Walker was the 'loving and
affectionate
friend' of Cromwell's
other and better known chaplain Hugh Peters.
other and better known chaplain Hugh Peters.
Cambridge History of English Literature - 1908 - v07
343 (#359) ############################################
CHAPTER XV
THE BEGINNINGS OF ENGLISH JOURNALISM
In its origin, journalism was not the child of the printing press.
The germ of it is to be found in the circular letters sent round
after Agincourt and other medieval battles; and the profession of
a writer of 'letters of news' or 'of intelligence' dates from the
establishment of regular postal services.
Long before this, however, statesmen had found it necessary to
have a constant supply of news. In the days of queen Elizabeth,
Robert Devereux, earl of Essex, founded a staff of clerks in order
to provide himself with news. His establishment for this purpose
vied with that of the government itself. His clerks, Anthony
Bacon, Sir Henry Wotton, Cuffe, Reynolds and Temple, so plentifully
supplied him with intelligence that they were one of the sources
of his power. But these were not journalists writing for the public;
they were simply retainers of a great noble, members of a class of
whom the cultured and intelligent John Chamberlain, corre-
spondent of James I's ambassador, Dudley Carleton, is the chief.
Chamberlain's letters are numerous, and give graphic pictures of
life in London at the court of James I 1.
A long time elapsed before English journalism could call the
printing press to its aid. The royal prerogative in the circulation
of news, the vexatious licensing system, the regulations of the Star
,
chamber, together with the religious strife of the times, all com-
bined to prevent the publication of any sort of periodical until
1622, and all journals of domestic news until 1641, when the great
rebellion was about to begin.
of ,
[Printing] bath been a pestilent midwife to those accursed brats, Error in
the Church and Sedition in the State. Nor indeed, if a man may dare to
speak it, are the governors themselves wholly blameless for such incon-
veniences. For Printing being ever accounted among the Regalia of every
1 As to 'intelligencers,' cf. ante, chap. vin.
## p. 344 (#360) ############################################
344 The Beginnings of English Journalism
>
government, as well as coining etc. , it should be looked on with such a jealous
and strict eye, there should be such a circumspect care of prevention, and
such painful pursuance of misdemeanours as would be required against the
most dangerous crimes 1.
Thus wrote a pamphleteer, in defence of Oliver Cromwell
during the great press persecution of 1653, and the statement may
be taken as fairly representing the mind of all parties throughout
the seventeenth century.
The first traces of journalism in the printing press were in the
broadside ballads about battles and tragical events of the day. To
these were soon added isolated pamphlets usually termed Relations
of news; but pamphlets of this nature, describing domestic events,
were rare before 1640. In the meantime, periodical pamphlets had
sprung into existence on the continent; and these constituted the
bulk of the sources from which the English Relations were taken.
One of these books of news,'a chronicle of the wars in Germany, pub-
lished half yearly at Cologne', was written in Latin and had a large
circulation in England. This was the model upon which subsequent
English periodicals based themselves. Nevertheless, it evidently
dealt too much with affairs of state to allow it to be regularly
translated.
After the marriage in 1613 of princess Elizabeth with the
elector palatine, and the subsequent German wars, an English
periodical could not long be delayed. In May 1622, Thomas
Archer and Nicholas Bourne were authorised to issue periodically
pamphlets dealing with foreign wars. These periodicals usually
appeared at intervals of five days or a week, were not at first
numbered and never at any time had a regular running title.
This last device, properly characterised as a 'catchword,' did not
come into being until the year 1642, when it was occasioned by
competition. Other stationers, of whom Nathaniel Butter was
chief, joined Archer and Bourne as publishers, and, in 1625, Archer
alone appears to have published a periodical in competition with
Butter and Bourne. He made the first attempt at a 'catchword'
on the title of his periodical by styling himself (not the pamphlet)
'Mercurius Britannicus'-evidently modelling himself in this on
‘Mercurius Gallobelgicus. ' The headings of these pamphlets
usually varied according to their themes; but they were generally
* Sedition Scourg'd, or a View of that Rascally and Venemous Paper entituled; a
charge of High Treason exhibited against Oliver Cromwell Esq. , etc. , printed 20 October
1653, and probably written by John Hall.
2 The first number appeared in March 1594 and was written by Michael Jansen, of
Doccum in West Friesland, under the pseudonym Mercurius Gallobelgicus'; other
writers succeeded him.
6
- : ;
.
i 1! ona
## p. 345 (#361) ############################################
Gainsford and the Corantos
345
6
spoken of as the Coranto or current' of news that is, a
'relation' which ran on, instead of being confined to one pamphlet.
Sometimes, another Italian word, Novella, was also applied to the
Relations. For example, Joseph Mead wrote to a friend on
8 November 1623, 'I send you to-day besides the Corranto, a
double novella to the ordinary intelligence'—the Relation, in that
case, being the story of the fall of a building in which a number of
Catholics were listening to a sermon. Nevertheless, all Corantos
dealt exclusively with foreign news, down to the year 1641.
These Corantos were the subject of much ridicule, particularly
at the hands of Ben Jonson. Indeed, so strong a vein of personal
animosity towards captain Francis Gainsford, who, probably, wrote
the earlier Corantos, and towards Chamberlain, his probable pro-
tector, is to be noticed in Jonson’s masques and in his Staple of
Newes, that it may be surmised that, at some time or other, Jonson's
conduct in the wars in the Low Countries had been unfavourably
described by Gainsford. Be that as it may, the ill repute which
Jonson contrived to fasten upon the profession of the author of a
newsbook survived, and survived unjustly, for many years.
On 17 October 1632, the Star chamber finally prohibited the
printing of all Gazettes and news from foreign parts, as well
Butter and Bournes as others,' and, thenceforward, until 20
December 1638, no Corantos appeared. On the last date,
Butter and Bourne, by royal letters patent, were granted the
monopoly of printing foreign news: ‘they paying yearly towards
the repair of St. Pauls the sum of £10. ' No. 1 of the new 'news-
book’ was dated the same day, with the title An abstract of some
speciall forreigne occurrences brought down to the weekly newes of
the 20 of December. Anthony à Wood tells us that William Watts of
Caius college, who was also an Oxford doctor of divinity, wrote more
than 40 of these newsbooks,"containing the occurrences done in the
wars between the King of Sweden and the Germans. There was a
total absence of considered editorial comment in these newsbooks,
nothing but bare translations being permitted. The preface to the
first number is a very good example of the terminology in use :
6
The Currantiers to the Readers. Gentle Reader. This intelligencer, the
Curranto, having been long silenced and now permitted by authority to
speake again, presents you here at first with such things as passed some
months since; not because we conceive that they are absolutely Novels unto
you; but first, because there is fraud in generalities, we thought fit to
acquaint you with each particular: and, secondly, that by these antecedente
you may better understand the consequents which we shall now publish weekly
as heretofore.
## p. 346 (#362) ############################################
346 The Beginnings of English Journalism
Difficulties with the licenser soon followed; the Corantos were
again suppressed, reappeared and, finally, vanished altogether
among the shoals of pamphlets pouring from the press in 1641
and 1642. With the passing of the Coranto, came the 'news-
book' or Diurnall of domestic news,
In abolishing the Star chamber (5 July 1641), the last thing
which the Long parliament had in view was to grant liberty
to the press. Preparations for a censorship were at once
taken in hand, the delay until June 1643 in carrying them into
effect being occasioned solely by the struggle with the king. In
November 1641, parliament encroached upon the royal prerogative
by permitting Diurnalls of its proceedings (to which other news
was added) to be published under the imprimatur of its clerks.
There was but one post a week from London at this time, on
Tuesday, and the result of the permission was that, in a week or
two, as many as fifteen Diurnalls, undistinguishable save by their
contents and (occasionally) by the printers' or booksellers' names
attached, appeared every Monday, to the ruin of the scriveners,
who had been in the habit of sending out letters of news every
week. Copyright (at the time not supposed to exist at common
law) had been endangered by the abolition of the Star chamber's
licensers; and, if we bear in mind the scurrility which had previously
characterised political and religious pamphleteers and broadside
writers, it is not surprising to find that the crowd of counterfeit
Diurnalls and even more numerous Relations were dishonest pro-
ductions. Throughout the year 1642, both Houses were extremely
busy in punishing writers and printers, particularly of Relations;
a process only terminated in 1643 by the appointment of a
licenser-Henry Walley, clerk to the company of stationers
recognition of the 'catchword' or newspaper title, protection
of copyright and the wholesale stamping out of the forging,
counterfeiting and, occasionally, blasphemous writers of Relations.
Henceforward, journalists were a recognised body, their periodicals
became easily distinguishable and the Relations accompanying
them can be marked off and identified.
Of the vast, unique and practically complete Thomason
collection of tracts of the times, extending over the period
from 1641 to 1660, at least one third consists of newsbooks, and,
when to this are added the Relations and other tracts allied to
* A catalogue of this, in chronological order (each piece having been dated by
Thomason on the day he purchased it), was printed in 1908. The dates are nearly
always the days of publication and have been accepted in the text.
## p. 347 (#363) ############################################
wale
347
Huth
Pecke's Perfect Diurnall
bai
Det
12
the newsbooks, more than one half the total collection of over
22,000 pieces is to be ascribed directly or indirectly to journalists
of the day and to their associates.
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).
CHAPTER XV
THE BEGINNINGS OF ENGLISH JOURNALISM
In its origin, journalism was not the child of the printing press.
The germ of it is to be found in the circular letters sent round
after Agincourt and other medieval battles; and the profession of
a writer of 'letters of news' or 'of intelligence' dates from the
establishment of regular postal services.
Long before this, however, statesmen had found it necessary to
have a constant supply of news. In the days of queen Elizabeth,
Robert Devereux, earl of Essex, founded a staff of clerks in order
to provide himself with news. His establishment for this purpose
vied with that of the government itself. His clerks, Anthony
Bacon, Sir Henry Wotton, Cuffe, Reynolds and Temple, so plentifully
supplied him with intelligence that they were one of the sources
of his power. But these were not journalists writing for the public;
they were simply retainers of a great noble, members of a class of
whom the cultured and intelligent John Chamberlain, corre-
spondent of James I's ambassador, Dudley Carleton, is the chief.
Chamberlain's letters are numerous, and give graphic pictures of
life in London at the court of James I 1.
A long time elapsed before English journalism could call the
printing press to its aid. The royal prerogative in the circulation
of news, the vexatious licensing system, the regulations of the Star
,
chamber, together with the religious strife of the times, all com-
bined to prevent the publication of any sort of periodical until
1622, and all journals of domestic news until 1641, when the great
rebellion was about to begin.
of ,
[Printing] bath been a pestilent midwife to those accursed brats, Error in
the Church and Sedition in the State. Nor indeed, if a man may dare to
speak it, are the governors themselves wholly blameless for such incon-
veniences. For Printing being ever accounted among the Regalia of every
1 As to 'intelligencers,' cf. ante, chap. vin.
## p. 344 (#360) ############################################
344 The Beginnings of English Journalism
>
government, as well as coining etc. , it should be looked on with such a jealous
and strict eye, there should be such a circumspect care of prevention, and
such painful pursuance of misdemeanours as would be required against the
most dangerous crimes 1.
Thus wrote a pamphleteer, in defence of Oliver Cromwell
during the great press persecution of 1653, and the statement may
be taken as fairly representing the mind of all parties throughout
the seventeenth century.
The first traces of journalism in the printing press were in the
broadside ballads about battles and tragical events of the day. To
these were soon added isolated pamphlets usually termed Relations
of news; but pamphlets of this nature, describing domestic events,
were rare before 1640. In the meantime, periodical pamphlets had
sprung into existence on the continent; and these constituted the
bulk of the sources from which the English Relations were taken.
One of these books of news,'a chronicle of the wars in Germany, pub-
lished half yearly at Cologne', was written in Latin and had a large
circulation in England. This was the model upon which subsequent
English periodicals based themselves. Nevertheless, it evidently
dealt too much with affairs of state to allow it to be regularly
translated.
After the marriage in 1613 of princess Elizabeth with the
elector palatine, and the subsequent German wars, an English
periodical could not long be delayed. In May 1622, Thomas
Archer and Nicholas Bourne were authorised to issue periodically
pamphlets dealing with foreign wars. These periodicals usually
appeared at intervals of five days or a week, were not at first
numbered and never at any time had a regular running title.
This last device, properly characterised as a 'catchword,' did not
come into being until the year 1642, when it was occasioned by
competition. Other stationers, of whom Nathaniel Butter was
chief, joined Archer and Bourne as publishers, and, in 1625, Archer
alone appears to have published a periodical in competition with
Butter and Bourne. He made the first attempt at a 'catchword'
on the title of his periodical by styling himself (not the pamphlet)
'Mercurius Britannicus'-evidently modelling himself in this on
‘Mercurius Gallobelgicus. ' The headings of these pamphlets
usually varied according to their themes; but they were generally
* Sedition Scourg'd, or a View of that Rascally and Venemous Paper entituled; a
charge of High Treason exhibited against Oliver Cromwell Esq. , etc. , printed 20 October
1653, and probably written by John Hall.
2 The first number appeared in March 1594 and was written by Michael Jansen, of
Doccum in West Friesland, under the pseudonym Mercurius Gallobelgicus'; other
writers succeeded him.
6
- : ;
.
i 1! ona
## p. 345 (#361) ############################################
Gainsford and the Corantos
345
6
spoken of as the Coranto or current' of news that is, a
'relation' which ran on, instead of being confined to one pamphlet.
Sometimes, another Italian word, Novella, was also applied to the
Relations. For example, Joseph Mead wrote to a friend on
8 November 1623, 'I send you to-day besides the Corranto, a
double novella to the ordinary intelligence'—the Relation, in that
case, being the story of the fall of a building in which a number of
Catholics were listening to a sermon. Nevertheless, all Corantos
dealt exclusively with foreign news, down to the year 1641.
These Corantos were the subject of much ridicule, particularly
at the hands of Ben Jonson. Indeed, so strong a vein of personal
animosity towards captain Francis Gainsford, who, probably, wrote
the earlier Corantos, and towards Chamberlain, his probable pro-
tector, is to be noticed in Jonson’s masques and in his Staple of
Newes, that it may be surmised that, at some time or other, Jonson's
conduct in the wars in the Low Countries had been unfavourably
described by Gainsford. Be that as it may, the ill repute which
Jonson contrived to fasten upon the profession of the author of a
newsbook survived, and survived unjustly, for many years.
On 17 October 1632, the Star chamber finally prohibited the
printing of all Gazettes and news from foreign parts, as well
Butter and Bournes as others,' and, thenceforward, until 20
December 1638, no Corantos appeared. On the last date,
Butter and Bourne, by royal letters patent, were granted the
monopoly of printing foreign news: ‘they paying yearly towards
the repair of St. Pauls the sum of £10. ' No. 1 of the new 'news-
book’ was dated the same day, with the title An abstract of some
speciall forreigne occurrences brought down to the weekly newes of
the 20 of December. Anthony à Wood tells us that William Watts of
Caius college, who was also an Oxford doctor of divinity, wrote more
than 40 of these newsbooks,"containing the occurrences done in the
wars between the King of Sweden and the Germans. There was a
total absence of considered editorial comment in these newsbooks,
nothing but bare translations being permitted. The preface to the
first number is a very good example of the terminology in use :
6
The Currantiers to the Readers. Gentle Reader. This intelligencer, the
Curranto, having been long silenced and now permitted by authority to
speake again, presents you here at first with such things as passed some
months since; not because we conceive that they are absolutely Novels unto
you; but first, because there is fraud in generalities, we thought fit to
acquaint you with each particular: and, secondly, that by these antecedente
you may better understand the consequents which we shall now publish weekly
as heretofore.
## p. 346 (#362) ############################################
346 The Beginnings of English Journalism
Difficulties with the licenser soon followed; the Corantos were
again suppressed, reappeared and, finally, vanished altogether
among the shoals of pamphlets pouring from the press in 1641
and 1642. With the passing of the Coranto, came the 'news-
book' or Diurnall of domestic news,
In abolishing the Star chamber (5 July 1641), the last thing
which the Long parliament had in view was to grant liberty
to the press. Preparations for a censorship were at once
taken in hand, the delay until June 1643 in carrying them into
effect being occasioned solely by the struggle with the king. In
November 1641, parliament encroached upon the royal prerogative
by permitting Diurnalls of its proceedings (to which other news
was added) to be published under the imprimatur of its clerks.
There was but one post a week from London at this time, on
Tuesday, and the result of the permission was that, in a week or
two, as many as fifteen Diurnalls, undistinguishable save by their
contents and (occasionally) by the printers' or booksellers' names
attached, appeared every Monday, to the ruin of the scriveners,
who had been in the habit of sending out letters of news every
week. Copyright (at the time not supposed to exist at common
law) had been endangered by the abolition of the Star chamber's
licensers; and, if we bear in mind the scurrility which had previously
characterised political and religious pamphleteers and broadside
writers, it is not surprising to find that the crowd of counterfeit
Diurnalls and even more numerous Relations were dishonest pro-
ductions. Throughout the year 1642, both Houses were extremely
busy in punishing writers and printers, particularly of Relations;
a process only terminated in 1643 by the appointment of a
licenser-Henry Walley, clerk to the company of stationers
recognition of the 'catchword' or newspaper title, protection
of copyright and the wholesale stamping out of the forging,
counterfeiting and, occasionally, blasphemous writers of Relations.
Henceforward, journalists were a recognised body, their periodicals
became easily distinguishable and the Relations accompanying
them can be marked off and identified.
Of the vast, unique and practically complete Thomason
collection of tracts of the times, extending over the period
from 1641 to 1660, at least one third consists of newsbooks, and,
when to this are added the Relations and other tracts allied to
* A catalogue of this, in chronological order (each piece having been dated by
Thomason on the day he purchased it), was printed in 1908. The dates are nearly
always the days of publication and have been accepted in the text.
## p. 347 (#363) ############################################
wale
347
Huth
Pecke's Perfect Diurnall
bai
Det
12
the newsbooks, more than one half the total collection of over
22,000 pieces is to be ascribed directly or indirectly to journalists
of the day and to their associates.
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).
