Challenging the conventional interpretation of Mary of Guise as the defender of Catholicism whose regime climaxed with the Reformation Rebellion, Pamela Ritchie shows that Mary was, on the contrary, a shrewd and effective politique, whose own dynastic interests and those of her daughter took precedence over her personal and religious convictions. Dynasticism, not Catholicism, was the prime motive force behind her policy. Mary of Guise's dynasticism, and political career as a whole, were inextricably associated with those of Mary Queen of Scots, whose Scottish sovereignty, Catholic claim to the English throne and betrothal to the Dauphin of France carried with them notions of Franco-British Imperialism. Mary of Guise's policy in Scotland was dictated by European dynastic politics and, specifically, by the Franco-Scottish alliance of 1548–1560. Significantly more than a betrothal contract, the Treaty of Haddington established a 'protectoral' relationship between the 'auld allies' whereby Henri II was able to assume control over Scottish military affairs, diplomacy and foreign policy as the 'protector' of Scotland. Mary of Guise's assumption of the regency in 1554 completed the process of establishing French power in Scotland, which was later consolidated, albeit briefly, by the marriage of Mary Stewart to Francois Valois in 1558. International considerations undermined her policies and weakened her administration, but only with her death did Mary of Guise's regime and French power in Scotland truly collapse.

Conceived in optimism but baptized with blood, Jesuit missions to the British Isles and Ireland withstood government repression, internal squabbles, theological disputes, political machinations, and overbearing prelates to survive to the Society’s sSuppression in 1773 and beyond.

In The Jesuit Mind, A. Lynn Martin delves into the mental worlds of the Jesuits involved in the Society of Jesus's French mission during the latter half of the sixteenth century. Drawing upon the extensive correspondence between Jesuits in France and the Society's generals in Rome, Martin seeks to determine what was distinctive about the Jesuit mentality in early modem France. The first part of the book focuses on these Jesuits as a value-forming elite. In it Martin covers such topics as their strategy for the salvation and perfection of souls in France, their difficulties in dealing with the ideals established by Ignatius Loyola, their educational program, their hostility toward Protestants, and their reaction to the increasingly centralized Jesuit bureaucracy. The author then goes on in the book's second part to look at the Jesuits as members of French society. Here we see these men coping with the perennial problems of shelter, death, and disease, and intimately involved with their own families amid the dangers of plague, famine, and religious war.