The success of those pamphlets was great. A well-known story tells how when order was issued that they were not to be read, the Earl of Oxford pulled one of them out of his pocket, and presented it to the queen. Solemn “admonitions” were found to be too awkward in such a conflict, and counter-pamphleteers were called in on the bishops’ side. This part of the controversy is no less obscure than the other. It has been guessed that Lyly and Nash struck in for the bishops. Both have been credited with the authorship of a _Pappe with a Hatchet_ and _An Almond for a Parrot_, which appeared respectively at the end of 1589 and the beginning of 1590. They are now generally attributed to Lyly. Then third parties struck in and denounced both houses, or endeavoured to hush the clamour, by such appeals as _Plain Perceval the Peace-Maker of England_. Although they naturally fell into neglect so soon as the occasion had passed, the Martin Marprelate pamphlets are of great importance in the history of English literature. The euphuistic, pastoral, and other tales of the time served a mere fashion of the day, and are forgettable as well as forgotten. But when Martin Marprelate published his unlicensed _Epistle_ he set an example which has been excellently well followed. His pamphlet stands at the head of the long list which includes the _Areopagitica_, the _Anatomy of an Equivalent_, the _Public Spirit of the Whigs_, the _Shortest Way with the Dissenters_, the _Letters of Junius_, the _Regicide Peace_, and it is not absurd to say the _Reflections on the Revolution in France_, which is a very long, great, and eloquent pamphlet, but a pamphlet still. The _Epistle_ and its immediate successors were not unworthy to be the beginners of so vital a part of English literature.