George Carleton (1529 – January 1590) was a lawyer, landowner and Member of Parliament with strong Puritan sympathies. It has been suggested that he was the secret author of the Marprelate tracts, and both he and his third wife were prosecuted for their involvement in the Marprelate controversy. Ordered to appear daily before the Privy Council in April 1589, he died in early 1590 before a decision in the proceedings against him had been reached.[1][2]
He served in a military capacity on two occasions, in 1557 as a captain at the siege of St Quentin, and in 1573 as treasurer to the Earl of Essex's expedition to Ireland.[1][3]
Over time he became a substantial landowner. He inherited his father's property at Walton-on-Thames, and spent his early years there, but by 1568 had conveyed it to his younger brother, Edward.[3] His inheritance from his father also included lands in Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire. Through his second marriage he acquired lands in Oxfordshire and Northamptonshire, including the manor of Overstone, which he used as a principal residence.[1][3] He also purchased extensive lands in Gloucestershire,[3] and during the later part of his life acquired substantial interests in former monastic properties in the fenlands, including some 1000 acres of marshland used for grazing, as well as a house in Wisbech and the manor of Coldham.[3][9] As a landowner in the Lincolnshire fens he pioneered the use of windmills, served as a commissioner for sewers,[10] and was the first to have 'inned any marsh in Holland'.[1]
He was also involved in financial transactions with his stepson by his second marriage, Sir Anthony Cope. In 1571 they entered into a recognizance in the amount of £1000, and in 1576 Carleton was granted the stewardship of the manor of Wollaston in Northamptonshire, which he appears to have obtained for Cope's benefit.[3]
Carleton was an 'ardent' Puritan who believed that Elizabeth I's only 'reliable subjects' were Puritans like himself, and put forward to Lord Burghley a proposal that the Queen's Catholic subjects should be settled on plantations in Ireland, as well as a proposal for a militia composed 'chiefly of such as be religious' to guard the Queen.[3][1] He befriended Percival Wiburn, a Puritan preacher in Northampton, and after Wiburn had been silenced by the authorities, brought two other radical ministers from London, Nicholas Standon and Edward Bulkeley, whose sermons were given at Carleton's home at Overstone.[3] In Parliament, he devoted his energies to bringing about further religious reform 'along Presbyterian lines', supporting the efforts in that regard of William Strickland, Paul Wentworth, and Peter Wentworth.[1]
After the printing of the Epistle, the press was moved to Fawsley in Northamptonshire, the home of Sir Richard Knightley, whom Collinson terms 'an enthusiast not entirely compos mentis, whose affairs were in Carleton's hands'.[1] Martin's Epitome was printed at Fawsley. From there the press was taken to the Whitefriars in Coventry, and to Wolston Priory in Warwickshire, where further tracts were printed. Although the secret press was not captured by agents of Henry Stanley, 4th Earl of Derby, until August 1589, according to Carlson, as early as April 1589 Carleton had been ordered to appear before the Privy Council, and directed to attend daily until given permission to depart.[14] After the capture of the secret press in August, those in whose homes the Marprelate tracts had been printed were arrested and imprisoned in the Fleet. Carleton died in early January 1590 before a decision had been reached in any proceedings which may have been instigated against him. His widow was ordered by the Court of Star Chamber to be imprisoned at the Queen's pleasure, and heavily fined, as were others who had been involved.[1][2][15][16]
Both Longley and Collinson have suggested that Carleton might have been the secret author of the Marprelate tracts.[1][17][18]
He married secondly, in 1561, Elizabeth Mohun (d.1587), widow of Edward Cope of Hanwell, Oxfordshire and daughter of Walter Mohun of Overstone,[1] by whom he had a son, Castle Carleton, and a daughter, Elizabeth Carleton.[22]
^Kennedy, Mark E. (1983). "Fen Drainage, the Central Government, and Local Interest: Carleton and the Gentlemen of South Holland*". The Historical Journal. 26: 15. doi:10.1017/S0018246X00019580.
Carlson, Leland H. (1981). Martin Marprelate, Gentleman: Master Job Throckmorton Laid Open in His Colors. San Marino, California: The Henry E. Huntington Library.
Howard, Joseph Jackson, ed. (1874). "The Visitation of Surrey". Surrey Archaeological Collections. VI. London: Wyman & Sons: 326–7. Retrieved 15 December 2013.
McCorkle, Julia Norton (1931). "A Note concerning 'Mistress Crane' and the Martin Marprelate Controversy". The Library. 4th. XII (3): 276–83. doi:10.1093/library/s4-XII.3.276.
Maddison, A.R., ed. (1903). Lincolnshire Pedigrees, Vol. II. Vol. LI. London: Harleian Society. pp. 526–32. Retrieved 14 December 2013.