Puritan versus Church of England pamphlet "war"
The
Marprelate Controversy
was a war of pamphlets waged in England and Wales in 1588 and 1589, between a
puritan
writer who employed the pseudonym
Martin Marprelate
, and defenders of the
Church of England
which remained an
established church
.
Character and reception
[
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]
Martin's tracts are characterised by mockery of
Anglican
dignitaries and satire against the corruptions of the Church of England. The style is 'a heady mixture of nonsense, satire, protest, irony and gossip', combined with pungent wit, 'full of the language of the street'. While Martin maintained puritan doctrines as a whole, the special point of his attack was the
episcopacy
. The pamphlets were printed at a secret press established by
John Penry
, a Welsh puritan, with the help of the printer
Robert Waldegrave
, about midsummer 1588, for the issue of puritan literature was forbidden by the authorities.
[1]
The first tract by "Martin Marprelate," known as the
Epistle
, was printed at the home of Mistress Crane at
East Molesey
in October 1588.
Born
Elizabeth Hussey
, Mistress Crane was the widow of Anthony Crane (d. 16 August 1583), Master of the Queen's Household, and daughter of Sir Robert Hussey (d.1546), younger brother of
John Hussey, 1st Baron Hussey of Sleaford
.
[5]
The
Epistle
is an answer to
A Defence of the Government established in the Church of Englande
, by
Dr John Bridges
,
Dean of Salisbury
, itself a reply to earlier puritan works. Besides attacking the episcopal office in general, it assails certain prelates with much personal abuse. The
Epistle
attracted considerable notice and a reply was written by
Thomas Cooper
,
Bishop of Winchester
, under the title
An Admonition to the People of England
, but this was too long and too dull to appeal to the same class of readers as the Marprelate pamphlets, and produced little effect.
Penry's press, removed in November to the home of
Sir Richard Knightley
at
Fawsley
,
near
Northampton
, then produced a second tract by Martin, the
Epitome
, which contains more serious argument than the
Epistle
but is otherwise similar.
Shortly afterward the press was moved to the
Whitefriars, Coventry
, the home of Knightley's great-nephew,
[7]
John Hales (d. 1 January 1607/8), and his wife, Frideswide, the daughter of William Faunt.
[8]
In late January 1589, Martin's
Certain Mineral and Metaphysical School-points
was printed at the Whitefriars, followed in March by John Penry's
View of Some Part of Such Public Wants
, and Martin's
Hay Any Work For Cooper
, a reply to the
Admonition
. Hales, the son of Christopher Hales and Mary Lucy, daughter of William Lucy, esquire, of
Charlecote
,
was the nephew and heir of
John Hales
(d.1572).
It now appeared to some of the ecclesiastical authorities that the only way to silence Martin was to have him attacked in his own railing style, and accordingly certain writers of ready wit, among them
John Lyly
,
Thomas Nashe
and
Robert Greene
, were secretly commissioned to answer the pamphlets. Among the productions of this group were
Pappe with an Hatchet
(Sept. 1589), probably by Lyly, and
An Almond for a Parrat
(1590), which, with certain tracts under the pseudonym of
"the renowned Cavaliero Pasquill"
, has been attributed to Nashe. Some anti-Martinist plays or shows (now lost) performed in 1589 were perhaps also their work.
Meanwhile, in July 1589, Penry's press, now at
Wolston
, near Coventry, produced two tracts purporting to be by sons of Martin, but probably by Martin himself, namely,
Theses Martinianae by Martin Junior
, and
The Just Censure of Martin Junior by Martin Senior
. Shortly after this,
More Work for Cooper
, a sequel to
Hay any Worke
, was begun at Manchester, but while it was in progress the press was seized. Penry however was not found, and in September issued from Wolston or
Haseley
The Protestation of Martin Mar prelate
, the last work of the series, though several of the anti-Martinist pamphlets appeared after this date. He then fled to
Scotland
, but was later apprehended in London, charged with inciting rebellion, and hanged (May 1593). The authorship of the tracts has been attributed to several persons: to Penry himself, who however emphatically denied it and whose acknowledged works have little resemblance in style to those of Martin; to
Sir Michael Hicks
(by the historian
A.L. Rowse
);
[12]
to
Henry Barrow
; to
Roger Williams
; to
George Carleton
by Kathryn M. Longley and
Patrick Collinson
;
and to the
Warwickshire
squire and Member of Parliament
Job Throckmorton
, whom most Marprelate scholars now believe was the primary author with the assistance of Penry.
[17]
See also
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Notes
[
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]
- ^
Tomkins, Stephen (2020).
The Journey to the Mayflower
. London: Hodder & Stoughton. p. 160.
- ^
For her role in the printing of the Marprelate tracts Elizabeth Crane was heavily fined and imprisoned;
Collinson 1967
, p. 410.
- ^
John Hales' grandmother was Anne Fermor, and Sir Richard Knightley's first wife was Anne's sister, Mary Fermor; at his subsequent trial Hales protested that 'He had great reason, as he thought, to gratify Sir Richard Knightley in anything, to whom he owed much reverence, as he that had married his aunt';
Pierce 1908
, pp. 180, 206, 320.
- ^
Reader 1846
, p. 126.
- ^
Rowse, A. L.
The England of Elizabeth
(1953), p. 531.
- ^
Auchter, Dorothy.
Dictionary of Literary and Dramatic Censorship in Tudor and Stuart England
(2001), p. 231.
References
[
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]
- Appleton, William S. (1868).
Memorials of the Cranes of Chilton
. Cambridge: John Wilson and Son.
ISBN
9780598993175
. Retrieved
27 April
2013
.
- Black, Joseph L., ed. (2008).
The Martin Marprelate Tracts; A Modernized and Annotated Edition
. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. l?li.
- Carlson, Leland H. (1981).
Martin Marprelate, Gentleman: Master Job Throckmorton Laid Open in His Colors
. San Marino, California: The Henry E. Huntington Library.
- Collinson, Patrick (2004). "Carleton, George (1529?1590)".
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
(online ed.). Oxford University Press.
doi
:
10.1093/ref:odnb/37261
.
(Subscription or
UK public library membership
required.)
- Collinson, Patrick (2013).
Richard Bancroft and Elizabethan Anti-Puritanism
. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
ISBN
9781107023345
. Retrieved
14 December
2013
.
- Collinson, Patrick (1967).
The Elizabethan Puritan Movement
. Bristol: J.W. Arrowsmith Ltd.
ISBN
9780416340006
. Retrieved
27 April
2013
.
- Garrett, Christina Hallowell (1938).
The Marian Exiles; A Study in the Origins of Elizabethan Puritanism
. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 171?174.
ISBN
9781108011266
. Retrieved
7 January
2013
.
- McCorkle, Julia Norton (1931). "A Note concerning 'Mistress Crane' and the Martin Marprelate Controversy".
The Library
. 4th.
XII
(3): 276?283.
doi
:
10.1093/library/s4-XII.3.276
.
- Metcalfe, Walter C. (1887).
The Visitations of Northamptonshire
. London: Harleian Society
. Retrieved
7 January
2013
.
- Pierce, William (1908).
A Historical Introduction to the Marprelate Tracts
. New York: Burt Franklin
. Retrieved
27 April
2013
.
- Reader, W. (1846).
Nichols, John Gough
(ed.).
"Documents Relating to the Family of Hales, of Coventry, and the Foundation of the Free School"
.
The Topographer and Genealogist
.
I
. Baywood Publishing: 120?132
. Retrieved
8 January
2013
.
- Thomas, William (1730).
The Antiquities of Warwickshire ... by Sir William Dugdale
(2nd rev. ed.). London: John Osborn and Thomas Longman.
- Attribution
Further reading
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]
- Lyly, John
Pap with an hatchet
; edited by Leah Scragg. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2015.
External links
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]