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A REPUTATION FOR EXCELLENCE
A History of the Edinburgh Printing Industry
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Edinburgh
printing enjoyed a close and long-standing connection with the Monarchy.
The printer Robert Waldegrave was a particularly good example of
this. Born in Blackley, England, he learned his trade in London,
where he became involved in a controversy over the role of bishops
in the Anglican church and had to emigrate suddenly, first to France
and then to Scotland. While in Scotland he printed a great number
of works and, having reached the position of King’s Printer,
he produced the first book on maritime. jurisprudence in Britain,
The Sea Law of Scotland, shortly gathered and plainly dressit for
the reddy use of all sea-faring men. He also printed the works of
James VI himself, Daemonologie (1597) and Basilikon Doron (1597),
the latter (containing James’ instructions to his son on the
art of ruling) was judged to be such sensitive material that the
printer was sworn to secrecy and only seven copies were printed,
to be distributed among James’ most trusted servants. When
James went to London to accept the English crown, Waldegrave went
with him.
The Union of the Crowns in 1603, with the subsequent departure of
the court to London, badly affected the Edinburgh printing industry.
It removed a major source of patronage, and the total number of
books produced in the years immediately following 1603 dropped sharply.
However, all was not lost. The Kirk, the University, the Law Courts
and private individuals remained and there was always a market for
classics such as Barbour’s Bruce, reprinted by Andro Hart in
1614, which harkened back to a time when relations with England
were much more clear-cut. Current Scottish intellectual achievement
was also well served by the native printing industry: witness Andro
Hart’s printing of John Napier’s book on logarithms, Mirifici
Logarithmorum Canonis Constructio, published in 1614 and reprinted
in 1619.
It was in 1633 that the first Scottish edition of the Authorised
Version of the Bible was printed by Robert Young, printer to Charles
I. It arrived at a time of religious tension and uncertainty, and
an edition which included illustrative plates proved to be highly
controversial. This atmosphere of tension gave rise to a twenty-year
cycle of war, famine, instability, invasion and repression from
the Bishops’ Wars of 1639—42, through the ‘English’
Civil War to the Cromwellian occupation. These circumstances were
not conducive to either the writing or the printing of books. Evan
Tyler, who was made King’s Printer in 1642, later’ defected’
to the parliamentary faction and went on to print for both parliament
and the General Assembly ‘diverse seditious, rebellious and
scandalous papers destructive to his Majesties government and to
the Government of this Kirk and Kingdome’3 which, upon the
Restoration, cost him his earlier distinguished position. He returned
to Edinburgh in 1660 after some time in his native England, where
he continued his printing career, eventually being reinstated by
King Charles II.
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Volume 1, published 1990
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