Henry VI. does not appear to have cared for books, and it is not surprising, what with wars abroad and excessive taxation, plague and famine at home, that literary tastes received a severe check. We get several glimpses of the dearth of books. In the MS. history of Eton College, in the British Museum, the Provost and Fellows of Eton and Cambridge are stated, 25 Henry VI., to have petitioned the King that he would be pleased to order one of his chaplains, Richard Chestre, 'to take to him such men as shall be seen to him expedient in order to get knowledge where such bookes [for Divine service] may be found, paying a reasonable price for the same, and that the sayd men might have the choice of such bookes, ornaments, and other necessaries as now late were perteynyng to the Duke of Gloucester, and that the king would particular[ly] cause to be employed herein John Pye—his stacioner of London.'
Book-importation by the galleys that brought the produce of the East to London and Southampton had assumed very considerable proportions during the fifteenth century; but the uncertainties which attended it were not at all favourable to its full development. Book-production was still progressing in the immediate neighbourhood of London. At St. Albans, for example, over eighty were transcribed under Whethamstede during this reign, a number which is peculiarly interesting when the degeneracy of the monasteries is remembered. Neither Edward IV. nor Richard III. seems to have availed himself of the increasing plenty of books. The library of the former was a very unimportant affair. From the Wardrobe Account of this King (1480) we get a few highly interesting facts concerning book-binding, gildings, and garnishing: 'For vj unces and iij quarters of silk to the laces and tassels for garnysshing of diverse Bookes, price the unce xiiijd.—vijs. xd. ob.; for the making of xvj laces and xvj tassels made of the said vj unces and iij of silke, price in grete ijs. viid.' These moneys were paid to Alice Claver, a 'sylk-woman.' And again 'to Piers Bauduyn, stacioner, for bynding, gilding and dressing of a booke called "Titus Livius," xxs.; for bynding, gilding and dressing of a booke of the Holy Trinitie, xvjs.; for bynding, gilding and dressing of a booke called "Frossard," xvjs.; for bynding, gilding and dressing of a booke called the Bible, xvjs.; for bynding, gilding and dressing of a booke called "Le Gouvernement of Kinges and Princes," xvjs.; for bynding and dressing of the three smalle bookes of Franche, price in grete vjs. viiijd.; for the dressing of ij bookes whereof oon is called "La Forteresse de Foy" and the other called the "Book of Josephus," iijs. iiijd.; and for bynding, gilding and dressing a booke called the "Bible Historial," xxs.'
The only incident which calls for special mention in the two next short reigns is a law, 1 Richard III., 1483, by which it was enacted that if any of the printers or sellers of printed books—the 'great plenty' of which came from 'beyond the sea'—'vend them at too high and unreasonable prices,' then the Lord Chancellor, Lord Treasurer, or any of the chief justices of the one bench or the other, were to regulate the prices.
