It is possible to discern two major changes in the historiography of post-Reformation England in recent years in which the theme of exile plays an important role. Firstly, there has been a greater emphasis on Catholics and Catholicism in England, to be studied not as a marginalized minority group or religion, but as part of the complex tapestry of lived religion in early modern England. In this approach, considering the many different encounters between ‘Protestant’ and ‘Catholic’ can be a means of gaining a deeper understanding of post-Reformation religion and politics. Secondly, an attentiveness to the relationship between England and its neighbours, both within the British archipelago and within a ‘European’ context, has led to a discussion of the significance of these contexts for the story of religious change. These shifts have offered new insights in a number of areas, including that of religious exile to and from the Tudor realms. This helps to revisit a fairly deep-rooted tendency to Anglocentrism among historians of early modern England, and opens the field to work of a more comparative nature. The English Catholics who went overseas, for example, can be usefully compared to their counterparts in continental Europe. Research on religious change in mainland Europe has resoundingly demonstrated that exile was a key constituent of Catholic as well as Protestant identity.