In his Acts and Monuments, John Foxe celebrated the faith of individuals like Katherine Willoughby, who adopted evangelicalism in the 1540s and persevered in her beliefs despite religious persecution under Mary I. Yet, his account of the duchess's experiences also includes a surprising exchange between Stephen Gardiner, the Catholic bishop of Winchester, and Richard Bertie, Willoughby's second husband, after the restoration of Catholicism in 1554. Their heated confrontation shows the strength of Willoughby's early Catholicism and reveals how improbable her conversion appeared to Gardiner and her contemporaries.

In Foxe's account, Gardiner charged Willoughby, a well-known evangelical, with rejecting transubstantiation and other Catholic doctrines despite the reinstitution of religious orthodoxy under Mary I and summoned Bertie to respond to the charges against the duchess. In his interview with Bertie, Gardiner recalled how Willoughby had been as ‘earnest as any’ Catholic during her youth. During the 1540s, though, she had abandoned the ‘ancient’ faith of her parents and peers and embraced the evangelicalism that emphasized scripture as the focal point of Christian belief. Gardiner regarded her heresy as a ‘marvelous grief’ and strongly urged her to recant her errors and return to religious orthodoxy. Willoughby's response, conveyed through her husband, rejected Gardiner's appeal and defended the validity and sincerity of her views. Although others dismissed her conversion as an act of political opportunism, she maintained she had accepted the ‘new learning’ after thoughtful conversations with ‘learned men’ and would not abandon her beliefs to please Gardiner or Mary I. Their confrontation draws attention to two key issues in Willoughby's early religious development. First, she and Gardiner recognized their dispute focused as much on her motivations for abandoning Catholicism as on their ideological differences. Second, both acknowledged the influence of family and friends on an individual's religious views.

This chapter's examination of Willoughby's kinship and patronage network shows how she and other members of the political elite came into contact with reform in the 1520s and 1530s. Reformation scholars have often focused on Willoughby's prominence among early evangelicals, yet such descriptions frequently overlook her sincere commitment to Catholicism in her youth and the strength of her ties to religious conservatives. This chapter demonstrates that she and members of her circle possessed strong ties to Catholic institutions and beliefs, and argues that their evangelicalism developed within the context of these traditional views.