ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



as in their doctrine and their doings they are directly against Christ and His 

 Word.' ^ In the errata to the second of the number, which was printed in 

 this county, the author holds out special threats of dealing separately with 

 Bishop Scambler, the quondam patron of the milder Puritanism : — 'There is 

 nothing spoken at all of that notable hypocrite Scambler, bishop of Norwich. 

 Take it for a great faulte, but unlesse he leaue his close dealing against the 

 truth, ile bestow a whole booke of him.' 



These tracts were printed at a press which was moved about from place 

 to place to avoid detection. It was first set up at Molesey, near Kingston- 

 on-Thames, and was then moved, in November 1588, to Sir Richard 

 Knightley's house at Fawsley. It was there that the Epitome, one of the 

 most violent of the set, was secretly printed. From there the press was 

 moved to a farm-house of Sir Richard's, at Norton-by-Daventry, and after a 

 fortnight's sojourn was again set up at Coventry. Eventually it was taken 

 from Warwickshire to Newton, near Manchester, where it was discovered, 

 and the printers arrested. Sir Richard Knightley, in his subsequent 

 deposition, tells us that the press was set up in a disused nursery of his house. 

 The whole story, as told by the different witnesses, is full of curious touches, 

 one of the most quaint being that of the Puritan Penry, strolling about the 

 secluded house and park of the Knightleys, in a sky-blue mantle trimmed 

 with gold and silver lace, with a sword at his side and a plumed hat on his 

 head to avoid suspicion. John Penry, though a Welshman by birth, was in- 

 timately associated with Northamptonshire during the last few years of his 

 eventful life. In 1587, he married Eleanor, daughter of Henry Godley, of 

 Northampton, and was a member of the Northampton classis, which by 

 its constitution only admitted residents. Sir Richard Knightley, convicted 

 through the now freely used interrogatories of the Star Chamber, was 

 severely reprimanded and fined. He is the most conspicuous instance in the 

 county of those Puritan gentry who were strongly anti-episcopal and Pro- 

 testant, and who had the countenance at times of Leicester and even Burghley. 

 Early in 1590 Penry's papers were seized by order of the archbishop, and a 

 warrant for his arrest was issued. He escaped to Scotland, but on returning 

 in September, 1592, he was taken, and on what now seems miserably insuffi- 

 cient evidence convicted of high treason (under the same statute that condemned 

 the Roman Catholics), and hurried to execution, thus becoming like them a 

 martyr to his conscientious convictions. William Hacket, of Oundle, a man 

 in whom religious enthusiasm developed into lunacy, and who eventually 

 believed that his body was animated by the soul of John the Baptist, was also 

 at this time executed in London. 



In 1590 the government grew alarmed at the continued growth of 

 Puritanism, and they resolved to strike a blow at the leaders of the party. 

 Next to Cartwright, one of the foremost was Edmund Snape, already 

 mentioned as a curate of St. Peter's, Northampton. A list of the charges 

 brought against the Puritans of Northamptonshire and Warwickshire is ex- 

 tant among the Burghley papers, divided into twenty articles. Article nine 

 states : — 



The ministers in Northamptonsheer (who especiallye doe assemble themselves at such 

 classes and manelye were present at ye aforesayd classes) are Mr. Snape, Stone minister of 



' Obedience of a Christian Man, 102. 

 2 49 7 



