ABSTRACT
Richard Verstegan, alias Richard Rowlande, alias various fictitious names and initials that appear on his works' title pages, was a goldsmith, engraver, painter, writer, printer, publisher, editor, translator, antiquarian, and intelligencer. As author, editor, illustrator, and printer, Verstegan produced books in a range of genres including devotional texts, newsbooks, and antiquarian treatises. This chapter examines his lavishly illustrated Latin martyrology, the Theatrum Crudelitatum Haereticorum Nostri Temporis. The pan-British dimension of Verstegan's book is notable because-with the exception of Mary Stuart, the plight of Catholics in the Celtic borderlands is rarely mentioned in the propaganda of the English exiles. The Theatrum was part of a European outpouring of Catholic texts and images about ancient and modern martyrs. Verstegan's depiction of Catholics as weak denies the belief that martyrdom by itself could function as a form of resistance to oppression. Verstegan's engravings give equal, if not greater, prominence to the persecutors than to the victims.
