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ANDERTON, Lawrence.
The Protestants Apologie for the Roman Church.
[St. Omer, English College Press], 1608.
£1650.00
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4to. pp. [xxvi] 56 [iv] 57-751 [i.e. 756] [lxxii]. Roman and Italic letter. Woodcut initials and ornaments. Title page a bit browned and frayed at outer edge, touching one letter; two small holes to title and subsequent page affecting three letters, small waterstain to lower outer blank corner of a couple of prelims. A good, clean copy in contemporary polished calf, spine in 6 compartments, joints cracked, small chip at foot of spine. Title page inscription in early hand 'They [Protestants] that no man oppresse and defraud', Thomas Clerk's mid-18th century autograph at head of title 'ex dono Ri[chard] Lovelace' (shaved), mid-19th-century armorial bookplate of the Earls of Macclesfield on pastedown and armorial blindstamp to title. First edition thus. An expanded version of Brerely's 1604 'Apologie of the Roman Church'. Brerely was a pseudonym, and the true author is supposed to be the seminary priest Lawrence Anderton, though the text is sometimes attributed to James Anderton. It represents the beginnings of a new sort of controversial literature that aimed to refute its opponents using his, or his supporters', own words. This work aimed to establish Catholic claims "by the testimonies of the learned Protestants themselves". The original version proved "something of a sensation" on publication and was "frequently praised and imitated by subsequent Catholic apologists" (Milward). The work is particularly interesting for its accounts of the earlier reformation movements of Huss, Wyclif, Waldo and others and their distinction from Lutheran Protestantism, as well as its historical appeal to Englishmen that they and their kings lived and died in the Catholic faith, with numerous examples. A short but valuable bibliography of Protestant writers and their works precedes the text.
Thomas Clark was a favourite of the first Earl of Macclesfield, and also a lawyer. It has even been posited that he was his illegitimate son. Educated at Trinity Cambridge, he became Master of the Rolls in 1754. At his death, he left his monies and books to the then Earl.
STC 3604.5; Milward, Religious Controversies of the Jacobean Age, 514; Lowndes I, p. 262.
L545
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