A Short History of Freethought Ancient and Modern, Volume...

1 Stow’s Annals, ed. 1615, pp. 570, 575. ↑

2 Burnet, Hist. of the Reformation, ed. Nares, ii, 179; iii, 289; Strype, Memorials of Cranmer, ed. 1848–54, ii, 100. ↑

3 The Marian persecutions undoubtedly did much to stimulate Protestantism. It is not generally realized that many of the burnings of heretics under Mary were quasi-sacrifices on her behalf. On each occasion of her hopes of pregnancy being disappointed, some victims were sent to the stake. See Strype, ed. cited, iii, 196, and Peter Martyr, there cited; Froude, ed. 1870, v, 521 sq., 539 sq. The influence of Spanish ecclesiastics may be inferred. The expulsions of the Jews and the Moriscoes from Spain were by way of averting the wrath of God. Still, a Spanish priest at Court preached in favour of mercy. Lingard, ed. 1855, v, 231. ↑

4 The number slain was certainly not small. It amounted to at least 190, perhaps to 204. Soames, Elizabethan Religious History, 1839, p. 596–98. Under Mary there perished some 288. Durham Dunlop, The Church under the Tudors, 1869, p. 104 and refs. ↑

5 Soames, as cited, pp. 213–18, and refs. ↑

6 Froude, Hist. of England, ed. 1870, x, 545 (ed. 1875, xi, 199), citing MSS. Ireland. ↑

7 Gloss to February in the Shepherd’s Calendar, Globe ed. pp. 451–52. ↑

8Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit, Arber’s reprint, pp. 140, 153. That the reference was mainly to Oxford is to be inferred from the address “To my verie good friends the Gentlemen Schollers of Oxford,” prefixed to the ed. of 1581. Id. p. 207. ↑

9Id. p. 158. ↑

10Id. pp. 161, 166. ↑

11 Essay Of Atheism. ↑

12 Lecky, Rationalism, i, 103–104. Scot’s book (now made accessible by a reprint, 1886) had practically no influence in his own day; and King James, who wrote against it, caused it to be burned by the hangman in the next. Scot inserts the “infidelitie of atheists” in the list of intellectual evils on his title-page; but save for an allusion to “the abhomination of idolatrie” all the others indicted are aspects of the black art. ↑

13 “No woman ever lived who was so totally destitute of the sentiment of religion” (Green, Short History, ch. vii, § 3, p. 369). ↑

14 Cp. Soames, Elizabethan Religious History, 1839, p. 225. Yet when Morris, the attorney of the Duchy of Lancaster, introduced in Parliament a Bill to restrain the power of the ecclesiastical courts, she had him dismissed and imprisoned for life, being determined that the control should remain, through those courts, in her own hands. Heylyn, Hist. of the Reformation, ed. 1849, pref. vol. i, pp. xiv–xv. ↑

15 See above, vol. i, pp. 435, 446, 459. ↑

16 Collier’s Reprint, p. 190. ↑

17 Camden, Annals of Elizabeth, sub. ann. 1580; 3rd ed. 1635, p. 218. Cp. Soames, p. 214. ↑

18 Hooker, Pref. to Ecclesiastical Polity, ch. iii, § 9, ed. 1850. Camden (p. 219) states that the Dutch teacher Henry Nichalai, whose works were translated for the sect, “gave out that he did partake of God, and God of his humanity.” ↑

19 See above, i, 458, as to a much more pronounced heresy in 1549, which also seems to have escaped punishment. Camden tells that the books of the “Family of Love” were burnt in 1580, but mentions no other penalties. Stow records that on October 9, 1580, “proclamation was published at London for the apprehension and severe punishing of all persons suspected to be of the family of love.” Ed. 1615, p. 687. Five of them had been frightened into a public recantation in 1575. Id. p. 679. ↑

20 May 13, 1579. The burning was on the 20th. ↑

21 Stow’s Annals, ed. 1580, pp. 1, 194–95. Ed. 1615, p. 695. ↑

22 Stow, ed. 1615, p. 697; David’s Evidence, by William Burton, Preacher of Reading, 1592 (?), p. 125. ↑

23 Stow, ed. 1615, p. 696. ↑

24 Burton, as cited. See below, pp. 7, 12, as to Kett’s writings. ↑

25 Art. Matthew Hamond, in Dict. of Nat. Biog. ↑

26 Art. Francis Kett, in Dict. of Nat. Biog. ↑

27 Prof. Storojenko, Life of Greene, Eng. tr. in Grosart’s “Huth Library” ed. of Greene’s Works, i, 42–50. It is quite clear that Malone and the critics who have followed him were wrong in supposing the unnamed instructor to be Francis Kett, who was a devout Unitarian. Prof. Storojenko speaks of Kett as having been made an Arian at Norwich, after his return there in 1585, by the influence of Lewes and Haworth. Query Hamond? ↑

28 In Pierce’s Supererogation, Collier’s ed. p. 85. ↑

29 Rep. of Nashe’s Works in Grosart’s “Huth Library” ed. vol. iv, pp. 172, 173, 178, 182, 183. etc. Ed. McKerrow. 1904, ii, 114–129. ↑

30 MS. Harl. 6853, fol. 320. It is given in full in the appendix to the first issue of the selected plays of Marlowe in the Mermaid Series, edited by Mr. Havelock Ellis: and, with omissions, in the editions of Cunningham, Dyce, and Bullen. ↑

31 Act II, sc. i. ↑

32 Grosart’s ed. in “Temple Dramatists” series, 11. 246–371. There is plenty of “irreligion” in the passage, but not atheism, though there is a denial of a future state (365–70). The lines in question strongly suggest Marlowe’s influence or authorship, which indeed is claimed by Mr. C. Crawford for the whole play. But all the external evidence ascribes the play to Greene. ↑

33Tamburlaine, Part II, Act II, sc. ii, iii; V, sc. i. ↑

34 Writing as Andrew Philopater. See Dict. of Nat. Biog., art. Robert Parsons, and Storojenko, as cited, i, 36, and note. ↑

35 Translated into Latin by Henri Estienne in 1562. ↑

36Remains of Sir Walter Raleigh, ed. 1657, p. 123. ↑

37 Bk. i, ch. i, sec. 11. ↑

38 Bk. ii, ch. i, sec. 7. ↑

39 Essay on the Prometheus. ↑

40 Art. Raleigh, in Dict. of Nat. Biog., xlvii, 192. ↑