ABSTRACT
The Reformation took its toll on Sussex. While the county is now largely remembered for its Protestant martyrs, in the late sixteenth century, it was a complicated and divided region, riven by confessional battles and the divergent forces of conflicting loyalties. This chapter explores the experiences of two important but largely neglected writers and intellectuals: Thomas Drant and Anthony Copley. Thomas Drant was brought to Sussex as a prominent member of a group of nearly forty Cambridge graduates enlisted by Richard Curteys, Bishop of Chichester, to vigorously impose uniformity on the county's notoriously errant clergy. If Thomas Drant was involved in the imposition of religious uniformity in Sussex, Anthony Copley spent his life resisting and negotiating that uniformity. Copley was acutely aware that he was from an ancient Catholic family and clearly believed that times would change and the legitimate form of worship would eventually return to replace the new-fangled apostasy that had temporarily replaced it.
