yard of St. Paul’s. At the turn of the 16th century, Fleet
Street was already a center for the bookbinding and
bookselling trades, and Worde was soon followed by
other printers, including RICHARD PYNSON, Richard
Redmond, and Julian Notary, establishing a tradition
of publishing in Fleet Street, which has lasted for more
than 500 years.
The move to Fleet Street was marked by a shift in
printing focus for Worde, away from Caxton’s interest
in catering to readers from the court and government,
to a more popular reading audience. Worde printed a
wide variety of texts, including popular ROMANCEs,
works on household practice, and even children’s
books. While Caxton favored works of history and
CHIVALRY, Worde specialized in religious works and
educational books used in grammar schools. He culti-
vated relationships with religious houses and enjoyed
the PATRONAGE of several important fi gures, most nota-
bly Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry VII and grand-
mother of HENRY VIII.
While the print quality of Worde’s work is fre-
quently considered inferior to his master, Caxton, and
his contemporary, Pynson, the value of his contribu-
tion to English printing cannot be overestimated. By
the time of his death in 1535, Worde was responsible
for roughly 800 publications. His vast output helped
to popularize printed books in his own day and has led
to more works surviving for scholars to study today.
FURTHER READING
Bennett, H. S. English Books & Readers: 1475–1557. Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969.
Moran, James. Wynkyn de Worde: Father of Fleet Street. 3rd
ed. London: British Library and Oak Knoll Press, 2003.
Christina M. Carlson
“WRITTEN ON A WINDOW FRAME
[OR WALL] AT WOODSTOCK” AND
“WRITTEN WITH A DIAMOND” QUEEN
ELIZABETH I (1554–1555) When she was a prin-
cess during the reign of her half sister MARY I, ELIZA-
BETH I was imprisoned in a number of places, including
the TOWER OF LONDON and a palace at Woodstock
(1554–55). (Noble “Prisons” were places of confi ne-
ment where they were isolated from contact with any-
one the ruler did not want them to see.) When
Elizabeth fi nally ascended the throne in 1558, Protes-
tants in England and throughout Europe were
delighted, and in the years following made shrines of
her former prisons. In describing his visit to one of
them in 1600, Baron Waldstein of Moravia spoke of
two poems written on a wall. He also alluded to some
poems written with a diamond on a window. Others
have spoken of the longer of these two poems as being
written on a window frame or a shutter. The scholar
Leah Marcus points out that the English “made an
inveterate practice of writing messages, proverbs, and
‘posies’ on walls, shutters, and other public surfaces.”
Elizabeth may have written this longer poem on a
wooden window frame or shutter initially in charcoal.
This substance, however, is not very permanent and
can easily be brushed off. Marcus speculates that the
poem was later copied onto a wall so as to be more
permanent and also to allow its being read more easily.
Elizabeth probably carved the shorter poem into the
window pane with a diamond.
It is not easy to write on glass with a diamond—
especially if it is part of a ring, necklace, or earring—so
“Written with a Diamond” is predictably short. It is a
rhymed COUPLET that alludes to the causes of Eliza-
beth’s imprisonment—her possible part in a rebellion
against Mary and her possible affair with Thomas Sey-
mour, her stepmother’s husband: “Much is suspected
by me, / Nothing proved can be” (ll. 1–2). The fi rst line
can be read two ways: that her accusers suspect Eliza-
beth of many things, or that Elizabeth suspects her
accusers of many things. The second line is also open
to two readings: the fi rst, that the accusers cannot
prove any of their suspicions, therefore Elizabeth is
innocent; the second, only that no one can prove the
suspicions. This circumstance does not necessarily
assure Elizabeth’s innocence. It merely states that noth-
ing can be proved against her. The last line, with the
Latin “Quod”—“said”—is the only completely unam-
biguous line in this poem: Elizabeth is a prisoner.
In the longer poem written on a window frame or
wall, Elizabeth speaks with FORTUNE about her state.
The medieval concept of Fortune as an uncaring god-
dess who turned the wheel of Fate was still extant in
the early modern period. As a Protestant princess in a“WRITTEN ON A WINDOW FRAME [OR WALL] AT WOODSTOCK” 475