Traditional notions of sacred kingship became both more grandiose and more problematic during England's turbulent sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The reformation launched by Henry VIII and his claims for royal supremacy and divine right rule led to the suppression of the Mass, as the host and crucifix were overshadowed by royal iconography and pageantry. These changes began a religious controversy in England that would lead to civil war, regicide, restoration, and ultimately revolution.

Richard McCoy shows that, amid these sometimes cataclysmic Alterations of State, writers like John...

Speculation about Shakespeare's own religious beliefs and responses to the Reformation have dominated discussions of faith in the playwright's work for decades. As a result, we often lose sight of what's truly important-the plays themselves. By focusing on those plays in several succinct, fluently written chapters, Richard McCoy reminds us of the spell-binding power inherent in works like Othello, As You Like It, and The Winter's Tale and shows why they continue to cause audiences to gladly exercise what Samuel Taylor Coleridge called the "willing suspension of...