| William Prynne |
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| CATEGORIES ABOUT WILLIAM PRYNNE | |
| parliamentary supporters in the english civil war | |
| prynne, william | |
| 1600 births | |
| 1669 deaths | |
| people from somerset | |
| people from bath | |
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After graduating in law from Oxford University , he began a series of attacks on the current Arminian high church policies of the government, and on the (by Puritan standards) lax morals prevalent at Court. Like many Puritans he was strongly opposed to stage plays and he included in his turgid '' Histriomastix '' a denunciation of actresses which was widely felt to be an attack of Queen Henrietta Maria . He was tried in the Star Chamber in 1633 and sentenced to imprisonment and the removal of part of his ears. He was, however, able to continue his activities from prison, and was sentenced in 1637 to the removal of the rest of his ears and to be branded with letters ''S L'' (seditious libeller). He affected that these in fact stood for ''stigmata Laudis'' (the marks of Laud). He was released by the Long Parliament , and supported the Parliament ary cause in the English Civil War . He was able to have the satisfaction of overseeing the trial of Laud, which eventually ended in the latter's execution. The tide of opinion was moving fast, and Prynne, having been at the forefront of radical opposition, now found himself a conservative figure, defending Presbyterianism against the Independent s favoured by Oliver Cromwell and the army. He became a thorn in Cromwell's side, and was imprisoned from and was apparently a model Civil Servant . |
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