The Bible (1631)

ROBERT Barker and Martin Lucas, the King's printers at London, printed an edition of the Bible of one thousand copies, in which a serious mistake was made by leaving out the word not in the seventh commandment, causing it to read 'Thou shalt commit adultery.' His Majesty King Charles I being made acquainted with it by Dr. William Laud, Bishop of London, an order was given for calling the printers into the Star Chamber, where, upon the fact being proved, the whole impression was called in, and the printers fined £3,000. With this fine, or a part of it, a fount of fair Greek types and matrices were provided, for publishing such manuscripts as might be prepared, and should be judged worthy of publication....

A prior circumstance, indeed, had occurred, which induced the government to be more vigilant on the biblical press. The learned Ussher

one day hastening to preach at Paul's Cross, entered the shop of one of the stationers, as booksellers were then called, and inquiring for a Bible of the London edition, when he came to look for his text, to his astonishment and his horror he discovered that the verse was omitted in the Bible. This gave the first occasion of complaint to the King of the insufferable negligence and incapacity of the London press; and ... first bred that great contest which followed between the University of Cambridge and the London stationers about the right of printing Bibles.

From C. H. Timperley, Encyclopaedia of Literary and Typographical Anecdote (1842), p. 484.