3. Caxton's patrons

Unusually for early printers, Caxton wrote extensive prefaces to many of his books. They help us understand some of the background. In them he mentioned a number of persons who were associated with each book. Some are dedicatees and come from the highest levels of society.

Elizabeth Woodville (1437-1492). Copyright: The President and Fellows of Queens' College, Cambridge.

Probably not all of these were patrons in the sense that they supported the publication economically. Caxton may have used his prefaces to gain and maintain political connections in the rapidly shifting situation during the reigns of Edward IV, Richard III, and Henry VII. George Painter has made a detailed study of the political implications of Caxton’s dedications in William Caxton: A Quincentenary Biography of England’s First Printer (London, 1976).

Like most mercers, Caxton was a supporter of the Yorkist side of the Wars of the Roses. He was particularly close to Margaret of York, Duchess of Burgundy, the sister of Edward IV, and later to the family of Elizabeth Woodville, Edward IV’s wife. One surviving copy of The Recuyell of the Histories of Troy, his first English book, has a specially made engraving showing Caxton presenting the book to Margaret (now in the Huntington Library, California).

Caxton dedicated his English edition of the History of Jason to Elizabeth’s eldest son, the ill-fated Edward, Prince of Wales, briefly Edward V, who was to be murdered in the Tower of London with Richard, his younger brother. Until his execution in 1483 Anthony Woodville, Earl Rivers, Elizabeth’s brother, was an important patron of Caxton. Three French works translated by Anthony Woodville were published by Caxton, one of them appearing in three editions.

Some of the persons mentioned in his dedications evidently supported Caxton in a practical way. His first dedicatee was Margaret of York who gave him, he says, an annual fee. We should not suppose that he necessarily received any money. William FitzAlan, Earl of Arundel, promised to buy part of the edition of the Legenda aurea of 1483 and also to give Caxton ‘a yearly fee, that is to wit a buck in summer and a doe in winter with which fee I hold me well content ’.

The Tower of London. The British Library MS Royal 16 F ii, f.13. Larger image

With the death of Edward IV in April 1483, the murder of Edward’s two sons in the Tower of London and the fall of the Woodville family, Caxton had lost his powerful friends at court. He appears to have remained loyal to Elizabeth Woodville after Edward’s death while she lived in refuge in Westminster Abbey. About April 1484 he dedicated to Richard III his translation of the Ordre of Chyvalry or Knyghthode. After Richard III’s defeat in August 1485 Henry VII succeeded to the throne, as the first Tudor king. In 1486 he married Elizabeth of York, the daughter of Elizabeth Woodville and Edward IV.

Only some three years later did Caxton manage to get closer to the court again. He was commissioned by Margaret Beaufort, Henry VII’s mother, to translate and print the romance Blanchardyn and Eglantine, a work of which he had previously sold her a manuscript. Through John de Vere, the Earl of Oxford, he obtained a commission from Henry VII for an English translation of Christine de Pisan’s Faits d’armes et de chevalerie completed on 14 July 1489. The Earl of Oxford also commissioned the translation and printing of the Four Sons of Aymon, although it would appear that Caxton did not get payment in advance for this, as he said that he was ‘hopyng and not dobtyng but that hys good grace shall rewarde me in suche wise that I shal haue cause to pray for his good and prosperus welfare’ [hoping and not doubting but that his good grace shall reward me in such a way that I shall have cause to pray for his good and prosperous welfare].

French woodcut crucifixion scene from the Fifteen Oes. The British Library, IA.55144, f.a1 v. Larger image

Some time in 1490 he dedicated to Arthur, Prince of Wales, his English translation of a French courtly romance, Eneydos freely based on Virgil’s Aeneid and on the Italian poet Boccaccio. In 1491, towards the end of his life, he printed the Fifteen Oes, a collection of prayers, ‘bi the commaundementes of’ Margaret Beaufort and Elizabeth of York, Henry VII’s wife. In 1490 his new connections with the court also gave him the job of printing the statutes enacted by the first three Parliaments of Henry VII, the first time statutes of England were printed in English rather than legal French.