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The origin and early life of Henry Jaye, an Englishman and an exile, it would appear, for his faith, who died holding the post of official printer to the metropolitan city of Malines in Belgium, are unknown, except that he was born in London and that his father's name was Thomas. This much we learn from a register of burghers (1). It is likely that Nicholas and John Jaye,, who lived at Jdalines at the same time as Henry, were his brothers. The first recorded incident in Jaye's life occurs in 1606, at which date he is found at Antwerp, working for the notable Anglo–Flemish Catholic refugee Richard Verstegan. (2). On 26th July of that year, two English sergeants, Roger Marshall and Richard Pope, belonging to the regiment of Sir William Windsor, were at Antwerp in company with four or five other Englishmen. In their report of the incident (State Papers Foreign, Flanders, 1589–1659, bundle 8, no 151) they state “there came into our company one whose name was Henry a booke bynder as he sayde by his trad(e) and profession wch Henry belongeth as is publickly knowen unto on(e) Mr. Vestegen an Inglishe gente townedweller in the affore said Citty”. To them he used “scandalous” speeches against the King of England, saying amongst other things “I hope to see him hanged”, A few days later, on 6th. August, the English ambassador to the Archduke in Brussels, Sir Thomas Edmondes, wrote to the Secretary of State, Cecil, in England as follows “…having received information of certain very lewd and infamous words against His Majesty by one Henry Gay, an Englishman, a printer servant to Verstegan of Antwerp, he (Edmondes) complained to President Ricardott and desired the party might be sent for to answer his misdemeanour. The Archduke gave order to have him sent for, when he could not deny the words, but he has been merely dismissed with an admonition for his better carriage hereafter and to be forthcoming to answer anything that may be further objected against him. Edmondes has protested…” (Hist. MSS. Com.., Salisbury, pt. XVIII p.227). Prom a further note a little later in Edmondes’ correspondence it appears he got small satisfaction for his protest.
1) Sources for Jaye's life begin with Bÿdragen tot opheldering der Geschiedenis van Mechelen by F.E. Delafaille, a work I have not been able to consult. But Delafaille's material, at least that concerning Henry Jaye and his son Robert, was incorporated in an article contributed by M. Prosper Verheyden to the Bulletin du Cercle archéologique, littéraire et artistique de Malines, XVI. 1906, entitled “Aanteekeningen betreffende Mechelsche, drukkers en boekhandelaars in de 16e ende 17e eeuw”, which also draws valuable references from the extensive business archives of the house of Plan tin at Antwerp. Several further details are furnished by Dr. Louis Antheunis in an article in the same Bulletin, XLVII. 1942, entitled “Bannelingen te Mechelen in vroegere eeuwen”, of which the author kindly presented an offprint to the editors of Biographical Studies. Where references are not given in the text, statements are based on these authorities. They deal only sketchily, however, with Jaye's work as a printer. Three of his books find mention in the notice of him by McKerrow on p.152 of the Bibliographical Society's Dictionary of Printers and Booksellers, 1557–1640, London, 1910.
2) The incident requires us to identify this Henry Gay with the later printer at Malines. The identification is virtually clinched by the appearance in 1617 and 1621 from Jaye's press at Malines of two works (nos.10 and 20 in the bibliography) of propaganda by Verstegan. These show that Jaye continued to be employed by his former master in work similar to that which he had formerly done for him at Antwerp, where Jaye must have been one of the workmen who assisted Verstegan with getting books secretly printed and bound for despatch into England. Much of Verstegan's time between 1590 and 1605 was devoted to this work. See Dr. E. Rombants, Richard Verstegen, een polemist der Contra-Reformatie, Louvain, 1933, especially chapter XII. But Dr. Rombants does not mention Jaye.
3) This Pieter Simons was successively a bookseller at Courtrai, Lille, Brussels, Lierre and Malines, and apparently an unsuccessful one. He died at Malines, probably at his son-in-law's house, in 1617, owing firm of Plantin six guilders. Five years later the debt was written off the ledger with the words “Died penniless at Halines”.
4) So at least she is called in the burial register of St. Rumold’ a at Malines, though in the baptismal entry of her daughter she is called Catlyn vander Zype. But we know that Pleter Simons’ daughter was called Christina, for an entry under his name in the Plantin accounts in 1604 mentions “sa fille Christine estant presente”. A slip of the pen is quite likely, for the baptismal entry is quoted from a part of the register transcibed in the eighteenth century.
5) The entry actually says December, but the entries either side of it show that November must be the month.
6) Not surprisingly, his address in the heading of his account with Moretus, which continues in ledger G until 1617, was not altered from Brussels, but in a letter of 1612 he is mentioned as at Malines “receu estant a Malines de Henricy Jaye”. That the move took place in 1610 is confirmed by Jaye's own statement in 1613, in the dedication prefixed to his first edition of the Costumen (no.3 in the bibliography), that he had come to live in Malines less than three years before.
7) See the note on no.1 in the bibliography. The use of the same small woodcut by Jaye himself in 1618 suggests that his own printing material, when he bought it, came from Antwerp. This is only to be expected, seeing the artistic and commercial predominance still held by Antwerp in type design and book illustration.
8) With a readiness, characteristic of governments, to grant less than had been asked for, the Privy Council reduced the term of his privilege from twelve to eight years. But since Jaye reprinted the book in 1633, he doubtless had his privilege renewed. The Privy Council also, as an afterthought, made the condition that he must undertake to deliver for the library of the Archdukes a copy of the book “well bound in red or yellow leather, and stamped with their coat of arms”, an early example of copyright deposit.
9) The ledger entry runs “pour clivers, par son serviteur Jan Haerkens”. Another entry may refer to the same man,” receu par Guillaume Haerkens” but he may well be a separate person and a relative of Jan.
10) Mother Margaret Clement was a daughter of Dr. John Clement, the friend of St.Thomas More, and of Margaret Giggs who was brought up with More's own children and died in exile at Malines in 1570 and was buried in St. Rumold's cathedral. Mother Margaret governed St. Ursula's convent of Austin Canonesses at Louvain as Prioress from 1569 to 1606, and her nephew was instrumental in helping to found the daughter house, St. Monica's, Louvain (now at Newton Abbot) for English nuns of the order. He also, with Robert Chambers, carried out the visitation of the English College, Doway, in 1612. (See P.Guilday, The English Catholic Refugees on the Continent, London, 1914, pp.116, 378, 381).
11) Huet printed a book in 1623 (Serrure Catalogue no, 1437). He was a great friend of Henry Jaye.
12) The wording of the title, coupled with the date of publication, 1618, is surprising, for the Jesuit College which housed the novitiate for English members of the Society was moved from Louvain, where it had begun in 1607, to Liège in 1614 (Guilday, op. cit., p.27). There was at the date of printing no English Jesuit College at Louvain.
13) Prior to the foundation made at Antwerp by Lady Lovel, the English Jesuits had tried to persuade two of her companions to begin such a convent (Guilday, op. cit., p. 361 note 5). Lady Lovel herself was making plans for a foundation in 1616, and had decided on Liège, and then Malines, as the site. See Guilday, pp. 358–362.
14) The only known copy of this little book belongs to Sister Anne's community, now at Newton Abbot, Devon.
15) Guilday, op. cit., pp. 289–290.
16) He uses only one false imprint – “Printed at Cullen with Licence” (no.21A) and even here another issue carries his true name. Cullen (Cologne) was a favourite choice for a ‘blind’, but in fact it never became a centre for English printing.
17) His device is reproduced in Bibliotheca Belgica, II série, torn XIX.
18) André DELVAUX, de beneficila libri iv. Mechliniae, typis R. et viduae H. Jaye, 1646, 40. Paris, Bibl. Nat. Catalogue.
19) The imprint of a Jan Jaye in Lelio BRANCACCI, Cargos y preceptos militares, 1710, is perhaps that of Jean-Francois, brother of André (see below), or of Jan-Baptist (see note 22).
20) See Inventaire des mémoriaux du grand Conseil de Malines (Inventaires des Archives de la Belgique) ed. A. Gaillard, Brussels, 1900, no. 1970.
21) Inventaire, no.2106.
22) But from a notice by Dr. Robert Foncke in Het Boek, VI. 82, it appears that Delaf aille treats of a Jan-Baptist Jaye who was a bookseller at Malines about the middle of the eighteenth century.