A Short History of English Printing, 1476-1898. Henry Robert Plomer
Clement's parish without Temple Bar, and printed law books in the years 1545 and 1546.
Redman's successor at the George was William Middleton, who continued the printing of law books, and brought out a folio edition of Froissart's Chronicles, with Pynson's colophon and the date 1525, which has led some to assume that this edition was printed by Pynson.
Upon Middleton's death in 1547, his widow married William Powell, who thereupon succeeded to the business.
Among those for whom Wynkyn de Worde worked shortly before his death was John Byddell, a stationer living at the sign of 'Our Lady of Pity,' next Fleet Bridge, who for some reason spoke of himself under the name of Salisbury. He used as his device a figure of Virtue, copied from one of those in use by Jacques Sacon, printer at Lyons between 1498 and 1522 (see Silvestre, Nos. 548 and 912). The same design, only in a larger form, was also in use in Italy at this time. In the collection of title-pages in the British Museum (618, ll. 18, 19) is one enclosed within a border found in books printed at Venice, on which the figure of Virtue occurs. The only difference between it and the mark of Byddell being that the two shields show the lion of St. Mark, and the whole thing is much larger.
Byddell had probably been established as a stationer some years before the appearance of Erasmus's Enchiridion Militis Christiani from the press of De Worde in 1533, with his name in the colophon. Another book printed for him by De Worde, in the same year, was a quarto edition of the Life of Hyldebrand. Both these works De Worde reprinted in 1534, in addition to printing for him John Roberts' A Mustre of scismatyke Bysshoppes. Byddell was appointed one of the executors to De Worde's will, and very shortly after his death, i.e. in 1535, moved to De Worde's premises, the 'Sun,' in Fleet Street.
Most of Byddell's books were of a theological character. He printed a quarto Horae ad usum Sarum in 1535, a small Primer in English in 1536, and a folio edition of Taverner's Bible in 1539 for Thomas Berthelet.
Among the miscellaneous books that came through his press, one or two are especially interesting. In 1538 we find him printing in quarto Lindsay's Complaynte and Testament of a Popinjay, a work that had first appeared in Scotland eight years before, and created considerable stir. A quarto edition of William Turner's Libellus de Re Herbaria bears the same date; while among the books of the year 1540 are editions, in octavo, of Tully's Offices and De Senectute.
The latest date found in any book of Byddell's printing is 1544, after which Edward Whitchurch is found at the 'Sun,' in Fleet Street, whither he moved after dissolving partnership with Richard Grafton.
The early history of these two men has a powerful interest, not only for students of early English printing, but for all English-speaking people. To their enterprise and perseverance the nation was indebted for the second English Bible.
Some very interesting and highly valuable evidence respecting the history of these men has been brought to light of recent years, perhaps the most valuable being Mr. J. A. Kingdon's Incidents in the Lives of Thomas Poyntz and Richard Grafton, privately printed in 1895.
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