Towards the end of 1508 when Pynson was appointed printer to the King, De Worde appears to have received some sort of official appointment as printer to the Countess of Richmond and Derby, the King’s mother. He had printed several books before this time at her request, a phrase which I suppose meant that she had helped to defray the cost, but he had not called himself specially her printer. In most of the books printed in 1509 before the 29th June, when the Countess died, he gives himself an official title, as printer to the King’s mother.
Among the books printed in 1508 is one entitled The Book of Kerving, of which there were several editions. A copy of one of these editions, which was in the collection of Rawlinson, contained the following rhyme in an old hand,
Wynken de Worde
Sate at the borde
Wyth hys cosyn forde
And kyld hym with a sworde.
Below this the learned owner has written “Whether this last writing be not a whymsy I know not but feare much it is.”
Two books of 1508 were printed on vellum, Fisher’s Sermon on the Fruitful Sayings of David, and Richard of Hampole’s Devout Meditacions, and there are copies of both in the British Museum.
The year 1509 was a very important one in De Worde’s life. The death of Henry VII was very soon followed by that of Margaret, Countess of Richmond and Derby, De Worde’s special patroness. However, the output of books this year was the largest of any year of his life. The royal funerals and the coronation would no doubt attract large crowds to London and so encourage business. Out of some thirty books printed this year I can only trace five as having been issued before Henry VII’s death, that is roughly during the first four months of the year. To one of these I should like to draw your particular attention. It is called Nicodemus Gospel and there is a copy in the University Library. Its colophon runs “Enprynted at London in Flete strete at the sygne of the sonne by wynkyn de worde, printer unto the moost excellent pryncesse my lady the Kynges moder. In the yere of our lorde god MCCCCC.ix. the xxiii. daye of Marche.” This colophon and that to the Golden Legend of 1498 are two of the proofs we possess that De Worde began his year on January 1 and not as was very common on March 25. The book you will notice was issued on March 23, 1509, and Henry VII and his mother the Countess of Richmond are both referred to as alive. Had De Worde begun his year on March 25 and meant by March 23, 1509, March 23, 1510, both these persons would have been dead. The point is interesting because the custom of printers varied, and, as I shall show later, De Worde’s contemporary Julian Notary dated the other way. In a few books printed between the death of Henry VII and that of the Countess of Richmond and Derby De Worde calls himself printer to the King’s grandmother.
About this time De Worde had a second shop in St Paul’s Churchyard with the sign of Our Lady of Pity, but he does not appear to have kept it long and it is only mentioned in some colophons of this year. It was perhaps in reference to this sign that in some of his books he placed at the end a small cut of Our Lady of Pity in place of his usual device.