Note 204 — Chapter V · THE STATE CONTROL OF ENGLISH LETTER-FOUNDING.

Notwithstanding this flattering announcement, we find that five years later Grafton and Whitchurch, who held the King’s Bible patent, received the royal permission to print the revised edition of Matthews’s Bible in Paris, “because at that time there were in France better printers and paper than could be had here in England.” The project, as history records, was cut short by the Inquisition; but the presses, types, and workmen were with great difficulty brought over from Paris to London, where the Bible was finished in 1539.