at Winchester before going to New College in 1553, receiving his BA, in
- In 1558 he was ordained and made a prebend of Chichester. He
left England for Louvain shortly after Elizabeth’s accession and remained
absent for four years. Due to the urging of his father, he returned to
England in 1563. William Barlow, then bishop of Chichester, duly
summoned him to take the oath to Elizabeth. Stapleton willingly
subscribed to the part of the oath obligating him to Elizabeth as his sole
sovereign ‘in al temporal causes and things’, but because he could not
‘renounce every forain Prelate,’ as he later wrote, ‘he deprived me (as
much as laie in him) of my prebend’.^6 Following his confrontation with
Barlow Stapleton left England, along with the rest of his family, and
spent virtually the rest of his life in the Netherlands, first at Louvain, but
then at Douai.
The John Laet or Latius press in Antwerp printed the initial Recusant
polemics beginning in 1564 until the middle of 1566, when due to
circumstances the operation fell to the English printer John Fowler in
Louvain. The conflicts over religion then gripping France moved north,
and with them came not only civil war, but brigandage. Stapleton
happened to be in Antwerp on the night of 19 August 1566 when the
first iconoclasm broke out in Antwerp, marking in Stapleton’s mind the
arrival of the Reformation. His recollection of the night was prefaced by
a question to bishop Horne of Winchester: ‘How thinke you M. Horne?
Doe there men acknowledge their Prince Supreame Governour in all
Spirituall causes?’ Stapleton then proceeds:
To let passe the continuance of their preachings without the walles,
which dured aboute six or seven wekes, the Prince of Orange
governor of the towne, labouring in the meane season a greate while
but in vaine, to cause them to surcease from their assemblies, untill
the Kinges pleasure with the accorde of the Generall States were
knowen, they not admitting any suche delaie or expectation (as them
selves in a frenche Pamphlet by them publishied in printe, without
the name of the Author or place of the printing, doe confesse,
foreseeing (as thei said) that no good would come therof, and
therefore obeying the Magistrat as much as them listed) found the
meanes to bring their assemblies into the town it self, so farre
without the Kings or the Regents authoritye, as if they had had no
King at al out of the land, nor Regent in the land. But the meanes
which they found to bring this feate to passe, was singular and
notable.
Wheras the 19 August the Prince of Orange departed from
Antwerp to Bruxels to the court, that being then in the Octaves of
the Assumption of our Lady, a special solemnitie in the chief Church
of Antwerp town, the brethren both for the Governors absenceTHE CATHOLIC REACTION TO JEWEL 119
(^6) Stapleton,A Counterblaste to M. Hornes Vayne Blastte Against M. Fekenham(Lovain:
Joannem Foulerum [John Fowler], 1567), f.424a.