image of the Israelites in the Old Testament, whose
faith was tested and proven by their suffering. The con-
nection is further reinforced by Dowriche’s closing
EMBLEM, “Verity as purtraied by the French pilgrim.”
The woodcut depicts a crowned, naked woman with a
scourge tied to her back, standing over fl ames. The
accompanying verse describes how God’s truth is
strengthened rather than destroyed by Satan’s tortures.
Dowriche frames her narrative within the context of
what many Protestants believed was a multinational
Catholic conspiracy to crush Protestantism. This context
drives the poem’s political implications. As citizens of
the sole European nation headed by a stable, militarily
powerful, Protestant monarch (ELIZABETH I), radical
Protestant reformers believed that England had a respon-
sibility to withstand this conspiracy, both by actively
supporting European Protestants, and by instituting fur-
ther church reforms at home. Perhaps because of its use
of poulter’s measure (COUPLETs that rely on alternating
hexameter and heptameter lines), the poem was earlier
dismissed as simplistic. Its heavy-handed portrayal of
the Protestant-Catholic confl ict reinforces this impres-
sion. Recently, however, feminist critics have reexam-
ined this view of early modern women writers, and
Dowriche’s poem is now examined more favorably. She
is particularly adroit in utilizing multiple poetic expres-
sions, woven into a complete view. The narrative of the
martyrs from St. James Street becomes a condemnation
of the English government’s prohibition of private reli-
gious meetings by Nonconformists. The narrative of
Annas Burgeus becomes an indictment of the prohibi-
tion against discussing religious reforms in Parliament.
Such criticisms become even more pointed in light
of Dowriche’s opening dedication of her work to her
brother, Pearse Edgecumbe, a six-term member of Par-
liament. This dedication includes both a letter and an
ACROSTIC poem that spells out Edgecumbe’s name. In
this dedication, Dowriche exhorts her brother to
greater piety, and in the letter (“To the right worship-
full her loving brother”), she refers to an apparent
breech in their relationship, blaming it on “the contra-
rie crossings of those politique affections that hinder
the working” of their natural affection.
Within this context, Dowriche’s poem shrewdly
navigates the dangerous waters of political speech. She
blankets her political message within an uncontrover-
sial condemnation of French Catholicism, yet she still
conveys her underlying position to those who may be
in a position to infl uence English parliamentary
actions—the argument that Parliament should be per-
mitted to openly debate matters of religious reform.
FURTHER READING
Beilin, Elaine. “ ‘Some Freely Spake Their Mind’: Resistance
in Anne Dowriche’s French Historie.” In Women Writing
and the Reproduction of Culture in Tudor and Stuart Britain,
edited by Mary Burke, et al., 119–140. Syracuse, N.Y.:
Syracuse University Press, 2000.
Dowriche, Anne. The French Historie: That Is, A Lamentable
Discourse of Three of the Chiefe, and Most Famous Bloodie
Broiles that Have Happened in France for the Gospell of
Jesus Christ. Women Writers Online. Brown University
Women Writer’s Project. Available online. URL: http://
textbase.wwp.brown.edu. Downloaded on February 14,
2006.
Lysbeth Em BenkertFUTHARK ALPHABET (FUTHORC,
FUTHORK, RUNES) Runes date to the time
before Christianity arrived in northern Europe, and
because of this, they became associated in later times
with non-Christian religions. The runic alphabet is
called futhark after the fi rst six letters of the alphabet—
f, u, th, a, r, and k. The futhark alphabet consists of 24
letters, 18 consonants, and six vowels. Traditionally,
these are divided into three groups of eight, called ættir
(singular ætt). Some scholars believe that futhark is
related to other early inscription systems, such as
OGHAM, but no direct evidence connects these. Like
other runic languages, the runes stood both for indi-
vidual letters and for individual words.
The earliest extant runic inscriptions date to ca. 200
C.E. Most are found on hard surfaces—stone, wood,
metal—which explains the angular nature of the letters.
For some time, futhark coexisted with the Latin alpha-
bet, though in England it began to decline around the
ninth century. It did not survive the NORMAN CONQUEST.
The futhark alphabet provided an important graph-
eme, the thorn (þ), as an addition to the Latin alpha-
bet. Since Latin does not contain the sound combination
th, early representations of Old English used the thornFUTHARK ALPHABET 197