Typography has been an important factor in the development of modern civilization. In the battle for civil and religious liberty, in both Europe and America, the man with the pen and he of the composing-stick have been together on the firing line. With Paul they could well boast that they had been “in perils of waters, in perils of mine own countrymen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in weariness and painfulness, in hunger and thirst.” William Tyndale died at the stake, Richard Grafton and John Daye suffered imprisonment; Robert Estienne became an exile from his own country; Jesse Glover on his way to America found a grave in the waters of the Atlantic; Stephen Daye set type in a wilderness; James Franklin, William Bradford and John Peter Zenger were imprisoned, and Benjamin Franklin suffered hunger and privation.
As ecclesiastical and political conditions in Europe strongly influenced the practice of typography during the days of the American colonies, I will briefly review the events of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that the reader may better understand and appreciate the subject.
In the year 1521, when Luther appeared before the Diet of Worms in Germany, the English people were ardent Roman Catholics. Henry VIII. was King of England and the great Cardinal Wolsey was in high authority. Henry, in the early part of his reign, was exceedingly loyal to the Catholic Church; he published a book in answer to the attacks of Luther, for which the pope gave him the title “Defender of the Faith.” However, when Henry wished to divorce his wife that he could marry Anne Boleyn, the church authorities did not approve. This so angered the king that he took from Wolsey his office and possessions, denied the authority of the pope over the Church of England, and had himself declared the supreme head of that organization. The king was excommunicated by the pope and in return Catholics were persecuted and put to death, and their monasteries, colleges and hospitals broken up. Henry repeatedly changed his religious opinions, and for many years both Catholics and Protestants were put to death for differing with him.
For six years after Henry’s death in 1547, during the reign of his son Edward VI., the Protestants were in power. Then for five years under Mary the Catholics controlled the religious affairs of the country, and the flesh of “heresy” was toasted at the stake.
THE FIRST BOOK PRINTED IN ENGLISH AMERICA
By Stephen Daye at Cambridge, Mass., 1640. (Page slightly reduced)
TITLE-PAGE OF A SHAKESPEARE BOOK
Printed in 1600, while Shakespeare was in the midst of his literary labors
Elizabeth, who began to rule in 1558, was proud of the appellation “Virgin Queen” and gave the name “Virginia” to the English colony in America. She never quit spinsterhood, but about the year 1570 considerable correspondence was carried on between the English and French courts regarding her intended marriage. This resulted in the accumulation of over three hundred letters, which eighty-five years later were collected and printed as a 442-page quarto. (The title-page is reproduced full size as an insert in this chapter.) A poor Puritan named Stubbs and a poor bookseller named Page published a pamphlet against the marriage of Queen Elizabeth to the French king’s brother, and tho the queen herself had said she would never marry, these unfortunate subjects were punished for their audacity by having their right hands cut off.
Under Elizabeth, the “Protestant” religion was permanently established in England, but the enactment of severe laws, such as prohibiting any one attending the ministry of clergymen who were not of the established religion, gave rise to dissenters derisively called Puritans because they wished to establish a form of worship based on the “pure” word of God. It was by these so-called Puritans that printing was introduced into English America. Elizabeth reigned until 1603 and was the last of the Tudor family of sovereigns. The first of the Stuart Kings, James I. (son of Mary Queen of Scots), then ruled until 1625, when he was succeeded by his son Charles I. Charles was a despot and claimed that the people had no right to any part of the government. A civil war resulted, Charles was beheaded (1649) and a form of government known as the Commonwealth was established. Oliver Cromwell shortly afterward became Lord Protector with more power than the king had possessed.