The controversies of Whitgift and Cartwright were of a nature which could never close, for toleration was a notion which never occurred to either. These rivals from early days wrote with such bitterness against each other, that at length it produced mutual reproaches. Whitgift complains to Cartwright: “If you were writing against the veriest Papist, or the ignorantest dolt, you could not be more spiteful and malicious.” And Cartwright replies: “If peace had been so precious unto you as you pretend, you would not have brought so many hard words and bitter reproaches, as it were sticks and coals, to double and treble the heat of contention.”
After this it is curious, even to those accustomed to such speculations, to observe some men changing with the times, and furious rivals converted into brothers. Whitgift, whom Elizabeth, as a mark of her favour, called “her black husband,” soliciting Cartwright’s pardon from the Queen; and the proud Presbyter Cartwright styling Whitgift his Lord the Archbishop’s Grace of Canterbury, and visiting him!
Sir George Paul, a contemporary, attributes his wealth “to the benevolence and bounty of his followers.” Dr. Sutcliffe, one of his adversaries, sharply upbraids him, that “in the persecution he perpetually complained of, he was grown rich.” A Puritan advocate reproves Dr. Sutcliffe for always carping at Cartwright’s purchases:—“Why may not Cartwright sell the lands he had from his father, and buy others with the money, as well as some of the bishops, who by bribery, simony, extortion, racking of rents, wasting of woods, and such like stratagems, wax rich, and purchase great lordships for their posterity?”
To this Sutcliffe replied:
“I do not carpe alway, no, nor once, at Master Cartwright’s purchase. I hinder him not; I envy him not. Only thus much I must tell him, that Thomas Cartwright, a man that hath more landes of his own in possession than any bishop that I know, and that fareth daintily every day, and feedeth fayre and fatte, and lyeth as soft as any tenderling of that brood, and hath wonne much wealth in short time, and will leave more to his posterity than any bishop, should not cry out either of persecution or of excess of bishop’s livinges.”—Sutcliffe’s Answer to Certain Calumnious Petitions.
“The author of these libels,” says Bishop Cooper, in his “Admonition to the People of England,” 1589, “calleth himself by a feigned name, Martin Mar-Prelate, a very fit name undoubtedly. But if this outrageous spirit of boldness be not stopped speedily, I fear he will prove himself to be, not only Mar-Prelate, but Mar-Prince, Mar-State, Mar-Law, Mar-Magistrate, and altogether, until he bring it to an Anabaptistical equality and community.”—Ed.
Cartwright approved of them, and well knew the concealed writers, who frequently consulted him: this appears by Sir G. Paul’s “Life of Whitgift,” p. 65. Being asked his opinion of such books, he said, that “since the bishops, and others there touched, would not amend by grave books, it was therefore meet they should be dealt withal to their farther reproach; and that some books must be earnest, some more mild and temperate, whereby they may be both of the spirit of Elias and Eliseus;” the one the great mocker, the other the more solemn reprover. It must be confessed Cartwright here discovers a deep knowledge of human nature. He knew the power of ridicule and of invective. At a later day, a writer of the same stamp, in “The Second Wash, or the Moore Scoured once more,” (written against Dr. Henry More, the Platonist), in defence of that vocabulary of names which he has poured on More, asserts it is a practice allowed by the high authority of Christ himself. I transcribe the curious passage:—“It is the practice of Christ himself to character men by those things to which they assimilate. Thus hath he called Herod a fox; Judas a devil; false pastors he calls wolves; the buyers and sellers, theeves; and those Hebrew Puritans the Pharisees, hypocrites. This rule and justice of his Master St. Paul hath well observed, and he acts freely thereby; for when he reproves the Cretians, he makes use of that ignominious proverb, Evil beasts and slow bellies. When the high priest commanded the Jews to smite him on the face, he replied to him, not without some bitterness, God shall smite thee, thou white wall. I cite not these places to justify an injurious spleen, but to argue the liberty of the truth.”—The Second Wash, or the Moore Scoured once more. 1651. P. 8.