BIBLIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE

DONNE'S Pseudo-Martyr belongs to the year 1609, and, though written after Biathanatos, was the first controversial work by him to be printed. It was entered on the Stationers' Register on 2 December 1609, though dated 1610 on the title-page. According to Walton (Life, 1658, pp. 37—8) it was written by Donne at the command of King James, and was completed within six weeks. Gosse points out, however, that this story is probably untrue. In his dedication Donne writes—‘ Of my boldnesse in this addresse, I most humbly beseech your Maiestie, to admit this excuse, that having observed, how much your Maiestie had vouchsafed to descend to a conversation with your Subiects, by way of your Bookes, I also conceiv'd an ambition, of ascending to your presence, by the same way’ it is unlikely that he would have written in this manner, had the book been composed expressly at the King's command. Further, a passage in the Advertisement shews that the Table of the Chapters had been in circulation for a considerable period before the completion of the book, and, though the last two chapters mentioned in it were never written, Donne still allowed their headings to appear in the Table. ‘I have abstained’, he writes, ‘from handling the two last Chapters upon divers reasons; whereof one is, that these Heads having beene caried about, many moneths, and thereby quarrelled by some, and desired by others, I was willing to give the Booke a hasty dispatch, that it might cost no man much time, either in expecting before it came, or in reading, when it was come. But a more principall reason was, that since the two last Chapters depend upon one another, and have a mutuall Relation, I was not willing to undertake one, till I might persevere through both. And from the last chapter it became me to abstaine, till I might understand their purposes, who were formerly engaged in the same businesse.’

Pseudo-Martyr is not a work of theological controversy, for it deals only with the question of the King's supremacy in order to shew, as the titlepage states, ‘That those which are of the Romane Religion in this Kingdome, may and ought to take the Oath of Allegeance’.