William Prynne
(1600–1669)
Dictionary of National Biography (1885–1900)
PRYNNE, WILLIAM (1600–1669), puritan pamphleteer, born at Swanswick or Swainswick in Somerset in 1600, was the son of Thomas Prynne by his second wife, Marie Sherston. His family is said to have been originally derived from Shropshire; his great grandfather was sheriff of Bristol in 1549; his father farmed the lands of Oriel College at Swanswick. Prynne was educated at Bath grammar school, and matriculated from Oriel College, Oxford, on 24 April 1618. He graduated B.A. on 22 Jan. 1621, was admitted a student of Lincoln's Inn in the same year, and was called to the bar in 1628 (Foster, Alumni Oxon. 1500–1714, iii. 1217; Peach, History of Swanswick, 1890, pp. 36, 48). With law Prynne combined from the first the study of theology and ecclesiastical antiquities. His training had been puritanical, and, according to Wood, he was confirmed in his militant puritanism by the in- fluence of Dr. John Preston (1587–1628) [q. v.], who was then lecturer at Lincoln's Inn (Athenæ, iii. 845). In 1627 he published his first book, a theological treatise entitled ' The Perpetuity of a Regenerate Man's Estate,' followed in the next three years by three others attacking Arminianism and its teachers. In the preface to one of them he appealed to parliament to suppress anything written against calvinistic doctrine and to force the clergy to subscribe the conclusion of the synod of Dort (A Brief Survey of Mr. Cozens his cozening Devotions; Gardiner, Great Civil War, ii. 14). At the same time Prynne took in hand the task of reforming the manners of the age, and attacked its fashions and its follies as if they were vices. After proving that the custom of drinking healths was sinful, he demonstrated that for men to wear their hair long was 'unseemly and unlawful unto Christians,' while it was 'mannish, unnatural, impudent, and unchristian ' for women to cut it short (Health's Sickness. The Unloveliness of Lovelocks, 1628).
About 1624 Prynne had commenced a book against stage-plays, on 31 May 1630 he obtained a license to print it, and about November 1632 it was published. The 'Histriomastix' is a volume of over a thousand pages, showing that plays were unlawful, incentives to immorality, and condemned by the scriptures, the fathers, modern Christian writers, and the wisest of the heathen philosophers (for an analysis see Ward, English Dramatic Literature, ii. 413). Unluckily for the author, the queen and her ladies, in January 1633, took part in the performance of Walter Montagu's 'Shepherd's Paradise.' A passage in the index reflecting on the character of female actors in general was construed as an aspersion on the queen. Similarly, passages which attacked the spectators of plays and magistrates who failed to suppress them, pointed by references to Nero and other tyrants, were taken as attacks upon the king. The attorney-general, Noy, instituted proceedings against Prynne in the Star-chamber. After a year's imprisonment in the Tower (1 Feb. 1633), he was sentenced (17 Feb. 1634) to be imprisoned during life, to be fined 5,000l., to be expelled from Lincoln's Inn, to be deprived of his degree by the university of Oxford, and to lose both his ears in the pillory. Prynne was pilloried on 7 May and 10 May, and degraded from his degree on 29 April (Rushworth, ii. 220, 247; State Trials, iii. 586; Laud, Works, vi. i. 234). On 11 June he addressed to Archbishop Laud, whom he regarded as his chief persecutor, a letter charging him with illegality and injustice. Laud handed the letter to the attorney-general as material for a new prosecution, but when Prynne was required to own his handwriting, he contrived to get hold of the letter and tore it to pieces (Documents relating to William Prynne, pp. 32–57; Laud, Works, iii. 221; Gardiner, History of England, vii. 327–34). Even in the Tower Prynne contrived to write, and poured forth anonymous tracts against episcopacy and against the 'Book of Sports.' In one, 'A Divine Tragedy lately acted, or a Collection of sundry memorable Examples of God's Judgment upon Sabbath-breakers,' he introduced Noy's recent death as a warning. In an appendix to John Bastwick's 'Flagellum Pontificis,' and, in 'A Breviate of the Bishops' intolerable Usurpations,' he attacked prelates in general (1635). An anonymous attack on Wren, bishop of Norwich, entitled 'News from Ipswich' (1636), brought him again before the Star-chamber. On 14 June 1637 Prynne was sentenced once more to a fine of 5,000l, to imprisonment for life, and to lose the rest of his ears. At the proposal of Chief-justice Finch he was also to be branded on the cheeks with the letters S.L., signifying 'seditious libeller' (Rushworth, iii. 380; A New Discovery of the Prelates' Tyranny, 1641; Laud, Works, vi. i. 35). Prynne was pilloried on 30 June in company with Henry Burton and John Bastwick. All bore their punishment with defiant courage. Prynne, who was handled with great barbarity by the executioner, made, as he returned to his prison, a couple of Latin verses explaining the 'S.L.' with which he was branded to mean 'Stigmata Laudis' (ib. p. 65; 'A Brief Relation of certain Passages at the Censure of Dr. Bastwick, Mr. Burton, and Mr. Prynne,' Harleian Miscellany, iv. 12). His imprisonment was henceforth much closer. He was deprived of pens and ink, and allowed no books except the Bible, the prayer-book, and some orthodox theology. To isolate him from his friends he was removed first to Carnarvon Castle (July 1637), and then to Mount Orgueil Castle in Jersey. The governor, Sir Philip Carteret, and his family treated Prynne with much kindness, which he repaid by defending Carteret's character in 1645 when the latter was accused as a malignant and a tyrant (The Liar Confounded, 1645, pp. 33- 45). He occupied his imprisonment, since he was debarred from theological controversy, by writing a verse description of his prison, meditations on rocks, seas, and gardens, a complaint of the soul against the body, and polemical epigrams against popery. Rhyme is the only poetical characteristic they possess (Mount Orgueil, or Divine and Profitable Meditations, 1641; A Pleasant Purge for a Roman Catholic, 1642).
As soon as the Long parliament assembled, Prynne's petition for redress was presented to it by his servant, John Brown. An order was immediately made for his transmission to London, and on 28 Nov. he and Burton made a triumphant entry into the city (cf. Baillie, Letters, i. 277; Clarendon, Rebellion, iii. 57). The House of Commons declared the two sentences against him illegal, restored him to his degree and to his membership of Lincoln's Inn, and voted him pecuniary reparation (April 20, 1641) (Commons' Journal, ii. 24, 123, 366; Rushworth, iv. 74). A bill for reversing the proceedings against him was introduced, but as late as October 1648 the question of his compensation was still unsettled (Commons' Journal ii. 366; vi. 65).
When the civil war broke out, Prynne became one of the leading defenders of the parliamentary cause in the press. At first he had used his freedom to prosecute his attack on episcopacy (The Antipathy of the English Lordly Prelacy both to Regal Monarchy and Civil Unity; A New Discovery of the Prelates Tyranny, 1641). He now showed that the bishops and the king's ministers had been fellow-workers in the design of introducing popery (The Popish Royal Favourite; Rome's Masterpiece, 1643 ; cf. Laud's Works, iv. 463). He proved by historical precedents that the parliament's cause was legal, that the parliament had the supreme control of the armed forces and of the great seal of the realm, and that the text 'Touch not Mine anointed' did not prohibit Christian subjects from defending themselves against their kings, but kings from oppressing their Christian subjects (A Sovereign Antidote ; Vindication of Psalm 105, ver. 15, 1642; The Sovereign Power of Parliaments and Kingdoms; The Opening of the Great Seal of England, 1643).
In 1643 Prynne became involved in the controversy which followed the surrender of Bristol by Nathaniel Fiennes [q. v.] Together with his friend Clement Walker, he presented articles of accusation against Fiennes to the House of Commons (15 Nov. 1643), managed the case for the prosecution at the court-martial, which took place in the following December, and secured the condemnation of the offending officer ( True and Full Relation of the Trial of Nathaniel Fiennes, 1644). Prynne was also one of the counsel for the parliament at the trial of Lord Maguire in February 1645 (Gilbert, Contemporary History of Affairs in Ireland, 1641–52, i. 618–639; The Subjection of all Traitors, &c. 1658).
But Prynne prosecuted Laud with even more animosity than he had pursued Fiennes. He collected and arranged evidence to prove the charges against him, bore testimony him- self in support of many of them, hunted up witnesses against the archbishop, and assisted the counsel for the prosecution in every way. A barrister remarked, 'The Archbishop is a stranger to me, but Mr. Prynne's tampering about the witnesses is so palpable and foul that I cannot but pity him and cry shame of it' (Laud, Works, iv. 51). By a refinement of malice, Prynne was specially charged with the duty of searching Laud's room in the Tower, and even his pockets, for papers to be used against him (ib. iv. 25). He published a mutilated edition of Laud's 'Diary' under the title of 'A Breviate of the Life of William Laud,' and a volume intended to serve as an introduction to his trial called 'Hidden Works of Darkness brought to Public Light' (ib. iii. 259). After Laud's execution, Prynne was charged by the House of Commons (4 March 1645) to produce an account of the trial, and published 'Canterburies Doom, or the first part of a complete History of the Commitment, Trial, &c., of William Laud' (folio, 1646). But other controversies prevented him from finishing the book. Prynne's hatred of independency was as great as his hatred of episcopacy, and from 1644 he poured forth a series of pamphlets against it (Independency Examined, Unmasked, and Refuted, 1644). He attacked John Goodwin (Brief Animadversions on Mr John Goodwin's Theomachia, 1644), and fell foul of his old companion in suffering, Henry Burton (Truth triumphing over Falsehood, 1645; cf. Hanbury, Memorials of Independency, ii. 385). He controverted and denounced John Lilburne, and loudly called on parliament to crush the sectaries (Just Defence of John Bastwick, 1645; The Liar Confounded, 1645; Fresh Discovery of some prodigious new wandering blazing Stars, 1645). Yet, while vehemently opposing the demands of the independents for liberty of conscience, Prynne was equally hostile to the demands of the presbyterian clergy for the unrestricted establishment of their system. 'Mr. Prynne and the Erastian lawyers are now our remora,' complains Robert Baillie in September 1645 (Letters, ii. 315). Prynne maintained the supremacy of the state over the church, and denied in his pamphlets the right of the clergy to excommunicate or to suspend from the reception of the sacrament except on conditions defined by the laws of the state (Four Serious Questions, 1644; A Vindication of Four Questions, 1645; Suspension Suspended, 1646; The Sword of Christian Magistracy Supported, 1647). He was answered by Samuel Rutherford in 'The Divine Right of Church Government and Excommunication,' 4to, 1646 (cf. Hanbury, Historical Memorials of Independency, iii. 191). Prynne also came into collision with Milton, whose doctrine of 'divorce at pleasure ' he had denounced, and was replied to by the poet in a passage in his 'Colasterion.' Milton also inserted in the original draft of his sonnet 'On the Forcers of Conscience' a scornful reference to 'marginal Prynne's ears' (Masson, Life of Milton, iii. 315, 470).
During 1647 the breach between the army and the parliament turned Prynne's attention from theology to politics. He wrote a number of pamphlets against the army, and championed the cause of the eleven presbyterian leaders whom the army impeached (Brief Justification of the Eleven Accused Members, 1647; Full Vindication and Answer of the Eleven Accused Members, 1647; Hypocrites Unmasking, 1647). With this indefatigable activity in pamphleteering he contrived to combine no small amount of official work. Since February 1644 he had been a member of the committee of accounts, and on 1 May 1647 he was appointed one of the commissioners for the visitation of the university of Oxford. In April 1648 Prynne accompanied the Earl of Pembroke when he came as chancellor to expel recalcitrant heads of houses (Wood, Annals, ii. 569–73). In November 1648 he was elected member for Newport in Cornwall, and, as soon as he took his seat, distinguished himself by his opposition to the army. He urged the commons to declare them rebels, and argued at great length that the concessions made by Charles in the recent treaty were a satisfactory basis for a peace. His speech, which according to its author converted many of the audience, was four times reprinted during the next few months (Gardiner, Great Civil War, iv. 264, 267; The Substance of a Speech made in the House of Commons by William Prynne, the 4th of December, 1648). Two days later Pride's Purge took place. Prynne was arrested by Colonel Pride and Sir Hardress Waller, and kept prisoner first at an eating-house called Hell, and then at the Swan and King's Head inns in the Strand. He protested in letters to Lord Fairfax, and by printed declarations on behalf of himself and the other arrested members (Walker, History of Independency, ed. 1661, pt. ii. pp. 35, 51, 62, 81, 84, 92, 114, 120, 123, 126). He published also a denunciation of the proposed trial of the king, which was answered by a collection of extracts from his own earlier pamphlets (True and Perfect Narrative of the Officers and Army's Force upon the Commons House; Brief Memento to the Present Unparliamentary Junto; Mr. Prynne's Charge against the King).
Released from custody some time in January 1649, Prynne retired to Swanswick, and began a paper war against the new government. He wrote three pamphlets against the engagement to be faithful to the Commonwealth, and proved that neither in conscience, law, nor prudence was he bound to pay the taxes which it imposed (A Legal Vindication of the Liberties of England against all Illegal Taxes and Pretended Acts of Parliament, 1649). According to Wood, he had judiciously conveyed his property to a relative first. The government retaliated by imprisoning him for nearly three years without a trial. On 30 June 1650 he was arrested and confined, first in Dunster Castle and afterwards in Taunton (12 June 1651) and Pendennis Castles (27 June 1651). He was finally offered his liberty on giving security to the amount of 1,000l. that he would henceforward do nothing against the government; but, refusing with his usual indomitable courage to make any promise, was released unconditionally on 18 Feb. 1653 (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1652- 1653, p. 172; A New Discovery of Free State Tyranny, 1655). On his release Prynne returned to pamphleteering with fresh vigour, but assailed the government less directly than before. He exposed the machinations of the papists, showed the danger of quakerism, vindicated the rights of patrons against the triers, and discussed the right limits of the Sabbath (A Brief polemical Dissertation concerning the Lords Day Sabbath, 1655; The Quakers Unmasked, 1655; A New Discovery of some Romish Emissaries, 1656). The proposal to readmit the Jews inspired him with a pamphlet against the scheme, which contains materials of value for the history of that race in England (A Short Demurrer to the Jews long-discontinued Remitters into England, 1656). The offer of the crown to Cromwell by the ' petition and advice' suggested a parallel between Cromwell and Richard III, who had also been petitioned to accept the English crown (King Richard the Third Revived, 1657). Similarly, when the Protector set up a House of Lords, Prynne expanded the tract in defence of their rights which he had published in 1648 into an historical treatise of five hundred pages (A Plea for the Lords, 1658).
All these writings, however, attracted little attention, and it was not till after the fall of Richard Cromwell that he regained the popular ear. As soon as the Long parliament was re-established, Prynne got together a few of the members excluded by 'Pride's purge' and endeavoured to take his place in the house. On 7 May he was kept back by the guards, but on 9 May he managed to get in, and kept his seat there for a whole sitting. Haslerig and Vane threatened him, but Prynne told them he had as good right there as either, and had suffered more for the rights of parliament than any of them. They could only get rid of him by adjourning the house, and forcibly keeping him out when it reassembled (A True and Perfect Narrative of what was done by Mr. Prynne, &c., 1659; Old Parliamentary History, xxi. 384). On 27 Dec., when the parliament was again restored after its interruption by Lambert, Prynne and his friends made a fresh attempt to enter, but were once more excluded (ib. xxii. 29; Brief Narrative how divers Members of the House of Commons were again shut out, 1660). From May 1659 to February 1660 he never ceased publishing tracts on the case of the 'secluded members' and attacks on the Rump and the army. Marchamont Nedham, Henry Stubbe, John Rogers, and others printed serious answers to his arguments, while obscure libellers ridiculed him as 'an indefatigable and impertinent scribbler' (The Character or Earmark of Mr. W. Prynne, 1659 ; A Petition of the Peaceable and well-affected People of the three Nations, &c.; Wood, Athenæ, iii. 853). Still his pamphlets roused popular opinion in favour of the 'secluded members,' and on 21 Feb. 1660 Monck ordered the guards of the house to readmit them. Prynne, girt with an old basket-hilted sword, marched in at their head amid the cheers of the spectators in Westminster Hall, but as he entered the house his 'long sword got between Sir William Waller's short legs and threw him down, which caused laughter' (Pepys, Diary, 21 Feb.; Aubrey, Letters from the Bodleian Library, ii. 509). The house appointed him to the pleasant task of expunging the votes against the secluded members, and charged him to bring in a bill for the dissolution of the Long parliament (Commons' Journals, vii. 847, 848, 852). In the debate on the bill Prynne asserted the rights of Charles II with the greatest boldness, and claimed that the writs should be issued in his name. 'I think he may be styled the Cato of this age,' wrote an admiring royalist (Carte, Original Letters, ii. 312; Clarendon State Papers, iii. 696). He also helped to forward the Restoration by accelerating the passing of the Militia Bill, which placed the control of the forces in the hands of the king's friends (Ludlow, Memoirs, ed. 1894, ii. 248). A letter which he addressed to Charles II shows that he was personally thanked by the king for his services (Notes and Queries, 8th ser. viii. 361).
When the Convention parliament was summoned, Prynne was returned both for Ludgershall and Bath, but sat for the latter place, and presented an address from it to Charles II on 16 June 1660 (Bathonia Rediviva). No member of the Convention was more bitter against the regicides and the supporters of the late government. On every opportunity he endeavoured to restrict the scope of the Act of Indemnity. He successfully moved to have Fleetwood excepted, and urged the exclusion of Richard Cromwell and Judge Thorpe. He proposed to force the officials of the Protectorate to refund their salaries and to disable or punish indiscriminately large classes of persons (Old Parliamentary History, xxii. 339, 352, 366, 369, 412, 428; Ludlow, Memoirs, ii. 277). Prynne showed great zeal for the disbanding of the army and was one of the commissioners appointed to pay it off (Old Parliamentary History xxii. 473). In the debates on religion he was one of the leaders of the presbyterians spoke against the Thirty-nine Articles, denied the claims of the bishops, urged the validity of presbyterian ordination, and supported the bill for turning the king's ecclesiastical declaration into law (ib. xxii. 375, 385, 409, 414, 421, xxiii. 29). Returned again for Bath to the parliament of May 1661, Prynne asserted his presbyterianism by refusing to kneel when the two houses received the sacrament together (Hist. MSS. Comm. 5th Rep. p. 170). A few weeks earlier he had published a pamphlet demanding the revision of the prayer-book, but the new parliament was opposed to any concessions to nonconformity. On 15 July a pamphlet by Prynne against the Corporation Bill was voted scandalous and seditious; he was reprimanded by the speaker, and only escaped punishment by abject submission (Kennett, Register, p. 495; Commons' Journals, viii. 301). He was again censured on 13 May 1664 for making some alterations in a bill concerning vintners and ale-sellers after its commitment (ib. viii. 563). In January 1667 Prynne was one of the managers of Lord Mordaunt's impeachment (ib. viii. 681). He spoke several times on Clarendon's impeachment, and opposed the bill for his banishment. On constitutional subjects and points of procedure his opinion had great weight, and in 1667 he was privately consulted by the king on the question whether a parliament which had been prorogued could be convened before the day fixed (Grey), Debates, i. 7, 65, 153; Clarendon, Continuation of Life, §1097).
As a politician Prynne was during his latter years of little importance, but as a writer his most valuable work belongs to that period. Shortly after the Restoration he had been appointed keeper of the records in the Tower at a salary of 500l. a year. In January 1662 Prynne dedicated his 'Brevia Parliamentaria Rediviva' to Charles II. The state papers contain several petitions from Prynne for additional accommodation in the Tower, in order to facilitate his work in transcribing and arranging the records (Cat. State Papers, Dom. 1661–2 p. 627, 1665–6 p. 346). Anthony Wood found him affable and obliging towards record-searchers. 'Mr. Prynne received him with old-fashion compliments, such as were used in the reign of King James I, and told him he should see what he desired, and seemed to be glad that "such a young man as he was should have inclinations towards venerable antiquity," &c.' (Life of Anthony Wood, ed. Clarke, ii. 110). Ryley, Prynne's predecessor, spread reports that Prynne ne-glected his duties, but Prynne's publications during his tenure of office refute the charge (Pepys, Diary, ed. Wheatley, iv. 133).
Prynne died unmarried on 24 Oct. 1669 'in his lodgings in Lincoln's Inn, and was buried in the walk under the chapel there, which stands upon pillars' (Wood, Athenae, iii. 876). His will is printed by Bruce (Documents relating to William Prynne, p. 96). He left his manuscripts to the library of Lincoln's Inn, and a set of his works to Oriel College, Oxford. The college also possesses a portrait of Prynne in oils. Two others belong respectively to the Marquis of Hastings and the Marquis Townshend. An engraved portrait of Prynne is given in his 'New Discovery of the Prelates' Tyranny,' reproductions of which are frequently found in his later pamphlets. Lists of engraved portraits are given by Granger and in the catalogue of portraits in the Sutherland Clarendon in the Bodleian Library.
Prynne published about two hundred books and pamphlets. 'I verily believe,' says Wood, 'that, if rightly computed, he wrote a sheet for every day of his life, reckoning from the time he came to the use of reason and the state of man' (Athenæ, Oxon. iii. 852). According to Aubrey, 'his manner of study was thus: he wore a long quilt cap, which came two or three inches at least over his eyes, which served him as an umbrella to defend his eyes from the light; about every three hours his man was to bring him a roll and a pot of ale to refocillate his wasted spirits: so he studied and drank, and munched some bread; and this maintained him till night, and then he made a good supper' (Aubrey, Letters from the Bodleian Library, ii. 508). To this habit Butler refers in 'Hudibras' when he addresses the muse
that with ale or viler liquors
Did'st inspire Wither, Prynne, and Vicars.
In point of style Prynne's historical works possess no merits. He apologises to his readers in the epistle to vol. ii. of his 'Exact Chronological Vindication' for the absence of 'elegant, lofty, eloquent language, embellishments, and transitions,' and he understates their defects. The arrangement of his works is equally careless. Yet, in spite of these deficiencies, the amount of historical material they contain and the number of records printed for the first time in his pages give his historical writings a lasting value.
Full lists of Prynne's works are given by Anthony Wood and by Mr. John Bruce. Many of his polemical pamphlets have been already mentioned. The following are his most important books: 1. 'Histrio-Mastix: the Players Scourge or Actors Tragedy,' 4to, 1633. A Dutch translation was published at Leyden in 1639. On the publication of this work and for contemporary references to it, see Collier's 'History of English Dramatic Poetry,' ed. 1879, i. 465, and Ward's 'English Dramatic Poetry,' ii. 413. Voltaire criticises it in the twenty-third of his 'Lettres sur les Anglais.' In 1649 was published ' Mr. Wil- liam Prynne his Defence of Stage Plays, or a Retractation of a former book of his called "Histrio-Mastix,"' which is reprinted in Mr. W. C. Hazlitt's ' English Drama and Stage,' 1869. It is not by Prynne. Two answers to Prynne were written by Sir Richard Baker: 'Theatrum Redivivum,' 1662, 8vo, and 'Theatrum Triumphans,' 1670, 8vo. 2. 'The Sovereign Power of Parliaments and Kingdoms,' in four parts, 1643, 4to. This was held to be the most conclusive vindication of the constitutional position of the parliament (Vicars, God's Ark, 1646, p. 203). It was answered in 'The Fallacies of Mr. William Prynne Discovered,' Oxford, 1643, 4to. 3. 'The Opening of the Great Seal of England,' 1643, 4to; reprinted in the 'Somers Tracts,' ed. Scott, iv. 551. 4. 'Hidden Works of Darkness brought to Public Light, or a necessary Introduction to the Archbishop of Canterbury's Trial,' 1645, fol. 5. 'Canterbury's Doom, or the first part of a Complete History of the Trial of William Laud,' 1646, fol. 6. 'The first part of an Historical Collection of the Ancient Councils and Parliaments of England,' 1649, 4to. 7. 'A Short Demurrer to the Jews long-discontinued Remitter into England,' 1656, 4to; answered in 'Israel's Cause and Condition pleaded,' by D.L. 8. 'A Plea for the Lords and House of Peers,' 1658, 4to. This is an expansion of 'A Plea for the House of Lords,' 1648, 4to. 9. 'A Brief Register of the several kinds of Parliamentary Writs,' 1659, 4to; the second, third, and fourth parts were published in 1660, 1662, and 1664 respectively. 10. 'The Signal Loyalty and Devotion of God's true saints towards their Kings,' 1660, 4to. This contains an account of the coronation of James I, reprinted in vol. ii. of the publications of the Henry Bradshaw Society, 1892, 8m 11. ' An exact Chronological Vindication and Historical Demonstration of our British, Roman, &c., Kings' Supreme Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction over all Spiritual or Religious Affairs within their Realms,' 3 vols. fol. The first volume, published in 1666, ends with the death of Richard I; the second, published in 1665, with the death of Henry III. The third, published in 1670, is also called 'The History of King John, King Henry III, and King Edward I.' A fourth volume was left half printed, a copy of which is in the library of Lincoln's Inn. An allegorical frontispiece to vol. ii. represents Prynne presenting his work to Charles II on his throne. The triple crown of the pope is falling off as he beholds it. 12. 'Aurum Reginae, or concerning Queen Gold,' 1668, 4to. 13. 'Brief Animadversions on the Fourth Part of the Institutes of the Laws of England, compiled by Sir Edward Coke,' 1669, fol. 14. 'An Exact Abridgment of the Records in the Tower of London, collected by Sir Robert Cotton,' 1689, fol.; the preface is dated 1656–7.
Encyclopædia Britannica 11th edition (1911)
PRYNNE, WILLIAM (1600–1669), English parliamentarian, son of Thomas Prynne by Marie Sherston, was born at Swainswick near Bath in 1600. He was educated at Bath Grammar School, matriculated at Oriel College, Oxford, in 1618, obtained his B.A. in 1621, was admitted a student of Lincoln's Inn the same year, and was called to the Bar in 1628. He was Puritan to the core, with a tenacious memory, a strength of will bordering upon obstinacy, and a want of sympathy with human nature. His first book, The Perpetuity of a Regenerate Man's Estate (1627), defended one of the main Calvinistic positions, and The Unloveliness of Love-locks and Health's Sickness (1628) attacked prevailing fashions without any sense of proportion, treating follies on the same footing a.s scandalous vices.
In 1629 Prynne came forward as the assailant of Arminianism in doctrine and of ceremonialism in practice, and thus drew down upon himself the anger of Laud. Histrio-mastix, published in 1633, was a violent attack upon stage plays in general, in which the author pointed out that kings and emperors who had favoured the drama had been carried off by violent deaths, which assertion might easily be interpreted as a warning to the king, and applied a disgraceful epithet to actresses, which, as Henrietta Maria was taking part in the rehearsal of a ballet, was supposed to apply to the queen. After a year's imprisonment in the Tower Prynne was sentenced by the star chamber on the 17th of February 1634 to be imprisoned for life, and also to be fined £5000, expelled from Lincoln's Inn, rendered incapable of returning to his profession, degraded from his degree in the university of Oxford, and set in the pillory, where he was to lose both his ears. The latter portion of the sentence was carried out on the 7th of May, and the rest of his punishment inflicted except the exaction of the fine. There is no reason to suppose that his punishment was unpopular. In 1637 he was once more in the star chamber, together with Bastwick and Burton. In A Divine Tragedy lately acted he had attacked the Declaration of Sports, and in News from Ipswich he had assailed Wren and the bishops generally. On the 30th of June a fresh sentence, that had been delivered on the 14th, was executed. The stumps of Prynne's ears were shorn off in the pillory, and he was branded on the cheeks with the letters S.L., meaning “seditious libeller,” which Prynne, however, interpreted as “stigmata laudis.” He was removed to Carnarvon Castle, and thence to Mont Orgueil Castle in Jersey, where he occupied himself in writing against popery.
Immediately upon the meeting of the Long Parliament in 1640 Prynne was liberated. On the 28th of November he entered London in triumph, and on the 2nd of March 1641, reparation was voted by the Commons, at the expense of his persecutors. Prynne now attacked the bishops and the Roman Catholics and defended the taking up of arms by the parliament. The words “Touch not mine anointed,” he declared in the Vindication of Psalm cv. ver. 15 (1642), only commanded kings not to oppress their subjects. In 1643 he took an active part in the proceedings against Nathaniel Fiennes for the surrender of Bristol, and showed a vindictive energy in the prosecution of Archbishop Laud. He manipulated the evidence against him, and having been entrusted with the search of Laud's papers, he published a garbled edition of the archbishop's private “Diary,” entitled A Breviate of the Life of Archbishop Laud. He also published Hidden Works of Darkness brought to Light in order to prejudice the archbishop's case, and after his execution, Canterbury's Doom … an unfinished account of the trial commissioned by the House of Commons. Prynne supported a national church controlled by the state, and issued a series of tracts against independency, including in his attacks Henry Burton his former fellow sufferer in the pillory, John Lilburne and John Goodwin [e.g. Independence Examined (1644); 'Brief Animadversions on Mr John Goodwin's Theomachia (1644), &c.]. He denounced Milton's Divorce at Pleasure, was answered in the Colasterion, and contemptuously referred to in the sonnet “On the Forcers of Conscience.” He also opposed violently the Presbyterian system, and denied the right of any Church to excommunicate except by leave of the state [e.g. Four Short Questions (1645); A Vindication of Four Serious Questions (1645)]. He was throughout an enemy of individual freedom in religion.
Prynne took the side of the parliament against the army in 1647, supported the cause of the eleven impeached members, and visited the university of Oxford as one of the parliamentary commissioners. On the 7th of November 1648 Prynne was returned as member for Newport in Cornwall. He at once took part against those who called for the execution of Charles, and on the 6th of December delivered a speech of enormous length in favour of conciliating the king. The result was his inclusion in “Pride's Purge” on the morning of the 6th, when, having resisted to military violence, he was imprisoned. After recovering his liberty Prynne retired to Swainswick. On the 7th of June 1649 he was assessed to the monthly contribution laid on the country by parliament. He not only refused to pay, but published A Legal Vindication of the Liberties of England, arguing that no tax could be raised without the consent of the two houses. In the same year he began a long account of ancient parliaments, intended to reflect on the one in existence, and in June 1650 he was imprisoned in Dunster Castle, afterwards at Taunton, and in June 1651 at Pendennis Castle. He was at last offered his discharge on giving a bond of £1000 to do nothing to the prejudice of the commonwealth. This he refused, and an unconditional order for his release was given on the 18th of February 1653. After his release Prynne further expressed his feelings in defence of advowsons and patrons, an attack on the Quakers (1655), and in a pamphlet against the admission of the Jews to England (A Short Demurrer to the Jews) issued in 1656. On the occasion of the offer of the crown to Cromwell he issued King Richard the Third Revived (1657), and on the creation of the new House of Lords A Plea for the Lords (1658).
On the restoration of the Rump Parliament by the army of the 7th of May 1659 fourteen of the secluded members, with Prynne among them, claimed admittance. The claim was refused, but on the 9th, through the inadvertence of the doorkeepers, Prynne, Annesly and Hungerford succeeded in taking their seats. When they were observed the house purposely adjourned for dinner. In the afternoon the doors were found guarded; the secluded members were not permitted to pass, and a vote was at once taken that they should not again be allowed to enter the house. Wrathful at the failure of his protest and at the continuance of the republican government, Prynne attacked his adversaries fiercely in print. In England's Confusion, published on the 30th of May 1659, in the True and Full Narrative, and in The Brief Necessary Vindication, he gave long accounts of the attempt to enter the house and of his ejection, while in the Curtaine Drawne he held up the claims of the Rump to derision. In Shuffling, Cutting and Dealing, 26th of May, he rejoiced at the quarrels which he saw arising, for “if you all complain I hope I shall Win at last.” Concordia discors pointed out the absurdity of the constant tendency to multiply oaths, while “remonstrances,” “narratives,” “queries,” “prescriptions,” “vindications,” “declarations” and “statements” were scattered broadcast. Upon the cry of the “good old cause” he is especially sarcastic and severe in The True Good Old Cause Rightly Stated and other pamphlets. Loyalty Banished explains itself. His activity and fearlessness in attacking those in power during this eventful year were remarkable, and an ironical petition was circulated in Westminster Hall and the London streets complaining of his indefatigable scribbling. On the 27th of December Prynne made another fruitless attempt to take his seat. In obedience to the popular voice, however, on the 21st of February 1660, the ejected members of 1648, led in triumph by Prynne, wearing a basket-hilt sword, re-entered the house. He supported the Restoration in this parliament, and in the Convention Parliament, which met on the 2 5th of April 1660, and in which he sat for Bath, he urged severe measures against the regicides, and the exclusion of several individuals from the Act of Indemnity. He was foremost in support of the claims of the Presbyterians and against the bishops; advocated the indiscriminate infliction of penalties, and demanded that the officials of the commonwealth should be compelled to refund their salaries. He was nominated a commissioner for disbanding the army, and was appointed keeper of the records in the Tower, a post in which he performed useful services.
Prynne was again returned as member for Bath on the 8th of May 1661, in spite of the vehement efforts of the Royalists headed by Sir T. Bridge. This parliament was bent upon the humiliation of the Presbyterians, and Prynne appears in his familiar character of protester. On the 18th of this month he moved that the Engagement, with the Solemn League and Covenant, should be burned by the hangman. About the same time he published a pamphlet advocating the reform of the Prayer Book, while a tract issued on the 15th of July, Sundry reasons against the new intended Bill for governing and reforming Corporations, was declared illegal, false, scandalous and seditious; Prynne being censured, and only escaping punishment by submission. The continued attacks upon the Presbyterians led him to publish his Short, Sober, Pacific Examination of Exuberances in the Common Prayer, as well as the Apology for Tender Consciences touching Not Bowing at the Name of Jesus. In 1662 there appeared also the Brevia parliarnentaria rediviva, possibly a portion of the Brief Register of Parliamentary Writs, of which the fourth and concluding volume was published in 1664. During 1663 he served constantly on committees, and was chairman of the committee of supply in July, and again in April 1664. In the third session Prynne was once more, on the 13th of May 1664, censured for altering the draft of a bill relating to public-houses after commitment, but the house again, upon his submission remitted the offence, and he again appears on the committee of privileges in November and afterwards. In 1665 and 1666 he published the second and first volumes respectively of the Exact Chronological Vindication and Historical Demonstration of the supreme ecclesiastical jurisdiction exercised by the English kings from the original planting of Christianity to the death of Richard I. In the latter year especially he was very busy with his pen against the Jesuits. In January 1667 he was one of three appointed to manage the evidence at the hearing of the impeachment of Lord Mordaunt, and in November of the same year spoke in defence of Clarendon, so far as the sale of Dunkirk was concerned, and opposed his banishment, and this appears to have been the last time that he addressed the house. In 1668 was published his Aurum reginae or Records concerning Queen-gold, the Brief Animadversions on Coke's Institutes in 1669, and the History of King John, Henry III. and Edward I., in which the power of the Crown over ecclesiastics was maintained, in 1670. The date of the Abridgment of the Records of the Tower of London, published 1689, is doubtful, though the preface is dated 1656–1657. Prynne died unmarried, in his lodgings at Lincoln's Inn, on the 24th of October 1669, and was buried in the walk under the chapel there. He left one portion of his books to Lincoln's Inn and another to Oriel College. His works number about 200 and occupy, together with the replies which they excited, twenty-four columns in the catalogue of the British Museum. Lists of them are given in Wood's Athenae Oxonienses (ed. P. Bliss), vol. iii., and in Documents relating to the Proceedings against William Prynne.