Most Church histories of England and Wales quite Properly Concentrate, after the Reformation, on the history of the Anglican Church. It Seemed to the author of this book that there is need for a continuous account of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales from the earliest times to within living memory. After the Reformation, it becomes the story of how the Faith was maintained during three centuries of persecution and proscription. There was a period, to quote Cardinal Newman, when the Roman Catholics became 'a mere handful of individuals like the pebbles and detritus of the great deluge'. How this remnant survived, and how it expanded to its present magnitude, are the themes of the final chapters of this book. The struggle for Hierarchy in 1850 and the developments since that date, are among the topics considered.