2. News Media
• Word of mouth
• Broadsheet ballads
• Manuscripts with news items amidst business and
personal items
• “Pure newsletter” domestic and foreign
• The “separate”
– 1628 First public account of the proceedings and
debates in Parliament
• News sheets
3. News
1620 First coranto in English, published in
Amsterdam.
Dutch style – 4 pages
1622 Weekly Newes from Italy; A Currant of
generall newes
First to carry date of publication on title page
Unsanctioned publications report on war in France
Deal only with foreign affairs, and generally careful to
avoid controversial topics
6. Censorship
• 1621 Cottington appointed to approve
international news
• Ecclesiastical licensing under statute going
back to Elizabeth
• 1622 Limit afternoon sermons
8. Alternative−St. Paul’s Walk
It is the great Exchange of all
discourse, & no busines whosoeuer
but is here stirring and afoot.
It is the generall Mint of all famous
lies ... All inuentions are emptyed
here, and not few pockets. ...
It is the eares Brothell and satisfies
their lust, and ytch.
Bishop John Earle, 1628
9. Pamphlets and Newsbooks
Pamphlets
– Less than 50 pages
– Full title-page
– Topical and contentious;
one-off
– Often anonymous
Newsbooks
– Serial
– Header
– ~1000 copies
– Also often anonymous
– Neutral beginning:
quickly develop a
political voice
13. Mercurius Politicus (1650-1660)
• Marchamont Nedham,
editor
• Domestic and foreign news
• Headlines
• Content included
– Editiorials
– Human interest stories
– Social column
14. Freedom of the Press
1644 Milton pamphlet Areopagitica
“who kills a Man kills a reasonable creature, Gods Image;
but hee who destroyes a good Booke, kills reason it selfe,
kills the Image of God, as it were in the eye.”
“Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely
according to conscience, above all liberties.”
1661 Sedition Act
– Writings against the King or reconvened
Parliament; Difficult to enforce:
15. 1662 Licensing of the Press Act
“For preventing the frequent Abuses in printing
seditious treasonable and unlicensed Bookes and
Pamphlets and for regulating of Printing and Printing
Presses”
Printing presses to be registered with Stationers’
Company
Books to list publisher and author
Limits on imported books, master printers, etc.
16. 1662 Licensing Act
• Particular licensing for books on
– Common Law – chancellor or chief Justices
– “History concerning the State of this Realm” –
Secretary of State
– Divinity Phisick Philosophy or whatsoever other
Science or Art – Archbishop of Canterbury
• Copies; one to Keeper of his Majesties Library;
two to the Vice-Chancellors of the two
Universities “or the use of the Publique Libraries
of the said Universities”
17. Enforcement
• Agents set up to do searches and inspections
• Violations
– First offense – 3 years loss of right to print
– Second offense – lifetime loss of right to print &
“Fine, Imprisonment, or other Corporal
Punishment, not extending to Life or Limb”
• Roger L’Estrange, licenser
19. L’Estrange on a Free Press
[Even] "supposing the press in order [and] the
people in their right wits,...a Publick Mercury
should never have my vote; because I think it
makes the multitude too familiar with the
actions, and counsels of their superiours, too
pragmaticall and censorious, and gives them,
not only an itch, but a kind of colourable right,
and licence, to be meddling with the
government.
20. Official news
• Protectorate – Marchamont Nedham
– Mercurius Publicus Thursdays
– The Publick Intelligencer Mondays
• Restoration
– Same publications, new owners
21. John Birkenhead (1617-79)
Henry Muddiman (1629-92)
• Birkenhead produced Mercurius Aulicus, a
royalist news book in 1643
• 1660-1663 Mercurius Publicus
• 1665 Oxford Gazette becomes London Gazette
under Sir Joseph Williamson, undersecretary
of state, and Muddiman
• Muddiman also produces newsletters
• 1666 The Current Intelligence
23. L’Estrange Again
Information control
“Tis the Press that has made 'um Mad, and the Press
must set 'um Right again.
The Distemper is Epidemical; and there's no way in
the world, but by Printing, to convey the Remedy to
the Disease.”
1681
24. The Press and the Anglo-DutchWar
• Dutch atrocities
• Justification for War
• Recruitment – patriotism
• Anti-Dutch sentiment
• English victories
• Anti-war sentiment
26. Mare clausum v. Mare Liberum
These are our seas. Only one
nation can rule the seas
[If the Dutch were to seize the English]
What person left untouch’t? what Throat
unscrapt?
What Female Sex but should be made a
Rape?
What cruelty doth now your Burghers act,
To our distressed men? their bodies ract.
29. Celebrating the soldiers
Go on brave Duke, make Forreign foes
confess
Unto their cost they find thou art no less,
Than Valours abstract, fortunes favourite,
The most invincible Heroick wight.
My Muse hath vow'd, so have the Virgins
nine
Engag'd by Oath a Panegerick line,
To each thy famous deed Parnassus hill
Shall sound, resound with songs thy
praise shall fill
Heavens spacious Vaults, the Starry
sphear
Shall env'ous be when it thy fame shall
hear.
32. Dutch View of
London Fire
Diverse strangers, Dutch
and French were
apprehended on suspicion
that they contributed to it.
Notwithstanding the
manner of burning makes
us conclude the whole is
an effect of unhappy
chance or
To speak better the heavy
hand of God upon us for
our sins.
33. George Wither (1558-1667)
Poetry to encourage debate
– Motif from Tuba Pacifica
Anti-Imperial
The conquer’d shall inslaved
be, and they
Who conquer, be made
slaves another way.
The world is wide enough,
and the Seas have room
Sufficient for your ships to go
and come:
34. Other Methods of Spreading the News
• Private letters
– Handwritten to subscribers (£5/year)
• Post Office claims monopoly on transport
• Circumvented by using carriers and stage-coaches
• Word of mouth
– Coffee House
