The ecclesiastical historian John Strype (1643–1737) published the third volume of his monumental Elizabethan religious history Annals of the Reformation in 1728. For over two and a half centuries it remained one of the most important Protestant histories of the period and has been reprinted in numerous editions. Volume 3 Part 1 covers the years 1581 to 1587. It focuses on diplomacy with Spain and the build up to the attack of the Spanish Armada; relations with Scotland and the trial and execution of Mary Queen of Scots; friendship with the Low Countries and other Protestant allies in Europe; and works of religious polemic and the death of John Fox in 1587. Strype's thorough use of sources and the enormous scope and detail of his history has ensured its place as an outstanding work of eighteenth-century scholarship. It should be read by every student of Elizabethan religious history.