Christianity arrived in England with the first Roman Legions but little was achieved until Augustine did for that country what Patrick and Columba had already done for Ireland and Scotland. The humanist revival and the growth of widespread abuses in the ecclesiastical system in medieval Britain made it that much easier for Henry VIII to overthrow papal sufremacy and establish a fashion of hatred for nearly every feature of Catholic belief -- a fashion that spread and became firmly rooted in every colony except Canada. Contemporary Catholicism, therefore, inherited the legacies of centuries of suppression: a ghetto attitude and an apologetic tradition. There are now signs of a release from the burden of these legacies as the universal Church rediscovers the biblical and liturgical foundations of Christianity and attracts a lnore vigorous spirit from those parts of it which up to now have beer obliged by the nature of their development to be less active menrbers. This account, specially commissioned for this series, provides a helpful and concise parallel history of these developments and shows how each of the English speaking countries met the problems that threatened Catholic life.