Richard Verstegen, anglicised asRichard Verstegan and also known asRichard Rowlands (c. 1550 – 1640), was anAnglo-Dutch antiquary, publisher, humorist and translator.
Verstegan was born inEast London, the son of acooper. His grandfather, Theodore Roland Verstegen, was a refugee fromGuelders in theSpanish Netherlands who arrived in England around the year 1500.[1] A convert to theCatholic Church, Rowlands produced an English translation of theLittle Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary; the translation andprimer prayer book that contained it remained among the most popular English Catholic devotionals for two centuries.[2]
Under thepatronym Rowlaunde, Richard came up toChrist Church, Oxford,[1] in 1564, where he may have studied earlyEnglish history and theAnglo-Saxon language. Having become aCatholic, he left the university without a degree[1] to avoid swearing theOath of Supremacy. Thereafter he was indentured to agoldsmith, and in 1574 became afreeman of theWorshipful Company of Goldsmiths. In 1576 he published a guidebook to Western Europe, translated fromGerman, entitledThe Post of the World.[1]
At the end of 1581 he secretly printed an account of the execution ofEdmund Campion but was discovered and 'being apprehended, brake out of England'.[3] In exile, he resumed his ancestral Dutch surname of Verstegen (Anglicized Verstegan) and, in 1585 or 1586, he moved to theSpanish Netherlands. With covert financial support from the Spanish Crown, Verstegan set up a residence, "inAntwerp near the bridge of the tapestry makers",[4] as a publisher,engraver,[1] "a valuedsecret agent of theSpanish party",[4] and a smuggler of banned books as well asRoman Catholic priests and laity to and from theBritish Isles.
Verstegan also used his many contacts throughout the strictly illegal and undergroundCatholic Church in England,Wales, andin Ireland to both write and publish detailed accounts of the sufferings ofEnglish, Welsh, andIrish Catholic Martyrs. To the fury of the English Court, Verstegan's books made the whole ofCatholic Europe aware of thereligious persecution taking place under the rule ofQueen Elizabeth I.[5]
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Verstegan's detailed and highly influentialRenaissance Latin the volumeTheatrum crudelitatum Hæreticorum nostri temporis ("Theatre of the Cruelties of the Heretics of our Time") was published inAntwerp in theSpanish Netherlands in 1587. Irish historian J.J. Meagher has written of the volume and of Verstegan, "He enhanced his account with an engraving which was a composite representation of the threeIrish martyrs,Dermot O'Hurley,Patrick O'Healy, and Conn O'Rourke. The printed word helped considerably to propagate and preserve the reputation of martyrdom. There were at least eight editions of Verstegan'sTheatrum up to 1607, and these contributed in no small way to maintaining thefama martyrii overseas."[6]
While in Paris in 1588, Verstegan was briefly imprisoned pendingextradition to England byKing Henri III at the insistence of the English Ambassador,[1] SirEdward Stafford, who declared the book's claims ofreligious persecution alibel against Queen Elizabeth I,[7] but, as the recent Latin-Middle French translation ofTheatrum crudelitatum Hæreticorum nostri temporis had already heavily contributed to the ideology of theCatholic League during theFrench Wars of Religion, Verstegan had many influential sympathisers and protectors. At the insistence of both the Catholic League and thePapal Nuncio, the French King refused SirFrancis Walsingham's demands for Verstegan'sextradition to England to stand trial forhigh treason and the exiled Englishman was quietly released.[8] After his release, Verstegan lived briefly inRome, where he was the recipient of a temporary pension fromPope Sixtus V.
In 1595, Verstegan published in Antwerp the Latin-Elizabethan English translation ofAn Epistle in the Person of Jesus Christ to the Faithful Soule byJohn Justus of Landsberg, which St.Philip Howard had made while imprisoned forRecusancy in theTower of London. St. Philip Howard'sliterary translation ofMarko Marulić'sRenaissance Latin religious poemCarmen de doctrina Domini nostri Iesu Christi pendentis in cruce ("A Dialogue Betwixt a Christian and Christ Hanging on the Crosse"), was also published in lieu of an introduction in the Antwerp edition.[9][10]
From 1617 to about 1630 Verstegan was a prolific writer in Dutch, producing epigrams, characters, jestbooks, polemics. He also penned journalistic commentaries, satires and editorials for theNieuwe Tijdinghen (New Tidings) printed in Antwerp byAbraham Verhoeven from 1620 to 1629.[11] This makes him one of the earliest identifiablenewspaperjournalists in Europe.
According toLouise Imogen Guiney, "The poet passed his remaining days in Antwerp, beloved by the best names of his time, English or foreign; his closest friends were such men, among Protestants, asOrtelius orBochins, SirThomas Gresham and SirRobert Cotton, the index of whose manuscript collection in theBritish Museum names Verstegan more than once. He was also a friend and great correspondent of FatherRobert Persons,S.J.: many of Verstegan's letters to the latter figure in theWestminster Cathedral Archives."[12]
Although the exact date of Verstegan's death remains unknown, his will survives in Antwerp and bears the date of 26 February 1640.[12]
The verses celebrating theBattle of Kinsale and the defeat of theuprising by theIrish clans underAodh Mór Ó Néill,Lord ofTír Eoghain, andRed Hugh O'Donnell, Lord ofTír Chonaill, and entitledEngland's Joy, by R. R. (1601), have mistakenly been attributed to Verstegan, as have other poems that were in reality composed, "by the notoriousRichard Vennar or Vennard."[13]
Verstegan did, however, compose anElizabethan Englishelegy about the 1584 martyrdom ofBlessedDermot O'Hurley outside the walls ofDublin and entitled "The Fall of the Baron of Slane", several poems in praise ofThomas More, occasioned by the 1630 publication of the biography by the latter's great grandson,[13] and alullaby addressed to theChrist Child in the persona of theBlessed Virgin.[14]
Louise Imogen Guiney, however, has commented that Verstegan's works ofChristian poetry have, "a most rustic simplicity. At his best, he touchesSouthwell, as at about a half a dozen points in the lovely lullaby."[12] A.O. Meyer later wrote of the same poems, "They are pervaded by the peace of a soul that has freed itself from all earthly things."[15][16]
According toLouise Imogen Guiney, "A few of Verstegan's saying which have survived will show him to have had a caustic eighteenth-century sort of wit, with an endearing slyness almost likeSteele's. He says, for example, thatHolland is as fertile in sects asItaly is inmushrooms: new doctrines sprout overnight from the dreams of men. TheDutch ministers are less greedy of glory than merchants are, for these latter will rush toIndia tosteal the profits of thePortuguese, whereas the former do not fly there to dispute with theJesuits for the crown of martyrdom. Of theIrish, it is said that the inhabitants ofthis country, having observed that to obtain great wealth they must do hard work, have found it desirable to deprive themselves of the one, that they may do without the other. A striking passage deals in no hackneyed fashion with Queen Elizabeth. 'She had that instinctive malice that makes one pick out for hatred the very persons who have done one a good turn... She was not merely ungrateful, but her only response to a benefit received was to revenge it.' Such comments cannot have been without effect on Verstegan's generation."[12]
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