Petrőczi Éva: "Nagyságodnak alázatos lelki szolgája” Tanulmányok Medgyesi Pálról - Nemzet, egyház, művelődés 4. (Budapest - Debrecen, 2007)
An English and a Hungarian Anti-Episcopal Dialogue from the i6th-i7th centuries
An English and a Hungarian Anti-Episcopal Dialogue from the i6,h-i7tl' centuries (A? barely) over the Puritan’s desire to muzzle and destroy the Liberty of the Stage. As E. K. Chambers would write: It is indeed the paradox of the Puritan controversy that a movement which was designed in the interest of honest and clean living would have the result, if it had been successful of shutting out the world from the possibility of Shakespeare. (E. K. Chambers, The Elizabethan Stage, vol. I, 260) One of the other notable characteristics of the Marprelate controversy is the secrecy with which it was imbued. While this secrecy was largely related to the identities of the early protagonists - identities that were never revealed - the identity of one writer waging war throughout the battle only under pseudonyms was also involved. As well, the identity of Nashe’s patron in his 1593 and 1596 attacks on the Harveys was never penetrated by outsiders. And what began the now very well-known quarrel between Nashe and Harvey and how it related to the original campaigns was never discovered. ”s Now, returning to the purely ecclesiastical aspects: the almost legendary Puritan aversion towards priestly privileges, prelates and bishops can be witnessed not only in the historical documents, but in private writings as well. Let me quote now only one of them, in which two of the „devilish” main characters of Throckmorton’s work appear, this time out of the Marprelate context and exactly 15 years later than its stormy events. Richard Rogers, a Puritan pastor and diarist remembers here his conflicts with archbishop Whitgift. His text is more objective, but through the highly realistic details reflects the situation of contemporary ministers in England: “The Archbishop (Whitgift) protested none of us should preach without conformity and subscription. I thanke God I have seen him eate his Words as Great and as Peremptory as he was. For after Thirty Weeks I was restored by Dr. Aylmer, Bishop of London, to whome Sir Robert Wroth (lord of the manor of Great Bardfield near Wethersfield) writ in favour of me, and had me Preach, and he would beare me out, and so I have continued about 20 yeares to the end of Archbishop Whitgifts Life who deceased the first of March 1604.”5 6 Roger’s first serious conflict (and numerous similar ones) was the result of archbishop Whitgifts notorious three articles. As he refused to sign it, he was suspended from his priestly functions and forbidden to preach. Oddly enough, his earthly „saviour” was the other diabolical figure of Throckmorton’s Dialogue, Dr Aylmer, the bishop of London, another 5 APPLETON ibid. 996 Two Elizabethan Puritan Diaries, by Richard ROGERS and Samuel Ward, ed., with an introd. by M. M. KNAPPEN: The American Society of Church History, Chicago, 1933, 29. 95
