No More Learning

To identify the writers and describe their work critically is, to
a great extent, the task of the student of history rather than that
of the student of literature ; for it is in their political and religious
significance that the greatest interest lies. Nevertheless, all the
main features of the modern newspaper were attained for a time;
the work of the descriptive reporter, the war correspondent and
considered editorial comment continually cropped up in the most
unexpected manner, and, occasionally, from the most unexpected
persons. These newsbooks were usually sold at a penny (about
four times the value of our modern penny) and, when there was
any repression of their number or their news, they were largely
supplemented by the uncensored letters of news posted with
them. Quantities of these newsletters are to be found among
the Clarke papers at Worcester college, Oxford. At their best,
the newsbooks, as they were called, consisted of two sheets, i. e.
16 pages quarto, and, whatever their size, were invariably called
books. ' A sheet was a pamphlet and nothing else. Throughout
the Stationers' registers, the term 'table’ is uniformly used for a
'broadside': 'news-sheet' and 'newspaper' were never used.
The first of the patriarchs of English journalism—the man who
first wrote purely English news—was Samuel Pecke, a scrivener
with a little stall in Westminster hall. A presbyterian enemy,
while attacking his moral character, admits that he did at
first labour for the best intelligence. Since he did not excite
'
much animosity in his opponents, the remark may be taken to be
correct. Even Sheppard says that Pecke tried to be impartial.
His Diurnall Occurrences of 1641 and 1642, printed first for
William Cook and, afterwards, for John Okes, Francis Leach and
Francis Coles, were soon followed by A Perfect Diurnall. Pre-
vious to June 1643, there were many counterfeits of this journal,
which lasted to October 1649, and was followed by another
Perfect Diurnall. This last began in December 1649 and ended
in 1655, and, at first, Pecke was only 'sub-author' of it. His
career then ended, and nothing more is known of him. Other
periodicals written by him are A Continuation of Certain Speciall
and Remarkable Passages, published by Leach and Coles in 1642,
and, again, in 1644–5; and a Mercurius Candidus in 1647. He
was twice imprisoned by parliament; once in 1642, for some error in
his intelligence, and, again, in 1646, for publishing the Scots papers.
28
ste
T
6
to
elite


## p. 348 (#364) ############################################

348 The Beginnings of English Journalism
Pecke was a somewhat illiterate writer, and, in his reply to
Cleiveland's Character of a London Diurnall, quotes Hebrew
under the impression that he is citing Greek. Except that he was
the first in the field, and that his news is more reliable than that
of others, there is very little to be said of his work; none of the
later developments, such as the leading article, advertisements
and so forth, originated with him.
Sir John Berkenhead began his Mercurius Aulicus at Oxford
in January 1643, and the appearance of this, the only royalist
periodical for some years, with its contemptuous ridicule of the
dishonest and illiterate parliamentary press, was an important
factor in deciding the two Houses to set on foot their wholly
beneficial licensing regulations in June. Sir John Denham's
Western Wonder has recorded the untruthful manner in which
Hopton's victorious hunting of Chudleigh from Launceston was
described in the Relations, and how an ambuscade on Sourton
down, on 25 April 1643, was magnified into a special intervention
of the Almighty by fire from heaven:
Do you not know not a fortnight ago
How they bragg‘d of a Western Wonder
When a hundred and ten slew five thousand men
With the help of lightning and thunder?
There Hopton was slain again and again
Or else my author did lye
With a new Thanksgiving for the dead who are living
To God and His servant Chidleigh.
A few months later, Mercurius Aulicus was secretly reprinted
in London. The Oxford and the London edition do not invariably
.
contain the same matter; but, apart from this, and from a differ-
ence in size of the two editions (the Oxford one being the smaller),
there is little to mark one from the other.
As a general rule, it may be stated that this periodical,
throughout the year 1643, and, indeed, until the royal fortunes
turned, is trustworthy, and markedly superior in every way to all
its opponents. Mockery was one of Berkenhead's most effective
weapons against his enemies; but (as will be shown) he was not
long to remain unopposed in the exercise of this weapon.
Mercurius Aulicus ended in September 1645; it was succeeded
in the same year by Mercurius Academicus, which lasted until
1646 ; and, until the autumn of 1647, these were the only royalist
periodicals which appeared. It will thus be seen that, save chiefly
in the years 1647 to 1650, there was practically no royalist press


## p. 349 (#365) ############################################

John Dillingham
349
Red
at all. Sir John Berkenhead was, also, the writer of the royalist
Mercurius Bellicus, which appeared for a short time in 1647 and,
again, in 1648. He became licenser of all books under the royal
prerogative at the restoration, before the passing of the licensing
act of 1662, but, except as licenser and friend of Henry Muddiman,
the privileged journalist of the restoration, he had nothing further
to do with journalism.
In spite of the vast number of titles of journals which
appeared between 1643 and the second and final suppression of
the press by Cromwell in 1655, the journalists of the rebellion
were but a small band.
John Dillingham, a tailor living in Whitefriars, was the writer
of The Parliament Scout, and, for a time, leader of the parlia-
mentary press. He was a presbyterian, opposed to independency
and, unfortunately for him, unorthodox in his views. This, together
with an attack on the parliament's general in a leading article, was
the cause of his newsbook being suppressed in January 1645. He
was permitted to continue writing The Moderate Intelligencer
in the same year (chiefly concerned with foreign news) until the
first suppression of the newsbooks in October 1649; but he then
drops out of view and no more is known of im.
Dillingham was so disgusted with his own side that he dared
to put in his newsbook, in 1648, the sentence Dieu nous donne
les Parlyaments briefe, Rois de vie longue. He was a bitter
enemy of Laud. A presbyterian critic wrote of him that he had
a snip at all men that stand firm to the covenant. The man is so prag-
maticall, that he thinks he can teach the Parliament how to order state
affairs, the Ministry how to frame their prayers and begin their sermons. . . .
He would be thought not only a deep politician, and divine, but a mathema-
tician too [i. e. an astrologer]. . . . God send us a speedy conclusion of Peace,
that we may have no further use of an army. And that the Moderate
Intelligencer may return to his trade, which I fear he hath almost forgotten 1.
As a matter of fact, Dillingham got into trouble because of his
leading articles, of which species of journalism he was one of the
first originators. In being persecuted, he was not singular; the
author of Mercurius Civicus (May 1643—December 1646) and
The Kingdomes Weekly Intelligencer (January 1643—October
1649) shared the like fate. Mercurius Civicus was suppressed
for its too outspoken loyalty to its king. The writer of these
periodicals is known only by his initials R. C. He was a strong
presbyterian, a soldier and the journalist of Sir William Waller.
ใน
W
that
1 The copy of a Letter written from Northampton, 6 February 1646.


## p. 350 (#366) ############################################

350 The Beginnings of English Journalism
In Denham's Second Western Wonder (concerning the battle of
Roundway down), Mercurius Civicus is the 'book' referred to,
lady Waller the preaching lady and the Conqueror' Sir William
Waller himself.
When out came the book which the newsmonger took
From the preaching ladies letter
Where in the first place, stood the Conqueror's face
Which made it show much the better
But now without lying, you may paint him flying
At Bristol they say you may find him
Great William the Con, so fast he did run
That he left half his name behind him.
Mercurius Civicus was the first illustrated journal, and usually
appeared with some political or military leader's portrait on its
title-page. The woodcuts were nearly as bad as the rimes which
sometimes accompanied them. R. C. also wrote The Weekly
Intelligencer of the Commonwealth from 23 July 1650 to 25
September 1655, reviving it in 1659 (May to December). Shep-
pard says that R. C. was a scholar, and poor, owing to his loyalty
and to his presbyterian views. William Ingler, who is but a
name, wrote Certaine Informations in 1643 and 1644. Henry
Walley, the licenser, another strong presbyterian, was the writer
of The True Informer (1643—5) and Heads of Chiefe Passages
in Parliament (continued as The Kingdomes Weekly Account
of Heads) and other items, in 1648.
George Smith began his Scotish Dove in 1643. This was a
periodical remarkable for its fanatical opposition to any observ-
ance of the Christian festivals, particularly Christmas day. Smith
preached so many sermons on the subject in his journal that his
periodical is almost valueless for intelligence; and, at the last, in
1646, it was suppressed by parliament and ordered to be burnt by
the hangman for insulting the French. Smith modified his presby-
terianism in later years and became a somewhat hypocritical
advocate of Cromwell and his policy; his change of sides, however,
does not seem to have benefited him.
John Rushworth superseded Walley as licenser on 11 April
1644, and wrote The London Post, which appeared from 6 August
1644 to 4 March 1645, and, again, from 31 December 1646 to
February 1647. The sources of his Collections are thus in-
dicated.
At the end of August 1643, captain Thomas Audley appeared
with his Mercurius Britanicus as an openly scurrilous opponent


## p. 351 (#367) ############################################

Audley and Nedham
351
of Mercurius Aulicus. The two soon fell into a tiresome and
continuous wrangle which few, nowadays, will care to follow,
Audley was but a carpet knight, did not go to the wars and,
when Rushworth obtained leave to appoint a deputy licenser in
September 1644, acted as licenser in his stead. He was succeeded
in his "author's' chair of Mercurius Britanicus by Marchamont
Nedham, who carried his scurrility to such an extent that, in the
number for 4 August 1645, he published a Hue and Cry after the
king, couched in offensive terms. For this, Audley, his licenser,
was imprisoned and forbidden to license again, and Rushworth’s
clerk Mabbott was installed in his place. Nedham's scurrility,
nevertheless, continued to increase, and, on 18 May 1646, he
reached the climax, even attempting to make mischief between
the two Houses. He was sent to prison and was only released
on condition of not writing any more pamphlets. Britanicus
thus came to an end. Audley wrote Mercurius Diutinus (not
Britanicus) at the end of the year.
Daniel Border, another scrivener, and an anabaptist, was
the writer of A Weekly Accompt (1643); The Weekly Account
(1643–7); The Perfect Weekly Account (1647—a counterfeit
of the true journal of the same name); The Kingdoms
Weekly Post (1648); The Kingdoms Faithfull Scout (1649);
Englands Moderate Messenger (1649); The Impartial Scout
(1650); and, probably, other periodicals later. Walker was his
enemy, and his intelligence was defective; Sheppard calls his
principal newsbook the Scout an Augean stable. Simeon Ashe
and William Goode, the earl of Manchester's chaplains, were the
writers of Intelligence from his army in 1644. Durant Hotham,
son of Sir John Hotham and translator of the writings of Jacob
Boehme, wrote The Spie in 1644 (30 January-25 June).
Richard Little was probably the author of Mercurius Acade-
micus, Bruno Ryves wrote Mercurius Rusticus (a solitary
counterfeit, dated 26 October 1643, was issued by the poet
Wither) and Daniel Featly probably wrote Britanicus Vapulans
and Mercurius Urbanus. All these last were ephemeral.
In 1647, Henry Walker, the red-haired ironmonger nicknamed Beven
'Judas' by the royalists, first dared to make his appearance as a
journalist, writing under the pseudonym (an anagram of his real
name) 'Luke Harruney. ' Walker's output of books and pamphlets
as politician, as journalist, as religious reformer, as Cromwell's
preacher, as the apostle of Drogheda and Dunbar and, it must
be added, as forger and literary pirate, exceeds in number that
6


## p. 352 (#368) ############################################

352 The Beginnings of English Journalism
of any other writer between 1647 and 1655; not only was the
historical significance of some of them of great importance, but
his relations with Cromwell were so intimate, that any estimate
of the protector's character and career which fails to take into
account his connection with Henry Walker must be called in-
complete. George Fox, the quaker, in his Journal, has summed
up Walker's character. Charged by Walker with immorality and
sorcery, Fox has recorded in his diary that Walker was 'Olivers
priest,' always about him, and a liar,' a ‘forger of lies. '
These statements were strictly accurate. Walker began his
literary career in 1641 by being imprisoned by the House of
Lords for writing two libels in verse entitled, respectively, The
Wren and the Finch and The Prelates Pride. In consequence
of this, he fraudulently printed the name of William Prynne as
writer to his next libel-A Terrible outcry against the loytering
exalted Prelats. The forgery did not pass undiscovered ; and, on
20 December 1641, he was for the second time sent to prison-
on this occasion, by the House of Commons.
The title of his pamphlet, To your tents 0 Israel, which he
threw into the king's coach-into the king's face the day after
Charles's unsuccessful attempt to arrest the five members, is better
known. This sent his printer, Thomas Paine, to prison', while Walker
himself was put in the pillory, and he then vanished altogether
from the public eye, taking service in the army. When he
reappeared as ‘Luke Harruney,' writer of Perfect Occurrences of
Every Dayes Journall, it was in succession to John Saltmarsh
the army preacher, to whose memory, after his death at the end
of the same year, he paid the tribute of a pamphlet of forged
prophecies? . Another forgery, in 1647, was The bloudy Almanac
for 1648, by John Booker, with an illustration of the king kneeling
at the bar of the House of Commons on the title-pages. Yet one
more fraud was perpetrated by him on 3 February 1648, entitled
Severall Speeches at a Conference concerning the power of Par-
liament to proceed against the King for misgovernment-a theft
and adaptation of the Conference about the Next Succession to
the Crown of England attributed to father Robert Persons, the
1 Paine received a gratuity of £20 for this from the council of state on
19 September 1650. See Calendar of State Papers Domestic.
? A farcically silly pamphlet generally ascribed to Saltmarsh, printed by Ibbitson.
See Mercurius Melancholicus, 1–8 January 1648, p. 112.
3 December 1647, The bloudy Almanac for the present jubilee. By Mr John Booker.
Printed by John Clowes. See Mercurius Melancholicus, 18—25 December 1647, p. 98,
and Martin Parker's When the King shall Enjoy his Own Again (second edition).


## p. 353 (#369) ############################################

Walker, the Ironmonger 353
Jesuit, but really written by Verstegan. A much bulkier and
more pretentious volume, a translation of Hubert Languet's
Vindiciae contra Tyrannos, was issued from the press by
Walker on 1 March 1648 ; but it may be doubted whether he was
the actual translator? . When king Charles interceded for him with
parliament in 1642, stipulating that he was not to suffer either in
life or limb, Walker addressed his sovereign in terms of the most
extravagant praise, calling heaven to witness that he would lay down
his life for him, and eulogising his piety and goodness. If all this
be borne in mind and compared with Walker's The King's Last
Farewell to the World (30 January 1649), and his History of the
Life Reigne and Death of the late King Charles collected out of
Choyce Record, begun as a supplement to his newsbook in 1652,
and evidently suppressed by the licenser on account of its shameful
statements, it will be manifest that Oliver's 'priest' was also a
hypocrite.
After the death of the king, Walker became the principal
journalist of the day, was given living after living and was made a
preacher at Somerset house. To such a reputation did he attain,
that the man whose Hebrew anagrams in his Perfect Occur-
rences were the laughing stock of London was appointed Hebrew
lecturer in Sir Balthazar Gerbier's academy and delivered 'four
orations in exposition of the Hebrew . . . upon the first days
work of the Creation of the WorldNedham, at the same time,
applied for the post of lecturer in rhetoric but failed to obtain it.
Walker was the 'loving and affectionate friend' of Cromwell's
other and better known chaplain Hugh Peters. This religious
teacher was colonel of a regiment of foot at the taking of
Drogheda on 12 September 16495; and a letter from him, which
Walker received on 28 September 1649 and at once took to the
House of Commons, was the first authoritative news published of
Cromwell's proceedings at Drogheda.
1 William Walker, of Darnal, Sheffield, secretary to major-general Lambert,
was Henry Walker's brother (Add. MSS. 21,424, f. 203). The translation has
erroneously been attributed to him. See Gatty, A. , Hallamshire, p. 424.
? In Severall Proceedings, no. 143, 17—24 June 1652.
3 Severall Proceedings, Deo. (sic) 4–11 January 1650, p. 195.
+ The Second Charaeter of Mercurius Politicus. By Cleiveland, 23 October 1650.
B Master Hugh Peters, who is now to fight with the sword as well as the word is
made a Collonel of foote' (The Kingdomes Weekly Intelligencer, 29 October 1649).
* The business of Mr. Peters regiment referred to the Irish Committee,' etc. , etc.
(Calendar of State Papers Domestic, 19 October 1649). *Your father Peters is a Collonell
and governor of Milford Haven,' Emanuel Downing to J. Winthrop, 29 February 1650
(Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 4th series, vol. vi, p. 76).
E. L. VII. CH. XV.
23


## p. 354 (#370) ############################################

354 The Beginnings of English Journalism
This letter explicitly said ‘none spared,' and, notwithstanding
the fact that the garrison consisted of only 2552 foot, put the total
slain (exclusive of Cromwell's men) at 3552. Walker could not
be prosecuted for making this disclosure, as the letter had been
read in the House, so he was prosecuted for publishing his news-
book on the same day without a licence'. In addition to this, the
extreme step was taken by the council of state of suppressing the
whole licensed press in order to prevent further disclosures. For
the seven weekly licensed newsbooks in existence on 28 September,
two weekly official journals were substituted, of which the first
numbers appeared on Tuesdays, 2 and 9 October respectively.
Of these periodicals, the first, A Briefe Relation, was written
by the council of state's own secretary Walter Frost, ex-manciple
of Emmanuel college. Frost, on the 21st, had been authorised to
write a newsbook on Thursdays, but now had to hurry his pro-
jected journal and publish it on Tuesday, 2 October, three days
earlier. To hide its real character, he marked the second and
succeeding numbers 'Licensed by Gualter Frost Esquire, etc. The
second official periodical was Severall Proceedings in Parliament,
written by the clerk to the parliament, Henry Scobell, and started
in such haste that it, also, at first came out on Tuesday.
A new licenser, the secretary of the army, had been appointed
by the act of 20 September 1649. This was Richard Hatter, and
he had licensed the newsbooks for the week beginning Monday,
1 October. The council of state, therefore, wrote, on 2 October, to
alderman Sir John Wollaston, that they did not know 'Hatter to be
secretary, and gave him instructions to fine the writers and printers.
Irritated at this denial of his office, Hatter continued to license for
another week; and, thus, further details of the massacres leaked out.
“None spared' referred to the inhabitants, and not to the garrison
of the town? ; there was treachery in obtaining the garrison's
surrender; and 1000 people had been butchered in St Peter's
church, the remark being added that mass had been said there
6
is
Perfect Occurrences, 21–28 September 1649, has a postscript stating that it was un-
licensed. A memorandum was made by Frost on the fly-leaf of an order book of the
proceedings to be taken against Walker. This appears calendared on p. 16 of the
Calendar of State Papers Domestic for 1650, is undated and is separated by fourteen
blank pages from the entries with which it is wrongly calendared.
? The comment on these two words of The Kingdomes Weekly Intelligencer,
25 September-2 October, p. 1518, renders this clear. See, also, p. 1513.
8 The Perfect Diurnall, 1–8 October, p. 2695, glossed over as 'persuasion. Compare
with this, Walker's other unlicensed pamphlet Two letters from Liverpool, published
on 22 September (wrongly dated 11 September in the Thomason catalogue) with its
reference to 'quarter offered but would not be accepted of. '


## p. 355 (#371) ############################################

The Massacre at Drogheda
355
on the previous Sunday—a reason which presupposes the fact
that women and children would flee thither when in danger
of death? Finally, a royalist journalist published letters from
Dublin detailing the steps taken by Cromwell to suppress the
news, giving details of torture and mutilation and showing that
the carnage had lasted for several days? . Cromwell's despatches
bear every trace of having been framed in order to accord with
just so much of the facts as might leak out; but, in doing this
he failed to reckon with his chaplains, Peters and Walker.
Later in the year, Walker became sub-author of Severall
Proceedings, and, in the following year, it was entirely abandoned
to him. John Rushworth began an official Perfect Diurnall of
the Armies at the end of December 1649 and Pecke became
sub-author of this. Both periodicals existed until the final sup-
pression of the press in September 1655.
When Cromwell returned from Ireland, in June 1650, licensed
periodicals were once more suffered to appear.
Other periodicals written by Henry Walker were Mercurius
Morbicus, 1647 ; A Declaration collected out of the journals of
both Houses of Parliament, 1648; Packets of Letters (printed by
Ibbitson), 1648; Heads of a Diarie, 1648; Tuesdaies Journall,
1649; and he also wrote the Collections of Notes at the King's
Tryall, printed by Ibbitson.
When Cromwell took all power into his hands, Walker was
held in great honour, became pastor of a 'gathered church' at
St Martin's Vintry (the 'three cranes' church' as he called it),
published a catechism, a volume of ‘spiritual experiences of
beleevers,' hymns and a treatise entitled “Tpayuata' Sweet-
meats, remarkable for the folly of its contents and its blas-
phemous dedication to Cromwell. Most of his publications were
anonymous, but are immediately to be recognised either by his
reference to himself and to his church, or by his style and his
publisher Ibbitson's name, for Ibbitson rarely published any other
author's writings.
At the return of the Rump in May 1659, all Cromwell's officials
were dismissed, including Nedham; and its council of state de-
stroyed the protector's monument, the crown, etc. , in the abbeys.
In order to stir up opposition to the new rulers, Walker, thereupon,
6
1 The Moderate Intelligencer, 27 September-4 October.
2 Mercurius Elencticus, 8-15 October,
3 The Weekly Post, 31 May–7 June 1659, A brief View, etc. , by Younger, W. ,
2 August 1660.
23–2


## p. 356 (#372) ############################################

356 The Beginnings of English Journalism
published a description of Cromwell's sayings upon his deathbed",
in which he not only vilified the quakers once more but, also,
attacked the Rump. Though he obtained no support, he seems to
have been imprisoned for writing this tract? , which was carefully
shunned by all writers of the seventeenth century, but accepted
by Carlyle in the nineteenth. It contains a typically untruthful
version of a prayer by Cromwell.
The crown and coping stone of this man's baseness was his last
book, published in August 1660, a religious eulogy of Charles II,
entitled Serious Observations lately made touching his Majesty
and literally bristling with texts; the hypocrisy of its writer is
evident if it be compared with his earlier broadsides concerning
Charles II—The Mad Designe (6 November 1651) and The true
manner of the crowning of Charles the Second King of Scotland
together with a description of his life and a clear view of his
court and Counsel (1 January 1651). What became of Walker
after this no one knows.
The royalist press of 1647—50, carried on in spite of every
effort to suppress it, calls for a few words. Cleiveland seems
to have been the moving spirit of the numerous ephemeral
Mercuries which appeared in 1648 and 1649; Samuel Sheppard
undoubtedly undertook the largest part of the work, and was the
originator of Mercurius Pragmaticus. Both roundhead (presby-
terian) and royalist joined in the racy and scurrilous denunciation
of the independents and regicides. Pride the swineherd (who
could neither read nor write), Joyce the tailor, Rolfe and Hewson
the shoemakers, Scot the minotaur, Marten and his mistresses,
Cromwell with his red nose and the rest of the revolutionaries,
all afforded a rich field for ribaldry and, above all, there was
Walker, with whom the Mercuries teem. Mercurius Melan-
cholicus, written by Martin Parker the ballad writer, is full of
Walker ; and so is the counterfeit of this periodical which was
written by major-general Massey's chaplain John Hackluyt.
To Sheppard may be attributed a share in the writing of
1 A collection of passages . . . by one who was groom of his chamber. The
pamphlet was entered in the Stationers' register by Ibbitson on 7 June 1659.
Carlyle attributed this tract to Charles Harvey, Lingard to Underwood. See the
derisive description of Walker and the pamphlet at the end of Mercurius Democritus,
for 7-14 June 1659.
2 Calendar of State Papers Domestic, 1659–60, p. 47.
3 The true version, as heard by major Butler, is in Neal's History of the Puritans.
If this be compared with Walker’s version, and the attack on the Rump on p. 21 of his
pamphlet, the object of his alterations is manifest.
3


## p. 357 (#373) ############################################

Harris, Mabbott and Crouch
357
6
Mercurius Elencticus, when its real author, Sir George Wharton,
was in prison. Mercurius Elencticus is full of biographies of the
rebels, none of which have ever been disproved and large numbers
of which can be corroborated from other sources.
Other periodicals by Sheppard were Mercurius Dogmaticus
(1648) and The Royall Diurnall (1648). In 1651, he issued
Mercurius Pragmaticus Reviv'd, continuing it as Elencticus and
(both titles being disallowed) wound it up as Mercurius Scom-
maticus. In 1652, he wrote another Pragmaticus, a Phreneticus
and a Mercurius Mastix—the last an amusing and valuable skit
on the journalism of his day. His pamphlet, The Weepers, also
contains most indispensable information about the writers of
newsbooks.
John Hall, poet and pamphleteer, was hired by Lilly the
astrologer to attack Wharton in 1648 and wrote the Mercurius
Brittanicus and Mercurius Censorius of that year in defence of
the parliament.
A certain John Harris, better known as 'Sirrahniho' and
'Oxford Jack' (he is throughout easily identified by the latter
nickname), who had been a printer to the army and terminated
his career as major John Harris, hanged for forgery at the
restoration, was the author of the Mercurius Militaris and Anti
Mercurius of 1648. Though he was Cromwell's spy, yet the
antipathy he ever displayed towards Cromwell (both in his original
petition in the State Papers and in his newsbooks) is very
curious.
Gilbert Mabbott, son of a Nottingham cobbler and Rushworth's
clerk, was a leveller, and was removed from his post as licenser
for this in 1649. He was the writer of The Moderate and of a
scurrilous Mercurius Britannicus in 1649. He pretended to hold
views in favour of the freedom of the press in 1649, when he
found that he was to be removed, but he was restored to his
post in 1653.
John Crouch the printer first appears on the scene in 1647 as
the writer of occasional counterfeits of Mercurius Melancholicus
and Pragmaticus. In 1649 and 1650, he wrote the vulgar,
scurrilous and occasionally amusing Man in the Moon, spending
some time in the Gatehouse prison in consequence. Between the
years 1652 and 1655, he wrote the licensed periodicals known
as Mercurius Democritus, Fumigosus and so forth, which were
indecent and obscene throughout. Some numbers, duly licensed and
authorised by Cromwell's licenser, Mabbott, during the years 1653


## p. 358 (#374) ############################################

358 The Beginnings of English Journalism
and 1654, contain songs comparable to the most indecent verse of
Rochester himself.
When Cromwell turned out the Rump in 1653, a printer called
John Streater, a captain and quartermaster-general of the Irish
army, circulated a paper of 'queries' among his brother officers;
for this, Cromwell dismissed him from the army as 'unfit,' and
Streater underwent a lengthy and illegal imprisonment, at the
expiration of which he issued two remarkable periodicals, entitled,
respectively, Observations, Historical Political and Philosophical,
upon Aristotle's first book of Political Government, together
with a narrative of State affairs (no. 1, 4 April 1654) and A
Politick Commentary on the life of Caius July Caesar with
Perfect and Impartial Intelligence (no. 1, 23 May 1654). These,
in some sort, were an anticipation of Killing no Murder, and it is
odd that they should have been unnoticed in modern times.
Streater's account of his troubles is to be found in his Secret
Reasons of State (23 May 1659). The Rump gave him a regiment
in 1659, and, though he was arrested in 1661, the licensing act of
1662 honoured his stand for freedom of parliament by expressly
exempting him by name from all its provisions. He was a pro-
sperous printer (chiefly of law books) for the rest of his life, and
died in 1687.
Cromwell's last journalist was Marchamont Nedham, who, unlike
Walker, was an educated man, a graduate of All Souls, Oxford. But
he possessed neither honour, religion, morals nor definite political
convictions. He wrote anything for anybody and lived simply
for money. He shall never be mentioned 'but to his everlasting
shame and infamy,' wrote Cleiveland ; yet, at the time when this
was said, Nedham had not touched his lowest depths. In 1648
(probably not before this time, nor after February 1649), he wrote
the royalist Mercurius Pragmaticus, taking it out of the hands of
Samuel Sheppard, and adopting the same tiresome railing tone
which he had used in his roundhead journal Britanicus. After
his imprisonment, in 1649, he was willing to write pamphlets
for the regicides, was rewarded by a pension of £100 a year
and, on 13 June 1650, started the first permanent official journal
Mercurius Politicus. Cromwell left for Scotland at the end
of the month, after a sermon by Henry Walker, and Nedham
then inserted so scandalous a series of articles on the Scots in
Politicus that, at last, Cleiveland came forward (on 14 August
1650) with a Character of Mercurius Politicus, a furious and
merciless exposure, in which he described Nedham’s wit as having


## p. 359 (#375) ############################################

Mercurius Politicus
359
scandalized both sexes, disobliged three parties, reproached our whole nation,
and not only ours but all others having declared himself as the disgrace so to
be the public enemy of mankind . . . our lay spalatto, a three piled apostate,
a renegade more notorious than any in Sally or Algier;
adding, in conclusion :
Yet it is not fit that we should be at the mercy of a Tavern, and the
drunkenness of an arbitrary Pen. Must we be subjected to his two sheets of
'High Court of Justice ? ' We are content to serve, but it mads us to be re-
proached, and by such a one as him; for there is no such torment to a
Christian as to be tyrannized over by a Renegade. . . . So insatiable is his
appetite of speaking ill that there is no person so intimate to him, or so
deserving; nothing so secret or religious which he abuseth not to that
purpose; so that he is neither to be tolerated in Society nor policy, neither in
Conversation nor a State; but, rather, as a public parricide, to be thrown
into the sea in a sack, with a cock, and ape, and a serpent, the right emblems
of his politic triplicity.
å
On this, Nedham's articles were stopped, and it is probable
that he was removed from his authorship, and John Hall, the other
paid writer, installed, for a time, in his stead? .
Beginning with 26 September 1650, and ending with 12 August
1652, Politicus contained a series of leading articles advocating
republican institutions, with studied moderation. Their style is good,
and they occasionally quote Thomas May's Lucan. There were
one or two reprints of parts of them in pamphlet form, and, on
29 June 1656, Thomas Brewster (Vane and Marten's publisher)
reprinted the articles which were published between 16 October
1651 and 12 August 1652, condensed into a book under the title The
a
Excellencie of a Free State, by way of an attack upon Cromwell,
as, at the time, trying to stamp all semblance of a free state
into the dust. The book was also prefaced by an attack upon
Howell, who had urged Cromwell to take all power into his hands.
It has quite absurdly been attributed to Nedham, at that time
Cromwell's paid spy as well as journalist and the very last man
likely to attack him. According to Sheppard's The Weepers, pub-
lished on 13 September 1652, Politicus, at that time, was written
by some one in authority (the reference is clearly to these articles)
and some member of the council of state, possibly Marten, must
have been the writer of them. Milton licensed Politicus for a
portion of the time, from January 1651 to January 1652 (the
fact is not to the credit of the author of Areopagitica); but the
i Wood intimates that Nedham left off writing Politicus soon after the start.
The Hue and Cry after those rambling protonotaries of the times, Mercurius Elencticus,
Britanicus, Melancholicus and Aulicus (7 Feb. 1651) contains a personal description of
the writer of Politicus which can only apply to Hall.


## p. 360 (#376) ############################################

360 The Beginnings of English Journalism
supposition that he may have had a hand in the composition of
the articles may, on internal evidence, at once be dismissed.
When Cromwell finally suppressed the licensed press in
September 1655, Nedham began a second official periodical, The
Publick Intelligencer, published on Mondays. Other periodicals
written by him before this were Mercurius Pragmaticus, 1652,
(probably not more than one number), in opposition to Sheppard's
Pragmaticus, Mercurius Britannicus, 1652 (the first five numbers
only), Mercurius Poeticus, 1654, and The Observator, 1654.
With the exception of his own advertising periodical The
Publick Adviser of 1657, Nedham had no competitor until the
Rump was restored in 1659. He then lost his pension, and his
two periodicals were handed over to John Canne, the anabaptist
printer and preacher, on 13 May 1659. Nothing dismayed, Nedham
changed sides once more, wrote a book for the Rump entitled
Interest will not lie, levelled against the restoration of Charles II,
and recovered his periodicals on 16 August 1659. General
Monck's council of state 'prohibited him’altogether in April 1660,
and he then fled to Holland, but, having obtained his pardon
under the great seal, returned in September 1660? He after-
wards practised medicine and died in 1678, but succeeded in
writing pamphlets for Charles II before his death.
A periodical in French was issued throughout the wars. This
was Le Mercure Anglois, apparently written by John Cotgrave,
under Dillingham's influence, from 17 June 1644 to 14 December
1648. A second periodical, entitled Nouvelles Ordinaires de
Londres, was started in 1650, and lasted to the restoration, being
e revived again in 1663 by Henry Muddiman and Thomas Henshaw
of Kensington. Unfortunately, it has almost entirely vanished.
One phenomenon to be noticed in all the pamphlets of the
great rebellion is the fact that, though the writers, in many cases,
were drawn from the most uneducated classes, their style continually
improves. Correct English and spelling are as conspicuously
present in Pecke's and Walker's latest periodicals as they are
markedly absent in the earlier years. For this, the correctors of
the press were responsible. Many a poor clergyman ejected from
his living must have earned his bread in this way. In the case
of Pecke's periodicals, the career of the corrector of the press of
Mrs Griffin, publisher of Pecke's last Perfect Diurnall, is well
known, owing to his having been thrown into prison for treason
1 The Man in the Moon, 1 October 1660.


## p. 361 (#377) ############################################

The Rump's Yournalists
361
.
in 1660. He was Cromwell's son-in-law,' Thomas Philpott of
Snow hill, and his examination after his arrest shows that he had
been very well educated? . He began life as a scholar of Christ
Church near St Bartholomew's hospital, and, after this, became
a king's scholar at Westminster school. Then he went to Trinity
college, Cambridge, for about eight years, proceeding M. A. From
1641, he was schoolmaster at Sutton Vallamore, Kent, for four
years. After this, he became corrector of the printing presses
of John Haviland and Mrs Griffin, of Richard Bishop and widow
Raworth, and, at the restoration, was employed by Robert White
and Edward Mottershead. Philpot, therefore, was responsible
for the neat appearance and correct language of Pecke's later
pamphlets.
At the end of April 1659, the Rump parliament had permitted
licensed newsbooks to be revived; but when, thanks to general
Monck, it resumed its sittings for the second time in 1659, in
December, its council of state-of which Thomas Scot was the
head-decided to suppress all outside 'newsbooks' Two jour-
nalists only were allowed to publish news twice a week. One
was Nedham, with his Publick Intelligencer and Mercurius
Politicus, and the other was one Oliver Williams, Scot's protégé,
with his Occurrences from Foreign parts and An Exact Ac-
compt, published on Tuesdays and Fridays. From a postscript to
the Occurrences for 8—15 November 1659, it appears that John
Canne was then writing his periodicals for Williams, though he
did not do so before this date.
Oliver Williams was the holder of the unexpired term of a
patent for an advertising or registration office granted to captain
Robert Innes many years previously by Charles I. On the
strength of this, he had tried to probibit Nedham's Publick Adviser
in 1657, and, after the restoration, asserted that it conferred
upon him the sole right to publish newsbooks. This was a
falsehood. When Nedham fled the kingdom, he at once seized
the opportunity and issued a new Politicus and Publick Intelli-
gencer, as well as other periodicals, marking them ‘published by
authority. ' It is very probable that his advertising offices and
newsbooks masked some conspiracy, but the end came when he
1 He signs himself your son-in-law' to his printed petition to Cromwell presented
9 October 1654. He is identified in Mercurius Aulicus, no. 1, 13-20 March 1654.
Nos. 54 ff. , 143 and 147 Tanner MSS at Oxford are by Thomas Philpot.
Calendar of State Papers Domestic, Chas. II, vol. xxiv, no. 105 (Calendar of
1660-1, p. 427).
3 See Thomason's notes on his tracts, E 1013 (2) and (23).


## p. 362 (#378) ############################################

362 The Beginnings of English Journalism
attacked the duly authorised journalist, Henry Muddiman, and
drew attention to his own claims; for his periodicals were then
(in July 1660) suppressed. But, when the Rump authorised
Nedham and Williams to print news, Clarges, general Monck's
brother-in-law and agent in London, also obtained permission to
have a third bi-weekly published under his direction, selecting as
his writer a young schoolmaster educated at St John's college,
Cambridge, called Henry Muddiman, who had never written for
the press before. As the son of a Strand tradesman, he must have
been well known, both to Clarges (a Strand apothecary) and to
his sister Mrs Monck (widow of a Strand tradesman). The general,
if the Rump had only known it, was about to have someone to see
that his manifestoes were truthfully put before the nation. One
has only to compare Nedham's and Williams's periodicals with
those of Monck's journalist to see that this was necessary!
On Monday, 26 December 1659, the new journalist issued his
first newsbook, The Parliamentary Intelligencer (afterwards the
Kingdom's Intelligencer), with the ominous motto on the title-
page, Nunquam sera est ad bonos mores via; and, on the
following Thursday week, the first number of his other weekly
'book,' Mercurius Publicus, appeared. Thus, he was in opposition
to Nedham from the start.
A few days later, Pepys made Muddiman's acquaintance and
went with him to the Rota club, where he paid eighteenpence to
become a member. The club met at a coffee-house called the Turk's
head, which was kept by one Miles, in Palace yard, 'where you
take water,' as Aubrey remarks, and which was frequented by a
number of 'ingeniose gents,' who discussed Harrington's idea of
yearly ballotting out a third of the house of Commons in so skilful a
manner that the arguments in the Parliament house'were but flatt'
to it. Pepys found that his new acquaintance had a very poor
opinion of the Rump, though he wrote news-books for them,' and
>
6
6
1 The confidence placed by Monck in him is shown by the following title-pages:
(11 April 1660) The Remonstrance and Address of the Armies of England, Scotland
and Ireland to the Lord General Monck. Presented to his Excellency the 9th of April
1660. St James's April 9, 1660. Ordered by his Excellency the L. Gen. Monck. That
the Remonstrance and Address of the officers of the Army presented this day to his
Excellency be forthwith printed and published by Mr Henry Muddiman. William Clarke
Secretary. London Printed by John Macock.
(28 May 1660) His Majesty's letter to His Excellency the Lord General Monck. To
be communicated to the officers of the Army. Brought to his Excellency from his
Majesties Court at the Hague by Sir Thomas Clarges. Rochester, 24 May 1660. I do
appoint Mr Henry Muddiman to cause this letter to be forthwith printed and published.
George Monck. Printed by John Macock.


## p. 363 (#379) ############################################

Henry Muddiman and The Gazette 363
-
6
6
recorded his impression that he was a 'good scholar, and an arch
rogue' for speaking basely' of the Rump. Needless to add, he
was soon to be undeceived as to the nature of the parliament for
which the new journalist was writing.
Thus began the career of the most famous of all the seven-
teenth century journalists; one whose principal ‘paper'—The
London Gazette-is with us still. That he has been forgotten
is due to the fact that he made few private, and no public,
enemies; for he was not a controversialist, and, throughout his
life, devoted himself to what, after all, is the principal part of a
journalist's duty-the collection of news. He had an assistant,
a Scot named Giles Dury, who, if his wife's name, 'Turgis,' in his
marriage licence in 1649, is a misreading for Clarges, must have
been a relation of Sir Thomas Clarges. Anthony à Wood tells us
that Dury soon 'gave over'; thus, in a few months' time, when
Nedham and Williams had successively been repressed, Muddiman
was sole journalist of the three kingdoms.
This was not his only reward, for the important privilege of
free postage was also given to him. Thus, anyone was at liberty
to write to him, post free, to tell him what was going on in any
part of the kingdoms, he also having the right to send letters
in return without charge. He, therefore, opened his first editorial
office at the Seven Stars in the Strand, near the New Exchange
(the site of Coutts's old bank), and attached himself to the office of
secretary of state Nicholas, afterwards of lord Arlington, whither,
after a time, the bulk of his letters were addressed, either to
himself or, by his own direction, to Sir Joseph Williamson, then
under-secretary and, after a time, his censor. A correspondence of
this kind, of course, was of very great importance to a government
anxious to know what was going on in different parts of the
realm, and it largely accounts for the great bulk of the restoration
state papers. The fact that parliament, in June 1660, prohibited
printed reports of its proceedings and never removed the embargo
until the end of the century, made his letters of news much in
request, and, in this way, that which might have been thought
the least important and the least lucrative part of his work
really assumed the greatest consequence. So, when Sir Roger
L'Estrange's open request for the sole privilege of writing the
'newsbooks' succeeded, at the end of 1663, Muddiman was but
little injured and does not at all seem to have resented his
supersession.
A more dangerous enemy than L'Estrange was Sir Joseph
Williamson, for whom Muddiman started the Gazette at the end


## p. 364 (#380) ############################################

364 The Beginnings of English Journalism
a
of 1665 and crushed out L'Estrange; finally, when Williamson
tried to deprive him of his newsletter correspondence, Muddiman
started another periodical—the official The Current Intelligence
(of 1666)—under protection of Monck's cousin, another secretary of
state, Sir William Morice. Thus, Williamson was brought to terms.
He had to carry on a newsletter correspondence himself after this,
in order to feed the Gazette; but his duties prevented his giving
his personal attention either to the Gazette or to his newsletters;
and, while the former lapsed into a moribund condition, the latter
did not pay. The newsletters of the man whom he had attempted
to oust became a household word throughout the kingdom.
These newsletters, closely written by clerks (from dictation)
on a single sheet, the size and shape of modern foolscap, headed
'Whitehall,' to show their privilege, beginning 'Sir,' and without any
signature, misspelt, the writing cramped and crabbed to a degree,
but literally crammed with parliamentary and court news, are
easily distinguishable from the rarer productions of less successful
writers. They were sent post free twice a week, or oftener, for £5 a
year and, from the lists of correspondents at the Record office, as
well as from numerous references to Muddiman in the various
reports of the Historical Manuscripts commission, it is evident
that no personage of consequence could afford to dispense with
them. A vast number of them still exist; one collection contains
a complete series for twenty-two years. They have never yet been
systematically calendared and published.
Anthony à Wood continually visited Short's coffee-house in
Cat street, Oxford, in order to read 'Muddiman's letter' and was
in the habit of paying two shillings 'quarteridge' for them when
they were done with. Sir Roger North, in the life of his brother,
shows that they were held in much the same esteem at Cambridge.
Once or twice, Muddiman got into trouble. In 1676, the king
was much annoyed at a statement made in a newsletter found in a
coffee-house, to the effect that a fleet was to sail against Algiers
under Sir John Narborough and that the duke of Monmouth was
to be one of his captains. The letter was at once suspected to be
Muddiman's. Pepys got a copy of it for Williamson, and Muddiman
was examined before the council, the king stating that he would not
suffer either Muddiman or any other person to divulge anything
agitated in council 'till he thought fit to declare it. ' When the
matter was enquired into, the writer was proved to have been
Williamson's own head clerk, and he had to dismiss him. The
following year, Muddiman was arrested for writing confidently
that the Spaniards intended war against England,' but nothing
a


## p. 365 (#381) ############################################

Muddiman's Newsletters
365
6
seems to have come of it. Wood also records in his diary that,
in 1686, in the days of James II, Street, judge of assize at
Oxford, spoke in his charge to the grand jury against newsletters,
particularly Muddiman's, and, after noting that they 'came not to
Oxon afterwards,' adds, other trite and lying letters came”. But,
as he was on the popular side and opposed to James II, his
letters were soon back again. His Gazette may be said to
have been the first printed newspaper, for it at once gained
the title of a 'paper' as being a departure from the ancient
pamphlet form and no longer a 'book. It was only ‘half a sheet
in folio' and clearly designed to be sent with his letters. The
word 'newes-paper' was not long in being coined as a result, and,
from analogy with this, was at last obtained the word 'newsletter. '
The career of Sir Roger L'Estrange, who supplanted Henry
Muddiman for about two years, would (like that of Henry Walker)
require a volume to do it justice, if his surveyorship of the press
were taken into account. Nevertheless, his role as journalist
was brief, uneventful and unimportant. His two periodicals The
Intelligencer and The News (31 August 1663 to 29 January 1666)
were only half the size of his predecessor's publications and, in
1664, were paged and numbered together as one periodical. This was
a device to make them pay. L'Estrange was a better pamphleteer
than journalist; his Observator, issued in later years, consisted of
nothing but comment without news. When Muddiman put an end
to L'Estrange's journals with the Gazette in 1665, L'Estrange, by
the king's orders, was pensioned off with £100 a year charged on the
Gazette, his future services as surveyor of the press being paid for,
in like manner, by £200 a year out of the secret service money.