Life
1495-1563; b. 21 Nov., Cove, nr. Dunwich, Norfolk [var. Suffolk],
ed. Carmelite convent; Jesus Coll., Oxford; converted by preaching of
Lord Wentworth; revoked monastic vows; married a woman called Dorothy
on the Pauline precept (‘He who cannot contain, marry’); called
before archbishop for anti-Roman sermon at Doncaster, 1534; Kynge Johan
(1538), regarded as the earliest historical drama in English; contains
historical characters such as King John, Stephen Langton, Cardinal Pandolphus
and the the Pope [Clement VII]; poss. first acted at St Stephen’s,
Canterbury, and revived at Ipswich, 1561; enjoyed protection of Thomas
Cromwell, Earl of Essex; m. ‘faithful Dorothy’, 1537; fled Cromwell’s
at execution, 1540; resided in Germany, 1540-47, and wrote lives of Protestant
martyrs such as Oldcastle and Anne Askewe, incl. that of William Thorpe
attributed by Foxe to Tyndall, et al.; also The Image of Both Churches
after the most Wonderful and Heavenly Revelation of Sainct Johan (1550),
considered vigorous but immoderate; returned at accession of Edward VI;
rector of Swaffham, Norfolk, 1551; met Edward at Southampton, 1552; appt.
Bishop of Ossory, leaving for Ireland Dec. 1552; consecrated amid controversy
caused by his refusal of the Roman rite at his consecration, demanding
a Bible in place of the crozier, 2 Feb., 1553, Dublin; issued “The
Vocation of John Bale to the Bishopric of Ossory in Ireland” (Harleian
Miscellany, VI; publ. 1808-10); sought to suppress ‘idolatry’
[i.e., Catholicism] in Ireland and caused dissension with ‘slaughter’
in Kilkenny; fled to Dublin at accession of Queen Mary; fled to continent;
captured by Dutch and imprisoned at St Ives; imprisoned at Dover; captured
by Dutch again, pays £300; settles in Basel at accession of Elizabeth,
1558; does not take up position in Kilkenny; d. as prebendary of Canterbury
Cathedral; works include translation of Kirchmayer’s Pamachius,
filled with course and incessant abuse of priests and popery; Bale first
listed as Irish writer by Sir James Ware (De Scriptoribus Hiberniae
Libri Duo [2 vols.] (Dublin 1639; trans. edn., Harris 1739); the plays
were edited by John S. Farmer as The Dramatic Works of John Bale
(Early English Plays Ser. 1907); Bale is the subject of a novel by John
Arden (John Bale, 1988). DNB OCEL OXTH OCIL
WJM
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Works
Older Editions, Illustrium Majoris Britanniae Scriptorum in
quinque centurias divisum ([Wesel] 1548) [continued 1557-59, indebted
to John Leland’s Collectanea and Commentarii]; King John
[Kynge Johan, 1538] (Camden Society [printed by Collier] 1838);
Three Laws of Nature, New Comedy and Interlude Concerning the Three
Laws of Nature, Moises, and Christ, Corrupted by the Sodomites, Pharisees,
and Papists (1538; rep. London 1562); A Tragedy or Interlude Manifesting
the Promises of God unto Man by All Ages in the Old Lawe from the Fall
of Adam to the Incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ (1538), and Do.,
rep. in Old Plays (London: Robert Dodsley 1744 & edns.; rep.
[ed. W. Carew Hazlitt] 1874-76; facs. rep. NY: Benjamin Blom 1964); Acta
Romanorum Pontificum usque ad tempora Paulo IV (Basel 1538; Frankfurt
1567; Leiden 1615); Yet a Course at the Romish Fox (Zurich
1543); A Mystery of Iniquity, Contained Within the Heretical Genealogy
of Prince Pantolabus is here both Disclosed and Confuted (Geneva 1545);
‘The Vocation of John Bale to the Bishopric of Ossory in Ireland’ [1553],
in The Harleian Miscellany, VI (10 vols., London 1808-10); The
Apology of John [Johan] Bale against a Rank Papist (1555);
The Image of Both Churches, after The Most Wonderfull and Heauenly
Reuelation of Sainct Iohn The Euangelist, Contayning a Very Fruitfull
Exposition or Paraphrase vpon the Same [... &c.] [compyled by
Iohn Bale] 3 Pts. (London: Thomas East [1570]) 8o.; The Pageant of
the Popes, Containing the Lives of all the Bishops of Rome from
the Beginning to the Year 1555, Englished by J[ohn] S[tudley] (London
1574); Select Works (London: Parker Society 1849), with pref. biog.
by Rev. H. Christmas.
Modern Reprints, The Collected Plays of John Bale [facs. rep. of John S. Farmered., Select Plays, 1907] (Guildford: Charles W. Traylen 1966), 347pp., containing “A comedy concerning the Three Laws of Nature, Moses, and Christ”; “Tragedy or Interlude [of] the Chief Promises of God unto Man”; “John the Baptist Preaching in the Wilderness”; “The Temptation of Our Lord”; “John, King of England”; “A Note on the Tragedy of David and Absolom” [British Library, Stowe MS 957]; also Notebook and Word List, with engraved port. and facs. title of “The Lawes [... &c]” ANNO DOMINI M.D.XXXVIII [1538].
Bibliography, Charles Henry Cooper Athenae Cambrigenses (1858-61), Vol. I, pp.23-30, listing 90 titles, many anonymous; also Thomas Tanner, Bibliotheca Britannico-Hibernica; sive de scriptoribus qui in Anglia, Scotia et Hiberniae (London 1748).
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- George Saintsbury, A Short History of English Literature. (London: Macmillan & Co.; NY: St. Martin’s Press 1963), p.227 [infra];
- Paul Hadfield, [on Bale’s Irish Vocacyon], in Brendan Bradshaw, Hadfield & Willie Maley, eds., Representing Ireland: Literature and the Origins of Conflict, 1534-1600 (Cambridge: UP 1994);
- Peter Happe, John Bale (NY: Simon & Schuster 1996), 174pp.; John McCafferty, ‘St Patrick for the Church of Ireland: James Ussher’s Discourse’, in Irish Studies Review, (April 1998), p.89;
- Eamon Duffy, The Stripping Of The Altars: Traditional Religion In England 1400-1580 (Yale UP 1992) [infra];
- John McCafferty (‘St Patrick for the Church of Ireland: James Ussher’s Discourse’, in Irish Studies Review, April 1998) [infra];
- [Katherine Walsh on Bishop Bale in ], Vincent Carey & Ute Lotz-Heumann, eds., Taking Sides? Colonial and Confessional Mentalités in Early Modern Ireland (Dublin: Four Courts Press 2003), 320pp;
- There is a fictional account of Bale’s time in Ireland in John Arden, John Bale (London: Methuen 1988), “I Am of Ireland”, pp.398-449 [infra].
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Notes
W. Carew Hazlitt, in his 1874-76 edn. of Robert
Dodsley’s Old Plays [1744], used a copy from the library of David
Garrick with a torn title-page affording no date. A biographical note
in this edition has it that at Kilkenny Bale ‘underwent a variety of persecutions
from the Popish party in Ireland which at length compelled him to leave
his diocese and conceal himself in Dublin’. A full account of his trials
among the English and the Dutch follows. The edition cites as principal
works his Scriptorum illustrium majoris Brutaniae quam nun Angliam
et Scotiam vocant Catalogus, a Japheto per 3618 annos usque annum hunc
domini 1557, prev. printed imperfectly at Wesel as Illustrium Majoris
Britaniae [sic] Scriptorum hoc est Angliae, Cambraise, et Scotiae,
Summarium (Wesel 1549), and republished with final additions as Illustrium
[… &c] (Basel: Oporinus 1559). See W. Carew Hazlitt, ed.,
Dodsley’s Old Plays [1744], (4th edn. 1874-76; facs. rep. NY: Benjamin
Blom 1964).
Oxford Companion to English Literature (ed. Margaret Drabble), calls King John the first English history play bridging between the morality and the history-play proper. See also John Arden’s novel, The Book of Bale (1988), a study of rabid anti-Catholicism. [Short DNB, bishop of Ossory, &c.; religious plays, history of English [sic] writers, and controversial works of great bitterness.]
Dictionary of National Biography cites Bale as being Bishop of Ossory, &c.; author of religious plays, history of English [sic] writers, and controversial works of great bitterness.
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)