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A Corpus of Elizabethan Nonconformist Writings

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Leland H. Carlson*
Affiliation:
Claremont University Center

Extract

It is easy to lament the paucity of source materials, whether for certain historical periods, specific topics, or the lives of individuals. The cry is usually for more, more, whether of documents, monographs, or money, and the inordinate desires of man are frequently stimulated but rarely satisfied. Perhaps we should occasionally accentuate the positive, rejoice in what we have, and give silent thanks for the labours and foresights of those who have gone before. If we consider the Elizabethan period, we are blessed with the State Papers, Domestic, Foreign, Venetian, and Spanish. There are 45 volumes of the Acts of the Privy Council of England for the period 1542-1630, of which 26 relate to the Elizabethan period. We have the 27 volumes of John Strype, the 55 volumes of the Parker Society, the various works of the Alcuin Club Collections and the Canterbury and York Society. The members of the Catholic Record Society have provided us with 57 volumes of materials, and A. F. Allison and David Rogers have edited Biographical Studies and Recusant History since 1951.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1965

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References

page 297 note 1 Biographical Studies, 1534-1829, from 1951 to 1956. Continued from 1957 as Recusant History.

page 298 note 1 Elizabethan England: Being the History of This Country “In Relation to All Foreign Princes,’ 13 vols, 1933-60Google Scholar.

page 298 note 2 Historical Memorials Relating to the Independents, or Congregationalists: from Their Rise to the Restoration of the Monarchy, A.D. 1660, 3 vols, London 1839 Google Scholar, 1842, 1844. See also his treatise, An Historical Research concerning the Most Ancient Congregational Church in England, Shewing the Claim of the Church Worshipping in Union Street, Southwark, to That Distinction, 1820.

page 298 note 3 See especially his Congregational History, 5 vols, 1869-80. Vol. 1, for 1200-1567, and 11, for 1567-1700, are most pertinent, 1559-1620. Track of the Hidden Church; or, the Springs of the Pilgrim Movement, Boston 1863. Historical Papers (First Series): Congregational Martyrs, 1861. Church of the Pilgrim Fathers, Southwark, 1851. John Penry, the Pilgrim Martyr, 1559-1593, 1854.

page 298 note 4 Robert Browne, Pioneer of Modern Congregationalism, 1910. Henry Barrow, Separatist, 1550?-1593, and the Exiled Church of Amsterdam, 1593-1622, 1900. John Robinson, 1575?-1625, 1920. Powicke has also given us in two volumes the best biography of Richard Baxter: 1924,1927. Two of his best articles are ‘Lists of the Early Separatists,’ Transactions of the Congregational Historical Society, 1 (1901-4), 141-58; ‘English Congregationalism in Its Greatness and Decline (1592-1770),’ Essays Congregational and Catholic, ed. Albert Peel, 1931, ch. XIII.

page 299 note 1 Robert Browne’s Ancestors and Descendants,’ Trans. C.H.S. 11, no. 3 Google Scholar, September 1905; ‘New Facts Relating to Robert Browne,’ ibid. 11, no. 4, January 1906; ‘Robert Browne and the Achurch Parish Register,’ ibid, 111, no. 2, May 1907; ‘The Later Years of Robert Browne,’ ibid, III, no. 5, May 1908; ‘The Excommunication of Robert Browne and His Will,’ ibid, v, no. 4, January 1912.

page 299 note 2 The True Story of Robert Browne1550?-1633Father of Congregationalism, 1906. A ‘New Years Guifi’ 1904. The ‘Retractation’ of Robert Browne, 1907. John Penry, the So-Called Martyr of Congregationalism, as Revealed in the Original Record of His Trial and in Documents Related Thereto, 1913. New Facts concerning John Robinson, Pastor of the Pilgrim Fathers, 1910. An Answer to John Robinson ofLeyden. By a Puritan Friend. Now First Published from a Manuscript of A.D. 1609, 1920.

page 299 note 3 EHR, xxvi, (1911), 338-52.

page 299 note 4 Stow, John, A Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster, ed. Strype, John, London 1720,11, 57 Google Scholar.

page 300 note 1 Neal, , The History of the Puritans, 4 vols, 1732-8Google Scholar; 5 vols, London 1822. Brook, , The Lives of the Puritans, 3 vols, London 1813 Google Scholar. Waddington, Congregational History, 5 vols, 1869-80. Davids, Annals of Evangelical Nonconformity in the County of Essex, from the Time of Wycliffe to the Restoration, 1863. Browne, History of Congregationalism, and Memorials of the Churches in Norfolk and Suffolk, 1877. Pierce, John Penry, His Life, Times and Writings, 1923.

page 300 note 2 Peel, Albert, The Seconde Parte of a Register. Being a Calendar of Manuscripts under That Title Intended for Publication by the Puritans about 1593, and Now in Dr Williams’s Library, London, 2 vols, Cambridge 1915 Google Scholar. See I, 1-7 for Morrice; 1, 7-10, 18-27 for a summary statement about the manuscripts, which I have checked in Dr Williams’s Library. There are 183 items in vol. I, and in vol. 11 there are 74 items and 5 indexes.

page 300 note 3 Essays Congregational and Catholic Issued in Commemoration of the Centenary of the Congregational Union of England and Wales, ed. Albert Peel [1931], 239-77.

page 300 note 4 Both were published by the Cambridge University Press in 1920. The former has 50 pages, the latter 67, and the essay 39. Thus, Dr Peel had made a good beginning toward his projected monograph.

page 301 note 1 The Table has 42 items, and John Udall’s A Demonstration of the Trueth of That Discipline is appended in 86 pages. Actually, there are 33 items, with subdivisions. See Peel, , The Seconde Parte of a Register, I, 30-3Google Scholar.

page 301 note 2 The intention is first indicated in the Trans. C.H.S. Vii, no. 2, November 1916,66.

page 302 note 1 He served as minister of the Great Harwood Congregational Church, Lancashire. from 1913-22 and of Clapton Park Congregational Church from 1922-34. With a Sunday school of more than 1200 children, this church was no part-time task.

page 302 note 2 Journal, IÇ40. France, Canada, the United States and Bombed Britain, 1941. His book with Dr Horton appeared in 1949.

page 302 note 3 Editor of Congregational Quarterly, 1923-46; of the Transactions of the Congregational Historical Society, 1923-49.

page 302 note 4 Journal, 1Q40, 1941. The Throckmorton Trolman Trust, 1664-1941, 1942. The Christian Basis of Democracy, 1943. The Notebook of John Penry, Camden Third Series, vol. 67, 1944. Reconciling the World, 1946. The Noble Army of Congregational Martyrs, 1948. The Congregational Two Hundred, 1530-1948, 1948. International Congregationalism, with Douglas Horton, 1949. Tracts Ascribed to Richard Bancroft, published posthumously, 1953. ‘Elizabethan Nonconformist Texts.’

page 302 note 5 This project seemed less necessary after 1939. Dr Peel wrote: ‘Professor M. M. Knappen’s able and satisfying Tudor Puritanism has anticipated some of our own work.’ See Trans. C.H.S. Xiv, no. i, December 1940, 3. See also ibid, xiv, no. 3, April 1943,131.

page 303 note 1 Tributes to Dr Peel by Dr H. McLachkn, editor of the Transactions of the Unitarian Historical Society, by Rev. R. G. Martin, and by Prof. Sykes are in Trans. C.H.S. xiv, no. 3, September 1950,117. See also Sykes, , ‘Dr. Albert Peel and Historical Studies,’ Trans. C.H.S. XVII, no. 1, January 1952,47 Google Scholar. After Dr Peel’s death, Prof. Sykes saw through the press his last work, Tracts Ascribed to Richard Bancroft, Cambridge University Press 1953. In the Publishers’ Note, there is a statement that Dr Peel died in September 1949. This is an error. Dr Peel died 3 November 1949 in a Glasgow nursing home. See The Times, 5 November, p. 1, and 7 November, p. 7 for the obituary.

page 304 note 1 There is one error which should be corrected. In the McAlpin Collection at the Union Theological Seminary in New York, Dr Peel encountered a rare treatise, Two Very Godly and Comfortable Letters, Written over into England. . . Written by T.C. See Peel, , ‘A Unique Copy of a Work of Thomas Cartwright ?’ Trans. C.H.S. xiv, no. 3, April 1943, 143-54Google Scholar. With the authority of the editor of the McAlpin Catalogue, C. A. Briggs, Halkett and Laing, W. W. Bishop’s Checklist (2nd ed. 1950), and Dr Peel, T.C. seemed an obvious ascription to Cartwright. But Irvin B. Horst has corrected this error in Thomas Cottesford’s Two Letters,’ The Library, Fifth Series, xi, no. 1, March 1956, 44-7Google Scholar. Prof. Horst has discovered that Thomas Cottesford, a protestant minister from Winchester and a Marian exile, was the writer of these letters, which were first printed at Geneva in 1555. In Cartwrightiana, 21, it is stated that Whitgift’s interrogatories to Cartwright bear no date. But Yelverton MS 70, f. 220 (Additional MS 48064), bears the date March 1590. This is very likely Old Style, and therefore would be 1590/1. On p. 27 of Cartwrightiana, the date of Cartwright’s second appearance before the Court of High Commission should be May 1591, not December 1590. Since the appearance occurred on a Saturday, the date would be May 1, 8, 15, 22, or 29.

page 304 note 2 There is no edition of the works of any of these leaders. Furthermore, there is no biography of Dudley Fenner or William Fulke. For Travers, there is a recent work, Walter Travers, Paragon of Elizabethan Puritanism, by Knox, S. J., 1962. For Cartwright, there is Benjamin Hanbury, ‘A Sketch of the Life of Cartwright,’ in his edition of The Ecclesiastical Polity . . . of R. Hooker, 1, cxxxivccvi Google Scholar. 3 vols. London 1830. See also Benjamin Brook, Memoir of the Life and Writings of Thomas Cartwright, 1845. Best of all is that model biography by Pearson, A. F. Scott, Thomas Cartwright and Elizabethan Puritanism, 1535-1603, Cambridge 1925 Google Scholar.

page 305 note 1 There is a Master’s thesis by Stephen H., Mayo, ‘The Political Thought of the Elizabethan Separatists,’ which adds to our information, University of Manchester, 1951 Google Scholar. See also his article, ‘The Lord’s Supper in the Teaching of the Separatists,’ Trans. C.H.S. xiv, no. 5, September 1963, 212-21.

page 305 note 2 Walker prints only 10 pages in The Creeds and Platforms of Congregationalism, 1893,18-27. There are 175 pages—in full—in the edition by Peel and Carlson, 221-395. A Treatise of Reformation is in the Trans. C.H.S. for 1903 and in ‘Old South Leaflet 100’ in Boston, with no date, but it is about 1882. A True and Short Declaration appeared in The Congregationalist, 1882.

page 305 note 3 For a list of Browne’s missing works, see Peter Fairlambe, The Recantation of a Brownist, 1606, signature C 2v and C 3r . More complete lists are in Albert Peel and Leland H. Carlson, The Writings of Robert Harrison and Robert Browne, 5-6, and in Burrage, Champlin, The True Story of Robert Browne, Oxford 1906, 74-5Google Scholar.

page 306 note 1 Church History, vi, no. 4, December 1937, 289-349.

page 306 note 2 Mayo’s thesis is at the University of Manchester, 1951. White’s dissertations is at Oxford University, 1961 Google Scholar.

page 306 note 3 See Paul, R. S., ‘The Writings of Richard Bancroft and the Brownists,’ Trans. C.H.S., XVII, no. 3, August 1954 Google Scholar, and White, B. R., ‘A Puritan Work by Robert Browne,’ Baptist Quarterly, XVIII, (1959), 109-17CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

page 306 note 4 Thus there should be 70-80 items for Barrow and Greenwood, with new material hitherto unpublished. The Short-Title Catalogue has 8 items for Barrow, of which 1521, 1522, and 1522a are not by Barrow but by a Presbyterian writer. There are 4 items listed for Greenwood, of which 12340 should be dated 1603, not 1590, and from which 12342 should be eliminated as not by Greenwood but most likely by Job Throkmorton.

page 308 note 1 Ramea is in the Gulf of St Lawrence, in the Magdalen Islands. It was evidently a name referring to the group of islands and also to one island which today is Amherst Island. Henry M. Dexter and Frederick J. Powicke both erroneously refer to ‘Rainea.’ I have profited from an article by David B. Quinn, ‘The English and the St Lawrence, 1577-1602,’ in a volume of essays to be edited by John Parker and to be published for the James Ford Bell Collection by the University of Minnesota Press.

page 309 note 1 Rohr, John von. ‘The Congregationalism of Henry Jacob,’ Trans. C.H.S., xix, no. 3, October 1962 Google Scholar. See also ‘Selections from the Fathers: Henry Jacob,’ ibid.