barity and narrowness of Whitgift is what now stands in need of a reasoned defence. Section II.-The Authorship of the Tracts 1. The Widespread Interest of the Inquiry.-There is no more fascinating problem in connection with the literary and ecclesiastical history of the reign of Elizabeth, than the question of the authorship of the Marprelate Tracts. Judged from any standpoint, the writer of them was a notable Englishman. He was our first great prose satirist. He was a writer of marked individual genius. He had an easy mastery of the resources of our language. To realise his wit, the keenness of his satire, his idiomatic raciness, we have only to compare him with the professional scribes hired by Bancroft to write him down. Conscious that their defence of the reverend fathers in God lacked something in pith and point, labouring under the disadvantage from which all mercenaries suffer, of having no real personal interest in the conflict, these hired penmen sought to remedy their defects with a stock of offensively indelicate stories and allusions. But their best paragraphs are those which frankly imitate the author they are attacking; when least original, they come nearest meriting commendation. Who, then, is this dexterous, original, droll, literary artist; one who, indeed, with equal competence can be grave as well as gay; and when not fantastically gay, half hides, and no more, his deep earnestness of purpose? When raising the question, ringing in our ears are his own measured words : I am alone. No man under heaven is privy, or hath been privy unto my writings against you. I used the advice of none therein.1 That, we are constrained to believe, was true of the writer at the time the words were penned, in March 1589. And yet it is difficult to believe that so great a patriot, so brilliant a master of English prose, so earnest a religious reformer, 1 HAY ANY WORKE, 21. T could be altogether hid from public fame; even had not the Bishops through their pursuivants turned London into a whispering gallery, where every word spoken in intimate chat or wayside gossip was focused in the Archbishop's chamber at Lambeth. 2. Two Classes of Marprelate Tracts. It will assist our inquiries if at this juncture we point out that the seven Martins' fall into two classes. Four are primary documents, three secondary. Primary. THE EPISTLE. THE EPITOME. HAY ANY WORKE. Secondary. THE MINERALLS. The The pamphlet MORE WORK FOR THE COOPER, seized while being printed at Manchester, would no doubt belong to the primary division, and as designed, would have formed a considerable volume. The 'copy' in the hands of the printers, though intended to be published as a separate pamphlet, was but a third part of the whole work. Secondary Tracts were interim publications; curtain-raisers to keep the audience in hand until the greater play should occupy the stage. Thus there was a delay in publishing HAY ANY WORKE; Waldegrave's assistant fell ill while the work was being carried on at Fawsley, and we do not hear that any one was found to fill his place, so that a delay was anticipated. As a matter of fact, the delay was extended beyond their first fears. Sir Richard Knightley's messenger was sent to Coventry to get a copy of the new 'Martin' a week too soon. It was a troublesome pamphlet to bind, consisting as it does of seven half-sheets and a single leaf.1 And there appears to have been a delay in getting the final sheets of the manuscript of most of the Tracts, which of itself might suggest a common origin. The managers of the press deemed it wise therefore to send 1 The last sig. is H 1. In all existing copies, even those merely cased in parchment, the last leaf is pasted to the preceding sheet. 1 forth the broadside known commonly as THE MINERALLS. Penry commended it to Sharpe as a pretty thing to be set out before the other Bookes.' Again, when Hodgkins took up the management of the press, the intention was to print forthwith the primary tract, MORE WORK FOR THE COOPER. Penry had hoped that Waldegrave would have gone 'in hand with More Work for Cooper and further sayd,' as though anticipating its appearance, in the regular succession of the three quartos already published, that Waldegrave had the Dutch letters with him.'2 It was a writing upon which some pains was being bestowed, and from the brief summary account given of it in the PROTESTATYON, would have been one of the most characteristic and popular of the Marprelate series. When, however, Hodgkins and his two men reached the Midlands, Penry was unable to supply them with the 'copy.' Hence the appearance of THESES MARTINIANAE as an interim, to occupy the printers, to stay the immediate demands of the constituency, and to keep the Bishops and their pursuivants employed. While this was being printed it was further foreseen that the manuscript of MORE WORK would not be ready when the printers' hands were once more free; so a second interim was hastily prepared. It followed up the assumptions of the previous tract. That was alleged to have been edited and partly written by Martin Junior, and became known by that name. This was therefore entitled THE JUST Censure and REPROOFE of that adventurous youth, by his elder brother Martin, Senior; and as before, became known commonly as Martin Senior. While it was being set up, Hodgkins received the long-looked-for 'copy' of MORE WORK. It was not the manuscript of the complete tract, but of a portion only; in length, about one-third of the whole, and consisting of the 'Epistle,' such as was furnished by the writer of every publication, large and small, of those years. It was expected to be a completion of HAY ANY WORKE in some respects. 'Martin Junior' in his Epilogue hopes that the missing references required to prove the Theses, not 1 Harl. 7042. 23 (q); Arber's Sketch, 98. 2 Ibid. (z); Sketch, 100. contained in HAY ANY WORKE, which gave a thirty or forty' of them, might be supplied in MORE WORK.1 But there is no attempt to supply this deficiency in the interim pamphlets. Moreover, there are undoubted differences between the two classes, differences in style and possibly in matter, which we must presently consider. The real genius of Martin is seen in the primary tracts. Then the unfinished character of THESES MARTINIANAE forms one of the greatest of our difficulties in seeking to unravel the mystery surrounding the name of Martin Marprelate. 3. Clues in the Text.-Before we consider more closely the two names left on our hands after examining the various conjectures which have been presented as to the identity of Martin Marprelate, we must note certain indirect hints or implications contained in the Tracts themselves as to their authorship. (a) We note that they were written by a university graduate. They show a ready familiarity with the dialectical exercises of the 'schools,' and have other marks of academic learning. Particularly, there is a reference to the study of Father Bricot's commentary on Aristotle at Oxford.2 3 (b) The legal references are sufficiently numerous to indicate a writer specially trained in the usages and forms of the law. Thus Martin speaks technically of an action in judicium capitis; of a of a scandalum magnatum; of summoning parties in coram, and of issuing writs premunire facies; he explains the legal points which forbid an action being taken against him under the statute 13 Eliz.; he also frequently quotes the statutes at large. 5 8 (c) The writer is thoroughly familiar with theological and ecclesiastical subjects. Quotations are needless; such matters are discussed throughout the series. (d) There is a hint at the writer's social position, when he denies that he has any designs on the emoluments of the 2 THE EPISTLE, 11. 4 THE EPISTLE, 23. 5 Ibid. 14. 6 Ibid. 21, 22, 26, 32; HAY ANY WORKE, 37. 7 THE EPISTLE, 38. 8 PROTESTATYON, 23. 1 THESES MART. sig. C iv. 3 HAY ANY WORKE, 24. Bishops, having, he says, a patrimony of his own which he finds sufficient. (e) It is also not without considerable importance that he says, referring to Bancroft's reference to his supposed wife, that he is not married, though he will not say but that presently he may be.1 The question now presents itself, whether, among the men we know in connection with the Tracts, or among the sympathisers with their object, and with the cause of evangelical reform generally, there is any one who could have written these satires and who possessed the qualifications indicated above. We see he must be a 'scholar of Oxford,' a lawyer, a theologian, a gentleman of means, and a bachelor meditating marriage. 4. Persons suspected. We now turn to the persons who have fallen under the suspicion of being Martin. One name only is a fresh suggestion of modern times; the others were suggestions made by contemporaries of the events connected with the writing of the Tracts. Not that the first crop of suspicions, wild premature guesses of a scandalised prelacy, were of great importance. They were but the radical leaf thrust early through the soil, giving no hint of the form and character of the foliage which should later appear. (1) JOHN UDALL.-The fact, early discovered, that the secret press had been active in the neighbourhood of Kingston-on-Thames, made it inevitable that in their panic the suspicions of the Bishops should light upon Udall. He was already suspected of writing the anti-episcopal dialogue commonly known as Diotrephes, and the Demonstration of Discipline, with its yet fiercer denunciations in the same vein. He was then residing, and had till the preceding June been a minister, at Kingston. He was, moreover, a man with a special grievance which connected him with THE EPISTLE. Two years earlier he had come into collision. with Dr. Cottington, Archdeacon of Surrey.2 He had 1 PROTESTATYON, 15, 32. See below, p. 306 f. |