In post-Reformation England, angels were familiar figures on the religious landscape. Although not a central or fundamental area of belief, they were nevertheless an important pastoral resource. As with their evil counterparts, the demons, throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, clergymen found angels good to think with – they turned to them to provide religious instruction and guidance, and angels were evidently useful allies in the battle to establish the true faith in England. Thus far I have offered a description of belief that prioritizes the harmony and consistency of reformed ideas. The core of official Protestant angelology was undoubtedly solid, its rejection of mediation, intercession and worship, and emphasis on angels as instruments of God's providence, dispensing justice and mercy, were common to all English reformers, and were perfectly suited to the outlook of the Church of England. However, it is also important to recognize that the ambiguities of earlier decades were never fully resolved, and that belief about angels continued to reflect all sorts of wider religious, cultural and social themes, tensions and developments. The Elizabethan legacy was to prove problematic, and even angels could become conduits for unorthodoxy in the hands of those pushing at the boundaries of what has been termed an ‘Elizabethan consensus’.