This study rejects attempts to reduce questions of faith to political, economic or social issues and insists that the English Reformation was primarily about religion, which was, of course, closely linked to other phenomena. It will also argue that the way religion was practiced and especially heresy was defined and even understood changed dramatically over the course of the Reformation. In this period, most Eng-lish clergy rarely preached, but unlike their counterparts in most of continental Eu-rope, they took their vows of chastity seriously and sparked intense debate about the limits of religion and the definition of heresy. The 'Martyrs of the English Reformation' were therefore not a homogeneous group, but rather there were many Catholics and a large number of Protestants who were killed for defending their understanding of the Bible and the Christian faith. Of course, in a culture of great religious change and conflict, such as that of early modern England, terms of anathema such as heresy were far from stable: they were subject to multiple and competing interpretations and understandings, as we will often see in the course of this study. It is true that the main starting point of the English Reformation (unlike other Protestant movements in the rest of Europe during that period) was the denial of papal authority, nevertheless, there were a range of different specific beliefs re-garding other areas of faith among English Protestants, some of whom sacrificed their souls for beliefs such as incarnation, free will, predestination, sacraments, and other beliefs that neither the king nor the Establish church could turn a blind eye to.