The first Cambridge edition, 1629 (H424)

In 1534 Henry VIII granted a charter to Cambridge University licensing it to ‘assign, appoint and in perpetuity have among them … Three Stationers and Printers or Sellers of Books’. These men were to ‘have lawful and incontestable power to print there all manner of books approved, or hereafter to be approved, by the aforesaid Chancellor or his deputy and three doctors there’. In keeping with this charter, John Legate, the second of the University's printers, ventured into Bible printing in the 1590s (H207 and H208). Occasional attempts on the lucrative Bible market continued. In November 1623 the Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge was ‘willing to forgo the printing of the Bible in 8° and be content with 4° and 12°’. Though this is the earliest surviving reference to the University wanting to print the KJB, it implies earlier suits by its appearance of offering a compromise. At this point the University may simply have been trying to establish its position, particularly in relation to octavo Psalm books its printer, Cantrell Legge, had lately printed (Greg, pp. 64, 181). However, there is some reason to think that it had started work on or was contemplating a new edition of the KJB. The initial response was totally discouraging: in December the Privy Council forbad printing of the Bible by the University printer (Greg, pp. 64, 181).