thrown into Newgate Prison and between June and August was on trial, supported by Richard Overton. As a measure against subversion, John Thurloe, a member of the Council of State, was given sole charge of collecting intelligence. His role included oversight of press censorship. For him it was the start of a serious career as a spymaster, a career in which one day Gideon Jukes would work with him.
With the abolition of the Rump came further measures against printers. The press had been in difficulties politically for a long time. Almost as soon as the Star Chamber was abolished and freedom from censorship announced, Parliament had regretted it. Attempts to rein back began immediately and repression had continued ever since. Many of the news-sheets that had sprung up during the civil war had already been extinguished, though so far the Public Corranto struggled on. After the King was executed new laws had forced Robert to pay a bond of three hundred pounds, promising not to publish seditious or scandalous material.
Gideon knew that Robert Allibone was incensed. Robert saw Cromwell's expulsion of the Rump as new tyranny. The partners had had some arguments because Gideon was afraid that free elections would lead to a Presbyterian government. He shared the Army's exasperation with the Rump's attempts to self-perpetuate itself, yet he was anxious not to see the New Model Army's achievements thrown out. So Gideon did not entirely share Robert's anguish.
He was not surprised when Robert produced a new pamphlet under his old pseudonym, 'Mr A.R.', calling it The Bauble-Botherer's Betrayal. What was unusual was that for once Robert must have been careless. Gideon was astonished how fast the authorities reacted. Perhaps Robert had been under suspicion before. Perhaps this time an informant supplied an address. At any rate, early one morning, when Gideon and Lambert were having their breakfast in Bread Street, the printers' apprentice, Miles Gentry, burst in. Miles was hysterical, crying that the print shop had been trashed in a dawn raid. Robert had been dragged out of bed in his nightshirt and arrested.
Gideon ran to the shop. The weeping Miles stumbled at his heels. Everything was as he said: the print shop had been crudely turned over. Papers littered the street, but Gideon could tell that many printed items must have been removed. All copies of The Bauble-Botherer's Betrayal had been seized. Back editions of the Public Corranto were gone too. Metal letters had been tossed from their trays and strewn about the shop. Ink had been emptied out in the street gutters. Most extraordinary was that where the press had always stood was now an empty space.
Miles went down on his knees, fervently gathering up the scattered type, especially Robert's favourite, his Double Pica Roman, a clean and readable font he had used throughout his career after secretly smuggling the letter set from Flanders. Recent laws forbade the importation of printers' letters, implements or presses; replacements would be not only expensive but almost impossible to obtain.
Gideon stared at ink-stained floorboards, almost unable to believe his eyes. 'They took the press!'
'They brought a cart for the purpose, Gideon.'
'Robert has had that press as long as I have known him — we lugged it here from Fleet Alley before the war!'
'It is confiscated. The men said they had orders to find all the obnoxious publications, seize the press and take Robert to the Tower.'
Word had run around the tight community. Other printers came from Coleman Street to commiserate. Witnesses were found. In that conspiratorial area, everyone was on constant alert for interference. A dawn raid might have an element of surprise for the victim but it could not be achieved without attracting a crowd. Miles was too distressed to describe the raid, but others came forward to tell how Robert had been subjected to a barrage of questions. He had with great spirit returned what seemed to be printers' standard answers:
'He was shown a pamphlet called The Bauble-Botherer's Betrayal and asked who the author of it was. Master Allibone stoutly replied, he was scarce able to say who was the author of it. About two weeks before, he had printed a book like the one he was being shown, but he could not say for certain whether that was the exact one or not. So he was then asked where was the original copy of the pamphlet, to which our Robert mildly returned that after we have printed and corrected works of that nature, the copies are thrown out as waste paper. 'I expect,' said he, with his whimsical smile, 'it is being used as bum-fodder in the privy by some large-buttocked alderman.' They pressed him again so, looking closely at the pamphlet, he claimed that there was some alteration from what he had printed; it might not be the same, and for all he knew it had been reprinted by others twenty times or more… He has answered interrogations before, of course — ' It was news to Gideon. 'So they asked how many he had printed and he told them he had no idea, but the usual number would be one thousand. That was the grain of truth, you know, to make his other answers sound reasonable. Afterwards he protested, as we generally do, that unless the work is a matter of controversy, we never keep any spare copies.'
'Unfortunately,' said Miles miserably, 'the soldiers then found some hidden.'
'So they asked, who was 'Mr A.R.' and the good Allibone declared he had no idea, never having seen him before that day.'
As Gideon guffawed, another printer took up the story: 'Master Allibone was then informed that exceptions had been taken to the pamphlet. He was accused that the matters contained in it are erroneous, profane and highly scandalous.'
'He is never profane,' sniffed Gideon.
'True. But by then they were hauling out his press, which made him apoplectic. Thereupon he hit a soldier, who struck him in return with a musket-butt. And so they carried him away.'
Robert had been taken not to the Tower, it turned out, but to the Poultry Compter, a local civil prison, close by and reached down Ironmongers Lane. When Gideon rushed to this prison, again with Miles, he was at first told he could not see his friend. Then, a shamefaced jailor admitted that Robert had been brought here after he became unwell on the intended journey to the Tower. The man took Gideon to a cell. No one had explained, but as soon as Gideon knelt down beside his friend, he knew. Robert lay quite motionless. He was on his back, still in his nightshirt and bare feet, the nightshirt opened over the chest. He was dead. Robert was still warm, as warm as if he lived. Gideon crouched with him, horrified. Miles could not accept the truth; he began rubbing Robert's hands, calling out to his master to revive.
'Miles, Miles, Miles! It is no use.'
A doctor was still talking to the staff. As Gideon held his old friend's lifeless body on his lap, this man came to the cell door, looking at them curiously.
'He is gone, sir. He was gone before I came. The shock of his arrest brought it on. His heart had a massive convulsion and he was taken from the world in a few minutes. He cannot have known what was happening.'
So Robert Allibone was lost, at two years short of fifty, as much a casualty of the civil war as if he had served in the army. His friends buried him with bunches of sea-green ribbons lying on the coffin. Copies of his most fervent pamphlets were hidden inside it with him, especially those that had been confiscated on the orders of the new, 'Barebones' Parliament — an act of defiance, which they deemed would have pleased him. Large numbers of the printing community attended the funeral, along with many civilian Levellers, foremost among them the estimable William Walwyn. Many tears were shed for Robert openly that day, others more privately. His partner Gideon Jukes and their apprentice Miles Gentry were inconsolable.
Chapter Seventy-One — Shoe Lane: Autumn 1653
When he walked into his print shop and found Juliana Lovell talking to Miles, Gideon Jukes froze. He recognised the nape of her neck first, then her voice, her figure, her determined way of speaking out even to a youth who was annoying her… Gideon might have stepped backwards and fled, but Miles had seen him. As Juliana turned, there was no escape. He had been a soldier, so he stood his ground.
Any other woman asking him to print embroidery designs would have been out of luck. Forced into conversation about her request, Gideon took refuge in his professional role. He outlined carefully what would be involved in commissioning an engraver to draw illustrations. Even to his own ears his voice sounded colourless; he could see Miles looking at him as if he thought Gideon was sickening. Since Robert's death, Miles had taken obsessive care of him. The apprentice had been shaken by the traumatic loss of his first master and was anxious that he might be left alone in the world if anything happened to the second. 'I accept there are precedents. Emblem books exist, Mistress Lovell.'
