[In the following essay, Creigh recounts the seventeenth-century dispute between Wither and the Company of Stationers.]

Everyone who is at all interested in the Company of Stationers knows that in the early seventeenth century one of its most vociferous opponents was George Wither, gentleman, student at law (Lincolns Inn), poet, prolific writer, and, quite frequently, prisoner.

Wither's first brush with the law is chronicled by J. Milton French in “George Wither in Prison.”¹ In 1611 Wither published a satire called Abuses Stript and Whipt and as a result went to jail from which only the intervention of Princess Elizabeth released him. On publication of the second edition in 1614, he went back to the Marshalsea on 20 March and was not released until 26 July, this time thanks to William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke. (The Princess Elizabeth was, of course, married and no longer in England.) Undeterred, Wither in 1621 decided to print his Motto which contained, of all things, reflections on the proposed “Spanish marriage” of the King's son to the Infanta of Spain. Not only Puritans objected to the alliance with England's old and Catholic enemy, but certainly objecting to it aligned Wither with the Puritans. More dangerously, it put him in opposition to the royal policy and naturally therefore he had trouble getting his book legally into print.

However, before tracing the very interesting and dishonest affair of the printing of Wither's Motto, I should like to note that in 1619, two years before the Motto affair, Nicholas Okes had printed a book called A Preparation to the Psalter by George Wither and was subsequently fined 20/—for printing it without the consent of the wardens.² Okes rectified this omission on 13 August 1619.³ Much of the animus displayed by the upper stationers against Wither in the Motto affair derived from this earlier attempt of his to print a psalter. What could be more innocent than the Psalms?

Wither, having “reduced the Psalms to metre,” had obtained endorsement from the King and wished to have his metric psalms (set by Orlando Gibbons of the Chapel Royal) printed and bound up with the Bible—which was, of course, a high selling item and belonged to the English stock.

Not only, maintained the Stationers, did Wither's Hymnes “tend to Popery”: the patent was worth perhaps £300 p.a.; moreover, adding the metric psalms and hymns would increase the cost of Bibles from 8d to 12d and diminish sales. The Stationers appealed the patent as a monopoly on 12 July 1624, and the battle over this raged until 1629 when it was purchased from Wither and his associates after proceedings which ended up in the Privy Council on three several occasions.⁴

As the English stock, like the Latin stock and the Irish stock, was acquired by surrender of privileges and had possessed for many years Day's privilege for the Psalms of David in Meter, it was not just Popery or the sale of Bibles which concerned the Stationers. However they, like Beelzebub, were adept at making the worse seem the better reason. The stock supposedly existed for the benefit of the poor of the company⁵; in fact, its profits were distributed according to rank: Assistants, Livery, and Yeomanry, presumably on the biblical principle that unto him who hath shall more be given. (A complaint of the Yeomanry against the Assistants on this score was made to the Lord Mayor as early as 1 February 1586.⁶) So in possessing a patent which infringed on the English stock, Wither automatically made enemies in the upper ranks of the Stationers' Company.

One would have thought that past experience would have made him doubly cautious: With Abuses Stript and Whipt he had felt the heavy hand of political authority, with his Psalter he was in the process of learning how deviously the Stationers could operate, yet in the publication of his Motto George Wither took on both the State and the Stationers.

On 14 May 1621 the Motto was entered in the Stationers' Register. From the Register, the court books, and the depositions of Wither and the Stationers, it is possible to reconstruct the history of this interesting encounter of Wither and his associates with his enemies inside the Stationers' Company, and with the various relevant (and conflicting) authorities. From this experience came Wither's next work, The Schollers Purgatorie, with its unflattering portrait of the dishonest stationer—whose name, obviously, was Lownes, official of the Stationers' Company when the Motto was printed. I let Wither take up his own tale:

He confesseth that the booke entitled Withers Motto is of his making and that he made it about Christmas last.

He sayth that since that time he showed it to Mr. Tavernor [Chaplain to Bishop King] and desired his warrant for the printing which he refused and that afterwards this examenant bringing the sayd book unto a stationers shopp called Grismond (and Marriott being present) and there reading some part of it they desired to buy it that they might print it, to which he consented but told the stationers that Mr. Tavernor had denyed the licence to print it before. He sayth that they gave him five peeces for the copy. That the book was printed about five or sixe weekes since. Being asked whether he acquaynted any of his friends with it as with the copy before the printing he awnsweareth that he did acquaynt divers of his freinds with it as namely Mr. Drayton and some others whose names he remembreth not …

Being put in mind of his majesties proclamation published before the Parliament restricting the Licentious speaking or wrighting in matters concerning State, or Government, he sayth he did not read the proclamation …

After this a warrant was issued committing George Wither close prisoner unto the Marshalsea until further order. Warrants were also produced for Grismond and Marriott. All the gentlemen named by Wither were also, of course, summoned to Whitehall where they gave disparate accounts—of varying degrees of truthfulness—of their connection with the Motto.

The first impression of the Motto had been printed for Marriott by Augustine Matthews, who rented a press. On 10 July, Marriott appeared before the Privy Council and admitted preparing a second impression; he claimed this was ready before the book was questioned. He said he took the copy to Mr. Tavernor who deleted some parts and, having corrected the book, licensed it. Nevertheless, Marriott did not print once it was corrected. (This is true: none of the five existing editions shows any trace of deletions.) However, it is hard to believe Marriott did not complete and sell his second impression: the first two impressions collate identically, although the title page is altered and an engraved title substituted—a title page prudently without imprint. Marriott added that Nicholas Okes printed an edition without Marriott's knowledge but using Marriott's name. This seems likely. One wonders how he obtained the title pages Marriott was not using in his second printing. Did Matthews, his printer, turn a dishonest penny by selling to Okes the title pages already printed for Marriott's second impression? Okes's evidence suggests this. Okes, examined on 12 July, was discreet:

Beinge demanded what lycence hee had to print a Booke called Withers Motto: Hee sayth hee was not the first that printed it by twoe severall Impressions. Hee sayth that the Impression which hee made was donn without the privitie or knowledge of Marriott that first printed it. [i.e. Okes admitted “pirating” the book. The reason for his willingness to confess a trespass against the Company and his careful silence in other respects can both be explained by his secret connection with Lownes, master of the stationers.] Being demanded why hee used Marriotts name in the booke: hee sayth hee bought the Title readie printed, and so fixed it to the Booke to make it perfect. Being demanded whether this Impression which hee made was donn before hee knew the Booke was questionned and that Marriott had ben punished for printing it. Hee sayth that the Impression was donn before it was questioned in the Stationers Hall or elsewhere for ought hee knewe: And that hee was fyned the same day that Marriott was.

Being demanded whether Lounds late warden of the Companie did not sell some of the Bookes after they were prohibited. Hee sayth that hee this examinant never sould anie one Booke to Lounds, nor knoweth that hee sould anie after the prohibicion: But hee thinketh some were sould here and there, but cannot accuse anie one man.

The person who really exposed the matter was Thomas Trussell, Messenger:

Mr. Okes the Printer told me that he had don nothing about Wither his book but by the consent of the Company of Stationers and that the master of the Company had him send him word how it went with him and if he were committed they wold get him disregarded, allso he said that the master of the Company had sent to the Clarck of the company to goe along with him. …

Okes was, in fact, not jailed, though all the others were.

Like Marriott, Grismond claimed the second impression was printed before it was questioned (if so, why change the title page?), and that he believed the only problem was that it was:

printed without lycence which was a Contempt to theire Companie. Hee further sayth that for the said Imprisonment and Fyne, one Okes a printer, notwithstanding hee knew of the said Fyne and Imprisonment: printed first 3,000 of the Bookes, and afterwards 3,000 more. …

Grismond, who had been set free on 10 July, was recalled on 12 July and damned himself and Lownes who had turned him in to the authorities:

Being demanded whether he hath sould anie of the Bookes called Withers Motto since he was questioned for it … sayth that hee hath since that time sould divers of the said Bookes and amongst others hee sold them and sundrey and severall times to Lounds then Warden of the Companie, who complayned of this Examinant and Marriott to the Lord Archbishop, was present when Marriott was committed, and had fyned both Marriott and this Examinant for printing the said Booke, and yet nevertheless after all this was don, the said Lounds did dayle send to this Examinate for the said Bookes and sould them again in his shopp.⁷

Apparently both the Lownes brothers were involved. Both Humphrey and Matthew were members of the Court of Assistants, Humphrey was master that year, but Matthew was upper warden, a bookseller, and was present at the fining, whereas Humphrey was absent and Simon Waterson presided “in loco magistri.” Therefore, it appears that Matthew was the seller, but Humphrey was the master who protected Nicholas Okes in his shady activities.

John Marriott shall pay a fine for printing Wither's Motto without lycence or enterance and also for printing a second Impression of 1500 in Contempt of the orders of this company L5 (So Marriott and Grismond were not telling the whole truth. The Company and the bibliographical evidence agree.) John Grismond. It is likewise ordered that John Grismond for joyning with him and dispersing the said book shall pay for a fine 20/—. Augustine Matthewes. It is likewise ordered that Augustine Matthewes for printing of the said book shall pay 4. It is likewise ordered that Nicholas Okes for printing the same booke without license or entrance shall pay 4. It is further ordered that this book shall be prnted no more until it be allowed and entred according to order.⁸

Having so said, Mr. Lownes went out and ordered more copies. There is no record of either of the Lowneses getting into trouble at this or any other time unless the deaths and disappearances of the family between 1624 and 1627 are sinister.

However, George Wither, heading for trouble like a homing pigeon, now wrote The Schollers Purgatorie (believing—as he told the Commissioners in Causes Ecclesiastical when he, predictably, appeared for examination—that he had been “grosly and almost insufferably abused by some of the Company of Stationers” [he had.] “as well as by other misusages by their dispersing against him a multitude of printed papers …”⁹ [they did—among them An Answer to Withers Motto which survives only in holograph]).¹⁰

The Schollers Purgatorie is an entertaining work, well known to most of us because of its revealing the sly practices of printers and booksellers and something of their relationship to Stuart authors. However, I believe that we may have discounted its evidence because of the animosity so evident in its pages. As I have shown, Wither had ample reason for any ill will he bore the Stationers and he does not exaggerate when he claims that the Stationers had “barbarous dispositions” and that they “misused authors” and were guilty of “insolencyes and abuses.” “They do wrong and put it upon their servants” was a charge Okes's career would support.

Wither deals first with the Stationers' “ignoring of his privilege”; he mentions their link with ministers: (p.6), while some of them had Puritan ties, John Bill had married Dr. Mountfort's daughter, and the company clerk was Thomas Mountfort. In objecting to the Psalms in Metre, the Stationers had, we know, managed not only to ignore the King's endorsement but also to disregard the Archbishop's approval of the work. Insolence indeed.

Wither also mentions the dominance of the booksellers; this too is borne out by the records. Each year the Stationers elected a master and two wardens. For example, of the fifteen possible vacancies between 1610 and 1615, seven were filled by printers. From 1616 to 1620 the figure fell to 5/15 and from 1620 to 1625 to 2/15. The dominance of the Lownes brothers had a considerable bearing on this.

Whatsoever the state dislykes shalbe imprinted and devulged by them (though both absurd and scandalous) with twice more seriousness than any book lawfully commanded.¹¹

This charge is amusingly substantiated in A Coppie of a letter to George Wither in answer to a late Pamphlet

Concerning your Motto, of my knowledge you had five pieces of the staconer before it came forth, which was more than ever would have bene gotten if it had came forth orderly; But it had noe License and was afterwards forbidden which put some life into it; you were in some trouble and soe was the Stationer and lost his Books. But you were on the surer side, for you had your money before hande.¹²

(There is nothing new under the sun, as King Solomon once observed.)

Wither also refers to the vending of Popish books, apparently unaware (as some of his Puritan friends were not) that the government not only turned a blind eye to many Catholic books but actually put them out.¹³ Wither is reporting accurately enough.

He further charges that a stationer who becomes an assistant may “play the Knave Cum privilegio.”

He is then bound to pray for the poore much more than they are for him. For they are indeed his benefactors. [In the operation of “The Stocks” this was certainly true.] If he once gett to be anofficer in the Society he forgetts to speak in the first personn for ever after, but (like a Prince) sayes we will, and we do this etcetera. He is an enemy to the Alteration of Religion in this Commonwealth, because he feares it would spoyle their Priviledge for David's Psalmes in English meeter or hinder the reprinting of many vendible coppies. …

He will not stick wilfully to misinforme the whole Court of Aldermen to procure the committment of such pore men as he prosecutes.¹⁴

Lownes might well have been guilty of misinforming the Court of Aldermen. He had certainly made trouble with the Archbishop for Wither, Marriott, and Grismond while supporting Okes; at the same time brother Matthew was selling forbidden books purchased from a man whom he had voted to fine.

But in this last quotation a bigger difference between the Stationers in power, the Establishment, and the men Wither employed is evident. It underlies every quarrel of the period—the alteration of religion. Some of the newer and poorer printers such as Augustine Matthews, who got into trouble both for the Motto and in other connections, appear to have had Puritan associations. George Wood and Michael Sparkes were Puritans also. At this time Wither apparently owed no loyalty to this group; he ingenuously told High Commission he believed his patent for printing the psalms entitled him to employ a press and that if other printing was undertaken by his printer, George Wood, without authority it concerned the printer only. Claiming that he intended The Schollers Purgatorie only to be given to friends and presented to Convocation (a claim his own Introduction to the work belies) he maintained no authorization was required for its disposal; the allowance for other printing was George Wood's business.¹⁵

George Wood was another stormy petrel. According to the author of A Coppie of a Letter¹⁶ he was “never out of one mischiefe or other.” His defiance of authority can readily be traced through the Stationers' Register. He apparently ignored patents and privileges and Company regulations as a matter of principle.

On 30 October 1619 “No leave was given to deal with Wood concerning patents for things on one side.” (This was the subject of a petition to the Privy Council in May 1622 by the patentees.) For printing primers and almanacs on 15 February 1621 his press discovered at Stepney was to be made useless. On 23 September 1622 another press at his house in Grubstreet was seized and was to be disposed of. On 7 October 1622 four assistants were to confer with George Wood to try to “further him in a lawful course.” On 25 July 1624 part of a press and letters of George Wood were taken near the Spital and were to be battered. On 22 May 1626 his press and letters taken at Bonley in Essex were battered to pieces. The Archbishop finally gave him into the charge of two custodians.

What does the story of Wither's successive battles with the Stationers over his Preparation to the Psalter, his Motto and The Schollers Purgatorie suggest?

First, that The Schollers Purgatorie is a work whose accuracy can be documented and that, therefore, we need to regard the operations of the Stationers' Company with suspicion. It was in itself a corrupt oligarchy. Intermarriage and the establishing of relatives in the trade meant that the company was dominated by wealthy booksellers whose familial and business connections could dictate their official actions. Archbishop Laud in 1629 struck at the root of the system when he decreed no stationer could take a relative as an apprentice. Had such an edict been in effect a generation before, the problems of an author like Wither would have been fewer and the disaffection of printers like Wood and Matthews less justifiable.

Second, the relationship of the various authorities concerned with printing was not simple. If the King and the Archbishop could be defeated by monopolists going to Parliament as in the case of Wither's Preparation to the Psalter, if a rascally printer like Okes could be “disregarded” by the authorities who imprisoned his fellows, then the hierarchy we assume to have existed in the regulation of the press did not reflect the realities of power. In fact, the relationship of the authorities and the upper stationers was not a simple one. They were employed in secret searches abroad and the production of secret books at home. For instance, a claim was made by stationers against the estate of Archbishop Bancroft. John Bill's executors believed the government had caused its printer substantial losses and owed him money both for searches and for printing secret books. In such circumstances, the masters and wardens of the company might well control their controllers.

Obviously, The Schollers Purgatorie and the evidence of Wither and the stationers under examination suggest that we likewise oversimplify allowance by authority, the process of perusal, the idea of privilege, and the practice of licensing. Perhaps the processes were often conflated, but they were evidently less tidy and more separable than we have thought. Further evidence is not far to seek: books commissioned by the government still went through the licensing process for instance, and royal and ecclesiastical approval would not ensure printing as George Wither discovered.

Finally, the story of Wither and his associates demonstrates how the Stuart government forced very different malcontents into coalition. This was rather the result of inefficiency and corruption than of persecution. All these involved in the varied troublemaking of George Wither received token imprisonment and reasonable fines. The system continued to irritate them and to allow them to function.

Eventually the disaffected stationers found a leader in the Puritan Michael Sparkes and the disaffected authors a pamphleteer in Milton.

the fraud of some old patentees and monopolyers in the trade of book-selling who, under the pretence of the poor in their company not to be defrauded, and the just retaining of each man his several copy (which God forbid should be gain said) brought divers glozing colours to the House, which were indeed but colours, and serving to no end except it be to exercise a superiority over their neighbours: men who do not therefore labour in an honest profession to which learning is indebted, that they should be made other men's vassals. Another end is thought was aimed at by some of them … that having power in their hands, malignant books might the easier escape abroad. …¹⁷

We are thus reminded that though we think of the battle for the freedom of the press as a part of the war for freedom of thought, it did in fact have its origins in a fight against the monopoly of an important commodity—printed paper. As so often happened in the period prior to the Civil War, those who opposed the government on principle, those who personally suffered from its ineffective and corrupt tools and practices, and those whose living was affected by a monopoly made common cause against the establishment in Church and State.

Notes

1. J. Milton French, “George Wither in Prison,” PMLA, 45 (Dec. 1930), 159-666.

2. Court Book C 56a, 20 July 1619.

3. Ibid.

4. Calendar of State Papers Domestic, James I, Vol. 138, p.502.

5. E. Arber, ed., The Stationers' Register, Vol. II, p.768.

6. Ibid., p.800.

7. C.S.P.D., 14/121/132, 27 June 1621; 10 July 1621; 12 July 1621.

8. E. Arber, ed., The Stationers' Register, Vol. IV, 4 June 1621.

9. C.S.P.D., 14/157/59.

10. Add. MSS 18648 F. 17.

11. George Wither, The Scholler Purgatorie, p.34.

12. British Library, Add. MSS 18648, F. 17.

13. C.S.P.D., 16/167/72.

14. Op. cit., p.125.

15. C.S.P.D., 14/157/59.

16. Op. cit.

17. John Milton, Aeropagitica, ed. R. Jebb, Cambridge 1918, pp.62-63.

Acknowledgment is herewith given to the Canada Council, under whose auspices this research was done.