Volume I Part 16 (2/2)

[331] The first of Martin Mar-prelate's libels were published in 1588.

In the month of November of that year the archbishop is directed by a letter from the council to search for and commit to prison the authors and printers. Strype's _Whitgift_, 288. These pamphlets are scarce; but a few extracts from them may be found in Strype, and other authors. The abusive language of the puritan pamphleteers had begun several years before. Strype's _Annals_, ii. 193. See the trial of Sir Richard Knightley of Northamptons.h.i.+re for dispersing puritanical libels. _State Trials_, i. 1263.

[332] 23 Eliz. c. 2.

[333] Penry's protestation at his death is in a style of the most affecting and simple eloquence. _Life of Whitgift_, 409, and Appendix 176. It is a striking contrast to the coa.r.s.e abuse for which he suffered. The authors of Martin Mar-prelate were never fully discovered; but Penry seems not to deny his concern in it.

[334] _State Trials_, 1271. It may be remarked on this as on other occasions, that Udal's trial is evidently published by himself; and a defendant, especially in a political proceeding, is apt to give a partial colour to his own case. _Life of Whitgift_, 314; _Annals of Reformation_, iv. 21; Fuller's _Church History_, 122; Neal, 340. This writer says: ”Among the divines who _suffered death_ for the libels above mentioned, was the Rev. Mr. Udal.” This is no doubt a splenetic mode of speaking. But Warburton, in his short notes on Neal's history, treats it as a wilful and audacious attempt to impose on the reader; as if the ensuing pages did not let him into all the circ.u.mstances. I will here observe that Warburton, in his self-conceit, has paid a much higher compliment to Neal than he intended, speaking of his own comments as ”a full confutation (I quote from memory) of that historian's false facts and misrepresentations.” But when we look at these, we find a good deal of wit and some pointed remarks, but hardly anything that can be deemed a material correction of facts.

Neal's _History of the Puritans_ is almost wholly compiled, as far as this reign is concerned, from Strype, and from a ma.n.u.script written by some puritan about the time. It was answered by Madox, afterwards bishop of Worcester, in a _Vindication of the Church of England_, published anonymously in 1733. Neal replied with tolerable success; but Madox's book is still an useful corrective. Both, however, were, like most controversialists, prejudiced men, loving the interests of their respective factions better than truth, and not very scrupulous about misrepresenting an adversary. But Neal had got rid of the intolerant spirit of the puritans, while Madox labours to justify every act of Whitgift and Parker.

[335] _Life of Whitgift_, 328.

[336] _Id._ 336, 360, 366, Append. 142, 159.

[337] _Id._ Append. 135; _Annals_, iv. 52.

[338] This predilection for the Mosaic polity was not uncommon among the reformers; Collier quotes pa.s.sages from Martin Bucer as strong as could well be found in the puritan writings. P. 303.

[339] _Life of Whitgift_, p. 61, 333, and Append. 138; _Annals_, iv.

140. As I have not seen the original works in which these tenets are said to be promulgated, I cannot vouch for the fairness of the representation made by hostile pens, though I conceive it to be not very far from the truth.

[340] _Ibid_. Madox's _Vindication of the Ch. of Eng. against Neal_, p.

212; Strype's _Annals_, iv. 142.

[341] The large views of civil government entertained by the puritans were sometimes imputed to them as a crime by their more courtly adversaries, who reproached them with the writings of Buchanan and Languet. _Life of Whitgift_, 258; _Annals_, iv. 142.

[342] See a declaration to this effect, at which no one could cavil, in Strype's _Annals_, iv. 85. The puritans, or at least some of their friends, retaliated this charge of denying the queen's supremacy on their adversaries. Sir Francis Knollys strongly opposed the claims of episcopacy, as a divine inst.i.tution, which had been covertly insinuated by Bancroft, on the ground of its incompatibility with the prerogative, and urged Lord Burleigh to make the bishops acknowledge they had no superiority over the clergy, except by statute, as the only means to save her majesty from the extreme danger into which she was brought by the machinations of the pope and King of Spain. _Life of Whitgift_, p.

350, 361, 389. He wrote afterwards to Lord Burleigh in 1591, that if he might not speak his mind freely against the power of the bishops, and prove it unlawful, by the laws of this realm, and not by the canon law, he hoped to be allowed to become a private man. This bold letter he desires to have shown to the queen. _Lansdowne Catalogue_, vol. lxviii.

84.

[343] D'Ewes, 302; Strype's _Whitgift_, 92, Append. 32.

[344] D'Ewes, 339 _et post_; Strype's _Whitgift_, 176, etc., Append. 70.

[345] Strype's _Annals_, iii. 228.

[346] Strype's _Annals_, iii. 186, 192. Compare Append. 35.

[347] Strype's _Whitgift_, 279; _Annals_, iii. 543.

[348] _Parl. Hist._ 921.

[349] Strype's _Whitgift_, 521, 537, App. 136. The archbishop could not disguise his dislike to the lawyers. ”The temporal lawyer,” he says in a letter to Cecil, ”_whose learning is no learning anywhere but here at home_, being born to nothing, doth by his labour and travel in that barbarous knowledge purchase to himself and his heirs for ever a thousand pounds per annum, and oftentimes much more, whereof there are at this day many examples.”--P. 215.

[350] Strype's _Whitgift_, and D'Ewes, _pa.s.sim_. In a convocation held during Grindal's sequestration (1580), proposals for reforming certain abuses in the spiritual courts were considered; but nothing was done in it. Strype's _Grindal_, p. 259, and Appendix, p. 97. And in 1594, a commission to enquire into abuses in the spiritual courts was issued; but whether this were intended _bona fide_ or not, it produced no reformation. Strype's _Whitgift_, 419.

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