The Invention of News: How the World Came to Know About Itself

by Andrew Pettegree

  In England the Civil Wars marked a long-delayed coming of age for the printing industry. For much of the sixteenth century the market was simply too small to sustain more than a modest and rather conservative range of titles, particularly as English readers continued to look to European imports for scholarly books in Latin. English printers were tied to the vernacular trade and dependent on the Crown for much of their work; the industry was almost entirely confined to London. Although Londoners shared in the general European thirst for news, much of it initially came in the form of translations of pamphlets first published in French or Dutch. In the 1620s London joined the European fashion for weekly news-sheets, and manuscript news services established a foothold. But it was only in the 1640s that the English press came into its own.

  If Butter and Bourne imagined that the restoration of their corantos monopoly in 1638 would recover their fortunes, they were to be disappointed. Events had moved on. Their diet of despatches from the continental wars no longer met the public's expectations: readers had more urgent domestic concerns. The attempt to impose an Anglican settlement on the reluctant Scots brought the first armed confrontation and further isolated King Charles from a perplexed and anxious political nation. In 1640 all eyes were on Westminster, where the king's reluctant recall of Parliament catalysed the nation's discontents. The urgency of constitutional debate led to the production of a new type of serial publication, the rather misleadingly entitled ‘diurnal’ (or daily). These offered a weekly summary of events in Parliament with an account of each day's business. These diurnals were circulating in manuscript throughout 1640, but it was only in November 1641 that the first was published as a printed serial newsletter.38 The diurnals struck an immediate chord with the reading public, and by the end of 1642 more than twenty independent publications had been published using Diurnal, or some variation, in their title.39 The most successful and enduring was the Perfect Diurnall of the passages in Parliament of Samuel Pecke, an experienced editor of manuscript news-sheets and a pioneer of the new trend towards domestic news.

  This resumption of serial news was significant, but not a major constituent cause of the unfolding political drama. The diurnals appeared in print only towards the end of 1641, the year that put the conflict between king and Parliament beyond peaceful resolution. Here, as in earlier conflicts, it was pamphlets that drove forward the political debate. The decisive years before the outbreak of the Civil War were accompanied by a torrent of publications. The output of the press grew almost fourfold between 1639 and 1641, and reached its peak in 1642 with almost four thousand published works.40 Most of this increase can be accounted for by political pamphlets. We can chart the dramatic events of the crisis of 1641 through successive pamphlet surges: the trial of the Earl of Strafford; the attack on Archbishop Laud; the fear of Catholic plots.41 The Irish rebellion stimulated a rash of hard-hitting publications, some with illustrations graphically describing the torments suffered by the Protestant settlers.42 The feverish, vituperative tone of this literature reached new heights, for England at least. The pitiless hatred directed towards Strafford and Laud, the gloating descriptions of Strafford's descent into Hell, were matched by an increasingly martial tone in the calls for the defence of true religion. Though the fighting was only irrevocably joined when the armies squared up at Edgehill in 1642, the shedding of blood had been eagerly anticipated many times over in the angry, vengeful and virulently sectarian pamphlets of the previous year.

  In contrast to the tone of the pamphlet literature, the diurnals may seem rather staid and cautious; nevertheless they represent a quiet revolution in the European news world.43 For this was the first time that regular serial publications had been devoted primarily to domestic events. Secure in their command of England's only substantial print centre, Parliament embarked on a conscious effort to engage the political nation. Parliamentarians had imbibed the insight of Paolo Sarpi, that the informed subject ‘gradually begins to judge the prince's actions’, but had drawn the opposite conclusion: that this was desirable. In the years to come, Parliament would make conscious and effective use of its command of the London press, ensuring that its acts and proclamations were known in all parts of the kingdom under its military control.44

  For royalists this posed a challenge almost as daunting as the military conflict. Having withdrawn from his rebellious capital in January 1642, Charles I finally recognised that a more active policy of public engagement was necessary if he was to challenge the overwhelmingly hostile use of print. The establishment of a press in cities loyal to the king did something to redress the balance, leading in 1643 to the foundation of a weekly news journal devoted explicitly to the royalist cause: the Mercurius Aulicus.

  This, again, was an important moment in the history of newspapers: the beginnings of advocacy journalism.45 To this point the periodical press had struggled to demonstrate its relevance to the conflict. Although 1642 had seen a rash of new titles, most had ceased publication by the end of the year. This set the pattern for the period as a whole. More than three hundred ostensibly serial publications were founded between 1641 and 1655, but the vast majority (84 per cent) published only one issue, or a handful of issues.46 This makes the point that contrary to what we might imagine from this great burst of creative energy, these were not optimum conditions for the publication of newspapers. Papers needed stability: to build a subscription list it was always best to avoid giving offence, which risks providing the authorities with a pretext to close the publication down. This was hardly the temper of the times in these turbulent decades. News serials, with the address of the seller prominently displayed, were sitting ducks for retribution. Pamphlets, on the other hand, could be published anonymously, and increasing numbers were.

  The Mercurius Aulicus was very different.47 It offered a serial commentary on events, abandoning the clipped sequence of brief reports characteristic of news reporting to this point in favour of longer essays scorning and goading the king's enemies. The ammunition for many of its articles was drawn from other news-books. When it came to the actual reporting of events the journal frequently fell short. The calamitous royalist defeat at Marston Moor, which opened the way for Parliament's eventual military triumph, was first reported as a victory: ‘Great newes’ from York proclaimed the Mercurius Aulicus in its issue of 6 July 1644. It had received ‘certain intelligence that the rebels are absolutely routed’. The following week it was forced into a humiliating retraction, albeit with the grumpy accusation that the Parliamentarians had deliberately held back the true report.48

  At another level, though, the Mercurius Aulicus was very successful. It certainly did a great deal to stiffen the sinews of the king's supporters, and irritate his enemies. When a consignment of five hundred copies was intercepted by Parliamentary forces, this was reported almost like a military victory. In the summer of 1643 Parliament set up its own advocacy serial, the Mercurius Britanicus, explicitly to counter the influence of Mercurius Aulicus.49 This journal also had the distinction of launching one of the seventeenth century's most remarkable journalistic careers.

  Marchamont Nedham was a naturally gifted writer.50 His combination of impassioned advocacy, biting wit and an easy, flowing literary style was exactly right for these troubled times. For successive issues he went head to head with Mercurius Aulicus and landed some heavy blows. A natural risk-taker, Nedham was bold and outspoken, and occasionally he strayed over the limits of what was permissible even in this extraordinary period. In 1645, after the king's defeat at Naseby, he fabricated a jocular ‘Wanted’ notice which made a crude reference to Charles's stutter.51 Parliament took action, sending both the printer and the censor, who should have spotted this, to prison. Nedham was let off with a reprimand, a clear recognition of how valuable he was perceived to be to the Parliamentary cause. The Mercurius Britanicus was soon back in business, having missed only a single issue.

  10.4 The arraignment of Mercurius Aulicus. This piece of Parliamentary wish fulfilment, with Sir J
ohn Birkenhead in the pillory, demonstrated the extent to which the king's propaganda vehicle had hit home.

  This incident may have given Nedham too elevated a sense of his own importance, because the following year he was in trouble again, this time for an editorial describing Charles as a tyrant. He went to prison, but incarcerating Nedham for a symbolic fortnight did not have the desired effect. Tiring of his old employers, Nedham now made his apologies not to Parliament, but to the king; and Charles, incredibly, hired him to write for royalist publications. In the well-named Mercurius Pragmaticus, this versatile journalist now denounced Parliament and its Scottish allies for their conspiracy against the monarchy, and excoriated those pressing towards the rebellion's astonishing conclusion: the trial and execution of the king.52

  The execution of King Charles I in January 1649 sent shock waves around the European news world. The reading publics of Germany, Holland and France were fascinated that the new citizen masters of England could bring their quarrels to such a conclusion. Continental readers hungered after details and explanations.53 Pamphlets and above all illustrations of the execution were printed and reprinted in many countries.54 In England itself the situation was very different. The century's most extraordinary news event produced a comparatively subdued response. This was partly because the defenders of England's ancient liberties ensured that this should be so. In February the House of Commons, reduced to a Rump by Pride's Purge of the previous year, responded furiously to pamphlets distancing their previous Presbyterian allies from the execution. An Act for the better regulation of printing imposed draconian financial penalties on those who ‘shall presume to make, write, print, publish, sell or utter, or cause to be made, printed or uttered, any scandalous or libelous books, pamphlets, papers or pictures whatsoever’. Such regulations were not new: Parliament had already passed censorship measures in 1642, 1643 and 1647.55 What is most striking is the new emphasis on regulating visual imagery, no doubt inspired by the awareness that there was no more striking image than that of a decapitated king. What Parliament could not control was the extraordinary popularity of the Eikon basilike. The pourtraicture of his sacred majestie in his solitudes and sufferings.56 This purported to be the king's own account of events since 1640, interspersed with his prayers and meditations. It was a publishing sensation, with thirty-five English and twenty-five continental editions in its first year alone. At last, if rather too late, the Royalists had discovered the secret of successful propaganda.

  10.5 Mercurius Pragmaticus. Marchamont Nedham in the service of the king.

  The Parliamentary authorities had at least succeeded in tracking down Nedham, who in June 1649 was consigned to Newgate Prison. This provided the opportunity for deep, if uncomfortable, reflection, and in 1650 Nedham re-emerged into the public eye to announce his conversion to republicanism.57 The Council of State had clearly got his measure. In May they determined his future journalistic efforts should be rewarded with a salary of 100 pounds a year. Thus encouraged, Nedham presented the prospectus for a new news-book, the Mercurius Politicus. The flippant, ironical tone of his previous editorials would be replaced by serious essays extolling the virtues of the Republic. Nedham worked closely with John Thurloe, head of the Republic's office of intelligence, whose incoming mails provided an excellent source of foreign news. This took on a renewed importance when England descended into open warfare with the Dutch Republic (1652–4), events that were reported much more fully than Cromwell's final exasperated dismissal of the Rump Parliament (April 1653). When in 1655 the Cromwell regime closed down all but two of the London papers, both the survivors, Mercurius Politicus and its midweek stable-mate, The Publick Intelligencer, were being run by Nedham.58 With an effective monopoly on sales and advertising revenues, Nedham was well on the way to becoming a rich man.

  Nedham's frequent intellectual conversions and brazen exchange of loyalties have been harshly treated by historians. But these were strange times, and contemporaries who contemplated the deluge of print recognised them as such. It was a significant moment of transformation in the English news industry. The serials, pamphlets and official publications; the hiring of professional writers and sympathetic printers; the manipulation, suppression and embroidering of news; the censorship, controls and punishment of dissidence; all of this reflected a recognition that an unusually engaged public had to be cajoled and persuaded. But no one for a moment thought that this would go on indefinitely. All of those involved recognised this engagement with the public as a facet of an emergency, to be regretted rather than celebrated.

  Cromwell's steely suppression of opposition voices might have seemed hypocritical, and was certainly denounced as such by Royalists and disillusioned former allies. But most would have grudgingly acknowledged that they would also have celebrated victory by stilling the cacophonous voices stirred up by the Civil War. Certainly the restored monarchy thought as much. The kingdom's liberation from Republicanism in 1660 was followed by a swift crackdown on the press. The chaotic year and more between Cromwell's death in 1658 and the return of Charles II witnessed a steady revival of polemical literature, this time increasingly dominated by supporters of monarchy. An expiring, exhausted regime had few friends; the merciless press that had once hunted Strafford and Laud now found new fiends on which to unload its venom, and atone for their own guilt. These new scapegoats were the regicides, those who had signed the death warrant of the now sainted king: in the autumn of 1660 those excluded from the new king's gracious pardon were hauled to a grisly execution, hounded and mocked by the popular prints. The public desire for news had found a voice, but not yet a sense of humanity.

  Printed Pandemonium

  The Dutch Republic was the phenomenon of the seventeenth century. Even its enemies, and they were many, could only marvel that a small province, almost destroyed by the struggle for independence in the sixteenth century, could have been transformed into Europe's most prosperous state: and all this without a king.59 The rebellion begun in 1566 was only formally concluded in 1648, when Philip of Spain finally conceded that the northern part of his empire was irrecoverable. By this time, and despite a near constant state of war, the young Republic had turned itself into Europe's most advanced economy. It was the Continent's leading centre of international trade, home to the most sophisticated market in stocks, banking and insurance. It was Europe's leading shipbuilding centre. Inevitably, it was also a major hub of news.

  The new Republic had eagerly embraced the opportunities of the periodical press. By the 1640s Amsterdam had ten weekly newspapers published on four different days of the week.60 The young Republic also took a keen interest in the affairs of its neighbours. The English dispute between king and Parliament was closely followed in Holland, with numerous translations of republican and royalist polemic made available to a new audience in Dutch translation.61 Like much of the economy the printing industry fed off the easy availability of investment capital, and the unusual difficulty of imposing restraint: a publication forbidden in one city could usually be put to the press in another of Holland's towns.

  All of this feverish economic activity came at a price. The economy was prone to extravagant fluctuations as surplus capital sought an outlet. The most famous example of this was the tulipmania of 1632, the first major economic crisis of the newspaper age.62 The ruthless treatment of business rivals, exhibited here and in foreign trade, sat uneasily with the pious tone of public life. Religious solidarity cut little ice where there were markets to be protected. The Dutch were notoriously brutal colonists, and fickle allies. In 1672 all of these chickens came home to roost. Brilliant, opulent, ruthless and self-righteous, the young state suddenly found itself utterly without friends.

  The crisis that engulfed the Dutch Republic unfolded very quickly. In March 1672 Louis XIV concluded the military alliances that left the Republic isolated and encircled. Lingering hopes of English friendship were dashed when the English navy attacked the returning Levantine fleet. In April France and England dec
lared war. Despite a desperate but indecisive victory over the English at Solebay off the coast of Suffolk on 7 June, the inadequate Dutch land forces were swiftly overrun by Louis XIV's regiments, Europe's most professional army. Soon the landward provinces were in French hands, and Utrecht surrendered without a fight. The very survival of the nation was once more in doubt.

  The collapse of Dutch military forces and the advancing French armies set off a tidal wave of popular fury. In July the republican regents of Holland, divided between defeatism and those who wished to fight on, bowed to popular pressure to install William of Orange as Stadtholder of Holland. The enemies of the discredited republican regime now took their revenge. On 4 August the Grand Pensionary, Jan de Witt, who had been wounded by a knife attack on 21 June, resigned his office. Three weeks later he and his brother Cornelis were set upon in The Hague, beaten, stabbed and shot to death. Their bodies were then dragged to the public scaffold, mutilated and dismembered.

  Nothing like this had ever before been witnessed in Holland. The public lynching of two of the Republic's leading citizens was a drastic repudiation not just of their regime, but of the civilised values that had characterised this prosperous bourgeois society. The critical moments of the drama could soon be relived in the dramatic sequence of engravings by Romeyn de Hooghe, a sympathetic witness to the brothers’ violent end.63 These ghastly events and their aftermath also stimulated a torrent of pamphlet literature. The most recent scholarly study of the print history of these episodes enumerates 1,605 pamphlets, of which 996 were original writings, and only 609 reprints.64 Most of these were crowded into a very short period of intense activity between April and August 1672. The campaign engaged a remarkable range of authors, and a wide cross section of the publishing industry. Eighty-six different printing houses were involved in Amsterdam alone. This was not a campaign shaped by rival Orangist and regent factions. Rather, what we see is a highly literate, politically active citizenry responding to unusual events in a situation where the already lax censorship of the Dutch Republic was completely unhinged.