A Short History of English Printing, 1476-1898Plomer, Henry R. (Henry Robert)
History
A Short History of English Printing, 1476-1898
Plomer, Henry R. (Henry Robert)
England -- Imprints; Printing -- England -- History
From East Molesey the press was afterwards removed to Fawsley, near
Daventry, and from thence to Coventry. But the hue and cry after the
hidden press was so keen that another shift was made to Wolston Priory,
the seat of Sir R. Knightley, and finally Waldegrave fled over sea,
taking with him his black-letter type. He went first to Rochelle, and
thence to Edinburgh, where in 1590 he was appointed King's printer.
The Marprelate press was afterwards carried on by Samuel Hoskins or
Hodgkys, who had as his workmen Valentine Symmes and Arthur Thomlyn. The
last of the Marprelate tracts, _The Protestacyon of Martin Marprelate_,
was printed at Haseley, near Warwick, about September 1589.
[Footnote 8: For the materials of this chapter free use has been made of
Mr. Allnutt's series of papers contributed to the second volume of
_Bibliographica_, to whom my thanks are due.]
[Footnote 9: Forty-second Report of the Worcester Diocesan Arch, and
Archæological Society. Paper by Rev. J. R. Burton on 'Early
Worcestershire Printers and Books.']
PRINTING IN SCOTLAND AND IRELAND DURING THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY[10]
On the 15th September 1507, King James IV. of Scotland granted to his
faithful subjects, Walter Chepman and Androw Myllar, burgesses of
Edinburgh, leave to import a printing-press and letter, and gave them
licence to print law books, breviaries, and so forth, more particularly
the Breviary of William, Bishop of Aberdeen. Walter Chepman was a
general merchant, and probably his chief part in the undertaking at the
outset was of a financial character. Andrew Myllar had for some years
carried on the business of a bookseller in Edinburgh, and books were
printed for him in Rouen by Pierre Violette. There is, moreover,
evidence that Myllar himself learnt the art of printing in that city.
The printing-house of the firm in Edinburgh was in the Southgait (now
the Cowgate), and they lost no time in setting to work, devoting
themselves chiefly to printing some of the popular metrical tales of
England and Scotland. A volume containing eleven such pieces, most of
them printed in 1508, is preserved in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh.
Among the pieces found in it are--_Sir Eglamoure of Artoys_, _Maying or
desport of Chaucer_, _Buke of Gude Counsale to the Kyng_, _Flytting of
Dunbar & Kennedy_, and _Twa Marrit Wemen and the wedo_.
Three founts of black letter, somewhat resembling in size and shape
those of Wynkyn de Worde, were used in printing these books, and the
devices of both men are found in them. That of Chepman was a copy of the
device of the Paris printer, Pigouchet, while Myllar adopted the punning
device of a windmill with a miller bearing sacks into the mill, with a
small shield charged with three fleur-de-lys in each of the upper
corners.
[Illustration: FIG. 28.--Device of Andrew Miller.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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