No. 24, October/November 2008

The Common Weales Canker Wormes, or the Locusts Both of Church and States

  Click the image to enlarge it This superb late Jacobean single-sheet print survives in two impressions, but to my knowledge has only ever been published previously by Alexander Globe in his exemplary catalogue raisonné, Peter Stent, London Printseller c. 1642-65 (Vancouver, 1985), where it is cat. no. 504. Globe reproduced his impression from the Ashmolean Museum’s Sutherland Collection, but was unaware that a second impression is preserved in the Brotherton Library of Leeds University, by whose kind permission the present plate is reproduced. This impression is also exceptional in bearing the manuscript licence of Sir Roger L’Estrange dated October 28th 1672, presumably when being licensed to Stent’s successor, John Overton, and one of six sheets now known to have been licensed by L’Estrange on that day. Why Stent (active c.1642-1665) and his successor Overton should wish to reissue it in the different political circumstances obtaining in the mid and later century is not obvious, though there is perhaps no need to look for any particular reason behind the publication of an anti-Catholic sheet in post-Reformation England. Despite its topical origins in the particular historical milieu of the late Jacobean era, as an estates satire which lampoons various occupations its appeal is perennial—and its graphic impact also makes it an attractive publishing venture.

Generically, it is an example of the topos I term Death and the Four/Five Alls of which various examples are known, 1 but it introduces a decidedly more satirical note. It is a complex composition. Arranged in a circle round a grotesque female devil standing in a hell-mouth, ten human types (each provided with an inscribed banderole and an inset emblem) describe their relations with the previous persons. Each character performs his (usually negative) office for all the preceding characters, while the Devil reveals that ultimately they are all his agents, and that he will use the chain composed of human fingers, ears and tongues that links them, to drag them all into hell. Each of the ten types is further labelled with a letter which is keyed to the corresponding quatrain below the image portion of the sheet.

Globe suggested the sheet was engraved ‘c. 1650’ because he evidently associated the Common Weal of the title with the Commonwealth era, i.e. the ‘Republican’ period between the execution of Charles I in 1649 and the Restoration of Charles II in 1660—even Homer nods! As we have noted above, the print was clearly still in circulation at this period, but I suggest it was first issued a generation earlier. Certainly the costumes are impossible for the 1650s, but there is no detail that would be out of place in the 1620s. The costume historian, Prof. Ribiera, has kindly informed me that she would date the costume c.1625, that of the tailor being—appropriately—in the latest datable fashion on the sheet.

There are further clues to be had in the accompanying text—which allots a quatrain to each character—and in their accompanying ‘emblems’. Although the ten characters represented are for the most part ‘generic’, I suggest that those I here refer to as the Jesuit, labelled G, and the Ambassador, labelled I, were intended by the designer to be identified with two known individuals, notorious in Jacobean England. The verse given to the Ambassador clearly implies Spain’s imperial ambitions, and that the figure in question is working cunningly ('foxe-like') for Spain—again, quite inappropriate to the international Realpolitik of c.1650, but precisely relevant to that of the 1620s: I find I cannot resist the suggestion that the man who boasts of deceiving the previous ten is none other than the Spanish ambassador, Gondomar. Gondomar was the target both of Middleton’s satirical play A Game at Chess (1625), and of Scott’s The Second Part of Vox Populi, or Gondomar appearing in the likenes of Matchiavell (1624), where he appears on the engraved title-page.

The inset ‘emblems’ are certainly worthy of consideration in their own right—and apparently unknown to emblem-scholars. Though the published emblem-book had only been available to an English readership for some forty years at the time I suggest this print was issued—since Whitney’s selection of 1586 (followed up by translations of Paradin (1591), La Perrière (1606,1614) and Peacham’s Minerva Brittana (1612)—recent scholarship has supplied ample evidence of the familiarity of English writers with the emblem genre already in Elizabethan times. 2 Each emblem here consists of an image in a rectangular frame and a Latin motto, transcribed below. The 'seducing' Jesuit (?) holds a book and rosary, but his civilian disguise is visible beneath the otherwise all-enveloping cloak and cowl, his verses openly proclaim his intention to 'bring in Popery… By cunning plotts, devised for Romish use', and significantly, his emblem shows a man setting light to a trail of gunpowder which leads to what looks like a castle—surely an allusion to the Gunpowder Plot, especially when combined with the other Catholic monk, the confessor who absolves all the others. I find I cannot resist identifying him as the Jesuit, Stephen Garnet, the Gunpowder Plotters’ confessor.

Fuller detail about all the other characters depicted and their associations will be found in my essay on this print to be published in the forthcoming volume, Printed Images in Early Modern Britain: Essays in Interpretation, edited by Michael Hunter, to be published by Ashgate. I hope that this will further exemplify the anti-Jesuit fervour abroad in the 1620s sufficiently well to provide a convincingly appropriate context for my redating of The Common Weals Canker Wormes to c.1625, alongside the two identifications I have suggested here.


Description of the characters with their emblems, with transcription of the verses relating to each


A

Character
Wealthy Man 'of the World'
I maintaine these too

Emblem
Man ?embracing world
SPERNO SUPERNA
[I scorn/despise the celestial/heavenly]

Since I have found what others seeke with care
To take my pleasure heere, why should I spare
Ile keepe my champion hee my health shall quaffe
While my Buffoone shall make my worshipp laffe


B

Character
Man/Labourer/Peasant-Farmer digging
I feed these three

Emblem
Man at corner of ?thatched haystack/house
COR LAETUM FACIT HORREA PLENA MIHI
[Full barns make my heart happy]

It is my labour and unwearied paines
That common wealth and humane life maintaines
My sweat feeds you wherfore Ile rate it deare
Or hoard my graine upp for a scarcer yeare


C

Character
Merchant
I cosen these foure

Emblem
Scales and measuring- or tally-stick
LIBRIS ET LABRIS LUCROR FURTIUIS
[I gain by fraudulent scales and ?measures]

Cloathes must bee had and other wares you knowe
And you your moneys must wth mee bestowe
Ile ease your purses with a trick of skill
While mine wth waights & measures false I fill


D

Character
Lawyer
I fleece these five

Emblem
Fox and goose
LEGEM PONE
[Pay up!/Let’s see your money!]

What lett fall such an advantageous cause,
And beare such wronges why tis against the lawes,
Ile prosecute it & uppon my troth,
Ile never leaue it till I have fleecd you bothe [i.e. both parties to the case]


E

Character
Physician
I kill these six

Emblem
Large purse from which smaller purses hang
BONUS ODOR LUCRI EX RE QUALIBET
[The smell of money is good however acquired]

Fye fye take phisicke pray bee ruld by mee
I in your water signes of danger see
Lett mee prescribe y’a potion what care I
So I thrive by’t whether you live or dye


F

Character
Tailor
I shape these seaven

Emblem
(Aesop’s) Ass in a lion’s skin
QUIS ME NOUIT
[Who recognised me]

My Arte transformes your persons to more shapes
Then Proteus for y’are All but french mens Apes
Ile fitt your pride & make you seeme with ease
Prodigious or ridiculous when I please


G

Character
Jesuit (disguised)
I seduce these eight

Emblem
Man lighting powder trail to detonate castle
QUAE A MINIMIS INCIPIUNT IN MAIORA PRORUNT
[Small things overthrow big things]

By cunning plotts, devised for Romish use
Ile make Truth stagger & the Church seduce
By consequence Ile negatives imply
And intricately bring in Popery.


H

Character
?Hermaphrodite/Spy
I betray these nine

Emblem
Flying demon with face and breasts of woman, wings and tail
FRONTI NULLA FIDES (Juvenal)
[Put no faith in the face, i.e. in appearances]

And so well usherd Ile make ready way
To lett the foe in and the state betray
Soe weake and so disjoynd how easy ist
Toverunne a land not able to resist


I

Character
Ambassador
I deseave these tenne

Emblem
Fox measuring off the world with compasses
QUIS NOSTRA IMPERIO FINES IMPONERE POSSIT
[Who can impose a limit on our empire]

With sly protexts & foxe: like falacy
Ile compasse Earth Spaines mighty Monarchy,
And or by force or fraud Ile trample downe,
All opposits that hinder our renowne


K

Character
Catholic Priest/Friar/Monk
I absolve these eleaven

Emblem
Switch, scourge and purse
QUI NON HABET IN AERE LUAT IN CORPORE
[Who has not the money will suffer corporal punishment]

Noe paying soules in Purgatory stay
Our praying songs soone send ym thence away
But silly soules they frying must endure
Which have no coyne theire pardon to procure


[Centre, standing in large monstrous mouth]

Character
Devil
I draw these twelve to hell

See heere a crew of crafty mates well mett
Link’d wth a chaine of tongues & eares all sett
A worke by mee who thus the world doe gull
And thus these soules at length to hell doe pull
Thus they that gull themselues are gulld as fast
And Sathan cheats the cheating world at last.

Brotherton Library, University of Leeds. Dimensions of original: 320 mm x 376 mm.

Footnotes

1.
E.g. an early seventeenth-century carved stone sign in Ghent museum (M. de Meyer, De Volks- en Kinderprent in de Nederlanden (Antwerp & Amsterdam, 1962), pp. 396-9) or an Italian sheet engraved by Giuseppe Maria Mitelli issued in 1691 entitled, Vno la fa all’ altro e il diavolo a tvtti [Each does it to the other and the devil to all], reproduced as fig. 9-22 in D. Kunzle, The Early Comic Strip (Berkeley, 1973), p. 288: Milan, Bertarelli Collection cart. M. 3-37. Back to context...
2.
See M. Bath, Speaking Pictures (London, 1994). Back to context...