“The
tendency
of this book is to make sin ridiculous, when it ought
to be made odious'; so ran the text of his condemnation.
to be made odious'; so ran the text of his condemnation.
Cambridge History of English Literature - 1908 - v03
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? Such thin verses, whether impartial or antagonistic,
were not likely, in any way, to affect the Martinist cause ; still
less was the sententious pamphlet Anti-Martinus, signed A. L. ,
and entered at Stationers' Hall, on 3 July 1589, which addresses
itself to the youth of both universities and solemnly ransacks
the stores of antiquity for parallels to, and arguments against,
Martin.
The poverty of invention and execution displayed in this first
period of the anti-Martinist attack may be attributed to the fact
that the bishops' penmen were engaged upon other matters.
There are many indications that the summer of 1589 saw the
appearance of certain anti-Martinist plays upon the English stage.
Unfortunately, none of these have come down to us, probably
because they never found their way into print. We may, however,
learn something of them from various references, chiefly retro-
spective, in the pamphlets issued on both sides? These scattered
hints lead us to infer that Martin had figured upon the London
stage in at least two plays, if not more. In one of them, apparently
a species of coarse morality, he appeared as an ape attempting
to violate the lady Divinity. Another, which was played at the
Theater, seems to have been more in the nature of a stage pageant
than a regular drama. Other plays may have been acted; but the
authorities, finding this public jesting with theological topics un-
seemly, appear to have refused to license any more after September,
and, early in November, put a definite stop to those already
10
高
r
>
1
1
1 It would appear that Plaine Percevall and Marre Mar-Martin could bardly be by the
same hand, as the latter is expressly inveighed against in the dedication to the former.
? The following are the chief contemporary references to anti-Martinist plays :
Martin Junior, sig. Dii; The Protestation, p. 24; McKerrow's Nashe, vol. 1, pp. 59, 83, 92,
100, 107; vol. in, p. 354; Grosart's Nashe, vol. 1, p. 175, and Harvey, vol. 11, p. 213;
Bond's Lyly, vol. 11, pp. 398, 408; Plaine Percevall (Petheram's reprint, 1860), p. 16.
1
## p. 394 (#416) ############################################
394
The Marprelate Controversy
licensed and any others that may have defied the censor. But the
suppression of the anti-Martinist plays could not banish the topic
from the stage. Martin was the puritan of popular imagination,
and the dramas of the time are full of references to him.
Meantime, there had been a renewed outburst of anti-Martinist
pamphlets, this time in prose. The first of the new series, A
Countercuffe given to Martin Junior, published under the
pseudonym of Pasquill, on or about 8 August, was a direct
answer to Theses Martinianae and, at the same time, served as
a kind of introductory epistle to the tracts that followed, being
but four pages in length. Pasquill announces that he is preparing
two books for publication, The Owles Almanack and The Lives of
the Saints. The latter is to consist of scandalous tales relating to
prominent puritans, to collect which the author has 'posted very
diligently all over the Realme. Whether he ever thus turned
the tables upon Martin, we do not know; but one promise made in
this tract was certainly fulfilled. Before the conclusion, Martin
Junior is warned to expect shortly a commentary upon his
epilogue, with epitaphs for his father's hearse. This refers to
Martins Months Minde, and it is worth noticing that the writer
claims no responsibility for it as he does for the other two.
Martins Months Minde, by far the cleverest and most amusing
of the anti-Martinist tracts, in all probability saw light soon after
A Countercuffe. Its title refers to the old practice of holding a
commemoration service, known as a 'month's mind,' four weeks
after a funeral. The fresh vein of humour opened by Martin in
Theses Martinianae is here further worked out by a writer of
the opposite side. After discussing the various rumours to account
for old Martin's disappearance, the tract proceeds to give 'a true
account' of his death, describing his treatment by the physicians,
his dying speech to his sons, the terrible diseases that led to his
death, his will and, lastly, the revelations of a post-mortem ex-
amination of his corpse. The whole is rounded off by a number of
epitaphs in English and Latin by his friends and acquaintances.
All this is retailed with much humour and a little coarseness, and
is prefaced by two dedicatory epistles, the first of which is ad-
dressed to Pasquine of England and signed Marphoreus”.
The tracts just mentioned do not refer to the capture of
Martin's press or to the printing of The Protestation, and it is
probable, therefore, that they preceded both these events. Pappe
with a Hatchet and The Returne of Pasquill, the two that follow,
1 For the probable origin of these pen-names see Bond's Lyly, vol. 1, p. 55.
## p. 395 (#417) ############################################
6
The Pamphlets of the Harveys 395
were almost finished before The Protestation came into circulation,
each containing, in a postscript, a brief reference to its appearance.
An approximate date is fixed for all three tracts by the postscript
of The Returne, dated “20 Octobris,' in which the author states that
olde Martins Protestation' came into his hands 'yesternight late. '
Of the two anti-Martinist tracts, Pappe with a Hatchet was,
probably, the earlier, since an answer to it by Gabriel Harvey,
which we shall notice later, was concluded before 5 November.
This worthless production is the only hitherto undisputed contribu-
tion by John Lyly to the controversy. It essays to imitate the style
which Martin had adopted; but the frequent ejaculations with
which it is besprinkled do nothing to relieve the tediousness of the
whole. For the rest, it is a compound of sheer nonsense and frank
obscenity and must have disgusted more with the cause it upheld
than it ever converted from Martinism. The Returne of Pasquill
was superior in every way to Lyly's work, but, even so, it cannot
rank very high. Pasquill, returning from abroad, meets Marphoreus
on the Royal Exchange, and they discuss the inexhaustible topic
of Martinism together. A description of a puritan service at
Ashford, Kent, leads us to suppose that the author of A Counter-
cuffe may, indeed, have carried out his intention of posting over
England for news of the Martinists, and we have further references
to the two books containing his experiences already promised.
The tract concludes with a brief reply to The Protestation,
containing, it is interesting to observe, a eulogy on Bancroft.
Two new writers now joined their voices to the general
wrangle, Gabriel Harvey and his brother Richard, and their entry
was the beginning of yet another controversy, to which the poet
Greene contributed just before his death, and which was eventually
fought out over his dead body by Nashe and Gabriel Harvey. A
detailed description of this dispute would carry us too far from the
present subject', and we must here confine our attention to its open-
ing stage, which alone concerns the matter in hand. In order, we
may conjecture, to add a little flavour to the somewhat thankless task
Bancroft had imposed upon him, Lyly, in his Pappe, had deliber-
ately challenged Harvey to enter the Marprelate lists. Harvey at
once took up the gauntlet in his Advertisement to Papp-Hatchet;
but the writing of it seems to have cooled his anger, for it was not
published until 1593, when, in other ways, he had involved himself
in a quarrel with the literary free-lances of London. His pamphlet,
a
when it appeared, was found to be more of a personal attack than
1 Sce bibliograpby.
## p. 396 (#418) ############################################
396
The Marprelate Controversy
a contribution to the general controversy, concerning which it
assumes an air of academic impartiality, dealing out blows to both
parties in that 'crab-tree cudgell style' which we associate with its
author, and displaying as ostentatiously as may be his learning and
wide knowledge of theology. His brother Richard, it may be at
his suggestion, now followed suit, though scarcely with the same
impartial spirit, in A Theologicall Discourse of the Lamb of God
and his enemies, wherein the 'new Barbarisme' of Martin is
shown to be nothing but an old heresy refurbished.
The Theologicall Discourse is mainly interesting for its 'Epistle
to the Reader,' which contained a passage apparently vilifying the
littérateurs of the day under the name of the 'make plajes and make
bates' of London. This roused Greene, in his Quip for an Upstart
Courtier (1592), to retaliate by some comments upon the Harvey
family in general. The poet soon afterwards died; but Gabriel
Harvey's pride had been seriously wounded and he would not
allow the matter to rest there. His reply, heaping contempt and
imputations upon the memory of the dead man, was answered by
Nashe, and the dispute continued with unabated vigour for some
five years, when, at last, a stop was put to it by the authorities.
That Richard Harvey, whose words had led to this fiery quarrel,
should be the same man who had just published Plaine Percevall
the Peace-maker of England, is somewhat hard to credit, but so
we are definitely assured by Nashe! . After Martins Months
Minde, this is the most readable of the answers to Martin. Its
style is original, shows faint traces of Euphuism, and is embroidered
with homely proverbs and parenthetical anecdotes in the manner
of Sam Weller. Plaine Percevall himself figures as a countryman
of commonsense, an unsophisticated 'man in the street,' who,
amazed at this surpernaturall art of wrangling,' bids all 'be
husht and quiet a Godsname. '
The entry of the Harveys is an indication of the wide-
spread interest taken in the controversy, and certain tracts noted
in the Stationers' register, together with the list of 'hageling and
profane' pamphleteers given in Martin Junior, shows us that
there were many other writers, not necessarily supporting either
side, who felt compelled to record their opinions upon the vexed
topic of the day. The tracts of two only have survived, and both
voice the same desire for peace and quiet that Plaine Percevall
1 McKerrow's Nashe, vol. I, p. 270.
? If we may judge from the pessimistic tone of The Tears of the Muscs, this raging cou-
troversy seems to have exercised the most depressing effect upon the mind of Spenser.
## p. 397 (#419) ############################################
Martin's Literary Influence
397
be
es
her
had expressed. Their titles are A Myrror for Martinists by
one T. T. and A Friendly Admonition to Martin Marprelate
by Leonard Wright; they were entered at Stationers' Hall on
22 December 1589 and 19 January 1590 respectively.
The last shot fired on the Marprelate battlefield was An
Almond for a Parrat which, begun as a reply to The Protestation,
was delayed for some reason and did not appear until the following
spring? . Its literary merits are small, but it is much more closely
reasoned and well-informed than any other anti-Martinist pro-
duction, and its author seems to have been at pains to collect
much information about Penry, whom he declares to be ‘Martin,'
Udall, Wiggington and other famous puritans. Though An Almond
for a Parrat is a companion to Pappe with a Hatchet, written
in the same ejaculatory, swashbuckling style and replete with
similar ribald stories, nevertheless, the attribution of it to Lyly
does not find favour.
The honour of this battle of the books belongs, so far as
literature is concerned, to Martin. The Marprelate tracts are part
of English literature, the answers to them little more than
materials for literary history. None of the pamphlets written to
order on behalf of the bishops were entered at Stationers' Hall-a
fact which seems to imply that, while Whitgift and Aylmer
sanctioned them privately, they were ashamed to authorise them
publicly. Martins Months Minde and Plaine Percevall are
amusing; but the rest are very unprofitable to be read and most
unworthy to be regarded, if we may parody a familiar Euphuism.
The fact that Lyly and Nashe were responsible, in part, for their
production, and the numerous references throwing light upon the
whole controversy which they contain have alone rescued them
from the oblivion into which they would otherwise have fallen.
It is idle to suggest that they did anything to stop Martin's
mouth: his silence was the work of the pursuivants. Doubt-
less, the growth and final triumph of the cause he advocated
did much to secure immortality for the puritan pamphleteer.
The opening years of the Long parliament saw
a revival
of Martinism. Hay any worke was reprinted in 1641 and
A Dialogue in 1643, while, in 1645, four tracts appeared by a
writer calling himself 'Yongue Martin Marpriest. ' Qualities
of style and not peculiarities of doctrine singled out these from
M.
E*
her
ramente
bro
See the concluding words of the epistle dedicatory (McKerrow's Nashe, vol. III,
p. 343) and Penry's reference to it in his Briej Discovery, 1590, sig. A 4 recto.
" See note at end of bibliography.
## p. 398 (#420) ############################################
398
The Marprelate Controversy
among the countless other puritan tracts that the age produced
for the admiration of posterity. Martin's freakish and audacious
personality and his unusual vein of satire were something new
and not easily forgotten. He was the most famous prose satirist
of the Elizabethan period and may rightly be considered as the
humble forerunner of that much greater satirist whose Tale of a
Tub was a brilliant attack upon all forms of religious controversy.
Martin's style exercised an immediate and appreciable influence
upon his contemporaries—a point that has hitherto scarcely been
noticed—for Nashe, at this period, was a young writer whose style
was hardly formed; and, though he afterwards proudly boasted
that the vaine which I have is of my owne begetting and cals no
man father in England but myself", yet it is impossible not to see
that the most modern and most racy prose writer of the Eliza-
bethan age owed a considerable debt to 'olde Martin Makebate,
in contest with whom he won his spurs. The famous Epistolae
Obscurorum Virorum were some seventy years earlier than the
Marprelate tracts and rank much higher as literature. It is not,
however, fair to compare the deliberate creation of some of the
protagonists of German humanism with hasty and ill-digested
attacks upon episcopacy, struck off from a travelling printing press.
Much the same may be said of the Satyre Ménippée, which is fre-
quently quoted as a parallel to its English contemporary. It was a
curious coincidence that remarkable satires should appear in
England and France almost simultaneously, but there was no con-
nection and very little similarity between the two. The Satyre
Ménippée was political in intention, the Marprelate tracts religious.
The group of politiques who were responsible for the French satire
represented the commonsense of France tired of the tyranny or
the League and the long unrest of past years. Their work was an
epitaph on an already fallen foe, and the laugh it elicited was one
of relief and of hope.
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? Such thin verses, whether impartial or antagonistic,
were not likely, in any way, to affect the Martinist cause ; still
less was the sententious pamphlet Anti-Martinus, signed A. L. ,
and entered at Stationers' Hall, on 3 July 1589, which addresses
itself to the youth of both universities and solemnly ransacks
the stores of antiquity for parallels to, and arguments against,
Martin.
The poverty of invention and execution displayed in this first
period of the anti-Martinist attack may be attributed to the fact
that the bishops' penmen were engaged upon other matters.
There are many indications that the summer of 1589 saw the
appearance of certain anti-Martinist plays upon the English stage.
Unfortunately, none of these have come down to us, probably
because they never found their way into print. We may, however,
learn something of them from various references, chiefly retro-
spective, in the pamphlets issued on both sides? These scattered
hints lead us to infer that Martin had figured upon the London
stage in at least two plays, if not more. In one of them, apparently
a species of coarse morality, he appeared as an ape attempting
to violate the lady Divinity. Another, which was played at the
Theater, seems to have been more in the nature of a stage pageant
than a regular drama. Other plays may have been acted; but the
authorities, finding this public jesting with theological topics un-
seemly, appear to have refused to license any more after September,
and, early in November, put a definite stop to those already
10
高
r
>
1
1
1 It would appear that Plaine Percevall and Marre Mar-Martin could bardly be by the
same hand, as the latter is expressly inveighed against in the dedication to the former.
? The following are the chief contemporary references to anti-Martinist plays :
Martin Junior, sig. Dii; The Protestation, p. 24; McKerrow's Nashe, vol. 1, pp. 59, 83, 92,
100, 107; vol. in, p. 354; Grosart's Nashe, vol. 1, p. 175, and Harvey, vol. 11, p. 213;
Bond's Lyly, vol. 11, pp. 398, 408; Plaine Percevall (Petheram's reprint, 1860), p. 16.
1
## p. 394 (#416) ############################################
394
The Marprelate Controversy
licensed and any others that may have defied the censor. But the
suppression of the anti-Martinist plays could not banish the topic
from the stage. Martin was the puritan of popular imagination,
and the dramas of the time are full of references to him.
Meantime, there had been a renewed outburst of anti-Martinist
pamphlets, this time in prose. The first of the new series, A
Countercuffe given to Martin Junior, published under the
pseudonym of Pasquill, on or about 8 August, was a direct
answer to Theses Martinianae and, at the same time, served as
a kind of introductory epistle to the tracts that followed, being
but four pages in length. Pasquill announces that he is preparing
two books for publication, The Owles Almanack and The Lives of
the Saints. The latter is to consist of scandalous tales relating to
prominent puritans, to collect which the author has 'posted very
diligently all over the Realme. Whether he ever thus turned
the tables upon Martin, we do not know; but one promise made in
this tract was certainly fulfilled. Before the conclusion, Martin
Junior is warned to expect shortly a commentary upon his
epilogue, with epitaphs for his father's hearse. This refers to
Martins Months Minde, and it is worth noticing that the writer
claims no responsibility for it as he does for the other two.
Martins Months Minde, by far the cleverest and most amusing
of the anti-Martinist tracts, in all probability saw light soon after
A Countercuffe. Its title refers to the old practice of holding a
commemoration service, known as a 'month's mind,' four weeks
after a funeral. The fresh vein of humour opened by Martin in
Theses Martinianae is here further worked out by a writer of
the opposite side. After discussing the various rumours to account
for old Martin's disappearance, the tract proceeds to give 'a true
account' of his death, describing his treatment by the physicians,
his dying speech to his sons, the terrible diseases that led to his
death, his will and, lastly, the revelations of a post-mortem ex-
amination of his corpse. The whole is rounded off by a number of
epitaphs in English and Latin by his friends and acquaintances.
All this is retailed with much humour and a little coarseness, and
is prefaced by two dedicatory epistles, the first of which is ad-
dressed to Pasquine of England and signed Marphoreus”.
The tracts just mentioned do not refer to the capture of
Martin's press or to the printing of The Protestation, and it is
probable, therefore, that they preceded both these events. Pappe
with a Hatchet and The Returne of Pasquill, the two that follow,
1 For the probable origin of these pen-names see Bond's Lyly, vol. 1, p. 55.
## p. 395 (#417) ############################################
6
The Pamphlets of the Harveys 395
were almost finished before The Protestation came into circulation,
each containing, in a postscript, a brief reference to its appearance.
An approximate date is fixed for all three tracts by the postscript
of The Returne, dated “20 Octobris,' in which the author states that
olde Martins Protestation' came into his hands 'yesternight late. '
Of the two anti-Martinist tracts, Pappe with a Hatchet was,
probably, the earlier, since an answer to it by Gabriel Harvey,
which we shall notice later, was concluded before 5 November.
This worthless production is the only hitherto undisputed contribu-
tion by John Lyly to the controversy. It essays to imitate the style
which Martin had adopted; but the frequent ejaculations with
which it is besprinkled do nothing to relieve the tediousness of the
whole. For the rest, it is a compound of sheer nonsense and frank
obscenity and must have disgusted more with the cause it upheld
than it ever converted from Martinism. The Returne of Pasquill
was superior in every way to Lyly's work, but, even so, it cannot
rank very high. Pasquill, returning from abroad, meets Marphoreus
on the Royal Exchange, and they discuss the inexhaustible topic
of Martinism together. A description of a puritan service at
Ashford, Kent, leads us to suppose that the author of A Counter-
cuffe may, indeed, have carried out his intention of posting over
England for news of the Martinists, and we have further references
to the two books containing his experiences already promised.
The tract concludes with a brief reply to The Protestation,
containing, it is interesting to observe, a eulogy on Bancroft.
Two new writers now joined their voices to the general
wrangle, Gabriel Harvey and his brother Richard, and their entry
was the beginning of yet another controversy, to which the poet
Greene contributed just before his death, and which was eventually
fought out over his dead body by Nashe and Gabriel Harvey. A
detailed description of this dispute would carry us too far from the
present subject', and we must here confine our attention to its open-
ing stage, which alone concerns the matter in hand. In order, we
may conjecture, to add a little flavour to the somewhat thankless task
Bancroft had imposed upon him, Lyly, in his Pappe, had deliber-
ately challenged Harvey to enter the Marprelate lists. Harvey at
once took up the gauntlet in his Advertisement to Papp-Hatchet;
but the writing of it seems to have cooled his anger, for it was not
published until 1593, when, in other ways, he had involved himself
in a quarrel with the literary free-lances of London. His pamphlet,
a
when it appeared, was found to be more of a personal attack than
1 Sce bibliograpby.
## p. 396 (#418) ############################################
396
The Marprelate Controversy
a contribution to the general controversy, concerning which it
assumes an air of academic impartiality, dealing out blows to both
parties in that 'crab-tree cudgell style' which we associate with its
author, and displaying as ostentatiously as may be his learning and
wide knowledge of theology. His brother Richard, it may be at
his suggestion, now followed suit, though scarcely with the same
impartial spirit, in A Theologicall Discourse of the Lamb of God
and his enemies, wherein the 'new Barbarisme' of Martin is
shown to be nothing but an old heresy refurbished.
The Theologicall Discourse is mainly interesting for its 'Epistle
to the Reader,' which contained a passage apparently vilifying the
littérateurs of the day under the name of the 'make plajes and make
bates' of London. This roused Greene, in his Quip for an Upstart
Courtier (1592), to retaliate by some comments upon the Harvey
family in general. The poet soon afterwards died; but Gabriel
Harvey's pride had been seriously wounded and he would not
allow the matter to rest there. His reply, heaping contempt and
imputations upon the memory of the dead man, was answered by
Nashe, and the dispute continued with unabated vigour for some
five years, when, at last, a stop was put to it by the authorities.
That Richard Harvey, whose words had led to this fiery quarrel,
should be the same man who had just published Plaine Percevall
the Peace-maker of England, is somewhat hard to credit, but so
we are definitely assured by Nashe! . After Martins Months
Minde, this is the most readable of the answers to Martin. Its
style is original, shows faint traces of Euphuism, and is embroidered
with homely proverbs and parenthetical anecdotes in the manner
of Sam Weller. Plaine Percevall himself figures as a countryman
of commonsense, an unsophisticated 'man in the street,' who,
amazed at this surpernaturall art of wrangling,' bids all 'be
husht and quiet a Godsname. '
The entry of the Harveys is an indication of the wide-
spread interest taken in the controversy, and certain tracts noted
in the Stationers' register, together with the list of 'hageling and
profane' pamphleteers given in Martin Junior, shows us that
there were many other writers, not necessarily supporting either
side, who felt compelled to record their opinions upon the vexed
topic of the day. The tracts of two only have survived, and both
voice the same desire for peace and quiet that Plaine Percevall
1 McKerrow's Nashe, vol. I, p. 270.
? If we may judge from the pessimistic tone of The Tears of the Muscs, this raging cou-
troversy seems to have exercised the most depressing effect upon the mind of Spenser.
## p. 397 (#419) ############################################
Martin's Literary Influence
397
be
es
her
had expressed. Their titles are A Myrror for Martinists by
one T. T. and A Friendly Admonition to Martin Marprelate
by Leonard Wright; they were entered at Stationers' Hall on
22 December 1589 and 19 January 1590 respectively.
The last shot fired on the Marprelate battlefield was An
Almond for a Parrat which, begun as a reply to The Protestation,
was delayed for some reason and did not appear until the following
spring? . Its literary merits are small, but it is much more closely
reasoned and well-informed than any other anti-Martinist pro-
duction, and its author seems to have been at pains to collect
much information about Penry, whom he declares to be ‘Martin,'
Udall, Wiggington and other famous puritans. Though An Almond
for a Parrat is a companion to Pappe with a Hatchet, written
in the same ejaculatory, swashbuckling style and replete with
similar ribald stories, nevertheless, the attribution of it to Lyly
does not find favour.
The honour of this battle of the books belongs, so far as
literature is concerned, to Martin. The Marprelate tracts are part
of English literature, the answers to them little more than
materials for literary history. None of the pamphlets written to
order on behalf of the bishops were entered at Stationers' Hall-a
fact which seems to imply that, while Whitgift and Aylmer
sanctioned them privately, they were ashamed to authorise them
publicly. Martins Months Minde and Plaine Percevall are
amusing; but the rest are very unprofitable to be read and most
unworthy to be regarded, if we may parody a familiar Euphuism.
The fact that Lyly and Nashe were responsible, in part, for their
production, and the numerous references throwing light upon the
whole controversy which they contain have alone rescued them
from the oblivion into which they would otherwise have fallen.
It is idle to suggest that they did anything to stop Martin's
mouth: his silence was the work of the pursuivants. Doubt-
less, the growth and final triumph of the cause he advocated
did much to secure immortality for the puritan pamphleteer.
The opening years of the Long parliament saw
a revival
of Martinism. Hay any worke was reprinted in 1641 and
A Dialogue in 1643, while, in 1645, four tracts appeared by a
writer calling himself 'Yongue Martin Marpriest. ' Qualities
of style and not peculiarities of doctrine singled out these from
M.
E*
her
ramente
bro
See the concluding words of the epistle dedicatory (McKerrow's Nashe, vol. III,
p. 343) and Penry's reference to it in his Briej Discovery, 1590, sig. A 4 recto.
" See note at end of bibliography.
## p. 398 (#420) ############################################
398
The Marprelate Controversy
among the countless other puritan tracts that the age produced
for the admiration of posterity. Martin's freakish and audacious
personality and his unusual vein of satire were something new
and not easily forgotten. He was the most famous prose satirist
of the Elizabethan period and may rightly be considered as the
humble forerunner of that much greater satirist whose Tale of a
Tub was a brilliant attack upon all forms of religious controversy.
Martin's style exercised an immediate and appreciable influence
upon his contemporaries—a point that has hitherto scarcely been
noticed—for Nashe, at this period, was a young writer whose style
was hardly formed; and, though he afterwards proudly boasted
that the vaine which I have is of my owne begetting and cals no
man father in England but myself", yet it is impossible not to see
that the most modern and most racy prose writer of the Eliza-
bethan age owed a considerable debt to 'olde Martin Makebate,
in contest with whom he won his spurs. The famous Epistolae
Obscurorum Virorum were some seventy years earlier than the
Marprelate tracts and rank much higher as literature. It is not,
however, fair to compare the deliberate creation of some of the
protagonists of German humanism with hasty and ill-digested
attacks upon episcopacy, struck off from a travelling printing press.
Much the same may be said of the Satyre Ménippée, which is fre-
quently quoted as a parallel to its English contemporary. It was a
curious coincidence that remarkable satires should appear in
England and France almost simultaneously, but there was no con-
nection and very little similarity between the two. The Satyre
Ménippée was political in intention, the Marprelate tracts religious.
The group of politiques who were responsible for the French satire
represented the commonsense of France tired of the tyranny or
the League and the long unrest of past years. Their work was an
epitaph on an already fallen foe, and the laugh it elicited was one
of relief and of hope.
