SOURCE: Griffin, Benjamin. “Marring and Mending: Treacherous Likeness in Two Renaissance Controversies.” The Huntington Library Quarterly 60, no. 4 (1999): 363-80.

In the following essay, Griffin examines the Marprelate controversy from the anti-Martinist side and explores the similar “Oldcastle controversy.” Then he analyzes the development of Marprelate's persona as a method of partially averting social condemnation.

Give losers leave to speak” is a proverb going back to the sixteenth century. In this essay I want to discuss two literary controversies of that century, paying attention to the way the losers speak. In controversies, attention generally focuses on the winners: we read Martin Marprelate much more readily than Mar-Marprelate, 1 Henry IV in preference to 1 Sir John Oldcastle; and of course the list could be extended: Nashe rather than Harvey, Pope rather than Theobald. We are assisted in this by the incorporation of the “victorious” works into a canon; but we need not...