Martin Marprelate

Martin Marprelate (sometimes printed as Martin Mar-prelate and Marre–Martin) was the name used by the anonymous author or authors of the seven Marprelate tracts that circulated illegally in England in the years 1588 and 1589. Their principal focus was an attack on the episcopacy of the Anglican Church.

In 1583, the appointment of John Whitgift as Archbishop of Canterbury had signalled the beginning of a drive against the Presbyterian movement in the church, and an era of censorship began. In 1586, by an edict of the Star Chamber, the archbishop was empowered to license and control all of the printing apparatus in the country.

The true identity of "Martin" has long been the subject of speculation. For many years, the main candidate was John Penry, a Welsh preacher and author of several impassioned polemics against the state of the church. Renaissance historian John Dover Wilson posits, in his book Martin Marprelate and Shakespeare's Fluellen, the Welsh soldier Roger Williams was the author of the first three tracts signed "Martin Prelate", with Penry authoring the subsequent tracts signed "Martin Junior" and the Warwickshire squire and Member of Parliament Job Throckmorton the author of those signed "Martin Senior". Dover Wilson argues the last Marprelate tract, the unsigned "Protestation", has Penry writing the initial fourteen pages wherein he claims to be married with children, and completed thereafter by Throckmorton, wherein he claims to be a bachelor about to wed. In 1981 Leland Carlson suggested that Job Throckmorton was the primary author and that Penry assisted him. Kathryn M. Longley and Patrick Collinson have suggested George Carleton.

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