Illustrated books -- Bibliography; Illustration of books; Printing -- History
From 1539, when John Hertfort was summoned from St. Albans, to the end
of the reign of Henry VIII, we know of no provincial printing in
England. But on the accession of Edward VI the extreme Protestants who
had fled from England to the Netherlands, Germany, and Switzerland, came
flocking back, and some of them seem to have stopped at Ipswich. Two, or
perhaps three printers, all in the Protestant interest, worked there in
the first few months of the new reign. The first of these, Anthony
Scoloker, printed seven books at Ipswich in 1547 and 1548, and then went
on to London. The second, John Overton, brought over with him from Wesel
the text of Bishop Bale's Latin bibliography of the Illustrious Writers
of Britain, printed there by Theodoricus Plateanus, otherwise Dirick van
der Straten, and may or may not have printed at Ipswich two additional
sheets, which he dated there 31 July, 1548.[56] The third printer, John
Oswen, printed at Ipswich eleven tracts, mostly controversial, in or
about 1548, and then removed to Worcester.
On his arrival at Worcester late in 1548, or early in 1549, John Oswen
obtained a special privilege from Edward VI for printing service-books
for use in the Principality of Wales, and produced there three editions
of the first Prayer Book of Edward VI and a New Testament. Besides
these, from 1549 to 1553 he printed eighteen other books, mostly of
controversial theology, calling himself in his imprints "Printer
appoynted by the Kinges Maiestie for the Principalitie of Wales and the
Marches of the same." On the accession of Mary, it being no longer safe
to print Protestant theology, Oswen's press ceased working.
At Canterbury in 1549 John Mychell, or Mitchell, who had moved there
after producing a few books in London, printed an English psalter,
"poynted as it shall be songe in churches." During Edward's reign
Mychell printed at Canterbury altogether some twenty books and tracts,
mostly more or less controversial treatises on the Protestant side. On
the accession of Mary he ceased publishing till 1556, when his press was
employed by Cardinal Pole to print his Articles of Visitation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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