John Skot commenced to print in 1521, and issued on May 17 the Body of Policy, of which there is a copy on vellum in the Cambridge University Library. At this time he was living in St Sepulchre’s parish without Newgate and printed there six books. The Mirror of Gold for the Sinful Soul, the History of Jacob and his twelve sons, the Book of maid Emlyn, and two law tracts. In these is found his first device, having his mark and initials on a shield surmounted by a helmet and supported by two dragons. He used a fount of narrow black-letter, and it is clear that besides his own books he printed several for De Worde.
His next move was to St Paul’s Churchyard, where he printed eight books, but only two are dated, the Commendations of Matrimony of 1528 and Nicodemus Gospel of 1529. Besides these there were three law tracts, two grammars, and an edition of Every Man. At this address he began to use a device, exactly copied down to the misprint in the motto, from one used at Paris by Denis Rosse, but so carelessly cut that both his name and monogram are printed backwards. He also made use of his first device with his monogram inserted on the shield in place of his mark. Either before or after his residence in St Paul’s Churchyard, but probably before, he printed an edition of Stanbridge’s Accidence “Without Bishopsgate in saint Botolphs parish at George Alley gate.”
In 1531 John Toy issued an edition of the Gradus comparationum which has Skot’s device at the end and was probably printed by him, though his name is not mentioned. By 1537 he had moved to Fauster Lane in St Leonard’s parish, but before this he had got into trouble over a book of which apparently no fragment remains. This publication was an outcome of the extraordinary religious troubles connected with the impostures of Elizabeth Barton, the Maid of Kent, which were put down by Cranmer, and the maid and her associates executed in 1533. Amongst the documents connected with the case was the confession of the printer, and Cranmer entered among his notes “to remember that Dr Bokking did put unto Skotte all the Nun’s book to print and had five hundred of them when they were printed and the printer two hundred.” This perhaps refers to a tract entitled “A miraculous work of late done at Court of Strete in Kent, published to the devoute people of this tyme for their spiritual consolation by Edward Thwaytes, Gent.,” of which some manuscript copies exist.
At Fauster Lane Skot printed one book the Rosary, dated 1537, and five undated books, The Golden Litany, Nicodemus Gospel, The Nut-browne Maide, The Book of Herbs, and The Battle of Agincourt. After 1537 we have no trace of him.
Several writers have supposed that he may have been the same person as a printer of the same name who appeared at Edinburgh in 1539, and passed an adventurous career in that town and at St Andrews up to about the year 1571. There seems nothing to support the theory beyond the similarity of names, and an examination of the typography of the two printers shows that they must have been different people.
Of John Butler, the next printer to be noticed, next to nothing is known. Ames asserted on the authority of Maurice Johnson, a gentleman to whom he was indebted for many startling pieces of information, that he was a judge of the Common Pleas. There was a John Boteler a judge, but when he was sitting on the bench our John Butler was engaged as a journeyman with Wynkyn de Worde, who in 1535 left by will to “John Butler late my servant as many printed books as shall amounte to the value of vi£ sterling,” a very considerable legacy for the time.
His only dated book, an edition of the Parvulorum institutio ex Stanbrigiana collectione was issued in 1529. The colophon states that it was printed “for John Butler,” but it absolutely agrees typographically with other grammatical tracts printed “by John Butler” though the type of all is apparently identical with that used by John Skot. Besides the one dated book there are eight undated. Five are grammatical tracts of little interest, and the remaining three are The Jeaste of Sir Gawayne, The Doctrynale of good servantes, and The Convercyon of Swerers. It is interesting to notice that of all the books printed by Butler but one copy is known.
The Expositiones terminorum legum Anglorum of 1527, attributed by Herbert and others to this printer, is clearly the work of Rastell.
Butler carried on business at the sign of St John Evangelist in Fleet Street and used as a device a small woodcut of St John with the inscription cut upon it “Initium sancti euangelii secundum Johannem.” This cut was not originally intended for a printer’s mark, but was one of a series engraved for a Horae. Whether or not he was really a practical printer it is impossible to determine, for the words “printed by” are not always to be taken as literally true. Several books of this period are known, identical except as regards the wording of the colophon, which profess to have been printed by different printers; and many books which bear the name of one printer in the colophon can be clearly proved to be the work of another.
John Toy has to be included as a printer in this lecture on the faith of the colophon of one book, but probably, like some early stationers, he was not always strictly truthful and said “printed by” when he meant “printed for.” However, in the Bodleian Library there is an edition of the Gradus comparationum whose colophon runs, “Imprinted at London in Poules chyrche yard, at the sygne of saynte Nycolas by me John Toye. The yere of our lorde God M.D.XXXI, the XXX day of May.” But the book ends with the device of the printer John Skot, and it is probable that he really printed it. In 1534 Toy had an edition of the Shorter Accidence of Stanbridge printed for him at Antwerp by Martin de Keyser, and of this there is a copy in the Cambridge University Library. In 1534 Leonard Cox wrote a letter to “The Goodman Toy at the sign of St Nicholas in Pauls Churchyard” relating to the printing of some translations of portions of the Paraphrase of Erasmus, perhaps the Epistle to Titus which appeared some time later. Toy, like many in his business appears to have married the widow of another stationer Nicholas Sutton. Toy died in 1535 and his will is preserved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury.