It is currently fashionable to take a long-term perspective on the English Reformation. No longer held as a neatly wrapped affair following the Elizabethan settlement of 1559, the narrative framework through which we plot the trajectories of response to the Tudor religious legacy now extends into the seventeenth century and beyond. Returning to Norwich, it is striking how contested the Reformation became within the city. At least, on the basis of this study, it is inadequate to gloss over early modern Norwich as a puritan citadel; for while the borough developed a precocious reputation for civic-sponsored godly learning – helping to nurture some of the famous figures in the history of dissent in England – this was one side to a rich, heterogeneous urban religious scene. Against this radical past, events in Norwich shed new light on the roots of a ceremonialist tradition within the Church of England.

The city's experience of the later Reformation rebounded in an unfolding reflexive process between the godly – or rather conflicting voices within the godly – and other clerical and lay denizens, who for a variety of reasons wished to halt the march of forward Protestantism in varying degrees at different times. The colourful story can be summarised as follows. In the first two decades of Elizabeth's reign, the momentum of religious change within the city gathered pace, as a staunchly Protestant body of aldermen affiliated to John Aldrich and Thomas Sotherton's family connection through the Merchant Adventurers' Company – working in conjunction with Bishop John Parkhurst – assumed the mantle of evangelising urban society.