The standards of Day were not long maintained. There were a few good printers in the seventeenth century, but for the most part they were poor and the tendency was decidedly toward deterioration. Political and religious controversies broke out afresh in the reign of James I (1613–1625) and were continued with increasing bitterness until they finally broke into the storm of civil war which swept over England in the reign of Charles I. A natural result of these conditions was a tightening of the restrictions upon the press, which became more and more burdensome. The controversies called forth floods of literature, much of which had to be clandestinely printed. The restrictions, as we shall presently see, were almost unbearable and the market was greatly disturbed. The consequence was that English printing reached its low-water mark in the last half of the seventeenth century. The period which we are considering, however, shows one important invention which in its field was a distinct improvement. Copperplate engraving was introduced into England in 1540, but it was a long time before it came into general use. Later we find it used first for portraits, then for engraved title pages, some of which were of great beauty, and then for general purposes of illustration.
James I strengthened the Company of Stationers by withdrawing several valuable privileges from private persons and giving them to the Company. This action was probably taken with a view to making the Company more reliable as the agent for the enforcement of the press laws, which were not materially changed during James’s reign. With the political and religious dissensions which followed the accession of Charles I in 1525 came renewed efforts to meet the rising tides of discussion and to dam up the flood of pamphlets, mostly badly printed, first by the more stringent enforcement of the old laws and then by the enactment of new ones. The Company’s registers at this time show a long list of penalties, including fines, cropping of ears, imprisonment, and expulsion from the Company. It is only just to King Charles, however, to say that he did attempt to foster learning and encourage good printing, provided the learning were politically and religiously orthodox according to King Charles’s standards and the printers were amenable to authority.
In this connection there is a rather interesting incident of an attempt by King Charles to set up a Greek press. In 1631 Barker and Lucas printed the so-called “Wicked Bible,” which derived its name from an unfortunate typographical error, the omission of the word “not” in the seventh commandment. Barker and Lucas were fined for their carelessness £300, a very heavy fine, equal, if we make allowance for the difference in the purchasing power of money, to about $12,000 to-day. In settlement of this fine they were commanded instead of paying the money into the treasury to purchase £300 worth of Greek type and to print one Greek book a year at their own cost and risk, the Archbishop of Canterbury to fix the size of the edition. They gladly agreed to this, but owing to the political conditions which immediately followed very little came of it.
In 1637 a Star Chamber decree was issued which marks the high-water mark of governmental regulations in England. By this decree all books of every sort were to be licensed. Law books were to be licensed by the Lord Chief Justice and the Lord Chief Baron; books dealing with history by the Secretaries of State; books on heraldry by the Earl Marshal; books on any other subjects by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of London, or the Chancellors or Vice-Chancellors of the two universities. Two copies of every book submitted for publication were to be handed to the licenser, one of which he was to keep for future reference. Catalogues of books imported into the country were to be sent to the Archbishop of Canterbury or to the Bishop of London, and no consignments of foreign books were to be opened until the representatives of one of these dignitaries and of the Stationers’ Company were present.
It was further decreed that no merchant or bookseller should import from abroad any book printed in the English language. The main purpose of this enactment was probably to prevent evasion of the English press laws by the importation from abroad of books objectionable to the government. It was also, although this purpose was probably secondary, intended to protect England from foreign competition. The name of the printer, the author, and the publisher, and the place of publication and sale were to be placed in every book. No person was permitted to erect a printing press or to let any premises for the purpose of carrying on printing without first giving notice to the Company, and no carpenter was permitted to make a press without similar notice.
The number of master printers was limited to twenty. Every master printer had to give a bond of £300 for good behavior. The Master and the Wardens of the Stationers’ Company might have three presses each and three apprentices. No other printer could have more than two presses. A master printer on the livery (a member of the Company) might have two apprentices, others only one. The master printers were to give work to journeymen when requested to do so. This enactment was not made out of any tenderness for unemployed journeymen but for the reason that the unemployed journeyman was always tempted to pick up an occasional shilling by printing unlicensed or objectionable books. It was considered desirable to keep him employed where his work could be supervised. All reprints had to be licensed exactly the same as new publications. The Company was confirmed in its right of search. This meant not simply a right of supervision of printing offices, but the right to search any place where it might be suspected that printing was being carried on. One copy of every book had to be filed in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. Only four type-founders were permitted to carry on business. Books could be sold only by booksellers. The punishments imposed for infractions of these laws included destruction of stock, fines, imprisonment, and whipping at the cart’s tail. The allowance of type-founders, small as it was, seemed to be ample, in spite of the fact that English type-founders had now ceased to cut type. English type-founding had generally been poor up to this time and was to continue so for some time to come. What new type came into use in the English printing offices was mainly bought on the continent.
Up to this time a great deal of printing had been done on the continent for the English market. The works of the Fathers, the classics, and the greater part of the serious publications of the time, being printed mostly in Latin, were in the hands of the continental printers. With their facilities for the production and distribution of books they held the market so securely that English printers did not even attempt competition. In addition to that a great deal of printing in the English language for the English market continued to be done on the continent. As has already been indicated, a good deal of this was political and religious and could not safely be published in England. A considerable quantity of it, however, was work in general literature, which was done better than most English work and cheaper than English work of a corresponding quality. The act of 1637 shut off a great deal of this foreign printing, especially so much of it as was controversial.
Further legislation was enacted in order to develop English printing. For a long time printing was not an English industry. It will be remembered that although Caxton was English born most of the early printing was done by foreigners who came to England for that purpose, and for a long time there was a very large foreign element in the industry. In 1523 a law was passed that no alien engaged in the printing business in England could take any but English-born apprentices. In 1529 an act was passed that no alien not already naturalized could set up any house or shop for the exercise of any handicraft in England. In 1534 it was further enacted that no books should be imported bound and ready for sale and that no unnaturalized alien could sell foreign printed books except at wholesale.
The decree of 1637 was fortunately not long-lived. The political ascendency of Parliament soon began to be felt and in 1641 the Star Chamber was abolished. While the abolition of this court did not directly affect the decree of 1637, indirectly it made it practically void. For a short while Parliament permitted the decree to lapse and left the printers very much to themselves. This was not because Parliament was any more liberal than King Charles in its views on the subject of printing. It was only that while Parliament was strong enough to suffer the law to be evaded and so to give free rein to the scribbling propensities of its supporters, it was not yet strong enough to muzzle the writers on the other side. Parliament was also very busy with other concerns and for the time being was content to let the printers alone.
The result was an enormous flood of printing, most of it worse than ever. An examination of the publications of the time shows that everything that would go on a press was dug up and utilized. We find in use old type and blocks which had formed part of the stock of Wynkyn de Worde and Pynson. As soon, however, as Parliament got well seated in power it proceeded to deal with printers along the old lines. In 1643 it reënacted the decree of 1637 with the important modification that the number of printers was not limited. In 1649 sixty printers in London and the two university towns gave the bonds for good conduct required by law as a requisite to carrying on the business. It will be remembered that the decree of 1637 limited the number in London to twenty, with one in each of the universities. This act called forth one of the noblest pieces of literature in the English language, Milton’s “Areopagitica,” or plea for unlicensed printing, in which Milton brings all the resources of his great learning and matchless literary skill to the defence of the freedom of the press. The plea, of course, fell on deaf ears for the time, but it remains one of the jewels of English literature. The Parliamentary government held the act as a weapon which could be used in case of need. It was strictly enforced with regard to political and religious books and newspapers. It seems to have been very little enforced outside these limits.