This book has been a long time in the making. It would never have appeared at all if it had not been for the considerable kindness of so many friends. In particular Pauline Croft read the entire typescript (more than once) and made numerous invaluable suggestions. Rivkah Zim shared her understanding of the aristocracy during this period; Simon Healy provided essential advice on early modern parliamentary procedure; and I am exceedingly grateful to Simon Adams for allowing me access to his utterly encyclopaedic knowledge of sixteenth-century politics. Most helpful also were Geoff Baker, Caroline Bowden, Thomas Cogswell, Ginevra Crosignani, Richard Cust, Andrew Foster, Gabriel Glickman, Paul Hammer, Matthew Piggott, Glyn Redworth, Geoffrey Scott and Margaret Sena. And I am indebted to Peter Lake for discussions of many of the topics and themes in this volume.

One of the advantages of doing any species of local history is that it allows one to see at first hand some of the places and things in which one claims to be interested. I would like to thank Richard Clark of Battle Abbey school for discussing the architecture and history of the abbey with me, and also Helen Atkins of Firle Place for her assistance with the records of the Gage family. Timothy McCann and Christopher Whittick, local history supremos respectively in West Sussex and East Sussex, were exceptionally helpful in guiding me to sources that I would, without doubt, never have discovered on my own.