did not feel on occasion at least some residual Catholic twinges, and an unusual lay Catholic who did not feel a current of national pride and loyalty when Henry VIII defied papal authority. This ambivalence remained true even during the reign of Henry’s son, Edward VI, from 1547 to 1553, when England’s ruling elite moved decisively to a serious embrace of Protestant doctrine and practice. But significant steps were taken in these years to make a return to Catholicism, even in imagination, more difficult.
