The Trial of Nicholas Throckmorton ed. by Annabel Patterson (review)

HUMANITIES from our current moment in science in which often the case 1"I"U'nV1I'1"1O" must take the of a T"'\1r'f"1U·'::' before it can be tmderstood and COlmn1.illUCiatea she asserts lTY\'n(,\lr'''~l''("O of these New mation of her book science and art on both sides of the Atlantic and intellectual interested in the idea of the New World. I wish that had not saved her the but could have offered at the ChGlpt~~r SlrrOJn.ec~r s~.mtl1.esies of the togetn.er I will be Annabel editor. The Trial Throckmorton Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies. 108. 'The state of mortal is know Over them. I on within these twelve months such a that I, most woeful as some of you that sit there. These returned to the Tower I for there are other matters to him was cleared of Chronicles verbatim account of ordeal is pr~~se:nte~<1 between the defendant and court with of the commissioners and jury, 190 LEITERS IN CANADA 1998 speech prefixes, and what could loosely be described as stage directions (or descriptions). Patterson's criticalapparatus is refreshingly conservative, the footnotes sparse, unobtrusive, and soberly illuminating. The introduction, likewise, is brief, allowing relevant source, background, and biographical information precedence over critical commentary, while a fairly generous bibliography suggests tools for further investigation. Appendixes include excerpts from The Legend of Nicholas Tluockmorton, a lengthy poem first published in 1736 and in which the author (probably Job Throckmorton, nephew to Nicholas and notorious composer of the Marprelate tracts) playfully claims to have encountered his 'uncle' from beyond the grave. An apparent advertisement for an early (non-extant) published version of the trial is interesting for having been composed by one Jolm Bradford who, awaiting execution for heresy, shared a room - in a prison overcrowded with members of the Wyatt rebellion - with the soon-to-be Marian martyrs Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley. Also included are excerpts from a contemporary 's autobiography which witness the role of Protestant merchants in mitigating the Throckmorton jurors' discomfort while incarcerated (the draconian consequence of having, in disappointed attorney Edward Griffin's words, 'strangely acquitted the prisoner of his treasons whereof he was indicted'). Selections from Sir Thomas Smith's Commonwealth of England and Manner of Government Thereof (1589), finally, provide vital information about Tudor trial conventions and suggest the overwhelming likelihood that a person accused of criminal activity would be found guilty and punished accordingly. Because it was expected, according to Smith, that'commonly all thieves, robbers and murderers' would plead Not Guilty and because such pleas almost invariably were regarded as but stubborn and futile resistance, Patterson is right topoint out thatThrockmorton faced a situation in which the opportunity to defend himself was intended by the court merely as a kind of formal confession. In addition to offering a rare opportunity to examine sixteenth-century English court procedure in some detail, The Trial also suggests the highly ritualized, theatrical nature of those proceedings, a matter provocatively raised by Fatterson (if not fully addressed) in her introduction. Throckmorton 's eloquence, the occasional emergence of his understandable paranoia and fear, and even the prosecutors' obvious frustration at his learned prolixity - II never knew any thus suffered to talk as this prisoner is suffered/ moans the attorney - suggest palpable human drama amid the forensic machinery of the Tudor judicature. (ROBERT WHALEN) Elizabeth Hanson. Discovering the Subject in Renaissance England Cambridge University Press. xii, 190. us $54.95 Elizabeth Hanson's compelling study provides that intellectual fascination characteristic of deconstructive tactics adroitly executed, particularly those ...