¹ With nice humour, the ODNB has accorded to Marprelate (along with select other non-existent persons such as John Bull) his own entry (by Joseph Black, 36: 746–7). For the latest scholarship on the question of authorship, see also the entries in ODNB for John Penry (by Claire Cross, 43: 617–19) and Job Throckmorton (by Patrick Collinson, 54: 690–2).

² Clegg, Cyndia Susan, Press Censorship in Elizabethan England (Cambridge, 1997), 58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³ A warrant for the torture of three individuals involved in the printing of the tracts was issued at Bridewell on 24 August 1589. See Langbein, John H., Torture and the Law of Proof (Chicago, IL, and London, 1977), 112–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁴ The examination of those found to be involved in the printing of the Marprelate tracts went on for longer than the controversy itself. Among those examined were Martin’s patrons Sir Richard Knightley and John Hales, one of his printers, John Hodgkins, the book-binder Henry Sharpe, and several other associates. Robert Waldegrave the printer was released without indictment, as was Job Throckmorton, nowadays the main candidate as at least one of the ‘Martins’. John Udall later died in prison while on charges unrelated to Marprelate. John Penry, who was identified as Martin by Thomas Nashe and others but who specifically and repeatedly denied the identification, was hanged in May 1593 for seditious writing, but not for the authorship of the Marprelate tracts. The transcriptions of various interrogatories and depositions in the Marprelate case made by Thomas Baker in 1716 (London, BL, MS Harley 7028 to 7050) are printed in Arber, Edward, An Introductory Sketch to the Martin Marprelate Controversy 1588–1590 (London, 1895), 81–104 Google Scholar. Arber also reprints the Brief of the Attorney General, Sir John Puckering, 121–36.

⁵ The treatises and anonymous replies are listed in STC 17453–17465. Also in Milward, Peter, Religious Controversies of the Elizabethan Age: a Survey of Printed Sources (London, 1978)Google Scholar, nos 318–20, 322, 327–9. The various forms of reply and counter-reply are listed in ibid., nos 321, 323–6, 330–33, 334–38, 339–40, 341–5, and more ancillary post-ripostes and re-visitations in nos 346–59.

⁶ Collinson, Patrick, The Elizabethan Puritan Movement (London, 1967), 393.Google Scholar

⁷ Wilson, J. Dover, ‘The Marprelate Controversy’, in Ward, A. W. and Waller, A. R., eds, The Cambridge History of English Literature, Vol. 3: Renascence and Reformation (Cambridge, 1909), 383.Google Scholar

⁸ Saint Peters Complaint. With Other Poems (Edinburgh: Robert Waldegrave, [1599]), STC 22960.

⁹ The phrase ‘cheap print’ comes of course from Watt, Tessa, Cheap Print and Popular Piety, 1550–1640 (Cambridge, 1993)Google Scholar. The fullest recent account of the Marprelate tracts in relation to contemporary pamphleteering is in Raymond, Joad, Pamphlets and Pamphleteering in Early Modem Britain (Cambridge, 2003), 27–52.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Certaine Minerali/and Metaphisicail Schoolpoints/to be defended by the reuerende Bishops/and the rest of my cleargie masters of the Conuocation house/against both the vniuersities/and al the reformed Churches in Christendome. Wherin is layd open/the very Quintessence of all Catercorner diuinitie ([Coventry: Robert Waldegrave, 1589]).

¹¹ ODNB, 36: 747.

¹² ‘Sir John Puckering’s Brief against Humfrey Newman’, in Arber, , Introductory Sketch to the Marprelate Controversy, 131 Google Scholar (from London, BL, MS Harley 7042).

¹³ ‘Breife instructions touchinge the Printer and place of Printinge the .3. first bookes of Martin and y^e Minerali Conclusions, all beinge printed in a Dutch letter’, London, BL, MS Lansdowne 61, fol. 68r.

¹⁴ Whitgift to Lord Burghley, 24 August 1589, London, BL, MS Lansdowne 61, fol. 5V.

¹⁵ Albert Peel, ed., The Notebook of John Penry 1593, Camden Society, 3rd ser. 67 (London, 1944), 62.

¹⁶ Gurevich, Aron, Medieval Popular Culture: Problems of Belief and Perception, Eng. tr. (Cambridge, 1988)Google Scholar; Davis, Natalie Zemon, Society and Culture in Early Modern France (Stanford, CA, 1975)Google Scholar; Burke, Peter, Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe (London, 1978).Google Scholar

¹⁷ See Stevens, John, Words and Music in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1986), 162 and 175 Google Scholar; and Butterfield, Ardis, Poetry and Music in Medieval France (Cambridge, 2002), 125–6 and 142–4.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Lake, Peter, with Questier, Michael, The Antichrist’s Lewd Hat: Protestants, Papists and Players in Post-Reformation England (New Haven, CT, and London, 2002), 506.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Oh read ouer D. John Bridges, for it is a worthy worke: Or an epitome of the fyrste Booke of that right worshipfull volume written against the Puritanes … Compiled … by the reuerend and worthie Martin Marprelate … The Epitome is not yet published but it shall be when the Bishops are at convenient leysure to view the same. In the meane time let them be content with this learned Epistle ([East Moseley: R. Waldegrave, 1588]) [hereafter: Epistle], A1r.

²⁰ Ibid., A2r. Further references in text.

²¹ Dover Wilson, ‘The Marprelate Controversy’, 398. The comparison is made in more extended fashion by Anselment, R. A., ‘Betwixt Jest and Earnest’: Marprelate, Milton, Marvell, Swift and the Decorum of Religious Ridicule (Toronto, 1979).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²² See for instance the extracts from the writings of John Penry cited against him in his indictment for ‘seditious writing’ in 1593, printed in Sir Coke, Edward, Booke of Entries (London: A. Islip, 1614), pp. 352V–353V.Google Scholar

²³ Epistk, F2V.

²⁴ Collinson, , Elizabethan Puritan Movement, 391.Google Scholar

²⁵ Epistle, E4r:.

²⁶ The iust censure and reproofe of Martin junior. Wherein the rash and vndiscreete headines of the foolish youth, is sharply mette with, and the boy hath his lesson taught him, I warrant you, by his reuerend and elder brother Martin Senior, sonne and heire vnto the renowmed Martin Mar-prelate the Great ([Wolston:J. Hodgkins, 1589]), A4V. Hereafter Martin Senior.

²⁷ Thomas Nashe in Context (Oxford, 1989), 200–1.

²⁸ Press Censorship, 193.

²⁹ For Crowley’s puritan connections, see Collinson, Elizabethan Puritan Movement; the visit to Newgate is described at 121.

³⁰ Collinson, Patrick, ‘Literature and the Church’, in Loewenstein, David and Mueller, Janel, eds, The Cambridge History of Early Modern English Literature (Cambridge, 2002), 390.Google Scholar

³¹ Epistle, F2r.

³² Theses Martinianae: That is, Certaine demonstrative Conclusions … Published and set foorth …by… Martin Junior ([Wolston: J. Hodgkins, 1589]), A1r. Hereafter Martin Junior.

³³ Martin Senior, A1r.

³⁴ Oh read ouer D. John Bridges, for it is worthy worke: Or an epitome of the fyrste Booke of that right worshipfull volume written against the Puritanes … Compiled … by the reuerend and worthie Martin Marprelate ([Fawsley: Robert Waldegrave, 1588]), A2r. Hereafter Epitome.

³⁵ Hay any worke for Cooper: or a briefe Pistle directed by waye of an hublication to the reuerende Bysshops ([Coventry: Robert Waldegrave, 1589]), D3V.

³⁶ To all the Cleargie masters wheresoeuer’, Preface to Epitome, A2r.

³⁷ A brief Apologie of Thomas Cartwright against all such slaunderous accusations as it pleaseth Mr. Sutcliffe in seuerall pamphlettes most iniuriously to loade him with (London, 1596), C2v.

³⁸ Penry, draft of a letter to Burghley, May (?) 1593, San Marino, CA, Huntington Library, MS Ellesmere 483, fol. 30V.

³⁹ The Defence of Job Throhmorton against the Slaunders of Maister Sutcliffe, E2.

⁴⁰ Hay any worke for Cooper, C4V.

⁴¹ Ibid.

⁴² For examples of Renaissance arguments connecting comedy with theology, see Screech, M. A., Laughter at the Foot of the Cross (Harmondsworth, 1997).Google Scholar

⁴³ Hay any worke for Cooper, C4V.