In 1541-2 another printer, Thomas Davidson, is found printing The New Actis and Constitutionis of Parliament maid Be the Rycht Excellent Prince James the Fift King of Scottis, 1540. Davidson's press, which was situated 'above the nether bow, on the north syde of the gait,' was also very short-lived, and very few examples of it are now in existence; one of these, a quarto of four leaves, with the title Ad Serenissimum Scotorum Regem Jacobum Quintum de suscepto Regni Regimine a diis feliciter ominato Strena, is the earliest instance of the use of Roman type in Scotland. His most important undertaking, besides the Acts of Parliament, was a Scottish history, printed about 1542.
The next printer we hear of is John Scot or Skot. There was a printer of this name in London between 1521 and 1537, but whether he is to be identified with this slightly later Scottish printer is not known. Between 1552 and 1571 Scot printed a great many books, most of them of a theological character. Among them was Ninian Winziet's Certane tractatis for Reformatioune of Doctryne and Maneris, a quarto, printed on the 21st May 1562, and the same author's Last Blast of the Trumpet. For these he was arrested and thrown into prison, and his printing materials were handed over to Thomas Bassandyne. In 1568 he was at liberty again and printed for Henry Charteris, The Warkes of the famous & vorthie Knicht Schir David Lyndesay; while among his numerous undated books is found Lyndsay's Ane Dialog betwix Experience and Ane Courtier, of which he printed two editions, the second containing several other poems by the same author.
Scot was succeeded by Robert Lekpreuik, who began to print, in 1561, his first dated book, a small black-letter octavo of twenty-four pages, called The Confessione of the fayght and doctrin beleued and professed by the Protestantes of the Realme of Scotland. Imprinted at Edinburgh be Robert Lekpreuik, Cum privilegio, 1561.
In the following year the Kirk lent him £200 with which to print the Psalms. The copy now in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh, bound with the Book of Common Order printed by Lekpreuik in the same year, probably belongs to this edition.
Two years later, in 1564-5, he obtained a license under the Privy Seal to print the Acts of Parliament of Queen Mary and the Psalms of David in Scottish metre. Of this edition of the Psalms there is a perfect copy in the library of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. Again, in 1567, Lekpreuik obtained the royal license as king's printer for twenty years, during which time he was to have the monopoly of printing Donatus pro pueris, Rudimentis of Pelisso, Acts of Parliament, Chronicles of the Realm, the book called Regia Majestas, the Psalms, the Homelies, and Rudimenta Artis Grammaticae.
Among his other work of that year may be noticed a ballad entitled The testament and tragedie of vmquhile King Henry Stewart of gude memory, a broadside of sixteen twelve-line stanzas, from the pen of Robert Sempil. A copy of this is in the British Museum (Cott. Caligula, C. i. fol. 17). In 1568 there was danger of plague in Edinburgh, and Lekpreuik printed a small octavo of twenty-four leaves, in Roman type, with the title, Ane breve description of the Pest, Quhair in the Cavsis signes and sum speciall preservatiovn and cvre thairof ar contenit. Set furth be Maister Gilbert Skeyne, Doctoure in Medicine.
In 1570 he printed for Henry Charteris a quarto edition of the Actis and Deides of Sir William Wallace, and in 1571 The Actis and Lyfe of Robert Bruce. This was printed early in the year, as on the 14th April Secretary Maitland made a raid upon Lekpreuik's premises, under the belief that he was the printer of Buchanan's Chameleon. The printer, however, had received timely warning and retired to Stirling, where, before the 6th of August, he printed Buchanan's Admonition, and also a letter from John Knox 'To his loving Brethren.' His sojourn there was very short, as on the 4th September Stirling was attacked and Lekpreuik thereupon withdrew to St. Andrews, where his press was active throughout the year 1572 and part of 1573. In the month of April 1573 Lekpreuik returned to Edinburgh and printed Sir William Drury's Regulations for the army under his command. But in January 1573-74 he was thrown into prison and his press and property confiscated. How long he remained a prisoner is not clear, but in all probability until after the execution of the Regent Morton in 1581. In that year he printed the following books—Patrick Adamson's Catechismus Latino Carmine Redditus et in libros quatuor digestus, a small octavo of forty leaves, printed in Roman type; Fowler's Answer to John Hamilton, a quarto of twenty-eight leaves; and a Declaration without place or printer's name, but attributed to his press: after this nothing more is heard of him.
Contemporary with Lekpreuik was Thomas Bassandyne, who is believed to have worked both in Paris and Leyden before setting up as a printer in Edinburgh.
His first appearance, in 1568, was not a very creditable one. An order of the General Assembly, on the 1st July of that year, directs Bassandyne to call in a book entitled The Fall of the Roman Kirk, in which the king was called 'supreme head of the Primitive Church,' and also orders him to delete an obscene song called Welcome Fortune which he had printed at the end of a psalm-book. The Assembly appointed Mr. Alexander Arbuthnot to revise these things.
In 1574 Bassandyne printed a quarto edition of Sir David Lindsay's Works, of which he had 510 copies in stock at the time of his death.