. Page, the disperser of the book, suffered the same
penalty as its author.

The book made a great stir and was widely circulated, much to
the vexation of the Queen. On September 27th appeared a very
long proclamation calling it "a lewd, seditious book . . .
bolstered up with manifest lies, &c.," and commanding it, wherever
found, "to be destroyed (= burnt) in open sight of some public
officer." The book itself is written with moderation and respect,
if we make allowance for the questionable taste of writing on so
delicate a subject at all. It is true that he calls France "a den
of idolatry, a kingdom of darkness, confessing Belial and serving
Baal"; nor does he spare the personal character of the Duke
himself: he only desires that her Majesty may marry with such a
house and such a person "as had not provoked the vengeance of the
Lord." But plain speaking was needed, and it is possible that the
offensive book had something to do with saving the Queen from a
great folly and the nation from as great a danger.

Stubbs, one is glad to find, though maimed, was neither disgraced
nor disheartened by his misfortune. He learnt to write with his
left hand, and wrote so much better with that than many people
with their right, that Lord Burleigh employed him many years
afterwards (1587) to compose an answer to Cardinal Allen's work,
_A Modest Answer to English Persecutors_. After that I lose sight
of Stubbs.

The strong feeling against Episcopacy, which first meets us in
works like Fish's _Supplication of Beggars_, or Tyndale's
_Practice of Prelates_, and which found vent at last, as a
powerful contributory cause, in the Revolution of the
seventeenth century, was most clearly pronounced under Elizabeth
in the famous tracts known as those of Martin Marprelate; and
among these most bitterly in a small work that was burnt by order
of the bishops, entitled a _Dialogue wherein is plainly laide
open the tyrannical dealing of Lord Bishops against God's Church,
with certain points of doctrine, wherein they approve themselves
(according to D. Bridges his judgement) to be truely Bishops of
the Divell_ (1589). This is shown in a sprightly dialogue between
a Puritan and a Papist, a jack of both sides, and an Idol
(_i.e._, church) minister, wherein the most is made of such facts
as that the Bishop of St. David's was summoned before the High
Commission for having two wives living, and that Bishop
Culpepper, of Oxford, was fond of hawking a