absence, members of the House of Commons had taken a detailed audit of their complaints. An emergent reformer called John Pym compiled a Grand Remonstrance, a daunting state-of-the-kingdom review. The Remonstrance would be read out to the King in full by messengers from Parliament; they would need vocal stamina. A bitter compendium of over two hundred clauses listed every possible grievance in church and civil life. Singled out were unjust taxes, with an enormous list of land encroachments, distraints of trade, monopolies and fines. The most impassioned outcry condemned the evils of the Star Chamber, which had organised censorship.
Even while it was in draft, secret copies of the Grand Remonstrance circulated in Coleman Street. In next- door Basinghall Street, Robert Allibone quoted with relish: ''Subjects have been oppressed by grievous fines, imprisonments, stigmatisings, mutilations, whippings, pillories, gags, confinements, banishments!'
Gideon snatched the copy. ''After so rigid a manner as hath not only deprived men of the society of their friends, exercise of their professions, comfort of books' — ho! ho! — '' ''use of paper or ink, but even violated that near union which God hath established between men and their wives, whereby they have been bereaved of the comfort and conversation one of another for many years together, without hope of relief…' — Comfort of books — this is excellent for our trade, Robert!'
'We shall see…' Allibone was rightly cautious. Printers would soon be summoned to the bar of the House of Commons to account for seditious material, and in coming weeks an order would be given to collect certain books from stationers and burn them. 'The conclusion is good.' Allibone retrieved the paper. ''That His Majesty may have cause to be in love with good counsel and good men'
Gideon pulled a face. 'Why not simply say they hate the cut of his beard?'
Revolts come and go but young men remain the same. At twenty, Gideon Jukes was obsessed with beard and whisker design. With fair hair and equally fair skin-tones, the current fashions made him look from almost any distance as if he had a long upper lip and a pointed chin. He had let his hair grow down to his shoulders, an unsuccessful experiment to show he was no longer an apprentice, but was tormented by whether or not to remain clean-shaven.
Robert had been beardless as long as Gideon had known him, his chestnut hair clean, trimmed and parted centrally. For all the usual reasons, Gideon wanted more dash. He had been brought up to aim for a plain appearance — but, having given much thought to this, he knew women would not be tempted to adventure by a demurely respectable look.
'I saw King Charles once.' Gideon chose not to mention that he had been acting in a masque at the time. (One thing was sure; he could not have a courtier's beard.) 'His Majesty smiles to right and left — but does not see or listen.'
'He must hear this.'
'And if not?'
'I fear he will rue it.'
'And I fear we shall all be hanged,' replied Gideon, the pragmatist. It did not hold him back from supporting the Remonstrance.
When the King arrived home from Scotland, surprisingly, he was received with fervent rejoicing. He entered London in procession and enjoyed a four-course feast in Guildhall. This did not go down well with Robert and Gideon nearby in Basinghall Street. Church bells pealed and the fountains ran with wine. There was divisiveness, however. The King dined in his majesty with the House of Lords; the Lord Mayor and alderman, though his hosts for the event, were allowed only to form an audience in the upper gallery. The House of Commons was snubbed entirely; none was invited.
The Scottish Presbyterians had been pacified, but the Irish Catholics rebelled, fired by resentment towards the many English settlers. Horrific stories of massacre and mutilation circulated.
'Is this true, or invented to arouse passions?' Gideon demanded as he read the details, all eagerly believed by the public, who were appalled and terrified.
'Oh, we must publish and let the people judge,' his partner answered.
Gideon was silent for a moment. He remained an idealist. 'People will believe these stories because they are printed.'
A few printers provided reasoned comments but most were selling sensational stories. The King viewed Ireland as a conquered province full of savages. Now came sickening accounts of the revenge taken by these downtrodden people: the Lord Justice forced to hide in a hen-house, a bishop's family found shivering in rags in a snowdrift, an immigrant Englishwoman hanged by her hair from her door, a bulky Scotsman murdered and rendered into candles, allegedly hundreds of thousands killed, pregnant wives and young daughters raped, babies spitted on pikes, children hanged. Official reprisals followed. Horrors carried out by the King's forces were then reported, horrors on a scale that even shocked veterans of the brutal war on the Continent. The soldiers' terrible deeds were cited as illustrations of the King's personal cruelty.
Amidst terror that Irish rebels would cross to England, bringing such atrocities with them, men of conscience carefully read the news-sheets. Many were turned into supporters of Parliament by their revulsion for the royal power that had caused, encouraged, tolerated and apparently remained unmoved by the inhuman events.
The Grand Remonstrance was passed in the House of Commons by a majority of only eleven, after a tense all-night sitting. Gideon had begun to take serious notice of what Parliament did. Where Robert had the hard attitude of a man who had been knocked about by life, Gideon was open, fresh and eager to receive new ideas.
People began to issue petitions of their own, many sent from remote parts of the country. All the London apprentices, thirty thousand of them, signed one. They then flocked around Parliament, armed with staves, oars and broomsticks, but were cleared away by the Westminster Trained Bands, for 'threatening behaviour'. They moved on and mobbed Whitehall Palace. This was when Queen Henrietta Maria was said to have looked out and christened the lads with their short haircuts 'Roundheads'. The apprentices took it up eagerly. Meanwhile staider demonstrators flowed down the Strand to Westminster, members of the lower and middle classes from one shire after another, beseeching Parliament to urge the King to abandon his evil counsellors, as if people believed all the country's ills were the fault of bad men who had bamboozled him.
The abolition of the Star Chamber and official censorship directly affected printers. Robert and Gideon were furiously busy. News-sheets erupted onto London streets, giving reports of Parliamentary debates. They were cheap, and the public devoured them. It was the first time in England that detailed political material was available without crown control. The first tentative pamphlets were followed by a rash of competing Mercuries, Messengers and Diurnals. Many were printed in and around Coleman Street. Robert and Gideon produced their share.
In December, Gideon's brother Lambert made a journey across the river and out to Blackheath. A cavalcade of coaches turned out along the Dover Road, with thousands of well-wishers on foot. Lambert jumped on the back of a carriage and was carried up the short steep hill near Greenwich, arriving just in time on the bare, windy heath that had previously seen Cornish rebels and Jack Cade, and which now witnessed the triumphant return of the convicted pamphleteer Dr John Bastwick from his intended life-imprisonment on the Isles of Scilly. Roaring crowds adorned him with wreaths of rosemary and bay, for remembrance and victory — garlands which hid his missing ears, sliced off as a punishment for sedition on the orders of Archbishop Laud's Star Chamber. Lambert hitched a lift home with an apothecary, who was looking forward to boosting his fortunes with salves for soldiers if there was a war.
A week later, the Grand Remonstrance was formally presented to the King at Hampton Court. He loftily said he would reply 'in due course'.
'I cannot imagine His Majesty will miss dinner because he has his nose buried in our two hundred clauses!' Gideon's brief experience as a masquer made him feel an expert on court etiquette.
After a fortnight of royal silence, the Grand Remonstrance was printed for the public anyway.
Six days later, significant change came to the Common Council of the City of London. Elections were held and the council was packed with radicals, displacing the traditional conservatives who grovelled to the monarchy. John Jukes was one of the new members. He reported that support for the King was fast declining in the City, although the present Lord Mayor remained loyal to Charles. 'A bombast in greasy ermine, a corporation sultan!' scoffed Robert.
Gideon described how the ermine was passed down through merchant families in an obstinately closed City community that was just as elite as the royal court. 'Dick Whittington and his cat would never find advancement now. Robert, the fat sirs in Guildhall cling together like Thames mud. They win their gold chains because they are
