MARPRELATE, Martin, controversy of. — The pseudonym M., meaning “scourge of prelates” (from English mar and prelate), designates a Puritan writer of the 16th century who authored various pamphlets against the Anglican hierarchy and its bishops.
When Henry VIII of England broke with Rome, he wished to retain the episcopate, despite the objections of some, along with many doctrines and ceremonies of the Catholic Church. During the reign of Mary Tudor (1553–58), many English Protestants who had taken refuge in Switzerland absorbed the anti-hierarchical doctrines of Calvinism. Upon their return to England after the Queen’s death, they hoped to reform the Anglican Church along Calvinist or Presbyterian lines, which they considered more in keeping with primitive Christianity and purer: hence their name “Puritans.” Queen Elizabeth (1558–1603), though more inclined toward the episcopal system—which, unlike the Calvinist or Presbyterian model, allowed her to control the Church through the appointment of bishops—proceeded cautiously at first. However, toward the end of her reign and after the defeat of the Spanish Armada, feeling secure, she began a true persecution of the Puritans in the kingdom. For this purpose, she employed the Archbishop of Canterbury, J. Whitgift (1583–1604), who readily adopted the Queen’s designs, not so much because of the Puritans’ doctrine of predestination—Whitgift himself having authored the Lambeth Articles (v.), which were distinctly Calvinist—as because of their vigorous propaganda against the episcopal system. He had draconian laws published against the authors and printers of Puritan pamphlets. Yet men like J. Udall, J. Penry, and J. Throckmorton resisted, defying severe laws and punishments, moving their printing press from place to place at great risk, and continuing the struggle against the episcopate through pamphlets or libels signed by M. M.: thus began the “controversy of M. M.” Seven pamphlets were published under this pseudonym, all written in a witty, clever, and often vulgar tone, but which laid bare the failings of the Anglican episcopate. The bishops first responded with a serious pamphlet by the Bishop of Winchester, T. Cooper, but later, seeing that the people were more interested in the marprelatists’ libels because of their brilliant and biting style, they resorted to popular writers like Lyly and Nashe to fight the adversary with the same weapons.
The controversy lasted a single year, from 1588 to 1589. The marprelatists, relentlessly pursued by both ecclesiastical and secular poets, were discovered; their printing press was tracked down and confiscated, the printers imprisoned, tortured, and fined. Of the principal promoters, Udall died in prison; Penry managed to flee to Scotland, but upon returning to England in 1592 he was hanged; Throckmorton, who appears to have been the main author of the writings, was initially condemned but later pardoned after appealing to the Lord Chancellor.