William Dugard

[2] Having bought the presses of James Young and established a printing business, Dugard became an official printer to the Commonwealth and Oliver Cromwell, the Lord Protector.

[3] Cromwell was duly incensed when Dugard started to print copies of Defensio Regia pro Carolo primo, Claudius Salmasius' defence of Charles I, his bitter opponent in the civil war.

[6] For showing, as was thought, too great an affection to the royalist cause, on 20 February 1650, he was deprived of his press and equipment, valued at £1000 (£174000 in today's money), and imprisoned in Newgate.

[2] Finding himself unemployed once more, Dugard opened a private school in Coleman street in July 1661 and by the next March had gathered 193 scholars, "so great was his reputation and the fame of his abilities".

By 27 November 1662, when he drew up his will, he was "sicke and weake in body" and died on 3 December 1662,[3] leaving his daughter Lydia, apparently his only surviving child, as his heir and executor; his second wife had predeceased him in 1661.

[2] For printing a strongly pro-Royalist book, Defensio regia pro Carolo primo, written by Claudius Salmasius, Dugard was incarcerated at Newgate and dismissed from the school.

Apparently at the behest of Milton, Dugard took part in an attempt to disrupt royalist literature and introduced a non-genuine chapter (Pamela's Prayer, an extract from Sir Phillip Sydney's Arcadia) into an edition of the Eikon Basilike that he was printing.

[2] Conversely, Dugard also published Catechesis Ecclesiarum Poloniae et Lithuaniae, a work critical of Luther, Oliver Cromwell and Protestantism, in 1652.

Dugard was an editor and author of books on rhetoric and language, as well as a publisher of textbooks, other educational, theological, scientific, and political works, and a newspaper.

From 1648 to 1661, by the estimation of Leona Rostenberg, some 171 books rolled off his press, including political tracts and works on education, theology, medicine, science, economics, and literature.

The famous frontispiece of the Eikon Basilike, demonstrating its pro-Royalist nature