Published in 1589, Pap with a Hatchet is Lyly's only known contribution to the “Martin Marprelate” controversy. The dispute, which turned upon presbyterian hostility to the episcopalian system of church government, was initiated by a decree, issued in 1586, insisting that all publications should be subject to ecclesiastical scrutiny, and had spawned a number of lively pamphlets by a variety of hands before Lyly's intervention in the field. Enlisted with Thomas Nashe on the part of the bishops, Lyly may well have seemed to the church authorities an appropriate figure to uphold the establishment position, in view of both his proximity to the court and the encomium on the English state (“Euphues' Glass for Europe”) with which his bes

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Published 17 June 2003

Citation: Scragg, Leah. "Pap with a Hatchet (Pappe with an Hatchet)". The Literary Encyclopedia. 17 June 2003.
[http://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=2933, accessed 9 February 2010.]