Armada’ (p. 264).

Hutchinson quotes extensively from primary sources; he also provides longnotes and a detailed description of his manuscript sources. Although this boostshis academic credentials it probably does not add to the book’s popular appeal.In my view the quotations, though sometimes lively, slow down the pace of thenarrative. I also wonder how valuable a general reader will find the eighty pagesor thereabouts devoted to notes and a detailed description of the manuscriptsconsulted. Only time will tell, but I suspect that this is one of those history booksthat falls between the two stools of academic gravitas and popular success.Christ Church, Oxford SUSAN DORAN

Catholicism and Community in Early Modern England: Politics, AristocraticPatronage and Religion, c.1550–1640. By Michael C. Questier. Cambridge Uni-versity Press. 2006. xxii + 559pp. £45.00.

When John Bossy set out the parameters for his magnum opus, The EnglishCatholic Community 1570–1850, he was specific about those aspects of the subject,with which he would not be primarily concerned. These included, he said in hisintroduction, ‘the question of the relation of the minority to the majority, con-sidered either as a state or Church’. Nor was he ‘directly concerned with thepolitics of English Catholicism . . . the active or passive status of it or any of itsmembers in the political or constitutional history of England’. It is preciselythese questions that Michael Questier addresses in this ambitious book.

Questier uses as his research tool the lives and careers of the leading membersof the Montague family of Cowdray and the ramifying network of families andindividuals connected to them through ties of kinship, patronage, service andshared beliefs. He scrutinizes their interaction with the immediate Catholic com-munity and its clergy, as well as, crucially, the wider English establishment, the laterTudor and Stuart monarchs, and the English church in all its shifting forms. Bythus investigating the political, religious and social worlds inhabited by thesefamilies, he argues, it is possible to recover some of their responses to fundamentalissues such as conformity, allegiance and the succession. Such an approach