The Act in Restraint of Appeals to Rome was a government measure, affected slightly by opposition from the church and not at all by parliament. A pro… - Geoffrey Elton

One of the chief tests of the quality of historical work lies in its readability. History, even serious history, is interesting, and the historian who makes it dull deserves the pillory.

One of the things that you have to grasp about the English of the sixteenth century is that they were a confident nation. It would be an error to suppose that they were uncertain of themselves. Of course, they had no reason to be overconfident in the face of God... Though quite sure that life was short and miserable and dangerous, by and large they faced those dangers and those miseries often with pessimism, but rarely with despair... [The] more universal reaction was to accept man's fate and to confront it firmly. This made for confidence. In fact, the reign of Elizabeth was notable for chauvinistic arrogance.

Prolonged involvement with Parliament has in the end convinced me that the customary concentration on it as the centre of public affairs, however traditional it may be, is entirely misleading. This is a message, it seems to me, that needs to be absorbed into the general history of England.