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De facto freedom, de facto authority: press and parliament, 1640–1643

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Michael Mendle
Michael Mendle
Affiliation:
University of Alabama
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Abstract

In 1641 a century-long partnership of the crown and the London Stationers collapsed, leaving state control of the press and the Stationers’ interest in copyright in an extremely vulnerable situation. Tentatively at first and with growing assertiveness by 1642, the Lords and Commons revised and restated in their own interest the old partnership of the state and the Stationers; for their part, the Stationers worked hard to demonstrate their utility to the new regime and to preserve the privileges that allowed them to control the book business. The result of their joint efforts was the licensing ordinance of 1643, which critics, including John Milton, thought to be scarcely distinguishable from the Star Chamber decree of 1637, the high-water mark of the old regime. But the ordinance proved only partially successful. In the interim between regimes, there emerged a vigorous if vulgar tabloid journalism avant la lettre, sustained by an underclass of undisciplined elements of the Stationers’ Company, non-company interlopers and hawkers, and often youthful scribblers, several of them Cambridge drop-outs. Such engaging rascals no less than moralists like Milton had their share in acclimatizing the English to a press practically free of prior restraint.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 38 , Issue 2 , June 1995 , pp. 307 - 332
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

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References

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33 For this see the entries in the registers; the licensers concerned are the undersecretary of state Weckerlyn (in the spring of 1641), and John Hansley and Thomas Wykes, ecclesiastical licensers at work even in 1642. See also Sheila, Lambert, ‘The beginning of printing for the House of Commons, 1640–42’, The Library, 6th ser., III (1981), 40 and n. 20.Google Scholar

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35 Larking, L. B., ed., Proceedings…in…Kent, Camden Society, 1st series (1862), pp. 80–100Google Scholar; C.J. IV, 84. Notestein (D'Ewes, , Journal, ed. Notestein, , p. 328, n. 5Google Scholar) was in error in confusing the two committees. I attempted to pick apart the many knots of the committee structure in ‘Mixed government, the estates, and the bishops’, unpubl. Ph.D. dissertation, Washington University, 1977. pp. 598–609.Google Scholar

36 L.J. IV, 160–1, 163, 168 (Pocklington and Bray); 174 (Strafford). House of Lords Record Office, Main Papers, 12 March 1641, petition of ministers. Among the eighteen signers were Cornelius Burgess, Adoniram Byfield, Edmund Calamy, Calybute Downing, Daniel Featley, William Gouge, and Lazarus Seaman.

37 Stationers' Company Records, Liber A (from British Museum MS Room Microfilm M/455/8), fo. 130a, 4 March 1641, reports an order of the Lords’ committee ‘appointed to examine the whole business concerning the printing and selling of vnlicensed bookes & pamphletts’, authorizing the company to search out and seize ‘all’ unlicensed books in English, for presentation to the Lords. It seems likely that the order was requested by the company as a cover for their activities.

38 House of Lords Record Office, Main Papers, 4 March 1641, complaint of Stationers’ Company concerning unlicensed books [sic in Hist. Manuscripts Commission, 4th Report (1874)].

39 L.J. IV, 180. Further ‘Particulars’ of Seymour's report are to be found in the draft of the proposed orders in House of Lords Record Office, Main Papers, 10 March 1641, draft of resolutions against the sale of unlicensed books.

40 House of Lords Records Office, Main Papers, 12 March 1641, draft report from the committee concerning printers and stationers, unpaged but p. 7.

41 L.J. IV, 182. The company entered the Lords’ order in Liber A, fo. 130b.

42 Robert [i.e. Thomas] Harper; see House of Lords Record Office, Main Papers, 4 March 1641, complaint of Stationers’ Company concerning unlicensed books. According to K. Pantzer, the offending version was probably STC 25248.5; see also other titles in the range 25247–25248.7 and Wing E2572 and E2572A: Depositions and Articles against Thomas Earle of Strafford (1640 [1641]).

43 Richard Lownes confessed that he sold them, and that Thomas Harper printed them. The charge against Laud is BL E. 207 (6), the articles against Finch are in STC 10876.

44 These were singled out among the ‘at least 100 pamphlets’ that Richard Whitaker ‘affirmed that he found’ in Henry Walker's house. I have not been able to identify the verses ‘made of’ Finch and Wren. Other items can be traced: Prelates Pride [Wing W378], Canterburies Dreame [BL E. 158 (3) seems a later issue or edition, or a later purchase by Thomason, since the volume in which it appears contains items from May 1641]. Walker also ‘dispersed’ Robert Baillie's tract, Prelacie is Misery [Wing B465A].

45 John Dawson admitted printing ‘the orders for the Committee made by the House of Commons’; in John Beale's house ‘were found diverse printed copies of the Scottes DedaracOn that came but last’.

46 Ernest, Sirluck, ‘To Your Tents, O Israel: a lost pamphlet’, Huntington Library Quarterly, XIX (1955–1956), 301–5.Google Scholar

47 Walker's, The Prelate's Pride contained a prophecy (p. 21)Google Scholar ‘that the Church shall not be delivered from the servitude of Egypt, but by violence and force, and with the bloody sword’. A Dreame: or Newes from Hell (1641)Google Scholar [Wing D2156] was rude about Laud's taste for ears (p. 8), and presumptuous about the dissolution of the Short Parliament (pp. 10–11).

48 Calvert's boldness is more remarkable since both brothers were then apprenticed to Joseph Hunscott, who was soon to become the company's beadle; Giles had been free since January 1639, while George was still in articles. McKenzie, D. F., Stationers’ Company apprentices 1605–1640 (Charlottesville, 1961), p. 86.Google Scholar

49 Plomer, Henry R., A dictionary of the booksellers and printers …from 1641 to 1667 (London, 1907; reprinted 1968), pp. 16–17, 162–3, 186Google Scholar. McKenzie, , Stationers’ Company apprentices, pp. 95, 119Google Scholar identifies Sheares and Vavasour as non-printers’ apprentices.

50 But Alsop may have had less than a completely clear title to his position; see Lambert, , ‘The printers’, pp. 8–9.Google Scholar

51 On this see Plomer, Dictionary, sub nom.

52 Jackson, William A., ed., Records of the court of the Stationers’ Company, 1602–1640 (London, 1957). PP. 259, 260, 293, 481, 483.Google Scholar

53 Arber, , Transcripts, III, 700–1, 704Google Scholar. Fawcett and Alsop also got into an unseemly spat over the costs of an apprentice: Jackson, , Records, pp. 305–6.Google Scholar

54 House of Lords Record Office, Main Papers, 4 March 1641, ‘Complaint of Stationers’ Company concerning unlicenced books’. Unless otherwise cited, further details in this paragraph come from this source. The cited titles were not especially subversive, at least in the new scheme of things in which anti-papal, anti-Laudian and parliamentary tracts would find ready defenders; three were reissues of items first written or published well before 1640. ‘Bacons consid: of the Church’ is, apparently, A Wise and Moderate Discourse Concerning Church Affaires (1640) [BL E. 205 (7)]Google Scholar; ‘Priviledges of Parl. in England. Prerogative of Parlimts’ possibly equals The Privileges and Practice of Parliaments [BL E. 161 (1)]; ‘Englands Joy for Banisshinge of Priests’ is [Thomas Scott,] Englands Ioy, for the Kings Gratious Proclamation for the banishing Papists (1640)Google Scholar, a reprint of STC 22076; ‘The black box of Rome’ is the same, The Black Box of Rome (1641) [BL E. 206 (1)].

55 Peter Smart's only printed sermon was originally published, and suppressed, in 1628 [STC 22640]; Alsop and Fawcett reprinted it in 1640: A Sermon Preached in the Cathedral Church of Durham (1640) [STC 22641, 22641.5].

56 See n. 40.

57 Unlike Hammond, Calvert was saucily mum about the source of the text, saying only that ‘he had it from one of the City’.

58 L.J. IV, 183; House of Lords Record Office, Main Papers, 4 March, complaint of Stationers’ Company concerning unlicensed books, and 12 March, draft report from the committee concerning printers and stationers.

59 For the duration of their imprisonment, which may only have been two nights, Lambert, , ‘The beginning of printing’, p. 48, n. 21.Google Scholar

60 L.J. IV, 182–6. House of Lords Record Office, Main Papers, 12 March 1641, draft report from the committee concerning printers and stationers.

61 L.J. IV, 205–5 (2 April 1641), 210–11 (8 April 1641).

62 D'Ewes, , Journal, ed. Notestein, , pp. 234–6Google Scholar; C.J. II, 65.

63 Ussher probably decided to seek his redress from the Commons rather than the Lords because the Commons was in the midst of heated debates over episcopacy. D'Ewes, , Journal, ed. Notestein, , pp. 234–6Google Scholar; ‘…Whereas complaint hath been made…’ (1641) [Folger Shakespeare Library shelfmark E 2775a]. Abbott, William M., ‘James Ussher and ‘Ussherian’ episcopacy, 1640–1656: the primate and his Reduction manuscript’, Albion, XXII (1990), 237–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar, argues that Ussher did not want his plan to circulate at all in 1640–1.

64 Eyre, G. E. Briscoe, Plomer, H. R., AND Rivington, C. R., A transcript of the registers of the worshipful Company of Stationers from 1640 to 1708 [henceforth Eyre and Rivington], 3 vols. (London, 1913–1914), I, 7, 8, II.Google Scholar

65 Liber A, fo. 130 b. Eyre and Rivington, 1, 16. The day before, Dering licensed his first book, the first of the ‘Smectymnuus’ tracts, An Answer to a Booke.

66 For some related remarks, Michael, Mendle, ‘The Thomason Collection: a reply to Stephen J. Greenberg’, Albion, XXII (1990), 91–2Google Scholar. The larger question of publication of parliamentary materials is treated in Lambert, ‘The beginning of printing’.

67 CSPD, 1640–1, pp. 368–9, 508–9.

68 In Scintilla (1641), Sparke charged that some of the monopolists, as he called the English Bible syndicate, later sold at least some of the bibles after they arrived at the High Commission. Scintilla was reprinted in Arber, , Transcript, IV, 35–8Google Scholar; for this charge, p. 36. In fact the story was less clear-cut than Sparke's account suggests. Two suitors in the case, William Lee and Thomas Cowper, had bought the disputed bibles from a corrupt customs agent; Greg, , Companion, pp. 305–9.Google Scholar

69 BL Harl, 163, fo. 199 a. It is difficult to determine which of the several committees having something to do with printing was involved. Dering's committee can be excluded (Harl. 477, fo. 77a). The State Papers petitions cited in n. 63 were addressed to the Committee for the Archbishop of Canterbury.

70 C.J. II, 181.

71 Virgilio, Malvezzi, Discourses Upon Cornelius Tacitus (1642)Google Scholar, sig. A2 recto. Shortly after Whitaker's close call, Henry Hexham petitioned the Lords against Whitaker in a related case concerning the importation of Dutch atlases: House of Lords Record Office, Main Papers, petition of Captain Henry Hexham, 24 June 1642; for the background, Greg, , Companion, pp. 310–18.Google Scholar

72 [Henry, Parker], To the High Court of Parliament: The Humble Remonstrance of the Company of Stationers (1643)Google Scholar, [BL E. 247 (23)], repr., inaccurately, in Arber, , Transcript, I, 584–8Google Scholar. The petition to the Lords of Joseph Hunscott, the beadle in 1643, is also in Parker's hand; House of Lords Record Office, Main Papers, petition of Joseph Hunscott, 14 May 1643.

73 Liber A, fo. 131 b (undated but entered between items dated 1 May and 5 June 1641). There were eighteen signers in all.

74 C.J. II, 218, 222. For the Stationers’ efforts, Lambert, , ‘The beginning of printing’, p. 49, n. 29Google Scholar. I am less confident than she that this bill was simply the 1643 ordinance.

75 In a petition to the Lords, introduced immediately upon the conclusion of the late summer recess in Oct. 1641, the Master and Wardens complained again that their power of search and seizure was boldly contested by the operators of a secret press operating in an ‘obscure place’ in Holborn: House of Lords Record Office, Main Papers, petition of the Master and Wardens of the Company of Stationers of London, 21 Oct. 1641; L.J. IV, 398; see also 396, 397. The petition continued the company's rewriting of its own history, claiming its search and seizure powers to have stemmed from the Lords’ orders of 12 March and ‘constant vsage ever since Printers were in England’, without reference to the charter, the crown, or Star Chamber.

76 C.J. II, 220.

77 BL Harl. 479, fo. 80b. Charles later accused the opposition of sheltering Burton; see His Majesties Answer to…the Declaration, or Remonstrance of the Lords and Commons, of the 19th of May, 1642 (1642) [BL E. 150 (29)], p. 24Google Scholar. Dexter spent at least some weeks in the Gatehouse (C.J. II, 269, 270). On the earlier activities of Dexter (who was an old associate of Burton's), see Foster, , Notes from the Caroline underground, pp. 62–3, 76–7.Google Scholar

78 Sheila, Lambert, ‘The beginning of printing’, p. 49Google Scholar, suggests that the order was in the spirit of the company's suggestions to the Lords in March 1641. There is some similarity between the Commons’ provision for Stationers’ responsibility for the knowing the names of authors and suppliers of texts, and the company's formula that booksellers should supply the names of printers ‘if it be required’. But the company's earlier proposals presupposed the existence of a licensing system; the orders of 22 July address an interim without its effective functioning. On the other hand, these orders’ silence about the traditional apparatus of enforcement was in no sense a principled abandonment.

79 Complete prose works of John Milton, II, ed. by Ernest, Sirluck (New Haven, 1959), 160–2, 569Google Scholar; Sirluck, however, was not aware of the July 1641 order.

80 Complete prose works of John Milton, II, 515, 517, 558, 559.Google Scholar

81 Paradise Lost, Book Two, II. 5–6; Complete prose works of John Milton, II, 554.Google Scholar

82 The private journals of the Long Parliament, 3 January to 5 March 1642 [Private Journals I], ed. Coates, Willson H., Young, Anne Steele, Snow, Vernon F. (New Haven, 1982), p. 165.Google Scholar

83 BL Harl. 163, fo. 291 b.

84 BL Add. MS 40,883, fo. 15 b.

85 An Answer to a Late Scurillous and Scandalous Pamphlet, Entituled, The Downfall of the Old Common Councill Men (1642) [E. 135 (15)], p. 1.Google Scholar

86 See, especially, BL 669 f. 4 (17), The Sucklington Faction (1641).

87 For example, BL E. 156 (15) [also used in BL E. 169 (9)], BL E. 158 (13), BL E. 160 (13), BL E. 165 (1) [also used in BL 669, f. 4 (20)].

88 A New Play Called Canterburie His Change of Diot (1641)Google Scholar. By all appearances, this is a product of the Alsop–Fawcett press. The woodcut of Laud at table with a dish of ears provides surprisingly detailed and accurate likenesses of the principals, and reflects detailed knowledge of the ‘martyrdom’, probably obtained from the standard puritan account, A Briefe Relation (1638). The cut was re-used, wholly inappropriately, in John, Crag, A Prophecy Concerning the Earle of Essex that Now Is (1641) [BL E. 181 (18)], title page.Google Scholar

89 Wrens Nest Defild (1641), title page. This woodcut is a good example of the use of dialogue bubbles to permit re-use: with different captions, the illustration was recycled for use in Articles Ministered by His Majesties Commissioners…against John Gwin (1641)Google Scholar. Allegedly Gwin was guilty of ‘lascivious wenching’ and other manifestations of a ‘wanton life’.

90 The Sisters of the Scabards Holiday (1641)Google Scholar. The sisters rejoiced, because they would no longer be forced to provide free services to the personnel of the bawdy courts.

91 The Brothers of the Blade (1641) [BL E. 238 (5)]Google Scholar; The Pimpes Prerogative (1641) [BL 669, f. 4 (18)].Google Scholar

92 Sion's Charity Towards her Foes in Misery (1641), pp. 4, 5.Google Scholar

93 Thomas, Herbert, The Answer to the Most Envious, Scandalous, and Libellous Pamphlet, Entituled, Mercuries Message (1641) [BL E. 157 (7)], p. 3.Google Scholar

94 John, Taylor, A Swarme of Sectaries, and Schismatiques (1641), title page and pp. 9–10.Google Scholar

95 New Preachers, New (1641) [BL E. 180 (26)], title page.

96 The Sermon and Prophecie of Mr. James Hunt (1641) [BL E. 172 (26)], title page.Google Scholar

97 Lucifers Lacky (1641) [BL E. 180 (3)], last page.

98 See the title-page illustration of Samoth Yarb [Thomas, Bray], A Mew Sect of Religion Descryed, Called Adamites (1641).Google Scholar

99 See the appalling woodcuts on the title pages of Taylor, , A Reply as True as Steel (1641)Google Scholar [BL E. 160 (23)] and Voluntas, Ambulatoria, Taylors Physicke has purged the Divel (1641)Google Scholar. The relation of this ‘Will Walker’ to Henry is not clear. Taylor turned obscenity into a political statement, a contempt-laced refusal to be ‘religiously correct’. In A Reply as True as Steel (p. 6), Taylor obtruded into his attack on Walker an entirely gratuitous little tale of a ‘sister’ who thought the ‘Priap’ of the lion rampant in the royal arms in her church ‘mov'd unlawfull motions’. Her husband the churchwarden had the offending ‘whim wham’ painted out. This side of Taylor, the friend of bishops, is not to be divined from the charming portrait of Taylor in Wallace, Notestein, Four worthies (New Haven, 1957), pp. 169–208.Google Scholar

100 Herbert, , The Answer to the Most Envious, Scandalous, and Libellous Pamphlet, Entituled, Mercuries MessageGoogle Scholar answered the sharp-tongued Mercuries Message [Wing M1748], which was ‘Printed in the yeare of our Prelates feare, 1641’.

101 Mercuries Message Defended, p. 20Google Scholar, claimed Herbert wrote the anti-Laudian Romes ABC (1641) [BL E. 156 (15)]; see also p. 13 for a similar charge. John, Bond, The Poets Knavery Discovered (1642)Google Scholar [BL E. 135 (11)], sig. Aa.

102 Mercuries Message Defended, pp. 3, 10. C.J. II, 396 (25 Jan. 1642); Cooper, Annuales Cantabrigiensis, III, reports Thomas Herbert, matriculated sizar Trinity (1639). In Vox Secunda Populi (1641) [BL E. 164 (21)], p. 1, Herbert was careful, in this poem in praise of Phillip Herbert, earl of Pembroke, not to claim any connection to the earl but the name itself. He was a Kentishman, : The Answer to the Most Envious, Scandalous, and Libellous Pamphlet, p. 5.Google Scholar

103 Mercuries Message Defended, pp. 2, 3, 4, 10, 16; A Second Message to Mr. William Laud…With a Postscript to the Author of that Foolish and Ridiculous Answer to Mercury (1641) [BL E. 169 (9)], sig. A4 recto.Google Scholar

104 The Downefall of the Temporizing Poets, Unlicenst Printers, Upstart Booksellers, Trotting Mercuries, and Bawling Hawkers (1641) [BLE. 165 (5)], p. 5Google Scholar. Bond, , The Poets Knavery DiscoveredGoogle Scholar, sig. A2 verso, also notes Herbert's ‘froathy Muse’.

105 A Preparative to Studie: Or, The Vertue of Sack (1641) [BL E. 158 (7)], p. 5Google Scholar. This has been attributed to Thomas Heywood and Richard Braithwaite. There were a fair number of other pamphlets in this vein.

106 The phrase is from The Downefall of the Temporizing Poets, p. 2Google Scholar; see also p. 3 for the bookbinders.

107 Pym: A Damnable Treason, By a Contagious Plaster of a Plague Sore (1641) [BL E. 173 (23)]Google Scholar. Henry, Burton, A Divine Tragedie Lately Acted (1641) [BL E. 176 (1)]Google Scholar. John, Lilburne, A Christian Mans Triall (1641) [BL E. 181 (7)]Google Scholar. A false likeness of Essex also made the rounds: A True Coppie of Divers Letters (1641) [BL E. 180 (21)]Google Scholar and John, Crag, A Prophecy Concerning the Earle of Essex, sig. A2 recto.Google Scholar

108 C.J. II, 209 (13 July 1642).

109 C.J. II, 268–9 (24 Aug. 1642). For the significance of the letter, Michael, Mendle, ‘The Great Council of Parliament and the first ordinances: the constitutional theory of the Civil War’, Journal of British Studies, XXXI (1992), 141.Google Scholar

110 C.J. II, 221 (13 July 1642); the version at issue was The Order and Forme for Church Government (1641) [BL Burney II. a. (25)]. For the setting and other editions, Michael, Mendle, Dangerous Positions (University, Alabama, 1985), pp. 146–7 and p. 218, n. 38.Google Scholar

111 No Pamphlet, But a Detestation Against All Such Pamphlets As Are Printed Concerning the Irish Rebellion (1641) [BL E. 134 (3)]Google Scholar, sig. A2 verso, joined these efforts with false reports of parliamentary proceedings. See also Bond, , The Poets Knavery DiscoveredGoogle Scholar, for a detailed run-down of false pamphlets during this period, most of which can be traced. The Irish printer William Blayden protested the false reports: HMC, 4th Report, p. 113.

112 Bond, , The Poets Knavery DiscoveredGoogle Scholar, sig. A2 verso. For Bray, C.J. II, 269, for complaint against The Anatomy of Et Caetera (1641) [BL E. 169 (1)]. See also n. 98.

113 Charles complained to the Commons of an inaccurate version of one of his speeches: The Journal of Sir Simonds D'Ewes from the First Recess of the Long Parliament to the Withdrawal of King Charles from London, ed. Coates, W. H. (New Haven, 1942), p. 249 and n. 1Google Scholar. In the other episode the Alsop-printed A Great Discovery of a Damnable Plot bungled into implicating the current French ambassador (who was a Pym confidant) in a plot hatched by the papist marquis of Worcester; D'Ewes, , Journal, ed. Coates, , pp. 164 and n. 2, pp. 176–7Google Scholar; L.J. IV, 443. A Great Discovery of a Damnable Plot (1641) [BL E. 176 (13)].Google Scholar

114 House of Lords Record Office, Main Papers, order of the House of Commons to the Committee for Printing, 24 Nov. 1641.

115 On 6 Jan. 1642 Charles used the privy council to ‘require’ the King's Bench to act against the producers of one printed version of the articles of treason against the five members and Lord, Kimbolton: Privy council registers preserved in the Public Record Office, vol. 12 (London, 1968), p. 209Google Scholar. He also attempted to use the King's Printer, Robert Barker, as a kind of alternative Stationers’ Company to assist the court: House of Lords Record Office, Main Papers, warrant to Robert Barker and the Assigns of John Bill, 6 January 1642. Later Charles tried unsuccessfully to engage the House of Lords in a similar role.

116 C.J. II, 396; Private Journals I, pp. 160–1, 165–6. See also the account in BL Burney II a. (5), p. 22, suspiciously authoritative since it was appended to the warranted and registered text of Pym's speech of 25 Jan. 1642.

117 Greensmith was released on 1 Feb., Eldred on 7 Feb. (C.J. II, 408, 415). See also Eldred's petition: House of Lords, Record Office, Main Papers, petition of Martin Eldred to the House of Commons, 7 Feb. 1942.

118 C.J. II, 402; Private Journals I, p. 216; An Order Made by the Honorable House of Commons Die Sabbati, 29. Januarii. 1641 (1642) [BL E. 207 (2)].Google Scholar

119 C.J. II, 411, 414.

120 Bond, The Poets Knavery Discovered, sigs. A2–A3. Bond repeatedly identified himself as a St. John's scholar: see, e.g., King Charles his Welcome Home (1641)Google Scholar [BL E. 177 (18)], title page.

121 A Copie of the Qyeens Letter From the Hague in Holland to the Kings Maiesty Residing at Yorke (1641)Google Scholar [BL 669, f. 3 (62)]. BL Harl. 163, fo. 37.

122 L.J. IV, 674, 678, 680, 681, 699, 708, 721, 722.

123 John, Bond, The Poets Recantation, Having Suffered in the Pillory (1942 [sic]) [BL E. 142 (13)], pp. 1, 3, 5.Google Scholar

124 House of Lords Record Office, Main Papers, petition of Bernard Alsop, 7 January 1643; petition of Bernard Alsop and Thomas Fawcett, April 1643.

126 C.J. II, 743.

126 C.J. II, 1000−1 (9 March 1643). The logic for the order is unclear, but may be related to a search-and-seizure episode in Oct. 1641 that was still causing ripples in 1643: House of Lords Record Office, Main Papers, petition of the Masters and Wardens of the Company of Stationers, 21 Oct. 1641 and petition of Joseph Hunscott, 14 May 1643 (see n. 72).

127 The Humble Remonstrance of the Company of Stationers, London (n.d.) [BL E. 247 (23)]. For Parker's career at this point, Michael, Mendle, ‘Henry Parker: the public's privado’, in Religion, resistance, and civil war, ed. Schochet, Gordon J. (Washington, 1990), pp. 158–9.Google Scholar

128 The Humble Remonstrance, sigs. A1 verso, A2 recto.

129 The Humble Remonstrance, sig. A2 verso.

130 The Humble Remonstrance, sig. A1 verso. Parker actually praised the papists’ ability to control the press.

131 The Humble Remonstrance, sig. A3 verso.

132 An Order of the Lords and Commons Assembled in Parliament. For the Regulating of Printing… (1643) [BL E. 106 (15)]Google Scholar. Ancient custom is used twice (pp. 5, 6–7); quoted passage from p. 7. The licensers were named on 20 June (C.J. III, 138); recognizing the long-term informal practice of the Company, ‘small Pamphlets… and the like’ could be licensed by the Company's clerk. See also the explanation of the search provisions: House of Lords Record Office, Main Papers, 14 June 1643, explanation of the ordinance of 14 June 1643.

133 C.J. III, 138. John Downame and Calybute Downing, who signed the Stationers’ solicitation, were also named licensers for works of divinity.

134 An Order of the Lords and Commons Assembled in Parliament. For the Regulating of Printing, p. 4Google Scholar. Parker's Humble Remonstrance, sig. A4, included an apology for the English stock.

135 Prose works of Milton, II, 491, 570. Milton knew that the line pursued in The Humble Remonstrance underlay the ordinance.

136 Prose works of Milton, II, 161–2, 558, 570 and n. 309; see also pp. 524 (‘twenty licencers’), 535 (‘twenty capacities’), 536 (‘twenty licencing forges’), 541 (‘a Prelatical commission of twenty’).

137 Prose works of Milton, II, 569.

138 Prose works of Milton, II, 539, 541, 568. See also pp. 504–5 on how popish imprimaturs became the Laudians’ ‘deare Antiphonies’.

139 Both known presentation copies of the tract are dated late Nov. 1644: Prose works of Milton, II, 480. For the circumstances, ibid. p. 142, and Abbe, Blum, ‘The author's authority: Areopagitica and the labour of licensing’, in Mary, Nyquist and Ferguson, Margaret W. (eds.), Re-membering Milton: Essays on the texts and traditions (New York, 1987), pp. 82–3.Google Scholar

140 Prose works of Milton, II, 530. The single contemporary, post-ordinance allusion is to the failure of the ordinance to suppress the London printing of royalist diurnal Mercurius Aulicus (p. 528); the statement was more accurate for 1643 and early 1644 than late 1644.

141 Prose works of Milton, II, 566.

142 See nn. 16, 136.

143 Blagden, , ‘The Stationers' Company’, p. 16.Google Scholar

144 See, especially, Keith, Lindley, ‘London and popular freedom in the 1640s’, in Freedom and the English Revolution, Richardson, R. C. and Ridden, G. M. (eds.), (Manchester, 1986), pp. 111–50Google Scholar and Lois, Potter, Secret rites and secret writing: royalist literature 1641–1660 (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 1–71.Google Scholar