Others ran, as we had done; and emerged, as we had done, in the other great cities of Christendom to find their kin, to find refuge and help from distant cousins or loyal friends. Our family helped us to London with letters of introduction to the d’Israeli family, who here went by the name of Carpenter, organised my betrothal to the Carpenter boy, financed my father’s purchase of the printing press and found us the rooms over the shop off Fleet Street.

* * *

In the months after our arrival I set myself to learn my way around yet another city, as my father set up his print shop with an absolute determination to survive and to provide for me. At once, his stock of texts was much in demand, especially his copies of the gospels that he had brought inside the waistband of his breeches and now translated into English. He bought the books and manuscripts which once belonged to the libraries of religious houses—destroyed by Henry, the king before the young king, Edward. The scholarship of centuries was thrown to the winds by the old king, Henry, and every shop on each corner had a pile of papers that could be bought by the bushel. It was a bibliographer’s heaven. My father went out daily and came back with something rare and precious and when he had tidied it, and indexed it, everyone wanted to buy. They were mad for the Holy Word in London. At night, even when he was weary, he set print and ran off short copies of the gospels and simple texts for the faithful to study, all in English, all clear and simple. This was a country determined to read for itself and to live without priests, so at least I could be glad of that.

We sold the texts cheaply, at little more than cost price, to spread the word of God. We let it be known that we believed in giving the Word to the people, because we were convinced Protestants now. We could not have been better Protestants if our lives had depended on it.

Of course, our lives did depend on it.

I ran errands, read proofs, helped with translations, set print, stitched like a saddler with the sharp needle of the binder, read the backwards-writing on the stone of the printing press. On days when I was not busy in the print shop I stood outside to summon passers-by. I still dressed in the boy’s clothes I had used for our escape and anyone would have mistaken me for an idle lad, breeches flapping against my bare calves, bare feet crammed into old shoes, cap askew. I lounged against the wall of our shop like a vagrant lad whenever the sun came out, drinking in the weak English sunshine and idly surveying the street. To my right was another bookseller’s shop, smaller than ours and with cheaper wares. To the left was a publisher of chap books, poems and tracts for itinerant pedlars and ballad sellers, beyond him a painter of miniatures and maker of dainty toys, and beyond him a portrait painter and limner. We were all workers with paper and ink in this street, and Father told me that I should be grateful for a life which kept my hands soft. I should have been; but I was not.