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The Apocalyptic Thinking of the Marian Exiles

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2016

Jane E. A. Dawson
Jane E. A. Dawson*
Affiliation:
New College, University of Edinburgh
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Extract

Apocalyptic ideas lay at the very heart of British Protestant thought throughout the early modern period. They were held by thinkers from all sections of the theological spectrum within Britain, and formed part of the mainstream of the different reformed traditions found within the Tudor state and the kingdom of Scotland. Most British Protestants viewed their daily lives and the world in which they lived through the lens of apocalyptic thought. Its key themes helped create the new Protestant consciousness which emerged in the early modern period throughout the whole of the English-speaking world.

Type
Part I: The Apocalypse
Information
Studies in Church History Subsidia , Volume 10: Prophecy and Eschatology , 1994 , pp. 75 - 91
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1994 

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References

1 For general discussions and bibliographies see Firth, K. R., The Apocalyptic Tradition in Reformation Britain, 1530–1645 (Oxford, 1979Google Scholar); Bauckham, R., Tudor Apocalypse (Appleford, 1978Google Scholar); Christianson, P., Reformers and Babylon (Toronto, 1978CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

2 Firth, Apocalyptic Tradition, pp. 1–31, 69-81.

3 Dawson, J., ‘Revolutionary conclusions: the case of the Marian exiles’, History of Political Thought II (1990), pp. 257–72Google Scholar.

4 Fairfield, L. P., John Bale, Mythmaker of the English Reformation (West Lafayette, Ind., 1976Google Scholar); Mozley, J., John Foxe and his Book (London, 1940Google Scholar); Haller, W., Foxe’s Book of Martyrs and the Elect Nation (London, 1963Google Scholar); Olsen, V. N., John Foxe and the Elizabethan Church (Berkeley, 1973)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 For a full listing of the polemic of the Marian exiles see Baskerville, E.J., A Chronological Bibliography of Propaganda and Polemic, 1553–8, American Philosophical Society, Memoirs, 136 (Philadelphia, 1979)Google Scholar; Pettegree, A., ‘The Latin polemic of the Marian exiles’, SCH.S 8 (1991), pp. 305–21Google Scholar.

6 Davies, C., ‘“Poor persecuted little flock” or Commonwealth of Christians: Edwardian concepts of the Church’, in Protestantism and the National Church, eds. Lake, P. and Dowling, M. (London, 1987), pp. 78–102Google Scholar.

7 Firth, Apocalyptic Tradition, pp. 32–68.

8 Cited in ibid., p. 249.

9 John Bale’s first history concerned Oldcastle: ibid., p. 48.

10 Ibid., p. 102.

11 See the article by Michael Wilks in this volume; Firth, Apocalyptic Tradition, p. 42.

12 Samuell, W., A prayer to God for his afflicted church in Englande (1556)Google Scholar, printed in Crowley, Robert, An Apologie or Defence (1566)Google Scholar, Sig. Aiir.

13 Geneva Bible (1560), fo. 357.

14 Robert Pownall’s Epistle in his translation of Musculus’ The Temporyser (1555), Sig. A7r.

15 Traheron, Bartholomew, An Exposition of the 4 Chapter of S. Johns Revelation (1557), Sig. Aiiiir-vGoogle Scholar.

16 John Olde’s Epistle in his translation of Rudolf Gualter’s Antichrist (1556), Sig. A2r.

17 Becon, Thomas, Epistle (1554) in Prayers etc, ed. Ayred, J. (Cambridge, 1854), p. 208Google Scholar.

18 Shakespeare, J. , ‘Plague and Punishment’ in Protestantism and the National Church, pp. 103–23Google Scholar.

19 Writings of John Bradford, ed. A. Townsend (Cambridge, 1853), p. 35.

20 Original Letters relative to the English Reformation, ed. H. Robinson (Cambridge, 1846–7), I, p. 100.

21 Pownall, Robert, An Admonition to the Towne of Callys (1557), pp. 6—7Google Scholar.

22 E.P., , Confutation of unwritten verities (1555)Google Scholar. Sigs A3r-A5r.

23 Knox, Joh, Answer to an Anabaptist (1560), cited in Firth. Apocalyptic Tradition, p. 124Google Scholar.

24 Bowler, G., ‘Marian Protestants and the violent resistance to tyranny’, Protestantism and the National Church, pp. 124–43Google Scholar; and see n. 3 above.

25 Dedicatory Epistle to Queen Elizabeth, Geneva Bible (1560), fos. ii—iiiv; Bauckham, , Tudor Apocalypse, pp. 125–44Google Scholar.

26 For the immediate impact of the exiles, see Sutherland, N., ‘The Marian exiles and the establishment of the Elizabethan regime’, Archiv für Refomationsgeschichte, 78 (1987), pp. 253–86Google Scholar.

27 Professor Williamson, A. H., in his work, Scottish National Consciousness in the reign of James VI (Edinburgh, 1979Google Scholar), has concentrated upon the distinctive aspects of the Scottish apocalyptic tradition. Whilst not wishing to minimize the differences between England and Scotland, there were important features which were shared by the two countries and provided a common apocalyptic tradition.

28 Napier, John, A Plaine Discovery of the whole Revelation of St John (Edinburgh, 1593)Google Scholar, Sig. A6r.

29 Sec the articles by Hutton, Sarah and den Berg, Johannes van in this volume. Works of John Knox, ed. Laing, D. (6 vols., Edinburgh, 1846–64), 6, p. 229Google Scholar.

31 Melville, James, Autobiography, ed. Pitcairn, R. (Wodrow Society, Edinburgh, 1842), p. 26Google Scholar.

32 This distinctive attitude is discussed in relation to Scripture in Coolidge, P., The Pauline Renaissance (Oxford, 1970), pp. 1—22Google Scholar; Dawson, J., ‘Resistance and revolution in sixteenth-century thought’, The Church and Revolution, eds. Berg, J. van den and Hoftijzer, P. (Leiden, 1991), pp. 69–79Google Scholar.