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Illustration of Prynne by Wenceslaus Hollar

William Prynne (1600 – 24 October 1669), an English lawyer, voluble author, polemicist and political figure, was a prominent Puritan opponent of church policy under William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury (1633–1645). His views were Presbyterian, but he became known in the 1640s as an Erastian, arguing for overall state control of religious matters.

Early life

Born at Swainswick, near Bath, Somerset, William Prynne was educated at Bath Grammar School and Oriel College, Oxford. He graduated as a BA on 22 January 1621, entered as a student of Lincoln's Inn in the same year, and was called to the bar in 1628.

According to Anthony Wood, he was confirmed in his militant puritanism by the influence of John Preston, then a lecturer at Lincoln's Inn. In 1627 he published his first of over 200 works, a theological treatise titled The Perpetuity of a Regenerate Man's Estate. This was followed in the next three years by three others attacking Arminianism and its teachers. In the preface to one of them he appealed to Parliament to suppress anything written against Calvinist doctrine and to force the clergy to subscribe to the conclusion of the Synod of Dort.[1]

Prynne was a strong disciplinarian. After arguing that the custom of drinking healths was sinful, he asserted that for men to wear their hair long was "unseemly and unlawful unto Christians", while it was "mannish, unnatural, impudent, and unchristian" for women to cut it short.[2][3]

1630s

Like many Puritans abhorring decadence, Prynne strongly opposed religious feast days, including Christmas, and revelry such as stage plays. He included in his Histriomastix (1632) a denunciation of actresses which was widely felt to be an attack on Queen Henrietta Maria. This book led to the most prominent incidents in his life, but the timing was accidental.[3]

About 1624 Prynne had begun a book against stage-plays; on 31 May 1630 he gained a licence to print it and about November 1632 it was published. Histriomastix has over a thousand pages, in which he presents plays as unlawful, incentives to immorality, and condemned by the Scriptures, Church Fathers, modern Christian writers, and pagan philosophers. By chance, the Queen and her ladies, in January 1633, took part in the performance of Walter Montagu's The Shepherd's Paradise: this was an innovation at court. A passage reflecting on the character of female actors in general was construed as an aspersion on the Queen; passages attacking the spectators of plays and magistrates who failed to suppress them, pointed by references to Nero and other tyrants, were taken as seen on King Charles I.[3]

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Lord Cottington, ordered Historiomatrix to "be burnt, in the most public manner that can be." As David Cressy has pointed out, this was an innovative act of public censorship. It imported continental public book-burning by the hangman for the first time. "Though not used in England", Lord Cottington noted, this manner of book burning suited Prynne's work because of its "strangeness and heinousness".[4] William Noy, as attorney-general, took proceedings against Prynne in the Star-chamber. After a year's imprisonment in the Tower of London, he was sentenced on 17 February 1634 to life imprisonment, a fine of £5,000, expulsion from Lincoln's Inn, deprival of his Oxford University degree, and amputation of both his ears in the pillory, where he was held on 7–10 May. His book was burnt before him, and with over a thousand pages it suffocated Prynne in its smoke.[4]

On 11 June Prynne addressed a letter to Archbishop Laud, whom he saw as his chief persecutor, charging him with illegality and injustice. Laud handed the letter to the Attorney-General as material for a new prosecution, but when Prynne was required to own his handwriting, he contrived to get hold of the letter and tore it to pieces. Prynne wrote in the Tower and published anonymous tracts against episcopacy and the Book of Sports. In A Divine Tragedy lately acted, or a Collection of sundry memorable Examples of God's Judgment upon Sabbath-breakers he introduced Noy's recent death as a warning. In an appendix to John Bastwick's Flagellum Pontificis and in A Breviate of the Bishops' intolerable Usurpations he attacked prelates in general (1635). An anonymous attack on Matthew Wren, Bishop of Norwich[5] brought him again before the Star Chamber. On 14 June 1637 Prynne was sentenced once more to a fine of £5,000, to imprisonment for life, and to lose the rest of his ears. At the proposal of Chief Justice John Finch, he was also to be branded on the cheeks with the letters S. L., standing for "seditious libeller". Prynne was pilloried on 30 June in company with Henry Burton and John Bastwick; Prynne was handled barbarously by the executioner. He made, as he returned to his prison, a couple of Latin verses explaining the 'S. L.' with which he was branded to mean 'stigmata laudis' ("sign of praise", or "sign of Laud").[3]

His imprisonment was then much closer: no pens or ink, nor any books allowed but the Bible, the prayer book, and some orthodox theology. To isolate him from his friends, he was sent first to Carnarvon Castle in July 1637, and then to Mont Orgueil in Jersey. The governor, Philippe de Carteret II treated Prynne well, which he repaid by defending Carteret's character in 1645, when he was accused as a malignant and a tyrant. He occupied his imprisonment by writing verse.[3]

1640s

He was released by the Long Parliament in 1640. The House of Commons declared the two sentences against him illegal, restored him to his degree and to his membership of Lincoln's Inn, and voted him pecuniary reparation (as late as October 1648 he was still trying to collect it). He supported the Parliamentary cause in the English Civil War, particularly in the press, and in many pamphlets, while still pursuing the bishops.[3]

In 1643 Prynne became involved in the controversy which followed the surrender of Bristol by Nathaniel Fiennes. Together with his ally Clement Walker, he presented articles of accusation against Fiennes to the House of Commons (15 November 1643), managed the case for the prosecution at the court-martial, which took place in the following December, and secured a condemnation of the offending officer.[6] Prynne was also one of the counsel for the parliament at the trial of Lord Maguire in February 1645.[3][7]

He was able to have the satisfaction of overseeing the trial of William Laud, which was to end in Laud's execution. He collected and arranged evidence to prove the charges against him, bore testimony himself in support of many of them, hunted up witnesses against the archbishop, and assisted the counsel for the prosecution in every way. At the time some thought he was clearly tampering with the witnesses. Prynne had the duty of searching Laud's room in the Tower for papers. He published a redacted edition of Laud's diary[8] and a volume intended to serve as an introduction to his trial.[9] After Laud's execution, Prynne was charged by the House of Commons (4 March 1645) to produce an account of the trial;[10] other controversies prevented him from finishing the book.[3]

In the rapidly shifting climate of opinion of the time, Prynne, having been at the forefront of radical opposition, soon found himself a conservative figure, defending Presbyterianism against the Independents favoured by Oliver Cromwell and the army. From 1644 he wrote pamphlets against Independents.[11] He attacked John Goodwin[12] and crossed his old companion in suffering, Henry Burton.[13] He controverted and denounced John Lilburne, and called on Parliament to crush the sectaries.[14] Prynne was equally hostile to the demands of the presbyterian clergy for the establishment of their system: Prynne maintained the supremacy of the state over the church. 'Mr. Prynne and the Erastian lawyers are now our remora,' complains Robert Baillie in September 1645. He denied in his pamphlets the right of the clergy to excommunicate or to suspend from the reception of the sacrament except on conditions defined by the laws of the state.[15] He was answered by Samuel Rutherford.[3][16] William M. Lamont writes:

... Prynne had no distrust of power or abstract love of freedom. His pamphlet, The Sword of Christian Magistracy, is one of the most blood-curdling pleas for total repressive action from the civil authority in the English language.[17]

Prynne also came into collision with John Milton, whose doctrine on divorce he had denounced, and was replied to by the poet in a passage in his Colasterion. Milton also inserted in the original draft of his sonnet On the Forcers of Conscience a reference to "marginal Prynne's ears".[3]

During 1647 the breach between the army and the Parliament turned Prynne's attention from theology to politics. He wrote a number of pamphlets against the army, and championed the cause of the eleven presbyterian leaders whom the army impeached.[18] He also undertook official work. Since February 1644 he had been a member of the committee of accounts, and on 1 May 1647 he was appointed one of the commissioners for the Visitation of the University of Oxford. In April 1648 Prynne accompanied Philip Herbert, 5th Earl of Pembroke when he came as chancellor of Oxford to expel recalcitrant heads of houses.[3]

In November 1648 Prynne was elected Member of Parliament for Newport in Cornwall for the Long Parliament.[19] As soon as he took his seat, he showed his opposition to the army. He urged the Commons to declare them rebels, and argued that concessions made by Charles in the recent treaty were a satisfactory basis for a peace.[20] Two days later Pride's Purge took place. Prynne was arrested by Colonel Thomas Pride and Sir Hardress Waller, and kept prisoner first at an eating-house (called Hell), and then at the Swan and King's Head inns in the Strand.[3]

Pride's Purge to the Restoration

The title page of Prynne's The First and Second Part of a Seasonable, Legal, and Historicall Vindication, and Chronological Collection of the Good, Old, Fundamentall Liberties, Franchises, Rights, Laws of All English Freemen [...] (2nd ed., 1655),[21] one of the works published when Prynne was in Swainswick

The purged Prynne protested in letters to Lord Fairfax, and by printed declarations on behalf of himself and the other arrested members. He published also a denunciation of the proposed trial of King Charles, being answered by a collection of extracts from his own earlier pamphlets.[22] Released from custody some time in January 1649, Prynne retired to Swainswick, and began a paper war against the new government. He became a thorn in Cromwell's side. He wrote three pamphlets against the engagement to be faithful to the Commonwealth, and proved that neither in conscience, law, nor prudence was he bound to pay the taxes which it imposed.[23] The government retaliated by imprisoning him for nearly three years without a trial. On 30 June 1650 he was arrested and confined, first in Dunster Castle and afterwards in Taunton Castle (12 June 1651) and Pendennis Castle (27 June 1651). He was finally offered his liberty on giving security to the amount of £1,000 that he would henceforward do nothing against the government; but, refusing to make any promise, he was released unconditionally on 18 February 1653.[3]

On his release Prynne returned to pamphleteering. He wrote against suspected plots emanating from the Pope and attacked Quakerism, vindicated the rights of patrons against the triers, and discussed the right limits of the Sabbath.[24] The proposal to lift the thirteenth-century ban on the residence of Jews, being promoted then in England by Manasseh ben Israel, among others, inspired him with a pamphlet against the scheme, called in brief the Short Demurrer.[25] The pamphlet was printed shortly before the Whitehall Conference, and was influential in strengthening opinion against the readmission of the Jews. In particular, Prynne doubts the probability that the Jews would be converted to Christianity once in England.[26] Oliver Cromwell allowed the Jews to return to the British Isles on the condition that the Jews attend compulsory Christian sermons on a Sunday, to encourage their conversion to Christianity. Cromwell based this decision on St. Paul's epistle to the Romans 10:15.[27] The offer of the crown to Cromwell by the "petition and advice" suggested a parallel between Cromwell and Richard III.[28] Similarly, when the Protector, as Cromwell then was styled, set up a House of Lords, Prynne expanded the tract in defence of their rights which he had published in 1648 into an historical treatise of five hundred pages.[29] These writings, however, attracted little attention.[3]

After the fall of Richard Cromwell he regained the popular ear. As soon as the Long Parliament was re-established, Prynne got together a few of the members excluded by Pride's purge and endeavoured to take his place in the house. On 7 May 1659 he was kept back by the guards, but on 9 May he managed to get in, and kept his seat there for a whole sitting. Arthur Haslerig and Sir Henry Vane threatened him, but Prynne told them he had as good right there as either, and had suffered more for the rights of parliament than any of them. They could only get rid of him by adjourning the house, and forcibly keeping him out when it reassembled.[30] On 27 December when the parliament was again restored after its interruption by John Lambert, Prynne and his friends made a fresh attempt to enter, but were once more excluded.[31] From May 1659 to February 1660 he went on publishing tracts on the case of the "secluded members and attacks on the ref-formed Rump Parliament and the army". Marchamont Nedham, Henry Stubbe, John Rogers, and others printed serious answers to his arguments, while obscure libellers ridiculed him.[3][32]

On 21 February 1660 George Monck ordered the guards of the house to readmit the secluded members. Prynne, girt with an old basket-hilted sword, marched into Westminster Hall at their head; though the effect was spoiled when Sir William Waller tripped on the sword. The house charged him to bring in a bill for the dissolution of the Long Parliament. In the debate on the bill Prynne asserted the rights of Charles II of England and claimed that the writs should be issued in his name. He also helped to forward the Restoration by accelerating the passing of the Militia Bill, which placed the control of the forces in the hands of the king's friends. A letter which he addressed to Charles II shows that he was personally thanked by the king for his services.[3]

From 1660

The title page of Prynne's The First Part of a Brief Register, Kalendar and Survey of the Several Kinds, Forms of All Parliamentary VVrits (1st ed., 1659).[33] Prynne went on to publish another three parts in 1660, 1662 and 1664.

Prynne supported the Restoration, and was rewarded with public office. In April 1660 he was elected MP for Bath in the Convention Parliament.[19] He was bitter against the regicides and the supporters of the previous government, trying to restrict the scope of the Act of Indemnity. He successfully moved to have Charles Fleetwood excepted, and urged the exclusion of Richard Cromwell and Judge Francis Thorpe. He proposed punitive and financial measures of broad scope, was zealous for the disbanding of the army, and was one of the commissioners appointed to pay it off. In the debates on religion he was one of the leaders of the presbyterians, spoke against the Thirty-nine Articles, denied the claims of the bishops, urged the validity of presbyterian ordination, and supported the bill for turning the king's ecclesiastical declaration into law.[3]

As a politician Prynne was during his latter years of minor importance. He was re-elected MP for Bath to the Cavalier Parliament of May 1661.[19] He asserted his presbyterianism by refusing to kneel when the two houses received the sacrament together. A few weeks earlier he had published a pamphlet demanding the revision of the prayer-book, but the new parliament was opposed to any concessions to nonconformity. On 15 July a pamphlet by Prynne against the Corporation Bill was voted scandalous and seditious. In January 1667 Prynne was one of the managers of Lord Mordaunt's impeachment. He spoke several times on Clarendon's impeachment, and opposed the bill for his banishment. On constitutional subjects and points of procedure his opinion had weight, and in 1667 he was privately consulted by the king on the question whether a parliament which had been prorogued could be convened before the day fixed for its resumption.[3]

He became the Keeper of Records in the Tower of London; as a writer his most lasting works belong to that period, for the amount of historical material they contain. During this time, he expanded upon An Exact Abridgement of the Records in the Tower of London,[34] published by the Cotton library under the stewardship of Sir Thomas Cotton. The text contained comprehensive records of parliaments held between the reigns of Edward II and Richard III of England, and was considered a tribute to Prynne's fascination toward parliament's relationship with the English monarchy. The book was printed by renowned London publisher William Leake.[35]

Histriomastix is the one of his works that receives attention from modern scholars, but for its relevance to English Renaissance theatre. Anthony à Wood found him affable, obliging towards researchers, and courteous in the fashion of the early part of the century. Prynne died unmarried on 24 October 1669. He was buried in the undercroft of the chapel of Lincoln's Inn.[3]

References

  1. ^ A Brief Survey of Mr. Cozens his cozening Devotions.
  2. ^ William Prynne, Gent. (1628). The Unlouvelinesse, of Love-lockes. Or, A Summarie Discourse, prooving: The wearing, and nourishing of a Locke, or Love-Lock, to be altogether unseemely, and unlawfull unto Christians. In which there are likewise some passages collected out of Fathers, Councils, and sundry Authors, and Historians, against Face-painting; the wearing of Supposititious, Poudered, Frizled, or extraordinary long Haire; the inordinate affectation of corporall Beautie; and Womens Mannish, Unnaturall, Impudent, and unchristian cutting of their Haire; the Epidemicall Vanties, and Vices of our Age.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s "Prynne, William" . Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.
  4. ^ a b Cressy, David (Summer 2005). "Book Burning in Tudor and Stuart England". The Sixteenth Century Journal. 36 (2): 359–374. doi:10.2307/20477359. JSTOR 20477359.
  5. ^ News from Ipswich (1636).
  6. ^ True and Full Relation of the Trial of Nathaniel Fiennes, 1644.
  7. ^ The Subjection of all Traitors, &c. 1658).
  8. ^ A Breviate of the Life of William Laud
  9. ^ Hidden Works of Darkness brought to Public Light.
  10. ^ Canterburies Doom, or the first part of a complete History of the Commitment, Trial, &c., of William Laud (1646).
  11. ^ Independency Examined, Unmasked, and Refuted, 1644.
  12. ^ Brief Animadversions on Mr John Goodwin's Theomachia, 1644.
  13. ^ Truth triumphing over Falsehood, 1645.
  14. ^ Just Defence of John Bastwick, 1645; The Liar Confounded, 1645; Fresh Discovery of some prodigious new wandering blazing Stars, 1645.
  15. ^ Four Serious Questions, 1644; A Vindication of Four Questions, 1645; Suspension Suspended, 1646; The Sword of Christian Magistracy Supported, 1647.
  16. ^ The Divine Right of Church Government and Excommunication, 1646.
  17. ^ William M. Lamont, Godly Rule: Politics and Religion 1603–60 (1969), p. 170.
  18. ^ Brief Justification of the Eleven Accused Members, 1647; Full Vindication and Answer of the Eleven Accused Members, 1647; Hypocrites Unmasking, 1647.
  19. ^ a b c "PRYNNE, William (c.1602–69), of Swainswick, nr. Bath, Som. and Lincoln's Inn. – History of Parliament Online". historyofparliamentonline.org.
  20. ^ The Substance of a Speech made in the House of Commons by William Prynne, 4 December 1648.
  21. ^ William Prynne (1655), The First and Second Part of a Seasonable, Legal, and Historicall Vindication, and Chronological Collection of the Good, Old, Fundamentall Liberties, Franchises, Rights, Laws of All English Freemen Their Best Inheritance, Birthright, Security, against All Arbitrary Tyranny, and Ægyptian Burdens) and of Their Strenuous Defence in All Former Ages; of Late Years Most Dangerously Undermined, and almost Totally Subverted, under the Specious Disguise of Their Defence and Future Establishment, upon a Sure Basis, by Their Pretended, Greatest, Propugners. Wherein is, Irrefragably Evinced by Parliamentary Records, Proofs, Presidents, that We Have such Fundamentall Liberties, Franchises, Rights, Laws. That to Attempt or Effect the Subversion of All or Any of Them, (or of Our Fundamentall Government) by Fraud or Force, is High Treason. [...] Collected, Recommended to the Whole English Nation, as the Best Legacy He Can Leave Them (2nd corr. & much enl. ed.), London: Printed for the author, and are to be sold by Edward Thomas in Green Arbour, OCLC 15871789.
  22. ^ True and Perfect Narrative of the Officers and Army's Force upon the Commons House; Brief Memento to the Present Unparliamentary Junto; Mr. Prynne's Charge against the King.
  23. ^ A Legal Vindication of the Liberties of England against all Illegal Taxes and Pretended Acts of Parliament, 1649.
  24. ^ A Brief polemical Dissertation concerning the Lords Day Sabbath, 1655; The Quakers Unmasked, 1655; A New Discovery of some Romish Emissaries, 1656.
  25. ^ The full title of which was: A short demurrer to the Jewes long discontinued barred remitter into England Comprising an exact chronological relation of their first admission into, their ill deportment, misdemeanors, condition, sufferings, oppressions, slaughters, plunders, by popular insurrections, and regal exactions in; and their total, final banishment by judgment and edict of Parliament, out of England, never to return again: collected out of the best historians and records. With a brief collection of such English laws, Scriptures, reasons as seem strongly to plead, and conclude against their readmission into England, especially at this season, and against the general calling of the Jewish nation. With an answer to the chief allegations for their introduction. / By William Prynne Esq; a bencher of Lincolnes-Inne. 1655
  26. ^ Scult, Mel (1978). Millennial Expectations and Jewish Liberties: A Study of the Efforts to Convert the Jews in Britain, Up to the Mid Nineteenth Century. Brill Archive. pps.30–31.
  27. ^ "In 1657, Oliver Cromwell banned Christmas in England, a Pagan festival". Curionic. Retrieved 8 October 2015.
  28. ^ King Richard the Third Revived, 1657.
  29. ^ A Plea for the Lords, 1658.
  30. ^ A True and Perfect Narrative of what was done by Mr. Prynne, &c., 1659.
  31. ^ Brief Narrative how divers Members of the House of Commons were again shut out, 1660.
  32. ^ The Character or Earmark of Mr. W. Prynne, 1659; A Petition of the Peaceable and well-affected People of the three Nations, &c.
  33. ^ William Prynne (1659). The first part of a brief register, kalendar and survey of the several kinds, forms of all parliamentary vvrits: comprising in 3. sections, all writs, forms of summons to great councils, parliaments, convocations in the Tower, from the 5th of King John (1203) till 23 Edw 4. (1483) to all sorts of spiritual and temporal Lords, greatmen (members of,) and the Kings council (assistants to) the House of Lords: with other rare writs, and 4. exact alphabetical, chronological tables: 1. Of all abbots, priors, masters of orders, clergy-men, (except bishops:) 2. Of all dukes, earls, forreign kings, marquesses, princes of Wales: 3. Of all lay-barons, lords, vicounts, great men: 4. Of all the Kings council (justices, clerks, or other officers) with the several numbers of each of them, and of bishops, summoned to every council, parliament, and the years, rolls, dorses in every kings reign, wherein their names are recorded. Illustrated with choice, usefull annotations, observations concerning these writs differences, alterations, entries in the clause rolls: the stiles, titles, additions of patriarcha, cardinalis, electus, confirmatus, magister, &c given in them to spiritual; ... With other particulars. Publishing more rarities, rectifying more errors in vulgar writers, touching our parliaments, than any former treatises of this subject. By William Prynne Esq; a bencher of Lincolnes Inne (1st ed.). London: Printed for the author, and sold by Edward Thomas in Little Britain, and Henry Brome in Ivy-Lane. OCLC 83751432.
  34. ^ An exact abridgement of the records in the Tower of London from the reign of King Edward the Second, unto King Richard the Third, of all the Parliaments holden in each Kings reign. London: The Cotton Library.
  35. ^ "Royal Collection Trust". 17 August 2023.

Sources

  • Kirby, Ethyn Williams. William Prynne: A Study in Puritanism. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1931.
  • Lamont, William M. Puritanism and Historical Controversy. Montreal, McGill-Queen's Press, 1996.
  • Fitch, Thomas. Caroline Puritanism as exemplified in the life and work of William Prynne. PhD thesis Edinburgh, 1949.

External links

10 Annotations

First Reading

Paul Brightwell  •  Link

Mr Prin, with the old fashioned basket-hilt sword, is probably the Bath lawyer, MP and indefatigable pamphleteer William Prynne (1600-1669). His reception when he takes his seat in the House, the ‘great many great shouts’, show, with Pepys’ several other references to him, what a famous figure he was at the time.

Prynne first made his name as a hardline Puritan & a particular enemy of the theatre. His furious 'Histriomastix The Players Scourge' of 1632 ran to more than a thousand pages and personally offended the King, leading to the Star Chamber, prison & mutilation (having both ears cut off and ‘SL’ for ‘seditious libeller’ branded on his cheeks, for which reasons he thereafter wore his hair very long).

The Long Parliament freed Prynne in 1640 and in 1648 he entered the Commons himself, but took side against Cromwell and the Independents. He opposed Army demands for the execution of Charles I and was expelled in Pride’s Purge. He damned the Rump as an ‘unParliamentary Junto’ and throughout the 1650s was an irrepressible (& appallingly long-winded) propagandist for the secluded members. He was imprisoned again in the 1650s and came round to supporting Restoration. In 1660 he was rewarded with the post of official archivist to the Tower.

vicente  •  Link

portrait of William Prynne

http://www.npg.org.uk/live/search…
bio:
http://home.btclick.com/esoft6/da…
-------1600-1669, English political figure and Puritan pamphleteer. Beginning his attacks on Arminian doctrine in 1627, he soon earned the enmity of William Laud . When Prynne's strictures on the theater in his book, Historiomastix (1632), were interpreted as an attack on Charles I and his queen, he was fined, imprisoned (1633), pilloried (1634), and partly shorn of his ears.
http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/…

Pedro  •  Link

“In 1660 he was rewarded with the post of official archivist to the Tower.”

In her biography of Catherine, Mackay says…

… He had been transformed into a monarchist, by the insight of the King. When complaints had been made against him, Charles had replied: “Odds fish! He wants something to do. I’ll make him Keeper of the Tower Records, and set him to putting them in order. That will keep him busy for the next twenty years.”

Second Reading

Bill  •  Link

WILLIAM PRYNNE, the voluminous writer, was, to use the epithet of lord Clarendon, no less voluminous as a speaker. Clement Walker mentions, with due commendation, a speech of his addressed to the house of commons, a little before the death of Charles I. in which he proves his concessions to the parliament to be sufficient ground for a peace. He has, in this speech, recapitulated the arguments on both sides with great freedom and propriety. He continued to speak roundly of abuses, when others thought it prudent to be silent; and though he had lost his ears for his patriotism, he was determined to be a patriot still, though at the hazard of his head.
---A Biographical History of England. J. Granger, 1769.

Bill  •  Link

PRYNNE, WILLIAM (1600-1669), puritan pamphleteer; educated at Bath grammar school and Oriel College, Oxford; B.A., 1621; barrister, Lincoln's Inn, 1628; studied law, theology, and ecclesiastical antiquities; wrote against Arminianism from 1627, and endeavoured to reform the manners of his age; published 'Histriomastix,' directed against stage-plays, 1632; for supposed aspersion on Charles I and his queen in ' Histriomastix' was sentenced by Star-chamber, in 1634, to be imprisoned during life, to be fined 5,000l., and to lose both his ears in the pillory; continued to write in the Tower of London, and (1637) was again fined 5,000l., deprived of the remainder of his ears, and branded on the cheeks; released by Long parliament, and hie sentences declared illegal, November 1640; defended parliament in the press on the outbreak of war, and pursued Laud with great animosity; after Laud's execution published by order of the parliament the first part of an account of the trial, entitled 'Canterburies Doom,' 1646; devoted much attention to independency, which be detested as heartily as episcopacy; was equally opposed to the ascendency of the presbyterian clergy, his theory of ecclesiastical policy being thoroughly erastian; assailed the army in various pamphlets, 1647, and (1648) attacked it in the House of Commons; arrested by Pride, November 1648; retired to Swanswick, January 1649, and began a paper war against the government, demonstrating that he was bound to pay taxes to the Commonwealth neither in conscience, law, nor prudence, for which government imprisoned him for nearly three years without trial; on his release (1653) drew a parallel between Cromwell and Richard III, and (May 1658) forced his way into the House of Commons, which could only get rid of him by adjournment; walked into parliament at the head of the members; readmitted by Monck, 1660; asserted the rights of Charles II with such boldness as to be styled 'the Cato of the age' by a royalist, and was thanked by Charles II; M.P. for Bath in the Convention parliament, 1660; laboured zealously to restrict the Act of Indemnity and to disband the army; opposed the thirty-nine articles, and, in 1661, was reprimanded by the speaker for a speech against the Corporation Bill; appointed keeper of the records in the Tower of London; published his most valuable work, 'Brevia Parliamentaría Rediviva,' 1662. He published about two hundred books and pamphlets.
---Dictionary of National Biography: Index and Epitome. S. Lee, 1906.

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

The House of Commons blog has an article on Prynne.

I particularly like this explanation of his book, HISTRIOMASTIX; I'm surprised Pepys never mentions it:

"From long before the civil wars a body of opinion had wished to strip away the vestiges of pagan rituals and put Christ back into Christmas, but Prynne collated others’ arguments and then put his own inimitable stamp on the material.

"It was in William Prynne’s Histriomastix (1632) – a repetitive 1,000-page diatribe primarily directed against public theatres and female actors – that Prynne warmed to the subject. In its preface he told his readers that he would address many interconnected vices:
"'effeminate mixt Dancing, Dicing, Stage-playes, lascivious Pictures, wanton Fashions, Face-painting, Health-drinking, Long haire, Love-lockes, Periwigs, womens curling, pouldring and cutting of their haire, Bone-fires, New-yeares-gifts, May-games, amorous Pastoralls, lascivious effeminate Musicke, excessive laughter, luxurious disorderly Christmas-keeping [and] Mummeries.'

"These were ‘meere sinfull, wicked unchristian pastimes, vanities, cultures and disguises’, practices that ‘the primitive Church and Christians, together with the very best of Pagans’ had ‘quite abandoned, condemned’.

"To ‘decke up … Houses with Laurell, Yuie [yew] and green boughes’ was forbidden [p. 21] while ‘flocking’ to the theatres ‘especially in the Christmas time’ was (among other sins) ‘a voluptuous and base servilitie to our filthie carnal lusts’ [p. 48].

"Should people of other faiths observe ‘our Bacchanalian Christmas extravagancies’ they would be scandalized, and ‘thinke our Saviour to be a glutton, an Epicure, a wine-bibber … a God of all dissolutenesse, drunkennesse and disorder’ [p. 747].

"In the Bible there was nothing about feasting, carousing, gambling or ‘heathenish Christmas pastimes’; rather, ‘Glory be to God on high, on earth peace, good will towards men … is the Angels’, the Shepherds’ only Christmas Caroll’, which the Virgin Mary ‘hath prefaced with this celestiall hymne of prayse, My soule doth magnifie the Lord…’ [i.e. the Magnificat, p. 768].

"Prynne’s readers were exhorted to abandon their ‘riotous grand-Christmasses’ and instead to ‘cordially meditate’ on the Scriptures and on the meaning of ‘our Saviour’s blessed incarnation’ and to praise God ‘in Psalmes, hymnes and spirituall songs’ [p. 751].

"Histriomastix struck at the culture of the royal court and Prynne paid a savage penalty.
"Tried in the prerogative court of Star Chamber, he was fined £5,000 (a huge sum), expelled from Lincoln’s Inn (his professional home), deprived of his Oxford degree and sentenced to life imprisonment. In May 1634 he was made to stand in the pillory at Westminster and in Cheapside, where he was branded and had his ears cropped."

More https://thehistoryofparliament.wo…

Third Reading

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

The bios above give good outlines to his life, but do read his Parliamentary bio -- he was involved in things affecting Pepys: https://www.historyofparliamenton…

Pepys mentions the 1660 entrance he made with the old sword: "On the return of the secluded Members, he provided comic relief by tripping up Sir William Waller with his old-fashioned basket-hilt sword, and appeared as an open advocate of a Restoration."

He was a resolute Erastian, and ‘very earnestly and passionately’ insisted the decisions of a synod must be confirmed by King and Parliament, and ‘he could not be for bishops unless they derive their power from the King, and not own themselves to be jure divino’. [There's a sign of things to come -- in 80 years.]

After the conference on the indemnity bill, Prynne reminded the House that he had been for excepting all the regicides from the first, and remained of the same opinion: "An we did not, we should be all guilty of the King’s blood, they being such horrid traitors as never yet were known ... Our oaths bound us more than our votes, which we alter daily."

When Parliament met again after the recess, he was ‘ordered to take care’ of the marital separation bill which, as a lifelong bachelor, he could not be persuaded to take seriously.

A strong humanitarian streak found expression in his appointment to the commission for sick and maimed soldiers [from the civil wars], and his persistent efforts on behalf of English slaves in North Africa.

Prynne refused to kneel to receive the sacrament with the other Members, opposed a vote of thanks to Dr. Gunning for an aggressively Anglican sermon, and bitterly attacked the bill to restore the bishops to the House of Lords.

In his report on the final disbandment of the New Model Army he infuriated the Cavaliers by desiring them to be mindful not to do those things that might bring the soldiers together again.

It was probably during the Spring 1662 session that he initiated the attack on William Coventry for selling posts in the navy, which was to be followed up later.

On 28 Oct. 1665 he was sent to ask the King for a commission of inquiry into the administration of the Chatham chest, though as a commissioner he could only hint at abuses.

During the last session of the Clarendon administration he made 6 speeches, introduced bills to banish Popish recusants and abolish marriage licences, and reported the articles of Lord Mordaunt’s impeachment. He acted as teller against hearing the petition from the merchants trading to France.
When a Catholic chapel was discovered in Bath, Prynne wrote a threatening letter which ignored the danger from the fanatics and inspired a friend of Evelyn’s to remark: ‘He can find high treason in a bulrush and innocence in a scorpion’.

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

Continued:

Prynne was a strong partisan of Clarendon, whose downfall he ascribed to foreign intrigue.
He was appointed to the committee of inquiry into the miscarriages of the second Anglo-Dutch war (17 Oct. 1667); ... In the impeachment debates, he ridiculed the charge of treason over the sale of Dunkirk, to which Charles II had been privy, and denied that there was a sufficient ground for imprisonment. ... He declared the banishment bill contrary to Magna Carta, in condemning a man unheard, and reminded the House that Cicero’s banishment had earned him more honour than those who had imposed the penalty.

On the embezzlement of prize goods he moved to impeach all the flag officers who had advised Lord Sandwich to break bulk, and was appointed to the committee to draw up the charges against Sir William Penn.

When Parliament reassembled on 19 Oct. 1669, he was too ill to attend, and he died in his chambers 5 days later. He was buried in the chapel of Lincoln’s Inn, to which he bequeathed his historical manuscripts, while many of his books went to Oriel.

Such bravery -- a life spent speaking truth to power as he saw it.

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References

Chart showing the number of references in each month of the diary’s entries.

1660

1661

1662

1663

1664

1666

1668

  • Jan