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But the virulence and boldness of their language produced a powerful effect, for it was impossible under the system of Elizabeth to "mar" the bishops without attacking the Crown; and a new age of political liberty was felt to be at hand when Martin Marprelate forced the political and ecclesiastical measures of the Government into the arena of public discussion.

On the other hand, the strife between Anglicans and Puritans, the struggle of episcopalian with Calvinistic reformers, was quite as plainly typified in the quarrel between the Nurse and Mercutio, in which the Martin Marprelate controversy was first unmistakably represented on the stage.

The severity of these measures called into existence the "Martin Marprelate" libels and produced much dissatisfaction and suffering among the more Puritanical clergy, which was by no means lessened by the accession of James, who, on his way to London rejected a petition signed by more than one thousand Puritan ministers. Whitgift was buried at Croydon where he founded a school and hospital.

Marprelate now appears "with a wit worn into the socket, twingling and pinking like the snuff of a candle; quantum mutatus ab illo! how unlike the knave he was before, not for malice but for sharpness. The hogshead was even come to the hauncing, and nothing could be drawne from him but the dregs."

There are few more interesting memorials of the struggle which followed than the 'Martin Marprelate' tracts which still remain in the collection at Lambeth, significantly scored in all their more virulent passages by the red pencil of Archbishop Whitgift.

Maskell, who has given a short abstract of the more important in his "History of the Martin Marprelate Controversy." Her policy towards the Catholics is set out in Burleigh's tract "The Execution of Justice in England, not for Religion, but for Treason," which was answered by Allen in his "Defense of the English Catholics."

Come, Springe! come, Springe! and whistled the dog to the pulpit." Martin Marprelate was treated by some according to his folly, and was scoffed in many pamphlets by the wits of the age in language similar to that which he was so fond of using.

Under Laud the clerical invectives of a Martin Marprelate deepened into the national fury of 'Canterburie's Doom. With this political aspect of his life we have not now to deal; what Lambeth Chapel brings out with singular vividness is the strange audacity with which the Archbishop threw himself across the strongest religious sentiments of his time.

These are now, however, clearly perceived to be the work of a much riper pen, that, namely, of Lyly. It is probable that the four anonymous and privately printed tracts, which Dr. Grosart has finally selected, do represent Nash's share in the Marprelate Controversy, although in one of them, "Martin's Month's Mind," I cannot say that I recognize his manner.

From the moment when printing began to tell on public opinion it had been gagged by a system of licenses. The regulations framed under Henry the Eighth subjected the press to the control of the Star Chamber, and the Martin Marprelate libels brought about a yet more stringent control under Elizabeth.