1 Meanwhile Penry, on the search for a suitable location for the press, was put into communication with Master John Hales, dwelling at the White Friars at Coventry. Hales met Penry at a sermon,' and again there is talk of printing The Supplication to the Parliament that was printed at Oxford,' and 'Mr. Cartwright's book against the Romish [Rhemish] Testament.' But the matter was not so casual as Hales in his defence tried to set out. Sir Richard Knightley had written him by the hands of Waldegrave the printer' requiring [him] to suffer this Bearer to haue roome in [his] Howse in Coventry for a tyme, until he could otherwise provide.' At his final trial Hales protests that 'he had great reason, as he thought, to gratify Sir Richard Knightley in any thing, to whom he owed much reverence, as him that had married his Aunt.' 2 So to Coventry the press was now taken. Stephen Gifford recalled, speaking to Henry Sharpe as they were riding over the scene, the fright he had when crossing Dunsmore Heath, between Dunchurch and Coventry. His cart threatened to stick fast in the gutter, and to call for help would be no doubt to make public the nature of his load.3 (13) THE COVENTRY PAMPHLETS.-Henry Sharpe made an effort to penetrate into the secret printing-house at the White Friars; but when Hales and Penry found he was following them along the streets of Coventry as they were proceeding to the house, he was warned away. We, however, learn from Sharpe the names and approximate dates of the pamphlets printed at Coventry. 1589-90. When again he says he is then writing Parliament (ibid. 7), he must refer to the session Feb. No Parliament sat during the years 1588 and 1590. in the expression now in the 31 yeare of the raigne of Queen Elizabeth' which occurs in the Epistle to the Reader' (A vers.). First came the during the sitting of 24-Mar. 29, 1588-89. There is a difficulty But Mr. Wilson reasonably suggests that the Epistle was written after the book.' in the same number of The Library, by the courtesy of the editor, expressed my acceptance of his correction, while differing from him in the consequent reconstruction of the story of the movements of Penry and Waldegrave during the year 1589. 1 The Supplication printed at Coventry was a new tract. See above, p. 157, for the same misunderstanding on the part of Sir Richard Knightley. This would be Sir Richard's first wife, Mary Fermor of Easton Neston. 3 Harl. MSS. 7042, 2, 23 (o); State Trials as above. broadside, commonly known as the MINERALLS, which was issued about Feb. 20th, a trifle to stay the impatience of the public while the more serious works were in hand. Penry had read the copy over to Sharpe before it went to the press, and that curious person thought that he recognised some taunts against Doctor Some in the printed, which he did not remember in the written, Copy.' Within a day or two Humfrey Newman appeared at Sharpe's house, whither the edition had been sent from Coventry; and leaving fifty copies behind for Sharpe's benefit, took the rest 'towards London.'1 The actual destination is evidently withheld from Sharpe. About the first week in March, 'before Midlent,' is Sharpe's recollection, Penry's own pamphlet, A viewe of some part of such publike wants, whose running headline is 'A Supplication vnto the | High Court of Parliament,' and is therefore always referred to in these examinations as The Supplication, was published. Newman took the printed sheets from Coventry to the house of a country squire, Roger Wigston, living at Wolston Priory. Mr. and Mrs. Wigston and the wife was the more determined character of the two-belonged to the Throkmorton-Knightley-HalesPenry circle, and were in sympathy with the 'seekers after reformation.' At the village of Wolston, six miles southeast from Coventry, Newman found Sharpe, staying at the house of his father-in-law. Refusing to fold and stitch the pamphlets at the Priory, Sharpe helped Newman to carry them to Northampton and there did the work. The edition consisted of a thousand copies; one hundred were left with Newman, who paid Penry for them. The rest Newman took 'towards London as [Sharpe] thinketh.' The remainder of the month of March was occupied in printing the third 'Martin.' It was, to some extent, a reply to Bishop Cooper's Admonition, and bore the punning title, HAY ANY WORKE FOR THE COOPER. The press work was finished 'about Palm Sunday,' which fell that year on March 23rd. Waldegrave had 200 copies 'and moe' stitched at Coventry and despatched direct to London. 1 Harl. MSS. 7042, 23 (§§ p, q, r, s). [Arber's Sketch, 97, 98.] Sharpe bound up' 700 copies, 600 of which Newman took away with him. He called later and took away most of the remaining hundred, balking Sharpe of his prospect of gain; from which we gather that this pamphlet was in brisk demand. There was a lively impatience at Fawsley to see it; Steven was despatched to Coventry a week too soon to get a copy.1 (14) WALDEGRAVE RETIRES FROM THE MARTINIST PRESS. -The search for the secret press was unremitting, and the secret of its sojourn at Fawsley and Coventry in the keeping of too many people. Sir Richard Knightley sent one of his men with an early parcel of the new 'Martin' to his friend the Earl of Hertford. But the demand among the nobility and attendants at Court for copies of the Martinist satires had become much more cautious. The Queen was strongly averse to them, and the Bishops had not raised the bogy of Anabaptist communism in vain. Lord Hertford told his brother' that he liked not that course . . . that as they shoote at Bishopps now, so will they doe at the Nobilitie also, if they be suffred.' To make matters worse, Sir Richard's man met an acquaintance in London, and the pair resorted to a neighbouring inn to drink wine. Under the influence of good liquor the Fawsley man became communicative, and told his friend that the notorious books were printed at his master's house; that Martin himself was there and 'went apparelled in green.' He also told the secret of a spurrier dwellinge aboute Pie Corner neere West Smithfield,' who acted as an agent for the printer, receiving his supplies of paper and other materials and despatching them to Northamptonshire. We do not know whether this drunken tell-tale was Steven, the confidential man,' but Sir Richard at this time sent Steven out of the way for a season, 'the search for these matters being very hot.' 8 2 Waldegrave with the completion of HAY ANY WORKE 1 Harl. MSS. 7042, 23 (§§ t, v, w); [Arber, Sketch, 98, 99]. * Harl. MSS. 7042, 23 (§ x) [Arber, Sketch, 99]. gave up his post as printer to his Worship Martin Marprelate. The work was no doubt laborious and dangerous. With each fresh publication issuing from his press, he was embittering further the enmity with which he was regarded by Whitgift, and ever making it more impossible that he should again exercise openly the art and mystery of his craft in England. Besides, his health was suffering. He accounts for his pallor at this time by the closeness with which the servant of Hales-ever so fearful of being found out-kept him at his task. He likened it to being in prison, of which he could speak with the authority of much experience. He could not haue oftentymes warm meate.' Most important of all was that he found that all the Puritan preachers with whom he conferred disliked Martin's course. Cartwright, we know, was emphatic in his dislike of such 'irregular proceedings.' Waldegrave offered this information when he was being entertained at Wolston, at the house of the father-in-law of Henry Sharpe, the Northampton bookbinder. "The Milne [press] was not now going,' he told Sharpe, and he wolde no longer meddle or be a dealer in this course.' His intention was to go to Devonshire, there to print Cartwright's reply to the editors of the Rhemish New Testament—a work, however, which he was not able to print till the year 1602. Whitgift feared that Cartwright's arguments against the Rhemists might with equal cogency be employed against his own administration. Waldegrave does not remain long upon the scene, having convinced himself that his safety lay in flight. Mr. J. Dover Wilson conjectures that the Martinists purchased from him his Dutch letters, and that he carried these with him to London when he finally left the Midlands.1 But if the Martinists wished to issue their subsequent tracts in the same external form as their first publications, why was so difficult and dangerous a task as sending this heavy fount-in five sizes, be it remembered-to London undertaken ? And as a matter of fact we know that the type 1 The Library, Oct. 1907. was never used afterwards by them. But Waldegrave in 1593 printed at Edinburgh a quarto in black letter, bearing the title, 'A Discoverie of the Vnnaturall and traiterovs Conspiracie of Scottish Papists.' He is reported by Penry, about the middle of May 1589, to be at the Huguenot city of Rochelle. If we may trust the story of Matthew Sutcliffe, he remained till the late autumn at Rochelle, and there printed M. Some laid open in his Coulers, and Penry's Appellation. (15) JOB THROKMORTON OF HASELEY MANOR.-The first move made by Penry and Waldegrave, when the milne ceased working at Coventry, was to report themselves at Haseley Manor. The hamlet of Haseley lies a few miles north-west from Warwick. The Manor-house, an interesting Elizabethan dwelling, had been erected by Clement Throkmorton in 1556; his initials and those of his wife, Katherine, still remain carved in stone on either side the handsome entrance porch. Clement Throkmorton was a sympathiser with the 'seekers after reformation,' and devoutly set in stone over his gateway the words, 'Non habemus hic manentem civitatem.' The lord of the manor at this time was the eldest son of the builder of the transitory city,' Job Throkmorton, who entered into possession on the death of Clement at the close of the year 1573. Hitherto the name of Job Throkmorton has not appeared in this controversy. We are now to discover that he occupies a foremost place in the management of the secret press, and as we proceed with our investigations we shall find that his personality becomes more and more intimately involved in the problem of the authorship of the tracts, as well as in the practical arrangements for working the press. The Throkmortons were a distinguished family. Sir George Throkmorton of Coughton was cupbearer to his relative Queen Katherine Parr. His son Clement, the builder of Haseley Manor-house, showed early his theological leanings by adopting the son of the Marian martyr, Thomas Hawkes, of Coggeshall, in Essex. 1 State Papers, Scotland-Eliz. 1593, vol. 50, No. 29. Sir |