ABSTRACT
The reign of Mary Tudor was once easily classified: reactionary, repressive, misguided, unsuccessful. However, recent research has left us with a far more complicated task when trying to understand the assumptions, expectations, and motivations behind the religious policy of the Marian Restoration. This chapter approaches this hazardous undertaking through the medium of the religious literature published in the English vernacular during Mary's reign. It argues that the language of much of this literature provides an important indication of some of the preoccupations of the reign. There were, of course, variations among the works published between 1553 and 1558, and yet a great many of them used what might be termed the 'language of Catholic reform'. Such language had become an established aspect of English Catholic identity by the 1550s, and it deployed a rhetoric which was firmly rooted in Scripture, fully aware of the need for religious regeneration within the Church.
