Part 61 (2/2)

Of another, who cut down all the woods at Hampstead, till the towns-women ”fell a swaddling of his men,” and so saved Hampstead by their resolution. But when _Martin_ would give a proof that the Bishop of London was one of the bishops of the devil, in his ”Pistle to the terrible priests,” he tells this story:--”When the bishop throws his bowl (as he useth it commonly upon the Sabbath-day), he runnes after it; and if it be too hard, he cries _Rub! rub! rub! the diuel goe with thee!_ and he goeth himself with it; so that by these words he names himself the Bishop of the Divel, and by his tirannical practice prooveth himselfe to be.” He tells, too, of a parson well known, who, being in the pulpit, and ”hearing his dog cry, he out with this text: 'Why, how now, hoe! can you not let my dog alone there? Come, Springe! come, Springe!' and whistled the dog to the pulpit.” One of their chief objects of attack was Cooper, Bishop of Lincoln, a laborious student, but married to a dissolute woman, whom the University of Oxford offered to separate from him: but he said he knew his infirmity, and could not live without his wife, and was tender on the point of divorce. He had a greater misfortune than even this loose woman about him--his _name_ could be punned on; and this bishop may be placed among that unlucky cla.s.s of authors who have fallen victims to their _names_. Shenstone meant more than he expressed, when he thanked G.o.d that he could not be punned on. Mar-Prelate, besides many cruel hits at Bishop Cooper's wife, was now always ”making the _Cooper's hoops to flye off_, and the bishop's tubs to leake out.” In ”The Protestatyon of Martin Marprelat,” where he tells of two bishops, ”who so contended in throwing down elmes, as if the wager had bene whether of them should most have impoverished their bishop.r.i.c.ks. Yet I blame not _Mar-Elme_ so much as Cooper for this fact, because it is no less given him by his _name_ to spoil elmes, than it is allowed him by the secret judgment of G.o.d to mar the Church. A man of _Cooper's_ age and occupation, so wel seene in that trade, might easily knowe that tubs made of green timber must needs leak out; and yet I do not so greatly marvel; for he that makes no conscience to be a deceiver in the building of the churche, will not stick for his game to be a _deceitfull workeman in making of tubbs_.”--p. 19. The author of the books against Bishop Cooper is said to have been Job Throckmorton, a learned man, affecting raillery and humour to court the mob.

Such was the strain of ribaldry and malice which Martin Mar-Prelate indulged, and by which he obtained full possession of the minds of the people for a considerable time. His libels were translated, and have been often quoted by the Roman Catholics abroad and at home for their particular purposes, just as the revolutionary publications in this country have been concluded abroad to be the general sentiments of the people of England; and thus our factions always will serve the interests of our enemies. Martin seems to have written little verse; but there is one epigram worth preserving for its bitterness.

Martin Senior, in his ”Reproofe of Martin Junior,” complains that ”his younger brother has not taken a little paines in ryming with _Mar-Martin_ (one of their poetical antagonists), that the Cater-Caps may know how the meanest of my father's sonnes is able to answeare them both at blunt and sharpe.” He then gives his younger brother a specimen of what he is hereafter to do. He attributes the satire of _Mar-Martin_ to Dr. Bridges, Dean of Sarum, and John Whitgift, Archbishop of Canterbury.

”The first Rising, Generation, and Original of _Mar-Martin_.

”From Sarum came a goos's egg, With specks and spots bepatched; A priest of Lambeth coucht thereon, Thus was _Mar-Martin_ hatched.

Whence hath _Mar-Martin_ all his wit, But from that egge of Sarum?

The rest comes all from great Sir John, Who rings us all this 'larum.

What can the c.o.c.katrice hatch up But serpents like himselfe?

What sees the ape within the gla.s.se But a deformed elfe?

Then must _Mar-Martin_ have some smell Of forge, or else of fire: A sotte in wit, a beaste in minde, For so was damme and sire.”

[416] It would, however, appear that these revolutionary publications reached the universities, and probably fermented ”the green heads” of our students, as the following grave admonition directed to them evidently proves:--

”Anti-Martinus sive monitio cujusdam Londinensis ad adolescentes vtrimque academiae contra personatum quendam rabulam qui se Anglice Martin Marprelat, &c. Londini, 1589, 4o.”

A popular favourite as he was, yet even Martin, _in propria persona_, acknowledges that his manner was not approved of by _either party_. His ”Theses Martinianae” opens thus: ”I see my doings and my course misliked of many, both the good and the bad; though also I have favourers of both sortes. The bishops and their traine, though they stumble at the cause, yet especially mislike my maner of writing. Those whom foolishly men call _Puritanes_, like of the matter I have handled, but the forme they cannot brooke. So that herein I have them both for mine adversaries. But now what if I should take the course in certain theses or conclusions, without _inveighing_ against either _person_ or _cause_.” This was probably written after Martin had swallowed some of his own sauce, or taken his ”Pap (offered to him) with a Hatchet,” as one of the most celebrated government pamphlets is ent.i.tled. But these ”Theses Martinianae,” without either scurrility or invective are the dullest things imaginable; abstract propositions were not palatable to the mult.i.tude; and then it was, after the trial had been made, that _Martin Junior and Senior_ attempted to revive the spirit of the old gentleman; but if sedition has its progress, it has also its decline; and if it could not strike its blow when strongest, it only puled and made grimaces, prognostics of weakness and dissolution. This is admirably touched in ”Pappe with an Hatchet.” ”Now Old Martin appeared, with a wit worn into the socket, twingling and pinking like the snuffe of a candle; _quantum mutatus ab illo_, how unlike the knave he was before, not for malice, but for sharpnesse! The hogshead was even come to the hauncing, and nothing could be drawne from him but dregs; yet the emptie caske sounds lowder than when it was full, and protests more in his waining than he could performe in his waxing. I drew neere the sillie soul, whom I found quivering in two sheets of protestation paper (alluding to the work mentioned here in the following note). O how meager and leane he looked, so crest falne that his combe hung downe to his bill; and had I not been sure it was the picture of Envie, I should have sworn it had been the image of Death: so like the verie anatomie of Mischief, that one might see through all the ribbes of his conscience.”

In another rare pamphlet from the same school, ”Pasquill of England to Martin Junior, in a countercuffe given to Martin Junior,” he humorously threatens to write ”The Owle's Almanack, wherein your night labours be set down;” and ”some fruitful volumes of 'The Lives of the Saints,' which, maugre your father's five hundred sons, shall be printed,” with ”hays, jiggs, and roundelays, and madrigals, serving for epitaphs for his father's hea.r.s.e.”

[417] Some of these works still bear evident marks that the ”pursuivants” were hunting the printers. ”The Protestatyon of Martin Mar-Prelate, wherein, notwithstanding the surprising of the printer, he maketh it knowne vnto the world that he feareth neither proud priest, tirannous prelate, nor G.o.dlesse cater-cap; but defieth all the race of them,”

including ”a challenge” to meet them personally; was probably one of their latest efforts. The printing and the orthography show all the imperfections of that haste in which they were forced to print this work. As they lost their strength, they were getting more venomous. Among the little Martins disturbed in the hour of parturition, but already christened, there were: ”Episto Mastix;” ”The Lives and Doings of English Popes;” ”Itinerarium, or Visitations;”

”Lambethisms.” The ”Itinerary” was a survey of every clergyman of England! and served as a model to a similar work, which appeared during the time of the Commonwealth. The ”Lambethisms” were secrets divulged by Martin, who, it seems, had got into the palace itself! Their productions were, probably, often got up in haste, in utter scorn of the Horatian precept. [These pamphlets were printed with difficulty and danger, in secrecy and fear, for they were rigidly denounced by the government of Elizabeth. Sir George Paul, in his ”Life of Archbishop Whitgift,” informs us that they were printed with a kind of wandering press, which was first set up at Moulsey, near Kingston-on-Thames, and from thence conveyed to Fauseley in Northamptons.h.i.+re, and from thence to Norton, afterwards to Coventry, from thence to Welstone in Warwicks.h.i.+re, from which place the letters were sent to another press in or near Manchester; where by the means of Henry, Earl of Derby, the press was discovered in printing ”More Work for a Cooper;” an answer to Bishop Cooper's attack on the party, and a work so rare Mr. Maskell says, ”I believe no copy of it, in any state, remains.”]

As a great curiosity, I preserve a fragment in the _Scottish_ dialect, which well describes them and their views. The t.i.tle is wanting in the only copy I have seen; but its extreme rarity is not its only value: there is something venerable in the criticism, and poignant in the political sarcasm.

”Weil lettred clarkis endite their warkes, quoth Horace, slow and geasoun, Bot thou can wise forth buike by buike, at every spurt and seasoun; For men of litrature t'endite so fast, them doth not fitte, Enanter in them, as in thee, their pen outrun thair witte.

The shaftis of foolis are soone shot out, but fro the merke they stray; So art thou glibbe to guibe and taunte, but rouest all the way, Quhen thou hast parbrackt out thy gorge, and shot out all thy arrowes, See that thou hold thy clacke, and hang thy quiver on the gallows.

Els Clarkis will soon all be Sir Johns, the priestis craft will empaire, And d.i.c.kin, Jackin, Tom, and Hob, mon sit in Rabbies chaire.

Let Georg and Nichlas, cheek by jol, bothe still on c.o.c.k-horse yode, That dignitie of Pristis with thee may hau a long abode.

Els Litrature mon spredde her wings, and piercing welkin bright, To Heaven, from whence she did first wend, retire and take her flight.”

[418] ”Pasquill of England to Martin Junior, in a countercuffe given to Martin Junior.”

[419] ”Most of the books under Martin's name were composed by John Penry, John Udall, John Field, and Job Throckmorton, who all concurred in making Martin. See 'Answer to Throgmorton's Letter by Sutcliffe,' p. 70; 'More Work for a Cooper;' and 'Hay any Work for a Cooper;' and 'Some layd open in his Colours;' were composed by Job Throckmorton.”--MS. Note by Thomas Baker. Udall, indeed, denied having any concern in these invectives, and professed to disapprove of them. We see Cartwright, however, of quite a different opinion. In Udall's library some MS. notes had been seen by a person who considered them as materials for a Martin Mar-Prelate work in embryo, which Udall confessed were written ”by a friend.” All the writers were silenced ministers; though it is not improbable that their scandalous tales, and much of the ribaldry, might have been contributed by their lowest retainers, those purveyors for the mob, of what they lately chose to call their ”Pig's-meat.”

[420] The execution of Hacket, and condemnation of his party, who had declared him ”King of Europe,” so that England was only a province to him, is noted in our ”General History of England.”

This was the first serious blow which alarmed the Puritanic party. Doubtless, this man was a mere maniac, and his ferocious pa.s.sions broke out early in life; but, in that day, they permitted no lunacy as a plea for any politician.

Cartwright held an intercourse with that party, as he had with Barrow, said to have been a debauched youth; yet we had a sect of Barrowists; and Robert Brown, the founder of another sect, named after him _Brownists_; which became very formidable.

This Brown, for his relations.h.i.+p, was patronised by Cecil, Earl of Burleigh. He was a man of violent pa.s.sions. He had a wife, with whom he never lived; and a church, wherein he never preached, observes the characterising Fuller, who knew him when Fuller was young. In one of the pamphlets of the time I have seen, it is mentioned that being reproached with beating his wife, he replied, ”I do not beat Mrs. Brown as my wife, but as a curst cross old woman.” He closed his life in prison; not for his opinions, but for his brutality to a constable.

The old women and the cobblers connected with these Martin Mar-Prelates are noticed in the burlesque epitaphs on Martin's death, supposed to be made by his favourites; a humorous appendix to ”Martin's Monthminde.” Few political conspiracies, whenever religion forms a pretext, is without a woman. One Dame Lawson is distinguished, changing her ”silke for sacke;”

and other names might be added of ladies. Two cobblers are particularly noticed as some of the industrious purveyors of sedition through the kingdom--Cliffe, the cobbler, and one Newman. Cliffe's epitaph on his friend Martin is not without humour:--

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