In 1511 he issued the Pylgrymage of Sir Richard Guylforde, a most interesting book to read, as it gives a vivid description of a journey to the Holy Land and of the death and burial of Sir Richard while there.
Among the books of 1513 was an edition of Lidgate’s Sege and Destruccyon of Troye, of which he printed several copies on vellum, one of which is in Pepys’s collection, as he did also of the Statutes of War, which appeared in the same year, though no copies are now known. Another lost book of this year would have had peculiar interest. Ammonius wrote to Erasmus, shortly after Flodden, “Petrus Carmelianus has just published an epitaph on the King of Scots, stuffed full of womanly abuse, which you may soon read printed in Pynson’s type.” For the next few years there is little of interest to chronicle in his work.
In 1521 was issued Henry VIII’s book the Assertio septem sacramentorum. As might be expected many copies were printed on vellum and sent round as presents to the princes of Europe, generally containing an inscription in the King’s hand. Four copies at least are now in existence, two being in the Vatican. About this book there is a curious story. Montaigne in the journal of his voyage to Italy in 1581 said, “I saw the original of the book that the King of England composed against Luther which he sent about fifty years since to Pope Leo X subscribed of his proper hand with this beautiful Latin distich, also of his hand,
Anglorum rex Henricus, Leo decime, mittit
Hoc opus, et fidei testem et amicitiae.
Unfortunately there is still extant among the State papers a letter from Cardinal Wolsey to Henry in which the Cardinal writes, “I do send also unto your highnes the choyse of certyne versis to be written in the booke to be sent to the pope of your owne hande.” So much for the royal author.
Between 1522 and 1525 the first edition of Froissart was issued in two folio volumes, and it is one of those books that puzzle the bibliographer as there are many variations and cancels in the different copies. In 1522 appeared Tunstall’s De arte supputandi, generally described as the first English printed book on arithmetic. A presentation copy on vellum is in the University Library and another imperfect vellum copy in Christ’s College. In 1526 appeared an edition of Chaucer to which I think proper attention has not been paid. It is generally described as consisting only of the Canterbury Tales, but this is not the case. The book was issued in various parts of which the Canterbury Tales is one, and other works were issued in other parts though no library contains a complete set. How many parts really existed I do not know, but it looks as if the intention had been to issue the complete works. In 1526 and 1527 editions of Henry’s VIII letters against Martin Luther were issued, but unlike the Assertio no copies seem to have been printed on vellum.
Beyond the issue of three small law-books in 1528 Pynson seems to have issued nothing up to his death in 1530, and there is no obvious reason to account for this. There is something rather mysterious about the relations between Pynson and Robert Redman, who will be noticed later, for all the books printed by the latter between 1528 and the death of Pynson, when he succeeded to his shop, bear no address, and it is just possible that some arrangement had been made between them. The bindings produced by Pynson are of very rare occurrence. He used two panels of a small size. One contains his mark within a broad border and is very similar in design to his device. The other contains the Tudor rose in the centre with a border of foliage and flowers and vine-leaves in the corners. There is an example in the British Museum.
Pynson died at the beginning of the year 1530 and his will dated November 1529 was proved on the 18th of February following. He left property in Chancery Lane and Tottenham but there is little of interest in the will itself. He left bequests to his two apprentices John Snowe and Richard Withers on condition of their faithfully serving out their apprenticeships. At the time of his death he had only one child alive, his daughter Margaret, who had married first a certain William Campion, probably a stationer, by whom she had two daughters, Amye and Joane, and secondly a man named Warde. Pynson’s son Richard is described as lately deceased, but he had left a daughter Joan who was old enough to be married in 1537. It is almost certainly this son Richard, and not as usually asserted his father, who took out letters of denization in 1513, for Richard Pynson the elder could never have risen to be King’s Printer and to have the right to bear arms without having been made a denizen. Everything points to the fact that he was not only denizened but naturalised, but the son who from his age must have been born abroad would require letters of denization also.
After Pynson’s death at the beginning of 1530 a certain John Haukins completed and issued the curious book on which Pynson had been at work for some time, L’Eclarcissement de la langue Française by John Palsgrave. The history of this book is somewhat mysterious. At the end of 1523 an indenture was made out between John Palsgrave and Pynson for the printing of 60 reams of paper at six and eightpence a ream. Another indenture of the same year was for printing 750 copies of Lesclarcissement de la lange Francoys, containing three sundry books. Pynson engaged to print daily a sheet on both sides [that is four pages] and Palsgrave agreed not to keep him waiting for copy.