The Secret Printing and Publishing Career of Richard Overton the Leveller, 1644–46

On 31 July 1646 the bookseller George Thomason received an unsigned illicit pamphlet boldly entitled An Alarum to the House of Lords: Against their Insolent Usurpation of the Common Liberties and Rights of this Nation. This short tract advocated the constitutional supremacy of the House of Commons; made a number of derogatory remarks about particular peers and the House of Lords in general; and sought to uphold the case of John Lilburne, whom the Upper House had recently incarcerated in the Tower of London.¹ Needless to say, the Lords were not pleased about this attack on their political authority and having, on 4 August, received complaint ‘of a printed scandalous Book, intituled “An Alarum to the Lords”‘they promptly formed a committee of nine peers ‘to examine concerning this Book, and all other scandalous Books that this House is possessed of’.² The committee hired one Robert Eeles, himself an illicit printer, who, within a week, had tracked down the press and the culprit responsible for having issued the pamphlet. Between five and six on the morning of 11 August Eeles and one Abraham Eveling, armed and accompanied by a file of soldiers, surrounded the house of the future Leveller Richard Overton and arrested him in his bed.³

So ended the career of one of the most notorious and successful underground presses of the Civil War period. For more than twenty months Overton’s secret printing operations had issued a stream of tracts striking both for their style and their radical political content. These included three signed tracts by John Lilburne and the anonymous Englands Birth-right Justified (10 October 1645),⁴ which demanded a crackdown on parliamentary corruption and far-reaching reforms in church and state. Overton’s press issued no fewer than six titles penned by the printer himself under the pseudonyms Martin Mar-Priest and Christopher Scale-Sky.⁵ As well as ridiculing the Presbyterians and the Westminster Assembly, these satirical pamphlets advocated almost universal religious toleration and the abolition of tithes. In addition, Overton printed the second edition of The Compassionate Samaritane (5 January 1644/5), a tolerationist work usually attributed to William Walwyn, and two other well-known early-Leveller tracts: The Last Warning to All the Inhabitants of London (20 March 1645/6) and A Remonstrance of Many Thousand Citizens (7 July 1646).

Given the number of orders issued by both the Lords and the Commons for the discovery of his press and the concern his activities stimulated from the Stationers’ Company perhaps it was only a matter of time before Overton was arrested. Nevertheless, during its period of activity, his press was largely responsible for laying the foundations of what would later become known as the Leveller movement. Yet, in spite of the great interest historians have long shown towards the Levellers, there has been relatively little appreciation of the centrality of illicit printing to the activity of a political movement routinely at odds with the authorities. David Como (2007) has recently provided an in-depth account of a pre-Leveller secret press Overton operated on the eve of the Civil War and Jason Peacey (2005) has emphasized how tighter press-regulation under the Rump Parliament helped to destroy the influence of Lilburne and his followers, in the wake of the Regicide. These excellent and invaluable studies have helped to focus more attention on the bibliographic background to the Leveller movement. However, the only previous article on Leveller printing was published by H. R. Plomer as long ago as 1904.⁶ To call this a neglected subject would be something of an understatement.

In spite of this neglect, bibliographical research can be illuminating for what it reveals about a group of radical pamphleteers whose influence depended on the circulation of popular print. This is particularly true in the case of Overton, who, although neither trained as a printer nor a member of the Stationers’ Company, had gained considerable experience in directing a secret printing office from before the Civil War.⁷ While, unlike Lilburne, Overton left scant autobiographical information in his writings, the printing process has left considerable evidence of his activities. For the mid-1640s, this can most obviously be found in the distinctive use of ornamentation which, in combination with his printing type, provides an illuminating glimpse into his underground activities. Even more certain evidence is to be obtained through an examination of the impressions made by individual pieces of type. For one reason or another type could be malformed when cast as well as damaged through use. Sometimes such damage, even on the smallest of characters, can be as effective for identifying a secret press as fingerprints for tracing the hand that committed a crime. From 1644–46 Overton printed far more than the Leveller works already mentioned, a better understanding of his broader press operations for this period offering an additional window into his political interests. This can also provide a better means of contextualising early Leveller pamphlet literature and thereby yield a more nuanced and sophisticated understanding of the movement.

Context and Methodology

In Plomer’s pioneering article of 1904, entitled ‘Secret Printing during the Civil War’, the author successfully identified some eighteen titles issued by Overton between late 1644 and August 1646.⁸ Writing before the Levellers had stimulated much historical interest, Plomer was not concerned with the Leveller movement per se, but rather his emphasis was on the activities of an underground print shop that had aroused much consternation within parliament as well as the Stationers’ Company in the mid-1640s. Not once did Plomer use the term ‘Leveller’ and, although he did connect Leveller figures like Lilburne, Overton, and the radical bookseller William Larner to its operations, he does not appear to have appreciated that it was Overton who ran the press.⁹

Plomer relied heavily on the use of contemporary accounts to identify underground press activity. A number of useful reports about illegal printing appeared in the Journals of the House of Lords, while the beadle of the Stationers’ Company, Joseph Hunscot, published an account of his services to parliament cracking down on illicit presses in June 1646.¹⁰ Perhaps most significant was a manuscript petition to the Lords by the illicit printer Robert Eeles who arrested Overton on 11 August, which provides considerable information about Overton and his printing office. Eeles recounted that he had:

not without much danger & great charges taken a Press and lettres that printed London’s Last Warning, A Remonstrance to ye House of Commons, & an Alarum to ye House of Lords &c and all or most of Lilburnes books […] And having taken one Overton an Anabaptist ye Printer Publisher & disperser of these Libells, and ye Author of divers other Seditious bookes, written against Church government & in derision of ye Synod of Divines, Calling himselfe Martin Marr=Preist [sic] the Metropolitan.¹¹

Although the titles he gave were not exactly correct, Eeles was clearly referring to The Last Warning to All the Inhabitants of London, A Remonstrance of Many Thousand Citizens, and An Alarum to the House of Lords, some of the most notorious pamphlets of 1646.¹² In a few brief lines Eeles connected Overton not only to these three titles but also, as author, to the Mar-Priest tracts. It is difficult to be certain whether he was accurate in every detail.

Technically, Overton was not a trained printer; nor does he appear to have had any official connection to the print trade. Gerald Aylmer has suggested that he may have been related to the prominent Independent publisher and bookseller Henry Overton; but, apart from a coincidence of surnames, there is little to substantiate this connection.¹³ Overton, however, does appear to have owned and certainly directed the activities of the illegal press that Eeles finally ran to earth in August 1646. In this sense we may safely refer to him as a printer, even though he must have hired professional compositors to set type and pressmen to do most of the imposition.¹⁴ Contrary to Eeles’s assertion, Overton did not print all or even most of some twelve or thirteen Lilburne tracts of 1645–46 although he certainly produced a number of important pamphlets.¹⁵ Nor is it possible to establish merely from Eeles’s testimony whether Overton was ‘publisher’ of the works he named as well as printer. Overton, in theory, may have chosen to operate an illicit printing house either for the purpose of printing works financed and published by other individuals, paid for by himself, or a combination of the two. Given that he wrote a number of the pamphlets he printed it would be surprising if these at least were not also ‘published’ by him. As we shall see there is compelling evidence to suggest that, although Overton sometimes printed for other publishers, he often financed — and therefore owned — the pamphlets that issued from his press. Although not exact in every detail, accounts like that of Eeles provide an invaluable starting point for any investigation into these activities.

Having connected numerous titles from Eeles’s account, Plomer went on to observe that many of these pamphlets held distinctive typographical resemblances, particularly with regard to the decorations.¹⁶ While not all the formatting details that Plomer recorded are essential for identifying the products of Overton’s press, three distinctive patterns stand out, one or another of which occurred in all the pamphlets identified by Plomer. In order to guard the anonymity of his press, Overton seldom used ornaments that were notable in themselves, rarely for instance employing display initials at the opening as was common with other master printers. Nevertheless, it would doubtless have been of value for potential customers to be able to spot his pamphlets on book stalls, for which reason he appears to have employed relatively common ornaments in distinctive patterns to help distinguish his work from that of other printers. Instead of display initials his compositors often began with regular pica capitals surrounded by a rectangular halo of small fleurs-de-lis, usually placed six horizontally by three vertically (6h x 3v) or in patterns of roughly similar dimensions. Occasionally, however, there were more unusual variations (see Fig. 1). Other printers occasionally employed such fleurs-de-lis arrangements although these were usually of quite different dimensions.¹⁷ One notable exception occurred in an edition of A Remonstrance of Many Thousand Citizens printed on a press other than Overton’s, which we will examine in further detail below.

The second distinctive pattern consisted of horizontal bands of crowned royal emblems usually placed at the opening of texts or above chapter headings (see Fig. 2). In early pamphlets these emblems often formed a simple single-line or double-line pattern while later manifestations included horizontal or vertical rules or lines of small fleurs-de-lis either below, intermixed with the emblems, or on several sides. A complete set of these royal emblems would have included four different crowned ornaments: a fleur-de-lis, harp, rose, and thistle representing the kingdoms of France, Ireland, England, and Scotland respectively. For most of its history the press employed only fleurs-de-lis and thistles with the occasional appearance of a single harp; from May 1646 harps and roses occurred with greater frequency. The third decorative pattern arose relatively late in the press’s history. This was composed of uncrowned royal emblems (harps and roses) with a border of small fleurs-de-lis above and below (see Fig. 3). In addition to these ornaments Overton occasionally employed two display initials from May to July 1646. These were a large capital ‘B’ and a capital ‘T’ (see Fig. 4).

With the assistance of databases such as Early English Books Online (EEBO) and the English Short Title Catalogue (ESTC) I have been able to extend Plomer’s search for pamphlets with similar decorative schemes and have identified a further ten titles, in addition to his original eighteen, and a further five editions or impressions of titles that Plomer first identified.¹⁸ Making reference to the ‘B’ letter block represented in Fig. 4, David Como, in his recent article on Overton’s pre-war activities, also mentions a broadside edition of one of Plomer’s titles of which the latter appears to have been unaware, which I can also confirm as a product of Overton’s press.¹⁹ Of the thirty-five pamphlets that can be conclusively connected to Overton through bibliographical evidence alone only one of these did not possess ornaments that are represented in Figs 1–4. A complete list of these pamphlets with Thomason’s dates and the probable location of Overton’s press at the time of printing may be found in Table 1.²⁰ Titles marked with a plus sign signify new discoveries. Conscience Caution’d (20 June 1646), marked with a double-plus, was identified solely upon the basis of font and the occurrence of distinctive pieces of damaged type. To the immediate left of each tract is a number, indicating chronological order, and a three-letter code representing an abbreviation of its title. Occasionally there is an additional number after this code, which represents the edition or impression of the pamphlet. In order to save space I have employed these title codes throughout all the ensuing figures and tables. After some title codes will also be found a ‘P’ in parentheses indicating that there is substantial evidence to suggest that Overton not only printed but also published the tract, an issue to be examined in more detail later in this article.

Table 2 (see below) gives an account of the frequency with which different decorations occurred in Overton’s pamphlets, also specifying this for various different crowned emblem schemes (though the general categories listed here by no means exhaust the complete range of variations). The five crowned emblem arrangements correspond to those listed in Fig. 2, with ‘FDL other’ referring to any line of emblems containing patterns of small fleurs-de-lis other than a simple line beneath the emblems. Two of these arrangements were highly ephemeral: double lines of emblems occurred only in the earliest pamphlets, while emblems with vertical rules between them may only be found in July 1645. More complicated mixed fleurs-de-lis and emblem schemes flourished from late December 1645 until the last days of the press though the most enduring patterns of all were (1) the simple unadorned line of emblems that appeared in the earliest pamphlets and was still in occasional use as late as May 1646, with the publication of Prophesies. The 15. September. 1645 (30 May 1646), and (2) the less common line of emblems with a line of small fleur-de-lis beneath, which first occurred in April–June 1645 and made its last appearance in An Alarum to the House of Lords in June 1646. Regardless of its precise form, the row of crowned emblems could be found with great frequency in Overton’s work, occurring in twenty-four out of the thirty-five pamphlets I have identified. Uncrowned emblems decorated four and, most frequently of all, fleur-de-lis halos twenty-five. In addition, the ‘B’ and ‘T’ display initials adorned pamphlets three times and twice respectively. In one case this is particularly significant as the letter block ‘B’ in the broadside edition of Every Mans Case provides the only decoration in the pamphlet and, therefore, the only immediately obvious link to Overton’s press, apart from its subject matter and the fact that he printed another, quarto, impression of the tract.

The obvious weakness of this kind of method for identifying pamphlets is that the majority of these ornaments were extremely common, even if such arrangements were not. This means that virtually any printer could have set out deliberately to copy the appearance of Overton’s pamphlets, either as a means of disguising a book’s true origins, or merely for the purpose of imitating an arrangement he or she may have found appealing. Although the evidence suggests such imitation was infrequent such possibilities cannot be ignored, especially given the limited knowledge we have of the secret print trade. Plomer himself tacitly recognized the limitations of ornaments as evidence when he listed the second edition of The Compassionate Samaritane as a ‘DOUBTFUL’ product of the Leveller press. The only solid basis upon which to attribute this tract rested upon a few single-line bands of crowned fleurs-de-lis and thistle emblems that any printer might have employed.³⁰ Although this was valuable and suggestive evidence it was not enough in itself to establish a clear attribution.

A study of font, and particularly of damaged letters within a given set of type, provides a solution to this problem. Overton used a pica type that left a printed impression with a height of between 79.5–83mm over twenty lines (variations in this figure result from different rates of paper shrinkage over three-and-a-half centuries).³¹ For most of the history of his press Overton used an unmixed font that may be most readily identified by the shape of its upper case italic ‘J’, particularly the long curl of its descender, and by its upper case italic ‘T’, which had a gently-angled crossbar — rising slightly towards the right — with an upward turning curl on the right and a downward facing curl on the left (see Fig. 5). The investigations of the House of Lords eventually revealed that Overton obtained his letter from a typefounder called Nicholls but, in order to help maintain the secrecy of his printing house, Overton had probably always purchased his type through the offices of his friend, the bookseller William Larner. Such a connection was revealed in early April 1646 when Nicholls and Larner were interrogated before the Lords for information regarding one of Overton’s more ‘scandalous’ publications, The Last Warning to All the Inhabitants of London.³² The Nicholls foundry was operated successively by Arthur Nicholls and his son Nicholas Nicholls. The actual date of succession is unclear but the letter Overton employed was almost certainly cut by Arthur Nicholls, as the font matches perfectly his 82 mm pica in use on London presses from at least 1637. The type design itself was unusual given that it was cut in England by possibly the first English craftsman to produce a good quality indigenous letter. Most letters produced in England up to this point would have been cast from matrices imported from the Continent.³³

After April 1646, however, Overton appears to have had no further dealings with the Nicholls foundry; most likely this resulted from Larner’s arrest on 21 March and his subsequent imprisonment in the Poultry Counter for his involvement in The Last Warning.³⁴ No doubt Overton had to replenish his type-stock from time to time but, without Larner to act as a middleman, he appears from early May to have turned to a new supplier, the identity of whom we cannot at present determine. Thereafter, Overton’s Nicholls pica became mixed with other type designs. The new letters are most distinctive among the italic capitals, many of which appear slightly shorter and thicker and are slanted further from the vertical than Nicholls’s italics (see Fig. 6). Most distinctive of all are the new and more elaborate swash italics, used indiscriminately alongside regular italics. Similar swash italics may be found in pamphlets issuing from numerous other presses, and nothing marks more clearly Overton’s shift towards a new script. The new italics bear close resemblance to the work of the sixteenth-century French type designer Robert Granjon and, in particular, to his 1554 Cicero (pica) italic and to his 1563 St Augustin (English) italic. Specifically, the swash ‘C’, ‘D’, ‘E’, ‘G’, ‘P’, and ‘R’ of Fig. 6 match Granjon’s Cicero, while the remaining letters closely resemble his slightly larger St Augustin. The only exception is the swash ‘A’, which probably arose from a punch originally cut by another type designer. Mixing italics from two or more different sizes of type may seem an awkward means of assembling an italic font: Granjon’s popular St Augustin was originally cast with a line height of 93 mm over 20 lines. Nevertheless, although marginally taller this was not so large that it could not be cast fairly comfortably on a pica body consistent with the line height of Overton’s Nicholls type.³⁵

It was with the introduction of Granjon’s italics that Overton’s pamphlets also first began to sport display initials, uncrowned royal emblems (rose and harp) along with rose and harp versions of the crowned royal emblems. Most of these new ornaments probably came from Overton’s new supplier, though David Como has demonstrated that the ‘B’ letter block (Fig. 4) was an old letter Overton employed on two earlier secret presses.³⁶ Oddly enough Overton’s uncrowned royal emblems match perfectly two components from a set of four flowers that John Lane has attributed to Arthur Nicholls. These first appeared no later than 1638 and Overton’s use of them might imply that he still had contact with the Nicholls foundry after all. Yet if this were the case it is peculiar that he would deliberately purchase a new design rather than continue with an unmixed Nicholls font. It is more likely that Overton purchased type either from another printer who also sold him a number of examples of the Nicholls flowers or from a founder who had acquired a few examples of these ornaments. He may even have acquired printing materials from more than one source. Either way, it appears unlikely that he still had contact with the Nicholls foundry after May 1646.³⁷ It must also be stressed that Overton at no point used an uncommon font that was distinctive in itself. But where either the Nicholls font or the later mixed font coincide with the decoration schemes described above we have good reason to suspect that we may be dealing with one of his pamphlets. As suggested earlier, the absence of standardized production during this period also means that another layer of more decisive evidence may be found within the individual letters themselves.

Identification from Type

Probably no two pieces of type were ever exactly alike. Each had to be individually hand-cast in a foundry and even highly-skilled labourers would produce imperfect letters. Occasionally these could escape the foundry’s weeding-out process and end up in use at a printing house.³⁸ Equally type could be damaged during the printing process or by being rattled about in type cases while in storage.³⁹ The result is that some letters acquired highly distinctive damage that allows them to be followed from pamphlet to pamphlet. I have discovered some forty-two damaged or miscast letters from Overton’s pamphlets and these help to demonstrate beyond doubt that thirty-four of the thirty-five tracts⁴⁰ I have identified were all printed at the same printing house. Examples of impressions made from each piece of irregular type are arranged in Table 7 according to different categories signified in the code that identifies each letter. This code begins with the sort to which it corresponds (printed either in upper or lower case, roman or italic, as required). To avoid ambiguity it is followed by a number. Numbers 01–09 indicate the letter is an upper case roman; 11–19 a lower case roman; 21–29 an upper case italic; 31–39 a lower case italic (though none are represented in this figure); 41–49 applies to Arabic numerals; and 51–59 to large (8 mm) upper case roman letters usually reserved for titles. Three examples are provided of each irregular letter with the exception of the large capitals where only two examples are given owing to the infrequency of these letters’ use. Above each example are title codes, and signature and page numbers indicating where they occurred. For purposes of comparison a photograph of a regular undamaged letter is placed immediately to the left of the three irregular impressions (though pristine examples are unavailable for the large upper case romans). All letters are given at the original size with a magnification (x2.5) immediately to their right so that irregularities are more readily apparent.

Most of the letters in Fig. 7 are either roman or italic capitals. Upper case letters are generally easier to spot and, because there are relatively few of them compared to their lower case equivalents, it is easier to double-check that they are genuinely distinctive. This form of typographical analysis, although time consuming, is made relatively easy with the use of high-resolution digital photographs. It also makes it possible to identify beyond doubt pamphlets that Plomer hesitated to include, such as The Compassionate Samaritane, which contains three distinctive letters, or to identify Overton’s press in works with no decoration at all, such as the last four pages of Conscience Caution’d (the first quire having been produced using another font from a different press).⁴¹ A complete list of every instance where these letters occur may be found in  Appendix A. Here the title of each relevant pamphlet is given along with the number of distinctive letters they contain, the corresponding letter codes, and their frequency of occurrence along with the precise page, signature, and line number where each instance may be found.  Appendix B provides information about the pamphlets photographed for my research and the sources of all the images used throughout this article.

Fig. 7 and  Appendix A do not, however, illustrate exactly how all these letters relate to each other and to the pamphlets wherein they occur. This information can be found in Table 3. This table proceeds on the premise that we can be absolutely certain Overton printed An Alarum to the House of Lords. There can be no doubt this was the case, given Eeles’s discovery of a manuscript copy of the pamphlet in Overton’s house, which may still be consulted in the Parliamentary archives. Close analysis of the manuscript reveals editorial revisions and page breaks identical to those found in the printed version of the tract.⁴² Even if we had no other information about Overton’s activities it would be possible to elaborate a list of the pamphlets he printed upon the basis of damaged type starting from this pamphlet.

In all, An Alarum contains five distinctive letters. Table 3 illustrates how typographical analysis allows us to move from these five letters to include an additional thirty-seven characters and thirty-three pamphlets. As there is always a slim possibility that the irregularities that make a letter distinctive might be repeated at another printing house, we have relied on no fewer than two or three letter matches to confirm that a suspect pamphlet came from Overton. The letters identified within Overton’s work are in every case unique over the twenty-three month span of his activities. Accordingly, it would be fair to stress that the irregularities they contain were highly unusual and extremely unlikely to recur in another set of type. If such irregularities were unlikely to recur even once then it is even more improbable that two or three of them will be repeated together. Therefore, a two- or three-letter match can be regarded as firm evidence that a tract came from Overton’s press. When typographic evidence is combined with Overton’s distinctive ornamentation schemes the evidence can be regarded as conclusive.

If we rely upon a minimum of three letters as a basis for attribution then a number of pamphlets can immediately be accepted as Overton’s merely upon the basis of the letters in An Alarum. Further distinctive letters found in these tracts may then be used to expand our search. To represent the different stages in the extension of this process Table 3 places these pamphlets in seven groups indicative of the number of steps the typography allows us to take away from a pamphlet of whose provenance we have no doubt. An Alarum is listed as the sole occupant of Group 0, our starting point, with its five distinctive letters listed by their letter codes as given in Fig. 7. Five pamphlets, listed in Group 1, contain at least three of the irregular types identified in An Alarum. Since, as a result, we can be certain that all these pamphlets were produced with the same set of type, any new distinctive characters discovered within them may be used to locate further pamphlets. These new characters are listed after ‘Additional letters’ for each pamphlet. Altogether Group 1 contains twenty-four characters: nineteen new letters with the original five from An Alarum. Applying the process again we may locate a further nine pamphlets with at least three letters from Groups 0–1; these are listed as Group 2. In Group 3 are a further eleven tracts with at least three letters from 0–2, while five more pieces in Group 4 contain at least three letters from Groups 0–3 (although no new ‘additional letters’ have been identified from the Group 4 pamphlets). In each case letters from new pamphlets may only be added if the source pamphlet contains at least three distinctive characters from tracts that have already been linked to An Alarum, thus assuring no false attributions. If, in Group 5, we allow verification with only two letters from all the characters identified by Group 3 a further two identifications can be made, including the last four pages of Conscience Caution’d. Finally, in Group 6, is a pamphlet that contains only one irregular character, the broadside edition of Every Mans Case; however we can be fully confident of including this because a close analysis reveals that this work was printed in the same setting as the slightly longer quarto version of the tract, which contained three letters: italics and romans appear in the same places. Some, less-notable, damaged letters may also be found in exactly the same positions within the text as can a number of highly distinctive swash italics. Two of the three irregular letters (c11 and e11) of the quarto occur in additional material not present in the broadside, but, as one would expect, L21, the one letter both share, may be found in exactly the same place in the text of both impressions. The available evidence quite clearly indicates that both versions of Every Mans Case were the products of a single setting and were therefore issued from the same printing house. More broadly, using the information in the above figures and tables and from various contemporary sources, it is possible to reconstruct a narrative of Overton’s press which, although similar in outline, in many important respects differs significantly from Plomer’s account.

The Secret Press: September 1644–August 1646

Overton’s press may first have come to the attention of the authorities on 9 December 1644. Thomason received a copy of a small handbill which he dated to that day and upon which he also noted: ‘written by some Independant against Lord Gen Essex and Lord of manchester, and scatred about ye streetes in the night’. The pamphlet began with the words, ‘Alas pore Parliament, how art thou betrai’d?’, lamented that ‘Wee [the parliamentarians] have brave Generalls that fight for the King, and make pore honest people pay for their owne destructions’, and concluded with the phrase, ‘no more Lords and yee love me, they smell o’the Court’.⁴³ This obviously reflected negatively upon the generalship of both these peers and their growing reluctance to achieve a decisive military victory against the king. Needless to say, neither Essex nor Manchester was likely to have been amused. When a copy of this ‘scandalous printed Libel against the Peerage of this Realm’ was brought before the Upper House the Lords promptly summoned the Master and Wardens of the Stationers’ Company ‘to know of them whether they do know the Print, and can discover the Author of it’. The Stationers’ Company could not immediately provide this information and the Lords gave them two or three days to make further enquiries.⁴⁴ In fact the Stationers’ Company was not called before the House again for nearly three weeks, on 28 December. Even by this stage the Master and Wardens could say no more than ‘That they have used their best Endeavours to find out the Printer and Author of the scandalous Libel; but they cannot yet make any Discovery thereof, the Letter being so common a Letter’.⁴⁵ We will return to examine the possible origins of this pamphlet below.

Having failed to identify the printer of Alas Pore Parliament the situation grew only more awkward and embarrassing for the Stationers’ Company. In early-mid January appeared a pamphlet called A Copie of a Letter by John Lilburne Leut. Colonell to Mr. William Prinne Esq. (15 January 1644/5 — henceforth referred to as Letter to Prinne), a book that we can be certain issued from Overton’s press. Lilburne criticized Prynne for advocating an intolerant Presbyterian state church with no provision for tender consciences, complaining that access to the press had been blocked to non-Presbyterians, and demanded religious liberty for Separatists.⁴⁶ This was the first political or religious tract Lilburne had written since his release from the Fleet Prison in November 1640. It immediately provoked an uproar and on 17 January the House of Commons ordered:

that the consideration of a Letter Printed under the name of John Lilburne be referred to the Examination and Inquirie of the Committee of Examinations; and it is further referred to that Committee to summon the said John Lilburne, and to examine him upon the writing, Printing, and publishing of the said Letter.

As it transpired this examination was delayed for several months since, as William Prynne later wrote:

Immediately after this Order [was] made, John Lilburne was casually run into the eye with the head of a Pike about Moore-fields, which for a time endangered both the losse of his life, and eye too; whereupon the prosecution of this Order was suspended.⁴⁷

Even when the Committee of Examinations finally questioned him concerning Letter to Prinne and other pamphlets on 17 May and 18 June Lilburne refused to name the printers who had issued these tracts.⁴⁸

Nevertheless, this was not the limit of the Commons’ enquiries. At the same time as they ordered the examination of Lilburne concerning Letter to Prinne they also instructed the Committee of Examinations:

to send for the Company of Stationers, and to know of them, by whose default it happens, that such scurrilous, libellous, and seditious Pamphlets are every day Printed and published […] and to enjoyn them to be more diligent in suppressing such licentiousnesse, and to acquaint them, that the House doth expect a better account of their Proceedings herein, hereafter.⁴⁹

The Committee, upon summoning the Stationers’ Company, did not mince words. Upon their instructions the Master and Wardens called a general meeting of the Stationers’ Company for 23 January where they recounted the Commons’ concern regarding ‘a scandalous letter of one Lillbornes being lately printed by stealth’ and

they the said Master & Wardens were much taxed for not preventing the printing of that & such like scandalous papers and withall [the Committee of Examinations] tould them, that unlesse a greater Care were taken for the future, the orders of Parliament made in favour of the Company would be Called in.⁵⁰

Following the announcement, the Master, Wardens, and Assistants of the Stationers’ Company began to examine some of the assembled Stationers’ Company regarding the printing of a number of unlicensed pamphlets.

This examination did not proceed far until, as the Stationers’ Company Court Book records, the intervention of

one Thomas Underhill, a young man of the yeomanry of the Company [who] craved leave to speake […] intimating that he had things of speciall moment to acquaint them with for the publike good of the Company.

Although this was not the most convenient of occasions, Underhill was permitted to express his views, whereby he began to read several articles against the ‘Master & wardens & some others of the Assistants, taxing them with sundry misdemeanors, as he conceived of a very high nature, insomuch that they were not fitt to sitt at that Table’. The pronouncement of these charges immediately brought proceedings to a halt and the assembled Stationers agreed to the formation of a committee to consider the accusations. Regarding the discovery of those who had printed ‘scandalous’ pamphlets, the Court Book merely notes that ‘this Interuption thus happening, No further progresse could be made in the businesse of the day’.⁵¹

It is tempting to wonder whether it was Underhill’s intention to halt the Company’s investigations. Could he have been a friend of Lilburne and Overton who feared that compromising information would be brought to light? A quick examination of Underhill’s previous activities in the book trade suggests this as an unlikely explanation. After the opening of the Civil War, Underhill published a number of works in the parliamentary interest; nevertheless, these were also very much inclined towards Presbyterianism. From 1643–45, for instance, he published pamphlets with such titles as The Late Covenant Asserted; Against Universall Libertie of Conscience and Infants Baptisme, Freed from Antichristianisme. He sold tracts by Presbyterian ministers like Anthony Burgess, Alexander Henderson, and Simeon Ashe, and by the Presbyterian poet and chronicler John Vicars.⁵² Finally, and perhaps most revealingly, in April 1645 he commissioned a work under the title A Review of a Certain Pamphlet Under the Name of One John Lilburne, which was far from sympathetic to the future Leveller leader.⁵³ Moreover, when Underhill interrupted the proceedings at Stationers’ Hall on 23 January he was supported by Michael Sparke, senior, a bookseller and William Prynne’s principal publisher. Such men might well act to protect clandestine publishing and printing interests of their own but were unlikely to intervene to protect John Lilburne and his friends. Both belonged to a group of Stationers whose aim was to make the constitution of the Stationers’ Company more representative of its membership. Ostensibly, at least, Underhill’s interruption was related to this concern, ironically a goal with which Lilburne might well have sympathized.⁵⁴

Regardless of his precise motivations, Underhill’s speech on 23 January had the effect of temporarily bringing the Stationers’ Company investigations into ‘scandalous’ printing to a halt. In spite of which, the Stationers had already achieved some measure of success on 17 January, the same day that the Commons’ Committee of Examinations had summoned the Master and Wardens. Consequently the Company reported to the Upper House that they had ‘found out a Person, who had in his House divers scandalous Books and Pamphlets, and a Letter for Printing; the Letter thereof is very like the Letter of the Libel against the Peers’.⁵⁵ The ‘Person’ in question was the bookseller Nicholas Tew who lived in Coleman Street, London. Whether Tew’s arrest had been stimulated by pressure from the Committee of Examinations is unclear. If so it probably did little to assuage their ire as the Stationers’ Company still felt compelled, on the Committee’s instructions, to call a general meeting six days later. It is also significant that the Lords exclusively appear to have dealt with Tew, implying that his arrest was part of the ongoing investigation into the printing of Alas Pore Parliament and had little or nothing to do with the new enquiries launched by the Commons.

At first, Tew refused to cooperate and the Lords committed him to the Fleet for contempt of the House.⁵⁶ Later, when questioned by Justices Sir Edmund Reeve and Francis Bacon, Common Pleas and King’s Bench respectively, he became more helpful. According to Tew a printing press had been brought to his house ‘aboute a Quarter of a yeare since’; at ‘aboute the same tyme [as this] ther was one Overton, whose christned name as hee … conceiveth is Robert, came unto him [Tew] & tooke a Chamber in his house’ for the printing press. Overton, and several people whom Tew claimed not to know, came at various times to use the press although apparently ‘the letters were not sett ther’. Tew confessed that

the lettre written by Mr Lilburne in unto Mr Pryn […] with another booke of Mr Lilburnes were printed with that presse, and that hee hath sould […] some of them with other bookes which were printed with the <same> same.

The first pamphlet to which Tew referred was clearly Lilburne’s Letter to Prinne, while the second, the only other signed Lilburne pamphlet from this period, was An Answer to Nine Arguments (17 January). Tew claimed not to know much about Overton, neither where he lived nor his profession. Nevertheless, it is clear from the typographical link between An Alarum and these two Lilburne tracts that this was Richard and not ‘Robert’ Overton.⁵⁷ Overton may have revealed little about himself so that, even if Tew were arrested, he could not give him away. Indeed, he must have expected trouble, which would explain why the type for his pamphlets was set elsewhere and only then transported to Tew’s house for printing. In the event of a raid by the Stationers’ he stood to lose less than if the entire printing operation were based there. When this in fact took place Overton appears to have lost only a portion of his type. He may have been forewarned that the Company was closing in as there is no record of his press, which was presumably disassembled and moved before Tew’s arrest, having been taken.

Overton and Tew may not have been well-known to each other, though there is good reason to suspect that Tew lied about his limited acquaintance with Overton. According to Murray Tolmie, Tew was a member of Thomas Lambe’s General Baptist congregation, by 1645 based at Bell Alley off Coleman Street. Certainly Overton, also a General Baptist, knew Lambe no later than February 1645/6 and he may have known him a good deal earlier.⁵⁸ Tew’s agitation and arrest in connection with the Leveller petition of March 1646/7 is also suggestive. His reluctance to give information when first questioned implies he may have been trying to protect Overton. The limited evidence he did provide suggests that, if this were so, he aimed to give up just enough information for the Lords to consent to his release on bail, eventually granted on 10 February 1644/5.⁵⁹

In addition to Lilburne’s pamphlets, Tew mentions having sold other ‘books’ from the Coleman Street press and that the printing office had been set up roughly three months before his arrest, placing the commencement of printing to around mid-October. Overton printed at least three other items during this period, the earliest of which was a religious tract by a General Baptist called Francis Cornwell entitled The Vindication of the Royal Commission of King Jesus, received by Thomason on 27 September. Despite the fact that this was slightly earlier than Tew’s estimate, The Vindication probably marked the commencement of printing at his house.⁶⁰ The other titles were the second edition of The Compassionate Samaritane (5 January 1644/5) ^and The Fontaine of Free Grace Opened (21 January). As Thomason dated four out of five of these pamphlets to the first three weeks of January it is likely that some of them had been circulating for a time before he received them. An obvious exception would be Lilburne’s Letter to Prinne, which bears an internal date of 7 January.⁶¹

Did Overton print Alas Pore Parliament? The Stationers’ Company themselves noted the difficulty of tracking down its origin owing to the ‘Letter being so common a Letter’ while at the arrest of Tew they merely indicated the type found in his house ‘is very like the Letter of the Libel against the Peers’, not that it was a perfect match. An examination of Thomason’s copy reveals that the font is similar to that employed by Overton. While the former could certainly have come from Nicholls’s foundry there are no distinctive ornaments or recognizably damaged letters and so the bibliographical evidence is inconclusive.

The testimony of George Jeffery, an apprentice to a hosier called Joseph Blackwell of Cornhill Ward, just to the south-east of Coleman Street, does however shed some light. When questioned by the peers on 13 December Jeffery indicated that on 9 December he had found ‘Two and Twenty of the printed Papers between the Stall-boards of his Master’s Stall’, most likely for collection and distribution. Jeffery received some six other copies, one each from a number of named individuals including ‘Isacke Blackwell’ his Master’s brother and an exciseman called ‘Sam. Blackwell’, perhaps another relation, as well as ‘One from Tho. Lambe an Oilman’. This last was almost certainly Thomas Lambe, the soapboiler, Nicholas Tew’s minister.⁶² Indeed, as both Tew and Lambe appear to have lived in or had connections to Coleman Street it is hardly surprising that a pamphlet printed at Tew’s house ended up so quickly in Lambe’s hands.

Owing to the disruption caused by the Stationers’ Company raid on Coleman Street, Overton’s press seems to have been out of action during February and March 1644/5, but a period of intense activity was to follow. On 8 April Thomason received the first of Overton’s Martin Mar-Priest tracts, The Araignement of Mr Persecution. A second edition ‘Enlarged and Corrected by the Authour’, though Thomason did not receive it, must have followed immediately thereafter: apart from some minor modifications, the setting of the last sheet, quire G, is the same in both pamphlets. This means the press must have printed G last for the first edition and then, to avoid wasting time and labour in resetting it, re-used it and thereafter reset and reprinted the remainder of the tract. London bookshops probably received the second edition in early May. There followed in June and July three more tracts in the Mar-Priest vein. Prynne records that the Commons’ Committee of Examinations ‘checked’ the Stationers’ Company for ‘suffering’ the Mar-Priest tracts to be printed. In reply the Stationers complained that this ‘they could not remedy, unlesse some were exemplarily punished’. Although the authorities had little luck tracking down Overton’s press, on 18 June they had apparently seized some copies of the Mar-Priest tracts along with Lilburne’s Letter to Prinne.⁶³

The main preoccupation of Overton’s printing house throughout July was with religious works by the Particular Baptists John Mabbatt, Thomas Collier, and William Kiffin.⁶⁴ Thomason did not receive Mabbatt’s tract, A Briefe or Generall Reply Unto Mr. Knuttons Answers Unto the VII Questions, but on signature A1^v the work contains an identical arrangement of thistle and fleur-de-lis ornaments (see Fig. 2) as appears on signature A2^r of Overton’s The Nativity of Sir John Presbyter (2 July). This implies that Mabbatt’s work came immediately before or immediately after Nativity and that the ornaments were lifted from one pamphlet and reused in the other. Owing to the close proximity of Overton’s previous Mar-Priest tract, Martin’s Eccho (27 June), it seems likely that Nativity was the earlier of the two and that Overton printed Mabbatt’s A Briefe or Generall Reply at some point in early-mid July.⁶⁵

Overton’s next pamphlet, following the Particular Baptist tracts, has a somewhat peculiar printing history. This work by John Lilburne called The Copy of a Letter from Lieutenant Colonell John Lilburne, to a Freind [sic] (henceforth Letter to a Freind) appeared in three different, though virtually identical, versions. Overton did not identify them at first, second, and third editions, and all three quarto pamphlets are two-and-a-half sheets (or twenty pages) in length.⁶⁶ Lilburne indicated in the text that he wrote Letter to a Freind on 25 July while Thomason dated his copy 9 August.⁶⁷ The Thomason copy is from the second edition of Letter to a Friend and by examining this edition we can begin to disentangle the correct printing order. That this copy was part of the second edition is confirmed by the fact that it contains one whole and one half sheet each from the other two settings. In common with a copy in St John’s College, Cambridge, Thomason contains the same setting for half-sheet C (signatures C1^r–C2^v). Quire C has been reset in a version at Worcester College, Oxford though both the Worcester copy and Thomason share the same setting of quire A (signatures A1^r–A4^v) which, again, may not be found in the St John’s copy. All three versions share material from quire B; Thomason has the same setting as the outer forme for quire B in the St John’s College copy (sigs B1^r, B2^v, B3^r, B4v — otherwise pages 9, 12, 13, 16).⁶⁸ Comparison with the Worcester College copy is less straightforward. In part this is because there are more lines on average per page in Worcester than in Thomason for quires A and B. If we exclude the first page of Letter to a Freind (which includes title material and does not constitute a full page of text) there are, on average, 37.85 lines per page for quire A in Thomason as opposed to 39.14 for Worcester; for quire B the averages are 39.5 to 39.75.⁶⁹ This means that although both editions used the same setting for quire A, in the Worcester version this is not quite sufficient to cover all eight pages of the first quire. The first ten lines of what was quire B in the Thomason copy are appended to quire A in the Worcester edition though the first five of these lines appear to have been reset for one of these versions of the tract. Hereafter, parts of signatures B1^r, B1^v, B3^r, B4^r, and B4^v of the Thomason copy may be found in the same setting in signatures B1^r, B1^v, B3^r, B3^v, B4^r, and B4^v of the Worcester pamphlet. It may also be noted that most of the material shared with Thomason in signatures B1^r, B3^r, B4^r, and B4^v of the Worcester College tract appeared in the same setting for the St John’s copy.

Like many small print shops of the period Overton probably only possessed slightly more type than would be required to produce one quire of a book or pamphlet.⁷⁰ The St John’s and Thomason copies share eight pages of the same setting, whereas Thomason and Worcester hold in common slightly more than twelve. The latter figure is probably close to the volume of type Overton had at his disposal at the time. Whichever pamphlet came first he would have sought to minimize both time and labour costs when he decided to produce a subsequent version of Letter to a Freind. But what was the order of production?

Clearly the Thomason copy must be part of the second edition since it contains material from both the other editions (quires A and C) that does not recur in either the St John’s or Worcester copies. When work began on Thomason either quire A or quire C (along with part of quire B) was left as standing type for the last portion of the previous pamphlet run off. This might imply that the St John’s copy came first since both this version and Thomason share quire C; if one were setting a text from start to finish one would expect the last quire to be set last and still be available for printing if a second edition were required. However, with accurate casting-off it is equally possible that Overton’s shop began the first edition by setting quire C and that it was quire A in the Worcester copy that remained standing when Overton decided to print the Thomason edition.⁷¹ In fact the evidence quite clearly indicates that Worcester came last. Thomason contained a number of turned letters or mistakes in orthography in quires A and B that were corrected in the Worcester copy, while there are no corresponding errors to suggest that Worcester came before Thomason.⁷² Although some minor mistakes may also be found in quire C and the outer forme of B in the St John’s copy, none of these were corrected in Thomason and so give no information regarding the printing order of these two tracts. Paradoxically some errors on signatures B2^v, B3^r, and B4v of Thomason, which did not occur in the St John’s copy, might imply they were later corrected and that Thomason came before St John’s. In fact the reverse is the case. All but one of the irregularities in the outer forme of quire B in Thomason occur on the margins of the page,⁷³ suggesting that these mistakes arose, not through careless composition but rather as a result of the standing type not having been adequately protected to prevent letters falling out of the page (in three instances) or becoming misaligned or slipping from their initial position (at least seven instances). If there was no immediate need for set type it would often be removed from its forme, tied around tightly with cord and wrapped in paper for storage until it could be distributed. If the cord was not adequately tight or there had been no attempt to preserve the setting of the pages, the margins would, naturally, be the areas most likely disturbed. Consequently, the only example of a new irregularity arising in quire B away from the margins was a raised ‘t’ from the word ‘them’ on line 26 of signature B4v, which also suggests the letter had slipped upwards as a consequence of the page not having been adequately bound. Either way, the changes in the outer forme of quire B as it appeared in Thomason clearly arose from the type having been left standing from a previous run and indicate the St John’s copy to be an example of the first edition of Letter to a Freind.

The order of events for the printing of the three editions of Letter to a Freind would therefore be as follows: Overton and his shop first set and printed the St John’s College version beginning with quire A and ending with quire C. By the time Overton made the decision to print the second (Thomason) edition the inner forme of quire B had already been distributed while outer B and C still awaited distribution.⁷⁴ The shop quickly pressed the standing type back into service starting the printing with quire C while resetting inner B (as Overton had enough type for twelve pages this could be done simultaneously). To free up type for quire A the shop next distributed C and nearly four pages of B. When Overton opted to print the third (Worcester College) edition he reused the standing type for quire A and part of B then distributed what was required for the setting and printing of the four pages of C.

Without knowing the precise numbers Overton printed or the number of journeymen working in his shop it is difficult to give an exact estimate of the time it took to print each edition of Letter to a Freind. A rough guess can be made given Lilburne’s internal date of 25 July. If Overton received his manuscript on 26 July we know he had produced two editions of the tract by 9 August when Thomason acquired his copy. Overton probably had a fair draft of the manuscript produced for his compositor(s),⁷⁵ which may have meant typesetting did not begin until 27 July, leaving roughly thirteen days prior to the morning of 9 August for the first two editions. The standing type from the first edition may have saved Overton as much as a day’s work for the second so that it would be fair to estimate that the first edition took seven days to complete and the second six, while the third may have taken a further six.⁷⁶ The first edition was probably available for sale around 2 August, the second by 9 August, when Thomason received his, and the third near 15 August though of course these are only rough estimates which assume, perhaps incorrectly, that each run was of similar length. Why did Overton print three editions? The two most likely explanations are either: (1) that the pamphlet sold well and the publisher (whether Lilburne, Overton, or someone else) sought to profit from its popularity by printing more copies; or (2) that the publisher wanted Lilburne’s case better publicized regardless of sales or of whether it was sold at all, as opposed to given away. We will return to this question later.

Although Lilburne’s Letter to a Freind and the Mar-Priest tracts caused something of an outcry⁷⁷ it was not until Overton ran off his next job, the anonymous Englands Birth-right Justified (10 October) that he and his print shop were once more in serious trouble with the Stationers’ Company. In his petition to both Houses of Parliament of June 1646 Joseph Hunscot, the Stationers’ Company beadle, recounted in some detail the events surrounding his successful seizure of Overton’s press at about this time:

being imployed upon a Warrant from the Speaker of the House of Commons, for the seizing of a Presse in Goodmans Fields, which printed the Book called Englands Birthright [sic]: That your Petitioner, with the Master and Wardens of the Company, endeavouring to put in execution the said Warrant, they were kept out by force, untill at last the doores of the house being by authority forced open, those that were at worke got out at a window with a rope into a Garden, and so escaped; But the said Presse was seized upon, which printed that and divers other Books.⁷⁸

Overton himself may well have been at work inside when the Stationers’ Company intervened, but the printing equipment had to be left behind. Hunscot did not give a precise date for these events; however, the records of the Stationers’ Company provide some helpful evidence. On 15 October 1645 it was recorded in the Court Book that ‘This day the presse and letter taken yesterday in dead Mans feilds was this day by order of the Court [of Stationers’ Company], according to the Ordinance of Parliament[,] defaced & melted’.⁷⁹ Given the fact that Englands Birth-right was being offered for sale by 10 October, a date of 14 October fits remarkably well with the seizure of Overton’s press. It is, however, peculiar that, unlike Hunscot’s later account, the Stationers’ Company Court Book should refer to the press’s location as Dead Mans Fields rather than Goodmans Fields, though the similarity of the two place names suggests one might easily have been mistaken for the other.

Goodmans Fields was a lightly populated area to the north-east of London just beyond the city walls.⁸⁰ While there does not appear to have been a location called Dead Mans Fields, there was at this time a Dead Man’s Place in Southwark.⁸¹ We know from Overton’s account of his arrest in 1646 that he lived in Southwark and that afterwards a file of soldiers brought him to the Bull Tavern at St Margaret’s Hill which, according to John Stow’s Survey of London (1633), was immediately beside the dissolved priory church of Saint Mary Overy. Slightly to the west was St Mary Overy Stairs where the soldiers forced Overton into a boat and had him rowed across the Thames to be interrogated by a committee of the Lords at Westminster.⁸² St Margaret’s Hill and St Mary Overy Stairs were both, presumably, close to Overton’s house, while Dead Man’s Place was a street running north/south about a five minute walk to the west of these, not far from the river. Given the close proximity of Dead Man’s Place to Overton’s dwelling place, it is tempting to suggest that it was here, rather than at Goodmans Fields, that Overton kept his press.

But why would Hunscot’s petition state the location of the press as Goodmans Fields? Here it is important to stress that Hunscot was a bookseller and not a printer.⁸³ Accordingly he would not have printed his petition personally but have paid a master printer to execute the work. If his manuscript contained a reference to a street he mistakenly believed to be called ‘dead Mans feilds’, the compositor, recognizing its obvious similarity to ‘Goodmans Fields’, may mistakenly have ‘corrected’ it to the latter. As Hunscot did not oversee the printing of the pamphlet personally such a deviation could easily have slipped through.⁸⁴

Regardless of its precise location, Overton lost his press as a result of Hunscot’s raid and the disappearance of eight out of thirteen irregular letters from Englands Birth-right after this point suggests he may have lost more than 60 per cent of his type.⁸⁵ In spite of this, by the end of November he had set up a new press and was printing once again. During the course of this month he issued what purported to be the ‘second edition’ of Englands Birth-right Justified.⁸⁶ Close inspection of the pamphlet reveals that it is, in fact, identical to the first edition with the exception of the first and last pages. For both the October and November ‘editions’, these pages were printed together on the same side of a half sheet, while the other side was left blank. They were then wrapped around the other six quires (forty-eight pages) of the text while the blank sides served as a cover, or wrapper, for the whole pamphlet. The initial blank wrapper of Thomason’s October copy, where he recorded the date of the tract and his thoughts on its authorship, can easily be seen on EEBO. Overton added this wrapper as, according to the pamphlet itself, it was necessary to supplement the work with a postscript (beginning on signature F4^v) to include ‘divers sentences belonging to severall passages of this Book, which were in their due places omitted, and here at last remembered’. The space available proved insufficient, however, owing to which, an additional page had to be attached to the tract. Rather than leave the inside of the opposite leaf blank either Overton, or perhaps the author of the tract (assuming they were not identical), wrote a one-page preamble to stand opposite the beginning of the text.⁸⁷

Given the need for this addendum it would have been the preamble and the last page of the postscript that were printed last in order to be wrapped around a nearly complete pamphlet. One might be tempted to conclude that this must have been the job that Hunscot interrupted on 14 October, hence the need for a second wrapper in November. However, if this were so, then it is curious that all three of the distinctive letters of the October wrapper recur in later pamphlets while many other letters do not. Most likely the press had already started a new job to which the missing letters were committed (perhaps Overton’s next pamphlet The Ordinance for Tythes Dismounted — which eventually appeared at the end of December). Overton presumably continued his practice of setting type at a different location from his printing press, so he would have lost only a portion of his letters in the Stationers’ Company raid. If Overton had only just printed the October wrapper for Englands Birth-right, however, many copies may still have been in the shop either drying or awaiting collection and so would also have been seized. Most copies of the pamphlet itself had probably been moved to a different location by 14 October though many of them would have lacked covers and it was not until Overton obtained access to a new printing press (in November) that he could complete the job and distribute those remaining. Given the pamphlet had been available for two weeks or more, the claim that these were a second edition would have helped to make it a more vendible commodity. Although the two pages of text on the ‘second edition’ wrapper did not contain any identifiable letters they were printed with the same font and decoration schemes to be found in the main text of Englands Birth-right. As the work was virtually identical to the first edition cover and printed to wrap around the same pamphlet we can be reasonably certain this also came from Overton’s press.

After resettling to a new location to print the ‘second edition’ wrapper for Englands Birth-right Overton’s shop appears to have remained undisturbed until his arrest in August 1646. Having finished this job he soon reverted to printing Mar-Priest tracts, producing the last two titles in the series, The Ordinance for Tythes Dismounted (29 December 1645) and Divine observations (24 January 1645/6), respectively directed against the magistrate’s continued enforcement of the collection of tithes and in favour of liberty of conscience.⁸⁸ The letters of The Ordinance suggest that Overton needed to restock his typeface after the events of October. Six of the thirteen distinctive letters of this pamphlet did not appear in any previous works. Curiously a further three letters, roman W02 and italics A21 and H21 had appeared earlier but not since the pamphlets of January 1644/5. This implies that since that date Overton had put aside a reserve stock of type that he did not use or require until type shortages after October prompted him to press it once more into service. After issuing the two Mar-Priest tracts Overton printed a third pamphlet, also directed against the traditional means of clerical maintenance, called The Inditement of Tythes (9 March). This reproduced a number of petitions and statements directed against tithes on the part of ‘divers CITIZENS [sic]’ of the City of London, most of whom were probably Separatists, and included an unsigned commentary on the illegitimacy of tithe collection.

Of these tracts of early 1646, however, the one that really set the cat among the pigeons was an unsigned one-sheet quarto (eight pages) entitled The Last Warning to all the Inhabitants of London, which Thomason received on 20 March. The pamphlet was strongly anti-monarchical, arguing that no king ever did anything ‘voluntarily for Good of the People’; on the contrary, it went on, the nation’s history revealed that kings had committed ‘thousands of Oppressions, Murthers and other tyrannies’.⁸⁹ The pamphlet preached loyalty to the House of Commons and, in a manner typical of later Leveller tracts, advocated their precedence over the Lords.⁹⁰ It also had a deeply anti-clerical flavour, emphasized the loyalty of Independents and Separatists to the parliamentary cause, and demanded liberty of conscience.⁹¹ Such a pamphlet was bound to attract attention and Hunscot recorded that the Lord Mayor ‘immediately sent for the Warden [of the Stationers’ Company], Master Miller, and your Petitioner, and desired them to finde out the Author and Venter of the said Libell’.⁹² Hunscot quickly rounded up a number of suspects including Lilburne’s and Overton’s friend, the bookseller William Larner. Miller and Hunscot found copies of The Last Warning at Larner’s shop on Bishopsgate Street and the latter described him as ‘a chiefe venter of them’.⁹³ The Lord Mayor interrogated Larner on 21 March, who admitted having bought ‘One Quire’ or twenty-five copies of the pamphlet. When asked whether he had more in his possession and of whom he had bought them, he refused to give any further information.⁹⁴ The Lord Mayor committed him to the Poultry Counter, after which he was questioned by the Committee of Examinations and, subsequently, by the House of Lords. Larner still refused to cooperate. From the later testimony of the type founder Nicholls, it became clear that Larner, through an intermediary called Smith, had bought the type for printing Last Warning, and also presumably for The Ordinance for Tythes Dismounted. Larner was most likely deeply implicated in the operation of Overton’s press.⁹⁵ His purchase of type for Overton would have provided another layer of precaution for the secret printing office. Had Overton acquired it himself Nicholls might have been able to identify him as the printer of Last Warning, having enough information to reveal his location and to instigate his arrest. The authorities kept Larner in prison until October but because of his silence Overton remained at liberty with his press still active.⁹⁶

As a token of his gratitude Overton printed no fewer than three pamphlets in Larner’s defence in late April and early May. Thomason received two of these on 2 May. The shorter one was a broadside called Every Mans Case. The second carried the title A True Relation of All the Remarkable Passages, and Illegal Proceedings of Some Sathannicall or Doeg-like Accusers of their Brethren, against William Larner, a Free-man of England. Along with a copy of the Lord Mayor’s findings preserved in the Journals of the House of Lords, True Relation provides an invaluable account of the proceedings against Larner, including many discoveries of the authorities.⁹⁷ Although unsigned, the pamphlet includes a number of petitions and letters by Larner and his wife along with accounts of his interrogations, on which basis it would be safe to suggest that he and Ellen Larner⁹⁸ were the principal if not the sole authors of the piece. Hunscot records having searched Larner’s cell after the issue of Every Mans Case where he found ‘divers written Papers of his [Larner’s] owne hand writing […] the which about a week after came forth in print, called, A true relation’. In Hunscot’s account it is not clear whether he means that True Relation ‘came forth’ a week after Every Mans Case or a week after his search. Given True Relation indicates this search took place on the night of 30 April and that Thomason dates his copy of True Relation to 2 May the former seems more likely. This would suggest that Overton issued Every Mans Case around 25 April, though Thomason did not receive it for another seven days. In addition, Thomason dates a longer quarto version of Every Mans Case to 9 May. Hunscot mentions the issue of this second impression in his account, though he does not make it clear when this came out. This matter is resolved on the last page of True Relation, which advises the reader that ‘There is a little book called Every Mans Case, newly divulged in the behalf of Mr. Larner […] printed with another Letter thereunto annexed’. This additional letter may only be found in the second impression of Every Mans Case indicating that the second version of the tract had been printed in the week between the issue of the broadside copy and True Relation. As the sections common to both impressions of Every Mans Case were made from the same setting with only minor variations Overton must have reused the standing type from the broadsheet when he printed the quarto.⁹⁹

But even if Larner refused to say anything that might incriminate Overton and threaten the secret press others were not so willing to defy the authorities. On 27 March the Lord Mayor interrogated another bookseller, Giles Calvert, who would later become notorious for selling radical texts.¹⁰⁰ Calvert admitted to having bought ‘Fifty or One Hundred of those Papers, intituled, “The last warning to all the Inhabitants of London”‘. These were brought to him in two batches of fifty on either Friday 20 or Saturday 21 March and Tuesday 24 March. Initially Calvert claimed that ‘he knoweth not the Name of him that brought them, nor the Place where he liveth; but saith, he hath formerly sold Books unto this Examinate’. When further pressed on the matter Calvert said he had paid 15d. for each quire of twenty-five pamphlets (or 2s. 6d. for each batch of fifty) and that ‘he supposeth the Surname of the Man that sold him those Papers to be Overton’.¹⁰¹ The Lord Mayor also interviewed a man called Henry Cripps (or Crispe),¹⁰² an apprentice of the Independent bookseller Henry Overton. Cripps reported that:

he never had above Four Quires of those printed Papers, called ‘London’s last Warning-peece,’ containing One Hundred Sheets of Paper [or copies]; and that he received Fifty sheets of them [effectively fifty copies], about Seven or Eight Days since [19 or 20 March], of one Overton, who then brought them to this Examinate’s Master’s Shop, in Pope’s Head Alley, to sell.

Cripps received a second batch of fifty on 23 March when he paid Overton 2s. 6d. for the first batch, and had only just paid the same sum for the second in the morning before his interrogation before the Lord Mayor. Cripps claimed that he ‘doth not know where the said Overton is now resident; neither doth he know where the Place of his Habitation is; but he hath oftentimes seen him in this City’.¹⁰³

Calvert and Cripps probably knew a good deal more about Overton than they were letting on, especially given the former may have had business dealings with him as early as 1641.¹⁰⁴ In both cases each of these men appears to have been trying to give just enough information to keep himself out of trouble while at the same time not revealing enough to endanger Overton. Consequently Overton managed to remain at liberty for nearly five more months, his press as active as ever.

In the immediate wake of Larner’s arrest Overton printed two less controversial religious tracts by a prolific writer and lay preacher called Thomas Moore. Thomas Edwards referred to Moore as: a great Sectary, and manifestarian that hath done much hurt in Lincolnshire […] some parts of Norfolk, [and] Cambridgeshire; he is famous at Boston, Lynn, Holland; followed and accompanied sometimes from place to place, with many attending him.

Thomas Whitfield, a minister of Norfolk, described him as ‘late a Weaver’. ¹⁰⁵ The first of the pamphlets Overton produced carried the title The Universallity of God’s Free-grace in Christ to Mankind (8 April) and asserted the doctrine of general salvation. At just over twenty-six sheets (212 pages) this book was by far the longest work Overton printed between September 1644 and August 1646. The second Moore pamphlet, A discovery of seducers that creep into houses (27 April), was a much smaller work, which advocated lay-preaching inspired by the spirit as against the appointment of national church ministers who had not received divine calling.¹⁰⁶

By the end of April it must have become clear that Larner would not soon be released from prison, especially following the incarceration of his two servants, Jane Hayle, and his brother John on 16 April for refusing to testify against him or to give any further information to the Lords.¹⁰⁷ Accordingly, Overton began printing the pamphlets in support of Larner’s cause already alluded to. ¹⁰⁸ These were the first pamphlets he printed using a mixed type and new ornaments (most notably the uncrowned royal emblems) indicating that he was now acquiring his type from a source other than the Nicholls foundry.

After issuing the three Larner tracts, Overton went on to print a pamphlet in defence of a Separatist and alleged Socinian called Thomas Hawes under the title The Afflicted Christian Justified (18 May) and a peculiar piece entitled Prophecies. The 15. September 1645 that Thomason received on 30 May. We can be confident that Thomason’s date and not that of Prophecies is the correct one, given that Overton still used an unmixed set of Nicholls type in September 1645, whereas this pamphlet appeared in the mixed font typical of Overton’s press from May-July 1646. Overton’s next two pamphlets, The Interest of England Maintained (8 June) and Conscience Caution’d (20 June) both came out in opposition to a remonstrance of the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Common Council of London directed against religious toleration (henceforth referred to as the ‘City Remonstrance’) and presented to the Lords and Commons on 26 May.¹⁰⁹ Similar to Last Warning, Interest of England expressed a deeply anti-monarchical sentiment. While Conscience Caution’d is, to date, unique insofar as it is the only pamphlet of this period that we know Overton to have produced with another (as yet unknown) printer, there were doubtless others.¹¹⁰ Shortly afterwards there appeared another unsigned religious pamphlet under the title Divine Light Manifesting the Love of God unto the Whole World (7 July) which, like Moore’s Universallity, advocated the doctrine of general redemption. But perhaps the most notorious pamphlets of this period were two pieces printed in the cause of John Lilburne, A Remonstrance of Many Thousand Citizens (7 July) and An Alarum to the House of Lords (31 July).¹¹¹

Jason Peacey has noted that by June 1646 Lilburne had begun to lose the support of the moderate Independents in both Houses of parliament he had enjoyed in the previous year when Presbyterian power was in the ascendant. His position was rendered yet more precarious when he published a libel against the Earl of Manchester called The Just Mans Justification, received by Thomason on 10 June. The Lords issued a warrant for his arrest on the same day and, when brought before the bar, Lilburne denied the House had any jurisdiction over a Commoner, they promptly imprisoned him in Newgate.¹¹² Overton’s first response was to print A Remonstrance of Many Thousand Citizens, which the full title declared to be directed against ‘the Illegal and Barbarous Imprisonment of that Famous and Worthy Sufferer for his Countries Freedoms, Lieutenant Col. JOHN LILBURNE’. To reinforce the message A Remonstrance included a frontispiece engraving of Lilburne with bars across his face to symbolize his imprisonment, the same engraving that without bars had first been included in a reprint of Lilburne’s A Christian Mans Triall, published by Larner in 1641 and doubtless touched-up on Overton’s instructions.¹¹³ In practice, however, the pamphlet directed itself against the recent behaviour of the Commons and mentioned Lilburne’s (along with Larner’s) case only once.¹¹⁴ The work probably had originally nothing to do with Lilburne but, given the crisis of his arrest and imprisonment, Overton promptly adapted the text, as he did the engraving, to fit circumstances.

Overton printed two impressions of A Remonstrance before he turned to An Alarum. Neither identified itself as an edition and there are no substantive textual variants. Each is two-and-a-half sheets long and both share the same setting for quires B and C (pp. 9–20). That Thomason’s copy formed part of the first impression¹¹⁵ is revealed by a mistake in a scriptural reference on the last line of the postscript on p. 20. In the Thomason version this reads’s Sam. 22, 23, 24, 25’ where ‘22’ should read ‘12’ as it did in the second impression, a copy of which is to be found in the library of Lincoln’s Inn. ¹¹⁶ The Lincoln’s Inn version also reveals indications of errors creeping in while out of forme similar to those we have already observed in Letter to a Freind. On line 13 of the same page the word ‘use’ at the right margin is missing an ‘e’ that probably dropped out between impressions. What is more, another edition of the tract was printed by an entirely different press, as yet unidentified. The work appeared in an unmixed font, without swash italics, while also employing a number of decorations alien to Overton’s work, such as a band of moderately large uncrowned fleurs-de-lis at the top of p. 3. One feature of the tract closely resembles Overton’s ornamentation however: a fleurs-de-lis halo around a small initial capital at the opening of the text, employing ornaments identical to Overton’s, arranged in similar dimensions (6 horizontal by 5 vertical as opposed to Overton’s usual 6 by 3). As Thomason did not receive the tract it is impossible to date it precisely beyond the ‘1646’ on the title-page. The fleurs-de-lis halo, however, appears to have been set up in direct imitation of the opening of Overton’s versions of the tract, suggesting that this edition was printed shortly after the piece first appeared, perhaps at the same time as Overton’s second impression and probably under his instructions.¹¹⁷

Of particular concern to the Lords, however, was An Alarum, which set forth an aggressive criticism of the Lords, was more explicitly focused upon Lilburne, and written purposely in his defence. As we have already seen, it was this tract’s existence that led to the formation of a committee to examine scandalous pamphlets and the hiring of Robert Eeles who, with a file of soliders, arrested Overton in his bed on 11 August. Thereafter Overton was dragged to the ‘Bull-Tavern at St. Margarets Hill in Southwarke’. Having left the tavern for some time, Eeles and some of the soldiers returned, at which point, records Overton, ‘they would have needs perswaded me that they had taken a Printing Presse, and Printing Materials of mine’. During their absence, Eeles and his men appear to have conducted a thorough search of Overton’s house where the secret printing shop had probably been located since Hunscot’s raid in October. Eeles also discovered three manuscripts, two of which Overton had not yet printed, the third being An Alarum to the House of Lords.¹¹⁸ Having secured his printing materials Eeles and the soldiers took Overton by boat from Southwark over the Thames to Westminster Hall and the House of Lords for questioning.¹¹⁹ Overton, brought before the Lords’ Committee for the possession of scandalous papers refused, in typical Leveller fashion, ‘to answer to any Thing, concerning the Printing of the scandalous Pamphlets brought into this House’. The journal also noted ‘that there are written Papers found in his House, but he refuses to tell whose writing they are’. When later brought before the full House of Lords Overton stated that ‘He was not bound to answer to any Interrogatories to accuse himself, he being a Freeborn Subject’.¹²⁰ The Lords responded by committing him to Newgate for contempt. Given the fact that Overton and Lilburne now had few friends in parliament, apart from radical Independents like Henry Marten, both remained in prison for some time. Overton was not released until 16 September 1647 and Lilburne a couple of months later on 9 November of the same year.¹²¹

Analysis of the Evidence

A number of the tracts produced by Overton hint at possible connections between the future Levellers and the political Independents in late 1644 and 1645. As we have seen, the evidence strongly suggests that Overton issued a pamphlet that the Independent grandees would likely have supported and possibly authorized themselves, namely the handbill Alas Pore Parliament how Art thou Betrai’d? Ridiculing the indecisive generalship of the Earls of Essex and Manchester, the pamphlet was scattered about the streets of London on the night of 8/9 December 1644, the day before Zouch Tate and Sir Henry Vane the younger proposed the self-denying ordinance in the Commons. Once passed this ordinance would remove both generals from command and permit a more decisive prosecution of the war. That Alas Pore Parliament was freely distributed just prior to a debate that would introduce such a crucial piece of legislation to the Lower House can hardly be a coincidence. Doubtless the war party Independents were trying to tune the mood of the capital, and of parliament, against the generalship of the two peers. Overton is unlikely ever to have had direct contact with the Independent grandees but probably received his instructions either from one of their servants or through an interested third party who knew of the existence of the secret press. This intermediary might even have been Lilburne himself who was well acquainted with a number of leading parliamentary figures at the time.¹²² Lilburne’s own series of acrimonious pamphlets directed against both religious and political Presbyterians including William Prynne, Colonel Edward King, Manchester, Speaker Sir William Lenthall, and his brother Sir John Lenthall may also have helped to strengthen the Independent cause through the embarrassment his accusations caused their opponents.¹²³ He simultaneously offered praise to Independents like Lord General Fairfax and, above all, to Oliver Cromwell.¹²⁴

Apart from discrediting the political Presbyterians through the publication of Lilburne’s pamphlets, a central aim of Overton’s press, and of his own writing in particular, was to advocate liberty of conscience. In The Araignement of Mr Persecution he argued on both scriptural and practical grounds for a virtually unlimited toleration that would include ‘Turkes [or Muslims], Jewes, Pagans, and Infidels, as well as Christians to grow or live together in the Feild [sic] of the World’.¹²⁵ Throughout his Mar-Priest tracts he repeatedly grouped together religious minorities such as ‘Anabaptists, Brownists, Independents, &c’, who would be endangered with the establishment of an intolerant Presbyterian national church, as a means of reminding them of their common interest.¹²⁶ In the cause of religious toleration Overton printed a second edition ‘corrected, and enlarged’ of The Compassionate Samaritane, usually attributed to William Walwyn, a pamphlet well known for its tolerationist message and even quoted by Overton in The Araignement where a character called Mr. Compassionate Samaritane acted as one of Mr. Persecution’s jurors.¹²⁷ Similarly, Francis Cornwell and Thomas Collier demanded liberty of conscience, though Collier held some reservations on this matter with regard to Catholics.¹²⁸ Perhaps one of the best testaments to the potential dangers faced by religious minorities in the mid-1640s may be found in The Afflicted Christian Justifyed (18 May 1646), which Overton printed in defence of a Separatist called Thomas Hawes who had been accused of Socinianism and imprisoned as a result.¹²⁹ Hawes denied the charges, The Afflicted Christian portraying his accusers as dishonest men who had chosen to persecute those of another religious persuasion, describing the behaviour of the Presbyterian minister and of the justices who examined him as arbitrary and vindictive.¹³⁰ This pamphlet came out in the midst of a controversy over the fate of the self-avowed Socinian Paul Best who had been arrested for his beliefs in February 1644/5. By 28 March 1646 a bill for his execution as a heretic had gone through its second reading and on 29 April parliament called for legislation to suppress blasphemy and heresy, which passed in 1648 with the death sentence stipulated as punishment for denial of the Trinity. Best’s cause would have been well known in London as he wrote 100 petitions for his release (eventually obtained in 1647), two of which he published in January and August 1646.¹³¹Afflicted Christian made a pointed reference to Best’s case and stressed the potential danger that Presbyterianism posed to all those who did not share their outlook.¹³² Shortly after Afflicted Christian Overton issued two further tolerationist tracts, Interest of England and Conscience Caution’d, both directed against the ‘City Remonstrance’ of 26 May in opposition to liberty of conscience. Of all the pamphlets Overton printed, only Divine Light appears to have expressed strong hostility to other religious views, condemning the ‘Apostate Arians’ as ‘Devills in-carnate, which […] denie the Covenant of Generall Redemption’ through their denial of the divinity of Christ, along with ‘Papists, Turkes and Protestants’ whom the pamphlet described as working ‘Treasons against God and Christ’.¹³³ But, even here, there is no suggestion that the adherents of such views should be persecuted, but rather an assertion that in spite of such errors all shall achieve salvation.¹³⁴

Of the twenty-nine titles Overton printed or intended to print (including the two unprinted manuscripts taken at his arrest but excluding multiple impressions) some nine were wholly devoted to advancing particular religious doctrines, ten if one includes Lilburne’s Nine Arguments. By and large the contents of these pamphlets agree fairly closely to Overton’s known views as a General Baptist, tolerationist, and future political radical. Francis Cornwell’s The Vindication of the Royall Commission of King Jesus, for instance, was devoted entirely to a justification of believer’s baptism and a repudiation of the more traditional practice of child baptism.¹³⁵ Similarly, John Mabbatt, Thomas Collier, and William Kiffin all advocated believer’s baptism as a sideline to more general arguments about the nature of the true church. As Particular Baptists these men would, no doubt, have disagreed with Overton’s more ‘Arminian’ views on salvation,¹³⁶ though none of their pamphlets raised the issue.

The focal point of three of the religious tracts issuing from Overton’s press including Thomas Moore’s massive The Universallity of God’s Free-grace, was salvation theology. The earliest of these was the unsigned pamphlet, The Fontaine of Free Grace Opened arguing quite simply that although God had ‘elected some persons before the world began’ Christ had died for all so that those who believed in him would receive ‘eternall life’ while ‘eternall death is threatned to them that doe not beleive [sic]’.¹³⁷ The work expressed predictable sympathy for Arminianism, and the claim to come from ‘The Church of Christ in London falsly called Anabastsapt [Anabaptist]’ suggests it was a General Baptist work.¹³⁸ The lay preacher Thomas Moore, ‘the manifestarian’, does not appear to have been a Baptist. While, like The Fontaine, his work argued that Christ had died for all and that all could be saved, Moore suggested that the path to salvation was more demanding than outlined in The Fontaine. While belief in Christ was essential to salvation, it was not enough; Christians must also lead godly, repentant lives, the Gospel requiring them:

to worke conformity to him [Christ], in death; in being as dead to sinne, and to all the life and glory in humane and worldly parts, righteousness, fame, riches, pleasures, friendship and life; and submission to be deprived of any of them, as Hee, and the Gospel shall require.¹³⁹

Overton’s third religious tract, Divine Light Manifesting the Love of God unto the Whole World, argued, to the contrary, that all would be saved without exception.¹⁴⁰ Those who did not believe in Christ would still receive salvation and even the reprobate would suffer torment only for a time:

This Christian Faith leaneth only upon God in Christ; all the Damned that did not, or doe not receive it, must be saved by this Faith; this Faith is Perfect unto all, through God himself in Christ […] millions of Thousands were damned by their Antichristian workes: yet not damned to perish for ever; for there is none can be damned Totally.¹⁴¹

As well as providing accounts of the extent of salvation, several of these polemics discussed the nature of the true church, advocating some form of Separatism. Cornwell, for instance, asserted that Pope Innocent III had overthrown ‘the particular Churches of Jesus Christ’ when he declared that all children of believers should receive baptism just as all the sons of the Israelites received circumcision, ‘thereby establishing Nationall Churches’.¹⁴² Likewise, Lilburne’s An Answer to Nine Arguments inveighed against the Church of England that ‘neither is, nor never was truly married; joined, or united to Jesus Christ […] but is one of Antichrists Nationall, Whorish Churches’.¹⁴³ The true church, it was argued, must consist only of believers and must exclude the ungodly. Consequently, church officers were not to be appointed by a state authority but chosen from the body of the authentic church.¹⁴⁴ John Mabbatt presented a similar line of argument in A Briefe or Generall Reply, as did Thomas Collier in Certaine Queries or, Points Now in Controvercy Examined and William Kiffin in his suitably entitled A Briefe Remonstrance of the Reasons and Grounds of those People Commonly Called Anabaptists, for their Seperation, &c.¹⁴⁵ Thomas Moore, by contrast, appears to have had a more favourable view of the Church of England and of its officers. In A Discovery of Seducers that Creep into Houses he numbered bishops among the officers and assemblies of Christians that ‘are good, and to be reverenced’, though admitted that Satan had ‘taught that Man of sinne to put the Name ofBishops upon Tyrannicall worldly Lords’.¹⁴⁶ But the main thrust of his argument was that it was a calling from God, not human learning or patronage that made a true Christian minister.¹⁴⁷ Moore warned against clergy who would exalt themselves above their congregations for their own personal glory so that their parishioners ‘are ever Learning […] But they receive not the love of the Truth’.¹⁴⁸ Moore never explicitly objected to the ordination of the Church of England, though he certainly condemned ‘their Humane, and Artificiall Knowledge’ which set them apart from the rest of society and endorsed them with inordinate power.¹⁴⁹ His line of argument suggested that true ministers should preach exclusively from the scriptures delivered in plain language and that it was:

the Will and Commandement of God concerning all Beleevers […] To edifie themselves (or one another) in their most holy Faith […] And so given to every one of them, some portion of his [Christ’s] Spirit, to Minister with.

It was belief and a divine calling that made a true minister rather than learning and ordination.¹⁵⁰ Moore was himself a lay preacher and such arguments no doubt helped him to justify his ministry. Overton, as a Separatist, certainly sympathized with such a view and was highly sceptical of the claims of the ordained clergy to have the sole authority to minister the gospel. In The Ordinance for Tythes Dismounted, for instance, he argued that tradesmen who preached ‘meerly out of Conscience’ rather than the university-educated clergy who preached for tithes had a far greater claim to religious authority:

for if the people did not so much dote upon their [the clergy’s] Spiritualities; as if the Word of God came only to them […] but should indifferently entertain the Communications of God in any sort of People, though Fishermen, Tent-makers, Coblers, Weavers or the like, then the adoration of their [the clergy’s] Order and Cloth, would grow out of date, their Reverend esteem among the People vanish like a mist before the rising Sunne.¹⁵¹

One should not of course assume that a printer was always in agreement with the material he or she printed, but Overton’s religious outlook, informed by his connection with the General Baptists, led him to avoid printing anything explicitly contrary to his religious views. It has long been recognized that Overton’s rejection of the immortality of the soul, as expressed in Mans Mortallitie (1644) and later in Man Wholly Mortal (1655), was a commonly held view among Anabaptists on the Continent, and while it never became a defining tenet of their churches many English General Baptists adhered to this belief.¹⁵² Thomas Edwards even recorded details of a debate in February 1645/6 on the mortality of the soul, which took place at the General Baptist church of Thomas Lambe where Overton acted as a moderator for the argument against the orthodox position.¹⁵³ Such evidence clearly places Overton within General Baptist circles, as do some of the passages in Mans Mortallitie that demonstrate his belief in the Arminian conception of salvation.¹⁵⁴ The forceful expression of a wide variety of theological positions all in support of his own religious outlook suggests that Overton’s press had a strong missionary purpose as well as a political function.

Yet some of these religious tracts appear to have been issued with more than just a missionary focus in mind. Take, for instance, Overton’s printing of two pamphlets by the London Particular Baptists John Mabbatt and William Kiffin in July 1645. Neither explicitly argued for religious toleration, though from the context of their publication it is most likely that both were closely related to such a campaign. On 16 October 1644 Thomason received a pamphlet called The Confession of Faith of those Churches which Are Commonly (though Falsely) Called Anabaptists. This confession was signed by representatives of seven Particular Baptist churches in London with the aim of outlining their religious beliefs in order ‘to demonstrate to the world at large that the errors of the “Anabaptists” were falsely laid to their charge’.¹⁵⁵ Unfortunately, the Confession did not have its desired effect leading the churches to issue a second account of their beliefs under the title A Confession of Faith of Seven Congregations or Churches of Christ in London, which Are Commonly (but Unjustly) Called Anabaptists in early 1646 (28 January). On this occasion the work was addressed directly to parliament. According to Tolmie, the goal of the Particular Baptists was to convince moderate Presbyterians of their ‘orthodoxy and social responsibility’, though ultimately these pamphlets proved unsuccessful. In part, this was because the clergy were sceptical that these confessions genuinely ‘represented the real beliefs of the “Anabaptists” in England’.¹⁵⁶ Two of the signatories of both copies of the Confession were John Mabbatt and William Kiffin, and the tracts they issued from Overton’s press were, no doubt, part of this campaign for respectability and, ultimately, toleration. The ‘PRINTER TO THE READER.’ at the beginning of Kiffin’s pamphlet, for instance, specified that the work had been printed because:

it tended much to the vindication of the People of God, and Information of the ignorant, concerning the Order of the Gospel, I therefore was emboldened to Remonstrate the same unto the whole world […] to the publike benefit, and the professors thereof freed from the injurious Censure and Contumilie of the World.¹⁵⁷

We must not assume that Overton as the work’s ‘printer’ wrote the foreword. As Peter Blayney has argued, this was a time when the word ‘printer’ was used more loosely and the ‘formulaic heading, “The Printer to the Reader,” was therefore commonly used by publishers who were not strictly printers at all’.¹⁵⁸ Overton may or may not have published, as well as printed, Kiffin’s tract. Either way, this passage reveals that one reason for bringing this work before the public was to help improve the reputation and standing of Particular Baptists. Likewise Mabbatt’s pamphlet addressed itself to ‘the Controversie between the Church of ENGLAND, AND The SEPARATIST and ANABAPTIST’ appealing to ‘the spirit of magnanimity, profunditie of wisedome and sound judgement’ of ‘the Honourable Court of Parliament’. Furthermore, Mabbatt asserted that he was willing to have the practices of his church ‘tryed by the Scriptures, as knowing that the day shall declare all things approved’.¹⁵⁹

Similar motives probably underpinned the reissue of Lilburne’s An Answer to Nine Arguments, which he originally wrote while incarcerated in the Fleet in 1638.¹⁶⁰ This pamphlet firmly advocated Separatism from Scriptural authority and rejected a national church structure upon the same grounds.¹⁶¹ The foreword to An Answer indicated that it had been published by one ‘M. N.’, identified by Blair Worden as the parliamentary journalist Marchamont Nedham, someone who held considerable sympathy for Lilburne’s cause. If this were the case then it would suggest a further link between Overton’s press and the political Independents. Despite the rarity of the initials ‘M. N.’, it is difficult to establish with certainty, but there is no doubt that ‘M. N.’, like Kiffin and Mabbatt (and for that matter, Overton) endorsed a tolerationist programme.¹⁶² In his foreward he pleaded that:

men should not Lord it over each others consciences, but […] serve each other in love, and labour in the use of those means God hath appoynted to informe one an other, as knowing it is the worke of the Lord Jesus alone, as to bring Soules to himselfe, so also to enlighten Soules in the knowledge of the truth […] and not men by banishments, Chaines, or imprisonments to doe it, as the Prelates have done, and the Presbyters in Scotland [sic] at this day doe.¹⁶³

His ambitions for religious toleration motivated Overton to issue Mabbatt’s and Kiffin’s work and to reissue Lilburne’s Nine Arguments, while Collier’s and Cornwell’s tracts probably went to the press for similar reasons. His personal desire for the kind of broad religious toleration expressed throughout the Mar-Priest tracts remained Overton’s chief religious and political objective.

At the same time, however, we should remember that Overton did not run his press solely for ideological reasons and that, whatever its legal status, his print shop constituted a business, which would presumably provide the basis of his livelihood. To a large extent his profit margins would be determined by the precise role he played in producing the pamphlets that came off his press. Eeles, for instance, suggested that Overton published as well as printed many of the tracts he issued and we have good reason to suppose, from an examination of other phases of his career, that this may often have been the case. David Como suggests that the unsigned tract Englands Lamentable Slaverie (11 October 1645), usually ascribed to William Walwyn and printed by Thomas Paine, was almost certainly published by Overton. Not only did the ‘Printer to the Reader’ for this pamphlet advise the purchaser to read Englands Birth-right Justified, but parts of the extended title of Englands Lamentable Slaverie appear to have been lifted directly from the tract’s postscript.¹⁶⁴ In the light of Thomason’s date of 10 October for Englands Birth-right and of only one day later for Englands Lamentable Slaverie the most likely explanation would be ‘that the “printer” [or, more accurately, the publisher] of Englands Lamentable Slaverie was the same person as the author of the “postscript” to Englands Birth-right’. Because we know that Overton printed the latter this would strongly imply that he both wrote the postscript for Englands Birth-right and published Englands Lamentable Slaverie.¹⁶⁵ Prior to the Civil War two other pamphlets identified themselves as ‘Printed for R. Overton’. One of these was Overton’s earliest signed tract Articles of High Treason Exhibited against Cheap-side Crosse while the second was a petition from the county of Sussex advocating a wide range of reforms in both church and state.¹⁶⁶

After his imprisonment in 1646 Overton was clearly unable to operate a printing press, but he does appear to have published a number of the pamphlets that he wrote while in Newgate. A Defiance against All Arbitrary Usurpations (9 September 1646) contains a postscript entitled ‘The Publishers to the Reader’, which strongly implies that Overton wrote the Mar-Priest tracts. This was not widely known in September 1646 and it seems unlikely that a publisher would have revealed this information without Overton’s consent. Overton also hinted at this identification in the text and it is likely that he penned the postscript himself.¹⁶⁷ The fanciful imprint on the title-page of An Arrow Against All Tyrants and Tyrany (10 October) — ‘Printed at the backside of the Cyclopian Mountains, by Martin Claw-Clergy, Printer to the reverend Assembly of Divines, and are to be sould at the signe of the Subjects Liberty, right opposite to persecuting Court’ — strongly resembled those that Overton had used for the Mar-Priest tracts. Such a level of control suggests his hand as publisher as well as author of the tract, while claims in the same vein are also to be found on the title-pages of An Unhappy Game at Scotch and English (30 November 1646) and The Hunting of the Foxes (21 March 1648/9).¹⁶⁸

If Overton has a murky history as a secret printer he has an even murkier one as a secret publisher, to the extent that his activities in the latter sphere may never be fully known. Eeles’s information does provide a hint, as he specifically lists Last Warning, A Remonstrance, An Alarum ‘and all or most of Lilburnes books’ as works for which Overton had been ‘ye Printer Publisher & disperser of these Libells’. We know this was true for at least The last warning and, although he did not print ‘all’ of Lilburne’s books, he certainly did print some of his more notorious pamphlets of 1645–46. It is therefore worth taking Eeles’s account seriously. Eeles also named Overton as author of the Mar-Priest tracts, a fact that Overton would himself soon confirm. We know that Overton printed the Mar-Priest tracts, and although Eeles did not state it specifically, if Overton published at least some of the works he printed it would be surprising if he did not finance his own work as well.

Apart from the titles Eeles mentioned, and the pamphlets Overton penned himself, is there any evidence that he published any of the other items that came from his press? In a number of cases there is, and this may most often be found either in the prefaces or the postscripts of the pamphlets in question. Whenever addressing the reader directly it would doubtless be tempting for a publisher to advertise other works he had caused to be printed in order to encourage sales. The postscript to An Alarum to the House of Lords advised reading (among other pamphlets) ‘the late great Remonstrance [A Remonstrance of Many Thousand Citizens]’ and ‘Englands Birth-right’ as well as ‘Larners Bookes’.¹⁶⁹ The postscript to An Alarum would certainly have been written by its publisher, perhaps suggesting that whoever financed An Alarum also published these other items. Eeles’s seizure of the original manuscript for An Alarum and its survival to this day in the House of Lords Main Papers only helps to reinforce the Overton connection; although not written in Overton’s hand, it is covered with editorial revisions similar to later samples of his holograph.¹⁷⁰ This provides a strong case for Overton as publisher of An Alarum and the reference to Englands Birth-right in its postscript helps to confirm Como’s suggestion that he also published this tract and, by extension, Englands Lamentable Slaverie.

But what of the other pamphlets mentioned at the end of An Alarum? Of the three titles issued in Larner’s defence, Overton printed two while the third came from another printing house. This last, A Vindication of Every Free-mans Libertie,¹⁷¹ carries neither a preface nor postscript and, as such, gives no hint as to its publisher (though the general reference to ‘Larners Bookes’ at the end of An Alarum implies the piece had a possible connection to Overton). The other two Larner pamphlets are somewhat more helpful. A sentence at the end of A True Relation advised reading ‘a little book called Every Mans Case, newly divulged in the behalf of Mr. Larner’, thereby suggesting that the publisher of True Relation probably also financed Every Mans Case.¹⁷² That this publisher is likely to have been Overton is again implied in the postscript of the second impression of Every Mans Case which, like An Alarum, advised reading ‘the little Treatise, Intituled Englands Birth-right’.¹⁷³

Two other tracts can be linked to Overton as publisher owing to explicit references within them to works we know that he penned. In ‘CERTAINE QUERIES’ appended to the end of the first of these, The Interest of England Maintained, the writer made a clear allusion to a number of facetious comments put forward against the Westminster Assembly in Overton’s Mar-Priest tract Divine Observations.¹⁷⁴ Overton had specifically asserted that the Assembly had deliberately tried to concoct a ‘Providence’ to support their opposition to religious toleration by arranging to receive simultaneously on 1 January 1645/6 injunctions from the Scottish Assembly ‘against Toleration of Independency in this Kingdom’ along with a letter of the ministers of London to the same effect. The Presbyterian ministers of the Assembly presented these documents as two spontaneous declarations against toleration ‘whereat the Learned Mr. Hinderson, forthwith in a Scotch Rapture, cryed out of the great Providence of GOD, saying, Doubt-lesse no other but God was the Father of Two such Blessed Twins!’ Overton, by contrast, suggested that the Presbyterians had arranged the whole episode beforehand.¹⁷⁵ Likewise, the second query at the end of The Interest reflected negatively upon the king’s plan to take up arms, with the assistance of the Scottish army, against the English parliament and asked if this collusion between the two ‘be not of like nature with that of the Assembly of Divines, when the Letter from the Generall Assembly in Scotland, and the London Ministers Letter against Toleration did so happily make up a Providence?’¹⁷⁶ These queries were most likely contributed by the publisher and the reference to Divine Observations suggests this was almost certainly Overton. Furthermore, the earlier occurrence of query four from The Interest as query three in the ‘Postscript’ of The Afflicted Christian would again imply his hand in the publication of this pamphlet.¹⁷⁷

The second pamphlet to reveal its connection with the Mar-Priest tracts was The Inditement of Tythes. As its title would suggest, this work was strongly opposed to the traditional form of clerical maintenance and, in the middle of a commentary upon the injustice of tithes and the greed of the clergy in obtaining them, the author qualified his statement with the phrase ‘if their ORDINANCE be not DISMOUNTED’.¹⁷⁸ This was a reference both to a recent ordinance of parliament in favour of continuing the traditional means of supplying the clergy and, more pointedly, it alluded to the title of the Mar-Priest tract The Ordinance for Tythes Dismounted.¹⁷⁹ Whether the passage came from the pen of the anonymous author or the publisher is unclear. If from the author, the allusion would imply that Overton wrote the commentary and deliberately inserted a reference to a pamphlet he had just issued and that was probably still available for sale. As with the Mar-Priest tracts his authorship of The Inditement would mean that he almost certainly published the tract. If Overton was not the author but the phrase had been added by the publisher, this editorial emendation and reference to a work he had written would again imply his hand.¹⁸⁰

It is much less clear whether Overton was responsible, as Eeles claimed, for publishing and printing ‘all or most of Lilburnes books’. He certainly printed three Lilburne titles (if one includes the anonymous Englands Birthright) and, given his close collaboration with Lilburne, it would not be surprising if he had contributed at least part of the cost for issuing Letter to Prinne and Letter to a Friend, although Lilburne may also have helped to finance these books. Given the likelihood of Overton’s involvement in these two tracts, they are marked, along with the titles mentioned above, as possible Overton publications in the list of pamphlets issued from his secret printing office given in Table 1.

But we do know that Overton did not publish everything that issued from his press. As already noted, it was one ‘M. N.’ who paid for the printing of Lilburne’s An Answer to Nine Arguments, while money may have been dispensed by members of the parliamentary War Party for the printing of Alas Pore Parliament. Overton’s connection with booksellers like Giles Calvert and Henry Overton, through Henry Cripps, also suggests that these men may have had some involvement in his press as publishers. In 1646 Calvert, for instance, published pamphlets by Walwyn and Collier. He may also have provided funds and paper for The Compassionate Samaritane and Certaine Queries.¹⁸¹ Although there is evidence to suggest that Overton may have himself published as many as twenty-three (nearly two-thirds) of the pamphlets he printed, most of the remaining twelve are likely to have had other publishers. By and large these were religious tracts, which were probably, for the most part, funded either by the congregations in whose interest they were written or by professional booksellers who believed they could profit from their sale. Where these pamphlets included a note from the publisher, there were none of the telltale signs to indicate Overton’s involvement in any capacity beyond that of owner and manager of the press from which they issued.

Regardless of whether he printed and published or merely printed the tracts that issued from his printing office, one crucial issue remains. To what extent would Overton have been able to profit by his activities and to what extent was his press a self-sustaining enterprise? Might it be that most of the pamphlets he ran off were given away like Alas Pore Parliament?¹⁸² Certainly the available evidence suggests that, at least occasionally, this was the case. Thomas Edwards noted that Cornwell’s The Vindication, a pamphlet addressed to the Lower House of parliament, ‘was given to divers Members at the doore of the House of Commons’.¹⁸³Prynne in The Lyar Confounded also made references to Lilburne’s dispersal of his pamphlets among his friends or ‘among the Malignants in Kent’, though it is not clear whether these were circulated free of charge or even whether these included items printed by Overton.¹⁸⁴

On occasion Overton may well have given away large numbers of pamphlets to help publicize his religious and political ideas. But it should be stressed that it is unclear whether he, Cornwell or some other publisher paid for the production of The Vindication or for the copies of it distributed to the Commons, while much of the evidence suggests that most of the pamphlets Overton printed and published were, in fact, sold. In A Fresh Discovery of Some Prodigious New Wandring Blazing-stars and Firebrands Prynne commented that the Mar-Priest tracts ‘the Arraignment of Persecution, A sacred Decretall, and Martins Eccho; [had been] compiled, published, printed, vended, [and] dispersed by Independent Sectaries, who highly applaud them’.¹⁸⁵ The key word here is ‘vended’, which implies they were sold, though the Oxford English Dictionary indicates that the term might also mean ‘To give utterance to, to put forward, advance (an opinion, etc.)’. The evidence is much less ambiguous, however, in The Lyar Confounded where Prynne noted that Lilburne’s Letter to a Freind had been ‘sent to a private Unlicensed Presse (alwaies ready at his command) where being speedily Printed, he despersed the printed Copies thereof every where by his Agents among his Friends, and Confederates, who vented them under-hand for money’.¹⁸⁶ This might sound like a malicious assertion meant to discredit Lilburne for writing pamphlets full of scandal from which he would later profit. Nevertheless, we have good reason to trust Prynne’s account which other, less hostile sources, help to confirm. Regarding Lilburne’s Letter to Prinne and An Answer to Nine Arguments, Nicholas Tew confessed after his arrest ‘that hee hath sould \& uttered/ some of them with other bookes which were printed with the <same> same’ press. The word ‘uttered’ might seem a peculiar term in relation to Tew’s sale of these pamphlets. However, according to the OED a definition of ‘to utter’ in ‘very frequent use from c. 1540 to c. 1655’ was ‘To put (goods, wares, etc.) forth or upon the market; to issue, offer, or expose for sale or barter; to dispose of by way of trade; to vend, sell’. Tew’s evidence not only suggests that he sold and presumably profited from selling Letter to Prinne and An Answer to Nine Arguments but that he also profited from the other pamphlets produced while Overton’s press resided in his house (including, perhaps, Cornwell’s The Vindication).¹⁸⁷

The pamphlet for which we have the greatest information concerning distribution is The Last Warning. We know that Larner sold copies of the tract from his bookshop, eight or ten of these having been bought by another bookseller called Woodnett.¹⁸⁸ We also know that Overton personally sold 100 copies each to Giles Calvert and Henry Cripps for 15d. the quire, while Edwards recorded that both had managed to sell the pamphlet from their shops.¹⁸⁹ Edwards also notes that:

this Book was spread and dispersed up and down by Sectaries, as for instance, one Samuel Fulcher an Egge man, re-baptized by one Crab a Felt-maker, was the 21. day of March examined before a Justice of Peace for spreading this Book call’d the last warning to London, and confessed he had sold six or seven of them.¹⁹⁰

Edwards later mentions Crab as ‘a Dipper and a Preacher’ of Southwark and Tolmie identifies him as a member of a Southwark General Baptist congregation led by John Claydon.¹⁹¹

The available typographical and contemporary evidence helps to suggest that there was sufficient demand for some of Overton’s pamphlets to warrant multiple editions or impressions of the title. Prynne, for instance, records that Lilburne’s Letter to Prinne went through ‘three Impressions’.¹⁹² At least two of these survive: one printed by Overton and a second from another press, possibly commissioned by Overton while a new location for his printing office had to be found after the Stationers’ Company raid on Tew’s house.¹⁹³ The fact that this pamphlet went through three impressions, in spite of being sold rather than given away, implies its popularity. The same may be said of Overton’s The Araignement of Mr. Persecution. Overton himself printed two very similar (though by no means identical) copies of the tract back-to-back. A third version of the work, almost identical to the first edition, came from another press. As it did not include Overton’s emendations it may well have been printed at the same time as Overton’s second edition or perhaps slightly earlier. Overton may have commissioned this version of the tract himself or it could have been a pirated edition. Prynne’s remark regarding the popularity of the Mar-Priest tracts and the applause they received from the ‘Independent Sectaries’ implies that if they were indeed sold then this would have done much to ensure the long-term sustain-ability and profitability of Overton’s printing house.¹⁹⁴ We have also noted that he printed three impressions of Lilburne’s Letter to a Friend, two of Every Mans Case,¹⁹⁵ and two of A Remonstrance, while a third, of the last work, may also be found from another press. Of these three titles, perhaps the least likely to have paid its way was Every Mans Case. Overton would have felt particularly obliged to help defend his friend Larner, so it may be that in this instance publicizing Larner’s plight would have outweighed the usual commercial considerations.

A number of contemporary or near-contemporary sources hint more broadly at the general popularity of Lilburne’s and Overton’s writings. Ann Hughes has noted that Presbyterians in Norwich associated local Independents with ‘your saucy brother-Mar-priest and Lilbourn’.¹⁹⁶ In passages he wrote in 1664 Richard Baxter recalled the malign influence of Separatists upon the soldiers of the New Model Army after Naseby, ‘A great part of the mischief they did among the Soldiers was by Pamphlets, which they abundantly dispersed; such as R. Overtons, Martin Mar-Priest, and more of his; and some of J. Lilburn’s’.¹⁹⁷ Even an inveterate opponent like Prynne was willing to concede the enormous impact of Lilburne’s pamphlets, though he qualified this by stressing that his influence was ‘among the Ignorant Vulgar, who adore him as the onely Oracle of Truth’.¹⁹⁸ Rachel Foxley has noted that the inclusion of the name ‘Lilburne’ in the title of a pamphlet, as was often Lilburne’s practice, appears to have been used as a selling point or a means of catching the customer’s eye, even when the pamphlet was not written by him.¹⁹⁹ By mid-1646 Overton himself appears to have appreciated this. An Alarum to the House of Lords and A Remonstrance both featured Lilburne’s name prominently capitalized in the extended title. This is particularly notable in the case of A Remonstrance, which also included his picture on a flyleaf, though the pamphlet had relatively little to do with the future Leveller leader. Early pamphlets like Letter to Prinne, Letter to a Freind, and Englands Birth-right certainly displayed Lilburne’s name on the title-page although this was only in pica and it was not until 1646 that Overton began to use large capitals. Similarly, the popularity of Overton’s Mar-Priest pamphlets later sparked a series of Sir John Presbyter tracts, modelled on one of the persecuting characters of The Araignement who was later the focal point of The Nativity of Sir John Presbyter. Although Overton does not appear to have written any of the Sir John Presbyter tracts issued from 1647 onwards an allusion to Mar-Priest provided a successful means of marketing a series of otherwise unremarkable pamphlets.²⁰⁰

Given the number of imponderables regarding the details of Overton’s printing and publishing career it would be difficult to come up with any kind of precise figure regarding the profits (or perhaps losses) he made from his secret printing office. However, there are some conclusions we can make with relative certainty. For instance, if Overton occasionally printed pamphlets for another publisher he would have been guaranteed a safe, if relatively modest, income. In such instances printers usually made a profit of 50 per cent above the overall costs (mostly labour) of producing the item in question. This was a standard mark-up accounting for one-third of the total cost a printer charged to the publisher and ‘traditionally known as a third, or as the printer’s thirds’.²⁰¹ Given the greater risks, however, a much larger income could be demanded by Overton as a publisher than as a printer. Here he would cover the entire costs of producing a pamphlet and, if it sold well, acquire substantial gains from his investment. These could have provided him with a reasonable living and the financial basis for subsequent publications. While exact figures of Overton’s likely profits are difficult to estimate, a rough guide can be established by comparison with the activities of another illicit publisher earlier in the decade.

Concerned about the rise of unlicensed publications shortly after the calling of the Long Parliament in late 1640, the House of Lords called in the Stationers’ Company to investigate. Eventually the Stationers’ Company reported to the Lords regarding the printers and publishers they had discovered involved in a variety of illicit publications. In reference to one long pamphlet the report stated that ‘Richard Lownes affirmed that John Wells of Moorfields did print The answer to my lord of Canterbury’s book against Fisher and that he received £80 by those books’.²⁰² Several pre-Civil War books describe themselves as printed ‘for John Wells’ but none ‘Printed by’ him. Accordingly the phrase ‘did print’ can be read to mean ‘caused to be printed’.²⁰³ The actual title of the book Wells published was A Replie to a Relation of the Conference between William Laude and Mr. Fisher the Jesuite (1640), a book written by the Laudian martyr Henry Burton.²⁰⁴ It was printed on a secret press Overton operated prior to the outbreak of hostilities.²⁰⁵ Overall, A Replie to a Relation ran to some fifty-seven quarto sheets.

From 1644–46 Overton only once printed a pamphlet even half this length, so we cannot expect he would have made anything like this scale of profit for any of his individual titles. Most of the pamphlets he issued would have been much closer to a mere three or five sheets in length. Nevertheless, cumulatively, Overton did print something in the order of 129 sheets worth of material over twenty-three months. This is not an enormous output. But, at the same time, Francis R. Johnson has commented in his ‘Notes on English Retail Book-prices, 1550–1640’ that small pamphlets:

were always likely to be sold at a higher rate, proportionate to size, than more substantial books. Except for a broadside, 2d. seems to have been the minimum price at which a printed work was offered to the public.²⁰⁶

It would not be unreasonable to suppose that there would have been greater demand for the shorter, cheaper pamphlets Overton published than for a long and expensive book of fifty-seven sheets. Accordingly, he might have invested in considerably longer print runs for the tracts from his press than Wells did for A Replie to a Relation. He would also have been able to cut costs by virtue of the fact that he often printed his own publications.

However we might estimate his likely income we can be sure that there were a number of other expenses involved in operating an underground press. Overton may occasionally have had to resort to bribery in order to silence potential informers. He would also have needed to rent a number of locations to house the press and to store books and pamphlets before sale and, most importantly, there was his loss of two printing presses to the authorities. In the 1650s Lilburne mentions having bought a printing press and type for £30 while he was in Amsterdam; this sum would have represented a significant though probably not a devastating loss for Overton.²⁰⁷ Nevertheless his income from publishing activities with other legitimate presses may have been quite considerable. In the light of all this it seems likely that Overton profited from his activities rather than otherwise and that his press was a self-sustaining enterprise.

Regardless of whether Overton’s printing house made spectacular profits or substantial losses one thing is clear: in spite of pressure from the authorities it continued to function and would have remained in operation had Overton not been arrested in August 1646. This would suggest that, in spite of the danger and the cost of losing a printing press, the whole enterprise was commercially viable. Another, but probably less likely, possibility might be that interested Separatist churches, like those of the Particular and General Baptists, helped to subsidize the press and that this accounts for its lengthy survival in a difficult political climate. Either way, whether by subsidy or commercial success, illicit printing and publishing doubtless formed the core of Overton’s livelihood during this period. Thus Leveller publishing should not be regarded merely as an ideological activity but also as a sustainable commercial venture, albeit a risky one.

Conclusions

The illicit nature of Leveller activities, commencing with the publication of Lilburne’s Letter to Prinne in January 1644/5, means that the printing and publishing background to the movement has been for the most part shrouded in secrecy. However, the technology of the period denied complete anonymity to even the most clandestine printer. Damaged or miscast type, along with printers’ decorations can allow us to trace the hand of a printer in much the same way that fingerprints can lead us to the perpetrator of a crime. In the case of Richard Overton such evidence reveals a hidden world of pamphlet printing, which sheds light on his religious and political interests beyond the realm of his and Lilburne’s known works for this period. Owing to a misunderstanding of pamphlets like Mans Mortallitie, it has been suggested that Overton may have been a deist or even an atheist,²⁰⁸ but his publication history makes such misjudgements impossible to sustain and helps us better understand his relation to and his activities on behalf of the General Baptist faith. Nor should we assume that with the publication of tracts like Englands Birth-right or A Remonstrance of Many Thousand Citizens Overton’s interests became focused exclusively upon constitutional reform. Theological and missionary concerns held a prominent place among the titles issued by Overton throughout the entire period of his press’s activity and such pamphlets would no doubt have continued to be produced from his print shop had Eeles not arrested him in August 1646. Above all the pamphlets that Overton printed, especially his Mar-Priest tracts, suggest that a fundamental aim of his press was to campaign for a broad religious toleration while many of the tracts he printed attempted to raise the respectability of Separatist and Baptist practices and beliefs. At the same time the success of many of his publications and the likely profitability of his shop, in spite of the interventions of the Stationers’ Company, would suggest that Overton was not just a religious zealot and political radical but also a reasonably successful London businessman, a fact that gives us more insight into the social composition of the Leveller leadership.

As long ago as 1970 Gerald Aylmer noted that a number of key Leveller figures, most notably Lilburne and Walwyn, could trace gentry origins.²⁰⁹ To this number we might also add Nicholas Tew. In D. F. McKenzie’s Stationers’ Company’ Company Apprentices, 1605–1640 (1961) he is listed as having been bound to Henry Bird on 29 September 1629 for nine years and as having been the son of a deceased gentleman called William Tew.²¹⁰ In spite of this addition, it might be fairer to suggest that almost all the prominent civilian Levellers in London were sufficiently affluent to operate as independent businessmen who also held unusual religious views antagonistic both to intolerant Presbyterianism or Episcopacy. Walwyn was a successful silk merchant; Overton a printer and publisher (though never a member of the Stationers’ Company); the two treasurers of the Leveller movement, Thomas Prince and Samuel Chidley were, respectively, a cheesemonger and a haberdasher.²¹¹ William Larner may never have been affluent but the fact that he was able to run his own bookshop places him in a very different social stratum from the scores of London journeymen who depended on wages and worked for other men.²¹² Even John Lilburne, who most consistently alluded to his status as the younger son of a gentleman, sullied his hands with trade. Although never an entirely successful businessman, before the Civil War he owned a brewery while after the regicide he set up as a soap boiler.²¹³ Perhaps the gentry element of the Leveller leadership merely reflects that many more prominent London tradesmen were often younger sons of wealthy landed families. Leveller ideas were spawned by men who were, on the one hand, affluent enough to run an independent business, but who, on the other, did not hold political office or any other recognized form of authority either locally, in the City of London, or at national level. The one notable exception is John Wildman, who appears to have trained as a lawyer, though he never became a barrister. Lilburne dabbled in the law after the regicide but Wildman took a much more professional interest in the field, acting as legal adviser to the Duke of Buckingham after the Restoration.²¹⁴ Although Wildman became very prosperous in the 1650s, was elected to the first protectorate parliament (though he never sat as MP), and was knighted by William III, Aylmer himself confessed he is unlikely to have come from gentry origins.²¹⁵

Regardless of the social milieu from which Leveller ideas arose, the key to their success lay in effective employment of the printing press. A broader survey of the Leveller movement using bibliographical methods is likely to bring to light a great deal more about a political organisation whose political influence was largely dependent on popular print.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The research for this article was funded by a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada. I would like to thank SSHRC for supporting my research and to thank the staff and students of the University of Alberta, where I held this fellowship, along with the fellows and students of Wolfson College, Cambridge, where I simultaneously held a non-stipendiary Junior Research Fellowship, for providing such friendly and intellectually stimulating environments during the course of my research. I would also like to thank David Como, John Lane, David McKitterick, John Morrill, and Daniel Woolf for providing me with their invaluable advice and encouragement. The images are by kind permission of Guildhall Library, City of London; the Library of the Society of Friends, Friends House, London; Lincoln’s Inn Library, London; the Parliamentary Archives, London; and Worcester College Library, Oxford. I have also reproduced photographs by kind permission of the Master and Fellows of Jesus College, Cambridge; the Governors and Guardians of Marsh’s Library, Dublin; the Master and Fellows of St John’s College, Cambridge; and the Board of Trinity College Dublin; while photographs I have taken from The Angus Library, Regent’s Park College, Oxford are used with their kind permission.

APPENDIX A PAMPHLETS PRINTED BY RICHARD OVERTON, SEPTEMBER 1644-AUGUST 1646

Line numbers are not inclusive of running titles, page numbers at the top of the page, or of marginalia; line numbers do include titles on title-pages, and later subheadings, or chapter headings. Where required, ‘page number’ has been abbreviated to ‘pn’ and ‘running title to ‘rt’. The number of distinctive letters for each pamphlet is given in parentheses after its title and Wing number; the number of instances of each particular letter in each pamphlet is also given in parentheses after its letter code.

Nicholas Tew’s House, Coleman Street

1VRC — Francis Cornwell, The Vindication, Wing C6339 (2)

h11 (2): A4^v/p.2, line 14; B3^v/p.8, line 14

H21 (1): A2^v/line 16

2CPS — [William Walwyn], The Compassionate Samaritane, Wing W681B (3)

W02(1): C8^r/p. 53, line 8

h11 (1): D3^r/p. 67, line 4

H21 (1): A7^v/p.4, line 11

3LWP — John Lilburne, Letter to Prinne, Wing L2092 (3)

m11 (1): A3^r/p. 5, line 2

t11 (1): A2^r/p. 3, line 10

N21 (1): A1^r/p. 1, line 7

4ANA — John Lilburne, An Answer to Nine Arguments, Wing L2081 (4)

W01 (1): F3^v/p.38, line 8

h11 (2): C1^v/p. 10, line 7; D2^r/p. 19, line 1

m11 (1): F1^r/p. 34, line 25

A21 (2): D3^v/p. 22, line 29; G1^r/p. 41, line 32

5FEG — The Fountaine of Free Grace, Wing S482 (4)

T01 (1): A2^r/line 5

d11 (1): B3^r/p. 17, line 3

t11 (1): A4^r/p. 3, line 25

P21 (1): B1^v/p. 14, line 3

Goodman Field’s (Deadmans Place?) Press

6AMP1 — [Richard Overton], The Araignement, 1st edn, Wing O620 (12)

T01 (3): D3^r/p. 21, line 8; E4^v/p. 31, line 21; G2^v/p. 43, line 31

W01 (3): C1^v/p. 10, line 6; D1^v/p. 18, line 32; F4^r/p. 38, line 39

h11 (4): B2^v/p. 4, line 5; C3^r/p. 13, line 32; E3^v/p. 29, line 36; F2^v/p. 35, line 16

m11 (4): D2^r/p. 19, line 11; E3^v/p. 29, line 20; F2^v/p. 35, line 16; G1^v/p. 41, line 39

t11 (2): C2^r/p.9, line 20; G2^v/p. 43, line 33

w11 (2): C1^v/p. 10, line 23; E4^r/p. 30, line 11

E21 (3): D3^r/p. 21, line 34; F2^v/p. 35, line 16; G1^v/p. 41, line 38

M21 (3): A2^r/title, line 14; C1^r/p. 9, line 16; F2^v/p. 35, line 16

N21 (1): A2^r/title, line 14

P21 (3): C3^v/p. 41, line 21; D2^v/p. 20, line 6; E2^v/p. 28, line 17

S21 (1): A3^v, line 27

S22 (3): D3^v/p. 22, line 27; E3^v/p. 29, line 8; F3^v/p. 37, line 37

7AMP2 — [Richard Overton], The Araignement, 2nd edn, Wing O621 (15)

P01 (1): A2^r/title, line 24

T01 (3): A1^v, line 22; C1^r/p. 9, line 2; F1^r/p. 33, line 13