Daily entries from the 17th century London diary
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Wikipedia
William Prynne (1600 – 24 October 1669) was an English lawyer, author, polemicist, and political figure. He was a prominent Puritan opponent of the church policy of the Archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud. Although his views on church polity were presbyterian, he became known in the 1640s as an Erastian, arguing for overall state control of religious matters. A prolific writer, he published over 200 books and pamphlets.
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'.[4]
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.[21] 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.[4]
In November 1648 he was elected member for Newport in Cornwall. 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.[22] 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.[4]
[edit] Pride's Purge to the Restoration
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.[23] Released from custody some time in January 1649, Prynne retired to Swanswick, 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.[24] 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.[4]
On his release Prynne returned to pamphleteering. He exposed the machinations of the papists, showed the danger of Quakerism, vindicated the rights of patrons against the triers, and discussed the right limits of the Sabbath.[25] The proposal to lift the thirteenth-century ban on the residence of Jews inspired him with a pamphlet against the scheme. Oliver Cromwell allowed the Jews to return to the British Isles on the condition that the Jews attend compulsory Christian sermons on a Sunday, in order to encourage their conversion to Christianity. Cromwell based this decision on St. Paul's epistle to the Romans 10:15. [26] The offer of the crown to Cromwell by the ' petition and advice' suggested a parallel between Cromwell and Richard III.[27] Similarly, when the Protector 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.[28] These writings, however, attracted little attention.[4]
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.[29] 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.[30] 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.[31][4]
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.[4]
[edit] From 1660
He supported the Restoration, and was rewarded with public office. When the Convention parliament was summoned, Prynne sat for Bath. 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.[4]
As a politician Prynne was during his latter years of minor importance. Returned again for Bath to the parliament of May 1661, 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.[4]
He became the Keeper of Records in the Tower of London; as a writer his most lasting works belongs to that period, for the amount of historical material they contain. 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.[4]
[edit] References
- 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.
[edit] Notes
- ^ The Perpetuity of a Regenerate Man's Estate.
- ^ A Brief Survey of Mr. Cozens his cozening Devotions.
- ^ Health's Sickness. The Unloveliness of Lovelocks, 1628.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s:Prynne, William (DNB00)
- ^ A Divine Tragedy lately acted, or a Collection of sundry memorable Examples of God's Judgment upon Sabbath-breakers
- ^ In an appendix to John Bastwick's Flagellum Pontificis, and, in A Breviate of the Bishops' intolerable Usurpations
- ^ News from Ipswich (1636)
- ^ http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/STUpuritans.htm
- ^ True and Full Relation of the Trial of Nathaniel Fiennes, 1644.
- ^ The Subjection of all Traitors, &c. 1658).
- ^ A Breviate of the Life of William Laud
- ^ Hidden Works of Darkness brought to Public Light.
- ^ Canterburies Doom, or the first part of a complete History of the Commitment, Trial, &c., of William Laud (1646).
- ^ Independency Examined, Unmasked, and Refuted, 1644.
- ^ Brief Animadversions on Mr John Goodwin's Theomachia, 1644.
- ^ Truth triumphing over Falsehood, 1645.
- ^ Just Defence of John Bastwick, 1645; The Liar Confounded, 1645; Fresh Discovery of some prodigious new wandering blazing Stars, 1645.
- ^ Four Serious Questions, 1644; A Vindication of Four Questions, 1645; Suspension Suspended, 1646; The Sword of Christian Magistracy Supported, 1647.
- ^ The Divine Right of Church Government and Excommunication, 1646.
- ^ William M. Lamont, Godly Rule: Politics and Religion 1603-60 (1969), p. 170.
- ^ Brief Justification of the Eleven Accused Members, 1647; Full Vindication and Answer of the Eleven Accused Members, 1647; Hypocrites Unmasking, 1647.
- ^ The Substance of a Speech made in the House of Commons by William Prynne, the 4th of December, 1648.
- ^ 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.
- ^ A Legal Vindication of the Liberties of England against all Illegal Taxes and Pretended Acts of Parliament, 1649.
- ^ A Brief polemical Dissertation concerning the Lords Day Sabbath, 1655; The Quakers Unmasked, 1655; A New Discovery of some Romish Emissaries, 1656.
- ^ A Short Demurrer to the Jews long-discontinued Remitter into England, 1656.
- ^ King Richard the Third Revived, 1657.
- ^ A Plea for the Lords, 1658.
- ^ A True and Perfect Narrative of what was done by Mr. Prynne, &c. , 1659.
- ^ Brief Narrative how divers Members of the House of Commons were again shut out, 1660.
- ^ The Character or Earmark of Mr. W. Prynne, 1659; A Petition of the Peaceable and well-affected People of the three Nations, &c.
[edit] External links
- Works by or about William Prynne in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
Annotations
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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.
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portrait of William Prynne
http://www.npg.org.uk/live/search/portrait.asp?LinkID=mp03672&rNo=0&role=sit
bio:
http://home.btclick.com/esoft6/dance/people/Prynne.html
———-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/P/Prynne-W1.asp
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“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.”
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William Prynne article in two online encyclopedias: