He and Cornelius Cure became the leaders of the so-called Southwark school of monument design, which dominated the English market in the late-sixteenth century.
[1] Forbidden as an alien to live in the City of London, he settled across the Thames River in Southwark in the Bankside area, in which communities of Dutch and Flemish refugees flourished.
The monuments were made in the Southwark yard, carried by ship to Boston, Lincolnshire, and from there transported on 15 carts to Bottesford.
Johnson and his son Nicholas stayed in Bottesford to supervise the assembly of the monuments from late September, using local carpenters and masons to alter the church floor and walls to accommodate the structures.
John Matthews, a painter from Nottingham, was paid £20 in installments from February through November 1592 for "inricheinge" the two tombs.