John Udall (Puritan)
Encyclopedia
John Udall (1560?–1592) was an English clergyman of Puritan
views, closely associated with the publication of the Martin Marprelate
tracts, and prosecuted for controversial works of a similar polemical nature. He has been called "one of the most fluent and learned of puritan controversialists".
, on 15 March 1578, but soon afterwards migrated to Trinity College
. There he graduated B.A. in 1581, and M.A. in 1584. John Penry
was an undergraduate friend, and Udall also gained a working knowledge of Hebrew.
Before 1584 Udall took holy orders and became curate of Kingston-upon-Thames under the absentee vicar, Stephen Chatfield. He was soon known there as a preacher and a convinced Puritan doubter of the scriptural justification of episcopacy.
Although he gained a reputation and influential patrons, Udall's insistence on a literal observance of scriptural precepts was held to infringe the orthodoxy of the Church of England
and in 1586 he was summoned by Thomas Cooper
, bishop of Winchester
and William Day
, dean of Windsor
to appear before the court of high commission at Lambeth
. Through the influence of Anne, Countess of Warwick and Sir Drue Drury he was restored to his ministry.
In April 1588 Udall induced Waldegrave to print at his office in London an anonymous and extreme tract in which Udall denounced the Church of England. In this work Diotrephes, named after a minor New Testament character
, Udall waxed satirical, and the pamphlet gained public attention. It is close to the model of Anthony Gilby
's A pleasaunt dialogue betweene a souldior of Barwicke and an English chaplaine (1581). The character Diotrephes is an anti-Puritan bishop; Udall himself rejected the identification as "Puritan", and the work contains his opinion that the term is from Satan
via the papists, while he puts into the mouth of Diotrephes the view that Puritan applies to reformer of church government.
Archbishop John Whitgift
and other members of the court of high commission considered Diotrephes seditious. It was soon known to have been printed by Waldegrave, and in April his press was seized. Udall, whose responsibility remained unknown to the authorities, then invited Waldegrave to Kingston to discuss the situation. Penry joined the consultation, with the result that plans were made to disseminate through the country further tracts.
The details of the Marprelate publications, a well-masked conspiracy, are still subject to some scholarly debate. It is not clear that Udall made other contributions to the series of pamphlets. On the other hand he was definitely present at some of the printing. He may have had no relation with any of the Marprelate controversialists besides Penry, and perhaps was associated with Penry only at the inception of the scheme. In fact Penry's major collaborator is now thought to have been Job Throckmorton
, and the centre of printing moved away to Warwickshire
.
. There he printed a second anonymous polemic of Udall, A Demonstration. In it Udall denounced ‘the supposed governors of the church of England, the archbishops, lord-bishops, archdeacons, and the rest of that order.’ The Demonstration was secretly distributed in November, at the same time as the Epistle, the first of the distinctive Martin Marprelate tracts, which Waldegrave also put into type at the East Molesey press.
In his Demonstration Udall relies on the New Testament
for church polity: his view was that it sets down prescriptively a scheme that is a definite requirement. His Biblical literalism
is qualified on the title page, by the words the proofes thereof; out of the scriptures, the euidence of it by the light of reason rightly ruled. He employs there also a homely metaphor that was to have a long history for Puritans: the church is a house, and God the householder. His view was that the post of Archbishop
was not scriptural, and neither was ordination
except to a given church post. Canon law
he qualifies as "filthie" and "monstrous". He added to all this economic views. The Demonstration states that the patronage of livings was a work of Antichrist
; and he opposed usury
.
Replies to Udall appeared in 1590, one attributed to Matthew Sutcliffe
one being an intervention by Anthony Marten in A Reconciliation of All the Pastors and Cleargy of the Church of England. Sutcliffe returned to the attack in 1592 with a justification of Udall's conviction.
After a period resting with the intention of leading a private life, he was invited in December by Henry Hastings, 3rd Earl of Huntingdon
and the inhabitants of Newcastle-upon-Tyne to resume his preaching there. He accepted the call, for a year. Newcastle was in an area of active Calvinist ministry, with the Scot John Magbray (Mackbury, Mackbrey) vicar at Billingham
from 1577 to 1587. Udall lectured there only for a short while, but affected an already polarised religious situation by defining a radical direction. Huntingdon, long serving as the President of the Council of the North
, placed as a successor to Udall Richard Holdsworth (father of Richard Holdsworth
the academic) who became vicar at St Nicholas, Newcastle, having been taken on as a chaplain in the north by the Earl from 1585, also as a deprived cleric.
house of William Brooke, 10th Baron Cobham
. A very detailed if partisan account of subsequent events is given in volume 2 of John Waddington
's Congregational History. For context it states that Udall's initial troubles with the authorities were for holding conventicle
s; and quotes Udall to the effect that Holdsworth, his successor at Newcastle, was already acting as pastor
when he arrived.
Udall was asked whether his ministry at Newcastle was authorised by the bishop of the diocese. He replied that both the bishopric of Durham and the archbishopric of York were vacant during the period of his ministry. He refused to say whether he was the author of the Demonstration and Diotrephes. He acknowledged that Penry had passed through Newcastle three months before, but had merely saluted him at his door. The council ordered Udall's detention in the Gatehouse Prison
at Westminster
. A second examination by the council followed on 13 July 1590, when similar questions were put to the prisoner and similar answers made by him.
assizes, before Justice Robert Clarke and Serjeant John Puckering
, on a charge of having published ‘a wicked, scandalous, and seditious libel’ entitled A Demonstration. The indictment was laid under the statute 23 Eliz. cap. 3, which was aimed at attacks on the government made in print by Roman Catholics. Udall had Nicholas Fuller
as counsel, though he was expelled for protesting the judge's directions to the jury. The prosecution depended on the written depositions previously obtained from witnesses in the high commission court. The judges invited Udall to deny on oath that he was author of the incriminated tract. This he refused to do. He was found guilty, but sentence was deferred, and he was ordered to be imprisoned in the White Lion prison in Southwark
. Subsequently he was offered a pardon if he would sign a recantation, but he declined to accept the terms proposed. In February 1591 he was brought to the bar of the Southwark assizes, and raised some arguments in arrest of judgment. Sentence of death was passed on him, and he was carried back to prison.
No attempt was made to carry out the sentence, but Udall remained a prisoner. Past supporters, who had shown sympathy with Udall's religious views in earlier days, including Sir Walter Ralegh and Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex
, interested themselves on his behalf. Alexander Nowell
visited Udall bringing Lancelot Andrewes
as his chaplain, on behalf of the privy council; and efforts were made for his release particularly by Nowell.
Udall sued for liberty to go to church; permission was refused him. A copy of the indictment under which he was convicted, but which he had never seen, was sent him. Acting on the advice of friends, he thereupon framed a form of pardon ‘according to the indictment,’ and his wife presented it with his petition to the council. Ralegh intervened, as he had done in other cases of conscience, and a scheme was worked out under which Udall would swear loyalty to the Queen but accept exile.
as pastor of their agents there if he were released at once. A pardon was signed by the queen early in June. On 15 June Udall, by the archbishop's direction, informed the lord keeper, Puckering, of that fact. But immediately afterwards Udall fell ill and died.
He was buried in the churchyard of St. George's, Southwark. He was survived by his wife and son Ephraim
.
Three volumes of sermons delivered by him at Kingston were published in 1584. The first volume, called Amendment of Life was in three sermons, the second volume was entitled Obedience to the Gospell (two sermons); and the third was entitled Peter's Fall: two Sermons upon the Historie of Peter's denying Christ, London 1584. A fourth collection of five sermons ‘preached in the time of the dearth in 1586,’ was called The true Remedie against Famine and Warres (London, 1586). While at Newcastle Udall published in London, under his own name, a new volume of sermons entitled ‘Combat between Christ and the Devil.’ This was of non-controversial character.
It has been argued that Udall was a significant developer of a style of Puritan Ramist preaching, as detailed charting shows:
Also
In the year following Udall's death there appeared at Leyden a Hebrew grammar under the title The Key of the Holy Tongue (Leyden, 1593). The first part consists of a grammar translated from the Latin of Peter Martinius (Pierre Martinez (c.1530-1594) from French Navarre, a sometime pupil of Petrus Ramus
); the second part supplies exercises on Psalms xxv. and lxv., and the third part is a short dictionary of the Hebrew words of the Bible. The Jewish Encyclopedia
notes it as one of the first Hebrew grammars in a living European language, with the one in Italian by Guglielmo dei Franchi, Sole della Lingua Sancta (1591). The work was prized by James VI of Scotland, who reportedly asked for Udall on his arrival in England in 1603, and, on learning that he was dead, to have exclaimed, ‘By my soul, then, the greatest scholar of Europe is dead.’
In 1593 also appeared (anonymously in London) the first edition of Udall's Commentarie on the Lamentations of Jeremy; other editions are dated 1595, 1599, and 1637. A Dutch translation by J. Lamstium is dated 1660. Udall's Certaine Sermons, taken out of severall Places of Scripture, which was issued in 1596, is a reprint of his Amendment of Life and Obedience to the Gospel. Erroneously attributed to him, according to Sidney Lee
in the Dictionary of National Biography
is an antipapal tract, An Antiquodlibet, or an Advertisement to beware of Secular Priests, Middelburg, 1602; it is now attributed to Dudley Fenner
.
Dedicatees
Udall's extensive network of patrons is partially indicated by his book dedications. These include:
Puritan
The Puritans were a significant grouping of English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries. Puritanism in this sense was founded by some Marian exiles from the clergy shortly after the accession of Elizabeth I of England in 1558, as an activist movement within the Church of England...
views, closely associated with the publication of the Martin Marprelate
Martin Marprelate
Martin Marprelate was the name used by the anonymous author or authors of the seven Marprelate tracts which circulated illegally in England in the years 1588 and 1589...
tracts, and prosecuted for controversial works of a similar polemical nature. He has been called "one of the most fluent and learned of puritan controversialists".
Early life
He matriculated as a sizar of Christ's College, CambridgeChrist's College, Cambridge
Christ's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge.With a reputation for high academic standards, Christ's College averaged top place in the Tompkins Table from 1980-2000 . In 2011, Christ's was placed sixth.-College history:...
, on 15 March 1578, but soon afterwards migrated to Trinity College
Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Trinity has more members than any other college in Cambridge or Oxford, with around 700 undergraduates, 430 graduates, and over 170 Fellows...
. There he graduated B.A. in 1581, and M.A. in 1584. John Penry
John Penry
John Penry is Wales's most famous Protestant martyr.-Early life:He was born in Brecknockshire, Wales; Cefn Brith, a farm near Llangammarch, is traditionally recognised as his birthplace. He matriculated at Peterhouse, Cambridge, in December 1580, being then probably a Roman Catholic; but soon...
was an undergraduate friend, and Udall also gained a working knowledge of Hebrew.
Before 1584 Udall took holy orders and became curate of Kingston-upon-Thames under the absentee vicar, Stephen Chatfield. He was soon known there as a preacher and a convinced Puritan doubter of the scriptural justification of episcopacy.
Although he gained a reputation and influential patrons, Udall's insistence on a literal observance of scriptural precepts was held to infringe the orthodoxy of the Church of England
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
and in 1586 he was summoned by Thomas Cooper
Thomas Cooper (bishop)
Thomas Cooper was an English bishop, lexicographer, and writer.-Life:He was born in Oxford, where he was educated at Magdalen College...
, bishop of Winchester
Bishop of Winchester
The Bishop of Winchester is the head of the Church of England diocese of Winchester, with his cathedra at Winchester Cathedral in Hampshire.The bishop is one of five Church of England bishops to be among the Lords Spiritual regardless of their length of service. His diocese is one of the oldest and...
and William Day
William Day (bishop)
William Day was an English clergyman, Provost of Eton College for many years, and at the end of his life Bishop of Winchester.-Life:...
, dean of Windsor
Dean of Windsor
The Dean of Windsor is the spiritual head of the Canons of St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle. The Dean chairs meetings of the Chapter of Canons as primus inter pares.-List of Deans of Windsor:* William Mugge, 1348* Walter Almaly, 1380...
to appear before the court of high commission at Lambeth
Lambeth
Lambeth is a district of south London, England, and part of the London Borough of Lambeth. It is situated southeast of Charing Cross.-Toponymy:...
. Through the influence of Anne, Countess of Warwick and Sir Drue Drury he was restored to his ministry.
Diotrephes
The group that would launch Marprelate came together around this time. During 1587 Penry seems to have visited Udall at Kingston. The Puritan printer Robert Waldegrave was Penry's friend; it may be that in fact Udall made the introduction, though.In April 1588 Udall induced Waldegrave to print at his office in London an anonymous and extreme tract in which Udall denounced the Church of England. In this work Diotrephes, named after a minor New Testament character
Diotrephes
Diotrephes was a man mentioned in the . His name means "nourished by Jupiter". As Raymond E. Brown comments, "Diotrephes is not a particularly common name."...
, Udall waxed satirical, and the pamphlet gained public attention. It is close to the model of Anthony Gilby
Anthony Gilby
Anthony Gilby was an English clergyman, known as a radical Puritan and Geneva Bible translator.He was born in Lincolnshire, and was educated at Christ's College, Cambridge, graduating in 1535.-Early life:...
's A pleasaunt dialogue betweene a souldior of Barwicke and an English chaplaine (1581). The character Diotrephes is an anti-Puritan bishop; Udall himself rejected the identification as "Puritan", and the work contains his opinion that the term is from Satan
Satan
Satan , "the opposer", is the title of various entities, both human and divine, who challenge the faith of humans in the Hebrew Bible...
via the papists, while he puts into the mouth of Diotrephes the view that Puritan applies to reformer of church government.
Archbishop John Whitgift
John Whitgift
John Whitgift was the Archbishop of Canterbury from 1583 to his death. Noted for his hospitality, he was somewhat ostentatious in his habits, sometimes visiting Canterbury and other towns attended by a retinue of 800 horsemen...
and other members of the court of high commission considered Diotrephes seditious. It was soon known to have been printed by Waldegrave, and in April his press was seized. Udall, whose responsibility remained unknown to the authorities, then invited Waldegrave to Kingston to discuss the situation. Penry joined the consultation, with the result that plans were made to disseminate through the country further tracts.
Genesis of Martin Marprelate
Penry soon decided to write a series of attacks on the bishops which should bear the pseudonym of Martin Marprelate. Udall supplied him with information that had come to his knowledge of the illegal practices of the bishop of London, and Penry embodied it in the first of the Martin Marprelate tracts, which was known as The Epistle. John Feild had collated such information, and it is suggested that after Feild's death in 1588 his papers were circulated (against Feild's expressed wishes); Udall may have been a recipient. McGinn has argued that papers of this sort that Udall showed Chatfield, at a date probably before Feild's death, were from Feild.The details of the Marprelate publications, a well-masked conspiracy, are still subject to some scholarly debate. It is not clear that Udall made other contributions to the series of pamphlets. On the other hand he was definitely present at some of the printing. He may have had no relation with any of the Marprelate controversialists besides Penry, and perhaps was associated with Penry only at the inception of the scheme. In fact Penry's major collaborator is now thought to have been Job Throckmorton
Job Throckmorton
Job Throckmorton was an English religious pamphleteer and Member of Parliament. Possibly with John Penry and John Udall, he authored the Martin Marprelate anonymous anti-clerical satires; scholarly consensus now makes him the main author.-Life:He was of the Warwickshire gentry, resident at...
, and the centre of printing moved away to Warwickshire
Warwickshire
Warwickshire is a landlocked non-metropolitan county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, although the largest town is Nuneaton. The county is famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare...
.
A Demonstration
Udall pursued the bishops single-handed. In July 1588 Waldegrave secretly set up a press in the neighbourhood of Kingston, at the house of Elizabeth Crane, widow of Anthony Crane, at East MoleseyEast Molesey
Molesey is a town in the Borough of Elmbridge in Surrey, England. Situated on the outskirts of Greater London, approximately from Charing Cross, it is a typical suburban area. There are two distinct areas in the town: West and East Molesey...
. There he printed a second anonymous polemic of Udall, A Demonstration. In it Udall denounced ‘the supposed governors of the church of England, the archbishops, lord-bishops, archdeacons, and the rest of that order.’ The Demonstration was secretly distributed in November, at the same time as the Epistle, the first of the distinctive Martin Marprelate tracts, which Waldegrave also put into type at the East Molesey press.
In his Demonstration Udall relies on the New Testament
New Testament
The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....
for church polity: his view was that it sets down prescriptively a scheme that is a definite requirement. His Biblical literalism
Biblical literalism
Biblical literalism is the interpretation or translation of the explicit and primary sense of words in the Bible. A literal Biblical interpretation is associated with the fundamentalist and evangelical hermeneutical approach to Scripture, and is used almost exclusively by conservative Christians...
is qualified on the title page, by the words the proofes thereof; out of the scriptures, the euidence of it by the light of reason rightly ruled. He employs there also a homely metaphor that was to have a long history for Puritans: the church is a house, and God the householder. His view was that the post of Archbishop
Archbishop
An archbishop is a bishop of higher rank, but not of higher sacramental order above that of the three orders of deacon, priest , and bishop...
was not scriptural, and neither was ordination
Ordination
In general religious use, ordination is the process by which individuals are consecrated, that is, set apart as clergy to perform various religious rites and ceremonies. The process and ceremonies of ordination itself varies by religion and denomination. One who is in preparation for, or who is...
except to a given church post. Canon law
Canon law
Canon law is the body of laws & regulations made or adopted by ecclesiastical authority, for the government of the Christian organization and its members. It is the internal ecclesiastical law governing the Catholic Church , the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches, and the Anglican Communion of...
he qualifies as "filthie" and "monstrous". He added to all this economic views. The Demonstration states that the patronage of livings was a work of Antichrist
Antichrist
The term or title antichrist, in Christian theology, refers to a leader who fulfills Biblical prophecies concerning an adversary of Christ, while resembling him in a deceptive manner...
; and he opposed usury
Usury
Usury Originally, when the charging of interest was still banned by Christian churches, usury simply meant the charging of interest at any rate . In countries where the charging of interest became acceptable, the term came to be used for interest above the rate allowed by law...
.
Replies to Udall appeared in 1590, one attributed to Matthew Sutcliffe
Matthew Sutcliffe
Matthew Sutcliffe was an English clergyman, academic and lawyer. He became Dean of Exeter, and wrote extensively on religious matters as a controversialist. He served as chaplain to His Majesty King James I of England. He was the founder of Chelsea College, a royal centre for the writing of...
one being an intervention by Anthony Marten in A Reconciliation of All the Pastors and Cleargy of the Church of England. Sutcliffe returned to the attack in 1592 with a justification of Udall's conviction.
Deprival and time in Newcastle
In July 1588, Udall, although his authorship of Diotrephes was hardly suspected, and the Demonstration was as yet unpublished, again offended the court of high commission by uncompromising sermons in the parish church of Kingston. He was summarily deprived of his living.After a period resting with the intention of leading a private life, he was invited in December by Henry Hastings, 3rd Earl of Huntingdon
Henry Hastings, 3rd Earl of Huntingdon
Sir Henry Hastings, 3rd Earl of Huntingdon, KG KB was the eldest son of Francis Hastings, 2nd Earl of Huntingdon and Catherine Pole.-Ancestry:...
and the inhabitants of Newcastle-upon-Tyne to resume his preaching there. He accepted the call, for a year. Newcastle was in an area of active Calvinist ministry, with the Scot John Magbray (Mackbury, Mackbrey) vicar at Billingham
Billingham
Billingham is a town in the unitary authority of Stockton on Tees, in north east England, with a population of 35,765 . It was founded circa 650 by a group of Saxons known as Billa's people, which is where the name Billingham is thought to have originated...
from 1577 to 1587. Udall lectured there only for a short while, but affected an already polarised religious situation by defining a radical direction. Huntingdon, long serving as the President of the Council of the North
Council of the North
The Council of the North was an administrative body originally set up in 1484 by king Richard III of England, the third and last Yorkist monarch to hold the Crown of England; its intention was to improve government control and economic prosperity, to benefit the entire area of Northern England...
, placed as a successor to Udall Richard Holdsworth (father of Richard Holdsworth
Richard Holdsworth
Richard Holdsworth was an English academic theologian, and Master of Emmanuel College, Cambridge from 1637 to 1643...
the academic) who became vicar at St Nicholas, Newcastle, having been taken on as a chaplain in the north by the Earl from 1585, also as a deprived cleric.
Imprisonment
Meanwhile many Marprelate tracts had been issued in rapid succession, and the bishops made every effort to discover their source. Udall was soon suspected of complicity, and on 29 December 1589 he was summoned to London to be examined by the privy council. He arrived on 9 January 1590, and four days later appeared at a council meeting that was held at the BlackfriarsBlackfriars
Blackfriars is an area of central London, which lies in the south-west corner of the City of London.The name Blackfriars was first used in 1317 and derives from the black cappa worn by the Dominican Friars who moved their priory from Holborn to the area between the River Thames and Ludgate Hill in...
house of William Brooke, 10th Baron Cobham
William Brooke, 10th Baron Cobham
William Brooke, 10th Baron Cobham was Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, and a Member of Parliament for Hythe. Although he was viewed by some as a religious radical during the Somerset protectorate, he entertained Elizabeth at Cobham Hall in 1559, signalling his acceptance of the moderate regime.His...
. A very detailed if partisan account of subsequent events is given in volume 2 of John Waddington
John Waddington (cleric)
John Waddington was an English Congregational divine who wrote an important series of books on the history of the Congregational Church in England.-Life:...
's Congregational History. For context it states that Udall's initial troubles with the authorities were for holding conventicle
Conventicle
A conventicle is a small, unofficial and unofficiated meeting of laypeople, to discuss religious issues in a non-threatening, intimate manner. Philipp Jakob Spener called for such associations in his Pia Desideria, and they were the foundation of the German Evangelical Lutheran Pietist movement...
s; and quotes Udall to the effect that Holdsworth, his successor at Newcastle, was already acting as pastor
Pastor
The word pastor usually refers to an ordained leader of a Christian congregation. When used as an ecclesiastical styling or title, this role may be abbreviated to "Pr." or often "Ps"....
when he arrived.
Udall was asked whether his ministry at Newcastle was authorised by the bishop of the diocese. He replied that both the bishopric of Durham and the archbishopric of York were vacant during the period of his ministry. He refused to say whether he was the author of the Demonstration and Diotrephes. He acknowledged that Penry had passed through Newcastle three months before, but had merely saluted him at his door. The council ordered Udall's detention in the Gatehouse Prison
Gatehouse Prison
Gatehouse Prison was a prison in Westminster, built in 1370 as the gatehouse of Westminster Abbey and first used as a prison by the Abbot, a powerful churchman who held considerable power over the precincts and sanctuary...
at Westminster
Westminster
Westminster is an area of central London, within the City of Westminster, England. It lies on the north bank of the River Thames, southwest of the City of London and southwest of Charing Cross...
. A second examination by the council followed on 13 July 1590, when similar questions were put to the prisoner and similar answers made by him.
Courtroom and aftermath
On 24 July 1590 Udall was placed on trial at the CroydonCroydon
Croydon is a town in South London, England, located within the London Borough of Croydon to which it gives its name. It is situated south of Charing Cross...
assizes, before Justice Robert Clarke and Serjeant John Puckering
John Puckering
Sir John Puckering was a lawyer, politician, Speaker of the English House of Commons, and Lord Keeper from 1592 until his death...
, on a charge of having published ‘a wicked, scandalous, and seditious libel’ entitled A Demonstration. The indictment was laid under the statute 23 Eliz. cap. 3, which was aimed at attacks on the government made in print by Roman Catholics. Udall had Nicholas Fuller
Nicholas Fuller (lawyer)
Sir Nicholas Fuller was an English barrister and Member of Parliament. After studying at Christ's College, Cambridge, Fuller became a barrister of Gray's Inn...
as counsel, though he was expelled for protesting the judge's directions to the jury. The prosecution depended on the written depositions previously obtained from witnesses in the high commission court. The judges invited Udall to deny on oath that he was author of the incriminated tract. This he refused to do. He was found guilty, but sentence was deferred, and he was ordered to be imprisoned in the White Lion prison in Southwark
Southwark
Southwark is a district of south London, England, and the administrative headquarters of the London Borough of Southwark. Situated east of Charing Cross, it forms one of the oldest parts of London and fronts the River Thames to the north...
. Subsequently he was offered a pardon if he would sign a recantation, but he declined to accept the terms proposed. In February 1591 he was brought to the bar of the Southwark assizes, and raised some arguments in arrest of judgment. Sentence of death was passed on him, and he was carried back to prison.
No attempt was made to carry out the sentence, but Udall remained a prisoner. Past supporters, who had shown sympathy with Udall's religious views in earlier days, including Sir Walter Ralegh and Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex
Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex
Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, KG was an English nobleman and a favourite of Elizabeth I. Politically ambitious, and a committed general, he was placed under house arrest following a poor campaign in Ireland during the Nine Years' War in 1599...
, interested themselves on his behalf. Alexander Nowell
Alexander Nowell
Alexander Nowell was an English Puritan theologian and clergyman, who served as dean of St Paul's during much of Elizabeth I's reign.-Biography:...
visited Udall bringing Lancelot Andrewes
Lancelot Andrewes
Lancelot Andrewes was an English bishop and scholar, who held high positions in the Church of England during the reigns of Queen Elizabeth I and King James I. During the latter's reign, Andrewes served successively as Bishop of Chichester, Ely and Winchester and oversaw the translation of the...
as his chaplain, on behalf of the privy council; and efforts were made for his release particularly by Nowell.
Udall sued for liberty to go to church; permission was refused him. A copy of the indictment under which he was convicted, but which he had never seen, was sent him. Acting on the advice of friends, he thereupon framed a form of pardon ‘according to the indictment,’ and his wife presented it with his petition to the council. Ralegh intervened, as he had done in other cases of conscience, and a scheme was worked out under which Udall would swear loyalty to the Queen but accept exile.
Pardon and death
The papers were referred to Archbishop Whitgift, agitation in Udall's favour grew, and in March 1592 the governors of the Turkey Company offered to send Udall to SyriaSyria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
as pastor of their agents there if he were released at once. A pardon was signed by the queen early in June. On 15 June Udall, by the archbishop's direction, informed the lord keeper, Puckering, of that fact. But immediately afterwards Udall fell ill and died.
He was buried in the churchyard of St. George's, Southwark. He was survived by his wife and son Ephraim
Ephraim Udall
Ephraim Udall was an English Royalist divine.Udall was son of John Udall. He was admitted a pensioner of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, in July 1606, proceeded B.A. in 1609, and commenced M.A. in 1614. On 20 Sept. 1615 he was appointed perpetual curate of Teddington. On 27 Nov. 1634 he was presented...
.
Works
Udall published significant works other than the tracts, under his name.Three volumes of sermons delivered by him at Kingston were published in 1584. The first volume, called Amendment of Life was in three sermons, the second volume was entitled Obedience to the Gospell (two sermons); and the third was entitled Peter's Fall: two Sermons upon the Historie of Peter's denying Christ, London 1584. A fourth collection of five sermons ‘preached in the time of the dearth in 1586,’ was called The true Remedie against Famine and Warres (London, 1586). While at Newcastle Udall published in London, under his own name, a new volume of sermons entitled ‘Combat between Christ and the Devil.’ This was of non-controversial character.
It has been argued that Udall was a significant developer of a style of Puritan Ramist preaching, as detailed charting shows:
The structure of Udall's sermons resembles that of earlier dichotomous sermons by Laurence ChadertonLaurence ChadertonLaurence Chaderton was an English Puritan divine, and one of the translators of the King James Version of the Bible.-Life:...
in 1578 and 1584 and Bartholomew Andrewes in 1583.
Also
[...] Udall's paradigm of the sermon explained in A Commentarie vpon the Lamentation of Ieremy became a standard for preaching in England and America.
In the year following Udall's death there appeared at Leyden a Hebrew grammar under the title The Key of the Holy Tongue (Leyden, 1593). The first part consists of a grammar translated from the Latin of Peter Martinius (Pierre Martinez (c.1530-1594) from French Navarre, a sometime pupil of Petrus Ramus
Petrus Ramus
Petrus Ramus was an influential French humanist, logician, and educational reformer. A Protestant convert, he was killed during the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre.-Early life:...
); the second part supplies exercises on Psalms xxv. and lxv., and the third part is a short dictionary of the Hebrew words of the Bible. The Jewish Encyclopedia
Jewish Encyclopedia
The Jewish Encyclopedia is an encyclopedia originally published in New York between 1901 and 1906 by Funk and Wagnalls. It contained over 15,000 articles in 12 volumes on the history and then-current state of Judaism and the Jews as of 1901...
notes it as one of the first Hebrew grammars in a living European language, with the one in Italian by Guglielmo dei Franchi, Sole della Lingua Sancta (1591). The work was prized by James VI of Scotland, who reportedly asked for Udall on his arrival in England in 1603, and, on learning that he was dead, to have exclaimed, ‘By my soul, then, the greatest scholar of Europe is dead.’
In 1593 also appeared (anonymously in London) the first edition of Udall's Commentarie on the Lamentations of Jeremy; other editions are dated 1595, 1599, and 1637. A Dutch translation by J. Lamstium is dated 1660. Udall's Certaine Sermons, taken out of severall Places of Scripture, which was issued in 1596, is a reprint of his Amendment of Life and Obedience to the Gospel. Erroneously attributed to him, according to Sidney Lee
Sidney Lee
Sir Sidney Lee was an English biographer and critic.He was born Solomon Lazarus Lee at 12 Keppel Street, Bloomsbury, London and educated at the City of London School and at Balliol College, Oxford, where he graduated in modern history in 1882. In the next year he became assistant-editor of the...
in the Dictionary of National Biography
Dictionary of National Biography
The Dictionary of National Biography is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published from 1885...
is an antipapal tract, An Antiquodlibet, or an Advertisement to beware of Secular Priests, Middelburg, 1602; it is now attributed to Dudley Fenner
Dudley Fenner
Dudley Fenner was an English puritan divine. He helped popularize Ramist logic in the English language. Fenner was also one of the first theologians to use the term "covenant of works" to describe God's relationship with Adam in the Book of Genesis.-Life:He was born in Kent and educated at...
.
Dedicatees
Udall's extensive network of patrons is partially indicated by his book dedications. These include:
- Charles Howard, 2nd Baron Howard of Effingham in Amendment of Life (1584).
- Francis Russell, 2nd Earl of BedfordFrancis Russell, 2nd Earl of BedfordFrancis Russell, 2nd Earl of Bedford, KG was an English nobleman, soldier and politician and godfather to Sir. Francis Drake.-Early life:...
in Peter's Fall (1584). - Ambrose Dudley, 3rd Earl of WarwickAmbrose Dudley, 3rd Earl of WarwickAmbrose Dudley, 3rd Earl of Warwick, KG was an English nobleman and general, and an elder brother of Queen Elizabeth I's favourite, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester...
in The true Remedie against Famine and Warres (1586). - Henry Hastings, 3rd Earl of HuntingdonHenry Hastings, 3rd Earl of HuntingdonSir Henry Hastings, 3rd Earl of Huntingdon, KG KB was the eldest son of Francis Hastings, 2nd Earl of Huntingdon and Catherine Pole.-Ancestry:...
, Combat between Christ and the Devil.