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Robert Waldegrave: The Printer as Agent and Link Between Sixteenth-Century England and Scotland*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Katherine S. Van Eerde
Katherine S. Van Eerde*
Affiliation:
Muhlenberg College
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Extract

One of the great religio-literary controversies has, for nearly four centuries, involved the question of authorship of the Martin Marprelate Tracts. The tracts themselves deliberately seek to obscure answers, and diverse asseverations on the matter extend from 1588 (the year of the first tracts) to the present.

The printing and publishing of such inflammatory writings as the Marprelate Tracts was, from the beginning, likewise a matter of controversy, although less extensive and less disputed than the authorship.

Type
Research Article
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 34 , Issue 1 , Spring 1981 , pp. 40 - 78
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1981

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Footnotes

For financial assistance in completing this article, I should like to thank Muhlenberg College and the Henry E. Huntington Library (the latter for a fellowship subsidized partly by the National Endowment for the Humanities). For their expert and helpful assistance, I should also like to thank the library staffs of Muhlenberg and the Huntington, as well as those of the Folger Shakespeare Library. My special gratitude is owed to Dr. Leland H. Carlson for his many scholarly suggestions and corrections. Whatever errors remain are, of course, mine.

References

1 As early as 1589 or 1590, Henry Barrow and Robert Browne (Separatist and dissenting clergy) were publicly associated with the Marprelate Tracts. In Marre Mar- Martin: or Marre-Martins medling, in a manner misliked (STC 17462), they are twice mentioned. First, on the title page is the verse:

Martin, Marre-Martin, Barrow joyned with Browne

Shew zeale: yet strive to pull Religion downe.

And again:

Martin, Marre-Martin, Barrow, Browne

All helpe to pull Religion down. [A4]

John Penry, also accused, drafted portions of several letters to Lord Burghley from the prison whence he was taken to execution. In one of these, he stated that Sir Robert Cecil “was and is yet by many asjustlyjudged yea and as peremptoryly affirmed to bee Marten as ever John Penry was.” Albert Peel, ed., The Notebook of John Penry, 1593 (Camden Society, Third Series, LXVII [1944], 66). A number of other candidates also were or have been suggested as authors or participants, among them John Udall, Job Throckmorton and Sir Roger Williams.

I have attempted to reduce the inordinate number of notes that would be introduced into this paper if each work printed by Waldegrave and discussed were identified by number. Bibliographical details can be found in Pollard and Redgrave, compilers, A Short-Title Catalogue of Books Printed in England, Scotland & Ireland, 1475-1640, first printed in 1926 and reprinted in 1946. A second edition of this work, 1976 (Volume II only), for the letters I-Z, revised and enlarged by Jackson, Ferguson and Pantzer, has been used whenever possible, supplying most of the citations in this article. If identification through the Short-Title Catalogue (STC) number is not readily available from the description in the text, that number has been provided.

In citing quotations, I have expanded abbrevations and contractions and followed modern typographical conventions in respect to the use of i/j, u/v, and vv. Also, when slashes are used as a mark of punctuation, they have been omitted or replaced by commas. I have omitted the hyphen that is often, but quite inconsistently, used in the printing of Waldegrave's name as “Walde-grave.”

Elizabeth Eisenstein's provocative work, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change (2 vols.; Cambridge, 1979), appeared after I had essentially completed this article. She does not touch on Waldegrave or the Marprelate Tracts, but her entire emphasis seems to support the importance of this story.

2 For example, “Printed on the other hand of some of the Priests” from Oh read over D.John Bridges (The Epitome) [Fawsley, 1588] and “Printed in Europe not farre from some of the Bouncing Priestes” from Hay any workefor Cooper [Coventry, 1589], both printed by Waldegrave. To facilitate the checking of references, all citations of the seven Marprelate tracts will be from the Scolar Press facsimile edition (1967). It should be noted, however, that almost every one of the attributions given therein is challenged by one authority or another.

3 Alternative title for Oh read over D.John Bridges, the first of the Marprelate Tracts.

4 Edward Arber, ed., A Transcript of the Registers of the Company of Stationers of London, 1554-1640 A.D. (5 vols.; London, 1875-1894), Register A, I, 372. Hereafter referred to as Stat. Reg. A total listing of books printed by Waldegrave is, of course, impossible. Some works have disappeared; the printing of some is in dispute. Any attempted listing is hampered by the deliberate deceptions practiced by the daring, yet cautious printer, especially during the Marprelate years (1588-1589) and just after. As guides through the complex questions of attribution and provenance, the following should be noted:

  1. 1 Pollard and Redgrave, compilers, A Short-Title Catalogue, 1946; Jackson, Ferguson and Pantzer, eds., 2nd edition, Vol. II, 1976, letters I-Z (see note 1).

  2. 2 Joseph Ames and William Herbert, Typographical Antiquities or an Historical Account of the Origin and Progress of Printing in Great Britain and Ireland containing Memoirs of our Ancient Printers, and a Register of Books printed by them from the year 1461 to 1600 (3 vols.; London, 1785-1790). The chief notice concerning Waldegrave is in Volume II, pp. 1139-1146, where a list of books published or presumably published by him appears. Hereafter cited as Typ. Ant.

  3. 3 Arber, ed., Stat. Reg., above cited.

  4. 4 Robert Dickson and J. P. Edmond, Annals of Scottish Printing from the introduction of the art in 1507 to the beginning of the seventeenth century (2 parts; Cambridge, 1890).

  5. 5 R. B. McKerrow, A Dictionary of Printers and Booksellers in England… 1557-1640 (1910).

    No one of these is wholly superseded by another.

5 Ames-Herbert, Typ. Ant., II, 1139.

6 Arber, ed., Stat. Reg. B, II, 848. Waldegrave may not have been trying to avoid the fee for taking an apprentice. His acquaintance Dawson was similarly fined several times, with at least one partial remission from the Stationers, when it was discovered that Dawson had taken as apprentice a poor child who could not afford the apprenticeship fee.

7 Ibid., B, II, 102.

8 One of the persons to whom an individual license (outside the control of the Stationers Company) for printing was granted was William Seres, a client of Lord Burghley. Seres obtained a license, with several renewals, of the sole right to print psalters and prayer books. As this second category constituted one of the most popular kinds of book at this time, there was constant discontent with Seres’ license (which was continued by his son until 1603) and consequent ignoring of it by other Stationers. Some of the Stationers petitioned the Privy Council for redress, stating that “it stood with the best policy of this realm, that the printing of all good and useful books should be at the liberty for every man to do… . “ Seres, however, retained a staunch friend in the Lord Treasurer, and a compromise was finally worked out. Those Stationers who wished to print books falling within Seres’ license (and Waldegrave was certainly one) had to pay the Stationers for this privilege, a fee that went into the charitable funds of the Company. It was presumably for this privilege that Waldegrave regularly paid the large sum of£40 to the Stationers. Arber, ed., Stat. Reg., I, 501, 512, 517, covering the years 1582 to 1586. It may be assumed that Waldegrave more than recovered his £40 each year by the publication of popular religious tracts.

9 Arber, ed., Stat. Reg., II, 391. March 15, 1581. STC, nos. 22020 and 22022.

10 Ames-Herbert, Typ. Ant., II, pp. 1139 and 1145, note g.

11 Greg, W. W., ed., A Companion to Arber (Oxford, 1967), pp. 29–30 Google Scholar, citing State Papers Domestic, Elizabeth I, vol. 161, art. 1, enclosure I, fol. 2.

12 Arber, ed., Stat. Reg., II, 778.

13 Ibid., II, 102 and 106, 162, 172.

14 The Epistle and Hay any worke for Cooper (printed by Waldegrave, March 1589) have frequent references to Waldegrave. See note 23 for a listing of works in the Marprelate controversy.

15 See Cooper's, Bishop An Admonition to the People of England (1589) in Pierce, William, ed., The Marprelate Tracts, 1588, 1589 (London, 1911), pp. 42, 43Google Scholar.

16 See Pierce, ed., The Marprelate Tracts, p. 275, and five notes at bottom of page.

17 Hopkins, Samuel, The Puritans: or, The church, court, and Parliament of England during the reigns of Edward VI. and Queen Elizabeth (3 vols.; Boston, 1859-1861), III, 248 Google Scholar

18 Pierce, ed., The Marprelate Tracts, p. 273, n. 1. From Cooper's Admonition, p. 41.

19 See Pierce, p. 55, for reference to P.R.O., Lists and Indexes, Supplementary Series, No. IV. Proceedings in the Court of Star Chamber, Vol. IV, Elizabeth I, Index of Persons in Bundles Lettered L-R (London, 1974), P.49/1 and P.53/3, cited on pp. 88 and 324.

20 Ames-Herbert, Typ. Ant., II, 1145.

21 Arber, ed., Stat. Reg., II, 490.

22 See Arber, ed., Stat. Reg., I, 528-529, and also Pierce's comments in The Marprelate Tracts, pp. 84-85 and notes.

23 The bibliography is extensive on the Marprelate controversy. Among the important books are: Arber, Edward, An Introductory Sketch to the Martin Marprelate Controversy, 1588-1590 [English Scholar's Library, No. 8] (London, 1879)Google Scholar; Arber, ed., Stat. Reg.; Pierce, William, An Historical Introduction to the Marprelate Tracts (London, 1908)Google Scholar; Pierce, ed., The Marprelate Tracts, 1588, 1589; Paule, George, Life of John Whitgift, Archbishop of Canterbury (London, 1699)Google Scholar; McGinn, Donald J., John Penry and the Marprelate Controversy (Rutgers, 1966)Google Scholar; Carlson, Leland H., English Satire: Martin Marprelate and His Satire (Clark Memorial Library, UCLA, 1972)Google Scholar; The Marprelate Tracts [1588-1589] (Scolar Press, 1967), facsimile edition, from the Bodleian and Lambeth Palace Libraries; Greg, ed., A Companion to Arber has some corrections to Arber's transcripts; also significant are the articles in The Library for April, July and October 1912 by Dover Wilson, William Pierce and R. B. McKerrow.

24 It is fitting that the secondary figure of Mrs. Crane should add further mystification to the crowded puzzles of the Marprelate business. She was early identified as the widow of a Puritan minister, Nicholas Crane, who died in Newgate. That long-held view, enshrined in the DNBand in many writings concerning the Marprelate matter, has been challenged and disproved by Julia Norton McCorkle in “A Note concerning ‘Mistress Crane’ and the Martin Marprelate Controversy” in The Library, Oxford, Fourth Series, 12, No. 3 (December 1931), 276-283. I am indebted to Dr. Carlson for this reference. Mrs. McCorkle shows that Mrs. Crane was the widow of Anthony Crane, who was master of the Queen's Household at his death in 1583. She seems to have had Puritan sympathies and presumably had some knowledge of the Marprelate printing. Mrs. Crane married George Carleton, probably in 1589, and was his wife for a short time before being widowed again, in January 1590. There remains the puzzle of why she should have been named as “Mistress Crane” so often in documents when she was really “Mistress Carleton.” Mrs. McCorkle offers a suggestion on this point (note 1, p. 281), but no solution. Elizabeth Crane/Carleton was interrogated by Star Chamber officials and was held for a time in Fleet prison. The Star Chamber decrees are missing, so there is no record of any punishment.

25 Most of the contemporary testimony, full of contradictions and some of it taken under torture, comes from Harl. MS. 7042, pp. 1-11, “the Brief held by Sir John Puckering, while Attorney General, against the Martinists.” It is transcribed in Arber, An Introductory Sketch to the Martin Marprelate Controversy, 1895, pp. 119-136. Material specifically on Waldegrave is on pp. 124-125.

26 William Pierce puts the case against Waldegrave's traveling to La Rochelle convincingly in his article, “Did Sir Roger Williams Write the Marprelate Tracts?” in The Library, Third Series, Vol. 3, No. 12 (October 1912), especially pp. 352-357.

27 The “Answer &c. to Job Throckmorton,” in 1595, by the Rev. Matthew Sutcliffe, printed in Arber's Introductory Sketch to the Martin Marprelate Controversy, 1895, p. 179, has a puzzling statement to the effect that Waldegrave upon oath testified that Throckmorton wrote M. Some Laid Open in his Coulers [La Rochelle, 1589], and that he printed it in Rochelle. Since Waldegrave was never captured by his enemies, it is difficult to explain this statement. Sutcliffe, p. 181, likewise asserts that Waldegrave asked Throckmorton how he was to dispose of both Some and Penry's Appellation… unto the highe court o/Parliament, books which are assumed to have been printed in La Rochelle in 1589.

28 I have deliberately stated this with some assurance. For corroborative evidence, see Gordon Donaldson, Scotland: Church and Nation Through Sixteen Centuries (1972), pp. 71-76 and passim; John Waddington, John Penry (1854), pp. 36ff.; Hopkins, The Puritans, III, 268; Caroline Bingham, The Stewart Kingdom of Scotland, 1371-1603 (I974)> PP- 240-245. See also Gillon, R. M., John Davidson of Prestonpans (London, n.d., but preface dated 1936), pp. 89ffGoogle Scholar., and passim, and Maidment, I., ed., Poetical Remains of Mr. John Davidson (Edinburgh, 1829), pp.20–26 Google Scholar.

29 The Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, 1585-1592, ed. David Masson, IV (Edinburgh, 1881), pp. 430-431. See also Thomas Brown, Church and State in Scotland, 1891, pp. 77-78.

30 Dickson and Edmond, eds., Annals of Scottish Printing, I, 190-200, passim. See also F. S. Ferguson, “Relations Between London and Edinburgh Printers and Stationers (—1640)” in The Library, Fourth Series, Vol. 8, No. 2 (September 1927), especially pp. 145-152-

31 For some of the difficulties experienced in the search for a printer by Scottish authorities, see Thomas McCrie, Life of Andrew Melville (2 vols.; Edinburgh, 1819), I, 204, 464-466 and passim.

32 Vautrollier had apparently printed two issues, in 1584 and 1585, of James's first work, Essayes of a Premise. See Dickson and Edmond, I, 382. Waldegrave's printing of royal works will be treated below.

33 This appears, without reference, in Scottish National Memorials, ed. James Paton (Glasgow, 1890), p. 182. William Pierce in John Penry His Life, Times and Writings (London, 1923) on p. 293, n. 2 cites the warrant as referred to by Dr. John Lee, Memorials to the Bible Societies in Scotland, 1824, Appendix VIII.

34 Ames-Herbert, Typ. Ant., III, 1508. Waldegrave's publishing career in Scotland is covered by Ames-Herbert in Volume III, pp. 1507-1521.

35 Dickson and Edmond, I, 407-408; also Ames-Herbert, Typ. Ant., III, 1507.

36 Ferguson in “Relations Between London and Edinburgh Printers and Stationers” notes a second edition of Napier's work which he says Waldegrave printed, although it bears John Norton's imprint in London (p. 184, n. 1).

37 From Daungerous Positions and Proceedings (Theatrum Orbis Terrarum reprint, Amsterdam, 1972), pp. 46 and 6 (STC 1344), printed in 1593 by Waldegrave's longtime enemy, John Wolf, and specifically in reference to a Puritan volume of which Waldegrave may have printed a portion. See The Seconde Parte of a Register, ed. Albert Peel (2 vols.; Cambridge, 1915), particularly item 28 of the 33 listed, “A Counterpoyson, Modestlie written for the time” by Dudley Fenner. It was printed, separately, about 1584, by Waldegrave (STC 10770).

38 M. A. Bald suggests that Waldegrave may have been “responsible for the English dress” of various Scottish books in the 1590s. “It is certain… that someone revised the Scottish manuscript of James VI. 's Basilikon Down [printed by Waldegrave] before it appeared in the almost unimpeachable English of the first printed edition. It is most remarkable that no books of Scottish authorship printed by other Scots printers of the time showed such distinct anglicising tendencies.” “The Anglicisation of Scottish Printing,” in Scottish Historical Review, Vol. 23, No. 90 (January 1926), pp. 107-115. The same conjecture was reached independently by this writer.

39 Calendar of the State Papers Relating to Scotland and Mary, Queen of Scots, 1547-1603, A.D. 1593-1595, ed. Annie I Cameron (Edinburgh, 1936), p. 430. Hereafter cited as Calendar of Scottish Papers. His Latin was assuredly not that of the schools, but he printed so much in Latin that he must have had some knowledge of the language. He owned and used Greek type as well, both capitals and lower case. As a printer specializing in religious works from the 1570s on, Waldegrave was able to follow and set texts in Latin and Greek. I have seen no Hebrew type in his work. When Hebrew words were used, they were inserted by hand before or after printing.

40 I have seen only the Roxburghe Club facsimile of this edition (London, 1887). Included in that edition is a lengthy preface on its history and a sample of James's autograph copy of the work, which is in the British Library. The autograph is in Scots; the printed book in standard English. P. xvi.

41 See Roxburghe facsimile Preface.

42 See William A. Jackson, “Robert Waldegrave and the Books he Printed or Published in 1603” in The Library, Fifth Series, Vol. 13, No. 4 (December 1958), 228-229 and Plates II and HI for some discussion of Scottish and English editions.

43 Calendar of Scottish Papers, 1593-1595, pp. 420-431.

44 Calendar of Scottish Papers, 1580.-150.3, p. 435.

45 Ibid., pp. 702, 144; and see further evidences ofjames's efforts, all in vain, on pp. 487 and 502.

46 Ibid., p. 167.

47 See, for instance, the notice of books printed by Waldegrave with which the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Stationers Company busied themselves in 1591. Arber, Stat. Reg., II, 38. Ferguson, in “Relations Between London and Edinburgh Printers and Stationers,” comments on this and other entries, pp. 152-156 and 183.

48 Calendar of Scottish Papers, 1597-1603, Part I, pp. 230, 268, 621.

49 For a fuller tracing of the story, see Henry R. Plomer, “The Edinburgh Edition of Sidney's ‘Arcadia,'” The Library, New Series, Vol. 1 (March 1, 1900), pp. 195-205. See also Ferguson's “Relations Between London and Edinburgh Printers and Stationers,” pp. 183-184.

50 W. W. Greg and E. Boswell, eds., Records of the Court of the Stationers’ Company, 1576 to 1602, from Register B (London, 1930), p. 82.

51 There are three copies of the 1597 edition at the Huntington Library, with pagination running according to sovereign. The act referred to occurs on pp. 111-113” of “King James Sext“'s reign.

52 See Robert Pitcairn, Criminal Trials in Scotland (3 vols.; Edinburgh, 1833), Vol. II, Part 1, pp. 2-7, 14-17. This is a complex and disjointed story. I have tried to fit it into a chronological narrative, which is not the way in which the records treat it.

53 See Curt F. Buhler, “Robert Waldegrave and the Pirates of Dunkirk” in The New Colophon, I (1948), 377-382, for a discussion of James's intervention in Waldegrave's behalf over some goods captured by pirates, perhaps in 1601 or 1602. Buhler deduces from this that Waldegrave possessed considerable wealth at the time; it must be remembered, however, that claims for compensation are rarely deflated.

54 Arber, ed., Stat. Reg., III, 230, 231.

55 This broadsheet is in the Houghton Library at Harvard. I am grateful to the Library for sending me a photocopy of this unique document.

56 Arber, ed., Stat. Reg., III, 237. William A. Jackson speculates at length (especially pp. 231-233) about various arrangements Waldegrave may have made with London Stationers after James's accession. That he was in contact with some of these printers and saw a number of his editions being reworked and reprinted is certain. His untimely death prevented his own exploitation of these works and opened the way to the characteristic printing piracy of the time.

57 Robert Steele in A Bibliography of Royal Proclamations of the Tudor and Stuart Sovereigns, I (Oxford, 1910), xxxviii, sets the date of death as before January 5, 1604. William A. Jackson, in the above-cited article (n. 42), p. 226, suggests that he died of the plague in London in the summer or fall of 1603. In his article, Jackson discusses at length Waldegrave's typical (but not consistent) use of signatures, and the varieties of ornaments he used. These various inconsistencies and puzzles in the printer's craft are of interest to any student of Waldegrave. No one has so far resolved them satisfactorily, nor can I.

58 A Robert Waldegrave, born September 1596, entered the Merchant Taylors School in 1605; he may or may not have been a connection of the printer.