A company of stationers had existed in London since 1403, and in 1557 this was reconstituted and granted a Royal Charter. The object of the Crown was to secure greater control over printing, so that no inconvenient criticisms on matters of Church or State might be allowed to appear. The object of the leading printers and booksellers, who formed the court of the company, was to diminish competition, both illegitimate and legitimate. Both objects were to a very considerable degree attained. The quarter of a century which followed the grant of a charter witnessed a great improvement in the English standard of book production. Up to this time it seems probable that few English printers, who had not the royal patronage, had found their craft profitable. Caxton no doubt did very well for himself--as he richly deserved. He enjoyed the favour of successive kings, and received good support from other quarters. We may guess, moreover, that both as translator and publisher he kept his finger on the pulse of well-to-do book-buyers to an extent to which there is no parallel for the next two centuries. No one else in England possessed this skill, and certainly no one else enjoyed Caxton's success. The Act of Richard III permitting unrestricted importation of books quickly killed the presses at Oxford and St. Albans, which could not compete with the publications of the learned printers of Italy, France, and Switzerland. Until more than half-way through the reign of Elizabeth the united output of books from Oxford and Cambridge amounted to less than a couple of score. For more than twenty years after Caxton's death there was no undoubted Englishman as a master printer. Mr. Gordon Duff has lately published[53] the assessments of some of the chief stationers and printers from the Lay Subsidy Rolls of 1523-4. By far the highest of them is the L307 at which was assessed John Taverner, a stationer who is only otherwise known as having bound some books for the Royal Chapel, and who was wise enough not to meddle with printing. Wynkyn de Worde, most commercial of printers, was assessed at L201 11s. 1d.; a practically unknown stationer named Neale at L100; Pynson, who was Royal Printer and did really good work, at L60; three other stationers, one of whom printed (Henry Pepwell), at L40 apiece; Julyan Notary at L36 6s. 8d.; other printers at L10 (Robert Redman), L6 13s. 4d. (John Rastell), and L4 (Robert Wyer). It is tolerably clear that there was absolutely no inducement to an English stationer to take up printing. In 1534 Henry VIII repealed the Act of 1484, on the plea that native printing was now so good that there was less need to import books from abroad, the King's real reason, no doubt, being to make it easier to check the importation of heretical works. Mr. Duff has written of the King's action: