The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes
(190721).
Volume VII. Cavalier and Puritan.
XV. The Beginnings of English Journalism.
§ 6. John Crouch, Oliver Williams and
Canne.
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 Cromwells licenser,
Mabbott, during the years 1653 and 1654, contain songs
comparable to the most indecent
verse of Rochester himself.
48
When Cromwell turned out the Rump in 1653, a printer
called John Streater, a captain and
quartermastergeneral 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 Aristotles 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. Streaters 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
prosperous printer (chiefly of law
books) for the rest of his life, and died in 1687.
49
Cromwells 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 trailing one
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
Nedhams wit as having
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 arbitary
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 reproached, 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.
50
On this, Nedhams 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. 23
51
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 Mays
Lucan. There were one or two
reprints of parts of them in pamphlet form, and, on 29
June, 1656, Thomas Brewster (Vane
and Martens publisher) reprinted the articles which were
published between 16 October,
1651 and 12 August, 1652, condensed into a book under the
title The 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 Cromwells paid spy as well as
journalist and the very last man likely to
attack him. According to Sheppards The Weepers, published
on 13 September, 1652,
Politicus, at that time, was written by someone 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 supposition that he
may have had a hand in the composition of the articles may,
on internal evidence, at once be
dismissed.
52
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 Sheppards
Pragmaticus, Mercurius Britannicus,
1652 (the first five numbers only), Mercurius Poeticus,
1654, and The Observator, 1654.
53
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 Moncks 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. 24 He afterwards
practised medicine and died in 1678,
but succeeded in writing pamphlets for Charles II before
his death.
54
A periodical in French was issued throughout the wars.
55
This was Le Mercure Anglois, apparently written by John
Cotgrave, under Dillinghams
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
revived again in 1663 by Henry Muddiman and Thomas Henshaw
of Kensington.
Unfortunately, it has almost entirely vanished.
56
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 Peckes and
Walkers 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 Peckes
periodicals, the career of the
corrector of the press of Mrs. Griffin, publisher of
Peckes last Perfect Diurnall, is well
known, owing to his having been thrown into prison for
treason in 1660. He was Cromwells
son-in-law, Thomas Philpot 25 of Snow hill, and his
examination after his arrest shows that
he had been very well educated. 26 He began life as a
scholar of Christ Church near St.
Bartholomews hospital, and, after this, became a kings
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 Peckes
later pamphlets.
57
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 stateof which Thomas
Scot was the headdecided to
suppress all outside newsbooks. 27 Two journalists 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, Scots protégé with
his Occurrences from Foreign
parts and An Exact Accompt, published on Tuesdays and
Fridays. From a postscript to the
Occurrences for 815 November, 1659, it appears that John
Canne was then writing his
periodicals for Williams, though he did not do so before
this date.
58
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 prohibit Nedhams 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 Intelligencer, 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 attacked
the duly authorised journalist,
Henry Muddiman, and drew attention to his own claims; for
his periodicals were then (in July,
1660) suppressed. But, when the Rump authorised Nedham and
Williams to print news,
Clarges, general Moncks brother-in-law and agent in
London, also obtained permission to
have a third bi-weekly published under his direction,
selecting as his writer a young
schoolmaster educated at St. Johns college, Cambridge,
called Henry Muddiman, who had
never written for the press before. As the son of a Strand
tradesman, he must have been well
known, both to Clarges (a Strand apothecary) and to his
sister Mrs. Monck (widow of a
Strand tradesman). The general, if the Rump had only known
it, was about to have someone
to see that his manifestoes were truthfully put before the
nation. One has only to compare
Nedhams and Williamss periodicals with those of Moncks
journalist to see that this was
necessary. 28
59
On Monday, 26 December, 1659, the new journalist issued
his first newsbook, The
Parliamentary Intelligencer (afterwards the Kingdoms
Intelligencer), with the ominous
motto on the title-page, Nunquam sera est ad bonos mores
via; and, on the following
Thursday week, the first number of his other weekly book,
Mercurius Publicus, appeared.
Thus, he was in opposition to Nedham from the start.
60
A few days later, Pepys made Muddimans acquaintance and
went with him to the Rota club,
where he paid eighteenpence to become a member. The club
met at a coffee-house called the
Turks head, which was kept by one Miles, in Palace yard,
where you take water, as
Audrey remarks, and which was frequented by a number of
ingeniose gents, who discussed
Harringtons idea of yearly balloting out a third of the
House of Commons in so skilful a
manner that the arguments in the parliament house were but
flatt to it. Pepys found that his
new acquaintance had a very poor opinion of the Rump,
though he wrote news-books for
them, and recorded his impression that he was a good
scholar, and an arch rogue for
speaking basely of the Rump. Needless to add, he was soon
to be undeceived as to the
nature of the parliament for which the new journalist was
writing.
61
Note 23. 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. [ back ]
Note 24. The Man in the Moon, 1 October, 1660. [ back ]
Note 25. 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, 1320 March, 1654. Nos. 54 ff.,
143 and 147 Tanner MSS. at Oxford are by Thomas Philpot. [
back ]
Note 26. Calendar of State Papers Domestic, Chas. II, vol.
XXIV, no. 105 (Calendar of
16601, p. 427). [ back ]
Note 27. See Thomasons notes on his tracts, E 1013 (2) and
(23). [ back ]
Note 28. The confidence placed by Monck in him is shown by
the following titlepages:
(11 April, 1660) The Remonstrance and Address of the Armies
of England, Scotland and
Ireland to the Lord General Monck. Presented to his
Excellency the 9th of April 1660. St.
Jamess April 9, 1660. Ordered by his Excellency the L.
Gen. Monck. That the
Remonstrance and Address of the officers of the Army
presented this day to his Excellency
be forthwith printed and published by Mr.Henry Muddiman.
William Clarke Secretary.
London Printed by John Macock.
(28 May, 1660) His Majestys letter to His Excellency the
Lord General Monck. To be
communicated to the officers of the Army. Brought to his
Excellency from his Majesties
Court at the Hague by Sir Thomas Clarges. Rochester. 24
May, 1660. I do appoint Mr.
Henry Muddiman to cause this letter to be forthwith printed
and published. George Monck.
Printed by John Macock.
_____________________________________________
NetZero - Defenders of the Free World
Click here for FREE Internet Access and Email
http://www.netzero.net/download/index.html