The Pennsylvania State University The Graduate School College of the Liberal Arts CONTROLLING PRINT? BURTON, BASTWICK AND PRYNNE AND THE POLITICS OF MEMORY A Thesis in History by Christine Noelle Reese © 2007 Christine Noelle Reese Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy December 2007 The thesis of Christine Noelle Reese was reviewed and approved* by the following: A. Gregg Roeber Professor of Early Modern History and Religious Studies Thesis Co-Advisor Chair of Committee Laura L. Knoppers Professor of English Thesis Co-Advisor Daniel C. Beaver Associate Professor of History Mrinalini Sinha Professor of History and Women‘s Studies Sally McMurry Professor of American History Head of the Department of History and Religious Studies *Signatures are on file in the Graduate School. ii ABSTRACT This dissertation examines the 1637 Star Chamber trial of Henry Burton, John Bastwick and William Prynne in the context of the print contests of the seventeenth century. Through a close study of pamphlet literature, it argues that the three men played key roles in a print revolution even as they, like their opponents, proved powerless to control the medium. The story of Burton, Bastwick and Prynne is not so much one of ―progress,‖ but of a dynamic and conflicting process of shaping memory through print and propaganda. Furthermore, looking at how print was used by the trio and their opponents, like William Laud, challenges revisionist views of a unified, dangerous extreme Puritanism. This study takes a step back from both Whig and revisionist interpretations of Burton, Bastwick and Prynne to explore how both views have their roots in the seventeenth-century print contest. Their efforts to shape memory through print help to highlight the political power of print in Stuart England. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures . v List of Abbreviations . vi Introduction . 1 Chapter 1. Controlling Print in Early Stuart England: The Trials of Henry Burton, John Bastwick and William Prynne in the Early 1630s. 15 Chapter 2. The Making of a Memory: The 1637 Trial and Punishment of Burton, Bastwick and Prynne . 38 Chapter 3. Crafting a Legislative Memory: Burton, Bastwick and Prynne‘s Petitions to Parliament in the 1640s . 71 Chapter 4. Creating a Legal Memory of Personal Rule: The Trial of William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury. .. .112 Epilogue. The Legacy of Burton, Bastwick and Prynne. 150 Bibliography . .173 iv LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: A carpenter sharpens Archbishop Laud‘s nose at his grindstone. 119 Figure 2: Archbishop Laud and a Jesuit Confessor are locked in a cage and mocked by the King‘s Fool. 119 v ABBREVIATIONS CJ Journal of the House of Commons CSPD Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series vi Introduction The trial and punishment of Henry Burton, John Bastwick and William Prynne was arguably one of the most sensational episodes in the history of Charles I‘s personal rule. In March 1637, the Attorney General, Sir John Banks, filed a writ in the Star Chamber accusing the trio of publishing ―libelous books with intent to move the people to discontent against the King‘s ecclesiastical government.‖1 Specifically, the indictment included Prynne‘s Unbishoping of Timothy and Titus and News from Ipswich,2 Burton‘s sermons For God and the King, and The Litany of John Bastwick. These pamphlets attacked the bishops of the Church of England, claiming that they had overstepped the boundaries of their jurisdiction and trampled on royal prerogative. At first glance, it may appear strange that authors purporting to protect royal authority should be the victims of prosecution in a court whose judges consisted of the king‘s own Council. In the English religious settlement, however, the Church and State were intertwined. Particularly in times of tension, criticism of the ecclesiastical institution could be considered a prelude to an attack on the State. The trial proceedings dragged on for several months with postponements. Burton, Bastwick and Prynne delayed in delivering their defenses to the court and when they eventually submitted vituperative answers to the charges, the trio was convicted pro 1 Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, of the Reign of Charles I, Vol. 11: 1637 (Nendeln, Liechtenstein: Kraus Reprint, Ltd., 1967), 49. [Hereafter, referred to as ―CSPD.‖] 2 William Prynne never admitted to authoring Newes from Ipswich, but neither did he deny authorship when it was attributed to him by the Star Chamber. Contemporaries often suspected that Burton was the pamphlet‘s author, and it is possible the two collaborated on the text. Thomas Birch, Court and Times of Charles I, vol. 2 (London: Henry Colburn, 1848), 260-1. 1 confesso.3 Lord Cottington delivered the sentence: each defendant would be whipped, lose his ears on the pillory (Prynne the stumps of his ears since he had already suffered the same punishment in 1634), fined £ 5,000, and perpetually imprisoned in remote parts of the kingdom. Prynne was sentenced additionally to be branded with the letters ―S. L.‖ on his cheeks to stand for ―Seditious Libeller.‖ Such gruesome punishment ensured Burton, Bastwick and Prynne‘s lasting fame among their contemporaries, but the interpretation of their experiences has proven to be highly malleable. In historical scholarship, the 1637 Star Chamber trial of Burton, Bastwick and Prynne has been referenced frequently as part of the narrative of events leading up to the English Civil War in 1641. In Whig histories, the trial served as a major point on the ―high road‖ to civil war. Classic works by S. R. Gardiner and G. M. Trevelyan told a story of a slow, inexorable march toward civil war, in which the trial of Burton, Bastwick and Prynne played a major role in championing liberty by constructing a Puritan opposition to the Crown.4 Revisionist historians, however, have rejected this progressive history, asserting that the war was accidentally caused by a variety of interrelated short-term religious, political and cultural factors. While downplaying Burton, Bastwick and Prynne‘s significance in constitutional matters, scholars continue to reference the trio in connection with the issue of Laudianism. Archbishop William Laud‘s policies, generally characterized as anti-Calvinist (i.e., Arminian), have been 3 In legal trials when a defendant refused to answer the charges, he could be convicted pro confesso, as if he had confessed, if the judges deemed the evidence against him sufficient for conviction. The rationale was that if a defendant was innocent of the charges, he would have presented his answer to the court; hence, the refusal to answer was interpreted as a sign of guilt. 4 Samuel R. Gardiner, The History of England from the Accession of James I to the Outbreak of Civil War, 1603-1642, vol. 8 (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1909). George Macaulay Trevelyan, England Under the Stuarts (London: Methuen and Co., 1904). 2 credited by some historians with destabilizing the established church and creating a puritan opposition.5 In taking a closer look at English Puritanism in the 1620s and 1630s, revisionist scholarship has uncovered a multifaceted rather than a tightly formed oppositional group. Stephen Foster examines the contours of this opposition through a study of the lives of Alexander Leighton and Burton, Bastwick and Prynne. He notes a broad spectrum of Puritan ideology and argues that radical Calvinism only achieved a respectable face with the backing of individuals like Burton, Bastwick and Prynne. This emergence of radical Protestantism from the religious underground of the Caroline Church, according to Foster, prompted Laud to overreact to its presence. The attempts at repression, including the Star Chamber trial of Burton, Bastwick and Prynne, contributed to the increased religious radicalization, overshadowing the moderate Puritan voices and damaging the fabric of the state. He concludes that the Star Chamber trial was a coup for the trio who 5 Nicholas Tyacke, Anti-Calvinists: The Rise of English Arminianism, c. 1590-1640 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990). Patrick Collinson, Birthpangs of Protestant England (New York: St. Martin‘s Press, 1988). Robert Ashton, The English Civil War (New York: Norton, 1981). Richard Cust and Ann Hughes, however, have warned that replacing the Whiggish progressive-conservative polarity with a Puritan-Arminian conflict does not fully address the way contradictory elements within English politics could coexist without necessarily resulting in severe factions. More recent anti-revisionist work reject a bi-polar approach. By focusing on local studies, several scholars have identified pockets of oppositional thinking concerning the contentious political and religious issues of the 1620s and 1630s, but they emphasize the overarching desire of the English people to minimize the disruptive nature of political and religious conflict. Richard Cust and Ann Hughes, eds. Conflict in Early Stuart England: Studies in Religion and Politics, 1603-1642 (New York: Longman, 1989), 22-24. David Underdown‘s study of popular politics in three western English counties uncovers a strain of oppositional thinking rooted in regional cultural differences. He argues that as the cultural battle lines were being formed and reformed over issues such as the value of custom, traditional rituals and The Book of Sports, a political consciousness was developing, impacting the choice of allegiance during the Civil War. See David Underdown, Revel, Riot, and Rebellion: Popular Politics and Culture in England 1603-1660 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 106-145. Daniel Beaver also has discovered fractures in the religious consensus, pointing to the Laudian visitation of 1635 in Tewkesbury parishes as a key moment when the earlier emphasis on harmony in the parish was replaced by competing factions of ―hotter‖ Protestants and those parish members committed to ―ceremonial conformity.‖ See Daniel Beaver, Parish Communities and Religious Conflict in the Vale of Gloucester, 1590-1690 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998), 155-194.