Download The Marian Establishment and the Printing Press Author(s): Jennifer

The Marian Establishment and the Printing Press
Author(s): Jennifer Loach
Source: The English Historical Review, Vol. 101, No. 398 (Jan., 1986), pp. 135-148
Published by: Oxford University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/571324
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English Historical Review
? 1986 Longman Group Limited
NOTES
0013-8266/86/17640135/$03.00
AND
DOCUMENTS
The Marian Establishment
and the Printing Press*
GoD works for His church, wrote John Foxe, 'not with sword and
target ... but with printing, writing and reading ... How many
presses there be in the world, so many block houses there be against
the high castle of St Angelo, so that either the pope must abolish
knowledge and printing, or printing must at length root him out'.1
Printing was considered by most sixteenth century Protestants to be
a weapon peculiarly suited to their purposes: it was, after all, Luther
who had greeted the press as 'God's highest and extremest act of
grace, whereby the business of the Gospel is driven forward'.2 Yet
initially Catholic churchmen had also welcomed printing, acknowledging it as a 'divine art'.3 Printed editions and even translations of
the Bible poured from the presses of Europe long before the Ninetyfive Theses appeared in print, and the press was used all over Catholic
Europe to stimulate lay piety and to instruct the clergy. Printing,
declared the bull intersollicitudinesin 515, 'has brought untold blessings to mankind'; it was an invention uniquely advantageous 'to
extending the glory of God, to the increase of the faith, and the
diffusion of the arts and sciences'.4
Historians have, however, followed Foxe in the belief that print
and Protestantism go hand in hand, whereas print and Catholicism
are assumed to be natural enemies. Thus, it has always been argued
that Edward VI and his Protestant advisers encouraged the press and
were rewarded by a flood of flattering books, whilst his Catholic
successor 'failed to understand the importance of printing'.5 Fewer
books were therefore published under Mary than under Edward, it
is claimed, and what there was did little to help the Catholic cause.
'The resources of the press', writes Professor Loades in The Reign of
* I am
grateful to the British Academy for a grant that made possible some of the research
on which this paper rests. An earlier version was given at a seminar held in Oxford in I983
to mark the retirement of Menna Prestwich. I wish to thank Joe Martin, Alastair Parker and
Penry Williams for their helpful comments on that draft.
i. J. Foxe, Acts and Monuments,ed. S. R. Cattley and J. Pratt (London,
1877), iii. 720.
z. Cited by M. H. Black in 'The Printed Bible', in The CambridgeHistory of the Bible, ed. S.
L. Greenslade (Cambridge, I963), iii. 432.
3. E. L. Eisenstein, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change(Cambridge, 1979), p. 317, citing
the bishop of Aleria, who attributed the phrase to Nicholas of Cusa.
4. Disciplinary Decreesof the GeneralCouncils,ed. H. J. Schroeder (St Louis and London, 1937),
p. 504.
5. J. W. Martin, 'The Marian Regime's Failure to Understand the Importance of Printing',
Huntington Library Quarterly,
xliv (I980-I),
31-47.
136
THE MARIAN
ESTABLISHMENT
January
Mary Tudor,'were not exploited ... as extensively or as intensively as
they might have been by the party in power'.1 He goes on to contrast
the quality of the tracts produced by the opposition press of Mary's
reign with those of government propagandists, arguing that the
Catholics denounced heresy 'at tedious length, and with a noticeable
lack of the cunning wit and humour which their opponents sometimes displayed'.2 This charge of dullness is taken further by Mr
Baskerville in his bibliography of Marian polemic: 'at its best', he says
of the government propaganda, 'it appealed to the Tudor version of
the reader of The Times:at its worst it failed to appeal to readers of
the popular tabloids'.3 Thus, Mary's Catholic regime is accused of
providing an unsympathetic atmosphere for printing, of failing to
understand how useful the press could be in pleading the cause of the
old faith, and of producing only dull and second-rate writing.
The problem of whether a Protestant or a Catholic regime
provided a more sympathetic atmosphere for printing is surprisingly
difficult to solve. Historians have suggested, on the basis of a count
of entries in TheShort-Title Catalogue,that there were 'markedly fewer
books printed in Mary's five years than in the five full years of her
protestant brother'.4 Their figures vary, but the most recent suggests
an average production of 125 books per annum between 1548 and
1552, and 90 between 1554 and 558.5 However, such averages
conceal the peaks of 1548 - in which 200 books were issued - and
I 55o: the average rate for the other years of Edward's reign amounting to something like 70 books per annum. The contrast, if there is
one, is between the halcyon days of the late 154os and the gloomier
spirit of the subsequent decade, rather than between a period of
Protestant rule and one of Catholic. It is, above all, a contrast between
a period of prosperity and one of contraction and, finally, crisis.
The merchants and land-owners who were doing well during the
540s - that is, the bulk of the book-buying public - were adversely
affected by the cloth-slump of the early I 55os, and then by the severe
epidemics of I5 57 and 1558, epidemics that had the additional effect
of discouraging gentlemen from coming to London and therefore,
presumably, from access to the main source of new books. In any
case, the counting of Short-Title Catalogueentries is a shaky method
of assessing book production, since it depends to a large extent on
the physical survival of a copy of a particular edition. Moreover,
those who have undertaken such counting have usually excluded
from their estimate purely liturgical works, and this may alter the
I. D. M. Loades, The Reign of Mary Tudor (London, 1979), p. 343.
2. Ibid. p. 342.
3. E. J. Baskerville, A ChronologicalBibliographyof Propagandaand Polemic Publishedin English
Betweenifjr and irf8 (American Philosophical Society, 1979), p. I.
4. J. W. Martin, op. cit. p. 231.
5. Ibid. See also J. N. King, 'Freedom of the Press, Protestant Propaganda, and Protector
Somerset', Huntington Library Quarterly, xi (I976), 2-3.
I986
AND
THE
PRINTING
PRESS
37
figures very considerably; on a rough estimate, twice as many
primers, for instance, were printed in Mary's reign as had been in
Edward's. The evidence for a quantitative reduction in book production under Mary is, therefore, not conclusive. However, it is true that
the number of men actively engaged in printing markedly diminished
in Mary's reign. The number of stationers shrank from 80 to 4I,1
largely because of the exodus to the continent of foreign printers,
many of whom were, like Stephen Mierdman and Gilles van der Erve,
to produce in their cities of refuge large numbers of Protestant tracts
for distribution in England during the remainder of Mary's reign.2
Only Robert Caly, who had spent part of Edward's reign in exile at
Rouen, is known to have made the reverse journey.3 Yet, after some
difficulties at the beginning of the reign when the demand for replacement Catholic service books was such that copies had to be imported
from Paris and Rouen, the industry appears to have coped satisfactorily with the requirements of the market; indeed, by February I 556
the English stationers were taking action in the Exchequer to protect
their monopoly against an importer of French service books.4 It may
well be that the shedding of personnel was in the end of benefit to the
industry, since many of the printers who remained in business, such
as Cawood and Tottel, flourished.
Nonetheless, it might be expected on a priori grounds that the
production of religious books of a non-liturgical kind would
diminish in Mary's reign, since her regime was openly committed to
the full restoration of the ceremonies of the church and could therefore be expected to be less concerned about the press than one
committed to the promulgation of the Word. Some evidence for this
view could be deduced from a comparison between the attitude
towards lay access to the scriptures adopted by, for example, the
author of the 547 Homily on the Reading of Scripture, and Stephen
Gardiner, who believed that it would lead to disorder and 'fleshly
liberty'.5 Gardiner's opinion was certainly shared by a number of
other Marian clerics: John Gwynneth, the musician, wrote contemptuously of those who 'in reading, falleth strayte into mislikying if they
fynde anythinge paste their vnderstandinge, saying it is very darke,
and too obscure';6 and James Brooks, former Master of Balliol and
Marian bishop of Gloucester, complained of those who 'talked comI. P. Took, 'Government and the Printing Trade, I 540-5I 560'
(University of London Ph.D.
I977), p. 245.
thesis,
2. F. Isaac, 'Egidius van der Erve and his English Printed Books', Library, IV, xii (I932),
336-52; E. Gordon Duff, A Centuryof the English Book Trade (London, 1948), p. Io5.
3. Took, op. cit. p. 252.
4. H. J. Byrom, 'Some Exchequer Cases involving members of the Book Trade, 15 34-58',
Library, IV, xvi .(936), 413.
5. Certayne sermons, or homilies (London, 1547), S.T.C. 13639. For Gardiner's views in
general, see J. A. Muller, Stephen Gardiner and the Tudor Reaction (London, 1926).
6. A Playne Demonstrationof Iohn Frithes lacke of witte and learnyng(London, 5 5
7), sig. A3v.
S.T.C. I256o.
138
THE
MARIAN
ESTABLISHMENT
January
monlye of the scripture, alledged the scripture', boasting of the
number of biblical texts they had assembled.1 Whereas the 1547
Homily, whilst admitting that in part the scriptures were 'strong
meat', yet suggested that the layman could 'suck the swete and tender
Mylke', leaving the remainder 'vntyll he wax stronger',2 these clerics
argued that giving the laity direct access to the Bible was simply
casting pearls before swine.
The conflict was in part merely another round in the scholarly
debate about the adequacy of English as a medium for the expression
of high truths. The notion that the worth of any matter was diminished by its expression in a barbarous tongue was a commonplace of
the Renaissance, and English was considered a particularly vile and
base vernacular.3 John Standish's work, A Discoursewhereinis debated
whetherit be expedientthat the scriptureshouldbe in Englishfor al men to
reade that wyll, with its fifty arguments against the use of the
'barbarous' English tongue for the transmission of the holy
mysteries, summarized many of the problems of translation: figures
and tropes were almost impossible to capture, some words had no
vernacular equivalent, there were difficulties about anachronisms,
and so on.4 Like the debates over the borrowing and coining of
words, these questions exercised many academics and writers, and
cannot be confined to the sphere of confessional strife. Moreover, the
anxiety of men such as Gardiner probably seemed insular and oldfashioned to Pole and his train, accustomed as they were to Italian
versions of the Bible.5 The prohibition of vernacular scriptures that
had been imposed on an England supposedly infected with the ideas
of Wycliffe, and by the Inquisition on late-fifteenth century Spain,
had not been exercised in Germany or in Italy.6 At the first session
of the Council of Trent, Pole had clearly sympathized with those who
wished to authorize one vernacular version of the Bible for each
country.7 In the end, the whole issue had been so divisive that the
Council abandoned any attempt to secure an agreement; although it
decreed that the Vulgate was to remain the authentic text, it did not
in fact rule out the possibility of improvement or translation.8 It is
not surprising, then, to find that the Westminster synod, Pole's
legatine synod, decided that a translation of the New Testament into
English should be undertaken, producing a list of words that were
considered particularly difficult to render into the vernacular for
553), sig. DIv. S.T.C. 3838.
I. A Sermon very notable,fruictefull and Godlie ... (London,
2. CertayneSermons, or homilies, I, 5.
3. R. F. Jones, The Triumph of the English Language (Stanford, I953), pp. 7-I9, 66.
4. London, 1555, sig. E6v onwards, R.S.T.C. 23208.
5. Black, op. cit. p. 423-5; F. J. Crehan,'The Bible in the Roman Catholic Churchfrom
Trent to the Present Day', pp. 202-5.
6. See TheCambridge
Historyof theBible(Cambridge,1969),ii. ed. G. W. H. Lampe,partIX.
7. H. Jedin, TheHistoryof the Councilof Trent(Edinburgh, 1961), ii. 85-6.
E. Podechard
8. F. Cavallera,'La Bible en langue vulgaireau Concilede Trente',in Melanges
(Lyon, 1945), 42-3.
I986
AND
THE
PRINTING
PRESS
I39
general discussion in much the same way as Convocation had done
in 542.1 The Marian church was not, then, by any means unsympathetic to the notion of a vernacular Bible.
However, Marian churchmen placed greater weight upon the
instruction of the laity by the clergy than they did on lay selfeducation. As Thomas Watson declared, clergymen were to be
revered not only because it was the duty of all Christians to love
their neighbours but also because the clergy 'be the causes of our
spiritual life', by them 'we are made Christian men'.2 The Bible was,
accordingly, to be explained to the laity by those whom the church
had chosen. Great emphasis was therefore laid on the task of education: preaching and catechizing were regarded as particularly important parts of the duties of a priest. Pole, who had been largely
responsible for the decision of the Council of Trent to set up lectureships in scripture, himself expounded the scriptures daily to his household.3 The need for preaching was stressed by his legatine synod, the
fourth decree of which was concerned with the preaching of the
Word of God and with the priest's obligation to provide private
instruction.4 It was at this time that the statutes of the cathedral
at Durham were revised to lay more weight upon sermons: Tunstall,
indeed, told his dean and chapter to 'sow the seed of the Word of
God' in the churches of which they were patrons 'lest through lack
of knowledge of the law of God the flock of Christ perish'.5
As an aid to the task of preaching and catechizing, the printing
press was obviously invaluable. In 1555, Bonner brought out a short
catechism for children.6 The aim of the book was educative in the
widest sense: prayers were set out in Latin as well as English so that
the young could 'learne therby to reade bothe the tongues', and
specimens of different printing types were shown. Convocation
decided in 558 that a catechism should be drawn up for the whole
church,7 and in one of his last letters Pole told his friend the Spanish
bishop, Carranza, that he was arranging for the translation into
English of the latter's Spanish catechism.8 To assist the parish priest
in his obligation to preach, model sermons were printed, including
John Fisher's famous attack on Luther of 1521, in which he had
argued that since devils and evil men might have faith, the doctrine
of justification by faith alone could mean that evil men were
justified.9 Large numbers of sermons appeared in print, ranging
I. D. Wilkins, Concilia (London, 1737), iv.
I89I), iv. 457-8.
32; R. W. Dixon, History of the Churchof England
(London,
2. Holsome and Catholyke doctryneconcerningethe seuen Sacramentes(London, 1558), fo. 160,
R.S.T.C.
25Iz2.
3. Jedin, op. cit. p. I22.
4. Wilkins, op. cit. p. 132.
5. C. Sturge, Cuthbert Tunstall (London, 1938), p. 264.
6. An honestgodlye instruction(London, I555), S.T.C. 328.
7. Wilkins, op. cit. p. 156.
8. Epistolarum Reginaldi Poli, ed. A. M. Quirini (Brescia, 1757), v. 69.
9. A Sermon very notable, fruicteful
and Godlie ...
(London,
I554),
S.T.C.
o0896.
THE
140
MARIAN
ESTABLISHMENT
January
from Harpesfield's elegant Latin piece in which he compared Mary
to Judith and Deborah,1 comparisons of which Elizabeth was later
to make much use, to the three hundred or so folios in which Roger
Edgworth set out thirty of his best orations.2 For those clergy who
still found preaching difficult homilies were produced. In 1555,
Bonner issued a book for use in his own diocese,3 and later that year
the Westminster synod decided that a book of homilies should be
prepared for the whole church.4 In his letter to Carranza of June
I 558, Pole reported that Thomas Watson and Blaxton were writing
homilies in response to this decision. A number of other homiletic
works were printed, such as the Fiue Homiliesof Leonard Pollard, one
of the Bishop of Worcester's chaplains,5 and Feckenham's Two
Homilies upon the Crede.6Of these, Bonner's book was perhaps the
most useful. It provided a clear and straightforward account of the
teachings of the church, and was better in its coverage of key issues
than was the I 547 Book, although two of the sections, that by John
Harpesfield on the misery of mankind and Bonner's own piece of
charity are, of course, common to both: the section dealing with
possible objections to what had been argued in the section on transubstantiation and the true presence was particularly valuable.
The object of the vast majority of the religious works printed in
Mary's reign was the instruction of the clergy, for the Marian authorities recognized that only a priest well-versed in the faith could
properly teach his flock. This fact had been constantly stressed at the
Westminster synod, whose decrees laid great emphasis on clerical
education, in this predating those of Trent. But a highly trained
clergy could not be produced over-night. To assist the weaker
brethren already in the parishes, the hierarchy made good use of the
press. Watson's work, Two notable sermons ... concerningthe reall
presenceof Christes body and bloudein the blessedsacrament,with its
rehearsal of the scriptural and patristic authorities for the doctrine of
the real presence, was clearly meant to help the priest who found his
own theology shaky in the face of protestant attack.7 His Holsomeand
the seuenSacramenteswhich explains what
Catholykedoctryneconcerninge
a sacrament is and how many of them there are,8 and John
Churchson's A brefetreatysedeclaryingwhat and wherethe churchis,9 are
works of a similar kind. The civil lawyer Thomas Martin produced
in May I 5 4 A traictisedeclaryingthat thepretensedmarriageof priests is
I. Concio quaedem admodvm ...
(London,
1 55),
S.T.C.
12794.
2. Sermons veryfruitfull, godly and learned(London, 1557), S.T.C. 7482.
3. A profitableand necessaryedoctryne,w(ith) certaynehomilies ... (London, I 555), S.T.C. 328z.
4. Dixon, op. cit. pp. 457-8. The decision was confirmed by the 155 8 Convocation (Wilkins,
op. cit. p. 156).
5 56, R.S.T.C. o2009.
5. London,
6. London,
7. London,
8. London,
9. London,
n.d.,
1554,
1558,
I556,
S.T.C. Io745.
R.S.T.C.
25115.
R.S.T.C.
25I12.
S.T.C. 52I9.
AND
I986
THE
PRINTING
PRESS
I41
no marriage:the work was obviously intended to back up the drive
then taking place against the clergy who had married under the
Edwardian statutes.1 It was important enough for Ponet himself to
compose a reply,2 and profitable enough for Robert Caly to acquire
a monopoly of its printing as late as April 558.3
Thus, although Marian churchmen turned to the press with different purposes from those of the Edwardian divines, they turned with
zeal and enthusiasm. Bonner, in particular, seems to have been aware
of the usefulness of printing, which he even employed in the administration of his diocese.4 He was also conscious, as his comments
about the murmuring of the people at the 'lack of certain books in
the English tongue' prove, of a popular market for the printed
word;5 his homilies and catechism, as well as the writings of his
protege, Miles Huggarde,6 were designed to appeal to that market.
The press was, it is true, only one amongst the arsenal of weapons
employed by the Catholic church. Images, processions and music
were important: Professor Lehmberg has recently drawn attention to
the revival of cathedral choirs in Mary's reign,7 whilst contemporary
records abound in descriptions of ceremonies such as that of 7 May
554, when mass was sung by the Chapel Royal at Guildhall, and the
clerks processed with rich copes, garlands, standards, streamers and
banners.8 The waits joined in, and there were in all four choirs. There
was a canopy over the sacrament and twelve torch-bearers. Copes of
gold, processional crosses, the restoration of images:9 these were all
a vital part of the Marian reconstruction, but the Word, and therefore
the press, was not neglected. Pole, it is true, shared some of
Gardiner's scepticism about preaching because, he said, 'men of
carnal minds turn the Word into an empty tickling of their ears, not
food of their souls', but he nonetheless believed that sermons and
writing should be provided.10 Gardiner's view that 'when the vicar
goeth into the pulpit to read that himselfe hath written, then the
multitude of the parish goeth straight owt of the church, home to
drink',11was echoed closely enough by a Puritan in the reign of James
I, who believed that most would rather 'sit at cards on the Sabbath
by a hot fire, than to sit at a Sermon with God in a cold church',12
I. London, R.S.T.C.
I7517.
An apologiefully aunsweringe ...
2.
(?Strasburg,
1555),
R.S.T.C.
o2075.
3. Calendar of Patent Rolls, Mary, IV, 104.
4. A. J. Slavin, 'Tudor Revolution and the Devil's Art: Bishop Bonner's printed forms',
in TudorRule and Revolution,ed. D. J. Guth and J. W. McKenna (Cambridge, 1982), pp. 3-23.
5. A profitable and necessarydoctryne,p. 3.
6. J. W. Martin, 'Miles Hogarde: Artisan and Aspiring Author in Sixteenth Century
England', RenaissanceQuarterly, xxxiv (1 98 I), 379.
7. S. E. Lehmberg, 'The reformation of choirs: cathedral musical establishments in Tudor
England', in Tudor Rule and Revolution, pp. 57-9.
8. The Diary of Henry Machyn, ed. J. G. Nichols, Camden Society (1848), pp. 62-3.
9. J. Phillips, The Reformation of Images (California, 1973), ch. 5.
Io.
Dixon,
op. cit. iv. 722-3.
II. Letters of Stephen Gardiner, ed. J. A. Muller (Cambridge, I933), 314 (to Cranmer, June
I547).
12. P. Collinson, The Religion of Protestants (Oxford,
doctrineof the Sabbath (I604).
I982),
p. 204, citing G. Widley, The
I42
THE
MARIAN
ESTABLISHMENT
January
but complaints about the receptivity of the masses prevented neither
Protestants nor Catholics from the preaching and the printing of
moral exhortation.
The secular governments of the Protestant Edward and the
Catholic Mary were, like their ecclesiastical counterparts, much more
similar in their attitude towards the press than has often been suggested. Neither Edward's regime nor Mary's actually offered much
direct or active encouragement to secular book production.
Although both reigns began with a flood of print, the flood appears
to have been spontaneous, the result of what Professor Elton has
called, in another context, the 'happy wind-falls which resulted from
the eager support for the new order available in some quarters'.1 The
privy council was free with its orders for bonfires, and the complicated pageantry of coronations and royal entries into London was of
course officially inspired,2 but neither Edward nor his sister seems
to have marked their accession by commissioning the writing or
printing of books. Although Protector Somerset has been described
as a patron of the press,3 his active encouragement was minimal
compared with that of, say, Thomas Cromwell or William Cecil. No
substantial printed reply to the 1549 rebels appears to have been
commissioned, although the government probably welcomed the
sentiments expressed in The hurt of sedition,the book Cheke wrote in
an attempt to recover influence at court:4 Cromwell's use of Morison
to counter the charges of the Pilgrimage of Grace,s and Cecil's
employment of Thomas Norton against the Northern Rebels6 thus
had no Edwardian equivalent. Moreover, no attempt was made by
Edward's government to explain to a popular readership either the
fall or the subsequent execution of Somerset himself. Mary's government was perhaps a little more interested in explaining itself to a
domestic audience. Christopherson's Exhortation to all menneto take
hedeandbewareof rebellion,written against the rebels of I 5 4, may have
been officially inspired, for Christopherson was one of Mary's chaplains, and the book was published by the royal printer, Cawood.7 It
is also possible that payments made to James Cancellar 'in considerarather
tion of his services'8 were for writing The path of obedience9
I. G. R. Elton, Policy and Police (Cambridge, 1972), p. I72.
2. S. Anglo, Spectacle, Pageantry and Early Tudor Policy (Oxford, I969).
3. J. N. King, 'Protector Somerset, Patron of the English Renaissance', Papers of the
BibliographicalSociety of America, lxx (I976), 307-3 1; 'Freedom of the Press, Protestant Propaganda and Protector Somerset', I-9.
4. London, 549, S.T.C. 5109.
5. Elton, op. cit. pp. 199-204.
6. C. Read, 'William Cecil and Elizabethan Public Relations', in EliZabethanGovernmentand
Society, ed. S. T. Bindoff, J. Hurstfield and C. H. Williams (London, 1961), pp. 21-55.
7. i554, S.T.C. 5207.
8. Calendar of Patent Rolls, Mary, III, 32; IV, 394-5.
9. London, ?I553, S.T.C. 4564.
I986
AND
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PRINTING
PRESS
I43
than being a reward for his activities as a gentleman of the chapel
royal: it is difficult to be certain in such cases - was James Harrison
paid C75 in I 547, for example, for his service as a spy,' or for writing
An Exhortation to Unity and Peace?2However, with the important
exception of the publication of the articles of the marriage treaty with
the Habsburgs,3 no attempt was made by Mary's government to
persuade Englishmen out of their hostility to Spain by means of the
press.
In short, it seems that neither Edward's government nor Mary's
was much interested in the commissioning of vernacular works for
the domestic market. But there was another and different audience
to which these governments, and Mary's in particular, wished to
appeal. This was a foreign one. Cromwell himself had, after all, been
concerned not only with domestic consumption but also with the
European market, as the appearance of Richard Morison's apomaxis4
and Gardiner's de vera obedientia5makes clear. Gardiner's book was
printed in Strasbourg and Hamburg as well as London, and Cromwell sent copies to the author to be distributed in France 'to such
personnes there ... as ... youe shal think convenient'.6 Edward's
government was much preoccupied with the need to convince European nations of the justice of its claim to Scotland. An epistle or
exhortacionto vnity andpeace, sent to ... Scotlande,which appeared in
1548, was translated into Latin and circulated widely abroad: copies
still exist in Budapest and in the Palatinate collection in the Vatican.7
In similar fashion, Elizabeth's government was to be much concerned
over foreign attacks on the 559 church settlement. Cecil wrote to
Nicholas Throckmorton, the English ambassador in Paris, telling
him that he would send for distribution copies of Jewel's apologia
ecclesiaeanglicanae;8
the book was subsequently translated into French,
Italian, Dutch and Spanish.9 When an attack on the settlement by
Osorius appeared from the press of the French royal printer,
Estienne, the English government was furious; Walter Haddon was
commissioned to write a reply, and the majority of copies was taken
up by the crown for foreign distribution.10 Mary was at least as
I. Acts of the Privy Council, III, 23; J. N. King, 'Protector Somerset, Patron of the English
Renaissance',
2. London,
313-14.
1547, S.T.C.
I2857.
3. See P.R.O. S.P. si/2/5.
4. London,
5. London,
1537, R.S.T.C.
1535.
I8Io9.
6. R. B. Merriman, Life and Letters of Thomas Cromwell (London, 1902), i. 434; Elton, op.
cit. pp. 87-8.
7. R.S.T.C. 22268. The Latin edition is 22269. See also J. N. King, English Reformation
Literature (Princeton, 1982), appendix III.
8. C. Read, Mr Secretary Cecil and Queen Elizabeth (London, 1955), p. 262.
9. J. E. Booty, John Jewel as Apologist of the Churchof England (London, 1963).
Io. E. Armstrong, 'The publication of the Royal edicts and ordinances under Charles IX:
the destiny of Robert (II) Estienne as King's Printer', Proceedingsof the HuguenotSociety, xix
(1954), 48-5 I.
THE MARIAN
I44
ESTABLISHMENT
January
conscious as her brother and sister of the need to impress other
nations. A very substantial part of her government's propaganda
effort was not written in English, therefore, nor even printed in
London. It is perhaps for this reason that historians have failed to
recognize its full scope.
The attempt to influence continental opinion began with a
flourish, as Professor Jordan has shown.1 The duke of Northumberland's speech on the scaffold appeared first in an English edition from
the press of John Cawood, and then in translations into French,
Dutch, Italian and Spanish. There were three separate Latin editions.
The work had a considerable impact on the English exile community
and on continental Protestants: Bullinger possessed a Latin edition,
and Beza wrote a reply.2 Northumberland's recantation was not,
however, the only published tribute to Mary's success. John Seton's
panegyriciin victoriam illustrissimaedominaeMariae reginae,although
printed in London, was probably aimed at a larger audience.3 A
Spanish account of Mary's triumph from the pen of Antonio de
Guaras appeared in Medina del Campo in March I5 54:4 the edition
included a translation of the Italian report of her coronation, coronatione dela serenissimaregina, that had already been printed in Rome.5
Accounts of Philip's arrival in England and of the marriage abound
in a variety of tongues. Cawood printed an oratiopia et erudita,6and
William Powell the oration of 'Leonhard Goretti', which, in highflown Latin, congratulated Ferdinand and Isabella on turning the
Jews out of Spain, and compared Anne Boleyn to Salome.7 Carmen
heroicumby Adrian Junius was printed by Thomas Berthelet; this,
after pages of classical allusion, ends by tracing Philip's descent from
Edward III,8 as had done the officially inspired pageant at Cheapside
that greeted the monarchs on their entry into London. John Elder's
Copieof a lettersentinto Scotlandprovided a permanent record of those
same pageants and decorations;9 it was printed by John Wayland to
whom the queen had already granted a monopoly for the printing of
primers and books of prayer.10John Heywood's A Baladespecifienge
partly the maner,partly the matter, in the most excellentmeetyngand lyke
Mariagecovered the same ground." At least four Italian accounts of
i. W. K. Jordan and M. R. Gleason, 'The saying of John, late Duke of Northumberland',
Harvard Library Quarterly, xxiii (I975), I39-79.
2. Published in Geneva in 5 54. There is a facsimile edition, ed. A. H. Chaubard, published
in Lyon
in 1959.
3. 553. Seton was one of Gardiner's chaplains.
4. The Accession of Queen Mary, ed. R. Garnett (London, I892).
5. A note in the British Library copy of the coronationesays that five similar tracts were
printed at Rome.
6. R.S.T.C. i983b.
7. I554, S.T.C.
8. 1554, S.T.C.
I2090.
1486I.
9. London, n.d., S.T.C. 7552.
Io.
I
Calendar of Patent Rolls, Mary, I, 509; III, 275.
. London,
I554. [Will be R.S.T.C.
I3290.3]
AND
I986
THE
PRINTING
PRESS
145
Philip's journey and arrival, including lists of his train, were published: II trionfodel e superbenozje,' La partita del serenissimiprincipe,2
La solemneet felice intrata,3 and Narratione assai piv patricolare della
prima, del viaggio,et dell'entrata...4 Another account, this time with
details of the marriage treaty, La vera capitulationee articolipassati,
appeared from Rome.5 There was also a Dutch account, Een niew
is,6 and
tiidinghe,hoedat die Princevan Spaengientriumphelickaengecomen
from Augsburg came Newe Zeytung,which combined a description of
the marriage with an account of the war between the emperor and
Henry II of France.7
The return of Cardinal Pole and the ending of the schism produced
another batch of books for the foreign market. Pro instavratione
reipvblicaeanglorum redite Poli was printed by Cawood.8 On 24
December 554 the Copia d'unaLettera d'Inghilterrawas published in
Milan, telling of Pole's emotional reception in England a month
earlier.9 Another Italian account, Ilfelicissimo ritorno,was printed in
Rome.10 Copia delle Lettere - a correspondence between Philip and
Pope Julius III - appeared from Milan in I 55 with a letter of Philip's
helpfully translated from Spanish into Italian." The 'supplication'
presented by the realm to Cardinal Pole was published in Latin.12Also
in Latin, although it came from Dillingen, was brevisnarratioeorum,
quaein proximo Anglicanoconuentu... acta sunt.13An oratioby Antonio
Florebelli, bishop of Lavello, congratulating Philip and Mary on
what had taken place in England, and addressed to Cardinal Morone,
was printed in Louvain,14 and a similar piece directed to the pope was
also published.15 From Augsburg came Eine kur2e warhafftige
angeignungderdingverschinen
tagenin Engelland.16A Portuguese account
also appeared.17Finally, Gardiner's advent sermon on the text 'hora
est nos iam de somno surgere', in which he retracted his earlier
support for the Henrician supremacy, was published in Rome in
5 5 518
Some of these publications probably sprang from no motive other
I. N.p., n.d.
2.
?Rome, 1554.
3. Rome, ?I5 54.
4. No place or date given: ?Venice,
557.
5. 1554.
6. No date given.
7. N.d. Hans Zimmerman at Augsburg.
8. S.T.C. 12753.
but separate account,
9. For a corroborating
o1 . ?I555.
I . Some of Pole's letters are also included.
2. Copia svpplicationis.
see Quirini,
op. cit., v. 303-20.
53. From the press of Sebaldus Mayer.
14. Ad Philippum et Mariam reges ... (i 555 ).
5.
6.
17.
8.
Vbertifolietae in laetitia ob reconciliantionemBritaniae Romae celebratu...
This includes the supplication.
Dos Cartas ... de la reductionde los Ingleses ...
Concio reveren.D. Stephani episcopi vintoniem...
146
THE
MARIAN
ESTABLISHMENT
January
than the desire of continental printers to cash in on public interest
in English affairs. The large group of German pamphlets dating from
I 557 and I 558 devoted to descriptions of the battle of St Quentin and
other events of the Anglo-French war, for example, are probably
entirely commercial in origin.1 However, the works coming from
presses such as that of Sebaldus Mayer at Dillingen and Antonio
Maria Bergayne at Louvain are a different matter. Bergayne was one
of the first to produce a Latin edition of Northumberland's speech
on the scaffold, which he quickly followed with a Dutch translation:
as Professor Jordan has convincingly argued, the speed with which
foreign texts of the speech appeared suggests that 'a single official
translation into Latin from the Cawood text was provided for
imperial use. It was then distributed to licensed printers in key
publication centers within the Empire'.2 Bergayne, a licensed
printer from 15 50,3 also produced Eeen niew tiidinghe,an account of
Philip's voyage to England which has the Habsburg double eagles
as its frontispiece, and Florebelli's oratio. (Florebelli had come to
England in late 1554 as a member of Pole's household, but arrived
in the Netherlands, carrying a letter from the secretary of state, Sir
William Petre, to Sir John Mason, the English ambassador in
Brussels, shortly before Bergayne published his work.) Many of the
books that came from the press of Sebaldus Mayer - brevisnarratio,
Eine kurge ... angeygung, Actapostrema and Copia supplicationis - were
likewise based on official documents and can have been produced
only with some government assistance. Mayer was, interestingly,
later to publish Pole's libri duo, a description of the early sessions of
the Council of Trent and of his planned reformation of the English
church,4 and in 1564, the canons of the Council. But the most
important of these favoured printers was Antonio Blado of Rome.
From his press came the first Italian version of Northumberland's
confession, Lapartita ..., La veracapitulatione. . , Ilfelicissimo ritorni
.. Gardiner's advent sermon and a variety of other works. Blado
had been printing for the Holy See from about I 5 6,5 and in a number
of the pamphlets relating to English affairs he added to his name his
title of 'impressori camerali', as well as a note that the book has been
printed with the permission of the authorities. The Habsburg and
Tudor tone of these publications is undeniable: most, like La partita
..., have Philip and Mary's arms as their frontispiece, whilst La vera
der Schlachtfuer S. Quentinand the
i. For example, Newe Zeitung,Warhafftebeschreibung
works produced by Hofhalterin Vienna and Bowmann in Salzburg.
z. Jordan and Gleason, 'The saying of John, late duke of Northumberland',70.
librairieset editeursdes XVe et XVIe sieclesdans
des imprimeurs,
3. A. Rouzet, Dictionnaire
les limitesgeographiquesde la belgiqueactuelle (Niewkoop, 1975), p. 12.
4. 1562.
5. J. B. Odier, La BibliothequeVaticane de Sixte IV a Pie XI (Vatican, 1973), p. 7I. I am
indebted for this referenceto ChristinaRoaf.
AND
I986
THE
PRINTING
PRESS
147
capitulationealso has a charming illustration of Philip II listening
intently to a sermon.
Those who criticize the Marian regime's use of the press often do
so on the assumption that the preoccupations of the government were
the same as those of its critics. They were not. The government cared
about its standing abroad, and used the press to justify, explain and
glorify its position for a continental audience, but it seems to have
considered that printed propaganda could do little to change its
reputation at home. Whether it was correct in this belief is hard to
say, for there is no test for what was good or effective propaganda.
Catholic writers constantly stressed the virtues of tradition and hierarchy: Cancellar, consciously or not, echoed the words of the I 47
Homily on Obedience when he declared with Chrysostom and
Augustine that 'wythout dewe order may nothing be stable or long
permanent',1 and Standish noted that 'lyke as in musycke when
tharmony ... do well together then is ther swet and pleasaunt
melody'.2 All were able to exploit the dissensions between the
Protestants. Barlow pointed to the differences of opinion between,
for example, the sacramentarians, the Zwinglians, Oecolampadius
and the other Swiss,3 whilst Cancellar, quoting St Paul on the
'notable discenssion' that would precede the Second Coming, argued
that the quarrels of the Reformers implied that the end of the world
was at hand.4 Whether, in the depressed conditions of the I55os,
contemporaries found these themes as arid as historians have often
suggested is an unanswerable question. Brooks's charming image of
the church as a 'clocking henne, vnder whose wings, as her chikes
the faithfull are always safe',5 and John Proctor's eulogy in The waie
home to Christ of the church as 'our home' and 'our most louinge
mother',6 seem as likely to have appealed to their readers as the
ranting and often salacious writings of Bale and Knox, but we cannot
judge what part such metaphors played in producing political
stability and religious conformity.
What is clear, however, is that both Edward's Protestant government and Mary's Catholic one regarded the printing press in a similar
fashion - as a tool to be used, but used for only limited purposes.
Their subjects were more enthusiastic. Even they were not divided
in their attitude, however, by confessional differences, as the
I. Op. cit. sig.
2. The triall of
3. W. Barlow,
4. Op. cit. sig.
C6.
the supremacy(London, 1 556), sig. T8, R.S.T.C. 22I I.
A dyaloge... (London, 5 5), sig. A2, S.T.C. I462.
Ei.
5. Op. cit. sig. C4.
6. London,
554, sig. A3v, R.S.T.C. 24754.
148
THE
MARIAN
ESTABLISHMENT
January
vigorous and voluminous outpourings of the presses of Louvain and
Douai in the i56os indicate: Catholics in exile in Elizabeth's reign
took up their pens with the same alacrity as the Marian Protestants
had done.1 English Catholics in the sixteenth century, unlike
twentieth-century historians, firmly believed that the printing press
could be used not only against St Angelo, but also to defend it.
SomervilleCollege,Oxford
JENNIFER
LOACH
i. The Catholic exiles of Edward's reign had been perhaps less prolific in their production
of polemical work, although many were, like Ralph Baines, Professor of Hebrew at Paris,
involved in numerous scholarly enterprises. Nonetheless, it was in Louvain that William Rastell
compiled the great English edition of the works of his uncle, Thomas More, printed by Tottell
in 557, whilst Richard Smith after he had fled abroad wrote three important books, A
confutationof a certen booke, Defensio sacri episoporumet sacerdotumcoelibatus ... and Diatriba de
hominisjustificatione.(It was for bringing in two hundred of these books that William Seth, one
of Bonner's servants, was interrogated in I 5 1.)