University of Virginia Library

Deception Compounded: Further Problems in Seventeenth-Century Irish Printing
by
John Alden

If earlier pages of Studies in Bibliography [1] suggested that, in Irish printing of the seventeenth century, nothing need necessarily be what it seems, the fact perhaps reveals a fundamental and characteristic trait in Irish life, as true of its politics and its Church as of its bibliography.[2] While the essay in question stressed the existence of false places of publication in Irishprinted books, it now appears that on occasion even imprint dates may also be misleading.

Of the numerous political events which harrowed Ireland in the seventeenth century the Cromwellian Settlement is one of the most significant.[3] On the return to England of Charles II one of his first steps was the restoration to his dispossessed Irish supporters of their lands, promulgated in a Gracious Declaration for the Settlement of . . . Ireland. After having been detained in England by the marriage of Charles II to Catherine of Braganza, the Duke of Ormonde in turn lost no time when he arrived in Dublin as Lord Lieutenant in giving the Royal Assent to the Act of Settlement passed in 1662 by the Irish Parliament to implement the principles set forth by

Charles. That the Act resulted in numerous inequities and much confusion will not surprise the reader of J. P. Prendergast's Ireland from the Restoration to the Revolution (1887), and, almost inevitably, it was necessary in 1665 to pass a further Act for the Explaining of some Doubts amending the Act of Settlement of 1662. By means of these two Acts, in Brian FitzGerald's words, "Amidst confusion and heartburning, the ownership of the land of Ireland became once more determined. And . . . this time the settlement endured. It was to maintain the Anglo-Irish Ascendancy for the next two hundred and fifty years".[4]

As historical documents the two Acts in their published form will be recognized for their vital importance.[5] But, being Irish in origin, the two items may be confidently counted on to offer complications.

Bibliographically this they indeed do. For of the 1662 Act of Settlement there prove to be two distinct settings of type, distinguished in the Bradshaw Catalogue in terms of the type ornaments which border the title page: in one (Bradshaw 58), the ornaments consist of double rosettes (as in a horizontal S), while in the other (Bradshaw 59) they comprise fleurs-de-lis. No explanation of the relation of the two appears however ever to have been advanced.

As a matter of fact, such an explanation is not far to seek. It is hinted at in a variant copy of the two Acts in the British Museum which has not hitherto been seriously considered. The copy in question combines the fleur-de-lis edition of the 1662 Act of Settlement with a copy of the 1665 Act of Explanation. In the latter the half-title and the title page have been cancelled, while on p. 3 the woodcut headpiece and caption ("An° Regni Caroli . . . His Majesties reign", a total of 14 lines) have been removed from the forme. In this guise the two acts appear as a bibliographical unit.

This unity has further meaning for us, when one observes that the title border of the 1665 Act of Settlement also consists of fleurs-de-lis. That what has happened is patently this: With the promulgation of the 1665 Act of Explanation, further copies of the original Act of Settlement were required for point of reference. The supply being either exhausted or at least insufficient, it was necessary to print a new edition, and in doing so the typographic style and ornamentation of the 1665 Act of Explanation itself were followed. Possibly for legalistic reasons the original 1662 imprint date was retained. But it now appears that the imprint of the edition of the Act of Settlement with fleur-de-lis border should read, bibliographically speaking:

Dublin, Printed by John Crook, Printer to the Kings Most Excellent Majesty, 1662 [i. e., 1665?].[6]

If in the writer's "Deception in Dublin" emphasis was laid on false imprints, it is equally true that the matter was not exhausted. As a case in point, the Trinity College, Cambridge, Library possesses an edition of A Proclamation concerning A Cessation of Arms with the imprint "Printed at Dublin, by William Bladen, printer to the Kings most Excellent Majestie, Anno Dom. 1643", which collates: 1 leaf, 17 pp. (A-B4 C2). On p. 1 appears a factotum block, and on p. 16 are used a number of open-face acorn ornaments. Neither is found, however, in other Bladen publications of the period, and the Dublin origin of the pamphlet is open to suspicion.

Of this Proclamation and related documents, the result of negotiations between the Duke of Ormonde, representing the government of Charles I, and the Supreme Council of Confederate Catholics at Kilkenny there are numerous editions in various forms. There is, for instance, a broadside declaration of the Confederate Catholics printed at Waterford in 1643, described by Robert Steele in his Tudor and Stuart Proclamations (Ir 390), and entered by Wing apparently twice, as I 354 and again as I 394. There is also a pamphlet edition of the larger work with Bladen's imprint as given above, collating this time: 1 leaf, 17 (i. e., 18) pp. (A-B4 C2), with p. 18 misnumbered 17, and, on p. 1, Steele's arms no. 172. This edition appears to be that described by Wing as C2559, under Charles I; and again, under Ireland, as I 604. A similar pamphlet edition has the imprint "Imprinted at Dublin, By William Bladen, Printer to the Kings most Excellent Majesty, Anno Dom. 1643", collating: 1 leaf, 18 pp. (A-C4, with A1 and C4 blank), of which p. 1 is misnumbered 2. It too contains Steele's arms no. 172. This edition seems not to be in Wing at all. And finally there is a London edition with the imprint "Dublin, by William Bladen; reprinted at London for Edw. Husbands, October 21. 1643". On this edition Wing lavishes three locations, with varying degrees of accuracy in his descriptions: under Charles I, as C2560; under Ireland, as I 605; and under Ormonde, as O 457.

Oddly enough, it is this London edition which provides the clue to the probable identity of our mysterious edition. For on the very title page of the Husbands' edition are the open-face acorns which aroused our earlier suspicions. What printer worked for Husbands at this period? He is named in the imprint of a June 23, 1643, edition of Two Letters from His Excellencie Robert Earl of Essex as John Field. An examination of various works

printed in Field's shop reveals that it possessed both the acorns and the factotum block of our curious "Dublin" edition. That this last was a piracy perpetrated in Field's shop seems likely, a quite unauthorized edition in the face of Husbands' commission by Parliament (cited on the title page) plausian entry in the Stationers' Register in Husbands' name. No less than plausible is the theory that Field on receiving a copy of the Dublin edition from which to set up an edition for Husbands chose to pirate an edition, rather closer in appearance typographically to the Dublin original than Husbands'. The fact that Husbands was a political appointee as publisher for the Roundhead Parliament, a sort of intruder in the printing trade, may have done much to assuage any moral scruples which Field had.

The really frightening question is to what degree Field or others may have engaged in this practice at Husbands' expense. For it becomes increasingly likely that the suspicious Declaration of the Commons with the imprint "London, printed for Edward Husband Feb. 16, 1647. Reprinted at Kilkenny in the yeare 1648" is a comparable example of a similar practice.[7] Is it now going to be necessary to re-examine the hundreds of works printed for Husbands during the period of the Commonwealth for further instances of piracy, relevant not only to Irish books but to English works as well?

Notes