A HISTORY OF HAMPSHIRE 



provoking rejoinders of a vulgar and coarse character, the Bishop of 

 Winchester issued a scholarly and temperate rejoinder entitled An 

 Admonition to the People of England, which was published under his 

 initials. 1 



The reply of Martin to this dignified rejoinder surpassed the 

 scurrility of the previous six tracts issued from this itinerant press. The 

 title page of ' Hay any worke for Cooper,' of which a facsimile is given, 

 with its coarse wit affords a good sample of the contents of its forty-eight 

 pages. There is a certain kind of humour in styling Cooper 'Tom 

 Tubtrimmer of Winchester,' but it is mere virulence to write down this 

 scholar as ' a beastly defender of corrupt church government and not 

 only a traitor to God and his Word but an enemy to her majesty and 

 the state.' The Bishop of Gloucester is termed * that olde stealecounter 

 massepriest John of Gloucester,' while the coarsest of personalities are 

 indulged in as to the unmarried state of the Archbishop of Canterbury 

 and the Bishop of Peterborough. The bishops collectively are termed 

 wretches, sots, gross beasts, senseless and undutiful beasts, false apostles 

 like Judas, incarnate devils, vicars of hell and bishops of the devil ! 



Although Bishop Cooper's name is chiefly identified with the 

 Marprelate controversy, he had but little trouble with ' sectaries ' in 

 Hampshire or elsewhere in his diocese. He was a good administrator 

 of his diocese in both spiritual and temporal matters, but made it a 

 matter of conscience to keep down and continuously harass the numerous 

 Romish recusants of Hampshire throughout his episcopate. The bishop 

 was no doubt the greatest persecutor of the recusants during Elizabeth's 

 reign, outside the council, but this was mainly owing to the presence of 

 papists in such large numbers in the Hampshire part of his diocese. 



In December, 1585, Bishop Cooper wrote to Walsingham begging 

 that no favour might be shown to Mrs. Pitts of Alton, who at his 

 instigation had been sent up to London and committed by the council 

 to the Clink. 2 He wrote that she was a very obstinate person, and 

 reminded their lordships that she was a sister of ' Nicholas Saunders the 

 traitor.' He considered that her return to Winchester would do more 

 harm than ten sermons would do good, and with regard to her husband, 

 who had conformed, he laid down the ruling that no man whose wife is 

 a recusant could possibly be himself sound. 3 



Early in the year 1586 Robert Anderton and William Marsden, 

 two priests from Rheims, landed in the Isle of Wight. They were at 

 once arrested, and acknowledged themselves priests. They were sent to 

 Winchester gaol and tried at the Lent Assizes. The judge showed 

 special sympathy, as they had neither of them spoken a word on English 

 soil before their arrest, but had to condemn them to death under the Act 



1 For a full account of this able and exhaustive treatise see Arber's reprint (1883), with an intro- 

 duction from the Puritan standpoint. 



1 The Clink was the prison that adjoined the Southwark palace of the Bishops of Winchester ; it 

 often went by the name of ' the hall of Winchester." 



8 Dom. State Papers, EKz. clxxxv. 1 7. 



80 



