The age of Elizabeth I continues to exercise a fascination unmatched by other periods of English history. Yet while the leading figures may seem familiar, many Elizabethan figures, including the queen herself, remain enigmatic. In Elizabethans Patrick Collinson examines the religious beliefs both of Elizabeth and of Shakespeare, as well as redrawing the main features of the political and religious structure of the reign. He understands the characters of the period, whether John Foxe the martyrologist or Andrew Perne, the notorious Cambridge turncoat, as individuals but is also sensitive to the atti-tudes and beliefs of the day. Social history is not history with the politics left out, nor can religious history be written without an understanding of its political and social context. This is the approach that Patrick Collinson advocates and practises in Elizabethans