London in Chains

by Gillian Bradshaw

  ‘No,’ she admitted, taken aback. ‘Do most printing presses have licences?’

  ‘Now, that I’m unsure of,’ Thomas said with a nervous smile. ‘There’s no doubt, though, that they’re supposed to. The Stationers’ Company is responsible for licensing them, and every printer in England is required to get his name on the Stationers’ register, and afterwards submit all he wishes to publish to the licensors before he prints it. But since the war began, regulation has been all at sixes and sevens, and there are many unlicensed presses in London. The Stationers’ men strain every sinew to find them out, but London is a very great city, and they’ve no more hope of finding every unlicensed press than of catching every pickpocket at Bartholomew Fair. However, when they do find an illegal press it . . . it’s better if they don’t catch the people who were working it. Particularly if those people were printing something the Parliament-men dislike. In January our other press was found, and those who were printing on it were used very ill. Poor Mary Overton, who was stitching the pamphlets, was barbarously dragged through the mire and over the stones to Bridewell, even with her infant crying in her arms. She’s still there, poor brave woman! Now, they might not treat a stranger so inhumanly – but, still, the more I think of it, the less I like the risk of exposing you to such danger. What would I say to your father? No, in good conscience I must disappoint my friend William!’

  Lucy took several steps on along the road, imagining a woman with a baby in her arms being dragged along the street to prison – for stitching a pamphlet! So, it seemed that Aunt Agnes hadn’t just been trying to scare her.

  She felt, though, that if she went back now she would be trapped for ever. She would become her aunt’s unpaid serving-maid, and everyone around her would gradually forget that she might ever have been anything else.I don’t care if it’s dangerous, she thought fiercely: I want to do it. At least I’d eventually be released from Bridewell!

  ‘Is it against the law for me to stitch your friend’s pamphlets?’ she asked cautiously.

  He sighed. ‘Of that, I’m not sure. It’s against the law to print them or sell them, but is it against the law to stitch them? A lawyer could argue not. But, ah, the present government is most grievously offended by our pamphlets. They very much wish to silence us.’ He hesitated, then went on, ‘I doubt that Will would have been so eager to take you on if he’d properly understood how little you know of all this. He’s been managing this press for us since poor Mr Tew was imprisoned and he finds it hard, or he would have asked more about you.’

  ‘Managing it?’ repeated Lucy, confused again.

  ‘It’s Nicholas Tew’s press,’ said Thomas. He peered at her. ‘The petition Will brought me last night – remember? Will’s run back and forth between the press and his own bookshop ever since Tew was cast in prison, and that’s dangerous, since Will’s known to the authorities and might be followed. That was one reason why he was so eager to have you there instead. You’re unknown in the city, and yet, as my niece, you’re trustworthy.’

  Lucy wondered if he would have assumed a nephew was trustworthy, just because an uncle was: men never seemed to get lumped in with their relatives the way women did. ‘Sir,’ she said, ‘Who is “us”?’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Our pamphlets, you said; the government wishes to silence us,’ she pointed out. ‘Who’s “us”?’

  ‘Oh! I see. Well.’ Thomas drew a deep breath, then showed her over to the side of the road and stopped in a doorway, out of the traffic.

  ‘When this war began,’ he said, speaking suddenly with clarity and fervour, ‘we were told that we must support Parliament to secure our liberties from an oppressive tyranny. We believed it – at least, I believed it! – and we spent our treasure, and shed our blood, and lost – God knows how I loved my sweet boy; I would rather have lost my own life! And now that we’ve given Parliament the victory, what do we find? A persecuting prelacy is to be replaced with a persecuting presbytery, and we are to have no more rights than we did before! Still it goes on: imprisonment without charge, monopolies and corruption, punishment for those who complain, privilege for the rich and misery for everyone else. Aye, and this present everlasting Parliament, that was elected nigh on eight years ago and has waded through so much blood – when will it stand down and call fresh elections?

  ‘There should be reform. We should get what we fought for! There should be an election and a new settlement of the government! As our victory is stolen, more and more of us have come to believe that we must fight again – not with swords, this time, but with petitions and the law. We’ve banded together to demand a settlement that secures our liberties as freeborn Englishmen.’ Thomas frowned at Lucy and added, ‘Agnes calls it “sedition” because this present corrupt Parliament does – but the king called it “sedition” when Parliament set itself against his will, and who believes that now? There are honest men in Parliament; we do have support in the Commons, for all the arrogance of the majority, and in the Army there are many who agree with us. I hope and pray that our opponents have the good sense to realize that they must make concessions. Then this so-called sedition will become the new foundation of our commonwealth, and England’s liberty will be the glory of the world!’ He paused, cleared his throat, and added unhappily, ‘In the meantime, though, I fear that working on our pamphlets is dangerous.’

  Lucy tried to digest all this. She had never really cared about the claims of Parliament or King: the ‘liberties of freeborn Englishmen’ had very little to do with Englishwomen. For her the war had meant ruin and suffering, without sense or reason, and the thought that anybody might be stupid and wicked enough to start it up again appalled her.

  On the other hand, she still wanted the job.

  ‘I’m not afraid, Uncle,’ she said. Inspiration struck. ‘I would be ashamed if you disappointed your friend on my behalf, particularly as he might think you did so only from fear of my aunt.’

  She’d won: she saw that at once.

  ‘We should make trial of it,’ she coaxed. ‘Then, if I think it too dangerous, I can tell Mr Browne as much, and the blame will rest on me.’

  Mr Browne’s bookshop was on Coleman Street, near to Moorgate. When they arrived he was perched on a joint-stool outside the shop, but he jumped up, beaming, as soon as he saw them.

  ‘There you are!’ he said, shaking hands with Uncle Thomas. ‘And your pretty niece from the country! What was her name again, Tom?’

  ‘Lucy Wentnor,’ Thomas informed him. ‘My sister Elizabeth’s child. I’ve told her of the dangers she faces, Will, but she swears she’s not afraid.’

  ‘Excellent! Brave girl!Liza!’ Browne called the last back into the shop.

  A girl of twelve or thirteen came into the doorway, regarded Lucy a moment with curiosity, then smiled. ‘Good health!’ she said. ‘My da told me you were going to stitch Freeborn John’s pamphlet. You’re from the country, aren’t you?’

  ‘Aye,’ said Lucy, smiling back. She felt safer with Browne, knowing he had a young daughter.

  ‘I could tell!’ said Liza. ‘From the waistcoat. I don’t know why nobody in London wears one; it’s pretty. Will you come back here for your dinner?’

  ‘Aye, I expect so,’ said Browne before Lucy could answer. ‘Mind the shop, chick, while I show Mistress Wentnor the press.’ He turned to Uncle Thomas. ‘I’m much obliged to you, Tom. We need it done as soon as possible.’

  ‘Aye,’ agreed Thomas, looking serious. ‘I’ll let you get to work. Lucy, sweet, I’ll see you this evening!’ And with that he set off back to Southwark. Lucy watched him go, frightened, despite herself, at being left with strangers in this huge city.

  ‘Well, then!’ said Mr Browne. He started off down the street, gesturing for Lucy to follow him. She took a deep breath, steeled herself, and trotted after him, with only one apologetic wave at the girl Liza. She would have liked to talk to Browne’s daughter and perhaps ask the sort of questions she didn’t dare ask Browne. She wished, too, th
at she could have had a look at the bookshop. She’d never set foot in a bookshop.

  They went up one lane, down another and into the yard of a tavern. Two great curved white beams framed its door; Lucy took them to be wood until she saw the inn-sign naming the place as The Whalebone. She stared at the white beams, impressed, trying to imagine a whale and wondering what part of the animal the bones came from. They looked a bit like a wishbone.

  Browne, however, ignored the relic and turned right to unlock one of the stable buildings. Lucy thought it might be a carriage house, but there were no carriages inside. Instead it was festooned with sheets of paper, hung up like laundry on lines that criss-crossed the room in fluttering ranks. In the centre of the laundry lines stood a wooden construction which looked like the bastard offspring of a poster bed and a cider press. Lucy stared at it curiously. So that was a printing press! She’d never seen one before: there was no such machine in the whole of Leicestershire.

  ‘Here we are,’ said Mr Browne with satisfaction. ‘Now, the first thing is safety.’ He walked over to the far wall, where there was a table set under a dusty window. ‘If ever you hear any disturbance out in the yard, you climb up on this and go directly out of the window. If the alarm turns out to be for nothing, well, there’s no harm done; if it’s the Stationers’ men, then at least you’re safe. Do you understand?’

  ‘Aye, sir.’ With a nervous glance at Browne, she climbed up on to the table. She opened the window and looked out. It stood over a coal-cellar, and she saw that it was an easy step from the window to the roof of the cellar, and another easy step down into the yard. She closed the window and climbed back down from the table, reassured that if she did have to go out of the window, she wouldn’t break her ankle.

  ‘Once you’re out of the window, you should be well,’ said Browne. ‘Just walk off. Don’t run. If anyone questions you, say that you had business with the keeper of The Whalebone. He’s one of us and will back you up. I’ll tell him you’re here, and he’ll likely come by this morning and make himself known to you. His name’s Trebet, Ned Trebet.’

  The name Ned was an unpleasant reminder of the man who’d rejected her – but it was a common enough name. She settled her nerves by picturing an old, fat innkeeper in an apron, bustling about, giving orders to his wife and children: a man who’d be no threat. ‘Aye, sir.’

  ‘You must take care, though, not to let any stranger know what you’re doing here, even if they seem well-meaning: London’s as full of informers as a dung-heap is of worms! When you’re on your way here, if ever you think someone is following after you, don’t go in. Walk on by and come back when you’re content that no one is watching to see where you go.’

  Lucy swallowed. She’d never imagined that bookish people engaged in such behaviour. This was like poaching, or levelling a hedge to let your cattle graze on land a lord had enclosed for his own private use. Her father and her brothers had done both, and she knew how carefully they went about it: the checks to see that no one was watching, the excuse made ready beforehand in case someone was. She supposed, though, that what Mr Browne was doing was similar to levelling a hedge: he was breaking down the fence the Stationers and Parliament had put around the printed word. She ducked her head and uttered another subdued ‘Aye, sir’.

  ‘Don’t look so frighted, girl! I hope you’ll have no trouble, but it never does harm to take care. Now, as to what you’re to do . . .’ He went to one of the laundry lines and took a paper from it. ‘Have you helped to make books before?’

  ‘No, sir,’ admitted Lucy, looking at it with some alarm. She’d imagined that books were printed page by page and that it would be straightforward to stitch them together. This sheet, however, was larger than the Bible in a parish church and it was covered on both sides in dense blocks of print. Obviously, you had to manipulate it somehow before you had pages.

  ‘Ah. Well, this is the first sheet. It’s printed in octavo, which means that it must be folded to make eight pages, thus.’ He took the sheet to the table, took a kind of bone spatula from his belt and proceeded to fold the paper, flipping it one way, then another with the edge of the blade and smoothing the creases with the flat. ‘When you’ve done it properly, the pages will run in sequence.’ He handed her the folded sheet, and pointed out the page numbers in the corners. ‘This pamphlet is fitted to a single sheet, so there’s no need of more stitching than that.’

  She studied it delightedly: what he’d just done seemed like a magic trick. ‘I stitch it here?’ she asked, running a careful finger down the left-hand side.

  Mr Browne smiled back. ‘No.’ He took the booklet and opened it out again, then picked up a box from under the table and removed a needle on a stick. He punched a series of holes along the crease of the paper, using his bone spatula as a guide. ‘You stitch it there, along the crease.’

  He had her fold some sheets herself, to make sure she had the way of it, meanwhile telling her more about how to make a book. He used a lot of strange words: folio and quarto ; recto and verso ; quire and signature. As far as she could see, however, her instructions boiled down to folding the sheet, then punching and stitching the crease. He showed her the needles and the fine linen thread, and he watched as she stitched the first sheet – the first signature, it was called, once it was folded; when it was stitched it was a quire.

  ‘No need to be so careful!’ he told her cheerfully. ‘This isn’t a gentleman’s shirt. Nobody will care if your stitches are uneven. Speed’s the thing! We wanted these by the beginning of the week; if we can get them out by the end of it, you’ll have done very well.’

  When he was content that she could do the work, he handed her his spatula – bonefolder was the proper name for it – and left her to get on with it, closing the door of the carriage house behind him.

  She made some mistakes folding the first few sheets and had to do them over. She also punched some of the holes in the wrong places and had to try again. The shed was unheated, too, so that after half an hour or so she had to pause every now and then to warm her fingers under her arms. Still, it was warmer work than weeding or cheese-making, and easier as well.

  The pamphlet itself was more worrying. She didn’t read it from beginning to end – she’d taken Browne’s call for speed to heart – but she kept picking up bits of it as she stitched. It was called A New-found Stratagem, and the anonymous author seemed to be arguing that the Army should not be disbanded; that, in fact, the proposal to disband it was a trick, intended merely to leave the people defenceless against the tyranny of Parliament. She found herself whispering the difficult words under her breath, chewing the ideas like gristle: ‘just demands . . . denied contrary to duty, oath, and covenant’; ‘a shelter and defence to secure them from oppression and violence’. She could see why Parliament would dislike the pamphlet, but she wondered what Mr Browne and his friends thought they could achieve by printing it. Presumably Mr Browne thought he could sell it, but what were the buyers supposed to do about the disbanding of armies?

  After a while she got up and walked around the shed while she sewed, partly to keep warm, partly because she was curious. The printing press drew her irresistibly: she would fold and punch a sheet, walk over to the press as she stitched, gaze a moment, then walk back to the table as she tied off the thread. She thought she could see how the machine worked: the flat part, the bed-like bit, would slide under the cider-press-like screw. The bed was covered by a sheet of canvas in a wooden frame, like a blank painting, and after a while she worked up the courage to lift it and peer beneath. There was another piece of cloth, folded; under that was a kind of frame full of words, lying on a flat stone. She tried to read the words and couldn’t.

  She went back to the table, vexed, and folded and punched another sheet. Everyone had always told her she read well; during her mother’s long decline she’d spent hours sitting at the bedside, reading from the Bible – yet she couldn’t read the words in the frame at all! She returned to the press, busily stitching
, and tried again.

  The letters in the frame were written backwards, she realized: that was why she couldn’t read them! She stared at them, her tongue between her teeth: To the rigg . . . To the right honourable the Commons of England af . . . affemd . . . assembled in Parliament . . .

  It was the petition Mr Browne had brought Uncle Thomas the night before: it had been printed here, on this press. There was something wonderful about that: those printed words, as black and formal as the Bible itself, had been put on paper here. It was like discovering the secret of a juggler’s trick.

  The door banged open.

  She dropped the paper she was stitching and bolted for the window; she was up on the table when a voice yelled, ‘Hey! It’s only me!’

  She turned back, heart pounding, and saw a young man in an apron standing by the press and grinning at her.

  ‘Will told me you were here,’ he said. ‘The niece of Mr Stevens the mercer, he said. I’m Ned Trebet.’

  Ned Trebet was not fat and old. He was about her own age, tall and sturdy, with sandy hair and long legs like a stork. His eyes were a bright blue, and they regarded her with a mixture of amusement and . . . something she didn’t like. She gritted her teeth: she was going to have to lift her skirts to jump down from the table again, and Ned Trebet, damn him, would enjoy it.

  ‘Will said you were a pretty thing,’ said Trebet, still grinning. ‘He didn’t do you justice!’

  Since it had to be done, she picked up her skirts and jumped down quickly, then gave him a cold look. The wretch merely grinned some more. Then his eyes fell on the stack of papers she’d already stitched and the expression changed. ‘You’ve done all that already?’ he asked in amazement.

  ‘Aye,’ she replied cautiously.

  ‘Why, you’ll have it ready in no time!’ He looked her up and down once more, then leered cheerfully. ‘I wouldn’t have thought a beautiful girl needed to be a hard worker!’