The old story which sank Starkey into oblivion after he failed to bring Pole into the fold contains some truth – Starkey did disappear from near centre-stage in the last eighteen months or two years of his life. But he did not vanish, any more than all conservatives became reactionaries. As J.-P. Moreau argues, English Catholics went through a major readjustment of attitudes between 1534 and 1539, as most came to accept the new order and only a few resisted. Starkey found himself suspended between these two positions. Manuscript evidence, some of it known but unused and some of it unknown, shows how Starkey reacted to the fiasco of 1536–7. A set of notes on the Old Testament dated 14 October 1537, another batch of jottings on Albert Pighe's (Pighius) Hierarchiae ecclesiasticae assertio probably written in mid-1538, and, finally, the records of the investigation into the Exeter conspiracy, produce a much fuller portrait of the last period of Starkey's life than previously available. They reveal that Starkey followed the turn to religion which he had announced at the end of his Dialogue and pursued ever since he decided to become a preacher. This meant major changes in his political programme, most of them probably arising from his disappointment over the failure of both his and Pole's plans, but despite some apparently strong temptation, he refused to withdraw altogether. Starkey undoubtedly found himself in a difficult position.