Title page of the Great Bible of 1539
Richard Grafton (c. 1511–1573) was a sixteenth century printer and historian. He was also Richard Tottel’s father-in-law. Grafton’s professional life as a printer was a sharp contrast to that of his politically cautious son-in-law. His career began with his involvement in the production of the Matthew Bible of 1537. Grafton and his associate Edward Whitchurch (d. 1561) were then charged with the task of publishing what became the Great Bible of 1539, the first authorised edition of the Bible in English . The actual printing was done in Paris by François Reynault, but in December 1538 the French inquisitor confiscated the bibles and Grafton had to flee back to London. Eventually, the English statesman, Thomas Cromwell (c. 1485 – 28 July 1540) managed to arrange for the types, forms, and presses being used for the book’s production to be transported from Paris to London. A large quantity of sheets that had already been printed had been sold as waste paper to a haberdasher and were also recovered by Cromwell. Grafton and Whitchurch finished the printing and their names appear as printers on the title page.
Title page of the 1549 Book of Common Prayer
In July 1540 Thomas Cromwell, who was Grafton’s patron, was executed without trial. During the two years that followed Grafton was in prison three times—twice in 1541, for publishing material hostile to the religiously conservative new regime and once in 1543 ‘for printing off such bokes as wer thought to be unlawfull’. Despite this, Grafton continued to work as a printer for the next decade and the texts he produced include the famous 1549 Book of Common Prayer. On Henry VIII’s death in 1547 he succeeded Thomas Berthelet as printer to Edward VI.
On the death of Edward VI in 1553 Grafton sided with the faction that attempted to make Lady Jane Grey queen, and he printed the proclamation announcing her as such. As a result, he lost his position of royal printer. By 1557 Grafton had almost completely stopped printing and Richard Tottel had inherited his woodcuts and types. This included the woodcut title page Book of Common Prayer that Tottel then used for some editions of the Year Books.
An abridgement of the chronicles of England, gathered by Richard Grafton, citizen of London.
1562 English Short Title Catalogue record
1563 English Short Title Catalogue record
1564 English Short Title Catalogue record
Tottel first printed Grafton’s Abridgement of the Chronicles of England in 1562. The preface Grafton wrote for it spoke scathingly of previous published abridgements of chronicles. In reaction to this Thomas Marshe, another Fleet Street printer who had been printing abridged chronicles for several years, approached John Stow (c. 1524 – 1605) to write a new one that was published as Summarie of English Chronicles in 1565. Marshe was the same printer who had published an annotated Magna Carta and an edition of Littleton’s Tenures very close to Tottel’s editions, so there was most likely already an existing rivalry.
The prefaces to both Grafton’s and Stow’s chronicle–histories are considered an early example of a disagreement between scholarly authors, although it is clear that they originally stemmed from the commercial concerns of the printers involved.
A digitised copy of the 1564 edition of Grafton’s Chronicles is available from the British Library.
Further conflict arose in 1565 when Grafton’s Manuell of Chronicles (not printed by Tottel) was published and dedicated ‘To his loving frendes the Master and Wardens of the companie of the moste excellent Arte and science of Impryntyng’, and asking in its preface that the Stationers’ Company should print no abridgements other than Grafton’s own. Stow and Marshe responded in 1566-7 with a small chronicle, the Summary of English Chronicles Abridged which was uncomplimentary about Grafton and his work.
Title page of Grafton’s 1569 A Chronicle at Large … of the Affayres of Englande
A chronicle at large and meere history of the affayres of Englande and kinges of the same, deduced from the Creation of the vvorlde, vnto the first habitation of thys islande: and so by contynuance vnto the first yere of the reigne of our most deere and souereigne Lady Queene Elizabeth: collected out of sundry aucthors, whose names are expressed in the next page of this leafe.
1569 English Short Title Catalogue record
The competition continued in 1568 with the publication by Tottel of Grafton’s A Chronicle at Large … of the Affayres of Englande and may have continued for longer had Grafton not died in 1573.
Richard Tottel 