Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-25wd4 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T12:22:33.500Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A WHIPPER WHIPPED: THE SEDITION OF WILLIAM PRYNNE*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2013

MARK KISHLANSKY
MARK KISHLANSKY*
Affiliation:
Harvard University
*
Department of History, Robinson Hall, Harvard University, Cambridge MA 02138mkishlan@fas.harvard.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

‘A whipper whipped’ is a thoroughly new account of the 1634 Star Chamber case against William Prynne for publishing the seditious work Histrio-mastix. It is based upon a hitherto unused manuscript account that provides previously undisclosed information about the proceedings and especially about the intentions of the prosecution. This case is one of the most celebrated events of the 1630s, often viewed as the watershed event in the history of Caroline censorship. It has also become a prime example of Archbishop William Laud's attack against puritan conformists. This article argues that Laud played little role in the case; that the issue before Star Chamber was primarily the charge of sedition; and that Prynne received every possible legal advantage during his hearing. Through a careful reconstruction of the legal proceedings, the case is seen in an entirely new light. Though historians and literary critics have accepted Prynne's self-serving accounts of his prosecution, this fuller record demonstrates their inadequacy.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 56 , Issue 3 , September 2013 , pp. 603 - 627
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

The author would like to thank collectively the numerous scholars who read and commented on drafts of this article.

References

1 Harvard University, Houghton Library, Eng. (HEng.) MSS 1359, fo. 283v. Spoken by Secretary of State Sir John Coke. I am grateful to Peter Roberts for calling this manuscript to my attention. It is used in his ‘William Prynne's Histrio-mastix: a puritan attack on the court and the stage during the personal rule of Charles I’, in Malettke, Klaus, Grell, Chantal, and Holz, Petra, eds., Hofgesellschaft und Höflinge an europäischen fürstenhöfen in der frühen neuzeit (15.–18. Jahrhundert) (Münster, 2001), pp. 447–57Google Scholar, but misidentified as HEng. MSS 835, at p. 449 n. 7.

2 Houghton Library, HEng. MSS 1359, fo. 314r–v.

3 British Library, Thomason Tracts (hereafter E.) E. 420 (1). A speedy hue and crie (London, 1647), p. 6.

4 The privy council had ordered that the book be recalled and declared it an offence to possess it. Gardiner, S. R., Documents relating to the proceedings against William Prynne in 1634 and 1637 (Camden Society, n.s. 18, 1877), pp. 58–60Google Scholar. They were still being relinquished in 1637. Peacey, Jason, ‘The paranoid prelate: Archbishop Laud and the puritan plot’, in B. Coward and J. Swann, eds., Conspiracies and conspiracy theory in early modern Europe (Burlington, VT, 2004), p. 123Google Scholar.

5 Francis Lord Cottington, who spoke first, acknowledged the innovation: ‘I condemn the book to be burnt publicly, and most disgracefully by the hand of the hangman, which is a custom in other places.’ HEng. MSS 1359, fo. 270r.

6 Knowler, William, ed., The earl of Strafforde's letters and dispatches (London, 1739), i, p. 261Google Scholar.

7 A. W. Pollard and G. R. Redgrave, eds., A short-title catalogue of books printed in England, Scotland and Ireland, and of English books printed abroad, 1475–1640 (2nd edn, revised and enlarged, begun by W. A. Jackson and F. S. Ferguson, completed by K. F. Pantzer, London, 1988–91) (hereafter STC) 41407. Burton, Henry, A divine tragedy (London, 1636)Google Scholar. The last few pages of this tract appear to have been written by Prynne himself. They were deleted from the second edition that Burton published in 1642. E. 176 (1). Oxford dictionary of national biography (ODNB), Frances Condick, s.v. ‘John Bastwick’.

8 Lake, Peter and Como, David, ‘“Orthodoxy” and its discontents: dispute settlement and the production of “consensus” in the London (puritan) “underground”’, Journal of British Studies, 39 (2000), p. 34CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 STC 20472. Prynne, WilliamThe perpetuitie of a regenerate man's estate (London, 1627)Google Scholar; H1700. Heylyn, Peter, Cyprianus anglicus (London, 1671), p. 148Google Scholar.

10 STC 20455. Prynne, William, A brief survey and censure of Mr Cozens his cozening devotions (London, 1628)Google Scholar; STC 20465. Prynne, William, Lame Giles his haltings (London, 1630)Google Scholar. Prynne relates that he was several times before High Commission. E. 162 (1). Prynne, William, A New discovery of the prelates tyranny (London, 1641), p. 7Google Scholar.

11 STC 20457. The Church of England's old antithesis to new arminianisme (London, 1629); STC 20458. Anti-Arminianisme (London, 1630), which is the second edition ‘much enlarged’ of The Church of England's old antithesis.

12 STC 20462. Healthes sickness (London, 1628), Epistle Dedicatory.

13 STC 20477. The unlovelinesse, of lovelockes (London, 1628). A lovelock was a long tress worn on the left side. It is prominent in most van Dyck portraits of the king.

14 STC 20477. Unlovelinesse, of lovelockes, p. A3.

15 Bellany, Alastair, ‘Libels in action: ritual, subversion and the English literary underground, 1603–1642’, in Tim Harris, ed., The politics of the excluded (Basingstoke, 2001)Google Scholar; Plomer, Henry, ‘Michael Sparke, puritan bookseller’, The Bibliographer, 1 (1902), p. 414Google Scholar.

16 Lamont, William, Marginal Prynne (London, 1963), p. 13Google Scholar.

17 HEng. MSS 1359, fo. 244v.

18 Lamont, Marginal Prynne, p. 21.

19 There are numerous sources. Rushworth's account was reprinted with changes by Cobbett and are supplemented by the one printed by Gardiner. Manuscript records include Huntington Library 80, Bodleian Library, Tanner MSS 299, British Library, Egerton MSS 253, Stowe MSS 159, and HEng. MSS 835 which derive from one source and largely replicate each other. Bodleian Library, Douce MSS 173, and Cambridge University Library, MSS D.d.6.23, contain briefer excerpts than the foregoing. By far the fullest account is HEng. MSS 1359, fos. 180–318, which covers all six sessions and provides a wealth of hitherto unknown detail. Wing, Donald, ed., Short-title catalogue of books printed in England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and British America, and of English books printed in other countries, 1641–1700 (3 vols., London, 1972)Google Scholar (hereafter Wing) R.2318A. Rushworth, John, Historical collections: the second part (1686) , ii, pp. 220–41Google Scholar; Cobbett, William, Cobbett's complete collection of state trials (34 vols., London, 1809–28), iii, pp. 562–86Google Scholar; Gardiner, Documents relating to Prynne, pp. 1–28.

20 Cressy, David, ‘Book burning in Tudor and Stuart England’, Sixteenth Century Journal, 36 (2005), p. 369CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

21 Robertson, Randy, Censorship and conflict in seventeenth-century England (University Park, PA, 2009), p. 57Google Scholar.

22 Patterson, Annabel, Censorship and interpretation (Madison, WI, 1984), p. 115Google Scholar.

23 Seibert, Frederick, Freedom of the press in England, 1476–1776 (Urbana, IL, 1952), p. 126Google Scholar.

24 Lambert, Sheila, ‘Richard Montague, arminianism and censorship’, Past and Present, 124 (1989), p. 58CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

25 Milton, Anthony, ‘Licensing, censorship and religious orthodoxy in Stuart England’, Historical Journal, 41 (1998), p. 629CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Hunt, Arnold, ‘Licensing and religious censorship in early modern England’, in Hadfield, Andrew, ed., Literature and censorship in Renaissance England (New York, NY, 2001), pp. 143–4Google Scholar.

26 Shuger, Debora, Censorship and cultural sensibility (Philadelphia, PA, 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

27 Clegg, Cyndia, Press censorship in Caroline England (Cambridge, 2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

28 The classic work is Hamburger, P., ‘The development of the law of seditious libel and the control of the press’, Stanford Law Review, 37 (1985), pp. 661–765CrossRefGoogle Scholar, though it mostly concerns the period after the abolition of Star Chamber.

29 Birch, Thomas, The Court and times of Charles I (London, 1848), ii, p. 219Google Scholar.

30 Ibid., ii, p. 224.

31 STC 41407. Burton, A Divine Tragedy (London, 1636), p. 43.

32 For Charles and Henrietta-Maria's acting, see Bruce, J. and Hamilton, W. D., eds., Calendar of state papers domestic series of the reign of Charles I, 1625–1626 (London, 1858), p. 273Google Scholar; Rice, Colin, Ungodly delights (Alessandria, 1997), p. 155Google Scholar.

33 Although this charge made for spectacular headlines, it did not figure largely in the prosecution. ‘The authorities construed the book to be both libelous and insulting to Queen Henrietta-Maria’, Cressy, ‘Book burning’, p. 369; ‘he had indeed denounced female actors at the same time as Queen Henrietta Maria was participating in a court masque’. William Lamont, ‘Prynne, William (1600–1669)’, ODNB. The most careful analysis of the question can be found in Robertson, Censorship and conflict, pp. 45ff.

34 STC 41407. Burton, Divine tragedy, p. 43.

35 E. 162 (1). Prynne, New discovery, pp. 8, 11. Though modern commentators repeat this claim, no independent evidence exists to substantiate it. Cressy, , Travesties and transgressions (Oxford, 2000), p. 221Google Scholar; Clegg, Press censorship, p.166; Robertson, Censorship and conflict, p. 58.

36 E. 162 (1). Prynne, New discovery, pp. 8, 11.

37 Lamont, Marginal Prynne, pp. 28–48. Most of this chapter deals with Prynne's 1637 prosecution. See also Foster, Stephen, Notes from the Caroline underground (Hamden, CT, 1978), p. 41Google Scholar; Cressy, Travesties and transgressions, p. 218; Kirby, Ethyn, William Prynne (New York, NY, 1931), p. 25CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

38 E. 162 (1). Prynne, New discovery, pp. 8–9; STC 41407. Burton. Divine tragedy, p. 44. Lamont calls Heylyn ‘Laud's devoted follower’ but this relationship developed after 1633. Lamont, Marginal Prynne, p. 29.

39 Scott, William and Bliss, James, eds., The works of Archbishop William Laud (7 vols., Oxford, 1847–60), iii, p. 221, iv, pp. 85, 107Google Scholar.

40 Jansson, Maija, ed., Proceedings in the opening session of the long parliament (7 vols., Rochester, NY, 2000–7), i, p. 529Google Scholar; Wing H1700. Heylyn, Cyprianus anglicus, p. 218. ‘One of the enduring myths about Heylyn is that he was Laud's chaplain’. Milton, Anthony, Laudian and royalist polemic in seventeenth-century England: the career and writings of Peter Heylyn (Manchester, 2007), p. 233Google Scholar.

41 Wing V248. Vernon, George, The life of the learned and Reverend Dr. Peter Heylyn (London, 1682), pp. 50–1Google Scholar; Wing B854A. Barnard, John, Theologo-historicus (London, 1683), pp. 141–2Google Scholar.

42 Foster, Caroline underground, p. 41.

43 HEng. MSS 1359, fos. 303v–304r.

44 HEng. MSS 1359, fos. 301v, 317r; see also Rushworth, Historical collections, ii, p. 248.

45 HEng. MSS 1359, fo. 183v. An Information was the civil law equivalent of an indictment at common law. Strictly speaking, there were no trials in Star Chamber. I owe these points and much wise advice to Professor J. H. Langbein.

46 HEng. MSS 1359, fos. 183v, 184r, 184v, 310r.

47 See n. 19 above.

48 Special thanks are due to Susan Halpert and the staff of the reading room of the Houghton Library for helping me use and explore the provenance of the manuscript.

49 In 1998, on a visit to Harvard, Peter Roberts alerted me to the existence of this manuscript. At that time, I was unaware of its significance. When he came to discuss it briefly in his essay ‘William Prynne's Histrio-mastix’, he unfortunately misidentified it as HEng. MSS 835 (which is a brief account of the case) at p. 449 n. 7. Nevertheless, he deserves credit for appreciating its potential as a valuable source to study Prynne's case.

50 HEng. MSS 1359, fo. 214r–v.

51 The Stationers registered the work on 16 Oct. 1630.

52 HEng. MSS 1359, fo. 186v. For a licenser not to have heard of Michael Sparke is akin to a Chicago policeman not knowing the name of Al Capone.

53 , Jansson, ed., Proceedings in the Long parliament, i, p. 545Google Scholar.

54 J. Bruce, ed., Calendar of state papers domestic series of the reign of Charles I, 1633–1634 (CSPD, 1633–1634) (London, 1863), p. 418Google Scholar; HEng. MSS 1359, fos. 238v–239r.

55 HEng. MSS 1359, fos. 205v, 194v, 195v. This may account for the two issues with and without the errata on 3*–4v. I am grateful to Tom Cogswell for alerting me to the two states of the book.

56 Rushworth, Historical collections, ii, p. 223 (mispaginated as 232).

57 E.162 (1). Prynne, New discovery, p. 8.

58 Birch, Court and times, ii, p. 224. Also see ii, pp. 218–19, Pory to Puckering, ii, pp. 222–3, Paget to Harrington.

59 HEng. MSS 1359, fos. 188r, 207v, 237r.

60 Prynne stated that it was Henry Jermyn, ‘Mr H.I’, who brought the book to the king's notice. E. 162 (1). Prynne, New discovery, p. 8.

61 Wing H1700. Heylyn, Cyprianus anglicus, p. 218. The date is necessarily imprecise though Heylyn twice places it ‘before the information was put in against Mr Prynne’. Jansson, ed., Proceedings in the Long parliament, i, p. 529.

62 Jansson, Proceedings in the Long parliament, i, p. 529. It is probable that Noy's copy survives with his marginal notes in The National Archives, SP16/534/122–34. Though Noy made some use of Heylyn's digest in his prosecution, he had carefully studied Histrio-mastix himself as had the other prosecutors and a number of the judges. Pace Lamont, these were not ‘a full list of the charges against Prynne’. Lamont, Marginal Prynne, p. 29 n. 1.

63 HEng. MSS 1359, fo. 195v.

64 E.162 (1). Prynne, New Discovery, p. 9. Prynne's assertion that Noy read the book twice strains credulity. HEng. MSS 1359, fo. 265r.

65 HEng. MSS 1359, fo. 265r.

66 J. Bruce, ed., Calendar of state papers domestic series of the reign of Charles I, 1631–1633 (London, 1862), p. 524Google Scholar.

67 HEng. MSS 1359, fos. 183v, 184r, 184v.

68 HEng. MSS 1359, fo. 184v. Lamont asserts that ‘Leighton stood for everything to which Prynne was opposed – in the period before 1641’, but this is contradicted by the approving citations in Histrio-mastix. Lamont, Marginal Prynne, p. 45.

69 HEng. MSS 1359, fo. 185r.

70 CSPD, 1633–1634, pp. 188, 225.

71 HEng. MSS 1359, fos. 180r, 239v.

72 A key point in Prynne's original defence was that Histrio-mastix was simply a compilation of ‘passages out of other approved authors’. HEng. MSS 1359, fo. 195v.

73 HEng. MSS 1359, fos. 181r, 180v. Neither of these sessions is recorded in the other surviving sources.

74 HEng. MSS 1359, fo. 181v.

75 HEng. MSS 1359, fo. 182r–v.

76 HEng. MSS 1359, fos. 203v, 204v.

77 Gardiner, Documents relating to Prynne, p. 14.

78 Ibid., p. 19 (Heath's judgement).

79 HEng. MSS 1359, fos. 196v, 197v.

80 Noy presented no case against the three printers or Buckner.

81 HEng. MSS 1359, fo. 208v. This was why no attempt was made to demonstrate Prynne's heterodoxy rather than Lamont's assertion that Prynne's references to the church ‘reveal, once more the moderate’. Lamont, Marginal Prynne, p. 32.

82 HEng. MSS 1359, fo. 209r–v.

83 HEng. MSS 1359, fos. 209v, 213r, 213v. Prynne's tactics exasperated many besides Noy as would be seen at sentencing.

84 HEng. MSS 1359, fo. 217r; STC 20464. William Prynne, Histrio-mastix (London, 1633), To the Christian Reader, pp. 5–6.

85 HEng. MSS 1359, fos. 217r–218v; STC 20464. Prynne, Histrio-mastix, p. 190; HEng. MSS 1359, fo. 219v.

86 HEng. MSS 1359, fo. 219r.

87 STC 20464. Prynne, Histrio-mastix, p. 492; HEng. MSS 1359, fo. 223r.

88 HEng. MSS 1359, fos. 223r, 224r.

89 STC 20464. Prynne, Histrio-mastix, p. 787.

90 HEng. MSS 1359, fo. 226v.

91 STC 20464. Prynne, Histrio-mastix, p. 856.

92 HEng. MSS 1359, fo. 228r–v.

93 STC 20464. Prynne, Histrio-mastix, p. 236; HEng. MSS 1359, fos. 229v–230r.

94 HEng. MSS 1359, fos. 231r, 231v.

95 STC 20464. Prynne, Histrio-mastix, pp. 736, 852.

96 HEng. MSS 1359, fo. 235v.

97 STC 20464. Prynne, Histrio-mastix, fos. 555–6.

98 HEng. MSS 1359, fos. 236v, 236r.

99 HEng. MSS 1359, fo. 239r.

100 HEng. MSS 1359, fo. 240r–v. The phrase means ‘for the purpose of persuading the people’.

101 HEng. MSS 1359, fos. 240v–241r. Those in favour of the adjournment were Laud, Dorset, Manchester, and Portland.

102 HEng. MSS 1359, fo. 251r.

103 HEng. MSS 1359, fo. 241r.

104 HEng. MSS 1359, fos. 242r–v, 245v.

105 HEng. MSS 835, fo. 4r.

106 HEng. MSS 1359, fos. 248v–249r.

107 HEng. MSS 1359, fos. 249r–v, 250r, 249r, 250v, 252v.

108 HEng. MSS 1359, fos. 253v, 256v, 255r, 255v, 258r.

109 HEng. MSS 1359, fos. 264r, 265r.

110 HEng. MSS 835, fo. 1v.

111 HEng. MSS 1359, fos. 265v, 267v. ‘Lord, banish this horrible plague from the earth.’

112 HEng. MSS 835, fos. 18v–19r.

113 Thus Cottington: ‘For his defense, every one of them begins with craving the mercy of the Court but concluded with defense as far as they could’; and Edmonds's: ‘[if] he had made an ingenious confession of his fault I should have mitigated for my part the censure’. HEng. MSS 1359, fos. 269v, 286v.

114 HEng. MSS 1359, fo. 268r.

115 Knowler, ed., Strafforde's letters and dispatches, i, p. 207.

116 HEng. MSS 1359, fos. 288r, 269r, 277v, 287r.

117 HEng. MSS 835, fo. 21v.

118 HEng. MSS 1359, fos. 282r, 283v, 287r, 277v, 290r, 291v, 293v–294r, 295r, 285v, 303v, 305r. Laud assessed ‘if ever Arius was condemned for heresy then this is heresy’.

119 HEng. MSS 1359, fos. 277v, 272v, 292r, 276r; HEng. MSS 835, fo. 24r.

120 HEng. MSS 1359, fos. 297v (Laud), 269v (Cottington), 283v (Sir John Coke), 284v (Sir Thomas Jermyn).

121 HEng. MSS 1359, fo. 282r.

122 HEng. MSS 1359, fos. 273v, 279r, 283v, 285v, 275v.

123 HEng. MSS 1359, fos. 295r, 284r–v, 289r.

124 Gardiner, S. R., History of England, 1603–1642 (10 vols., London, 1883–4), vii, p. 333Google Scholar.

125 The addition was that anyone owning a copy of Histrio-mastix would be punished.

126 Windebank, Dorset, Suffolk, Arundel, Laud.

127 Dorset and Arundel.

128 HEng. MSS 1359, fo. 293r.

129 Lamont's assertion that ‘by 1634 he faced a charge of treason’ is erroneous. Star Chamber had no jurisdiction over treason. Lamont, Marginal Prynne, p. 27. In Pyne's case (1627) it was decided that words alone could not constitute treason although there was no incitement in Pyne's words. David Cressy, ‘Pyne, Hugh (1569/70–1628)’, ODNB.

130 Gardiner, Documents relating to Prynne, p. 32.

131 Ibid., p. 36 (margin); STC 41407. Burton, Divine tragedy, p. 43.

132 HEng. MSS 1359, fo. 275v.

133 STC 41407. Burton, Divine tragedy, pp. 43–4.

134 E. 162 (1). Prynne, New discovery, pp. 11, 7.

135 William Lamont, ‘Prynne, William (1600–1669)’, ODNB. See also Marginal Prynne where the queen's pastoral is said to provide the ‘pretext’ for the prosecution, p. 28.

136 BL Stowe MSS 159, fo. 48v.

137 HEng. MSS 1359, fo. 280r.