A Short History of English Printing, 1476-1898

by Henry R. Plomer

2. That the University should be allowed to print, conjointly with the London stationers, all books except the Bible, Book of Common Prayer, grammar, psalms, psalters, primers, etc., but they were only to employ one press upon privileged books.

3. That the University should print no almanacs then belonging to the Stationers, but they might print prognostications brought to them first.

4. That the Stationers should not hinder the sale of University books.

5. That the University printer should be at liberty to sell all grammars and psalms that he had already printed, and such as had been seized by the Company were to be restored.

To the last clause a note was added to the effect that Bonham Norton was prepared to buy them at reasonable prices.

On the accession of Charles I. plague paralysed trade and made gaps in the ranks of the Stationers' Company. During the autumn of 1624 and the following year several noted printers died, probably from this cause. Chief among these were George Eld, Edward Aide, and Thomas Snodham. Eld was succeeded by his partner, Miles Flessher or Fletcher, and Aide by his widow, Elizabeth. Thomas Snodham had inherited the business of Thomas East. The copyright in these passed to William Stansby, one of his executors; but the materials of the office, that is the types, woodcut letters, and ornaments, and the presses, were sold to William Lee for £165, and shortly afterwards passed into the possession of Thomas Harper. They included a fount of black letter, and several founts of Roman and Italic of all sizes, and one of Greek letter, all of which had belonged to Thomas East, and were by this time the worse for wear.

But the plague was at the worst only a temporary hindrance; the censorship of the press the printers had always with them, and this, which had been comparatively mildly used during the late reign, was now in the hands of men who wielded it with severity. During the next fifteen years the printers, publishers, and booksellers of London were subjected to a persecution hitherto unknown. During that time there were few printers who did not know the inside of the Gatehouse or the Compter, or who were not subjected to heavy fines. For the literature of that age was chiefly of a religious character, and its tone mainly antagonistic to Laud and his party. All other subjects, whether philosophical, scientific, or dramatic, were sorely neglected. The later works of Bacon, the plays of Shirley and Shakerley Marmion, and a few classics, most of which came from the University presses, are sparsely scattered amongst the flood of theological discussion. The history of the best work in the trade in London is practically the history of three men—John Haviland, Miles Fletcher, and Robert Young, who joined partnership and, in addition to a share in the Royal printing-house, obtained by purchase the right of printing the Abridgements to the Statutes, and bought up several large and old-established printing-houses, such as those of George Purslowe, Edward Griffin, and William Stansby. Bernard Alsop and Thomas Fawcett were also among the large capitalists of this time, while Nathaniel Butter, Nicholas Bourne, and Thomas Archer were also interested in several businesses beside their own. From the press of Haviland came editions of Bacon's Essays, in quarto, in 1625, 1629, 1632; of his Apophthegmes, in octavo, in 1625; of his Miscellanies, an edition in quarto, in 1629, and his Opera Moralia in 1638. From the press of Fletcher came the Divine Poems of Francis Quarles, in 1633, 1634, and 1638, and the Hieroglyphikes of the life of Man, by the same author, in 1638; while amongst Young's publications, editions of Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet appeared in 1637. Bernard Alsop and his partner printed the plays of Beaumont and Fletcher, Decker, Greene, Lodge, and Shirley, the poems of Brathwait, Breton, and Crashaw, and the writings of Fuller and More.

But the most notable books of this period were not those enumerated above, but rather those which brought their authors, printers, and publishers within the clutches of the law, and the story of the struggle for freedom of speech is one of the most interesting in the history of English printing. Three men—Henry Burton, rector of St. Matthews, Friday Street; William Prynne, barrister of Lincoln's Inn; and John Bastwick, surgeon, are generally looked upon as the chief of the opposition to Laud and his party; but there were a number of other writers on the same subject, whose works brought them into the Court of High Commission. Thus, on the 15th February 1626, Benjamin Fisher, bookseller, John Okes, Bernard Alsop, and Thomas Fawcett, printers, were examined concerning a book which they had caused to be printed and sold, called A Short View of the Long Life and reign of Henry the Third, of which Sir Robert Cotton was the author. Fisher stated in his evidence that five sheets of this book were printed by John Okes, and one other by Alsop and Fawcett, which in itself is an indication of the immense difficulty that must have attended the discovery of the printers of forbidden books. The manuscript Fisher declared he had bought from Alsop, who, in his turn, said that he bought it of one Ferdinando Ely, 'a broker in books,' for the sum of twelvepence, and printed what was equivalent to a thousand copies of the one sheet delivered to him, 'besides waste.' Nicholas Okes declared that his son John had printed the book without his knowledge and while he (Nicholas) was a prisoner in the Compter. Ferdinando Ely was a second-hand bookseller in Little Britain.

No very serious consequences seem to have followed in this instance; but in the following year (1628), Henry Burton was charged by the same authorities with being the author of certain unlicensed books, The Baiting of the Pope's Bull, Israel's Fast, Trial of Private Devotions, Conflicts and Comforts of Conscience, A Plea to an Appeal, and Seven Vials. The first of these was licensed, but the remainder were not. They were said to have been printed by Michael Sparke and William Jones; Sparke was a bookseller, carrying on business at the sign of the Blue Bible, in Green Arbour, in little Old Bayley, and he employed William Jones to print for him. The parties were then warned to be careful, but on 2nd April 1629 Sparke was arrested and thrown into the Fleet, and with him, at the same time, were charged William Jones, Augustine Mathewes, printers, and Nathaniel Butter, printer and publisher. Butter's offence was the issuing of a newspaper or pamphlet called The Reconciler; Sparke was charged with causing to be printed another of Burton's works, entitled Babel no Bethel, and Spencer's Musquil Unmasked; while Augustine Mathewes was accused of printing, for Sparke, William Prynne's Antithesis of the Church of England. Each party put in an answer, and of these, Michael Sparke's is the most interesting. He declared that the decree of 1586 was contrary to Magna Charta, and an infringement of the liberties of the subject, and he refused to say who, beside Mathewes, had printed Prynne's book; it afterwards turned out to be William Turner of Oxford, who confessed to printing several other unlicensed books. A short term of imprisonment appears to have been the punishment inflicted on the parties in this instance.

Both in 1630 and 1631 several other printers suffered imprisonment from the same cause, and Michael Sparke, who appears to have given out the work in most cases, was declared to be more refractory and offensive than ever.