Printing and Double-Dealing in Jacobean England: Robert Barker, John Bill, and Bonham Norton

Abstract

The article tells the story of four men - Robert Barker, John Bill, John Norton, and Bonham Norton - and the struggles for control of the King’s Printing House and other businesses in the first thirty years of the seventeenth century. The business partnerships included a London and continental book-trade partnership involving both printing and import-export; a Bible syndicate; and the office of King’s Printer in Latin, Greek and Hebrew. But it was the King’s Printing House itself that was the main prize, and from 1618 onwards the right to be King’s Printer became the subject of a series of bitter lawsuits between Barker, Bill, and Bonham Norton which lasted well into the reign of Charles I. Through a detailed examination of Chancery documents relating to these lawsuits, this article uncovers the extent of behind-the-scenes double dealing in operations relating to the offices of King’s Printer in this period, along with an arresting story of bribery, blackmail, and threatened book-burning.