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N.D. versus O.E.: anonymity's moral ambiguity in Elizabethan Catholic controversy
Criticism, Summer, 1998 by Marcy L. North
Parsons replies to Hastings and Sutcliffe in The Warn-word to Sir Francis Hastinges Wast-word (1602) still under the pseudonym "N. D." Within the prefatory material, he addresses Sutcliffe's name games and revelations in great detail, turning many of Sutcliffe's puns on their heads. This battle of wits seems aimed at diminishing the importance of Sutcliffe's revelation. First, Parsons accuses Sutcliffe of turning serious issues into a frivolous war of words. He complains, "small contentment (gentle reader) can any Christian modest man take, that having to handle a grave and serious cause seeth himself drawne, or rather driven from the same, to contention of wordes, by the insolencie, and importunitie of his quarrelling adversarie" (f. 1). Parsons next suggests that Sutcliffe utilized a disguise in order to hide his foolishness, a "visard in respect of the follyes perhaps he was to utter" (f. 1). He echoes here the chivalric and fencing metaphors that helped to define the nature of aggression, disguise, and conscience in this controversy. Although Parsons advises Sutcliffe that he "could dismaske him," he chooses rather to spare him and to let him know personally "by divers poynts" (f. [1.sup.v]) that he has been identified.
Before engaging in this private revelation, Parsons takes up the game of nicknames that Sutcliffe began: "Heere yow see beginneth a grave contention betweene O.E. and N.D. about the worde Noddie, which none but a Noddy, in my opinion would ever have brought into examination, especially in print; for that N.D. being but consonants, and having no sound of their owne cannot make a Noddie, except yow ad the sound of O.E. unto them, that are vowels, to geve lyfe unto the word" (ff. [1.sup.v]-2). Whether Parsons wins the war of wits or not, he successfully trivializes the arguments of his opponent, not by suggesting difference, as many controversialists do when they compare their own moderate style to the railing of their adversaries, but by emphasizing the similarities that will, in turn, highlight certain more important distinctions. Parsons explains that, "wheras O.E. objected to N.D. that he is a man but of two or three letters, which is answered sufficentlie by numbering onlie how many letters O.E. do make . . . we may hold O.E. for a Noddie writer, who objecteth that to N.D. which with farre lesse reason, or excuse he practiseth himselfe" (f. 2). Although the line is somewhat obscure, N. D. appears to be referring to the "reason" that each author has for using a pseudonym. Parsons accuses Sutcliffe of having "farre lesse reason, or excuse" compared to the Catholic author who faces several dangers whenever he participates in public controversies. Sutcliffe, he points out, is "at home upon his owne ground and among his owne frends and favourers" (f. 2). This is not the case for Parsons, who is smuggling his books into England from the Continent and putting a number of people at risk in order to reach readers. So, although they both use identical conventions of name suppression, the functions of those conventions are very different. One is an act of protection, the other, according to Parsons, an act of foolishness. Parsons has stated more explicitly than most controversialists that anonymity is indeed a necessary protective device. He has done so, ironically, in the very text where he acknowledges his authorship of several anonymous works.
