Religious controversy was central to political conflict in the years leading up to the outbreak of the English Civil War. Historians have focused on one religious doctrine—predestination, but Catholic and Reformed analyzes the broader preconceptions that lay behind religious debate. It offers an analysis of the nature of the English Church, and how this related to the Roman Catholic and Reformed Churches of the Continent. The book's conclusions explain the nature of English religious culture and its role in provoking the Civil War.