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.
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.
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. [2] 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. [3] [4] [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, [6] 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, [9] [10] [11] 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; [13] [14] [15] [16] 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]
John Whitgift was the Archbishop of Canterbury from 1583 to his death. Noted for his hospitality, he was somewhat ostentatious in his habits, sometimes visiting Canterbury and other towns attended by a retinue of 800 horses. Whitgift's theological views were often controversial.
Edmund Grindal was a prelate of the Church of England who, during the reign of Elizabeth I, was successively Bishop of London, Archbishop of York, and Archbishop of Canterbury. Though born far from the centres of political and religious power, he had risen rapidly in the church during the reign of Edward VI, culminating in his nomination as Bishop of London; the death of the King prevented his taking up the post, and, along with other Marian exiles, Grindal sought refuge in continental Europe during the reign of Mary I. Upon Elizabeth's accession, Grindal returned and resumed his rise in the church, culminating in his appointment to the highest office.
This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1589.
This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1588.
Thomas Nashe [also Nash] was an Elizabethan playwright, poet, satirist and a significant pamphleteer. He is known for his novel The Unfortunate Traveller, his pamphlets including Pierce Penniless, and his numerous defences of the Church of England.
Martin Marprelate was the name used by the anonymous author or authors of the seven Marprelate tracts that circulated illegally in England in the years 1588 and 1589. Their principal focus was an attack on the episcopacy of the Anglican Church.
John Penry is Wales's most famous Protestant martyr.
Events from the 1580s in England.
Sir Richard Knightley of Fawsley Hall in Northamptonshire was an English Member of Parliament (MP) and leading patron of the Puritans during the reign of Elizabeth I. The Knightleys were one of the leading families of Northamptonshire.
Job Throckmorton (Throkmorton) (1545–1601) was a puritan English religious pamphleteer and Member of Parliament during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Possibly with John Penry and John Udall, he authored the Martin Marprelate anonymous anti-clerical satires; scholarly consensus now makes him the main author.
John Bridges (1536–1618) was an English bishop.
Robert Some (Soame) (1542–1609) was an English churchman and academic. Master of Peterhouse, Cambridge from 1589, Some played a prominent part in the ecclesiastical controversies of his time, taking a middle course, hostile alike to extreme Puritans and Anglicans.
Pasquill is the pseudonym adopted by a defender of the Anglican hierarchy in an English political and theological controversy of the 1580s known as the "Marprelate controversy" after "Martin Marprelate", the nom de plume of a Puritan critic of the Anglican establishment. The names of Pasquill and his friend "Marforius", with whom he has a dialogue in the second of the tracts issued in his name, are derived from those of "Pasquino" and "Marforio", the two most famous of the talking statues of Rome, where from the early 16th century on it was customary to paste up anonymous notes or verses commenting on current affairs and scandals.
The reign of Elizabeth I of England, from 1558 to 1603, saw the start of the Puritan movement in England, its clash with the authorities of the Church of England, and its temporarily effective suppression as a political movement in the 1590s by judicial means. This of course led to the further alienation of Anglicans and Puritans from one another in the 17th century during the reign of King James (1603-1625) and the reign of King Charles I (1625-1649), that eventually brought about the English Civil War (1642-1651), the brief rule of the Puritan Lord Protector of England Oliver Cromwell (1653-1658), the English Commonwealth (1649-1660), and as a result the political, religious, and civil liberty that is celebrated today in all English speaking countries.
Sir Anthony Cope, 1st Baronet of Hanwell in Oxfordshire, was an English Puritan Member of Parliament.
John Udall (1560?–1592) was an English clergyman of Puritan views, closely associated with the publication of the Martin Marprelate tracts, and prosecuted for controversial works of a similar polemical nature. He has been called "one of the most fluent and learned of puritan controversialists".
Robert Waldegrave or Walgrave, the son of Richard Waldegrave of Blockley, Worcestershire, was a 16th-century printer and publisher in England and Scotland. From 1578 to 1588 he printed numerous, mainly religious works in London, and from 1590 to 1603, more than 100 books in Scotland. In 1603, following King James I of England's accession to the English throne, he returned to England, but died later the same year.
John Hales was the owner of the Whitefriars in Coventry at which two of the Marprelate tracts were printed on a secret press. He was the nephew and heir of John Hales, Clerk of the Hanaper, and the nephew of Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecote.
George Carleton was a lawyer, landowner and Member of Parliament with strong Puritan sympathies. It has been suggested that he was the secret author of the Marprelate tracts, and both he and his third wife were prosecuted for their involvement in the Marprelate controversy. Ordered to appear daily before the Privy Council in April 1589, he died in early 1590 before a decision in the proceedings against him had been reached.
Elizabeth Hussey, later Elizabeth Crane and Elizabeth Carleton, was a religious activist with strong Puritan sympathies. She and her second husband, George Carleton, were prosecuted for involvement in the Marprelate controversy. The first of the anonymous Marprelate tracts, Martin's Epistle, was printed at her home in East Molesey, Surrey, in October 1588.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain : McKerrow, Ronald Brunlees (1911). "Marprelate Controversy". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica . 17 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 750. | Wikiquote has quotations related to: Marprelate Controversy |
