CHAPTER VII. MARTIN MAR-PRELATE. SYNOPSIS OF THE MARTIN TRACTS. WHY SOUGHT FOR WHERE UNHEARD OF. - THE SENSATION WHICH THEY PRODUCED IN ENGLAND. - PROCLAMATION AGAINST THEM. - SEIZURE OF THE PRESS. ARREST OF ITS EMPLOYEES AND PATRONS. THEIR ARRAIGNMENT AND SENTENCE. REMARKS ON MARTIN'S WRITINGS. MISREPRESENTATIONS OF THEM. THEIR AUTHORSHIP AND SPONSORS CONSIDERED. —— - THE PURITANS DISAVOWED THEM. DISAVOWAL OF THROGMORTON, CARTWRIGHT, PENRY, Ųdal. THE PROMINENT PURITAN CLERGY DENOUNCED MARTIN UPON HIS FIRST APPEARANCE. — THE WRITER TO THIS DAY UNKNOWN. 1588, 1589. "To the RIGHT PUISANTE AND TERRIBLE PRIESTS, my Clergy, Masters of the Confocation House, or any other of the holy league of subscription: This work I recommend unto them with all my heart, with a desire to see them all so provided for one day as I would wish, which I promise them shall not be at all to their hurt. "Right poisoned, persecuting, and terrible priests! You are to understand that Dr. Bridges hath written in your defence a most senseless book; and I cannot very often at one breath come to a full point when I read the same. May it please you to give me leave to play the dunce for the nonce as well as he? Otherwise dealing with master doctor's book, I cannot keep decorum personce. And may it please you, if I be too absurd in any place,..... to ride to Sarum and thank his Deanship for it?.. They are petty popes and petty antichrists, whosoever usurp authority of pastors over them who, by the ordinance of God, are to be under no pastors. For none but Antichristian popes and popelings ever claimed this authority unto themselves, especially when it was gainsaid and accounted Antichristian, generally by the most Churches in the world. . . Therefore our lord bishops as John of Canterbury, Thomas of Winchester, (I will spare John of London for this time, for it may be he is at bowls, and it is pity to trouble my good brother, lest he should swear too bad,) my reverend prelate of Litchfield, with the rest of that swinish rabble, are petty antichrists, petty popes, proud prelates, intolerable withstanders of reformation, enemies of the Gospel, and most covetous, wretched priests. . . . . . For the good-will I bear to the reverend brethren, I will speak as loud as ever I can. . . . . . Neither they nor their brood are to be tolerated in any Christian commonwealth, quoth Martin Mar-prelate. There is my judgment of you, brethren. . . . . . "Would your worship know how I can show and convince my brother Bridges to have set down flat treason? Then have at you, Dean! 1. It is treason to affirm her Majesty to be an infidel, or not to be contained in the body of the Church. 2. It is treason to say that one priest or elder may have a lawful superior authority over her Majesty. Take your spectacles then, and spell your own words, and you shall find that you have affirmed either of these two points. For you affirm that a priest may have a lawful superiority over the universal body of the Church. And you dare not deny her Majesty to be contained within the universal body of the Church. Therefore, to help you spell your conclusion, you have written treason, if you will be as good as your writing.. You will have her Majesty to be subject unto her own subject and servant. . . . . . Thus you see, brother Bridges, Martin Mar-prelate hath proved you to have deserved a cawdel of hempseed and a plaster of neckweed, as well as some of your brethren the papists. "I care not now an I leave Mass Dean's worship, and be eloquent once in my days.. ... Well, now to mine eloquence, for I can do it, I tell you. Who made the porter of his gate a dumb minister? Dumb John of London. Who abuseth her Majesty's subjects, in urging them to subscribe contrary to law? John of London. Who abuseth the High Commissioners as much as any? John of London. Who is a carnal defender of the breach of the Sabbath, in all places of his abode ? John of London. Who goeth to bowls upon the Sabbath? Dumb, duncetical John of good London hath done all this... 66 May it please you that are lord bishops to show your brother Martin how you can escape the danger of a præmunire, seeing you urge her Majesty's subjects to subscribe clean contrary to the Statute 13 Elizabeth ?..... Tell me, what have you to show for yourselves? Her Majesty's prerogative? Have you? Then I hope you have it under seal. No, I warrant you her Majesty is too wise for that. For it shall never be said that she ever authorized such ungodly proceedings. . . . . . Seeing you have nothing to show that it is her Majesty's will, why should any man subscribe contrary to the statute? Forsooth, men must believe such honest creatures as you are upon your words? Must they? As though you would not lie. Yes, yes, bishops will lie like dogs. They were never yet well beaten for their lying.1. "Is it any marvel that we have so many swine, dumb dogs, non-residents, with their journeymen the hedge priests, so many lewd livers, as thieves, murderers, adulterers, drunkards, cormorants, rascals, so many ignorant and atheistical dolts, so many covetous popish bishops in our ministry, and so many monstrous corruptions in our Church, seeing our impudent, shameless, and wainscot-faced bishops, like beasts, contrary to the knowledge of all men and against their own consciences, dare in the ears of her Majesty affirm all to be well, where there is nothing but sores and blisters, yea, where the grief is even deadly at the heart? . . . . . "You see, my worshipful priests of this crew to 1 The reader will perceive in this paragraph a distinct and contemporary confirmation of my statements (Vol. II. 351, 352, 382), that Elizabeth was too careful of her popularity to sanction the subscription required under Whitgift's administration; and that the bishops, by insisting upon it, were exposed to the penalties of a præmunire. I will not echo the words of Martin about the lying habits of the bishops of his day. I do not believe them. But, to show that he might have had some occasion for the libel, I quote the following. "This was the constant custom of Whitgift: If any lord or lady sued tc him to show favor, for their sakes, to nonconformists, he would profess how glad he was to serve them, and gratify them in compliance with their desire; assuring them, for his part all possible kindness should be indulged unto them. But, in fine, he would remit nothing of his rigor against them. Thus he never denied any great man's desire, and never granted it; pleasing them for the present with general promises, and....still kept constant to his own resolution. Hereupon, afterwards the nobility surceased making more suits unto him, as ineffectual, and even left all things to his own disposal." (Fuller, Book IX. p. 218.) whom I write, what a perilous fellow Martin Marprelate is. He understands of all your knavery, and it may be he keeps a register of them. Unless you amend, they shall all come into the light one day, . . . . . unless you observe these conditions of peace which I draw between you and me. For I assure you, I make not your doings known for any malice that I bear unto you, but the hurt that you do unto God's Church. Leave your wickedness, and I'll leave the revealing of your knaveries.. 1. The said lord bishops must promise to observe without fraud or collusion, and that as much as in them lieth, they labor to promote the preaching of the Word in every part of this land. 2. That hereafter they admit none into the ministry but such as shall be known, both for their godliness and learning, to be fit for the ministry.. ..... 3. That neither they nor their servants ... urge any to subscribe contrary to the Statute 13 Elizabeth; and that they suspend or silence none but such as either for their false doctrine or evil life shall show themselves to be unworthy the places of ministers. . . . . . 4. That none be molested..... for this my book, for not kneeling at the communion, or for resorting on the Sabbath (if they have not preachers of their own) to hear the Word preached and to receive the sacraments. 5. That never hereafter they profane excommunication as they have done, by excommunicating alone in their chambers, and that for trifles. That they never forbid public fasts, or molest those present at such assemblies. Briefly, that they never slander the cause of reformation, or the furtherers thereof, in terming the cause by the name of Anabaptistry, |