Online Encyclopedia
Search over 40,000 articles from the original, classic Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Edition.
PRYNNE, WILLIAM (1600-1669)
Online EncyclopediaEncyclopedia Home :: PRE-PYR
del.icio.us it!
|
See also:PRYNNE, See also: After his release Prynne further expressed his feelings in See also:defence of advowsons and patrons, an attack on the See also:Quakers (1655), and in a pamphlet against the See also:admission of the See also:Jews to England (A See also:Short See also:Demurrer to the Jews) issued in 1656. On the occasion of the offer of the See also:crown to See also:Cromwell he issued King See also:Richard the Third Revived (1657), and on the creation of the new See also:House of Lords A Plea for the Lords (1658).
On the restoration of the Rump Parliament by the See also: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 See also:door-keepers, Prynne, Annesly and See also:Hungerford succeeded in taking their seats. When they were observed the house purposely adjourned for See also:dinner. In the afternoon the doors were found guarded; the secluded members were not permitted to pass, and a See also: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 See also:government, Prynne attacked his adversaries fiercely in See also:print. In England's Confusion, published on the 3oth of May 1659, in the True and Full Narrative, and in The Brief Necessary Vindication, he gave long accounts of the See also: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 See also:hope I shall win at last." See also:Concordia discors pointed out the absurdity of the See also:constant tendency to multiply oaths, while " remonstrances," " narratives," " queries," " prescriptions," " vindications," " declarations " and " statements " were scattered broadcast. Upon the cry of the " See also:good old cause " he is especially sarcastic and severe in The True Good Old Cause Rightly Stated and other See also:pamphlets. See also:Loyalty Banished explains itself. His activity and fearlessness in attacking those in See also:power during this eventful year were remarkable, and an ironical See also:petition was circulated in See also:Westminster See also: On the 27th of December Prynne made another fruitless attempt to take his seat. In obedience to the popular See also:voice, however, on the 21st of February 1660, the ejected members of 1648, led in See also:triumph by Prynne, wearing a See also:basket-hilt See also:sword, re-entered the house. He supported the Restoration in this parliament, and in the See also:Convention Parliament, which met on the 25th of See also:April 1660, and in which he sat for Bath, he urged severe See also:measures against the regicides, and the exclusion of several individuals from the See also:Act of See also: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 See also:commissioner for disbanding the army, and was appointed keeper of the records in the See also:Tower, a See also:post in which he performed useful services. Prynne was again returned as member for Bath on the 8th of upon obstinacy, and a want of sympathy with human nature. His first See also:book, The See also:Perpetuity of a Regenerate See also:Man's See also:Estate (1627), defended one of the See also:main Calvinistic positions, and The Unloveliness of Love-locks and See also:Health's Sickness (1628) attacked prevailing fashions without any sense of proportion, treating follies on the same footing as scandalous vices. In 1629 Prynne came forward as the assailant of Arminianism in See also:doctrine and of ceremonialism in practice, and thus See also:drew down upon himself the anger of See also:Laud. Histrio-mastix, published in 1633, was a violent attack upon See also:stage plays in See also:general, in which the author pointed out that See also:kings and emperors who had favoured the See also: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 See also:rehearsal of a See also:ballet, was supposed to apply to the See also:queen. After a year's imprisonment in the Tower Prynne was sentenced by the See also:star chamber on the 17th of February 1634 to be imprisoned for See also: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 See also:pillory, where he was to lose both his ears. The latter portion of the See also:sentence was carried out on the 7th of May, and the See also:rest of his See also:punishment inflicted except the exaction of the See also:fine. There is no See also:reason to suppose that his punishment was unpopular. In 1637 he was once more in the star chamber, together with See also:Bastwick and See also:Burton. In A Divine Tragedy lately acted he had attacked the See also:Declaration of See also:Sports, and in See also:News from See also:Ipswich he had assailed See also:Wren and the bishops generally. On the 3oth 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 See also:Carnarvon Castle, and thence to Mont Orgueil Castle in See also:Jersey, where he occupied himself in See also:writing against popery.
Immediately upon the See also: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 See also: . . an unfinished account of the trial commissioned by the House of Commons. Prynne sup-ported a See also:national See also: In 1662 there appeared also the Brevia parliamentaria rediviva, possibly a portion of the Brief See also:Register of Parliamentary Writs, of which the See also:fourth and concluding See also:volume was published in 1664. During 1663 he served constantly on committees, and was chairman of the See also:committee of See also: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 See also:relating to public-houses after See also: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 See also:Chronological Vindication and See also:Historical Demonstration of the supreme ecclesiastical See also:jurisdiction exercised by the English kings from the See also:original planting of See also:Christianity to the See also:death of Richard I. In the latter year especially he was very busy with his See also:pen against the See also:Jesuits. In See also:January 1667 he was one of three appointed to See also:manage the evidence at the See also:hearing of the See also:impeachment of See also:Lord Mordaunt, and in November of the same year spoke in defence of See also:Clarendon, so far as the See also:sale of See also: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-See also:gold, the Brief Animadversions on See also:Coke's Institutes in 1669, and the See also:History of King John, Henry III. and See also:Edward I., in which the power of the Crown over ecclesiastics was maintained, in 167o. The date of the Abridgment of the Records of the Tower of London, published 1689, is doubtful, though the See also:preface is dated 1656-1657. Prynne died unmarried, in his lodgings at Lincoln's Inn, on the 24th of See also:October 1669, and was buried in the walk under the See also:chapel there. He See also: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 See also:catalogue of the See also:British Museum. Lists of them are given in See also:Wood's Athenae Oxonienses (ed. P. See also:Bliss), vol. iii., and in Documents relating to the Proceedings against William Prynne. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
» Add information or comments to this article.
Please link directly to this article:
Highlight the code below, right click, and select "copy." Then paste it into your website, email, or other HTML. Site content, images, and layout Copyright © 2006 - Net Industries, worldwide. |
|
|
[back] PRUTZ, ROBERT EDUARD (1816-1872) |
[next] PRYOR, ROGER ATKINSON (1828– ) |