His chief aim
was to cover the bishops with ridicule, but the first two tracts
were, ostensibly, written in reply to a recent apologetic for the
episcopal cause, entitled A Defence of the Government established
in the Church of England for ecclesiastical matters, and very
briefly comprehended,' as Martin puts it, 'in a portable book, if
your horse be not too weake, of an hundred threescore and twelve
sheets of good Demie paper,' running, that is, into more than
fourteen hundred quarto pages of text.
was to cover the bishops with ridicule, but the first two tracts
were, ostensibly, written in reply to a recent apologetic for the
episcopal cause, entitled A Defence of the Government established
in the Church of England for ecclesiastical matters, and very
briefly comprehended,' as Martin puts it, 'in a portable book, if
your horse be not too weake, of an hundred threescore and twelve
sheets of good Demie paper,' running, that is, into more than
fourteen hundred quarto pages of text.
Cambridge History of English Literature - 1908 - v03
But it im-
proved its methods as it went on, it experimented in styles both
simple and ornate, it made use of dialogue and it realised some-
thing of the wit and humour, as well as the descriptive power,
of which prose was capable.
In its own age, it appealed to both the court and the people,
and it was later social considerations which determined its future
line of progress. The courtly and heroic elements were to pass
with the Stuarts; but the more popular elements were to be taken
up in Addison's day by the growing middle class, and, with ever-
widening province and increasing art, were to result in the novel
as we now know it
## p. 374 (#396) ############################################
CHAPTER XVII
THE MARPRELATE CONTROVERSY
The fashion of printed discussion did not become general
in England before the reign of Elizabeth. Previous to her day,
the chapbook and the broadside, vehicles of popular literature,
had contained little beyond attractive romances or exciting pieces
of news in ballad-form. Not until a great party, eager to pro-
claim and to defend its principles, arose in the nation, were the
possibilities of the printing press, as an engine in the warfare
of opinion, fully realised. The puritan movement cannot, of
course, be held responsible for every one of those countless pam-
phlets in which the age of Shakespeare was rich, but it is not
too much to say that, excluding purely personal squabbles, there
is hardly a single controversy of the time which is not directly
or indirectly traceable to it. The revolution of the seventeenth
century was both religious and social, and it is important to
bear in mind that the pamphlet campaign preceding it shared
its double character. The religious and doctrinal tracts of
the puritan controversialists lie, for the most part, outside
the literary field. One series, however, wholly theological
in intention, has won a place in the annals of literature by
originality of style and pungency of satire, and by the fact
that the first English novelist and the greatest Elizabethan
pamphleteer took up the fallen gauntlet. These, the so-called
Marprelate tracts, which gave rise to the most famous contro-
versy of the period, form the topic of the present chapter.
The origin of the Marprelate controversy, interesting as
it may be to the church historian, is far removed from the
atmosphere of general literature, and must, therefore, be indicated
as briefly as possible. Under the weak archbishop Grindal, the
puritan? , or, as it was later called, the presbyterian, doctrine had
1 The term 'puritan,' at this early period of the movement, was of almost entirely
doctrinal implication, and denoted one who supported the so-called church dig-
cipline. '
## p. 375 (#397) ############################################
The Origin of the Controversy 375
been making great strides among the clergy of the church of
England. John Whitgift, long known as an uncompromising
opponent of puritanism, was raised to the throne of Canterbury
in 1583, only just in time to prevent the English reformation
from following in the course already marked out by the Scottish.
As it was, matters had gone so far that Whitgift found it necessary
to adopt the most stringent measures, if the destinies of the church
were to be taken out of puritan hands. The most important of
these, from our present point of view, was the decree which he
procured, in 1586, from the Star chamber", forbidding the publica-
tion of any book or pamphlet unless previously authorised by
himself or the bishop of London, giving him full control over the
Stationers' company, empowering him to determine the number
of printing presses in use, and, finally, reviving a previous law
imposing the severest penalties on the printing of seditious or
slanderous books. In this way, he hoped to stem the ever-rising
tide of puritan pamphlets, and so to prevent the spread of doctrines
which he considered heretical. The Marprelate tracts were the
direct outcome of the feeling of indignation at his relentless policy
of repression, and they appeared in defiance of the newly created
censorship. Episcopacy, as an institution, had always been ob-
noxious to the puritans; it became doubly so now, as the political
instrument of their persecution. Elizabeth, while sanctioning, and
heartily approving of, Whitgift's ecclesiastical policy, was well
content to allow all the unpopularity resulting from it to light
upon his shoulders; and the civil authorities, reluctant to
persecute the puritans, withheld their support from the bishops,
and so forced them to fall back upon the resources of their
own prerogatives, and to strain these to the uttermost. Ex-
cuses may, therefore, be found for both sides. Defenders of
the establishment were placed in an extremely difficult and
disagreeable position, while puritans cannot be blamed for
converting an attack on episcopacy in general into a diatribe
against individual members of the episcopate. After ten years
of struggle, so strong a reaction set in that parliament, formerly
puritan in its sympathies, passed the famous anti-puritan statute of
1593, punishing those who attacked the ecclesiastical settlement
with banishment or even death. The effect was magical. The
violence of the puritans abated as suddenly as it had sprung up
in 1583
i See addenda.
• Prothero, Select Statutes, pp. xxxiii, lviii, 89, 169.
## p. 376 (#398) ############################################
376
The Marprelate Controversy
Thus was the vessel of puritanism wrecked on its first trial
voyage, in the teeth of the winds of tradition and authority. But
literature was the gainer by this storm of a decade, for the receding
waves left upon the shores of time a little body of tracts which
are, admittedly, the chief prose satires of the Elizabethan period.
,
It was when the battle between bishop and sectarian waxed
hottest, that the quaint and audacious personality calling himself
'Martin Marprelate, gentleman' first made his appearance; and,
though his activity only lasted two years, he succeeded, during
that short time, in thoroughly frightening the whole episcopal
bench, in doing much to undermine its authority and prestige
with the common people, and in providing the general public with
food for laughter that has not even yet entirely lost its savour.
Martin took the field at the end of 1588 ; light skirmishers,
however, had been there before him. A year after Whitgift's
accession to power there appeared a small octavo volume entitled
A Dialogue concerning the strife of our Church, from the press
of the puritan printer Robert Waldegrave, and in black-letter!
This pamphlet is almost certainly by John Udall-50 similar is it to
other of his writings. The discussion is chiefly carried on between
a puritan divine and a bishop's chaplain, and turns upon topics
such as non-residency, dumb ministers and the pomp of bishops ;
but it contains no hint at all of the presbyterian discipline.
Two years later, in 1586, a clever satirical attack upon episcopacy
attempted to penetrate the archbishop's lines of defence by
masquerading in the guise of anti-popery. The keen eye of
Whitgift at once detected its real object, and arrested its progress
80 effectually that, had he not himself preserved a copy of it in his
library at Lambeth, we might never have heard of it. The satire
in question is an anonymous pamphlet, also in black-letter, styled
A Commission sente to the Pope, Cardynales, Bishops, Friers,
Monkes, with all the rable of that Viperous Generation by the
highe and mighty Prince, and King Sathanas, the Devill of
Hell. It purports to be an infernal despatch, instructing the
officials mentioned on the title-page, and especially the great
bishops our true messengers. . . whom we have constituted petty-
popes under the great Archpope of Rome,' as to the measures
to be adopted against the puritans. The constant allusions to
6
1 Of this tract there is an interesting copy in Trinity College library, Cambridge,
with marginal notes in the writing of two, if not three, different and, apparently,
contemporary hands. Some of the remarks have a direot bearing upon the subject
of the Marprelate tracts, Ayliner, bishop of London, being constantly referred to.
## p. 377 (#399) ############################################
Penry's Aequity and Udall's Diotrephes 377
' petty-popes,' 'gatehouses,' 'clinks' and 'proctors' leave no doubt as
to the sympathies and intentions of the author, who may, possibly,
have been Martin himself, or his spiritual father John Field.
Among Martin's forerunners, two were concerned in the
production of the famous tracts themselves. One of them,
John Penry, who has been called the father of Welsh noncon-
formity, published, in March 1587', a petition, which, at the same
time, was presented to parliament, calling attention to the de-
plorable state of religion in his native country, Wales. Five
hundred copies of this Treatise, containing the Aequity of an
humble supplication, were seized at once by Whitgift; and its
author was summoned before the court of high commission. After
being characteristically heckled by the archbishop, Penry was
retained for a month in prison and then released. In reading
his offending petition, it is difficult to find any justification for
such treatment. It has been described as a bitter attack upon
the church; but it contains nothing to support this description.
There are, indeed, certain passages that might be construed as
anti-episcopal ; but we have evidence for believing that it was
for treason rather than for heresy that Penry was arraigned”;
and there is a paragraph in The Aequity which lends colour to
this view. The puritans were loth, both from feelings of loyalty
and from fear of coming under the law of treason, to associate
Elizabeth with what they considered the evil practices of the
bishops; yet it was difficult to avoid accusing her by implication,
seeing that the bishops derived all the civil authority they pos-
sessed from her. Penry attempted to solve the problem by
turning the tables upon his adversaries and accusing them of
treason for laying the queen open to the possibility of such
slanders. It was this that seems to have roused the archbishop's
anger; though, as it was not in itself sufficient cause ior convic-
tion, the argument passed muster and reappears in the writings
of Udall and in the Marprelate tracts.
John Udall's personal connection with Martin was much
slighter than Penry's; but a small tractate of his, published
anonymously and printed without authority in April 1588, holds
a more important place in the history of the Marprelate contro-
versy than anything Penry is known to have written. Even were
it not so, The State of the Church of Englande or, as it is
generally called, Diotrephes, would still be worthy of notice in
i The Date of Penry's Aequity,' Cong. Hist. Soc. Trans. II, No. 2.
* Th' Appellation of John Penri, pp. 3-5.
## p. 378 (#400) ############################################
378
The Marprelate Controversy
a
a history of literature. King James is said to have considered
Udall “the greatest scholar in Europe,' and Diotrephes shows him
to have possessed humour as well as scholarship. The dialogue
in which the tract is written is, at times, handled a little crudely;
but the delineation of the time-serving publican, the cunning
papist and the worldly bishop, tolerant to all save those who
threaten his privileges, is a distinctly clever piece of work. There
is no mistaking Udall’s intentions. He puts a stern denunciation
of bishops and a defence of the new presbyterian discipline into
the mouth of Paul, a solemn and somewhat sententious 'preacher';
while the moral of the dialogue is that, while episcopacy is the
root of all social and religious evils, popery is the root of episcopacy.
A certain air of quietness and assurance about the whole contrasts
favourably with the boisterous spirit of raillery in which Martin
approaches the same topics. Diotrephes must take its place as
the first and most thoughtful of the puritan pamphlets in the
controversy.
If The Aequity was seized and its author cast into prison,
mercy could certainly not be expected for Diotrephes, which was
infinitely more outspoken and dangerous. For the time, Udall,
who was a preacher at Kingston-on-Thames, preserved his anony-
mity; and the whole weight of Whitgift's wrath fell upon the
printer, Robert Waldegrave. This man, who was to play an
extremely important part in the struggle that followed, had
already suffered several terms of imprisonment for printing
puritan discipline tracts! Early in 1588, he had again defied
the authorities by publishing Penry's second Welsh tract, An
Exhortation. On 16 April, his house was entered by the officers
of the Stationers' Company; and, by virtue of Whitgift's Star
chamber ordinance, a press, some pica type and many copies of
Diotrephes were confiscated. Waldegrave' managed to escape and
with him some small roman and italic type; but his occu-
pation was gone, and he had a wife and six children dependent
upon
him. His ruin, we shall see, was Martin's opportunity.
One more name must be mentioned before we come to close
quarters with Martin himself-that of John Field, a famous
puritan preacher, and part author of the first Admonition to
Parliament (1572), which, in the violence of its language and in
the secrecy of its production, reminds us forcibly of the Marprelate
tracts. He died in February 1588, at least eight months before
| Hay any worke for Cooper, ed. Petheram (1845), p. 65.
2 See addenda.
to carry
## p. 379 (#401) ############################################
The Story of the Press
379
the publication of Martin's first pamphlet; but the Marprelate
controversy was his legacy to his old enemies the bishops. We have
used gentle words too long,' he had remarked to the archbishop's
chaplain who visited him in prison, 'which have done us no good:
the wound grows desperate and needs a corrosive. 'l It was Martin
who applied this corrosive; but Field, before his death, had
prepared the ingredients. He is known to have collected certain
notes, consisting of stories to the discredit of the most prominent
bishops of the day. These came into the hands of Martin and
formed the basis of his earliest tract The Epistle. Had these
notes been destroyed, as, it is said, Field, upon his death-bed,
desired, there would perhaps have been no Marprelate con-
troversy ; certainly, without them, the first tract would have lost
all its point and very much of its piquancy.
It is now time to turn to Martin himself, and consider the
history of the secret printing press, which, like a masked gun,
dropped shell after shell into the episcopal camp. The type that
Waldegrave had rescued from the hands of the authorities was
conveyed to the London house of a certain Mistress Crane, a
well known puritan, where it remained, according to the evidence
of her servant, for two or three months, that is, until midsummer.
It is somewhat difficult to follow Waldegrave's movements after the
raid in April, as the information we possess about the Marprelate
press before November 1588 is very scanty and untrustworthy.
The seizure of the copies of Diotrephes probably necessitated its
reissue; and, as there are two distinct impressions extant, it is
legitimate to suppose that the printer, for some of this time, was
engaged upon this tasks. A close examination of the lettering and
workmanship of the tract, together with hints let fall by those
examined by the authorities in their investigation of the affair,
support the belief that it was printed by Waldegrave on a press
and with type belonging to Penry and secreted at Kingston-on-
Thames, of which town Udall was then parish priest. Hardby,
at the village of East Molesey, was Mistress Crane's country-house,
i Neal, Puritans (ed. 1837), vol. 1, p. 188.
Arber, Introductory Sketch to the Marprelate Controversy, p. 94. Most of the
facts relating to the Marprelate press are to be found in this collection of documents.
Field's importance has, hitherto, escaped notice. Penry confessed that his notes
formed the substance of The Epistle. Udall's notes, of which too much has been
heard, appear to bave concerned his own wrongs alone, the account of which covers
little more than a page of the first tract.
3 See addenda.
## p. 380 (#402) ############################################
380
The Marprelate Controversy
whither the rescued type was brought about midsummer, and, at
the same time, or in September, the black-letter in which the first
four Marprelate tracts were to be printed. On 10 June, the pur-
suivants had been at Kingston-on-Thames, looking for Waldegrave;
but, as they had failed to find him, he had probably moved to
East Molesey by that date. Anyhow, in July, he was probably
hard at work there upon a fresh tract by Udall, entitled A Demon-
stration of Discipline. This pamphlet possesses none of the
literary interest of Diotrephes, being little more than a bald
summary of the puritan arguments against episcopacy. Its author,
it may be noticed in passing, was, about this time, inhibited as a
preacher because of his outspoken sermons, and is, for that reason,
perhaps, much more bitter here than in the earlier tract. It
soon, however, became evident that something besides arguments
for church discipline and pleas for Wales was being hatched in
this little nest of puritans in the Thames valley. The first Mar-
prelate tract, commonly known as The Epistle, was printed by
Waldegrave under Penry's supervision at Mistress Crane's house,
and issued in October or at the beginning of the next month. It
burst upon the world with surprising effect. Early in November,
'Martin' was a name in everyone's mouth. So great, indeed, was
the stir that, on the 14th, we find Burghley, by royal command,
writing an urgent letter to Whitgift, bidding him use all the
means in his power to bring the authors to book. Penry had fore-
seen the coming storm, and the Thames valley had long been under
the eye of the pursuivants. On 1 November, therefore, Walde-
grave was already in Northamptonshire and his press on the road
behind him.
It was natural that the press should gravitate into this district.
Penry, on 8 September, had married a lady of Northampton and
made his home there; and there was another and no less im-
portant reason for the direction taken. At a village, called Hasely,
lying a little to the north-west of Warwick and, therefore, no very
great distance from Northampton, dwelt a certain Job Throck-
morton, who had much to do with the production of the tracts.
The place to which the press and printer were removed was the
house of Penry's friend, Sir Richard Knightley, at Fawsley,
twelve miles from Northampton on the Warwick side and, there-
fore, easily accessible both to Penry and Throckmorton. Not-
withstanding the strictest secrecy observed by all, it was found
impossible to remain long there. During the stay, only one tract
so far as we know, was printed—the second Martin,' known as
## p. 381 (#403) ############################################
381
The Story of the Press
The Epitome. This, the longest but one of Martin's productions,
was printed, distributed and already in the archbishop's hands,
before 6 December? : possibly, therefore, it had been partially
printed before the move from Molesey. Its appearance led the
authorities to redouble their efforts to discover the wandering press.
On 29 January 1589, a pursuivant made a raid on Penry's house at
Northampton, carrying off his papers; and, in February, a proclama-
tion was issued against 'sundry schismatical and seditious bookes,
diffamatorie Libels and other fantastical writings' that, of late, had
been 'secretly published and dispersed. ' Meanwhile, the press
was again on its travels. At the end of 1588, or the beginning of
1589, it was carted to another house belonging to Sir Richard
Knightley, situated at a little village near Daventry, called Norton.
Here it remained idle for about a fortnight, when it was taken
to Coventry and bestowed in the White Friars, a house belonging
to John Hales, a relative of Sir Richard. From thence, two
Marprelate tracts were issued, The Minerall Conclusions, at the
end of February, and Hay any worke for Cooper, about the 20th
of the following month, another of Penry's Welsh pamphlets,
known as A Supplication to the Parliament, appearing between
these two dates. At this juncture, a worse evil befell the Mar-
tinists than the compulsory nomadism they had hitherto endured.
The man behind the gun began to tire of his task. At the
beginning of April, Waldegrave informed a friend of his intention
to quit the Marprelate cause. He was encouraged in this
determination, not merely by personal fears, but, also, by the
dislike of Martin's methods, openly expressed by the majority of
puritan preachers. What happened to him immediately afterwards
is not clear. We hear of him next at Rochelle, whither he probably
found it safest to retire. He took away with him the black-letter
in which the first four Marprelate tracts are printed, leaving
it, perhaps, in London on his way through. Though no longer
the Marprelate printer, he did not, therefore, sever all con-
nection with Penry and Throckmorton. During the summer of
1589, he printed Th' appeilation of John Penri, and, about the
same time, an anonymous book M. Some laid open in his coulers,
said to be by Throckmorton and, therefore, of value as evidence
for the identity of Martin. It is generally believed that Walde-
grave also printed a little tract on the lines of Udall's Diotrephes,
entitled A Dialogue wherein is plainly laide open the tyrannicall
1 The Date of the second Marprelate Tract. ' W. Pierce, Journal Northants. Nat.
Hist. Soc. vol. XII, p. 103. Brook's Lives of the Puritans (1813), vol. I, p. 423.
## p. 382 (#404) ############################################
382
The Marprelate Controversy
dealing of L. Bishopps against God's children. It is not certain,
however, whether this was issued like the two others from
Rochelle, though undoubtedly, it appeared in 15891.
Waldegrave's desertion was a sad blow for Martin and silenced
his guns for a while. Another printer, one John Hodgkins, 'a
salt-petre man,' was engaged in May or early in June; but he
probably took some time in obtaining the necessary assistants, for
he did not begin to print until midsummer or after. The press,
or, perhaps we should say, one of the presses, had been removed
from Coventry and was now concealed in the house of Mistress
Wigston, at Wolston, a village some six miles to the south.
Hodgkins's first task was to print the Theses Martinianae or Martin
Junior, part of which, it is curious to notice, he had picked up in
the road, outside Throckmorton's house, when returning with Penry
from a visit there. He appears to have finished this about 22 July,
and its sequel, The just censure and reproofe of Martin Junior,
about a week later. He was then urged to take in hand another
tract called More worke for the Cooper. Not liking Penry's press,
however, he decided to take this manuscript away and print it on
a second press, previously sent by him to the neighbourhood of
Manchester, which, possibly, was his home. Here, while actually
printing the new tract, he and two assistants, Symmes and Tomlyn,
were arrested near the end of August by the earl of Derby. The
press, type and manuscript were seized, with all the printed sheets
of More worke that had already been struck off, and Hodgkins and
his men were carried to London and examined under torture. But
this was not the coup de grâce. There was still the other press
and Penry's original type at Mistress Wigston's. With the aid of
these, the seventh and last Martin was produced, in the month of
September 1589, at Throckmorton's house in Hasely, as is usually
supposed, and issued under the title of The Protestation An
examination of the original reveals the fact that two different
printers are responsible for it: one, the merest amateur, the other,
an accomplished craftsman. The former, who only printed the
first half sheet, we may conjecture to have been Penry, assisted,
perhaps, by Throckmorton; the latter, who finished the tract,
we believe from the printer's signatures to have been Walde-
grave, who seems to have returned from Rochelle in the autumn
of 1589 and to have delivered at Throckmorton's house his
.
1 The dates of these three tracts, with Waldegrave's movements in 1589, are dis-
cussed in an article by the present writer in The Library, October 1907.
? Yelverton MSS, vol. Lxx, fol. 146, verso. Manchester Papers, No. 123.
## p. 383 (#405) ############################################
a
The Style and Character of the Tracts 383
printed copies of Th’ Appellation and M. Some laid open, before
continuing his journey to Scotland, where, in 1590, he became
royal printer to king James? . Soon after The Protestation
appeared, Penry, also, fled to Scotland, possibly travelling in
Waldegrave's company. Their departure was only just in time.
Henry Sharpe, a bookbinder of Northampton, on 15 October, re-
vealed to the lord chancellor the whole story of the Marprelate press,
whereupon Sir Richard Knightley, Hales and the Wigstons were
arrested? . At the end of the year, Udall, who had left Kingston for
Newcastle in December 1588, was summoned to London and there
cast into prison. Some two and a half years later, Penry returned
to England and joined the separatists. Not long after, he was
arrested, and, on 29 May 1593, was hanged on a trumped up charge
of treason, thus paying with his life for the part he had taken in
the Marprelate controversy. His partner, Job Throckmorton, who,
probably, was far more guilty than he, swore, at the trial, that 'he
was not Martin and knew not Martin'; and it was only in 1595,
when the storm had blown over, that the real nature of his
connection with the Marprelate press seems to have been realised.
Of the extant Marprelate tracts there are seven. Others, we
know from contemporary evidence, had found their way into print
or had been circulated in manuscript, but, unfortunately, they
have not survived. Those we have, however, are quite sufficient
to give a clear idea of Martin's methods and style.
His chief aim
was to cover the bishops with ridicule, but the first two tracts
were, ostensibly, written in reply to a recent apologetic for the
episcopal cause, entitled A Defence of the Government established
in the Church of England for ecclesiastical matters, and very
briefly comprehended,' as Martin puts it, 'in a portable book, if
your horse be not too weake, of an hundred threescore and twelve
sheets of good Demie paper,' running, that is, into more than
fourteen hundred quarto pages of text. Written by the laborious,
but worthy, John Bridges, dean of Sarum, in hope of preferment,
as Martin asserts, it was a thorough and well-intentioned attempt
to stem the flood of puritan discipline tracts by flinging a huge
boulder into the stream. The rock-hurling Goliath from Salisbury
was too ponderous for the ordinary carving process, and the only
possible weapon to use against him was the stone and sling of ridicule.
For such warfare, Martin was eminently qualified. A puritan who
had been born a stage clown, he was a disciple both of Calvin and
1 The Library, October 1907, pp. 337–359.
* An account of their trial is given in State Trials, vol. I, no. 67.
## p. 384 (#406) ############################################
384 The Marprelate Controversy
>
>
Dick Tarleton. His style is that of a stage monologue. It flows with
charming spontaneity and naturalness. Now, with a great show of
mock logic, he is proving that the bishops are petty popes; now,
he is telling stories to their discredit; now, he is rallying 'masse
Deane Bridges' on his 'sweet learning,' his arguments and his
interminable sentences. All this is carried on with the utmost
vivacity and embroidered with asides to the audience and a
variety of patter' in the form of puns, ejaculations and references
to current events and persons of popular rumour. Whether
Martin were blasphemous or not, must be decided by each reader
in the light of his own particular tenets. Certainly, he must be
exculpated from any intention of the sort, the very nature of his
plea precluding such a possibility. Personal, he undoubtedly was.
He sets out with the object of lampooning the bishops of the day
and frankly admits that such is his rôle in the general puritan cam-
paign : 'you defend your legges against Martins strokes, while the
Puritans by their Demonstration crushe the very braine of your
Bishopdomes'-a remark which seems to indicate that the publica-
tion of Udall's Demonstration of Discipline, simultaneously with
The Epistle, was no mere accident. Yet there is nothing that can
be called definitely scurrilous in his treatment of the bishops, with
the exception of his cruel reference to bishop Cooper's domestic
misfortunes. They are 'pernicious,' 'pestilent,' 'wainscot-faced,'
tyrannical,' sometimes 'beasts,' 'patches' and 'dunces,' occa-
'sionally, even, 'bishops of the devil,' but all this is part of the
usual polemical vocabulary of the day; indeed, Barrow the
separatist did not hesitate to use such expressions to Whitgift's
very face. Martin's wit is a little coarse and homely, but never
indecent, as the anti-Martinist pamphlets were. Speaking of the
argumentative methods of Bridges, he says: 'He can now and
then without any noyse alledge an author clean against himself,
and I warrant you wipe his mouth cleanly and look another way as
though it had not been he'-which may stand as a type of his
peculiar vein of humour. His shafts are winged with zest, not
with bitterness. 'Have at you! ' he shouts, as he is about to make
a sally, and, again, 'Hold my cloake there somebody that I may go
roundly to worke'; for he evinces, throughout, the keenest delight
in his sport among the 'catercaps. ' This effect of boisterousness is
enhanced by various tricks of expression and arrangement. The
tracts present no appearance of any set plan, they are reeled off
with the utmost volubility, at the top of the voice, as it were, and
are scattered up and down with quaint marginal notes and
6
6
6
## p. 385 (#407) ############################################
The Epistle and The Epitome 385
parentheses. All this reveals a whimsical and original literary
personality utterly unlike anything we find in the attested writings
of Penry or Udall. Yet, it must not be supposed that the tracts
are nothing but 'quips and quidities' These are only baits to
catch the reader and lure him on into the net of puritan argument.
Most of them contain serious passages, sometimes of great length,
expounding the new discipline.
Leaving general considerations, we may now turn and briefly
observe the main characteristics of each tract. The Epistle, in-
tended, as its lengthy and amusing title implies', as an introduction
to a forthcoming epitome of the dean of Sarum's apologetic, was, as
we have seen, largely based on John Field's notes. It consists,
therefore, for the most part, of those anecdotes relating to the
bishops' private lives which are usually considered Martin's chief
stock-in-trade, but which appear, in reality, very rarely in the later
tracts. Some of them were, no doubt, untrue, and many were ex-
aggerations of innocent incidents unworthy of mention. Naturally
enough, too, they principally concerned those prelates who had
made themselves particularly obnoxious to the puritans, chief of
whom were Whitgift of Canterbury, Aylmer of London and
Cooper of Winchester. Besides this scandal, The Epistle contains
many references to the grievances of the puritans, special attention
being paid to the cases of Penry, Waldegrave and Udall, the last
of whom admitted under examination, in 1590, that certain notes
of his, concerning the archdeacon of Surrey and a usurer at
Kingston, had found their way, without his knowledge, into the
tract. Yet, whatever the origin of the materials, they are treated
consistently throughout in one vein, and no one reading The
Epistle can doubt that its author was a single individual and not
a puritan syndicate.
It is not possible to speak with the same certainty of The
Epitome, in which Martin undertakes the trouncing of Bridges
promised in The Epistle. It contains some of those serious
passages before mentioned, in which it is open for critics to see a
second hand at work, though it would be difficult, on such a
bypothesis, to decide in every case where Martin left off and his
collaborator began. The tract sets out on its title-page, which is
practically identical with that of The Epistle, to be an epitome of
the first book of Bridges ; but, as before suggested, it is doubtful
whether Martin ever seriously intended to do more than play with
the worthy dean. A few extracts are quoted from his book and
1 See bibliography.
25
E. L. III.
CH. XVII,
## p. 386 (#408) ############################################
386
The Marprelate Controversy
ridiculed, or, occasionally, answered, in the quasi-logical fashion
that is one of the characteristics of Martin's style; but a larger
portion of the tract is, in reality, devoted to Aylmer, bishop of
London. This prelate was considered a renegade by the puritans
and was, accordingly, even more in disfavour with them than
Whitgift. As has been seen", Aylmer had written a book in reply
to Knox's First Blast of the Trumpet. In this, he had found
occasion to inveigh against the worldliness and wealth of the
Marian bishops, and even to imply disapproval of their civil
authority. It was easy to turn such words against their unlucky
author, now comfortably ensconced in the see of London and
wielding the civil authority against the puritans; and Martin
made the most of his opportunity. For the rest, The Epitome
exhibits the same characteristics as its predecessor, though it
more frequently lapses into a serious vein. There is one fresh
touch of humour that is worth notice. The tract contains on the
last page some errata, the nature of which may best be gathered
from the first, which begins 'Whersoever the prelates are called
my Lords . . . in this Epitome, take that for a fault. '
Soon after the appearance of the second Marprelate tract,
Thomas Cooper, bishop of Winchester, took up the cudgels for the
episcopal side, in his Admonition to the People of England. Far
from discouraging Martin by his grave condemnation, the worthy
bishop played straight into the satirist's hands and merely pro-
vided fresh fuel for the fire of his wit. The old business of Bridges
was growing somewhat stale, and Martin turned with alacrity
towards a new antagonist. Just then, the Marprelate press was on
its journey from Fawsley to Coventry; but, so soon as it was
comfortably settled at the White Friars, a broadside appeared,
known as The Minerall Conclusions, which was intended to keep
the game in swing until a more weighty answer to Cooper's
Admonition could be framed and printed. It contained thirty-
seven ‘Minerall and Metaphisicall Schoolpoints, to be defended
by the reverende Bishops and the rest of my cleargie masters
of the Convocation house. ' These school-points are arguments or
opinions of the most ludicrous description, each purporting to
be held by an ecclesiastical dignitary who is named as its defender.
Nearly half of them are quoted (or misquoted) from Cooper's
book, and the whole concludes with a witty address to the reader,
stating that, if anyone can be found ready and willing to withstand
these arguments and their formidable supporters, “the matters
· See ante, p. 145.
## p. 387 (#409) ############################################
Martin Junior
387
shall be, according unto order, quietly tried out between him and
the bare walles in the Gatehouse, or some other prison. ' While
this was circulating from hand to hand, a more fitting reply to the
Admonition was being prepared under the title of Hay any worke
for Cooper ? a familiar street-cry of the time. The bishop's name
afforded an opportunity for an infinite amount of word-play, and
the atmosphere of the tract is thick with tubs, barrels and hoops.
Hay any worke is the longest of all Martin's productions and,
except for The Protestation, contains the greatest quantity of
serious writing. There is a little of the familiar frolicking at the
outset; but Martin very soon puts off his cap and bells and sits
down to a solemn confutation of Cooper's new defence of the civil
authority of bishops. After about fifty pages, he recovers
himself, and, with a whoop of 'Whau, whau, but where have I bin
al this while! ” he launches out into ridicule of various passages
in the bishop's apologetic, rounding contemptuously on him for
his deficiency in humour— Are you not able to discern between a
pleasant frump given you by a councellor and a spech used in
good earnest? '
Martin Junior or Theses Martinianae, the next in the series,
exhibits a change in method. Field's notes, which Martin had
merely decorated with his drolleries, had formed the basis of The
Epistle, while the apologetics of Bridges and Cooper had given
substance and cohesion to the sallies of The Epitome and Hay
any worke. In Martin Junior, our pamphleteer aims, for the first
time, at what may be called literary form! . In a period when
fiction, apart from drama, was in its earliest infancy, any piece
of imaginative prose, however rudimentary, is interesting. The
bulk of the tract, indeed, consists of a 'speech' by Martin Marpre-
late and a hundred and ten theses against the bishops, in which
the familiar discipline' arguments are reasserted; but it is
prefaced with a short epistle, ostensibly by Martin Junior, younger
son of the old Martin, and concludes with a lengthy epilogue in
the approved Tarleton style, dedicated "To the worshipfull his very
good neame maister John Canterburie,' and signed 'your worship’s
nephew Martin Junior. In this epilogue, we are given to under-
stand that old Martin has disappeared, possibly into the Gate
House”, and that his son, a 'prety stripling' Martin Junior, has
discovered under a hedge a manuscript containing the aforesaid
theses in his father's handwriting. It will be remembered that
it was precisely in this fashion that part of Martin Junior actually
1 See addenda.
? Possibly this is an allusion to the departure of Waldegrave.
2
2
25-2
## p. 388 (#410) ############################################
388
The Marprelate Controversy
came into the hands of the printer; so it is just possible that
there is more in the tale than appears upon the surface. This
manuscript, which breaks off in the middle of a sentence, Martin
Junior gives to the world, adding a long defence of his father's
methods, obviously addressed to the puritans, whose ‘misliking'
had been the cause of Waldegrave's defection. The imaginative
setting of the Theses Martinianae is continued in Martin Senior
or The just censure and reproofe, which came forth a week later.
Martin Senior is the eldest son of 'Martin the Great' and is,
seemingly, very indignant at his stripling brother's rashness and
impertinence in printing his father's theses. After a little intro-
ductory playfulness in this vein, the tract goes on to give 'an
oration of John Canturburie to the pursuivants when he directeth
his warrants to them to post after Martin,' which is reminiscent of
A Commission sente to the Pope and, at the same time, anticipates
the method of the Satyre Ménippée. In addition to this, we have
'eleven points, with a solemn diatribe, against episcopacy, a
reference to the 'slackness of the Puritans,' a proposal to present
a petition to the queen and privy council, and, lastly, an answer
to the anti-Martinist rimes in Mar-Martine, doggerel for doggerel.
At this juncture, the bishops succeeded, at last, in silencing
their voluble antagonist by seizing his press and arresting his
printers at Manchester. Martin died with defiance on his lips.
His last tract, The Protestation, plunges at once into the question
of the late capture, declares that it can do Martin no harm as
the printers do not know him and proceeds to rail against the
bishops as inquisitors and butchers. It is noticeable that Martin
has almost entirely dropped his comic tone; and, as if he realised
that the time for such a tone had passed, he emphatically declares
'that reformation cannot well come to our church without blood'-a
phrase which, while it ostensibly refers to the blood of the martyrs,
leaves it open for the reader to understand the blood of the
bishops. He bids his readers believe 'that by the grace of God the
last yeare of “Martinisme”. . . shall not be till full two years after
the last year of Lambethisme,' a prophecy which received a
curious fulfilment in the appearance of a pamphlet in imitation of
Martin a year after Laud's execution. The climax of the whole
tract is reached in the 'protestation,' or challenge, to the bishops
to hold a public disputation upon the points of disagreement
between puritan and prelate, its author proclaiming his readiness
to come forward as the public champion of the puritan cause, for
which, should he fail, he is willing to forfeit his life.
## p. 389 (#411) ############################################
The Authorship of the Tracts 389
The Protestation is, strictly speaking, the last of the seven
Marprelate tracts that have come down to us. But there is an
eighth, A Dialogue, printed by Waldegrave in the summer of
1589, which, obviously, is Martinist in sympathy and purpose, and
which deserves mention even if it cannot claim a place among
the other seven. In 1643, it is interesting to notice, it was
reprinted under the title of The Character of a Puritan . . . by
Martin Marprelate; so that there was evidently a tradition
which assigned it to our jester-puritan. The style of the whole
is quite unlike Martin's; but it may be that the dialogue form
would put considerable restraint upon his natural exuberance.
This very form suggests that maker of dialogues, John Udall'.
He had spoken the prologue to the Marprelate drama in his
Diotrephes; it would seem fitting, therefore, that the epilogue
should be his also. But, however this may be, the tract, if not
Martin's, is interesting as a proof that there was at least one
puritan who sympathised with his methods. "The Puritanes like
of the matter I have handled but the forme they cannot brooke,'
our tractarian writes in Martin Junior; and it is worthy of notice
that, while he constituted himself the spokesman of puritanism, he
was far from being in touch with its spirit. The 'preachers,' as we
have seen, looked with great disfavour on his levity. Thomas
Cartwright, the leader of the movement, was careful to dissociate
himself at the very outset from any suggestion of sympathy with
him. Richard Greenham, another celebrated puritan and tutor of
the still more celebrated Browne, actually went so far as to preach
against The Epistle in a sermon delivered at St Mary's, Cambridge.
“The tendency of this book is to make sin ridiculous, when it ought
to be made odious'; so ran the text of his condemnation. These
words lay bare the very springs of puritanism and teach us not
only why Martin failed to win puritan support, but, also, why the
whole movement, despite its many obvious excellences, did not
succeed, in the long run, in winning over the most intellectual
forces of the nation. The puritans banished the comic muse from
England. She returned, in 1660, as the handmaid of Silenus.
Before turning to the answers that Martin evoked from the
episcopalians, a few remarks may be hazarded as to the authorship
of the series of pamphlets that bear his name. An attempt has
been made to father them on Henry Barrow, the separatist, whom
the congregationalists regard as one of the founders of their church,
and who, at the time, was lying in the Fleet. The theory is in-
genious, but quite untenable. The Marprelate tracts were the
1 There is, however, nothing else about the tract to suggest Udall's authorship.
## p. 390 (#412) ############################################
390
The Marprelate Controversy
.
product of the presbyterian, and not of the independent, or
separatist, movement. Udall, Field, Waldegrave, all who were
known to have been connected with the production of the tracts,
were 'church discipline' men, who wished to reform the church
from within. True, Penry joined the separatists in 1592, but, by
that time, Martin Marprelate was ancient history. Further than
this, it has recently been pointed out that Hay any worke contains
a passage in reference to the question of tithe-taking which could
not possibly have been written by a separatist? In point of fact,
most authorities are now agreed that the choice lies between
Throckmorton and Penry. Possibly, the tracts, which exhibited two-
styles, or, at least, two moods, were the result of their combined
energies. Two critics, with a special knowledge of Penry's writings,
have rejected the theory of his identity with ‘Martin' in the
strongest terms”; but, as they are here obviously alluding to
Martin the humorist, their disclaimer does not really affect the
possibility of Penry's responsibility for the theological passages,
though there is absolutely no evidence involving him even to this
limited extent. On the other hand, there seem to be very strong
reasons, even if they do not amount to actual proof, for assigning
at least the comic portions of the tracts to Job Throckmorton. In
1589, Waldegrave had printed a tract entitled M. Some laid open
in his coulers, which, almost without doubt, is Throckmorton's,
though the signature I. G. at the end has led many critics to
attribute it to John Greenwood, Barrow's friend and fellow prisoner
-à theory which, like that ascribing the Marprelate tracts to
Barrow, collapses before the theological test. Dr Some was a
busy controversialist on the Whitgiftian side, and this pamphlet.
against him was one link in another chain of polemical writings,
the particulars of which it is not necessary to examine here.
Suffice it to remark that Some attacked both Penry and Barrow;
and, therefore, it is probable that the author of M. Some laid open,
who had no desire to divulge his identity, intentionally adopted
Greenwood's initials in order to throw dust into the eyes of the
authorities. Style may be a doubtful touchstone for the test of
authorship; but one cannot conceive that anyone familiar with the
tracts of Martin could fail to see the same hand in M. Some laid open.
In every way, it is similar, in that boisterous, rollicking, hustling
i Powicke, Henry Barrow, pp. 82–85, which contain valuable information in
reference to this question of authorship.
2 Waddington, John Penry, and Greive, The Aequity.
3 Sutcliffe's Answere to Job Throckmorton (Arber, Sketch, p. 179). It should be
admitted, however, that not all authorities are inclined to trust Sutcliffe's statements.
to the same extent as the present writer.
## p. 391 (#413) ############################################
The Theological Reply to Martin 391
manner of speech which has won them a place in the literature
of the nation, and it deserves to share that place with them. For
the rest, if further information regarding Throckmorton's real
position in this famous controversy should be needed, there remains
the valuable, if ex parte, testimony of Matthew Sutcliffe.
This man was a protégé of Bancroft and became provost of
his college at Chelsea for the training of theological controver-
sialists. In 1592, appeared an interesting little tractate, under
the title of A Petition directed to her most excellent Majestie,
dealing with the legal aspect of the controversy between the
bishops and the puritans, dwelling, at considerable length, on
Udall's trial in 1590 and, incidentally, clearing Martin of certain
charges of conspiracy and high treason which Bancroft had levelled
against him. In the course of the argument, the author has
occasion to refer to a publication by Sutcliffe. In December 1592,
Sutcliffe replied in An answere to a certaine libel supplicatorie, in
which he accuses Job Throckmorton of being implicated in the
'making of Martin. ' This, in its turn, called forth an angry, but
scarcely convincing, rejoinder by Throckmorton, which Sutcliffe, in
1595, reprinted with running comments of the most damaging nature
in An Answere unto a certaine calumnious letter published by
M. Job Throkmorton. The value of this book lies in the fact that
Sutcliffe bases his indictment upon evidence which has since been
lost. Wherever it is possible to check them, the facts brought
forward cannot be invalidated; and an attentive reader of the
tract will find it difficult to avoid agreeing with its author that
"Throkmorton was a Principal Agent' in the Marprelate business,
‘and the man that principally deserveth the name of Martin? . '
We must now leave the puritan lines, and, crossing over into
the episcopal camp, discover how the forces of authority met
Martin's fierce bombardment. A close examination of the bishops'
counter-attack will reveal three distinct phases in their tactics,
each involving a different section of their supporters. Martin found
himself opposed, not only by the heavy battalions of theology, but,
also, by the archery of dramatic lampoon and the light cavalry
of literary mercenaries. The theological attack, which need not
long detain us, was undertaken, it will be remembered, by Thomas
Cooper, bishop of Winchester, in his Admonition to the People of
England, published in January 1589, and written as a reply to
Martin's Epistle. The book is of no value from the literary point
of view. It answered Martin's raillery with serious rebuke, and
1 But see Wilson, J. Dover, Martin Marprelate and Shakespeare's Fluellen, 1912,
published since the above was written.
6
## p. 392 (#414) ############################################
392
The Marprelate Controversy
was so lacking in humour as to attempt to refute categorically
every accusation against the bishops to be found in The Epistle.
For all this, Cooper, alone of the controversialists, earned the
approval of Bacon, in his Advertisement touching the Contro-
versies of the Church of England, a short treatise written
about this time on the main points of the ecclesiastical dispute.
Cooper won Bacon's praise because he remembered that a fool
was to be answered, but not by becoming like unto him. ' It
is evident that the directors of the episcopal campaign did not
agree with Bacon and Cooper, for theological argument was soon
laid aside and the methods of defence readjusted to changed
conditions. The only theological contribution to the controversy,
after the Admonition, was the publication, in March 1589, of
A sermon preached at Paules crosse the 9 of Februrarie . . . by
Richard Bancroft D. of Divinitie. This sermon, which was
revised and enlarged before being sent to the press, was an
assertion of the divine right of episcopacy as against recent attacks
upon it, Martin's being especially mentioned. Bancroft, who, later,
was to succeed Whitgift in the primacy, was, at this time, a rising
man in the church and found in the Marprelate controversy an
excellent opportunity of proving his mettle. The energy of the
pursuivants who rode up and down the country to find the
Marprelate press, the vigorous detective measures that were
resorted to for the discovery of Martin's identity and the crowning
triumph in Newton's Lane, Manchester, may all be traced to his
untiring exertions. But more than this may be laid to his charge.
As Whitgift himself tells us, he was the moving spirit in the new
phase into which the controversy now entered? . At his suggestion,
the Bridges-cum-Cooper method was laid aside and certain writers
of the day were retained, possibly at a fee, to serve the episcopal
cause by pouring contempt upon its enemy. The result was a
second series of tracts, none of which are of any great literary
merit, being, for the most part, as Gabriel Harvey described one of
them, 'ale-house and tinkerley stuff,' but which have acquired a
certain amount of importance from the fact that John Lyly and
Thomas Nashe are generally supposed to have been engaged in their
production. The new policy began to take effect in the spring and
summer of 1589, and its first fruits were some verses of very in-
ferior quality and a Latin treatise. The possibility that the famous
1 A Petition directed to her most excellent Majestie, 1592, refers (p. 6) to Bacon's
Advertisement, but describes it as 'not printed. '
Strype, Life of Whitgift, vol. 11, cap. XXIII, p. 387.
## p. 393 (#415) ############################################
The Dramatic and Literary Replies 393
2
ta
Euphuist and his friend were, in part, responsible for these effusions,
alone makes it necessary to record their titles. A rimed lampoon
calling itself A Whip for an Ape, in reference to the fact that
Martin' was a common name for a monkey, appeared in April,
followed, shortly afterwards, by a second, similar, but slightly
inferior in style, under the title Mar-Martine. These clumsy
productions provoked a reply in verse no less clumsy from some
worthy person, with the pseudonym Marre Mar-Martin, who points
out that, while Martin and Mar-Martin are at loggerheads, the
protestant religion is in danger from the papists. The impartial
attitude maintained by this writer has led to the conjecture that
he may be one of the Harvey brothers, but there is no evidence to
support it?
proved its methods as it went on, it experimented in styles both
simple and ornate, it made use of dialogue and it realised some-
thing of the wit and humour, as well as the descriptive power,
of which prose was capable.
In its own age, it appealed to both the court and the people,
and it was later social considerations which determined its future
line of progress. The courtly and heroic elements were to pass
with the Stuarts; but the more popular elements were to be taken
up in Addison's day by the growing middle class, and, with ever-
widening province and increasing art, were to result in the novel
as we now know it
## p. 374 (#396) ############################################
CHAPTER XVII
THE MARPRELATE CONTROVERSY
The fashion of printed discussion did not become general
in England before the reign of Elizabeth. Previous to her day,
the chapbook and the broadside, vehicles of popular literature,
had contained little beyond attractive romances or exciting pieces
of news in ballad-form. Not until a great party, eager to pro-
claim and to defend its principles, arose in the nation, were the
possibilities of the printing press, as an engine in the warfare
of opinion, fully realised. The puritan movement cannot, of
course, be held responsible for every one of those countless pam-
phlets in which the age of Shakespeare was rich, but it is not
too much to say that, excluding purely personal squabbles, there
is hardly a single controversy of the time which is not directly
or indirectly traceable to it. The revolution of the seventeenth
century was both religious and social, and it is important to
bear in mind that the pamphlet campaign preceding it shared
its double character. The religious and doctrinal tracts of
the puritan controversialists lie, for the most part, outside
the literary field. One series, however, wholly theological
in intention, has won a place in the annals of literature by
originality of style and pungency of satire, and by the fact
that the first English novelist and the greatest Elizabethan
pamphleteer took up the fallen gauntlet. These, the so-called
Marprelate tracts, which gave rise to the most famous contro-
versy of the period, form the topic of the present chapter.
The origin of the Marprelate controversy, interesting as
it may be to the church historian, is far removed from the
atmosphere of general literature, and must, therefore, be indicated
as briefly as possible. Under the weak archbishop Grindal, the
puritan? , or, as it was later called, the presbyterian, doctrine had
1 The term 'puritan,' at this early period of the movement, was of almost entirely
doctrinal implication, and denoted one who supported the so-called church dig-
cipline. '
## p. 375 (#397) ############################################
The Origin of the Controversy 375
been making great strides among the clergy of the church of
England. John Whitgift, long known as an uncompromising
opponent of puritanism, was raised to the throne of Canterbury
in 1583, only just in time to prevent the English reformation
from following in the course already marked out by the Scottish.
As it was, matters had gone so far that Whitgift found it necessary
to adopt the most stringent measures, if the destinies of the church
were to be taken out of puritan hands. The most important of
these, from our present point of view, was the decree which he
procured, in 1586, from the Star chamber", forbidding the publica-
tion of any book or pamphlet unless previously authorised by
himself or the bishop of London, giving him full control over the
Stationers' company, empowering him to determine the number
of printing presses in use, and, finally, reviving a previous law
imposing the severest penalties on the printing of seditious or
slanderous books. In this way, he hoped to stem the ever-rising
tide of puritan pamphlets, and so to prevent the spread of doctrines
which he considered heretical. The Marprelate tracts were the
direct outcome of the feeling of indignation at his relentless policy
of repression, and they appeared in defiance of the newly created
censorship. Episcopacy, as an institution, had always been ob-
noxious to the puritans; it became doubly so now, as the political
instrument of their persecution. Elizabeth, while sanctioning, and
heartily approving of, Whitgift's ecclesiastical policy, was well
content to allow all the unpopularity resulting from it to light
upon his shoulders; and the civil authorities, reluctant to
persecute the puritans, withheld their support from the bishops,
and so forced them to fall back upon the resources of their
own prerogatives, and to strain these to the uttermost. Ex-
cuses may, therefore, be found for both sides. Defenders of
the establishment were placed in an extremely difficult and
disagreeable position, while puritans cannot be blamed for
converting an attack on episcopacy in general into a diatribe
against individual members of the episcopate. After ten years
of struggle, so strong a reaction set in that parliament, formerly
puritan in its sympathies, passed the famous anti-puritan statute of
1593, punishing those who attacked the ecclesiastical settlement
with banishment or even death. The effect was magical. The
violence of the puritans abated as suddenly as it had sprung up
in 1583
i See addenda.
• Prothero, Select Statutes, pp. xxxiii, lviii, 89, 169.
## p. 376 (#398) ############################################
376
The Marprelate Controversy
Thus was the vessel of puritanism wrecked on its first trial
voyage, in the teeth of the winds of tradition and authority. But
literature was the gainer by this storm of a decade, for the receding
waves left upon the shores of time a little body of tracts which
are, admittedly, the chief prose satires of the Elizabethan period.
,
It was when the battle between bishop and sectarian waxed
hottest, that the quaint and audacious personality calling himself
'Martin Marprelate, gentleman' first made his appearance; and,
though his activity only lasted two years, he succeeded, during
that short time, in thoroughly frightening the whole episcopal
bench, in doing much to undermine its authority and prestige
with the common people, and in providing the general public with
food for laughter that has not even yet entirely lost its savour.
Martin took the field at the end of 1588 ; light skirmishers,
however, had been there before him. A year after Whitgift's
accession to power there appeared a small octavo volume entitled
A Dialogue concerning the strife of our Church, from the press
of the puritan printer Robert Waldegrave, and in black-letter!
This pamphlet is almost certainly by John Udall-50 similar is it to
other of his writings. The discussion is chiefly carried on between
a puritan divine and a bishop's chaplain, and turns upon topics
such as non-residency, dumb ministers and the pomp of bishops ;
but it contains no hint at all of the presbyterian discipline.
Two years later, in 1586, a clever satirical attack upon episcopacy
attempted to penetrate the archbishop's lines of defence by
masquerading in the guise of anti-popery. The keen eye of
Whitgift at once detected its real object, and arrested its progress
80 effectually that, had he not himself preserved a copy of it in his
library at Lambeth, we might never have heard of it. The satire
in question is an anonymous pamphlet, also in black-letter, styled
A Commission sente to the Pope, Cardynales, Bishops, Friers,
Monkes, with all the rable of that Viperous Generation by the
highe and mighty Prince, and King Sathanas, the Devill of
Hell. It purports to be an infernal despatch, instructing the
officials mentioned on the title-page, and especially the great
bishops our true messengers. . . whom we have constituted petty-
popes under the great Archpope of Rome,' as to the measures
to be adopted against the puritans. The constant allusions to
6
1 Of this tract there is an interesting copy in Trinity College library, Cambridge,
with marginal notes in the writing of two, if not three, different and, apparently,
contemporary hands. Some of the remarks have a direot bearing upon the subject
of the Marprelate tracts, Ayliner, bishop of London, being constantly referred to.
## p. 377 (#399) ############################################
Penry's Aequity and Udall's Diotrephes 377
' petty-popes,' 'gatehouses,' 'clinks' and 'proctors' leave no doubt as
to the sympathies and intentions of the author, who may, possibly,
have been Martin himself, or his spiritual father John Field.
Among Martin's forerunners, two were concerned in the
production of the famous tracts themselves. One of them,
John Penry, who has been called the father of Welsh noncon-
formity, published, in March 1587', a petition, which, at the same
time, was presented to parliament, calling attention to the de-
plorable state of religion in his native country, Wales. Five
hundred copies of this Treatise, containing the Aequity of an
humble supplication, were seized at once by Whitgift; and its
author was summoned before the court of high commission. After
being characteristically heckled by the archbishop, Penry was
retained for a month in prison and then released. In reading
his offending petition, it is difficult to find any justification for
such treatment. It has been described as a bitter attack upon
the church; but it contains nothing to support this description.
There are, indeed, certain passages that might be construed as
anti-episcopal ; but we have evidence for believing that it was
for treason rather than for heresy that Penry was arraigned”;
and there is a paragraph in The Aequity which lends colour to
this view. The puritans were loth, both from feelings of loyalty
and from fear of coming under the law of treason, to associate
Elizabeth with what they considered the evil practices of the
bishops; yet it was difficult to avoid accusing her by implication,
seeing that the bishops derived all the civil authority they pos-
sessed from her. Penry attempted to solve the problem by
turning the tables upon his adversaries and accusing them of
treason for laying the queen open to the possibility of such
slanders. It was this that seems to have roused the archbishop's
anger; though, as it was not in itself sufficient cause ior convic-
tion, the argument passed muster and reappears in the writings
of Udall and in the Marprelate tracts.
John Udall's personal connection with Martin was much
slighter than Penry's; but a small tractate of his, published
anonymously and printed without authority in April 1588, holds
a more important place in the history of the Marprelate contro-
versy than anything Penry is known to have written. Even were
it not so, The State of the Church of Englande or, as it is
generally called, Diotrephes, would still be worthy of notice in
i The Date of Penry's Aequity,' Cong. Hist. Soc. Trans. II, No. 2.
* Th' Appellation of John Penri, pp. 3-5.
## p. 378 (#400) ############################################
378
The Marprelate Controversy
a
a history of literature. King James is said to have considered
Udall “the greatest scholar in Europe,' and Diotrephes shows him
to have possessed humour as well as scholarship. The dialogue
in which the tract is written is, at times, handled a little crudely;
but the delineation of the time-serving publican, the cunning
papist and the worldly bishop, tolerant to all save those who
threaten his privileges, is a distinctly clever piece of work. There
is no mistaking Udall’s intentions. He puts a stern denunciation
of bishops and a defence of the new presbyterian discipline into
the mouth of Paul, a solemn and somewhat sententious 'preacher';
while the moral of the dialogue is that, while episcopacy is the
root of all social and religious evils, popery is the root of episcopacy.
A certain air of quietness and assurance about the whole contrasts
favourably with the boisterous spirit of raillery in which Martin
approaches the same topics. Diotrephes must take its place as
the first and most thoughtful of the puritan pamphlets in the
controversy.
If The Aequity was seized and its author cast into prison,
mercy could certainly not be expected for Diotrephes, which was
infinitely more outspoken and dangerous. For the time, Udall,
who was a preacher at Kingston-on-Thames, preserved his anony-
mity; and the whole weight of Whitgift's wrath fell upon the
printer, Robert Waldegrave. This man, who was to play an
extremely important part in the struggle that followed, had
already suffered several terms of imprisonment for printing
puritan discipline tracts! Early in 1588, he had again defied
the authorities by publishing Penry's second Welsh tract, An
Exhortation. On 16 April, his house was entered by the officers
of the Stationers' Company; and, by virtue of Whitgift's Star
chamber ordinance, a press, some pica type and many copies of
Diotrephes were confiscated. Waldegrave' managed to escape and
with him some small roman and italic type; but his occu-
pation was gone, and he had a wife and six children dependent
upon
him. His ruin, we shall see, was Martin's opportunity.
One more name must be mentioned before we come to close
quarters with Martin himself-that of John Field, a famous
puritan preacher, and part author of the first Admonition to
Parliament (1572), which, in the violence of its language and in
the secrecy of its production, reminds us forcibly of the Marprelate
tracts. He died in February 1588, at least eight months before
| Hay any worke for Cooper, ed. Petheram (1845), p. 65.
2 See addenda.
to carry
## p. 379 (#401) ############################################
The Story of the Press
379
the publication of Martin's first pamphlet; but the Marprelate
controversy was his legacy to his old enemies the bishops. We have
used gentle words too long,' he had remarked to the archbishop's
chaplain who visited him in prison, 'which have done us no good:
the wound grows desperate and needs a corrosive. 'l It was Martin
who applied this corrosive; but Field, before his death, had
prepared the ingredients. He is known to have collected certain
notes, consisting of stories to the discredit of the most prominent
bishops of the day. These came into the hands of Martin and
formed the basis of his earliest tract The Epistle. Had these
notes been destroyed, as, it is said, Field, upon his death-bed,
desired, there would perhaps have been no Marprelate con-
troversy ; certainly, without them, the first tract would have lost
all its point and very much of its piquancy.
It is now time to turn to Martin himself, and consider the
history of the secret printing press, which, like a masked gun,
dropped shell after shell into the episcopal camp. The type that
Waldegrave had rescued from the hands of the authorities was
conveyed to the London house of a certain Mistress Crane, a
well known puritan, where it remained, according to the evidence
of her servant, for two or three months, that is, until midsummer.
It is somewhat difficult to follow Waldegrave's movements after the
raid in April, as the information we possess about the Marprelate
press before November 1588 is very scanty and untrustworthy.
The seizure of the copies of Diotrephes probably necessitated its
reissue; and, as there are two distinct impressions extant, it is
legitimate to suppose that the printer, for some of this time, was
engaged upon this tasks. A close examination of the lettering and
workmanship of the tract, together with hints let fall by those
examined by the authorities in their investigation of the affair,
support the belief that it was printed by Waldegrave on a press
and with type belonging to Penry and secreted at Kingston-on-
Thames, of which town Udall was then parish priest. Hardby,
at the village of East Molesey, was Mistress Crane's country-house,
i Neal, Puritans (ed. 1837), vol. 1, p. 188.
Arber, Introductory Sketch to the Marprelate Controversy, p. 94. Most of the
facts relating to the Marprelate press are to be found in this collection of documents.
Field's importance has, hitherto, escaped notice. Penry confessed that his notes
formed the substance of The Epistle. Udall's notes, of which too much has been
heard, appear to bave concerned his own wrongs alone, the account of which covers
little more than a page of the first tract.
3 See addenda.
## p. 380 (#402) ############################################
380
The Marprelate Controversy
whither the rescued type was brought about midsummer, and, at
the same time, or in September, the black-letter in which the first
four Marprelate tracts were to be printed. On 10 June, the pur-
suivants had been at Kingston-on-Thames, looking for Waldegrave;
but, as they had failed to find him, he had probably moved to
East Molesey by that date. Anyhow, in July, he was probably
hard at work there upon a fresh tract by Udall, entitled A Demon-
stration of Discipline. This pamphlet possesses none of the
literary interest of Diotrephes, being little more than a bald
summary of the puritan arguments against episcopacy. Its author,
it may be noticed in passing, was, about this time, inhibited as a
preacher because of his outspoken sermons, and is, for that reason,
perhaps, much more bitter here than in the earlier tract. It
soon, however, became evident that something besides arguments
for church discipline and pleas for Wales was being hatched in
this little nest of puritans in the Thames valley. The first Mar-
prelate tract, commonly known as The Epistle, was printed by
Waldegrave under Penry's supervision at Mistress Crane's house,
and issued in October or at the beginning of the next month. It
burst upon the world with surprising effect. Early in November,
'Martin' was a name in everyone's mouth. So great, indeed, was
the stir that, on the 14th, we find Burghley, by royal command,
writing an urgent letter to Whitgift, bidding him use all the
means in his power to bring the authors to book. Penry had fore-
seen the coming storm, and the Thames valley had long been under
the eye of the pursuivants. On 1 November, therefore, Walde-
grave was already in Northamptonshire and his press on the road
behind him.
It was natural that the press should gravitate into this district.
Penry, on 8 September, had married a lady of Northampton and
made his home there; and there was another and no less im-
portant reason for the direction taken. At a village, called Hasely,
lying a little to the north-west of Warwick and, therefore, no very
great distance from Northampton, dwelt a certain Job Throck-
morton, who had much to do with the production of the tracts.
The place to which the press and printer were removed was the
house of Penry's friend, Sir Richard Knightley, at Fawsley,
twelve miles from Northampton on the Warwick side and, there-
fore, easily accessible both to Penry and Throckmorton. Not-
withstanding the strictest secrecy observed by all, it was found
impossible to remain long there. During the stay, only one tract
so far as we know, was printed—the second Martin,' known as
## p. 381 (#403) ############################################
381
The Story of the Press
The Epitome. This, the longest but one of Martin's productions,
was printed, distributed and already in the archbishop's hands,
before 6 December? : possibly, therefore, it had been partially
printed before the move from Molesey. Its appearance led the
authorities to redouble their efforts to discover the wandering press.
On 29 January 1589, a pursuivant made a raid on Penry's house at
Northampton, carrying off his papers; and, in February, a proclama-
tion was issued against 'sundry schismatical and seditious bookes,
diffamatorie Libels and other fantastical writings' that, of late, had
been 'secretly published and dispersed. ' Meanwhile, the press
was again on its travels. At the end of 1588, or the beginning of
1589, it was carted to another house belonging to Sir Richard
Knightley, situated at a little village near Daventry, called Norton.
Here it remained idle for about a fortnight, when it was taken
to Coventry and bestowed in the White Friars, a house belonging
to John Hales, a relative of Sir Richard. From thence, two
Marprelate tracts were issued, The Minerall Conclusions, at the
end of February, and Hay any worke for Cooper, about the 20th
of the following month, another of Penry's Welsh pamphlets,
known as A Supplication to the Parliament, appearing between
these two dates. At this juncture, a worse evil befell the Mar-
tinists than the compulsory nomadism they had hitherto endured.
The man behind the gun began to tire of his task. At the
beginning of April, Waldegrave informed a friend of his intention
to quit the Marprelate cause. He was encouraged in this
determination, not merely by personal fears, but, also, by the
dislike of Martin's methods, openly expressed by the majority of
puritan preachers. What happened to him immediately afterwards
is not clear. We hear of him next at Rochelle, whither he probably
found it safest to retire. He took away with him the black-letter
in which the first four Marprelate tracts are printed, leaving
it, perhaps, in London on his way through. Though no longer
the Marprelate printer, he did not, therefore, sever all con-
nection with Penry and Throckmorton. During the summer of
1589, he printed Th' appeilation of John Penri, and, about the
same time, an anonymous book M. Some laid open in his coulers,
said to be by Throckmorton and, therefore, of value as evidence
for the identity of Martin. It is generally believed that Walde-
grave also printed a little tract on the lines of Udall's Diotrephes,
entitled A Dialogue wherein is plainly laide open the tyrannicall
1 The Date of the second Marprelate Tract. ' W. Pierce, Journal Northants. Nat.
Hist. Soc. vol. XII, p. 103. Brook's Lives of the Puritans (1813), vol. I, p. 423.
## p. 382 (#404) ############################################
382
The Marprelate Controversy
dealing of L. Bishopps against God's children. It is not certain,
however, whether this was issued like the two others from
Rochelle, though undoubtedly, it appeared in 15891.
Waldegrave's desertion was a sad blow for Martin and silenced
his guns for a while. Another printer, one John Hodgkins, 'a
salt-petre man,' was engaged in May or early in June; but he
probably took some time in obtaining the necessary assistants, for
he did not begin to print until midsummer or after. The press,
or, perhaps we should say, one of the presses, had been removed
from Coventry and was now concealed in the house of Mistress
Wigston, at Wolston, a village some six miles to the south.
Hodgkins's first task was to print the Theses Martinianae or Martin
Junior, part of which, it is curious to notice, he had picked up in
the road, outside Throckmorton's house, when returning with Penry
from a visit there. He appears to have finished this about 22 July,
and its sequel, The just censure and reproofe of Martin Junior,
about a week later. He was then urged to take in hand another
tract called More worke for the Cooper. Not liking Penry's press,
however, he decided to take this manuscript away and print it on
a second press, previously sent by him to the neighbourhood of
Manchester, which, possibly, was his home. Here, while actually
printing the new tract, he and two assistants, Symmes and Tomlyn,
were arrested near the end of August by the earl of Derby. The
press, type and manuscript were seized, with all the printed sheets
of More worke that had already been struck off, and Hodgkins and
his men were carried to London and examined under torture. But
this was not the coup de grâce. There was still the other press
and Penry's original type at Mistress Wigston's. With the aid of
these, the seventh and last Martin was produced, in the month of
September 1589, at Throckmorton's house in Hasely, as is usually
supposed, and issued under the title of The Protestation An
examination of the original reveals the fact that two different
printers are responsible for it: one, the merest amateur, the other,
an accomplished craftsman. The former, who only printed the
first half sheet, we may conjecture to have been Penry, assisted,
perhaps, by Throckmorton; the latter, who finished the tract,
we believe from the printer's signatures to have been Walde-
grave, who seems to have returned from Rochelle in the autumn
of 1589 and to have delivered at Throckmorton's house his
.
1 The dates of these three tracts, with Waldegrave's movements in 1589, are dis-
cussed in an article by the present writer in The Library, October 1907.
? Yelverton MSS, vol. Lxx, fol. 146, verso. Manchester Papers, No. 123.
## p. 383 (#405) ############################################
a
The Style and Character of the Tracts 383
printed copies of Th’ Appellation and M. Some laid open, before
continuing his journey to Scotland, where, in 1590, he became
royal printer to king James? . Soon after The Protestation
appeared, Penry, also, fled to Scotland, possibly travelling in
Waldegrave's company. Their departure was only just in time.
Henry Sharpe, a bookbinder of Northampton, on 15 October, re-
vealed to the lord chancellor the whole story of the Marprelate press,
whereupon Sir Richard Knightley, Hales and the Wigstons were
arrested? . At the end of the year, Udall, who had left Kingston for
Newcastle in December 1588, was summoned to London and there
cast into prison. Some two and a half years later, Penry returned
to England and joined the separatists. Not long after, he was
arrested, and, on 29 May 1593, was hanged on a trumped up charge
of treason, thus paying with his life for the part he had taken in
the Marprelate controversy. His partner, Job Throckmorton, who,
probably, was far more guilty than he, swore, at the trial, that 'he
was not Martin and knew not Martin'; and it was only in 1595,
when the storm had blown over, that the real nature of his
connection with the Marprelate press seems to have been realised.
Of the extant Marprelate tracts there are seven. Others, we
know from contemporary evidence, had found their way into print
or had been circulated in manuscript, but, unfortunately, they
have not survived. Those we have, however, are quite sufficient
to give a clear idea of Martin's methods and style.
His chief aim
was to cover the bishops with ridicule, but the first two tracts
were, ostensibly, written in reply to a recent apologetic for the
episcopal cause, entitled A Defence of the Government established
in the Church of England for ecclesiastical matters, and very
briefly comprehended,' as Martin puts it, 'in a portable book, if
your horse be not too weake, of an hundred threescore and twelve
sheets of good Demie paper,' running, that is, into more than
fourteen hundred quarto pages of text. Written by the laborious,
but worthy, John Bridges, dean of Sarum, in hope of preferment,
as Martin asserts, it was a thorough and well-intentioned attempt
to stem the flood of puritan discipline tracts by flinging a huge
boulder into the stream. The rock-hurling Goliath from Salisbury
was too ponderous for the ordinary carving process, and the only
possible weapon to use against him was the stone and sling of ridicule.
For such warfare, Martin was eminently qualified. A puritan who
had been born a stage clown, he was a disciple both of Calvin and
1 The Library, October 1907, pp. 337–359.
* An account of their trial is given in State Trials, vol. I, no. 67.
## p. 384 (#406) ############################################
384 The Marprelate Controversy
>
>
Dick Tarleton. His style is that of a stage monologue. It flows with
charming spontaneity and naturalness. Now, with a great show of
mock logic, he is proving that the bishops are petty popes; now,
he is telling stories to their discredit; now, he is rallying 'masse
Deane Bridges' on his 'sweet learning,' his arguments and his
interminable sentences. All this is carried on with the utmost
vivacity and embroidered with asides to the audience and a
variety of patter' in the form of puns, ejaculations and references
to current events and persons of popular rumour. Whether
Martin were blasphemous or not, must be decided by each reader
in the light of his own particular tenets. Certainly, he must be
exculpated from any intention of the sort, the very nature of his
plea precluding such a possibility. Personal, he undoubtedly was.
He sets out with the object of lampooning the bishops of the day
and frankly admits that such is his rôle in the general puritan cam-
paign : 'you defend your legges against Martins strokes, while the
Puritans by their Demonstration crushe the very braine of your
Bishopdomes'-a remark which seems to indicate that the publica-
tion of Udall's Demonstration of Discipline, simultaneously with
The Epistle, was no mere accident. Yet there is nothing that can
be called definitely scurrilous in his treatment of the bishops, with
the exception of his cruel reference to bishop Cooper's domestic
misfortunes. They are 'pernicious,' 'pestilent,' 'wainscot-faced,'
tyrannical,' sometimes 'beasts,' 'patches' and 'dunces,' occa-
'sionally, even, 'bishops of the devil,' but all this is part of the
usual polemical vocabulary of the day; indeed, Barrow the
separatist did not hesitate to use such expressions to Whitgift's
very face. Martin's wit is a little coarse and homely, but never
indecent, as the anti-Martinist pamphlets were. Speaking of the
argumentative methods of Bridges, he says: 'He can now and
then without any noyse alledge an author clean against himself,
and I warrant you wipe his mouth cleanly and look another way as
though it had not been he'-which may stand as a type of his
peculiar vein of humour. His shafts are winged with zest, not
with bitterness. 'Have at you! ' he shouts, as he is about to make
a sally, and, again, 'Hold my cloake there somebody that I may go
roundly to worke'; for he evinces, throughout, the keenest delight
in his sport among the 'catercaps. ' This effect of boisterousness is
enhanced by various tricks of expression and arrangement. The
tracts present no appearance of any set plan, they are reeled off
with the utmost volubility, at the top of the voice, as it were, and
are scattered up and down with quaint marginal notes and
6
6
6
## p. 385 (#407) ############################################
The Epistle and The Epitome 385
parentheses. All this reveals a whimsical and original literary
personality utterly unlike anything we find in the attested writings
of Penry or Udall. Yet, it must not be supposed that the tracts
are nothing but 'quips and quidities' These are only baits to
catch the reader and lure him on into the net of puritan argument.
Most of them contain serious passages, sometimes of great length,
expounding the new discipline.
Leaving general considerations, we may now turn and briefly
observe the main characteristics of each tract. The Epistle, in-
tended, as its lengthy and amusing title implies', as an introduction
to a forthcoming epitome of the dean of Sarum's apologetic, was, as
we have seen, largely based on John Field's notes. It consists,
therefore, for the most part, of those anecdotes relating to the
bishops' private lives which are usually considered Martin's chief
stock-in-trade, but which appear, in reality, very rarely in the later
tracts. Some of them were, no doubt, untrue, and many were ex-
aggerations of innocent incidents unworthy of mention. Naturally
enough, too, they principally concerned those prelates who had
made themselves particularly obnoxious to the puritans, chief of
whom were Whitgift of Canterbury, Aylmer of London and
Cooper of Winchester. Besides this scandal, The Epistle contains
many references to the grievances of the puritans, special attention
being paid to the cases of Penry, Waldegrave and Udall, the last
of whom admitted under examination, in 1590, that certain notes
of his, concerning the archdeacon of Surrey and a usurer at
Kingston, had found their way, without his knowledge, into the
tract. Yet, whatever the origin of the materials, they are treated
consistently throughout in one vein, and no one reading The
Epistle can doubt that its author was a single individual and not
a puritan syndicate.
It is not possible to speak with the same certainty of The
Epitome, in which Martin undertakes the trouncing of Bridges
promised in The Epistle. It contains some of those serious
passages before mentioned, in which it is open for critics to see a
second hand at work, though it would be difficult, on such a
bypothesis, to decide in every case where Martin left off and his
collaborator began. The tract sets out on its title-page, which is
practically identical with that of The Epistle, to be an epitome of
the first book of Bridges ; but, as before suggested, it is doubtful
whether Martin ever seriously intended to do more than play with
the worthy dean. A few extracts are quoted from his book and
1 See bibliography.
25
E. L. III.
CH. XVII,
## p. 386 (#408) ############################################
386
The Marprelate Controversy
ridiculed, or, occasionally, answered, in the quasi-logical fashion
that is one of the characteristics of Martin's style; but a larger
portion of the tract is, in reality, devoted to Aylmer, bishop of
London. This prelate was considered a renegade by the puritans
and was, accordingly, even more in disfavour with them than
Whitgift. As has been seen", Aylmer had written a book in reply
to Knox's First Blast of the Trumpet. In this, he had found
occasion to inveigh against the worldliness and wealth of the
Marian bishops, and even to imply disapproval of their civil
authority. It was easy to turn such words against their unlucky
author, now comfortably ensconced in the see of London and
wielding the civil authority against the puritans; and Martin
made the most of his opportunity. For the rest, The Epitome
exhibits the same characteristics as its predecessor, though it
more frequently lapses into a serious vein. There is one fresh
touch of humour that is worth notice. The tract contains on the
last page some errata, the nature of which may best be gathered
from the first, which begins 'Whersoever the prelates are called
my Lords . . . in this Epitome, take that for a fault. '
Soon after the appearance of the second Marprelate tract,
Thomas Cooper, bishop of Winchester, took up the cudgels for the
episcopal side, in his Admonition to the People of England. Far
from discouraging Martin by his grave condemnation, the worthy
bishop played straight into the satirist's hands and merely pro-
vided fresh fuel for the fire of his wit. The old business of Bridges
was growing somewhat stale, and Martin turned with alacrity
towards a new antagonist. Just then, the Marprelate press was on
its journey from Fawsley to Coventry; but, so soon as it was
comfortably settled at the White Friars, a broadside appeared,
known as The Minerall Conclusions, which was intended to keep
the game in swing until a more weighty answer to Cooper's
Admonition could be framed and printed. It contained thirty-
seven ‘Minerall and Metaphisicall Schoolpoints, to be defended
by the reverende Bishops and the rest of my cleargie masters
of the Convocation house. ' These school-points are arguments or
opinions of the most ludicrous description, each purporting to
be held by an ecclesiastical dignitary who is named as its defender.
Nearly half of them are quoted (or misquoted) from Cooper's
book, and the whole concludes with a witty address to the reader,
stating that, if anyone can be found ready and willing to withstand
these arguments and their formidable supporters, “the matters
· See ante, p. 145.
## p. 387 (#409) ############################################
Martin Junior
387
shall be, according unto order, quietly tried out between him and
the bare walles in the Gatehouse, or some other prison. ' While
this was circulating from hand to hand, a more fitting reply to the
Admonition was being prepared under the title of Hay any worke
for Cooper ? a familiar street-cry of the time. The bishop's name
afforded an opportunity for an infinite amount of word-play, and
the atmosphere of the tract is thick with tubs, barrels and hoops.
Hay any worke is the longest of all Martin's productions and,
except for The Protestation, contains the greatest quantity of
serious writing. There is a little of the familiar frolicking at the
outset; but Martin very soon puts off his cap and bells and sits
down to a solemn confutation of Cooper's new defence of the civil
authority of bishops. After about fifty pages, he recovers
himself, and, with a whoop of 'Whau, whau, but where have I bin
al this while! ” he launches out into ridicule of various passages
in the bishop's apologetic, rounding contemptuously on him for
his deficiency in humour— Are you not able to discern between a
pleasant frump given you by a councellor and a spech used in
good earnest? '
Martin Junior or Theses Martinianae, the next in the series,
exhibits a change in method. Field's notes, which Martin had
merely decorated with his drolleries, had formed the basis of The
Epistle, while the apologetics of Bridges and Cooper had given
substance and cohesion to the sallies of The Epitome and Hay
any worke. In Martin Junior, our pamphleteer aims, for the first
time, at what may be called literary form! . In a period when
fiction, apart from drama, was in its earliest infancy, any piece
of imaginative prose, however rudimentary, is interesting. The
bulk of the tract, indeed, consists of a 'speech' by Martin Marpre-
late and a hundred and ten theses against the bishops, in which
the familiar discipline' arguments are reasserted; but it is
prefaced with a short epistle, ostensibly by Martin Junior, younger
son of the old Martin, and concludes with a lengthy epilogue in
the approved Tarleton style, dedicated "To the worshipfull his very
good neame maister John Canterburie,' and signed 'your worship’s
nephew Martin Junior. In this epilogue, we are given to under-
stand that old Martin has disappeared, possibly into the Gate
House”, and that his son, a 'prety stripling' Martin Junior, has
discovered under a hedge a manuscript containing the aforesaid
theses in his father's handwriting. It will be remembered that
it was precisely in this fashion that part of Martin Junior actually
1 See addenda.
? Possibly this is an allusion to the departure of Waldegrave.
2
2
25-2
## p. 388 (#410) ############################################
388
The Marprelate Controversy
came into the hands of the printer; so it is just possible that
there is more in the tale than appears upon the surface. This
manuscript, which breaks off in the middle of a sentence, Martin
Junior gives to the world, adding a long defence of his father's
methods, obviously addressed to the puritans, whose ‘misliking'
had been the cause of Waldegrave's defection. The imaginative
setting of the Theses Martinianae is continued in Martin Senior
or The just censure and reproofe, which came forth a week later.
Martin Senior is the eldest son of 'Martin the Great' and is,
seemingly, very indignant at his stripling brother's rashness and
impertinence in printing his father's theses. After a little intro-
ductory playfulness in this vein, the tract goes on to give 'an
oration of John Canturburie to the pursuivants when he directeth
his warrants to them to post after Martin,' which is reminiscent of
A Commission sente to the Pope and, at the same time, anticipates
the method of the Satyre Ménippée. In addition to this, we have
'eleven points, with a solemn diatribe, against episcopacy, a
reference to the 'slackness of the Puritans,' a proposal to present
a petition to the queen and privy council, and, lastly, an answer
to the anti-Martinist rimes in Mar-Martine, doggerel for doggerel.
At this juncture, the bishops succeeded, at last, in silencing
their voluble antagonist by seizing his press and arresting his
printers at Manchester. Martin died with defiance on his lips.
His last tract, The Protestation, plunges at once into the question
of the late capture, declares that it can do Martin no harm as
the printers do not know him and proceeds to rail against the
bishops as inquisitors and butchers. It is noticeable that Martin
has almost entirely dropped his comic tone; and, as if he realised
that the time for such a tone had passed, he emphatically declares
'that reformation cannot well come to our church without blood'-a
phrase which, while it ostensibly refers to the blood of the martyrs,
leaves it open for the reader to understand the blood of the
bishops. He bids his readers believe 'that by the grace of God the
last yeare of “Martinisme”. . . shall not be till full two years after
the last year of Lambethisme,' a prophecy which received a
curious fulfilment in the appearance of a pamphlet in imitation of
Martin a year after Laud's execution. The climax of the whole
tract is reached in the 'protestation,' or challenge, to the bishops
to hold a public disputation upon the points of disagreement
between puritan and prelate, its author proclaiming his readiness
to come forward as the public champion of the puritan cause, for
which, should he fail, he is willing to forfeit his life.
## p. 389 (#411) ############################################
The Authorship of the Tracts 389
The Protestation is, strictly speaking, the last of the seven
Marprelate tracts that have come down to us. But there is an
eighth, A Dialogue, printed by Waldegrave in the summer of
1589, which, obviously, is Martinist in sympathy and purpose, and
which deserves mention even if it cannot claim a place among
the other seven. In 1643, it is interesting to notice, it was
reprinted under the title of The Character of a Puritan . . . by
Martin Marprelate; so that there was evidently a tradition
which assigned it to our jester-puritan. The style of the whole
is quite unlike Martin's; but it may be that the dialogue form
would put considerable restraint upon his natural exuberance.
This very form suggests that maker of dialogues, John Udall'.
He had spoken the prologue to the Marprelate drama in his
Diotrephes; it would seem fitting, therefore, that the epilogue
should be his also. But, however this may be, the tract, if not
Martin's, is interesting as a proof that there was at least one
puritan who sympathised with his methods. "The Puritanes like
of the matter I have handled but the forme they cannot brooke,'
our tractarian writes in Martin Junior; and it is worthy of notice
that, while he constituted himself the spokesman of puritanism, he
was far from being in touch with its spirit. The 'preachers,' as we
have seen, looked with great disfavour on his levity. Thomas
Cartwright, the leader of the movement, was careful to dissociate
himself at the very outset from any suggestion of sympathy with
him. Richard Greenham, another celebrated puritan and tutor of
the still more celebrated Browne, actually went so far as to preach
against The Epistle in a sermon delivered at St Mary's, Cambridge.
“The tendency of this book is to make sin ridiculous, when it ought
to be made odious'; so ran the text of his condemnation. These
words lay bare the very springs of puritanism and teach us not
only why Martin failed to win puritan support, but, also, why the
whole movement, despite its many obvious excellences, did not
succeed, in the long run, in winning over the most intellectual
forces of the nation. The puritans banished the comic muse from
England. She returned, in 1660, as the handmaid of Silenus.
Before turning to the answers that Martin evoked from the
episcopalians, a few remarks may be hazarded as to the authorship
of the series of pamphlets that bear his name. An attempt has
been made to father them on Henry Barrow, the separatist, whom
the congregationalists regard as one of the founders of their church,
and who, at the time, was lying in the Fleet. The theory is in-
genious, but quite untenable. The Marprelate tracts were the
1 There is, however, nothing else about the tract to suggest Udall's authorship.
## p. 390 (#412) ############################################
390
The Marprelate Controversy
.
product of the presbyterian, and not of the independent, or
separatist, movement. Udall, Field, Waldegrave, all who were
known to have been connected with the production of the tracts,
were 'church discipline' men, who wished to reform the church
from within. True, Penry joined the separatists in 1592, but, by
that time, Martin Marprelate was ancient history. Further than
this, it has recently been pointed out that Hay any worke contains
a passage in reference to the question of tithe-taking which could
not possibly have been written by a separatist? In point of fact,
most authorities are now agreed that the choice lies between
Throckmorton and Penry. Possibly, the tracts, which exhibited two-
styles, or, at least, two moods, were the result of their combined
energies. Two critics, with a special knowledge of Penry's writings,
have rejected the theory of his identity with ‘Martin' in the
strongest terms”; but, as they are here obviously alluding to
Martin the humorist, their disclaimer does not really affect the
possibility of Penry's responsibility for the theological passages,
though there is absolutely no evidence involving him even to this
limited extent. On the other hand, there seem to be very strong
reasons, even if they do not amount to actual proof, for assigning
at least the comic portions of the tracts to Job Throckmorton. In
1589, Waldegrave had printed a tract entitled M. Some laid open
in his coulers, which, almost without doubt, is Throckmorton's,
though the signature I. G. at the end has led many critics to
attribute it to John Greenwood, Barrow's friend and fellow prisoner
-à theory which, like that ascribing the Marprelate tracts to
Barrow, collapses before the theological test. Dr Some was a
busy controversialist on the Whitgiftian side, and this pamphlet.
against him was one link in another chain of polemical writings,
the particulars of which it is not necessary to examine here.
Suffice it to remark that Some attacked both Penry and Barrow;
and, therefore, it is probable that the author of M. Some laid open,
who had no desire to divulge his identity, intentionally adopted
Greenwood's initials in order to throw dust into the eyes of the
authorities. Style may be a doubtful touchstone for the test of
authorship; but one cannot conceive that anyone familiar with the
tracts of Martin could fail to see the same hand in M. Some laid open.
In every way, it is similar, in that boisterous, rollicking, hustling
i Powicke, Henry Barrow, pp. 82–85, which contain valuable information in
reference to this question of authorship.
2 Waddington, John Penry, and Greive, The Aequity.
3 Sutcliffe's Answere to Job Throckmorton (Arber, Sketch, p. 179). It should be
admitted, however, that not all authorities are inclined to trust Sutcliffe's statements.
to the same extent as the present writer.
## p. 391 (#413) ############################################
The Theological Reply to Martin 391
manner of speech which has won them a place in the literature
of the nation, and it deserves to share that place with them. For
the rest, if further information regarding Throckmorton's real
position in this famous controversy should be needed, there remains
the valuable, if ex parte, testimony of Matthew Sutcliffe.
This man was a protégé of Bancroft and became provost of
his college at Chelsea for the training of theological controver-
sialists. In 1592, appeared an interesting little tractate, under
the title of A Petition directed to her most excellent Majestie,
dealing with the legal aspect of the controversy between the
bishops and the puritans, dwelling, at considerable length, on
Udall's trial in 1590 and, incidentally, clearing Martin of certain
charges of conspiracy and high treason which Bancroft had levelled
against him. In the course of the argument, the author has
occasion to refer to a publication by Sutcliffe. In December 1592,
Sutcliffe replied in An answere to a certaine libel supplicatorie, in
which he accuses Job Throckmorton of being implicated in the
'making of Martin. ' This, in its turn, called forth an angry, but
scarcely convincing, rejoinder by Throckmorton, which Sutcliffe, in
1595, reprinted with running comments of the most damaging nature
in An Answere unto a certaine calumnious letter published by
M. Job Throkmorton. The value of this book lies in the fact that
Sutcliffe bases his indictment upon evidence which has since been
lost. Wherever it is possible to check them, the facts brought
forward cannot be invalidated; and an attentive reader of the
tract will find it difficult to avoid agreeing with its author that
"Throkmorton was a Principal Agent' in the Marprelate business,
‘and the man that principally deserveth the name of Martin? . '
We must now leave the puritan lines, and, crossing over into
the episcopal camp, discover how the forces of authority met
Martin's fierce bombardment. A close examination of the bishops'
counter-attack will reveal three distinct phases in their tactics,
each involving a different section of their supporters. Martin found
himself opposed, not only by the heavy battalions of theology, but,
also, by the archery of dramatic lampoon and the light cavalry
of literary mercenaries. The theological attack, which need not
long detain us, was undertaken, it will be remembered, by Thomas
Cooper, bishop of Winchester, in his Admonition to the People of
England, published in January 1589, and written as a reply to
Martin's Epistle. The book is of no value from the literary point
of view. It answered Martin's raillery with serious rebuke, and
1 But see Wilson, J. Dover, Martin Marprelate and Shakespeare's Fluellen, 1912,
published since the above was written.
6
## p. 392 (#414) ############################################
392
The Marprelate Controversy
was so lacking in humour as to attempt to refute categorically
every accusation against the bishops to be found in The Epistle.
For all this, Cooper, alone of the controversialists, earned the
approval of Bacon, in his Advertisement touching the Contro-
versies of the Church of England, a short treatise written
about this time on the main points of the ecclesiastical dispute.
Cooper won Bacon's praise because he remembered that a fool
was to be answered, but not by becoming like unto him. ' It
is evident that the directors of the episcopal campaign did not
agree with Bacon and Cooper, for theological argument was soon
laid aside and the methods of defence readjusted to changed
conditions. The only theological contribution to the controversy,
after the Admonition, was the publication, in March 1589, of
A sermon preached at Paules crosse the 9 of Februrarie . . . by
Richard Bancroft D. of Divinitie. This sermon, which was
revised and enlarged before being sent to the press, was an
assertion of the divine right of episcopacy as against recent attacks
upon it, Martin's being especially mentioned. Bancroft, who, later,
was to succeed Whitgift in the primacy, was, at this time, a rising
man in the church and found in the Marprelate controversy an
excellent opportunity of proving his mettle. The energy of the
pursuivants who rode up and down the country to find the
Marprelate press, the vigorous detective measures that were
resorted to for the discovery of Martin's identity and the crowning
triumph in Newton's Lane, Manchester, may all be traced to his
untiring exertions. But more than this may be laid to his charge.
As Whitgift himself tells us, he was the moving spirit in the new
phase into which the controversy now entered? . At his suggestion,
the Bridges-cum-Cooper method was laid aside and certain writers
of the day were retained, possibly at a fee, to serve the episcopal
cause by pouring contempt upon its enemy. The result was a
second series of tracts, none of which are of any great literary
merit, being, for the most part, as Gabriel Harvey described one of
them, 'ale-house and tinkerley stuff,' but which have acquired a
certain amount of importance from the fact that John Lyly and
Thomas Nashe are generally supposed to have been engaged in their
production. The new policy began to take effect in the spring and
summer of 1589, and its first fruits were some verses of very in-
ferior quality and a Latin treatise. The possibility that the famous
1 A Petition directed to her most excellent Majestie, 1592, refers (p. 6) to Bacon's
Advertisement, but describes it as 'not printed. '
Strype, Life of Whitgift, vol. 11, cap. XXIII, p. 387.
## p. 393 (#415) ############################################
The Dramatic and Literary Replies 393
2
ta
Euphuist and his friend were, in part, responsible for these effusions,
alone makes it necessary to record their titles. A rimed lampoon
calling itself A Whip for an Ape, in reference to the fact that
Martin' was a common name for a monkey, appeared in April,
followed, shortly afterwards, by a second, similar, but slightly
inferior in style, under the title Mar-Martine. These clumsy
productions provoked a reply in verse no less clumsy from some
worthy person, with the pseudonym Marre Mar-Martin, who points
out that, while Martin and Mar-Martin are at loggerheads, the
protestant religion is in danger from the papists. The impartial
attitude maintained by this writer has led to the conjecture that
he may be one of the Harvey brothers, but there is no evidence to
support it?
