testimony is reported by John Cotton, Penry, while denying the meaning placed on the words quoted in the indictment, and positively asserting that he had no hand in compiling the Martin Mar-Prelate tracts, admitted that he had induced some of his fellow-subjects to absent themselves from the parish churches. But he had reached the conclusion that this course of action was mistaken, and acknowledged that the blood of the souls of those who had followed his advice lay at his door (cf. John Cotton, Reply to Roger Williams, 1647, p. 117).
Penry is reckoned by Welsh historians as the pioneer of Welsh nonconformity. He was an honest fanatic who believed himself to be an instrument of God charged with the reformation of the church of England, and with the sowing of the seed of the gospel in the barren mountains of Wales. In his writings he compared himself to St. Paul and the prophet Jeremiah. There is conclusive external evidence in favour of the theory that he was mainly responsible for the authorship and dissemination of the Martin Mar-Prelate tracts. Of the small committee, consisting of himself, Udall, and Throckmorton, which set on foot the Mar-Prelate controversy, Penry was the guiding spirit. In Harl. MS. 7042, in the British Museum, are the transcripts of Thomas Baker from the lost papers of Lord-keeper Puckering, and they contain the depositions of Penry's patrons, Knightley, Hale, and Wigston, as well as of the compositors in his employ, who were examined in the council or the high commission court in 1589 and 1590. All agreed that Penry was superintendent of the secret press, and, although one or two shyly think that he was not Martin, most of them express the belief that he wrote and revised the majority of the pamphlets. It was proved that he admitted the allegation whenever the question was directly put to him by his friends. But it is impossible to assign with certainty to Penry and his associates their respective shares in the Mar-Prelate publications. Matthew Sutcliffe, in his published ‘Answer’ to Throckmorton's ‘Defence’ (1595), allots to Penry the bulk of the work. Camden ascribes the authorship of all the tracts to Udall and Penry jointly.
In face of the extant testimony, the arguments against the assertion of Penry's authorship and general superintendence do not merit serious consideration. Dr. Dexter, the historian of congregationalism, who has endeavoured to transfer the responsibility to Henry Barrow [q. v.], argues that Penry's acknowledged works exhibit little of the characteristic violence of the Mar-Prelate tracts. But the former show at times a power of invective and a causticity which few of the Mar-Prelate tracts exceeded. In the ‘Protestatyon’ the author describes himself as a bachelor; this Barrow was, whereas Penry was married. But that pamphlet may be admitted to be mainly from another hand without disturbing the contention in favour of Penry's general responsibility. That he was not put on his trial for the tracts was doubtless due to lapse of time, and to the belief of the authorities that they could more easily convict him of other offences. Hildersam's report that Penry, before his death, solemnly denied the imputation rests on hearsay, and fails to counterbalance more direct testimony.
After Penry's death was published his ‘Profession of Faith, sent by Francis Johnson to Lord Burghley on 12 June 1593,’ together with a ‘Letter to the distressed faithfull Congregation of Christ in London, and all the Members thereof, whether in Bondes or at Liberty,’ 24 April 1593. The ‘History of Corah, Dathan, and Abiram applied to the Prelacy, Ministry, and Church Assemblies of England,’ 4to, appeared in 1609. The editor states that this unfinished tract was copied and circulated in the author's lifetime, and was intended for presentation to parliament. Penry's preaching in Wales is described in the preface. By his wife Eleanor, daughter of Henry Godley of Northampton, he left four daughters; the eldest was four at his death.
[Cooper's Athenæ Cantabr. ii. 154–8; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. i. 591; Thomas Rees's Nonconformity in Wales; Waddington's Life of Penry, 1854; Arber's Martin Mar-Prelate Controversy; Maskell's Mar-Prelate Controversy; William Pierce's Hist. Introduction to the Marprelate Tracts, 1908; Examination of Barrow, Greenwood, and Penry, 1593, in Harleian Misc.; Dexter's Congregationalism; Cal. State Papers (Dom.), 1590–3; Harl. MS. 7042; Brook's Puritans; Strype's Works; John Hunt's Religious Thought in England, i. 71–86, 100–7; Hammond's Lawful Magistrate, 1644, p. 26; Rowlands's Cambrian Bibliogr.]
PENTLAND, JOSEPH BARCLAY (1797–1873), traveller, born in Ireland in 1797, was educated at Armagh and at Paris university, where his knowledge of comparative anatomy gained him the friendship of Cuvier. He became secretary to the consulate-general in Peru in 1827, and was consul-general in Bolivia from 1 Aug. 1836 until 1839. In 1826 and 1827, in company
