So far my discussion of Protestantism has focused largely on the representational problems that arose from Reformation theology and on how educated Protestants battled with these problems in terms of subjectivity. While I maintain this approach in the following two chapters, I also aim to ground these Protestant ideas more firmly in the historical context of sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century England by examining the assimilation of Calvinism in particular. At a political as well as at a conceptual level, Calvinism was especially suited to the cultural exigencies of early modern England. By drawing this implicit distinction between the political and conceptual, I do not mean to suggest that the two can be completely separated, certainly not during this period. This is in no small part due to the fissured legacy of the Reformation in England. Lutheranism did not attain the same foothold here as Calvinism largely because, in the political and social context of that country, Lutheranism arrived somewhat prematurely. Certainly we must be careful not to impose retrospectively a teleological coherence upon a set of religious phenomena that many living during the early modern period found difficult, diffuse and even alienating.