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winterbadgerI confess the title is not original, but copied from an article by Richard Hughes in History Review in 2008. I've only read bits of the article, but I had decided to write a piece about Prynne and say the title while Googling, and I was so taken with it that I couldn't resist it.
When I sat down with my undergraduate thesis advisor, I told him I wanted to write about the English Civil War (or, as they are more properly known these days, the Wars of the Three Kingdoms). I had, in fact, chosen him specifically to this end, as he was the British history professor in our faculty, and I strongly suspected (though never asked) that he had known my grandfather at Yale, where my prof received his BA (1946), MA (1947), and PhD (1951) and published his first professional work (1957).
He thought about this, but he clearly wasn't happy with it--perhaps thinking that it was too obviously a subject that I was too comfortable with and that I needed to be pushed out of my comfort zone a little. Or maybe he simply felt that the wars had been written about too thoroughly; I don't know for sure. Anyway, he steered me instead to look at the political and religious origins of the conflict, and I ended up writing about Archbishop William Laud (pictured in the icon above) instead. Perhaps I'll address the topic of Laud later on here, but for a moment I thought I'd talk about one of his betes noires instead.
William Prynne, a young man from Somerset, studied at Oxford and then joined Lincoln's Inn in London as a "pupil" (we would say a law student) in 1621. The following year the post of preacher to the Inn passed from the poet, philosopher, and priest John Donne to one John Preston, a puritan cleric.
Preston had tried his hand at many careers, failing as a student of music at Cambridge, then hoping to start a career as a diplomat, a philosopher, a doctor of medicine, and an astrologer. He had settled upon a career in divinity and had quickly become a notable academic preacher with Calvinist leanings. He had some influence at Court, enough to be appointed chaplain in ordinary to Prince Charles (later Charles I) both on his favour with King James (who had heard him in a university debate) and through a relation of the king's favourite, the Duke of Buckingham, who hoped to gain influence with puritans by bringing Preston into the Court circle.
Preston's preaching at Lincoln' Inn seems to have had a galvanizing effect on Prynne. While Preston was seen very much as a man who, though holding strong religious principles, trimmed his sails to catch the wind of preferment, Prynne was more likely, not just to sail through a storm, but to stir it up himself. From 1627 forward, he published books, pamphlets, speeches, and essays criticizing the mighty and (as he saw them) dissolute and propagating his own strict interpretation of Biblical teachings.
William Prynne was an example of many of the complexities of religion in 17th century England. While the conflict between puritans and adherents of the Established Church has often been cast in succeeding eras as a conflict between freedom of religion and autocracy, it was in fact much closer to a battle between two visions of absolutism. Puritans like Prynne didn't so much seek freedom to practice their own beliefs as to impose their beliefs on others. When Prynne published Histriomastix in 1632, it was not an appeal to individual readers to abjure the theatre as it was a call for society to ban theatres and play-acting altogether. When he wrote opposing the King's Book of Sports the following year, it was not so much to uphold the right of puritans to observe the Sabbath without games and recreation as it was a call to ban any sort of activity by anyone that was not thought seemly by those of the deepest presbyterian hue.
This sort of writing set Prynne directly at odds with the Crown and the Established Church, which took to themselves the right to determine proper and moral conduct (and enforce it on everyone). Prynne attacked the episcopacy (the structure of church government established and supported by the Crown) and the episcopal courts (which could try persons for offenses against religious law, including those who could claim privilege from regular criminal court as "clerics"--basically anyone who could read and write).
Prynne also managed to make enemies by accident. Though Histriomastix was aimed at theatre in general, the timing of its release caused it to look like an attack on the Queen (who had recently taken part in a play acted at Court). For publishing this book, he was fined, imprisoned, and lost his position as an attorney and his university degree. Further, he was to lose his ears. Set in a pillory, he had both ears nailed to the wood of the post and then the top edge of each cut away. Though jailed, he continued to write and publish attacks on the government, civil and ecclesiastical, and three years later he was sentenced to further fines, continued imprisonment, and the removal of the remainder of his ears.
But Prynne was unrepentant. He was also an equal-opportunity offender. Freed in 1640, three years after his second sentence, by the revolutionary Long Parliament, he took great delight in prosecuting his foe William Laud, superintending the trial that led to the latter's death in 1645. But he was quick to make enemies on the Parliamentarian side. He denounced and attacked many of those who, like him, had been condemned for their puritan views by the Anglican government and Church, and he opposed those who took an independent line in religion, chiefly the leaders of the Army. As a result, he was arrested in Cromwell's wholesale rooting out of resistance in Parliament that was known as Pride's Purge and was imprisoned for the better part of five years. Even after his release, he continued to attack the Commonwealth and the policies of the Lord Protector, Oliver Cromwell. In a great turn of irony, he was eventually allowed to return to his seat in Parliament during the Restoration, during which he acted in support of the new king, Charles II. Much wiser than his parents and their counselors, Charles II simply ignored attacks by most of his critics (including, from time to time, the aged Prynne) and even consulted them on matters where he found them knowledgeable (as he did Prynne). The crop-eared rebel continued to fulminate, but he had become something like the elder statesman of the puritan movement and died in 1669 at the age of 69, rather more quietly and better liked than his younger self would probably have been entirely comfortable with.
When I sat down with my undergraduate thesis advisor, I told him I wanted to write about the English Civil War (or, as they are more properly known these days, the Wars of the Three Kingdoms). I had, in fact, chosen him specifically to this end, as he was the British history professor in our faculty, and I strongly suspected (though never asked) that he had known my grandfather at Yale, where my prof received his BA (1946), MA (1947), and PhD (1951) and published his first professional work (1957).
He thought about this, but he clearly wasn't happy with it--perhaps thinking that it was too obviously a subject that I was too comfortable with and that I needed to be pushed out of my comfort zone a little. Or maybe he simply felt that the wars had been written about too thoroughly; I don't know for sure. Anyway, he steered me instead to look at the political and religious origins of the conflict, and I ended up writing about Archbishop William Laud (pictured in the icon above) instead. Perhaps I'll address the topic of Laud later on here, but for a moment I thought I'd talk about one of his betes noires instead.
William Prynne, a young man from Somerset, studied at Oxford and then joined Lincoln's Inn in London as a "pupil" (we would say a law student) in 1621. The following year the post of preacher to the Inn passed from the poet, philosopher, and priest John Donne to one John Preston, a puritan cleric.
Preston had tried his hand at many careers, failing as a student of music at Cambridge, then hoping to start a career as a diplomat, a philosopher, a doctor of medicine, and an astrologer. He had settled upon a career in divinity and had quickly become a notable academic preacher with Calvinist leanings. He had some influence at Court, enough to be appointed chaplain in ordinary to Prince Charles (later Charles I) both on his favour with King James (who had heard him in a university debate) and through a relation of the king's favourite, the Duke of Buckingham, who hoped to gain influence with puritans by bringing Preston into the Court circle.
Preston's preaching at Lincoln' Inn seems to have had a galvanizing effect on Prynne. While Preston was seen very much as a man who, though holding strong religious principles, trimmed his sails to catch the wind of preferment, Prynne was more likely, not just to sail through a storm, but to stir it up himself. From 1627 forward, he published books, pamphlets, speeches, and essays criticizing the mighty and (as he saw them) dissolute and propagating his own strict interpretation of Biblical teachings.
William Prynne was an example of many of the complexities of religion in 17th century England. While the conflict between puritans and adherents of the Established Church has often been cast in succeeding eras as a conflict between freedom of religion and autocracy, it was in fact much closer to a battle between two visions of absolutism. Puritans like Prynne didn't so much seek freedom to practice their own beliefs as to impose their beliefs on others. When Prynne published Histriomastix in 1632, it was not an appeal to individual readers to abjure the theatre as it was a call for society to ban theatres and play-acting altogether. When he wrote opposing the King's Book of Sports the following year, it was not so much to uphold the right of puritans to observe the Sabbath without games and recreation as it was a call to ban any sort of activity by anyone that was not thought seemly by those of the deepest presbyterian hue.
This sort of writing set Prynne directly at odds with the Crown and the Established Church, which took to themselves the right to determine proper and moral conduct (and enforce it on everyone). Prynne attacked the episcopacy (the structure of church government established and supported by the Crown) and the episcopal courts (which could try persons for offenses against religious law, including those who could claim privilege from regular criminal court as "clerics"--basically anyone who could read and write).
Prynne also managed to make enemies by accident. Though Histriomastix was aimed at theatre in general, the timing of its release caused it to look like an attack on the Queen (who had recently taken part in a play acted at Court). For publishing this book, he was fined, imprisoned, and lost his position as an attorney and his university degree. Further, he was to lose his ears. Set in a pillory, he had both ears nailed to the wood of the post and then the top edge of each cut away. Though jailed, he continued to write and publish attacks on the government, civil and ecclesiastical, and three years later he was sentenced to further fines, continued imprisonment, and the removal of the remainder of his ears.
But Prynne was unrepentant. He was also an equal-opportunity offender. Freed in 1640, three years after his second sentence, by the revolutionary Long Parliament, he took great delight in prosecuting his foe William Laud, superintending the trial that led to the latter's death in 1645. But he was quick to make enemies on the Parliamentarian side. He denounced and attacked many of those who, like him, had been condemned for their puritan views by the Anglican government and Church, and he opposed those who took an independent line in religion, chiefly the leaders of the Army. As a result, he was arrested in Cromwell's wholesale rooting out of resistance in Parliament that was known as Pride's Purge and was imprisoned for the better part of five years. Even after his release, he continued to attack the Commonwealth and the policies of the Lord Protector, Oliver Cromwell. In a great turn of irony, he was eventually allowed to return to his seat in Parliament during the Restoration, during which he acted in support of the new king, Charles II. Much wiser than his parents and their counselors, Charles II simply ignored attacks by most of his critics (including, from time to time, the aged Prynne) and even consulted them on matters where he found them knowledgeable (as he did Prynne). The crop-eared rebel continued to fulminate, but he had become something like the elder statesman of the puritan movement and died in 1669 at the age of 69, rather more quietly and better liked than his younger self would probably have been entirely comfortable with.
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no subject
Date: 2009-12-15 05:13 pm (UTC)Just think, had he lived 350 years later he might have been a net.kook on Usenet.
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Date: 2009-12-16 04:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-16 07:28 pm (UTC)Charles II was a lot like his grandfather, James VI/I, who grew up in very precarious circumstances in a Scotland ruled by faction, and created a kingship that could adjust to changing political situations. James's son Charles I doesn't seem to have learned any of his father's diplomacy or policy and instead was as stubborn and headstrong as Henry VIII without having Henry's force of personality or power base.