Page:Plomer Dictionary of the Booksellers and Printers 1907.djvu/20

xiv who from being an ironmonger, had turned tub-thumper, pamphleteer, and bookseller. This Ordinance further stated that several persons, stationers themselves and members of the Company, out of revenge against those appointed to carry out the orders of Parliament, had taken the liberty to print the most profitable vendible copies of books, belonging to those privileged members. It then proceeded to enact (1) That no order of either House of Parliament, should be printed by anyone, except by order of one or both Houses; (2) That no book, pamphlet, or paper, should be printed, bound, stitched, or put to sale, without the licence of the person appointed by Parliament to licence it and without being entered in the Registers of the Company; (3) That no book which was the property of the Company should be printed without their consent, or that of the owner of the copyright; (4) Nor should any such books formerly printed in England, be imported from abroad. The Company, the Serjeant of the House of Commons, Justices of the Peace, and Constables were given the right of search.

Incidentally, this ordinance affords an insight into the condition of the Company, which is amply borne out by the Registers of that period. The Company was at war within itself, and the men who entered in the Registers were those who, for the time being, were uppermost in its councils, and these took care that their opponents should not have the right of registration. Neutral men, such as Humphrey Moseley, who appears to have entered whatever and whenever he wished, were not meddled with; but the small number of men whose names are found in these Registers between 1641–1650, is the strongest possible evidence that they were not open to all impartially. Indeed, the fact is further emphasized by the action which Roger Norton brought against the Company, for striking out of the Register certain grammatical books, which were his copyright. Roger Norton was a Royalist, and the prevailing party in the Company at that time were Roundheads. Thus the entries in the Registers for those years, interesting and valuable as they must always be, represent only a fractional part of the output of the press.