UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, Class An Historical Introduction to the Marprelate Tracts A Chapter in the Evolution of Religious and Civil Liberty in England BY WILLIAM PIERCE NEW YORK E. P. BUTTON AND COMPANY 29 WEST 2 3 R D STREET 1909 ; ?6T AN HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION TO THE MARPRELATE TRACTS or -HE UNIVERSITY SIR RICHARD KNIGHTLEY. 1534-1615. TO THE REVEREND JOSEPH JONES, M.A. OP SUTTON IN SURREY IN REMEMBRANCE OP A LONG, GLOBE, AND UNBROKEN FRIENDSHIP, DATING FROM THE DAYS WHEN HE AND THE WRITER WERE FELLOW-STUDENTS AT COLLEGE 388 PEEFACE THE place of the Marprelate Tracts in the development of ecclesiastical affairs in England must justify the following endeavour to explain their origin and character. The years which come under our observation, the first thirty in the reign of Elizabeth, are vital years in the story of progress, both civil and religious, in our country. The ferment of the intellectual upheaval of the fifteenth century showed itself in England first, as a religious force ; then, by neces- sary consequence, the civil movement followed. But pro- gress, whether in Church or in State, came to a standstill under the reign of Mary. Intellectually this period counts for nothing. Its significance is moral. The reaction following the cruelties of the reign became the dynamic of the reforming creed, and the arrested currents of national progress travelled at an accelerated pace when released at the accession of Elizabeth. There was never a moment's illusion on the part of the Papal Church on the one hand, or of the Church which replaced it under the direction of Elizabeth on the other, that a break had been made in the continuity of the religious story of the country. What the Vatican thought of the proceeding may be seen in the Bull of Pius V. and in the humiliating act of contrition by which the Roman Church still receives the Protestant wanderer back to its fold. What the Elizabethan Protestants thought of the Church they had left may be seen for that matter vii viii THE MARPRELATE TRACTS clearly enough in their Book of Common Prayer. But the literature of the period leaves no ambiguity in the mind of any reader. There was not a bishop nor superior ecclesi- astic in the reformed church to whom the Pope was not in very truth the Antichrist. The question of compromise with Eome was in no man's mind. Rome offered no compromise ; the English prelates of the period neither desired compromise nor conceived it to be possible. The activity of Rome was political ; its culmination was the expedition of the Spanish Armada. On the side of the Reformation the question was, How far shall evangelical progress go ? The fierce controversies of the time turn on that point. Elizabeth, caring little for the purely theo- logical issues, desired to retain the external pomp of the Papal Church as befitting the dignity of a sovereign ; the men who clambered into high office in the Church wished for the reformed creed, a simplified worship, but retaining all the emoluments and administrative authority of the displaced Roman prelates. The evangelical reformers, how- ever, would have cleared the Prayer Book of all ritual reminiscences of Rome ; would have banished the official vestments of ministers ; and have purified the Church of all merely nominal members baptized parishioners who showed no outward sign that they were obedient to any religious faith and discipline. Prelacy they would have utterly destroyed, and all parties among them would have given a varying measure of self-government to each distinct local community. Such was the position. Controversy began early in the reign and gathered strength as Elizabeth felt free from the obsession of the Catholic powers, and as the reforming pre- lates were corrupted by the privileges of their offices. The culmination of the repressive acts of the episcopacy and of the energy of the reforming apologetic is represented by the Marprelate Tracts. How far they have been rnisunder- PREFACE ix stood, and underestimated because misunderstood, I have partly set forth in the following pages. But I might have gone much farther than I have and shown how historians of repute have perpetrated ' howlers ' in writing of these well-known and yet unknown pamphlets. I have been hoping to publish an edition of the Tracts themselves, with necessary historical elucidations, in the preparation of which I have spent the leisure of some years, and now cherish a faint hope that the publication of this Introduction may promote a demand for such an edition. The Tracts are of value as literature, but to the student of ecclesiastical history they are essential. They show by what fortuitous circumstances religious liberty was gradu- ally achieved ; and civil liberty is the necessity of religious liberty, which cannot otherwise realise itself. In my work I have had to rely upon the kindness of the custodians of our great public libraries, and in this I have never been disappointed. My studies have been carried on chiefly at our great national library in the British Museum ; but I am also under great obligations to the learned librarians at the Lambeth Palace Library, Dr. Williams's Library, Gordon Square, the Cambridge Uni- versity Library, and the John Kylands Library, Man- chester. My first adventures in the present field of history were greatly facilitated by the kindness of Mr. Edward M. Borrajo, the chief librarian at the Guildhall, an authority on all that pertains to the city of London, and throughout my researches I have had the help of the Eev. T. G. Crippen of the Congregational Library, Memorial Hall, London. I have to thank the Archbishop of Canterbury for permission granted, through his Grace's librarian, Mr. S. W. Kershaw, M.A., F.S.A., to photograph the title-pages of two of the Tracts ; the Lady Knightley of Fawsley for her favour in allowing me to insert the portrait of Sir Kichard x THE MARPRELATE TRACTS Knightley, the friend of the evangelical reformers in Eliza- beth's days, and the Eight Hon. Lord Calthorpe, D.L., for generously allowing me to consult a volume of the Yelverton MSS. The references which accompany the following pages are to the original editions except where otherwise stated. The edition of John Foxe's Acts and Monuments quoted is that edited by Stoughton and Pratt; and I have used Neale's History of the Puritans in the edition of 1822, in five volumes 8vo. The titles of the Marprelate Tracts, for the convenience of readers unfamiliar with them, are printed throughout in capitals. My indebtedness to previous writers I have desired in every instance to acknowledge, and if in any case I have failed to do this, I express here my unfeigned regret. W. P. CONTENTS CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY 1558-1583 Section I. Ecclesiastical Uniformity PAGE 1. THE GIFT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT AND ITS RESULTS . 2 2. THE RETURN OF THE EXILES .... 3 3. THE ECCLESIASTICAL POLICY OF ELIZABETH . . 6 4. THE VESTIARIAN CONTROVERSY .... 9 5. THE ADVERTISMENTS . . . . .10 6. UNIFORMITY AND NONCONFORMITY . . .15 7. THE LITERATURE OF THE CONTROVERSY . . .17 8. THE PRESS CENSORSHIP . . . . .21 9. A CONVENTICLE AT PLUMBERS' HALL . . .23 10. THE ATTITUDE OF THE ROMANISTS AND NATIONAL PROGRESS . . . . . .26 11. THE QUEEN'S SUITORS . . . . .28 The Gaping Gulph . . . . .30 1 Eliz. cap. 7 . . . . . .30 Section II. A House Divided against Itself 1. EPISCOPAL REARRANGEMENTS . . . .31 2. THE NEW POLICY IN OPERATION . . .33 3. PURITAN COUNTER-MOVEMENTS . . . .33 4. THE ADMONITION TO PARLIAMENT (1572) . . . 36 5. THE ENSUING CONTROVERSY . . . .40 xi xii THE MARPRELATE TRACTS FAGB 6. JOHN WHITGIFT AS BISHOP'S ADVOCATE . . .45 7. THB BOOK OF ECCLESIASTICAL DISCIPLINE . .61 8. THE FORTHCOMING ANTAGONISTS OF THE ESTABLISHED ORDER 53 9. THREE TYPES OF PROTESTANT KEFORMERS . 55 Section III. The Primacy of Edmund Grindal 1. EPISCOPAL CHANGES ON THE DEATH OF MATTHEW PARKER . . . . . .57 2. THE PRIMACY OF GRINDAL . . . .58 3. THE PROPHESYINGS ... .60 4. THE SEQUESTERED PRIMATE . . .63 5. AYLMER PERSECUTING PAPIST AND PURITAN . . 66 6. WHITGIFT'S ZEAL AT WORCESTER . 67 CHAPTER II THE FIRST YEARS OF WHITGIFT'S PRIMACY 1583-1593 Section I. His Prompt and Determined Measures 1. His QUALIFICATIONS . . . . .69 2. WHITGIFT'S NEW ARTICLES . . . .70 Note. Whitgift and Underdown . 72 Section II. The New ' High Commission ' 1. THE DEMAND FOR A MORE FORMIDABLE COURT . .74 2. THE UNPOPULARITY OF THE NEW COURT . . .76 3. THE CASE OF ROBERT CAWDREY . . . .77 4. THE OATH EX OFFICIO . . . . .80 5. WIGGINTON'S OPPOSITION AND ITS PENALTY . . 83 6. PROTESTS OF BURLEIGH AND ATTORNEY MORRICE . . 86 7. LATER PHASES OF THE COURT UNDER WHITGIFT, BAN- CROFT, AND LAUD . . 90 CONTENTS xiii Section III. Emptying the Pulpits and Filling the Gaols PAGE 1. LITERARY PROTESTS . . . . .92 2. PROTESTS OP THE REFORMING CLERGY . . .94 3. PETITIONS FROM THE COUNTRY . . . .96 4. WHITGIFT AND ROBERT BEALE, CLERK OF THE COUNCIL . 98 Section IV. The State of the Ministry 1. EFFORTS TO RESTRICT PLURALISM AND NON-RESIDENCY . 99 2. THE AVARICE OF THE BISHOPS . . . .101 3. JEWEL'S DENUNCIATION OF PLURALISM . . .104 4. WHITGIFT'S DEFENCE OF THE EVIL . . .105 Note. Typical Lay Opinions W. Stafford, Compendious Examination ; PhiL Stubbes, Anatomie of Abuses ..... 107 5. AN UNLEARNED MINISTRY . . . .108 6. WHITGIFT'S CHARACTER AND OPINIONS . . .111 7. SOME ELIZABETHAN BISHOPS . . . .124 8. IMPRISONMENT UNDER BISHOP WHITGIFT . . .127 9. THE LONDON PRISONS IN 1688 131 CHAPTEK III THE MARPRELATE PUBLICATIONS Section I. The Controversy which called forth the Marprelate Tracts 1. THE LEARNED DISCOURSE . . . . .136 2. THE DEFENCE OF THE GOVERNMENT ESTABLISHED, BY JOHN BRIDGES . . . . . .139 3. IMMEDIATE REPLIES TO THE DEFENCE . , .143 xiv THE MARPRELATE TRACTS Section II. Martin Marprelate PAGE 1. ANNUS MIRABILIS, 1588 ..... 144 2. THE SEVEN 'MARTINS' ..... 148 3. THE STORY OP THE PRODUCTION OP THE TRACTS. . 151 (1) Robert Waldegrave, the Puritan Printer . .151 (2) The First Marprelate Printiug-House . .154 (3) The First ' Martin ' . . . .155 (4) The Press at Fawsley House . . .156 (5) The Episcopal 'Hue and Cry 1 . .160 (6) The Second 'Martin' . . . .161 (7) Humfrey Newman, Chief Distributer . .163 (8) The High Commission at Work . . .164 (9) Bishop Cooper's Admonition to the People . .165 (10) Bancroft's Sermon at Paul's Cross . .172 (11) Activity of Censor and Pursuivant . . .176 (12) Removal of the Press to Coventry . .178 (13) The Coventry Pamphlets . . .180 (14) Waldegrave's Retirement . . . .182 (15) Job Throkmorton of Haseley Manor . .184 (16) John Hodgkins, the second Marprelate Printer . 185 (17) ' Martin Junior ' and ' Martin Senior ' . . 186 (18) The Catastrophe at Manchester . . .189 (19) The Last 'Martin' . 191 CHAPTER IY THE EPISCOPAL ANTI-MARTINIST POLICY Section I. The Persecution of the Confederates 1. THE EXAMINATION OP THE PRINTERS . . .196 2. ON THE RACK ...... 197 3. HENRY SHARPE'S BETRAYAL . . . .201 4. THE GOVERNMENT'S BRIEF .... 204 5. IMPORTANT ARRESTS 205 CONTENTS xv PAGE 6. PENRY'S ESCAPE . . . . . .208 7. ANOTHER RENDEZVOUS AT HASELEY . . .209 8. IMPRISONMENT OP UDALL . . . . .212 9. PROCEEDINGS AGAINST JOB THROKMORTON . . .214 Section II. The Episcopal Literary Free-Lances and Cross-Bench Writers 1. WHITGIFT'S 'LETTERS OF MARQUE' . . .219 2. MARTIN ON THE STAGE . . . . .221 3. THE FLOOD OF ANTI-MARTINIST LITERATURE . .223 (a) Marty n said to his Man . . . .223 (6) Mar-Martine . . . . .224 (c) Anti-Martinus . . . . .225 (d) A Gountercuffe . . . . .226 (e) A Whip for an Ape (Eythmes against Martin Marre-Prelate) . . . . .227 (f) The Eeturne of Pasquill . . . .227 (g) Pappe with an Hatchet .' . . .228 (h) Martins Months Mind . . . .229 (i) A Myrror for Martinists . . . .230 4. CROSS-BENCH WRITERS . . . . .230 (a) Marre Mar-Martin . . . .231 (6) Plaint Percevall the Peace-Maker . . .231 NOTE. M. Some laide open in his Coulers . . . 233 5. THE CONTROVERSY DURING 1590 . . . .235 (a) A Friendly Admonition by L. Wright . . 236 (b) An Almond for a Parrat .... 236 (c) The First Parte of Pasquils Apologie . .239 (d) A Theologicall Discourse of the Lamb of God . 240 CHAPTER V ANCILLARY LITERATURE, MARTINIST AND ANTI-MARTINIST 1. A DIALOGUE WHEREIN is LAIDE OPEN . . .242 2. A PETITION DIRECTED TO HER MAIESTIE . . 244 xvi THE MARPRELATE TRACTS PAOR 3. AN ANSWERS TO A PETITION, BY SUTCLIFFE . 247 4. BANCROFT'S DISCIPLINARY TRACTS .... 249 (a) A Survey of the Pretended Holy Discipline . .249 (6) Dangerous Positions . .249 5. THROKMORTON AND SUTCLIFFE . .251 (a) The Defence of Job Throkmorton . .251 (&) An Answer e to Job Throkmorton . .253 CHAPTER VI THE TRACTS AND THEIR AUTHORSHIP Section I. The General Character of the Tracts 1. THEIR INDICTMENT FRAMED ON FALSE ISSUES . .255 (a) Sedition . . . .255 (&) Heresy . .256 (c) Blasphemy . 257 2. THEIR ALLEGED SCURRILITY . .258 (a) Bishops of the Devil ' .258 (6) ' The Lawes of the Stewes' . . .259 (c) Calling the Bishops ' devilish ' and ' murderers of souls' ...... 260 3. THE PATRIOTISM OF MARPRELATE . . . 262 4. THE JUSTIFICATION OF MARTIN'S WIT AND SATIRE . 263 5. THE TRACTS A GREAT PROTEST AGAINST OPPRESSION . 265 (a) The exception against Romanism . . .266 (&) The Idea of Liberty limited by false Biblical Exegesis ..... 267 (c) Political Backwardness of the Ecclesiastical Reformers 270 (d) The Reformers the only Resisters to Civil and Ecclesiastical Oppression . . .271 Section II. The Authorship of the Tracts 1. WIDESPREAD INTEREST IN THE INQUIRY . . .273 2. Two CLASSES OF MARPRELATE TRACTS 274 CONTENTS xvii FAdS 3. CLUES IN THE TEXT ..... 276 4. PERSONS SUSPECTED ..... 277 (1) John UdaU 277 (2) Giles Wigginton . . . . .280 (3) Francis Merbury . . . . .281 (4) John Field . . . . .282 (5) Eusebius Pagit ..... 283 (6) John Penry . ... 284 (7) Job Throkmorton ..... 284 (8) Henry Barrowe . . . . .286 5. EXAMINATION OF THE EVIDENCE IN FAVOUR OF ASSIGNING THE AUTHORSHIP TO PENRY OR THROKMORTON . 289 (a) Directorship of the Secret Press . . .289 (6) Penry's and Throkmorton's Acquaintance with the MS. Originals of the Secondary Tracts . . 290 (c) The Handwriting . . . . .291 (d) Language and Style . . . 292 Note. Word Tests . . .294 (e) The unfinished THESES MARTINIANAE . . 295 (/) The Relative Literary Merits of the Primary and Secondary Tracts . . . .301 (g) The Evidence of THE PROTESTATYON . . 303 APPENDICES A. A CHRONOLOGY OF EVENTS, 1588-1590 . . .311 B. A SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY OP THE MARPRELATE CONTRO- VERSY . . . . . .322 C. THE EXAMINATIONS OF (1) JOHN HODGKINS, AND (2) SIMMS AND THOMYLN ..... 333 INDEX 341 LIST OF ILLUSTKATIONS PAGE PORTRAIT OF SIR RICHARD KNIGHTLEY . . Frontispiece TITLE-PAGE OF 'THE EPISTLE' . . . To face 156 TITLE-PAGE OF 'THE PROTESTATYON ' .. 192 xix CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY 1558-1583 Section I. Ecclesiastical Uniformity THE writer of an obscure sixteenth-century manuscript opens his parable by saying, ' It is an old true sayd saw, gentle reader, that truth is the daughter of tyme.' Of the accuracy of the proverb the Marprelate Tracts are an eminent illus- tration. Written in the midst of a furious ecclesiastical controversy, they were naturally misrepresented by their opponents. They attacked the Bishops and the established form of church government; they are accused of sedition and blasphemy. Up to our own day, writers who have never read them have been content to repeat the old mis- representations ; those whose cause Marprelate so strenuously defended three centuries ago, even they, knowing practically nothing of their contents, dismiss the Tracts summarily with the remark that they are scurrilous. It was well on in the nineteenth century before men began to see that the whole truth had not been told about these notable writings. Of Episcopalian writers, Hunt in his Religious Thought in England was the first to weigh the facts judicially and to try to do justice between Martin and his Episcopalian opponents. But it was left to the American writer, Dr. Henry Martyn Dexter, in his Congregationalism as seen in its Literature, to fully appreciate the great qualities of this unknown writer, and to disentangle him, in some measure, i B 2 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS at least, from the misrepresentations heaped upon his name. The controversy occasioned by the publication of the Marprelate Tracts has been accurately described by Maskell as the great controversy of the reign of Elizabeth. Pub- lished in the years 1588 and 1589, they sum up the religious discussions which began with the death of Mary Tudor and extended to their own time. And the matters debated in their pages are still agitating the minds of Englishmen. Our present duty is to present the ecclesi- astical history of the previous thirty years, for the first twenty-five years very briefly, and afterwards with greater detail, so that the reader may appreciate the ecclesiastical, and to some extent the political, situation which gave rise to these Tracts. We shall then discuss the documents themselves and narrate the story of their production. 1. The Gift of the English New Testament and its Results. For the history of the Reformation in England in the six- teenth century the supreme event is the publication of William Tyndale's New Testament. He had a prescient sense of its fighting value when he called the Scriptures, meaning especially those of the New Testament, the ' Successor of the Apostles.' His version was the fruit of the New Learning, inasmuch as it was translated directly out of the Greek. It had all the freshness of first-hand contact with the living sources. It was the work of a mind unwarped by ecclesiastical prejudices. Moreover it possessed a national importance as the most thoroughly English piece of literature that, as yet, had appeared. Here was no temptation to wander into the outlandish vocabulary and style of a half-naturalised romance. The duties of the translator were narrowly laid down. And even as the Greek which Tyndale turned into his mother tongue was not classical Greek badly written, but the current and acceptable language of the time, so also the translation was into the true vernacular and idiom of the English of Tyndale's own generation. He invested the language of the people with a new literary value. So great was his INTRODUCTORY 3 genius that the English folk have never truly realised that their New Testament is a translation. It is the contents of this Book, however, which make it a portentous gift to any people. The elements of a social revolution are ever slumbering in its pages. To rouse them it needs but the harsh uplifted voice of tyranny. In later years the persecuted reformers, addressing the Privy Council from their prison, reminded them how Elizabeth had pub- lished the Scriptures and exhorted ' all her subjects to the diligent reading and sincere obedience thereof.' Behold, they had complied with her royal advice, and for a reward had been cast into gaol. 1 For it is the peculiar virtue of these Scriptures to command a higher obedience than that which may justly be due to princes and those in power. They assert a divine worthiness to belong to the common man, whose honour and estate it is to be the child of an Eternal Father, and in that condition he cannot as a child fulfil his duty to that Father except he be free. And he cannot, if these Gospels are to be believed, be oppressed by princes and prelates except at their peril. It was folly on the part of Elizabeth first to give William Tyndale's New Testament to her people, and then to perpetuate the old Tudor absolutism in the government of Church and State. 2. The Return of the Exiles. It was foretold by John Rogers, the popular prebendary of St. Paul's, and first of those burnt at the stake in 1555 by Catholic Mary and her Bishops, that as the ' captive, thrall, and miserable Jewes ' had perforce to return from exile, ' spite of Nabuchodonosor's beard and maugre his heart/ so also ' the dispersed English fiocke of Christ ' should return to an even more favourable land than was theirs * in innocent King Edward's daies.' 2 On the 1 7th day of November 1558, Elizabeth became queen of this realm, and before the close of that year the Exiles were reaching our shores. They came from the Low Countries by short stages ; from the nearer parts of Germany these among the earlier arrivals ; at longer intervals from Geneva, and Strasburg, 1 Strype's Annals, iv. 131. 2 Foxe, Ads and Mon. v. 609. 4 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS from Zurich, and the remoter Protestant cities of Germany. For some of them the good news of the death of Mary and the end of the Spanish- Catholic persecution was long on its way ; and a correspondingly long, and in the winter months a perilous, journey it was to return to their native country. Upon their arrival they discovered that the fires of persecu- tion had accomplished their destined end. While Mary was yet living it was seen that the hideous orgy of in- humanity was creating not terror, but a desperate courage in the minds of the English people. Ere the close of these dark tragic years Bishop Bonner, Mary's chief instrument in the red persecution, found it prudent to suggest to Cardinal Pole and Gardiner, the Lord Chancellor, that he should be allowed ' to giff sentence against [the hereticks] here in the parische church [of Fulham] very quietly and without tumult or having the sheriff present.' He could by this secret arrangement ' have them burnt in Hammer- smythe, a myle from [his] howse,' and that ' without businesse or stirre.' l But what of the expectation of the Romish persecutors, that the anguish of the fire would strike terror into the hearts of the ' hot gospellers ' and bring them into servile subjection ? The truth they found to be contrariwise. The thunder of the discontent of the people was in their ears, ominous, long-continued, and growing daily in force and volume. It was to such a sternly disillusioned country that the Exiles returned. Writing to Conrad Gesner of Zurich in May of the following year, John Parkhurst, later Bishop of Norwich, says that the Popish Bishops were ' abhorred both by God and man ' ; the very sight of them was enough to provoke a tumult ; many would call them ' butchers ' to their face. 2 John Jewel, the most distinguished of the first Elizabethan prelates, tells a significant story of Bonner when he was sent to prison. Desiring to make the best of the situation, he courteously greeted his fellow-prisoners as 1 Petyt MSS. 638, 47. The transcript of the Hist. Com. Report has been corrected by F. 0. White. See Eliz. Bishops, 139. 2 Zurich Lett. i. 131. INTRODUCTORY 5 friends and companions. One of them, himself condemned for murder, though he protested he did the evil deed in anger and was sorry for it, cried out, * Do you take me, you brute, for a companion of yours ? Go to hell, as you deserve ; you will find companions there.' He had slain but one ; Bonner, he said, had ' causelessly murdered vast numbers of holy men, martyrs of Christ, witnesses and maintainers of the truth.' l Such was the change wrought among the people ; especially in the Midlands, the Eastern counties, and the South ; and pre-eminently in London, as the centre of national intelligence, by the propaganda of the stake and the torture chamber. But if the temper of the country, no less also the Exiles, were changed. They returned, says Strype, ' threadbare . . . yet they brought with them from the foreign churches and universities much experience as well as learning.' 2 They, and the men who went to the stake, represented the most advanced stage of Protestant reform ; those that remained at home, if they did not conform for politic reasons, were yet of a less pronounced type ; they could afford to run the risk of remaining in hiding, as did Matthew Parker, Eliza- beth's first primate. Barrowe declined to think very highly of the religion of a number of his Episcopalian con- temporaries since they had changed it four times at the fanfare of the royal trumpets. And Sir John Harington, referring to old Bishop Kitchin of Llandaff, quaintly asks how it was possible for him ' to sing " Cantate domino canticum novum " four times in fourteen yeares and never sing out of tune, if he had not loved the Kitchen better than the Church.' 3 The Exiles, however, returned more definitely evangelical in their creed. Freed from the terrible temptation to stultify the truth, arising from the penal consequence of its profession, they naturally widened the interval which separated them from the paralysing corruption and superstition of the Eomish Church and its creed. The result can be seen at a glance when we 1 2ur. Lett. i. 82. 2 Annals, I. i. 192. 3 Brief e View (1653), p. 165. 6 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS compare the three successive Archbishops of Canterbury appointed after the accession of Elizabeth, whose primacy covered the whole of her reign. Matthew Parker, who had remained in hiding, but kept the faith, was not so merciless a persecutor as John Whitgift, who outwardly conformed. By comparison with these two, Edmund Grindal, who went into exile, might be regarded as lenient. He was suspended by Elizabeth for not suppressing the Puritan c prophesyings.' 3. The Ecclesiastical Policy of Elizabeth. The trouble arising out of Elizabeth's ecclesiastical policy was due to the fact that religion with her was policy and nothing else. Intellectually, no doubt, she was on the side of the re- formers. She was a true child of the Eenaissance. The secular enlightenment of the new age enabled her to pene- trate the mask of priestcraft. Superstition had no hold upon her. To convince her, it was not necessary to explain the mechanism of the winking images. She had been early nurtured on the militant Protestantism of Richard Cox, whom afterwards she made Bishop of Ely. She knew well what Romanism meant, and herself had only narrowly escaped burning. Moreover she was a true Tudor. While she remained on the throne, there was no room within her dominions for the exercise of Papal prerogatives. The religious difficulties of her reign arose partly, perhaps chiefly, because she was devoid of anything which in charity might be called a spiritual faith. But she had strong opinions. The creed which in 1572 she allowed Convocation to compile, the Thirty-nine Articles which still find a place in the Prayer Book, are as thoroughly Pro- testant and Evangelical as need be. As theological views, Elizabeth regarded them with more or less indifference. But in the outward forms of worship she greatly dis- appointed the returning Exiles. She blew out the altar candles when worshipping in broad daylight ; elevating the host she derided as an idolatry. She, however, demurred to parting with any of the ecclesiastical ' ornaments ' which added to the showy and grandiose character of public worship. So she worried her bishops by retaining an ' ill- INTRODUCTORY 7 omened ' idol, a silver crucifix, in her private chapel ; and desired her clergy to be sumptuously attired. Cox, when commanded to administer the sacrament in her presence, tearfully appeals to her in the matter of the * idol image ' ; but his appeal was in vain. Parker, her Archbishop, found it necessary to write her a brief treatise on idolatry. ' She loved magnificence in religion,' says old Echard, ' which made her inclinable to some former ornaments and even images in churches.' The difficulties of the situation were greatly complicated by the diplomatic use she made of the religious settlement of the country. This, and her own value as a marriageable party were her chief cards in the deep game she played with the two strong Catholic powers of France and Spain. And in her play she was at least as unscrupulous as her opponents. Her splendid mendacity almost wins from us a sinister admiration. Her difficulties were admittedly great. The Vatican, when it became convinced that its diplomats could not cajole her, for she beat them easily at their own game, excommunicated her ; freed all Catholic subjects from the obligation of loyalty to her ; and never ceased urging the combination of the Catholic powers to crush her as a heretic. Moreover there was another claimant to the English throne, a woman of great personal fascination, and possessing, for strict Catholic minds, a better title than Elizabeth's. For Henry's divorce of Katherine of Aragon and his marriage with Anne Boleyn never received Papal recognition. Mary Stuart was therefore a threatening personality for many years, especially during the life of her husband, the Dauphin of France. Elizabeth met the situation, first, by her assumed indecision in the matter of religion a part which she was qualified to sustain by her natural dislike to come to a final decision upon any subject ; then, in due time, by her long and discreditable trifling with her French suitors, the two sons of Katharine de Medici. When France threatened, she knew that her brother-in-law, Philip of Spain, had no wish to see his neighbour aggrandised by the possession of England. And she was able to deceive the 8 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS wily Spanish ambassador by the assumed frankness with which she assured him that the Pope would not think so harshly of her, if only he knew her secret heart ! When Spain threatened, at once her amours with the Duke of Anjou grew warmer, and the endless marriage negotiations were once more renewed. As a little by-play accompanying these diplomatic intrigues, the silver crucifix was introduced, or again banished, from her worship. She could even relight the altar candles to assist in a diplomatic deal. She had a deep political conviction that the strength of her kingdom depended upon the unity of all classes in the profession of religion. Was there an arrangement possible which would achieve that result ? a modus vivendi which should include a break with the Papacy, and also satisfy the Protestant reaction following the cruelty and corruption of Mary's reign ? an arrangement whereby men of intelli- gence might read the New Testament and yet worship side-by-side with pacified, but not converted, Catholics ? Elizabeth, whose natural gifts of diplomacy and intrigue had been finely sharpened by her perilous experiences under the rule of Mary, thought it was a matter to be managed by a measure of compromise and astute arrangement. The Mass must, though with hesitation, go. The services must be in the mother tongue. Of her brother Edward's two Prayer Books, the later and more evangelical should supply the general liturgical forms and the articles of faith ; the earlier and more Catholic, the ' ornaments,' including the vestments of the clergy. Let the Protestants reckon up their mercies, the real and substantial changes effected in the organisation of the Church. As for the Catholics, their attachment was to a form of worship. They had never been encouraged to think and argue ; the Latin of the offices meant little or nothing to them ; their priests in many cases could not have construed the text of the creed. And when they saw their old parish priests, the majority of whom conformed and kept their benefices, going about their busi- ness in the old and accustomed garments, they would suffer no shock, and insensibly fall into the new order. Such INTRODUCTORY 9 was her reasoning. She had presently to learn that those of her subjects who, unlike herself, had a conscience in these things, were not to be so easily managed. 4. The Vestiarian Controversy. The controversy upon the habits to be worn by the clergy, which raged throughout the early part of Elizabeth's reign, was no new issue. It was a legacy from the Protestant martyrs. John Hooper, one of the distinguished victims of the year 1555, when appointed under Edward to the See of Gloucester, spent some time in prison because he ' scrupled the vestments.' 1 Ridley, the chief agent under Archbishop Cranmer in the persecution of Hooper, when he neared his martyrdom, changed his views and declared the priestly apparel to be ' foolish and abominable, yea too fond for a Vice in a play.' 2 Old Hugh Latimer, violently disrobed as part of his ' degradation,' said with a touch of his native humour, ' Now I can make no more holy water ' ; an adequate com- ment on the proceeding. Ferrar of St. David's openly showed his dislike of the 'Aaronic habits.' Rowland Taylor, the martyr of Hadley, vestured against his will that he might be officially degraded, ' set his hands to his side walking up and down ' ; then in his merry way, for he was a wit as well as a saint, said to Bonner, ' How say you, my Lord ? Am I not a godly fool ? How say you, my Master ? If I were in Cheap[side], should I not have boys enough to laugh at these apish toys and toying trumpery ? ' l And of the same mind were Cranmer, John Rogers, Bradford, and others. It was inevitable, therefore, when Elizabeth determined to adopt the 'ornaments' as in the Prayer Book of 1549, that there should be a Vestiarian controversy. The pos- sible difficulties were discussed by the Exiles before their return. During the early months of her reign, when the external forms of worship were still undetermined by Eliza- beth for the ' settlement,' whatever divine and authoritative value it may possess for ecclesiastical disputants to-day, was 1 Strype's Cranmer, i. 302 f. 2 Foxc, Acts and Mon. vii. 543, 544. 3 lUd. vi. 691. io THE MARPRELATE TRACTS the Queen's own settlement strong hopes were entertained that a clean sweep would be made of these outward badges of the old persecuting and superstitious Church. That they should be swept away was probably the personal wish of all the bishops first appointed by Elizabeth ; with the possible exception of Kitchen and Curwen, who had changed sides so often that they cannot be credited with having had any conscience in the matter. Miles Coverdale, the eminent translator of the Scriptures, an old Edwardian bishop, and for that reason one of those who took part in ordaining Archbishop Parker ; John Foxe, the martyrologist, probably the most venerated man amongst all those who were eligible for high office in the Church ; both lived in poverty and neglect because they demurred to the vestments. Cox, Grindal, Home, Sandys, Parkhurst, Bentham, all about to be appointed to the Episcopate, exerted themselves to the utmost in the early days of the reign to exclude outright from the new ecclesiastical settlement all the Popish vestments and cere- monies. Even Matthew Parker, whose hand was heavy on those who refused the habits, had no love for them. John Jewell, writing to Peter Martyr, puts the matter vividly enough. He says, 'The scenic apparatus of divine worship is now under agitation ; and those very things which you and I have so often laughed at are now seriously and solemnly entertained ... as if Christ's religion could not exist without something tawdry. Our minds indeed are not sufficiently disengaged to make these fooleries of much importance.' l Writing to Bullinger and Lavater as late as 1566, he expresses the wish 'that all even the slightest vestiges of Popery might be removed from our churches, and above all from our minds.' 2 5. The ' Advertisments! For seven or eight years vestiarian conformity was not rigidly enforced. The diffi- culty of filling the vacant livings with suitable ministers was very great. Moreover those most opposed to the vest- ments were amongst the most earnest and successful of the clergy. Considerable irregularities, both in this respect and 1 Zur. Lett. i. 23. 2 Ibid. i. 148. INTRODUCTORY 1 1 also in regard to the sign of the cross, the interrogations and the answers of god-parents at baptism, and certain other matters prescribed in the Prayer Book, were expediently winked at. But towards the close of the year 1564 foreign affairs were once more becoming critical. Katharine de Medici had temporarily healed the internal dissensions in France, and a conference was held at Bayonne, whose real purpose was to afford an opportunity to the statesmen of France and Spain to devise means to crush the Protestant powers. Elizabeth, apprehensive of the result, and by no means averse to political intrigue, forthwith took her place in the game ; choosing, as many times before, the old Spanish opening, with a variation which also was not new. She revived her interest in King Philip's cousin, the Arch- duke Charles of Austria. Guzman, the newly-appointed ambassador from Madrid, soon had a taste of her quality, for with an air of deep sincerity she confided to him that at heart she was a Catholic. So deep were the prejudices of her subjects, owing to the burnings during the late reign, that it was necessary to hide from them for the time the true state of affairs. Guzman, in reply, told her Majesty how the ' preachers f were slandering her on account of the silver crucifix. With considerable spirit she replied that she would have crosses that is crucifixes in all the churches. To keep up the game it was necessary, by suit- able outward action, to disavow all sympathy with the growing demands of the reformers, and in this counsel she had evidently the support of Cecil. The results were serious enough to those who were to be her counters in the play. In the beginning of 1564-65 the Queen informs Parker she has determined upon strict uniformity in all public services in the churches. The Archbishop, in consultation with the Bishops and others, must ascertain the extent of the irregularities existing and take steps to remedy these defects. After some delay injunctions were prepared com- manding strict adherence to the prescribed order of service. These were sent to Cecil for the Queen's signature. But 12 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS the Queen was in no mind to bear the odium which should follow the action she desired. The men likely to be affected were among the most highly esteemed ministers in the land ; they were loyal of the loyal, in contrast with the Papists who were ever intriguing with the foreigner. Moreover, they had strong friends in the Council : Sir Francis Knollys, the Queen's secretary and relative ; the Earl of Leicester, her lap-dog cavalier ; Walsingham, the astute agent of her diplomacy ; the Earls of Bedford and of Warwick ; also Beale, the clerk of the Council ; these and others were per- sistent opponents of government by bishops. Besides, Elizabeth would argue, concerning the prelates, these creatures of her royal will, who owed their places and emoluments solely to her favour, where was their gratitude if they did not relieve her of the inconveniences following upon her royal caprice ? The Queen would not sign. If the ' book ' embodying the royal will be not sanctioned by the royal hand, says the fretting Archbishop, 'all that was done was but to be laughed at.' Later, grown desperate by the persistent refusal, he writes in confidence to Cecil that ' if the remedy is not by letter [he] will no more strive against the stream, fume or chide who will.' After some time spent in trying to shift the responsibility from the one party to the other, the Archbishop brought the matter to a head by publishing the well-known Advertisments indi- cating its source of authority in the title, which runs : Advertisments partly for due order in the pullique adminis- tration of common prayers and usinge the holy Saeramentes, and partly for the apparrell of all persons ecclesiasticall ly vertue of the Queenes majesties letters commanding the same, the xxv day of January, etc} The item which made the Advertisments an engine of persecution was contained under the head of 'Articles for doctrine and preachinge/ which prescribed ' that al licences for preaching graunted out by the Archebyshop and Byshopes w^n the province of Canterbury, bearing date before the 1 B.M. T. 775 (10), 4to, B.L., 15 pp. This, I assume, is the earliest edition. It is characterised by the spelling of the word 'Advertisments.' INTRODUCTORY 13 firste day of marche 1564 be voyde and none effect' ; but it instantly added that all ' mete for the office ' are to be readmitted ' without difficulty or charge/ paying only iiij pens for the writinge, parchement and waxe ' ; but, of course, subscribing to the order. This put an end to the old toleration. To many excellent men, including moderate Nonconformists such as Coverdale and Foxe, ' iiij pens,' plus subscription, was found too dear a price to pay. In the Preface a very distinctively eirenical note is struck, showing how Parker and his associate bishops were driven against their will by the commands of their imperious mistress. At the close of this document we read that the Queen, while enforcing them, is ' not yet prescribinge these rules as lawes equivalent with the eternall worde of God, and as of neces- sity to bynde the consciences of her subiectes in the nature of them considered in them selues : Or as they should adde any efficacye or more vertue of publique prayer and to the Sacraments, but as temporall orders meere Ecclesiasticall, without any vayne superstition, and as rules in some parte of discipline concerning decency, distinction, and order for the time.' The last phrase ' for the time ' beguiled the hearts of some of the evangelical ministers with false expectations. The tentative character of the regulations for public worship had been a ' door of hope ' since the days of Henry. Evidence of it can be seen in the Reformatio Legum, begun in his reign, advanced by spasmodic efforts during the reign of Edward, revived and suppressed under Elizabeth. The notable pamphlet A Petition directed to her Majesty [? 1590] directs particular attention to this qualification of the pre- scribed laws. The Bishops first appointed no doubt enter- tained hopes that the Popish ceremonials to which they objected were but temporary concessions to the cautious and diplomatic policy of the Queen. Writing to Parker who was then at Cambridge, not having yet accepted the primacy, Sandys says, ' The last book of service [Edward VI., 1552] is gone through with a proviso to retain the orna- ments which were used in the first and second year of 14 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS King Edward, until it please the Queen to take other order for them.' He then adds his commentary. ' Our gloss upon this text is, that we shall not be forced to use them, but that others in the meantime shall not convey them away, but that they may remain for the Queen.' l One of the Plumbers' Hall Nonconformists, in a letter from prison addressed to Grindal, then occupying the See of London, reminds the Bishop how he had said in a sermon that ' he was sorry to know he was grieving many godly consciences by wearing the apparel, requiring his auditory to have patience for a time, for that he did but use them for a time, to the end that he might sooner abolish them.' 2 It was a vain hope. The 'seekers after reformation' began at once to suffer from the new stringency. Thomas Sampson, dean of Christ Church, and Laurence Humphreys, regius professor of divinity at Oxford, and president of Magdalen, were evicted from their positions, and for a while were prisoners at large within the boundaries of London. But it was in London that the ministerial protest against Popish ceremonies and ornaments was most powerful ; and Parker in enforcing the uniformity prescribed in the Adver- tisments had in the city the additional difficulty that Bishop Grindal shirked the task ; would not do his share although a younger man than the primate, pretending he was too busy preparing important sermons for delivery at St. Paul's Cross. But all were not so reluctant to persecute. Arch- deacon Mullins had promptly called together the most influential and the most refractory of the city clergy immediately on the first receipt of the Queen's letter, inducing about a hundred to conform, eight only resisting. But a number of the hundred soon after broke away from the understanding, feeling that the Archdeacon had some- what rushed them into subscription. And for a while after the publication of the Advertisments no serious action was taken ; Parker and Grindal had some suspicion that it might subject them to a writ of premunire. But with the year 1 Parker, Correspond. 65. 3 Neal, Hist of the Puritans, i. 202. INTRODUCTORY 15 1566 Parker plucked up courage to proceed with the dis- agreeable task. On the 26th of March the London clergy were summoned to Lambeth before the primate and the Ecclesiastical Commission. One Robert Cole, who a little while previously had shown his contempt for the vestments by appearing at court in a short coat and hat, now thought better of his rebellion, and appeared before the company attired in canonical garments to indicate what was required of them. The proceedings were very peremptory. 'Ye that will presently subscribe write Volo ; those that will not subscribe write Nolo. Be brief ; make no words ! ' To many of the clergy it was a time of great trial. Parker reports that ' sixty-one conformed ; nine or ten were absent ; thirty-seven denied, of which number were the best and some preachers.' But the work of sequestration and deprivation went on without faltering, despite Grindal's fears of the spiritual destitution which would ensue. Some few found shelter behind great names ; a number took to secular employments Allen and Wyburn, leading men in the resistance, became farmers and many who had wives and children were reduced to dire poverty. The com- plaisant, however, were suitably rewarded with extra livings and benefices. Robert Cole was not forgotten. In addition to the rectory of Bow Church already held by him, it was thought his services as a dummy on which to display the vestments deserved the additional benefice of Allhallows in Bread Street. 6. Uniformity and Nonconformity. The significant result of the enforcement of uniformity was the creation of Nonconformity. English Protestant Nonconformity may very well be regarded as the child of the Advertisments ; augmented by each of the subsequent acts of uniformity, down to the sinister and disastrous edict of 1662. Much in our own day is said of the comprehensiveness of the State Church. In regard to doctrine a matter which had to wait till the more pressing questions of the external order of worship and the garments of the priests should be settled, while the Thirty-nine Articles of 1562 are of an 16 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS unquestionably evangelical character, declaring, for instance, that the ' Sacrament of the Lord's Supper was not by Christ's ordinance reserved, carried about, lifted up, or worshipped,' and describing the claims on behalf of the Mass to be ' blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits,' yet sufficient designed ambiguity remains to admit of widely varying interpretations of the declarations concerning the sacraments and their purpose. Nor is it by any means clear what ' ornaments ' are those of the first Prayer Book of Edward which received the sanction of Parliament. But having diplomatically settled that middle course of worship, retaining the old prelatical orders and dignities, herself as ' supreme governor ' replacing the headship of the Pope, and having consented to the Articles of Faith, the Queen set before her mind the ideal, not of comprehension, but of uniformity. Her standard was based upon politic con- siderations ; the Tightness or wrongness of such ecclesiastical dispositions entered nothing into her plans and devices. She chose what in her astute and cautious judgment was the safest way by which to travel, after repeatedly weighing the pertinent facts, domestic and foreign ; the bias of her own inclinations being towards a regal pomp in the trap- pings and etiquette of the services of the Church. In its results her policy follows the invariable law governing attempts to restrict the play of life and progress within human institutions. At each national awakening the living forces in the Church, oppressed by a rigid law of uniformity, have forsaken her courts, while she has become the refuge of reactionaries. In the great struggles for liberty and moral and social progress her official leaders have had but little to say, and not infrequently have been found in the ranks of the timid obstructionists. Nor has the Church, by its successive restricting Acts, succeeded in imposing uniformity upon its priests. When the more consistent have hived off, finding in liberty and poverty conditions highly favourable to their development and growth, the Church founded on the idea of exclusiveness and uniformity is to-day as full of nonconformity and division in regard to INTRODUCTORY 17 dogma and ritual as in the clamorous days of Elizabeth and Archbishop Parker. In order to enter her ministry her candidates must subscribe her Articles ; for dogmatic uni- formity is her law. But since they do not believe them in their simple grammatical sense, they sign them with mental reservation. They tacitly consent to the description of the Mass as a ' blasphemous fable and a dangerous deceit ' and then practise it. Her canons forbid certain sacerdotal vestments ; with these they adorn themselves. This course of conduct must surely tend to the enfeebling of the con- ceptions of moral integrity in public life. And here in 1566 we have the fateful beginnings of the process. The Advertisments demanded uniformity ; they produced Non- conformity. 7. The Literature of the Controversy. Driven as they were from all other methods of uttering their protest, the London reforming clergy, with the strong sympathy of many who subscribed with pain and difficulty, had resort to the powerful aid of the press, which, of course, they had to use secretly. They speedily published their Declaration, whose principal title ran : A brief e discourse against the outwarde apparell and Ministring garmentes of the popish church. It bears no author's name, and is dated 1566. It is prefaced by forty-eight lines in rhyme, which begin The Popes attyre whereof I talke I knowe to be but vaine : Wherefore some men that wittie are, to reade me will disdain. But the argument of the prose, it must be acknowledged, is somewhat better than the style of the poetry. The conten- tion of the writer is that the London ministers refuse to wear the ' garmentes of the Popes Church ' because they are not to edification ; simple Christians are offended by them, but Papists are encouraged. It is true that the Advertis- ments declare them to be not essential. Their use is there- fore to be defended on grounds similar to those employed for the retention of images ; attendants at church service C 1 8 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS are not required to worship them, but to exercise their strength in refraining from doing so. Why have them at all ? Why need a clergyman be dressed differently from other men ? Think of the illustrious men, some of them martyrs, some leading Continental reformers, men such as the great English apologist John Jewel, who have declared against their use. No, they will not recross the Red Sea into Egypt, the land of bondage. The prelatical reply, the Examination, as it was briefly named A briefe Examination for the tyme of a certaine Declaration lately put in print, etc. which came forth anonymously, about May 1566, but bearing the imprint of Jugge, ' Printer to the Queenes Maiestie,' gives an analysis of the Declaration. Half the remaining pages are occupied by letters written by Martyn and Bucer advocating com- promise. The chief contention of the writer is that the learned men are all against the Nonconformists, who are only a few in number, and the chief objectors among them are those that have been brought up ' in prophane occupa- tions.' Strype seems rather proud to claim the honour conjee turally of being the author of the Examination, for Archbishop Parker. But as the Vindication of James Peirce remarks, it reflects little credit upon the primate, for it is not sparing in coarse taunts and epithets. The bitterness of ecclesiastical controversy is frequently regarded curiously enough as a characteristic of the reform pamphlets; it is an opinion that probably can only be cured by reading the pamphlets of the period indifferently. Here the reader may find the beginning of coarse controversy. It received a reply probably within a few weeks, in an Answere for the tyme, published anonymously. The author denies the claim that all the learned are on the side of the Vestiarians. A free conference would show that a ' gret nomber of wise godlie and lerned men . . . nevar stayned with any recanta- cion or subscription, brought upp in all kinds of lerning, both of artes and toungs,' foreigners, as well as Englishmen of repute, agreed with the reformers, and ' of them partly ' had they ' lerned this judgment.' As for men of ' pro- INTRODUCTORY 19 phane occupations ' becoming ministers, what were Peter and Paul and all the Apostles ? Such men may have godliness and ability, but the Bishops were daily filling the churches with men ' whom nothing ells but a capp and a surples do make commendable.' Their business as Bishops should be to increase the workers in the divine harvest, and not to deplete the number for the sake of mere traditions. A thoroughly outspoken pamphlet by Anthony Gilby was originally published in this connection, entitled A pleasaunte Dialogue Betweene a Souldior of Barwicke [on Tweed] and an Englishe Chaplaine. ' Father ' Gilby, who was held in great esteem by the evangelicals, enjoyed the patronage and protection of the Earl of Huntingdon. He was assigned the authorship of a slighter pamphlet entitled, To my louynge brethren that is troublyd abowt the popishe apparall, two short and comfortable Epistels. Be ye constant : for the Lorde shall fyght for yow, yours in Christ. It appeared with a companion tract which had for its title, To my faythfull Brethren now afflycted and to all those that unfaynedly love the Lord Jesus, the Lorde guyde us with his holy Spret that we may always serve hym bothe in body and mynde in all synceryte to our lyves ende. There is also extant a small tract of eight pages, signatured E i.-iv. as though forming part of a series, which belongs to this discussion. It is put together with little literary skill. Its title is, Grace and peace with al maner spiritual feling and living worthi of the Jcindnes of Christ be with all that thrist [thirst] the will of God. These latter pamphlets besides repeating the arguments against the vestments, also indicate that the refractory ' seekers after reformation ' were getting into prison and needed consolation. Of an entirely different character to the previous defence of the Episcopal position, scarcely, indeed, to be described in any measure as a defence, but rather a conciliatory appeal to the offended reformers, was the tract entitled, A brief and lamentable consideration of the apparel now used by the Clergy of England : set out by a faithful servant of 20 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS God, for the instruction of the weak. It appeared late in 1566 or in 1567, and from the tone of its contents Con- formist, but outstandingly Protestant it was surmised to have been written by Jewel or Cox ; for it appeared with- out author's name. It is doubtful if Cox could be so conciliatory even to * weak ' and ignorant brethren ; the temper of the writing bears a stronger likeness to Jewel. It is an appeal to reason ; for no apparel, except it be pompous, is forbidden by the word of God, which also says nothing against the sovereign ordaining a meet uniformity of dress for all her clergy. The abuse should not forbid the use of anything. ' Some of the attyre wherewith the mumbling Mass hath been said ' is abolished ; the remainder cannot be called ' monuments of idolatry.' l Apart from its argument the tract reveals the condition and attitude of the newly -made Nonconformists. They have forsaken the Churches and their Popish ' ornaments/ and are gathering in the fields for the worship of God ; setting up also in certain of their houses ' private assemblies.' The writer seems to have had some sagacity in reading the signs of his times, and to have foreseen that it was the beginning of an ominous rift ; a rift which, as the succeeding centuries have seen, has divided England ecclesiastically into two alien camps. Very earnest therefore is his appeal to those who have, to their present misery, been compelled to subscribe Nolo. ' Idolatry is reproved ; why are you not contented ? Papistry is overthrown, why are you moved ? ' They might well have answered that, moved by a deeper instinct, they foresaw that the germ of idolatry and the occasion of Papistry being left, would one day rise up again in arrogance and power within the Churches that had yielded to compromise. Else the entreaty of the writer is somewhat moving. ' Concerning such as wear the apparel/ he asks, ' were they not banished [under Mary] for the profession of the Gospel ? Lost they not therefore their goods, and that willingly ? . . . Wherefore, dear brethren, join hands ; help forward the Lord's building : 1 Strype, Parker, iii. 144. INTRODUCTORY 21 let us be faithful labourers ; for we have of proud loiterers [Latimer's phrase] too many. To work, to work ; the harvest is great, and the workmen are few ! ' Excellently said, indeed ; but a sterile appeal all the same ; for the Episcopal ideal is uniformity and not comprehension. One of the most remarkable features in this early discussion was the receipt of a letter in the closing days of December 1566, written by the 'superintendent ministers and commissioners of charges within the realm of Scotland, to their brethren the Bishops and pastors of England, who have renounced the Roman antichrist, and do with them profess the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity.' The letter declines discussing the question absolutely, on its merits ; but it reminds the Bishops that they ' cannot be ignorant how tender a thing the conscience of man is. ... Your consciences reclaim not at wearing of such garments, but many thousands, both godly and learned, are otherwise persuaded. ... If surplice, corner cap, and tippet have been badges of idolaters in the very act of their idolatry, what have the preachers of Christian liberty, and the open rebukers of all superstition, to do with the dregs of the Romish beast ? Our brethren that of conscience refuse the unprofitable apparel, do neither damn yours, or molest you that use such trifles : if ye shall do the like to them, we doubt not but that therein ye shall please God.' l The reference above in ' the preachers of Christian liberty ' was to the most recent tract, which up- braided the anti - vestiarians for entrenching upon the liberty of those who chose to wear the vestments. But the whole letter, as Neal remarks, is conceived in an excellent spirit, and must have made some at least of those who were the instruments of oppression, exceedingly un- comfortable. 8. The Press Censorship. It would go hard if a public discussion on the vestments did not enlighten the people as to the merits of the case. By continuing the discussion the Archbishop stood to lose. The weakness of his case 1 Neal, Hist. v. App. II. vi. 22 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS was partly due to the fact now widely known that the Bishops had themselves striven hard to dispense with the ' garments of the Amorites.' * We who are now bishops/ says Grindal, 'on our first return, and before we entered on our ministry contended long and earnestly for the removal of those things which have occasioned the present dispute.' * Multitudes were now familiar enough with the contents of the New Testament, and had satisfied themselves that by its authoritative teaching the old order of official and sacrificing priests was gone, and its tailoring and millinery gone along with it ; nor was there any immediate and popular reply to the plain criticism of the common people, who said to the prelates in effect, ' You say you have given up the cruel Popish creed which lit the fires of Smithfield ; but when you were away in exile we saw the men who set fire to the faggots dressed in garments such as you are now wearing. You call the Pope antichrist; why do you wear the vestments of his sacrificing priests ? ' The appeal to ' decency and order ' was flouted. Why should ' decency and order ' be evermore associated with the ceremonies and ' ornaments ' of the Pope's Church ? It was therefore necessary to have recourse to a more powerful argument. To meet the exigencies of the situation, the Queen's orders were obtained to further restrain the press. Already by the Injunctions of 1559 (Art. 51), no printed matter could be published without the permission of the Council or of the Bishops. 2 The new Injunctions, issued the 29th of June 1566, are of a far severer character. They actually prohibit the publication of any adverse criticism on any law or statute, or any edict or injunction of the Queen or issued by her authority. Offending printers lost their licence and were imprisoned ' without bail or mainprise,' and every one concerned in the production or in the sale of an unauthorised publication was heavily fined half the 1 Zurich Lett. i. 169. 2 The article is quoted by Arber, Sketch, 49. The injunctions are given in extenso in Sparrow's Collections (1675), p. 65 ; and in Cardwell's Docu- mentary Annals, i. 178. INTRODUCTORY 23 fine going to the informer. The Stationers' Company had rights of search and seizure. 1 Such an injunction, if enforced effectively, would have made it impossible to obtain any further reform in Church or State. It was too oppressive to be effective. Laws which are over-strict and oppressive when applied to the discipline of strong races do not favour obedience; they breed defiance. For the next twenty years the secret press was always busy ; although efforts were made to make the censorship more stringent in 1586, at the instigation of Archbishop Whitgift and his High Commission, by confining the possession of printing presses to London, and one each and no more, at the two Universities. The censors, also, were to be the Archbishop and the Bishop of London. Civil authorities, it was found, could not be relied on to carry out with thoroughness the work of repression and persecution. 2 The edict of 1586, however, was an inefficient instrument, as the publication of the Marprelate Tracts proves. And less daring writings were printed secretly throughout the reign, either at home or abroad. 9. A Conventicle at Plumbers' Hall. A number of the least tractable, though perhaps the most influential of the revolters, were divided out amongst the Bishops, as their prisoners, but were released before long; as much to the satisfaction of the gaolers, doubtless, as to their own. But the movement continued to spread ; and the next year we have the first record of a number of Separatists being sur- prised while holding a ' conventicle ' ; an entry which was to become of painful frequency during the remainder of Elizabeth's reign, and under the Stuarts. On the 19th June 1567, a company of London citizens and their wives, in all about a hundred persons, assembled in the Plumbers' Hall ; ostensibly to celebrate a wedding ; but, in fact, as the Sheriffs' officers who broke upon the gather- ing found out, to hear a sermon and to celebrate the Lord's Supper. Most of them were arrested and lodged for the 1 Strype, Life of Parker, i. 442. 2 Strype, Whitgift, i. 143. For the rules see his App. III. 160 [No. xxiv.]. 24 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS night in the Compter. The next day the chief of them appeared before the Bishop, Dean Goodman of Westminster, Archdeacon Watts, and the Lord Mayor, Sir Roger Martin. 1 From their examination it was evident that the prisoners represented a new type of Nonconformist. Intolerance was weeding out the weaker elements in the revolt, and by a sterner examination of their premises, making the revolters more thorough and consistent in their views. These men were forming the left wing of the movement and were the more formidable in that they dropped the old compromises and freely accepted the logic of the situation. They went beyond the pitiful complaint against elevating the ' host ' and signing the cross and such like ; for these ' disliked the whole constitution of the Church lately reformed.' 2 They were of no mind to temporise with the old modified prelacy ; to them the Church did not consist of its ministry ; far less did its authority belong to a secular court ; to appoint a pastor otherwise than through the choice of the Church itself, seemed to them infringing upon the prerogatives of the most august social institution in the world ; one was their Master, and they all, ministers and people alike, were not a graded aristocracy, but brethren. They saw no successor to the Fisherman of Galilee in the gilded Prelate seated in his chariot, preceded by out-riders, and followed by a cavalcade of richly apparelled servitors and men-at- arms to maintain his high dignity. Grindal was very patient with them and tried to win them over by his conciliatory reasoning. He confessed he had performed the Mass, but he was sorry that he had. His prisoners told him he still went about in the habits of a Mass priest ; but he demurred. It was but a cope and a surplice he wore, and that only when at St. Paul's. The prisoners acknowledged that they had used an un- authorised service book, but they made an almost dramatic point when John Smith, ' the ancientest of them,' said it 1 The names of the prisoners examined before this court can be seen in Brook, Lives, i. 134, sub num. ' R. Hawkins.' 2 Strype, Grindal, 169. INTRODUCTORY 25 was the book used by the secret Church in London, in the terrible days of Mary ; the Church whose honourable but perilous office of pastor was filled by Master Bentham, pro- moted by the Queen to the See of Lichfield and Coventry, and Master Scory, promoted to Peterborough. 1 Shown Beza's letter by the Bishop, they replied that they were well acquainted with its contents ; that it told against the Bishops, not against them. In the end, twenty-four men and seven women of the company went to Bridewell. Grindal made every effort to ' reclaim them ' ; but in vain. He therefore got the Council to discharge them with a warning. The Bishop estimated the number of this section of Nonconformists in and about London to be about two hundred ; of whom there were more women than men. It is probably an under-estimate. He represents them as citizens of the lowest order, with whom were associated four or five ministers, remarkable neither for their judgment nor for their learning ; an account which reads like an extract from the Acts of the Apostles. He reports, as something out- rageous, that they openly separated ; meeting and ad- ministering the sacraments ' in private houses, sometimes in the fields, and occasionally in ships.' But the head and front of their offending was, that * they ordained ministers, elders and deacons, after their own way, and have even ex- communicated some who had seceeded from their church.' 2 They were by no means to be won over by the authority of great names ; even to be told that all the learned in Europe were against them did not suffice. The ' auncient man ' John Smith said, ' We revere the learned at Geneva and in all other places. Yet we build not our faith and religion upon them.' ' But who/ asked Goodman, ' will you have to judge the word of God ? ' Robert Hawkins replied, ' That was the cavil of the Papists in the time of Queen Mary. I have myself heard them say, when the truth was defended by the word of God, Who shall judge the word of God ? 1 Fowle, John Rough the martyr, Bernher, Latimer's faithful Swiss, also held this dangerous post. See Strype, Mfii/or/'cds, ill. ii. 132. 2 Zur. Lett. i. 210 ; date, June llth, 1568. 26 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS The Catholic Church must le the judge' x It was evident that these Separatists intended to cleave to the right of private judgment. 10. The Attitude of the Romanists and National Progress. The national weakness induced by the scandalous mis- government of the three previous reigns, never more flagrant than during the Spanish -Catholic regime under Mary, was sufficiently remedied by the year 1570 to enable the Queen to assume a more independent attitude in her diplomacy than hitherto her prudence permitted her to assume. The peril of the initial period of her reign was successfully weathered; thanks to Elizabeth's frugality and the prompt action of Cecil and the able men associated with him, in restoring the fleet and the national means of defence. Many other things had contributed to the position of advantage now occupied by Elizabeth ; not least among them the action of the Eomanists within her own borders. They were representatives of an alien system, subjects of a foreigner who claimed a temporal as well as a spiritual jurisdiction ; and from time to time little facts transpired, which showed that a section of them, at least, were traitors. The ' Rising in the North ' was an untimely splutter ; badly managed, where even the cleverest general- ship would have nothing availed. If anything were want- ing to make Catholicism impossible it was the effrontery of Pius V. in promulgating his bull of excommunication against Elizabeth, in February 1570. One Eelton affixed it to the town house of the Bishop of London, and for his pains became a Catholic martyr. By the terms of this bull the subjects of Elizabeth were ' absolved from the oath of allegiance and every other thing due unto her what- soever; and those which from henceforth obey her are innodated [bound up] with the anathema.' In various parts of the country copies of this traitorous document were distributed. No function could be more popular with the people, however, than a gathering to see it burnt by the common hangman. Many Catholics who shared the rising 1 Brook, Lives, 138, 142. INTRODUCTORY 27 enthusiasm in the growing strength and greatness of their native land, renounced their allegiance to the Pope. The spirit of nationalism is naturally unfavourable to the domination of Popery. An attempt at a Catholic rising in Norfolk aroused only the contempt and derision of the country. For many years, as a rejoinder, the date of the Queen's accession (Nov. 27) was celebrated by the populace with great rejoicing and festivity. The Pope's bull deepened the people's loyalty. Nor was there at this juncture much to be feared from the two Catholic powers. Spain with the revolt in the Netherlands had her hands full. France was once more torn by an internecine struggle. Elizabeth could look around her with greater calm and composure than at any time since she ascended the throne. The Council of Trent closed its protracted sessions in 1563. It gave expression to the extremer views of the Jesuit party and the reactionaries of the Counter- Reforma- tion. It imposed also a more rigorous discipline upon the clergy. So recklessly profligate had the priesthood been, from the Pope downwards, that it was counted an occasion for thankfulness that henceforward the celibate priesthood should be compelled to live decent moral lives. In England we learn from Jewel of the moral turpitude of the digni- taries who under Mary condemned and burnt Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer. 1 What the morals of the common priesthood were it is needless to inquire. It was a matter of serious complaint in Wales that the parish priests, who in almost all cases were the old Popish priests ' converted ' to the Queen's religion, although the Queen had consented to the marriage of priests, were continuing to live in pensionary concubinage. The discussions at Trent had stimulated the English Bishops to formulate Articles of Faith for their own Church. These were drafted chiefly by Parker, upon the basis of the Forty-two Articles of 1553, drawn up by Cranmer and Ridley. So far as they went they were an advance in the Protestant direction upon the Edwardian Symbol. 2 Article 1 Zur. Lett. i. 12. 2 See esp. articles xxviii. and xxix. on the Lord's Supper. 28 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS xx. is a new feature in the compilation of 1563. It claims for the English Establishment power to decree rites and ceremonies, and authority in controversies of the faith. Its origin has led to much discussion. The conclusion generally arrived at is that it was introduced by the Queen, then rejected by the Bishops. But, as in all her dealings with the Bishops, the Queen here also compelled their acquiescence in her will. Not, however, till 1571 were the Thirty-nine Articles sanctioned by the Queen and Parliament ; and then only after the most humble, almost grovelling, entreaty on the part of the Archbishop and Bishops. 1 11. The Queen's Suitors. The courtships of Elizabeth form one of the least creditable chapters in her history, nor would they merit any notice in our present connection, except that she used these episodes as elements in her diplomatic game with the Catholic powers, and modified her ecclesiastical policy at home so as to aid her in her high-political intrigue. About 1570 the Duke of Anjou, heir-presumptive to the crown of France, then worn by his brother Charles, came on the scene in the character of a suitor. He must have been the fifteenth or sixteenth aspirant to the Queen's hand. Anjou was a tool of his crafty mother Katharine de Medici. But that renowned European diplomat was deluded by the master -craft of Elizabeth. Even sapient old ambassadors, as full of guile as their skin could hold, chosen by France and Spain for their sinister gifts after that sort, were trifled with in a manner which the victims thought shocking when they dis- covered the deception. They entered with fresh zest upon the marriage negotiations, because, forsooth, they knew that Elizabeth now meant it seriously. They looked forward to her reconciliation speedily with the Vatican ; Monsignor assured his royal master that at heart she was as sound a Catholic as himself; and all Europe knew him to be a zealot. Nor can we have the slightest compassion for these dupes of the Queen. They were merely beaten by a woman 1 Park., Corresp. 292 ; White, Eliz. Bps. 47. INTRODUCTORY 29 at their own game. Nothing was farther from Elizabeth's mind than to subject herself to the suzerainty of the Pope ; nor had she ever any serious intention of marrying any one of the long procession of wooers who visited her court. Some she dismissed summarily. But when the sons of Katharine de Medici came on their amorous quest, the game was closer, and needed a deeper display of guile. Fortunately for himself, the overtures of the Duke of Anjou were not greatly prolonged, owing to the death of his brother Charles. When he ascended the throne Elizabeth's pro- crastination could not be further tolerated, so Francis mated elsewhere. But Katharine had another son, the Duke of Alenqon. Some demur was raised on this side of the Channel owing to his youth ; but it was shown to be no incompatibility. On the whole he was said by his friends to be a likely young man, though slightly pock-marked. Elizabeth managed to keep him dangling about until he died in 1584. When Spain was threatening, and it was needful to keep France very friendly, the attachment grew warmer. She exchanged rings with him, and kissed him openly before the members of her court. No doubt she had a taste for indiscreet if not risky philandering, such as she had indulged in as a girl with Sir Thomas Seymour, and in her early womanhood with Dudley. But it is certain that she never intended marrying Anjou, who, poor fool, played his part to the end sincerely enough. For twelve years Elizabeth had used him partly, perhaps, as a diver- sion, but chiefly as a tool in her diplomacy; and when he died and the farce was ended, she had the consummate assurance to write to his mother that her own consolation lay only in the prospect of death, when she might once more rejoin him. 1 There was a time, however, during the year 1570, when even her own ministers were deceived. So imminent did they believe the marriage with the Duke of Alen^on that ambassador and ministers were busy haggling over the marriage settlements, gravely stipulating as to the disposi- 1 Hume, Courtships of Eliz. 331. 30 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS tion of any possible issue of the union, Elizabeth being then forty-six and the Duke still under thirty. The people of this country grew excited at the prospect. Her marriage with any foreigner was sincerely disliked. The Puritans saw in d'Alen^on only the son of Katharine, and Katharine they credited with a principal responsibility for the massacre of St. Bartholomew. Very vigorous expression was given to their views in Thomas Stubbe's Gaping Gulph. The writer recorded, in undiluted fashion, the scandalous rumours about the physical and moral defects of Alenqon and all his family ; warned the country of the army of French parasites that would come over with him to feed upon the greenness of the old English oak ; ' these needie spent Frenchmen of Monsieur's traine, being of the contrary religion, and who are the scomme of the king's court, which is the scomme of Europe, when they seeke like horseleaches, by sucking upon us, to fill their beggarly purses to the satisfying of theyr bottomlesse expence.' But the chief offence of the tract, beyond doubt, was its plain discussion of the danger to a woman of the Queen's years of bearing a child, as she would learn, if she consulted ' hir faythfulest wyse physitians.' Elizabeth's action on the appearance of the Gaping Grulph was brutally vindictive. She had Page, the publisher, and Stubbe indicted under an old Act of Philip and Mary, and then condemned to have their right hands chopped off. The statute was of very doubtful application to the case, although renewed under the general covering Act passed at the beginning of Elizabeth's reign ; for it was of a purely personal character, passed for the protection of the hated Spanish Papist. Nevertheless the sentence was carried out on a stage at Westminster. Stubbe addressed a sympathetic crowd of spectators ; with a sad humour he asked for their prayers ' nowe my calamitie is at hande.' He managed to lift up his bleeding stump and cry out, ' God save the Queen.' * 1 The earliest enactment on this subject is the statute "Westm. 1. cap. 3 (3). Its terms may be briefly quoted. ' From henceforth none to be so hardy to tell, publish, or counterfeit any false newes or tales, whereby INTRODUCTORY 31 Section II. A House divided against Itself 1 . Episcopal Rearrangements. With the opening of 1 5 7 , while on the one hand the forces which make for civil and religious liberty are hardening themselves for a more resolute attack on the vested interests of intolerance and corruption, on the other hand, the Archbishop and his associates deter- mine upon a more vigorous attack upon the nonconforming members of the clergy and their lay abetters. The failure of the attempts to coerce the antivestiarians was only too plain. The rebellious movement was growing in town and country. The Archbishop concluded that it was no time to dally with the movement. Parker naturally ascribed much of the failure of his policy to the want of co-operation on the part of the Bishop of London. Grindal, though he embittered the reforming class more than enough by such measures of coercion as he weakly consented to, his real convictions being so well known, nevertheless in Parker's view was a mere trifler in the work of persecuting intractable evangelicals. It was necessary, therefore, to remove him out of the way if severer methods were to be successfully taken against the ' precisians,' as Parker was wont to call them. Grindal was therefore promoted to the archbishopric of York. In the north his principal difficulty would be with recusant Romanists ; to use the terrors of the law to suppress them was not so averse to his convictions. discord or matter of discord or slander may grow betweene the King and his people, or the great men of the realme.' The defence of the slanderer would naturally be that the slander was told him by another, and there is a quaint oriental justice in letting him lie in limbo till he or his friends have pro- duced that other person. This old Act was revived and extended as the 1 and 2 P. & M. cap. 3 under the heading 'Newes.' It was made to cover the since-discovered art of printing ; also to apply to attempts to stir up insurrection. But the chief difference between the original Act and its renewal under Philip and Mary lies in the penalties attached to the latter, which, besides ruinous fines, included the mutilation of the ears and hands. By 1 Eliz. cap. 7 the Act was extended to the person of the Queen. A judge of Common Pleas having asserted that the Act of Philip and Mary as renewed under Elizabeth did not apply to Stubbe's case, was sent to the Fleet Prison, and, refusing to retract, was removed from the bench. See Camden's Annals (1625), bk. iii. 14-16. 32 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS The choice of his successor in the See of London was, no doubt, a matter of much anxiety to the Archbishop. The choice fell upon Bishop Sandys. Edwin Sandys had given sufficient proof of his Pro- testant convictions by participating in the Lady Jane Grey conspiracy. But from his prison he so successfully pro- tested his innocence that Bonner released him. Bonner was a very short time in discovering that he had made an error in releasing so thorough-going a Protestant. He therefore ordered his rearrest. His pursuivants tracked Sandys to the Channel, only to see, bounding over the waves, the ship that bore him to freedom. In his exile he spent some time with the advanced Zuinglian reformers of Zurich. Returning home on the death of Mary, he was one of the most zealous for the complete purification of the Church from all Papistry. His letter to Parker on the vestments has already been quoted. He greatly laments the idol crucifix in the Queen's chapel ; but has the satisfac- tion of telling his Zurich correspondent that when acting as visitors in the north he and his colleagues not only tore down all images, but also burnt them. ' Only the Popish vestments remain in our Church,' he says, and these he hopes not for long. 1 These are not the qualifications which would indicate that Sandys was a suitable agent to harry and persecute men whose desire also was to deliver the Church from the remnants of Popery, especially the ' Popish vestments.' Yet no sooner was he well settled in the diocese of Worcester than the Archbishop has to remon- strate with him for his excess of severity. His reply was that since he was under the yoke himself, for no doubt he detested these things in his heart, he was resolved his people should 'draw in the same yoke' with him. 2 It is true he was equally forward in coercing the Romish recusants. His measures of reprisal on hearing of the St. Bartholomew's Massacre were not wanting in vigour. They began, ' Forthwith to cut of[f] the Scottish Queenes head.' 3 1 Zur. Lett. i. 74. 2 Ibid. 126 ; see esp. White, Eli::. Bps. 99. 3 White, 103 ; Ellis, Orig. Lett. (2nd Ser.) iii. 25. INTRODUCTORY 33 Still the cases of the delinquents were not quite parallel. The Roman Church had been abolished by reason of her barbarity and corruption ; nor could her followers, since the promulgation of the bull denouncing Elizabeth, be loyal citizens of the realm, except by ceasing to be loyal subjects of the Pope. But the Puritans, whom Sandys proceeded to persecute without allowance of mercy, suffered only for convictions which he secretly held himself. 2. The New Policy in Operation. Promptly on January 10th, 1571, the new Bishop of London held his primary visitation, at which he straitly charged his clergy to con- form in every particular to the standard of the Prayer Book. The old ' tolerations,' under which the irregular ministrations of men like Coverdale, Foxe, Humphreys, and Sampson were winked at, were called in. Even the Romish service at the house of the Portuguese ambassador, which a few Catholics furtively attended, must be suppressed. If Burleigh will give his consent, my lord Bishop will put an end to this ' idolatry ' and bring to a suitable frame of mind the ' proud Portingale ' himself. 1 But two years of this ' stirring and stout ' policy disillusioned him. By that time his high robustious tone has evaporated. The sons of Zeruiah have been too many for him. He wants further powers ; Field and Wilcox, both just released after their year's imprisonment, Cartwright, and some others, who are esteemed as gods, must be banished far from the city. Of himself he writes, ' Our estimation is little ; our authority less. So that we are become contemptible in the eyes of the basest sort of people.' 2 He is discovering the vice of coercion ; it is evermore clamouring for a few more faggots to cast upon the fire, only in the end to find that there is in the human conscience a divine stubbornness which is able to defy oppression. 3. TJie Puritan Counter -movements. The advocates of reform determined to oppose the fresh outbreak of Episcopal persecution by strictly constitutional methods. Therefore, 1 Strype, Annals, n. i. 315. 2 Strype, Whitgift, iii. 33, 34. 34 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS at the Convocation which assembled at the beginning of April 1571, Gilbert Alcock, a member of the Lower House, earnestly besought that a more lenient treatment should be meted out to their brethren who ' scrupled the vestments,' and had one or two other difficulties in obeying the cere- monies as prescribed. Alcock's efforts met with a sorry result. In place of hearing his prayer, more rigorous canons were framed, demanding subscription, not only to the contents of the Book of Common Prayer, but also to the ' little book,' the ' pontificall,' as the reformers in their hatred named it, containing the order for the ordaining of priests and bishops. The reformers also sought the help of Parliament. In the House of Commons they met with more sympathy. The layman is less inclined to find edification in a routine of priestly ceremonies or in a display of priestly garments. To the male mind these latter always seem a piece of effeminacy. In the Parliament of 1568, Strickland, an ancient member of the Commons' House, had introduced a Bill for the further reformation of the Church, and found a sympathetic audience for the lengthy speech in which he commended his proposals to abolish the superstitious elements in the ordinance of baptism ; to redress the scandal of Papists exercising ecclesiastical government and holding great livings ; of boys after the old Popish corrup- tion being dispensed to spiritual promotion, their fathers receiving the emoluments and starveling curates filling the offices ; of granting faculties to notoriously incapable men, and of authorising pluralism. The cautious Cecil saw danger ahead. If there were errors in doctrine, he said, they should be remedied presently ; ceremonies, however, were to be referred to the Queen, ' who had authority, as chief of the Church, to deal therein.' The House adjourned for Easter, and her Majesty, greatly disliking the interference of the Commons with 'matters above their capacity/ had the ancient Strickland summoned before the Privy Council. No definite judgment was passed upon him, but when the House resumed its sittings on Friday in Easter week, INTRODUCTORY 35 Strickland was absent, he having been tentatively pro- hibited from taking his seat. Great as was their loyalty, the members openly resented this gross violation of their rights. The gravity of the situation was recognised by the Lord Treasurer, who in conciliatory tones assured the House that 1 the man that meant was ' Strickland's name had not been mentioned was suffering no ill-usage, nor was his absence owing to his speech ; but to the Bill which infringed the Queen's prerogative. This explanation little suited the temper of the House, as was at once seen from the bold speech of Yelverton, a leading personality among the members. ' The precedent was perilous/ he declared. The House was competent to discuss any matter short of treason. It had even plenary power to determine the right of the Crown ; to say otherwise were high treason. ' The prince could not of herself make laws : neither might she for the same reason break laws.' There were mingled counsels following this brave speech ; but the general current of opinion ran strongly in favour of further discussing the corruptions existing in the Church. And as they assembled the next day, Saturday, to further consider these questions, it was noticed that Strickland quietly walked in and took his place. But if they resented the excessive assumption of personal authority on the part of the Queen, much more warmly did they resent the arrogation of irresponsible authority to them- selves by the Prelates. Thus, when the Commons' proposals for reformation were presented to the Committee of Religion, composed of representatives of the Commons and of ' the lords of the spirituality/ Archbishop Parker observed the omission of certain articles those on the Homilies and the consecration of Bishops and was told by Peter Wentworth, that the members had not had time to consider them. Parker retorted that they had mistaken the matter, and added pontifically, ' You will refer yourselves wholly to us [Bishops] therein.' Wentworth replied with warmth, 'No by the faith I bear to God, we will pass nothing, before we understand what it is. For that were to make you popes. 36 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS Make you popes who list ; for we will make you none.' 1 4. The 'Admonition to Parliament* The coercive policy of Archbishop Parker grew in severity to the close of his life. The reform leaders therefore determined upon a bold movement. Parliament was still theoretically, and to some degree, in fact, the guardian of public liberties. Tyrannical rulers have ever found support from prelates ; but the members of the House of Commons set a higher value on the constitutional liberties of the country than did the priests. Certainly the Parliament which met on the 8th of May 1572 was not composed of men who would bow their necks willingly to a clerical yoke. The reformers therefore determined to appeal to Parliament. They drew up their celebrated Admonition ; two of their number, John Field of Aldermary and Thomas Wilcox, sometime minister of Honey Lane Church in Cheapside, acting as their scribes. Strype states that it was never presented ; but Neal, having access to superior Nonconformist sources of history, is able to tell us that it was actually presented to the House of Commons. It was presently printed and widely circulated, and marks an important stage in the ecclesiastical history of the reign. It gave rise to an important controversy, and led the way directly to the still greater Marprelate Con- troversy. It appeared as a small octavo tract of sixty pages, without title-page. A brief preliminary address, after the manner of the time, precedes the Admonition proper. It begins The Writers profere to your godly considerations a true platform [plan] of a church reformed, to the end that it beyng layd before your eyes, to beholde the great unlikeness betwixt it and this our english church. They discount beforehand the opposition of high -placed church dignitaries, whose kingdom must be subdued, ' because their tyrannous Lordshippe can not stande wyth Christes kingdome.' Proud titles and ostentatious parade 1 Strype, Annals, n. i. 88. INTRODUCTORY 37 are responsible for the backwardness of the Church. The Bishops, moreover, ill-use ' theyr fellowe seruauntes/ because of ' their own childishe Articles ' ; calling them by odious names such as ' Puritanes, Donatists,' etc. The 'Admonition' then follows. Knowing well Eliza- beth's view of her prerogatives, the writers address the members as God's servants ; their concern is with the highest things ; there is nothing higher than to purify the Church from Eomanism. A true Church has three outward marks: (1) the ' preachyng of y e worde purely'; (2) the ' ministering of the sacramentes sincerely ' ; and (3) ' ecclesiastical discipline.' In regard to the first character- istic, it is enough to refer to the nature of the ministry and its qualifications. The establishment should be com- pared to the primitive Church. The ' olde Church ' elected its ministers only after careful inquiry. The Bishops, on a gentleman's recommendation, ordain 'tag and rag, learned and unlearned, of the basest sorte of the people.' The ' olde Church ' differed greatly from the Bishops' Church, in that it excluded 'idolatrous sacrificers,' elected its own ministers. Advowsons were now bought with money. 1 The Bishops now make ministers indiscriminately, '60. 80. or 100. at a clap'; sending them abroad like 'masteries men ' [tramps]. Nor can they now ordain without ' an albe, a surplesse, a vestiment, a pastorale staffe,' and they employ blasphemously the words, ' Receaue the holy Gost.' Of the sacraments the authors complain of the private administration and of the pretence of interrogating infants at baptism. They also demand apostolic discipline. In this connection they quote their classic text, ' Tell it to the Church ' ; 2 a text that assumes the existence of a Church to which a complaint could be told. ' Then it was said, tell the Church ; now it is spoken complaine to my Lords grace, Primate and Metropolitane of all England ' ; or else to the Bishop, or to the Chancellor. 3 The second section of the Admonition is a ' Viewe of Popishe abuses yet remaining in the Englishe Church.' The 1 A ii. vers. 2 Matt, xviii. 17. 3 B i. rers. 38 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS High Commission accounted the refusal of the Noncon- formists to subscribe as sedition. Parliament is entreated to afford them an opportunity of purging themselves of that false charge. Then the writers proceed to discuss the three articles presented for subscription. First, that the entire contents of the Prayer Book * be such as are not repugnante to the worde of God.' On this point they say that as a fact they have used the Prayer Book. They shrink from subscription, because it is ' an unperfect booke, culled and picked out of that popishe dunghill, the Masse booke ; full of abominations.' The Bishops deceive themselves over the word ' repugnant/ as though nothing could be obnoxious to such a charge unless it were ' expressly forbidden by plaine commandment/ To ask them to subscribe not only to the Homilies ' already set out,' but also to ' those hereafter to be set oute,' they think is distinctly unfair. They cannot observe saints' days, for the quaint reason that they are commanded to labour six days that is, no less. The superstitious elements in the observances of baptism and marriage are an offence to them ; ' women coming bareheaded [at marriages] with bagpipes and fiddlers before them to disturb the congregation ' ; confirmation by the Bishop alone is unscriptural that is, it should be the act of the Church ; the prayer at burials is virtually a prayer for the dead ; and the churching of women is a superstition ' smelling of Jewishe purification.' * An interesting light is thrown upon the character of public worship in an ordinary town or country church. The Admonition says it is not to edification. The singers ' tosse the Psalmes in most places, like tennice balles.' During the service the people, some standing, some walking, some talking, some reading, some praying by themselves, attend not unto the minister. Then the minister often races through the service ; perhaps he is a pluralist and must rush off to his next charge ; or 1 C iii. INTRODUCTORY 39 he is anxious not to be late for the Sunday afternoon games as lying for the whetstone, heathenish dancing for the ring, or a beare or a bull to be baited, or else Jacke an apes to ride on horsebacke, or an enteiiude to be plaide ; and if no place can be gotten, it must be done in the churches. 1 The ' pontificall ' and the whole range of prelatical offices are repudiated ; also cathedral churches which afford them sinecures those ' dennes ... of all loytering lubbers.' Very strong objection is taken to the corrupt ecclesiastical courts, among which the Archbishop's Court has a bad pre-eminence. It was a favourite policy of the medieval Church to fix severe restrictions on the liberties of the people, so that the Church officials might drive a lucrative trade in granting dispensations. When the Reformation visited England, it was an easier matter to abolish the dogmas of Popery than to abolish this source of income. There was not the slightest difficulty in being married in Lent, Advent, or ' gange week ' [Rogation] ; it was simply a matter of fees. To eat flesh at prohibited times was a luxury any one could purchase for money. To dispense boys to hold benefices was pure corruption ; ' tollerations for non-residentes,' ' bulles to have two benefices,' or more, the substitution of a proxy in a sentence of excommunica- tion for debt were also corruptions ; but these reprehensible irregularities were sanctioned for money. 2 Under the examination of the second article requiring subscription, among other things the Bishops are charged with inconsistency in regard to the prescribed clerical apparel. The ' grey amise,' for which something might be said as originally a layman's garment, is rejected as a vestment defiled with superstition ; and yet they allow copes, cap, surplice, tippets, and other things. 3 Lastly, there is the third article ; its concern is with the creed of the Church. The 'Articles of Religion,' specially identified as those agreed upon in the year 1562, inasmuch as they 1 C iii. vers. 2 D i. vera. 3 D iii. 40 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS had not at the time received the sanction of the Queen and Parliament, give the Nonconformists little trouble. c Using a godly interpretation in a point or two,' they approve of them. We have given so much space to the contents of this small pamphlet, because it enables us to understand the position occupied at this time by a large and thoughtful class of those seeking the further reformation of the Church ; and also because of its historic importance in the development of the ecclesiastical conflict of the reign. Its success was immediate, and, according to the experience of the time, very great. Despite the activity of censor and pursuivant, four editions were issued before the close of the year. The first edition was circulated soon after midsummer. 5. The Admonition to the Parliament Controversy. No one observed the growing circulation of this constitutional appeal with greater anxiety than Parker. The Admonition was dangerous, because it was small. The people are not reached by quartos and folios ; this brochure could be carried about in their pockets ; it supplied them with clear and concise objections to the imperfectly-reformed English institution ; it explained to the populace why so many men of good repute at this time chose rather to abide in the foul prisons and to be ruined by fines and the neglect of their proper business, rather than to conform and subscribe. The Archbishop therefore determined upon instant action. First, he had Field and Wilcox, known to him probably because they carried their ' Admonition ' to the House of Commons personally, cast into Newgate, though it was an utterly lawless proceeding. Elizabeth's fourth Parliament was prorogued on June 2 9th ; the two men were arrested about a week earlier. 1 The press and the printer entirely 1 Neal gives the date of the imprisonment, wrongly, as October 2nd ; Petheram says October 8th. Brook, quoting the Second Parte of a Register, comes nearer the truth, and gives the date as July 7th, though he records a Conference on September llth, at which Wilcox says they have been in prison ' nearly three months.' Field writes from Newgate to Anthony Gilby on August 4th, and says he has been in close prison ' these six weekes. ' The close imprisonment shows how vindictive Parker had become. See Baker MSS. (Camb.), Mm. i. 43 (443) ; Neal's Hist. i. 231 ; Brook's Lives, i. 319 ; ii. 186 ; and Petheram's Notes to THE EPISTLE. INTRODUCTORY 41 escaped the search. The Archbishop in the next place appointed Thomas Cooper, recently elevated to the See of Lincoln, whose close acquaintance we shall have to make a little later, to reply to the pamphlet from the open-air pulpit at Paul's Cross, on Sunday, June 27th. We learn Cooper's main points from An Answer to it which was published. 1 He thinks it wise to accuse the nonconforming critics of purposely hindering the Gospel, and 'gaping for [the Bishops'] livings.' If it were true, as the Bishop said in his sermon, that, although every parish ought to have a preacher, it was impossible to supply the twenty thousand men needed, the greater the Prelate's folly to deprive capable men for not wearing their ' gay gear/ says the Answer. The heathenism of the country justified the appointment of incapable men, urged the Bishop ; the Answer replies that the New Testament times were truly heathen, but it commands that only those should be ordained who were 'able to teach.' Bishop Cooper says, in mitigation of the situation, that the unlearned ministers at least read clearly and distinctly, whereas the Papists ' glory to mumble mattins swiftly ' ; the Answer tells him he cannot know how irreverently the service is got through by those ' galloping Sir Johns in the country that have licence from [him] and other bishops to serve two or three cures.' Cooper claims for the Church greater freedom from unprofitable ceremonies than was the case with any other communion ; he is pointed, in reply, to the foreign Churches in this country. He quotes the Fathers ; but Bishops only quote them when they are favourable. Would Cooper quote Cyprian in favour of child communicants and the reserved sacrament ? The author of the Answer had a capable gift of satire. Cooper claims for the government of the Church the support of ' every godly man in Europe. ' He is asked if he has travelled so extensively as to know this. The Answer understands that he was ' never yet out of this realm' there was no religious reason why he should go into exile on the accession of Catholic Mary. 1 Strype, Annals, u. i. 286 et seq. 42 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS Nor could he have gained the knowledge from the writings of the learned foreigners. It was but yesterday [on the accession of Elizabeth] that he became a divine. The Queen made him a Bishop because he published another man's book, or rather a compilation of two books by other men, under his own name. Cooper cannot avoid the conventional Episcopal method of controversy. The reformers have demanded the reform of the cathedral churches. He shakes his weather-wise old head and says that they wish ' in like sort ' the ' overthrow of colleges and universities.' The punishment meted out to the reformers has been severe and ruinous. Cooper calmly assumed it was trifling, by calling loudly for severer punishment to be applied alike to 'papists and zealous gospellers.' The Answer replies that the ' poor Protestants have been reduced to beggary already ; and have been even cast into the foul dungeons of Newgate. What more can the Bishop have, but their lives ? They have been handled more cruelly than the Papists.' ' Had not Bonner, while he lived, his strumpet resorting to him daily ? Have not the prisoners which were removed out of the Tower to the Marshalsea, the liberty of the whole house ? ' None were forbidden to visit these prisoners, some of whom the Bishops took home to their own houses and ' made them good cheer.' While Field and Wilcox were in prison, their friends outside took up the fray. The Admonition was issued in an enlarged form. Along with it was A Second Admonition to Parliament, ascribed by an unvarying tradition to Thomas Cartwright. This pamphlet takes up the controversy with skill and energy. It remarks that there must be something gravely wrong about their books, else they have ' a great deale of wrong offered [them].' Field and Wilcox, says Cartwright, are harshly treated ; for close imprisonment in Newgate is ' next dore to hanging.' But those still out of prison who are carrying on the warfare, are in a perilous position. Cartwright would have published 'some other thynges,' but for the relentlessness of the search instituted. INTRODUCTORY 43 It reveals how easily men are moved by material considera- tions to find that Day, celebrated as a Protestant printer, who issued Foxe's Acts and Monuments, the works of Latimer, Becon, and Grindal, and also those of the pronounced Puritan Anthony Gilby, should have entered zealously in company with Toy ' the bookbinder ' into this work of tracking an unauthorised press. The printer of a small pamphlet issued at this time, entitled, Certaine Articles collected . . . ly the Bishops out of . . . an Admonition, puts the same complaint into some doggerel lines Thys worke is fynished thankes be to God And lie only wil keepe us from the searchers rod. And though Master Day and Toy watch and warde We hope the living God is our sauegarde. Still, in spite of the strict censorship, Cartwright's ' other thynges ' shortly appeared, prefaced by a vigorous letter of introduction. Is plain speech such a sin ? it asks. The old prophets, if now living, would have been cast by the Bishops into ' y e Marshalsea | the White Lion | the Kings Benche | the Gatehouse | or other prisons : yea (and rather than they should be unprisoned), to Newgate with them as fast as they can trotte.' 1 Why, he asks, should not the Prelates be criticised ? The first of the tracts thus introduced is An Exhortation to the Byshops to deal Brotherly with their Brethren. The persecutors still refer to the reformers as ' brethren/ even while condemning them to the damp, fetid cells of Newgate. ' Contrarye to theyr profession ' they ' deale so unchristianlye with theyr brethren/ The Bishops are appealed to ; for they, and not the civil authorities, are the oppressors. 2 Their dread of innovation, so characteristic of the bureau- cratic mind, is quietly ridiculed ; as though it were so extraordinary a thing to reform a Church. The second tract, intended by the printer to be bound up with the first, is An Exhortation to the Bishops and their Clergie to 1 The date of this letter is given : ' From my chamber in London | this 30. of September 1572.' a Sig. A ii. 44 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS aunswere a little booke that came forthe the last Parliament. It repeats the familiar arguments, adding a note of personal resentment against the beneficed Pharisees of the Establish- ment. It is not the kind of ' exhortation,' one would suppose, which would be likely to induce Parker and Sandys to draw the bolts of Newgate. The prisoners suffered severely. The Archbishop, writing on December, complains of ' this hard winter ' ; and Field, addressing his friend from Newgate, might well say, ' the Pillers of our Churche shew them selues mercyles Persecutors.' 1 The open policy of the Bishops was now to accuse the writers and supporters of the Admonition of ' Arrianisme, Quintefeldianisme, Puritanisme, and very often of Rebellion and Treason.' 2 Acting, therefore, on Gilby's suggestion, Field drew up a statement of his belief and his fellow- prisoner's. Its chief distinguishing points are as follows : No excellence in the ' service ' can release the pastor from preaching ' deliverance through Christ.' His special office is not to read the Scriptures in public, though that be allowable. Separation is only justified by credal exclusive- ness and coercion. The moral life of the Church and the case of the poor is the care of the pastor, in conjunction with the elders and deacons ; but the authority of pastor over pastor, or church over church, is repudiated. The Church is not an indiscriminate crowd of parishioners ; but ' gathered out of the world ' by preaching, and qualified as members by their Scriptural piety. On the test question of the appointment of the minister (or pastor) they declare he should be chosen by the members of the Church ; and con- firmed by the elders, ' with public prayer and imposition of hands.' Churches, without essential disunion, may differ as to ceremonies ; though all should be simple and free from Popery. All have not the gift of prayer, therefore a pre- script form of prayer may be used ; always granted that the form be ' not patched out of the Pope's portuises [breviaries].' Religion is tied to no time, and saints' days are utterly 1 Baker MSS. (Camb.), Mm. i. 43 (444). 2 L. Tomson to A. Gilby, ibid. INTRODUCTORY 45 disliked. The authority of the magistrate, even in extreme cases, is freely acknowledged. But it is his duty to establish true religion and to extirpate superstition and infidelity. 1 In this latter respect, though they were unconscious of the fact, they differed little from their persecutors ; for Parker quoted the Queen's authority for all that he did. They might have reflected that, although they would have allowed a larger liberty of difference in externalities, and did agree theologically with their persecutors, yet they were in Newgate because it happened that Parker had the opportunity of putting their common theory into practice ; and being a hard man, he did it with little mercy. It was perilous at this time to express even an opinion favourable to the Admonition. Sandys complains that Crick, chaplain to the Puritan Bishop of Norwich, had done so before the crowd at Paul's Cross. Wake, Canon of Christ Church, Oxford, did so at the same place under more scandalous circumstances. The Bishop, previous to the sermon, had put certain questions to him, which Wake had been able to answer without committing himself, or arousing the Bishop's suspicions. In both cases, though he sent betimes to apprehend the offenders, they had managed to depart before the arrival of the pursuivants. He bitterly declares, ' By Gods help I will foresee that hereafter the like fall not out.' 2 6. John Wliitgift selected as Bishop's Advocate. No sooner had the Archbishop realised the character and popu- larity of the Admonition than he at once saw the necessity that a literary reply to it should be provided. This little work aroused especial interest in many quarters as a primary attempt at formulating for popular use the views of the advanced Church reformers ; and its success was undeniable. It found ' great applause among the green heads of the university.' 3 The appointment of Cooper of Lincoln to fill the pulpit at Paul's Cross and talk round the subject was 1 Neal's History, i. 234 n. 2 Strype, Whitg. iii. 32. [Append. Bk. I. No. xvi.] 3 Paule's Whitg. (Wordsworth's Lives], 330. 46 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS but a stop-gap arrangement. A more weighty pronounce- ment was demanded by the exigencies of the situation. Moreover, an event happened within a couple of months of the appearance of the Admonition which greatly aggravated the demand for the utter purification of the Church from every remnant of Popery. On St. Bartholomew's day, August 24th, a fiendish massacre of Protestants took place in France. In the capital ten thousand persons, in the provinces twenty thousand, were butchered, no regard being had to sex, age, or social distinction in the murderous fury of the Romanists. The smell of blood came across the Channel. It was with a hang-dog demeanour that the French ambassador appeared at the English Court ; where, indeed, he received the chilliest of receptions. He found Elizabeth and her Court dressed in mourning. But out of doors more cogently than ever the question was asked, Why should our ministers go on wearing the ' livery of the Roman Anti- christ,' imitating his form of worship, practising his super- stitions, and maintaining his corrupt ecclesiastical courts ? Clearly, it was needful that something should be done to regulate this dangerous and rising current of opinion. The difficulty was that the Church was not rich in men of the calibre and of the special gifts required. Jewel, the learned Bishop of Salisbury, died the previous autumn. Parkhurst had marked literary gifts ; but his soundness was suspected. The Archdeacon of Lincoln, John Aylmer, had written a notorious book, An Harborrowe for FaitJifull and Trew Subiectes, full of vigorous rhetoric ; but that essay in authorship satisfied his literary ambition for the rest of his days. The abler writers of the time were to be found in the opposite camp. Many of the needful qualifications were, however, possessed by Dr. John Whitgift, Dean of Lincoln and Master of Trinity College. Two years previously he had filled the honourable office of vice-chancellor of the Uni- versity of Cambridge. He had achieved some fame by his encounters at Trinity with Thomas Cartwright, his learned and eloquent successor as Lady Margaret professor of divinity. In the contest Cartwright was stripped clean INTRODUCTORY 47 of all his college and university honours. It was early remarked of Whitgift that he never dealt in half-measures. So the lot fell upon him to vindicate the Episcopal position. As the pronouncement was to be of an official and repre- sentative character, he worked in collaboration with Parker and several of the Bishops, and others Cox of Ely, Cooper of Lincoln, and Wickham, Dean of the same cathedral, and his own choice friend Andrew Perne, Master of Peterhouse, an Elizabethan ' Vicar of Bray,' among the number. His manuscript was circulated among them and received their observations and additions. To the Archbishop he sub- mitted his work with a very marked deference and humility. The final part was ready in the latter part of October and despatched to the Primate, ' to correct it as it should seem good to him. 3 The result of the united judgments of the consulting Bishops can be seen in the style of the work, which is a remarkable congeries of tracts. It is entitled, An Answer e to a certen Libel intituled An Admonition to the Parliament, ly loJin Whitgifte, D. of Diuinitie a well-printed quarto in black letter. The work contains the entire text of the Admonition, paragraph by paragraph, in the course of its confutation. It opens with a Dedicatory Epistle ; then follow in due succession, A Briefe examination of the reasons of the Admonition ; an address To the Christian Reader ; Cor- rection of faultes escaped an extended list notwithstand- ing the conjoint editorship ; an Exhortation to such as be in authority ; Examination of the Preface to the Admonition ; Answere to the Admonition; Additions, detractions, and alterations in the second part of the Admonition ; Letter of Master Gualter in Latin ; the same in English ; Latin Epistle from Master H. Bullinger ; the same in English ; A briefe answer to certain Pamphlets spred abroade of late ; a briefe viewe of the Second Admonition ; Articles collected out of the former Admonition and untruly said to be falsified. A still augmented edition was issued from the press towards the end of July 15*73. So far as the 48 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS contest went, it was much like the engagement some years later between the lofty Spanish galleon and the small but active English ship. The brief work of Field and Wilcox was being issued without cessation from the secret press; and the reformers might well have left the issue where it was. The Bishops for their part determined that the Answere should be the final word in the controversy. They obtained from Elizabeth a fresh proclamation, dated June llth, call- ing in every copy of the Admonition and all books written in its defence. The activity of the Censorship was greatly increased. Their pursuivants discovered at Hampstead a secret press and some cases of type, which they hired out to Bynneman, Whitgift's printer. But increasingly difficult as the task had become, the reforming party determined to follow up the controversy. Field and Wilcox write from Newgate that they hope Whitgift's book will receive a reply; but because their enemies 'seeke by some second offense to condempne them to perpetuall Imprisonment, therefore by advise they stay their pennes.' l The matter was by the consent of the leaders left in the hands of Thomas Cartwright. The Admonition may be said to have given currency to the views set forth in his Cambridge lectures on the Acts of the Apostles. Meanwhile Sandys, Bishop of London, who was most forward in obtaining the Queen's proclamation, had to confess its failure. Twenty days after its publication, although there were thousands of the Admonition in circulation in and around London, not a single copy was brought in. The Admonition controversy now resolved itself into a literary duel between Whitgift and Cartwright. Fuller makes the obvious remark, that Whitgift had more material force at his command. He carried on his work amidst academical ease and with every facility in getting his work through the press. Cartwright had to work in secret, under the ban of the authorities ; but he had the advan- tage of more extended learning and wielded a defter pen. 1 Baker MSS. (Camb.), Mm. i. 43 (444). INTRODUCTORY 49 His Replye to an Answere made of Doctor Whitgift appeared about September 1573. It ran into a second edition. 1 He was fortunate to be able to get away to the Continent on the completion of his task. Wilcox writes to Anthony Gilby the following February, ' Our brother Cartwright is escaped, God be praised, and departed this Land . . . and I hope is by this tyme in Heidelberge.' 2 In due course Whitgift issued his Defense of the Answere, a handsomely printed volume, two editions of which appeared in 1574. 3 Then from his retreat abroad Cartwright issued in 15*75 The Second Replie, and two years later The Rest of the Second Replie. The first is printed in a Gothic letter, the second in a more presentable Roman type. To these volumes Whitgift offered no reply. Taunted by his opponents on this score, he replied that he was strongly advised by his friends not to proceed farther with the controversy. And indeed, from a personal point of view, it would have been misspent labour. He had already gained his own end. He never after indulged in the pleasures of authorship, if we except his brief contribution to the official reply to the Marprelate Tracts. On the general merits of the controversy little need be said. The arguments employed occur again and again throughout the discussions of the next twenty years. This particular controversy really resolved itself into the ques- tion, whether the Scripture afforded a full and final author- ity for the government and ceremonial of the Church. Cartwright held that it did. He was not content to assert a regulative principle of fraternity, controlling all followers of Christ, and condemning all prelatical gradations, all ' superiority,' all offices of pride and power whose occupants claimed authority to lord it over their charge, and thus to imitate the ' rulers of the Gentiles.' The prescribed offices, however expedient it should be to diminish or increase their number, or vary their sphere of operations, within the 1 B.M. press-marks: 1st ed. T. 2108(1); 2nd ed. 108, b 4; both in 4to, B.L. 2 Baker MSS. (Camb.), Mm. i. 43 (439). 3 B.M. press-marks : 1st ed. 14, b 8 ; 2nd ed. 475, d 18 E 50 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS restrictions of the regulative principle, those and none other were to be permitted, according to the Scriptures. Whit- V gift maintained that the Church was left ample liberty in these matters. True the Gospel taught that the Disciples had but one Master, and they all were brethren; but the course of ages had shown the desirability of having Gentilic orders of men authorised to ' lord it ' over the Church, having prelatic gradations of ' superiority/ and claiming all the prerogatives set forth by such of the Fathers as Cyprian, as pertinent, and indeed essential, to the episcopal office. The matter was somewhat complicated seeing that both parties to the dispute regarded the canonical Scriptures as verbally inspired. ' The Holy Ghost saith ' is a not un- usual style with Prelate and Puritan, when quoting either the Old or the New Testament. Both parties, without dis- tinction, regarded the Pope as the Antichrist, sitting at Rome in 'the throne of the beaste.' But the Episcopalian writers were able to give a sinister turn to the dispute, to the grievous prejudice of their opponents. These external matters, said they, were matters of choice and expediency. It was therefore right that they should be left to the order- ing of the Queen in her own dominions. They, therefore, who denounced Episcopacy, and especially all who objected to the vestments, were guilty of rebellion. The reformers retorted that the often-quoted rule of ' decency and order ' did not necessarily imply wearing the very garments hitherto worn by the priests of the Roman Antichrist. It was in vain ; since the Queen had commanded them, to disobey was sedition. The Primate himself went so far as to refer the question whether or not there shall be Archbishops and Bishops, and how they shall be ordered to the decision of the Queen and her minister. 1 And replying to the charge of living in affluence, he sends Burleigh a list of his charges showing a goodly sum assigned to philanthropy and charity. Yet he could afford the ruinous expense of entertaining the Queen ; one such royal visit costing him nearly the whole annual 1 Parker, Corresp. 454. INTRODUCTORY 51 income of his archbishopric ; moreover, he died a very wealthy man. 1 He had irregular sources of income from the corrupt Court of Faculties. Grindal, his successor, roundly accuses him of dishonourably augmenting his in- come by his freedom in issuing dispensations for children to partake of the Communion. 2 7. The Book of Ecclesiastical Discipline. Apart from the exigencies of the incidental controversy of the time, it was felt that a more reasoned and systematic presentation of the views of those who demanded the further reformation of the Church should be prepared by one of the most erudite of their number ; and written first of all in Latin, that learned men abroad should know the views of these men, who were branded by their adversaries as heretics and revolutionaries. It might help to dissipate the mis- representation, keenly felt by the large number of scholarly men found in the reforming ranks, that they were ignorant and unlearned. They therefore put forth Ecclesiasticae Dis- ciplinae . . . Explicatio? the authorship being invariably ascribed to Walter Travers. It appeared almost immedi- ately in an English translation assigned to Cartwright; having for its title, a literal rendering of the Latin, A full and plaine declaration of Ecclesiasticall Discipline owt off the word of God | and off the declininge off the churche of England from the same? The translator's preface gives an additional reason for writing the original in scholarly Latin. It was hoped that thus it might catch the Queen's eye. ' Her Majesty accordinge to the excellent learninge and amongst women without all comparison which she hathe, is delighted with thinges that are written in latin.' The work gives dignified expression to the familiar views of the men who especially came to be known as Puritans, and adhered 1 See the list of his testamentary benefactions, Stiype, Parker, ii. 438. 2 White, Eliz. Bps. 60, 71. 3 Rom. type ; 294 pp. with two long folded tables. The ' Epistle ' is dated Feb. 2, 1574. * The B.M. Catalogue conjectures that it was printed at Heidelberg. It is in 'secretary's type.' Reprinted at Geneva 1580, in small Rom. type. A later reprint is dated 1617. 52 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS most closely to the Genevan model of Church government and order. Upon its appearance Parker notified the circumstance to Grindal at York, and desired his views as to the best man to furnish a reply. Grindal suggested Aylmer and sent him a copy of the work ; but the Archdeacon declined, though the Primate had a difficulty in getting his copy of the book returned. Strype suggests that Aylmer's pique in being so long neglected was the reason of his refusal ; but his experience of authorship had been unhappy. That inauspicious fruit of his genius, the Harborrowe, with its fatal popularity, had already barred his way to a bishopric. The Archbishop had other names suggested and apparently got a reply written. But he is not enthusiastic about it ; it is done ' indifferently well ' ; he will keep it by him ; he will not let it go forth without further judgment upon it. And that is the last we hear of it. 1 Perhaps the further reflection of the Archbishop sug- gested to him that the matter was near akin to the Admonition, and was really being discussed in the Cart- wright - Whitgift controversy. With the achievement of their champion the Bishops appear to have been eminently satisfied ; especially as they were able to strengthen their position by increasing the severity with which they pursued the Nonconformists. Bishop Cox, writing to his old friends at Zurich, states that the Puritan Brethren were ' lying in concealment, partly terrified by the authority of our Queen, and partly silenced by a most able treatise by a most learned man ' out of his own moderate stock he had generously contributed to the learning. He does not mention Whitgift's name, and evidently takes some pride in the work. But he does realise that the effectiveness of the persecution detracts somewhat from the credit of the ' most able treatise/ in silencing the ' noisy disturbers.' 2 Whitgift's chamberlain and biographer, Sir George Paule, justifies his master by the testimony of a temporal pro- 1 Parker, Corresp. 477 ; Strype, Parker, ii. 399. 1 Zur. Lett. i. 306, 309 ; THESES MART. sig. A ii. ver. INTRODUCTORY 53 vidence. Cartwright, for long years a wandering exile, in the end only attained to the ' mastership of an hospital in Warwick ' ; Whitgift, on the contrary, was ten years Master of Trinity, twice Vice-Chancellor, and received besides the deanery of Lincoln. 1 Who could regard the dark-visaged little Prelate, with his black, beady, and restless eyes, bask- ing in the sunshine of uninterrupted worldly prosperity, and doubt that his was the side of the angels. He himself was of opinion that the ragged exile, the close prisoner in Newgate, the beggared minister, the despised layman, men who were so stiff about prelacy and ceremonies, and met for prayer and scriptural study in unregulated companies, deserved ' as great punishment as the Papists.' ' If they are shut up in Newgate, it is a meet reward for their dis- orderly doings.' 2 Here, at any rate, was a, man who had never caught a glimpse of the shining raiment of the angel of toleration. 8. The Forthcoming Antagonists of the Established Order. Driven out of sight, the evangelical forces were not diminished or abated. The river gathered strength though it flowed underground. And while Parker's attention is arrested by the activities of the secret press in the metropolis and in the neighbouring villages of Hampstead, Wands- worth, and elsewhere, at Cambridge a new and more resolute set of reformers are being bred and harnessed for the fray. Henry Barrowe graduated at Clare Hall in 1570, though he left without being infected with the ' new religion ' ; Robert Browne, kinsman to Burleigh, left Corpus Christi in 1572 ; John Udall and John Greenwood entered Corpus as sizars in March 1578; John Penry entered Peterhouse in 1581. These men are destined to give to the guardians of the established Church order more trouble than all the dialectic skill and learning of Thomas Cartwright. The more implacable the persecution, the more resolute the witness that is called forth to protest against it. Even in this year of 1581, when Penry came to Cambridge, Robert Browne, who was one of the memor- 1 Paule's Whitgift (Words. Ecdes. Biog. iv.), 332. 2 Neal's History, i. 238. 54 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS able company seized at Plumbers' Hall, and, after leaving Cambridge, sometime chaplain to the Duke of Norfolk, had actually established in the city of Norwich a Nonconform- ing Church ; between which and the legally established Church there could be no ecclesiastical affinity. It was a Separatist Church. He and his followers having migrated to Middleburgh in Zee! and, the next year he gave to the world the principles of his Church in three tracts : A Book ^ which sheweth the life and manners of all true Christians ; Reformation without tarying for anie\ and A Treatise on the 23rd of Matthew. 1 They claim attention not only for the influence they have had upon the religious and political ideas of the English-speaking race, but also as probably the only original English contribution to the ecclesiastical inter- pretation of the New Testament. Episcopacy came from Rome, Presbyterianism from Zurich and Geneva ; this was native and home-born, and characteristic of the land of its birth. ' Reformation without tarying for anie ' was a title brief enough to be a battle-cry, and significant enough to be an exposition. Here at last was an organisation which could accept unconditionally the instruction, ' Tell it to the Church.' It not only repudiated the adaptation, 'Tell it to the Bishop,' but with equal conviction, ' Tell it to the presbyters or elders.' It found sufficient authority for itself in the words, 'Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them ' ; satisfied that where Christ was, there, surely, was the Church. This conception of the Church appealed strongly to two features in the English character ; its antipathy to priests and its love of independence. It was gradually adopted by the more vigorous reforming spirits and gave to English nonconformity its first martyrs. Elias Thacker and John Copping were hanged at Bury St. Edmund's in 1583 for their unrepenting adhesion to the doctrines of Browne. Moreover, the advent of this Separatist Church, which did not tarry for the magistrate or the official priest, 1 B.M. press-mark for the first two, 37, e 57 ; for the third, Lamb. Pal. Lib. xxxi. 6, 18 (4). INTRODUCTORY 55 but, receiving its commission from a higher source, proceeded to realise itself as a spiritual corporation, fostered not only a congregational liberty within the institution, but a spirit of toleration towards them that were without. Robert Browne discovered that ' the Lords people is of the willing sorte/ and that 'it is the conscience and not the power of man that will drive us to seeke the Lordes kingdome.' From this enlightened standpoint religious persecution became an absurdity. 9. Three Types of Protestant Reformers. It is evident that up to this point there have been distinct differences among those who separated themselves from the Papal Church. Their classification seems to be subtly determined by their interpretation of the doctrine of the Lord's Supper. Indeed, Romanism may be included in this law. In that system the central function is the Mass. It needs a sacri- ficing priest to effect the miracle of transubstantiation. It is a Church in which the office of a divinely endowed priest is pivotal. That determines the character of the Church. Among English Protestants some derived their doctrine chiefly from Luther. The Lutheran doctrine of consub- stantiation is a half-way house. It exalts the material elements upon the altar; though it dismisses the sacer- dotal agent. And its ministry has an official eminence reflected in its sacramental office. Again as Lutheranism is less slavishly literal than Romanism, so is Galvanism still more free than Lutheranism. It removes the miraculous to the spiritual sphere. The material elements in the Eucharist remain just what they were ; but the Lord's body is spiritually received. The Zuinglian doctrine completes the process of emancipation from the letter of the institution, and the Holy Supper becomes a sacred commemoration. The doctrine of religious, and more especially of political, liberty recognised in Rome, Wittenberg, Geneva, and Zurich would be found to follow the same graduation. In Rome, consistently with its tenets, it existed not at all. Under Luther in an attenuated form only, with a signifi- cant transference of power to the secular, but divinely 56 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS instituted, prince, to whom is due an almost unconditioned obedience. In Geneva the instrument of power is broadened into an oligarchy, elected on a sectarian franchise. In Zurich only was there a breath of true popular liberty. In England the disturbing element in the Elizabethan settle- ment was Elizabeth herself. The progress of thought was not permitted to develop normally by the interplay of the three existing types of Protestantism. The men she called to her to equip her anti-papal Church showed these dis- tinctions. Those that remained in England during the dark years of Mary's reign, whether they renounced their faith and outwardly conformed, or succeeded in remaining in hiding, were chiefly of the Lutheran type. The exiles we can to a considerable extent sort out, by learning where they spent the years of their proscription, whether in Lutheran, Calvinistic, or Zuinglian centres ; though all of them showed on their return a process of development ; to be accounted for partly by their contact with men of more advanced ideas, and partly also by their liberty to follow the leading of their consciences, unbiased by fear of penalty or hope of gain. But they had, one and all, to accept Elizabeth's conception of the external machinery of a Church, and her determination to have an external uniformity in the acts of public worship. She desired an institution of sufficient visible pomp and circumstance, officered by Bishops of sufficient dignity, to make a decent show in the eyes of Europe. These distinctions are to be borne in mind when esti- mating the character of the Elizabethan clergy. Elizabeth's own difficulty in compelling the obedience of her Bishops arose from their previous religious history. It can be seen in a measure in the case of her three Primates Parker, Grindal, and Whitgift. Grindal went into exile, and was the most advanced reformer of the three. It is not known that Elizabeth ever visited him as a guest, and he ended his primacy in royal disfavour. Parker went into strict hiding during the reign of Mary ; he was far more sub- servient to the Queen, only in extremities muttering re- INTRODUCTORY 57 bellion; moderate in doctrine, and amenable in outward polity, even, as in the case of the vestments, when not altogether after his own mind. Whitgift, a disciple of Andrew Perne, bowed himself in the House of Eimmon. He was a born courtier, as pliant and deferential as Laud himself. The Queen visited him on fifteen separate occasions, and ' fre- quently stayed two and sometimes three days at Lambeth.' 1 Section III. The Primacy of Edmund Grindal 1. Episcopal Changes on the Death of Matthew Parker. One of the Primate's last acts was to indite a letter from his death -bed to his royal mistress, in his somewhat neglected capacity as her spiritual pastor. Among his admonitions he particularly mentions despoiling the Church, to which she was moved ' upon some political considera- tions, suggested to her by some of her great men' Bacon and Burghley are named ' and that with some vehemency/ says the chronicler. The letter was not sent, owing, it was said, to the shrewd and politic advice of the ' old fox,' Andrew Perne. He, however, communicated the facts to Whitgift, then at Cambridge patiently awaiting his bishopric. Dean Whitgift had been effusively deferential to the Archbishop, ' having been so much beholden to [him] in his life.' But Parker is dead and can render no further help. The astutest move is now to burn incense at the altar of Burleigh : next the Queen, he is the greatest bishop- maker. To him, therefore, under reiterated exhortations of secrecy, Whitgift reveals the secret of this letter, written, he is told, ' with great bitterness.' ' I am so bound/ he says, ' unto your Lordship, that I cannot of duty hear any such thing, and keep it from you.' 2 He was presently to be further bound to his lordship. To the vacant prirnateship Edmund Grindal was, strangely enough, transferred from the northern episcopacy. Perhaps the authorities were losing confidence in the efficacy of 1 Nichols, Progresses of Q. Eliz. i. 232 n. 2 Strype, Parker, ii. 430. 58 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS religious persecution. It was known that Burleigh, on grounds of propriety and precedent, believed that the true route for the Episcopal Canterbury pilgrim was vid York. Sandys replaced Grindal. He found relief and dignity in the archbishopric. He was nothing so 'stirring and stout a man' in carrying out the policy of coercion against Protestant Nonconformists as when he entered upon his London duties. In his place a much -chastened man, a disillusioned idealist, was appointed. Long under a ban because of his too faithful Harlorrowe, John Aylmer was forgiven his reference to female rulers, and was allowed to enter upon those 'thousands,' from which formerly he had shouted to the Bishops to 'come down.' An under-sized man, he was known to have that species of courage which entitles a self-assertive dwarf to be called ' plucky.' Martin Marprelate recalls that he fought with his son-in-law, Dr. Adam Squire, though it resulted in a ' bloody nose.' 1 He had a repute for his valour in wielding a two-handed sword. It was thought he had daring enough to grasp the London Puritan nettle firmly. Meanwhile the death of Nicholas Bullingham 2 left a timely opening for the advancement of Whitgift to the See of Worcester. A strong man was wanted on the Welsh borders, especially in connection with the Court of the Marches. 2. The Primacy of Edmund Grindal. In his earlier days the new Primate had been a ' mass priest,' an office which later he regretted to have held. The perusal of a treatise on the Origin of Error by the Zuinglian divine, Henry Bullinger, converted him to Protestantism. The martyrs Rogers and Bradford were associated with Grindal as chaplains to the martyr-bishop Nicholas Ridley, who was his tutor. So that Grindal's antecedents pointed to a very definite anti-papal policy. He never forgot the atrocities of the Church which burnt his eminent master and his heroic and distinguished colleagues. Naturally he was a man of a tolerant and conciliatory habit of mind. He was the gentle shepherd Algrind of the poet Spenser. In 1 THE EPISTLE, 37. 2 Ob. April 18, 1576. INTRODUCTORY 59 Elizabeth's eyes, apart from the dignity and consistency of his character, he could have had but one special qualifica- tion for a Bishop he was unmarried. When he entered upon his new office he obtained from Convocation a series of fifteen Visitation Articles. Of these, the last referred to marriage in prohibited seasons, which in the printed copies was found to be omitted. The Queen was averse to any alteration in the canonical usage. The remaining articles were rules ' touching the admission of fit persons to the ministry ' ; many of those holding office at the time had barely a schoolboy's education. Grindal's articles aimed at their exclusion. He next attacked the scandalous Court of Faculties. Its functions he divides into two classes. The first of these comprised matters which he thought might fairly be left to the discretion of the Court. The second class he considered to involve grave matters of principle. He asks the Council if they think commendams should be allowed in the case of poor bishoprics ; that is, in most cases, in sees which had been plundered by the previous occupant. He asks if pluralities could be rightly sanctioned for the support of learned men, and whether civil lawyers should enjoy ecclesi- astical promotion. The questions are really and in substance whether the parishes should be robbed for the sake of enriching men who had no manner of claim upon their revenues. With other irregularities he will hold no parley. Trialities, three benefices that is, held by one person ; granting benefices to children and juniors ; licences to marry without banns ; also, and especially, the obnoxious faculty perinde valere, whereby any illegal grant could be made good on payment of a fine these he would have abolished outright without further ado. The Courts of Arches, Audience, and Prerogative, whose chief end was to afford fees and perquisites to a number of insatiable cormorants, whose existence seems inseparable from a State establishment of religion, were then considered. He requested the opinion of four eminent civil lawyers concerning the most important of the three, the Court of 60 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS Arches. Only one of them showed that he had any sense of the real evils associated with this ecclesiastical tribunal. The other three freely admitted its disorderly proceedings, bufc the last person they were thinking of was the plundered client. Their concern was with the improper division of privileges and fees among the stated officials of the Court and the lawyers practising before it. 3. The Prophesying*. A marked feature in the primacy of Grindal was the favour he showed to the local confer- ences for preaching and the exposition of the Scriptures, which were called Prophesyings. To the discourses the public were admitted ; but a second meeting was reserved for the ministers, at which the public utterance was privately and critically discussed. The Archbishop thought the practice might mitigate the scandal occasioned by the large numbers of unfit persons who had been introduced into the ministry. Here was an opportunity for men holding the sacred office to train and educate themselves in their clerical duties. It would be likely to stimulate in them a love of their proper studies ; induce them to buy and read books ; and, above all, to read and study the Bible. It was hoped it might provoke a spirit of emulation among the younger ministers, stirring within them an ambition to excel as expositors and evangelists. Grindal would have regularised these voluntary and extra-canonical gatherings ; bringing them under the general control of the ordinary ; appointing to each conference a trustworthy moderator, and allowing only approved men to take part. He would have permitted only selected portions of Scripture to be discussed, and thus avoiding the troublesome text, ' Tell it to the Church/ the opening verses of the 23rd chapter of Matthew, which forbids ministerial ostentation, or the 22nd of Luke, which denounces 1 lording it ' after the manner of the kings of the Gentiles ; also texts which proved the identity of Bishop and Elder. He would have surrounded the exercises with restrictions against criticising adversely any state or person, public or private ; or speaking in disapproval of ' the rites of the Church of England established by public authority.' His INTRODUCTORY 61 scheme, moreover, forbade any part being taken by a deprived minister. 1 With all these provisos the prophesy- ings would have been harmless enough. The strong prob- ability is that the restrictions would have choked them out of existence. In giving countenance to the prophesyings the Arch- bishop had considerable support, both lay and clerical. Indeed these ' exercises ' seemed to have been used in most dioceses in the years 1574 and 1575. Parkhurst, the Puritan Bishop of Norwich, was naturally among the first to give them his sanction. His authority was obtained by the ministers of Bury St. Edmunds on February 16, 1573. 2 Their prevalence in his diocese, and perhaps the unrestricted liberty of speech which his tolerant rule allowed, caused Parker, probably at Elizabeth's request, to send Parkhurst a personal message commanding these ' vain exercises ' to be abolished. To parry the thrust and to postpone the issue, Parkhurst, in acknowledging his Grace's message, asks if he is only to suppress them when they are ' vain.' The matter becomes complicated by a letter addressed to Parkhurst by Grindal (then Bishop of London) and three members of the Privy Council Sir Francis Knollys, Sir Thomas Smith, and Sir Walter Mildmay to express the hope that he would let the exercises continue. 8 There is some further correspondence between Parkhurst and the Primate, also a letter asking advice from the writers of the epistle just referred to ; but in the end the Queen's commands prevailed. On June 7th, Parkhurst sent a brief, rigid note to his clergy, conveying, without any personal comment, the instructions of the Queen. 4 Nevertheless they continued in vogue in other dioceses in Rochester under Bishop Freke, in Chester under Bishop Chadderton, and also in Lincoln under Bishop Cooper, we have the conditions under which they were allowed ; and Grindal tells the Queen that they were also 1 Strype, Grindal, 326, 327. 2 Strype, Annals, n. ii. 494. 3 Parker, Correspond. 456, 457 ; Strype, Parker, ii. 360. The letter is dated May 6, 1574. 4 Ibid. 362. 62 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS favoured by the Bishops of Winchester, Lichfield, Bath and Wells, Gloucester, Exeter, St. David's. In the autumn of 1576, the Queen determines that they must be everywhere suppressed ; principally because they were not authorised, and thus infringed upon her pre- rogative ; also because they introduced ' novelties.' She communicated her views to Grindal in her peremptory manner. ' The speeches she used to him were somewhat sharp,' nor would she give the Primate an opportunity to answer her objections. He therefore addressed to her a rather lengthy letter, c written with mine own rude scribbling hand/ While couched in respectful terms, it is a very faithful letter, and does the writer honour. It is not easy to tell monarchs unwelcome truths, especially such a terma- gant as Elizabeth. Grindal had little difficulty in showing her that the command to preach, to make known the Gospel message, is a universal feature of the New Testament. Of practical injunctions it is the first and the most frequent; a duty to be fulfilled c in season, out of season.' Vae mihi est nisi, si non evangelizavero. The letter contains passages of great nobility of spirit, in which the plain minister of Christ reminds the chief member of his flock that she is mortal, and must presently give an account of herself to a Prince and Judge of a higher ordination than her own. ' God hath blessed you with great felicity in your reign, now many years ; beware that you do 'not impute the same to your own deserts or policy, but give God the glory.' * Destitute of all vital religion as she was, Elizabeth saw nothing in Grindal's grave expostulation but a refusal to obey her royal commands. She was furious at such pre- sumption, and setting aside the Primate, in true Papal style she addressed her commands direct to the several Bishops. She also composed what appears to be a circular letter to them in common, in which she denounces the ' prophesyings ' because they encouraged idleness by taking people away from their honest labours, and also promoted schism and other evils. Elizabeth had strong views on the ' foolishness 1 Strype, Grindal, 558-574. INTRODUCTORY 63 of preaching.' ' It was good for the Church to have few preachers . . . three or four might suffice for a county.' 1 She is peremptory with the Bishops. She warns them of remissness in putting down the exercises, so that she ' be not forced to make some example in reforming of you according to your deserts.' 2 From the country came pitiable complaints of the spiritual darkness and the gross superstition prevailing amongst the people. They confess that while hitherto they had spent their holy days in drinking and dicing, they had now, in the power of this new movement, given themselves to the study of the Scriptures, and had amended their ways. They repudiate the common slander that they favoured the opinions of the 'Anabaptists, Puritans, Papists, or Liber- tines.' The same is the evidence given by Harrison in his well - known Descriptions of Britaine and England. He describes the mode of conducting these meetings, and declares that they were 'a notable spurre vnto all the ministers thereby to applie their bookes, which otherwise (as in times past) would giue themselues to hawking, hunting, tables, cards, dice, tipling at the alehouse, shooting [of matches], and other like vanities.' 3 This from a beneficed clergyman, published ten years after the Queen's prohibition, is a noteworthy declaration of opinion. Philip Stubbes, in his Anatomic of Abuses, speaks for the educated men of his time, when he declares preaching to be as necessary to the soul as food to the body. The deputies of absentee holders of benefices, he says, are often ' fitter to feed hogs than soules.' The defence of pluralists, that they preach in each of their churches once a quarter, he thinks no better than to plough a furrow once a quarter and then to expect a harvest. 4 4. The Sequestered Primate. Grindal felt deeply that Elizabeth was usurping his office. In truth he was in an impossible position ; paying the penalty, which men must 1 Strype, Grindal, 329. 2 Ibid. 574. 3 Op. cit. Furnivall's ed. 17-19. 4 Op. cit. Furnivall's ed. Part II. 76-78. 64 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS pay, who compromise on what to them are vital principles. He was endeavouring to exercise a spiritual ministry, through the agency of a worldly and temporising organisa- tion ; trying to make the best of both worlds, and condemned equally by the representatives of the one and the other. The Queen treated him as a disobedient and cranky pre- cisian. The zealous reformers reminded him of his own former utterance. Samson, who shared his poverty at Zurich in the days of the Exile, flouts his defence of his worldly pomp and estate. He tells Grindal that if he, ' whom worldly policy had made a lord, kept the humility of an humble brother and minister of the Gospel, he was a phoenix ; but his post, his train of waiting-men in the streets, his gentlemen-ushers going before him with bare heads, and his family full of idle serving-men, looked very lordly/ l Grindal ought to have known the exiguous measure of earnest progressive Gospel propaganda, which would be allowed in a Church of which Elizabeth was 'chief governor,' and whose first ruling canon was the caprice of her vain and secular heart. He, at least, ought to have known not only the futility of serving two masters, but the sorrows that are inseparable from the attempt. At the very time that Elizabeth is treating him as a menial, the Alenqon amours are at their height, and a foreign ambassador is reporting that she ' always mentioned the Pope with the greatest respect/ and declared that the Calvinists were ' criminals whose desire it was to destroy allegiance to princes/ 2 Grindal, addressing her Majesty through the friendly aid of Burleigh and Leicester, pointed out to her that the preaching of the Gospel bred loyalty ; as she could see for herself when she visited the city. The northern parts were largely Catholic, and they were the nursery of rebellion. He again showed her the eminent advantages to be derived by ministers from the prophesyings. Her Majesty, he concludes, could, if she thought fit, remove him ; but she must bear with him if he chose rather to 1 Neal's History, i. 267. a Venetian State Papers, viii. 32. INTRODUCTORY 65 offend her than God. This was not the language of the sycophants, civil and ecclesiastic, who surrounded the Queen. Lord North, when bullying Bishop Cox, at the Queen's instructions, into giving up Ely House in Holborn to Hatton, ' a man much favoured of her Highnes/ asked the Bishop to remember that he was denying that ' most gratious and bountifull Mistress, who hath abled yowe even from the meanest estate that maye be, unto the best Byshopricke in Englande, a thing worth three thousand pounde by yere,' and he ventures to say that ' she is oure God in earth ; if ther be perfection in flesh and blud undoughtedlye it is in hir Maiestye.' * Nothing more high-handed is recorded of Elizabeth than the startling severity with which she treated the Arch- bishop. Upon her personal authority she ordered him to be confined to his house, and his office to be sequestered. She arrogated to herself, independently of any council, without reference to the Church itself, the right to remove its chief pastor, and to determine its discipline. Many efforts were made to reconcile the differences between Queen and Primate, Grindal himself yielding as far as he was able. They had not the slightest effect upon Eliza- beth's fixed resolution ; though the Archbishop still con- tinued to perform a large part of his administrative duties. She formally applied for his resignation, and, as though some passing womanly sense of her harsh and outrageous conduct dawned upon her, she sent the aged Prelate, at the beginning of 1583, a silver cup as a New Year's gift. He had become blind, but cheerfully hoped to recover his sight, and to be able to continue his duties. But as the Queen was unrelenting, he desired to postpone his resignation till Michaelmas, so as to have funds to meet his obligations ; also to be freed from any claims of dilapidation on the part of his successor ; and to be allowed to retain his house at Croydon, with a small parcel of land adjoining. But the Queen would brook no delay. A merciful mediator, how- ever, intervened. On July 6th Grindal died. He was 1 Gal. of Cecil Papers, Part II. pp. 120, 121. F 66 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS greatly esteemed by all Protestants except those whom his reforms would have displaced from office, or deprived of their sinecure emoluments. Sandys, his successor at York, accuses him of corruptly seizing, before he left for Canter- bury, six score leases and patents for his kinsmen and servants. The number seems incredible, though Sandys declares that four score of them were confirmed by the Dean and Chapter of York. 5. Aylmer persecuting Papist and Puritan. The new Bishop of London showed no favour to those who held by the views he had so vigorously championed in the Harborowe ; but neither did he show any tolerance to Popish recusants. While Elizabeth was scandalising the Court by openly exchanging rings and kisses with d'Alen^on, Aylmer entered con amore on the task of discovering Popish plots. He found that the Catholics everywhere cherished, unabated, the hope of a foreign and Catholic invasion of their native land the enterprise culminated in 1588. The Bishop might have gained more information, but for the taciturnity of the prisoners. He suggests that the rack might make them more communicative. So eager was he in this busi- ness that Burleigh pressed upon him the task of answering Campion's Ten Reasons. But he shrank from further authorship, and suggested a Commission of Bishops and others to be entrusted with the task. When, however, Campion was arrested, Aylmer was all too forward in arranging a discussion between him and some Protestant controversialists. It made so much noise that it seriously interfered with Elizabeth's diplomatic love-making with her Catholic suitor. The Bishop had to be reprimanded. The reformers were on their part equally bitter against Aylmer. They regarded him as a shameful renegade. In exile and penury he had professed the faith with an energy and a clearness which none of his contemporaries had surpassed. Many besides Martin Marprelate had asked in later days if Aylmer were faithful to his denunciation of the vain pomp and show of the episcopacy who would then be Bishop of London. They saw that his former zeal for Puritanism INTRODUCTORY 67 was perverted into an implacable hatred towards all its unpurchasable professors ; that his one-time scorn for riches was transmuted into a greed for wealth, in which he prob- ably outbishoped all the avaricious prelates of Elizabeth's reign. The Nonconformists suffered much from his perse- cution. If he had had his way, he would have banished them all from his diocese into the remote northern parts of the kingdom, where, he thought, they might safely exercise their gifts against the Papists. 6. Whitgift' s Zeal at Worcester. On his appointment as Bishop, the Queen wrote to Whitgift to suppress the pro- phesyings. He was not among the number of those quoted by Grindal as favouring the exercises. The Queen declared to him that her intention was to have ' an uniform unity maintained among our clergy and our other good subjects.' Whitgift soon found that his business lay chiefly with Roman recusants. In this and in the general administrative work of his See he displayed great energy and ability of the bureaucratic order. He was sleepless in routing out the secret conclaves of the Catholics, full reports of his pro- ceedings being furnished to the Privy Council. But the machinery of the Court of the Marches was too slow for this fiery little persecutor. He therefore succeeded in obtaining a Special Commission to deal with his cases, under which he, and certain Welsh Bishops, were assigned powers of summary jurisdiction, ' exclusive of others/ And finding much difficulty with intractable witnesses who refused to accuse themselves or their friends, he also obtained authority to employ what the historian, ashamed, no doubt, of the fact, has mitigated into 'some kind of torture.' l In the affairs of his own cathedral church his strong will quickly made itself felt. The purlieus of the Court were overrun with crowds of harpies waiting to secure ecclesiastical benefice. The Queen's favourites grew rich on this unholy plunder. But Whitgift fought with terrier-like tenacity for the retention of his lands at Hartlebury. He also succeeded in getting the cathedral 1 Strype, Whitgift, i. 168. 68 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS prebends into his own hands, and then proceeded to fill the stalls with his own thick and thin supporters, a policy which we shall find him consistently pursuing throughout his long official life. It explains to a large extent how he was able to exercise so great an influence in the affairs of the country and to resist the attacks of his enemies. CHAPTER II THE FIRST YEARS OF WHITGIFT'S PRIMACY 1583-1593 Section I. His Prompt and Determined Measures 1. His Qualifications. Upon the death of Grindal it was evident that the Bishop of Worcester was the fittest man on the Episcopal bench to carry out the ecclesiastical ideas of Elizabeth. He was unmarried ; as a Government official he had been ' found blameless ' ; he had no weak scruples, such as at one time or other broke out in all those who had been in exile, and made them uncertain weapons in the hands of her Majesty ; if necessary, he could give a turn or two to the screw of the rack, without blenching, should recusants or schismatics call their secret souls their own ; and he was prepared to defend the established order of religion in every detail and particular : the State Church was the finest piece of ecclesiastical machinery in Europe ; moreover it was ordained by her Majesty ; they, therefore, who opposed the established order, and the Bishops were integral parts of that order, opposed the Queen, and were a fortiori traitors as well as schismatics. Clearly Whitgift was the man. A month after Grindal's death he was transferred from Worcester to Canterbury. His consecra- tion took place at Lambeth on the 23.rd of September 1583. Upon his entry into the archiepiscopal office, Elizabeth gave him definite instructions as to the policy he was to pursue. She charged him ' to restore the discipline of the church, and the uniformity established by law.' ' This,' she added, 69 70 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS ' through the connivance of some prelates, the obstinacy of the Puritans, and the power of some noblemen is run out of square.' l 2. Whitgift's New Articles. Without delay, before the month of September was out, the Archbishop entered upon his long campaign of coercion. He submitted to the Queen a series of Articles for her approval, by which she might see that he did not mean to trifle with the task of bringing the Church into ' an uniform unity ' such as she desired. He began by asking for her Majesty's ' streight order ' that the laws against recusants already existing should be duly executed. He desired that the press censorship should be vested in himself and the Bishop of London. That only the authorised editions of the Bible and New Testament should be allowed to be printed ; and no annotations, except they be sanctioned, be added to the text, the notes in Tyndale's and the Geneva versions were often militantly Protestant ; that a household devotional meeting, if a stranger be present, should be 'utterly inhibited, seeing the same was never permitted as lawfull under Christian magistrates ' ; that preachers and catechists be silenced, unless ' four times in the yeare at least ' they ' say service and minister sacraments according to the Booke of Common Prayer ' ; that no dispensations to absentees be granted ; that only the authorised (Bishops') Bible be used in public service ; that commutation of penance be refused except upon great consideration; that the Bishops upon their significavit be allowed to issue writs De Excommunicatio Capiendo, without incurring any charges, which should be deducted from the fines imposed [more suo he tells the Queen that this would increase the number of writs and increase her income] ; that sheriffs should be enjoined forthwith to imprison those committed under the just- mentioned writ ; that preachers wear the prescribed apparel ; that only priests and deacons, and such as have legal authorisation be allowed to preach ; that orders be granted only to those having a presentation to a benefice in the 1 Brook, Lives, i. 45, quoting White Rennet's Hist. ii. 494. WHITGIFT'S PRIMACY 71 Bishop's diocese, or an appointment to a place in a cathedral or collegiate church or in one of the universities, and are not less than twenty-four years of age; that no Bishop shall ordain any from another diocese except they bring ' letters dismissary, or are university graduates, which all must be, or at least be able to give an account of their faith in Latin, and in the latter case the applicant must produce a testimonial to his moral character; the Arch- bishop, with the assistance of another Bishop, shall have authority to prohibit any Bishop ordaining otherwise than according to these conditions, 'from admitting any into orders for the space of two yeares ' ; that the Archbishop, either on his own authority or by the Queen's allowance, be empowered to quash proceedings taken against a Bishop for refusing ordination to an unfit person ; that only under special circumstances should marriage without banns be allowed. Moreover, no one, whatever authority he may have received, shall be allowed to preach except he subscribe to three special Articles. 1 The Queen showed her superior authority by not granting all the Articles forthwith. The press censorship, dispensa- tions to absentees, and the conditions under which the writ De Excommunicatio Capiendo should be issued, were omitted from the Articles as issued with the signatures of Whitgift and the Bishops of his province. But he persisted, and the missing items received the Queen's allowance. The first of the three special Articles which the clergy were required to subscribe was also recast, though its substance remained the same. 2 It related to the royal supremacy. The third demanded acceptance of the (Thirty -nine) Articles of Eeligion. To most of the Nonconformists these two Articles gave no trouble. They recognised the sovereignty of the Crown over all persons, civil and ecclesiastical alike, and they detested the claim of the Pope, or any other foreigner, priest or prince, to have dominion in England. The creed, too, they accept with trifling provisos ' of a godly sort.' It was the second Article which, in the hands of the Bishops, 1 Second Parte of a Register, 391. 2 Strype, Whitgift, i. 228-33. 72 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS became an intolerant instrument of oppression. The minister was required to declare that the Book of Common Prayer, and the ' Pontifical/ that prescribing the ordering of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, ' contained nothing contrary to the word of God.' It was an Article which, apart from the specific objections which thorough Protestants had to certain survivals of Romanism in the ritual, no enlightened man, who made his solemn subscription a matter of con- science, could sign, or indeed ought to sign. Again and again in the persecutions of the clergy, before the High Commission, the more peaceable and moderate among them offered to sign the first and third Articles, also to use the Book generally, but they scrupled to sign the second Article. It committed them, for instance, to the statement that the absurd legends contained in the portions of the Apocrypha included in the lectionary were not ' contrary to the word of God.' J 1 The following edifying colloquy between Whitgift and Thomas Under- down, the able minister of Lewes, at an interview held at Lambeth on December 5th, in this same year, is typical of much that followed during the first half of Whitgift's primacy, except that hereafter the Nonconformists appeared as accused persons, and were treated with an ever-increasing harsh- ness. Underdown, among other things, had objected to the Apocrypha ; the conversation then proceeds Archbishop. All the apocrypha is not appointed to be read, but those parts which are most edifying. And the ancient fathers permitted them to be read in the church. Underdown. Not some detached parts only, my Lord, but whole books are appointed. Arch. What errors in doctrine and practice do they contain ? Und. Raphael maketh a lie, Tobit v. 15. Arch. If this be a lie, then the angels lied to Abraham, by seeming to have bodies and to eat, when they had no bodies and did not eat : And Christ, when He seemed to intend going farther than Ernmaus : And God, when He destroyed not Nineveh. Und. The cases are not alike. Again, the devil is said to have loved Sara, Tobit vi. 16, which is fabulous. Arch. Is it strange to you that the devil should love men and women ? Do you think the devil doth not love ? Und. In Ecclesiasticus xlvi. 20 it is said that Samuel preached after he was dead. Arch. It is controverted whether this were Samuel or some evil spirit. Und. What writers are of this opinion ? Arch. What point of faith is it to believe it was Samuel ? Und. A principal point, my Lord. For (Rev. xiv. 13) it is said, that the souls of the righteous are in the hands of God, and rest from their labours ; which is not true, if they be at the call of a witch or sorcerer to do those things which while they lived they would not have done. The conference was continued the following day, when the Archbishop WHITGIFT'S PRIMACY 73 These Visitation Articles had also an eye to the Catholic propaganda, now strenuously pushed by a new order of priest. The old easy-going and, generally, ignorant Mass- priest, who had served under the last three reigns, and found little to trouble him in accommodating himself to the scheme of Elizabeth, having grown accustomed to the successive changes of formula, was a vastly different person from the young priest, a regular probably of the Society of Jesus, trained in one of the Eomish colleges opened in various parts of the Continent for the education of English students, now stealing furtively into the country. By the necessities of his situation he lost any national feeling he may have ever had; he was a servant of one of two foreigners, or of both ; the Pope and Philip of Spain. He had come to destroy any loyalty the old English Catholic families may have retained for their Queen. He had come to enlist traitorous stipendiaries in the name of Philip. When the great blow should in due course be given, half the battle would be won by the time the invading army approached the English shores, by the uprising of the dis- loyal Papists within the gates. This new order of soldier- priest was under the generalship of the Jesuit Parsons. He carried about with him copies of Campion's Ten Reasons. Alert, eager, desperate, prepared for the rack or the gallows, he was a foe to be reckoned with. Elizabeth's tortuous diplomacy, and the necessity she was under from time to time of pretending to be under the sway of Catholic ideas ; her love of the theatrical in the cult of Rome ; her periodic trifling with the ill-starred ( idol/ the silver crucifix ; her casual whim to have altar-lights in her private chapel, all made the task of a courtier-prelate the more perplexing. Secretly she most feared the power of the Papist ; but beyond all doubt she hated most the scruple of the Puritan. rehearsed the substance of the first day's proceedings, ' with some enlarge- ment upon the devil's loving women.' Bishop Aylmer then adding his wisdom to the views of the Primate, said, ' If you had read either divinity or philosophy, it would not be strange to you that the devil should love women.' To which Underdown simply replied, 'My Lord, we have not learned any such divinity.' Brook, Lives, i. 266, 269. 74 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS In relation to Popery she stood in marked contrast to her father. Henry's innovations were in the external machinery of the Church ; the creed of Rome he professed to the last. Elizabeth accepted the faith of Protestantism without demur ; but she retained as much of the external form and vesture of Rome as the new situation would suffer her to have. Section II. The New ' High Commission ' 1. The Demand for a more Formidable Court. Whitgift soon realised that he could not rest with issuing his in- junctions. He found that the dogged spirit of the reform- ing party cared little for ecclesiastical censures. He re- quired power to coerce men into conformity to his ideas. His controversial experiences with the chief Puritans were not encouraging. Men like Underdown, and Dr. Sparke, who, as Martin Marprelate frequently reminded him, gave Whitgift the ' non plus ' ; 1 like the quaint and vivacious Wigginton, and others, effectually cured him of any ex- pectation that he could further and popularise his ecclesi- astical compromise by personal argument, or substantiate his position by a reference to the text of Scripture. He became frankly a persecutor ; of him it was as true as of Laud, that he would never waste time in persuading an opponent if he had power to suppress him. He therefore appealed to the Queen, in a paper of reasons, for a new Commission for Causes Ecclesiastical, to enable him more effectively to search for unlawful books, and to deal effec- tively with ' disordered persons commonly called Puritans.' For without the coercive High Commission, to give it its popular name, the Ecclesiastical Law, he declared, was ' a car- case without a soul.' He was urgent in his request ; even six months' delay might be disastrous. His plea was granted by the Queen. The new Commission was constituted in the December following his assumption of the primacy. 2 This was the sixth Commission granted by Elizabeth ; 1 THE EPISTLE, 45. * Strype, Whitg. i. 266. WHITGIFT'S PRIMACY 75 it was distinctly the most tyrannical of the series. At its formation it consisted of forty-four members, twelve Bishops, certain chief ministers of the Crown, Sir Francis Knollys and Sir Francis Walsingham among them, the chief legal officers of State, and a number of deans, archdeacons, and civil lawyers. Its function was to ' inquire into all heretical opinions, seditious books, conspiracies, false rumours/ etc,, 'to hear, and determine concerning the premises, and to correct, reform, and punish all persons . . . obstinately absent from church ' ; 'to visit and reform all errors, heresies, and schisms, etc., which may be lawfully reformed or restrained by censures ecclesiastical, deprivation or other- wise, according to the power and authority, limited and approved by the laws, etc.* ; also to deprive of their benefices all who maintained any doctrine contrary to the Thirty - nine Articles. The chief engine of Whitgift's tyranny remains to be noted. The Commission was given authority to examine all suspected persons ' on their cor- poral oath ' ; those who proved ' obdurate and disobedient ' were to be punished by excommunication, censures ecclesi- astical, fine, or imprisonment ; the imprisonment to con- tinue until the Court enlarge them, and they have paid ' such costs and expenses of suit as the cause shall require.' This, coupled with the authority to seize, apprehend, or to compel the sheriffs and their officers to apprehend, such persons as they ' thought meet to be convened ' before them, make this instrument of ecclesiastical oppression complete. At one stroke it practically neutralised every liberty achieved by the nation from Magna Charta downwards. Large numbers of reformers of all sections, and of every social rank, were apprehended under this authority, but advanced no further in their examination than their refusal to take the preliminary 'corporal oath.' This, of itself, was accounted sufficient proof that they were ' obdurate and disobedient.' On this ground they were summarily condemned to prison, some of them remaining there for years without knowing the nature of the charge which led to their apprehension. 76 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS 2. The Unpopularity of the New Court. So intolerable did the tyranny of the High Commission become during the next seven or eight years, so great was the storm of obloquy and indignant protest which it brought upon Whitgift, that, though himself the inventor of its draconic clauses and a firm believer in their merit, he was fain at last to get recalcitrant Nonconformists tried, by preference, before the Court of Star Chamber. 1 The alleged legality of the High Commission rested upon the statute 1 Eliz. the Act of Supremacy, a clause in which empowered the Queen to exercise this branch of her prerogative through Commissioners appointed under the great seal. 2 But its legality was always strongly contested, constitutional authorities maintaining that no clause in an Act whose chief end was the reviving of the instruments of law as they existed in previous reigns, could override the whole body of the common law of the land. The authority claimed by the Bishops for this clause not only made Elizabeth an irresponsible autocrat in affairs ecclesi- astical, in those days a very comprehensive term, but, even worse, transferred that irresponsible autocracy to a Court ruled by a narrow, vindictive priest like Whitgift. The full tale of the iniquitous oppressions of this Court might well be gathered into a separate volume. ' It was/ says Hume, 'a real Inquisition, attended with similar iniquities and cruelties.' 3 Even Lingard, the Roman his- torian, who had to recognise, as an honest writer, the in- defensible cruelties perpetrated by his own Church, could point the moral of this abhorrent institution in these words : ' Whoever will compare the powers given to this tribunal with those of the Inquisition, which Philip II. endeavoured 1 ' Let it not here be forgotten, that because many did question the legality and Authority of the High Commission ; Archbishop Whitgift so contrived the matter, that the most sturdy and refractory Nonconformists (especially if they had visible estates) were brought into the Star Chamber. This took the Odium from the Archbishop, which in the High Commission lightened chiefly, if not only upon him. ' Fuller's Church Hist, of Britain, ed. 1655, bk. ix. p. 187. 2 1 Eliz. cap. 1, sec. 18 (1599). 3 History, Reign of Eliz. xii. WHITGIFT'S PRIMACY 77 to establish in the Low Countries, will find that the chief difference between the two Courts consisted in their names. One was the Court of Inquisition, the other of High Commission.' l 3. The Case of Robert Cawdrey. The large number of men who, as long as it existed, resisted the opera- tions of this Court, and denounced its high-handed dis- regard of even the elementary liberties of the subject, served the cause of civil and religious liberty well and worthily. A considerable proportion of them were sentenced before any charge against them could be presented, since they refused at the onset to recognise the clerical tyranny, and were summarily committed to prison as a consequence. The case of Eobert Cawdrey, one of this number, is fre- quently referred to by contemporaries. He may be said to have won his cause although the verdict by prejudgment was against him. The Court of High Commission is perhaps unique among all tribunals, as Attorney Morrice pointed out, in that its proceedings contain no record of a prisoner con- vented before it being found not guilty. Cawdrey was rector of Luffenham in Rutlandshire, having been presented to the living by Lord Burleigh. He was a man of sound learning and of unblemished character, greatly beloved by his people ; but he was among those who earnestly desired the complete Protestant reformation of the Church. The charges against him were of the familiar kind ; he omitted the sign of the cross in baptism; though strictly following the order of the Prayer Book in other details, he did not insist upon communicants kneeling to receive the eucharistic elements ; he refused at the burial of all and sundry persons to repeat the words, ' In sure and certain hope of the re- surrection to eternal life ' ; also, he had never worn the surplice. Moreover, preaching on an occasion upon a text which naturally suggested the topic, he spoke strongly against non-residency and other corruptions, describing the prescribed order of public worship, which any curate know- ing his letters could read, as favouring the continuance of 1 Hist, of Eng. (1823), v. 316 n. 78 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS these evils. He openly confessed this charge. ' In the warmth of my zeal, seeing the book tolerateth an ignorant and unfaithful ministry, I said, " It is a vile book, fie upon it." ' He was subjected to successive examinations, his chief judge being Aylmer, the Bishop of London, who urged him especially to wear the surplice, using this remarkable argument. ' Suppose you were able to keep four or six servants in livery, and one or two should refuse to wear your livery, would you take it all in good part ? Are we not the Queen's servants ? And is not the surplice the livery which she hath appointed to be worn? And do you think she will be content if we refuse to wear it ? ' Cawdrey contended on this occasion that Aylmer was urging penalties against him, which were never intended to be urged against any sort of Protestants. He also challenged the consistency of the Bishop, condemning another for not observing the Prayer Book in every detail, when he himself and most of the Bishops, in the matter of confirming children, had not strictly observed it for the previous twenty-eight years. 1 This line of argument did Cawdrey little good. Aylmer at once suspended him from preaching in any part of the kingdom, and at the close of the examination, the accused not being 'resolved' on all the points alleged against him, he was sent to prison, bail being refused. Against this harsh treatment Cawdrey appealed to his patron Burleigh. The Lord Treasurer wrote to Aylmer asking for an explanation of his severity, and requesting to see the charges against Cawdrey. The un- fortunate man appeared again before the Commission the same day. He claimed that the ' exception against him in 1 A little light upon the Episcopal view of the rite of Confirmation can be derived from a remark of Whitgift's. The Archbishop was not aware that the Book ascribed salvation to baptism. ' Is there any such thing in the book ? ' he asks. Assured that there was, he requests to see it. Hart- well his secretary informed him that the statement occurred in the last words of the rubric (before confirmation). Never at a loss to defend the established order, Whitgift said, ' The meaning of the book is to exclude the popish opinion of confirmation, as if it were necessary to baptism. There- fore those who have been baptized have all outward things necessary to salvation, even without confirmation.' Brook's Lives, i. 270. WHITGIFT'S PRIMACY 79 the Statute/ referred to by Dr. Stanhope, the civil lawyer, was wrongly appealed to, as it related to Papists and re- cusarits only. So the statute was produced and examined, and Cawdrey's contention was found to be correct. The angry little Bishop closed the door of justice with a slam. ' It is no matter,' said he, ' whether it be so or not ; he shall be sworn to answer new Articles.' But Burleigh demanded, before the next appointed convention of Cawdrey, an impartial hearing of his case, the result of which was that he 'sent an express order to the Bishop, to dismiss him, and trouble him no more.' But Aylmer had no mind to let his prey escape from his claws so easily. He there- fore replied that he was ' only one of the Commission,' and that Cawdrey ' must appear on the day appointed,' and that they would 'consider his case according to equity and conscience.' The phrase ' equity and conscience ' was no doubt used ironically, for the persecuted was still denied his freedom. Cawdrey urged, but in vain, that even if he were guilty, he had more than suffered the statutory penalty of six months' imprisonment, and the loss of a year's clerical income to the Queen. He was then offered an offensive form of recantation of ' those blasphemous speeches ' which he had ' uttered against that holy book,' which he absolutely refused. Eeminded of his pitiful plea on behalf of his destitute wife and eight children, he replied, ' Both my wife and niy children shall go a-begging, rather than I will offend God and my own conscience.' In spite of his further pleas, the sentence of deprivation was passed upon him. Burleigh who had been in ill-health and unable to attend to his varied correspondence, was presently made acquainted with the hard fate of his client ; and, convinced that he was a basely injured person, he engaged Attorney James Morrice, of the Court of Wards, a barrister of great ability, a member of Parliament, and one of the most strenuous defenders of the rights of the people against all oppression, to undertake Cawdrey's case. The learned man soon ' made hay ' of Aylmer's law. The sentence was null and void for several reasons : Cawdrey 8o THE MARPRELATE TRACTS was not in Aylmer's diocese or within his jurisdiction ; the sentence was the Bishop's own, for he claimed to impose it in virtue of his office ; by law it should have been given in the names of all the Commissioners. Moreover the sentence of deprivation could only be passed as the last of a series ; it must legally be preceded by admonition, ex- communication, and sequestration. But all this, besides other illegalities in the procedure pointed out by Cawdrey himself, availed nothing. Whitgift, sitting on the Commis- sion at Lambeth, completed the sentence of deprivation. On a further appeal to the Court of Exchequer, Dr. Aubrey, the civil lawyer, engaged in ecclesiastical cases, frankly acknowledged the sentence was not warranted by statute law, but by the older canon law, that is, by transporting the nation back a century and a half to the times of irresponsible Papal oppression. 1 4. The Oath ' Ex officio.' In connection with the High Commission and other ecclesiastical Courts, there was nothing more cruelly oppressive, more abhorrent to an Englishman's native sense of justice, than the oath intro- duced by Whitgift for the first time into the operations of an ecclesiastical Commission. It is called in the Queen's Articles of authorisation a ' corporal oath ' an oath taken with the hand upon the New Testament but is commonly described as the oath ex officio mero, an oath, that is, not regulated and restricted by legal usage and enactment, but administered, unconditionally, to every one convented before the Commission. Without a clear understanding of this ex officio oath, the fire and indignation of the Mar- prelate Tracts, the resentment of many of the chief officers of the State, and the intense hatred of the common people towards Whitgift and the Bishops, cannot be understood. No doubt the ecclesiastics were mortified and irritated by the successful secrecy with which the propaganda of the reformers was conducted. Every possible liberty was pre- scribed ; liberty and speech even opinions were persecuted liberty of the press, liberty to ask for redress from 1 Brook, Lives, I 431-43. WHITGIFT'S PRIMACY Si Parliament, liberty of social prayer, liberty of religious con- ference, liberty of public worship, and now, finally, the liberty guaranteed by the constitution against lawless deeds of tyranny. The natural fruit of such a foolish and unscrupulous policy was the secret printing - press, the anonymous tract, the surreptitious assembly. Finding that warnings, injunctions, and even legal processes were ineffec- tual to bring his opponents to reveal their secrets, Whitgift introduced the oath ex officio, and, later, the torture chamber. The modus operandi was simple in the extreme. A man was convented before the High Commission. According to the Prelates' interpretation of their powers, no legal writ or warrant was really required ; multitudes of men and women were apprehended against whom no lawful writ had been issued. John Greenwood was worshipping with some personal friends in a house near the Wardrobe, when the Bishops' pursuivants entered, and they were all hurried off to prison without one word of explanation or of justification. Henry Barrowe called to see Greenwood in prison. The gaoler admitted him; and although there was no writ against him, Barrowe never left prison till he journeyed to Tyburn. Great numbers of the persons convented before the Commission resided far away from Lambeth and London, yet before any crime was alleged against them, they had to pay the expenses of the pursuivants who came illegally to apprehend them. Hearken to the complaint of the distinguished minister, Dudley Fenner. ' Their righteous soules,' he says, ' must bee vexed with seeing and hearinge the ignorance, the prophane speaches and the evill example of those thrust upo their charges, They them selues of [by] the wicked defamed, reproched, scoffed at, and called seditious and rebellious ; . . . and although to such as you who swarme with Deanries, double benefices, pensions, aduousans, reversions, etc., Those molestations seeme light ; yet upon euerie irreligious mans complaint in such things as many times are incredible, to be by pursuivants sent for to pay two pence [ = say a shilling or a little more of our G 82 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS money] for euerie myle to find messengers, to defraye their owne charges, to such as can hardlie with what they haue, clothe and feede themselues and their families, it is not only gri[e]vous, but as farre as a worldly trouble may be, a verie hart-burning. It is grievous to a freeman borne, and to a free Minister to be brought into a slavish subjection to a Commissaire, as at his pleasure upon every trifling com- plainte to be summoned [into the spiritual courts] ; and coming there at the least with unnecessarie expenses, masterlike answeres, yea, and sometimes with open revy- linges to be sent home again.' l This quotation not only illustrates the rapidly flourishing calling of the pursuivant, but also reveals the sharpness of the persecution, when men of the highest repute and of unblemished character were at the mercy of the common informer. But let us follow the mode of procedure. Arriving at the Court, the Commissioners command the convented person to be sworn, his oath being given that he will answer any questions put to him truly. Charge against him or any other there is none, nor are there witnesses ; the questions to be answered upon oath are not restricted to any specified allegation. As a matter of fact the interrogatories framed by Whitgift were of the most minutely inquisitorial character; 2 the whole confessed intention of this outrageous tyranny being identical in 1 A Defence of the godlie Ministers, sig. G 4. Neal's quotation, History, i. 390, is not quite accurately given. 2 A couple of the Articles taken as they are cited by Neal, will enable the reader to appreciate the nature of the examination to which suspected persona were subjected. 1. Imprimis, 'Objicimus, ponimus, et articulamur, i.e. We object, put, and article to you, that you are a deacon or minister, and priest admitted ; declare by whom and what time you were ordered ; and likewise, that your ordering was according to the book in that behalf by the law of this land provided. Et objicimus conjunctim de omni et divisim de quodlibet, i.e. And we object to you the whole of this article taken together, and every branch of it separately. ' 7. Item. 'Obj. ponimus, etc. That you deem and judge the said whole book [of Common Prayer] to be a godly and virtuous book, agreeable, or at least not repugnant, to the word of God ; if not we require and command you to declare, wherein, and in what points. Et objicimus ut supra.' There are twenty-four of these Articles altogether. Burleigh's indignant judgment on them is given later on. Neal, History, i. 337. WHITGIFT'S PRIMACY 83 character to the use of torture to compel a man to accuse himself. In his arrogant autocratic soul Whitgift could not understand any sacred human rights of reserve, any final inviolable prerogative of personality. He blasphemously claimed the right of the Almighty to unlock any heart of its secrets, to coerce it into ' bolting out ' such information as could be used in framing a formal charge against itself. Take the following colloquy between Whitgift and Barrowe. The Archbishop, in angry mood, asks Barrowe if he will swear. Barrowe. I would not refuse to sweare upon due occasion. Archbp. Will you then now sweare ? Bar. I must first know to what. Arch. So you shall afterward. Bar. I will not swear unlesse I know before. Later on the altercation is continued. Barrowe is to be told what he is to swear to. Arch. How say you ? wil you sweare now ? Aylmer. My Lordes grace doth not show this favour to many. Arch. Fetch a book. Bar. It is needless. Arch. Why, wil you not sweare now 1 Bar. An oath is a matter of importance and requireth great consideration. But I will answer you truly, etc. Arch. Go to, sirra, answer directlie. Wil you sweare ? Reach him a booke. Bar. There is more cause to sweare mine accuser. I wil not sweare. Arch. Where is his keeper 1 You shal not prattle here. Away with him. Clap him up close \ close \ let no man come at him. I wil make him tel another tale, ere I have done with him. 1 5. Wigginton's Opposition and its Penalty. Giles Wigginton, sometime Fellow of Trinity, a good scholar and a quaint and interesting personality, was an old object of Whitgift's enmity. Being himself a dull man, devoid of a sense of humour, Whitgift seems to have cherished a par- ticular antipathy towards men marked by some touch of 1 Exam, of Barrowe. Greenwood, and Penry, sig. A iii. rect. et vers. 84 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS frolic imagination. Wigginton was in the nature of things a popular member of his college, and was elected to his fellow- ship in spite of the strong opposition of Whitgift, the Master. When the Master became Primate he did not forget Wigginton, who speedily found himself at Lambeth before the High Commission. Wigginton was at the time Vicar of Sedburgh, in the North Eiding, and came up to London in 1584 to preach at St. Dunstan's a sermon before the Judges. Notification of this, apparently, only reached Whitgift at a late hour the previous evening, but he lost no time in putting the machinery of repression into force. In the dead of night his pursuivant roused up the sleeping Wigginton, forbidding him to preach the next day; and although he was without warrant, the pursuivant required of him a bond that he would appear in the morning at Lambeth. At Lambeth Wigginton was tendered the oath ex qfficio, which he promptly refused to take ; in consequence, the Archbishop, with ' much reviling and reproaching language,' committed him to the Gatehouse at Westminster, where he remained for nine weeks, save a day. 1 The Archbishop never released his grip of him. After much distress and persecution inflicted in the meantime through Whitgift's episcopal agents, Wigginton was again at Lambeth in the beginning of December 1588. 2 His natural wit, as 1 Brook, Lives, i. 419. 2 Wigginton was indicted the next year, at Whitgift's request, before Archbishop Sandys, and with difficulty, through the influence of certain eminent personages, escaped the intended penalty of deprivation. A minister of immoral character, one Oolecloth, was sent to take possession of the living. The next following year, 1586, being again in London, Wigginton was once more before the Archbishop, and again refusing the oath ex offieio, he was cast into the White Lion Prison, Southwark. He says, ' I was shamefully reviled and abused by the Archbishop and those about him, as if I had been the vilest rebel against my prince and country. He then committed me to the keeper of the prison in Southwark, who, by the Arch- bishop's strict charge, so loaded me with irons, confined me in close prison, and deprived me of necessary food, that in about five weeks I was nearly dead.' In a letter directed from prison to a nobleman, Wigginton writes, 'I desire justice, not mercy, being conscious of my own innocency. My old adversary, the Archbishop, has treated me more like a Turk or a dog than a man or a minister of Jesus Christ.' Brook, Lives, i. 420. When appearing before Whitgift, as narrated above, in December 1588, he had only just been released from the Compter probably the Wood Street lock-up. WHITGIFT'S PRIMACY 85 also his natural resentment against his persecutor, made him to be suspected, if not of being the sole author, at least of having a hand in the writing of the Marprelate Tracts ; and there were other sins, both of omission and commission, of which he was suspected to be guilty. Finding once more Wigginton's firmness about the oath, persuaded also, no doubt, that in any case he would answer truthfully, if at all, Whitgift determined to proceed with his inquisitorial Articles, in the hope that Wigginton would supply him with information on which he could be condemned. The examination began in this fashion : Whitgift. There is a Book called Martin Marprelate, a vile seditious foolish and intolerable booke. You are suspected to be a dealer in it, and therefore you are to swear what you know concerning the same. There is a Bible or a Testament ; take your oath. Hold the booke to him. * Were you, etc.' Wigginton. You do well to tell me what matter I shall sweare unto ; but let me know also mine accusers, who will stand up against me ; for my meaning is not to accuse myself. Whitg. Well, there is no dealing with him, as you know (said he to his associates. Then turning to Gples] W[igginton] he said), We will take your answer on your word only. What say you to these articles following 1 (So he read certain interrogatories which were in effect as after followeth, very large and very subtle, yet not without vain repetitions.) Whitg. Whether have you any of the same bookes 1 Or, have you read or heard [read] any of them, or any part of them at any time ? Wigg. I will not answer to accuse my selfe, let mine accusers stand forth, if it please you to proceed against me. You have known my resolved mind for this point for many years passed. Whitg. Whether have you had, used, or known any of them, and how many ; and how came you by them ; and how did you bestow them ; in whose hands are they, and by whose means ; when and where did you come by them, or see them, or heare them read unto you, etc. 1 Wigg. I would rather accuse myself than others ; but I will accuse neither of both. Let mine accusers and due witnesses according to the laws of God and of this Realme, proceed against me, if you will ; for I looke for no comfort by accusing myself or my neighbours. 86 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS WTiitg. Whether have you bought, sold, given, dispersed, handled or any way dealt with any of them, in what sort, etc 1 Wigg. I account it as unnaturall a thing for me to answer against myself as to thrust a knife into my thigh. The matter I understand is dangerous and doubtfull, and therefore I will neither accuse my selfe nor others about it. The heathen Judge said to the Apostle in the Acts, ' I will hear thee when thine accusers come.' 1 Later on in this trial a further conversation took place concerning the justice and lawfulness of the examination without indictment or witnesses, and by the ex officio oath. The Archbishop, Bishop Cooper, and others affirmed ' that it was lawfull for him [Wigginton] to answer as they demanded ; that there was no other way of tryall ; that no estate could stand without such answering and swearing.' Wigginton denied that it was English law, or that their procedure was the usage of good courts. Whitgift, who stuck at nothing, roundly affirmed that it was English law. 6. Protests of Burleigh and Attorney Morrice. The iniquities of the High Commission were so flagrant that they excited general disapprobation. Burleigh was roused out of his prudent reticence to write to the Primate about his method of interrogation, and to inform him of the wide- spread disaffection it was creating. Whitgift's Articles he 1 found in a Romish style, of great length and curiosity ' ; he thought ' the Inquisition of Spain used not so many questions to comprehend and to trap their priests.' According to his judgment, the Archbishop's proceeding was 'too much savouring of the Romish Inquisition, and is a device rather to seek for offenders than to reform any.' The Archbishop wrote voluminous replies, in which he re- linquished not a jot of his contention, and quoted, forsooth, the practice of the Star Chamber, the Court of Marches (in connection with which he had introduced the rack), and other tribunals. Burleigh contented himself with a brief severe answer. He said he was not satisfied ' in the point of seeking by examination to have ministers accuse them- selves, and then punish them for their own confessions.' 1 Second Parte of a ^Register (MS.), 844. WHITGIFT'S PRIMACY 87 In regard to the poor minister whose case had moved him to write, he said ' his Grace might therefore deal with his friend Master Brayne as he thought fit; but when by examining him it was meant only to sift him with twenty- four Articles, he had cause to pity the poor man.' 1 Wise and strong men, lovers of their country, saw clearly that the constitution was being undermined. The long struggle for human liberty had not been without its guerdon. But now, after many victories, after having freed itself from the servitude of Kome, the chiefest of all the victories of freedom, another succession of priests, as much a caste as the old and not a whit less overbearing, was turning the glory of the English race into shame. Attorney Morrice wrote the Prelates privately of ' their errour and abuse/ not touching, as he says, any living person and treating the matter generally, and only communicating his fears and thoughts besides to an ' honourable Counsellor of estate ' and a (lay) ecclesiastical commissioner. Of course no heed was taken of his private admonition. He therefore pointed out the abuse in a speech which he delivered from his place in Parliament. This he afterwards embodied in a paper still in existence. 2 He naturally reflects upon the grotesque circumstance that ' the men that offer these indignities (who would thinke it !) are the persons comonlie called spiritual!.' He then divides his remarks under three heads. The wrongs are chiefly perpetrated (a) ' by an ungodlye and intolerable inquisition ' ; (b) ' by a lawlesse subscription ' ; and (c) ' by a binding absolution/ He first describes the inquisition ; the ' seacret, and for the most part, malitious enformers ' ; citation upon ' bare suspition conceyved of your owne Phantasies ' ; trial without ' lawfull presentment/ with the obnoxious oath and interrogatories. If the accused though that name is not an accurate description through weakness submit to the oath, then he is sure to be tricked into supplying some information for 1 Neal, i. 339, 340. Burleigh is the only man who bearded Whitgift and did not suffer for it. 2 A Remembrance of certaine matters concerninge the Clergye and theire Jurisdiction, Baker MSS. (Cam. Univ. Lib.), Mm. i. 51. 88 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS his own condemnation. If he refuse, ' then, as for a heynous contempt against God and hir Maj tie he is comytted to hard and miserable Imprisonment, there to remayne duringe plea- sure, without Bayle or Mayneprise.' The scandalous invasion of natural human rights thus committed is shown. Nothing but contempt is being cast upon the great instruments and institutions of law. The Great Charter says that no Free- man shall be punished or fined except by the ' lawe of the Lande ' ; and forbids the accused to be put on oath. There is the great statute 1 6 Edward III. which provides ' that no man be putt to answere, without presentment before Justices, matter of Record, due processour, with originall, after the antient Lawe of the Land.' The ecclesiastical judges had stigmatised these as ' antiquate and worne out of use ' ; he uses, he remarks, ' their terrnes.' Morrice then points out a characteristic piece of prelatical sharp-practice. In their demand for a ' lawlesse subscrip- tion/ the Bishops begin with a fair show ; they present the Article touching the Royal Supremacy, which none refuses. But presently they proceed to highly ' disputable matters ' of their own devising ; and because subscription is denied to these, the examinee is made guilty of all, as though they had opposed a genuine legal enactment and were disloyal. To Morrice, as a constitutional lawyer, this whole pro- ceeding was a violation of the prerogative of the Crown. The ' binding absolution/ his third head, is the injustice of asking men to be absolved by binding themselves, beyond all reason or right, to obey ecclesiastical laws and injunc- tions ' which they know not, and if they were knowne, yet impossible to be performed.' He notes in regard to the oath that, in answer to a request that they should not urge it upon ministers of known reputation the Bishops' response was ' bytter, sharpe, and offensive to hir Maiesties Courts of Justice ' they could not, they declared, exercise their juris- diction without ' dealinge ex officio.' They had abandoned all justification for their proceedings except the Act 1 Eliz., with the Commission it authorised. Morrice, however, points out that that Act was only a restoring Act, and WHITGIFT'S PRIMACY 89 could only restore such jurisdictions and privileges as were previously lawfully exercised. Comparing these lawless clerical pirates with the Queen, he finely says, ' Behold with us the sovereigne Aucthoritie of one, an absolute Prince, Greate in Maiestie, rulinge and reigninge ; yet guyded and directed by Principles and Precepts of Season, which wee terme the Lawe.' l 1 Upon completion of his speech Morrice presented two Bills to the House, one against ' unlawfull oathes, injunctions, and subscriptions,' and the other against ' unlawfull imprisonment and restraynt of Libertie ' ; in the preambles of which, respectively, he embodied, in technical form, the legal grounds of his procedure. The discussion which followed was highly interesting. Dalton, a lawyer, made it an opportunity of inveighing against the Puritans and the Church at Middleburgh (Zeelarid) ; Wooley, a privy councillor, pretended that the subject was forbidden ; Finch of Gray's Inn denounced the Inquisition ; Sir Francis Knollys denied that Morrice opposed ecclesiastical jurisdiction ; he opposed its abuse ; certainly if ecclesiastical laws contravened the Laws of the Realm, then ecclesiastical laws must ' stoope and submy tt them selfes. ' Sir Robert Cecil and the Speaker suc- ceeded in getting the Bills postponed till the next day. That, says Morrice, was the last he heard of them. Whitgift was no doubt to the fore, poisoning the mind of the Queen (see an example of his practice, Strype, WMtg. i. 391), and so next day Morrice had to appear before the Privy Council. Here began his troubles, they ended only with his death. For his interference in ecclesiastical affairs he was to be imprisoned Bmieigh securing that it should be in a counsellor's house. The Lord Keeper had waxed warm on the lawfulness of the oath ; but Burleigh said Morrice's Bills were wrong ' onlie in forme ' he should have addressed himself directly to her Majesty. Morrice, in reply, claimed that he had only touched upon ' matters of estate. ' From his durance in Sir John Fortescue's house, where he was hospitably treated in the ill-health from which he suffered, he addressed several letters to Burleigh and others. In one of them he warns the authorities to con- sider well the situation, lest, ' as heretofore we praied, From the tyranny of the B[ishop] of Rome, good Lord deliver us, we bee compelled to pray, From the Tyranny of the Clergy of England, good Lord deliver us.' Much public interest was shown in his case ; his patriotic spirit and his physical weakness combined to awaken the sympathies of the people. After various delays and interviews, he got his release, and found his way home to West- minster once more. But it could not be supposed that so bold and powerful a critic of the Prelates, so courageous a counsel on behalf of their victims, could be left at large to continue his mischief. He was first of all deprived of his place in the Duchy Court, and then his teeth were drawn by depriving him from practising as a common lawyer. But even then his great learning and wise counsel were at the command of persecuted reformers, such as Giles Wigginton and others. His vindictive priestly enemy never rested till he had him shut up in Tutbury Castle a few miles from Burton-on-Trent sometime the prison of Mary Stewart ; a ' fortress rather than a dwelling- house, desolate and uncomfortable,' Bp. Creighton describes it (Eliz. p. 213). There James Morrice remained till his death a martyr to the cause of public justice and liberty. Baker MSS. (Camb. Univ. Lib.), Mm. i. 51. 90 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS 7. Later Phases of the Court under Whitgift, Bancroft, and Laud. There is a significant record of Whitgift sitting alone in the Court of High Commission, for the establish- ment of which he was chiefly responsible. Men shrank from the obloquy which attached to its proceedings, tyrannical in method and pitiless in spirit as they were. But the now aged persecutor, seventy years of age and more, unrepenting of all his cruelties, his lawless proceed- ings, his betrayal of the liberties of the people, sits in his abhorred tribunal, querulously complaining that privy coun- cillors and bishops were avoiding its precincts, and that the only officials on duty are deans and doctors, and such small fry, "whose attendance he might with some authority command and expect/ 1 Whitgift's successor Bancroft, under King James, found the High Commission an institution very much to his mind in his strenuous efforts to free the Established Church from the dominance of the law, and to create an ecclesiastical tribunal having an entirely independent jurisdiction. Caring less than nothing for the constitutional and inherited liberties of the people, Bancroft, when successfully opposed by Chief Justice Coke, desperately appealed to the autocratic instincts of King James so as to gain his end. The King was to be a sort of oriental amir, sitting in the gate, and himself administering, not indeed law, but Jacobean justice. The 1 The King somewhat objected to the number of the Commissioners, thinking them too many. Whitgift replied that the larger number was necessary ' for otherwise he must be forc'd, as oft-times now it fell out, to sit alone, etc.' He also complained that some suspected persons were too eminent to be reached in any other way, and averred that Commissions were (at that particular time we assume, certainly not in the earlier days of his rule) granted against his will, and without his knowledge. One of the lay lords of the Conference repeated the original objections to the Commission and the oath, offered by Burleigh and Morrice, alleging the procedure to be illegal and ' like unto the Spanish Inquisition. ' The Archbishop then made the most astounding statement of all. ' In the manner of proceeding and examining, ' he said, ' his Lordship was deceived : For if any Article did touch the Party any way, either for Life, Liberty, or Scandal, he might refuse to Answer, neither was he urg'd thereunto.' Although this is recorded by a dignitary entirely favourable to Whitgift, it is difficult to believe that he ever made such a statement. See The Sum and Substance, of the Conference, by William Barlow, D.D., Dean of Chester. Reprinted in The, Phoenix, i. 172, 173. WHITGIFT'S PRIMACY 91 judges were only his delegates, Bancroft urged ; and agents could not perform acts which their principal was incom- petent to perform ; and James thought so too. The Chief Justice made short work of this egregious claim ; upon which the royal Solomon told him that his sentiments were treasonable, and that he spoke like a fool. The judges, however, agreed with the eminent Chief Justice, and no doubt, if legal authority could have operated, the Court of High Commission would not have been allowed to continue its evil existence. It was reserved to another Archbishop of the Established Church to fill up the cup of its iniquities. Under William Laud the policy of Whitgift and Bancroft was carried to its extremity, until the names of the High Commission and of its companion and co-operating court, the Star Chamber, became a terror in the land. For writing Sion's Plea against Prelacy Alexander Leighton, father of the Archbishop of that name, was apprehended on a warrant from the High Commission; he was seized coming out of church, dragged to Laud's house, thence, without form of trial, to Newgate. There he lay in irons in a foul dog-hole, snow coming through the open roof, without bedding, without fire, the place infested with vermin, for fifteen weeks. His wife was used with in- credible barbarity, and a pistol was presented to the breast of a child of five, in order to compel him to show where his father's books were hidden. The little fellow never re- covered from his terror. Through his evil usage Leighton's hair and skin came off. In this condition he was tried before the Star Chamber, was condemned to be degraded from his ministry ; to have his ears cut ; his nose slit ; to be branded in the face ; to stand in the pillory ; to be whipped at a post ; to pay ten thousand pounds [it might as well have been ten millions] ; and to suffer perpetual imprisonment. The verdict being pronounced, the grateful Archbishop took off his hat, and holding up his hands, ' gave thanks to God, who had given him the victory over his enemies.' The sentence was actually carried out, and that by halves. The first half was executed at Westminster, 92 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS where Leighton stood two hours in the pillory, in the frost and snow ; and was then whipped till the flesh on his back was in ribbons. In a week the sentence was completed in Cheapside the cutting, slitting, branding as before, and the gory back again lacerated with the triple cord. 1 The protection of law was ceasing out of the land ; neither cleric nor layman was safe for a day, except on terms of narrow subserviency. Because Prynne, after his second mutilation, when on his way to his prison in Carnarvon Castle, attended public worship at Coventry, it being Sun- day when he arrived there, the mayor and six others were summoned to appear before Laud. They had not even spoken to Prynne ; nevertheless the irascible Prelate had them in attendance for a fortnight and put them to between two and three hundred pounds expense, before they were allowed to return home. Never were the civil and religious liberties of the country more nearly imperilled than during the existence of Whitgift's High Commission the previous Elizabethan Commissions, bad though they were, were tribunals of an entirely different character and it was with a sigh of relief that the country heard in 1641 that both the High Commission and the Star Chamber were abolished. Section III. Emptying the Pulpits and filling the Gaols 1. Literary Protests. It was not to be supposed that clerical intolerance was to be endured without protest. Recourse was had to the secret press, the only platform left from which a reformer and a patriot could appeal, which for the next ten years and more was kept busy. Soon after Whitgift was transferred to Canterbury and had issued his drastic Articles, a small pamphlet was put into circulation entitled The Unlawful Practises of Prelates, in which he is reproached for using good ministers more severely than any Prelate had used them since the Reforma- 1 Brook, Lives, ii. 476-483. WHITGIFT'S PRIMACY 93 tion. 1 But a more serious indictment of his policy was that contained in An Abstracte of Certaine Acts of Parlement ; in which the anonymous author shows, against the prevail- ing practice of the Bishops, that ' A learned ministerie is commanded by the law ' ; and also, that ' Dispensation for many benefices is unlawfull.' There can be little doubt about the soundness of the contention ; the defence of the ecclesiastical authorities always rested on the alleged scarcity of suitable ministers, which necessitated, in the one case, the appointment of uneducated ministers, and in the other, the multiplication of benefices in the hands of one man ; on both which points something more will be said presently. The nature of the official reply, which also appeared anonymously, but was written by Dr. Eichard Cosin, the ecclesiastical lawyer, can be seen in a single significant extract. Even if the allegations in the Abstracte were true, it was not seemly that the ' faults and oversights ' of the Bishops should be laid open ' as Cham did his father's nakedness.' Then he proceeds, 'Neither doth it become every triobolar 2 mate thus covertly to carp either at her Majesty's singular wisdom, who with the advice of her renowned, wise council hath made choice of those fathers [Bishops] as having more integrity and sufficiency, than he is willing by any means to agnize [recognise].' It is not necessary here to follow in detail the develop- ment of this controversy. Cosin was answered, as elsewhere noted, by Dudley Tenner in the Counterpoyson ; owing to this circumstance Fenner has been assigned the authorship of the Abstracte, though this is probably an error. The Counterpoyson was in turn assailed in a Latin sermon delivered at Paul's Cross by Dr. Copcot (or Capcot), which does not appear to have been printed. This was again 1 See HAY ANY WORKE, 42. The pamphlet is a very slight production, and its influence on the Marprelate controversy not appreciable ; but in the unsatisfactory and uninformed account of this controversy given by Mr. Ray- mond Beazley in Traill's Social England (vol. iii. p. 435) it is cited as being of some special importance, the writer perhaps led astray by the fame of Tyndale's work, The Practice of Prelates. 2 Equal in value to three oboli only ; hence, mean, contemptible. 94 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS answered by Fenner in A Defence of the Reasons of the Counterpoyson, though after considerable delay ; to be accounted for, no doubt, by the increasing difficulty of maintaining the secret press, owing to the vigilance of the censorship. It is to be noted, however, that while the discussion was originally upon the legality of the pro- ceedings of the Bishops, the defence never seriously faced that issue ; seeing only in the Abstracte a device to introduce the eldership in place of the episcopate. The last phase of the discussion turned on the Scriptural authority of the eldership. The whole contention also revealed the per- manent division existing in this country between the views of the clergy of the Establishment and those of the general body of English laymen ; a division as marked in our own day as in the period of which we write. 1 2. Protests of the Reforming Clergy. The results of Whitgift's peremptory insistence upon subscription to his Three Articles were disastrous. No intelligent person could with a clear conscience sign the second Article on the con- tents of the Book of Common Prayer ; and as the intensity of an Englishman's patriotism depended upon the distance separating him from the foreign cult of Rome, so none felt so keenly as the Nonconformists that Whitgift, under cover of Protestantism, was really perpetuating the older Italian tyranny and the more recent Spanish lawlessness : he, a priest, was demanding more than the law allowed him ; more, it would seem, than even any ecclesiastical canon warranted him in demanding. He was overriding the lex terrae, the chief possession of the race, the fruits of the struggles against princely and clerical oppression, embodied as a permanent possession in the law and constitution of the country. And because staunch patriotic men resisted 1 'It may be gathered from this Abstracte what a hard Game that Reverend Prelate [Whitgift] had to play, when such great Masters in the Art held the Cards against him : For at that time the Earls of Huntingdon and Leicester, Walsingham Secretary of Estate, and Knolls Comptroller of the Houshold (a professed Gencviari) were his open Adversaries ; Burleigh, a Neutral at best ; and none but Hatton (then Vicechamberlain and afterwards Lord Chancellor) firmly for him. ' Hist, of the Presbyterians, by Peter Heylin, D.D., Chaplain to Charles I. and Charles II. (Oxford, 1670), p. 276. WHITGIFT'S PRIMACY 95 these lawless Episcopal proceedings they were branded as disloyal. When John Wilson, a licensed preacher, and a Yorkshireman, appeared before Archbishop Sandys and was so accused, he replied, ' I am as true a subject, and as good a friend to her Majesty and the State, according to my ability, as you are/ Appearing before Whitgift, Aylmer, and others of the High Commission, in December 1587, Wilson challenged the legality of their proceedings. Answering Stanhope, he said If you can shew me any statute, now in force in England, which requireth me to subscribe to the Book of Common Prayer, to the book of making bishops and ministers, and to the whole book of articles ; I will promise you and these people, that I will subscribe. Being told that the Bishops by a commission from her Majesty had authority ' to deal in these matters according to their discretion,' Wilson replied Neither their commission nor their discretion, may oppose the discreet [i.e. distinct, definite] laws made by her Majesty and Parliament. If they do, I dare boldly say, that they abuse her Majesty, her subjects, and their own commission. 1 All through their contest with the Bishops, those who were * seekers after Eeformation ' professed to be, and undoubtedly were, fervent and unquestioning in their loyalty to Elizabeth. ' God save the Queen,' said Stubbe when his right hand was barbarously chopped off. But the Bishops early and per- sistently tried to confuse the issue by making resistance to their Articles treason against the Crown. This subterfuge aroused the special indignation of the nonconforming ministers ; and it explains the fire which shows itself, for example, in the dexterous, but otherwise cool and con- sidered, replies of Axton, when before the Bishop of Lich- field in 1570; as seen in the following extract : Bishop. In refusing the surplice, you are disloyal to the Queen. 1 Brook, Lives, i. 346, 352. 96 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS Axton. In charging me with disloyalty, you do me great injury; and especially when you call me and my brethren traitors, and say, that we are more troublesome subjects than Papists. Bp. I say the same still. The Papists are afraid to stir; but you are presumptuous, and disquiet the state more than Papists. Ax. If I, or any others that fear God, speak the truth, doth this disquiet the State ? The Papists for twelve years have been plotting treason against the Queen and the Gospel, yet this does not grieve you. But I protest in the presence of God and you all, that I am a true and faithful subject to her Majesty. I pray daily, both in public and private, for her safety, for her long and prosperous reign, and for the overthrow of her enemies, especially the Papists. I do profess myself an enemy to her enemies, and a friend to her friends. If, therefore, you have any conscience, cease to charge me with disloyalty to my Prince. 1 But although their action was branded as disloyal and their books invariably classed as seditious, the resistance of the evangelical ministers to Whitgift's Three Articles and his Interrogatories never wavered ; nor did the false issue deceive any, except perhaps the Queen, outside the pre- latical circle. 3. Petitions from the Country. The extent to which these earnest, laborious, and for the most part learned, men were driven from their churches could not but alarm the more serious and religiously minded among the laymen. In the county of Norfolk sixty-four ministers were sus- pended ; in Suffolk, sixty ; in Sussex, thirty ; in Essex, thirty -eight ; in Kent, twenty ; in Lincolnshire, twenty- one. And the same in other counties. Petitions in great numbers soon began to be presented to the Council and the chief men about Court by tbe distressed parishes ; they speak of the laborious ministries of their deprived pastors, their eminent character and piety, and the moral reforma- tion they have effected in their parishes. 2 Burleigh, we 1 Brook, Lives, i. 163. 2 For example, the ' Supplication ' of Duuraow in Essex ' Dunmow Hundred and other some Townes near adjoyning' dated Nov. 1st, 1586, WHITGIFT'S PRIMACY 97 have seen, ceased in disgust to request personally that Whitgift should humanise his inquisition. But he joined the Lords of the Council who wrote to Aylmer on behalf of these men and their destitute flocks ; informing him of the complaints reaching them from all parts. The Councillors note that everywhere the men deprived are ' preachers ' ; they had hoped that these hasty proceedings would have been stayed by the Bishops, especially against men who so earnestly instructed their people against Popery. They point especially to the great number of vacant churches in Essex, a part of the diocese of London ; and they complain of the character of the men who, in some cases, have been sent to supply the vacancies ; men ' notoriously unfit most for lack of learning ; many charge- able with great and enormous faults, as drunkenness, filthi- ness of life, gaming at cards, haunting of alehouses, etc., against whom they [the Council] heard not of any proceed- ings, but that they were quietly suffered, etc.' They also complain of pluralists and non-residents ; and against these, also, they have ' heard of no inquisition ' ; the ' great diligence ' and ' extreme usage/ on the contrary, are against men 'that were known diligent preachers.' This letter was signed by the Lord Treasurer, the Earls of Shrewsbury, Warwick and Leicester, Lord Charles Howard, Sir James Croft, Sir Christopher Hatton (a remarkable signatory, seeing he was Whitgift's placeman, owing his and presented through Lord Rich, is signed by over two hundred of the inhabitants. The signatories profess their thankfulness when they compare their present time with the time of idolatry [under Mary]. But there are many, they state, without the benefits of the Gospel. ' The cause of which ariseth from hence, that the greatest number of our Ministers are utterly without learning, or very idle, or otherwise of very scandalous life.' On the other hand those from whom they ' reaped comfort are from time to time molested, threatened, and put to silence. ' Similar in tenor is the ' Suppli- cation of Certeine Hundreds in Essex [Hinchford, Throshwell, Uttesford, Clavering] to the Parliament. ' Their clergy, they say, are ' no preachers, some of them having been popish priests.' Their profitable ministers, men of godly lives, ' are from time to time for small matters of the Booke of Common Prayer and such like quarrells, molested, suspended, and threatened to be deprived, and removed from us, to the great grief and sorrow of our hearts.' Second Parte of a Register (MB.), Dr. Williams' Library, pp. 749, 751. Many other petitions are given in the Register. H 98 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS position to the patronage of Bancroft), and Sir F. Wal- singham. 1 The Archbishop replied in due course, admitting nothing, yielding nothing, promising nothing, except to inquire further when the Bishop of London returned from the country. The anxiety of the great statesmen, who made illustrious the reign of Elizabeth, was to have the people under moral and spiritual discipline ; the chief anxiety of the official representative of Christianity was lest anything should be done ' which did not tend to the peace of the Church, the working of obedience to law established.' 2 4. Whitgift and Robert Beale, Clerk of the Council. Following in the footsteps of James Morrice, another dis- tinguished lawyer, Robert Beale, a Clerk of the Queen's Council, a ' man of parts and some learning,' says Strype, drew up a protest against the lawlessness of the Archbishop's rule. The contents we know from the summary made by the Primate. From this we gather that Beale accused the Prelates of not wishing to reform 'the foule abuses and erormities' in the Church, which her Majesty commanded should be redressed. They unwarrantably played with the word obedience, so that the true intention of the law was frustrated ; the Bishops were acting unlawfully in the manner they imposed ceremonies, and in enforcing sundry points in the Book of Common Prayer, such as the calendar, certain lessons, ' fastes uppon saynts evens,' ' A Most Godlie Prayer for her Majestie and the Bishops,' wafer cakes in the Communion, etc. : moreover, the Book authorised by Parlia- ment was not that in use, for that so authorised was described as a certain book with three additions ; that in use has many other additions and is another book. Several paragraphs are occupied in discussing the authority of Princes in ' things indifferent,' and the necessity and liberty in such matters. ' The Lord hath reserved the conscience of man to be settled by hym self in his good tyme, as he thinketh meete in these indifferent thinges of dayes and 1 Strype, Whitg. i. 328. The date is Sept. 20th, 1584. 2 Ibid. i. 331. WHITGIFT'S PRIMACY 99 meates . . . and therefore the magistrate ought not to entermeddle with that case ; . . . and as the Lord hath not left the judgment of Christian doctrine unto the command- ment of any magistrate whatsoever, either spiritual or temporal, but unto the particular conscience of every one of his sheepe, ... so hath he done for this parcell of doc- trine. . . .' 'In the Communion Booke [Beale] inisliketh the readinge of the Apocrypha in the Churche ; private baptisme ; the crosse in baptisme ; interrogatories ininistred unto infants, the ringe in marriage,' He objects to certain names, though some have now become by long usage familiar; but there is an authentic English note in his antagonism to the ecclesiastical jargon about ' Eogations, Epiphany, Septuagesima,' etc. 1 The Archbishop criticised Beale's animadversions chiefly by making small logical points, rather than by addressing himself to the substance of the matters at issue. He rounds off his observations by saying, ' His whole booke, as it is without methode and order, so is it grounded vpon false principles, and argueth that he hath redde somethinge, but lacketh bothe the arte of logic and rhetorick.' 2 Whitgift's chief reliance, however, was not in ' logic and rhetorick,' complacently as he may have regarded his own skill in those exercises. Now, as always, his sheet anchor is the favour of the Queen for her ' little black husband.' So he writes her : " Albeyt I have incurred the displeasure of some, and the evle speaches and slaunderous reports of verie manie, yet so long as my service shalbe accepted of your Majestie, uppon whom onlie, next unto god, I doe depend, I wyll not be discouraged, nor fainte in my calling ; humbly beseeching your Majestie to continue your accustomed goodnesse to me.' 3 Section IV. The State of the Ministry 1. Efforts to restrict Pluralism and Non-residency. With the really earnest and capable ministers driven in such 1 Strype, Whitg. i. 283 ff. 2 Ibid. iii. 87, No. v. 3 Cotton MSS. Vesp. C xiv. 529. ioo THE MARPRELATE TRACTS large numbers from their charges, the evils of pluralism and of non-residency multiplied greatly. This form of ecclesiastical corruption had never been banished from the Church when Popery was officially abandoned. Under Henry VIII. an attempt was made to keep the practice within some limits. But under Edward, as well in the time of reaction under Mary, the spoliation of the Church by pluralism was a public scandal. The Canons of 1571 restrict the evil to two benefices It shall be lawfull for no man, of what degree or order soeuer he be, to haue at one time any more then two ecclesiasticall benefices : neither shall it be lawfull for any man at all, to gette two benefices, if they be distant more than xxvi miles.' l But it was impossible that there should be any rigorous amendment of the evils of pluralism while the chief ministers of the Church were the greatest offenders in this respect, and when every civil officer or court favourite looked to this source as the richest vein in the limited gold-bearing area of England. Elizabeth herself was a chief offender in the robbery of Church funds. She de- liberately left dioceses vacant that she might for the time being appropriate their income. Rich livings, prebends, canonries, were sweet morsels which she bestowed upon her favourites. In the case of the parishes robbed by this unprincipled lay-impropriation, ill-paid and generally poorly qualified curates were appointed to their livings. The lives of these vicarious ministers were often a public scandal ; they haunted the taverns and sometimes lodged there, finding their chief occupation in dicing and drinking. It was a perpetuation of the old Papal corruption ; the same system of poor substitutes, who frequently were evil-living, 1 Two other extracts from the Canons may be conveniently given here : The absence of the shepheard from the Lordes flocke and that careles negligence which we doe see in many, and forsakyng of the ministerie is a thing in it self to be abhorred and odious, etc. The farmer of a benefice shall have no authority over the minister. No minister shall ' take lesse then x poundes for his stipend. A Booke of ceriaine Canons, 1571. WHITGIFT'S PRIMACY 101 still more frequently unlearned, and always were paid a mere starvation wage. 1 2. The Avarice of the Bishops. The sad truth is that the Elizabethan Bishops, with one or two exceptions only, were guilty of shameless avarice ; they plundered and ex- ploited the property of their Sees, regardless of law or common honesty. Bishop Westphaling was esteemed by his contemporaries in this matter to be incorruptible ; ' even the Bishop of Hereford/ says Martin, in coupling his name with certain peccant Prelates. But he has apparently no fellow in the episcopal company. The greed of John Aylmer, which was notorious, is referred to in the TRACTS ; it is also treated briefly in the separate notice of that Pre- late. All the Bishops were allowed to augment their income by holding several livings in commendam, as it was termed. That among the least faulty in this respect were Bishop Jewel and Bishop Parkhurst, is what we should naturally expect. In the case of the Primates, their income was evidently sufficient to enable them to dispense a princely hospitality and yet to die immensely wealthy. Winchester and Ely were also so rich that they offered no colourable pretence for augmentation by way of ' com- mendams.' Otherwise, Cox, we are sure, would have secured them ; for under Henry and his son Edward he managed to get an archdeaconry (Ely), three canonries, two deaneries, a chaplaincy, a rectorship, a royal tutorship, and the Master- ship of Bequests ; 2 from these combined lucrative sources, having food and raiment, he no doubt rejoiced, like the Apostle, in being content. Bishop Hughes of St. Asaph, appointed in 1573, held in commendam an archdeaconry and ten other benefices ; and later on added six others, 1 See an illuminating article on ' Religious Education before the Re- formation,' by G. G. Coulton, in the Gontemp. Rev. for October 1906. It administers a most necessary corrective to the Utopian pictures of Abbot Gasquet, whose delineations of the idyllic life of Sir Thomas More, a most virulent controversialist and a ruthless persecutor, are true to the facts of Catholic life and rule in the degree that Watteau's nymphs and swains and pastoral scenes are true pictures of nature, and of the ' man with a hoe ' and his wife. 2 White's Eliz. Bishops, 79. 102 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS nine of the total sixteen being sinecures. His substitutes received a mere pittance ; livings in his gift he sold ; episcopal manors he leased for long terms to his 'wife, children, sisters and cousins,' and in the exercise of his diocesan visitations and functions he exacted the uttermost farthing from his miserable clergy. 1 Bishop Meyrick and Archbishop Young, in their pre-episcopal days, were ap- pointed guardians of the vacant See of St. David's, and proceeded deliberately to steal the cathedral jewels and plate, and to issue illegally, for their own gain, leases of various lands belonging to the See. When the austere Bishop Ferrar came upon the scene, and discharged these rogues, both of whom were subsequently elevated to the episcopal bench, they revenged themselves by formulating against him a long series of bogus charges. The Bishop was cast into prison, and remained there till the accession of Mary, when he suffered at the stake. 2 Young, when appointed to the archiepiscopal see of York, pulled down the hall attached to the cathedral, ' for the greedinesse of the lead that covered it.' Harington tells us, with some- thing like glee, the fate of the lead. A great Lord, to whom Young was under some obligation, sent to him to borrow a thousand pounds. The Archbishop sent him in- stead a present, enough to pay the cost of effecting a loan, and an assurance of the pleasure it would have given him to oblige his good Lord, had he possessed the amount. His lordship just then discovered that a ship laden with lead belonging to the Lord Prelate was sailing up the Thames. He promptly boarded the vessel, and on the strength of Young's letter, took possession of the cargo, and very speedily obtained his thousand pounds. 8 John Scory, some of whose doings are recorded on an earlier page, accepted the See of Hereford on the condition of alienating seventeen of the manors to the Queen. He complained to Burleigh of his poverty, but succeeded, never- theless, in leaving a great fortune behind him. Three 1 White's Eliz. Bishops, 197. 2 Ibid 96. 3 Briefe View, 170-72. WHITGIFT'S PRIMACY 103 sinecure prebends in Bromwich collegiate church in his bestowal he gave to his wife, and his worthless son Sylvanus received a prebend in his father's cathedral. 1 Scory was an ardent Protestant ; but Harington wittily says of him, that besides being ' a great enemy of idolatry, yet in another sense, according to St. Paul, he worshipped Images (not Saints but Angels [the coins]).' He adds that, ' what with pulling downe houses and selling the Lead, and such loose ends, what with setting up good husbandries, what with Leases to tenants, with all manner of mis et modis he heaped together a Masse of wealth.' Harington also tells the story of the ' noble and Honourable Councellour,' Sir Henry Sidney, ' then Lord President of Wales ' who deter- mined on account of the Bishop's extortions and simonies, to file ' a bill against him at Star Chamber.' The Bishop's solicitor was dismayed when he read the charges, no doubt knowing how true they were. The Bishop composed him by showing him some 'legions, or rather chiliads, of Angells,' which were presently added to the store of ' a Lady that was potent with him that was Dominus fac totum ' ; and as a matter of fact ' the Bill was never openly heard of after.' 2 It was a common occurrence that on entering upon his See one of the earliest acts of a newly appointed Bishop was to enter an action against his predecessor, or his predecessor's heirs, for the dilapidation and the illegal impoverishment of his See. But : often it was the Queen, either for herself, or in the interests of her favourites, who seized the cathedral livings. The See of Oxford was vacant for twenty years that Elizabeth and her favourites might enjoy its revenues. When the miserable John Underbill was appointed to the denuded bishopric, he found it was a starvation appointment ; Leicester was living upon its plunder. 8 Fletcher, who is specially noted as a courtly 1 White, Eliz. Sps. 17, 18. 2 Brief e View, 130-32. 3 Harington deals in some pardonable sarcasm in describing Leicester's quid pro quo for this church robbery. He endowed 'a new solemne lecture which Dr. Reynolds did read. . . . The many-headed beast, the multitude, was bleared with his bounty ' ; but scholars regarded it as ' stealing a goose 104 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS person, on receiving the bishopric of Bristol, became a prime favourite with the Queen by leasing his manors to the Queen's personal friends at a nominal rent. Later on he himself was ' gratified ' by some good ' commendarns.' When he entered upon the See of London it cost him over two thousand pounds in cash, to ' gratify * the Queen's nominees ; he had also to consent to the alienation of certain episcopal estates. All the principal laymen fattened on impropriations. 3. Jewel's Denunciation of Pluralism. Nothing could be better than Jewel's denunciation of these corrupt practices. Arguing against the Papists, he reminds them of the un- animity with which the Council of Trent, fourteen years earlier, had declared that 'no one at the same time should hold two Benefices.' That pious opinion availed nothing to abate the iniquity. ' We not only see,' says he, ' two Benefices, but often many Monasteries, and two, three, and even four Bishopricks entrusted to one person : and that not only to men unqualified by their ignorance, but even to Military Characters.' * More generally, he again testifies against the practice in his ' Sermons/ He points to the hurt done to the Church ' when one man taketh the profit of two or more benefices, which is not worthy of one. These none-residents and plurality-men teach not, they know not, nor care for the people of their charge : they have brought this confusion and shame into the house of God.' In another place he says, 'The masters of the work build benefice upon benefice, and deanery upon deanery; as though Rome were yet in England. The poor flock is given over to the wolf: the poor children cry out for bread, the bread of life ; and there is no man to break it to them. The noblemen or gentlemen, the patrons of benefices, either to be farmers themselves, or else with exception of their own tenths, or with some other condition and sticking a feather.' But Harington is in error when he describes this as 'the true Theorique and Practique of Puritanisme,' as the notes which follow sufficiently show us. See Brief e View, 149, 150 ; Fuller's Ch. Hist, (ed. 1837), ii. bk. ix. p. 483. 1 Apology (ed. Isaacson, 1825), 161. WHITGIFT'S PRIMACY 105 that is worse than this. The poor minister must keep his house, buy him books, relieve ^hg poor, and live, God knoweth how, and so do yoi| 4. Whitgift's Defence ofMe m &oi& True to their char- acter, Whitgift and his crlatures Ire stout defenders of pluralism. The Archbishoi, as we have already noted, defends everything pertaining to the established order and practice, even to contradic^jjy tr^^latiorWof the Scrip- tures. When the Q^liament, representing* .the opinion of serious Protestant laymen without distinction, reasonable Conformist and moderate Nonconforpw&t alike, sought to abolish both pluralities aii'd-iheir consequential non-residency, he drew up a paper of reasons } against the proposal. The reasons are of interest as repres operating in the formation of t enting the influences then e State Church, as well as to the portrait of Whitgift. >ecause, ' I. It taketh ,away owne of England, 25 4 en - Edw. VI. and continued 1 adding a few characteristic lines He opposes the Commons' Bill, the prerogative #nnexecl.\ to the c VIII. continued in the time of Eliz. II. It alkidgeth the revenues of the crowne-; for the one half of such laculties [payniejnts for breaking the law against pluralties] is due to her jd4jesty. III. It deprivetli learned men of due rewardej aittd is the next way to an unlearned ministerie and to the taking away of schoole degrees in divinitie. IV. It_leojJJreth an impossibilitie, for of eight thousand eight hundr^dP and odd benefices, with cure, there are not six hundred Sufficient for learned men ; neither (if they were all sufificiej^t) could there be found the third part of learned men t^>- supplie that number. V. It taketh away grave men arf apt governors from the Uni- versities and other coljg^es ; which (being but of verie small livings, as divers of the mastershipps but fortie shillings a yere wages) are not able to maintains their governors, without suche helpe of benejiec.s. Vl^fft spoileth cathedral churches of house-keepinge : for" without other helpe they cannot do it ; and beinge compelled to be resident at their benefices continuallie, they cannot keep 1 Works (Park. Soc.), ii. 984, 999. io6 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS convenient hospitalitie at the cathedral churche. VII. It increaseth the number of the factious and waywarde sort ; in furtherance of whome, principallie, this bill semeth to be devised. VIII. Her Majesty hath it now in her owne power to redresse (as pleaseth her) any thing mentioned in this bill ; but if the bill should once passe, and become a lawe, then were it not in her power to revoke it, what in- convenience soever should ensue, and it may be thought no good pollicie for her Majesty to abridge any pece of her prerogative, which they seeke by all means to streighten. IX. To conclude, It is a most dangerous bill for the beste sorte of the Clargie, and for such as beste deserve to be rewarded; ; and will assuredlie discomfort and discourage them, and incourage the worste sorte, and such as are factious and contentious in the Churche ; whose end is, to seek the spoyle and overthrowe of the same.' l Such were the frivolous and worldly reasons of this courtier-priest, this archbishop-in- waiting ; so mindful of the prerogatives and revenues of her Majesty and the comfort of clerical dignitaries ; so unmindful of the poor, hungry, unevangelised sheep of his fold. Following in his wake comes the Bishop of Winchester, Thomas Cooper, writing an official reply on behalf of the episcopate, to the animadversions of Martin Marprelate. He will hear nothing which diminishes the wealth of the Bishops and clergy. He looks back gratefully to the enrichment of the Church by ' Constantine that woorthy and godlie prince,' and covers up all the evil against which the country was protesting, by saying that only by the hope of rich rewards were the ' young wittes ' to be allured to the ministry ; a meaner style of life would be ' a more vehement temptation to carry away their mindes from the care of their Office, then nowe their ample and large livings.' 2 Bancroft comes naturally in the succession of defenders of pluralism. In his case it was emphatically self - defence. He held 1 Strype, Whitgift, i. 380. 2 Cooper's Admonition, 25, 183, and the section 159 to the end, generally. (Arber's ed. 24, 135, 120-79.) WHITGIFT'S PRIMACY 107 canonries in St. Patrick's, Dublin, Westminster, Canterbury, and St. Paul's, besides the rectories of Feversham and St. Andrew's, Holborn. His defence is only notable as evi- dence that he had no sense of the scandalous nature of his pluralities. That was left to the clearer vision of the lay- man. The House o^ Commons in 1588 passed a Bill which would have removed this evil from the Church ; it prohibited pluralism, except in the case of two small and adjacent livings, and compelled residence. But through the energetic activity of the Bishops it was wrecked in the House of Lords. 1 TYPICAL LAY OPINIONS ON PLURALISM AND NON-RESIDENCY. The evils of pluralism and non-residency are dealt with in two typical works by contemporary laymen ; works which form no part of the general ecclesiastical controversies of the time. In A Compendious or briefe examination of certayne ordinary complaints of diuers of our countrey men in these dayes, published in 1581 ' cum priuilegio, 3 the author, W[illiam] Stafford], who discusses his various topics * by way of dialogues,' summing up his own views in the person of a Doctor ; the other characters being a Knight, a Husband [man], a Capper, and a Marchaunt. Replying to the opinion that until ministers reform schisms will continue, the Doctor replies : ' How many of vs haue reformed ourselues, yea, so much as in our outwarde duties, where- unto we are bound both by Gods Lawe and our cannons lawes and decrees ? how many moe of vs haue resorted to our benefices to be resident thereon, which not onely by the said lawes, but also upon greate penaltyes wee are bound vnto by the lawes of this Realme 1 How many lesse now than before haue studyed [schemed] to heape Benefice upon Benefice, when wee bee skante able to discharge one of them ? What better tryall and examination is there nowe in admyt- tyng of mynisters of the church ? What more exacte search is made by our Bishops, for worthy men to be admitted to the cure of souls ? . . . Do they ['our Prelates and Bishops'] not lurke in their mansions and manour places far from theyr Cathedrall churches as they were wont, and skant once a yeare wil see their pryncipall church where they ought to be continually resident? . . . How can men be content to pay y e tenth of theyr goods which they get wyth theyr sore laboure and sweate of theyr browes, when they cannot haue for it agayne neither ghostly cornforte nor bodely 1 . . . Is [sic] there not statutes made in parliament for [enforcing] residence, 1 See Strype, Annals, in. pt. ii. 53 ; Brook, Lives, i. 54 ; Fuller, Oh. Hist. bk. ix. io8 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS and for restraining of pluralitie of benefices V Therefore, to avoid schism the 'Doctor' concludes that they, the clergy, must reforme themselves, reside upon their living, content themselves 'wyth one Benefice a piece,' and with its income, 'without deuising of other extraordinary and unlawfull gaines.' Fol. 51 vers. et seq. A more celebrated work is The Anatomic of Abuses : Contayning A Discoverie, or Brief e Summarie of such Notable Vices and Imperfections as now raigne in many Christian Gountreyes of the Worlde : but (especiallie) in a verie famous Ilande called Aligna of late, as in other places else where. Verie Godly, to be read of all true Christians euerie where ; but most needefull to be regarded in Enylande. Made dialogue-wise by Phillip Stubbes. Seene and allowed, etc., 1583. In the first part of his book Stubbes gives a formidable account of the dissolute vice attending may-games, church ales, etc. In the second part he takes up his parable against pluralism. Theodorus : ' That is an horrible abuse, that one man should haue two or three or halfe a dozen benefices apeece as some haue ; may anie man haue so manie liuings at one time, by the lawe of God, and good conscience 1 ' Ampilogus [i.e. Stubbes] : ' As it is not lawfull for anie man to haue or enioie two wives at once, so it is not lawfull for any man how excellent soeuer to haue mo benefices, mo flockes, cures or charges in his handes than one at once. . . . No man though he were as learned as Sainte Paule or the apostles themselues, to whom were giuen supernaturall and extraordinarie giftes and graces, is able sufficientlie to discharge his dutie in the instruction of one church, or congregation, much lesse three or foure, or halfe a dozen as some haue. ... Is it possible for any shepheard though he were neuer so cunning a man to keepe two or three flocks or mo at once, and to teed them wel . . . they being distant from him ten, twentie, fortie, sixtie, and hundred, two hundred or three hundred miles ? ' Stubbes proceeds to urge that as food for the body so the preached word is needful for the soul, and pluralists, being necessarily absentees, allow the people to starve spiritually. It is true their places are occupied by deputies ; but these are ' fitter to feed hogs than Christian soules.' Possibly they can read the service, but that done, the rest of the week they spend swilling in the tavern. The pluralists avoid the law by buying a dispensation or becoming a nobleman's chaplain. 'But,' says Stubbes, ' I maruell whether they thinke that these licenses shall be for good paiment at the daie of iudgement ? ' Pp. 75-79. 5. An Unlearned Ministry. Vitally connected with the Episcopal policy of exacting a narrow conformity in external things, and sequestrating large numbers of able and effective preachers and faithful pastors, was the crying evil of filling the pulpits, which were not annexed by the pluralists, with WHITGIFT'S PRIMACY 109 men unworthy for various reasons to occupy them. The petitions from parishes cited on an earlier page sorrowfully testifies to this, and every reforming tract of the time refers to the scandal. Had the people the simple Christian right of choosing their own minister, there is no doubt that the greater part of the evil would have been avoided. But whatever views the Bishops entertained in regard to this natural remedy for the wrongs against which the people petitioned and protested, they were entirely overshadowed by their dread of ' popularity ' democracy, as we should term it. They sparingly acknowledge the facts which the laymen were bringing before their notice. ( That some lewd and unlearned ministers haue bene made, it is mani- fest : I wil not seeme to defend it/ says the Bishop of Winchester. 1 ' I confesse freely,' says K. Some, an official apologist, ' that their entrance into the priesthoode and ministerie, and continuance in it most absurdly was and is a greevous sinne. . . . You write [he is answering Penry] that ignorant ministers, whome you call senseless men, doe sell them selues bodie and soule to euerlasting destruction. Your speech is true : Illi viderint. Let them, if they be not gracelesse and shamelesse, looke vnto it.' 2 The persons who naturally might be expected to ' looke vnto it ' were not the unsuitable and unworthy beneficiaries, but the Bishops who consented to ordain them. The majority of the Bishops were guilty in a greater or less degree of opening the door of the ministry to such men ; while some of their lordships were utterly reckless and unprincipled in the matter. In all parts of the country complaints were heard of men devoid of character and ability entering into benefices, yet duly furnished with Episcopal letters of ordination; how blasphemous such ordinations must have been it is only necessary to read the ritual prescribed to realise. Aylmer, Bishop of London, when his purblind gate-porter was no longer fit for service, appointed him to the cure of Paddington. 3 In a conference 1 Admonition, 99, 100 [Arber's ed. 82.] 2 A Godly Treatise, 194, 195. 3 See HAY ANY WORKE, sig. 2 rect, no THE MARPRELATE TRACTS with her Bishops and some of her chief Ministers of State, convened by the Queen for the purpose of receiving the episcopal subsidies, Elizabeth complained that some of the wiser and more discreet members of the House of Commons had a ' just cause of grievance ' against some of the Bishops, because they had not ' greater care in making Ministers ' ; adding that ' some be of such lewd life and corrupt behaviour, whereof we know of some such, that be not worthy to come into any honest company.' Burleigh, one of those present, renewed the accusation before the assembly dispersed. c Her Majesty hath declared to you,' said he, ' a marvellous great fault, in that you make in this time of Light so many lewd and unlearned Ministers.' He admitted that he was not accusing any of those then present. ' It is/ he proceeded, ' the Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry that I mean, who made Ixx Ministers in one day, for Money ; some Taylors, some shoemakers, and other Craftsmen. I am sure the greater part of them are not worthy to keep horses.' The Bishop of Rochester admitted that he had heard of ' one that had made seven in one day ' ; for his part he had ' never made above three in one day.' Whitgift would make no such admission ; in his judgment there were never a greater number of learned ministers ; but that the country could not yield a learned minister for each of the thirteen thou- sand parishes. ' Jesus ! ' ejaculated the Queen, ' thirteen thousand ! It is not to be looked for.' But she brought back the evasive Archbishop to the gravamen of the charge by remarking that she did not require him to make only learned ministers, since that was impossible, but that those ordained should be ' honest, sober, and wise men, and such as can reade the Scriptures and Homilies well unto the People.' And with that clear common-sense utterance ' she rose, thanked the Bishops and bad them fare well.' * Bishop Cooper, in a written annotation in the margin of a tract entitled, An Answere to certain Pieces of a sermon made at Pauls Cross, etc., by Dr. Cooper bishop of Lincoln, in which 1 S. P. Dom. Eliz., 1585, No. 69 [27th Feb. 1584-85]. No. 69 is a later transcript of No. 68, which is in a contemporary hand. WHITGIFT'S PRIMACY in he was charged with ' maintaining of an ignorant and unlearned ministry/ rebuts the charge. ' I did not allow them, nor shew myself to like well of them, but bewailed the cause, and wished the continuance only in respect of necessity. And in comparison of papistical priests, I some- what diminished the grievousness of the crime.' This was a plea in mitigation which apparently he had used in his sermon, and the writer of the criticism refers to it with some measure of contempt. 1 6. Whitgift's Character and Opinions. In the earlier pages of this Introduction, and in the frequent reference to him in the TRACTS, there is evidence drawn from various sources as to the character of Whitgift, who, during the greater part of the reign of Elizabeth, was the chief perse- cutor of the Nonconformists and of all who advocated any reform of the established order of religion. It is really necessary to know this man in order to understand both the appearance and the special character of Martin Marprelate's writings, as well as to understand the intense hatred with which he was regarded by all classes of the reforming party. The gentlest of them was fired with instant indig- nation at the mention of his name. Whitgift was one of the most consistent of men. Throughout his even career of promotion there is only one single wayward note ; 2 all else is subjected to the chief aims which he set before him in life. No folly, no human weakness, no sentimental yielding to the cry of intellectual or physical suffering, no perilous subjugation to woman's beauty or passion, hindered his progress. Nor, it may be said, did threats or the open opposition of men of place and power intimidate him or turn him aside in his way ; he budged not an inch to the best of them. He had no love 1 Strype, Annals, n. i. 287, 291. 2 When the disturbance arose at Cambridge over the question of Vest- ments in 1565, several of the Heads and other notables, fearing the departure of many of the learned from the university and the consequent reduction in the number of the students, sent a petition to Burleigh asking for a little relaxation of the royal edict. Among others it was signed by Whitgift. But he, finding it was ill received, soon apologised to the Queen, and never repeated his error. Strype's Parker, i. 386, iii. 125. H2 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS of ease ; he was no thrall to the comfort and luxury of his palaces ; to him Canterbury was no Capua ; busy he was always ; alert, tireless, trimming his sails to every breath of favouring wind which should urge his vessel along its assigned course ; his success was inevitable. It is only upon a larger view that we see that his success was a tragic failure ; that the intolerant spirit and rigidity of ceremonial order with which he sought so passionately to crush every note of dissent, have only too successfully perpetuated Non- conformity ; made it inevitable, an irrepressible assertion of the freedom of the human soul. The delusion of Whitgiftism lies in supposing that its immediate power of physical repression is a cure of all differences and divisions. Early in his life Whitgift was swept by the tide of the Reformation into the Protestant camp ; and there, so far as credal assent goes, he remained unchanged to the end. But Protestantism is more than an intellectual assent to a reformed creed : it is the release of a new spirit ; a buoyant and adventurous temper of the mind, a self-realisation of the freedom and the prerogatives of the soul. And to the ethos of Protestantism Whitgift was entirely a stranger. Being at Cambridge, a newly elected Fellow of Peter- house, at the time of Mary's accession, he very soon reached a juncture when his adhesion to his reformed confession was to be put to the test. He had become, before being elected to this fellowship, a student at Pembroke Hall as then it was and had been favoured by the Master, Nicholas Ridley. His tutor at Pembroke was the brilliant exponent of the reformed faith, John Bradford. Both of these men suffered at the stake the previous year, 1555. And now the University was to be visited by the Primate, the new Cardinal and Papal Legate, Reginald Pole, known for his share in reintroducing the inhuman Act, De haeretico comburendo, as Ecclesiae Anglicanae carnifex et flagellum. His business was to purify the University from its notorious sympathy with the principles of the Reformation ; to see that those whose studies qualified them for the rite, should receive the first tonsure, with the view of entering the WHITGIFT'S PRIMACY 113 priesthood. Among this latter number was Whitgift. He at once determined to fly to the Continent ; and well had it been for his enduring reputation had he done so. But the Master of Peterhouse at this time was the notorious Andrew Perne, whose facility in changing his creed with each ecclesiastical variation in government, made him a byword. 1 A pro-Martinist writer calls him ' the notablest turncoate in al this land, there is none comparable to him.' 2 On St. George's Day (April 23rd), 1547, Perne preached at St. Andrew's Undershaft, London, in support of the Romish doctrine of the adoration of pictures of Christ and of the saints. This, however, was the year of the accession of Edward VI. Therefore, on June 17th fol- lowing, he was induced to recant that doctrine in the same church. Edward made him one of his chaplains and gave him a pension, his conversion seemed so heartfelt and thorough. Indeed he declared against transubstantiation after the coming of Mary. Dr. Weston then convinced him that he was contradicting Catholic doctrine. With some alacrity he abjured his errors, and again had not long to wait for his reward. During this visit to Cambridge, Cardinal Pole had the bodies of Bucer and Fagius, two Continental reformers whose teaching had so profoundly influenced the University, disinterred and burnt. In con- nection with this unseemly piece of bigotry Perne preached a sermon. 3 With the coronation of Elizabeth he was of course once more a Protestant ; and to give an unavoidably humorous completion to his gyrations, he preached the sermon, when the names of Bucer and Fagius were restored to their former honours. 4 It was Perne's influence which restrained Whitgift from going into exile, promising him protection, and the avoidance of the tonsure. This Perne succeeded in doing, though, no doubt, Whitgift was com- pelled to yield sufficient outward conformity to enable him 1 He is continually referred to in the TRACTS, usually as the ' old Turner.' See THE EPISTLE, 20, 32 ; THE EPITOME, C iv. vers. 2 A Dialogue wlicrin is plainly laide open, sig. D 2, vers. 3 See THE EPISTLE, 10, HAY ANY WORKE, 22. 4 See principally his life in the D.N.B. I ii 4 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS to escape the suspicion of heresy. It was no very heroic or even decent line of conduct to take, though we can allow much to men in peril of being brutally burnt to death. Nor need we doubt his genuine relief when Elizabeth brought back again the Protestant faith. We cannot, however, regard with anything but contempt, after five years of such dissembling, that, being appointed under the new regime to preach at Great St. Mary's, he should have had the audacious effrontery to take for his text, ' I am not ashamed of the Gospel.' From this point onwards, with the one exception already noted, his method and his aims are steadfast and unvarying. While climbing up to the primacy, he was a model of deference and humble submission to those whom he regarded as of higher rank, and whose favour was needful for his promotion. His intercourse with Archbishop Parker is an illustration of this ; how he treated the memory of the dead Primate has been shown. When he became himself Archbishop of Canterbury he recognised no one, save the Queen, to be his superior, he himself being, as Martin taunts him with saying, ' the second person in the realm.' To the Queen he continued to the end a flatterer and a courtier, and seldom failed to secure her authority for his high-handed policy. His only seeming resistance to Elizabeth was on the score of her shameless robbery of Church property; and in these cases he never ventured beyond a whining appeal ad misericordiam ; moreover, his jealousy on behalf of the property of the Church is to be qualified by the fact that it only manifested itself when that property was misappropriated by laymen. No moral convictions entertained by him were scandalised by the alienation of Church possessions. His was the zeal of the bureaucrat for his office of the ecclesiastical potentate for the magnificence, wealth, and overawing power of his dominions. One of the most successful of Whitgift's methods of establishing his power was his carefully-con- sidered bestowal of all the patronage that came within his grasp upon those who were prepared to carry out his wishes. WHITGIFT'S PRIMACY 115 Whatever be the credit due to him from the fact, it must certainly be acknowledged that those who served him with respectful zeal, whose obedience was not tempered by too nice scruples or by personal views, never failed of their reward. He would hear nothing against them. He de- fended them against all charges, as he defended the Apocrypha. If the agent showed the genuine, incurious, dog- like fidelity, no venial slip could alienate the Arch- bishop's favour, any more than legends such as Bel and the Dragon caused him to waver in his defence of the Apoc- rypha. Many even of his friends thought the peculiar favour he showed the 'old turncoat,' Andrew Perne, somewhat compromising, as indeed it was ; but Perne had befriended Whitgift in his early days, had supported his policy in the later years of his episcopal and archiepiscopal authority, untroubled by any moral scruples. Whatever, therefore, the jade Eumour might say of Perne, Whitgift would admit nothing to the prejudice of his early benefactor and his constant abetter. 1 Similarly Aylmer, whom Whit- gift regarded as a colleague and a confederate in the game of ecclesiastical politics, so long as he ' plays the game/ is secure of the Archbishop's defence. Aylmer never ventures himself on any vindication of his unfortunate book The Harborowe, except the diplomatic defence that when he was a child he spake as a child. It was the indiscretion of his intemperate youth, and the reprinting of his rash statements by Martin Marprelate, was the prick of the rowel in the flank of Aylmer's persecuting zeal. Whitgift, however, would offer no such weak admissions to the enemy. When one Thomas Norton wrote to him warning him of the perils of authorship by the example of Aylmer's failure to gain 1 ' Howsoever the world uncharitably judgeth of him [Perne], and of me for using his familiarity (being by sundry means bound unto him and knowing him very well), yet the day will come when both they and we shall be known, as we are.' Strype, Whitgift, i. 63. The matter is alluded to satirically in Gabriel Harvey's Pierce' s Supererogation, and was a matter of contemporary common talk, as Whitgift himself recognises. On his accession to the primacy, Whitgift endeavoured to get his friend appointed to a bishopric ; but without being over- fastidious in such matters, Elizabeth could not swallow Perne. n6 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS preferment by his ' unseasonable paradox/ Whitgift occupied the singular position of defending The Harborowe. ' Master Elmer's doctrine was neither unseasonable nor yet a paradox, but a common true received opinion, grounded on the express words of Scripture,' he roundly declared ; nor was it written, he daringly added, to gain him preferment. 1 Whitgift carried out his system with unremitting thoroughness during the long period of his archiepiscopacy. He even entered into the intrigue of secular politics to strengthen his plans, strongly assisted in this by the frank worldly wisdom of his chaplain, Richard Bancroft. During the absence of his avowed opponent the Earl of Leicester in the Low Countries, the Archbishop seized the opportunity to get himself and two of his supporters, the Lords Cobham and Buckhurst, sworn members of the Privy Council ; and thereafter had much less difficulty both in getting access to the Queen, and also in getting authorisation for his oppressive policy. 2 Next he succeeded in getting his pliant tool Sir Christopher Hatton made Lord Chancellor. The naif old gossip Paule, in giving us these details of the Lambeth League, says of the new Chancellor, ' His advance- ment did much to strengthen the Archbishop and his friends.' 3 Later he had Hatton elected Chancellor of the University of Oxford ; and naturally we read that ' the Archbishop ever found [him] a great assistant in bridling and reforming the intemperate humour of these novelists [innovators].' 4 Apart from his patron, Hatton was recog- nised to be a mere man of straw ; ' a mere Vegetable of the Court, that sprung up at Night and sunk again at his Noon/ says Sir Robert Naunton. 5 A greater man would 1 Strype, Whitgift, i. 65. 2 ' When the Archbishop was thus established in friendship with these noble personages as aforesaid, their favours and his place wrought him free access to the Queen, and gracious motions in the Church's behalf. His courses then at the Council Board were not so much crossed nor impeached as heretofore.' Panic's Whitgift (Words, ed.), p. 350. 3 Ibid. Hereafter we find in most of the records of the trials of Non- conformists the names of Hatton, Cobham, and Buckhurst among the unwavering advocates of persecuting severity of treatment. 4 Ibid. p. 351. 6 Fragmenta Regalia ; Phoenix, i. 205. WHITGIFT'S PRIMACY 117 have been less serviceable. It shows us, however, how sure of favour men were who became humble and un- questioning supporters of the Archbishop's policy. Indeed, there appear to have been at this time three sure paths to high ecclesiastical preferment, not one of them involving the possession of marked spiritual or intellectual gifts. The first was to write denouncing the Puritans ; the second, to marry one of Bishop Barlow's five excellent daughters ; the third, to become one of Whitgift's chaplains. 1 Whitgift's views on the nature and government of the Church are not always understood by modern writers. The episcopate he regarded as an expedient governing arrangement. When Bancroft in his notorious sermon at Paul's Cross broached the theory of the divine right of Bishops 2 a doctrine which came well from one who had no manifest qualifications for an eminent spiritual office Wliitgift, acknowledging that his chaplain's sermon had done good, confessed that he rather wished than believed the doctrine of the jus divinum of Episcopacy to be true. 3 His own reiterated view was, that the Church was not bound to this or that form of government, as though the absence of any prescribed outward polity should jeopardise its character as a Church. 4 He recognised a certain equality in all ministers ; the superiority he claimed was a superiority due to the necessities of orderly administration. 5 As to the office, whose occupant is in the New Testament at one time called elder (presbyter) and at another overseer 1 Paule, WTiitg. (Words.), 384. 2 The episcopal claim was enlarged by him at the Hampton Court Conference. 3 Neal, History, i. 397. 4 Defense of the Answere, etc., 1st ed. p. 81. 5 ' It is not to be denied but that ther is an equalitie of al ministers of gods word, quoad ministerium "touching the ministerie" : for they haue al like power to preach the word, to minister the sacraments, that is to say, the word preached or the sacraments ministred is as effectual in one (in respect of ministerie) as it is in another. But quoad ordinem et politiam "touching order and government" ther always hath bin and must be degrees and superioritie among them. For the churche of God is not a co?fchised congregation, but ruled and directed as wel by discipline and policie in matters of regiment as by the word of God in matters of faith.' Ibid. p. 389. n8 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS (bishop), he says that he knows c these names be confounded in the Scriptures, but [he] speaks according to the manner and custom of the church ever since the apostles time/ * He defends the use of the word priest as a synonym for presbyter, and as a title for ' Ministers of the Gospell ' ; it is of ancient usage, he contends, and has ' the authoritie of the highest court in England'', but he makes a most significant qualification in adopting the Romish usage of designating ministers priests. He states that he rejects the sacerdotal view of the office held by the priest. ' As for the name of Priest as they [the Papists] take it, hee [Whitgift, writing in the third person] doth likewise con- demne in our Ministers.' 2 Perhaps the completest insight into Whitgift's conception of the episcopacy is to be gained from the extraordinary list of Bancroft's qualifications for that dignity which he drew up. Whitgift is urging his appointment to the bishopric of London. Bancroft's conduct, he proceeds to say, has never been subject of complaint ; he has the usual academic degrees; he has been a resolute opponent of Popery and of all ' sects and innovations ' ; he has been official visitor in two dioceses ; in a time of difficulty and danger he faced the propagators of ' the pretended Reformation ' at Bury St. Edmunds ; has been employed by the Lord Chancellor and the Archbishop in important commissions ; he has served for twelve years on Whitgift's High Commission ; he was ' the first detector of Martin Mar-Prelates Press and Books,' and supplied the prosecuting counsel's brief; it was his advice that led to employing literary hacks to answer Martin ; he was a leader in persecuting Cartwright and routing out the factions ; he intercepted Penry's writings as they came from Scotland; 'his true Affection and dutiful heart unto her Highness ' he showed by answering the writings of the Factions in his Paul's Cross sermon and his two books ; he was of much service to the Archbishop 1 Defense of the Answere, etc., 1st ed. p. 383. See Hooker's defence of Whitgift's position, Eccles. Pol. bk. in. c. ii. 2 (Oxf. 1850), p. 288. 2 Cooper's Admonition, 45 (Arber's ed. 36, 37). See THE EPISTLE, 26. WHITGIFT'S PRIMACY 119 in the same business for nine or ten years, in all the shires, yet ' shewed no tyrannous Disposition ' ; during the fifteen or sixteen years he has been engaged in public duties, ' seventeen or eighteen of his Juniors (few or none of them being of his experience) have been preferred eleven to Deaneries and the rest to Bishopricks. Of which number some have been formerly inclin'd to Faction, and the most as neuters have expected the issue, that so they might, as things should fall out, run with the time. They that list may enter into y e consideration hereof particularly.' He adds that Bishop Aylmer regretted before his death not having commended him to the bishopric, to which public rumour had already designated him. 1 But though he entertained so unworthy a view of the necessary moral and intellectual qualifications of a chief pastor of the Church, on the material and visible side he lacked nothing in his sense of the pomp and dignity which he esteemed proper to his own office. When he rode forth he was accompanied by a princely retinue of liveried servants, mounted gentlemen in gold chains, and ecclesiastics officially robed. 2 Viewing this gay and ostentatious caval- cade, far more befitting a secular prince than a successor to the fishermen of Galilee, it was easy to believe that he claimed to be the ' second person in the Eealm.' ' He had/ says the comptroller of his household, ' a desire always to keep a great and bountiful house; and so he did. . . . Upon some chief festival days he was served with great solemnity, sometime upon the knee ; as well for the upholding of the state that belonged unto his place, as for the better education and practice of his gentlemen and attendants in point of service.' 3 Harington has preserved an anecdote relating to his magnificent and glittering pro- cession to Parliament. Upon one such occasion he was met by Bishop Aylmer, who was amazed at ' such an orderly troop of Tawny Coats.' Aylmer asked him ' how he could 1 Baker MSS. (Camb. Univ. Lib.), Mm. 1. 47 (28). 2 See THE JUST CENSURE, B i. rect. and vers. 3 Paule, Whitg. (Words.), 387. 120 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS keep so many men.' Whitgift replied that 'it was by reason he kept so few women.' 1 In his creed Whitgift agreed generally with the reform- ing Nonconformists whom he persecuted. Martin, he says, must allow that he was sound in the faith. Apart from his special views about the legends of the Apocrypha, Satan's love for women, and such like idiosyncrasies of belief, he was in agreement with the Puritans. His creed was both evangelical and Calvinistic. His views on the sacraments were soundly Protestant. Where he differed from the nonconforming ministers was in his views of Church government. This not only manifested itself in the prelatical grades of ministry which the Elizabethan Church adopted from the Roman Catholic system ; but also in the autocratic power of the episcopacy, which is a vital feature of that system. His victims charged him with being a more merciless tyrant than Bonner ; and no doubt, while adopting the reformed creed, he at the same time claimed all the autocratic power of the ecclesiastics of Rome. An observant Frenchman residing in England wrote to Henry III. an enthusiastic commendation of the English system, which showed 'the way how to come to Reforma- tion without endomaging the clergie.' Here, he pointed out, was a reformed creed, with Prelates who, like the Apostles, were * soueraiue Bishops.' 2 With so much greater tenacity do men hold to the power and emoluments of office than to theological dogmas. His treatment of the Nonconformists was vindictive and cruel. Instances of this have already been given ; Wigginton had no doubt truth on his side when he complained that the Archbishop had treated him ' more like a Turk or a dog than a man or a minister of Jesus Christ.' 3 His ' choler,' which Paule thought to be his only fault, found an unre- 1 A Brief e View, 8. 2 Fregeville, Reformed Politicke (1589), pp. 63-9. See THESES MART. D iii. ; JUST CENS. C ii. vers. ; PKOTESTATYON, 31. Ballard the Jesuit, as Martin states (EPISTLE, 23), claimed that he could prove the doctrines of Popery from Whitgift's Injunctions and his writings against Cartwright. Strype, Whitgift, i. 506. 3 Vid. ante, 84 n. WHITGIFT'S PRIMACY 121 strained field for its display when he presided at the Court of High Commission and had Nonconformists convented before him. Their steadfastness and indifference to the allurements of rich benefices and to positions of dignity appeared to be a reflection upon his own love of office and his greater pliability of conscience in pursuing his way to place and power. Often his irascible temper would break out of all control, and he would rail at his prisoners like a scold. Dudley Fenner, a man whom one would suppose least merited or invited such scandalous treatment, is first despised as a ' boy ' ; as the archiepiscopal choler rises in the presence of his victim's dignified behaviour Fenner becomes a ' knave ' and a ' slanderer.' 1 When Thomas Settle, a Suffolk minister, appeared before Whitgift and somewhat effectively quoted against him the opinions of Calvin, Beza, and other learned writers of repute, the Primate broke forth into a violent passion, and bespattered Settle with such terms as ' ass/ ' dolt,' ' fool ' ; as for his learned authorities they were ' liars.' Then followed this conversation : Settle. You ought not to rail at me, being a minister of the Gospel. Archbp. What, dost thou think it much to be called ass and dolt 1 I have called many of thy betters so. Settle. True ; but the question is, How lawfully you have done that 1 Arclibp. Thou shalt preach no more in my province. Settle. I am called to preach the Gospel, and I will not cease to preach it. Ardibp. Neither you, nor any one in England, shall preach without my leave. The result of the intercourse was that Settle lay a ' close prisoner ' in the Gatehouse for the next six years. 2 He might well have been congratulated had the angry Primate sentenced him to the gallows out of hand. Some of the most charitable among the Puritans, realising that Whitgift was, by his own repeated confession, of the same doctrinal faith as themselves, and that they were only 1 Brook, Lives, i. 394. 2 Ibid. ii. 46. 122 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS divided from him by outward ceremonies, which, they con- tended, obscured or contradicted their common faith, and could in no sense be regarded, even by the Archbishop, as vital to a man's salvation, ventured to appeal to him for indulgence on the ground that they were his brethren. 1 But he was not to be approached by this way. ' What signifies,' he replied, ' their being brethren ; Anabaptists, Arians, and other heretics would be accounted brethren ; their haughty spirits will not suffer them to see their error ; they deserve as great punishment as Papists, because both conspire against the Church. If they are shut up in Newgate, it is a meet reward for their disorderly doings.' 2 In the same spirit he draws up his list of complaints against the learned clerk of the Council, Robert Beale, who had condemned as illegal the proceedings of the High Commission and Whit- gift's administration generally. 3 Two of his charges against Beale are as follows presumably drawn up as points in an indictment to be presented before one of the ecclesiastical courts : 13. He [Beale] condemneth (without exception of cause) racking of grievous offenders, as being cruel, barbarous, contrary to law, and unto the liberty of English subjects. 14. He thereupon giveth a caveat to those in Marches of Wales, that execute torture by virtue of instructions under her Majesty's hand, according to a statute, to look unto it, that their doings are well warranted. No appeal to Whitgift's compassion availed in any case. 1 This was the view adopted by Dean Bridges in his Defence. ' There is a great difference (I graunt) both in matter and manner of these contentions, and in the qualities of the persons that breed these vexations ; euen as much as is between him that would pluck my coate from off my backe, and so spoyle me ; and him that would pull my skinne ouer mine eares, and so destroy me. The controversies between the common aduersaries and vs are pro Aris et focis ; for matters, and that capitall matters, of the substance and life of our Christian religion ; not trifles as some mortals would beare the people in hande [mislead them]. And therefore our aduersaries in matters of religion are incensed against vs with mortall, or rather, immortal! hatred. Whereas the controuersies betwixt vs and our Brethren, are matters, or rather (as they call them) but manners, and formes of the Churches regiment.' Defence, 'To the Christian Reader,' IT 3. 2 Neal, History of the Puritans, i. 238. 8 Vid. ante, 98. WHITGIFT'S PRIMACY 123 Why should he be moved by the groans of the tortured prisoner on the rack, who had only to ' bolt out ' his heart's secret to be relieved ? Why should the minister dying of fetid prison fever touch his pity, when the rebellious man had only to wear the Popish vestments and declare there was nothing contrary to the Word of God in the Book of Common Prayer, including the ' Pontifical/ in order to go free ? Interest was from time to time made by important persons about the Court in favour of an imprisoned reformer. In the case of a great noble or of one of the Queen's prin- cipal ministers of State, the Archbishop's reply was all that might be desired. Language failed him to express how glad he would be to favour the request of a person he esteemed so highly. But it was observed that never in any case did any alleviation of the lot of the persecuted man in whose interest the kindness of the Archbishop was solicited follow his smooth words. ' He never denied any man's desire, and yet never granted it,' says Fuller ; ' pleasing them for the present with general promises, but still kept to his own resolution ; whereupon the nobility in a little time, ceased making farther applications to him, as knowing them to be ineffectual.' l We have seen that Burleigh himself was as helpless as the rest of men ; indeed it was suspected that Brayne suffered the more severely for having moved the Lord Treasurer to intercede on his behalf. It is still commonly repeated that he showed some pity to Sir Kichard Knightley, who was convicted of allowing the second Marprelate Tract to be printed at his house at Fawseley. The plain historic truth is that, highly connected as he was, and one of the most eminent and powerful commoners of his age, Knightley had to spend seven months in the Fleet, and was only released by the payment of an enormous and ruinous fine. There is no record of a single case where motives of pity or compassion moved Whitgift to relent in his persecution of Nonconformists ; or evidence that he ever forgave a man who once openly opposed him. The case of John Udall, the learned minister at Kingston-on-Thames, 1 Fuller, quoted by Neal, Hist. i. 347. 124 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS moved almost every person of consequence in the nation to compassion. There was much talk of the Archbishop's pity for this poor man, and the legend is still repeated by Church historians. But when this divine appeared at Croydon, laden with heavy chains so that he could not stand erect, as though he were some dangerous criminal needing this restraint, the pity was far to seek. And the fact remains that in spite of the extraordinary efforts made on his behalf, Udall lingered in prison till he died. Strype seeks to lay upon the Queen the blame for Whitgift's unrelenting severity towards Udall. But the statement is unsustained by any evidence, is contrary to all that we know concerning Whitgift, and to the actual facts concerning Udall's harsh treatment. Udall's offence was that he had written very strongly against the Episcopal rule and order ; this by an outrageous travesty of law and justice was accounted to be, constructively, sedition; and for that offence the capital sentence was passed upon him. But such was the weight of influence in favour of Udall that Whitgift's servile tools, Chancellor Hatton and Serjeant Puckering, shrank from sending him to the gallows merely for having spoken against the Bishops. This is the whole ground of the statement that Whitgift exerted himself to obtain the commutation of the death sentence. As for any anxiety on the part of Whitgift to show mercy to his ecclesiastical opponents we have only the unsupported statements of his eulogists. Wherever any evidence is available its testimony is uniformly to the contrary. Later, in 1593, his high connections and the distinguished persons who sued for his relief and pardon, could not save Henry Barrowe from the Archbishop's vengeance. It was their refusal to acknowledge his ecclesiastical authority that no doubt sent Barrowe and Greenwood to Tyburn. And when in great haste and unexpectedly, on a sudden rumour of his release, John Penry was hurried to his doom, the first name on the writ for his execution was that of the vindictive Primate. 7. Some Elizabethan Bishops. Of the remaining Bishops WHITGIFT'S PRIMACY 125 of the earlier part of Elizabeth's reign, the second in im- portance in the indictment of Martin Marprelate is John Aylmer, the Bishop of London ; of whom some account has already been given, 1 and much will be found in the text of the TRACTS. As already stated, he was hated by the reformers as a renegade. Although Whitgift curiously enough was once, and only once, under suspicion of being a secret Puritan, yet the reformers never gave him credit for really appreciating the evangelical position. He had too watchful an eye for the main chance to be suspected of having ever secretly cherished the regal and uncompromis- able principles of the faith professed by the reformers. He was the typical man of policy ; an astute and calculat- ing opportunist, from the time when the ' old Turner ' Perne showed him how to dissemble, in the cruel days of Mary and the Spaniard. Aylmer, on the other hand, in the years of his poverty abroad was a thoroughgoing re- former, whose drastic policy of reforming the Bishops was not exceeded by any of those whom he now persecuted. Moreover he was a man more open to attack than Whitgift in the ordinary affairs of his life. His avarice became proverbial. 2 The story of the Dyer's Cloth and of the Grocer's unpaid reckoning were matters of common gossip. Then it was not denied that he had a habit of using un- clerical language ; and while he persecuted the Noncon- formists for disregarding the appointed priestly vestments and the Papistical ceremonies, he was himself so far eman- cipated from the external commandment that he played bowls and made merry at haymaking on the Sabbath. Of the other Bishops whose names appear in Martin's 1 Vid. ante, 66. 2 Preaching at Paul's Gross, Aylmer declared that he was poor and had no money, and that, said he, 'Panics Church e can bear me witnesse.' Shortly afterwards he was robbed ' of certain rmndred of pounds ' by one of his servants for which he had three or four of them hanged, although he got back most of his money. At the trial some of the condemned protested that Aylmer ' to their knowledge had much more money at usury, and that his servants lined only vpon bribes.' A Dialogue wln-rin is plainly laide open, sig. C 3. As noted elsewhere he died very rich ; but this did not prevent him from commonly referring to his 'poor estate and great charges.' See THE EPISTLE, 50. 126 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS pages sufficient is stated elsewhere. They are not a dis- tinguished body of men, taken as a whole ; some of them were scandalously unfit for the Episcopal office. Jewel, the ablest man in the early appointments of Elizabeth, died in 1571. Within the communion of the Church the two ablest men never reached the Episcopal bench. William Eulke, the Master of Pembroke, died in 1589. The yet greater name, Richard Hooker, sometime Master of the Temple, died the incumbent of a country parish. Most of the ministers of marked ability and of conspicuous learning suffered in the ranks of Nonconformity. The Church never commanded the service of men of the calibre of the great statesmen and soldiers and still greater writers, who made the reign so illustrious in the annals of our country. When an official reply was required to attack Martin Marprelate the task was allotted to Bishop Thomas Cooper of Win- chester. He was formerly a schoolmaster. Under Mary he abjured Protestantism and practised medicine. He remained something of a pedagogue when he reached the degree of Bishop ; fatherly, if not motherly, in his manner of address, full of wise saws, and moral reflections, he was capable of replying to a definite charge at great length, without touching the point at issue. But though there was an assumed bishoply moderation and an appeal to the candid mind in his apologia, he was as severe as any of the Bishops in his treatment of Nonconformists. Not less severe was his attitude towards Roman Catholics, whom he would have compelled to partake of the sacrament in their parish churches, or go to prison. Another characteristic suggestion of his was to send two hundred of the lustier sort of recusants to Flanders, as labour convicts. He seems to have owed his promotion, in the first instance, to Elizabeth's appreciation of his Thesaurus, a book of refer- ence commonly known as Cooper's Dictionary, though the Bishop had only a fractional claim to its authorship. ' Elizabeth/ says Sir John Harington, ' gave Doctor Cooper the Bishoprick of Lincoln, only for making a Dictionary, or rather, but for mending that which Sir Thomas Eliot had WHITGIFT'S PRIMACY 127 made before.' * The basis of the work, as Marprelate points out, is Stephens' Thesaurus. ' His Lordship of Winchester is a great Clarke ; for he hath translated his Dictionarie called Cooper's Dictionary verbatim out of Kobert Stephanus his Thesaurus ; and ilfavored, to, they say.' 2 The author of A Dialogue says that it was the boast of the Romanists that they could make Bishop Cooper ' beleeve the moone is made of greene cheese.' 3 8. Imprisonment under Bishop Whitgift. In the month of March 1 5 9 a series of ' conferences ' were held between certain ecclesiastical dignitaries and clergy and the Non- conformists confined in the prisons of London. Of those appointed to the Fleet was Dr. Lancelot Andrewes, vicar of St. Giles', and one of Whitgift's chaplains. He and his colleague sat in the ' parlor ' of the gaol, and from his ' close prison' below there was summoned before them Henry Barrowe, who had been some years in the Fleet. On Barrowe's appearance Andrewes made this pious observation : For close imprisonment you are most happy. The solitary and contemplative life I hold the most blessed life. It is the life I would choose. It is not necessary to give Barrowe's dignified and feel- ing reply. The meaning of close imprisonment was well enough known to Andrewes, as one of the agents in carrying out Whitgift's oppressive system and especially as a press censor. To-day he is known by repute as a saint; one who could be seraphically devout in Greek and Latin. But it is advisable to forget that Bishop Andrewes was once Whitgift's chaplain, if one would enjoy the Devotions. The bloom fades from the Preces when we call to mind the above piece of brutal cynicism. What the Fleet was as a prison we may see in the 1 A Brief e View, 165. 'Licence to Thos. Cooper of Oxford to print the Eng. dictionary at first called " Bibliotheca Eliota," but now called "The- saurus utriusque linguae Lat ae et Britan ae .'" Rymer's Foedera (Hardy), ii. 1563, May 12. 2 THE EPISTLE, 46. 3 A Dialogue wherin is plainly laide ojwn, sig. B 3. 128 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS defence of Harris, the warden, in which he seeks to rebut the serious charges alleged against him by the prisoners, not many years later than the conference referred to, and while the state of the prison remained unchanged ; and especially may we appreciate the facts in the vivid summary of Dr. Jessop which introduced the printed edition of Harris's statement. 1 Here we see the Warden holding a hereditary office, deriving an income from fleecing the prisoners or their compassionate friends. Very pitiful is the case of insolvent debtors, and Nonconformists mulcted in ruinous and impossible fines were insolvent debtors, im- mured in the Beggars' Ward. They had not the legal or recognised claim of a pauper or a criminal ; they were prisoners as long as their creditors chose ; therefore, in many cases, for life. Unless their friends could pay for their keep and satisfy the Warden's various extortions, then there was nothing for them but to die of starvation ; of cold, and want, and unspeakable squalor ; ' dying literally like dogs in their corner, mouldy straw beneath them, and foul rags spread over their shivering emaciated forms.' The condition of a prisoner in the Common Ward ' was only a shade better.' Friends were allowed to contribute to his comfort. He could buy his own bedding ; but he had to pay a fine to the Warden if another prisoner was not to share his bed. Public women went in and out of the prison without restriction. Gambling was continually going on, and along with it brawling and fighting, often resulting in ' death by misadventure ' ; no legal inquiry being made as to the cause of such misadventures. The depraved prisoners robbed one another, and combined against those who shunned their company and refused to pay ' black mail.' The place often resounded with the howling of drunken prostitutes and their associates. The filth and vermin were such as to-day would seem incredible. How hard the lot of those whose punishment was the most 1 The (Economy of the Fleete or An Apologeticall Answeare of Alexander Harris (late Warden there) unto XIX Articles sett forth against him by the Prisoners. Ed. from the original MS. by Dr. Augustus Jessop. (Camd. Soc. 1879.) WHITGIFT'S PRIMACY 129 severe the close prisoners, who had neither light nor air nor exercise, the imagination must try to picture. Often, as in the case of Whitgift's ecclesiastical victims, eminent ministers such as Udall and Wigginton being among their number, they were laden with heavy chains. Even a pattern saint, like Lancelot Andrewes, might be forgiven for not desiring such a horrid fate. Many, as we should expect, died of the harsh and foul conditions of prison life. Parsons, the Jesuit, in his re- port states that 'some Catholics died in Newgate by the stench of that prison, and others miserably tormented with the stinking smells of the place/ * The prison diseases were all putrid fevers. So fearfully insanitary were some prisons that it is recorded that, at the Oxford assizes in 1577 three hundred people, among them, the High Sheriff, died of ' gaol distemper/ infected, says the annalist, ' by the stench of the prisoners' brought before the court. 2 A consideration of these grave facts enables us more fully to appreciate the petitions issuing from the prisoners in their misery, conscious that they were the victims of a lawless ecclesiastical oppression. 3 Well, here our brethren lye How long, Lord, holy and true, Thou knowest ! in dungeons, in hunger, in cold, and in nakedness, with all outward distresses ; for these bloody men will neither allow meat, drink, fire, lodging, nor suffer any whose hearts the Lord would stir up for their relief to have any access unto them, purposing belike to imprison them unto death, as they have done seventeen or eighteen others in the same noisome gaols within these six years. Nor can we fail to feel the pathos of their longing to be set free, even by way of Tyburn. 1 Strype, Annals, in. i. p. 600. 2 The State of the Prisons of Eng. and Wales, John Howard (1777), pp. 17, 18. See also case at Taunton, where Judge, Serjeant, Sheriffs, and some hundreds besides, died from infection brought by prisoners from Ivelchester Gaol. Ibid. p. 18. 3 We have a painful account of the London prisons, nearly two centuries later, notwithstanding some small changes for the better that had been effected, in The State of the Gaols in London, Westminster, and the Boro 1 of Southwark, by Wm. Smith, M.D., 1771. The turnkeys, says Dr. Smith, took a glass of spirits in the morning when they opened the doors. It turned them sick (p. 10). K 130 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS Bishop Bonner, Story, Weston dealt not after this sort ; for those whom they committed close they brought them in short space openly unto Smithfield to end their misery, and to begin their never-ending joy ; whereas Bishop Elmar, Doctor Stanhope, and Master Justice Young, with the rest of that persecuting and blood-thirsty faculty, will do neither of these ; no Fellon, no Murderer, no Traytor in the Land are thus dealt with. 1 They press for trial and sentence, for the fact is that many of the prisoners at this time had never been brought to trial. In the lists of prisoners compiled by the Noncon- formists during these years, we have not infrequently the note, that a prisoner has not been formally charged or examined. And the same fact comes out in some of the official lists. For example : John Sparowe, Citizen and Fishmonger of London, of the age of sixty yeres. In the White Lyon and Clink 4 yeres. Committed by the Privy Council for delivering a Petition to the Queenes Majesty concerninge diverse sectaries : never examined since his Im- prisonment. Katharen Unwin, widow, late of Christchurche, 35 years. In prison a month for being with Penry's wife and others when she delivered a Petition to the Lord Keeper. Had not been examined. 2 In the ' lamentable petition delivered to y e Queenes Maiestye the 13. of March 1588' about the time when Martin Marprelate was writing his first tract written it has been shrewdly suspected by Henry Barrowe, at that time in the Fleet, we have a description of the imprison- ment suffered by the Bishops' victims. They complain of ' barringe and locking them vp close prisoners in the most vnholsome and vyle prisones, and their deteyninge them, without bringing them to their answeres, vntyll the Lord by death put an ende to their myseries. . . . Some they haue Cast into the Little Ease, 8 some they haue put into 1 More Work for the Dean, by T. Wall, 1681, p. 15 f. 2 Harl. MSS., 7042, 115 f. 3 ' A fourth kind of torture was a cell called " little ease." It was of so small dimensions and so constructed that the prisoner could neither stand, WHITGIFT'S PRIMACY 131 the My 11 Causinge them to be beaten with Cudgels in their prysones.' l 9. The London Prisons in 1588. We meet with the names of most of the prisons in London including South- wark and Westminster in the Marprelate Tracts and the literature to which they gave rise. North of the Thames, commencing at the west, we have (1) The GATEHOUSE at Westminster. This was built over two gateways into the precincts of the Abbey, and was the property of the Dean and Chapter of Westminster. It was much used by Whitgift in connection with the ecclesiastical courts. Prisoners convened before the Star Chamber at Westminster or the High Commission at Lam- beth Palace were conveniently imprisoned at the Gatehouse. (2) BRIDEWELL, originally the site of a castle, was divided from Blackfriars by the Fleet Ditch, a tidal estuary to the stream of that name. Here Henry VIII. built the palace of Bridewell, which his son Edward gave to the city ; first as a poorhouse, but later, in the time of John Stowe his Survey of London was published in 1589 it was used as a house of correction, where all 'strumpets, night-walkers, pickpockets, vagrant and idle persons, also incorrigible and disobedient servants,' were lodged. Persons of good con- dition bitterly complained of being sent to Bridewell, seeing it was ' a prison ordeyned for persons of most vyle conwrsa- con and base condition.' Many of the Nonconformists were confined here, where they suffered very greatly if condemned to close imprisonment in an evil inner cell called ' Little Ease.' 2 Bridewell is still a prison, and can be used in certain special cases. The Chamberlain of London in his jurisdiction over city apprentices can commit an unruly apprentice to Bridewell for a period not exceeding three months ; usually for seven or fourteen days. 3 walk, sit, or lie at length. He was compelled to draw himself upon a squatting posture and so remained several days.' Lingard, Hist, of Eng. (1825), viii. 522. 1 Harl. MSS., 6848, 7. Arber's Sketch, 36. 2 See THE EPISTLE, 28. 3 See Report of Royal Commission 1893 on the City of London, its Govern- ment, etc., pp. 108, 109. 1 32 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS (3) The FLEET was one of the most ancient of the prisons of London, its records going back to the reign of Richard I. It was especially used for those who spoke ' anything in contempt of the Courts of Chancery and Common Pleas.' At the date of the Marprelate Tracts it was mostly used for the detention of persons convicted by the Star Chamber, who, being brought from Westminster by water, entered the creek and were admitted into the prison by the Water-gate. A moat ran entirely round the building, into which the waters of the Thames flowed at each tide. After being lodged some months at the Gatehouse, John Greenwood and Henry Barrowe spent here the long years of their imprisonment. On the site of the old prison the London Congregationalists have erected their church house as a memorial to the early sufferers in the Fleet. (4) NEWGATE prison, a very ancient establishment, was called after the gate opened in the city wall to give access to Smithfield, then a place of recreation, where public sports were held. As far back as the year 1218 we read of a royal injunction to the Sheriff of London to repair the gaol of Newgate. The gate and the prison stood until the Great Fire. In the reign of Elizabeth it had a specially evil reputation on account of the number of prisoners who died of fetid prison-fever in its cells. The majority of the deaths noted in the Nonconformist lists occurred at Newgate. (5) The COMPTER, pronounced and frequently spelt Counter, in the Poultry, stood behind the now demolished St. Mildred's Church. It was entered by a door from the Poultry. The prison was pulled down in the beginning of last century, and on part of its site there was erected the Congregational place of worship known as the Poultry Chapel, since removed to Holborn Viaduct and known as the City Temple. (6) The WOOD STREET COMPTER was built by the Mayor and citizens of London to replace an earlier Compter in Bread Street, hard by. Apparently they could not discharge Richard Husbands, the keeper of the Bread Street Compter, although his conduct was highly scandalous. He brutally WHITGIFTS PRIMACY 133 tyrannized over his prisoners, and was known to use his house as a refuge for the worst characters. The city fathers solved the difficulty by building a new Compter in Wood Street and transferring to it the miserable victims of Husbands' cruelty. The Compters were originally Sheriffs' courts, with ' houses of detention ' or lock-ups attached to them. They were both taken down in 1785 under an Act of Parliament, which enabled the Corporation to build in their stead the Gilt- spur Street Compter, subsequently known as Giltspur Street Prison. (7) The TOWER was a castle as well as a prison. At this period, and in regard to persons sentenced by the ecclesi- astical courts, it was chiefly used when prisoners were con- demned to torture. Hodgkins, Simms, and Thomlyn, the printers of the later Tracts, and Newman the distributer, were removed to the Tower to be put on the rack. (8) In the Bishop of London's palace attached to the old Cathedral of St. Paul's there was the notorious COAL HOLE a foul den from which some of the Marian martyrs dated their secret letters. At Lambeth Palace there was the Lollards' Tower. In addition to the above there were places of detention attached to certain halls, used presumably, though our information on the point is deficient, as mere temporary lock-ups pending the removal of an offender to one of the recognised prisons. South of the Thames there were a number of prisons freely used by the civil and ecclesiastical courts. (9) The CLINK was the most famous of the South wark prisons at this time. It lay within the ' liberty of the Bishop of Winchester.' Clink Street ran from Deadman Place to St. Mary Overy's, on the Bank Side. Originally it was a house of correction for transgressing keepers of the Stews, in the days when those obnoxious places were ' under the direction of the Bishop of Winchester,' whose palace was near by. 1 In the year 1755 we read that the episcopal 1 See below, p. 259 (ft). 134 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS house was ' disused and very ruinous, and the prison of little or no concern/ (10) QUEEN'S BENCH PRISON. (11) The WHITE LION. (12) The MARSHALSEA. (13) The SOUTH WARE COMPTER. These prisons lay near together on the east side of the old road leading south from London Bridge, then called Long Southwark, and now the Borough High Street, near to St. George's Church. Nearest to the Church on the north side was the White Lion, an old inn bearing that sign, converted in the reign of Elizabeth into a prison. The Queen's Bench prison adjoined the White Lion, and was a very ancient structure. It continued in use to a very late date. A little farther north was the old Marshalsea prison. The Compter was within the grounds of Marshalsea House. 1 1 See, for the prisons of London, W. Maitland, Hist, of London, 1739 ; "VV. Newton, London in the Olden Time ; Stowe's Survey of London ; Alex. Pulling, A Practical Treatise on the Laws, Customs, etc., of London (1842), and especially the maps of London by Agas and by Ogilby and Morgan. We have to specially thank the courteous City Librarian, Mr. Edward M. Borrajo, whose minute acquaintance with all that pertains to the history and antiquities of London is well known, for his kind help on many occasions when searching among the treasures of the Guildhall Library. CHAPTER III THE MARPRELATE PUBLICATIONS Section I. The Controversy which called forth the Marprelate Tracts 1. The ' Learned Discourse of Ecclesiastical Government.' In the year 1584 there appeared a small pamphlet bearing the title A Brief e and Plaine Declaration, etc., but soon popularly known, from its running headline, as The Learned Discourse} 1 A Brief e and plaine declaration concerning the desires of all those faith- full Ministers that have and do seekefor tJie Discipline and reformation of the Church of Englande. Which may serve for a just Apologie against the false accusations and slaunders of their Adversaries. At London. Printed by Robert W aide-grave. 1584. Small 8vo, vi + 148 pp. Roman type. With- out headline or catch-word or marginal notes, the page of print measures 4 x 2 inches. [B.M. 702, a. 38.] It has on the title-page Waldegrave the Puritan printer's device, a swan, with the motto ' God is my defender.' The running headline is ' A Learned Discourse of Ecclesiasticall Government. ' It may indicate the neglect of serious study into the origin of the Marprelate Tracts to point out that this small pamphlet, which gave rise to the par- ticular controversy that enlisted Marprelate's pen, is confused by all modern writers who have touched upon the matter with Walter Travers's Ecclesiasticae Disciplinae . . . Explicatio, the English translation of which bore the title, A full and plaine declaration of Ecclesiasticall Discipline (vid. ante. 7, p. 51). The error commenced with John Petheram, in the notes appended to his edition of THE EPISTLE, published in 1 843. He gives the short title correctly, but forthwith proceeds to describe A full and plaine declar., oblivious of the bantering point made by the official reply, that the Brief c and Plaine Declar. was also entitled ' A Learned Discourse, etc. ' Dr. Henry Martyn Dexter does not include A Brief e and Plaine Declaration in his elaborate Bibliography ; but, following Petheram, refers the reader back from Bridges' official reply (No. 121 in his list) to Travers's work (No. 59). The careful compilation of the Rev. T. G. Crippen in the Transactions of the Cong. Hist. Socy. (vol. i. pp. 54, 55) follows the same error ; as also does Mr. Sidney Lee (D.N.B., art. on Dr. John Bridges), who describes the Defence as a reply to ' Thomas Cart- wright's Discourse of Ecclesiastical Government or a brief e and plaine declara- tion, 1574 (a translation from the Latin of Walter Travers).' The titles are 135 136 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS Though of small dimensions, it apparently supplied an exist- ing need, and attained immediately an importance out of proportion to its size. Possibly its small size may have helped its currency, and it had the additional advantages of being clearly printed in good type, and of being written lucidly and with point ; its appeal to the Scriptures was direct and ingenuous, and its grave references to the tendency of Popery appealed to men who knew only too well the atrocities of Popery under Mary and its disloyal intrigue under Elizabeth. The preface is concerned first, with a defence of the reformers, who were being taunted with their youth ; and secondly, with a vindication of the rights of the lay people to take part in ecclesiastical matters. The brief essay then opens simply with the statement, that the Church is the ' house of God,' and naturally the affairs of the house must be directed by the Householder, whose instructions are given in His Word. There we learn of the household officers ; some filling special offices and of temporary appointment ; others connected with the permanent life and moral culture of the people of God. The members of the household are specially warned against following the example of the kings of the Gentiles, as the sons of Zebedee were in danger of doing. ' Did not the Master for ever impeach such prelacy, when He put little children in the midst, and when He washed the disciples' feet ? ' And was there not the ominous example of one Diotrephes, whose sin was that ' he was Philoproteuon, one that desired primacie in the Church'? (p. 29). The evils of non-residence and pluralities are exposed and condemned (p. 39). The pomp and pride and the pre-eminence of the old Popish Bishops had been denounced by those now defending Episcopacy, mixed up in this sentence, but the reference is to the ' Full and plaine ' declaration of 1574, and not to the ( Brief e and plaine' Declaration of 1584. The popular title of the work, ' The Learned Discourse of Ecclesiastical Government/ out of which Bridges extracts a little harmless fun, on the assumption that it was the author's estimate of his own work, was really due to the printer, who upon his own authority inserted it as a running head- line. See A Chronological Account of Eminent Persons (MS.), Dr. Williams' Lib. ii. 431 (4). THE MARPRELATE PUBLICATIONS 137 who then quoted the words of the New Testament, such as, you have 'but one Master, which is Christ, and all you are brethren. ' If these places proue that the Pope ought not to be aboue other ministers of the Church, why doe they not likewise proue that the Ministers are equal among themselves ?' (pp. 79, 80). The prevalence of an 'ignorant ministry' is bitterly deplored. 'We have hitherto taken vpon us without warraunt of Gods worde, to allow such for Pastours of mens soules, whom no carefull owner of Cattell woulde make ouerseer of his sheepes bodyes ' (p. 44). The writer enters into the age-long conflict between sestheticism and edification. ' Scrines of rode-lofts, Organe lofts, Idoll cages, otherwise called Chauntrie Chappells, and high pewes between them : which although they do mani- festly hinder edification, yet may they not be remooued in many places, for defacing the beauty of the materiall houses ' (p. 65). Music was being exalted to the disparagement of a 'godly and learned sermon.' In the case of cathedral churches you may see ' great numbers that tarrye while the seruice is songe, but depart so soone as the Sermon begin- neth. While the Organes pipe, some are drawen with the sweetnes of musike to come vp ; but while the preacher cryeth out continue beneath, and in laughter or brawling be louder than he oftentimes' (pp. 67, 68). The c gouernment of the Church ' should be by the people acting through elders whom they freely elect ; who, when they arrive at a decision, ' propound it to the whole multitude that it may be confirmed by their consent' (p. 86). The celebrated text Die ecclesiae 'tel the congre- gation/ that is, the Church, he would not have ' so largely taken as in other places for the whole multitude,' but restrict to 'the chosen assembly of elders' (p. 87). Discipline should be retained in the Church, but he detests the ' Popish tyrannie ' which excommunicates ' for euery trifle, yea for such as are no sinnes ' (p. 92). As regards the election of church officers, ' it is agreeable to reason that hee that should doe any seruice in the name of all, should be chosen and approved by the consent of all' (p. 107). He 138 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS objects to the civil magistrate exercising power in the Church, and demands by what authority it was ever trans- ferred from the Church to the magistrate (p. 119). Ministers, he contends, are only such when they are in office ; theirs is ' an office in act and esse' ' not a Potentiall abilitye in the cloudes ' ; they should only be ordained to particular posts. ' If Byshoppes, as they be nowe, were consecrated after the same manner to seeke their Bishop- rickes where they could find them, it were no greater absurdity then it is to ordayne Pastoures, and let them proll where they can for their benefices' (p. 126). In regard to the relation of the Prince to the Church a very difficult subject for any save an Erastian, when Elizabeth was the Prince according to the writer's teaching, the Prince is under 'no subjection unto men,' but 'to God and his worde' (p. 142). From the reputation gained by this little tract, as well as from the official attention paid to it, it is clear that it achieved a considerable circulation. Nor is there, in the circumstance, anything to be wondered at. Its point and perspicuity are obvious. Its argument could be readily grasped by the common folk ; and its democratic temper, though by no means over emphasised, fell in with a grow- ing spirit of the time ; for the ' popularity ' which Whitgift and the official writers so much abhorred and feared was the natural product of their own oppressive policy. Tyrants have forced men into a noble comprehension of their native and inalienable rights. And so it was that the lawless system of Whitgift growing and developing in the hands of Bancroft and of Laud, brought about at last the virile reaction which destroyed the personal and irresponsible government of Tudor and Stuart, and sent Laud and his master to the block. The Brief e and Plaine Declaration was published anony- mously. Apparently the secret of its authorship was well guarded. The later speculation which assigned it to Dudley Fenner arose in the first place, from the circumstance that he took a foremost part in its literary defence ; and also from THE MARPRELATE PUBLICATIONS 139 the fact that, wielding a capable pen, and having a resolute spirit, it was the habit at this period to ascribe to Fenner all unsigned attacks upon the episcopal system, if they possessed a certain degree of merit. But the weight of tradition ascribes the pamphlet to William Fulke, Master of Pembroke College. He was Margaret Professor of Divinity, and had filled the office of Vice-Chancellor. His chief reputation was gained in his controversies with the Popish writers of the time, particularly with the Jesuit Campion, and by his notable defence of the English trans- lation of the Bible against the Rhemists. Editors of Fulke include A Brief t and Plaine Declaration in their catalogues of his works. If Fulke be the author, it is easy to under- stand why it was issued anonymously ; it is less easy to understand the statement of the Parker Society's editor concerning his defence of the English Bible, that no writer ' devoted more vigorous and untiring energy in supporting the bulwarks of the Church of England.' The otherwise com- petent editor could not have read the seventh item in his list of Fulke's works. 2. * The Defence of the Government Established.' When the ecclesiastical authorities realised the wide circulation and influence of The Learned Discourse they appointed Dr. John Bridges, Dean of Sarum, to answer it from the popu- lar pulpit at Paul's Cross ; which he did during the follow- ing year. Then being greatly importuned to publish his discourse, and having specifically promised in his sermon, to answer the Learned Discourse ' at large,' he spent the next two years, with an industry which would have been com- mendable had it not been futile, in producing A Defence of the Government Established in the Church of Englande for Ecclesiasticall Matters, a portentous quarto of over fourteen hundred pages. 1 Martin, when he comes upon the scene, 1 The full title of Bridges' work is A Defence of the Government Established in the Church of Englandefor Ecclesiasticall Matters. Contayning an answere vnto a Treatise called 'The Learned Discourse of Eccl. Gouernment,' other- wise entituled, ' A briefe and plaine declaration concerning the desires of all the faithfull Ministers that haue, and do seeke for the discipline and reforma- tion of the Church of Englande. ' Comprehending likewise an aunswere to the arguments in a Treatise named 'The Judgement of a most Reverend and 140 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS at once seizes on the contrast between the diminutive tract of the reformer and the ponderous size of the Dean's Learned man from beyond the seas, etc. ' Aunsvvering also to the argumentes of Caluine, Beza, and Danceus, with other our Reuerend learned Bretheren, besides Ccenalis and Bodinus, both for the regiment of women, and in defence of her Majestie, and all other Christian Princes supreme Gouernment in Ecclesi- asticall causes, Against The Tetrarchie that our Brethren would erect in euery particular congregation, of Doctors, Pastors, Gouernors, and Deacons, with their seuerall and ioynt authoritie in Elections, Excommunications, Synodall Constitutions, and other Ecdesiasticall matters. Aunsvvcred by lohn Bridges, Deane of Sarum. Come and see, Joh. i. 36. Take it vp and Read. Aug. lib. conf. 8, ca. 12. At London, Printed by lohn VVindet, for Thomas Chard, 1587. The second treatise mentioned in the title is by Th. Beza, and was published in a translation by John Field, dr. 1580. John Bridges, who was educated at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge (B.A. 1556, M.A. 1560), besides some earlier translations, wrote, in 1573, on The Supremacie of Christian Princes, a subject then not only of living interest, but also one which promised promotion to advocates of the Elizabethan position. He had early succeeded in securing some of the good things of the Church. Bishop Home collated him in 1565 to the third prebendal stall in Winchester Cathedral, besides bestowing upon him ' three rich parsonages, ' the rectories of Cheriton and Crowley in Hants and Brightwell in Berks. In 1571 he was one of the Whitsuntide preachers at Paul's Cross, his sermon being an evan- gelical discourse on Jno. iii. 16, which he enlarged and published. His treatise on the ' Supremacie ' was followed by a Canterbury degree of Doctor of Divinity in 1575, and in 1577 by the Deanery of Sarum. When Aylmer shrank from the further perils of authorship, he suggested the name of Bridges as one of the company who should be requested to reply to Campion's Ten Reasons. His name was also included the following year (1582) in the Commission ordered to confer with the Papists. It was supposed that he had still higher ambitions in writing the Defence, having before his eyes the shining example of Whitgift. In A Dialogue ivherin is Plainly laide open, f Puritane ' says, ' At the beginning of the last parliament there were Bishops to be stalled, and his grace [Archbishop Whitgift] had promised him [Dean Bridges] very confidently that hee would not onely speake for him, [but] also assure him of a Bishoppricke. Uppon whiche the aspiring wretchc did only relie." But going to Richmond, Bridges met 'Master Thornbie, Master of the Sauoy,' returning thence, who informed him that he also had been promised a certain bishopric, which, however, he found had been otherwise bestowed. ' With that the Doctor was in his madde moode and saide, hath he [Whitgift] serued me so ? whie then I wil say, and may speake it truely, there is no faith in a Bishop. Haue I wrote in their defence, and have gotten the ignomie (sic), shame, and reproache of it by publike writinge, and no we to be thus vildely dealte with : I will tell you, Master Thornby, I do protest and alwaies will affirm it : That it is better to haue one inche of pollicie [craft] then all the Divinitie in the worlde' (sig. D 1, rect.). It was not the quantity but the quality of the Dean's divinity which was at fault, and Marprelate was probably right in his report that Whitgift was unfavour- able to printing the Defence (EPISTLE, 2). Bridges' position is very frankly evangelical as regards his creed. He deals very tenderly with his reforming 'bretheren.' The Dialogue includes him in the list of 'notable turncoats' ; he graduated bachelor in the reign of Mary, and must then have professed THE MARPRELATE PUBLICATIONS 141 reply. 1 ' The compleat worke (very briefly comprehended in a portable booke, if your horse be not too weake, of an hundred threescore and twelve sheets, of good Demie paper) is a con- futation of The learned discourse of Ecclesiasticall government.' Bridges undertakes to prove that the external polity of the Church as established is supported by antiquity and by the Apostolic epistles ; that the service book contains nothing contrary to the Scriptures. He endeavours to disarm the opposition of the reformers at the onset. In his Preface he writes : 'It is no small griefe to me (I protest) that on this occasion, I was thus drawen into these questions, with those whom otherwise in Christe, I humbly acknowledge to be our deare Brethren.' He would gladlier have united with them against the Papists, 'the publike aduersaries of Gods truth.' His statement of doctrine shows him to occupy a position almost directly opposite to that of the modern Anglican. He would relax the administration of the sacraments and the liturgical offices, in which minister and people co-operate as ' one party ' ; it is only in preaching that the minister stands, for the time, in the place of God to deliver His message. ' The ministring of the sacraments,' he holds, ' is a common action : therefore by this rule of our Brethfren] euery man and woman that is present at the ministring of the sacraments, and assenteth to them, and partaketh with himself a Romanist. Nevertheless, in the Defence his sympathy with the Church of Rome is seen only in his superstitious belief in the working of modern miracles within that Church and his child-like confidence in old traditions (Defence, 68 ; EPISTLE, 12). He was clearly not the type of man to carry out the policy of Elizabeth and Whitgift, and had to wait until the accession of James to ascend the episcopal bench. His friends were not sure that he had not made a bad bargain when he accepted the indifferent see of Oxford as an exchange for his rich rectories, and other benefices. He died at a very advanced age in 1618, and was buried in the church of March Baldon, Oxon (Gent. Mag. 1794). 1 THE EPITOME, sig. B i. Mr. F. 0. White is wrong in supposing that Bridges' Defence was a reply to 'a bulky volume of 547 pages.' The Parte of a Register to which he refers was a volume of tracts, most of which had been previously published separately, gathered into a single volume at a much later date. It reprints the ' Letter of a Reverend Man across the Sea, ' to which Bridges devoted one of the sixteen chapters of his book ; but does not include the little pamphlet, A Brief e and Plaine Declaration ('The Learned Discourse '), to which the Defence was a formal reply. 142 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS the Ministers, may be sayd also to be the ministers of them/ 1 All might pray, all by common consent repeat the same prayer, follow the one uttered prayer of the minister, and thus make it their own. In praying minister and people together represent but ' one party,' and ' not the minister a third person, as intercessor or mediator betwixt God and them.' 2 And continuing the argument on the same page, he says But it is nothing alike in prophecying or preaching. For though all the people neuer so much consent unto the preaching or prophecying, yet can it not be said to be their action, as prayer might. For in prophecying or preaching in the relation of these two parties, the Prophecier or Preacher respecteth God, and all the people are the hearers of God, speaking unto them by him, Qui loquitur loquatur eloquia Dei. The works of Calvin and of Beza, his successor at Geneva, are continually referred to in terms of warm appreciation ; and the strongly Protestant annotations to the Genevan version of the Bible are frequently drawn upon to confirm the Dean's argument. All this explains why the Defence failed to commend its author to the good graces of the Archbishop, when the higher offices in the Church fell vacant, and a man was needed to carry out his rigorous policy. As a polemic against the reforming party the Defence was equally ineffectual. It cannot be credited that any one, save the author and the printer's reader, ever read it through, unless it were Martin Marprelate. Bridges moves along in his easy shuffle, pausing to tell a story, or to give a long meandering quotation, adding parenthetical remarks, interpolating qualifications, underlining half of his pages to give an artificial emphasis to his prosy inconse- quential platitudes ; and this for fourteen hundred large quarto pages. Small wonder that Chard the printer had to get a subsidy from the government to save him from bankruptcy. There was on the face of it every likelihood 1 The Defence, bk. 9, p. 680. 2 Ibid. p. 681. THE MARPRELATE PUBLICATIONS 143 of truth in Martin's banter, that the unsaleable stock was used for such menial purposes as the stopping of mustard pots. Whatever inherent dialectical value Bridges' state- ment of the official episcopal position may have had was lost in his long wearisome periods and his mazy style. 1 Even the literary hacks hired by Whitglft to defend Bridges against his agile critic could not be persuaded to wade through his book. They taunt Martin with his vulgar ' So ho ! ' as though he assumed the offensive position of a teamster and used the venerable Bishops as his dray- horses, oblivious of the fact that Martin was satirically copying the clumsy attempts of Bridges at being facetious. 2 Given ample space and verge enough he can tell his story to illustrate the point he desires to enforce, in a pleasant, homely, fireside fashion. As when he would maintain that ' our neighbours experience ' is ' no necessary paterne to vs ' and gives the JEsopian fable of the ass laden with sponges. 3 But it is needless to say that neither the Defence nor his innocuous rhyming list of Christ's titles gives the slightest countenance to the suggestion that Bridges wrote the vigorous old play Gammer Gurtoris Needle, with its swinging drinking-song beginning Backe and syde go bare, go bare, Both foote and hande go colde, But bellye, God send tliee good ale ynoughe, Whether it be newe or olde. 4 Further references to the contents of the Defence will be found in Martin's second Tract. 3. Immediate Replies to the ' Defence.' The length of the Defence, as well as its discursiveness, made it difficult for the reforming party, who could only print with great difficulty and peril on their secret presses, to reply to its assertions or to supply the syllogisms which the Dean desired to see in proof of the contention of the Non- 1 See EPISTLE, 12. 2 See Defence, 76. 3 See EPITOME, G 1. 4 See EPISTLE, 10. 144 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS conformists. But a beginning was made during the same year in A Defence Of the godlie Ministers against the slaunders of D. Bridges, written by Dudley Fenner. 1 It is chiefly concerned in replying to Bridges' criticisms on the Preface of the Learned Discourse. For though Bridges refers to his ' dear bretheren ' in terms of respect and amity, he is defending the cruel oppression of Whitgift and his High Commission. In mellifluous accents he accuses them of lawlessness and disloyalty. Fenner's tract for the most part is a plain, sober, scriptural statement, not differing greatly from the examples already cited in these introductory pages. In one or two places his indignation at the lawless persecution from which he and his friends were suffering, and the ungenerous misconstruction sys- tematically put upon their simple Christian purposes, quickens the pace of his sentences, and the rebuke of his heartless opponents warms into a measured and dignified passion. The year following a second reply appeared, bearing the title, A Defence of the Ecdesiasticall Discipline ordayned of God to be vsed in his Church. Against a Replie of Maister Bridges to a briefe and plain Declaration of it which was printed in 15 8 '4> Which replie he termeth, A Defence of the gouernement established in the Church of Englande, for Ecdesiasticall matters. 1588? It is a strong, well- written presentation of the reformer's opposition to the quasi- Roman elements in the polity and administration of the established Church, and of the divine character by which the writer implies the scripturally-warranted character of that simpler and more democratic order which went under the title of Discipline. Section II. Martin Marprelate 1. Annus Mirabilis, 1588. The later chroniclers and 1 It appeared anonymously ; but on being reprinted by Waldegrave in A Parte of a Register, Fenner's name was added as the author. 2 Small 4to, 228 pp. Rom. type. It is without divisions, chapters or marginal analysis. THE MARPRELATE PUBLICATIONS 145 historians of the great century looked back fondly to this as the illustrious year in English story. Despite some adverse influences, the nation was recovering itself from the exhaustion of the largely foreign rule of Philip and Mary. The fruits of the Renaissance had been to a degree arrested in England ; partly because the energy of that great in- tellectual upheaval, which expressed itself in art and poetry in the southern half of Europe, among the northern nations had manifested itself in the quickening of religious thought, and in those social ideals which spoke to the hearts and imaginations of the people from the pages of the Bible, now rapidly and freshly translated into the vernacular tongues. And in England, blessed and cursed by the virile and headstrong race of Tudor sovereigns, the expression of this ethical and spiritual quickening had been unnaturally restricted and crushed. The vitality of the religious ordinances under Elizabeth lay not in the showy but empty formalisms borrowed from the cult of Rome, but rather in those elements of innovation which with a niggardly caution were allowed to the people the discarding of Latin in the liturgy of the Church, the use of the Scriptures in the very idiom of the people, and the participation of the laity in the audible acts of public worship. Had the unrestricted rights of discussion and of preaching been granted, the kindred causes of civil and religious liberty would have advanced by a mighty stride, future internecine struggles would have been avoided, and the material and intellectual development of the people would have proceeded apace. It has been the misfortune of England that its movements of religious reform have been, in a measure, reactions ; the reaction from the corrupt life of priests and people under Mary gave to the incipient programme of the Elizabethan religious reformers an ascetic savour ; the re- action from the immoderate restrictions of the Commonwealth Puritans made possible the debaucheries of the restoration under Charles II. Yet, despite all restricting forces, the nation, during the thirty years of the reign of Elizabeth, was rapidly realising L 146 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS itself: public credit was restored, the fleet was recreated, the national defences put in order, and, with the exclusion of the foreign prince and the foreign priest, a growing patriotism, a pride of race, and a love of the birth-land were welding the nation into unity. There was but a small remnant of the Papists, whose religious consistency compelled them to be, first of all, the loyal subjects, not of Elizabeth, but of Pope Sixtus ; and next, to be the spies and agents of Philip, as the champion of Popery. The destruction of the Armada was the triumph of English nationalism. 1 Outside the ecclesiastical domain a very wide and inclusive domain in those days there was enjoyed a large freedom. The new spirit found vent for itself in foreign adventures and in growing trade enterprise. While the Armada was a-building Drake ravaged the coast of the Peninsula, ' singeing of the beard of the king of Spain ' ; and in this great year ' Master Cavendish came home from his voyage round the globe/ Already this quickening of the national spirit was expressing itself in a literature which was destined to make the age illustrious through all time. The previous year Marlowe, in writing Tamburlaine, had determined the essential form of the Elizabethan drama and heralded its greatness. Shakespeare was in London, and the year following produced his first original play, Loves Labour's Lost. Holinshed had gathered his Chronicles and John Stowe his antiquarian Annals. A gift of style and of melody fell from heaven upon that generation of Englishmen. The echoes of their great speech and their spontaneous song have resounded down all our subsequent centuries. Side by side with this resurgent national life, this hearty 1 ' The union and fidelity of subjects is quite contrary to what is con- ceived abroad. They need not fear the face of a stranger. Last year's attempt [the attack of the Spanish Armada] was made so odious that even Catholics would have resisted it, looking for little favour from the merciless Spaniard.' Draft of a letter by Thomas Barnes, a Jesuit spy in England, to Father Owen at Brussels. Transcribed in the Calendar S. P. Dom. Add. 1580-1625. The original (vol. xxxi. 14) is in an execrable hand- writing. THE MARPRELATE PUBLICATIONS 147 pride in being God's Englishmen ; conscious as these men were of the broadening horizon of the human intellect, their earth enlarged by the vision of new continents, and the heavens above them filled with a new and awful majesty, through the teachings of a revolutionised astronomy, while their moral and spiritual faculties were thrilled with new life from the commanding utterances of the Christian gospel speaking directly from the authentic records of the life of the Divine Teacher ; side by side with all this, a narrow intolerant priest was filling the foul prisons of London with godly men and women, ruining their lives, reducing their families to begging their bread, turning the great patrimony of English liberty to a mockery. To read the Bible with one's friends in the sanctity of one's home was made a crime ; to hold an opinion unfavourable to the choleric little tyrant's book and appreciative of his opponent's argument was to be a candidate for the Clink or the Gatehouse ; to reject the intolerable tyranny of the oath ex officio, to ask to be judged by the law and custom of the land, to demand that accusations be substantiated by witnesses examined in a legal manner before a constitutional tribunal to refuse, that is, to accuse oneself or to betray the secret affairs of those dearer than oneself ; this was sedition, treason, an offensive singularity, the mark of an envious spirit whose real objective was the rich benefices of the Bishops and Prelates ! Exasperated by the intractable consciences he had convented before him, which were indeed a silent con- demnation of his own more politic course in life, his sallow visage mantling with rage, the Archbishop would rail against his victims. ' Clap them into close prison/ he would cry, as he dismissed them with evil words. The spy and the inforiwfwere everywhere. The printing-press was watched by a sl^pless censorship. How, we may well ask, could these conflicting and antagonistic forces coexist ? this expanding wealth of life, on the one hand, riotous in the affluence of its newly-found prerogatives, inspired by a large utterance, and tuning its lyre to welcome the advent of a new and grander age ; and, on the other hand, this reactionary 1 48 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS recrudescence of priestly intolerance, this repression of thought on the greatest of human interests ; flouting the dearly-bought liberties of the constitution with the sophistry and chicanery of musty canon law ? On board the Armada there was sent to England a special mission con- sisting of officers of the Holy Inquisition. After the subjugation of the heretical nation by the sword, the priest was to crown the victory. In order to carry out the decisions of the court to be instituted on these shores, the Inquisitors had presciently stowed among the cargo a supply of instruments of torture. But both Mission and thumb- screw were a superfluity. The Inquisition, as Burleigh and Knowles and Morrice had declared, was here already. Lawless oppression abounded. Already in the Marches the Archbishop had used the rack ; it was at his disposal in the Tower, and was destined not to lie idle. If Burleigh and Walsingham, if Howard and Drake, were fighting the Spanish-Catholic oppression by astute diplomacy in the European courts and daring naval enterprise on the high seas, not less was it to attack a merciless ' Spanish ' inqui- sition, already rife within our borders, that there appeared suddenly, in the illustrious year 1588, an antagonist to Whitgift and the Bishops calling himself MARTIN MAR- PRELATE. 2. The Seven ' Martins.' The first of the tracts bearing the pseudonym Martin Marprelate appeared about October 1588; in a very short time it got into circulation. It was an interesting novelty in English literature. The resources of the language were turned, by one who could use them with uncommon skill, to a fresh use. He appears in the midst of the strenuous and all too solemn ecclesiastical controversy as a satirist, dexterous in word-fence, well furnished with wit, and with a notable gift of humorous irony. He struck a new and individual note, and at once captured the ears of men. But if the literary form of the Martinist tracts was novel, the attitude assumed by the satirists towards the hierarchy was more than novel, it was startling. A traditional deference was shown to a Bishop ; THE MARPRELAtE PUBLICATIONS 149 even to the most contemptible and unworthy. His office was surrounded with an air of superstition. He was shielded from much criticism by reason of the sacred func- tions he exercised ; he was allowed by courtesy, prerogatives, and granted exonerations, beyond all other subjects of the Queen ; second, indeed, only to herself. And Martin drew the amused attention of all classes of society by treating the Bishops, even the chief of them, with jocular familiarity. He banged them noisily with his distended bladders, prodded them in the ribs, winked at them, told scandalous tales about them, warned them, gravely expostulated with them ; or he let the fire of his indignation blaze out, perhaps at the remembrance of high-minded, devout men, of blameless life, slowly dying in dark, mephitic dungeons, and in the glow of his just anger calling them harsh names; yet suddenly reverting to his quips and quiddities. Never, since priests had inspired awe in the minds of men by claiming the possession of supernatural powers had Bishops been so treated. Wise men saw, moreover, that the satiric humour was but an advertisement ; the clanging of the bell to call attention to the sermon ; that the real purpose of the tract was most serious, most grave, most undeniably religious as afterwards the writer himself confessed to be the case. The first tract, whose long title was soon whittled down to the brief name THE EPISTLE, was followed at the end of November by a second, briefly called THE EPITOME. Then came with the first days of January a defence of the Bishops called An Admonition, and signed T. C. But it came not from Thomas Cartwright, the erstwhile writer of Admonitions, but from Thomas Cooper, Bishop of Win- chester. Nothing could have served better the purpose of Martin. He forthwith replied with a tract bearing for its title the London street cry, HAY ANY WORKE FOR COOPER. While this was being printed a small broadside came from the secret press bearing the somewhat cryptic title, CERTAIN MINERAL AND METAPHYSICAL SCHOOLPOINTS, soon shortened into MINERALLS. All these were in black-letter. But soon a new series began in Roman type. Of these the first was 150 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS called THESES MARTINIANAE, often referred to as MARTIN JUNIOR ; and the next, published within a few days, THE JUST CENSURE AND REPROOFE, whose short title was MARTIN SENIOR ; Martin Junior and Senior being supposed to be sons of the original Martin Marprelate. The sensation caused by these daring and popular pamphlets was very great. Speculation began to be rife as to their author, or authors ; many wild guesses were made; every distinguished writer on the side of church reform being accused in his turn. The censorship of the press, and the search for secret presses, were severe and unrelenting. Fresh ' Injunctions ' were issued, and the Privy Council showed its grave concern. Spies and pur- suivants were multiplied ; they mingled in every crowd ; in- sinuated themselves into surreptitious prophesyings ; loitered about suspected booksellers in Fleet Street and St. Paul's Churchyard. At the same time the prohibition of the Tracts rather quickened their circulation than otherwise; they were read at Court, they were read at the universities, they were secretly sold at markets and fairs ; the appear- ance of a fresh ' Martin ' was an event of the greatest public interest. ' Y e book was willinglye redde/ so the Jesuit agent reported to his superior at Brussels. 1 Suddenly towards the close of August it was known that the press was seized on the outskirts of Manchester, and that three men, engaged in printing a new tract, to be entitled ' More work for the Cooper/ were made prisoners and sent up to London. It was only with difficulty and by the use of torture that a little information was gained as to the probable authors and the methods of pro- ducing the six ' Martins ' that were in circulation. To show that their resources were not exhausted, and as a further defiant challenge to their persecutors, the Martinists issued THE PROTESTATYON. But there were signs of distress especially in the opening pages of this tract, not in the style and vivacity of the writing, but in the poor way in which it had been printed. It was the last of the series. 1 S. P. Dom. Add. 1580-1625, vol. xxxi. No. 14, dated June 23, 1589. THE MARPRELATE PUBLICATIONS 151 Then followed the flood of Anti-Martinist tracts and ballads and broadsides, which, however scurrilous, and even indecent their contents, found no difficulty in securing the episcopal cum privilegio. Some of the least worthy of them were by writers commissioned to their task by the Archbishop's chaplain, Bancroft. The fact was reckoned among his virtues, as we have seen, when it was proposed to make him a Bishop. He may be regarded as the real founder of the ' yellow press.' 3. The Story of the Production of the Tracts. We are now able, by piecing together records of examinations and scraps of evidence which have survived, to form a fairly complete account of this daring literary adventure. (1) EGBERT WALDEGRAVE, THE PURITAN PRINTER. To a large extent liberty is the product of the printing-press. The printed word has given currency to the great thoughts of men. The press has made the quickening, inspiring, democratic speech of the New Testament common property. Gutenberg and his successors, with their movable types and manifold impressions, are the real torch -bearers of civilisation. The first instinct of the tyrant is to gag the platform and the press, and of the two the press is the more difficult to suppress. Robert Waldegrave commonly pronounced Walgrave was early known as the Puritan Printer. He was the son of a yeoman hailing from Blackley in Worcestershire. On June 24th, 1568, he was apprenticed for eight years to William Griffith. In the year 1578 works bearing his imprint begin to appear. 1 He was chiefly engaged in printing religious works, and when the censorship was rigorously enforced, entered upon the perilous task of secretly printing the anti-episcopal tracts of the reformers. How greatly he suffered in this cause may be read at length in the last of the Marprelate Tracts printed by him HAY ANY WoRKE. 2 In the year 1588 Waldegrave 1 ' Lycenced on to [R. W.] A booke intituled A Castell for the Soule,' 17 June 1578. Arber's Transcripts, ii. 328. 2 Op. tit. 39-43. See also TIIE EPISTLE, 23, 24. 152 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS had a printing-house at the sign of the Crane in Paul's Churchyard. On the night of April 1 6th, in that year, the pursuivants appeared at his doors ; and not gaining an entrance in that way, they broke down the main walls of the house and seized his press and letters and also a number of copies of the dialogue commonly known as Diotrephes written by the well-known Puritan minister of Kingston on Thames, John Udall, which Waldegrave had been secretly engaged in printing. 1 In the tumult which ensued the persecuted printer managed to escape with a box of types ' under his cloke.' John Wolfe, the beadle of the Stationers' Company, posted forthwith to Whitgift at Croydon to inform ' my Lordes grace ' of the capture and to get his instructions. 2 There dwelt at this time in Aldermanbury near the Guildhall, London, a widow, Mrs. Crane, a great friend and benefactor of the reformers. Her husband, Nicholas Crane, had been the minister of Roehampton in Surrey, and as far back as 1569 had been in difficulties with the Bishops. He was a man of considerable repute among the reforming party, and like so many of his class had been educated at Cambridge. In the list of ' sundry faythfull Christians Im- prisoned by the ArchBishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London for the Ghospell of our Lord Jesus Christ,' written about May 1588, there is the following entry : 1 See note on Diotrephes in THE EPISTLE, 6. 2 The particulars are given in Herbert's Ames' Typ. Antiq. ii. 1145 ; and may be conveniently consulted in Dr. Arber's ed. of Diotrephes, Introd. xii. xiii. The Stationers' warden and his assistants seized ' A presse with two paire of cases with certaine Pica Romane and Pica Italian letters, with divers books entituled : The State of the Church of England laid open, etc. [i.e. Diotrephes].' Nearly a month later, on May 13th, the Court of the Stationers' Company resolve that the press and letters be destroyed. "Wolfe receives xiid. for the job. Contemporary references to the defacing of Waldegrave's type must be taken as allusions to the events of April 16th. For instance, in the Dialogue wherin is laide open we read that ' his goods were destroied about Ester was a twelve moneth' (sig. B. 4). This would be 'about April 7th.' Matthew Sutcliffe writing years after the events he narrates, with access to all the official documents, alludes definitely to May 13th, on the authority of the Stationers' records ; but the contemporary writers, especially those writing in the interests of the reformers, knew nothing of the private resolutions of the Stationers' Court of Assistants. In addition to the above references see Dr. Arber's Transcript, i. 528. THE MARPRELATE PUBLICATIONS 153 Nicholas Crane a man of 66. yeares havinge a wyef and Chyldren ffirst imprysoned by Loudon ffor hearing vt supra, after endighted and dyed of the Infection of the pry son in Newgate. 1 Henry Barrowe, himself a lawyer and able to realise the lawlessness which marked Whitgift's rule, says that no in- quest was called or sat on his death as the law required. He adds that they 'would not soffer the body of this antient grave Preacher and Father M [aster] Cr[ane] to be caried to burial into the city through Newgate, leste the people who knew his vertue and godlines should espie and abhor their cruel tie.' 2 The route to Aldermary would be along Newgate Street and * Mylke Street.' To the house of the widow, Mrs. Crane, Waldegrave's wife stole privately the day after the seizure of the press, bringing with her the box of rescued type, which Nicholas Tomkins, a servant of Mrs. Crane, took charge of. The box remained at Aldermary according to the same testimony 'about three months/ from April 17th to Midsummer. 3 Waldegrave was not long before he obtained possession of another press and a fount of Eoman type. He probably set up his press secretly at Kingston on Thames. Udall was a minister in the town, and would be bound to favour Waldegrave, who was a fugitive from the Archbishop's justice because he had printed Udall's dialogue Diotrephes. From his new printing-house, Waldegrave succeeded in issuing for Udall's friend, John Penry, a young Welshman soon destined to become famous both as a writer and as a martyr he was sent to the gallows five years later a work entitled An exhortation 'onto the governours, and people of Mr Maiesties country of Wales. This appeared about the end of April, so that Waldegrave must have set to work without delay. Dr. Robert Some, sometime chaplain to the Earl of Leicester, rector of Girton, and a year later elected Master of Peterhouse, had written A Godly Treatise. 1 Harl. MSS. 6848, 7 f . ; Arber's Sketch, 39. 2 Lansd. MSS. 65, 65 ; Powicke, Trans. Cong. Hist. Soc. ii. 270. 3 The second Exam, of N. Tomkins, Harl. MSS. 7042. Arber's Sketch, 86. 154 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS Several of his controversial works bear that recommendatory title ; this particular godly treatise was ' touching the Ministerie, Sacraments and Church.' Its date is May 6th, 1588. A second edition of Penry's tract states that ' master D[octor] Somes booke was published this day.' (2) THE FIRST MARPRELATE PRINTING-HOUSE. The authorities, ever on the look out for Waldegrave, must have heard that he was in the neighbourhood of Kingston ; for we have an account of a celebrated expedition by water to the town despatched by 4 the Stationers' Company on June 10th. The quest proved futile, except so far as it afforded a pleasant excursion to the Stationers' warden and his men. 1 But evidently the search grew hot, and it was thought prudent to move the press. We therefore find Penry soliciting Mrs. Crane for the use of her house at East Molesey, near Kingston. Having received her per- mission, Mrs. Waldegrave called at Aldermary for the box of types which, with ' a load of stuff ' were lodged at Molesey. The first work which Waldegrave took in hand was a new tract by Udall bearing the title A Demonstra- tion of Discipline. Penry and Waldegrave are stated by Nicholas Tompkins to have resided at his mistress's house 'for three weeks from Midsummer.' The probability is that the press was used more or less during July and August ; and during the latter month Waldegrave printed Penry's promised reply to Some's Godly Treatise, bearing the title, A Defence of that which hath bin written. Dr. Some issued an enlarged edition of his Godly Treatise, replying to Penry's Defence, bearing date Sept. 19th, 1588. We may assume that having seen his pamphlet through the press, Penry departed for Northampton, which was early a centre of reforming activity ; and, as already de- scribed, became the scene of an extended experiment of municipal government in accordance with the ' Discipline.' Edmund Snape, the curate of St. Peter's, Northampton, was a warm friend of Penry's. Bancroft states that in 1587 both Penry and Snape were members of the Presbyterian 1 See THE EPISTLE, 23, 43. THE MARPRELATE PUBLICATIONS 155 classis which met at Northampton. 1 Penry here became acquainted with Henry Godley, who in 1584 was one of the two ' thirdborowes ' for the ' sowth ' ward ; 2 and on Sept. 5th, 1588, at All Saints', the principal church in the town, Penry married Eleanor, the thirdborough's daughter. 3 She proved herself during their brief and troubled married life to be a wife worthy of him in every respect. (3) THE FIRST MARTIN. About Michaelmas we find that Penry and Waldegrave are back at Mrs. Crane's house at East Molesey. Waldegrave had managed to get from the Continent a fount of very handsome ' black letter ' type, in several sizes. And Penry, for most probably it was he, brought with him a notable manuscript the ' copy ' of the first Marprelate Tract, which we know as THE EPISTLE. This was printed during the early part of October from the new ' Dutch letters.' The difficulty of putting it into circulation was, no doubt, very great. But the men and women who had entered upon this daring enterprise were prepared to run risks ; and in an extraordinary degree they that joined the ranks of the reformers were loyal to one another. Of those who were engaged in the produc- tion of the Marprelate Tracts, we know of no one who, to save his own skin, voluntarily supplied the authorities with convicting evidence, except Henry Sharpe, the Northampton bookbinder. And he appears to have been drawn to the business by mercenary motives, rather than by any strong and impelling religious convictions. Copies were certainly sent without delay to London. Giles Wigginton, soon to suffer as a suspected author from the rage of Whitgift, staying at Mrs. Crane's house in Aldermary at this time, was early supplied with copies, one of which he gave to Mrs. Crane's servant, Nicholas Tomkins. He in turn transferred the copy to his relatives. A copy which was being read at Mrs. Crane's was said to have cost 1 Dangerous Positions. 2 Dr. J. C. Cox, Records of the Boro' of Northampton. ( The thirdboroughs were subordinate officials of the constable,' vol. ii. 139, 140. 3 History of the Church of St. Peter's, Rev. R. M. Serjeantson, M.A., p. 35 n. 156 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS ninepence, but Tomkins could get as many copies as he wished for sixpence. Waldegrave even offered him the entire stock, giving him the chance of gaining twenty marks profit [13:6:8 = 100 present money. Dr. Arber]. 1 The leading nonconforming ministers and laymen found means to get early copies. No doubt Mrs. Waldegrave was an assiduous ' distractor ' of her husband's craftsmanship. If Mrs. Mar- garet Lawson, the ' shrew of Paul's Gate/ answered to the character given her by friend and foe, she would be a fearless distributing agent. Some of the booksellers were shrewdly suspected of carrying on a nefarious but not unprofitable trade in ' Martins.' In the neighbouring town of Kingston they soon got into circulation. They were on sale at the house of ' Markes Collyns/ who was ' one of the baylies of the Towne of Kingeston ' ; also at the house of ' one Robert Doddesdon.' Doddesdon was reported to have offered a copy of THE EPISTLE to a fellow-townsman, Roger Watson, for sixpence ; though Nicholas Kydwell, who sup- plied this information, stated that ' the sayd bookes ' were ' sold in the sayd housen for iid. a peece.' 2 (4) THE PKESS AT FAWSLEY HOUSE. It had been fore- seen by Penry, who in all his management of the secret press had shown a striking combination of cool daring and of prudent and cautious resourcefulness, that the press could not remain long at Molesey without detection. Mrs. Crane, a woman of some courage, had strong fears on the subject. Penry was, however, able to promise her that the whole of the apparatus would presently be removed to Northamptonshire. Among the persons favourable to church reform whom he had met at Northampton, the most distinguished undoubtedly was Sir Richard Knightley of Fawsley, who had filled the office of High Sheriff and was Deputy Lieutenant for the county, which he also represented in Parliament between the years 1584 and 1597. He was of an ancient family, and both by reason of his wealth and social position, as well as his official dignities, exercised a very considerable 1 Harl. MSS. 7042, fol. 13 ; Arber's Sketch, 85. 2 Nicholas Kydwell's deposition, Harl. MSS. 6849, fol. 157. &\) rcab ouct $ J lumc/ tittitten againft fye ^nrttancg/ in tlje Defence of iable, dcatfllc/ fop ao toqjfljitp^i 1 .! a pjieffc/ ^!al;a ^;tD0ca/ f fUFtct/P?irfl o; clbct/bocta? of ^iuillitie/ and 55canc of anim,ttt>l;crn ; n tljt argumcuto of t^c puritano ate ?c oemco/ tljat toljcn tfyep came to an> 39octa?/tl;fp muf? uccQe p fomctfymg ti;at l;at^ licne fpohen* Coitipfleu f o? tlje befjooft anD oi)ttt!)?oib of tl)e^arfoi^/fpcliet^/ant)Cun:at.8;/t!)ati)atjeJem t!;ctt atcd)ifmc0/aub are pafl grace: ^p tl;e reuetcntx au^J tx)6?t(;t'e/nartt /hatrp?elat ijct)icate() to t^e ^ofoca itome te not ret pubUQeft/bnt it (l^all bel!jctt ifljopoate at coutienient kpfticc to wen? tljc fame, ^ n tfyc meane time/let rt;em be content toirtj tl;ia learned obetfea/m europe JDtfljtn ttbo fut^ - - - 'attt)ecoftr^- u ~^ /0entleman, CHE i I Trn.E-i'A(;E OK 7>// : EPISTLE, THE FIRST MAKI-RKLAI-K TRACT. '/'//<' ori^iinil is n small I'.liznhctlntn ,/itarto. THE MARPRELATE PUBLICATIONS 157 authority in the shire. He is represented as having spent a more or less careless and dissolute early life. This is alleged on the strength of an inscription which he had placed upon his portrait, and which speaks of his ' recklesse youthe ' ; * a phrase to be understood in the light of the usual Puritan estimation of any life not consciously devoted to the service of God. For his second wife he married Lady Elizabeth Seymour, daughter to the Protector and cousin to Edward VI. The warm sympathy of Lady Elizabeth Knightley with the reformation of religion may be taken for granted. The printing had been proceeding at Molesey not more than a month, 2 when Penry sounded Sir Richard Knightley on the question of removing the press to Fawsley. His alleged plea, according to Sir Richard, was that he desired to print a book on ' the unlerned Ministri of Wales ' ; or to reprint the Aequity, published at Oxford the previous year, which to Sir Richard's knowledge 'was never called in/ What he probably requested was room to print his ' Sup- plication.' This was confused with the Aequity, which also was a supplication to Parliament. The permission was granted. As their labours on THE EPISTLE were drawing to a close, knowing that all the resources of Whitgift would be spent freely in searching for the press once the new and daring pamphlet got into his hands, Penry and Waldegrave felt it was necessary to leave Molesey. Penry, doubtless glad of an excuse to see his young wife, therefore visited Northampton, taking some sheets of the new work with him to revise. In his interview with Sir Richard he had received from him ' a ring of three Gyrnawes ' a triple gimmal ring as a token of his authority to the keeper of Fawsley House. 3 Towards the close of October Waldegrave was able to leave Molesey and hurried to Northampton. It was 1 See Baker's Hist, of Northamptonshire, i. 385. Two portraits are re- produced in the Ancestor, July 1902, the above, and an older figure, which we have been allowed to reproduce. 2 'About St. Jamestide was twelvemonth,' says Sir Richard at his trial on Feb. 13th, 1590. See State Trials (ed. Hargrave), vii. 29. 3 Harl. MSS. 7042, f. 1 ; Arber's Sketch, 130. 158 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS the time of the annual muster of the county militia, at which Sir Richard in his official capacity would be present, and during the functions Waldegrave found an opportunity of completing the arrangements. Jeffs, a tenant-farmer living at Upton, near Northampton, under Valentine Knightley, the eldest son of Sir Richard, was induced to go to Molesey with his cart to fetch a ' load of stuff,' for which he received from JPenry ' for his paynes and charges 50s/ Country folk knew next to nothing of the mechanism of printing, which was restricted to London, and to a single press at each of the universities. Jeffs, when he saw the bits of lead or iron which formed part of the 'stuff/ was wonderingly told by Penry that they were 'letters/ He must have known that he was engaged on some dangerous business when he was given a sum of, say, fifteen or sixteen pounds for his labour and expenses. Jeffs reached East Molesey towards the last days of October with his cart. Penry met him on his arrival, and handed over to him the compromising load. How long he would take to do the journey to Fawsley it is difficult to say. He would cross the Thames by Kingston Bridge, having the printing apparatus covered with hay or straw, or as a countryside tradition has it in regard to this trans- action, with his cart laden with turnips. The roads were extremely bad for a wheeled vehicle, and Jeffs would be instructed to avoid unnecessary publicity ; to choose by preference the less frequented roads, which, no doubt, were the worse to travel by. The public inns were not safe lodgings for a cart containing a contraband press. Alto- gether it was a difficult and slow journey, and we are safe in allowing Jeffs, with due stoppages at friendly farms and inns and the Sunday interval, about ten or twelve days for his memorable journey. He was timed to arrive at Fawsley when the master was away. Sir Richard professes only hearsay knowledge of most of what happened. It was at any rate some ten days or a fortnight into November the date is variously hazarded from memory, after the lapse of a year, as ' a fortnight or three weeks after Hollomas ' THE MARPRELATE PUBLICATIONS 159 (Nov. 14 2 1), 1 and is probably wrong by some days when Penry appeared at Fawsley House and presented the keeper, Lawrence Jackson, with Sir Richard's gimmal ring in token of his authority. In an hour or two Farmer Jeffs arrives and discharges his load of stuff contained in baskets, ' saving one thing like a black-stone,' the ink-stone, doubt- less. These things Jackson ' bestowed in the Nursery, and delivered the key unto Pen[ry].' When Mrs. Crane arrived at her house at East Molesey this same Allhallowtide, the embarrassing furniture, so Nicholas Tomkins, her servant, tells us, was gone. Meantime the EPISTLE was getting rapidly into general circulation. It was not long in reaching Lambeth Palace, where its significance was not misunderstood. An epis- copal committee was speedily summoned to consider the situation. It consisted, so Martin heard, of the Arch- bishop, Aylmer, Cooper of Winchester, and Wickham of Lincoln. 2 That the new type of tract was more dangerous than even the grave, lucid, convincing Scriptural argument of the popular little tract, The Learned Discourse, was evident. Every one was eager to buy ' Martin ' ; the sale was only restricted because of the difficulty of purchase. ' Many would gladly receive my books if they could tell where to find them.' Every man, says Martin, ' talks of my Worship.' He says that he has been ' entertained at Court/ 3 In the Midlands Fawsley House was a distribut- 1 Harl. MSS. 7042, 1 ; Arber, Sketch, 130. 2 THE EPITOME, Introd. Ep. 1st page. 3 Ibid. 2. The reference to the appearance of the EPISTLE at Court is confirmed by the story of the Queen speaking to the Earl of Essex about the recent proclamation which forbade any one to have a copy of the pamphlet in his possession. ' What then is to become of me ? ' asked the Earl, drawing forth a copy of the offending ' libell ' and presenting it to her Majesty (R. Coddrington's Life and Death of Robert, Earl of Essex ; reprinted in the Harleian Miscellany, i. 214 [ed. 1744]). Among early notices of the circu- lation of the Tracts is Francis Thynn's remark, writing to Lord Burleigh on Nov. 15th, 1588, in which he deprecates being considered 'one of the foolish sons of Martin Marprelate ' (S. P. Dom. Eliz. 1588). This implies that the EPISTLE must have been widely read at this date, and have been in circula- tion some weeks at least. Another interesting piece of evidence on its circulation among the upper classes is found in the statement of Giles Wigginton at his examination at Lambeth, Dec. 6th, 1588. Asked by 160 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS ing centre where the initiated could obtain copies of the EPISTLE. As early as the first day of November we hear of a visitor at Fawsley seeking and obtaining copies. 1 A ballad entitled ' Martin said to his man whoe is the foole nowe,' entered at Stationers' Hall on Nov. 9th, seems to allude to the popular subject. 2 (5) THE EPISCOPAL 'HUE AND CRY.' The episcopal juncta probably set on foot the activities of the Privy Council with the Queen's authority. Elizabeth might deplore some of the episcopal scandals, and object to the avarice of her Bishops ; but their dignity was part of her conception of the necessary pomp of a sovereign state. And though she rated them soundly and threatened to un- frock a recalcitrant and intractable Prelate, it was a luxury she strictly reserved to herself. Moreover it was the assiduous care of her Bishops to instil into the Queen's mind the idea that opposition to themselves, and to the Church order as established by herself, was sedition. She therefore looked with anything but favour at all the world and his wife laughing at the expense of her Church dig- nitaries. It was easy in these circumstances for Whitgift to move the authorities to action. The Privy Council speedily issued an instruction to the Lord Chancellor and the Lord Treasurer to write to the Archbishop, enjoining him to set in motion the machinery of the High Commis- sion, or by other action, 'to serch out the authors [of the EPISTLE] and the[i]r complices, and y e pryntors and y e secret dispersers of y e same, and to cause them to be apprehended and committed.' Their lordships' letter also declared the object of Martin's book to be, to create a dis- Whitgift if he had not been a means of distributing the EPISTLE, he replies, ' I understand by hearsay (that which I suppose you know well enough) that many Lords and Ladyes, and other greate and wealthy personages of all estates, have had and read it ; and so they will joyne with me in mine having and reading of it, if I have done either or both. And in my simple judgement it would be more for your credit if you would examine indifferently all sorts [of persons] about, and not poor folke only as you use to do. TJie Second Parte of a Register (MS.), 845, Dr. Williams' Lib. 1 Lansd. MSS. 61, 22 ; Arber's Sketch, 114. 2 Arber's Sketch, 139. THE MARPRELATE PUBLICATIONS 161 like of the government of the Church by Bishops, and to give currency to ' slanderous reports ageynst your Grace and y e rest of y e Bishoppes ' ; adding her Majesty's opinion, that it tended to subvert all government under her charge ' both in y e Church and commenweale.' * The Prelates had discovered traces of Waldegrave's active presence at Kingston on Thames, and on the same date on which the Council's letter reached them opened an inquiry in that town. Nicholas Kydwell and John Good, two of the citizens, were examined ; five days later Walter Eogers, a minister in the town, submitted himself to ex- amination, and perhaps still a little later, Stephen Chat- field, the vicar of Kingston, a more important witness, made a deposition. Some of the actual distributers of the EPISTLE were discovered ; and a very determined effort was made to identify John Udall, the silenced minister of Kingston, with the production of the pamphlet ; 2 with what amount of truth we shall consider later on. (6) THE SECOND MARTIN. All this while the Martinis ts at Fawsley have a second pamphlet busily in hand. It is the EPITOME promised in the first tract. A day or two after the arrival of the press Waldegrave, the Puritan printer, appeared on the scene, bringing with him * a servant ' ; 3 an assistant to help in working the press. Although some of the house servants at Fawsley must have known what was going on, the secret was probably kept within as narrow a circle as was possible. The ' nursery ' was a chamber in the roof, not existing in the present building ; in his evidence at his trial Sir Richard Knightley does not profess to know very much about the disposition of the press, which 'was never in his own house at the farther end of the town.' 4 Waldegrave was known as Sheme or Shamne or Shamuel, though Stephen Gifford, Sir Richard's confidential man, gives him his right name. It 1 Lands. MSS. 103 f. 102. Arber's Sketch, 107, 108. The letter to the Archbishop bears the date, Nov. 14, 1588. 2 Harl. MSS. 6849 ff. 157, 159, 120, 130. Arber's Sketch, 81 f. 3 Harl. MSS. 7042 f. 1. Sketch, 130. 4 Town = the enclosure containing the house and adjoining buildings. M 162 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS was pretended that he had come to examine and set in order the master's ' evidences/ i.e. title-deeds. From Northampton, some fourteen miles away, came John Penry on frequent visits too frequent to please the more cautious Waldegrave. Penry acted as press corrector. But in order to divert the suspicion of the dependents about the house, one of them, Peter Greve, who took ' Penry to be Martyn,' states, that ' Martyn went disguised in a long sky- coloured Cloak, or of a light colour, and had the Coller of the said Cloak edged with gould and Silver and Silke Lace, and a light-coloured Hatt, with an arming Sworde by his side.' l There is a slight ambiguity in the form of the words, and we know from much evidence that the rumours in the servants' hall respecting the mysterious visitors and their proceedings were by no means free from error. Yet likely enough the gaily attired visitor was Penry ; the only difficulty of the situation being that Penry could have been no stranger to many persons at Fawsley. Had Waldegrave chosen so to disguise himself it might be more easily understood. 2 It was the close application of the printers which prob- ably was the cause of ' Waldegrave's man being sick.' He lacked exercise, and it was too dangerous to let him mix freely with the inmates ; so that he was necessarily con- fined to the small chamber where the work was carried on. There Edward Sharpe, the minister of Fawsley, visited him ; and there he found a copy of the newly printed book. He took one copy to Sir Richard Knightley, ' advertising him, what was done in his Howse.' Sharpe was a Puritan, and later on found himself in prison because of his views ; but he evidently disapproved and feared this method of attack. 1 Harl. MSS. 7042 f. 7. Arber, Sketch, 128. 2 This is how Mr. Oswald Barrow, F.S.A. (in The Ancestor, July 1902), comments on the fact that the gaily attired person was identified as Penry. ' It may be that the sour fanatic did not carry these Babylonish garments with a convincing swagger, for curious eyes pried into the garret. ' But he further states, against probability and weight of evidence, that the 'broad- side ' was also printed at Fawsley. So that, as Martin would say, there is a decorum observed by Mr. Oswald Barrow ; his conception of Penry 's char- acter is in keeping with his acquaintance with the facts of the controversy. THE MARPRELATE PUBLICATIONS 163 Nor was it possible to keep the matter absolutely secret. The keeper's maid ' gave yt out . . . that there had bene Bookes printed lately at Fawsley.' Henry Sharpe, the Northampton bookbinder, an inveterate gossip and of a peculiarly inquisitive turn of mind, whose evidence, though mixed with much that is prima facie inaccurate, is our chief source of information on several points. Penry took him into his confidence to a certain degree ; it was probably necessary to run the risk. Waldegrave was overladen with work in being obliged not only to set up the type, and assist at the press, but also to collate the sheets and stitch them (' binding ' it is called in all the official documents). Henry Sharpe accompanied Penry, it must have been towards the end of October, 1 to Fawsley House. But Penry, rendered, perhaps, more prudent by the warnings of Waldegrave, who had been ' in prisons oft,' left Sharpe baiting his horse in a field some distance from the house, until his return ' with a Cloke Bag with Bookes behind him.' Next day copies of the EPITOME were brought to Sharpe's house, who was willing enough to make money out of their sale. Sharpe says he paid Penry for them. 2 (7) HUMFREY NEWMAN, CHIEF DISTRIBUTER. At this juncture also a much more important agent of Marprelate comes upon the scene in the person of Humfrey Newman, known also by the alias Brownbread, and described as a cobbler. This silent man, the indefatigable distributer of the dangerous tracts, trudging backwards and forwards between the Midlands and London, depositing his parcels of books at various houses and places of call, not given to chatter, not seeking any selfish gain, makes a marked im- pression upon us. He appears frequently at Fawsley, attired at first ' in a grene Cloak and a grene Hat/ but in a short time in ' Sir Eichard Knightley his livery. 5 3 A few days after Henry Sharpe had received his copies, Newman 1 See a brief discussion of the date of the EPITOME by the present writer in the Journal of the Northamptonshire Nat. Hist. Soc. Sept. 1905 (vol. xiii. No. 103). 2 Harl. MSS. 7042 f. 23 (Arbor's Sketch, 96 [k]). 3 Ibid. f. 10 (Ibid. 131). 1 64 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS appeared at Northampton with the principal stock of the EPITOME. The interim had been occupied by Waldegrave in ' making up ' and stitching. Newman's journey to London is made by way of Northampton, rather than by the more direct route through Banbury, presumably to avoid giving any hint as to the location of the press ; and it is to be noted that in regard to his destination on leav- ing Northampton, that Sharpe only surmises that it was London. Sharpe's deposition never goes beyond ' he thinketh.' Not much gratuitous information was to be elicited from the reticent Newman. (8) THE HIGH COMMISSION AT WORK. Giles Wiggin- ton, the deprived Yorkshire minister, was in London enjoy- ing one of his periods of liberation from gaol, and during the first days of December had copies of the new tract. On December 6th he was once more convented before Whitgift at Lambeth, as already narrated, and was examined about the ' second Martin.' By the craft of Monday, the pursuivant, in whose charge he went to Lambeth and whom afterwards he sadly judged to be one ' who seemeth to favour the Pope and to be a great dissembler,' Wigginton was led on to ' speake more boldly to him of Church govern- ment and of the two Bookes extant of M[artin]. All which Mond[ay] promised to conceal, and pretended a desire to be instructed. But when he came to Lambeth he accused G-. "W. treacherously as having read the second Booke of Mar[tin], and as having told the tale of the " spell goose " out of it.' The persecution of Wigginton was a sign of the renewed activity of the Prelates in their search for the ' makers and distractors ' of Martin Marprelate. The great political events of the year 1588 had somewhat overshadowed the ecclesiastical controversy and the growing opposition to Whitgift's rule. When Waldegrave and Penry were busy with their secret press at Molesey, the Armada of Spain was creeping up the Channel to its doom. And the same confederates were just completing the printing of Martin's EPITOME of Dean Bridge's Defence, as near as can be com- THE MARPRELATE PUBLICATIONS 165 puted, on the very day, Nov. 24th, when Elizabeth attended in state a solemn Te Deum at St. Paul's, in order to cele- brate the great deliverance. Nevertheless, Whitgift was fully alive to the dangers of the situation. The existence of an active anti-episcopal press was no new feature in the struggle. Just as the edicts of uniformity gave birth to an active nonconformity, so also the rigour of the censor- ship established the secret press, which had been busily at work in spite of the restricting Injunctions, since the days of Field and Wilcox's celebrated Admonition to Parliament. But a new and portentous element had been introduced into the attack on the Prelates. The wit and banter, the new and individual note of humour, the vie intime of the Bishops, these were the spread sails which caught the popular breeze, and brought into harbour a solid cargo of advanced reformed teaching concerning the authority of Bishops and the constitution of the Church. As Wiggin- ton in the beginning of December reminded Whitgift ' many Lords and Ladyes and other greate and wealthy personages of all estates ' had copies of Martin and were reading them. The Archbishop got nothing out of Giles Wigginton, save the satisfaction of once more sending an old opponent to gaol. (9) BISHOP COOPER'S ADMONITION TO THE PEOPLE. In the first days of the new year, the result of the delibera- tions of the episcopal committee was seen in the publication of An Admonition to the People of England, bearing the signature T. C. Now the people of England were not unaccustomed to the appearance of ' Admonitions ' bearing these famous initials, which all Europe knew to be the literary signature of Thomas Cartwright. The surprise would be great when they discovered that this particular Admonition was a defence of the Bishops against Martin Marprelate, and a defence of the established order against all and sundry. It was very soon known that the writer was Bishop Thomas Cooper of Winchester. The fact that the Prelates felt it necessary to publish this defence of themselves and their Church administration was an acknow- i66 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS ledgment of the prowess of their new antagonist. The Archbishop, and Bishop Aylmer, and in briefer form, the Bishops of Rochester, Lincoln, and Winchester, severally supply their own personal defence. Then the treatise touches on the established Church government and ' what in- conueniences they fear vpon the alteration thereof will come to the state of the Realme ' ; it gives ' answeres to certaine generall Crimes objected to all the Bishops without excep- tion ' that they exercise their functions for the sake of gain, selling livings, relaxations from ecclesiastical discipline, the privilege of ordination ; it denies the accusation, sup- ported, by the way, by almost all persons outside the officials of the Church, from the Queen downwards, that the Bishops maintained 'an vnlearned Ministry/ and thereby encouraged the revolt of the people. The charges of main- taining ' Pilling and powling,' that is plundering, Courts, of ' abusing Ecclesiastical discipline/ of ' ambition and griedie seeking after Liuings and promotion ' is denied ; nor do the Bishops hoard for the sake of their wives and children, and furnish their table with gold and silver plate by extortionate fines. Whether the Prince the Sovereign should take away from the Bishops ' their great Lands and Liuings and set them to meane Pensions ' and thus compel them to be like the Apostles and to follow the example of Christ in that respect, is discussed from the Scripture, with many suave moralisings, at great length. The authority of the Prince, and even the wish and preference of the Prince are quoted in defence of most things offensive to the thorough- going reformers ; but an exception is made in the matter of the emoluments of the Bishops and clergy, and a strong hint is given to Elizabeth of the danger of expropriating Church property. The liberal maintenance of Ministers, by ' Lands, Houses, Rents and Reuenues ' is declared to have been the custom ' from the beginning/ and a protest is made against those histories which attribute to the wealth of the Church ' the chiefe cause of setting vp Antichrist in his Throne/ It will be seen that, judged by its table of contents, the THE MARPRELATE PUBLICATIONS 167 Admonition denies everything alleged against the Bishops and the Church. But when we examine the treatise itself, what most strikes us are the admissions of the Bishop. The episcopal form of government is defended on the grounds of liberty and expediency ; and to support his argument the danger of innovations is frequently touched upon. 1 Of many of the alleged corruptions a consideration of their antiquity is thought sufficient defence. In seeking for authority to support their demand for a more stringent moral code, the Puritans fell back upon the Jewish code, which condemns to death every 'blasphemer, stubborne Idolater, murderer, Adulterer, Incestuous person, and such like.' Cooper objects to a law which would prevent a magistrate sparing the life of a blasphemer, etc., and would also prevent magistrates from pronouncing a death sentence on theft and ' diuers other felonies/ as ' some of them haue openly preached.' 2 We see here the explanation why, in another century, Ambrose Phillips should have sung O Property ! goddess English born. As regards the accusation that the Bishops practise simony, the reply is that the charge is grossly exaggerated. 3 The dispensation of ecclesiastical rules of discipline, such as licence to marry and to eat meat at forbidden seasons, is a matter of expediency and order. Cooper would retain the dispensing power and the necessary fines and fees ; but on the general principle he is quite one with the reformers. ' For to make holy or vnholy those things that God hath left free, and bee of themselues indifferent, is one of the chiefe groundes of Papisticall corruption.' 4 Lent he would have observed for the sake of the fishermen, who chiefly supplied men to the navy. 5 Those who would eat flesh at their pleasure 'cannot pretend religion, or restraint of Christian libertie, seeing open protestation is made by the 1 Cooper's Admonition, 76 vers., 77 (Arber's ed. 65). 2 Ibid. 77 vers. (Arber, 66). 3 Ibid. 88-90 (Arber, 74, 75). 4 Ibid. 96, 97 (Arber, 80). 6 In this following the old statute. 168 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS lawe, that it is not for conscience sake, but for the defence and safe tie of the realme.' l 1 There be, I confesse/ he writes, ' many vnlearned and vnsufficient Ministers! His earlier denial he explains to mean that this character should not be given to the whole ministry. Besides, there are not sufficient duly qualified men to fill all the livings, and some of the livings are small ; moreover, no minister is perfect, it is all a question of degree ; and whatever be the exact demands of the law, there is a virtue sometimes in breaking the law. The want of preaching is no excuse for revolt ; there was less preach- ing in the time of Edward, but the people did not then revolt. And some part of the fault must be set down to the hearers. 2 The seed may be good, yet fall upon stony ground. But when Cooper comes to a difficult and highly contro- versial topic, such as the article on the Descensus, he is off at a tangent instantly, and finds refuge in general moralising. To the objection of the Puritans against this article, Cooper says, ' I beseech Almightie God of his great mercie that hee will open the eies of them, which thus eagerly haue striuen against the present state of this Church ' ; and so on for a couple of pages. 3 The evangelical reformers had objected that ' Faith is the gift of God ; it cannot be forced by any punishment : by hardnesse and extreme dealing men may be made hypocrites, but not religious : yea, . . . that the Apostles vsed no such helpe of Princes power to bring men to the faith, or to pull them away from errour ' excellent doctrine, even in this year of grace. But it is to be noted that Cooper defends heartily the use of physical force in order to punish heretics and recusants. He urges a religious sanc- tion for persecution. 4 The classic text, 'Die Ecclesiae, tell it to the Church,' which the Nonconformists held could not mean ' tell it to one person, as the Bishop ' [though some of them believed it to mean ' tell it to the elders '], the Bishop expounds undogmatically. 1 Cooper's Admonition, 98, 99 (Arber, 81). 2 Ibid. 104-119 (Arber, 85-94). 3 Ibid. 121-125 (Arber, 96-98). 4 Ibid. 127-129 (Arber, 99-101). THE MARPRELATE PUBLICATIONS 169 To the contention that at that time there were ' in every congregation ' many presidents and governors of the Church, he replies, ' I graunt it was so ' ; though he did not grant that it was to be so always. When it was further contended that ' the Apostles afterward, and the Primitive Church did practise the same [church polity],' Cooper frankly wrote, ' I will not deny it,' adding the same claim for liberty to-day. But the book was no sooner printed and in the booksellers' hands than this most awkward admission, which must have escaped Whitgift's eye earlier, now attracted his attention. Peremptory orders were issued to call all the copies in, and two sentences were cancelled by having corrected slips pasted over them. In this case the corrected words were, ' That is not yet proued.' l But he says later that he thinks it better 'to beare with some imperfections ' than to run the risk of ' innovations.' The corruption in connection with the ecclesiastical courts is not absolutely denied ; but Cooper holds that it had been exaggerated. In some cases the Bishops' officers, not the Bishops themselves, were perhaps to blame. As regards the wealth of Bishops, he writes much but says little. He lays stress upon the opinion that the attack on the Church for in the argument the Bishops are the Church will lead to attacks on the State; one of many sentences intended for the eye of Elizabeth. Bishops' incomes ought not to come under the restrictions of the Levitical law, but have leave to grow fat under the liberty of the Gospel. All the corrupt Roman ritual, ' massing apparel and almost all the furniture of their Church in censing and singing and burning of Tapers, their altars, their propitiatorie sacrifice, their high Bishop and generall head ouer all the Church, with a number of other cor- ruptions of the Church of God ' all had come out of the 'imitation of the Aaronical priesthood and legall observa- tions ' ; a notable statement in view of the present-day theories of the Elizabethan Settlement. 2 1 Cooper's Admonition, 132-139 (Arber, 103-107). 2 Ibid. 139-167 (Arber, 107-125). 1 70 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS Tithes, the Bishop contends, are the creation of ' positive Law.' They are not to be claimed as offerings jure divino ; that, he says, is ' another errour of the Papists/ and he twits the Puritans for agreeing with them. 1 He upholds what is known as the doctrine of the general priesthood of believers ; but he uses the doctrine to show that if poverty and priest- hood should go together, then should all the elect be poor and apostolic, and not the Bishops only. 2 Moreover, poverty of the ministry would be in those days ' a greater cause of euill and inconuenience ' in the Church than ' their ample and large liuings ' were. He had earlier said that eligible women, even as it was, were ' loath to match with ministers/ since as widows they would be left so poorly off. Now he argues that the poverty of ministers would ' carry away their mindes from the care of their office.' 3 Noteworthy again is the Bishop's disavowal of the doctrine of Apostolic Succession. ' That our Bishops and Ministers doe not challenge to holde by succession, it is most euident : their whole doctrine and preaching is con- trary : they understand and teache that neither they, nor any other can haue Gods fauour so annexed and tyed to them, but that if they leaue their dueties by Gods worde prescribed, they must in his sight leese [lose] the pre- heminence of his Ministers, and bee subiect to his wrath and punishment.' 4 With many arguments and illustrations he explains and shows the inevitableness of the poverty of Christ and His Apostles. Rich and poor have their peculiar dangers ; but a special word of warning is given against ' the phanaticall spirites of the Anabaptists/ ' allowing a Platonicall community of al things ' and holding the doctrine of equality. To revert to the main subject, the Bishop shows that there were many rich saints in the Old Testament and the New, and he gives a brief list of them : Lazarus of BetTiania and Mary Magdalene figure among the number. He observes 1 Cooper's Admonition, 169 (Arber, 126). 2 Ibid. 175, 176 (Arber, 130). 3 Ibid. 150, 183 (Arber, 114, 135). 4 Ibid. 186, 187 (Arber, 137). THE MARPRELATE PUBLICATIONS 171 that ' riche Abraham had preheminence in heauen, before poore Lazarus.' And when poor priests in this country reverted to the Mass, the holders of the greatest liuings not only were ready to go into exile, but to shed their blood for Christ. [It might well be pointed out that the Bishops who went to the stake had very different views as to the office and its emoluments from Cooper and his associates, and also that a very large number of poor men and women were burnt under Mary.] Undeterred by the fact that the character of Christian faith and worship had been changed four times in about twenty years, at the sound of the trumpet of the royal herald, Cooper holds that God does not put divine faith and worship and obedience to the moral law under subjec- tion to princes. 1 Ambassadors of Christ might be required to go forth without scrip or purse ; that was to teach them to trust in God. ' Having food and raiment,' says Paul to Timothy, ' we should therewith be content.' And the Bishop's reply to the quotation is after this fashion : Look at these critics ; at first they would not allow us the posses- sion of temporal lands ; now they will not allow us to have a penny in our purses : it is a doctrine that would well justify ' the couetous and uncharitable dealings of many Parishioners.' 2 With much more of the like sort ; for no one knew better how to answer an argument by running away from it under a cloud of pious platitudes and sancti- monious reflections on the wickedness of the men who could use such dangerous arguments. He will allow that for three hundred years the Church was supported by voluntary offerings ; but that was during a time of persecution. It was all happily changed by ' Constantine, that good and first Christian Emperour,' a list of whose benefactions and favours he admiringly gives. 3 The Church, indeed, grew wealthy after the age of Con- stantine. But its wealth was not the cause of its corrup- 1 Cooper's Admonition, 218, 219 (Arber, 158, 159). 2 Ibid. 222-227 (Arber, 160-163). 3 Ibid. 237-241 (Arber, 170-172). 172 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS tion ; the real causes were heresy and schism, decay of learning, usurpation of ecclesiastical discipline ; and auxiliary to these were the evil influence and actions of corrupt emperors and governors, and the superstitious devotion of the people. 1 (10) BANCROFT'S SERMON AT PAUL'S CROSS. Elizabeth's seventh Parliament commenced sitting on February 4th, and on the following Sunday Dr. Richard Bancroft, sometime chaplain to Archbishop Whitgift, and now chaplain to Lord Chancellor Hatton, preached at ' the Cross ' a notable sermon. He indicates its quasi-official connection with the assembling of Parliament in the title-page of the printed copy. 2 It is set 1 Cooper's Admonition, 241-244 (Arber, 172-174). Besides the cancelled phrase already given, there is a second correction, though not one of great moment. Martin threatens a praemunire, and the reply in the earliest edition is, ' The Libeller doth but dreame, let him and his doe what they dare.' The word dare is covered by a slip containing the word can. Both the modern editors, Mr. John Petheram and Prof. Edward Arber, are a little in error in regard to the editions of the Admonition. (1) The original (containing the two cancel slips) is referred to as having 252 pp. This is the edition from which Martin makes his quotations in HAY ANY WORKE FOR COOPER. He says, 'The booke is of 252 pages' (Introd. EPIS. p. 4). The last page is numbered 252 ; but the pagination is exceedingly imperfect. Beginning with page 65, there are 14 folios only numbered on the recto, the verso being unpaged. The actual number of pages is therefore 266. There are other errors which do not affect the total: 69 occurs twice instead of 68 and 69 ; 71 also twice instead of 70 and 71. (2 and 3) Of the two editions in the British Museum it is difficult to say definitely which is the earlier. They are both corrected editions, and both have the sentence, ' I will nowe come to answere briefly some particular slanders vttered against some Bishops and other by name,' which is not found in the first edition. (a) B.M. 701, g. 31 ; pp. 245 + blank p. This is the edition reprinted by Prof. Arber. (6) B.M. C. 37, d. 38 ; pp. 244. There are minute typographical differences throughout these two editions. For the first 216 pages each page in both editions contains the same amount of matter. Onwards edition (a) spreads the type out more liberally than edition (6), which is the shorter of the two by one page. On the whole, (6) appears to me to be the more carefully printed of the two, and I should therefore regard it as the later edition. The original impression was mani- festly issued in haste. The first corrected edition would also, in all prob- ability, be hurried on to take the place of the unfortunate original edition. The third edition is more likely to have been got up at ease and with care. 2 A Sermon Preached at Paules Crosse the 9. of Februarie, being the first Sunday in the Parleament, Anno. 1588\9~\. by Richard Bancroft D. of THE MARPRELATE PUBLICATIONS 173 forth as an authoritative utterance. In later years it has been the subject of special attention as marking the first distinct departure from the fundamentally evangelical position of the original episcopate of Elizabeth. Bancroft is alleged to be the first in the English Church as established by law to claim a Divine right for the Episcopacy. Whitgift, who recognised that bishop and priest [i.e. elder] are interchangeable titles in the Scriptures, and against the Presbyterian Discipline, argued that the Scriptures countenanced no definite, un- alterable system of Church government, could only say of Bancroft's high doctrine that he rather desired it were true than believed it so to be. But the point here alluded to forms no part of the main purpose of the sermon. The persons specially addressed by Bancroft are indicated by his opening quotation of Augustine's definition of schis- matics, which in his translation runs : Schismatikes are such as retaining with us the true faith : do separate themselves from uSy for orders, or ceremonies. His formal subject is 'the trial of the spirits' (1 John iv. 1). He supplies a list of false prophets, ancient and contemporary, amongst the latter numbering the Arians and others. Soon, however, he reveals that his most serious antagonist is Martin Mar- prelate. He indulges himself in a little rhetorical description of schismatics, whom he likens to painted walls, mermaidens, Helena of Greece, 'to a fish called the Cuttle/ and to other things. 1 Martin would ascribe schism to the intolerance of the Bishops ; Bancroft, on the contrary, ascribes it to the contempt of Bishops and a desire for their places and preferments. 2 Martin, like Aerius, preached the equality of Bishop and priest, alleging that only anti- Christian popes claimed ' superiority. 5 But, says Bancroft, the great apologists of the Church assumed the episcopal office. 3 Another cause of schism Bancroft declares to be self-love ; which, quoth Augustine, ' did build the city of the divel.' Divinitie, and Chaplaine, etc. Wherein some things are now added which then were omitted, either through want of time or default of memory. 2 Tim. 2. Stay prophane and vaine babblings, for they will increase unto more ungodlines. Svo. 166 +ii. pp. (B.M. 693, d. 22.) 1 Sermon, pp. 5, 6. 2 lUd. pp. 14-17. 3 Ibid. pp. 19, 20. 174 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS Henry Niklaes, the founder of the Family of Love, calls his own book, Evangelium Eegni the Gospel of the Kingdom. 1 Such also were the yvcocmfcoi,, ' ignorant of nothing,' etc. 2 Covetousness is the next reason given. Schismatics Bancroft divides into two classes: (1) the ' clergie faction,' who want the Bishops' livings and Church revenues, and oppose property once dedicated to religion, being ever after applied to secular uses ; (2) the ' laie faction,' who advocate apostolic poverty, and include the communistic Anabaptists. ' Now deerly beloved unto you of al sorts, but especially you of the richest, I praie you tell me how you like this doctrine ? ' If the ' laie faction ' intend to keep a tight hold of the old ecclesiastical spoils, they should never speak against the established government, unless they propose to disgorge ' such spoiles and praies as they have already.' 3 The spirits must be tried. Two extremes there are : (1) Papists who forbid the vernacular Scriptures, and would bind us to the Fathers, who, like their Councils, are often repugnant one to another ; (2) ' Giddy spirits,' ever seeking, yet never at rest. Bancroft objects to unauthorised lay exposition of the Scriptures ; non-professional judgment is not regarded in other branches of learning. Our creed should be those things 'proved and decreed by so many worthy bishops.' 4 All spirits are not to be believed. Elizabeth abolished Popery, and all the Reformed Churches rejoiced. Now these Protestants oppose the Communion Book, notwithstanding its many revisions ; while their own book is so faulty that it never even mentions the civil magistrate. 5 Martin would prove syllogistically, that since our Prelates are ' petty popes,' they are ' not to be tolerated in a Christian commonwealth.' Bancroft applies the same reasoning to Elizabeth ! 6 ' Therefore her Majestie,' claiming 1 It is The Joyfull Message in the English translation. 2 Sermon, pp. 21, 22. 3 Ibid. pp. 25-29. 4 Ibid. pp. 33-42. 6 Ibid. pp. 50-66. 6 Martin had grounds for the complaint that the episcopal controver- sialists took his figurative speech literally. He retaliates by taking Bancroft's logic, intended to be a redudio ad absurdam, as his serious view. THE MARPRELATE PUBLICATIONS 175 the authority formerly exercised by Rome, 'is a petty pope,' etc. 1 He defends, upon the authority of the leading men in Christendom, the reversion to the Crown of the title ' supreme governor.' 2 He warns his hearers by the example of Scotland. Even Robert Browne, the Separatist, held that presbyteries would be a greater tyranny than the established system. 3 Continental writers of the Genevan type, he shows by quotation, would claim for the people power to depose evil princes, or such as refuse to support the Discipline. They also deny any pre-eminence in Church affairs to the civil magistrate. English writers are next decried. T. C. in his Second Admonition prophesied ' great troubles ' if the new order ' be not provided for.' Udall in his Demonstra- tion declared that the presbyteries must prevail ; if ' by means which,' so he warns the Bishops, ' will make your hearts to ake, blame yourselves.' Martin, 'in his first booke ' ' threateneth fists,' and urges Parliament, apart from the sovereign, to put down Lord Bishops and to bring in the looked- for reformation. 4 Bancroft urges that magistrates should suppress such spirits ; they would be fewer had not Bishops and men in authority favoured them. 5 ' Hir majestic is depraved, hir authoritie is impugned.' Among other deplorable things happening, democracy makes pro- gress ; ' the interest of the people in kingdoms is greatly advanced.' All this, and ' yet these men are tolerated.' 6 He urges his hearers not to believe these spirits. The doctrine of the Church is ' pure and holie ' ; its government by Queen and Bishops ' lawf ull and godlie ' ; the Prayer Book contains nothing ' contrarie to the word of God.' 7 The schismatics who condemn the pride of the Bishops, Bancroft declares, really aspire to a loftier pre-eminence, employing, as they do, the same arguments for tyrannising over princes and people as are used by the Pope for de- fending his principality. He again warns the laity who hold expropriated livings that the Reformers call them 1 Sermon, pp. 68, 69. 2 Ibid. pp. 69, 70. 3 Ibid. pp. 72-77. * Ibid. pp. 78-83. b Ibid. pp. 85, 86. 6 Ibid. p. 87. 7 Ibid. pp. 89, 90. i ;6 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS cormorants, and would take away their plunder. What the Puritans object to in the authorised book of Common Prayer, they defend in their own book of Discipline. 1 He claims that the three orders of the clergy date from apostolic times, and denies that Bishops are merely ministers of the word and sacraments, and without ' superiority.' 2 Finally, he taunts his opponents with being divided among them- selves, hinting at Giffard's attack on Greenwood, and Cartwright's attack on Eobert Browne. Bancroft's sermon called forth in due course a formal reply. 3 Its anonymous author says of it in the title-page, ' This Short Answer may serve for the clearing of the truth, until a larger confutation of the Sermon be published/ It is not necessary to enter at large into its argument. It boldly takes up the position that the Bishops are the real schismatics. It disapproves of courtiers or great men enriching themselves by the patrimony of the Church, and equally of Bishops and chaplains living on the robbery of souls. 4 Ecclesiastical government, it proposes, should be exercised by the Queen directed by clerical assessors, as in ' worldly matters ' she is directed by her lawyers a proposal distinctly amusing when we remember Elizabeth's character and her cavalier treatment of Bishops. The magistrates are to see that the Church is cleansed from Popery ; the principle of intolerance is frankly admitted : ' they are to provide by law that all persons, both Ministers and others, doe submit themselves without contradiction unto all such things as shall be godly established in the Church/ 'We heartily agree with you that the people should avoid, and the magistrate punish, heretics/ The opinion of Eobert Browne is despised. He is a ' noted schismatic/ (11) ACTIVITY OF CENSOR AND PURSUIVANT. On the 1 Sermon, p. 97. 2 Ibid. pp. 99-102. 3 A Briefe Discovery of the Untruthes and Slanders (against the true Governement of the Church of Christ) contained in a Sermon, preached the the 8. [sic] of Februarie, 1588. by D. Bancroft, etc. 56 pp. 8vo. Dr. Dexter [The England and Holland of the Pilgrims, p. 170] attributes the volume to Penry without evidence and no doubt wrongly. 4 That is by their commendams and pluralities. THE MARPRELATE PUBLICATIONS 177 Thursday, following the delivery of Bancroft's sermon at Paul's Cross, the Queen issued a stringent proclamation against ' certain seditious and euill disposed persons/ who had secretly published ' schismatical and seditious hookes, diffamatorie Libels and other fantasticall writings amongst her Maiesties Subiectes . . . against the godly reformation of Religion and Grouernement Ecclesiasticall established by Lawe, and so quietly of long time continued, and also against the persons of the Bishoppes ' appointed by her authority, ' in rayling sorte and beyond the boundes of all good humanitie.' The tendency of these books is declared to be to ' bring in a monstrous and apparaunt dangerous Innouation ' and to ' overthrowe her Highnesse lawfull Prerogatiue.' All copies are therefore to be delivered up to the Bishops, and a solemn warning is given against any who should be ' so hardie ' as to print or help to print any books ' of like nature and qualitie.' Informers are promised pardon. 1 Meanwhile the pursuivants were following up the traces of the Marprelate Press, which they had tracked to Mrs. Crane's house at Molesey. On the Saturday (Feb. 15th) of this same week, her servant, Nicholas Tomkins, was examined at Lambeth, He confessed to having seen the two Marprelate Tracts then issued. THE EPISTLE he had received from Giles Wigginton, or from Waldegrave. THE EPITOME he states definitely that he received from Wiggin- ton, when Wigginton was staying at his mistress's house. He informed the Court how the press came to be lodged at Mrs. Crane's house at Molesey, as already narrated above, but ' insinuated ' that both tracts were printed in Northamp- tonshire. He knows nothing of the author, publisher, or printer ; but we are interested at this early stage to learn that rumour was ascribing the authorship to ' Master Field/ ' Master Wigginton/ ' Master Penry/ and ' Master Marbury a Preacher.' This was the gossip in reforming circles. Tomkins was liberated 011 bail. He was re-examined the following November and corrected a few details in his first 1 Cardwell's Documentary Annals, ii. 18 ; Arber's Sketch, 109. N 1 78 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS examination, but added nothing of note to the information already gained. The following year it was found convenient to send him out of the country either for his own safety, or, more probably, to avoid giving further evidence con- cerning the publication of the tracts. (12) THE REMOVAL OF THE PRESS FROM FAWSLEY TO COVENTRY. At Fawsley House, when Waldegrave had departed after completing the printing of THE EPITOME, and when the gentleman in the sky-blue cloak no more haunted the grounds, things settled down into a state of security. Bookbinder Sharpe of Northampton, who had wormed him- self into the secret of the printing and publishing of the dangerous pamphlets, boldly claimed some acquaintance with the great knight of Fawsley, Deputy Lieutenant for the county, whose wife was a Somerset. He questioned Sir Richard what his action would be if a search were made at Fawsley House. There were divers persons, including ' Master Baker, the Officiall ' who ' had the being of the Press there in their mouthes.' Sir Richard replied, ' Let me alone, y e Knaves durst not search my House, yf they had, I wo[u]lde have courst them, they know well inough, but now yt ys gone, and that danger is past.' 1 Within the House we have a glimpse of the winter's evening spent in hearing Fox, the Fawsley schoolmaster, a man of book- learning, reading aloud the satirical account of ' John of Canterbury ' to the high amusement of his auditory. 2 Rumour, growing more persistent and definite, showed that the danger was not past, as Sir Richard Knightley had cheerfully supposed. Therefore about the close of the year (the date is variously given by the different witnesses 3 ) it was felt necessary to remove the printing-press and apparatus without delay. Valentine Knightley, Sir Richard's eldest son, had always regretted that ' his Father suffered any such thing about his Howse/ and was convinced that 'it would 1 Harl. MSS. 7042, 23 (i) ; Arber's Sketch, 96. 2 State Trials, ed. Hargrave, vii. 30. 3 The variation extends from Christmas to a few days ' after Twelvetide ' Dec. 25th to Jan. 9th. THE MARPRELATE PUBLICATIONS 179 bring his Father to great troubles.' l Stephen Gifford, Sir Richard's confidential man, and Wastal, a house servant, were therefore ordered to remove the press to a farm belonging to the estate at Norton, a few miles north of Daventry, where it lay unused for several weeks. The prelatical world was extremely active during these weeks. Besides the issue and the correction and re-issue of their manifesto, An Admonition to the People, they began on the first day of the year with an examination of Henry Barrowe. A copy of Some's recent Godly Treatise had been seized, containing some outspoken and critical marginalia by Barrowe. In the mystery surrounding the Marprelate writings no stone was to be left unturned. 2 On Jan. 9th we have an account of 6s. 2d. paid to the pursuivants for a two days' search for a secret press. We have no record that they were successful. 3 They came perilously near finding Martin's press when they held their inquiry at Kingston. Some rumour that the centre of interest had moved to the Midlands must have reached them this month. For on the 29th day the house of Henry Godley at North- ampton was raided. In Penry's study they discovered a copy of Udall's Demonstration and a manuscript reply of his own to Some's book. 4 1 Harl. MSS. 7042, 23 (h) ; Arber's Sketch, 96. a Ibid. 6848, 28a. 3 Arber's Transcript of the Stat. Eeg. i. 248. 4 This raid is recorded in Penry's Appellation (p. 6. See Arber's Sketch, 173). But hitherto we have assumed that the dates inserted in Th' Appel- lation, ' Mar. 7 ' in the text and ' 1589 ' on the title-page, naturally referred to Mar. 7, 1589-90. The important discovery that the tract was actually written, though not necessarily printed, on Mar. 7, 1588-89 is due to the critical alertness of Mr. J. Dover Wilson, whose paper on the subject can be seen in The Library for October 1907. The determination of the year really rests upon the references to the sessions of Parliament contained in Th' Appellation. The Parliamentary chronology for the years in question is as follows : 1586, Oct. 15. Parliament assembled. ,, 29. ,. prorogued. 1587, Mar. 23. ,', dissolved. 1589, Feb. 24. ,, assembled. Mar. 29. ,, dissolved. "When therefore Penry states that his ^-Equity, printed at Oxford in 1587, was presented, and he in consequence imprisoned, during the 'last Parlia- ment' (Th' Appellation, 40), it is clear he could not be writing in March i8o THE MARPRELATE TRACTS Meanwhile Penry, on the search for a suitable location for the press, was put into communication with Master John Hales, dwelling at the White Friars at Coventry. Hales met Penry ' at a sermon,' and again there is talk of printing ' The Supplication to the Parliament that was printed at Oxford/ l and ' Mr. Cartwright's book against the Homish [Rhemish] Testament.' But the matter was not so casual as Hales in his defence tried to set out. Sir Richard Knightley had written him by the hands of "Waldegrave the printer ' requiring [him] to suffer this Bearer to haue roome in [his] Howse in Coventry for a tyme, until he could otherwise provide.' At his final trial Hales protests that ' he had great reason, as he thought, to gratify Sir Richard Knightley in any thing, to whom he owed much reverence, as him that had married his Aunt.' 2 So to Coventry the press was now taken. Stephen Gifford recalled, speaking to Henry Sharpe as they were riding over the scene, the fright he had when crossing Dunsmore Heath, between Dunchurch and Coventry. His cart threatened to stick fast in the gutter, and to call for help would be no doubt to make public the nature of his load. 3 (13) THE COVENTRY PAMPHLETS. Henry Sharpe made an effort to penetrate into the secret printing-house at the White Friars ; but when Hales and Penry found he was following them along the streets of Coventry as they were proceeding to the house, he was warned away. We, how- ever, learn from Sharpe the names and approximate dates of the pamphlets printed at Coventry. First came the 1589-90. When again he says he is then writing during the sitting of Parliament (ibid. 7), he must refer to the session Feb. 24-Mar. 29, 1588-89. No Parliament sat during the years 1588 and 1590. There is a difficulty in the expression 'now in the 31 yeare of the raigne of Queen Elizabeth ' which occurs in the { Epistle to the Reader ' (A vers.). But Mr. Wilson reasonably suggests that the Epistle was written after the ' book. ' I have in the same number of The Library, by the courtesy of the editor, expressed my acceptance of his correction, while differing from him in the consequent reconstruction of the story of the movements of Penry and Waldegrave during the year 1589. 1 The Supplication printed at Coventry was a new tract. See above, p. 157, for the same misunderstanding on the part of Sir Richard Knightley. This would be Sir Richard's first wife, Mary Fermor of Easton Neston. 3 Harl. MSS. 7042, 2, 23 (o) ; State Trials as above. THE MARPRELATE PUBLICATIONS 181 broadside, commonly known as the MINERALLS, which was issued about Feb. 20th, a trifle to stay the impatience of the public while the more serious works were in hand. Penry had read the copy over to Sharpe before it went to the press, and that curious person thought that he recognised ' some taunts against Doctor Some in the printed, which he did not remember in the written, Copy.' Within a day or two Humfrey Newman appeared at Sharpe's house, whither the edition had been sent from Coventry ; and leaving fifty copies behind for Sharpe's benefit, took the rest ' towards London.' l The actual destination is evidently withheld from Sharpe. About the first week in March, ' before Midlent,' is Sharpe's recollection, Penry's own pamphlet, A viewe of some part of suck publike wants, whose running headline is ' A Supplication vnto the | High Court of Parliament,' and is therefore always referred to in these examinations as The Supplication, was published. Newman took the printed sheets from Coventry to the house of a country squire, Roger Wigston, living at Wolston Priory. Mr. and Mrs. Wigston and the wife was the more determined character of the two belonged to the Throkmorton-Knightley-Hales- Penry circle, and were in sympathy with the ' seekers after reformation.' At the village of Wolston, six miles south- east from Coventry, Newman found Sharpe, staying at the house of his father-in-law. Refusing to fold and stitch the pamphlets at the Priory, Sharpe helped Newman to carry them to Northampton and there did the work. The edition consisted of a thousand copies ; one hundred were left with Newman, who paid Penry for them. The rest Newman took 'towards London as [Sharpe] thinketh.' The remainder of the month of March was occupied in printing the third 'Martin.' It was, to some extent, a reply to Bishop Cooper's Admonition, and bore the punning title, HAY ANY WORKE FOR THE COOPER. The press work was finished ' about Palm Sunday,' which fell that year on March 23rd. Waldegrave had 200 copies 'and inoe' stitched at Coventry and despatched direct to London. 1 Harl. MSS. 7042, 23 ( p, q, r, s). [Arber's Sketch, 97, 98.] 1 82 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS Sharpe ' bound up ' 700 copies, 600 of which Newman took away with him. He called later and took away most of the remaining hundred, balking Sharpe of his prospect of gain ; from which we gather that this pamphlet was in brisk demand. There was a lively impatience at Eawsley to see it; Steven was despatched to Coventry a week too soon to get a copy. 1 (14) WALDEGRAVE RETIRES FROM THE MARTINIST PRESS. The search for the secret press was unremitting, and the secret of its sojourn at Fawsley and Coventry in the keeping of too many people. Sir Richard Knightley sent one of his men with an early parcel of the new ' Martin ' to his friend the Earl of Hertford. But the demand among \ the nobility and attendants at Court for copies of the Martinist satires had become much more cautious. The Queen was strongly averse to them, and the Bishops had not raised the bogy of Anabaptist communism in vain. Lord Hertford told ' his brother ' that ' he liked not that course . . . that as they shoote at Bishopps now, so will they doe at the Nobilitie also, if they be suffred.' To make matters worse, Sir Richard's man met an acquaintance in London, and the pair resorted to a neighbouring inn to drink wine. Under the influence of good liquor the Fawsley man became com- municative, and told his friend that the notorious books were printed at his master's house ; that Martin himself was there and ' went apparelled in green.' He also told the secret of a spurrier 'dwellinge aboute Pie Corner neere West Smithfield,' who acted as an agent for the printer, receiving his supplies of paper and other materials and despatching them to Northamptonshire. 2 We do not know whether this drunken tell-tale was Steven, the ' confidential man/ but Sir Richard at this time sent Steven out of the way for a season, ' the search for these matters being very hot/ 3 Waldegrave with the completion of HAY ANY WORKE 1 Harl. MSS. 7042, 23 ( t, v, w) ; [Arber, Sketch, 98, 99]. 12 Lansd. MSS. 61, f. 68 [Arber, Sketch, 114, 115]. 3 Harl. MSS. 7042, 23 ( x) [Arber, Sketch, 99]. THE MARPRELATE PUBLICATIONS 183 gave up his post as printer to his Worship Martin Mar- prelate. The work was no doubt laborious and dangerous. With each fresh publication issuing from his press, he was embittering further the enmity with which he was regarded by Whitgift, and ever making it more impossible that he should again exercise openly the art and mystery of his craft in England. Besides, his health was suffering. He accounts for his pallor at this time by the closeness with which the servant of Hales ever so fearful of being found out kept him at his task. He likened it to being in prison, of which he could speak with the authority of much experience. He ' could not haue oftentymes warm meate.' Most important of all was that he found that all the Puritan preachers with whom he conferred disliked Martin's course. Cartwright, we know, was emphatic in his dislike of such 'irregular proceedings.' Waldegrave offered this information when he was being entertained at Wolston, at the house of the father-in-law of Henry Sharpe, the Northampton bookbinder. ' The Milne [press] was not now going,' he told Sharpe, ' and he wolde no longer meddle or be a dealer in this course.' His intention was to go to Devonshire, there to print Cartwright's reply to the editors of the Rhemish New Testament a work, however, which he was not able to print till the year 1602. Whitgift feared that Cartwright's arguments against the Rhemists might with equal cogency be employed against his own administration. Waldegrave does not remain long upon the scene, having convinced himself that his safety lay in flight. Mr. J. Dover Wilson conjectures that the Martinists purchased from him his Dutch letters, and that he carried these with him to London when he finally left the Midlands. 1 But if the Martinists wished to issue their subsequent tracts in the same external form as their first publications, why was so difficult and dangerous a task as sending this heavy fount in five sizes, be it remembered to London under- taken ? And as a matter of fact we know that the type 1 The Library, Oct. 1907. 184 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS was never used afterwards by them. But Waldegrave in 1593 printed at Edinburgh a quarto in black letter, bearing the title, ' A Discoverie of the Vnnaturall and traiterovs Conspiracie of Scottish Papists.' l He is reported by Penry, about the middle of May 1589, to be at the Huguenot city of Rochelle. If we may trust the story of Matthew Sut- cliffe, he remained till the late autumn at Eochelle, and there printed M. Some laid open in his Coulers, and Penry's Appellation. (15) JOB THROKMORTON OF HASELEY MANOR. The first move made by Penry and Waldegrave, when ' the njilne ' ceased working at Coventry, was to report themselves at Haseley Manor. The hamlet of Haseley lies a few miles north-west from Warwick. The Manor-house, an interest- ing Elizabethan dwelling, had been erected by Clement Throkmorton in 1556 ; his initials and those of his wife, Katherine, still remain carved in stone on either side the handsome entrance porch. Clement Throkmorton was a sympathiser with the ' seekers after reformation,' and de- voutly set in stone over his gateway the words, ' Non habemus hie manentem civitatem.' The lord of the manor at this time was the eldest sou of the builder of the transitory ' city,' Job Throkmorton, who entered into possession on the death of Clement at the close of the year 1573. Hitherto the name of Job Throkmorton has not appeared in this controversy. We are now to discover that he occupies a foremost place in the management of the secret press, and as we proceed with our investigations we shall find that his personality becomes more and more intimately involved in the problem of the authorship of the tracts, as well as in the practical arrangements for working the press. The Throkmortons were a distinguished family. Sir George Throkmorton of Coughton was cup- bearer to his relative Queen Katherine Parr. His son Clement, the builder of Haseley Manor-house, showed early his theological leanings by adopting the son of the Marian martyr, Thomas Hawkes, of Coggeshall, in Essex. Sir 1 State Papers, Scotland Eliz. 1593, vol. 50, No. 29. THE MARPRELATE PUBLICATIONS 185 Clement Throgmorton, 1 Elizabeth's ambassador, who was executed on a charge of high treason, was cousin to Job Throkmorton. The latter entered Parliament when a young man of twenty-six, as member for East Retford ; later he represented the town of Warwick. Known to be an advanced ecclesiastical reformer, he had gained for himself, in the advocacy of his views, a reputation for satirical wit. It was in his house that the Marprelate ' council of war ' met not, we may be sure, ' to take order for the distracting [distribution] of HAY ANY WORKE.' 2 That had been amply provided for by Humfrey Newman and his confederates in London. The question pressing for solution was how to get printed the next, and in design and extent the most important, of the Marprelate writings, the title of which we early learn is to be MORE WORK FOR THE COOPER. They had hoped Waldegrave would have printed it. (16) JOHN HODGKINS, THE SECOND MARPRELATE PRINTER. The squire of Haseley Manor, on Waldegrave's final refusal to ' meddle or be a dealer in this course/ com- missioned Newman to seek a printer willing to undertake the dangerous work. In due course Newman discovered just the man required in John Hodgkins. This man's name does not appear in the registers of those regularly appren- ticed and granted afterwards the freedom of the Stationers' Company. Curiously enough he is referred to as a ' salt- peterinan.' We have evidence, however, that he was a competent printer, and the probability is that he gained his knowledge of the craft on the Continent. Hodgkins after some delay engaged two young assistants, Valentyne Simms and Arthur Thomlyn, both regularly licensed printers. To Simms he agreed to pay ' xxl a yeare and meat and drink/ and to Tomlyn, apparently an inferior workman, ' viijl and meat and drink.' 3 They were to go with Hodgkins 1 The distinction in the spelling of their surname is observed by the two families. 2 Matt Sutcliffe, Answer to Job Throkmorton, 70 vers. 3 Simms signs his name to his deposition, but Thomlyn can only make a mark ; though Thomlyn may have been still suffering from the rack, when his deposition was taken. It is quite likely that Simms may have needed fewer turns of the rack to compel him to confess. That is the impression left upon our minds by his subsequent activities. 1 86 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS to the country to print ' accidents/ 1 and took a solemn ' corporal oath ' not to divulge any of the secrets concerning the work they were about to undertake. The printers met in London, about Thursday, July 10th, and having settled the terms of employment, they set out on foot for Warwick- shire the same evening. Early on the Sunday following they reached the village of Adderbury, three miles south of Banbury, where Richard Simms, the father of Valentyne, lived. Leaving instructions to Simms to meet hjim next day at Warwick, and to Thomlyn to proceed to Coventry in the morning, the hardy Hodgkins set off on Sunday evening for Haseley, a walk of twenty-six miles. They travelled by night by choice, to avoid being seen. (17) 'MARTIN JUNIOR' AND 'MARTIN SENIOR.' As Newman had advised him on leaving London, at Haseley Manor Hodgkins found Penry staying with Throkmorton. To him he delivered Newman's letter. He now learnt that the press had been removed from Coventry, and was at Wolston Priory, the residence of Roger Wigston. It will be remembered that the printed sheets of Penry's Supplica- tion were brought, in the first place, by Newman from Coventry to the Priory. Hodgkins was further told by Penry that ' a booke [MS. copy] should come to his hands ready for the printe.' 2 Leaving Haseley with Penry after dinner on Monday, furnished with a letter from Throkmorton to Mistress Wigston, ' about one bird bowe shot from the said Master Throkmortons House/ sure enough Hodgkins found a roll of paper lying in the way. It proved to be 1 Thus, in the evidence of Simms and Thomlyn before the Lord Chan- cellor, Henry Sharpe says that Hodgkins invited him to help with the printing the new books on a press which he had sent ' into the North. ' ' If I want worke [to be done] will you help me away with a stamp of Accidents ? ' Sharpe replied, ' When I see them I will tell you more. ' When apprehended at Manchester, An Almond for a Parrat says that the printers 'pretended the printing of Accidences,' as though they were engaged in printing small grammatical primers. The probability is that accidents is a disused technical word. They were engaged like a 'jobbing printer' to print anything which might turn up. Since writing this note we learn, through the kindness of Mr. J. D. Wilson, that the Swedes still retain the name ' accidenstryck ' [tryck = a stamp] for a jobbing press. 2 Harl. MSS. 7042, 5 ; Arber's Sketch, 126. THE MARPRELATE PUBLICATIONS 187 not the promised MOKE WORK FOR THE COOPER, which was not ready, but the first part of the copy of the THESES MARTINIANAE, generally referred to in contemporary docu- ments as MARTIN JUNIOR. So the way was clear to set about printing. Proceeding on their way they soon reached Warwick, where Hodgkins found Sininis awaiting him. 1 By a cross-country road the two printers had now before them a journey of eleven or twelve miles, over Dunsmore Heath to the out-of-the-way village of Wolston, east of Coventry, a matter of six miles. Mrs. Wigston had pre- vailed upon her husband to allow Hodgkins to ' doe a peece of work in his Howse, which himself saw not.' The press had been many weeks lying at the Priory, in ' a low parlour,' Hales of Coventry having been nervously anxious to get it away from his premises. On their arrival at the house, in the absence of Mrs. Wigston, to whom their letter of introduction from Job Throkmorton was directed, Hodgkins and Simms found one Mrs. Moore was ready to receive them with a warm welcome, which they interpreted to mean that their arrival was not unexpected. To divert suspicion, they were installed in the house as embroiderers. Having brought Thomlyn from Coventry, Hodgkins and his men on Tuesday, finding in the ' low parlour ' paper, ink, and everything they needed, got to work at once. The same night they learnt that Mrs. Wigston had returned, and the next morning the lady came to give them a hearty welcome to her house. Subsequently, divers times during their stay, she kindly asked them to excuse ' theyr badd intirtaynment ' ; the secret nature of their proceedings subjected them, no doubt, to some incon- venience. On Thursday a Master Harrison, known also by the alias Bridges, who later proved to be Penry, arrived and welcomed them; and on Friday another gentleman appears on the scene whom Simms and Thomlyn ' since understand to be Job Throkmorton.' He also ' badd God speed them,' and at once examined their work. He ' found fault in some place w th the orthography,' and, referring to 1 Harl. MSS. 7042, 4 ; Arber, 134. 1 88 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS some interlineations in the copy, asked Simms ' yf he could read the sayd place.' Simms was doubtful in two places, and ' Master Throkmorton did p'sently read them distinctly and readily unto them.' Simms also overheard him asking Hodgkins, ' softly in his ear/ if his two assistants ' were good workmen and able to serve the turn/ and Hodgkins replying 'yea.' Moreover, learning from Hodgkins that ' Harrison ' was the gentleman who had guaranteed them their wages, the assistants seized the opportunity on one of his visits of interviewing him on the subject. They re- ceived the necessary assurance on condition that ' they would be faithfull unto Hodgkins.' On the same occasion Simms ' agayne renewed his oath for his secrecy.' With the arrival of Throkmorton the printers obtained possession of the remainder of the copy of MARTIN JUNIOR, which they finished printing on the Monday in the follow- ing week. The Epilogue to the tract is dated the next day July 22nd. Newman, who arrived on the scene in an- ticipation of it being ready, respectfully presented the first copy to the lady of the house. Sirnms and Thomlyn had been told by Hodgkin, the Friday before, that the larger tract not yet being ready, to keep them employed they would be given the copy of THE JUST CENSURE AND RE- PROOFE, otherwise MARTIN SENIOR ; which they now received and began forthwith to set up. They noted that it was in the same handwriting. Meanwhile Henry Sharpe, having found it prudent to leave Northampton and to stay with his father-in-law at Wolston, was induced to help. He was quartered at the Priory in a bedroom, and there folded and stitched the edition. Newman then trudged off to London with ' at the least 700 or 800 copies/ says Sharpe, who was always counting enviously the profit which others were getting from this contraband traffic. On Tuesday in the next week July 29th the printers finished MARTIN SENIOR, the sheets of which were also made up by Sharpe. In this case the copies were packed into a bundle purporting to be leather, to be despatched by the Warwick carrier to Banbury and thence to London. THE MARFRELATE PUBLICATIONS 189 Lawrence Wood, 'a Taylor dwelling in the end of Fish Street,' stated in examination that Newman told him that 'a Packe of Leather/ which he knew to be 'a Packe of Books/ was lying ' at the Sarazins Head in Friday Street ' a narrow thoroughfare running south from Cheapside across Cannon Street. Newman gave him five shillings for its carriage, and sixpence to pay a porter to carry it to the Tilted Yard, near Whitehall. 1 (18) THE CATASTROPHE AT MANCHESTER. For prudent reasons Hodgkins, who had been led to find in an empty room at the Priory the desired copy of MORE WORK FOR THE COOPER it was only the first part, and about a third of the complete volume of this substantial pamphlet, as we learn later determined not to remain any longer at Wolston, although pressed by Mrs. Wigston to stay to print the new tract. He had some reasons to fear that they would be taken if they tarried longer. Therefore, as soon as the last sheet left the press, he ordered his men to take it down and to pack up the type in boxes, he in the meantime obtaining a cart and a teamster. Under a load of hay or straw they stowed away press, ' three payre of cases w th lettres of three sorts/ the remainder of the ink, and about ' twelve ream of pap(er).' That same night they were on their way to ' Warrington in Lancashire/ On parting, the good-hearted Mrs. Wigston gave the men each half-a-crown ; and her husband, though reported to have been very angry when he discovered what was being done under his roof, so far relented that he gave them two shillings. The three men reached Warrington on the following Friday, having travelled on foot. The cart with the printing apparatus appeared three days later, on the Monday. But here a fatal accident befell them. As they were unloading the ' stuff/ some of the type fell out of the boxes and strewed the ground. The curious crowd that gathered to see what was going on, ' marvayling what they 1 Harl. MSS. 7042, 23 (ii.), 10 [Arber's Sketch, 103, 131. The latter reference gives the true account. Sharpe's hearsay is commonly incorrect]. 1 9 o THE MARPRELATE TRACTS should be,' were promptly assured by Hodgkins that ' they were shott.' By his directions also Simms and Thomlyn ' tearmed themselves ... to be saltpeter men.' Some of those who stood by must have gained possession of a specimen or two of this curious shot, and no doubt found in Warrington a person sufficiently well informed to explain that they were printers' type, and to arouse suspicion by explaining that printing was a prohibited craft outside London and the universities. The indefatigable Hodgkins without delay found a place to accommodate his press in Newton Lane, ' a mile fro Manchester ' ; and thither the two assistants were despatched in haste to set up their cases. On the Monday all their materials arrived, and forthwith they began to set up the press. By Thursday, August 14th, they were so far advanced with their work that they began striking off the first sheet of MORE WORK. After working three hours they had printed ' about six quires of one side ' when the work was suddenly brought to an end. Suddenly, officers of the law appeared and seized the * copy ' they had in hand as well as the printed sheets. The printers were marched off to a temporary prison until the sheriff's men could communicate with the Earl of Derby. The Earl examined them the next day, or not later than Saturday, and recognising that he had discovered the great secret of Marprelate's press, he determined to send them, without delay, in custody to London. Not later than the Monday following, in charge of the Earl's men, they left Manchester on horseback, and arrived at London at the end of the week. Hodgkins, notwithstanding the strict surveil- lance under which they travelled, managed to get a few words now and then with his men. He exhorted them to be steadfast ; to remember their oath ; not to divulge the names of Mr. and Mrs. Wigston, even though they should die for it ; promising them meat and drink and payment at the same rate of wages which they had been receiving, during the time of their imprisonment ; cheering them up with the prospect of future work in Ireland ; reminding them that they had a second copy of the MS. of MORE THE MARPRELATE PUBLICATIONS 191 WORK; two sorts of type 'at a marchaunts howse in London' which were bought of Waldegrave; a press at Mr. Wigton's (there must have been two presses there before they left for Manchester), and ' some letters.' * Thus the unhappy men fared towards London. They reached the city on Saturday, August 23rd, and were lodged in some sheriff's compter, or lock - up, awaiting further instructions. The authorities were quick to see the importance of the capture of the printers and the manuscript of the long-promised and doubtless much-feared MORE WORK FOR THE COOPER. Next day, Sunday though it was, the Privy Council was hastily summoned, and orders sent to the masters of Bridewell to receive and keep the printers ' close prisoners,' as is more fully narrated below. 2 (19) THE LAST 'MARTIN.' We must for the moment leave the prisoners to their harsh fate, that we may record the appearance of the seventh and last of the published 'Martins.' For even in this extremity one more of the redoubtable tracts, a true successor to the black-letter tracts, was printed, though with increasing difficulty, as we cannot help discovering. The seizure of the printers and the Mar- prelate manuscript was the first serious blow sustained by the secret press. It was a daring move to take flight into Lancashire, and might have secured a long and safe hiding- place for the printers but for the fateful spilling of the type at Warrington. But at this fierce and determined stage in the hue and cry, when men knew what it meant to be found possessing a copy of one of the pamphlets, much more to be concerned in its production, the gravity of the situation could not be misunderstood. How much would the printers betray of the working of the secret machine ? Hodgkins was a staunch man, not easily terrified. Sirnms and Thomlyn were only told what was necessary. They had not been introduced to Haseley, had not heard the name 1 For the history of the secret press while under the management of John Hodgkins, except where special references are given above, see the last examination of Simtns and Thomlyn before the Lord Chancellor, Manchester Papers, No. 123, printed as an Appendix to the present volume. 2 Acts of the Privy Council, No. 54, under date. 192 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS of Throkmorton. They had once seen him at Wolston ; where also they met Master Harrison, otherwise Penry. Every avenue, however, was watched ; the censorship was as rigorous as the implacable wrath of the Bishops could make it. The pursuivants had a general authority to arrest any person on suspicion. In his JUST CENSURE l Martin explains some of the methods used by this body of de- tectives ; how they sauntered into the bookseller's shop in St. Paul's Churchyard and entered into conversation with any stranger they should meet. Their instructions were to commend Martin (Bancroft's policy, beyond a doubt), show a copy of the recently issued THESES, then hint that Boyle, the bookseller, dealt in this literature among his friends. These agents provocateurs were to fre- quent the places of worship most favoured by the Puritans of the extremer sort, and to lead them into compromising statements. The inns, and the carriers from the country resting at them, were to be closely watched the pursui- vants had authority to examine all their packs. Spies were even to enter the precincts of the Court to ascertain who among the highly favoured ones were the dispensers of the tracts. The country towns from Devonshire to ' the North parts,' were to be searched, especially the counties of Warwick and Northampton. So that the situation was clearly critical, and indicated that the literary activities of his Worship, Martin Marprelate, had come to a necessary end. The first to receive news of the arrest and seizure was Throkmorton. He summoned to Haseley Penry, then stay- ing with the Wigstons at Wolston. The resolution the friends arrived at was in keeping with the spirit of daring which marked the whole of their adventure. They combined, in very defiance of Whitgift, to write another short tract, partly consisting of a fresh statement of their case and of their determined attitude of mind. It also contained a brief summary of the contents of the Manchester tract, MORE WORK of special interest as the only information we have 1 Sig. A iii. vers. et seq. THE PROTESTATYON OF MA*TIN MARPR1LAT Wherin not wih (landing the fur- prizing of the printer, he maketh it xnown vnto the world that he fear cth 3 neither proud pricft , Antichti fUanpope^tiranous pcllate,nor godleflecatercap : but defie;he3ll the race of them by thefc pufcnts and offereth conditionally , asis fartherc exprcfled hearin ty open difputationtoapear in the defence of his caufaginft them and theirs Which chaleng if they dare not wafntaine aginit him : then doth he aU fbepublifhc thathenetcr meaneth by the affitau nee of god to leane the a flay k ing of them and thcire generation vn till theybevterlyextinguifcd out of our church by *l>* w*rthtfe*t/e9fM D wutrn m*r D rn /J'th * facrt/ttfjfr**** *** TITLE-PAGE OF />// PROTESTATYON, THE LAST MAKI-KKLATK TRACT. Same size us original. THE MARPRELATE PUBLICATIONS 193 on that point. How to print the new work was the question. They had a press lying at Wolston, and thither they departed when the ' copy ' was ready. Mrs. Wigston was of a more daring spirit than most of those who had sheltered the travelling press. One James Meadows had brought them from London a parcel of ink. Both Penry and Throkmorton, the former especially, had seen much of the methods of printers during the previous twelve months, and thought they might set up the type. The type they employed was that used in the ' Epistle to the Reader ' in THESES ; also earlier in Udall's Diotrephes. It was one of the two kinds of type, probably, which Hodgkins mentioned on his journey from Manchester as having been bought from Waldegrave, and then lying at a merchant's in London. So they set-to, and after a fashion succeeded in composing and printing off a half-sheet. But the art and mystery of the printer was not so simple as it seemed when they had watched Waldegrave or Hodgkins rapidly and easily filling his 'stick' and composing his 'formes.' They were working also in haste, for besides being other- wise imperfect, the imprint is full of uncorrected ' literals.' At this juncture help came to them. Newman was still at large, and may have secured a printer for them. An assistant of Waldegrave's who fell ill at Fawsley is not accounted for among those who were in custody ; he may have been the very James Meadows who brought the ink to Haseley. In any case, the rest of the tract is the work of a moderately competent journeyman. 1 This last ' Martin ' 1 The merit in noting the difference in the setting-up of this tract after the first half-sheet, and the significance of the circumstance as a revelation of the difficulties attending its production belongs to Mr. J. Dover Wilson. See his article in The Library for October 1907 (also p. 179 above). I have been permitted to state my difficulty in accepting Mr. Wilson's suggestion, based upon the peculiarity of the signatures employed by the printer of the PBOTESTATYON, that Waldegrave was himself the printer who came to the assistance of Penry and Throkmorton. In coming to a conclusion upon the question, the reasons which prompted Waldegrave to relinquish the Mar- prelate press have to be considered (see above, p. 182) as well as the con- sistent co-ordination of Waldegrave's movements. Nor is it, in my judgment, at all clear that the work of the printer who came to the help of Penry and Throkmorton is equal to that of Waldegrave, who was an excellent craftsman I 9 4 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS bears the title, THE PROTESTATYON OF MARTIN MARPRELAT, which is expanded into the following brief paragraph : ' Wherin not wi\f\h standing the surprizing of the printer, he maketh it known vnto the world that he feareth neither proud priest, Antichristian pope, tiranous prellate nor godlesse eater- cap : but deftethe all the race of them ly these presents ' and so forth. The tract is a small octavo of 32 pages. In addition to the writing and printing of THE PROTESTATYON, Penry and Throkmorton had also to con- sider the miserable case of Hodgkins and his two men. Martin fears that ' our wicked priests ' will do that against them which ' neither the Word of God doth warrant nor law of the land permit.' * Their fears that the men would be illegally put to the torture we shall find to be well founded. All that could be done for them was to supply them with sound legal advice. ' We follow the instructions of learned counsellors in these matters/ said Giles Wigginton to the Archbishop, when examined before him at Lambeth the previous December. 2 Throkmorton himself must have had considerable legal knowledge ; though we have not been able to find his name in any of the published registers of the Inns of Court. The author of the exceedingly learned and able Petition directed to H. Maiestie may have been available. Morrice and Beale, both holding official posi- tions, both sound constitutional lawyers and incorruptible patriots, were certain to have helped the 'seekers after reformation.' So that we need not be surprised when we come to John Hodgkins' defence to find him so well posted in every legal plea that could be alleged for his defence. But there was no law in England at this time for ecclesi- astical offenders, except the caprice of Elizabeth, and what the reformers called ' the filthy canon law of the Bishops.' though somewhat deliberate in his movements, as we gather. For proof of this, reference may be made to the repetition and confusion on pages sig. C 2 vers. and C 3 ; also the frequency of ' literals ' and the occasional crooked lines. See, for instance, pp. 20 (1. 5), 21 (1. 6 from bottom), 25 (1. 6), 28 (1. 5), 31 (1. 3 from bottom). 1 PROTESTATYON, 3. 2 Second Parte of a Register (MS.), 846. THE MARPRELATE PUBLICATIONS 195 It burned like a coal of fire in their souls, that against the express declaration of the Statute this ' pope's law ' should override the law and constitution of the realm. 1 1 We have called the PROTESTATYON the last of the 'Martins.' But Matt. Sutcliffe, in his Answ. to Job Throk., accuses him of being the author of other and later tracts, copies of which, so far as we know, do not exist to-day. Sutcliffe says, ' I have seen a little pamphlet entitled Martins Interim ... a book full of railing and ribaldry, of cursing, slander, and impiety. The title doth show the humour of the Author, for he calleth it Martins interim or a, briefe Pistle to the cursed Prelates and clergy. In his preface he calleth them "proud," "Popish and tyrannical Rabbis." In the beginning of his Letter he calleth them "an ungodly swarm of caterpillars," "incarnate divels," and "a hellish rabble." But of this kitchen rhetoric I have given you a taste before.' He also mentions ' another little book called The crops and flowers of Bridges garden.' Concerning the first, Sutcliffe says there is the evidence of Throkmorton's handwriting to prove his author- ship. As to the second it was given to Newman to recompense him for his poorly paid labours. Afterwards James Meadows shared by arrangement in the profits from its sale. Meadows took it to Middleburgh in Zeeland to get it printed. But we need a more direct evidence to be sure that these books were by Throkinorton. It would have been no strange thing to find men imitating Martin's style, and the easier part of the imitator's task would be to call the , Bishops 'incarnate divels,' etc. See Sutcliffe's Answer, etc., 72 rect. and vers. ; Arber's Sketch, 180. CHAPTER IV THE EPISCOPAL ANTI-MAETINIST POLICY Section I. The Persecution of the Confederates 1. The Examination of the Printers, We may be sure that no time was lost in despatching an express rider to tell Whitgift, at that time at Canterbury holding his visitation, the good news of the seizure of the printers and their press. On the Sunday he despatched a letter to his ' verie good Lord,' the Lord Treasurer, acknowledging that the news had reached him, observing also that the type seized, being the same as that used in printing ' Marten Junior and Marten senior as they terme them selfs/ he is confident that 'the author of those vnchristian Libles may by them be detected.' He assures himself that the prisoners ' shalbe Delt with acording to there Desertes, and the qualitie of there offens,' adding with his usual astuteness, ' And that rather by your Lordships than by owre selfs.' He wants the world to know that the Bishops are not 'abjects' and merit justice as other men. 1 Whitgift's puppet, the Lord Chancellor, had already, as we have seen, taken prompt steps in dealing with the obnoxious prisoners. This same Sunday a Privy Council 1 Lands. MSS. 61, 3 [Arber's Sketch, 112 f.]. Dr. Arber, no doubt following Strype [see Whitg. i. 601], slightly misdescribes Whitgift's letter, as a ' report ' of the seizure of the printers ' to give the Lord Treasurer notice of it,' says Strype, whereas Whitgift says he understands that ' the printers ... are sent vp by your Lordships.' As the Acts of the Privy Council show, and as narrated above, Burleigh and the other members of the Council met on the same day, Sunday, Aug. 24th, to deal with the matter. 196 EPISCOPAL ANTI-MARTINIST POLICY 197 meeting was held consisting of himself, the Lord Treasurer, the Lord Admiral, the Lord Chamberlain, and Mr. Wolley. They at once instructed the Masters of Bridewell to receive the three printers as ' close prisoners till their L'ships other- wise direct.' They next authorise * Mr. Fortescue esquier, Master of the Wardrobe, Mr. Eookesley, Master of St. Katherine, Mr. Eecorder of London,' to deal with the printers in the manner they think best. If Fortescue is absent, ' Eich. Young, the Customer [officer of Customs],' may be called to their aid. Hodgkins is described as 'the principall man and by whom the other two were hyered.' It would appear that all three had been examined ' by the Erie [of Derby] and by the Lordships/ but had confessed nothing. If the magistrates, when they go to Bridewell, find that they still refuse to confess, they are all three to be put to the torture. Upon notice of obstinacy they are to be removed to the Tower, where the torture was usually applied. 1 2. On the Rack. The result of the examination of Hodgkins and his men was not satisfactory to the authori- ties. The printers appeared to be singularly ignorant of information concerning the origin of the tracts. Simms and Thomlyn referred themselves to Hodgkins ; they were simply employed by him. Hodgkins was one of the most stubborn witnesses the High Commission had to deal with. The authorities, however, were in no mind to be baffled in this fashion. A chance sheet of paper has survived which purports to be { from Hir M atie> .' It is a ' Eemem- berance too my L[ord] Treasurer the second of Sept. 1589.' Among several miscellaneous memoranda it contains this : 'Item: the examynacon of marten marp'late toe be thoroughlye persevered in.' 2 Accordingly we find that about the llth of September Hodgkins is in the Tower. 3 Sterner means, if illegal, were to be employed to compel him to ' bolt out ' 1 Acts of the Privy Council, under date Aug. 24, 1589. 2 S. P. Dom. Eliz. 226. 3 On Oct. 23rd Sir 0. Hopton reports ' John Hodgkins prisonnr vi weeks comitted about the imprinting of Martin Marprelate.' S. P. Dom. Eliz. 227 (37). 198 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS what he knew of this secret affair. So he was put to the torture, on how many occasions we know not, during the next six weeks. He was then transferred to the Mar- shalsea. Simms and Thomlyn were put to a similar treat- ment, and no doubt divulged reluctantly all they knew. Upon his first following examination Hodgkins appealed to her Majesty's mercy. But when the Court urged against him the indictment, containing ten points, their substance being a ' matter of sediccon and slaunder to her ma tie and the state,' then he stood very boldly to his defence. He justified the ' said booke ' THESES MARTINIANAE so far as to affirm that ' nothinge therein contained] was reprochefull or slaunderous to her ma tie or the state.' This he urged ' untill at the length beinge therein notable convinced ' ; that is, of course, till he saw he could not convince his judges. Then he moved to his next line of defence and ' p[ro]teeted that he knewe not the authors meaninge therein ' ; denying, as far as he was concerned, that he had 'anie such malicious intent against her ma tie or the state.' But he was told that it was not his intent but the fact which declared his mind. ' The matters in the booke ' were ' sedicious, turbulent and rebellious,' and therefore ' w th in compase of fellonie ' ; by the express words of the law the printer was guilty 'in the same degree of fellonie as the deviser.' Hodgkins in vain ' uppon his innocencie herein much insested.' Finding his pleas all in vain, Hodgkins now ' vehemently urged and claimed the benefit of a certaine p[ro]mise in the said statut.' The accused ' must be manifestly con- vinced [convicted] by twoe witnesses, p[ro]duced viua voce, and that w th in one moneth after the fact before on Justice of peace ' ; or failing that, he ' must be indicted thereof w th in one yeare next after the offence/ The wit- nesses were not produced, and it was more than one year ' since the first impression.' 1 The ingenious lawyers met 1 This alludes to the publication of the first tract, THE EPISTLE, printed not by Hodgkins but by Waldegrave. As to the exactness of Hodgkins' computation, he was probably supplied with his legal pleas by Throk- morton. To make up his year, he must have come to a very close reckon- EPISCOPAL ANTI-MARTINIST POLICY 199 his shrewd argument by pointing out that the relief was only offered to ' those offend [ing] by speaking and report- inge ' ; but did not include printers and writers. Hodgkins next made a protest which is valuable as showing us what had been the fate of Simms and Thomlyn. They too had been put upon the rack, but had succumbed to the agony of the treatment. Their confessions, said Hodgkins, ' had bene violently] extorted from them/ Of what worth were they ? As to his own confession, ' he was forced thereunto by rackinge and great torments.' Upon which Justice Gandy said he was using them very shamefully, since all they got by their torments was the repetition of what he had voluntarily told them, that he was ' the printer of the said booke.' Lastly, he tried them with his confession of faith. ' He acknowledged the degree of Bishoppes, but not of Lor[d] Bishoppes, Archbishoppes.' 1 Perhaps they thought this bare shank-bone confession was merely poking satirical fun at them. However, they would none of it ; and, as we knew in the beginning, would, by their gratuitous con- struction, find the THESES to be seditious and Hodgkins guilty. Then ' in verie submise manner ' he yielded his former pleas and 'humblie praied the L[ordships] for his life,' and for their good offices in soliciting her Majesty's favour. 2 The sum of Hodgkins' confessions was too insignificant to find favour with the authorities. They transferred him for the present to the Marsh alsea ; but they had not given up hope of wringing out of him by physical torment the supreme secret which they were convinced he knew ; though in this they were probably mistaken. Had he desired, he could probably only have given his strong conjecture. Back to the Tower, however, the poor man was taken, and the ing. In any case, his judges could not contradict him. His plea agrees very nearly with our own deductions from other premises as to the date of THE EPISTLE. 1 The declaration of Hodgkins' personal interest in the controversy is not to be overlooked. 2 Yelverton MSS. 70, 146. "We print this valuable document in tho Appendix. 200 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS assumption is that their cruelty was fruitless. They could not even justify themselves by the results they had gained. On July 8th the following year, 1590, we have a Star Chamber order to the new Lieutenant of the Tower, Michael Blunt, to hand over to the keeper of the Marshalsea certain prisoners, among them John Hodgkins. 1 He has not yet earned his freedom. A year later (May 16, 1591) we have a letter from the Council addressed to Whitgift. They are concerned about the fate of three men under condemnation because of their implication in the production of the tracts. The first is John Udall, the former minister at Kingston on Thames, whose long imprisonment was in those days considered a scandal. The second is Humfrey Newman, the stout old cobbler, the chief distributer of Marprelate's writings. The third is John Hodgkins. They have all three been ' condemned of felonie,' and their ' tyrne of execution as yt is now appointed draweth very near.' The Archbishop is urged to employ the Dean of St. Paul's and Dr. Andrewes to endeavour to get them to sign such an acknowledgment of their fault as should satisfy Lord Chief Justice Anderson. In case of their obstinacy the law must take its course. There is a danger in showing too much lenity to ' such a seditious and dangerous sort.' 2 John Udall, we know, died in prison of a broken heart. To humiliate sufficiently this devoted man, he was brought in heavy shackles to Croydon, to be tried at the Archbishop's house. He wrote his submission ; he wrote many submissions as a matter of fact, but that which was the response to this request is probably the document accompanying the letter in which he protests that it goes ' so farr as [his] conscience would by any means give [him] leave.' He humbly trusts that the Justices of Assize to whom it is immediately addressed, will be satisfied, 'seeinge/ says he, 1 Acts of the Privy Council (No. 55), under date. Among those present were Whitgift, Hatton, and Burleigh. 2 Ibid. No. 57. The same document says that the case of Cartwright is not so pressing. But by a sinister error the Dean and Doctor were sent to Cartwright and not to Udall and Hodgkins and Newman. Strype, Whitgift, ii. 96. EPISCOPAL ANTI-MARTINIST POLICY 201 ' I can not yeld any further, though it myght save my lif.' 1 To Humfrey Newman a form of submission was offered in which he is requested to say that, for ' spreadinge ' books of a seditious, infamous, and slanderous character, tending to ' the erecting of a new forme of gover[n]ment contrarie to her ma ties supremacie ' I am iustly indicted and convict as a fellone sithence which tyme I haue seene my great and foule offences and do nowe before God and all this p[re]sence freely, voluntarylye and humbly confes the lewdnes and greevousnes of my saide former practices w ch I doe w th all my hart and sole detest, etc. 2 We have no information upon this point, but it is safe to assume that Newman never signed this document. Of Hodgkins' fate we have no further knowledge. If he escaped the gallows, after his repeated rackings he would probably never afterwards be able to do any laborious work. It seems certain he made no important confession, and it is noted in regard to his earlier examinations that he tried to hide the fact that he had been to Job Throkmortori's house. 8 3. Henry Sharpes Betrayal. We do not know for what offence Sharpe, before he appears in the Marprelate story, suffered his long imprisonment ; but seeing that he was sent to gaol at the instance of the Bishops and released by the compassionate intervention of the Privy Council, we may be certain that in some way he had identified himself with the Puritan propaganda; probably in connection with his own trade. 4 From what we know of him, it would not be unlikely that he engaged in the risky, but not unprofit- able, traffic of secretly vending anti-episcopal literature. He no doubt helped to stitch Martin's publications with the ordinary desire for gain ; he also did a little business in selling them at a profit. He was a very inquisitive man ; never diffident in asking dangerous questions ; addressing them indifferently to Knightley, Penry, or to any else likely to gratify his curiosity. We should set him down as an inveterate gossip. It is, however, to be noted that 1 Harl. MSS. 6489, 128. 2 Yelv. MSS. 70, fol. 181 vers. 3 Harl. MSS. 7042, 5 [Arber's Sketch, 134]. 4 Penry, Appellation, 46, 47. 202 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS he was never completely trusted by those engaged in the work of the secret press. Waldegrave probably knew him of old, both having been contemporaries as printers' apprentices in London. Sharpe received the freedom of the Stationers' Company in 1579. He appears to have fallen into a second ecclesiastical offence and was in hiding in the spring of 1589, at which time the Bishops demanded from the Mayor of Northampton his immediate apprehension. It is just possible that he had been discovered to be a ' distractor ' of Martin's EPISTLE, some sheets of which he saw at Northampton in Penry's hands, while it was being printed ; though it is significant that he did not know that the press was at East Molesey. When Penry went to Fawsley for the printed sheets of THE EPITOME, Sharpe, who accompanied him on the journey, had to wait in a field some distance from the house, which he was not allowed to approach any nearer. He tried to follow Penry and Hales to the White Friars, as we have seen. Humfrey Newman never told him the destination of the packs he took away from Northampton. Questioned upon the point, Sharpe's deposition is, ' To London as [he] thinketh.' When the search grew hot and the toils of spy and informer began to close around the confederates, Sharpe began to cast about for a way of escape by betraying them. He was terrified to find he was one of those who were * sought for/ and had heard that the Lord Chancellor ' was offended with him ' ; as though he had supposed that stitching Martin's tracts would have been gratifying to Hatton. As early as Easter he thinks he can wipe off' all his scores by communicating the valuable Marprelate secret, as far as he knows it, to the Government. Knightley, whom strangely enough he consulted upon the matter, advised him at least to defer his intention. Moved as the authorities were at the time, if they laid hands upon him, 'surely they wolde hang him.' He had therefore better ' withdraw himself until they were better pacifyed.' With characteristic, but, as the event proved, futile cunning, he determined to protect himself both ways come to terms EPISCOPAL ANTI-MARTINIST POLICY 203 with the Lord Chancellor if he could, or else go on making as much gain as he might out of the Marprelate press, and do his best to avoid the pursuivants. Asked by Penry, when news came that Waldegrave was actually settled at Eochelle, 'if he colde not worke about the press/ his reply was, that ' he could in some sorte, but that he wolde not so doe, except the Lord Chancellor refused to remit him.' About midsummer he sent his wife with his humble ' supplication ' to Hatton ; but she returned with but cold comfort for him. Yet he still declined a further overture from Peury, though reminded of his duplicate resolution. Presently he found it prudent to withdraw from North- ampton, where he had seemingly lived in indifference to the Bishop's warrant. He went to stay for a while with his ' wyefs father ' at Wolston. When he found that the secret press was settled there, he once more helped to stitch the new tracts. But the authorities were on his track, and a tenant of Roger Wigston's, one Baker, a bailiff, had him arrested. To save himself he readily told all he knew ; and as we are now able to see, much that he did not know, and that was false every scrap of idle gossip, every breath of rumour which had reached his ears and could add to the value of his confession, and secure his freedom. He may or may not have sent word to Throkmorton when he had made his betrayal. Sutcliffe says he did; but he is not always to be relied on, for his anger against Throkmorton somewhat blinded him to the truth. But the suggestion that he conspired with Throkmorton, shielding him and betraying Penry, is incredible. Penry and Waldegrave were fast friends to the end. As for Sharpe, he spared no one. If he had been likely to shield any one, it would have been the great man at Fawsley. Yet we see that the most damaging piece of evidence against Sir Eichard was his proud boast to Sharpe how he would course the pursuivants, if the fellows dared to come to his house to arrest him. 1 1 Sharpe's deposition in Baker's transcript is Harl. MSS. 7042, 23. It is given in extenso by Prof. Arber, Sketch, 94 et seq. See also Penry's Appellation, 47 (Sketch, 174). 204 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS His deposition made before the Lord Chancellor is dated October 15, 1589. We hear no more of him. He probably speedily gained his liberty and the abiding enmity of all his old associates by his treachery. He vanishes from the scene by the back door of the informer. 4. The Government's Brief against the Martinists. The official brief, held by Serjeant Puckering, as prosecuting counsel for the Crown, produced, as we note, while Hodgkins was in the Tower, must have been immediately compiled, with Sharpe's confession as its basis. 1 The earlier con- fessions of Simms and Thomlyn, after they had been put upon the rack, filled up some of the gaps ; and these con- fessions were doubtless used in getting further confirmations from Hodgkins while he was under torture. The two men, it is remarked in the official document, were most reluctant to tell the story of the printing of the two ' Martins ' at Wolston. This because, as they explained, ' in y e end, Hodgkins had taken an oath of them not to reveale ' anything put into their hands to print. 2 They made a final and complete confession, giving daily details of their work under Hodgkins, which we have fully used above. This was on December 10th. When they were liberated we do not know ; but in later years we find Simms estab- lished in London as a master printer. His name appears on the title-page of printed books from 1594 to 1612. An incident in his later career cannot be passed over. We are startled to find that in the year 1602, Bancroft, then Bishop of London, is accused of shielding a secret Roman Catholic press. In a document placed in the hands of the Speaker of the House of Commons it is boldly demanded that he should be arraigned for high treason. Bancroft's connection with this press seems to be well established, though he had assurance and influence enough to weather the storm. Among the printers employed ' to printe popish 1 This important digest of the evidence then available is found in the Harl. MSS. 7042 (1-12), and is reprinted in Arber's Sketch, 121 sqq. 2 Ibid. f. 9 (Sketch, 135). His exhortation to them on this point on their journey from Manchester to London will be remembered. EPISCOPAL ANTI-MARTINIST POLICY 205 and dangerous bookes ' one of them, Dolman's book on the succession ! was Valentyne Sirnms. Bancroft protected the men who printed the treasonable Eomish book, but later he had Simms prosecuted for ' printing a ballad against Sir Walter Eawley ' ; and in that connection said, ' I could have hanged the fellow long ere this if I had listed.' The allusion was no doubt to Simms' arrest in connection with the Marprelate press. But besides casting some light upon the character of Simms, the incident is an additional and valuable piece of evidence on the leading part played by Bancroft in all these prosecutions. It also supports and further illustrates our estimate of this unscrupulous man's character. 1 5. Important Arrests. We learn from the Puckering Brief that during the autumn of 1589 a large number of persons had been convented before the High Commission in addition to those referred to already. We only know the tenor of their depositions from this analytical docu- ment. The venerable widow Mrs. Crane was among the number. Being a dame of good social standing, and per- haps in remembrance of the harsh measure meted out to her late husband, who died in Newgate of prison disease, she does not appear to have been sent to prison. It was not her complaisant behaviour to Whitgift that saved her. Before the Commission she ' refused to answere vpon oath to any question, either concerning herself, for that, as she said, " she would not be her own Hangman," or concerning others, for that " she could not in her Conscience, be an Accuser of others." ' 2 After the first disclosure of Henry Sharpe, the Lord Chancellor, in consideration of the great estimation in which the knight of Fawsley was held, warned him of the peril in which he stood. Whitgift was, however, strong enough, and the Queen's antipathy to Martinism pronounced enough, to compel Sir Eichard Knightley, and the other 1 ' Bishop Bancroft and a Catholic Press,' by H. R. Plomer. The Library April 1907. 2 Harl. MSS. 7042, fol. 11, 12 [Arber's Sketch, 123]. 206 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS harbourers of the press in the Midlands, John Hales of Coventry and Roger Wigston and his wife of Wolston, to appear before the ecclesiastical court. It must have been towards the end of October that this cause c6U~bre was opened. With the confessions of Nicholas Tomkius, Sharpe, and Simms and Thomlyn in their possession, the authorities had the itinerary of the Marprelate press from the day it was housed at East Molesey to its capture at Manchester. Besides the principals, the additional wit- nesses were chiefly servants from Fawsley House. Jeffs the farmer, from Upton, told his part of the story ; then followed Lawrence Jackson, the ' keeper of Fawsley House/ and Stephen, Sir Richard's factotum. Peter Greye, another servant, told the piquant story of Martin's disguise in the ' sky-coloured cloak/ and he and an ex-servant related how Humfrey Newman wore a green cloak, till he donned, for completer security from interference, Sir Richard's livery. The preliminary examinations enabled Whitgift to keep the three chief personages in the Fleet. The plain charge against them is that they had harboured the Marprelate press. But the belief of the Lambeth League is ' that the persones before mencioned are by all probabilitye acquainted with the said Martin and can disclose who and where he is/ They therefore desire that the prisoners shall be examined by 'persons of credytt and understanding/ They appoint first the ' Lord Busshoppe of Rochester [John Young],' ' re- quiring him to set other business aside and to come to London/ Associated with him are a number of chief per- sons, judges, members of the Council, and ecclesiastical lawyers. They are to 'use their best and uttermost endeavours to finde the author of the said libells.' l The prisoners remained in the Fleet until February 13th the following year, when they came up for final examination before the Lord Chancellor, sitting in the Star Chamber. Attorney -General Popham is the chief counsel for the prosecution. He delivers himself on the subject of sec- taries in general ; but he is evidently lacking in clear ideas 1 Acts of the Privy Council, under date Nov. 16, 1589. EPISCOPAL ANTI-MARTINIST POLICY 207 about them. From his rambling speech we learn that some of them would give an autonomy to each congrega- tion, ' whereupon would ensue more mischief than any man by tongue can utter/ These sectaries are of ' the very vilest and basest sort.' Then we learn of her Majesty's ' great wisdom ' in issuing proclamations. The prisoners have neglected these warnings. A ' seditious and leud rebel/ John Penry, came to Sir Eichard, ' a great man in his country/ and persuaded him to accommodate his press to print another of his books about ' the Government of Wales/ Then follows a slight outline of the activities of the press, and a reference to Sir Kichard's fellow-prisoners, Hales and the Wigs tons. The prisoners, at this point, make a very humble defence of themselves, one and all protesting that they were not aware of the nature of the books which Penry proposed to print. Hales hides behind Sir Eichard, who married his aunt. Wigston is specially jeered at because he yielded, in ignorance, to his wife's request. Mrs. Wigston is the most satisfactory of the defenders. She very contentedly takes the blame to herself, which she assigns to her ' zeal of reformation in the Church.' Serjeant Puckering with his full brief then gives us a few more details. Solicitor Egerton is next put up to descant upon the moral enormity of the various sectaries, including the Popish conspirators, and the wonderful fortitude of the Queen in the face of such enemies. Mr. Vice- Chamberlain protested that although the prisoners were 'beloved of all of [them]/ yet justice must be done. The Lord Chancellor solemnly closed the parade of false issues by pointing to the county of Northampton, which, he said, ' did swarm with these sectaries/ and an example must be made of the prisoners. They were lined in enormous sums, taking into account the value of money at the time : Sir Eichard Knightley, 2000; Hales, 1000 marks; Wigston, 500 marks; Mrs. Wigston, 1000; with imprisonment at her Majesty's pleasure. 1 There is a tradition, started by Sir George Paull, that Sir Eichard's punishment was mitigated 1 State Trials (ed. by Hargrave), vii. 29. 208 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS through the intervention of Whitgift; but like all tradi- tions of the Archbishop showing clemency to his reforming opponents, it is supported by no evidence. Indeed, as we have already said, the evidence lies entirely the other way. 6. Penry's Escape. When the PROTEST AT YON was out of hand at Wolston, the question of Penry's safety soon became one of anxious and pressing importance to himself and his friends. He was not only implicated in the Marprelate Tracts, but had secretly printed and circulated tracts on the scandalous religious and moral condition of Wales, bear- ing openly his own name or initials tracts which were only in a degree less obnoxious to Whitgift than those bear- ing the name of Marprelate. He had a young wife at Northampton. But he was probably wise enough to know that his clerical enemies would naturally order Henry Godley's house to be under strict watch. The confessions of Simms and Thomlyn would put them on the track of Job Throkmorton. Matthew Sutcliffe tells us that for a while Penry was lurking in an ale-house eighteen miles from Fawsley a sufficiently vague indication to-day of his whereabouts. But as soon as Throkmorton had supplied him with the necessary funds he raised a special fund among his friends in London to pay Penry's debts then Penry sought safety in Scotland. John Udall, under exami- nation on January 13, 1590, stated that Penry called at his door at Newcastle ' a quarter of a year ' before. He was then on his way north. He did not enter Udall's house, and apparently hurried on to get across the border. While in Scotland Throkmorton supplied Penry with English news, and sent him copies of his own latest literary ventures. Bancroft found means to have the correspond- ence intercepted. This piece of smart detective work was one of the qualifications, as we know, noted by Whitgift when urging Bancroft's fitness to be a Bishop. Extracts were made from the letters, some of which are preserved in Sutcliffe's Answer to Job Throkmorton. They were written under a counterfeit name, and consist of ironical criticisms on current affairs. EPISCOPAL ANTI-MARTINIST POLICY 209 ' Sir, hath not her Majesty reigned prosperously ! and is it a time think you ! to alter those and so many blessings bestowed upon us ; to raise turmoils and innovations, and to pull the crown off her head ? Well, your Worship will not meddle with any of these kind of seditious people.' He tells Penry that the printers have confessed ' that Martin was made by Penry and one of the Throkmortons.' And again he writes that ' her Majesty had lately been in danger of poisoning and that other shrewd plots had been laid against her, and all by Penry ! ' l We cannot deny that Throkmorton had some ground for his satiric fun. Probably no men in the kingdom were freer from thoughts of treason, or more loyal, irrationally loyal, one is tempted to write, than the men who were seeking the further reformation of the Church. Yet it suited the Bishops to represent their writings as seditious, and themselves as dangerous traitors, aiming at setting up another government in opposition to that of the Queen. Udall, as we have seen, appeared in court laden with irons as though he were a violent homicidal criminal. 7. Another Rendezvous at Haseley. Within the next two months, probably during the latter half of November, Penry left Scotland for Northamptonshire. He had found friends among the reforming party in Edinburgh. But he had a double object in paying a secret visit to his old haunts. He had a wife and child at the house of his father-in-law, Henry Godley. The child, the eldest of his four daughters, was the Deliverance Penry of Hamptonshire [Northampton- shire], who on May 14, 1611, was married at Amsterdam to Samuel Whitaker, a 'bombazine worker.' Her age is given as twenty-one years ; that is, twenty-one years and certain unmentioned months. 2 The fact of the county being given in the Amsterdam records is an indication that she was born before her mother moved to Edinburgh. The 1 OpScit. 73, 74 [Arber's Sketch, 182, 183]. 2 Trans. Gougl. Hist. Soc. ii. 165. 'The Brownists in Amsterdam,' by T. G. Crippen. P 210 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS Archbishop's pursuivant had peremptorily ordered the Mayor of Northampton to arrest Penry on sight. This would not have deterred Penry from running the risk of privately visiting the town, and the probability is that the Mayor and chief men of the Council sympathised with Penry's views. Walton, the arrogant pursuivant, suspected them of being wanting in zeal in carrying out Whitgift's commands. Penry's safety lay partly in the improbability that he would risk putting his head in the lion's mouth. But Penry had another object in returning south. Waldegrave had been engaged at Rochelle in printing his Appellation and also Throkmorton's M. Some in his Coulers. 1 Waldegrave, we conclude, was on his way to Scotland; but it was necessary to deliver the printed matter on his hands to its respective authors. He no doubt wanted payment for his work, and it was desirable to get the pamphlets into circulation. When Penry reached the Manor-house at Haseley he found that the printer had already arrived with his packages of literature. 2 It was, however, impossible for Throkmorton to keep these compromising pamphlets at his house. He had already on his hands the bulk of the copies of the PROTESTATYON. Matters were indeed becoming critical with him, for the pursuivant had been to Haseley seeking him, and only by the merest chance failed to execute his warrant. There was also a new inducement to clear his house of the contraband pamphlets. He had recently married Dorothy, daughter of Thomas Vernon of Houndhill, a hamlet lying on the borders of Staffordshire, on the north-east, between Tutbury and Uttoxeter. 3 With 1 Sutcliffe's Answer to ThroTc. 72, 73; Arber's Sketch, 179, 181. For the authorship of M. Some in his Coulers, see below, p. 233. 2 Ibid. 73 ; Arber, 181. 3 'Dorothea filia Tho. Vernon de Hownall in Com. Staff.' Camden's Visitation of Warwickshire (ed. Camd. Soc.), 79. Houndhill is in the parish of Hanbury but in the chapelry of Marchington, the village close by Houndhill House. See Shaw's Hist, of Staffordshire, i. 85. Marchington church contains a fine alabaster tomb to Walter Vernon, who died in 1592-93. Job Throkmorton's eldest child, Clement, was baptised by Thomas Cart- wright, who preached a sermon on the occasion. Whitgift complained of the doctrine ventilated in the sermon. His schedule of charges is dated Sept. 1, 1590. Fuller, Hist. iii. bk. ix. p. 198. EPISCOPAL ANTI-MARTINIST POLICY 211 their powerful and distinguished friend, the master of Fawsley, and his neighbours Wigston and Hales, lying like common felons in the Fleet in London, it was time for the new mistress of Haseley to look after the safety of her dangerously witty and satirical husband, who was far more deeply involved than they in the business of Martin Mar- prelate. It was therefore speedily determined that the visitors should take the whole of the pamphlets to the house of Henry Godley at Northampton. They did well, as we shall see, not to tarry too long in the town but to hasten on their way north. Mrs. Penry was now of the company, though owing to the difficulties of the situation the child was left behind with its grandparents. The last of Penry's four children was born in London in the year of his execution or the close of the previous year. And in his final letter to his children he speaks of two of them and their mother having received great kindness from the people of Scotland. Moreover, we find that next year the authorities had discovered that Penry was in Edinburgh, and instructed Bowes, the ambassador, to complain to the king. This he did on May 16, 1590. James, in the beginning of August, issued through his Privy Council a writ banishing Penry from his realm ; but in November Bowes complains that he is still in Scotland, and that ' it was merveiled in Ingland' that he should be suffered to remain. The king replied in December that he was credibly informed that Penry had left the country, though Bowes states that ' his wife continueth in this Towne supported by benevolence of his friends here.' l There is no mention here of a child, as we should have expected from the particular account of Bowes, had there beei: also a child living upon the bene- volent help of the Scotch friends. Waldegrave had confident hopes of finding employment in Scotland. Udall, who was then at Newcastle, and had preached at the Scotch General Assembly in June 1589 in the presence of the King and the Court, would be able to 1 State Papers Scot. Eliz. 1590, vol. 45 (No. 44), vol. 46 (22) (64) (73). Reg. of the Privy Council Scot. iv. 1585-92, p. 517. 212 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS help his old printer. Early next year we have evidence that Waldegrave is following his calling ; though com- plaints are presented by Bowes that he should be harboured in Scotland and allowed to print there books against his own country. But the king persistently pleads an excuse for him, stating that they are in need of a printer, and in December tells the English ambassador that he has appointed him his own printer. 1 Meanwhile the informer had despatched news from Northampton concerning, the secret visit of Penry and Waldegrave to the house of Henry Godley, and that they had brought packages with them which were suspected to contain tracts against the Bishops. But Throkmorton, who had apparently constant communication with the Court and Government circles in London, presently received private warning that once more Godley 's house was to be raided. He was able to despatch one Garnet, a native of North- ampton, with the information to Godley, who thereupon packed up the stock of pamphlets, consisting of 500 copies of Tti Appellation, 600 of M. Some in his Coulers, and 500 of the PROTESTATYON, and forwarded them on the shoulders of Garnet and Humfrey Newman to the keeping of a friend at Banbury. 2 When Whitgift's pursuivants arrived the expected plunder had disappeared. 8. Imprisonment of Udall. In November 1588 the Commission sitting at Richmond and at the neighbouring town of Kingston little knew how near they were to the temporary printing-house at East Molesey, whence issued the celebrated EPISTLE of Marprelate. But they elicited from certain witnesses, and subsequently from himself, that John Udall was in some indirect way responsible for certain facts to be found in its pages. This came to light mainly through the testimony of Stephen Chatfield, the vicar of Kingston. The evidence consisted principally of vague threats uttered by Udall that he would write if they 1 State Papers Scot.Eliz. vol. 46 (64) (73). In June 1592, James writes a personal letter to Burleigh asking him to obtain Waldegrave's complete pardon. Ibid. vol. 48 (53). 2 Sutcliffe's Ans. to Throk. 73 ; Arber's Sketch, 181. EPISCOPAL ANTI-MARTINIST POLTCY 213 silenced him as a preacher. Moreover, certain stories con- cerning Archdeacon Cottington and Hone, his ' official!/ had, as Udall admitted, emanated from him. He had shown certain ' collections ' to Chatfield, and also to John Field. He protested, however, that he knew not how Martin obtained his notes, and frequently disavowed all respon- sibility for the publication of the Marprelate Tracts. 1 He professed to have no liking for what he called ' the particu- larities of them ... as the revylinge of them,' and so forth. For the time he escaped imprisonment, and a few months later, through the mediation of the Earl of Huntingdon, obtained an appointment at Newcastle-on- Tyne, where he laboured successfully for about a year. In the early days of January 1590, after a wintry journey from the north, the like of which, he said, he would not wish unto his enemy, he appeared in London as a suspected person, and from that time, although many persons of great consequence warmly interested themselves in his favour, King James of Scotland among the number, he never succeeded in obtaining his liberty. It was now known that he was the author of the dialogue popularly called Diotrepkes, and of the exposition and defence of the eldership called The Demonstration of Discipline ; the latter of which was actually printed on the Martinist press. These two works, the authorship of which Udall would not deny, were suffi- ciently anti-episcopal in phrase and in general j< intention to make it certain that, once he was in Whitgift's custody, there was little hope of his coming out of that tenacious grip alive. In the very opening pages of this Demonstration he addresses the prelacy as ' the supposed governours of the Church of England,' and asks them, ' Will you still continue in your damnable and most deuellish course ? Have you solde your selues vnto Sathan, to fight for him vntill you be dampned in Hell with him ? Haue you mortgaged the salua- tion of your soules and bodies, for the present fruition of your pomp and plesure ? ' He says, ' I am perswaded that you are in league with hell, and haue made a couenaunt with death.' 1 See post, p. 278. ' 214 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS Udall's scruples about Martin's style may seem, after these examples of his own strong language, a rather fastidi- ous refinement. Probably in his serious view it was more becoming, less meriting the blame of religious men, to re- proach the Bishops in downright earnestness, of pursuing ' deuellish courses/ than to put on the motley and make riotous fun of them. However, Whitgift gave Udall's rhetoric of denunciation its full weight and value. And there was probably in his mind an abiding conviction that the man who supplied, though indirectly, one or two details in THE EPISTLE, and had his own pamphlet printed on the same press, and in the same house, must know who was the real Martin Marprelate. Instead of supplying this desired information, Udall helped to disparage Whitgift's cherished suspicion that Penry was the man. So he was condemned to death. But the Archbishop had not the hardihood to carry out the atrocious sentence. However, he left him to linger in his filthy prison, in spite of many petitions and interceding appeals, till Udall died at last, in the Marshalsea, heart-broken. 9. Proceedings against Job Throkmorton. The escape of Job Throkmorton is the second greatest mystery in con- nection with the Marprelate Tracts. That he was prin- cipally responsible for the printing of them does not admit of any doubt. He chiefly supplied the funds ; he directed the general movements of the printers ; he is the substantial, authoritative person behind Penry; for the enthusiastic Welshman was mainly occupied with the passionate desire to evangelise his native land and with the numerous works which he wrote in furtherance of that object. It is true that Throkmorton was highly connected. So was the knight of Fawsley. Knightley married a Seymour, and was the chief man in his shire ; yet he did not escape months of imprisonment and a disastrous fine. There seems to have been an intention of apprehending Job Throkmorton if we may trust a story preserved in Dr. H. Sampson's Lives of the Ministers of Coventry, a work which exists in MS., and dates a century after the event it narrates. It would appear that a pursuivant entered the EPISCOPAL ANTI-MARTINIST POLICY 215 yard at Haseley, and finding a man there he asked him where Master Throkmorton was. The man replied that he had just gone to Scotland. Perceiving that he had been addressing a witling, the pursuivant believed that the answer was probably true, since ' children and fools speak true/ But he fell into another error, for he understood the expression ' gone to Scotland ' to be literally true, which was true only as one of the conventions in use among the servants of the place. Job Throkmorton, it is said, was hard by and heard the conversation. 1 He was, however, not wholly to escape. He was charged and convicted at the Warwickshire Assizes, in the autumn of 1590, with participating in the printing of the Marprelate Tracts. 2 What penalty the judges im- posed upon him we have not been able to ascertain ; but whatever it was, he appears to have escaped it. Even though we take into account that the full extent of his complicity was not realised at this time ; that Matthew Sutcliffe had not yet written his minute and relentless indictment ; nevertheless, the charges against him contained in the Puckering brief were enough to hang any ordinary offender. How then came Throkmorton to escape the vengeance of Whitgift ? We may make some allowance for the fact that in 1590 the fury of the Lambeth League against Marprelacy was abating. The hired scribes of the episcopacy, Bancroft's lambs, had flooded the country with their literature, and though it was often morally offensive, there was no difficulty about the cum privilegio. Buffoonery which was smudged with grossness had appealed from the stage to the lower instincts of the community. Most of those principally concerned in the Marprelate attack were in prison. The taut cords of the rack on which the printers were stretched had vibrated like harp- strings, making a music highly pleasant to the ears of the Archbishop. Was it not time now to leave the Martinists 1 The MS. is preserved in Dr. Williams' library. 2 That it was at the County Assizes that he was charged may be assumed from the petition which he addressed to the Lord Chancellor. In it he speaks of having made his submission to the judges of Assize. 216 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS contemptuously alone ? With any other ecclesiastic than Whitgift one might plausibly have entertained such a suggestion in explanation of Throkmorton's escape. More weight must he accorded to Throkmorton's own attitude and his wisely considered and submissive petition to Lord Chancellor Hatton. In this he makes notable general admissions, but it is to be remarked that he avoids any specific acknowledgment of guilt. No one, ignorant of the circumstances out of which the petition sprang, could so much as conjecture from it the nature of his offence. Sut- cliffe, five years later, pursuing Throkmorton with proofs that he was the predominant partner in the Marprelate brother- hood, gleans none of his facts from this document. As an example of Throkmorton's petitionary eloquence we may glance at his earlier suit to Burleigh, which we have in a complete form. 1 Its object is discussed later on ; here we desire only to notice its cleverness of expression and its mollifying humility. If we call to mind the position of the great Treasurer, who, no doubt, had endeavoured to stay the keen impetuous tongue of the young parliamentarian, for the matter lying behind this petition is connected with the presentation of Penry's Aequity to the House of Commons, we shall see the fitness of his words to the exigencies of the occasion. Throkmorton makes no claim as deserving his Lordship's favour. But he adds, ' The Lesse desert the more hono r to yow.' He knows that he is not the first man ' by many a hundred ' to whom Burleigh has stood ' an honor- able frynde w th out cause [deserving].' He will not excuse his fault. ' I doe heere cowfesse it before yo r L[ordship] w th sorrow of harte.' His prayer is that it may not be c strayned into too hurtefull a sense.' He now knows how true it is that ' th' indignation of the Prince is death. ... I would to 1 These petitions are extant in Throkmorton's autograph, and bearing his well-known signature. That addressed to Burleigh (Lansd. MSS. 53, 71) is endorsed in a later hand ' 3 Aprill 1587.' This endorsement also says, ' He with Penry and Udall had wrote scurrilous books against y e established religion.' The petition to Hatton (Manchester Papers, 124) is dated by Throkmorton 'At my poore house at Haseley this 14th October, 1590.' The central portion of the MS. is defective, but the essential part of the document is intact. The two petitions are very similar in form and contents. EPISCOPAL ANTI-MARTINIST POLICY 217 Christ thoase ccmsyderacions might be some lenitye to her Highnesse indignation toward me.' An allusion to his youth is contrasted by his prayer for Burleigh. ' The same God blesse yo r graye heares w th comforte.' The petition to the Lord Chancellor is marked by the same literary skill, the same deftness of phrase, and a restraint in asking, which is the more persuasive. He cannot be greatly known to his Lordship. But he flies to him in his need, ' because it is a thing incident to every honorable disposition to delight to do good where no desert went before.' He is encouraged by hearing of ' divers y* in the like distresse have found favor at [his] hande.' He mentions his submission ' as well to my L. of Cant, as to our Justices of Assize.' In like sort he humbly submits himself to his Lordship, 'as the highest Magistrate next under he Ma tie ,' and humbly beseeches him to be the means of his excuse ' as farre as you may do it in honor.' He is not justifying his slips and infirmities, though he might possibly sufficiently clear himself of ' th' indightn^ y* was Lately found against [him]/ calling vengeance upon himself and his seed if ever he had a felonious thought against her Majesty, yet knowing the Queen's gracious disposition ' whereof manie a traitor hath been a sensible wi[tnesse],' he likes better ' to flye to } rt haven . . . than ... to leave my shippe floting to the surges of a doubtful and a tempestious sea ' ; the larger part of his eloquent simile is lost in the decay of the MS. Clever and effective as his petition is, admirably calcu- lated to attain its end, if that end were by petition attainable, yet knowing the bitter, implacable hostility aroused by the Marprelate Tracts, we feel at once that no petition could of itself have shielded Throkmorton from the wrath of the Pre- lates. Compare his exculpation with the fate of John Penry, whose own acknowledged writings are far more temperate in their attack on the episcopacy ; yet when Penry came to London a couple of years later, and was promptly arrested, there was never a shadow of a hope of his escape. A good woman was cast into prison simply because she accompanied 218 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS Penry's distressed wife when she presented her pitiful plea for his release. There being a faint rumour that interest was being made in high quarters for his pardon, Whitgiffc unexpectedly, and without a day's warning, hurried Penry to his execution. It was probably true, and may have affected Throkmorton's fate, that Whitgift did not wish to find that any layman was the author of the tracts. He was obsessed with the belief that Martin was a minister. He also believed that the leading reforming ministers knew, not- withstanding their disavowals, who he was. Hence his unappeasable anger against Udall, Wigginton, and Cart- wright. In Whitgift's long vindictive schedule of articles preferred against Cartwright in July of this same year (1590), in which, by the way, he complains of his remarks when he baptised Job Throkmorton's child, he prominently enters this accusation : ' That he knew, or had credibly heard, who were the authors, printers, or the dispersers of " Martin Marprelate," " The Demonstration of Discipline," " Diotrephes," and similar books, before it was known to authority ; yet, in favour of them, and in contempt of the laws, he made no disclosure to those in authority.' 1 Some weight must be given to the kinship of the Throkmortons to Katherine Parr. Clement Throkmorton, the father of Job, was that Queen's cousin. Both father and son had been members of her royal household. Even more significance may be attached to Job's cousin, Bess Throkmorton, being one of Elizabeth's maids of honour. If she were gifted with a due share of the vivacity and mother- wit of the Throkmorton family, she may well have been a prime favourite with her royal mistress. She had not as yet committed the unpardonable sin of getting married. Two years later she became the wife of Sir Walter Raleigh. In that year it is also recorded that she lost the favour of the Queen. While she basked in the sunshine of Elizabeth's favour, she surely did something to shield her literary and reforming cousin, Job Throkmorton, from the prelatical wolves. 1 Fuller, Ch. Hist. (ed. 1655), book ix. p. 200. EPISCOPAL ANTI-MARTINIST POLICY 219 The next year Throkmorton was accused of being identified with the mad Hacket affair. A desperate attempt was made to connect the insane fiasco of Hacket's attempt to set up a new theocratic kingdom, of which he should be the inspired prophet, with the propaganda of the evangelical reformers. Before understanding the nature of Hacket's designs, many were induced to listen to his fervid utterances and those of his associates Copinger and Arthington. But long before Hacket stood up in a cart in Cheapside to utter divine judgment on the existing order of government, and to declare the advent of the new kingdom, the madness of the affair was fully discovered. Job Throk- morton, notwithstanding his letter to Copinger, a man only less demented than the illiterate Hacket himself, written before he knew what Copinger was about, easily exonerated himself. The judge at the Warwick Assizes pronounced the charge to be ' frivolous.' l Section II. The Episcopal Literary Free-Lances and Cross-Bench Writers 1. Whitgifts ( Letters of Marque! It was soon apparent to the more practical members of the episcopal circle, that writers of the calibre of John Bridges, Dean of Sarum, and his diocesan Thomas Cooper, were no match in a popular controversy for the brilliant and daring writer who had entered the fray on behalf of the persecuted reformers. Bishop Cooper's Admonition to the People simply gave the opportunity to Martin Marprelate to write HAY ANY WOKKE FOE THE COOPER, the very title of which, a well- known London street-cry, was a popular hit. To none did the ineffectiveness of the official rejoinders appear more clear than to Bancroft. Hampered by no fastidious scruples about the make of the weapon by which so dangerous a foe might be stricken down, so long as stricken down he was, and not likely to rise again, he boldly proposed to Whitgift the employment of light-handed professional scribes, young 1 Colvile's Warwickshire Worthies, 753. 220 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS university wits wielding facile pens, and carrying about an armoury of quips and quiddities, but with a fatal tendency to flavour their literary raillery with ribald allusions and positive grossness. It is true that Martin had brought wit and banter and a keen irony into a religious controversy, and had justified himself in employing these literary arts. He employed them to arrest public attention. Nevertheless his purpose never remains in doubt. He is fully qualified to enter into the religious argument. We quickly discover that the likeness between Martin and the literary mercenaries who attacked him is only superficial. For wit and satire only advance great moral causes when inspired by strong and moving convictions. The literary privateers sent forth under the episcopal ' letters of marque ' were innocent enough of any such convictions. Martin may, on the contrary, be likened to a great caricaturist of our own day, the effectiveness of whose graphic wit is due to the serious convictions to which they give such entertaining expression. Gaining the Archbishop's consent to his scheme, Bancroft had to supply his hacks with a brief. They did not trouble themselves with any study of the ecclesiastical questions at issue, and he was wise enough not to require any such unfamiliar work at their hands. They were to condemn Martin's writings, first as seditious, and next as blasphemous. The attack of Martin was upon the Bishops and their administration. But the Bishops were first of all appointed by the Queen ; hence the treason. But following the congi d'dire was the ecclesiastical election and ordina- tion. As Martin would say, the Bishops themselves confessed that they were divinely called to their office; therefore Martin was guilty of blasphemy. Minor points were that the ' seekers after reformation ' were really seekers after the Bishops' revenues ; that they countenanced a democratic rule in Church affairs, and, by inevitable con- sequence, in civil affairs also. Then they were to be classed with Anabaptists, with the Family of Love, and later with EPISCOPAL ANTI-MARTINIST POLICY 221 the mad Hacket's Bedlam revolution. 1 If the derogatory stories about the Prelates and certain of the clergy could be paralleled by defamatory gossip about sanctimonious Puritans, let them by all means be daintily dressed up for the delectation of the roisterers at the ale-bench and the unshaven multitude at large. Moreover, the illiterate could be reached by the comedians and buffoons on the public stage. A scarecrow Martin could easily be anatomised, to the infinite amusement of the populace. The impression would be sufficiently con- vincing to the class that regarded letters as the counters of black magic, and grammatical rules as flat blasphemy. 2. Martin on the Stage. It would seem that before the close of the year 1588, or at any rate quite early in 1589, an attempt was made to kill the popularity of Martin by coarsely ridiculing him upon the stage. In the THESES MARTINIANAE there is a reference to those who affirmed that ' the rimers and stage-players ' had ' clean put [Martin] out of countenance/ so that he dare not again show his face. But the Bishops themselves would expect Martin to ' con- temn such kennel-rakers and scullions as ... have sold themselves' to be laughed at on the stage by all comers as ' a company of disguised asses.' 2 And the assumed character 'Martin Senior' is made to say that had not his younger brother (that is ' Martin Junior ' in the THESES) rushed incontinently into the fray, the Bishops would have been content to turn from the serious aspects of the case ' to a point of jesting, wherewith they would have only rimers and stage-players (that is, plain rogues as thou hast well noted) to deal.' 3 Martin himself can but condole with the 1 Pasquill thus sets down the ' vpstart Religions ' in England. They are ' The Anabaptists ; the Familie of Lone ; the seauen capitall hseresies for which some haue beeue executed of late yeeres in Suffolke ; the diversities of Puritans and Martinists, wyth a number more which you shall heare of when that Booke [his promised Lives of the Saints] is printed.' Pasquill' s Returne, A 3 vers. ' Since God led his Church in this Land out of the bondage of Rome by the conduct of her excellent Maiestie, there neuer yet wanted Papist, Atheist, Brownist, Martinist, Anabaptist, nor Familie of Loue to bid them bataille, that their course to Gods Kingdome might be stopt.' Ibid. C 4 vers. 2 THESES, D 2. 3 JUST CENSURE, A 2. 222 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS players, who ' for one poor penny ' have to sustain the part of ' ignominious fools for an hour or two together/ The publicity of the performance only added to their hard lot. There were ' many thousand eye-witnesses of their witless and pitiful conceits.' l These farces were performed, if we follow a note in Pappe with an Hatchet? at St. Paul's, by the choir children ; at the Theater, a play-house near Finsbury ; and also at St. Thomas a s Waterings in Southwark. None of the plays have survived ; happily, we may add, for they contributed nothing to the glory of literature or the stage. It was a matter of indifference that Martin was ' attired like an Ape on y e stage.' 3 He also appeared in a contemptible make-up, and was ' then whipt, that made him winse, then worm'd and launced.' ' He took verie grieuouslie to be made a Maygame vpon the Stage.' 4 Again he was ' verie well ' brought in 'with a cocks combe, an apes face, a wolfs bellie, cats claws, etc/ 5 ' Pasquill ' tells us that he ' thought Vetus Comcedia beganne to prick him at London in the right vaine, when shee brought foorth Diuinitie wyth a scracht face, holding of her heart as if she were sike, because Martin would have forced her ; but myssing of his purpose he left the print of his nayles vppon her cheekes and poysoned her with a vomit which he ministered vnto her, to make her cast vppe her dignities and promotions/ 6 Enough has been quoted to indicate the indecency and gross- ness of the performances which led to their prohibition. Pasquill says he has ' a tale to tell [ Vetus Comcedia] in her eare of the slye practise that was used in restraining her/ 7 No doubt some person of consequence sent his complaint to Master Tylney, some time in October. 8 Strype, in his edition of Stowe's Survey, says that it was not unusual for companies of players to be put down ' upon any gentleman's complaint of them for abuses or indecent reflection'; and refers to the year 1589, when 'the Lord 1 THESES, D 2 vers. 2 Sig. D 3, marg. 3 Almond for a Parrat, Peth. p. 22. 4 Martins Months Minde, Sig E. 6 Pappe with an Hatchet, D 2. 6 Pasquill's Returne, C 3 vers. 7 Ibid. D 3 vers. 8 Pasquill 's Returne is dated Oct. 20, 1589. EPISCOPAL ANTI-MARTINIST POLICY 223 Admiral's and Lord Strange's men were silenced, ' because one Mr. Tilney had utterly for some reason disliked them.' l Edmund Tylney was Master of the Eevels, and had the supervision of the public conduct of the players. He sent his complaint in connection with the representation of Martin on the stage to Lord Burghley, who ordered the Lord Mayor, John Hart, to suppress all theatrical perform- ances within his jurisdiction. We have Lord Mayor Hart's respectful reply, reporting that ' the Lord Admiralls players very dutifullie obeyed,' but that ' the Lord Straunges players ' went off ' in very contemptuous manner,' and at the Cross Keys 'played that after noone to the greate offence of the better sorte.' Whereupon the Lord Mayor cast ' tow of them into one of the Compters.' Six days later the Privy Council addressed letters to the Master of the Eevels, the Archbishop, and the Lord Mayor respectively. The Archbishop is required to appoint ' some fytt person, well learned in Diuinytie,' to be associated with Tylney and a nominee of the Lord Mayor's to examine plays intended for public performance, and to ' stryke out, or reforme, such parte or matters as they shall fynd unfytt and undecent to be handled in plaies.' 2 There were several plays prepared for this attack on Martin which failed to pass the examiners, so that we may easily surmise their character. If John Lyly was the author of Pappe with an Hatchet, he may have been lamenting over his own compositions when he wrote, 'Would [that] those Comedies might be allowed to be plaied that are pend, and then I am sure [Martin] would be decyphered, and so perhaps discouraged.' 3 3. The Mood of Anti-Martinist Literature. Bancroft's brigade were soon busy, (a) Judging its character from its title, Martyn said to his man, whoe is the foole nowe, a ballad entered at Stationers' Hall on Nov. 9, 1588, was the early intimation of what was forthcoming. 1 Collier's Annals of the Stage, i. 264. 2 Ibid. 271 et seq. The letters are printed in Petheram's notes to Pappe with an Hatchet. The matter has a passing interest owing to the protest lately made against the action of our own licenser of plays. 3 Op. cit. D 2 vers. 224 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS (b) The next effort was also in verse. It bore the title Mar-Martine, and consisted of seven pages of doggerel of the poorest type, and occasionally offensive. Its title-page bore the lines I know not why a trueth in rime set out Maie not as wel mar Martine and his mates As shamelesse lies in prose-books cast about ' Mar priests and prelates, and subvert whole states For where truth builds and lying overthrows One truth in rime is worth ten lies in prose. In the THESES, Martin Junior exhorts his 'reverend Father ' to ' feare none of these beasts, these pursuivants, these Mar-Martins, these stage-players, these prelates, these popes, these devils, and all they can do.' l He notes that they are boasting that ' the rimers and stage-players ' have put him ' clean out of countenance.' 2 Judging by his rime, Martin Junior guesses Mar-Martin was brought up in a brothel, and thinks his proper employment must have been to carry the laundry-basket for Long Meg of Westminster, a notorious character in the reign of Henry VIII. ; but he is now looking for preferment by 'publishing bawdry and filthiness, for the defence of these honest bishops.' 3 Martin Senior in THE JUST CENSURE also girds at him and imitates his rimes they are a little better workmanship than the original. He adds Mar-Martin's epitaph, including his last confession on the top of a gibbet. 4 The bantering imitation is not altogether bad, but it was not worth doing. We are able to fix very closely the date of Mar-Martine. On the last page of HAY ANY WORKE we have the words, Anglia Martinis disce favere tuis. These words are quoted by the author of Mar-Martine? which determines that he wrote subsequent to March 22, 1589. We have next an early and certainly a very interesting reference to the appearance of the tract in the memoranda of a Jesuit spy in this country. His notes are dated June 1589. He 1 Sig. D 1 vers. 2 Ibid. D 2. 3 Ibid. D 2 rect. and vers. 4 Sig. D ii. vers. D iii. 6 In the margin of A 3 vers., though it has almost disappeared from the British Museum copy, which is badly cropped. EPISCOPAL ANTI-MARTINIST POLICY 225 reports accurately enough that the division between ' puritanes and protestants ' is only about church govern- ment that is, external polity. ' Some meane persons/ he says, 'have been committed (to prison)' for 'presenting supplications to the Quene touching matters, which are referred to the Archbishop of Canterbury.' Then he proceeds to note that ' there hath bene published certen bookes under the name of martin marprelate in a scoffing stile ' concerning ' the dignitye of Bishoppes.' They are everywhere spoken about. An injunction had been issued against such books. ' There is also a boke in rime called marmartine published, to be sold in every booke binders shoppe, so as it semeth to be cum privilegio thowgh it be not so sett downe. But it is not unlike but this fire will make a greater flame and reache further than yett it doth.' * We may therefore conclude that the pamphlet was issued in May 1589. (c) A solemn Latin admonition, addressed to the young men of the universities, entitled Anti-Martinus, may be passed over briefly. It is written on the correct episcopal lines and is illustrated by historical examples from ancient times. Couched in Latin, its lavish use of superlatives is the more obvious. It describes the turpitude of Martin and his fellows, and the excellence of the religious order established by such a virtuous Queen, through the means of such holy prelates. ' You see, therefore, learned youths, this Martin will not only have turned aside so many religious men from piety ; but has exceeded by vast degrees immensis spaciis the wickedness of the atheists themselves. For truly he esteemed it not to be enough that he should pride himself in his new, though according to our leaders, by no means eminent, discipline, unless also he should attack the lives of our sacred Prelates, and shamefully exhibit the character of these very persons as fit to be scoffed at by the abandoned wretches of his sect.' 2 1 S. P. Dom. Add. Eliz. xxxi. This wretchedly written MS. has only been deciphered by the considerable aid of the summary in the Calendar. 2 Anti-Martinus, 14. It is a 4to of 40 pp., dated 1589, and signed at the end A. L. It was entered at Stationers' Hall on July 3rd (Arber). Q 226 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS (d) During the second half of the year 1589 the professional literary men, the chief of them being Tom Nash, a man worthy of a better occupation, and John Lyly, the euphuist, sent forth pamphlet after pamphlet in swift succession, all more or less patterned after the style of Martin ; but differing from the tracts they assailed in two outstanding features. They betray no interest or acquaintance with the religious issue, which to Martin was vital ; they also sully their pages with a grossness altogether foreign to the Martinist spirit. It is amazing that the Archbishop permitted himself to be persuaded by Bancroft that such literary garbage could help the interests of an institution professing to be religious. Nash, by the common consent of his contemporaries, was the writer who adopted the pseudonym Pasquill, or Pasquine. The title of the first pamphlet runs : A Countercuffe giuen to Martin Junior : by the venturous, hardie, and renowned Pasquill of England, Caualiero. Not of olde Martins making, which newlie knighted the Saints in Heauen, with rise vp Sir Peter and Sir Paule ; * But lately dubd for his service at home in the defence of his Countrey, and for the clean breaking of his Staffe vppon Martins face. He also imitates Martin's mock printer's references. ' Printed Betweene the skye and the grounde, Within a myle of an Oake, and not many fieldes of[f], from the vnpriuiledged Presse of Ass-ignes of Martin Junior.' It is a slight affair of a single sheet, quarto, and may be regarded as a preliminary flourish. Pasquill promises to print a volume of The Lives of the Saints, and advertises its contents with a few examples. One may here suffice. A reverend elder, he says, of Martin's church whichever that may be had in keeping ' the stocke of the poore ' belonging to the Bridewell House of Canterbury, to be used ' to set men awork.' But he was obliged to keep it himself, because there were no poor folk of the household of the faith in that city. This is poor wit compared with Martin's allusion to his ' learned brother | D[octor] Yong | 1 For Martin's use of Sir for Saint see THE EPISTLE, 14, 15, marg. ; and especially HAY ANY WORKE, 1 ff. EPISCOPAL ANTI-MARTINIST POLICY 227 Bish. of Kochester | (who) hauing the presentation of a benefice in his hand | presented himselfe thereunto | euen of naeere goodwil. /, John of Rochester | present John Young quoth the Bishop.' 1 (e) The next issue of the episcopal press was a poetical effusion which exists in two editions, identical except in their titles. It was first sent forth as A Whip for an Ape or Martin displased, and then made more explicit by the new title, Rythmes against Martin Marre- Prelate. It con- sists of a single sheet in quarto, and contains twenty-six stanzas, printed in B.L. The following is a sample. It is the ninth stanza. Good Noddie now leaue scribling in such matters, They are no tooles for fooles to tend vnto ; Wise men regard riot what made Monckies patters ; 'Twere trim a beast should teach men what to do. Now Tarletons dead the Consort lacks a vice, For knave and fool thou maist beare pricke and price. Richard Tarleton, the famous comedian, died the previous September. He was regarded as one of the most humorous men that ever appeared upon the stage. Martin is often accused of jesting like Tarleton. (/) Nash soon returned to the fray with The Returne of the Renowned Caualiero Pasquill of England from the other side of the Seas and his meeting with Marforius at London vpon the Royall Exchange. It is a quarto of thirty pages of print, and is dated the 20th October 1589. He has received good news from Marforius concerning the success of the Countercuffe, and learns how anxious all are to know who he is. Having been himself 'once a Barbour in Rome,' goodwill to his old occupation caused him to enter ' Sprignols shop ' on reaching London ; and there he heard two or three gentlemen, while they were being trimmed, speaking ' of a Martinist, a Broker ' who had run away with goods belonging to other men. But they sin more deeply. For example, and it is Tom Nash let us remember who is speaking, he professes deep veneration for the Book of 1 THE EPISTLE, 11. 228 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS Books. ' I haue that volume in my hands when many a Martinist hugges a drabbe in his armes, as you shall per- ceiue by the lives of the saints.' l Martin is an innovator in religion, and how dangerous innovations are in religion ' Secretarie Machiavell ' has shown ' by the example of Fryer Sauonarroll. He was a man like Martin.' The likeness to Savonarola would not be esteemed so disgraceful to-day. Pasquill fears the rising of the masses under the instigation of Martin. They need no help of Martin or Travers ' to encrease their giddines.' 2 He is going to publish The May- games of Martinisme, and indicates the parts to be played by Penry, ' the foregallant of the Morrice ' ; Martin, as 'Mayd-marian in Dame Lawsons old clothes,' and by Wigginton and Paget. 3 The conclusion comes with ' Pas- quill's Protestation vppon London Stone,' 4 and a flippant scolding address to ' Martin the great.' 5 (g) Sometime in November John Lyly's contribution was published under the title, Pappe with an hatchet? Alias, A figge for my God Sonne. Or Cracke me this nut. Or A Countrie cuffe, that is, a sound boxe of the eare, for the idiot Martin, etc. Imprinted ly John AnoJce, and John Astile, for the Bayliue of Withernam, cum priuilegio perennitatis, and are to lee sold at the signe of the crab tree cudgell in thwackcoate lane. It is a pamphlet of thirty-eight pages, in a small quarto. It has no real bearing on the subject at issue between Martin and the Prelates. It mostly con- sists of banter and badinage, verbal quiddities, the wit of which must be pronounced to be not overwhelming, and not infrequently unclean. In one of his less frivolous paragraphs he says Martin, wee are now following after thee with hue and crie, and are hard at thy heeles ; if thou turne backe to blade it, wee doubt not but three honest men shall bee able to beate sixe theeves. Weele teach thee to commit sacriledge, and to robbe 1 Sig. A iii. vers. 2 Sig. B i.-iii. 3 Sig. B. iii. vers. * The interesting note is given that ' jester-night late olde Martins Protestation in Octavo was brought (him).' 6 Sig. D iii. vers, D iv. 6 That is soft food administered in a hard way. EPISCOPAL ANTI-MARTINIST POLICY 229 the Church of xxiiij Bishops at a bio we. 1 Boost thinke that wee are not men Martin, and haue great men to defend vs which write ? Yes, although with thy seditious cloase [clothes] thou would'st perswade her Maiestie, that most of the Gentlemen of account and honour, were by vs thought Puritanes. No it is your poore lohns [inferior clergy] that with your painted con- sciences haue coloured the religion of diuers, spreading through the veynes of the Commonwealth like poyson, the doggednes of your deuotions, which entring in like the smoothnes of oyle into the flesh, fretteth in time like quicksiluer in the bones. 2 Pappe with an Hatchet contains interesting references to the campaign against Martin on the stage, to which earlier attention has been directed. (h) Bearing on its title-page the year 1589, and of the same company as the foregoing, a pamphlet appeared pur- porting to give an account of the death of Martin. It was entitled Martins Months Mind, 3 That is, A Certaine report, a true declaration of the Death and Funeralls of olde Martin Marre-pr elate, the great makebate of England and father of factions. Contayning the cause of his death, the manner of his l)uriall, and the right copies both of his Will, and of such Epitaphs, as by sundrie his dearest friends, and other of his well willers were framed for him. Martin the ape, the dronke, and the madde The three Martins are, ivhose workes we have had, If Martin the fourth come, after Martins so euill Nor man, nor beast comes, but Martin the devill. It contains neither author's nor printer's name, and is a small quarto of sixty -three pages. The long title sufficiently indicates the character of its contents. Concern- ing the death of Martin the wish inspired the chronicler's imagination, doubtless. A prefatory epistle is dedicated to 1 The number given in the MINEKALLS, 12, 33, 37. 2 Sig. iv. vers. D i. 3 Months Mind a yearning remembrance ; the name given to a memorial service for the dead a month after their decease. There was also a service of the like character at the end of the year. The will of Richard Knightley, Knt. of Fawsley, 1528, gives strict orders for 'masses of requiem at my months mind in the parish church of Ffaullesley after the order of Saint Gregorius, and another at my yeares mind.' Kennett's MSS. 1046, p. 398, quoted in Baker's Hist, of N'hants, i. 380. 230 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS ' Pasquine of England.' Then comes an ' Epistle to the Reader,' chiefly concerned with the writer's views on the two Wolston tracts, THESES, and A JUST CENSURE. ' The True report of the death and buriall ' professes to give Martin's death-bed repentance. Martin confesses that in three things he has offended God and the world : ' foolerie,' ' ribandrie/ and ' blaspheraie.' It is interesting to note the particulars under these heads. The ' foolerie ' consists of the stories about 'Sir Jefries Aletub/ and of Gammer Gurtons needle, of 'beef and brues [brewis]/ etc. Under ' ribandrie ' we have a list of the bad names which Martin has called the Bishops. But more interesting than all is the proof of the ' blasphemie ' ; for writers upon Martin, who, it may be charitably supposed, have not read the tracts, and are only copying earlier writers, that, in a long succes- sion, have copied one another from the days when Martins Months Mind was written, still accuse him of blasphemy. However, all we find is that Martin calls the saints ' sir/ not sparing even the mother of Christ. The account of Martin's will, etc., may be summarily dismissed. Whatever of wit these pages were once supposed to have, has long since evaporated. (i) The last contribution to this side of the question to be included in the publications of 1589, is A Myrror for Martinists, And all other Schismatiques, which in these daungerous daies doe breake the godlie vnitie and disturb the Christian peace of the Church (by T[homas] T[ur swell]). Entered at Stationers' Hall on Dec. 22nd, Wolf, the printer, dates its title-page 1590. In character it is grave, and scriptural in its argument. It runs on the accepted lines of defence and contains nothing new or noteworthy. 4. Cross- Bench Writers. It is not astonishing in this great controversy that we should find between the two fighting wings a ' centre ' party, occupying more or less neutral cross-benches ; men inclined to say ' a plague o' both your houses ' ; not approving of the episcopal policy, and not liking the denunciations of either Bishops or Martinists. And (probably) before the end of the month EPISCOPAL ANTI-MARTINIST POLICY 231 of December, two efforts at mediating between the contend- ing parties were made, (a) First came a quarto half-sheet of poetry, in B.L. Its title is an epitome of its contents, and runs Marre Mar-Martin, or, Marre-Martins medling, in a manner misliked. Martins vaine prose, Marre-Martin doth mislilce, Reason (forsooth\ for Martin seeks debate, Marre Martin will not so ; yet doth his patience strike : Last verse, first prose, conclude in one selfe hate : Both maintaine strife, vnfitting Englands state. Martin, Marre-Martin, Barrow ioyned with Browne Shew zeale : yet striue to pull Religion downe, 1 One verse in addition to the above will fully inform the reader as to the character of this trifle. While England falles a Martining and a marring Keligion feares an vtter overthrowe, Whilst we at home among our selues are iarring, Those seedes take roote which foraign seedes men sow. If this be true, as true it is for certen, Wo worth Martin Marprelate and Mar-marten. (b) The second of the mediating tracts is entitled, Plaine Percevall the Peace-Maker of England. Sweetly indevoring with his blunt persuasions to botch vp a Reconciliation betiueen Mar-ton and Mar-tother. Compiled by lawfull art, that is to say, without witch craft, or sorcery : and referred specially to the Meridian and pole Artichoke of Normans Land : but may serue generally without any great error, for more Countries then He speake of. ' Ouis furor aut hos, \ Aut hos arma sequi ferrumque lacessere iussit.' Printed in Broad- streete at the signe of the PacJc-staffe. It is a quarto of twenty-seven pages, the body of the tract being printed in B.L. It has no date nor printer's or author's name. It was formerly ascribed to Nash, a strangely uncritical judg- ment. Markell correcting that error, calls it ' a last gasp of the Puritans,' a judgment not less strange and uncritical. If there be any bias on the tract, it is by no means in 1 The two copies seen hy me have, after the word 'Printed/ at the foot of the title-page, a piece of the page neatly cut out. 232 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS favour of the Puritans certainly it shows no especial favour to Martin and his abetters. Nor were there any symptoms of a condition of ' last gasp ' about the ' seekers after Reformation.' It is true that the fierce, active, and unrelenting censorship made it difficult, though not quite impossible, for them to appear in print. At the same time throughout the administration of Whitgift, they continued to increase in numbers and influence. Plaine Perceval contains allusions to Martin's PROTESTA- TYON, to Mar-Martine and Mar-Mar -Martin, to c Pasquill ' and to Pappe with an Hatchet. Like the Lily and Nash pamphlets it runs to seed in mere words and literary antics. Its general contention is that arguments do not change convictions and reconcile opponents. Per- ceval doubts somewhat the sincerity of both sides. Martin uses the word ' Reformation ' too frequently ; Perceval sus- pects that he is sometimes inspired by other motives than a desire for Reformation. The combatants belong to the same land, and he doubts not to the same Church and urges their reconciliation. ' Well then Martin, and you professed Mar- Martins, in presence of me Perceuall shake handes and be friendes. ... As for thine offence Martin, of higher Powers, I dare vndertake, the Bishops seeke no blood, so as thy rash attempt might be qualified with submission/ * No staunch Puritan, no Martinist, no Separatist, would have written this last sentence. Nothing would have induced them to trust at all to the compassion of Whitgift or Aylmer, or of any of the leading bishops specially favoured at Court. The writer has been conjectured to be one of the Harvey brothers, and Petheram, in the Introduction to his edition of Plaine Percevall, points out the significant fact, that in the poetic commendations at its close, there occur the lines If any aske why thou are clad so garish, Say thou art dubd the forehorse of the parish. Again, in Gabriel Harvey's Tour Letters and Certain 1 PL Percevall (Peth.), 31. EPISCOPAL ANTI-MARTINIST POLICY 233 Sonnets/ in an epitaph on Eobert Greene, we have prac- tically the same couplet Here Bedlamis : and heere a Poet garish Gaily bedecked like forehorse of the parish. In his tract Percevall calls himself ' an vpstantiall yeo- man.' 1 M. Some laide open in his Goulers. The production of this pamphlet, though not in itself a part of the Marprelate controversy, is so closely involved in the history of Penry and Throkmorton, and the work of Waldegrave's press, that some notice must be taken of it. Dr. Some, it will be remembered, published in May 1588 one of his 'Godly Treatises,' its theme being the ignorant ministry, the sacraments, etc. Some was a highly objectionable person to the thorough -going refor- mers, and in scant favour with Whitgift and his party. But his opposition to Popery, and his avoidance of the advanced views of the reforming party, suited the atmosphere of the University. He was elected to the mastership of Peterhouse, and served as vice-chancellor on several occasions. He acted as chaplain to the Earl of Leicester, which implied at least that he did not belong to the episcopal junta. He openly opposed Whitgift in the persecution of Barrett and was threatened with some trouble because of what the Archbishop con- temptuously called ' Some's fooleries.' Having preached at Great St. Mary's at Cambridge, on the sins of pluralities and non-residence, in 1570, he was naturally twitted by Martin for his own 'plurality' in holding the living of Girton, and his natural non-residence when attending to his other duties at Cambridge. He disavowed any sympathy with an ignorant and unworthy ministry. So he stood between two fires. His speech was far too hesitating and temporising to gain the respect of the one party ; its frankness was as a scourge on the backs of the other. Penry, in the second edition of his Exhortation, mentions the publi- cation of the Godly Treatise. In a later edition he offers a tentative reply to its positions in regard to the ministry arid the sacraments, but promised a larger reply later on. This came in Penry's Defence of that which hath bin written, printed on the Martinist press at East Molesey by Waldegrave. Some issued a second edition of his Godly Treatise on Sept. 19, 1588, replying at some length to both tracts of Penry. 2 To this once more Penry addressed himself, and had written 1 PL Percevall (Peth.), 25. 2 For a note on these dates, see my brief communication to the Trans, of the Cong. Hist. Soc., vol. iii. p. 114. The second edition of Some's work has a separate title-page ; but the pagination is continuous, 2 - 36 + xvi + 53-200. 234 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS a Reply, the manuscript of which was seized when the pursuivants first raided Henry Godley's house on the 29th of the following January. It was this latter circumstance which induced our anony- mous author to publish the work of an alleged anonymous friend replying to Dr. Some. Its title runs, M. Some laid open in his coulers : Wherein the indifferent reader may easily see, hovve wretchedly and loosely he hath handeled the cause against M. Penri. Done by an Oxford man to his friend in Cambridge. 1 On the last page are the initials, I. G. The epistle * To the Reader ' begins Hauing this lying by me, without any purpose to publish it as yet, I was aduertized of the taking away of M. PENRIES book by the Pursuivant. Whereupon I resolued (though it should be some offence to my friende) not to closet it vp any longer, lest th' aduersary shoulde too much triumph and insult. Euen as it came into my hands, so haue I giuen it his pasport without any addition or alteration of mine : only the Title I confesse is mine owne, the rest is my Oxford friends, who if he be thought, in his pleasant veine, anye thing too snappish, the reader is to vvey with what kind of aduersary he deales : namely with the snappishest gentleman, and most bitter mouther that euer put pen to paper. It is too far from our purpose to give any analysis of the contents of this tract ; but the work is of interest to us because of our conclu- sion as to its authorship. The likeness between it and Martin's EPISTLE, EPITOME, and HAY ANY WORKE is too great to be over- looked. The special gaiety and the jaunty familiarity with which Martin deals with the bishops is, of course, avoided ; but the easy idiomatic raciness of style is the same. Its writer has travelled along the path of religious liberty and has reached the same stage as Martin Marprelate. There is to be liberty to speak and to discuss religious questions (which Some denies to the reformers), and a measure of liberty of choice should be given to ministers in regard to the external methods of worship ; but the Marprelate Tracts and our present pamphlet agree with Some, that 'a godly prince may and ought to compell his subjects (if any refuse) to th' externall service of God.' 2 And we shall also presently see, that tried by certain word- tests, this tract and some of the Marprelate Tracts are related to A Defence of Job Throkmorton against Matt. Sutdiffe. The final initials I. G. may mean anything or nothing. They may be inserted in order to puzzle the enemy. In ancient volumes initials sometimes stood for a devoted expression on the part of the thankful writer as he completed his task. For instance, I. M. stood for * Jhesu Maria.' In semi-anonymous works the authors' initials were sometimes reversed, or the final instead of the initial letters of their names were employed. The letters I. G. suggested to Dr. Dexter 1 It is a small 12mo running to 124 pp. in Roman type ; without place, date, or name of author or printer, apart from the terminal initials, I. G. 2 M. Some in his coulers, 17. EPISCOPAL ANTI-MARTINIST POLICY 235 the name of John Greenwood ; but the style and the circumstances in which the tract was produced point most strongly to Job Throk- morton. as the Oxford man. Matt. Sutcliffe in his Answere to Job Throkmorton writes, ' The book called Some in his contours was likewise made by J. Throkmorton. That is proved first, by the deposition of Waldegrave that vpon his oath testified so much, and at Rochelle where he printed it, spake it openly.' l But Sutclifl'e is not beyond making assertions for which he possesses no evidence, and which we know from other sources to be erroneous. The reference here to Waldegrave's deposition on oath would have weight with us if we were sure that he ever made a deposition on oath in regard to these matter?. The evidence we possess goes to show that he was never in custody after joining the Marprelate press in the midsummer of 1588 ; and in that case it is certain he would make no deposition on oath, or otherwise, in order to supply his persecutors with evidence. Nor would he speak the fact of Throkmorton's authorship openly, if the safety of Throkinorton demanded that he should keep silence. Sutcliffe makes a second point, that Throkmorton did not * deny this treatise to be his, being charged with it.' We gather from the reference to it in Leonard Wright's Friendly Admonition, entered at the Stationers' on Jan. 19th, that Some in his coulers must have been printed in the late autumn of 1589. The story of Waldegrave's movements during this period has been constructed in the light of this evidence. 5. The Controversy during 1590. Christmas past, the controversy began to subside. With the censorship working at panic pressure, and the friends of Martin, workers, distri- buters, printers, agents, and helpers, as well as generous and courageous hosts, all in prison ; spared the gallows by a prejudice against slaying good Protestants and loyal sub- jects ; yet inevitably undone by Whitgift's mercy ; unless the rack could promise to extort some secret out of their hearts, left to rot, tried or untried, in prison ; else ostenta- tiously reprieved and cynically ruined by an atrocious fine ; even though Martin were at this time at large, who was there left to print and circulate his wit and satire 1 Under such circumstances to speak of Tom Nash as having silenced Martin is curiously to misapprehend the situation. But even the suborned pens of Nash and Lily, and the zeal of Bancroft, cannot keep long going a controversy, when the attacked have no right to reply. 1 Op. tit. 71 (5). 236 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS (a) Early in January, the registration is dated the 19th day, Leonard Wright published A Friendly Admonition to Marline Marprelate and his Mates. London. Printed by John Wolfe, 1590. It consists of a quarto sheet, six pages of print in B.L. He is sorry for Martin, exposed to the world's ridicule upon an open stage, ' to bee scorned, hated, and detested for ever.' * He reproaches him for encouraging ' the commons to cast off the yoke of obedience, and resist her Maiesties lawes establyshed, against her crowne and dignitie.' Wright's marginal references are worth noting. ' Looke Martins [Minerall] conclusios. And their booke intituled D. Some laid open in his colours.' He is concerned at the bad treatment of 'those ancient grave Fathers, godly learned pastors, and chief pillars of our Church, reuerenced for their special giftes, placed in authoritie for theyr rare vertues and honoured of all good men for their calling.' 2 The margin here says, ' If Martine bee a Gentleman, it is only by profession, not by condition ' ; a somewhat cryptic sentence, especially as Martin's identity was unknown. Wright contends that under the existing order the Gospel is fully proclaimed ; the sacraments are duly administered ; the external rites are not repugnant to the Sacred Word. Even Cartwright has to acknowledge that the Churches of Europe give to the Church of England ' the right hand of society.' 3 A considerable part of the tract is seriously concerned with the scriptural aspects of the controversy, accompanied by copious textual references in the margin. The author is called by Martin, Sir Leonard Wright, so that he was no doubt a clergyman. From the reference to him in the tracts, he must have taken some part in the Marprelate Controversy, prior to the publication of his Friendly Admonition* (b) To the opening months of the year we must assign the pamphlet An Almond for a Parrat. Fetheram in the Introduction to his reprint suggests that it was published * Page 1. 2 Page 2. 3 Pages 2, 3. 4 He is mentioned in the tracts several times. See THESES, D 3 vers. ; JUST CENSURE, C 2 vers. ; PROTEST ATYON, 30, 31. EPISCOPAL ANTI-MARTINIST POLICY 237 late in 1589, but the arguments he adduces only show that it could not have appeared earlier than the date he assigns. The writer speaks of Pappe with a Hatchet having been published ' not many moneths since.' The references in that tract to the suppression of the Antimartinist plays, show that it must be dated after November 6th. Without sug- gesting a definite date for Pappe, it is clear that we cannot assign to An Almond an earlier date than the end of February, or the early part of March 1590. The latest reference it contains apparently is to M. Some in his coulers. The full title of our pamphlet is : An Almond for a Parrat? or Cutbert Curry -knaues Almes. Fit for the knaue Martin, and the rest of those impudent Beggers, that can not be content to stay their stomakes with a Benefice, but they will needes breake their fastes with our Bishops. Rimarum sumplenus. Therefore beware (gentle Header) you catch not the hicket [hiccough] with laughing. Imprinted at a Place, not farre from a Place, by the Assignes of Signior Some-body, and are to be sold at his shoppe in TronMe-knaue Street, at the signe of the Standish. It is a small quarto of twenty-eight pages in all, printed in B.L. The ' epistle ' has a dedication ' To that most Comicall and conceited Caualeire Monsieur du Kempe, lestmonger and Vice-gerent generall to the Ghost of Dicke Tarleton.' Kemp is mentioned in THESES in the list of undesirable helpers, who would eventually work the ruin of Whitgift. He was evidently a chief actor in the farcical sketches in which Martin was exposed to contempt. To his contemporaries he was chiefly notorious for having danced and sung his way on a rolling barrel from London to Norwich. It has been generally held that the writer of this pamphlet was Nash. The reference it contains to the manner in which the cause of Martin ' was earst so bravely encountered by Pasquin and Marphoreus, 2 and not many moneths since most wittily scofte at by the extemporall endeuour of the pleasant author of Pap with a hatchet' indicates that the writer did not intend either Lily or Nash 1 That is, anything to keep the noisy bird quiet. 2 It is Marforius in Pasquills Returne. 238 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS to be credited with its authorship. Though it has all the faults of the literary attack on Martin organised on behalf of the prelates, and has little or nothing to say on the sub- stance of the controversy, yet no one can read it carefully without perceiving that it is superior as a writing to Pappe with an Hatchet. John Petheram found ' the internal evidence in favour of Nash as the author very strong.' Judging solely by its literary style we might agree in this judgment. But there are some verbal indications that the author, who on the title-page, indeed, says, ' Eimarum sum- plenus,' is the same that wrote Rythmes against Martin Marre-Prelate (A Whip for an Ape). An Almond for a Parrot is better furnished than Pappe with the names of the London ' seekers after Reformation ' who were subject of common gossip ; those concerned in the printing of the Martinist tracts, as well as the chief ministerial representatives of Puritanism and Separatism throughout the country. He can talk familiarly of Cliffe Cuthbert Cliffe he calls him the cobbler of Battle Bridge, Margaret Lawson of St. Paul's Gate (the ' shrew ' Martin calls her), Newman, ' the souter ' [ = cobbler] ; he must have seen the evidence of Sinims and Thomlyn after the seizure at Manchester, and the stratagem of pretending to print ' Accidences ' ; he rattles away familiarly about Paget (though he, too, stumbles over the ambiguous word lame), ' Cooper of Pauls Chain,' Cartwright, Travers, Wigginton of Sedburgh, Udall, and others. Especially he deals at length with Penry, and his particulars about that remarkable young man would be of distinct value, if we knew accurately how to discriminate between what is true and what is the pro- duct of the writer's invention. Much that is his invention we have no difficulty in classifying. The illegitimate birth and the abandoned babe in the church porch, and many things else, are no doubt the product of the writer's unprin- cipled imagination. But there may be a foundation of truth in the University gossip that Penry on reaching Cam- bridge was ' as arrant a Papist as ever came out Wales ' ; that in those early days he was an innovator, that is, had EPISCOPAL ANTI-MARTINIST POLICY 239 an original mind ; that he be-rimed ' Doctour Perne for his new statutes ' ; that by conversing with some Frenchmen, ' of a Papist hee became a Brownist.' We are quite sure we are led by unbridled invention, however, when we go on to read ' how afterwards from a Brownist hee fell to be an Anabaptist ' and ' a malo in peius from an Anabaptist to be that infamous Martin' He ascribes to him the authorship of THE PROTESTATYON, Udall's Demonstration, the Supplica- tion, TIi Appellation, THESES, THE JUST CENSURE, and M. Some in his Coulers ; a list which indicates the mixture of truth and falsehood which marks the whole tract. 1 (c) The beginning of July Nash again appears with a strong Anti-Martinist pamphlet bearing the title, The First Parte of Pasquils Apologie Wherein he renders a reason to his friendes of his long silence : and gallops the fidde, with the Treatise of ^Reformation lately written ly a fugitive, John Penri. Printed where I was and where I will be readie ly the helpe of God and my Muse to send you the May-game of Martinisme for an intermedium betweene the first and seconde part of the Apologie. Anno Dom. 1590. As a matter of fact, this work of Nash's has only a very slight connection with the Marprelate writings, and its contents need not, therefore, detain us. But it is interesting to note that he has to defend himself at some length for his depreciatory reference to Savonarola in his previous pamphlet. 2 But his instructions no doubt were to attack, in his own way, Penry's fresh protest against charging the reformers with being enemies to the State. Incidentally he indicates the official dislike to Plaine Percevall and his efforts at peace- making. 3 His own references to the Episcopate are marked by excessive humbleness. 'My labours in this peece of seruice will be the lesse, because the byshop of my soule, iny L. Archb. of Cant., strook off the head of the serpent/ 4 'What a reuerend regard ought euerie one of vs to haue of the Bishops of Jesus Christ, which are and 1 For reference to Penry see pp. 39-45 (ed. Petheram). I have not ob- served any reference to this pamphlet in the later contemporary contributions to this controversy. 2 Sig. A 4 vers. 3 Sig. B 1. 4 Sig. B 3 vers. 240 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS haue beene the very hands whereby God hath deliuered his truth vn to us.' l (d) It is evident that the coarse indecency of some of the earlier pamphlets, written at Bancroft's instigation, was shocking the better class among those who supported the established order. Burleigh, who suppressed the plays, can hardly have looked with complacency on the loose pages of Mar-Martine, and Pappe, and An Almond. In the last pamphlet Nash has greatly mended his manners. Following it there appeared a sermon by Eichard Harvey, A TJuologicall Discourse of the Lamb of God . . . with a detection of old and new Barbarisme, now called Martinisme. Nash writing two years later, and embittered by his long quarrel with the Harvey brothers, refers to Eichard Harvey as having taken upon himself ' in his blundring Persiual to play the lacke of both sides twixt Martin and vs/ and ' presently after dribbled forth another fooles bolt, a booke I should say, which he christened The Lamle of God.' 2 Without contributing anything material, either to the cause of peace or enlightenment, Harvey's sermon scarcely de- serves Nash's contemptuous description. The theological discourse proper ends at p. 73. Then begins the 'detection of the old and new Barbarisme now called Martinisme.' ' Bot there remayneth yet a monstrous and a craftie anti- christian practisser, not already touched to the quick, one and his mate compounded of many contraries, to breede the more confusion in simple vulgar wits, who like Pasauantius is content to be ridiculous himself, so that his enuie in any sort make poore Lysetus contemptible/ 3 ' This is the groundworke and postulate of Cartwrightisme and Martin- isme . . . they teach other men their duties, but thinke not on their own duties, they proue, if we must doe as God bid- deth vs, they will not do as God biddeth them.' 4 ' merciful God, seeing it is thy soueraigne maiesties most gracious and apparent worde, not to touch thine annoynted, or doe thy Prophets any harme, Psal. 105, v. 15, either 1 Sig. C 1 vers. 2 Strange News, Sig. 2, quoted by Petheram. 3 Op. tit., 119. 4 Ibid. 121. EPISCOPAL ANTI-MARTINIST POLICY 241 execute thy will, and poure out thy vengeance vpon such wicked ones, as seeke both to touch thine annoynted and hurt thy Prophets, or els shorten the day of thy second comming.' l ' If I should continua similitudine resemble [this race of Eeformers] to the Vipers broode, that kill their owne damrne which bred and brought them up to life, I am sure you that know the vse of this kind of simile, and the manners of this people against their mother the Church that first bred them, will say I speake trueth.' 2 These quotations will indicate the attitude of the writer to the Martinists. 1 Strange News, Sig. 2, quoted by Petheram, 140, 141. z Ib. 151, 152. CHAPTER V ANCILLARY LITERATURE, MARTINIST AND ANTI-MARTINIST 1. THE only additional publication following heartily the lines laid down by Martin Marprelate which has come down to us is A Dialogue Wherein is laide open the tyrannicall dealing of L. Bishopps against Gods children : with certaine points of doctrine, wherein they approoue themselues (according to D. Bridges his judgement} to be truely the Bishops of the Diuell. This sprightly piece is commonly assigned to Waldegrave's press, and were it not that Waldegrave had resolved not to meddle further with Martinism, we might have no difficulty in accepting the common view. For the Dialogue is quite sufficiently Martinist to come within Waldegrave's self -prohibition. But it is not from Martin's pen. The touchstone whereby we try the pseudo-Martinist pamphlets is not their wit; although the real Martin found no equal in his own con- troversy. The real test is the serious religious purpose, definitely expressed and unmistakable, which characterises all the genuine productions. And here the Dialogue comes short. It takes up the points made popular by Martin, including the dialectical sword-play mentioned in the title- page, whereby poor old Bridges is made to characterise the Bishops as ' Bishops of the diuell.' It gives us abund- ance of characteristic stories of the prelates, and is well acquainted with the course of the controversy. Its refer- ences to the Marprelate writings are, however, not what the writer of them would himself make. The dialogue is 242 ANCILLARY LITERATURE 243 well managed, and some of the anecdotes new and interest- ing ; as for instance, that which tells us how the students at Cambridge if they ' haue a coate or cloake that is turned they say [it] is Pearnd! l So far as the typographical evidence can determine the question of its origin, the Dialogue came from Waldegrave's press. It is a small 12mo, sig. A-D in fours, without date, place, or printer's name. The type appears to be that used in M. Some in Ms coulers, and the absence of his name from the title-page would indicate that it was printed by Waldegrave before he became established in Scotland. The reference to him in the Dialogue is interesting, and may be regarded as authoritative. It also supplies us with one indication of its date. It must have been written later than April 1589. 2 The style of Martin's attack, making the Episcopal apologists by logical inference decry one another, is fairly imitated. For example, Martin in his EPISTLE 3 takes Whitgift to task for authorising the Apocrypha to be included in the edition of the Bible issued under his hand. In the Admonition to the People we have this reply : All learned men haue from the beginning given to the Apocrypha authoritie, next to the Canonicall Scriptures. And therefore such giddie heads, as seeke to deface them [by excluding the Apocrypha] are to be bridled. 4 These words are really part of Whitgift's own defence, contributed to the Admonition, though in the Dialogue they are ascribed to Bishop Cooper of Winchester. But Whitgift had authorised the publication of the attack on Bellarmine by Whittaker, in which the latter shows the uncanonical character of the Apocrypha. This is how the situation thus created is treated in the Dialogue : Puritane: 'Why sir, in the 49. page of the same book, the Bishop of Winchester saith the Bishop of Canterbury is a giddy 1 Sig. D 2 vers. 2 Sig. B 4. 3 M. 37, f. 103 ; see also MINERALLS, 26, f. 12. * Pago 49 [Arber's ed. p. 39]. 244 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS head and to be brideled, because he authorised Doctor Whittaker his readinges against Bellarmina wherein the Apocripha is defaced.' Similarly Whitgift supports the validity of the baptism of infants by women, which Robert Some, writing against Penry, repudiates. So ' Puritane ' continues : ' And M. Doctor Some one of their affinitie no we, and a non- resident, he calls the Archbishop of Canterbury An Absurd Heretike because he holds baptisme administered by weomen, to be the seale of God's couenante : page 3. of his booke against Master Penri, and many like things I could cite to you of their dissenting on[e] from another. 1 But these dialectical points are reproductions of Martin's adroit logic-play, and the Dialogue is, in this respect, akin to the broadside known as the MINERALLS. 2. In the year 1589 or in 1590 it is difficult now to determine which a small quarto tract of 83 pp. was published in the interests of the reformers, bearing the title, A Petition directed to her most Excellent Maiestie, wherein is delivered (1) A meane howe to compound the ciuill dissension in the Church of England. (2) A proof e that they who write for Reformation doe not offend against the stat. of 23. Eliz. c, and therefore till matters be compounded, deserue more favour. Herevnto is annexed: Some opinions of such a sue for Reformation : By which it may appeare how vniustlie they are slaundered by the Bishops, &c. pag. 53. Togither with the Authours Epistle to the Reader, pag. 58. Also : Certayne Articles wherein is discouered the negligence of the Bishops, their Officials, Fauorers, and Followers, in performance of sundrie Ecclesiasticall Statutes, Lawes and Ordinancies, Royall and Episcopall, published for the gouern- ment of the Church of Englande, pag. 60. Lastlie : Certayue Questions on Interrogatories drawen by a fauorer of Reformation, wherein he desireth to be resolued by the Prelates, pag. 74. It affords no hint of its origin, being entirely anonymous. But it would be most interesting to know its author, for it is in our judgment the ablest 1 Sig. C 2. ANCILLARY LITERATURE 245 contribution to the controversy between the two sections of Protestants, conformist and reforming, which so far had appeared. It has excellencies not possessed by the keen and eloquent contributions of Cartwright, much as they outshone the dogged attack of Whitgift. It has none of the reckless wit of Martin, but as a plea is more propor- tioned and of wider outlook. Its erudition, legal and ecclesiastical, is immense ; its forensic acuteness unfailing. And with all its strength it is perfectly urbane ; its admirable temper, amidst the dust and heat and irritability of the ecclesiastical warfare of the time, is not the least of its distinctions. Its author was a layman, and almost certainly an eminent lawyer, but a man especially well-read in the ecclesiastical literature called into being by the European reformation. A wisely and competently edited edition of this work would be a material contribution to the politico-ecclesiastical controversy of our own day. One or two of its notable features may be mentioned. The writer, despite the fair weather assurances of the Bishops, thinks the holding of a conference to consider questions of church reform would be justified. He shows that the laws themselves anticipate revision. A commission of inquiry was appointed in the days of Henry, and con- tinued in the time of Edward, whose labours were collected in the well-known book, Reformatio Legum. But the laws scheduled remain in their corruption. The Book of Common Prayer anticipates revision, since its Commination is only to continue till ' an order of Discipline practised in the primi- tive Church be restored/ The law in the ordination service assumes that all ministers are preachers ; but the Bishops, for one that can preach, make twenty that can not. The law assumes that the ' ornaments ' of Edward's time should only continue till order were taken by the Queen and ecclesiastical commissioners. The inoperative canons, the state of the ministry as confessed by the Bishops, their admissions in controversy, all point to the same conclusion. Many who now support the state of the bishops spoke against it ' when they were nearest to God, that is in miserie 246 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS and anguish of soule.' Aylmer's Harlorowe is quoted at length ; and there are pertinent quotations from Bullingham and Bridges. The civil lordship of the Bishops is against the judgment of authorities, Continental and English; among the latter are Bishop Jewel, Dean Howell, and Dr. Bilson. Very apt are the quotations of the Bishops themselves against the Papists. With the ease of a practised advocate, he tears to shreds the charges of ' treasoa and felonie ' brought against the reformers because, in speaking against the Bishops, they in reality spoke against the Queen. His elucidation of the statute is only too convincing. The Bishops are not a ' body politic/ and parliamentary precedent shows that laws can be enacted without their presence or co-operation. The right to excommunicate a prince is treated with equal learning and discretion. Moreover a full list of instances are adduced where writers have written, some against the laws of the realm, and some also against the Church and its government, who were never esteemed defamers of their princes. Among the latter are Wiclif, Swinderby, ' Piers Plowman/ Chaucer (the verses quoted are from the pseudo - Chaucerian Plowman's Tale), Tindall, Hooper, Barnes, ' Father ' Latimer, and others. The puerile interpretation of Martin's figurative threat of fists about Dean Bridges' ears it was, of course, a threat that other writers would attack the Dean is effectively dealt with. The writer defends the ' seekers after reforma- tion ' generally ; among them ' Martin/ Cartwright, Udall, and others, though they differ in many points. Especially does he protest against the false issues raised by the prelates. He warmly takes Bancroft to task for his unscrupulous advocacy and his servility towards the Queen. Bancroft assigns to the Queen all the authority and pre- eminence that formerly appertained to the Pope. If, he says, a man can defame by foolish flatteries, then Bancroft is the most notorious defamer of the Queen. The nearest approach to warmth of feeling is perhaps where the writer refers to the brutality with which ANCILLARY LITERATURE 247 Whitgift and Bancroft persecute John Udall. He says that the ' Seekers after Reformation ' greatly complaine that the Bpshops] should be so vnnaturall as to seeke the life of a right godly and faithfull Preacher of the Gospell, I meane Maister Udall, to whom life was offred if hee would but take his o[a]th that he did not make a booke, whereof he was supposed to bee authour. A rare example, that a man should bee knowen standing at a barre, shackled in bolts (but qucere quo iure) and coupled with a murtherer ; whose conscience was thought so faithfull and sound by the Judge him selfe, that he would not swear falslie to gaine his life (p. 25). Many interesting and important points in constitutional law expounded by this learned writer cannot be even briefly touched upon here. Nor can we more than indicate the variety and minuteness of his references to authorities, ecclesiastical, political, legal, and literary. 3. It was the close of the year 1592 before an answer appeared to the Petition. It was written by Matthew Sutcliffe, who gave it the title, An Answere to a Certaine Libel supplicatorie, or rather Diffamatory, and also to certaine Calumnious Articles and Interrogatories, both printed and scattered in secret corners, to the slaunder of the Ecdesiasticall state, and put forth under the name and title of a Petition directed to her Maiestie. Wherein not onely the frivolous discourse of the Petitioners is refuted but also the accusation against the Disciplinarians his clyents justified, and the slaunderous cavils at the present gouernement deciphered ly Matthew Sutcliffe. The title-page is enriched with quota- tions not only in English and Latin, but also in Hebrew, as an outward sign of the author's erudition. There is no Hebrew in the learned Petition. The Answere is a thorough- going defence of the entire prelatical policy, justifying every- thing. Sutcliffe can defend the Bishop of London, in his denunciation of the pride and covetousness of Bishops, written in the days of his poverty and exile in the too notorious Harlorowe : Bishop Elmar some time, before he came abroad into the world, supposed the liuings of bishops to bee too great, hee knew not 248 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS then the malice of man, nor the state of things, now he con- fesseth therein his oversight, is it not lawfull for him to amend his error 1 ? (p. 17). Aylmer, we know, did amend his error by becoming the Dives among the episcopacy, probably the most avaricious among them all. Then, differing even from Whitgift, as well as from Bridges, Cooper, and others of their party, Sutcliffe is of the school of Bancroft, and admits no fact or argument adduced by his opponents. They and their arguments are all bad together. The treatment of John Udall, which shocked most men and roused an extraordinary amount of sympathy, Sutcliffe declares to have been both just and law- ful. ' John Udall, a man utterly unlearned [yet he wrote a Hebrew commentary !] and very factious was, as you have heard, condemned upon the statute of 23 Eliz. 2, etc.' In keeping with the regular instructions evidently given to all the writers engaged by Bancroft, the religious reformers are associated with disreputable causes. Wigginton and Udall are classed with the Bedlamites Hacket and Coppinger ; to the latter Throkmorton wrote a letter, says Sutcliffe, little more than six weeks before the pitiful farce in Cheap- side : So first came forth Martin and diuers pamphlets of like argu- ment : afterwarde rose up king Hacket the great emperour of the disciplinarian faction, and his prophets, the onely fault was that their patriarkes were not readie to followe them, or could not follow them, for the multitude of boyes that gaped and gazed vpon them (p. 73). He also assigns to Throkmorton all the ' libels and scoffes published under the name of Martin, as namely his theses, protestations, dialogues, arguments, laying men out in their colours' (p. 202). Earlier, however, he ascribes to him only a contingent share in these writings, ' I. Penty, I. Vd[all], I. Fpeld], all lohns, and I. Thr[okmorton] that all concurred in making of Martin' (p. 78). Sutcliffe seizes upon the remark of Martin that the need of unity in the nation in face of the threatenings of the ANCILLARY LITERATURE 249 Spaniard would be favourable to urging the abolition of those popish remnants in the polity of the Church, which were the most fruitful source of divisions among them, although no one thought of defending them except on the ground that they were part of the law that is, they had been ordered by Elizabeth. ' There could be/ he says, ' no greater argument of their disloyall proceedings.' Even the publication of the Tracts at such a time tended to weaken the loyal sentiments of the people. He even accuses them of preaching seditious sermons, which we may be certain they did not ; none were either more antagonistic to the Spaniards or loyal to Elizabeth (p. 54). 4. Bancroft's Disciplinary Tracts. In the year 1593, by which time the folly of employing men of the character of Nash and Lily to champion the episcopal cause was evident, Bancroft himself came forward with two volumes. The first was A survey of the pretended Holy Discipline and the other, presumably after an interval of some months, Davngerous Positions and Proceedings, published and practised within this Hand of Brytaine and under pretence of Reforma- tion, and for the Presbyteriall Discipline. Both books evi- dently consist of his notes and extracts, prepared for the campaign against Martin, somewhat clumsily put together ; for he had no literary aptitudes. When urging Bancroft's pre-eminent claims to be appointed a bishop, Whitgift observes that ' by his only diligence ' he intercepted Penry's seditious writings coming from Scotland. He was also ' an especial man that gave the instructions to her Mai ties learned Council, when Martins Agents were brought into the Star Chamber.' These are his 'collections.' But Whitgift manages to give him credit twice over for the same service : first for supplying the brief to the prosecuting counsel, and secondly for publishing two books ' greatly liked and greatly commended,' which consist of the same brief put into print. For, the most part they are composed of bare quotations from the books which are to be attacked. In his Dangerous Positions, the ' firste booke ' consists of extended quotations from Knox's writings. The ' second Booke ' 250 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS turns its attention to English reformers. He mentions correctly the ' sixe bookes of Consistorian grauity ' of Martin, omitting only the broadside. In this section his c chapters ' are not always very comprehensive. Chapter x. consists of less than two pages of quotation without com- ment ; the next chapter is similarly made up of part of a page of quotation; and so on. Occasionally he entertains us with a story drawn from the proceedings of the secret discipline, as narrated in the depositions of the informers. Richard Hawgar, an informer who had professed the ' con- sistorian ' creed, in order to get into their councils, tells the story of one Hoeknel, who was anxious to get a vacant living in Northamptonshire. The patron required him to get a testimonial of his fitness from the ministers of his district. He therefore applied to Snape of St. Peter's, Northampton, who appointed a Session to meet in his own church, when brother Hoeknel should be judicially heard. After the sermon was over Penry delivered an exhortation to the ' sermon tasters ' to judge ' without affectation.' But like the celebrated episcopal egg, the sermon proved only to be good in parts, and Hocknell was admonished to ' be at more paines at his book ' before they could ' allow of him.' With this judgment Hocknell himself refused to agree, and Bancroft tells with a chuckle how a violent quarrel ensued in which the disparaged candidate defied the presbytery. 1 It is interesting to note that Bancroft quotes from certain Dialogues which he attributes to Throkmorton. No copies appear to exist now ; possibly they never were printed, but were part of the intercepted Penry-Throkmorton writings. In one of them Bancroft states the following judgment of Whitgift occurred : Of all the Bishops that euer were in the See of the Archbishop of Canterburie, there was neuer any did so much hurt to the Church of God as he hath done. No bishop that euer had such an aspiring and ambitious minde as hee, no not Cardinall Wolsey. None so proud as he ; No not Stephen Gardiner of Winchester. 1 Dangerous Positions, bk. iii. ch. xiii. ANCILLARY LITERATURE 251 None so tirranical as he; no not Bonner. He sits upon his cogging stoole, which may trulie be called the chaire of pestilence. His mouth is full of cursing against God and his Saintes. His feet are swift to shed bloud : there is none of Gods children, but had as leeue see a Serpent as meet him. 1 There is a deliberate attempt to identify the leading Puritans and Nonconformists, especially Wigginton and Throkmorton, with Racket's so-called conspiracy. 5. Throkmorton and Sutcliffe. The echoes of the Mar- prelate controversy die out in a final conflict between Job Throkmorton and Sutcliffe in the years 1594 and 1595. The inclusion of Throkmorton by Sutcliffe, in 1592, in the number of those who were believed to have had a hand in the authorship of the Tracts, would probably have been allowed to rest, had Throkmorton had his own way. He had wisdom enough, doubtless, to let sleeping dogs lie. But though he had a mysterious defence against his clerical persecutors which prevented them from punishing him, by fine, or imprison- ment, or hanging, as had been the lot of all others who were proved to have been in any way compromised in the literary conspiracy ; he could not help the reiterated accu- sation, in social intercourse, in court gossip, in county gatherings, that in the opinion of the Bishops and their agents he was the most deeply involved person in the pro- duction of the writings bearing the signature of Martin Marprelate, and also in the Hacket^asco. Matters at last reached that pass that it was needful that he should come forth in print if he meant to disavow all connection with the tracts and the Hacket affair, or at least the connection assigned to him in the rumours floated and sustained by the clerics. (a) This he did in 1594, in The Defence of Job Throk- morton against the slaunders of Maister Sutcliffe, taken out of a Copye of his owne hande as it was written to an honorable Personage. There is indeed a suspicion aroused by the form of the title-page that he had purposed his Defence to have 1 Dangerous Positions^ bk. ii. ch. xii. 252 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS remained in manuscript, and that the ' honorable Personage ' undertook the responsibility of handing it over to some printer so as to secure for it a wide publicity. A hint in the pages of Sutcliffe would lead us to believe that the c honorable Personage ' is Job's mother, Katherine Neville. It would serve no purpose to follow Throkmorton's defence of himself against the charge of complicity in the farce associated with the name of the religious maniac Hacket. Men like Hacket and Copinger and Arthington are often sane enough in the intervals, when they are not thinking or speaking upon the one topic associated with their mental aberration. And these men at first professed a profound sympathy with the ' seekers after reformation ' ; but the moment they broached the story of their visions and the divine revolution which was to be effected, with Hacket as its prophet, the reforming party let them severely alone. Long before Hacket, standing in his cart in Cheapside, pro- claimed the new Era, they had turned aside from the crazy fanatics with contempt. Throkmorton's defence of himself is quite sufficient; and for politic reasons he allows it to occupy a large space in his book. He is on sure ground, and the narrative of Copinger waylaying him, and of the madman's rambling and endless prayer, in spite of the subject is amusing. Copinger rather hustled the not un- devout Throkmorton on to his knees and kept him there. ' But the issue was that, hauinge caught some colde, and beeing nothing well before, this long kneeling and late tarying in that snowie and frostie season, did not helpe anie whit to diminishe, but rather to increase my grief [illness] and brought me to a fitte of an ague.' He then gives us, in the same connection, an interesting bit of personal history : Not long after this, when I had something recouered my selfe, I went to visite Maister Cart\wrighf\ in the Fleete, vnto whom I signified what had passed betwixt Maister Copinger and me, and of the newe acquaintance that he would needes fasten and enforce vpon me. But he bade me in any wise beware and take heed of him, for he feared him greatlie ; that certeinlie all \1 UNIVC JJ ^ ^ANCILLARY LITERATURE 253 was not well with him, and that he had Iwsum principium [marg. * That is, some crazing of the braine '] at the least, telling me howe faine he would haue propounded and fastened some of his fooleries and phantasticall revelations vpon him. But (sayeth he) I have returned him such an answere, as I beleeve he will not greatlie like of, neither seeke to me in haste againe for resolution [advice] (Sig. A iii. and vers.). Throkmorton is much more brief and concise in dealing with the Marprelate accusation. But he is definite. He notes that his name comes in at the close of Sutcliffe's list of implicated persons, although earlier holding him alone to blame. In a better mood Sutcliffe had only brought him in ' as a candle holder.' Then presently he says that he is willing to take an oath 'whensoever it shall be thought so good by the State/ ' That I am not Martin, I knewe not Martin, And concerning that I stande enlightened of, I am as cleare as the childe unborne ' (Sig. E ij.). He has his own accusation against Sutcliffe for his dis- honourable methods of controversy. As an example of this he quotes a reported statement by Egerton that ' though he would be loth to quench any man's enthusiasm in so cold and frozen an age as theirs . . . yet he was persuaded that the supposed revelations of Copingers were but meere illusions of Satance.' This reproduced in the controversial methods of Sutcliffe becomes the following : That Egerton's advice to Copinger was that he should beware of being misled by Satan, but at the same time he should be loath to quench the Spirit of God in him or hinder his zeal (Sig. B iv. vers.). (6) It was the following year (1595) before SutclifTe replied in An Answere unto a certaine calumnious letter published by M. Job Throkmorton and entituled, etc., . . . Wherein the vanitie both of the defence of himselfe, and the accusation of others is manifestly declared, in which he vigorously returns to the attack and insists upon the chief responsibility of the Squire of Haseley for Martin's ' libels.' By this time he had in his possession the whole of the evidence collected by the Government, including several 254 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS important depositions which are probably not at this time in existence. He also refers to a number of printed works not now known to be in any of our chief libraries. More- over, he had seen the manuscripts of the later Tracts, and professed to be familiarly acquainted with the handwriting of Throkmorton and Penry. And though we find him erring here and there, and know him capable of unfairly distorting the evidence against an opponent, it must be recognised that, interested partisan though he was, he was in a position of great advantage to ascertain the truth lying behind the mysterious anonymity of Martin Marprelate. It is, however, unnecessary here to enter into the evidence he adduces, since it will be necessary to exhibit it when we definitely consider the problem before we close this Introduction. CHAPTER VI THE TRACTS AND THEIR AUTHORSHIP Section I. The General Character of the Marprelate Writings 1. The Indictment against them Framed on False Issues. The campaign against the evangelical reformers was, as we have seen, deliberately conducted upon false issues. The veritable ground of their offence was seldom, if ever, men- tioned. They were described as Anabaptists, much as to-day men might call their opponents Socialists and Anarchists. They were hated because their views were supposed to favour ' popular/ that is, democratic, govern- ment, and to be secretly intriguing to that end. They were classed along with Henry Niklaes and his Family of Love. They were accused of treason against the State, of heresy, and even of blasphemy. To-day, nothing can be clearer, than that their condemnation was, in all the particulars named, entirely without foundation. (a) SEDITION. The charge of treason against the State is a curious allegation, if we recall the irrational lengths to which the Nonconformists carried their devotion to Elizabeth. When the Spaniard and his Catholic hosts, with his Armada, were heading for these shores, the reform- ing ministers surpassed all others in their patriotic zeal ; preaching in London, three or four times daily, to arouse the people to defend their country, and maintain their faith. 1 Stubbe of Lincoln's Inn, after the savage brutality 1 A Petition directed to Her Majestic, 20, 21. 255 256 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS of chopping off his right hand with a butcher's cleaver, could still cry ' God save the Queen.' Barrowe at Tyburn prayed fervently for Elizabeth. Nothing roused the in- dignation of the ' seekers after Reformation ' so quickly or so surely as to charge them with sedition. ' The Papists/ said Axton, 'for twelve years have been plotting treason against the Queen and the gospel, yet this doth not grieve you. But I protest in the presence of God and you all that I am a true and faithful subject of her majesty. I pray daily, both in public and private, for her safety, for her long and prosperous reign and for the overthrow of all her enemies, especially the papists. I do profess myself an enemy to her enemies and a friend to her friends. If, therefore, you have any conscience, cease to charge me with disloyalty to my prince.' l In this respect as well as in their faith they were the exact counterpart of the strict Catholics. The Catholic enemy, laying plans for the in- vasion of England, could always reckon on the support of Catholic traitors in this country. There were always Catholic Englishmen in Philip of Spain's pay, up to the date of the Armada. Nothing more shows the savage, implacable hatred of Elizabeth, cherished by the Catholics, than the pamphlet issued at the beginning of 1588 by Cardinal Allen, to prepare the way for the Armada. He portrays Elizabeth as a monster of immorality, to terminate whose wicked reign would be an act of piety. 2 (b) HERESY. The reformers were not even heretics. There was far more theological solidarity between them and the Bishops, than between the motley of parties hemmed in to-day within the ring-fence of the Act of Uniformity. Whitgift the persecutor was as definitely evangelical as Cartwright his victim. Bridges in his Defence expresses his ' no small griefe ' at having to contend with those ' whom 1 Second Parte of a Register, 51 ; Brooke, Lives, i. 163. 2 A full account of the pamphlet is given by Lingard, Hist. (1825), viii. 535. Its title runs, 'Admonition to the Nobility and People of England and Ireland concerninge tlie present warres tnade for the Execution of his holines sentence by the highe and mightie Kinge Catholicke of Spain, by the Cardinal of Englancle. Anno MDLXXX VI II. THE TRACTS AND THEIR AUTHOR 257 otherwise in Christe I humbly acknowledge to be our deare Brethren.' Even Bishop Cooper in his official reply to Martin Marprelate and his abetters, describing the different types of Nonconformists says, ' These bee such which in doctrine agree with the present state.' l It was notorious that Whitgift's second article of subscription, which en- joined acceptance of the Thirty-nine Articles, gave little or no trouble to the great majority of those convented before the High Commission. They objected to the external polity to the aristocratic hierarchy ; to the civil lordship of the Bishops ; to the Vestments, as did also the Conformists in principle. They would have yielded so far as to allow others to wear the vestments, if they were allowed the same liberty of not wearing them. But clearly, heretics they were not, according to the standard of their persecutors. Martin Marprelate sustains the cause of the evangelical reformers at all these points. The empty formalism of addressing a helpless babe by proxy and solemnly inquiring if it renounced the world, the flesh, and the devil was a fair mark for Martin. What genius could have invented a ceremony more calculated to persuade men that the re- ligion of the churches was an empty convention ? Martin's attack was against those elements in the government of the Church which he considered to be a denial of the privileges of the Christian commonalty and to partake of worldly ambition ; and against those ceremonies, all of them inherited from Romanism, which he believed to re- present no spiritual reality but to minister to superstition. (c) BLASPHEMY. The charge of blasphemy is as far from the mark as it well could be. On the contrary, it is a grave complaint alleged by Martin against the Bishops and Priests of the establishment, that they are guilty of shocking irreverence ; as when Aylmer garnishes the lively pages of his Harborowe with the story of the vicar of Trumpington's presumably amusing blunder in reading the words of Christ on the cross. 2 He cites other instances 1 Admonition, 30. 2 Op. cit. Sig. G 3 vers. See also THE EPISTLE, 49. 258 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS in which the conduct of the sacred services approached buffoonery. The charge of blasphemy against Martin was sustained by his episcopal contemporaries by a reference to his practice of substituting Sir for Saint as a title : Sir being the equivalent for our ecclesiastical title of Reverend. The reader can turn to HAY ANY WORKE l and see what it amounts to. The charge can only be repeated to-day by those who describe the Tracts without reading them. Nothing could be more obvious than that they are inspired by an intensely religious spirit. 2. The Alleged Scurrility. The accusation that the Tracts are scurrilous ought not to be made on the strength of one or two extracts ; certainly not without a sufficient knowledge of the circumstances which explain them and modify their interpretation. Take two standing charges which appear in all the contemporary denunciations of Martin : the one, that he called the members of the English episcopate, ' Bishops of the devil ' ; the other, that he said that their laws had no more authority than the laws which governed brothels. (a) As regards the first, it has been shown that the rail- ing epithet is a humorist's logical quip. Martin retaliat- ing upon the episcopalian misconstruction of his figurative expressions, makes Dean Bridges to be the author of the statement ; he therefore constitutes it one of his ' Minerall School Points,' a proposition to be academically defended ; so that the ' defendant in this point (I thank him) is Father John [Bridges] o' Sarum.' 2 He makes his point, briefly, in this way. Bridges quotes, in the Fourth Book of his Defence, Beza's division of Bishops into three classes : Bishops of God, of man, and of the devil ; he then declares dogmatically that there is no Bishop of man ; every Bishop, he says, being of necessity either a Bishop of God, or a Bishop of the devil. Martin upon this shows that the Bishops owe their election not to any divine right ; a claim which Elizabeth could be trusted, if ever it were made by those who owed their position and emoluments entirely to 1 Op. cit. 2. 2 School Point No. 15. THE TRACTS AND THEIR AUTHOR 259 her benevolence, to meet in her own vigorous way. Bridges indeed does not make any such claim. Now, says Martin, if the Dean says that the Bishops are not of man, and for fear of her Majesty dare not say that they are of God, he means to say that they are of the devil. 1 The Dialogue Wherin is Plainly laid open, which borrows most of its controversial points from the Marprelate writings, embodies this quip in its title. It professes to deal ' with certaine points of [the Bishops'] doctrine, wherein they approue them selues (according to D. Bridges his judgement) to be truely the Bishops of the Diuell.' So when the Bishops chose to believe, though it was the merest pretence of belief, that when Martin threatened them with ' twenty fistes about [their] eares more then [their] own/ 2 he really ' threatened blowes ' ; though, as Martin says, none could be so ' grosshead ' as not to understand that he meant the number of hands which would be occupied in writing against them 3 and this pretence, persistently repeated had most serious consequences to those who came before the ecclesiastical courts, on the suspicion that they belonged to the secret company concerned in the production of the Tracts Martin retaliates; not by the stupidity of in- terpreting a metaphor in an unfigurative way, but by an ingenious play of logic proving that Bridges has, in effect, called the reverend Fathers the * bishops of the devil. 3 (b) In regard to the second common charge, that Martin declared that the laws of the Bishops had no more author- ity than the laws regulating brothels, the reader will possibly be surprised to learn that there had been, at no remote date, to the great scandal of the Christian con- science, licensed ' stewes,' and that the laws regulating them had been framed by a Bishop of Winchester. They stood on the Bankside near Winchester House, and were in the jurisdiction of the Bishop. Such laws, though drawn up by a Bishop, could have no more moral authority than had they been laws purporting to regulate the conditions 1 See HAY ANY WORKE, 26-28. 2 THE EPISTLE, 2. 3 HAY ANY WORKE, sig. A 3 rect. 26o THE MARPRELATE TRACTS under which men might commit murder. The fact that laws emanated from a Bishop gave them per se no moral authority; no more moral authority than appertained to the laws ' of the stewes,' which a former Bishop of Win- chester promulgated. The keepers of these evil -houses were called ' Winchester geese.' * (c) In reply to the charge against Martin of calling the Bishops ' devilish ' and ' murderers of souls/ other, and per- haps stronger, ground must be taken. It was the belief of the Bishops, as it was also that of their victims, that the eternal welfare of man depended upon his hearing and accepting a certain body of revealed truth. Apart from the acceptance of the infallible creed, neither Whitgift nor Cartwright knew of any way of human salvation. Indeed, they did not expect that any excessive multitude would achieve that happy lot. Such being the stern and inflexible fact, why delay a single hour in proclaiming the ' conditions of salvation ' ? Reasoning from the position occupied by the Bishops and their antagonists in common, we might say that the Bishops deprived the people of salvation in various ways. First, by not preaching the Gospel, which in the face of the desperate fate of the ignorant and the care- less, ought to have been their primary duty. Secondly, by their commendams; for they took as many rich livings as they could get, and reserving to themselves the incomes from these benefices, they appointed as their substitutes inferior, incapable, and even unworthy men, the majority of whom were not able to preach ; the only class of men they 1 See First Part of K. Hen. VII. Act i. sc. iii. The houses on the Bankside are mentioned in the reign of Hen. II., in 1162, being then eighteen in number. Strict rules were issued for their regulation, the Clink prison being originally provided to receive transgressing 'stew -holders.' The title of the rules established by the Act 8 Hen. II. runs, ' Ordinances touching the government of the Stewholders in Southwark under the direc- tion of the Bishop of Winchester.' As further indicating their ecclesiastical patronage, one of the houses bore the sign ' The Cardinal's Hat. ' They were not finally abolished till 1546, under Hen. VIII. ; until which time the profits accruing from their licences were no doubt in the hands of the Bishop of Winchester. See Manning and Bray's Hist, of Surrey (London, 1814), iii. pt. 3, p. 587 ; Stowe's London (ed. 1754), ii. 9 ; Maitland's London, ii. 1391 ; Harrison's Description of England (Furnivall's ed.), App. by W. Rendle, F.R.C.S. THE TRACTS AND THEIR AUTHOR 261 were likely to get for the pittance on which they had to subsist. Next, they tolerated the like pluralism in others, with similarly disastrous results. Moreover, for mere matters of external form they deprived the men who did preach the Gospel with power, and placed in their stead men utterly unfitted for such an office. Aylmer had the shocking effrontery to pension off his purblind gate-keeper by giving him the living of Paddington. 1 Of the scan- dalous ignorance and un sanctified ways of the clergy Martin gives some instances. That his instances are nothing very exceptional may be easily shown. For example, we learn from a contemporary Survey the condition of the churches of Essex (formerly included in the see of London) after Aylmer had deprived all the laborious nonconforming ministers. Its testimony is painful enough. Gamesters and alehouse haunters are of frequent occurrence in the clerical list. The curate [deputy minister] of Little Eston was ' sometime a pedlar ; a swearer.' The vicar of Shopland was ' sometime a serving-man ; unable to preach, for he cannot render an account of his faith, neither in Latin nor English.' At Munden there is also a serving-man ; at Tolleshunt D'Arcy an ex-tailor ; and at Upminster an ex- grocer. The curate of Romford was ' thrice presented for a drunkard ' ; and there are a number of others guilty of the same evil habit. The curate of Alberton had been a linen- draper ; another, a mender of saddles and pannels ; the parson of South Hanningfield was first a fishmonger, and after that a buttonmaker ; the parson of Widford was ' heretofore a serving-man or a soldier ; a gamester, a pot companion . . . was called to the spiritual court for the same ; the curate of Blackmore a sow-gelder.' 2 But we need not pursue the matter further in this place. It has been referred to more than once in these pages, and occurs many times in the annotations to the Tracts. The point to be borne in mind is, that the Bishops and the ' seekers after 1 THE EPISTLE, M. 19, f. 52, and note. 2 The Survey is printed in extenso in Davids' Annals of Evang. Noncon- formity in Essex, 88-105. 262 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS reformation ' believed that human salvation rested upon the acceptance of a definite evangelical truth, failing which a soul went of necessity to an eternal hell of fire ; we can therefore understand the cry of these 'painfull preachers/ and of gravely religious men of the class of Knightley of Eawsley and Job Throkmorton of Haseley, that, by their suppression, on the ground of some twopenny informality, of the earnest, spiritually-minded ministers, and by their institution of this riff-raff into the sacred office, the Bishops were responsible for the ignorance and the abounding wickedness of the parishes ; were, indeed, none other than 'murderers of souls.' 3. The Patriotism of Marprelate. Martin Marprelate takes a definite stand upon the unconstitutional character of Whitgift's procedure in the Court of High Commission. In this denunciation he has the support of the strongest legal minds of his time, and in succeeding ages no one has been found to dispute Coke's opinion of the essential illegality of the tribunal. The reviving act at the beginning of Eliza- beth's reign could only renew the life and currency of what was previously legal ; it could neither restrict nor yet enlarge the scope of a revived statute. Nor could the constitutional foundations of the kingdom be abrogated by first legally creating a royal commission, and then illegally endowing it with new and unknown and extra - statutory powers. 1 Eeference is not infrequently made to the statute 13 Eliz. cap. 12, which concerns the 'Reformation of Disorders in the Ministers of the Church.' It enacts that all priests or ministers not ordained under the authorised form of Edward VI. and Elizabeth, shall subscribe to 'all the Articles of Religion, which only concern the Confession of the true Christian faith and the Doctrine of the Sacraments,' and were agreed upon at the Convocation of 1562. 2 This many of the imprisoned reformers were ready to do ; it was a different matter to compel them to subscribe to Whitgift's 1 See above, p. 75. 2 See the Statute. The section is given in Sparrow's Collection and in Prothero's Select Statutes. THE TRACTS AND THEIR AUTHOR 263 second article. With equal warmth, again, Martin denounces the erection of the canon law above the constitutional law of the realm. And in this he was powerfully supported by such men as Sir Francis Knollys, Attorney Morrice, Beale, Clerk of the Council, and others of great authority. It was their contention that the authority of canon law was definitely abolished ; that he that asserted canon law against the common law of the land subjected himself to the writ premunire. Martin threatens more than once that he will have this writ issued against the Bishops. Particularly, as the progeny of the canon law, does he attack, with all his resources, the scandalous oath ex officio, that priestly instru- ment of oppression, for refusing which men were thrust into the terrible prisons of the time. Many died in these foul dungeons of cold and hunger, of villainous ill-treatment, and, most of all, of putrid fevers ; men and women who were among the most patriotic as well as the most pious spirits in England. 1 It needed but little to rouse the ire of an autocratic and ' choleric ' man like Whitgift ; and then his temper, and not any legal principle or enactment, deter- mined the fate of the poor prisoner before him. ' Keep him close ' he would cry to the gaoler, as in a rage he waved the unfortunate man away from his presence to the ' little ease ' at Newgate or Bridewell. ' A fourth kind of torture was a cell called " little ease." It was of so small dimensions and so constructed that the prisoner could neither stand, walk, sit, or lie at length. He was compelled to draw himself up in a squatting posture, and so remained several days.' 2 Martin called the men who so treated their religious opponents, in defiance of law, of religion, nay, of common humanity, devils ; and it is difficult not to sympa- thise with the honest anger which prompted the use of such a harsh expression. 4. The Justification of Martins Wit and Satire. The question of the employment of satire and wit, jocular 1 See the Lamentable Petition of the Bishops' prisoners, July 18, 1588. Had. MSS. 6848. 7. Arber's Sketch, 35. 2 Lingard's History, viii. note [U], p. 522. See above, p. 130, n. 3. 264 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS raillery and racy gossip, to further religious ends is specially considered by Martin in his writings. Penry, we know, quoted the example of Beza's Passavantius, Aldegonde's Bee- Hive, and similar writings, in justification of jesting in such matters. Martin knew too well that he had offended by his methods the graver members of the Puritans. 1 The preachers ' misliked him/ Udall can employ great severity of language ; but he dislikes Martin's ' manner/ Cartwright had from the beginning indicated his aversion to the introduction of jocose badinage into so grave a con- troversy. 2 But Martin, let it be said, jests with discrimi- nation ; never doubting, in certain cases, his justification, while equally careful not to indulge in facetiousness on other occasions. Here are his own words, following his exposure of what he supposed was the corruption of the government of Christ's Church : I am not disposed to jest in this serious matter. I am called Martin Marprelate. There may be many that greatly dislike my doings. I may have my wants [deficiencies] ; for I am a man. But my course I know to be ordinary [according to rule or order], and lawful. I saw the cause of Christ's government, and of the Bishops' anti Christian dealing, to be hidden. The most part of men could not be gotten to read anything written in the defence of the one and against the other. I bethought me, therefore, of a way, whereby men might be drawn to do both ; perceiving the humours of men in these times (especially of those that are in any place [of authority]) to be given to mirth. I took that course. I might lawfully do it. Aye, for jesting is lawful by circumstances, even in the greatest matters. The circumstances of time, place, and persons urged me thereunto. I never profaned the Word [of God] in any jest. Other mirth I used as a covert [a ruse], wherein I would bring the truth into light. The Lord being the author both of mirth and gravity, is it not lawful in itself, for the truth to use either of these ways, when the circumstances make it lawful 1 3 Martin's judgment in this matter was greatly in advance of his time, and no doubt was sound. There are tyrants of the type of Whitgift, irascible in temper, wanting in a sense 1 THE EPITOME, 2. 2 HAY ANY WORKE, 14. 3 Ibid. 14. THE TRACTS AND THEIR AUTHOR 265 of humour, insensible to an opponent's argument, admitting nothing, absolute in all their statements, who can only be touched by ridicule. They wince when in derision men laugh at them. This vain priest, riding at the head of a princely cavalcade, forty gentlemen in chains of gold forming part of the glittering retinue, which sometimes numbered five hundred horse ; or, seated in state in his palace on great festival days, and served ' upon the knee ' by his gentlemen attendants ; conscious, no doubt, that he is ' the second person in the kingdom ' ; even he finds a fly in his perfumed ointment. Far and near men were seeing him, shorn of his gauds, his army of showy dependents dismissed, occupying the stage, and made to dance a whimsical measure, while Martin in cap and bells pounded the drum. After such a guffaw of laughter, how could he take himself seriously thenceforward ? He had only one resource; for the Bancroft literary programme never did Martin much harm. He wrought his vengeance on all who were suspected of any sort of relationship to the production of the Tracts ; and in the Court of High Commission a verdict was never given for the defendant. 1 Though Whitgift died without positive knowledge of the identity of Martin, his hand was heavy and remorseless on the suspected persons he succeeded in capturing : Udall, Wigginton, Cartwright, Knightley, Hales, and Wigston, whom he imprisoned and fined ; Barrowe and Greenwood, whom he succeeded in hanging despite the powerful and distinguished influence exercised in their favour ; Penry, whom he hanged with less trouble, precipitately on receiving a rumour of his possible escape ; and many others of lesser note and degree, whose sufferings were necessary to salve the Archbishop's wounded pride. 5. The Tracts a great Protest against Oppression. / Essentially, the Marprelate Tracts are a protest against L oppression ; a cry for more liberty ; first, for religious liberty, and then by necessity for civil liberty. The battle for liberty in England has always been fought in the first 1 See ante, 77. I 266 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS instance on religious grounds. Free speech was secured first by men who wanted its freedom in order to preach their religious convictions. And self-government was first gained by men who esteemed themselves to be Christ's free- men. They secured it in the government of their separate churches, and became naturally its champions in the field of political progress. Nevertheless, struggling as they were for liberty, the men whose cause is upheld by Martin had an in- complete conception of its nature. This arose mainly from two, or if we take the special antagonism of all Protest- ants to the existence of Romanism, then from three causes. (a) THE EXCEPTION AGAINST ROMANISM. The case of granting liberty of worship to the Romanists appeared to English Protestants, Conformists and Nonconformists, as though it were a question of allowing a savage dog to go about unmuzzled. They regarded the Romish priest as a public danger. His propaganda was political as well as religious. The strongest religious prejudices ceased to divide men in the presence of the horrible record of Bishop Bonner and Queen Mary. The common people, with the directness of judgment which so often characterises them, knew nothing of the extenuations urged to-day by pseudo-liberal writers on this period; historians who find the explanation of ancient crimes in the impersonal and irresponsible spirit of the time. Bishop Creighton finds the explanation of Pope Alexander in the tendencies of his age ; his ' exceptional infamy ' is mitigated by the remark, that ' he did not add hypocrisy to his other vices.' That is, that when the Borgias were lost even to that last tribute to righteousness, a sense of shame before the public gaze, the Bishop casts this last deadness to the world's moral judgment, the descent to the level of the dog in the street, into the scale of virtue. At any rate, says he, they were not hypocrites. In his discussion with Lord Acton on this point, we do our willing homage to the Romanist layman, rather than to the Protestant Bishop. 1 Almost every history dealing with religious persecution which now issues 1 See the Life of Bishop Creighton, 368 if. THE TRACTS AND THEIR AUTHOR 267 from the press, and the obliquity even affects the editing of our public records, follows the same vicious example : rather than to be blamed, Mary is to be pitied ; she is the victim of the ' tendencies of her age ' ; she is ' more sinned against than sinning.' And so the moral currency is debased. There is no more valuable asset in a nation's inventory than a gift of righteous indignation and anger in the presence of a great wrong. The common people of the sixteenth century in England, those days of the torture-chamber and the fiery stake, were apparently immune to these alleged tendencies of their age. They called things, in their rude way, by their right names. Bonner was the ' Butcher,' and the Queen ' Bloody Mary.' Moreover, they inherited the age-long tradition that the rule of the Roman Church was the rule of the foreigner ; the rule of the Italian cardinals who had held the richest livings in the land and lived in riot at Rome ; the rule of the Spaniard who endowed Mary's kingdom with the marriage-gift of the thumbscrew, and finally sent a none-such Armada to invade its shores. The chief of the foreigners was the Pope. He blessed every treasonable project abroad against the realm and its liber- ties ; he rejoiced at the Bartholomew massacre across the Channel ; he complacently smiled on the conspiracies to assassinate Elizabeth and to raise a rebellion against her throne. The resolution to allow no liberty to Romanism arose from causes powerful enough to turn many English- men from that faith to Protestantism ; causes which have delayed the emancipation of Romanists until our own day. They would have received still harsher treatment, but for the needs of Elizabeth's furtive diplomacy ; and she told no more than the truth, during the simulated marriage negotiations with the Archduke Charles, when she declared that the English people would not concede, even to herself, the establishment of a Romish Church within her borders. 1 In this judgment Martin is at one with the common people ; he has no liberty for the Papist. (&) THEIR IDEAS OF LIBERTY LIMITED BY FALSE BIBLICAL 1 State Papers, Venetian, 1567, Nos. 368, 418. 268 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS EXEGESIS. But their conception of liberty was marred by two other causes which affected the 'seekers after reformation,' and are reflected in the pages of Martin Mar- prelate. First was their literal interpretation of the Scriptures. They indulged in a little elementary textual criticism, and protested against the episcopal use of a corrupt Scripture reading; but apart from this, the Bible from cover to cover was to them an infallible revelation of the mind of God. The view of Whitgift was that the Church of Christ is not ' tied to any one certayne kinde of externall gouernment ' ; the external polity is not ' necessarie unto the saluation of the Church.' He definitely says, ' it may be the Churche of Christ, without this or that kinde of gouernment ' ; that is, without the episcopacy, which on expedient grounds he advocated. 1 The reforming party, on the contrary, held that the apostolic ministry was of two kinds : a temporary ministry, as of the apostles, who possessed the power of working miracles ; and a permanent ministry, consisting of pastors, teachers, elders, and deacons. From a misinterpreted text they believed that this order of Church government must remain in force ' vntil we al meet together : that is unto the ende of the worlde.' 2 Looking back at this old controversy, from the standpoint of our own day, we are disposed to say that Whitgift ought to have found a divinely ordained and immutable order of prelacy bishop, priest, and deacon in the New Testament ; and Martin ought to have found there a liberty to adopt his apostolic * tetrarchy/ if that seemed the most efficient order ; or any other expedient order of workers, which the necessi- ties of the Church and the time seemed to demand. And in due time that is what happened. The episcopalian prelates of the next age entrenched themselves in a divinely ordained episcopate, with the subordinate orders of priests and deacons ; finding what was lacking in Scriptural support and apostolic example, in the history and example of the Church in later centuries. The Nonconforming 1 The Defense of the Answer (1st ed.), 81, and marg. 2 THE EPITOME, sig. B iii. THE TRACTS AND THEIR AUTHOR 269 Churches of that age found in the apostolic practice an instruction ; but they were free to adapt themselves to the demands of the circumstances of their age and country ; and they have to-day the same authority for the election of a Sunday school superintendent as for the election of a deacon. The only restriction laid upon them was due to the spiritual character of the human society which consti- tuted the Church. In the days of Marprelate men saw clearly that the warning of Christ against following the example of the kings of the Gentiles, and the lesson of the little child whom He placed ' in the midst ' of the ambitious disciples, prevented them from assenting to diocesan bishops or any form of prelacy. One was their Master, they would repeat, and they all were brethren. Beyond what has already been stated, there were sub- sidiary forces which urged both parties onward along their chosen way ; the one farther away from democratic liberty, the other ever nearer to that ideal. Institutions, especially when, as in the case of the English episcopate, they are associated with the bestowal of emoluments and distinctions, tend to exist for their own sakes ; to discover in their own welfare the reason for their existence. They are essentially unprogressive. But ideas are always on the march, and like a stream, they fine as they flow. These contrasted processes were illustrated in the subsequent history of the episcopate and of democratic nonconformity. One con- spicuous advantage the ' seekers after reformation ' had over their opponents in the quest of truth. They were privileged to suffer for their ideas. They discovered in the prison- house the futility of coercion. It was a truth revealed to the earlier martyrs. ' I perceive/ said John Rogers to Stephen Gardiner, * that you take a wrong way, with cruelty to persuade men's consciences.' * This is the beati- tude which accompanies persecution. ' Imprisonments, indictments, and death,' said Penry, ' are no proper weapons to convince men's consciences.' 2 And Robert Browne, who 1 Ads and Mon. Foxe, vi. 594. 2 Exam, of Barruwc, Greenwood and Penry, 28. 2;o THE MARPRELATE TRACTS suffered abundantly for the faith that was in him, discovered not only that force was futile, but that it was an express violation of the foundation principles of Christianity; such mastery as it allowed sprang from ministry, the chief among the disciples being the servant of all. (c) POLITICAL BACKWARDNESS OF THE ADVANCED ECCLESI- ASTICAL REFORMERS. But there existed another main cause for the truncated view of religious liberty held by the reforming evangelicals. It was that, politically, they were much more backward in their ideas than they were ecclesiastically. They were true patriots. They valued the constitutional liberties which former generations of Englishmen had gained, more than they were valued by any other class in the community. In Parliament theirs was the only voice heard against the lawless infringement of these liberties by Elizabeth. In their controversy, also, with the Bishops, they claimed their rights as freeborn Englishmen ; men to whom Magna Charta and the several lesser enactments, including protecting and limiting clauses of otherwise oppressive statutes, the scant harvest of genera- tions of patriotic struggles for freedom against princes and priests, were a precious heritage. But they had not denned and set limits to the jurisdiction of the civil magistrate. They protested strongly and persistently against his office being invaded by the priest. They knew by bitter experi- ence, that in the administration of the law there was more of the equity and compassion of the Gospel in the verdict of the layman than in that of the priest. And they were ready enough to take up Latimer's contention, that the minister had enough to do to look after his own proper business. Moreover, while they recognised that both the minister and the magistrate ultimately derived their authority from God, they saw a substantial distinction between their two offices ; the one receiving his authority through the Church and the other through the State ; the chief office of the one being to preach pardon of sins, of the other to ' bear the sword ' and to punish ' evil doers/ Yet as the same persons were subject to the rule of the THE TRACTS AND THEIR AUTHOR 271 cleric and the magistrate, it is not, perhaps, surprising that the early Nonconformists and reformers did not discriminate at once clearly and consistently between their respective spheres of action. In particular, they did not resent the intrusion of the civil magistrate into the domain of con- science and religious liberty. With the exception of Browne and his closest followers, they would have regarded it as part of his office to compel attendance at a place of worship ; but they were painfully perplexed when they fully realised that the hopes of further reformation were small, and that they themselves were to be compelled to attend a ' maimed ' church and a half-popish service. And though they were learning, in the finest of all schools, the futility of coercing the conscience, they would have punished unitarianism and atheism, the denial of the divinity of Christ and of God, as scandalous crimes. (d) THE REFORMERS THE ONLY RESISTERS TO CIVIL AND ECCLESIASTICAL OPPRESSION. Still, incomplete though their conception of liberty was, the Marprelate Tracts are a protest against persecution and therefore a plea in favour of liberty, as well civil as religious. Hard necessity made the persecuted Nonconformists appeal, though generally in vain, to the protection of the law of the land, against the personal rule of Elizabeth and the equally obnoxious canon law of the Church. Throughout these years the sovereign and the Bishops were conjoint in their efforts to rob the people of their heritage of constitutional liberty. Elizabeth, James and Charles, Whitgift, Bancroft and Laud, are the great traitors against English freedom during the century following the death of Mary Tudor. Mr. Sidney Lee would justify the stern and oppressive acts of Whitgift by the reflection that his policy was the means of firmly estab- lishing the Church of England during the next age. The reply is, of course, that if the Church of England did prosper by Whitgift's policy, then it could not have been, in the nature of things, a Christian Church. But Mr. Lee's judg- ment is contrary to historic fact. The Church was so far from gaining from the illegality, the severity, and the 272 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS mechanical rigidity enforced by Whitgift's Court of High Commission, that to this policy may be attributed the disasters which it suffered under Laud and Charles I. 1 It is with these serious purposes that Martin Marprelate is concerned. The style, whatever literary interest it may possess, is the lure to secure our attention. In his own judgment, Martin's style is justifiable in itself. And knowing his Bishops, he deliberately adopted it ; for he meant, notwithstanding the risk of purchasing anti-episcopal literature, that the people should read what he had to say. We may dislike the free use of the word ' beast,' which came from the familiar use of the Apocalypse, that refuge of all persecuted Christian peoples ; and a few other expressions. But almost the only references in Martin's pages to which we object seriously are the refer- ences to Bishop Cooper's wanton wife. It is true that Cooper was an arrant persecutor, one of the severest of the time ; that he treated his victims without consideration, railing at them from his place of privilege. It is also true that his critics were denied all ordinary means of expound- ing and defending their views in the face of deliberate misrepresentation ; that they were suffering barbarous ill- treatment and that in defiance of all law. But with all this large allowance, the references to Mrs. Cooper's irregularities are entirely to be regretted. In his mis- fortune the Bishop was much to be pitied. The delin- quencies of the episcopacy generally were a different matter. They were not private failings, but public scandals. They were a serious hindrance to the evangelisation and moral health of the people, and tended to their political enslave- ment. And it will be clearly seen with what little ground the Marprelate Tracts have been denounced as seditious, heretical, blasphemous, and scurrilous. The lawless bar- 1 ' It is not too much to say that these [ecclesiastical] courts were among the most efficient causes of the quarrel between the monarchy and the nation which culminated in the rebellion of 1642.' Prothero, Select Statutes (1894), p. xl. ' The triumph of Elizabeth . . . rendered possible the revival of the Catholic spirit and doctrine under Laud. . . . The chief difficulties of James and Charles were the direct result of the success of Elizabeth.' R, W, Dale, Hist, of Eng. Congregationalism, 82. THE TRACTS AND THEIR AUTHOR 273 barity and narrowness of Whitgift is what now stands in need of a reasoned defence. Section II. The Authorship of the Tracts 1. The Widespread Interest of the Inquiry. There is no more fascinating problem in connection with the literary and ecclesiastical history of the reign of Elizabeth, than the question of the authorship of the Marprelate Tracts. Judged from any standpoint, the writer of them was a notable Englishman. He was our first great prose satirist. He was a writer of marked individual genius. He had an easy mastery of the resources of our language. To realise his wit, the keenness of his satire, his idiomatic raciness, we have only to compare him with the professional scribes hired by Bancroft to write him down. Conscious that their defence of the reverend fathers in God lacked some- thing in pith and point, labouring under the disadvantage from which all mercenaries suffer, of having no real personal interest in the conflict, these hired penmen sought to remedy their defects with a stock of offensively indelicate stories and allusions. But their best paragraphs are those which frankly imitate the author they are attacking ; when least original, they come nearest meriting commendation. Who, then, is this dexterous, original, droll, literary artist ; one who, indeed, with equal competence can be grave as well as gay ; and when not fantastically gay, half hides, and no more, his deep earnestness of purpose ? When raising the question, ringing in our ears are his own measured words : I am alone. No man under heaven is privy, or hath been privy unto my writings against you. I used the advice of none therein. 1 That, we are constrained to believe, was true of the writer at the time the words were penned, in March 1589. And yet it is difficult to believe that so great a patriot, so brilliant a master of English prose, so earnest a religious reformer, 1 HAY ANY WORKE, 21. T 274 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS could be altogether hid from public fame ; even had not the Bishops through their pursuivants turned London into a whispering gallery, where every word spoken in intimate chat or wayside gossip was focused in the Archbishop's chamber at Lambeth. 2. Two Classes of Marprelate Tracts. It will assist our inquiries if at this juncture we point out that the seven ' Martins ' fall into two classes. Four are primary docu- ments, three secondary. Primary. Secondary. THE EPISTLE. THE MINERALLS. THE EPITOME. THESES MARTINIANAE. HAY ANY WORKE. THE JUST CENSURE. PROTESTATYON. The pamphlet MORE WORK FOR THE COOPER, seized while being printed at Manchester, would no doubt belong to the primary division, and as designed, would have formed a considerable volume. The ' copy ' in the hands of the printers, though intended to be published as a separate pamphlet, was but a third part of the whole work. The Secondary Tracts were interim publications ; curtain-raisers to keep the audience in hand until the greater play should occupy the stage. Thus there was a delay in publishing HAY ANY WORKE ; Waldegrave's assistant fell ill while the work was being carried on at Fawsley, and we do not hear that any one was found to fill his place, so that a delay was anticipated. As a matter of fact, the delay was extended beyond their first fears. Sir Richard Knightley's messenger was sent to Coventry to get a copy of the new ' Martin ' a week too soon. It was a troublesome pamphlet to bind, consisting as it does of seven half-sheets and a single leaf. 1 And there appears to have been a delay in getting the final sheets of the manuscript of most of the Tracts, which of itself might suggest a common origin. The managers of the press deemed it wise therefore to send 1 The last sig. is H 1. In all existing copies, even those merely cased in parchment, the last leaf is pasted to the preceding sheet. THE TRACTS AND THEIR AUTHOR 275 forth the broadside known commonly as THE MINERALLS. Penry commended it to Sharpe ' as a pretty thing to be set out before the other Bookes.' 1 Again, when Hodgkins took up the management of the press, the intention was to print forthwith the primary tract, MORE WORK FOR THE COOPER. Penry had hoped that Waldegrave would have gone ' in hand with More Work for Cooper and further sayd,' as though anticipating its appearance, in the regular succession of the three quartos already published, ' that Waldegrave had the Dutch letters with him.' 2 It was a writing upon which some pains was being bestowed, and from the brief summary account given of it in the PROTESTATYON, would have been one of the most characteristic and popular of the Marprelate series. When, however, Hodgkins and his two men reached the Midlands, Penry was unable to supply them with the ' copy.' Hence the appearance of THESES MARTINIANAE as an interim, to occupy the printers, to stay the immediate demands of the constituency, and to keep the Bishops and their pursuivants employed. While this was being printed it was further foreseen that the manu- script of MORE WORK would not be ready when the printers' hands were once more free ; so a second interim was hastily prepared. It followed up the assumptions of the previous tract. That was alleged to have been edited and partly written by Martin Junior, and became known by that name. This was therefore entitled THE JUST CENSURE AND REPROOFS of that adventurous youth, by his elder brother Martin, Senior; and as before, became known commonly as Martin Senior. While it was being set up, Hodgkins received the long-looked-for ' copy ' of MORE WORK. It was not the manuscript of the complete tract, but of a portion only ; in length, about one-third of the whole, and consisting of the ' Epistle,' such as was furnished by the writer of every publication, large and small, of those years. It was expected to be a completion of HAY ANY WORKE in some respects. ' Martin Junior ' in his Epilogue hopes that the missing references required to prove the Theses, not 1 Harl. 7042. 23 (q) ; Arber's Sketch, 98. 2 Ibid, (z) ; Sketch, 100. 276 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS contained in HAY ANY WORKE, which gave c a thirty or forty ' of them, might be supplied in MORE WORK. 1 But there is no attempt to supply this deficiency in the interim pamphlets. Moreover, there are undoubted differences between the two classes, differences in style and possibly in matter, which we must presently consider. The real genius of Martin is seen in the primary tracts. Then the unfinished character of THESES MARTINIANAE forms one of the greatest of our difficulties in seeking to unravel the mystery surrounding the name of Martin Marprelate. 3. Clues in the Text. Before we consider more closely the two names left on our hands after examining the various conjectures which have been presented as to the identity of Martin Marprelate, we must note certain indirect hints or implications contained in the Tracts themselves as to their authorship. (a) We note that they were written by a university graduate. They show a ready familiarity with the dialectical exercises of the ' schools/ and have other marks of academic learning. Particularly, there is a reference to the study of Father Bricot's commentary on Aristotle at Oxford. 2 (b) The legal references are sufficiently numerous to indicate a writer specially trained in the usages and forms of the law. Thus Martin speaks technically of an action in judicium capitis ; 3 of a scandalum magnatum ; 4 of summoning parties in coram, 5 and of issuing writs premunire fades ; 6 he explains the legal points which forbid an action being taken against him under the statute 1 3 Eliz. ; 7 he also frequently quotes the statutes at large. 8 (c) The writer is thoroughly familiar with theological and ecclesiastical subjects. Quotations are needless ; such matters are discussed throughout the series. (d) There is a hint at the writer's social position, when he denies that he has any designs on the emoluments of the 1 THESES MART. sig. C iv. 2 THE EPISTLE, 11. 3 HAY ANY WORKE, 24. 4 THE EPISTLE, 23. 6 Ibid. 14. 6 Ibid. 21, 22, 26, 32 ; HAY ANY WORKE, 37. 7 THE EPISTLE, 38. 8 PROTESTATYON, 23 THE TRACTS AND THEIR AUTHOR 277 Bishops, having, he says, a patrimony of his own which he finds sufficient. (e) It is also not without considerable importance that he says, referring to Bancroft's reference to his supposed wife, that he is not married, though he will not say but that presently he may be. 1 The question now presents itself, whether, among the men we know in connection with the Tracts, or among the sympathisers with their object, and with the cause of evangelical reform generally, there is any one who could have written these satires and who possessed the qualifica- tions indicated above. We see he must be a ' scholar of Oxford/ a lawyer, a theologian, a gentleman of means, and a bachelor meditating marriage. 4. Persons suspected. We now turn to the persons who have fallen under the suspicion of being Martin. One name only is a fresh suggestion of modern times ; the others were suggestions made by contemporaries of the events connected with the writing of the Tracts. Not that the first crop of suspicions, wild premature guesses of a scandalised prelacy, were of great importance. They were but the radical leaf thrust early through the soil, giving no hint of the form and character of the foliage which should later appear. (1) JOHN UDALL. The fact, early discovered, that the secret press had been active in the neighbourhood of Kingston-on-Thames, made it inevitable that in their panic the suspicions of the Bishops should light upon Udall. He was already suspected of writing the anti-episcopal dialogue commonly known as Diotrephes, and the Demonstration of Discipline, with its yet fiercer denunciations in the same vein. He was then residing, and had till the preceding June been a minister, at Kingston. He was, moreover, a man with a special grievance which connected him with THE EPISTLE. Two years earlier he had come into collision with Dr. Cottington, Archdeacon of Surrey. 2 He had 1 PROTEST ATYON, 15, 32. See below, p. 306 f. 2 MS. Chron. (Dr. Williams' Lib.) ii. 591 (4). 2/8 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS arranged for a fast to be observed in his parish, and this the Archdeacon had inhibited. The quarrel had continued till the previous June, when Dr. Hone, the ' official ' of the Archdeacon, carried out a sentence of deprivation against UdalL The action of ' duns Cottington,' who is a 'bankerout,' and of Hone his 'journeyman, a popish doctor of the baudy court,' is strenuously denounced in THE EpiSTLE. 1 Later, on a more careful consideration of the evidence, it was discerned that Udall was not Martin. He himself disavowed the authorship ; especially expressed his dislike of Martin's jocularity ; and there is little room to doubt that Whitgift accepted his disavowal, even after Stephen Chatfield told the story of the compromising notes he had seen in Udall's study and the threatening words used by him, when he and Chatfield were together in a field near Kingston. Udall might have escaped the mockery of the death sentence on the ground of sedition, and the long years of barbarous imprisonment from which at last he died, but for Whitgift's conviction that he knew, but would not divulge, the authorship of the Marprelate Tracts. That was his real offence. The Archbishop could not clear his mind from the sus- picion that the principal Puritan ministers were in the secret of the authorship. For this reason, as we have seen, he followed Cartwright with his unrelenting persecution; not because of the old Admonition controversy, but because Cartwright 'knew, or had credibly heard, who were the authors, printers or the dispensers of Martin MarPrelate! 2 Udall protested that, although he had been inquisitive, he had not succeeded in penetrating the secret. At the same time he is reported to have said that the writings of Mar- prelate ' were never approved by the godly Learned.' c I am fully persuaded,' he said, 'those Bookes were not done by any minister. And I do think there is no Minister in this land doth know who Martin is.' 3 Although to-day 1 Op. tit. 34-36. 2 Fuller, Ch. Hist. in. bk. ix. p. 200 (ed. 1655). See ante, p. 218. 3 A New Discoverie (1643), 324. MS. Hemarks on Hist. (Dr. Williams' Lib.) 407. The words quoted are from Udall's examination before Puckering. THE TRACTS AND THEIR AUTHOR 279 we have no difficulty in concluding that neither Udall nor Cartwright, both of them to be reckoned among ' the godly Learned/ l could have penned the jocose badinage ; that neither of them was capable of such literary pranks ; yet the evidence of Stephen Chatfield did appear prima fade to seriously compromise Udall. Chatfield saw in his pos- session certain papers, which, from a hasty perusal of their titles, he judged to be of the same character as ' this scandalous Libell ' [i.e. THE EPISTLE]. The witness was told that they had been sent by ' a friend ' of UdalTs ; from another remark he assumed the friend to be John Field, the conjoint author of the Admonition to Parliament, who died early in 1588. In the Puckering Brief it is stated that Udall had made a * collection ' of ' some things that are conteyned in that Booke ' [THE EPISTLE], which he acknowledged to have shown to Field and Chatfield. 2 How much this statement of the prosecuting attorney amounts to, it is not easy to determine. A large number of the victims of ecclesiastical persecution had probably made ' Collections '' ; recording the misdeeds of the Bishops ; the bad treatment of his prisoners by Whitgift ; the greed and worldliness of Aylmer ; the story of Young and the plunder of church property ; the scandal of Marmaduke Miller and his two wives ; the gauche eccentricity of Bullingham in the pulpit. Field and Udall had no doubt recorded their own grievances in their respective ' Collec- tions.' These ana were collected together in a later genera- tion by Sir John Harington in his Briefe View of the State of the Church, written for the edification of the young Stuart prince Henry. 3 The stories were to a large extent the common property of the time. Udall, we may be sure, narrated his sorrows to many a sympathetic audience ; to 1 Sutcliffe's description of Udall as an c utterly unlearned man ' reveals the density of his prejudice. An Answere to a Libel, cap. iii. 2 Harl. MSS. 7042. 4. Arber's Sketch, 122. 3 ' Written For the private use of Prince Henry upon occasion of that proverb, Henry the eighth pull'd down Monks and their Cells, Henry the Ninth should pull down Bishops and their Bells.' Title-page. Published 1653. 280 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS the Hortons at Richmond ; to the Tyes at Kingston ; at Field's house in Grub Street ; and at Mrs. Crane's in Aldermary, where the evangelical reformers found always a home. Mrs. Crane's servant Nicholas Tomkins saw Udall's memorandum- book, containing a list of the writings whose authorship he acknowledged. Udall's friends Penry and Giles Wigginton would know all about his wrongs. The ill-treatment which he conceived himself to have suffered at the hands of Dr. Hone was no secret confined to the pages of his ' Collections.' But that he did not write the account which appeared in the pages of THE EPISTLE, both his strong denial and the general character of the man and of his undoubted writings are a sufficient testimony. (2) GILES WIGGINTON appears to have been the man first suspected by Whitgift. Wigginton had no special reason for speaking favourably of the Archbishop, as we know from the earlier history of the two men at Trinity College. But the enmity did not cease when they left the walls of the college. Whitgift had a way of pursuing his old antagonists, if they were such as had deliberately and strongly opposed him, year after year, until they were utterly undone. As soon as Whitgift went to Canterbury, Wigginton went to prison. The elevation of the one was the deprivation of the other. It was during one of the intervals between Wigginton's successive imprisonments that THE EPISTLE appeared. This is none other than Giles Wigginton, thought the Archbishop, as he read Marprelate's first pamphlet, and saw the contemptuously familiar way in which he himself was bantered in the pages of that lively tract. For Wigginton also was a wit ; he could even turn the Court of High Commission to laughter. We see some- thing of his quality in his satirical ' Articles of Visitation.' l Besides it was well known that Wigginton was not of that grave and solemn-sided section of the reformers, that believed there was nothing to be done, in the cruel exigencies of the day, but to pepper the Bishops with sacred texts and to stretch them on the rack of a formal syllogism. At 1 See Trans. Congl. Hist. Soc. vol. iii. p. 27. THE TRACTS AND THEIR AUTHOR 281 the close of the record of ' the whole Processe of J[ohn] Canterbury] with G. Wfigginton] the 6. day of December Anno Dom. 1588,' the occasion on which he was examined about the first two ' Martins/ the stout old reformer wrote All that which goeth before is true, witness I, Giles Wiggin- ton, Pastor of Sedborough ; by this token, that I do like well of M. Marprelate, nothing doubting but God will bless them and all other such good proceedings. Amen. 1 But in the same examination Wigginton said, ' I did neither make, write, nor print it, nor any part of it, nor see any part of it written before it was printed.' 2 And as a fact, the suspicion against him soon died out. Whitgift recognised that he was on a false scent. (3) FRANCIS MERBURY. It seems certain that Nicholas Tomkins, Mrs. Crane's servant, did not know who was the writer of the Marprelate Tracts. Equally certain is it that he had no wish to divulge more than he could help. His first coDcern was to shield his mistress, and therefore we find him, while professing not to know, yet hinting, that the first tract, THE EPISTLE, was printed not at his mistress's house at East Molesey, but in Northamptonshire. That he knew more than he chose to divulge, we may conclude from his being sent 'beyond sea.' 3 We do not read of Mrs. Crane being imprisoned for harbouring the Marprelate Press at Molesey, or for making her house in Aldermary a refuge and meeting-place for the leaders of the Noncon- formist movement. And it is certainly not like Whitgift to allow one so deeply concerned in these matters to escape altogether. It may have been that the further evidence which Tomkins could have supplied was needed to furnish her indictment. But in his examination in Feb. 1589 it is interesting to hear Tomkins repeat who were the persons suspected of being Martin within the intimate reforming circle to which he had access. He had heard ' some name Master Field, some Master Wigginton, others Master Penry, 1 Second Parte of a Register (MS. Dr. Williams' Lib.), 849. 2 Ibid. 844. 3 July 1590> Nealj msL O j- the Pur> f 4Q9 282 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS others Master Marbury, a preacher, to be the author of [the two Tracts at this time circulated].' Francis Merbury (or Marbury, which represents the current pronunciation) was at one time a minister at Northampton, but had been deprived. He suffered many terms of imprisonment ; nor was the rigour of his persecution likely to be mitigated by the speech he used before his clerical judges. Aylmer in examining him on Nov. 5th, 1578, quite lost his temper, and railed at his prisoner. * Thou art a very ass, an idiot, and a fool/ said the irate Bishop. ' Where,' he went on to ask, ' would be found the living, if they supplied every parish with a preacher ? ' forgetful of the many livings which he and other bishops had annexed as ' cominendams.' Merbury boldly replied, ' A man might cut a large thong out of your hide, and that of other prelates, and it would never be missed.' l But it was in Nonconforming circles only that Merbury's name was mentioned. He could not on careful consideration be long suspected to be Martin. He was a man of strong and resolute views, and of tren- chant speech ; but his was not Martin's style. (4) JOHN FIELD, of Aldermary, Mrs. Crane's parish and a centre of the reforming movement, died in Feb. 1588, before the appearance of the first Marprelate Tract. He was a leading personality among his party, and early in his public career found himself in difficulties with the Bishops. In the beginning of 1571-2 we find him complaining that he is forced for a living to teach children, having been deprived of his cure at Aldermary. In the spring of the same year he was appointed, along with Wilcox, to draw up the celebrated Admonition to Parliament ; and, as we have already seen, was in consequence cast into prison. It was strange, even in those days, that men should be imprisoned for the highly constitutional act of petitioning Parliament to amend an evil law. Nevertheless for this offence he was sentenced to a year's imprisonment ; and even at the expiration of his term, such was the lawlessness which marked all ecclesiastical prosecutions, that only after delay 1 Parte of a Register, 385. THE TRACTS AND THEIR AUTHOR 283 and difficulty were his pitiful petitions heard, and he obtained his discharge. If its possession were a qualifica- tion for writing Martin Marprelate's EPISTLE or EPITOME, John Field had a substantial grievance against the pre- lates. When Penry was in Northampton, having with him the printed proofs of THE EPISTLE, Henry Sharpe, the book- binder, was very inquisitive to know its author. Penry told him that ' some such notes were found in Master Field's study ; that Master Field upon his death bed willed they should be burnt, and repented for collecting them/ l The answer was doubtless an evasion. Field and Udall had their ' collections ' of the oppressive and scandalous acts of the Bishops ; and it is possible that one or both of these adversaria may have furnished material for Martin's use. But beyond that we cannot go. Field was a good scholar, the master of a clear, incisive style, a convinced reformer ; but there is nothing in his letters, nothing in the Admoni- tion, which supports the hypothesis that he was Martin. The man who supplies the timber is not necessarily the designer and builder of the house. And the death of John Field precludes the possibility of associating his name with the development of the controversy. (5) EUSEBIUS PAGIT. We learn from the last of the black-letter tracts, HAY ANY WORKE FOR COOPER, that the Bishops suspected ' Master Pagit, Master Udall, and Master Penry.' 2 The suggestion that Eusebius Pagit was the secret author could never have been seriously held by many persons. A brief account of this very unfortunate reforming minister will be found in a note to THE EPISTLE. 3 He seems to have been marked out as a special butt for the gibes of the antimartinist writers ; though they had no per- sonal knowledge of him, or they would not have called him halt and club-footed, whereas it was his arm that was ' lame.' All that can be said in support of the suspicion is that Pagit was a man of some original ability ; also that he had been exceptionally badly treated by the Bishops. But there is 1 Sharpe's evidence. Harl. MSS. 7042. 23 ; Arber's Sketch, 94. 2 Op. tit. 21. 3 Op. tit. 38. 284 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS nothing in his career to tempt us to consider further the possibility of his being the ' great unknown/ (6) JOHN PENRY. In the speech put into the Arch- bishop's mouth in THE JUST CENSURE, he is made to say to his pursuivants, ' Haue you diligently soght mee out Walde- graue the Printer ; Newman the cobler ; Sharpe, the booke- binder of Northampton, and that seditious Welchman, Penry, who you shall see, will prone the Author of all these libells ? ' 1 It is difficult to account for the audacious mention of these names by Martin at the close of July 1589. We must assume that the men thus daringly named were already widely sought for by the pursuivants ; the mention of them could not put them in a worse case ; while it might weaken the suspicion existing against them. Nobody would believe that Martin was willingly betraying his real confederates. However that may be, John Penry was soon to be, and for some time chiefly, the person sus- pected by Whitgift, and it will be necessary to examine fully the evidence alleged against him. His close personal connection with the production of the Tracts is not in question. If he was not Martin, he was the man most likely to have known the secret of his identity ; if, indeed, any second person knew that secret. The evidence for and against believing Penry to be Martin we shall presently consider. (7) JOB THROKMORTON. So far, no one has named the 'squire of Haseley as the probable author. A couple of years earlier, we find him addressing a very humble petition to Burleigh, 2 to help him to regain the goodwill of the Queen, which he had lost through a fault which he confesses ' w th sorrow of harte.' He realises that ' th' indignation of the Prince is death/ and sees that his trouble is ' a juste Judgem* of God on his impenitent life ' ; but he urges that it is his first fault of ' such a nature ' and partly ascribes it to ' the priviledge of the place/ which was ' apte to bring a youwg heade into distemperature. The clue to these somewhat obscure phrases we find in the 1 Op. tit. A ii. vers. 2 Fid. ante, p. 216. THE TRACTS AND THEIR AUTHOR 285 clerical endorsement of the petition: '3 Aprill 1587 Job Throgmorto grief for y e 1. offence He with Penry and Udal had wrote scurilous books against y e established religion.' This at once explains the document. Penry's Aeguity had been presented to Parliament 'holden by prorogation in the 29. yere of her Maiesties raigne.' l This Parliament was resumed on Feb. 15, 1587, and prorogued on the 23rd of March following. The Parliament, which was strongly favourable to the reformers, ' shewed no disliking thereof/ says Penry. And among those who, no doubt, spoke in its favour was Throkmorton ; who, when he saw Penry cast into prison, was forward to seek the great minister's help to shield him from the like fate. But so carefully had he since avoided giving any clue to the informer and pursuivant, that not until the complete external evidence of the production of the Tracts was in the hands of the High Commission, did his place in their story assume a commanding significance. Little by little the fact dawned upon the authorities that, whether alone, or in concert with others, he was a principal figure in the daring activity of the wandering press. When, later, they were able to view the evidence in a truer perspective and to liberate themselves from the preconception that obsessed the mind of Whitgift that the chief author (or authors) must be sought among ' the preachers,' although in the beginning of his inquiries he was more than once told by men more likely to know the truth than himself, that Martin was ' no minister ' then, the probability that Job Throkmorton was the veritable Martin Marprelate over- shadowed all other speculations on the subject. The last word of Sutcliffe, the episcopal advocate, whose Answere to Job Throkmorton, published in 1595, closed the contem- porary controversy, is, that there were probably several persons concerned ; but in his view chief among them was Throkmorton. Sutcliffe is neither so free from violent partisan prejudice, nor from error in matters of fact, that we can unhesitatingly accept his conclusion. But 1 Penry 'a Appellation. See Arber's Sketch, 68. 286 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS his final judgment is not without weight. The evi- dence, however, in the case of Throkmorton and Penry is so interwoven that their names must be considered together. (8) The only other name to be added to this list is the recent suggestion of Dr. H. M. Dexter that HENRY BARROWE oo was Martin. 1 Dr. Dexter does not touch the hypothesis that Throkmorton was the author; but he carefully examines the evidence in support of the Penry theory, and concludes strongly against it. What he has to say in favour of assigning the authorship to Barrowe is not with- out weight ; or it could never have commended itself to so acute a mind as Dr. Dexter's. The things left unsaid, overlooked, and largely unknown at the stage of the con- troversy at which Dr. Dexter left it, firmly convince us that he was wrong. He was not in possession of the true story of the production of THE Tracts ; he places THE PRO TESTATYON as the fifth in the Marprelate series ; knew nothing apparently of the intimate connection of Throk- morton with the enterprise as revealed in the evidence of Symms and Thomlyn before Lord Chancellor Hatton. Moreover, his speculations in other directions show that the evidence which this able and laborious student succeeded in accumulating, was not sufficient to enable him to unravel entirely the skein of controversy during this period. For example, Greenwood certainly did not write alone, or with the aid of Barrowe, M. Some in his Coulers ; although it bears the undeciphered initials I. G-. NOT did Barrowe write the fine pamphlet, A Petition directed to her Majesty. He wrote and studied much in prison, though his study was chiefly bestowed upon the Bible itself. Any one, however, who examines the structure of the Petition, and its wealth of minute and precise theological learning, will probably agree with us, that had Barrowe, instead of a careless ' man about town/ been a Margaret Professor of Divinity before his conversion and his almost immediate imprisonment in 1 Dr. Dexter supplied Prof. Arber with a concise statement of the grounds on which he based his speculation. See the Sketch, 187 et seq. THE TRACTS AND THEIR AUTHOR 287 the Fleet, he could not even then have written such a work in prison. 1 We must acknowledge that Barrowe was able, while in prison, to take a vigorous part in the ecclesiastical contro- versies of the day. We know that his view of the character of Whitgift closely coincides with Marprelate's view. More- over, those who have read the writings of this remarkable man, whose entire professed Christian life was spent in prison, will not need to be told that few men of his age, could write more forcefully, with more wit and incisiveness, of the lawless oppression of the Elizabethan Bishops. Nor was there ever a more courageous man ; one who in speech and action reckoned less with ' flesh and blood.' We recog- nise in him, as in the writer of the Tracts, a man conscious of his social superiority to Whitgift and the mushroom men who surrounded that prelate and lived on his favour. These all carried into later life the petty meannesses of their upbringing and their servile crawling into office and favour. Barrowe and ' Martin ' came from a different rank, and were Englishmen of a finer breeding. It is also true that in the Tracts there are traces of a legal mind, and Henry Barrowe was a member of Gray's Inn. And assuredly it would be a picturesque conjunction of men and circumstances, to find the origin of these witty and satirical libelli in the Fleet Prison ; Job Throkmorton being the conveyer of the copy, Penry the publisher, Waldegrave 1 The interpretation of the famous text, 'Tell it to the Church,' by the writer of A Petition directed, etc., is decisive on this point. Three views were current. That of the established order of worship was ' Tell it to the Bishop, or to the Minister in charge of the cure.' That of the most moderate the least progressive of the Reformers was, 'Tell it to the Elders,' for they are chosen representatives of the Church. This was the view of the writer of A Petition. But the views of Barrowe, like those of Robert Browne, would allow of no such eviscerating of the text. He would have told the Episcopalians, that they had no such church, or body of Christian believers, to whom the aggrieved person, contemplated by Christ in his address, could tell his wrong and obtain redress. To the Presbyterian he would have probably objected that his interpretation as effectively took away the prerogative of the Christian community as did the interpretation of the Episcopalian. To both he would probably have said, that they were taking unwarrantable liberties with the precise and definite words of Christ, 288 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS and Hodgkins the printers. Dr. Dexter's suggestion is a strong one and we could almost wish it were true. Never- theless it is not possible to accept it. Of Barrowe's actual connection with Marprelacy not a trace has been discovered. In the minute story of the production of the Tracts, already given, not a detail points to a cell in the Fleet. The form in which the writings have come to us does not hint a prison origin ; unless the imperfection of the secondary tract THESES MARTINIANAE be considered a suggestion in that direction ; as implying an absent author in limbo, who could not be consulted by the printers in regard to certain incomplete sentences in the text. We are conscious of a difference between these two men which makes itself known in their respective views and writings. So that while we recognise that both use strong idiomatic speech, having little in common with the dilet- tante euphuism of the time ; though the writings of both men are flavoured with the culture of the schools of learning , yet we must also recognise that the sharp satire and wit of Barrowe, written as though he were unconscious of the literary character of his eager and earnest pages, differs from that quite special type of wit, and especially of irony, which distinguishes Martin Marprelate from all his con- temporaries. ' Martin ' is by no means unconscious of the character of his figures and inversions and drolleries. He indulges in swordplay before he delivers his fatal thrust. But who could imagine Henry Barrowe writing the rustic dialect in which Martin freakishly delivers a blow, in the guise of an unsophisticated yokel? And it is time to mention an objection to Dr. Dexter's hypothesis which is really fatal. The ecclesiastical standpoint of THE EPISTLE and THE EPITOME is not that of A Brief e Discovery of a false church. In making out ' Martin's ' point of view it is necessary on the one hand to note that he differs not only in temper, but also in intellectual conviction, from such men as Travers, Field, Cartwright, Udall, and their fellows. ' Martin ' champions their cause ; but he is not altogether of their party. In his breadth of sympathy, his theological THE TRACTS AND THEIR AUTHOR 289 temper, his deep humanity, he is more akin to the author of A Petition directed to her Majesty. But, on the other hand, the difference between him and Barrowe is almost more marked. ' Martin,' rigidly clinging to the ' tetrarchy ' of church officers, even though they owe their position to the consent of the people, cannot possibly be classed in the same school as Barrowe. Barrowe's Church is an emanci- pated democracy ; its constitution is voluntary. The following quotations, from both writers, touching the support of the ministry, are in themselves, probably, sufficient to destroy any claim made on behalf of Barrowe to be Marprelate : The minister's maintenance by tithe, no Puritan denieth to be unlawful. For Martin, good Master Parson, you must understand doth account no Brownist to be a Puritan, nor yet a sottish Cooperist. 1 This is Marprelate's view in reply to Bishop Cooper. The following is from Barrowe's examination before Whit- gift in 1587. The questions are put by the Lord Treasurer : Burleigh. Why, thou wouldst have the minister to live of somewhat ; whereof should he live 1 Barrowe. Ex pura eleemosyna. Of clear alms, as Christ in his testament hath ordained and as he and his apostles. 2 5. Examination of the Evidence in Favour of assigning the Authorship to Penry or Throkmorton. (a) THE DIRECTOR- SHIP OF THE SECRET PRESS. In regard to the housing of the press, the provision of printers and distributers, there is no doubt that Penry is the principal figure. Indeed, until the retirement of Waldegrave, we know of none else. He it was that negotiated with Mrs. Crane of Aldermary for the use of her house at East Molesey ; and later, with Sir Richard Knightley to shelter the press at Fawsley and at Norton-by-Daventry. Through Sir Richard, Penry was able to prevail upon John Hales, in spite of his fears, to 1 HAY ANY WOKKE, 25. 2 Examinations of Hen. P>* >//',. John Grenewood, and John Pcnrie, 16. u 2QO THE MARPRELATE TRACTS shelter the press at the White Friars, Coventry. Penry was printer's reader and manager up to this time. It is only at this juncture that Job Throkmorton comes within our purview. After Penry J s failure to induce Waldegrave to reconsider his decision ' no longer to meddle or be a dealer in this course ' ; after his ineffectual negotiations with Sharpe, the bookbinder, who was able to ' worke about the press/ not as an efficient compositor, but as he himself ' in some sorte ' ; Throkmorton appears on the scene. He commissions Humfrey Newman to find a printer, and the result is the engagement of John Hodgkins. But even then, it is Penry who is ostensibly responsible for the payment of Simms and Thomlyn, Hodgkins' assistants. While the printers were busy at Wolston printing THESES MARTINIANAE and THE JUST CENSURE, Penry arrives early on the scene to supervise the printing, binding, and despatch of these tracts. Throkmorton follows, and apparently with his arrival came the remainder of the ' copy ' of the first of them. It was characteristic of his extreme caution that he should whisperingly inquire of Hodgkins if his two men could be depended upon ; but the very question would imply that he was one of the princi- pals in the confederacy. (b) PENRY'S AND THROKMORTON'S ACQUAINTANCE WITH THE MANUSCRIPT ORIGINALS OF THE SECONDARY TRACTS. Our knowledge of the conduct of the press under the management of Waldegrave is slight ; for the reason that he was never arrested after he became Marprelate's printer. Sutcliffe's reference to his ' deposition,' as we have earlier stated, is a blunder. So soon, however, as we get an interior view of the secret printing-house (under the roof of Eoger Wigston) we find that both Penry and Throkmorton are able to deal authoritatively with certain defects in the manuscripts. Throkmorton was able to decipher for Simms certain obscurities arising from interlineations. He ' did p r sently l read them distinctly and readily unto him.' 2 Penry also, when the printers showed him that towards the end of 1 ' Presently ' = at once. 2 Manchester Papers, 123 (G). THE TRACTS AND THEIR AUTHOR 291 Martin Senior there were some things ' written w th out sense/ ' strooke owt certayne lines and interlined that w ch should be supplyed.' l (c) THE EVIDENCE OF THE HANDWRITING. Our evidence under this head relates only to the tracts printed by Hodgkins ; and of these the partly printed MORE WORK could be left out of the account. Apart from the reference to its contents in THE PROTESTATYON, we only know its name. The testimony in regard to the two Wolston Tracts is conflicting, though it involves only Penry and Throk- morton. Valentine Simms, the compositor, states that THESES MARTINIANAE, THE JUST CENSURE, and MORE WORK were in the handwriting of Throkmorton. He ' doth thinke that " more worke " was likewise of Mr. Throkmortons pen- ninge : for that it was the same hand that " m r tin senior " and " martin Junior " was.' 2 Hodgkins in his deposition declares that the handwriting of the three works is 'the same or very like to the hande where with Penry corrected the print.' 3 Matthew Sutcliffe states that MORE WORK is ' written with /. Throkmortons owne hande and in divers places with his hand it is interlined and corrected.' 4 But in another place he states that the manuscript ' which every man may see who doubteth hereof, is half of it written with lob Throkmortons owne hand.' 5 In the Government Summary of Evidence we read that ' the two handes vsed in the same doe seeme to be, the one Penryes and the other his mans hand.' 6 Of the testimony of the printers we should be inclined to give the greater weight to the state- ment of Hodgkins, as the weightier and more intelligent witness. But summing up the whole of the evidence, the greater likelihood is that the manuscripts of the works in question, as handled by the printers, were in the joint hands of Penry and Throkmorton ; though this conclusion is contrary to the extreme caution of Throkmorton in leaving 1 Manchester Papers, 123 ("). 2 Ibid. (R). 3 Harl. MSS. 7042. 5 ; Arber's Sketch, 126. 4 Ans. to J. Throk. p. 70 vers. ; Arber's Sketch, 176. 5 Ibid. 71 vers. ; Sketch, 178. 6 Lansd. MSS. 61. 68 ; Arber's Sketch, 117. 292 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS no trace of his own complicity in the enterprise. And the evidence on hand seems to show that the originals were transcribed, whether by the author or by an amanuensis we do not know, before being handed to the printers. On their journey as prisoners to London, * Hodgkins told Siines (this exanimate) that they had an other copy of "more worke for the coop r " w cb should serve them an other time.' 1 (d) THE EVIDENCE OF LANGUAGE AND STYLE. Speaking broadly, we may say that that which is more conspicuously ' Martinist ' in the style of the Tracts is least like Penry's style. Penry is a dexterous writer, as his tracts and letters abundantly show. He has mastered perfectly the English tongue. His writings are not those of an educated foreigner ; in style they are idiomatic and thoroughly English. The ingenious theories based upon Penry's supposed imperfect command of English, intended to account for such whimsi- calities as ' fickars,' ' confocation,' and the like, are utterly wide of the mark. The supposition that Penry dictated the text while the printer set phonetically what he heard is too grotesque. A compositor setting up such a work as THE EPISTLE or THE EPITOME at the dictation of a reader is an impossible supposition. Moreover, if we could seriously discuss the theory that Penry read out the text, it is only necessary to know the Welsh alphabet to understand that an imperfect acquaintance with the English would not have led him to pronounce v as /, but the opposite. The Welsh has no v ; the sound is represented by a single / (The English / is represented in Welsh by ff.) The common Welsh place-name ' Llanfair ' (St. Mary's) is pronounced ' Llanvair ' ; ' afon ' (a river) is pronounced ' avon.' There is, of course, a conventional stage-Welshman, whose blunders include the substitution of / for v. Shakespeare's parson, Sir Hugh Evans, says, ' It is that fery person,' and ' fery goot.' And it is permissible to suppose that Martin imitated the conventional stage- Welshman (just as he imitates the conventional rustic of the comedies) ; and did so to suggest mockingly to Whitgift that some one 1 Manchester Papers, 123 (last parag.). THE TRACTS AND THEIR AUTHOR 293 from the Welsh Marches, or beyond, had a hand in the satires. The official summary of information of September 21st, 1589, remarks of MOKE WORK and the first three quartos, that ' the stile doth not varie.' It also observes that the style of these writings, ' when [the author] is out of his scoffinge veyne/ is like the style of Penry as exhibited in the volumes published under his own name. This critical judgment does not carry us very far. As Dr. Martyn Dexter says, it is tantamount to asserting that ' the Martinist tracts with their most marked peculiarity left out were like Penry's (acknowledged) volumes/ * There are sections in the Tracts, and more especially in the Secondary Tracts, which might have been written by Penry ; but the quips and quiddities, the wit and the banter, cannot claim Penry for their author. The rhetoric of Penry sometimes deepens into a pathetic eloquence ; he is something of an artist in his use of words and phrases ; yet he is more than a gifted stylist ; he is an apostle whose speech becomes touched with emotion as his earnestness gathers strength. But the Martin who puts on, so easily, the antic disposition is never more in earnest than when his laughter is loudest and his wit on edge. We may confirm the critical judg- ment of a writer of two centuries ago. Of Penry he wrote, ' besides the assertions of that party that shed his blood, I have met with nothing to induce me to believe [that he was Marprelate]. . . . What I have read of Penry appears to me to be written with an intirely different stile and temper from Martin Marprelate! 2 The theory that Job Throkmorton was Martin Marprelate can be supported by a more plausible body of evidence. He was no doubt a humorist. In the judgment of friendly critics he was a facetious writer and speaker ; his enemies complain of his gibing tongue? His vein of pungent satire was well known to his contemporaries ; this and his 1 Arber's Sketch, 188. 2 Jas. Peirce, A Vindic. of Dissenters (1717), p. 148. 3 Life ofQ. ffliz., W. Camden, 420, 421. 294 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS humour may be seen, though under strict restraint, in his published Defence against Sutcliffe. His pre-eminent literary skill is not to be doubted. The brief petitions which he addressed to Burleigh and Hatton themselves suffice to indicate his rare gifts as a stylist. He was not unconscious of his powers of rough badinage. In his Defence, addressed to a lady who is supposed to have been his mother, he refers to the speeches in which Sutcliffe confuted Egerton ' of late in Pawles ' ; they were, he says, ' neither Greek nor Hebrew, nor yet scarce an congruitie of good manner, but (sauing your reverence, Madam) plaine Scable and Scurvy Jacke. In which veine of kitchen rhetorike, if they would give me leaue also to followe the sway of fleshe and bloud, me thinkes I could easilie without anie great sweate or paines (if there were no boundes of modestie to restrain e me) learne to confute the honestest man and the greatest Clarke in Christendome.' * 2 1 Op. cit. B iii. rect. et vers. 2 WORD TESTS. (a) In reading Throkmorton's Defence we observe that he employs the verb to muse in a sense which at the time must have seemed old-fashioned. In his pages it connotes to marvel, to wonder. It was a favourite word with him. Here are examples : Musinge with myself that he would thus boldlie rush upon these matters. 1 Further, I cannot but muze that he being a scholer, etc. 2 I muse they would not publishe it altogither. 3 I muse, I say, if he should comment on this. 4 This use of the word can be found in the writings of Spenser and Bacon ; but it was not common in 1588. 6 Examples of the word are to be found only in the two last of the printed Tracts, with the antique meaning to marvel : Nevertheless, I muse thou didst let him go clear away. ... I muse thou saidst nothing to that. 6 I greatly muse that our prelates will be so overseen. 7 We are also interested to find this use of the word in the pamphlet M. Some in his Colliers : I cannot but muse at one thing. I muse your D. would be at cost to print vs a new Almanacke of last yeare. 8 1 Op. cit. A ii. vers. 2 Ibid. C ii. vers. 3 Ibid. B ii. 4 Ibid. B iii. vers. 5 See Faerie Qiieene, Bk. i. xii. 29, Bk. n. i. 9 ; Life of Henry VII. 6 THE JUST CENSURE, sig. D iv. 7 THE PROTESTATYON, 18. 8 Op. cit. 25, 27. THE TRACTS AND THEIR AUTHOR 295 (e) THE PROBLEM OF THE UNFINISHED THESES MARTIN- IANAE. -The determination of the exact relation of Throk- morton and Penry to the Tracts will be found at last to turn largely upon our interpretation of the incomplete sentences of this interim publication. A plausible theory is to our hand were it not for these imperfections. The problem, in a (&) Penry had a liking for the word oppugn, which, being a somewhat uncommon word, arrests our attention : They are intolerable oppugners of Gods glory. 1 Wherein you by oppugning that trueth which out of the worde of God I had sette down.' 2 I am sory that you whom I reverence should be the instrument to oppugn a trueth. 3 The word occurs also in the Tracts : That her Majesty's true subjects in oppugning the state of the lord bishops, etc. That those who defend the doctrine of our Church in oppugning our Bishops, etc. 4 I will . . . maintain ... as ever I did oppugn, etc. 5 (c) Another interesting verbal peculiarity is the employment of the verb to insult, with the meaning of to exult ; a meaning which at the time was fast going out of use. 6 It also occurs with the same meaning in M. Some in Ms Coulcrs. 7 (d] And in connection with the latter tract, it may be worth while to add that Marprelate used the phrase, ' I shall paint them in their coulers,' with the spelling of the italicised word as in the above title, in his first tract, THE EPISTLE (41, 108) ; while in the interim tract, THESES, the sentence occurs (in the original), ' for now art thou set out in thy colors ' (sig. C iv. ). But it must be admitted that it is a precarious proceeding to draAV any deduction from the spelling of words in the publications of this period. Two editions of the same work, printed within a few months of each other, will, in some cases, show endless variations in orthography. The word-tests cited above must be taken for what they are worth. They are supported by too few examples, being drawn from a necessarily restricted area, to be of much value standing alone. Nor is their significance perfectly clear, whatever value w r e should be pleased to assign to them. In the case of Job Throkmorton they would suggest that he was ' Martin Senior ' ; also the author of M. Some in his Coulers, which already we have assigned to his pen ; and in the case of John Penry, that he \vas ' Martin Junior,' and helped Throkmorton in the first part of the hastily written PROTESTATYON. They are matters which we shall have to discuss before we close. 1 A Viewe (vulgo, The Supplication}, 53. 2 A Def. of that which hath been uwitten, 1. 3 Ibid. 63. 4 THESES, 94, 100. 5 PROTESTATYON, 9. 6 THE EPISTLE, title-page. 7 Op. cit. 'Ep. to the Reader.' See Foxe, A. and M. iv. 645 ; Park. Corresp. 364. Shakespeare uses the more common form, insult upon, to express the meaning exult. 296 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS word, is this : Why did not Penry or Throkmorton, or both, complete the unfinished sentences in THESES ? Professedly this tract is written by two hands. The Editor, ' Martin Junior,' contributes the title-page, a few introductory sentences, and an Epilogue. The central section by ' Martin Marprelate the Great ' consists of a short ' preamble ' and one hundred and ten THESES. Our task centres itself in the elucidation of the c preamble/ It is written specially for the occasion. It is no ' remainder biscuit ' from an earlier enterprise, upon which the managers have fallen back in their pressing need of ' copy ' to keep the printers employed. In the opening sentence there is a recognition of the dislike with which Martin's ' doings ' and his ' course ' up to this time are regarded by many, ' both the good and the bad ' ; ' by the Bishops and their train ' ; also by ' those whom, foolishly, men call Puritans.' It banters Bishop Cooper, whose Admonition had been some months in circulation, for offering ' his opinion ' on the question of Church government, as though it were equivalent to Scriptural proof and argument. As a whole, judged by its contents, it falls naturally into its place after HAY ANY WORKE, and must have been recently written ; a section of it so recently that it is still unfinished when handed over to the printer. In the beginning of the * preamble ' a gap is left for the insertion of a sentence which was either lacking in the ' copy ' or undecipherable by the printers ; at its close we have the abrupt termina- tion, 'otherwise their 812, their 1401 ' figures which, as we have shown, refer to these pages in Bridges' Defence. The THESES also end abruptly with an unfinished sentence and are otherwise imperfect, not being furnished with the necessary references ; but this may reasonably be put down to want of time, and leave the THESES as stated, only rela- tively imperfect. Martin Junior refers to them as a ' first draft.' 1 Martin Junior's account of how he came into possession of the 'copy' written by his Father, Martin the Great, 1 THESES, sig. C iv. THE TRACTS AND THEIR AUTHOR 297 agrees substantially with the statement of Hodgkins the printer. He says, 'if you demand of me, where I found this, the truth is it was taken up (together with certain other papers) besides a bush, where it had dropped from somebody passing that way/ l Hodgkins in his account tells us that when he brought his printers from London, he left them at Adderbury and himself proceeded to Haseley. There he found Squire Throkmorton and also Penry. The chief news he received was that MORE WORK was not ready for the press ; but he was promised a smaller pamphlet to occupy his men in the meantime. Next day, as he left for Warwick, on his way to Wolston, where the press and type were lying, Penry ' would needes bringe him one his waye/ and ( within a boult shoote of the house ' they found ' a great part of the saide " theses." ' The remaining portion of the copy reached the printers' hands after the arrival of Throkmorton at Wolston, four days later. Simms naturally assumed that it was brought by him ; conceivably it might have been brought by Penry, who reached the Friary a day earlier than the appearance of the ' copy ' and the arrival of Throkmorton. With these simple facts before us, is it possible to hold that either Penry or Throkmorton wrote the Preamble ? ' Martin Junior/ who edited the THESES, we are quite prepared to believe was John Penry ; but we cannot suppose that the writer of the Preamble intended that it should be printed in its unfinished state. Passing for the moment to the companion tract, THE JUST CENSURE AND EEPROOFE OF MARTIN JUNIOR, commonly called ' Martin Senior/ we find that the assumptions of the authorship of THESES MARTINIANAE are continued. The fresh tract is called forth as a reproof of the rash precipi- tancy of the younger brother, by Martin Senior. The youth, Jack, as he is several times called, that is, John Penry, has sent forth their Father's writings in an unfinished state. But it should be carefully noted that there is nothing in the JUST CENSURE on this point which may not be naturally applied to printing, not the incomplete preamble, but the 1 Op. cit. sig. C iii. vers. 2 Yelverton MSS. 70. 146. 298 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS THESES without their supporting references. 1 That is to say, there is nothing in the tract which Job Throkmorton could not have written, after Penry and Hodgkins had left Haseley Manor for Wolston, and before he knew that the ' preamble ' had been printed in its incomplete- ness. There are now before us two theories which may more or less satisfactorily account for the textual condition of THESES MARTINIANAE, and for the authorship of that tract and of its companion and sequel. The first and simplest is to accept the names Martin Junior and Martin Senior as indicating the advent of two new writers. They distinguish themselves from Martin Marprelate, the writer of the three first Primary Tracts, calling him their Father. This secret personage has conveyed to them his unfinished writings he is busy writing the large tract MORE WORK FOR COOPER which, judging now from the actual story of Hodgkins and his men, were edited by John Penry, who is Martin Junior or Jack. This is followed up by Job Throkmorton or Martin Senior, who writes THE JUST CENSURE AND RE- PROOFE, the writing which Hodgkins was able to promise his men on the Friday on which Job Throkmorton arrived at Wolston, would be ready when Martin Junior was out of their hands. 2 But the more simple theory is not necessarily the more probable, especially when we have to deal with an astute, cautious, and complex mind. Penry is a man of much simplicity of character ; his courage in conducting the Marprelate press verges on recklessness ; his stratagem is his boldness and rapidity of movement. Not so Throkmorton ; he is more circumspect ; he never innocently walks into ambuscade ; he is subtler in his tactics than his Welsh con- federate. In a half-humorous way he takes Penry to task for his reckless openness, which also was a matter of com- plaint against Penry on the part of Waldegrave. This, as well as certain indications of style, would lead us to recon- 1 The phrase ' than to have . . . published his imperfect questions ' seems to allude definitely to the THESES. Each thesis is an implied question. THESES MART. sig. B i. 2 Manchester Papers, 123 (J). THE TRACTS AND THEIR AUTHOR 299 struct the story of these two Wolston interim tracts as follows. When Penry, and later Hodgkins, arrived at Haseley Manor they found that MORE WORK FOR COOPER was not ready ; a kind of indolence, or lack of driving power, is often characteristic of such a mind as Throk- rnorton's. He can be naturally contrasted with Penry, whose literary rapidity was the fruit of his more direct vision. The long subsequent years of Throkmorton's religious unrest is typical of his intellectual temperament. We are therefore inclined to suppose that, having the unfinished THESES by him they are full of subtle dialectical points he furnished them with the < preamble,' in which a couple of lacunae were left, to be filled in later on, either by himself or by Penry, on reference to Bridges' Defence, and to some other authority. 1 There was great haste needed. The printers had already arrived in the Midlands ; and Hodgkins, a man of much energy and decision, had reached the manor-house late on Sunday night. For his own sake, as well as for the sake of Throkmorton, Hodgkins was not to learn the secret of authorship ; therefore, by the device which we know, the ' copy ' was dropped by the bush, in the darkness of that night ; a showery night, it is suggested. Next morning Penry convoyed the master-printer by the right path that he might pick up the papers. There are good grounds for the supposition that for safety sake, Penry was not to know who was the anonymous author. As ' Martin Senior ' suggests, if he did riot know, then Whitgift could not, if he succeeded in arresting him, wring from him the secret by torture. 2 But during the walk with Hodgkins as far as Warwick, the rain-washed manuscript would be examined. It consisted of the 'preamble' and the one hundred and ten THESES. The 1 It is to be noted that ' Martin Senior ' refers to Tyndale's Obcd. of a Christian Man, but for want of ' convenient leisure ' he cannot give the exact quotation, though he quotes the page. He has not the volume by him when writing. JUST CENSURE, D i. vers. 2 ' The reason why we must not know our father is that I fear lest some of us should fall into John Canterbury's hand, and the[n] he'll threaten us with the rack, unless we bewray all we know.' JUST CENSUKE, sig. D iv. vers. 300 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS imperfections iii the former would at once be seen. It was the hastily written introduction to the THESES. We feel sure Hodgkius would be no advocate of any delay in proceeding with the work. He was full of push and energy and got through his task with far greater despatch than Waldegrave had shown in printing the black-letter Tracts. Within a fortnight he had printed THESES MARTINIANAE and THE JUST CENSURE and was off with his ' stuff ' to Warrington. He conceived that his safety lay in the rapidity of his movements, and therefore refused entirely the invitation of Mrs. Wigston to remain at the Friary and print MORE WORK FOR COOPER. Certainly the decision of Hodgkins would be beyond doubt to go on without delay with the ' copy ' such as it was. Leaving Hodgkins to find his man, according to his appointment, at Warwick, and to proceed to Wolston, Penry would travel to Coventry, where he appears to have had friends Here he penned the introductory pages the title-page and the short prefatory note. The faithful were holding a fast at Coventry, and among them was Mrs. Wigston. For this reason she was not at home to receive the printers on their coming. She arrived on Tuesday night, and doubtless handed over to Hodgkins Penry's prefatory words, which enabled him to strike off the earlier half-sheets without delay. Penry recognises the incompleteness of the writings he is introducing to the reader. The principal matter is the lack of explanatory references to accompany the THESES. There is no intention of completing them. He says later in his Epilogue that ' proofs ' of a third of them can be found in HAY ANY WORKE. But the entire tract only partakes of the character of a stop-gap. The deficiencies in the ' preamble ' were of a different character. The writer never intended they should appear in the printed copy. The printers even left a space for the insertion of the missing sentence; and as it was not forthcoming, and evidently Penry could supply neither it nor the extended references indicated by the figures at the close, it was struck off in this fashion. The only reference to these THE TRACTS AND THEIR AUTHOR 301 omissions is in the short introductory sentences by Martin Junior on the verso of the title-page. He says : This small thing that followeth before the THESES is also his own. I have set down the speech as I found it, though unperfect. The other references in these sentences and in the Epilogue, and in the following tract THE JUST CENSURE, are to the incompleteness of the THESES. The most natural explana- tion, taking all the facts into account, is that Job Throk- morton was the source of the THESES, and that by his default the ' preamble ' had to be printed in its unfinished state. (/) THE RELATIVE LITERARY MERITS OF THE PRIMARY AND SECONDARY TRACTS. The author of Martins Months Mind, when THESES MARTINIANAE and THE JUST CENSURE were published under the pseudonyms of ' Martin Junior ' and ' Martin Senior/ remarked, that ' Old Martin [was] a wittier fool than his sonnes.' l Is this a sound critical judgment ? We have seen reason to disbelieve the theory that Penry was Martin Marprelate. He probably wrote the editorial matter in THESES ; and this section being more or less in Penry's known style, with such adaptations to fit the assumed situation as he was capable of, we may agree at once that they cannot claim the kind of wit which char- acterised the writings of c Old Martin.' What remains of this tract does not afford us much material whereby to institute a comparison between it and the Primary Tracts ; the ' preamble ' is too short though not without a positive Martinist flavour; and the hundred-and-ten THESES do not lend themselves to such literary criticism. THE JUST CENSURE by ' Martin Senior ' may, however, be set beside THE EPISTLE, THE EPITOME, and HAY ANY WORKE for the purpose of our criticism. The element of censure and reproof to be found in it here and there, and advertised in its title-page, is small and detachable; a little addition of the literary costumier's to enable the body of the tract to fit the vacant part in the new act in the play. Its 1 Op. cit. D i. vers. 302 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS substantial and really noteworthy sections are the charges which ' Martin Senior ' imagines Whitgift and Aylmer to have delivered to their respective pursuivants ; and the delicious explication of ' Bishops' English.' Besides which there are various digressions and proposals and affirmations, all, at least, after the manner of the earlier Martins. But can it be said of all these specified portions that they are of a piece with the veritable writings of ' Old Martin ' ? They are undoubtedly the more attractive parts of the tract and would form part of a Martin even were the assumption of the elder brother ' Martin Senior ' entering into fray, never adopted. Are they, however, of such a character that they could justly be ascribed to the writer of THE EPISTLE ? We give it as our judgment, that nothing in THE JUST CENSURE quite equals, or perhaps it would be better to say, is of quite the same sparkle and vivacity as the finer parts of the black-letter Tracts ; though we admit that the speech to his laggard and unsuccessful pursuivants put into the mouth of the Archbishop is cleverly done, and closely after the recognised manner of Marprelate. But in THE EPISTLE, THE EPITOME, and HAY ANY WOKKE we discover a spontaneity, an unexpectedness, a provoking and strongly sustained satirical familiarity, an easily assumed bonhomie masking a fierce indignation at the lawless oppression of Whitgift and his Bishops, which we discover, in the same measure, in no other writing of the time. The question now remains to be asked, If our view of the relative characters of these writings be correct, does it certainly follow that they are not the work of one and the same author ? Let us remember that these interim publica- tions, in any case, were merely interludes. The genuine successor to the greater Tracts is the long-looked-for MORE WORK FOR COOPER ; a composition which we may assume had all the features which made the first Tracts so popular. Even if we identified ' Martin Senior ' with ' Old Martin/ should we not expect in the lever de rideau writing, some- thing less of vim and wit than in the writings in chief? Are there not in the undisputed writings of known authors, THE TRACTS AND THEIR AUTHOR 303 pieces of happy inspiration which stand in contrast with the more ordinary character of their remaining works ? Macaulay takes the well-known case of Francis, the imputed writer of The Letters of Junius. It was pointed out that the acknowledged writings of Philip Francis were inferior in keenness and style to the celebrated Letters. Macaulay's reply is so much to our present point that his words may be quoted : Nobody will say that the best letters of Junius are more decidedly superior to the acknowledged works of Francis than three or four of Corneille's tragedies to the rest, than three or four of Ben Jonson's comedies to the rest, than the Pilgrim's Progress to the other works of Bunyan, than Don Quixote to the other works of Cervantes. Nay, it is certain that Junius, who- ever he may have been, was a most unequal writer. To go no farther than the letters which bear the signature of Junius ; the letter to the King, and the letters to Home Tooke have little in common except the asperity. 1 The writing of ' Martin Senior ' is sufficiently near the style of the earlier Martins, that they may have had a common authorship. And if there be strong grounds for assigning the authorship of THE JUST CENSURE to Throk- morton, then he may with probability be regarded as Martin Marprelate. (g) THE EVIDENCE OF THE PROTESTATYON. There re- mains one more tract, one of the Primaries, to be con- sidered. The last of the series to be actually printed and by slow and cautious degrees to be circulated, THE PROTESTATYON OF MARTIN MARPRELATE is a pamphlet of exceptional interest. We have no reason to question its authorship. It assumes to be, what from circumstantial and internal evidence we must conclude it is, a work from the pen of the doughty champion himself. It was written like the interim Tracts under the pressure of great haste. But his desperate straits have only nerved Marprelate for this last attack. The old ardour burns in his veins ; the old wit flashes from his rapid and defiant sentences. 1 Essays, ' Warren Hastings. ' 304 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS Things have gone against him ; especially he has to lament the bitter calamity of the seizure of the printers ; John Hodgkins and his two men, Siinms and Thomlyn, are at the mercy of Whitgift and his High Commission. He has been waging at great odds a guerilla warfare, and the Archbishop's forces have been too much for him. In such a plight only Martin Marprelate could have written THE PROTESTATYON. The circumstances already narrated show convincingly that the two persons concerned in this last venture were Throkmorton and Penry. As customary, Throkmorton had early news of the arrival of the captive printers in London, at the end of August 1589. The news was at once despatched to Penry, then at Wolston, where there still remained a printing-press and type. There, in every probability, and not at Haseley, the last tract was printed. We have no suggestion, in the available evidence, of a press ever having been lodged at Haseley; and the extreme caution exercised by Throkmorton in all his dealings in the Marprelate enterprise, strongly incline us to believe that he never had the printing apparatus under his roof. But the ink, we learn, was forwarded from London to Haseley ; and to Haseley the printed copies of the PROTESTATYON were brought, and there remained undistributed, till later they were removed to the house of Henry Godley at North- ampton. Neither of the confederates would remain at Wolston the whole of the time occupied in printing THE PROTESTATYON. 1 The printers were in custody and they knew not how much information the torture would compel them to divulge. Care had been taken not to let the assistant printers Siinms and Thomlyn know the names of Penry and Throkmorton during the previous printing at Wolston ; but the danger was obvious. Penry would doubtless return to Northampton and Throkmorton to Haseley. The absence of a competent reader of the proofs (for the printer of the principal part of the PROTESTATYON 1 The story of the clumsy setting up of the first half-sheet, probably by Penry and Throkmorton, is told above, p. 193. THE TRACTS AND THEIR AUTHOR 305 can only be regarded as competent by comparing his work with that of the blundering amateurs who set up the first half -sheet) will explain the muddled repetition of the sentences in the third half -sheet. But the principal arrived in time to point out on the last page the confusion which had occurred. ' Mend that thyself/ he says, ' if thou wilt ; for I promise thee I cannot.' Then in thoroughly Martinesque fashion he makes amends, by telling an anec- dote of the eccentric Dean Bullen. Just as in the ' preamble ' to the THESES, here also even more distinctly, the writer assumes himself to be the same that wrote the black-letter quartos. ' I who do now go under the name of Martin Marprelate ' is his description of himself. 1 He speaks naturally as Martin, in the following fine passages : As for myself, my life, and whatsoever else I possess, I have long ago set up my rest ; 2 making that account of it as in stand- ing against the enemies of God and for the liberty of His church, it is no value in my sight. My life in this cause, shall be a gain to the church, and no loss to myself, I know right well ; and this is all the reckoning which, by the assistance of the Lord, I will make as long as I live, of all the torments they have devised for me. 3 Hereunto you may add, that I fear them not ; inasmuch as the end wherefore I have taken this work in hand, was only the glory of God ; by delivering (of) His church from the great tyranny and bondage, wherewith these tyrants do oppress the same. I dealt not herein, as the Lord knoweth, because I would please myself, or my reader, in a pleasant vein of writing. If that be the thing I sought, or seek, after, then let my writings be buried in the grave of all proud prelates; that is, never mentioned in the church of God without detestation. 4 These, beyond all doubt, are the words of Martin Marprelate, author of the Tracts which earlier were issued under that name. His statement covers all his ' writings.' To suppose that either Penry or Throkmorton assumed the name of the 1 Op. cit. 10. 2 =' Taken my irrevocable stand.' A phrase taken from the card -game primero. 3 Op. cit. 14. * Ibid. 17. X 306 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS earlier writer and dramatically and imaginatively spoke in his name, appealing solemnly to the Almighty to attest the truth of his words, is utterly impossible. The writer of the PROTESTATYON is the same who wrote the EPISTLE. Also his knowledge of the contents of MORE WORK, for we may credit the account given us of that writing in the PRO- TESTATYON, could scarcely in the circumstances have been written by any one but the author of MORE WORK. We now therefore are face to face with our last question : Does the PROTESTATYON, printed beyond doubt through the agency of Penry and Throkmorton, offer any further evi- dence pointing to either of these men, or both conjointly, as its author or authors ? What has been said before may here be repeated. There are sections in the earlier part of the tract which conceivably could have been written by Penry. Nevertheless we incline to believe that it is the work of a single writer. For reasons already given this writer may well have been Throkmorton. We have the special use of his favourite word ' to muse ' ; also a refer- ence to one of the few names occurring in Marprelate's pages which we have failed to identify, and have only been able to trace in one other contemporary work. It is the name of ' old Lockwood of Sarum/ and occurs again in M. Some in his Coulers, which we strongly believe was written by Throkmorton. There is one more piece of evidence in the PROTESTATYON, as we have stated above, which also points, even more strongly than anything hitherto considered, to Throkmorton as its writer ; and therefore to him as Martin Marprelate. Bancroft in his sermon at Paul's Cross expressed his con- cern for Martin's wife and children. He reproached Martin for the trouble he had brought upon them. In the PRO- TESTATYON Martin refers to this matter. He says I am blamed of many in this mine attempt, not only for throwing myself into great danger, but also for the utter un- doing of my wife and children. I do thank them with all my heart, for their care over these poor souls, and commend them for their secrecy and wisdom ; that in knowing my wife and THE TRACTS AND THEIR AUTHOR 307 children, they have not, by showing their immeasurable love towards them, discovered me. . . . Will you believe me then, if I tell you the truth 1 To put you therefore out of all doubt, I may safely protest unto you, with a good conscience, . . . that hitherto I never had wife nor child in all my life. Not that I never mean to have any ; for, it may be, notwithstanding all the rage and barking of the Lambethical whelps, I may be married, and that ere it be long. 1 Penry, we have seen, was married in September the previous year. But Throkmorton actually married Dorothy Vernon of Houndhill about this time. 2 His eldest child Clement was baptized the late summer of 1590 by Thomas Cart- wright. We learn this from Whitgift's articles of indict- ment against Cartwright, dated September 1st, 1590, which accuse him of seizing the occasion to condemn the ' ecclesiastical government then established/ and especially the liturgy. If we are convinced that Job Throkmorton wrote the PROTESTATYON, we may yet wonder why he gave this frank and compromising piece of autobiography. It is a question similar to that which perplexed us in relation to the names mentioned in THE JUST CENSURE. It cannot have been reckless bravado. Perhaps there was a man married, and with wife and children, whom the prelates were bent upon undoing, because they falsely suspected him of being Marprelate ; and these words may have been an effort to deliver him out of his danger. But they add considerably to the sum of the circumstantial evidence pointing to Job Throkmorton as the great anonymous satirist. There is indeed only one circumstance which in any measure stands as an obstacle in the way. It is Job Throkmorton's own denial of the identification. He says in his Defence But because, Madame, I am to render accompt of my doings before other manner of men then Maister Sutdiffe. Seeing an oth (as th' Apostle saieth) ought to bee th' ende of all strife, I will for my finall clearing heerin (when soeuer it shall be thought 1 Op. cit. 14-16. 2 See above, p. 210. 308 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS so good by the State) willinglie take this oth, as I haue hereto- fore offered ; to witte, That I am not Martin, I knewe not Martin, And concerning that I stande enlightened of, I am as cleare as the child unborne. 1 The remark of Matthew Sutcliffe is that he is safe to offer to take such an oath when an Act of Parliament is passed requiring it. But our own interpretation is that Throk- morton is referring to his forthcoming trial at the Warwick Assizes. But the question cannot, with the information at present at our disposal, be pushed any further. The alternative is a ' dark horse ' ; a clever lawyer about Court, like Knollys, or Morrice, or Beale; who was the writer of the Marprelate quartos, of the ' preamble ' to the THESES, and of the PROTESTATYON ; who mysteriously, if not magically, conveyed his ' copy ' to Throkmorton and Penry, and induced these men, at great risk, to get them printed ; yet without ever disclosing his identity. ' Martin Junior ' would then be Penry, and ' Martin Senior ' be Throkmorton. But this theory also, any who have followed our narrative will readily admit, is not without its great difficulties. All that we are compelled to say in a spirit of unprejudiced fairness is, that the identification of Job Throkmorton as Marprelate is not complete ; and nothing that we have been able to adduce positively shuts out the existence of a Great Unknown, or makes it quite incredible that the assumptions of ' Martin Junior ' and ' Martin Senior ' and the solemn denial of Throkmorton, are in agreement with historic fact. We await the lucky discovery of the next student of these interesting documents to set our perplexities at rest. 1 The Defence of Job Throkmorton against . . . Maister Sutcliffe , 1594, sig. E ii. (B.M. 4378, c. 46). APPENDICES A. A CHRONOLOGY OF EVENTS, 1588-1590. B. A SELECT MARPRELATE BIBLIOGRAPHY. C. THE EVIDENCE OF THE PRINTERS, HODGKINS, SIMMS, AND THOMLYN. I. THE EXAMINATION OF JOHN HODGKINS (Yelverton MSS., vol. 70, f. 146). II. THE EXAMINATION OF VALENTINE SIMMS AND ARTHUR THOMLYN (Manchester Papers, No. 123). 309 APPENDIX A A CHEONOLOGY OF EVENTS [1588-1590] CHIEFLY RELATING TO THE MARPRELATE TRACTS [1584. A Brief e and Plaine Declaration published. Running head- line, 'A Learned Discourse of Ecclesiastical Govern- ment/ [? W. Fulke, D.D.] This is the groundwork of the Marprelate controversy.] [1584. Dr. John Bridges, Dean of Sarum, preaches at Paul's Cross against A Brief e and Plaine Declaration.] [1587. A Defence of the Government Established, by Dean Bridges, published. An expansion of the sermon, 1584. Two brief replies quickly appeared. In the same year : A Defence of the godlie Ministers (Dudley Fenner), and early in 1588, A Defence of the Ecclesiastical Discipline, anon.] 1588 Feb. . John Field, minister of Aldermanbury, joint author with Thomas Wilcox, of An Admonition to Parlia- ment, 1572, dies. March 13. A Petition addressed to Elizabeth by the Puritans in London prisons. Harl. MS. 5848. 13. 18. Henry Barrowe, the Separatist, examined before the Council at Whitehall. Ibid. April . A Dialogue, commonly called ' Diotrephes,' by John Udall, minister of Kingston, printed in London by Robert Waldegrave. (See Introd. to Prof. E. Arber's reprint.) 312 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS April 16. R. Waldegrave's house at the sign of The Crane in St. Paul's Churchyard searched and his press, etc., seized, along with a number of copies of Diotrephes. (See A Dialogue, wherein is plainly laide open [Lamb. Pal. Lib. 29. 9. 4], sig. B iii. vers. ; also In trod, to Diotrephes, Prof. Arber's reprint, xii.) 16. John Wolf sent by the Wardens of the Stationers' Company to Croydon, to consult Archbishop Whit- gift about Waldegrave. Arber's Transcripts of the Stationers' Registers, i. 528. 17. Waldegrave and his wife bring a box of type, which he secreted under his cloak when his house was raided, to Mrs. Crane's house in Aldermary. Harl. MS. 7042. 32. An Exhortation mto the gouernours and people of Wales, by John Penry, printed by Waldegrave towards the close of the month. May 6. A Godly Treatise concerning the Ministry, by Dr. R. Some, published. 2nd and 3rd editions of Penry's Exhortation issued, with brief references to the Godly Treatise, during the second week in May. 13. Robert Waldegrave enters a book, title to be supplied later, at the Stationers' Company. Arber's Tran- scripts, ii. 228. The Court of the Stationers' Company order Walde- grave's press and type, seized on April 16th, to be destroyed and made unserviceable. Typog. Antiq. by Ames, ed. by Herbert, ii. 1145. ,, 29. The Spanish Armada sails from the Tagus. June 10. The pursuivants of the Stationers' Company go to Kingston in search of Waldegrave's press. Arber's Transcripts, i. 248, 249. John Udall of Kingston silenced. ,, 25. (dr.) Mrs. Waldegrave calls at Mrs. Crane's house at Aldermary for the type left there on April 17th. Harl. MS. 7042. 32, 4. R. Waldegrave and John Penry engaged in printing at Mrs. Crane's house at East Molesey 'about 3 weeks . . . after Midsommer.' Harl. MS. 7042. 13, 5. 30. Archbishop Whitgift delegates the censorship to Dr Cosiri and seven others, ' or any one of them.' Arber's Introd. Sketch, 51. APPENDIX A 313 July 12. The Spanish Armada sets sail from the Groine (Corunna). 18. Henry Barrowe examined 'at the courte by the Counsayle.' Harl. M.S. 6848. 13. ,, 19-28. The Armada sighted off the Lizard. A running fight maintained by the English as it advanced up the Channel. The Spanish vessels scattered by Howard's fire-ships. 25. John Penry 'about St. Jamestide' asks Sir Richard Knightley of Fawsley, Northamptonshire, to house his secret press. Hargrave's State Trials, vii. 30. 27. Bishop Wickham of Lincoln makes an appeal on behalf of Thomas Thomas, the Cambridge Puritan printer. Lansd. MS. 57. 74. The Demonstration of Discipline by John Udall printed by R. Waldegrave at East Molesey. Lansd. MS. 61. 68; Harl. MS. 7042. 33 (10). Aug. . A Defence of that which hath bin written [replying to the 1st edition of Dr. Some's Godly Treatise], by John Penry. Printed at East Molesey by R. Waldegrave. Harl. MS. 7042. 23. Sept. 4. The Earl of Leicester dies. 5. At All Saints', Northampton, John Penry marries Eleanor, daughter of Henry Godley of that town. Hist, of the Ch. of St. Peter, Northampton by R. M. Sergeantson, M.A., p. 35 n. 15. (dr.) John Udall and Stephen Chatfield, vicar, confer in a field near Kingston. Udall threatens to write if the Bishops silence him. Harl. MS. 7042. 4. 19. A Godly Treatise, by Dr. R. Some, issued with a second part, replying to Penry's Exhortation and Defence. 1 9. Anatomie of Absurdities, by Thomas Nashe, entered in the Stationers' Register. Arber's Transcripts, ii. 499. 29. (dr.) John Penry and R. Waldegrave at East Molesey, 'occupied about y e printing of a Booke about Michaelmas.' Harl. MS. 7042. 32 (6). Parliamentary opposition offered to the High Com- mission. Lord Grey delivers a speech against the action of the Bishops. Lives of the Puritans, by N. Brook, i. 54. Oct. 7. Bishop Scambler of Norwich condemns Francis Kett 314 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS for Heresy. (Afterwards burnt.) Lansd. MS. 57. 75. Oct. 15. (dr.) Marprelate's EPISTLE (to a promised 'Epitome' of Dean Bridges' Defence) issued at East Molesey. See Hist. Introd. R. Waldegrave sees Sir Richard Knightley at a ' muster ' at Northampton, about the removal of the secret press to Fawsley. Harl. MS. 7042. 23 (/). Nov. 1. Mrs. Crane arriving at her house at East Molesey at ' Hallowmas ' finds the press has been removed. Harl. MS. 7042. 33. 1. Sir Richard Knightley, after his talk with Penry at St. Jamestide, first hears of the secret press at ' Allhallowtide.' State Trials, ed. by C. Hargrave, vii. 30. 1. A man staying at Northampton visits Fawsley House. He sees R. Waldegrave and obtains some of the Libells newly printed [Marprelate's EPISTLE]. Lansd. MS. 61. 68. (See entry Feb. 1st, 1589.) 13-14. The Queen directs the Lord Chancellor and the Lord High Treasurer to write to Archbishop Whitgift requesting the High Commission to search for the 'author and abettors of a seditious book against the ecclesiastical government ' (Lord Burleigh's letter is dated Nov. 14th). Strype's Whitgift (Oxf. 1822), i. 551. 14. Lawrence Jackson, keeper of Fawsley House, stated that about this date the secret press arrived. First Penry came bearing Sir Richard's gimmal- ring as his credential. Jeffs, of Upton, followed with the 'stuffe.' (This evidence, given more than a year after the event, is probably wrong by some days.) Harl. MS. 7042. 1. 14. An inquiry is held at Kingston-on-Thames into the circulation of Marprelate's EPISTLE in the town. Harl. MS. 6849. 157, 159. 15. Francis Thynne, writing to Lord Burghley, alludes to the 'foolish sons' of Marprelate. S. P. Dom. 23. 24. The Queen attends a Te Deum at St. Paul's, after the defeat of the Spanish Armada. 27-30. Completed copies of Marprelate's EPITOME despatched to London. See Hist. Introd. APPENDIX A 315 The Episcopal pursuivants rifle Waldegrave's house, breaking through the main wall. HAY ANY WORKE FOR COOPER, 41. Nov. 29. Inquiry held at Eichmond. Walter Kogers relates rumours concerning Jno. Udall, Harl. MS. 7042. 15. Dec. 6. Giles Wigginton, minister of Sedburgh, Yorks, is examined by the Archbishop at a Court of High Commission sitting at Lambeth. He is questioned about THE EPISTLE and THE EPITOME. Second Parte of a Register (MS. Dr. Williams' Lib.), 843 ff. 25. (dr.) E. Waldegrave comes to Sir E. Knightley to obtain the press to print Cartwright's book against the Jesuits. (Sir Eichard's evidence, Feb. 13, 1590).-Sfofe Trials (Hargrave's ed.), vii. 30. 1589 Jan. 1. Henry Barrowe examined at the Fleet by Justice Young, Dr. Some, etc., about his critical notes written in the margin of his copy of Dr. Some's Godly Treatise. Karl. MS. 6848. 28a. The Reformed Politicke, by John Fregeville, published. [Dedication dated 'From London this 12. of December 1588'; title-page dated '1589.'] 9. Pursuivants engaged for two days searching for a 'suspected presse.' Arber's Transcripts, i. 248. 9. (dr.) Stephen Gifford, servant to Sir Eichard Knight- ley, takes the press from Fawsley to a farm on the estate at Norton, 'about 2 or 3 dayes after Twelve-tide ' ; where it remained unused ' about a fortnight.' Harl. MS. 7042. 2. 10. An Admonition to the People of England, by T[homas] Cfooper] (Bishop of Winchester). The official reply to Martin Marprelate. Entered this date at Stationers' Hall. Arber's Mrod. Sketch, 139. 29. The Archbishop's pursuivants raid Jno. Penry's study, at Henry Godley's house at Northampton. They find there a copy of Udall's Demonstration of Discipline, and the MS. of a reply to the enlarged edition of Some's Godly Treatise. See Penry's Appellation, 6, 7. For the correct year, see art. in The Library, by J. D. Wilson, Oct. 1907. 316 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS The press removed from Norton-by-Daventry to the White Friars, the house of John Hales at Coventry, at the close of this month or early in February. See Hist. Introd. Feb. 1. Dr. John Piers elected Archbishop of York. The see vacant since July 10th, 1588. 1. Man staying at Northampton a second time visits Fawsley, and obtains copies of the c newly-printed Libell ' [THE EPITOME]. See entry and ref. ante, Nov. 1, 1588. 4. Elizabeth's seventh Parliament opened. 9. Dr. R. Bancroft preached a sermon at St. Paul's Cross on 'The Trying of Spirits,' in which he denounces 'Martin' and all schismatics. [The printed Sermon was entered at Stationers' Hall, Mar. 3rd.] 13. A Proclamation issued in the Queen's name against ' schismatical and seditious books, defamatory libels, and other fantastical writings.' Card well's Docum. Annals, ii. 18. ,, 15. Nicholas Tomkins, servant to Mrs. Crane, examined before Dr. Cosin at Lambeth. Harl. MS. 7042. 13. 20. (dr.) Marprelate's MINERALL AND METAPHYSICAL SCHOOLPOINTS issued from the press at Coventry. Harl. MS. 7042. 13. March 7. John Penry's Appellation written (not printed) at this date. Stephen Gifford, servant to Sir Richard Knightley, goes to Coventry for a copy of a new * Martin/ and finds it is not out of the printers' hands. Harl. MS. 7042. 13 (v). 'This booke was about 3 weekes in printing.' Ibid. 9. John Penry's Viewe of some part of such Publike Wants, commonly called from its running headline, The Supplication, printed at Coventry. Harl. MS. 7042. 13 (t). 22. Marprelate's HAY ANY WORKE FOR COOPER printed at Coventry. 200 copies stitched by Waldegrave and sent to London. Harl. MS. 7042. 13 (w). 23. Humfrey Newman (the Cobbler) brings 700 copies in sheets of HAY ANY WORKE from Coventry to Northampton, to be stitched by Henry Sharpe, the bookbinder. Ibid. 25. (?) John Penry arid Robert Waldegrave meet at Job APPENDIX A 317 Throkmorton's house at Haseley, after the com- pletion of HAY ANY WORKE. Matt. Sutcliffe's Answer to Job ThroL, 70 vers. March 30. (dr.) Sir Richard Knightley's man in a London tavern talks about the printing of Marprelate's books at Fawsley, and of the agent for the receiving and despatch of goods living near West Smithfield. Lansd. MS. 61. 68. [Easter Day, 1589 = March 30.] - Stephen Gifford, Sir Richard Knightley's confidential man, was sent * about this time ' out of the way for a season. Harl. MS. 7042. 23 (x). , - Jno. Hodgkins, called a ' saltpeterman,' informed Henry Sharpe that he had replaced Waldegrave as Marprelate printer, and had a press, and invited Sharpe to go with him ' into the north ' to assist : this was ' aboute Easter.' [The actual date must have been later. See the narrative in the Hist. Mrod.} Lansd. MS. 61. 68 vers. [See entry below, May (end) 1589.] April 1-6. Waldegrave, dining at H. Sharpe's father-in-law's house at Wolston, in ' Easter week,' tells Sharpe that he had resigned his post as Marprelate's printer. Harl. MS. 7042. 23 (x). 26. Dr. Andrew Perne, Master of Peterhouse, dies while visiting Archbishop Whitgift at Lambeth. See ref . in THE JUST CENSURE AND REPROOFE, sig. C ii. May 3. Aid. Sir Richard Martin elected Lord Mayor of London, on the sudden death of Sir Martin Calthorp. 18. John Penry reports having heard that Waldegrave, the printer, is at Rochelle. Harl. MS. 7042. 23 (z). ,, 24. Dr. Some's Godly Treatise (against Barrowe and Greenwood) entered at Stationers' Hall. Arber's Introd. Sketch, 140. - John Penry, 'a little after Whitsontide,' May 18, according to H. Sharpe's evidence, reports John Hodgkins' willingness to supply Waldegrave's place. Harl. MS. 7042. 23 (x). [See entry above, March 30.] - Mar Martine. 7 pp. in rhyme ; published about the end of this month. June 9. Dr. Matt. Huttori made Bishop of Durham. 3i8 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS June 20. Lord Burghley intercedes with Bishop Rowland of Peterborough on behalf of Robert Browne. Thomas Nash leaves Cambridge University. Cooper's Ath. Cantab, ii. 306. ,, 24. (dr.) Humfrey Newman, c about Midsommer,' tries to induce H. Sharpe to go ' into the Northe ' to make up the books which Hodgkins should print. Lansd. MS. 61. 68 vers. John Hodgkins tells Sharpe at Northampton that he ' had sent a Press into the North/ and asks if he will help him, should he need help, with a ' stampe of Accidents' [a jobbing-press]. Harl. MS. 7042. 23 (cc). July 3. Anti Martinus a Latin pamphlet addressed to the youth of the Universities, entered at Stationers' Hall. Arber's Sketch, 140. 10. Jno. Hodgkins and his assistants, Val. Simms and Arthur Thomlyn, meet Humfrey Newman and agree to go to the Midlands to print Marprelate's writings. Manchester Papers, 123 (A). 13. The printers reach the house of Val. Simms' father at Adderbury, Oxf. Ibid. 22. THESES MARTINIAN^E ('Martin Junior') printed at Wolston. Ibid. (J). 29. THE JUST CENSURE AND REPROOFE (' Martin Senior ') printed at Wolston. The printers with the appara- tus leave the same night for Warrington. Ibid. (0). Aug. 1. The printers arrive at Warrington. Ibid. (P). ,, 4. The cart conveying the press and letters reaches Warrington . Ibid. 8. A Counter cuffe to Martin Junior by Pasquill of England published. 11. The printers arrive at Manchester from Warrington and commence their work. Manchester Papers, 123 (Q). 14. The printers are arrested by the Earl of Derby's men, having commenced printing MORE WORK FOR THE COOPER. Ibid. 18. The printers leave for London in charge of the Sheriffs officers. See Hist. Mr. 24 (Sunday). Arriving in London the previous day, Hodgkins, Simms, and Thomlyn are examined by Council and sent to Bridewell. Acts of the P. Council, 54. Archbishop Whitgift, having received particulars of APPENDIX A 319 the seizure of the printers, writes to Lord Burleigh concerning their trial. Lansd. MS. 61. 3. Aug. John Penry and Sharpe, the Bookbinder, hear at Wolston of the seizure of the printers at Man- chester. Harl. MS. 7042. 23 (kk). Sept. 2. The Queen desires Lord Burleigh thoroughly to persevere in the examination of Martin Marprelate. S. P. Dom. Eliz. 226 (4). 11. (dr.) John Hodgkins sent to the Tower to be tortured. Ibid. 227 (37); Yelverton MSS. 70. 146. , 15. (dr.) THE PROTESTATYON the last Marprelate Tract. Printed probably at Wolston, about the middle of Sept. See Hist. Introd. John Penry at this time is hiding at an inn in the Midlands. Sutcliffe's Answer to Job Throk. 73. Oct. (early). John Penry, on his way to Scotland, calls upon John Udall at Newcastle-on-Tyne. Wall's New Discovery, quoted by Arber, Sketch, 172. A Whip for an Ape published. An edition of the same work bears the title Rhythmes against Martin Marre-Prelate. 15. Henry Sharpe makes his deposition before Lord Chancellor Hatton. Harl. MS. 7042. 23. Printed in full in Arber's Sketch, 94 ff. 20. The Return ofPasguill [T. Nash] published. 24. John Hodgkins ordered to be removed from the Tower to the Marshalsea prison. S. P. Dom. Eliz. 227 (37). Nov. 6. Lord Mayor Hart replies to Lord Burleigh about the prohibition of stage plays within the city. Lansd. MS. 60. (Printed as a note in Petheram's edition of Pappe with an Hatchet, 48.) - Pappe with an Hatchet [] John Lyly] published. 16. Sir Richard Knightley, John Hales of Coventry, and Roger Wigston of Wolston in the Fleet prison. Acts of the P. Council, 1589-1590, p. 398. Martins Months Mind published. See Hist. Introd. 29. The second exam, of Nich. Tomkins, servant to Mrs. Crane. Harl. MS. 7042. 32. Dec. 10. Final exam, of V. Simms and A. Thomlyn, assistants to John Hodgkins, before the Lord Chancellor. Manchester Papers, 123. Marre Mar- Martin. See Hist. Introd. 320 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS Dec. 22. A Myrror for Martinists. T. Turswell. Entered at Stationers' Hall. Arber's Sketch, 140. (Dated on title-page 1590.) - M. Some in his Coulers [Job Throkmorton] published. A Dialogue wherin is plainly laide open published. 1590 Jan. 9. John Udall reaches London from Newcastle-on-Tyne, in charge of the pursuivants. Wall's New Discovery, cited in Arber's Sketch, 169. 13. Udall examined at Lord Cobham's house at Black- friars and sent to the Gatehouse prison (West- minster).^^ Trials (ed. 1719), i. 144, 5. 19. A Friendly Admonicion to Martin Marprelate, by Leonard Wright, entered at Stationers' Hall. Arber's Sketch, 141. Feb. 1 3. The trial of Sir Richard Knightley, John Hales, Roger Wigston, and Mrs. Wigston for complicity in the printing of the Marprelate Tracts. State Trials (ed. 1778, C. Hargrave), vii. 29. March (early). An Almond for a Parrat [anon.] published. 1 3. R. Waldegrave prints at Edinburgh * The Confession of Faith,' by the authorisation of the Lords of the Council. See imprint on the verso of the title- page. April - Waldegrave prints in Scotland John Penry's Reforma- tion no Enemie. [Dated 1590 ; therefore probably subsequent to March 25th.] May 16. English ambassador at Edinburgh complains to the King that Penry is in his realm publishing books against the government of England. S. P. Scot, (Eliz.\ 1590, vol. 45, No. 44. June John Udall removed to the White Lion prison, South- wark. Peirce's Vindic. 132. July 2. First Parte of Pasquills Apologie [T. Nash] published. 8. John Hodgkins removed from the Tower to the Marshalsea. Acts of the P. Council, 55. ,, 13. Udall again examined about 'the books.' Harl. MS. 6849. 164 ; given by Arber, Sketch, 88. 24. Udall, laden with heavy fetters, appears before Serjeant Puckering at Croydon. State Trials (1719), i. 147. - Nicholas Tomkins, Mrs. Crane's servant, beyond the APPENDIX A 321 sea at this time. Neal's History of the Puritans, i. 409. Aug. 1. English ambassador at Edinburgh reports that the King has ordered the expulsion of John Penry from his realm. S. P. Scot. (Eliz.), 1590, vol. 46, No. 22. 6. The Privy Council of Scotland issue writ banishing John Penry from the realm. Reg. of P. C. Scotland, vol. iv. pp. 517, 518. Sept. 1. Thomas Cartwright imprisoned in the Fleet; charged with knowing the author and printer of the Marprelate Tracts. Neal's Hist, of the Puritans, i. 416 (Fuller's Hist. bk. ix. 23, ed. Nichols, vol. iii. p. 120). Oct. 4. T. Cartwright writes Lord Burleigh disavowing all sympathy with the Marprelate Tracts. Strype's Whitgifi, iii. 232. 14. Job Throkmorton appeals to Lord Chancellor Hatton for favour, after the 'indyghtment lately found against [him].' Manchester Papers. Nov. 20. Ambassador at Edinburgh informs Lord Burleigh that he has communicated to King James the surprise felt in England that Penry and Walde- grave are allowed to remain in Scotland. The King thinks Penry has departed, and promises that Waldegrave shall only print in future under permission. S. P. Scot. (Eliz.), vol. 46, No. 64. Dec. 18. Ambassador at Edinburgh to Burleigh. The King tells him that he is credibly informed that Penry has left Scotland, but that his wife remains at Edinburgh supported by the benevolence of friends. Also that Waldegrave has been appointed royal printer. S. P. Scot. (Eliz.), vol. 46, No. 73. APPENDIX B A SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE MARPRELATE CONTROVERSY The short titles, by which the seven Marprelatc Tracts were commonly known, are given in capitals 1584 1. A BRIEFE and plaine declaration, concerning the desires of all those faithfull Ministers, that haue and do seeke for the Discipline and reformation of the Church of Englande. Which may seme for a just Apologie, against the false accusations and slanders of their aduersaries. London, R. Waldegraue, 1584. Pp. vi. + 148. 8vo. (Running headline, 'A Learned Discourse of Ecclesiasticall Government.') B.M. press -mark 702. a. 38. Reputed author, W. Fulke, D.D. 1587 2. A Defence of the government established in the Chvrch of Englande for ecclesiasticall matters. Contayning an answere vnto a Treatise called The Learned Discourse of Ecd. Gouernment, otherwise intituled, A briefe and plaine declaration, etc. Com- prehending likewise an answer to the arguments in a Treatise named The iudgement of a most Eeuerend and Learned man from beyond the Seas, etc. Answering also the argumentes of Caluine, Beza and Danaeus, with other our Reuerend learned Bretheren, besides Csenales and Bodinus, both for the regiment of women, and in defence of her Maiestie, and of all other Christian Princes supreme Gouernment in Ecclesiasticall causes, Against The Tetrarchie that our Brethren would erect in euery particular congregation, of Doctors, Pastors, Gouernors and Deacons, with their seuerall and joynt authoritie in Elections, Excommunica- tions, Synodall Constitutions and other Ecclesiasticall matters. 322 APPENDIX B 323 Answered by John Bridges, Deane of Sarum. London, 1587. Pp. viii. + 1402, fol. Black letter. B.M. 1353. f. 1. 3. A Defence of the godlie Ministers, against the slaunders of D. Bridges, contayned in his ansvvere to the Preface before the Discourse of Ecclesiasticall gouernement, with a Declaration of the Bishops preceding against them, etc. 1587. Pp. iv. + 103 (pagination only begins with p. 49). 8vo. B.M. 111. a. 27. (Reprinted in A parte of a Register with Dudley Tenner's name as author.) 1588 4. A Defence of the Ecclesiastical Discipline ordayned of God to be vsed in his Church, Against a Replie of Maister Bridges, to a briefe and plain Declaration of it, which was printed An. 1584. Which replie he termeth, A Defence, etc. 1588. Pp. 128. 4to. B.M. 111. a. 27. 5. [THE EPISTLE.] Oh read ouer D. John Bridges | for it is a worthy worke : Or an epitome of the fyrste Booke of that right worshipfull volume | written against the Puritanes | in the defence of the noble cleargie | by as worshipfull a prieste | John Bridges | Presbyter | Priest or elder | doctor of Diuillitie | and Dean of Sarum. Wherein the arguments of the puritans are wisely prevented | that when they come to answer M. Doctor | they must needes say something that hath bene spoken. Com- piled for the behoofe and overtherthrow of the Parsons | Fyckers | and Curats that have lernt their Catechismes | and are past grace : By the reverend and worthie Martin Marprelate gentleman | and dedicated to the Confocationhouse. The Epitome is not yet published | but it shall be when the Byshops are at conuenient leysure to view the same. In the meane time | let them be content with this learned Epistle. Printed over- sea | in Europe | within two furlongs of a Bouncing Priest | at the cost and charges of M. Marprelate | gentleman. [East Molesey, October 1588.] Pp. 54. 4to. Black letter. B.M. 224. b. 8. Keprints by Petheram, 1843, and Arber, 1880. 6. [THE EPITOME.] Oh read ouer D. John Bridges | for it is worthy worke : Or an epitome of the fyrste Booke | of that right worshipfull volume | written against the Puritanes | in the defence of the noble cleargie | by as worshipfull a prieste | John Bridges | Presbyter | Priest or elder | doctor of Diuillitie 324 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS | and Deane of Sarum. Wherein the arguments of the puritans are wisely prevented | that when they come to answere M. Doctor | they must needes say some thing that hath bene spoken. Compiled for the behoofe and overthrow of the vn- preaching Parsons | Fyckers | and Currats | that haue lernt their Catechismes | and are past grace : By the reverend and worthie Martin Marprelat gentleman and dedicated by a second Epistle to the Terrible Priests. In this Epitome the foresaide Fickers | etc, are very insufficiently furnished with notable inabilitie of most vincible reasons | to answere the cauill of the Puritanes. And lest M. Doctor should thinke that no man can write without sence but his selfe | the senceles titles of the seueral pages | and the handling of the matter throughout the Epitome | shewe plainley | that beetleheaded ignoraunce must not Hue and die with him alone. Printed on the other hand of some of the Priests. [Fawsley, November 1588]. Sig. A G i. vers. 4 to. Black letter. Reprinted by Petheram, 1843. B.M. C. 25. f. 1. 1589 7. An Admonition to the people of England : Wherein are answered, not onely the slaunderous vntruethes, reprochfully vttered by Martin the Libeller, but also many other Crimes by some of his broode, obiected generally against all Bishops, and the chiefe of the Cleargie, purposely to deface and discredite the present state of the Church. London, 1589. (1) Orig. ed. numbered on last p. 252. Pagination irreg.; actual pp. 266. Withdrawn and corrected by cancel-slips in two cases. Print measures 14 '9 x 8*2 cm. (2) Second ed. with slight variations. Pp. 245 ; size 15*6 x 8-7 cm. (3) Third ed. with typographical variations. Pp. 244 ; size 15'5 x 8'8 cm. Press -marks: (1) Lambeth Pal. Lib. xxx. 6. 27. (2) B.M. 701. g. 31. (3) B.M. C. 37. d. 38. Reprints by Petheram, 1847, and Arber, 1882. The initials at the close of the epistle ' To the Reader ' are those of T[homas] C[ooper], Bishop of Winchester, though con- founded at the time with the celebrated initials of Thomas Cartwright, the writer of a celebrated Admonition. 8. [THE MINERALLS.] Certaine Minerall and Metaphisicall Schoolpoints | to be defended by the reverende Bishops | and the rest of my cleargie masters of the Convocation house | APPENDIX B 325 against both the universities | and al the reformed Churches in Christendome. Wherein is layd open | the very Quintessence of all Catercorner divinitie. And with all | to the preuenting of the Cauels of those wrangling Puritans | the persons by whom and the places where there miseries are so worthely mainetayned | are for the most part | plainely set downe to the view of all men | and that to the ternall prayse of the most reverend Fathers. [Coventry, dr. Feb. 20, 1589.] A broadside in Black letter. Measures 12 J x 9| in. Unique copy in Lamb. Pal. Lib. xxx. 6. 24 (7). 9. [HAY ANY WORKE]. Hay any worke for Cooper : Or a brief e Pistle directed by Waye of an hubli cation to the reverende Byshopps | counselling them | if they will needs be barrelled vp | for feare of smelling in the nostrels of her Maiestie and the State | that they would vse the aduise of reuerend Martin | for the prouiding of their Cooper. Because the reuerend T. C. (by which misticall letters | is vnderstood, eyther the bounsing Parson of Eastmeane | or Tom Coakes his Chaplaine) l to bee an vnskilfull and a beceytfull tubtrimmer. Wherein worthy Martin quits himselfe like a man I warrant you | in the modest defence of his selfe and his learned Pistles | and makes the Coopers hoopes to flye off | and the Bishops Tubs to leake out of all crye. Penned and compiled by Martin the Metropolitane. Printed in Europe | not far from some of the Bounsing Priestes. [Coventry, dr. March 22, 1589.] Sig. A-B i. vers. + pp. 1- 48. 4to. B.L. B.M. 225. a. 33. Two Commonwealth reprints of this tract were published. (1) This has the fresh title Reformation no enemie Or a true Discourse, betweene the Bishops and the Desirers of Eeformation : Wherein Is plainely laid open the present corrupt government of our Church and the desired forme of Government plainely proved by the word of God. Prov. 24. vers. 21. Printed in the yeare 1641. The running title is ' Hay any Worke for Cooper.' B.M. 4103. cc. 3. (2) Hay any Worke, etc. An exact reprint. 1642. B.M. E. 141 (22). Reprinted by Petheram, 1845. 1 In ' Falts escaped ' at the close of the tracts we have the following instruction : ' Tytle line ten | read | Chaplaine hath showed in his late Admonition to the people of England to be | etc. ' 326 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS 10. Mar-Martine. I know not why a trueth in rime set out Maie not as wel mar Mar tine and his mates As shamelesse lies in prose-books cast about Marpriests, and prelates, and subvert whole states For where truth builds and lying overthrows One truth in rime is worth ten lies in prose. [About the end of May 1589.] Pp. 7 of doggerel verse, in various metres ; one section in Scotch dialect. 4to of irregular size. B.M. 96. b. 15. This copy is badly cropped. Lamb. Pal. Lib. xxx. 6. 26 (5). An almost perfect copy. 11. Antimartinus. 1589. 4to. Latin pamphlet ; pp. 40. Signed at close, A. L. Ent. at Stat. Hall, July 3rd. B.M. 4103. bb. 12. 12. [MARTIN JUNIOR.] Theses Martinianae: That is, Certaine Demonstrative Conclusions, sette downe and collected (as it should seeme) by that famous and renowmed Clarke, the reuerend Martin Marprelate the great : seruing as a manifest and sufficient confutation of al that euer the Colledge of Cater- caps with their whole band of Clergie-priests, haue, or canbring for the defence of their ambitious and Antichristian Prelacie. Published and set foorth as an after-birth of the noble Gentle- man himselfe, by a pretty stripling of his, Martin Junior, and dedicated by him to his good neame and nuncka, Maister John Kankerbury : How the young man came by them, the Reader shall understande sufficiently in the Epilogue. In the meane time, vvhosoeuer can bring mee acquainted with my father, He bee bounde hee shall not lose his labour. Printed by the assignes of Martin Junior, without any priviledge of the Catercaps. [Wolston, July 22, 1589.] Pp. 31. Small 8vo. Rom. type. B.M. C. 36. b. 21. 13. [MARTIN SENIOR.] The iust censure arid reproof e of Martin Junior. Wherein the rash and vndiscreete headines of the foolish youth is sharply mette with, and the boy hath his lesson taught him, I warrant you, by his reuerend and elder brother, Martin Senior, sonne and heire vnto the renowmed Martin Marprelate the Great. Where also, least the springall shold be vtterly discouraged in his good meaning, you shall finde, he is not beraued of his due commendations. APPENDIX B 327 [Wolston, July 29, 1589.] Sig. A-D, in fours. Small 8vo. Eom. type. B.M. C. 36. b. 22. 1 4. A Countercuffe giuen to Martin Junior : by the venturous, bardie, and renowned Pasquill of England, Caualiero. Not of olde Martins making, wbich newlie knighted the Saints in Heauen, with rise vp Sir Peter and Sir Paule ; But lately dubd for his serai ce at home in the defence of his Country, and for the cleane breaking of his staffe vppon Martins face. Printed betweene the skye and the grounde, Within a myle of an Oake, and not many fieldes of, from the vnpriuiledged Presse of Ass-ignes of Martin Junior. Anno. Dom. 1589. Sig. A i.-iiii. 4 to. ' Pasquill ' generally accepted by his contemporaries as the pseudonym of Thos. Nash. Lamb. Pal. Lib. xxx. 6. 26 (1). Dated on Sig. A iiii. vers. 1 the sixt of August.' B.M. C. 37. d. 48 [a fresh setting]. Dated on Sig. A iv. vers. ' the eight of August.' 15. [THE PROTEST ATYON.] The Protestatyon of Martin Marprelat. Wherin not wi[t]h standing the surprizing of the printer, he maketh it known vnto the world that he feareth, neither proud priest, Antichristian pope, tiranous prellate, nor godlesse catercap : but defiethe all the race of them by these presents and offereth conditionally, as is farthere expressed hearin by open disputation to apear in the defence of his caus against them and theirs. Which chaleng if they dare not main- taine against him : then doth he alsoe publishe that he neuer meaneth by assi[s]taunce of god to leaue the a ssayling of them and theire generation vntill they be vterly extinguished out of our church. Published by the worthie gentleman Dfoctor] martin marprelat D. in all the faculties primat and metro Politan. [Wolston, Sept. 1589.] Pp. 32 [last page incorrectly numbered 23]. Small 8vo. Kom. type. Lamb. Pal. Lib. xxix. 9. 4 (4). Copies of this rare tract to be found also in the Bodleian and the Camb. Univ. Library. 16. A Whip for an Ape : or Martin displaied. Ordo sacerdotum fatno turbatur ab omni Labitur et passim Religionis honos. [October (early) 1589.] Pp.8. 4to. B.L. Twenty -six 6-line stanzas. 328 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS The same tract is published, from the same type, with the title ' Rhythmes against Martin Marre-Prelate.' B.M. C. 37. d. 42. 17. The Returne of the renowned Caualiero Pasquill of England, from the other side the Seas, and his meeting with Marforius at London vpon the Royall Exchange. Where they encounter with a little houshold talke of Martin and Mar- tinisme, discouering the scabbe that is bredde in England, and conferring together about the speedie dispersing of the golden Legende of the Hues of the Saints. If my breath be so hote that I burne my mouth, suppose I was Printed by Pepper Allie. Anno Dom. 1589. [T. Nash.] 4to. Sig. A-D iv. rect. Rom. type. ' Pasquils Protestation vpon London Stone ' at the end of the pamphlet is dated ' 20 Octobris.' B.M. 96. b. 15 (8). 18. Pappe with an hatchet. Alias, A figge for my God sonne. Or, Cracke me this nut. Or, A Countrie cuffe, that is, a sound boxe of the eare, for the idiot Martin to hold his peace, seeing the patch will take no warning. Written by one that dares call a dog, a dog, and made to preuent Martins dog daies. Imprinted by lohn Anoke, and lohn Astile, for the Bayliue of Withernam, cum priuilegio perennitatis, and are to bee sold at the signe of the crab tree cudgell in thwackcoate lane. A sentence. Martin hangs fit for my mowing. [John Lyly.] 4to. Sig. A-D 3 vers. Rom. type. B.M. 96. b. 15 (2). Reprinted by J. Petheram, London, 1844. 19. Martins Months minde, That is A certaine report, and true description of the Death and Funeralls, of olde Martin Marreprelate, the great makebate of England and father of the Factions. Contayning the cause of his death, the manner of his buriall, and the right copies both of his Will, and of such Epitaphs, as by Svndrie his dearest friends, and other of his well willers, were found for him. Martin the ape, the dronke, and the madde, The three Martins are, whose workes we haue had, If Martin the fourth came, after Martins so euill, Nor man, nor beast comes, but Martin the deuill. 1589. 4to, Sig. A-H. Rom. type. B.M. C. 37. d. 39. 20. Marre Mar -Martin or Marre - Martins medling, in a manner misliked APPENDIX B 329 Martins vaine prose, Marre-Martin dotli mislike, Reason (forsooth) for Martin seekes debate, Marre Martin will not so ; yet doth, his patience strike : Last verse, first prose, conclude in one self hate : Both maintaine strife, vnfitting Englands state. Martin, Marre-Martin, Barrow ioynd with Browne Shew zeal : yet striue to pull Religion downe. Printed [the printer's name in all accessible copies is neatly cut out]. 4 to ; 2 J pp. verse. B.L. B.M. C. 37. d. 40. 21. Plaine Percevall the Peace-Maker of England. Sweetly indevoring with his blunt persuasions to botch vp a Reconcilia- tion between Mar-ton and Mar-tother. Compiled by lawful! art, that is to say, without witch craft, or sorcery : and referred specially to the Meridian and pole Artichoke of Nomans Land : but may serue generally without any great error, for more Countries then He speak e of. Quis furor aut hos, Aut hos, arma sequi, ferrumque lacessere iussit. Printed in Broad-streete at the signe of the Pack-staffe. 4to, pp. 26. Introd. in Rom. type, tract in B.L. [Richard Harvey.] Reprinted, London, 1860. B.M. 96. b. 15 (3). 1590 22. A Friendly Admonition to Martine Marprelate and his Mates. By Leonard Wright. London, 1590. 4to, 6 pp. B.L. Lamb. Pal. Lib. xxx. 6. 23 (3). Entered at Stat. Hall, Jan. 19, 1590. 23. An Almond for a Parrat, Or Cutbert Curry -knaues Almes. Fit for the knaue Martin, and the rest of those impudent Beggers, that can not be content to stay their stomakes with a Benefice, but they will needes breake their fastes with our Bishops. Rimarum sum plenus. Therefore beware (gentle Reader) you catch not the hicket with laughing. Imprinted at a Place, not farre from a Place, by the Assignes of Signior Some-body and are to be sold at his shoppe in Trouble- knaue Street, at the signe of the Standish. [T. Nash.] 4to, pp.40. B.L. Reprinted London, 1846. B.M. 3932. d. 24. The Firste Parte of Pasquils Apologie. Wherein he renders a reason to his friendes of his long silence : and gallops the fielde with the Treatise of Reformation lately written by a fugitiue John Penrie. Printed where I was and where I will bee readie by the helpe of God and my Muse to send you the May-game of Martinisme for an intermedium betweene the first 330 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS and seconde part of the apologie. Anno Dom. 1590. [T. Nash.] 4to, Sig. A-E i. vers. Rom. type. Dated at close July 2nd. [This pamphlet has only a slight connection with the Marprelate controversy. Its chief concern is with Penry and his pamphlet A treatise wherein is manifestlie proved (commonly, known as Refor- mation no Enemy). See Dexter, Congregationalism in its Lit. 185.] B.M. 1077. f. 5 (1). 25. A Myrror for Martinists, And all other Schismatiques, which in these dangerous daies doe breake the godlie vnitie, and disturbe the Christian peace of the Church. Published by T. Tfurswell]. London, 1590. 4to ; 2 pp. Rom. type, 34 pp. B.L. (Entered at Stat. Hall, < 22 Decembris [1589].' Arber'sStefc^HO.) Lamb. Pal. Lib. xxx. 6. 26 (8). 26. A Theologicall Disco vrse of the Lamb of God and His Enemies : Contayning a briefe Commentarie of Christian faith and felicitie, together with a detection of old and new Bar- barisme, now commonly called Martinisme. Newly published both to declare the vnfayned resolution of the wryter in these present controuersies, and to exercise the faithfull subiect in godly reuerence and dutiful obedience. Titus c. 2. v. 15. London, Anno 1590. 4to, pp. 203. [R. Harvey.] B.M. C. 37. d. 44. 27. A petition directed to her most excellent Maiestie, wherein is deliuered 1. A meane howe to compound the ciuill dissension in the church of England. 2. A proofe that they who write for Reformation, doe not offend against the Stat. of 23. Eliz. c. and therfore till matters be compounded, deserue more favour. Herevnto is annexed : Some opinions of such as sue for Reformation : By which it may appeare howe vniustlie they are slaundered by the Bishops, etc. pag. 53. Togither with the Authors Epistle to the Reader, pag. 58. Also, Certayne Articles wherein is discovered the negligence of the Bishops, their Officialls, Fauorers and Followers, in performance of sundrie Ecclesiasticall Statutes, Lawes and Ordinancies Royall and Episcopall, published for the gouernement of the Church of Englande, pag. 60. Lastlie, Certayne Questions or Interroga- tories drawen by a fauorer of Reformation, wherein he desireth to be resolued by the Prelates, pag. 74. 4to, pp. 83. Rom. type. [1589 or 1590.] B.M. 4106. aaa. 3. 1592 28. An Answere to a Certaine Libel supplicatori, or rather APPENDIX B 331 Diffamatory, and also to certaine Calumnious Articles and Interrogatories, both printed and scattered in secret corners, to the slaunder of the Ecclesiasticall state, and put forth under the name and title of a Petition directed to her Maiestie. Wherein not onely the friuolous discourse of the Petitioners is refuted, but also the accusation against the Disciplinarians his clyents justified, and the slaunderous cauils at the present gouernement disciphered by Matthew Sutcliffe. London, 1592. 4to. pp. 212. (Dated at close of Ep. 20 of December.) B.M. 4105. aaa. 55. 1593 29. A svrvay of the Pretended Holy Discipline. Contayning the beginninges, successe, parts, proceedings, authority, and doctrine of it : with some of the manifold, and materiall repug- nances, varieties and uncertainties in that behalfe. Faithfully gathered, by way of historicall narration, out of the bookes and wri tinges, of principall favourers of that platforme. Anno 1593. [R. Bancroft.] 4 to, pp. 471. B.M. 4135. b. 76. 30. Davngerovs Positions and Proceedings, published and practised within this Hand of Brytaine and under pretence of Reformation, and for the Presbiteriall Discipline. London, 1593. [R. Bancroft.] 4 to, pp. 191. B.M. T. 775 (3). 1594 31. The Defence of lob Throkmorton against the slaunders of Maister Sutcliffe, taken out of a Copye of his owne hande as it was written to an honorable Personage. 1594. 4to. Sig. A-E iv. rect. B.M. 4378. c. 46. 1595 32. An Answere vnto a certaine calumnious letter published by M. lob Throkmorton, entitled A defence of I. T. against the slanders of M. Sutcliffe, wherein the vanitie both of the defence of himselfe and the accusation of others is manifestly declared by M. Sutcliffe. 1595. 4to; pp. 150, numbered only on the recto. B.M. 4105. aaa. 56. Two works may be enumerated which, while not strictly belonging to the Marprelate Controversy, are yet very closely associated with it. 332 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS 1. M. Some laid open in his coulers : Wherein the indifferent reader may easily see, hovve wretchedly and loosely he hath handeled the cause against M. Penrie. Done by an Oxford man, to his friend in Cambridge. Small 8vo, pp. 124. At the foot of the last page are the letters I. G. [1 Printed by Walde- grave at Rochelle, 1589.] B.M. 848. a. 10. 2. A Dialogue wherein is laid open, the tyrannicall dealing of L. Bishopps against Gods children : with certaine points of doctrine, wherein they approoue themselues (according to D. Bridges his iudgement) to be truely the Bishops of the Diuell. p Printed by Waldegrave at Rochelle. Written (after April), 1589.] 8vo. A-D in fours. B.M. 4106. b. [Reprinted 1643, under the title 'The Character of a Puritan/ B.M. E. 87 (11). Several other works, such as, A Bayte for Momus and his mates and Sir Marten Marr-People^his Coller of Esses, are sometimes included in bibliographies of this controversy. Their only relation to it lies in the suggestion of their titles. APPENDIX C The Examinations of (1) John Hodgkins, the printer of THESES MARTINIANAE and THE JUST CENSURE AND EEPROOFE ; also of (2) his assistants Valentine Simms and Arthur Thomlyn. These MSS. have not hitherto been printed. I Jo : Hodgskins arraigned vppon y e stat. of 23 Eliz. for printinge of thes matiname (sic). It was proved by the confession of the partie him self and of one Simes and Tomlines which were formerly hired by the said Hodgkins did print the booke aboue said . . . the place was m r Wigstones house in comi. warw(ick). The authors of the booke was confessed by the parties above named to be m r Jobe Throck- micton [Throkmorton] of Warwickshire by these circumstances . . . first, when that hodgkins had gotten those his under printers redie and had sworne them by a corporall [oath] they not to discover anie thinge they should print, he then appointed them to goe to Couentrie where they print certaine accidents, but he him self went to m r Throckintones house he met Penery w th whome he abode there all that night The next morninge takinge leave of the saide Throckm r ton m r Penry would needes bringe him on(e) his waye whereas the[y] were wa ] kinge towardes warwicke thefy] founde in [the] path w th in a boult shoote of the house a great part of the saide theses [Martinianae] which the saide Hodgk : tooke vpp and printed and before l the fm[i]shinge of y l work m r Throck : came to them usinge there [their] print and expoundinge certaine obscure interlines unto the printers, demaunding further of the said hodgk : whether the said Symes and Tomlynes were fitt men for the purpose . . . wherein 1 ' And before ' repeated twice in error in the original. 333 334 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS Hodgk : then satisfied him. ... It appeared by the conf [ession] of they parties aboue named, taken before the bb. 1 of the counsell and by the circumstances precedent that this booke was devised chiefly by the said Throck : as also he is thought to be the auther of Martin senior 2 and more worke for the cooper . . . for that, and as they said symes and Tomkines [sic] confessed] they sawe the Coppies written [i.e. of MORE WORK FOR THE COOPER] which the[y] should have printed which were all of one hand with the other booke called theses | Hodgk : vpon his arr[est] did at first appeale to her ma ties mercie, but when the pointes contfained] in the indifcjtm*, being ten in number, were urged against him and plainly proved to contfain] matter of sedccon [sedition] and slaunder to her ma tie and the state he stoode then verie confidentlie to the iustifinnge [justifying] of the said booke, bouldly affirminge that nothing therein contained] was reprochfull or slaunderous to her ma tie or the state . . . untill at the length beinge therein notabl[i]e convinced he then p'tested that he knewe not the authors meaninge therein, affirminge p denying] that he did print the saide booke w th3 anie such malicious intent against her ma tie or the state as in that intent he was charged for ... wherunto he was answeared that not the intent, w ch might be secret but the fact of the p[ar]tie must shewe his minde, and because the matters in the booke are sedicious turbulent and rebellious, and the devise therof by the lawe to be w tb in compasse of fellonie, the printer also by express wordes, and judged by the same lawe to be in the same degree of fellonie as the deviser . . . yet the said Hodgk : vppon his innocencie herein much insested, till in the end he vehemently urged and claimed the benefit of a certaine p[re]mise in the said statut wherein p[ro]uision is made that the p[ar]tie accused must be manifestly convinced by twoe witnesses p[ro]duced viua wee and that w th in one moneth after the fact before one Justice of peace or els must be indicted thereof w th in one yere next after the offence, where as nowe they wanted witnesses and also that one yere and more was since the im- pression. . . . Thes p[ro]viso was reade and it appeared plainly that none could take benefit thereof but only those offendfing] by speaking and reportinge and printers and writers plainly exempted. . . . Then hee protested that the confessions of the said Symes and Tomlynes had bene violentpy] extorted from 1 Query 'bishops,' or possibly intended for 11. 'lords' ; the MS. is poorly written. 2 That is, THE JUST CENSURE AND REPROOFE. 3 The denial was probably intended to be stated by writing here 'without.' APPENDIX C 335 them and by his one [own] confession he was forced thereunto by rackinge and great torments . . . wheruppon Justice Gawdy p[ro]tested that he did verie shamefully, himself being present at the examinacon which conteyned noe more in effect then he him self vollentorilie confessed namely [that he was] the printer of the said booke . . . lastly, he acknowledged the degree of Bishoppes, but not of Lo r Bishoppes, Archbishoppes . . . after all these matters p[ro]duced against him he would no[t] resist from allowinge the book till they had found him guiltie, at what time in verie submise manner he renounced his former assercons and humblie praied the 11 s for his life and the furtherance to her ma tie for her favor. | [YELVERTON MSS. vol. 70, fol. 146.] (The text has been made slightly easier to read by the insertion of a few stops, and by leaving spaces to separate the sentences where the larger breaks in narrative occur. The examination probably took place in September or October 1589.) II Endorsement. The laste examinations of Thomlynes and Symmes before y e L. Chauncelor etc. 10 Decembris in the case of Job Throgmorto and Penry. The examination of Valentyne Symmes and Arthur Tamlin stationers taken by the comaundment of the L. Chauncelore of England the Xth of December 1589. A. Abowt St James tyde John Hodgkins dealt with these examinants to goe w th them into the contry to print accidences etc, promisinge to Simes xx 1. a yeare and meat and drink, and to the other viii 1. and meat and drink, but signifyed vnto them that he had sent a press downe to the country where they should work. Wherupon dep[ar]tinge all these together on foote they came to Aderbury, to Simes his fathers vpon the Sonday after. B. That night Hodgkins went to Mr Job Throckmortons and apoynted Simes to meet him the next morning at Warwick and Thomlin to goe upon the monday to Coventrye Upon the sayd monday Hodgkins meeting Simes at Warwick (upon his returne fro Mr Throckmortons) told him he had now a book [in MS.] which they must presently fall a printinge and shewed him the same It was the book intituled Theses Martiniane and sayd they must go to a place called wolston about fower miles of[f] where there was a presse and letters [type] ready for that purpose. 336 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS C. When they came to the foresayd place Mrs Wigston was at Coventry at a fast and as they think Mr Wigston was not at home. One Mrs More did intertayne them. Upon the foresayde monday at night Hodgkins sent vnto Coventry for Tamlin who vpon Tuesday in the morning came to Wolston unto him. Thus all these beinge mett together agayne, and findinge there papfer] inck press letters and all thinges ready they beganne to prepare them selves to work : so that upon the Thursday after (to theyr remembraunce) they fell to printinge. Duringe the which worke Simes him selfe was the onely correcter. 1 E. Mrs Wigston came home vpon the sayde Tuesday at night, and on the Wednesday in the morninge (they being abowt theyr worke) she came vnto them and bad them very hartily welcome etc. At diverse times after she came likewise unto them, and did excuse in kinde sorte theyr badd intertaynement. F. Abowt Thursday (as these examinants thinke) Mr Harrison alias Bridges als Penry came unto them and badd them welcome. 2 G. The ffriday after as they do think 3 a gentleman came unto them as they were printinge whom since they understand to be Job Throkmorton and badd god speed them. Immediately after his cominge he read that w ch was in printinge, and found fault in some place w th the orthography. Then he looked upon the written copy and bicause it was in diverse places interlined he asked Simes yf he could read the sayd place so interlyned, poynting him unto them. Among the w ch places ther were two, wherin Simes doubted. And Mr Throckmorton did p[re]sently read them distinctly and readily unto him. Furthermore at the sayd time he asked Hodgkins softly in his eare, whether these examinants were good workmen and able to serve the turn : and Hodgkins answered yea. That in effect Simes overheard. At that time likewise the said Harrison came in unto them w th the said Throckmorton. H. Simes affirmeth that he receaved at first but on[e] or twoe sheets of Theses Martiniane : and he thinketh the rest was brought thither by the said Throckmorton. J. This book being finished vpon the next monday after (as they thinke) then Hodgkins delivered unto them to be printed [the] copy of Martin Senior 4 w ch he had acquainted them w th all vpon the friday before. This copy was of the same hand 1 The first page ends here and is signed by both the accused. Thomlyn makes a mark. Possibly he had not recovered from his racking. 2 The following words inserted at this place are scored out : ' assuringe them that he would see performed unto them for theyr allowance.' 3 Inserted and scored out, ' Mr Job Throckmorton, ' 4 That is, THE JUST CENSURE AND REPROOFE, APPENDIX C 337 wri tinge w th the former. And Simes thinketh that m r Throck- mort[on] was the author of it. 1 K. Abowt the Wednesday following (as they remember) the sayd M r Harrison came unto the working howse : and having stayed there a while, he went up to the chamber where the book printed was usually folded. L. Here it is to be observed that when Hoskins hired first these examinantes, he told them that when they came into the contry a gentleman should give his word for the payment of theyr wages, and that he cawsed them to sweare before theyr going fro London that they should never disclose anything that he should comitt unto them to be printed. At this time then, after Harrison was gone up into the chamber, Hoskins told Simes how he the sayd Harrison was the man that wold give his word w th him for payment of theyr wages. Wherupon after they had lefte work (Harrison taryinge there all night) Simes desired to talk with him. And so Hodgkins and he coming to Harrison (after some speach of the foresayd examinant) he ratefyed the same : so as they wold be faithfull unto Hodgkins. At what time Simes agayne renewed his oath for his secrecy. M. About the Tuesday after, they made an end of Martin Senior. Upon Ffriday before this Hodgkins had told SiiTies that if the brethren thought good when Martin Junior was finished they wold tak in hand the printing of another book. But now upon the Tuesday he sayd to Simes it was resolved that for feare of being taken there, they should depart to another place. N. Thereupon they p[re]pared themselves. They tooke downe the presse w ch Mrs Wigston sayd shold be hid under a load of strawe or hay they doe not remember whether [which]. They packed up three payre of cases w th lettres of three sorts, and that after none a carte w ch Hodgkins had p[re]pared came by that way and receaved the sayd cases w th theyr lettres : like wise also the ink that was lefte and about twelve reame of papfer] was then loaded. 0. Mrs. Wigston gave unto these examinantes half a crowne a piece, and so that night they dep[ar]ted w th Hodgkins towards Warrington in Lancashire. P. Upon the Ffriday next they came to Warrington : And the Monday after the said cart came thither likewise. At the unloading of the stuff in the street some of the lettres fell out of the boxes to the ground. Diverse standing by and marvayling what they shold be Hodgkins answered they were shott. They 1 The page here ends, and the signatures are repeated as before. 338 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS tearmed themselves accordinge to Hodgkins directions to be saltpeter men. 1 Q. The Thursday after Hodgkins having prepared a howse in Newton lane about a mile fro Manchester to work in these examinants were sent thither to p[re]pare theyr frames for their cases : and upon the Monday after all the stuff was brought fro Warrington thither. Then they began to sett up theyr presse : and upon Thursday they fell to printing of more work for coopfer]. They had not wrought the sayd Thursday above three howres : but they were apprehended, having printed abowt six quires of one side. R. Before they were apprehended Hodgkins told these examinants that the next Book or the next but one w ch they had to print shold be in Latin. Sims doth thinke that ' more work for the Coopfer] ' was likewise of M r Throckmortons penninge : for that it was the same hand that ' m r tins senior ' and 'martin Junior' was. The writen copyes of 'martin senior ' and ' martin Junior ' Simes doth verily think they are in a Settle by the bedside where he lay in Newton lane. S. After they were app r hended and as they were ridinge by the way, at diverse times as they might (beinge narowly lookt unto) Hodgkins dealt with these examinants in effect as fol- loweth : That they should remember theyr oath, and in any wise be secret even untill death rather than detect where ' martin Senior ' and ' Martin Junior ' were printed, or once to make any mention of m r Wigstone : that the[i]re imprisonment assuredly should be but for some short time, where they should want neyther meat drink nor money : that they shold be allowed for the time they were in prison ratably as though they had been working : and that after they were delivered he wold agayne sett them to printe in Ireland. T. Ffurthermore Hodgkins told them by the way, that he verily thought they were detected by the lettres w ch fell downe at warrington when the carte was unloaden : and willed Simes that he should never lett any of the brethren know of it. U. When 'Theses martiniane' were finished Humphrey Newman (termed then Humphrey Brownbread) was at m r wigstons and gave unto m rs wigston the first copy that was finished to gett the thanks from Hoskins. 2 X. Ffurthermore as they were cominge up Hodgkins told Simes that notw th standinge this presse and these lettres now taken we have, saith he, as you know a presse at m r wigstons 1 Signatures at the foot of page as before. 2 End of page ; signatures as before. APPENDIX C 339 and some lettres and beside we have two sorts of lettres at a marchaunts howse in London w ch were bought of Walgrave. 5. Upon occasion of speach whilest they were in Lancashire Simes asked where Walgrave was. Hodgkins answered that he had played the knave notably w th the brethren in that having gotten the copy of Cartwrights book agaynst the E-hemish Testament he was gone to print that for his comoditye and had given the brethren over. X. When 'martin Senior' was in printinge Simes, thy examinate, p[er]using the copy found fait w th somethings in it towards the end as being written w th out sense whereupon Hodgkins cariinge y 6 Copy to Harrison he 1 strooke owt certayne lines and interlined that w ch should be supplyed. . When this examinate Simes mett w th Hodgkins first at Warwick 2 he showed him as they were going to Wolston a letter w ch 3 he thinketh was written from m r Throckmorton. It was directed to m rs wigston as he supposeth for theyr intertayne- ment By the welcome w ch m rs more gave them these examinates thinke that m rs wigstone had some knowledge before of theyr cominge and had given directions accordingly to m rs more. As they were cominge up to London and talkinge of more printinge hereafter Hodgkins told Simes this examinate that they had an other copy of ' more worke for the Coopfer],' w ch should serve them an other time : and that this was but the first p[ar]te of the sayd booke the other p[ar]te being allmost as bigge agayne. (Signed) VALENTINE SYMMES. x ARTHUR TAMLINS marke. WALSINGHAM. BUCKEHURST. ANDERSON. FFORTESCUE. FRANCIS GAWDY. W. AUBREY. W. LEWYN. [Manchester Papers No. 123.] (The above important document was not available when Prof. E. Arber published his valuable collection of original manuscript evidence in the Introductory Sketch.) 1 Words in italics are added in the margin of the page. 2 The following words are written in the original and scored out : ' as they were going to wolston.' 3 < M r T ' written and scored out. INDEX Admonition to Parliament, The (Field and Wilcox), 36, 40, 311 Admonition to tJie People of England, The (Bishop Cooper), 165, 315, 324 ; its significant admissions, 167 ; note on the different editions, 172 Abstracts, of Certaine Acts of Parlia- ment, 93 Adderbury, Oxfordshire, 186 Advertisments, The, 10-15, 17 ; its rules declared expedient, not essen- tial, 13 ; imposes subscription, 13 ; and uniformity, 14 Alcock, Gilbert, 34 Alencon, Duke of, 29 Almond for a Parrat, An, 237, 320, 329 An Answere to a certen Libel (Whit- gift), 47 Anatomie of Abuses (Philip Stubbes), 63, 108 Andrewes, Launcelot, chaplain to Whitgift, 127 Anjou, Duke of, 28 Annus MiraUlis, 1588, 144 Answer, 'An, to Bishop Cooper's ser- mon, 41, 110 Answere to a Certaine Libel [The Peti- tion to her Majestie] (M. Sutcliffe), 247, 330 Answere to Job Throkmorton (M. Sut- cliffe), 235, 253, 331 Anti-Martinus, 225, 318, 326 Apostolic Succession, disavowed by Bishop Cooper, 170 Appellation, The (John Penry), 210, 316 Armada, Spanish, 312, 313 Arrests of suspected persons in 1589, 205 Arthington, an associate of Hacket, 252 Articles of Faith formulated, 27 Authorship of the tracts, word tests, 294 n. Axton, William, repudiates the charge of disloyalty, 95, 256 Aylmer, John, Archdeacon of Lincoln, 46; Bishop of London,'! 58; perse- cuting Papists and Puritans, 66 ; refuses to answer Campion's Ten Reasons, 66 ; on Satan's love for women, 72 n. ; his persecution of Cawdrey, 78 ; gives his blind porter a benefice, 109, 261 ; defended by Whitgift, 115 ; regarded by the re- formers as a deserter, 125 ; his avarice, 125 Bancroft, Eichard, Dr., and the High Commission, 90 ; defends pluralism, 106 ; sermon on the Trying of the Spirits, 172, 316 ; protects the printers of Popish books, 205 ; ad- vises employment of mercenary hacks, 219 ; his disciplinary tracts, 249 Barrowe, Henry, of Clare Hall, Cam- bridge, 53 ; his illegal imprisonment, 81 ; refuses to be sworn, 83 ; ex- amined at Whitehall, 311 ; his mar- ginalia in Some's Godly Treatise, 179; prays at Tyburn for Elizabeth, 256 ; thought by Dexter to be Marprelate, 286 ; examined by the Council, 313 ; examined at the Fleet, 315 Bayonne, Conference at, to destroy Protestantism, 11 Beale, Kobert, Clerk to the Council, opposes Whitgift's Commission, 98 Bedford, Earl of, his sympathy with the reformers, 12 Bentham, Bishop, 10, 25 Bernher, Augustine, 25 n. Biblical exegesis, false, hinders ideas of liberty, 267 Bishops, Roman, their unpopularity, 4 Bishops opposed to the vestments, 10, 22 ;^have not supported the cause of liberty, 16 ; ordain indiscriminately, 37, 109, 110 ; their avarice, 101 ; charged by Marprelate with murder- ing souls, 260 34i 342 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS "Bishops of the Devil," the, 258 Bonner, Bishop, advises more private trial and burning of heretics, 4 ; re- viled by a prisoner, 4 Book which sheweth the life and man- ners, A (R. Browne), 54 Bowes, Robert, ambassador to Scot- land, 211 ; reports about Penry and Waldegrave, 320, 321 Bridges, John. Dean of Sarum, his career, 140 n. ; sermon against the Brief e and Plain Declaration, 311 Brief and lamentable consideration, A (Vestiarian), 19 Briefe discourse against the outward apparell, A, 17 Briefe Discovery of the Untruthes and Slanders (against Bancroft), 176 Briefe Examination for the tyme, A (Vestiarian), 18 Briefe and plaine declaration (A Learned Discourse), 135-139, 311, 322 Bridewell, the (prison), 131 Browne, Robert, of Corpus Christi, Cambridge, 53, 54 ; on Presbyterian- ism, 175 ; condemned by the Puri- tans, 176 ; Burleigh intercedes with Bishop Rowland for him, 318 Buckhurst, Lord, made Privy Councillor through the aid of Whitgift, 116 Burleigh, Lord, 35 ; his vain attempt to shield Cawdrey from Whitgift and Aylmer, 77, 78 ; his protest against Whitgift's "Spanish Inquisition," 86 ; denounces the reckless ordina- tion of ministers, 110 ; intercedes for R. Browne, 318 ; prohibits Anti- Martinist plays, 319 Calthorp, Sir Martin, Lord Mayor, dies, 317 Cambridge, evangelical leaders trained at, 53 Cartwright, Thomas, 33, 42, 48, 321 Cawdrey, Robert, rector of Luftenham, before the High Commission, 77 Censorship, Press, 177 Certaine Articles collected by the Bishops, 43 Chadderton, Bishop of Chester, 61 Charles, Archduke of Austria, a suitor of Elizabeth, 11 Chatfield, Stephen, vicar of Kingston - on-Thames, 16, 313 Chronology of Events, 1588-1589, 309 Church spoliation by Elizabeth, 100 Clergy, unfit men ordained as, 261, 109 110 Clink, the (prison), 133 Coal Hole, the (Bishop of London's prison), 133 Cobham, Lord, made Privy Councillor through the aid of Whitgift, 116 Cole, Robert, 15 Compendious Examination, A (W[ill- iam] Stafford] ), 107 Compters, the (prisons), 132 Compter, the South wark (prison), 134 Congregationalism as seen in its Liter- ature (Dexter), 1 Cooper, Thomas, Bishop of Lincoln, preaches against the Admonition to Parliament, 41 ; assists in Whit- gift's controversy, 47 ; defends plu- ralism, 106 ; recognised the existence of unworthy ministers, 109, 110 ; a noted plagiarist, 127 ; why promoted to the episcopacy, 127 ; Admonition to the People, 165 ; unjustly taunted on account of his wife, 272 Copcot, Dr., sermon against The Counterpoyson, 93 Copinger's interview with Throk- morton, 252 Copping, John (congregational martyr), 54 Cosin, Richard, Replies to the Ab- stracte, 93 Coulton, G. G., Religious Education before the Reformation, 101 n. Council of Trent, the, 27 Countercuffe given to Martin Junior, A 226, 327 Counterpoyson, The (Dudley Fenner), 93 Coventry, tracts printed at, 180 Coverdale, Bishop, and the Roman vestments, 10, 13 ; sometime toler- ated by the Bishops, 33 Cox, Bishop, and the Romish vest- ments, 10 ; suspected author of a Vestiariau tract, 20 ; assists Whit- gift in his controversy, 47 ; his pluralism, 101 Crane, Mrs., of Aldermanbury, her friendship with the reformers, 152 ; receives Waldegrave's type, 153 ; lends her house at Molesey for the secret press, 154 ; desires the re- moval of the press from Molesey, 156 ; her examination, 205 Crane, Nicholas, Puritan minister, 152 Creighton, Bishop, his plea for Pope Alexander Borgia, 266 Crick, chaplain to the Bishop of Nor- wich, 45 Cross-bench writers, 230 INDEX 343 Davngerous Positions (Dr. R. Bancroft), 249, 331 Day (printer), 43 Defence of Job Throkmorton, The, 251, 331 Defence of that which hath bin written, A (J. Penry), 154, 233, 313 Defence of the Answere (Whitgift), 49 Defence of the Ecdesiasticall Discipline, A, 144, 311, 323 Defence of the Godlie Ministers, A, 81, 82 ., 311, 313 Defence of the Godlie Ministers, A (Dudley Fenner), 144 Defence of the Government Established, A (Dean Bridges), 139-143, 311, 322 ; replies to, 143 Demonstration of Discipline, The (John Udall), 213, 313 ; found in Penry's study, 315 Descriptions of Britaine (W. Harrison), 63 Dexter, Dr. Henry Martyn, 1, 286 Dialogue wherein is laide open, A, 242- 244, 320, 332 Dialogue wherin is plainly laide open, A, 320, 332 Die ecclesiae, 137 Diotrephes, a dialogue by John Udall, 152, 213, 311, 312 Divine right of Episcopacy, 173 Duumow (Essex), its supplication on behalf of deprived ministers, 96 East Molesey, the secret press at, 233 ; Penry's Defence printed at, 313 ; Demonstration of Discipline printed at, 313 ; ecclesiastical courts, 39, 59 Ecclesiasticae Disciplinae Explicatio (W. Travers), 51, 135 Elizabeth, Queen, and the English Bible, 3 ; her ecclesiastical policy, 6 her want of spiritual religion, 6 her love of ecclesiastical display, 6 her skill in diplomatic intrigue, 7 the early difficulties of her reign, 7 her diplomatic courtships, 7 ; her i se of the jealousies of France and Spain, 7 ; her religious compromise, 8 her determination to have uniformity, 11; the "idol " crucifix, 11 ; her pre- tended sympathy with Romanism, 11 ; cruel punishment of Stubbe and Page, 30 ; excommunicated by the Pope, 26 ; her suitors, 28 ; her auger at the massacre of St. Bartholomew, 46; her liking for works in Latin, 51 ; her determination of the polity of the Church, 56 ; commands Archbishop Grindal to suppress the prophesy- ings, 62 ; her imperious treatment of Archbishop Grindal, 65 ; complains of unworthy men ordained to the ministry, 110 ; complains to James that Penry and Waldegrave are harboured in Scotland, 211 ; cele- brates defeat of the Armada at St. Paul's, 314 ; orders strict search for the secret press, 314 ; opening of her seventh Parliament, 316 ; proclama- tion of schismatical books, 316 ; orders strict examination of Mar- prelate printers, 319 Episcopal literary freelances, 219-221 ; rearrangements in 1570, 31 EPISTLE, THE (first Marprelate Tract), 149 ; the printing of, 155, 314, 323; its circulation at Court, 159 EPITOME, THE (second Marprelate Tract), 149 ; printed at Fawsley, 161 ; despatched to London vid Northampton, 164, 314, 323 ; ob- tained by visitor at Fawsley, 316 Essex, Earl of, presents Elizabeth with THE EPISTLE, 159 Excommunicatio Gapiendo, De (the Writ), 71 Excommunication of Elizabeth, 26 Exhortation to the Bishops to deal Brotherly, An, 43 Exhortation to the Bishops and their Clergie, 43 Exhortation to the Governours of Wales, An (John Penry), 153, 233, 312 Exiles, the, their return on the death of Mary, 3 ; their developed reform- ing views, 3, 5 Family of Love, the, 173 Fawsley House, the secret press at, 156 ; THE EPITOME obtained at, 316 Felton, John, exposes in London the Bull of Excommunication against Elizabeth. 26 Fenner, Dudley, on the oppression of the Bishops' pursuivants, 81 ; The Counterpoyson, 93 ; harshly treated before Whitgift, 121 Ferrar, Bishop, and the Romish vest- ments, 9 Field, John, not the writer of the tracts, 282 Field (John) and Wilson (Thomas), 33, 36, 40, 48 First Parte of Pasquills Apologie, 320, 329 Fleet, the (prison), 132 Fowle, , 25 n. 344 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS Foxe, John, and the Komish vest- ments, 10, 13 ; his preaching toler- ated for a time, 33 Fregeville, John, A Reformed Politicke, 315 Freke, Bishop of Rochester, 61 Friendly Admonition, A (L. Wright), 236, 320, 329 Fulk, Wm., Master of Pembroke, reputed author of The Learned Discourse, 139; denied ecclesiastical promotion, 126 Full and plaine declaration of Ecclesi- astical Discipline (Travers and Cartwright), 51, 135 Fuller, Bishop, on Whitgift's High Commission, 76 n. Gaols of London, The State of (W. Smith, M.D.), 129 n. Gaping Gulph, The (Thomas Stubbe), 30 Garnet, , 212 Gatehouse, the (prison at Westminster), 131 Gesuer, Conrad (of Zurich), 4 Gifford, Stephen, confidential servant at Fawsley, 179, 180 ; takes secret press to Coventry, 315 ; goes to Coventry for a tract, 316 ; sent abroad, 317 Gilby, Anthony, 18 Godley, Eleanor, marries John Penry, 313 Godley, Henry, of Northampton, a 'thirdborowe,' 155 ; sends secret tracts to Baubury, 212 ; his house raided, 179 ; house again raided by pursuivants, 315 Godley Treatise, A (R. Some), 153, 233, 313 ; Penry 's reply to, 315 Godly Treatise, A (against Barrowe and Greenwood) (R. Some), 312, 317 ; annotated by Barrowe, 315 Good, John, of Kingston-on-Thames, 161 Goodman, Gabriel, Dean, 24 Government's brief against the Martiu- ists, the, 204 Grace and peace with al maner spiritual f ding (Vestiariau), 19 Greenwood, John, of Corpus Christi, Cambridge, 53 ; his irregular im- prisonment, 81 Grey, Lord, his speech in Parliament against the Bishops, 313 Grindal, Bishop, and the Romish vestments, 10, 14 ; examines the Separatists, 24 ; dissatisfies the authorities as a persecutor, 31 ; Archbishop of Canterbury, his institution, 57 ; his Visitation Articles, 59 ; attempts to reform the ecclesiastical courts, 59 ; his policy with the prophesyings, 60 ; seques- tered by Elizabeth, 63 ; his death, 65; accused by Sandys of alienating chiirch property, 66 Guzman, Spanish ambassador, 11 Hacket's mad rebellion, 252 Hadley (the martyr) and the Romish vestments, 9 Haeretico comburendo, De, the Act, 112 Hales, John, White Friars Coventry, receives the secret press, 180, 316 ; his obligation to Sir Richard Knightley, 180 ; his trial, 206, 320 ; imprisoned, 319 Handwriting of the Marprelate MSS., 291 Harborowe, An (John Aylmer), 246 Harington, Sir John ( Brief e Viewe), 5 Hart, Lord Mayor, prohibits stage plays, 319 Haseley, Warwickshire, Home of Job Throkmorton, 184 Hatton, Sir Christopher, a creature of Archbishop Whitgift, 116 Hawkins, Robert, 25 HAT ANY WORKE (fourth Marprelate Tract), 149 ; printed at Coventry, 181, 316, 325 Hertford, Lord, warns Sir Richard Knightley, 182 High Commission, the, of Archbishop Whitgift (1583), 74; a destroyer of of the public liberties, 75 ; con- demned by Hume and Lingard, 76 ; its unpopularity, 76 ; its ^legality, 76 ; never found a prisoner not guilty, 77; under Whitgift, Bancroft, and "Laud, 90 ; at work, 164 ; attacked by Marprelate, 262 Hodgkius, John, second Marprelate printer, 185 ; tortured in the Tower, 197, 333 ; his defence, 198 ; how he received the MS. of THESES MARTINIANAE, 297 ; becomes Mar- prelate's printer, 317 ; sent to the Tower, 319 ; removed from the Tower to the Marshalsea, 319 ; taken from the Marshalsea to the Tower, 320 ; his examination, 333 Hodgkins, Simms, and Thomlyn meet in London, 318 ; reach Adderbury, 318 ; leave Wolston for Warrington and Manchester, 189 ; arrested at INDEX 345 Manchester, 318 ; taken prisoners to London, 191 ; examined, 196, 318 ; ordered to be tortured if necessary, 197 Hodgkins, Udall, and Newman, con- demned to death, to be seen by Dr. Andrewes, 200 Hooker, Richard, never elevated to the episcopacy, 126 Home, Bishop, and the Komish vestments, 10 Houndhill (Hownall), 210 House of Commons passes a Bill against pluralism, 107 ; and Church reform, 34 House of Lords, led by the Bishops, rejects Bill against pluralism, 107 Hughes, Bishop, his excessive pluralism, 101 Humphreys, Lawrence, President of Magdalen, 14, 33 Hunt, Eev. John, 1 Imprisonment in the reign of Elizabeth, 128-130 Injunction against THE EPISTLE, 151 Injunctions against printing, 1559, 1566, 1586, 22, 23 Jackson, Lawrence, keeper of Fawsley House, 159, 314 Jeff's of Upton, conveys the secret press from Molesey to Fawsley, 158, 314 Jessop, Dr. Augustus, The (Economy of the Fleete, edited by, 128 Jewel, Bishop, relates a story of Bonner, 4 ; against the vestments, 10, 18 ; probable author of a Vesti- arian tract, 20 ; denounces pluralism, 104; most distinguished of the early Elizabethan Bishops, 126 Junius, Letters of, the authorship of, 303 JUST CENSURE AND KEPROOFE (see Mar- tin Senior) (sixth Marprelate Tract), 150 ; possible theories of authorship, 298 ; printed at Wolston, 318, 326 Katherine de Medici, 7, 11, 28 Kett, Francis, burnt by order of Bishop Scambler, 313 Kingston-on-Thames, the tracts sold at, 156 ; Marprelate inquiry at, 161, 314 Kitchin, Bishop, his ecclesiastical con- versions, 5 Knightley, Sir Richard, of Fawsley, receives the secret press, 156, 313 ; disavows knowledge of the working of the secret press, 161 ; sees Walde- grave at Northampton, 314 ; sees Penry about the press, 314 ; seen by Waldegrave about removing secret press, 315 ; his threats against the pursuivants, 178 ; his man speaks over wine about the tracts, 182, 317 ; his imprisonment and and trial, 205-208, 319, 320 Knightley, Valentine, regrets his father's accommodation of the secret press, 178 Knollys, Sir Francis, his sympathy with the reformers, 12 ; his action in favour of the prophesy ings, 61 Kydwell, Nicholas of Kingston-on- Thames, 156, 161 Lambeth conference on uniformity, 15 Lamb of God, A Theologicall Discourse of the (R. Harvey), 240, 330 Language and style of the tracts as evidence of authorship, 292 Latimer, Bishop Hugh, and the Romish vestments, 9 Laud, Archbishop, and the High Com- mission, 91 Lawson, Margaret, Mrs., of Paul's Gate, 156 Laymen oppose Whitgift (Archbishop), 94 Learned Discourse of Ecclesiastical Government, The, 135-139 Lee, Sidney, Dr., on Whitgift's oppres- sive policy, 271 Legal help afforded to prisoners, 194 Leicester, Earl of, his sympathy with the reformers, 12 ; and church plunder, 103 n. ; his death, 313 Leighton, Alexander, brutally perse- cuted by Laud, 91 Libel against the Sovereign, Acts pro- hibiting, 30 n. Liberty, religious, arrested by false Biblical and political ideas, 268-271 Little Ease, a prison torture, 130, 263 Lives of the Ministers of Coventry (Dr. H. Sampson), 214 Lollard's Tower, the (prison at Lam- beth Palace), 133 London prisons in 1588, 131 London, Report of the Royal Com- mission on the City of, 131 Lord's Supper, the, and ecclesiastical liberty, 55 Macaulay, Lord, on the authorship of The Letters of Junius, 303 Manchester, Hodgkins, Simms, and Thomlyn arrested at, 190 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS Mar-Martine, 224, 317, 326 Marprelate Tracts, the seven, 148-151 ; their character, 148 ; their popu- larity, 151 ; story of their produc- tion, 151 ; prices asked for, 156 ; persons suspected of writing, 177, 277-289 ; their authorship, 273 ; divided into 'primary' and 'second- ary,' 274 ; clues in the text to their authorship, 276 ; a great pro- test against oppression, 265 ; rela- tive literary merits of the two classes of, 301 ; inquiry at Kingston, 314 ; inquiry at Richmond, 315 Marprelate, Martin, charged with trea- son, 220, 255 ; shown on the stage, 221 - 223 ; the charge of heresy against, 256 ; the charge of blas- phemy against, 257 ; the charge of scurrility against, 258 ; his patriot- ism, 262 ; justifies his wit and satire, 263 ; his purpose in writing the tracts, 305 Marprelate journeys to Warrington and Manchester, 318 Marprelate printing-house, the first, 154 Marre Mar-Martin, 231, 319, 328 Marshalsea, the (prison), 134 MARTIN JUNIOR (see THESES MARTIN- IAN AE), how the 'copy' was obtained, 186 ; printed at Wolston, 187 MARTIN SENIOR (see THE JUST CEN- SURE AND REPROOFE), printed at Wolston, 188 ; taken to London by Newman, 188 Martin, Sir Roger, Lord Mayor, 24, 317 Martins Months Mind, 229, 319, 328 Martyn said to his man, 223 Maskell, Rev. William, 2 Meadows, James, takes Throkmorton's MS. to Middleburgh, 193, 195 n. Merbury, Francis, not the writer of the tracts, 281 Meyrick, Bishop, robs the Church, 102 Mildmay, Sir Walter, 61 MINERALLS, THE (third Marprelate tract), 149, 181, 316, 324 Ministry, an unlearned, 108, 109, 110 MORE WORK FOR THE COOPER, print- ing of, begun at Manchester, 190 Morrice, James, attorney, on Whit- gift's High Commission, 77, 87 ; engaged by Burleigh to defend Caw- drey, 79 ; his persecution and death, 89 n. Mullins, Archdeacon, demands sub- scription of London ministers, 14 Muse, to, significance of the use of the word, 294, n. Music in the Church, Puritan view of, 137 Myrrorfor Martinists, 320, 330 Nash, Thomas, leaves Cambridge, 318 ; The First parte of Pasquils Apologie, 239 Newgate (prison), 132 Newman, Humfrey, (afo' chief distributor of the tracts, 163, 181 ; his disguise and later livery, 163 ; offered a form of submission, 201 ; distributes HAY ANY WORKS, 316 ; invites Sharpe to print, '318 ; carries contraband tracts from North- ampton to Banbury, 212 New Testament, the, its influence in English, 2 ; its moral dynamic, 3 Nonconformists, their number in Lon- don (1567), 25 Nonconformity, its origin under the Advertisments, 15 ; openly practised, 20 North, Lord, demands the alienation of Church property for the Queen, 65 Norton, Thomas, warns Whitgift by the example of Aylmer, 115 Oath, ex officio, the, its oppressive- ness, 75, 80 Oppression, civil and religious, resisted only by the reformers, 271 Oppugn, to, significance of the use of the word, 295 n. Ordination, granted indiscriminately, 37 Overton, William, Bishop (Lichfield), accused of reckless and corrupt ordinations, 110 Oxford Assizes affected by prison disease, 129 Page, (publisher of The Gaping Gulph), 30 Pagit, Eusebius, not the writer of the Tracts, 283 Pappe with an hatchet, 228, 319, 328 Parker, Archbishop, in hiding, 5, 6 ; on the Romish vestments, 10 ; his trouble with the Advertisments, 11 ; demands subscription, 15 ; accuses Grindal of lukewarmness in perse- cuting, 31 ; his autocratic power re- pudiated in Parliament, 35 ; alleged author of A Brief e Examination, 18 ; INDEX 347 administration of his income, 50 ; corrupt sources of income, 51 ; his death and the consequent ecclesias- tical changes, 57 Parkhurst, Bishop, on the unpopularity of the Roman Bishops, 4 ; on the Komish vestments, 10 ; supports the prophesyings, 61 Parliament, Elizabeth's seventh, opened, 316 ; and Church Reform, 34 Pasquils Apologie, the First Parte of (T. Nash), 239 Penry, John, his conversion from Romanism, 238 ; The Exhortation, 233 ; A Defence of that ivhich hath been written, 233 ; his reply to R. Some, 315 ; marries Eleanor Godley, 155, 313 ; negotiates with Sir Richard Knightley, 313 ; his alleged disguise at Fawsley, 162; Th' Appellation, 210 ; reports Waldegrave at Rochelle, 317 ; reports Hodgkins' acceptance as printer, 317 ; his alias atWolston, 187 ; guarantees the printers' wages, 187 ; meets Waldegrave at Haseley, 316 ; suspected of being Marprelate, 284 ; hiding in the Midlands, 319 ; calls on Udall at Newcastle, 319 ; his escape to Scotland, 208, 211 ; Throk- movton's intercepted correspondence with, 208 ; banishment from Scot- land decreed, 321 ; with R. Walde- grave printing a tract at Molesey, 313 Penry, Deliverance, daughter of John Penry, 209 Penry, John, and Job Throkmorton, directors of the secret press, 289 ; familiar with the MS. of the secondary tracts, 290 ; their handwriting and the Marprelate MSS.,291 ; and the authorship of the tracts, 289-308 ; their language and style compared with that of the tracts, 292 Penry, Throkmorton, and Waldegrave meet finally at Haseley, 209 Perne, Andrew, Master of Peterhouse, 47, 57, 243 ; screens Whitgift from Cardinal Pole, 113 ; his ecclesiastical changes, 113 ; is defended by Whit- gift, 114, 115 n.; his death at Lambeth Palace, 317 Persecution, its influence on the English mind, 4 ; Bishop Bonner's suggestion and privacy, 4 ; apologists for, 266 ; the common people and Romanist, 267 Petition directed to her Majesty r , A, 13, 244, 311, 330 Petitions against the deprivation of ministers, 96 Philip II., King of Spain, 7 Piers, John, elected Archbishop of York, 316 Pius V. excommunicates Elizabeth, 26 Plaine Percevall the Peace-Maker, 231 Pleasaunte Dialogue, A (A. Gil by), 19 Plumbers' Hall meeting, 14, 23 Pluralism and non-residency, 99 ; restricted by the Canons of 1571, 100 ; denounced by Bishop Jewel, 104 ; defended by Whitgift, 105 ; defended by Archbishop Bancroft, 106 ; defended by Bishop Cooper, 106 ; denounced by laymen, 107 ; defended by Bishops and House of Lords, 107 ; opposed by the House of Commons, 107 Pole, Reginald, Cardinal, visits Cam- bridge, 112 Prayer Book, the, of 1549, and the "ornaments," 9 ; of 1552, the basis of Elizabethan creed, 13 Presbyterians, History of (P. Heylin), 94 n. Press, the secret, the episcopal search for, 160 ; at East Molesey, 154 ; at Fawsley House, 157 ; removed from Fawsley, 178 ; removed from Norton to Coventry, 316 Press censorship, 21, 48 Printers leave London for Wolston, 186 Prisoners, petition in favour of Noncon- formist, 129 ; never legally indicted and condemned, 130 Prisons of England and Wales, The State of (John Howard), 129 n. Prison diseases, 129 Privy Councillors' protest against Ayl- mer's deprivations, 97 Proclamation against secret printing and anti-episcopal tracts, 177 Prophesyings, the, 60-63 Protestantism more than a creed, 112 Protestant Reformers, three types of, 55 PROTESTATTON,THE(seventhMarprelate Tract), 191-194, 319, 327; the question of its authorship, 303 ; its author unmarried, 306 Queen's Bench (prison), 134 Reformatio Legum, 13, 245 Reformation without tarying for anie (R. Browne), 54 Reformation, expectation of further. 13 348 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS Reformed Politick^ A (John Frege- ville), 315 Eeformers, the, and the Romish vest- ments, 9 ; imperfect views of re- ligious liberty, 267 Religious Thought in England (J. Hunt), 1 Renaissance and Reformation in Eng- land, the, 145-148 Reply e to an Ansioere made by Dr. Whitgift, 49 Report of the Royal Commission, 1898, on the City of London, 131 Returne of Pasquill, The (T. Nash), 227, 319, 328 Rhythmes against Martin (Whip for an Ape], 227, 319, 327 Richmond, Marprelate enquiry at, 315 Rising, Romanist, in the north, 26 ; in Norfolk, 27 Rochelle, Waldegrave at, 184 Rogers, Walter, witness at Marprelate enquiry, 315 Romanists and national progress, 26 ; why religious liberty was denied them, 266 Rough, John, 25 n. St. Bartholomew's massacre, 46 Sampson, Thomas, Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, 14, 33, 64 Sandys, Bishop (London), 32, 33, 45, 58 ; on the Romish vestments, 10 ; ex- pects further reform of Prayer Book, 13 Scambler, Bishop (Norwich), condemns Kett to the stake, 313 Scory, Bishop (Peterborough), pastor of the secret Church in London, 25 ; his alienation of Church property, 102 Scotch appeal on behalf of the Non- conformists, 21 Scotland, correspondence about Henry and Waldegrave, 211 Second Admonition to Parliament, 42 Secret Church in London under Mary, pastors of, 25 and note Secret press, a, discovered at Hamp- stead, 48 Sedition, Marprelate charged with, 255 Service Book, the, used secretly in Mary's reign, 24 Settle, Thomas, browbeaten at the High Commission by Whitgift, 121 Simms, Valentine, assistant to J. Hodgkins, 185 ; his examination, 335 ; his later activities, 204 Simms and Thomlyn, their final ex- amination, 319 Sion's Plea against Prelacy (Alex. Leighton), 91 Sir -Marten Marr- People and his Cotter of Jesses, 332 Sharpe, Edward, minister at Fawsley, 162 Sharpe, Henry, bookbinder, only partly trusted by Penry, 163 ; stitches HAY ANY WORKE, 182, 316 ; warned away by Peury and Hales, 180 ; invited to print the tracts, 318 ; betrays the Marprelate confederates, 155, 201 - 204 ; his deposition be- fore Hatton, 319 Smith, John, 24 Smith, Sir Thomas, 61 Some, Robert, Dr., A Godly Treatise, 153, 233 ; confesses that unworthy men enter the ministry, 109 ; his Godly Treatise annotated by Barrowe, 315 Some, M\aster], laide open in his Coulers, 210, 233, 320, 332 Spanish Armada, the, thanksgiving for its defeat, 165 Spurrier, a, at Pie Corner, Smithfield, is Martin's agent, 182 Stafford], W., attacks pluralism, 107 Stage plays, Marprelate caricatured in, 221 ; anti-Martinist, prohibited, 223 Stanhope, Dr., ecclesiastical lawyer, 79 Stationers' Company, the, their rights of seizure, 23 Stewes, the laws of the, 259, 260 n. Strickland (M.P.), 34 Stubbe, Thomas, The Gaping Gulph, 30 Stubbes, Philip, attacks pluralism, 108 Supplication, A (John Penry), pub- lished, 316 Survey of the pretended Holy Discipline (Dr. Bancroft), 249, 331 Sutcliffe, Matthew, Answer e to Job Throkmorton, 235, 253 ; his inter- pretation of -Throkmorton's denial, 308 Taylor, Rowland (the martyr), and the Romish vestments, 9 Thacker, Elias (congregational martyr), 54 THESES MARTINIANAE [see MARTIN JUNIOR] (fifth Marprelate Tract), 150, 318, 326 ; significance of its unfinished condition, 295 ; how the copy reached the printer, 297 ; pos- sible theories of its authorship, 298 Thirty-nine Articles, the, their Protest- ant character, 15 INDEX 349 Thomlyu, Arthur, assistant to J. Hodgkins, 185 ; his examination, 335 Three articles for subscription, the, 38 Throkmorton, Bess, maid of honour to Elizabeth, 218 Throkmorton, Clement, father of Job, 184 Throkmorton, Sir George, of Coughton, 184 Throkmorton, Job, of Haseley Manor, 184, 185 ; supports Penry's ^Equity, 216 ; his petitions to Burleigh and Hatton, 216 ; his kinship to Katherine Parr, 218 ; his connection with Racket, 219 ; his interview with Copinger, 252 ; his alias at Wolstou, 187 ; sus- pected of being Marprelate, 284 ; pursuivant fails to arrest, 215 ; pro- ceedings against, 214 ; charged at the Warwick Assizes, 215 ; his appeal to Hatton, 321 ; denies he is Marprelate, 253, 307 ; alleged later writings, 195 ; the authorship of the tracts, 289-308 Thynne, Francis, refers to Marprelate, 314 Tithes and voluntary offerings, Bishop Cooper's views on, 170, 171 Tompkins, Nicholas, Mrs. Crane's servant, examined, 177, 316; second examination, 319 ; beyond the sea, 320 To myfaithfutt Brethren (Vestiarian), 19 To my louynge brethren (Vestiarian), 19 Tower, the, of London, 133 Toy, Humphrey (bookbinder), 43 Tylney, Edmund, licenser of plays, 222 Tyndale, William, as a translator, 2 Udall, John, of Corpus Christi, Cam- bridge, 53 ; writes Diotrephes, 152 ; confers with Stephen Chatfield, 313 ; his notes used by Marprelate, 213 ; silenced, 312 ; his ministry at New- castle-on-Tyne, 213 ; preached before the Scotch General Assembly, 211 ; reaches London from Newcastle, 320 ; examined at Lord Cobham's, 320 ; his imprisonment, 212 ; removed to White Lion prison, 320 ; in fetters at Croydon, 320 ; not Marprelate, 277 Underdown, Thomas (minister of Lewes), conference with Whitgift, 72 Uniformity, ecclesiastical, 1 ; produces nonconformity, 15 ; not compre- hension, the basis of the Establish- ment, 15 ; rigorously imposed, 15 ; Acts of, their influence on the Church, 16 ; their failure, 16 Unlawful Practises of Prelates, The, 92 Vernon, Dorothy, married to Job Throkmorton, 210 n. Vestiarian Controversy, the, inherited from the reformers, 9 ; Bishop Hooper's action in, 9 ; its literature, 17 Viewe of some part of such publike wants (The Supplication) (Penry) 181 Wake, Canon of Christ Church, 45 Waldegrave, Robert, Puritan printer, 151 ; sees Sir Richard Knightley, 157 ; enters a book at Stationers' Hall, 312; his type ordered to be destroyed, 312 ; his house raided, 312 ; takes some type to Mrs. Crane's house, 312 ; his wife takes the type from Mrs. Crane's, 312 ; with Peury printing at East Moseley, 312 ; printing at Fawsley, 161 ; his house broken into, 315 ; gives tracts to a visitor to Fawsley, 314 ; sees Sir Richard .Knightley about removing the press, 315 ; retires from the Martinist press, 182 ; his black letter type, 1 55 ; his movements after leaving Coventry, 183, 184 ; dines with R. Sharpe's father-in-law, 317 ; re- ported at Rochelle, 317 ; meets Penry at Haseley, 316 ; settled in Scotland, 211 ; prints A Confession in Scotland, 320 ; prints Reformation no enemie (Penry), 320 ; appointed King's printer in Scotland, 321 Walsingham, Sir Francis, his reforming sympathies, 12 Warrington, Martin's type spilled on the ground at, 189 Warwick, Earl of, his sympathy with the reformers, 12 Wastal, a house servant at Fawsley, 179 Wentworth, Peter (M.P.), 35 Whip for an Ape ( Rhythmes against Martin), 227, 319, 327 White Lion, the (prison), 134 White, Rev. F. 0., 4 n. Whitgift, John, outwardly conforms in Mary's reign, 6 ; Dean of Lincoln, 45 ; why he ceased the Admonition controversy, 49; traduces Archbishop Parker's memory, 57 ; Bishop of Wor- 350 THE MARPRELATE TRACTS cester, his zeal against Eoman recusants, 67 ; fills all vacancies with his own supporters, 68 ; resists the alienation of cathedral lands, 76 ; Archbishop of Canterbury, his quali- fications for the primacy, 69 ; his primacy, 69 ; his new articles, 70 ; on Satan's love for women 72 ; de- fends the Apocrypha, 72 ; his new High Commission 74 ; his view of Confirmation, 78; his interrogatories, 82 n. 2 ; examines H. Barrowe, 83 ; opposed by Eobert Beale, 98 ; de- fends pluralism, 105 ; his character and opinions, 111 ; his consistent policy, 111 ; his one opposition to his ecclesiastical superiors, 111 n. ; the failure of his policy in the long-run, 112 ; becomes a Protestant, 112 ; and Cardinal Pole, 112 ; his Pro- testantism screened by Dr. Andrew Perne, 113 ; his sermon on the re- storation of Protestantism, 114 ; his deference to his superiors, 114 ; his interested bestowal of patronage, 114 ; his faithfulness to his friends and party, 115, 117 ; his defence of Perne and Aylmer, 115 ; fills public offices with his supporters, 116 ; his theory of episcopacy, 117 ; on the distinction of bishop and elder, 118 ; his list of Bancroft's qualifications for the episcopacy, 118 ; his grand and ostentatious manner of living, 119 ; agreed theologically with the Nonconformists, 120 ; retained the pomp and authority of the Eoman hierarchy, 120 ; his merciless per- secution of Wigginton, 120 ; rails at Fenner and Settle, 121 ; opposes any mercy in the treatment of Non- conformists, 122 ; indicts Beale for condemning the rack, 122 ; his false promises of favour to Nonconformist prisoner, 123 ; showed no pity to Sir Eichard Knightley, 123 ; his relentless persecution of Udall, 124 ; imprisonment under him. 127 ; dele- gates censorship to E. Cosin, 312 ; letter on the arrest of the printers, 318 Wickham, W., Dean of Lincoln, 47 ; Bishop of Lincoln, 313 Wigginton, Giles, his opposition to Whitgift, 83-86 ; his imprisonments, 84 ; receives early copies of the tracts, 155 ; imprisoned for pos- sessing copies of the tracts, 164 ; examined, 315 ; not the writer of the tracts, 280 Wigstou, Eoger, of Wolston Priory, his imprisonment and trial, 206-208, 319 Wigston, Mrs., of Wolston Priory, her imprisonment and trial, 206-208, 320 Wilson, J. Dover, M.A., corrects the date of Th' Appellation (Penry), 179 n. ; his speculation about Walde- grave's 'Dutch letters,' 183; ex- plains the printing of THE PRO- TEST ATT ON, 193 n. Wilson, John, replies to Whitgift and Aylmer on illegal subscription, 95 Winchester, Bishops of, the, and the stewes, 259 Wolf, John, consults Archbishop Whit- gift about Waldegrave's press, 312 Wolston Priory (seat of Eoger Wigs- ton), pamphlets taken to, 189 Wood, Lawrence, of Fish Street, Lon- don, employed by Newman, 189 Worship, character of public, 38 Wright, Leonard, A Friendly Ad- monition, 236, 320 Yelverton, (M.P.), 35 Ydverton MSS., 335 Young, Archbishop, robs the leaden roofs at .York, 102 ; robs the See of St. David's, 102 Printed by R. & R. CLARK, LIMITKD, Edinburgh. RETURN MAIN CIRCULATION ALL BOOKS ARE SUBJECT TO RECALL RENEW BOOKS BY CALLING 642-3405 DUE AS STAMPED BELOW JAN 06 \RY FORM NO. DD6 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY BERKELEY, CA 94720 YC 58042 GENERAL LIBRARY - U.C. BERKELEY 8000771383