thumb|upright|Illustration of Prynne by [[Wenceslaus Hollar]]
William Prynne (1600 – 24 October 1669), an English lawyer, voluble author, polemicist and political figure, was a prominent Puritan opponent of church policy under William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury (1633–1645). His views were Presbyterian, but he became known in the 1640s as an Erastian, arguing for overall state control of religious matters.
Recent scholarship has portrayed Prynne as an important Caroline era propagandist whose innovative political storytelling and publishing techniques played a major role in fomenting public distrust of Charles I and Archbishop Laud.
Early life
Born at Swainswick, near Bath, Somerset, William Prynne was educated at Bath Grammar School and Oriel College, Oxford. He graduated as a BA on 22 January 1621, entered as a student of Lincoln's Inn in the same year, and was called to the bar in 1628.
According to Anthony Wood, he was confirmed in his militant Puritanism by the influence of John Preston, then a lecturer at Lincoln's Inn. In 1627 he published his first of over 200 works, a theological treatise titled The Perpetuity of a Regenerate Man's Estate. This was followed in the next three years by three others attacking Arminianism and its teachers. In the preface to one of them he appealed to Parliament to suppress anything written against Calvinist doctrine and to force the clergy to subscribe to the conclusion of the Synod of Dort.
Prynne was a strong disciplinarian. After arguing that the custom of drinking healths was sinful, he asserted that for men to wear their hair long was "unseemly and unlawful unto Christians", while it was "mannish, unnatural, impudent, and unchristian" for women to cut it short.
1630s
Like many Puritans abhorring decadence, Prynne strongly opposed religious feast days, including Christmas, and revelry such as stage plays. He included in his Histriomastix (1632) a denunciation of actresses which was widely felt to be an attack on Queen Henrietta Maria. This book led to the most prominent incidents in his life, but the timing was accidental. William Noy, as attorney-general, took proceedings against Prynne in the Star-chamber. After a year's imprisonment in the Tower of London, he was sentenced on 17 February 1634 to life imprisonment, a fine of £5,000, expulsion from Lincoln's Inn, deprival of his Oxford University degree, and cropping of both his ears in the pillory, where he was held on 7–10 May. His book was burnt before him, and with over a thousand pages it suffocated Prynne in its smoke. brought him again before the Star Chamber. On 14 June 1637 Prynne was sentenced once more to a fine of £5,000, to imprisonment for life, and to lose the rest of his ears. At the proposal of Chief Justice John Finch, he was also to be branded on the cheeks with the letters S. L., standing for "seditious libeller". Prynne was pilloried on 30 June in company with Henry Burton and John Bastwick; Prynne was handled barbarously by the executioner. He made, as he returned to his prison, a couple of Latin verses explaining the 'S. L.' with which he was branded to mean 'stigmata laudis' ("sign of praise", or "sign of Laud"). Prynne was also one of the counsel for the parliament at the trial of Lord Maguire in February 1645.
He was able to have the satisfaction of overseeing the trial of William Laud, which was to end in Laud's execution. He collected and arranged evidence to prove the charges against him, bore testimony himself in support of many of them, hunted up witnesses against the archbishop, and assisted the counsel for the prosecution in every way. At the time some thought he was clearly tampering with the witnesses. Prynne had the duty of searching Laud's room in the Tower for papers. He published a redacted edition of Laud's diary and a volume intended to serve as an introduction to his trial. After Laud's execution, Prynne was charged by the House of Commons (4 March 1645) to produce an account of the trial; other controversies prevented him from finishing the book. He attacked John Goodwin and crossed his old companion in suffering, Henry Burton. He controverted and denounced John Lilburne, and called on Parliament to crush the sectaries. Prynne was equally hostile to the demands of the presbyterian clergy for the establishment of their system: Prynne maintained the supremacy of the state over the church. 'Mr. Prynne and the Erastian lawyers are now our remora,' complains Robert Baillie in September 1645. He denied in his pamphlets the right of the clergy to excommunicate or to suspend from the reception of the sacrament except on conditions defined by the laws of the state. He was answered by Samuel Rutherford. William M. Lamont writes:
Prynne also came into collision with John Milton, whose doctrine on divorce he had denounced, and was replied to by the poet in a passage in his Colasterion. Milton also inserted in the original draft of his sonnet On the Forcers of Conscience a reference to "marginal Prynne's ears". He also undertook official work. From February 1644 he had been a member of the committee of accounts, and on 1 May 1647 he was appointed one of the commissioners for the Visitation of the University of Oxford. In April 1648 Prynne accompanied Philip Herbert, 5th Earl of Pembroke when he came as chancellor of Oxford to expel recalcitrant heads of houses. As soon as he took his seat, he showed his opposition to the army. He urged the Commons to declare them rebels, and argued that concessions made by Charles in the recent treaty were a satisfactory basis for a peace. Two days later Pride's Purge took place. Prynne was arrested by Colonel Thomas Pride and Sir Hardress Waller, and kept prisoner first at an eating-house (called Hell), and then at the Swan and King's Head inns in the Strand. one of the works published when Prynne was in Swainswick]]
The purged Prynne protested in letters to Lord Fairfax, and by printed declarations on behalf of himself and the other arrested members. He published also a denunciation of the proposed trial of King Charles, being answered by a collection of extracts from his own earlier pamphlets. Released from custody some time in January 1649, Prynne retired to Swainswick, and began a paper war against the new government. He became a thorn in Cromwell's side. He wrote three pamphlets against the engagement to be faithful to the Commonwealth, and argued that neither in conscience, law, nor prudence was he bound to pay the taxes which it imposed. The government retaliated by imprisoning him for nearly three years without a trial. On 30 June 1650 he was arrested and confined, first in Dunster Castle and afterwards in Taunton Castle (12 June 1651) and Pendennis Castle (27 June 1651). He was finally offered his liberty on giving security to the amount of £1,000 that he would henceforward do nothing against the government; but, refusing to make any promise, he was released unconditionally on 18 February 1653. The proposal to lift the thirteenth-century ban on the residence of Jews, being promoted then in England by Manasseh ben Israel, among others, inspired him with a pamphlet against the scheme, called in brief the Short Demurrer. The pamphlet was printed shortly before the Whitehall Conference, and was influential in strengthening opinion against the readmission of the Jews. In particular, Prynne doubts the probability that the Jews would be converted to Christianity once in England. Oliver Cromwell allowed the Jews to return to the British Isles on the condition that the Jews attend compulsory Christian sermons on a Sunday, to encourage their conversion to Christianity. Cromwell based this decision on St. Paul's epistle to the Romans 10:15. The offer of the crown to Cromwell by the "petition and advice" suggested a parallel between Cromwell and Richard III. Similarly, when the Protector, as Cromwell then was styled, set up a House of Lords, Prynne expanded the tract in defence of their rights which he had published in 1648 into an historical treatise of five hundred pages. These writings, however, attracted little attention. On 27 December when the parliament was again restored after its interruption by John Lambert, Prynne and his friends made a fresh attempt to enter, but were once more excluded. From May 1659 to February 1660 he went on publishing tracts on the case of the "secluded members and attacks on the ref-formed Rump Parliament and the army". Marchamont Nedham, Henry Stubbe, John Rogers, and others printed serious answers to his arguments, while obscure libellers ridiculed him.
On 21 February 1660 George Monck ordered the guards of the house to readmit the secluded members. Prynne, girt with an old basket-hilted sword, marched into Westminster Hall at their head; though the effect was spoiled when Sir William Waller tripped on the sword. The house charged him to bring in a bill for the dissolution of the Long Parliament. In the debate on the bill Prynne asserted the rights of Charles II of England and claimed that the writs should be issued in his name. He also helped to forward the Restoration by accelerating the passing of the Militia Bill, which placed the control of the forces in the hands of the king's friends. A letter which he addressed to Charles II shows that he was personally thanked by the king for his services. Prynne went on to publish another three parts in 1660, 1662 and 1664.]]
Prynne supported the Restoration, and was rewarded with public office. In April 1660 he was elected MP for Bath in the Convention Parliament. published by the Cotton library under the stewardship of Sir Thomas Cotton. The text contained comprehensive records of parliaments held between the reigns of Edward II and Richard III of England, and was considered a tribute to Prynne's fascination toward parliament's relationship with the English monarchy. The book was printed by renowned London publisher William Leake.
Histriomastix is the one of his works that receives attention from modern scholars, but for its relevance to English Renaissance theatre. Anthony à Wood found him affable, obliging towards researchers, and courteous in the fashion of the early part of the century. Prynne died unmarried on 24 October 1669. He was buried in the undercroft of the chapel of Lincoln's Inn.