Upload
pagolargo
View
219
Download
0
Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
8/9/2019 Raleigh, Hariot, And Atheism in Elizabethan and Early Stuart England
1/10
Raleigh, Hariot, and Atheism in Elizabethan and Early Stuart England
Author(s): Susanne S. WebbReviewed work(s):Source: Albion: A Quarterly Journal Concerned with British Studies, Vol. 1, No. 1 (1969), pp.10-18Published by: The North American Conference on British StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4048171.
Accessed: 06/01/2012 23:01
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at.http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
The North American Conference on British Studiesis collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and
extend access toAlbion: A Quarterly Journal Concerned with British Studies.
http://www.jstor.org
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=nacbshttp://www.jstor.org/stable/4048171?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/stable/4048171?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=nacbs8/9/2019 Raleigh, Hariot, And Atheism in Elizabethan and Early Stuart England
2/10
RALEIGH, HARIOT,
AND ATHEISMIN ELIZABETHAN
AND
EARLY
STUART ENGLAND
Susanne
S.
Webb
It
has
long
been
accepted
as
fact
that
Raleigh
was an
important figure
in
a
coterie
of
maverick
intellectual,
generally
referred
to as
the
School
of
Night.
The
asuptions
are
that
this
coterie was a structured
group;
that it
concerned
itse
with
iconoclastic
attitudes
toward religion
and
philosophy,
politics
literature,
and the
sciences-
and
that
the
Raleigh
corie
was
in
active
opposi-
tion to a
rival
group,
the
members of wich
included the
Earl of
Essex,
the
Earl of
Southampton,
and
William
Shakespeare.
However,
to concerns
need
clariication to
eva-uate
he evidence
tha
Raleigh
was
a
member of
such
a
,group:
were the
attacks
on
hm as
atheist
justifd,
and
what were
his
attitudes toward intellectu
pursuits?
It
would
then
be most
practic
to
ascertain on whaLt evidene. the
School of Night
theorv
is
based,
how it
is
presen.ted
and interpreted
by
tenteth
centry
scholars,
a
whether
or not
earlier accounts of
Raleigh
scribe
to such
theories,
examining along the
way
what
Rleigh's
beliefs
were
c
can
be
deterniined
by
his
writings
ad
what
contemporary atitudes
were toward
Raleigh
and his
associates.
It
nay then be
possible
to
judge
if
there
is
liustification for
serting
that Raleigh ws a
leader--or even a member--of such a group, and indeed, if any such roup is
likely
to
have
existed.
1:
592,
in
answer
t
iElizabeth's proclamation
against
the
Jesuits,
Father
Robert
Parsons
published
his
Responsio
in which
he
deplored
the
notion
that
Raleilgh
might
become
a privy
councilor
and thus
introduce an atheistic
policy
into
Engl
d,
through
the
agency
of
his
conjurer,
usually taken
to
be
Thomas
Hariot, An
Advertisment,
the
English
summary of the
Resposio,
repeated
the
charge but did not speculate
on Raleigh's appointment to the Privy
Council.
Of
Sir
Walter
Raleigh's school
of atheism by the
way,
and of the conjurer
that is
M
Laster] thereof,
and of the diligence used to
get young
gentlemen
to this school, wherein both Mioses and our Savior, the Old and New Testament
are
jested
at,
and
the
scholars
taught among other things to spell God back-
ward.
,2
These
two
indictments,
while by far the
most
widely
circulated,
were
lElizabethae,
Angliae
Reginae
Haeresim
Calvinianam
Propugnantis
Saevissiunum
in
Catholicos
sui
Regi
e4dictu.
cum
Responsione.
per
D.
Andream
Philopatrum
(Augsburg, 1a92)
cited
by Ernest A.
Strathman,
John Dee as
Raleigh's
Conjurer,
Huntington
Library
uarterl
X
(1947)
370.
2An Advertisement Written to a Secretary of
My
L..
Treasurers of
,England,
by
an
English
Intelligencer
as
He Passed
through
Germany
towards
Italy,
18.
10
8/9/2019 Raleigh, Hariot, And Atheism in Elizabethan and Early Stuart England
3/10
not
the
only replies
to the
proclamation
that attacked Raleigh
directly
or
indirectly. Father
Creswell, Thomas Stapleton, and Richard
Verstegern also
treated Raleigh as a
man
to be reckoned
with. However, other
significant
references to Raleigh's
atheism
during
1592-1594 are in manuscript
sources.
Thus
it is
largely
due
to the wide circulation
of Parsons's tract
that Raleigh
was suspected of
atheism.
The charge of atheism may be refuted both circumstantially and by
reference
to
Raleigh's
own
works.
Both
the
antiquary Hooker and preacher
Hakluyt
dedicated editions of their
wsorks
to Raleigh, and did so in specifically
Christian
terms:
Hooker dedicated
The
Irish
History
and
Hakluyt dedicated
both his edition of
Peter
Mlartyrls
De
Orbe Novo
and his
English translation of
Laudonniere's
History
of
Florida. Further, Raleigh
was instrumental
in
securing
the
remission
of
a sentence
of
death
upon
John
Udall,
a
Puritan
scholar
and
preacher,
and
by
1591
Nvasknowvn
s a
source of
aid
for persecuted
Puritans.
3
In addition
to helping Puritans, Raleigh
was
active
in
pursuing
Jesuits,
and
with
Ralph Horsey
was
present
at
the
interrogation
of a
notabell
stout
villayne,
John Mlooney, Father Cornelius.4
Further refutation of
the
charge
that
Raleigh
was an
atheist
rests
upon his
own
intellectual
attitudes which reveal
a
staunchly Christian
but
hardly
pedestrian approach
to
religion and
the
pursuit
of
knowledge.
Raleigh main-
tains
three
principles throughout
the
History
of
the
World. First,
that
God
is
over
nature,
and that nature
is the
agency by
which God's
purposes
are
accomplished: I
do also
account
it
not
the
meanest,
but
an impiety monstrous
to confound God and nature
be it but
in
terms.
For
it is
God that only disposeth
of all
things according
to
his
own
will,
and nmaketh
of
one
earth
v-essels
of
honour and dishonour: it is nature that can dispose of nothing, but according
to
the
will of the
matter wherein
it
worketh.
It
is
God
that
commandeth
all.
a
Second,
that
man,
in
studying nature,
must
of
necessity
be restricted
by
the
bounds of human
reason: That Nature
is
no
principium
per
se;
nor form
the
giver of being: and
of our ignorance
how second causes should
have
any pro-
portion
with
their effects.
,,6
Third, that man,
even
though
human reason
is
limited, should
aid in any way possible
and legitimate
the
advancement
of
knowvledgeto effect
the betterment of
the
condition of
mankind. It
is
note-
worthy that throughout the preface Raleigh
rejects
the
old
Aristotelian
scholastic approaches
to Christian theology,
but that
he
replaces
them
with a
firm faith and soundly logical--almost Baconian--approach. But doth it
follow, that
the
positions
of
heathen
philosophers
are
undoubted
ground
and
principles, indeed,
because so called?
or
that
ipsi
dixerunt,
doth
make
them
3Edw'ard Edwards,
Life of Raleigh,
2
vols.; (London, 1868), I,
132.
4
Ibid. II, 91.
5Walter
Raleigh,
Preface, The History
of
the
World,
The Works of
Sir Walter
Rzleigh
(London,
1829), lvii.
6Ibid.,
I, i,
24.
, , ,~~~~~~~~1
8/9/2019 Raleigh, Hariot, And Atheism in Elizabethan and Early Stuart England
4/10
to
be such?
Certainly
no.
But
this is
true,
that where natural
reason
hath
built
anything
so
strong
against
itself,
as the same
reason
can
hardly
assail
it,
much less
batter
it
down,
the
same,
in
every question
of
nature,
and
finite
power,
may be
approved for a fundamental
law of human
knowledge., 7
Raleigh
was
no
original
thinker and
accepted
much
conventional
sixteenth
century
thought;
yet
he did
so
having
examined
it and
judged.
He
argued
against
the
confusion of natural magic and sorcery; he defended judicial astrology, granted
that
astrology
is
abused, yet
argued that
the
abuse does
not
negate
its
proper
use;
because
he
distrusted the
multitudes,
he
revealed a
fleeting doubt
whether
it
was
wise
to
publish
scientific
discoveries,
but
acknowledged
that
the
scientist
has
that
responsibility
to
his
society.
His
greatest
admiration
was
for
pure
science,
and he
ridiculed the
father
who sends his
son to the
univer-
sity
expecting
to
see
tangible evidence
and results
from his
investment.
The
evidence
for
Raleigh's
connection
with
the
School
of Night
rests
upon
a
juncturing
of
several
matters,
the
interdependency
of
which
is
highly
dubious:
an
attempt
to
associate
Raleigh
with
Mlarlowe and thus
blacken
his
reputation
wN-ithhe same brush
that
has
blackened
Marlowe's; an
attempt to
read the
evidlence
given at
Cerne
Abbas as
conclusive
proof
of his
highly
unorthodox
beliefs
and
practices;
and
an
attempt to
color
hiis
activities with
the
same
suspicion
as
contemporaiy
accounts
reveal
of the
activities
of
Hariot and
Percy
by
emphasizing
his
association
with them.
Only
one
bit
of hard
evidence
exists
to
link
Raleigh
with
Marlowe:
the
statement in
an
accusation
against
Richard
Chomley
that
Chomley
saieth
and
verily
believeth
that one
Marlowe is
able
to show
more sound
reasons
for
atheism
than
any divine
in
England
is
able to
give
to prove
divinity
and that
Marlowe told him that he hath read the atheist lecture to Sir Walter Raleigh
and
others.
8
Chomley's
statement
loses
much
credibility
because
Chomley
himself
was
under
suspicion
of
organizing a
treasonable
conspiracy
of
atheists
and
because
of the
apparent
connection
betwveen
Chomley
and
the Earl
of
Essex,
Raleigh's
enemy,
who on
November
13
wrote to
Littleton,
Aston,
and
Bagot
thanking
them for
their
trouble in
the
matter of
his
servant
ghomley
and
asking
for its
continuance that
his
innocency
may be
established.
Other
evidence
attempts to link
Raleigh
with
Marlowe
through
Thomas
Hariot.
On June
2,
1593,
Richard Baines
accused
Marlowe of
blasphemy
and
connected
him
with
Hariot:
He
affirmeth
that
Moses was
but
a
Juggler
and
that one Hariot being Sir A. Raleigh's man can do more than he. ,10 Having
thus
established a
tenuous
association
between
Raleigh
and
Marlowe
through
7Ibid
Prefs
ee.
xliv-xlv.
8
F.
S.
Boas,
Marlowe
and His
Circle
(Oxord,
1929),
84.
91bid.,
83.
10
Ibid., 71-
72 .
12
8/9/2019 Raleigh, Hariot, And Atheism in Elizabethan and Early Stuart England
5/10
Hariot,
the
supporters
of the
theory
cite references to the
association of
Hariot and
Marlowe to reinforce their
theory.
When
questioned about his own
beliefs, Thomas Kyd mentioned that Marlowe had
conversed
with Hariot,
Warner, Roydon
and some
stationers
in
Paul's
churchyard,
and
also that
Mlarlowe
intended to
go
to
Scotland
where
Roydon
had
already gone.
11
From
this
evidence,
M.
C.
Bradbrook concludes
of
Raleigh that
'larlowe knew
him ,12
that such were the men who gathered in Raleigh's house for discus-
sion.
t13
The
partisans
of the
School of
Night support
their
theory
with
evidence
from
the
inquiry
at Cerne
Abbas, March
1594.
The
commission, a branch
of
Her
Majesty's
Commissioners for Causes
Ecclesiastical,
was
to
investigate
possible heretical
activity
in
Dorsetshire.
The
commission's members were
Lord
Thomas
Howard, Chancellor
Francis
James, John Williams, Francis
Hawley,
and
Sir
Ralph
Horsey.
14
The
witnesses
were
asked
nine
questions in
an
attempt
to elicit
information
about who
was
suspected
of
atheism, or
apostasy,
who had
blasphemed
or doubted God's existence
or
his
power,
the
resurrection,
predestination, and heaven and
hell
as well as
who had doubted
the
truth
of
the
Scriptures,
the
being
or
immortality
of the
soul,
and
who had
consorted
with such
as
did
doubt. Of
the
witnesses,
two
of
the twelve knew
nothing. Two others
restricted their
accusations
to
Raleigh's associates
Hariot and
Allen,
and his
brother
Carew.
Three others knew
something
to
the
detriment
of
Allen,
and
three
reported
mere
suspicion of
Raleigh. Most of
the
information
resides
in
the
depositions of
Nicholas
Jefferys and Ralph
Ironside. Jefferys
may
well
have
held
a grudge against
Raleigh,
but
Ironside's
deposition
must
be
credited since
one
of
the
Commissioners, Horsey,
had
been
present at the dinner at Trenchard's. Jefferys took Raleigh to task on three
counts:
that
Raleigh
was suspected of
atheism,
that Hariot
had been
convented
before
the
council for
denying
the
resurrection of
the
body,
and
that
Raleigh had disputed with
Ironside about
the
soul.
Jefferys also
gratuitously
included
information that
the
Raleighs
had
been
high handed
with
him
several years before in
commandeering
his
horse. Ironside's
deposition recounts
the
dinner
at Trenchard's
where
Carew
Raleigh began
the
imbroglio by some
loose speeches which Horsey
reproved.
Ironside
disputed
with
Carew,
and Walter, defending his brother,
requested Ironside
to answer
Carew's question, Soul, what
is that?
Unfortunately,
we
do not
know what Carew's loose speech was, the better to judge Horsey's attitude,
11G. B. Harrison (ed.),
Willobie His
Avisa
(New York, 1966),
211.
12M. C. Bradbrook, The
School of
Night
(New York, 1965),
29.
13Ibid.,
42.
1
Harrison (ed.),
Wllobie
257. All references to
the
inquiry
are from
Appendix m.
13
8/9/2019 Raleigh, Hariot, And Atheism in Elizabethan and Early Stuart England
6/10
but
the
fact that no
action
was taken
against Raleigh
or others as a result of
the
hearing is, perhaps, significant.
According
to the
deposition,
Raleigh
obviously baited
Ironside,
trying
to force him to
pin
down what he was
saying and quit talkng in circles--an action of which Raleigh was
entirely
capable. His skeptical
comments
reveal
that he took issue with the
traditional
approaches
to
explainig
God and
the
soul, not that
he
disputed
their
existence.
Ironside is made to appear a fool; thus it is likely that he gives us an unflat-
tering picture
of
Raleigh,
but because
Horsey
was
present
at both the
dinner
and the
inquiry,
we must
suppose
that Ironside
reported truthfully.
Finally, Raleigh
is
connected
to
the
School of
Night by
evidence
of
his
associates,
Hariot
and
Percy,
who were known
freethinkers.
Thomas Hariot
was a
close
associate
of
Raleigh's apparently
from
about 1580. Some
time
after
1594
he left
Raleigh's employ
and took
Henry
Percy,
Earl of Northum-
berland, as
his
patron. Hariot, largely because
he
rejected conventional
contemporary learning, was suspected of holding strange opinions at
least
from the early 1590's to the end of his life. As the reference to Hariot in the
Marlowe
evidence
and
the
Cerne
Abbas
inquiry
should
indicate,
much
of
the
calumny
which
accrues to Raleigh comes from
his
association with Hariot, for
even
Chief Justice Popham, in pronouncing sentence upon Raleigh
in
1603
urged him to abandon the company and influence of Hariot for fear of
eternal
damnation.
15
Yet there is contemporary evidence affirming Hariot's ortho-
doxy. He is praised by churchmen for his scientific accomplishments,
notably by Hakluyt and by Corbet, later Bishop of Norwich.
6
His
own work,
A
Brief
and True
Report
of
Virginia,
demonstrates
that
he
was no
atheist.
Furthermore, William Lower, in a personal letter to Hariot, says
amongst
other things I have learnt of you to settle and submit my desires to the will of
God.
,,17
Hariot's letter to his physician further substantiates his orthodoxy,
'My recovery will be your triumph, gut through the almighty who is the author
of
all good things. . .
.
I
believe
in God Almighty; I believe that medicine was
ordained
by him; I trust the physician as his minister. ,,18
Henry Percy, a Catholic, was well known for his interest in
scientific
and
occult
studies. Apparently he patronized many poets and
scientists includ-
ing not only Hariot but also Robert Hues, Walter Warner, John Donne, Chap-
man and Peel. Ferdinando Stanley, Lord George Hunsdon and Raleigh are
often
included
in his circle.
19
However, except for their common
15Edwards, Life of
Raleigh, I, 435-6.
16Ernest
A. Strathman,
Sir
Walter
Raleigh
(New York,
1951),
45.
17Henry
Stevens,
Thomas Hariot
and His
Associates
(London,
1900),
124.
18
Ibid.,
142.
19Robert
Kargon,
Atomism
in
England
from Hariot
to
Newton (Oxford,
1966), 6-7.
14
8/9/2019 Raleigh, Hariot, And Atheism in Elizabethan and Early Stuart England
7/10
association
with Hariot,
except for
a letter
in 1602
to Lord Cobham
anticipat-
ing
a
meeting
between
Cobham,
Raleigh
and
Percy,
and
except
that
in
1605
Percy
was examined
in Star
Chamber about
his
association
with Raleigh,
21
know no
reason
to associate
Raleigh firmly
with
an intellectual coterie
around
the earl
prior to
1605. During
their long imprisonment
in
the Tower,
Raleigh
and
Percy
were
very
likely
intellectually
associated,
and
Raleigh probably
conducted
some chemical experiments
in concert
with
Percy.
Both
of
them
maintained
their contact
with Hariot
during
this
period. However,
with
the
exceptions noted
above,
I
suspect
that
before 1605
their
association
was
at
the most
a
friendship.
Certainly
the facts that
both men were
closely
associated
with
Hariot,
and
that both
were in the
tower for
over
a decade,
and that
Northumberland gathered
about himself
many
of the intellectuals
of
the
day
must
account
for
part
of the School
of Night
myth.
Basically,
the
theory
has been structured
on
reiteration
of the
same
scraps
of
evidence,
over
and
over,
and such reiteration
has
tended to give
the
allegation the force of fact. The interpretation of the evidence based on such
reiteration
and reinforced
with
highly
selective
references to Raleigh's
works,
together
with comparative
studies
of
Raleigh's
works
with those of
Marlowe
and
Chapman,
have
produced
evidence
of some
similar
ideas.
But
Raleigh's
definite
statements
of
belief
as
presented
in
The
Treatise
of
the Soul and
The History
of
the
World
have
been
ignored,
as
have major
discrepancies
be-
tween
the ideas of
Raleigh
and those
of
the other
writers.
Several
twentieth century
scholars
ascribe
to
the
notion
of
the School
of
Night,
but
two
in
particula-r
C. T.
Tharrison
and
M.
C. Bradbrook, present
elaborately
structured
accounts
of
the
school
and
the
rivalry attendant
upon
it.
Harrison, in his edition of Willobie His Avisa, draws a number of unwarranted
conclusions.
22
It
is
unnecessary
to
refute
the first
few of them because
to
grant
them does not prejudice
the
case
against
Raleigh:
After
establishing
the
popularity
of
the
poem,
Harrison
asserts
that
it
was concerned
with the
private
lives of great
men
and
not
with
any
hole-in-the-corner
intrigue.
Harrison
then
asserts
that
Avisa
lived near
Sherborne,
and
if she was
real,
she
may
have. His third
point,
too,
need not
be refuted:
Throughout
the
book
the morals
of courtiers
in general
are
attacked.
The writer
therefore
was not
at
the time
attached
to
the
Court or
to anyone
in
favor
at court.
However,
for
his
fourth conclusion,
Harrison
makes
a leap of
faith.
He says
that among
those attacked
are
the
Earl
of Southampton
and
his
protege,
William
Shakespeare.
The author
of
Willobie
His Avisa
was
therefore an
enemy
of
the
Essex-Southampton
group.
That
the poem
is uncomplimentary
to
Shakespeare
and
the
Earl--and
they are
to be taken
together
if
they are
to
be
accepted
as
appearing
in
the poem at all--need
not imply
concerted,
factional
enmity.
20Edwards,
Life
of Raleigh,
II, 249.
21Calendar of State Papers Domestic, 1603-10 (London, 1857), 263.
22Harrison (ed.),
Wiobi
228-229.
15
8/9/2019 Raleigh, Hariot, And Atheism in Elizabethan and Early Stuart England
8/10
Both
were
prominent
enough
to
arouse
jealousy.
Harrison
then assumes
that
Sir
Ralph
Horsey,
whom
Sir Walter
Raleigh
had
every
reason to
dislike,
was
also
attacked.
Even if we
grant
that
Horsey
is
attacked,
there is
little
justification
for
assuming
active
dislike
of
Horsey
on the
part
of
Raleigh.
Harrison
may
well have assumed such
an
antipathy
because
Horsey
headed
the
Cerne Abbas
conmission;
however,
as
lieutenant for
the
county
it
was
his
duty to hold the inquiry and it is not necessarily an inimical act. Horsey
appears to have given
Raleigh a
square
deal as
the
inquiry
resulted
in
no
action
against
Raleigh.
Furthermore,
a few
months
later
they
were
out
chasing
Jesuits
together.
Yet
this
alleged
enmity
is
the
first of
two
links
with
Raleigh.
The other
is even less
supportable.
Evidence
of
style
suggests
that Matthew
Roydon
may
have
been
the
author. Roydon
was one of
Sir
Walter
Raleigh's
personal
followers.
The
only
connection between
Raleigh
and
Boydon
is
the
remark
by
Kyd
that
Hariot,
Marlowe,
and
Roydon
conversed
with some
stationers
in
Paul's
Churchyard.
Kyd also
suggested
in
the
information
he
gave
against Marlowe in
1593
that
Roydon
had
fled
to
Scotland
and that
Marlowe
planned
to
follow,
which
casts
doubt
upon Roydon's
presence
near
Raleigh
at this
time. He
would
hardly be
likely to have
returned
by
summer, 1594.
Furthermore,
Roydon's
canon
is
even
more
difficult
to
ascertain
than
Raleigh's; thus,
evidence of
style
must be
suspect.
Harrison's
final
point is that
'the poem
was written
as
an answer
to
an
attack
made on the
Raleigh
group.
Thus,
on
the
basis
that
the
poem
is
topical and
that
the
setting
can be
determined as
near
Sherborne,
Harrison
makes the
assumption
that the
writer
was no
courtier nor
connected with
anyone
in
favor
at
court, and
that
since
Southampton and
Shakespeare
are
attacked, the writer was an enemy of the Essex faction. His identification of
Horsey in
the
poem and
the
attribution of the
poem to
Roydon rest
upon his
first
assumxtion. This
conclusion is
unwarranted.
But, based
upon his
unwarranted
conclusion, he
arrives at
his final
conclusion,
which is at
least
three
steps
removed from
admissible
evidence.
M.
C.
Bradtrook
states as the
purpose
of
her
study,
The School
of Night,
that
the
influence
[
of
Raleigh's
poetry
I
can be
traced
in
the writings
of
Spenser,
Marlowe
and
Chapman.
Historically
Raleigh's poetry
is of
the first
importance,
and it
has
seldom
had proper
appreciation.
,,23
Asserting the
existence
of
a
coterie,
she
enrolls the
membership as
follows:
Raleigh
was
the patron of the school; Thomas Harriot, a mathematician of European
reputation,,
was
its
master.
It
probably included
the
earls of
Northumberland
and
DeiTy,
and
Sir
George
Carey, with
the poets
Marlowe,
Chapman,
Matthew
Roydon
and
William
Warner.
24
However,
Miss
Bradbrook
argues
illogically: she
cites
Parsons,
and
then says,
The
different rumors
have
such
uniformity
as
to
give a
reasonable
picture of
the
way in
which the
23Bradbrook,
School
of
Night,
3.
24Ibid.,
8.
16
8/9/2019 Raleigh, Hariot, And Atheism in Elizabethan and Early Stuart England
9/10
members of
the school
behaved
in
public.
25
She
assumes there was a
school,
and
then
uses
an
assumption
of
secretive
behavior
to
prove
that
there
was.
Shades of
Rev, Ironside.
Her
analysis of
the
Cerne Abbas
inquiry
is that it
was
obviously
directed at
Raleigh.
The local
clergy
had all heard
rumors
of
Raleigh's
atheism
and of
Hariot's.
Hariot
was
thought
to have been
cited
before the Privy Council for denying the resurrection of the body. But there
is no
evidence of such a
citation,
which
Miss
Bradbrook
conveniently
ignores.
The
conclusion
to be
drawn from
the
testimony of
Kyd,
Baines and the
Devonshire clergy
is
that
the
school
did not disclose its opinions to the
generality:
that
it
enjoyed scandalzing
the
godly
and
confounding
the
dogmatic;
that
it
was
provocative
and
irreverent,
out of deliberate policy or natural
devilment or both.
26
Her demonstration is too
lengthy
to
encapsulate
heref
but
it
makes
use
of
a
very
selective
approach
to
Raleigh's
writings
to
demon-
strate
the
congruence
of
his ideas with
Marlowe
and
Chapman,
thus
establish-
ing
the
doctrine
of
the
school.
There is, according to PIaulKocher, only one bit of independent evidence
to connect
Raeigh
with
Chapman,
and
it is indirect.
27
Chapman
did dedicate
his
poem
De
Guiana
to
Keymis,
well known as a loyal
follower of Raleigh.
Yet,
even
ths
must be
taken cautiously,
for
Chapman's
dedications
reveal
loyalties
so
inconsistent
as
to
enable
him
to dedicate poems
to
both Hariot and
Esse.
Fuhermore,
there
is n me tion of
Raleigh
in
the dedication of
'The
Shadow
oft
e
Nght
though
Chapman
does mention
De
by, Percy,
and
Hu.nsdon,
Conce>in
te
Shool o Night
there
is
nothing
in
earlier accounts of
Raeigh
which
would
link
himx
with
the
school
Aubrey,
in
Brief
Lives,
mentions Raeigh's chemical experimens, links im with Percy and Hariot,
and
reports
that he had
been
scandalised
with
atheism.
28
Anthony
Wod29
asserts that Hariot
was a
deist who
infected
Raleigh
and
Northumberland
with
his
beliefs. Thomas
Birch30
rejects
Parsons'
authority,
cites
Francis
Osborne
as
observing
that
Raleigh's
dissent
from
some
principles
of
school
divinity
left
him
open
to
an
accusation
of
atheism. Birch
includes also
Popham's
exhortation
to
Raleigh
and
makes reference
to
Wood's
charge
of
deism. Birch,
however, presents
one
source which has been ignored by
25T.bid.,
12.
26Ibid,
13-14.
27
Pau
Kocher,
ChristopherMarlowe(New
York,
1962),
14.
28J.
Aubrey,
Brief
Lives (Ann
Axbor,
1957),
259,
29Strathman,
45.
30Thomas
Birch,
Lf
of
Ralei The
Works
of SirW
(London,
1829).
17
8/9/2019 Raleigh, Hariot, And Atheism in Elizabethan and Early Stuart England
10/10
twentieth
century
sleuths:
Archbishop
Abbot,
in a letter
to
Thomas
Roe,
charges
Raleigh
with
questioning
God's
being
and
omnipotence.
Birch
dis-
counts this
reference
by
the
suggestion
that
Raleigh's
enemies
might
repre-
sent his
opinions
wron'fly,
or
that
wrong
conclusions
might
be
drawn
from
them. William
Oldys
defends
Raleigh's
reputation
against
Parsons,
Wood,
and
even
Osborne.
However,
Edward Edwards32 makes
only
a
single
reference to Raleigh's atheism; he reconstructs Raleigh's trial in 1603 and
charges
Coke
and
Popham
with
attempting
to blacken
Raleigh's
reputation
in
order to obtain
a
conviction.
Other members
of the
supposed
school,
with
the
exception
of
Hariot,
are
either
mentioned
in
other texts
or not referred
to
at
all.
Thus, to
the related
questions
of whether it is
justifiable
to
assert
that
Raleigh
was
an atheist
and
that
he
was
associated
with
Marlowe,
Chapman,
Roydon,
Hariot, Percy, et al.
in an intellectual
coterie,
we must
plead
not
justified
to
the first
and
insufficient
evidence
to
the
second. The
speculation
that such a group may have existed is interesting, and the ramifications of
such
speculation
are
far-reaching.
However,
we
have only a few
facts:
Raleigh and Hariot
were
close
associates; Hariot and
Percy
were
very
close
associates;
Northumberland
was
a
generous
patron
as is
shown
by
the
number
of
men
he
patronized and
his
generosity
to Hariot;
Raleigh was
accused of
atheism
by
Parsons;
he was
link-ed, by
hearsay
evidence,
with
Hariot in
atheism;
we
have
only one
scrap of
fact to link
Raleigh with
Marlowe and
Chapman,
and none
to link him
with
Roydon; we
have two or
three more
to link
Marlowe
and
Hariot; Willobie His
Avisa may
attack the
Essex
faction
through
Shakespeare
and
Southampton;
Willobie His
Avisa is
probably set in
the
Sherbourne district,
Raleigh's
seat.
The
most
obvious
problem
confronting us
here
is the
weakness of the
links
in
the
chain. Such
a chain of
evidence may
tolerate
one--or
perhaps two--
weak
links. But
this chain
breaks
in at least
four places.
To
discount
the
weaknesses
as the
advocates
of the
theory of
the School
of Night do,
results
in
disintegration of
the
entire chain.
However, it is
perhaps
not amiss to
point out
that
a loosely
organized
coterie
may have
existed
around
Percy and
Hariot.
This,
certainly,
would be
a far
more
fruitful field for
investigation
than is
the
speculation
about
Raleigh.
31William
Oldys,
Life
of
Raleigh,
The
Works
of
Sir
Walter
Raleigh
(London, 1829), I, 168-170.
32Edwards,
Life of
Raleigh, I,
435-6.
18