THE PICTORIAL PRESS.
|
HEADING OF ‘THE JACOBITE’S JOURNAL,’ 1747. (Supposed to be Drawn by Hogarth.) (See page 197.) |
THE
PICTORIAL PRESS
ITS ORIGIN AND PROGRESS.
BY
MASON JACKSON.
With One Hundred and Fifty Illustrations.
LONDON:
HURST AND BLACKETT. PUBLISHERS.
13 GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.
1885.
All Rights reserved.
NOTE.
Some of the chapters of this book in a condensed form were published a few years ago in the Illustrated London News, and my acknowledgments are due to the proprietors of that journal for permission to reprint such of the woodcuts as accompanied the text in that form. I have also to thank them for their courtesy in allowing me to use several other engravings from the Illustrated London News, including some from the early numbers, which must now be reckoned among the curiosities of the Pictorial Press.
M. J.
CONTENTS.
| PAGE | |
| CHAPTER I. | [1] |
The Pictorial Taste Universal—The Early ‘News-books’—Developmentof the Newspaper Press—General use of Newspapers—Establishmentof Illustrated Journals—WanderingBallad-Singers the First Newsvendors—The English Mercurieof 1588—The Abolition of the Star Chamber and its Effecton the Press. | |
| CHAPTER II. | [8] |
Illustrated Broadsides—Sir Francis Drake’s Operationsagainst the Spaniards—Papers of News in the Reign ofJames I.—The first Periodical Newspaper published inEngland—Illustrated Tracts relating to Storms and Floods—RemarkableMurders favourite subjects with the early Newswriters—Murderof the Rev. Mr. Storre—Murder inCornwall—Apparition of Three Skeletons—Visions in theAir—Attempt on the Life of the Duke of Buckingham—Fallof Meteors at Bawlkin Green, Berkshire—The SwedishIntelligencer—Passage of the River Leck by GustavusAdolphus—The Sallee Rovers—The Weekly News of 1638,an Illustrated Paper—The Irish Rebellion of 1641—ThePlague in London—Murder on board an English Ship—TheEarl of Strafford—His Execution on Tower Hill—ArchbishopLaud—A Burlesque Play about him—Attack by theMob on Lambeth Palace—Caricature of the Devil offeringLaud a Cardinal’s Hat. | |
| CHAPTER III. | [63] |
Ben Jonson’s Ridicule of the Early Newspapers—Fondnessof the Old News-Writers for the Marvellous—TheSmithfield Ghost—The Wonderful Whale—The NewburyWitch—Satirical Tracts and Caricatures at the Commencementof the Civil War—Religion Tossed in a Blanket—Caricaturesof the Pope and the Bishops—Pluralists and Patentees—Taylor,the Water Poet—Mercurius Aulicus—Activityof the Pamphleteers—Welshmen Satirised—Satires onPrince Rupert—On the King and Queen—The Ladies’ Parliament—IllustratedTracts relating to Social and PoliticalSubjects—Sir Kenelm Digby’s Duel—The King entertained bythe City of London, 1641—Executions in 1641—The LiquorTraffic and Sunday Closing in 1641—Abuses of the EcclesiasticalCourts—Ritualism and Nunneries in 1641—Truthsenforced by Lieing—Stage Players and the Plague in 1641—BartholomewFair in 1641—Destruction of Charing Cross andCheapside Cross—Strange Apparition—Method of enforcingtheir Views adopted by the Puritan Pamphleteers—Parodiesof Roundhead Sermons—Matthew Hopkins the Witch-finder—TheWelsh Post of 1643—William Lilly the Astrologer—ThreeSuns seen in London on the King’s Birthday. | |
| CHAPTER IV. | [108] |
The Civil War—Flying Sheets of News—Disturbance atKingston-on-Thames—Plot against London—Riotous Proceedingsat York, and Conspiracy in Edinburgh—The Houseof Commons—The Royal Standard raised at Nottingham—Battleof Edgehill—Prince Rupert—The Lord Mayor ofLondon—Mercurius Civicus—The Scottish Dove—The FlyingPost—The Kingdomes Weekly Post—Cruelties of the Cavaliers—The‘Levellers’—The King’s Escape from Oxford—Funeralof the Earl of Essex—The Great Seal Broken—Fairfax—Cromwell—SeaFight in the Channel—The Prince of Wales’sSquadron—Mutiny at Norwich—Siege of Colchester—Executionof Sir Charles Lucas—The King at Carisbrooke Castle—Executionof the King—Confession of Richard Brandon. | |
| CHAPTER V. | [153] |
Decrease of Newspapers after the Civil War—MercuriusDemocritus—The Faithful Post—The Politique Post—Broadsidesfor the People—The Hollow Tree at Hampstead—ProdigiousMonster taken in Spain—The Restoration—Trialof the Regicides—Execution of the Regicides—Licenser ofthe Press appointed—Popular Taste for the Supernatural—Apparitionin the Air in Holland—Revival of MercuriusCivicus—Murder of Archbishop Sharpe—The Loyal Protestant—FrostFair on the Thames—Monmouth’s Rebellion—TheBloody Assizes—Funeral of Queen Mary, Consort ofWilliam III.—Increase of Newspapers after the Revolution. | |
| CHAPTER VI. | [180] |
Constant Attempts at Illustrated News—Increase ofCaricatures—The Postman, 1704—Fiery Apparition in theAir, seen in London—Caricature against the Jacobites—TheSouth-Sea Bubble—Eclipse of the Sun, 1724—The GrubStreet Journal an Illustrated Paper—The Daily Post—AdmiralVernon’s Attack on Porto Bello—The Penny LondonPost—Henry Fielding and the Jacobite’s Journal—Owen’sWeekly Chronicle—Lloyd’s Evening Post, and the Trial ofLord Byron for the Murder of Mr. Chaworth—The St.James’s Chronicle—Illustrated Account of a Strange WildBeast seen in France—The Gentleman’s Journal of AnthonyMotteux—The Gentleman’s Magazine of Edward Cave—TheLondon Magazine—The Scot’s Magazine. | |
| CHAPTER VII. | [219] |
Revival of Wood-engraving by Thomas Bewick—TheObserver started, 1791—The Times an Illustrated Paper—Illustrationsof News in the Observer—St. Helena andNapoleon Bonaparte—Abraham Thornton and the ‘Assizeof Battle’—Mr. William Clement and Illustrated Journalism—TheCato Street Conspiracy—Trial of Queen Caroline—TheHouse of Commons in 1821—Coronation of George IV.—RoyalVisits to Ireland and Scotland—Murder of Mr.Weare—Illustrations of the Murder in the Morning Chronicle,the Observer, and the Englishman—Bell’s Life in London—Prize-Fightat Warwick—Liston as ‘Paul Pry’—‘Galleryof Comicalities,’ &c.—Pierce Egan’s Life in London—Deathof the Duke of York—Death of Mr. Canning—Opening ofHammersmith Bridge, 1827—Mr. Gurney’s Steam Coach—TheThames Tunnel—The Murder in the Red Barn—TheSiamese Twins—Death of George IV.—Opening of NewLondon Bridge, 1831—Coronation of William IV. and QueenAdelaide—Fieschi’s Infernal Machine—Funeral of WilliamIV.—Queen Victoria’s First Visit to the City—Coronationand Marriage of the Queen—Christening of the Prince ofWales—The Weekly Chronicle—The Greenacre Murder—Mr.Cocking and his Parachute—The Courtney Riots atCanterbury—Burning of the Tower of London, 1841—TheSunday Times—Burning of the Houses of Parliament, 1834—TheChampion—The Weekly Herald—The Magnet—Removingthe Body of Napoleon I.—The Penny Magazine—CharlesKnight—Humorous Journalism of the VictorianEra. | |
| CHAPTER VIII. | [284] |
The Illustrated London News—The Early Numbers—TheBurning of Hamburg—Facetious Advertisements—Bal Masqueat Buckingham Palace—Attempted Assassination of theQueen—The Queen’s First Trip by Railway—First RoyalVisit to Scotland—Political Portraits—R. Cobden—LordJohn Russell—Benjamin Disraeli—The French Revolution,1848—The Great Exhibition, 1851—The Crimean War—ColouredPictures—Christmas Numbers—Herbert Ingram—ThePictorial Times—Other Illustrated Journals. | |
| CHAPTER IX. | [315] |
How an Illustrated Newspaper isProduced—Wood-Engraving—Boxwood—Blocksfor Illustrated Newspapers—RapidSketching—Drawing on the Block—Method of Dividingthe Block for Engraving—Electrotyping—Development of thePrinting Machine—Printing Woodcuts—Machinery for FoldingNewspapers—Special Artists—Their Dangers and Difficulties—TheirAdventures in War and Peace. | |
| CHAPTER X. | [355] |
Artists who have assisted in founding the Pictorial Press—SirJohn Gilbert, R.A., G. H. Thomas, and others—Wood-Engravingand its Connexion with the Pictorial Press—OtherMethods of producing Illustrations—Wood-Engraving inEngland before and after Bewick’s time—Its wide Diffusionowing to the kindred Art of Printing—The resources of theArt developed by Pictorial Newspapers—Conclusion. Newspapersa Necessity of Civilised Life—The Acta Diurna ofthe Romans—Early Newspapers in Venice, Germany, andthe Low Countries—List of Illustrated Newspapers publishedAbroad. | |
THE PICTORIAL PRESS:
ITS ORIGIN AND PROGRESS.
CHAPTER I.
The Pictorial Taste Universal—The Early ‘News-books’—Development of the Newspaper Press—General use of Newspapers—Establishment of Illustrated Journals—Wandering Ballad Singers the First Newsvendors—The English Mercurie of 1588—The Abolition of the Star Chamber and its Effect on the Press.
The inherent love of pictorial representation in all races of men and in every age is manifest by the frequent attempts made to depict natural objects, under the most unfavourable circumstances and with the slenderest means. The rude drawing scratched on the smooth bone of an animal by the cave-dweller of pre-historic times, the painted rocks of the Mexican forests, and the cave-paintings of the Bushmen, are all evidences of this deeply-rooted passion. The child of civilised life looks with delight on his picture-book long before he can make out the letters of the alphabet, and the untutored Esquimaux treasures up the stray number of an illustrated newspaper left in his hut by the crew of some whaling ship, though he cannot understand one word of the printed page. But the pictures speak a universal language, which requires no teaching to comprehend.
When the printing-press came into use this love of pictures had a wide field for development. Some of the first books printed in England were illustrated with woodcuts, and many of the tracts, or ‘News-books,’ which preceded regular newspapers, were adorned with rude engravings. It mattered not how graphic was the pen, its work was deemed incomplete without the aid of the pencil. It often happened that the pen was none the better for the fellowship, but the public taste was not fastidious, and the work sufficed for the occasion. In tracing the origin and progress of pictorial journalism we shall find in ‘the abstracts and brief chronicles of the time’ many curious illustrations of contemporary history. The subject is not without interest now that the illustrated newspaper has become a prominent feature in the journalism of every country.
The development of the newspaper press and its unrestricted use as the exponent of public opinion is one of the most interesting signs of modern progress. When we consider the liberty of thought and action that prevails in our own day, it is difficult to believe that our forefathers were liable to the pillory and other degrading punishments when they ventured to publish their opinions without first obtaining the sanction of the ruling powers. We are accustomed to the daily exercise of the right which cost Prynne his ears and brought fines and imprisonment on Defoe. Newspapers have become almost as necessary to our daily life as bread itself. The mind demands its breakfast as well as the body; and to many a busy man the loss of his morning paper would be as great a deprivation as the want of his usual matutinal meal.
In London, and in all our great centres of population, the newspaper has become the unfailing accompaniment of the City man’s journey to business. At the railway stations journals of every kind tempt the loitering passenger, while the illustrated papers appeal to him in a language of their own. Whether in the railway carriage, the omnibus, or the steam-boat, the newspaper is eagerly conned, and its contents form the food of conversation. Most of these newspapers are cast aside at the end of the twenty minutes’ or half hour’s journey; and then, at second hand, they amuse the leisure moments of the railway porter, or, better still, they are collected together, and perhaps serve to solace the sick poor during many lingering hours in hospitals and refuges. Day by day the demand is made, and the supply is ready. The printing-machine never sleeps and is never tired. Its voice is one of the voices of the night—most unmusical, yet with a mysterious meaning. The daily newspaper, so potent in diffusing the light of knowledge, is itself the offspring of darkness. The busy brains and active fingers which create it turn night into day in the execution of their quickly recurring tasks, and with unflagging energy they labour on, that the slumbering world may be properly amused and instructed when it wakes.
The intelligent foreigner who happens to reach our southern coast on a Monday morning in summer or autumn, and travels to London by one of the early trains, is astonished, when the train stops, to see most of the gentlemen rush from the carriages and surround a small boy, whom they appear to hustle and threaten with violent gesticulations. The boy appears to buy off the hostility of his assailants by dealing out to each a paper, which he takes from a large bundle under his arm, and with which the appeased passenger returns to his carriage. Cries of ‘Times! Daily News! Telegraph! Standard!—Here, give us one—anything!’ reach the ears of the wondering stranger, who beholds the boy at length take refuge in an empty railway carriage on the opposite side of the platform, and from that place of vantage he continues to deal out the mysterious papers. After a time the intelligent foreigner learns that these are the London papers of that morning, which are sent out to meet the trains, and are eagerly bought by the gentlemen who have been spending from Saturday to Monday at the seaside, and, having fasted from all newspapers during that time, they are now of course famishing for news. Such is their eagerness that politics are thrown to the winds. The Conservative will put up with a Liberal newspaper rather than have none at all; and he whose ill luck or inertness has left him without the coveted sheet is glad to borrow of his neighbour, that he may not be walking in the darkness of ignorance when he arrives at his place of business. As the train moves off, the intelligent foreigner, if he thrusts his head out of the carriage window, may behold in the distance the newsboy pensively counting his gains and endeavouring to make his receipts tally with the number of papers that have vanished.
One of the most remarkable phases of newspaper history has been the establishment of illustrated journals. Though this idea, in an immature form, is as old as the newspaper itself, yet it was never fully developed till the late Mr. Herbert Ingram brought out the Illustrated London News in 1842. Since that time the removal of the newspaper stamp and the repeal of the paper duty have imparted a freedom and a vigour to newspaper enterprise previously unknown. Journals of all kinds have sprung into existence, and cheapness has become the rule. Penny and even halfpenny papers compete with the leading journals in activity and enterprise. No expense is spared in obtaining the earliest and most authentic intelligence. Correspondents are sent to every part of the world where any information is to be gleaned, and the presence of the newspaper ‘Special’ is now expected at every great event. Each class has its organ, and ‘he who runs may read.’
When we consider the immense amount of printed matter that is published every day by the newspapers, we cannot but wonder at the public appetite. And this appetite is fed from one year to another upon a diet that is only varied when there occurs a war, a revolution, an unusually disastrous shipwreck, or a murder of uncommon atrocity. Then the monotony of ordinary life gives place to the temporary excitement. There is a run upon the newspapers, which are as susceptible as barometers, and rise or fall according to the state of public feeling. The calamities of nations and the misfortunes of individuals are sources of profit and prosperity to the newspaper.
It was a happy idea to gather together the principal events of the week, to illustrate them with authentic pictures, and place them before the public in the form of a pictorial newspaper. Considering the great cost of production, and the restrictions under which newspapers lay at that time, to say nothing of the difficulty of bringing out news with appropriate illustrations, so that both should be fresh, the Illustrated London News was a bold undertaking. Like most things that are successful, it soon had many imitators, and there are now few large cities in the civilised world that have not their illustrated newspapers.
But the full development of illustrated journalism was immediately preceded by many significant symptoms. Several of the then existing newspapers, on the occurrence of any unusual or interesting event, introduced into their pages rough woodcut illustrations. A great fire—a remarkable murder—a fatal balloon ascent—these were the subjects seized upon at the moment to satisfy the public craving for illustrated news. All this seems to have been the working of an impulse or instinct which existed even before the days of newspapers; for, as I shall presently show, attempts were made to illustrate the news of the hour in tracts or ‘News-books’ before the beginning of regular newspapers in England. The idea of illustrated journalism may be traced from the earliest years of the seventeenth century to 1842, the date of the first number of the Illustrated London News. The art of wood-engraving had fallen very low in the seventeenth century, and the illustrations to be found in early newspapers are mostly of a very rude description; but they show the existence of a germ which eventually grew into full and flourishing life.
The English newspaper, like many other great inventions, was a thing of gradual growth. The news that was sung or recited by wandering ballad-singers at the village cross, or in the court-yard of the squire’s mansion, and the written newsletter furnished to the wealthy aristocracy, were the precursors of the early news-books and the periodical sheets of news. As the art of printing extended, many of the productions of the press assumed the character of news to attract readers. Sermons, satires, and travels, were all put forward under the name of news, and sometimes a single grain of truth was deemed sufficient to leaven a whole bushel of fiction. Most of these publications were small tracts, and published at irregular intervals. Some of them were adorned with engravings on the title-pages, which show that even at this early period the authors or printers of these papers were imbued with the pictorial spirit. The idea of illustrating current events had already taken root, and we find examples of it long before the establishment of regular newspapers.
The earliest form of the newspaper is known to have come into existence during times of war and tumult, and it was for a long time believed that the first English newspaper was brought forth under similar circumstances. But when the English Mercurie of 1588 was proved to be a forgery, the enthusiast in newspaper history received a heavy blow and sad discouragement. It seemed so highly probable, when this country was threatened with the descent of the Spanish Armada, that something like a newspaper might have sprung into existence, that people were only too ready to adopt the imposture. When the whole nation was greatly excited and anxious to learn something about the reality of their danger, nothing was more natural than for the sagacious minister of Queen Elizabeth to appeal to the people through the printing-press, and by its means endeavour to calm the public mind by circulating printed sheets of intelligence, ‘for the contradiction of false reports.’ But we were compelled to admit that Lord Burleigh had missed his opportunity, and neglected to use the most powerful means for exciting the patriotism or allaying the fears of his countrymen. The author of this remarkable imposition showed great skill and acuteness in constructing his false newspaper, and fixing the date of its supposed publication. The forgery has been attributed to Lord Hardwick; but what were his motives it is difficult to understand. Unlike Chatterton and Ireland, he never brought his imposture before the world, and if he intended it merely for an antiquarian jeu-d’esprit he had the enjoyment of the joke entirely to himself.
The abolition of the Star Chamber, in 1641, was an important event for the press of this country. The so-called newspapers then began to print English news and discuss home affairs, no longer dreading the fines, imprisonments, and mutilations, that had been so liberally dispensed by that obnoxious tribunal. There was not, however, any considerable increase in the number of newspapers till the Civil War reached its height. During that remarkable contest many hundreds of tracts and newspapers were published, some of them numbered consecutively and published at regular intervals; but the great majority bore no continuous title, and treated of one subject only. During the reigns of Charles II. and James II. the press was more or less under a censorship, from which it was not emancipated till the seventh year of William III. Lord Macaulay dates the commencement of English newspapers from this period, when a great many new journals made their appearance. They included political news amongst their contents; and they more nearly resembled in character, but not in appearance, what we now understand by a newspaper than anything that had preceded them. This press revival was not accompanied by any corresponding activity in the direction of pictorial illustration. Art of every kind was in a low condition in England at this time. Even if the art of popular illustration had been better understood, the means of production were exceedingly limited. Newspapers multiplied greatly, but illustrated journalism had to struggle with difficulties, and its existence was only made known by the occasional appearance of a rough woodcut or an indifferent copper-plate.
CHAPTER II.
Illustrated Broadsides—Sir Francis Drake’s Operations against the Spaniards—Papers of News in the Reign of James I.—The first Periodical Newspaper published in England—Illustrated Tracts relating to Storms and Floods—Remarkable Murders favourite subjects with the early Newswriters—Murder of the Rev. Mr. Storre—Murder in Cornwall—Apparition of Three Skeletons—Visions in the Air—Attempt on the Life of the Duke of Buckingham—Fall of Meteors at Bawlkin Green, Berkshire—The Swedish Intelligencer—Passage of the River Leck by Gustavus Adolphus—The Sallee Rovers—The Weekly News of 1638, an Illustrated Paper—The Irish Rebellion of 1641—The Plague in London—Murder on board an English Ship—The Earl of Strafford—His Execution on Tower Hill—Archbishop Laud—A Burlesque Play about him—Attack by the Mob on Lambeth Palace—Caricature of the Devil offering Laud a Cardinal’s Hat.
| THE VALIANT EXPLOITS OF SIR FRANCIS DRAKE, 1587. |
Before, and for a long time after, the general use of newspapers, illustrated broadsides were published relating to particular events, or satirising the vices and follies of the period. In a broadside adorned with a woodcut representing Death and Time, and entitled, The Doleful Dance, and Song of Death, allusion is made to the ‘Fatal Assizes’ of Oxford, when three hundred persons, including the High Sheriff, died of a distemper, which was supposed to have originated among the prisoners. A sheet of a later date refers to the Spanish Armada and the Gunpowder Plot; while a third, entitled, Tittle-Tattle, &c., satirises the gossiping habits of the fair sex, and contains many illustrations of manners, costume, and character. Such were the publications that did duty for newspapers in the days of Queen Elizabeth, whose subjects, however, were not left wholly without information as to passing events. In 1587 there was published an illustrated tract giving an account of the doings of Sir Francis Drake, who was employed by Queen Elizabeth to harass the Spaniards in their harbours, and hinder them in their preparations for invading England. These operations, which Drake himself described as ‘singeing the King of Spain’s beard,’ delayed the sailing of the Armada, and gave Elizabeth time to prepare for defence. The tract referred to is entitled, ‘The true and perfect Newes of the worthy and valiant exploytes performed and done by that valiant Knight Syr Frauncis Drake; Not only at Sancto Domingo, and Carthagena, but also nowe at Cales, and upon the Coast of Spayne, 1587. Printed at London, by J. Charlewood, for Thomas Hackett.’ There is an account, in verse, written by one Thomas Greepe, of the doings of Sir Francis Drake and other sea captains. The author tells his reader, ‘Here hast thou, gentle Reader, set forth unto thee the most worthy and valiant exploytes and enterpryses, lately atchieved and done by that valiant Knight Syr Frauncis Drake & others not pend in lofty verse, nor curiously handled, but playnly and truly, so that it may be well understood of the Reader.’ There is no attempt made to illustrate the events related in the tract, but on the title-page there is a woodcut of a ship in full sail, which was perhaps intended to represent the admiral’s own vessel. I have reproduced it on a reduced scale, as an early specimen of marine draughtsmanship.
Thomas Greepe commences his poem with the following rhapsody:—
| ‘Triumph, O England, and rejoice, And prayse thy God incessantly For this thy Queene, that pearle of choyce, Which God doth blesse with victory! In countryes strange, both farre and neere, All raging foes her force doth feare. Yee worthy wights that doo delighte To heare of Novels strange and rare, What valors, woone by a famous knight, May please you marke I shall declare. Such rare exploytes performde and done As none the like hath ever woone.’ |
He gives a list of the ships under Drake’s command:—
The poem thus winds up:—
| ‘God save our Queene of merry England, His sacred word long to maintaine; Her Graces Navie and royall bande, Through his good Grace, may long remaine. Lord blesse her counsell, and keepe them aye With all true subjects night and day. Finis, quoth Thomas Greepe.’ |
This curious poem is supplemented by a letter, written by Sir Francis Drake, ‘To the right reverende, godly, learned Father, my very good friend, M. John Fox, preacher of the word of God.’ This was John Fox, the Martyrologist, who died in 1587. The letter proceeds: ‘Mister Fox, whereas we have had of late such happy successe against the Spanyardes, I do assure myselfe that you have faithfully remembered us in your good prayers, and therefore I have not forgotten, breefly to make you partaker thereof. The 19. of Aprill we arrived within the road of Calles, where we found very many shipping, but amongst the rest 32 of exceeding burden, lade and to be laden with provision, and prepared to furnish the King’s Navie, intended with all speede against England, the which when we had boorded, and also furnished our severall ships with provision as we thought sufficient, wee burnt; and although by the space of two dayes and two nights that we continued there, we were still endangered, both with thundering shott from the towne, and assailed with the roaring Cannons of twelve galleys; yet we suncke two of them, and one great Argosey, and still avoyded them with very small hurt, and so at our departure we brought away foure ships of provision, to the great terror of our enemies, and honour to ourselves, as it may appeare by a most curteous Letter written unto me with a Flagge of truce by Duke Petro, Generall of the Galleys. But whereas it is most certayne that the king doth not onely make speedy preparation in Spayne, but likewise expected a very great Fleete from the Straytes, and divers other places, that should joyne with his forces to invade England; we purpose to sette apart all feare of danger, and by Gods furtherance to proceed by all the good means we can devise to prevent their coming; wherefore I shall desire you to continue faithfull in remembrance of us in your prayers that our purpose may take that good effect, as God may be glorified, his Church, our Queene and country, preserved, and these enemies of the trueth utterly vanquished, that we may have continuall peace in Israel. Fro aboord her Majesties good ship the Elizabeth Bonaventure.
‘Your loving freende, and faythfull Sonne in Christ Jesus,
‘Frauncis Drake.’
In the reign of James I. papers of news began to be published, but they only appeared occasionally, and were chiefly devoted to foreign intelligence. In 1619 we have ‘Newes out of Holland,’ followed by others in 1620, 1621, and 1622. These occasional tracts were afterwards converted into a regular weekly publication, entitled the ‘Weekly News,’ printed by J. D. for Nichs. Bourne and T. Archer. This was the first periodical newspaper published in England. But long before this many illustrated tracts and pamphlets were published relating to events of recent occurrence. In one dated 1607 occurs the earliest instance I have met with of an attempt to illustrate the news of the day. It is entitled ‘Wofull Newes from Wales, or the lamentable loss of divers Villages and Parishes (by a strange and wonderful Floud) within the Countye of Monmouth in Wales: which happened in January last past, 1607, whereby a great number of his Majesties subjects inhabiting in these parts are utterly undone.’ The writer of this news-book describes the flood, and then, taking it for his text, preaches a sermon upon it. It is printed in Old English, and is plentifully interspersed with pious exhortations and scriptural references. It has on the title a woodcut, a fac-simile of which is given on the next page.
This interesting little tract has a preface, in which the author explains the difficulty he felt in producing it in the short time that was allowed him for the purpose:—‘Reader, when these newes were brought, and an importunitie used to me that I would give the same forme, and bestow an exhortation on them, I was unwilling, both in regard of that short space (of lesse than one day which was limited to undertake the matter) and also in respect of the usual unfaithfulness of men ordinarily in reporting of such accidents as these bee; whereby it often falleth out that the relation of them reapeth much discredit. But when I could not have these just excuses taken, I began and finished this businesse, as the shorte space wold permit me.’
The old story of the child washed away in a cradle, so often related as having occurred in great floods, and which Mr. Millais has immortalised in one of his pictures, is here told probably for the first time:—‘Another little childe is affirmed to have bene cast upon land in a Cradle, in which was nothing but a Catte, the which was discerned, as it came floating to the shore, to leape still from one side of the Cradle unto the other, even as if she had been appointed steersman to preserve the small barke from the waves’ furie.’
| GREAT FLOOD IN MONMOUTHSHIRE, 1607. |
Another tract of the same date is illustrated with a woodcut similar to the one here copied, but it has in addition several more figures, including a cradle with a child in it floating on the water. This tract is entitled ‘A true report of certaine wonderful overflowings of waters now lately in Summersetshire, Norfolk, and other places in England, destroying many thousands of men, women, and children, overthrowing and bearing downe whole townes and villages, and drowning infinite numbers of sheepe and other cattle.’ It is written in the same sermonising style, beginning by calling men to repent, and to take warning from these signs of God’s anger. Then follows the narrative. The inundation was caused by an irruption of the sea, and many incidents are related of the flood. Here the cradle story is again told:—‘An infant likewise was found swimming in a cradle, some mile or two fro’ ye place where it was known to be kept, and so was preserved; for the cradle was not of wicker, as ours are here, but of strong, thicke bordes, closely joynted together, and that saved the infant’s life.’ This narrative of the Somersetshire flood was reprinted in another tract with ‘An Addition of other and more strange Accidents happening by these Flouds, and brought to light since the first publishing of this Booke.’ This second edition is illustrated with the identical woodcut that is used in the tract relating the floods in Wales. The two tracts recounting the Somersetshire floods were ‘printed at London by W. I. for Edward White, and are to be sold at the signe of the Gunne, at the North doore of Paules.’ That describing the flood in Wales was ‘printed for W. W., and are to be sold in Paules Church-yarde at the sign of the Grey-hound.’ In those days printers frequently combined the functions of engraver and printer; and as regards the tracts under notice, we must conclude that the printer supplied each of his customers with the same woodcut, or that the booksellers of the time were in the habit of lending their woodcuts to each other.
Storms, floods, and burnings were favourite themes with the early newswriters, and several illustrated tracts exist describing such calamities. They are more or less interspersed with pious exhortations, but the narrative is rarely allowed to flag, and every incident is minutely described. There is ‘Woeful newes from the West parts of England of the burning of Tiverton,’ 1612; and a small quarto pamphlet of 1613, printed in old English, affords another good example of this kind of news. It is entitled—it will be observed how fond the old newswriters were of alliterative titles—‘The Wonders of this windie winter, by terrible stormes and tempests, to be losse of lives and goods of many thousands of men, women, and children. The like by Sea and Land hath not been seene nor heard of in this age of the world. London. Printed by G. Eld for John Wright, and are to be sold at his Shop neere Christ-Church dore. 1613.’ On the title-page is a woodcut, a copy of which is annexed.
| GREAT STORM, 1613. |
The tract opens very much in the manner of a sermon, and declares the dreadful occurrences related are intended to ‘move sinful mankind to repentance and newnesse of life.’ It then goes on to describe ‘that within these three fore-passed months of October, November, and December, the devouring gulfes of the Sea hath swallowed up above two hundred saile of ships, as well of our own Country as of neighbouring Nations, with great store of passengers, seafaring men, and owners of the same, adventuring their dear lives in the managing of the aforesaid ships, with all their goods, and merchandizes, making for our country all lost; yea, all, I say, in these three fore-passed months, hath been lost and drenched in the deep vaults of this watery world, a thing both lamentable and fearfull, that in so short a time, nay, in a small part of the yeare, even in an instant, so many heavy mischances should happen, and so many worthy vessels of adventure miscarrie, which had bin sufficient (if goodspeed had prevailed) to have inricht a whole Citie and bettered a kingdome; but such is the will of God, and such is His just indignation against us.
‘By certification from men of good accompt and calling, it is reported and knowne for truth, that in the month of October last, a fleete of fourteene sayle of ships making from Newcastle towards London, laden with sea-coale and other commodities of those parts, had their passage, by the tyranny of the windes, most untimely stopt, and violently caste into the ocean’s wombe, in which ships were perished to the number of a hundred and forty seafaring men, besides other passengers, both of men and women, which at that time made their watery graves in the deepe sea. This first strooke feare into the hearts of people, which hath been since seconded with many calamities, which lieth heavy upon the heart of the reporter.’ The writer then goes on to relate that between ‘Dover and Calice there hath been found floating upon the waters in one weeke of fowle weather above seven hundred drowned persons of divers nations, as of English, Dutch, French, and Spanish, with parts and parcels of many splitted ships.’ Further details are given at great length, and in rather a wordy manner. For instance, the writer describes the great number of women who are made widows by the disasters at sea, ‘besides fatherlesse children and children fatherlesse.’ Several examples are related of the force of the wind. ‘A man and his wife riding over Maidenhead Bridge upon one horse, by the fierceness of the wind, were blowne beside, and there drowned both horse and all. God be merciful unto us and preserve us from all such like mischances. The like mishap befell in November last unto two Yorkshire men, as it is verified by some gentlemen of the Inns of Court and Chancery, which knew the parties, the one of them a tanner, named Francis Browne, the other a clothier, called Richard Smith, both dwelling in a towne neere Wakefield side called Thorby; which two countriemen falling out upon small occassions wilfully purposed to come up to London, and their put their causes of themselves to the Lawes tryall; yet notwithstanding came they up together, where in riding over a bridge about Bedfordshire, and conferring of their inward grudges, they were blowne both beside into the river, where, by the fierceness of the windes, they were most lamentably drowned, both horse and men; and thus by sodaine death ended their malice, to the fear and amazement of all such as well could witness their envious proceedings. These and such like accidents may be fearful examples for the world to behold, especially for rich men, shewing to them the certaintie of life and goods subject to the chances of death and fortune, according to the saying of a worthy philosopher,
| “Full little thinks the man at morning sun What hap to him befalls ere day be done.”’ |
A great many other instances are related of the fury of the tempests, all of which the writer feels certain ‘have been laid upon us for our sinnes;’ and winds up with a pious exhortation to take warning.
| FLOODS AND TEMPESTS, 1613 |
Another tract of the same character and date, also printed in black letter, has a larger and more elaborate woodcut on the title-page, representing sinking ships, the shore strewed with dead bodies, and on the outside of a church tower the devil is seen throwing down the broken steeple. The following is the address to the reader:—‘Reader, I do here present unto thee and to thy understanding (if thou hast any) some part of the lamentable losses and unrecoverable mischances that have happened by occassion of these late blustering stormes of winde, and an innumerable deal of rayne, the which a great many thousands have too true cause to beleeve, because they are sharers in the misfortunes that this outragious weather hath caused. Now, if thou hast sustained no loss thyselfe, perhaps thou wilt not beleeve these things to be true that I have written; but if thou wilt or doest beleeve, then pray to God that it will please Him to give them patience that are loosers, and humilitie that are winners, and give God thanks that he hath so blessed thee that thou hast no share in these mishaps. But if thou wilt not beleeve, goe and looke, or else remaine still in thy unbeliefe.’ A copy of the woodcut is given on the preceding page.
Another pamphlet, of 1613, has the annexed woodcut, and is entitled ‘Lamentable Newes, shewing the Wonderful Deliverance of Maister Edmond Pet, Sayler, and Maister of a Ship, dwelling in Seething-lane, in London, neere Barking Church; with other strange things lately hapned concerning those great windes and tempestuous weather, both at Sea and Lande. Imprinted at London by T. C., for William Barley, dwelling over against Cree Church, neere Algate. 1613.’ It describes the wreck of a Newcastle ship on the east coast, and how ‘Maister Pet,’ after being exposed to the winds and waves for forty-eight hours, was rescued by a Dutch man-of-war, he being the only survivor from his ship. It will be seen the woodcut represents two seamen lowering what appears to be an arm-chair into the sea. This was probably the artist’s notion of the safest and most comfortable way to rescue shipwrecked persons. The same tract relates other occurrences during the stormy weather, such as ‘A man neere Bedford, being thaching a house, was blowne off and kild; trees blown up by the rootes, houses and chimnies quite blown downe,’ &c. ‘All which is for our sinnes.’
| RESCUE OF EDMUND PET, MARINER, 1613. |
Remarkable murders were even more favourite subjects with the early news-writers than storms and floods, a partiality that has continued down to our own time. A tract of 1613 is devoted to the details of ‘Three Bloodie Murders,’ but it is mainly taken up with an account of the murder of the Rev. William Storre, of Market Rasen, Lincolnshire. The full title runs thus:—‘Three Bloodie Murders. The first committed by Francis Cartwright upon William Storre, M. Arts Minister and Preacher at Market Rasen in the countie of Lincolne. The second committed by Elizabeth James on the body of her Mayde, in the Parish of Egham in Surrie: who was condemned for the same fact at Sainte Margaret hill in Southwark, the 2 of July 1613, and lieth in the White Lion till her deliverie; discovered by a dombe Mayde and her Dogge. The third committed upon a stranger very lately near Highgate foure mile from London, very strangely found out by a Dogge. Also the 2 of July 1613.’
The circumstances relating to the murder of the Rev. William Storre are given at great length and with much minuteness:—‘Not long since, there happened some controversey between the Lords and the rest of the inhabitants of Market Raisin in the Countie of Lincolne concerning the Commons and Libertie in the Towne Fields; and the matter being mooted by one of them in the Church immediately after evening prayer on a Sabaoth day, divers hot intemperate speeches passed among them; whereupon their Minister, whose name was Mr. Storre, much disliking so indiscreete a course, wished them to have respect both to the time and place where they were: And further advised, seeing the cause in hand concerned a multitude, (amongst whom, some of the least government would always be the readiest to speake) that they would therefore make choice of two or three of the fittest and most substantial men, to answere and undertake for all the rest. This motion seemed to please them well, and therefore they intreated him, that he would first, as a man indifferent speake what he thought concerning the cause. But he not wishing to intermeddle in that matter, twice or thrice denied their request; and the rather, for that there was present one Francis Cartwright, a young man of an unbridled humour, the only Sonne and Heire to one of the same Lordes of the Towne, betwixt whom and himselfe, there was growne no small unkindnesse. Yet in the end being pressed thereunto by their importunities with the consent of both the parties he delivered his opinion, useing therein such discretion and reasons to confirme the same that they could not directly except against him. Notwithstanding, seeing him incline more to the right of the Freeholders and the rest of the Commons than to favour their intended purpose, they seemed to dislike his speaches, and to cavill at the same.
‘Young Cartwright standing by, not able any longer to contain himselfe tooke occassion hereupon to breake forthe abruptly into these wordes: The Priest deserveth a good Fee, he speaketh so like a Lawyer. Maister Storre having often aforetime had experience of his hotte stomacke and hastinesse as well towards others as himselfe, thought it best to reply little against him for that present.’ The Rev. Mr. Storre’s forbearance was of no avail, for next day young Cartwright took occasion to renew the quarrel, and in the public market-place ‘proclaymed that Storre was a scurvie, lowsie, paltrie Priest; that whoever sayd he was his friend or spake in his cause, was a Rogue and a Rascall, that he would (but for the Law) cut his Throat, tear out his Heart, and hang his Quarters on the May-pole.’ These sanguinary threats caused Mr. Storre to seek the protection of the Magistrates; and he afterwards preached a sermon containing words which young Cartwright thought were purposely directed against him, so that he ‘more and more thirsted for revenge.’
‘About a week after, he espied Mr. Storre walking about eight of the clocke in the morning alone, by the south side of the Towne in his cloake, went to a cutler’s shop, and tooke out of the same a short sword, formerly provided and made very sharpe for that purpose, and presently overtooke him.’ The young man attacked the clergyman, and the pamphlet gives a minute account of the dreadful wounds he inflicted upon him until ‘A Mayde coming that way by occassion of businesse, cried out, whereupon he fledde.’
The clergyman died of the frightful wounds he received, and the murderer was taken and carried before a justice, ‘where, either for lacke of their due information of the truth, or by the corrupt and favourable affection of the magistrate, or both, there was a very slender bayle taken, and the malefactor by this flight sent away.’ Cartwright’s friends ‘laboured by corrupt dealing and wrong information’ to procure his pardon; but so barbarous a murder could not be hushed up, and the culprit eventually ‘fled beyonde the seas.’
| MURDER OF THE REV MR. STORRE, 1613. |
On the title-page of the pamphlet is a woodcut representing the murder of the Rev. Mr. Storre, which is copied above.
The two other murders are not related at such great length, and are not illustrated.
This is the earliest example I have met with of a kind of illustrated news that is very popular even in our own day. From the pains taken to describe all the circumstances of the crime and its consequences, the author evidently regarded it as a subject of the highest interest, and worthy of all the elaboration he was capable of bestowing upon it.
| NEWS FROM PENRHYN IN CORNWALL, 1618. |
There is a very curious and rare tract of the date of 1618, which describes the circumstances of another remarkable murder. It is entitled ‘News from Perin (Penrhyn), in Cornwall, of a most Bloody and unexampled Murther very lately committed by a Father on his owne sonne (who was lately returned from the Indyes), at the instigation of a mercilesse Step Mother, together with their severall most wretched endes, being all performed in the Month of September last, Anno 1618.’ On the title-page is a woodcut representing the discovery of the murder, which is reprinted in the body of the pamphlet. Another woodcut illustrates a scene before the murder is committed, where the son hands his bag of treasure to his step-mother. The story is a very minute history of a scapegrace son, who, after various adventures, returns to his father’s house a penitent and reformed man. Many years having elapsed, the son is not recognised by his father, who has married a second wife and is in straitened circumstances. The son begs a night’s lodging and resolves not to make himself known till next morning. In the meantime, to show that he will be able to recompense his host and hostess for their hospitality, he gives the latter a bag of gold and jewels to take care of for him till the morrow. The woman, excited by the possession of the gold, thinks how easy it would be to relieve themselves from their embarrassments by murdering their guest and keeping possession of his treasure. She urges her husband to do the deed. After many refusals he consents, and the father murders his own son. In the morning it is made known to him who his victim is, and, in a fit of remorse and despair, he kills himself; upon which the guilty wife also commits suicide, and the tract thus winds up:—‘And to the end it may be a warning to all covetous step mothers, and a content for all easie Fathers to avoyde the like hereafter. At the entreaty of divers Gentlemen in the Countrey, It is as neere the life as Pen and Incke could draw it out, thus put in Print.’
William Lillo, the author of George Barnwell, is said to have founded his play of ‘Fatal Curiosity’ on this tract. Lillo was a prosperous London jeweller and a successful dramatic author. He depicted the harrowing details of this tragic story with great power; and the agonies of old Wilmot, the father, constitute one of the most appalling and affecting incidents of the drama.
A curious black-letter tract of 1616, which is illustrated with a fearful apparition of three skeletons, is entitled, ‘Miraculous Newes from the cittie of Holdt, in the Lordship of Munster (in Germany), the twentieth of September last past 1616, wherein there were plainly beheld three dead bodyes rise out of their Graves, admonishing the people of Judgements to come.’ The truth of this miraculous news is vouched for by ‘divers worthy Persons and Burgimasters of the same citty,’ whose names are given. This miraculous appearance was preceded by a fearful tempest of thunder and lightning. ‘When this great tempest of thunder and lightning was ceased, there was heard throughout all the parts and places of the citty a most hideous and dolefull clamour or outcry, striking terror into all the people, yet no man could perceive whence it came, or where this clamour should bee. The people came over all the citty after the noise, but could not finde it; for when they were at one corner of the citty they then heard it at another; and when they were come to that other corner there it seemed to them to be in the middle of the citty; and to them that were in the middest it seemed farther off. So that all heard it, but none could find where it was, or from whence it came.
‘At length the people assembling in the churchyard behelde there so strange and incredible judgements sent by the Lord, that for the most part the beholders fell flatt on their faces to the ground, crying loude unto the Lord for mercy. For there they beheld coming out of their graves three most ghostly and fearfull dead bodyes.
1.
‘Whereof the first that was seen to arise out of the earth, seemed very white, cleane, and cleere, who opening his mouth and beating his handes together spake thus: “Blessed be God in the highest Heaven, that our releasement is come, for we have wayted many a hundred yeare for this time.” The people hearing this fell upon their knees and prayed unto the Lord with weeping and great lamentation, saying: O Lord beholde us with thy merciful eyes, and let us not be overwhelmed or smothered in our sinnes.
2.
‘The second dead man that arose out of the earth caused farre greater feare and trembling then the former, for the beholders saw him altogether from the toppe to the toe, like unto a burning fire; he likewise opened his mouth, and wringing his handes, and tearing his haire, cryed with a loude voyce: Repent yee, Repent yee; Almighty God hath taken his chastising rodde in hand, to punish the people for their sinnes, for their great wealth, for their great talke or presumptious wordes, for their pompe, and for their pride: The which the Lord will no longer suffer nor endure, for the cry and complaint of these sinnes is asended up into his eares; Wherefore hee will destroy you with a suddaine sicknesse, and fiery Pestilence, so that you shall not have so much time as one houre, to utter one worde, to call upon God.
| MIRACULOUS NEWS FROM MUNSTER IN GERMANY, 1616. |
3.
‘After this fiery apparition and threatening speech ended, there appeared likewise rising out of the grave a third dead man, grinding and gnashing his teeth together, striking his handes the one against the other, and crying with a most fearful and hideous voyce, insomuch that it seemed to all the multitude there present, that the earth would certainly have rent in sunder; and spake that all the people plainly heard and understood his wordes, which were these; Woe, woe, woe, to the wicked; this is the time that wee have long attended and looked for; wherefore (ye people) looke to it, and beware lest the great day of the Lord come upon you suddainly, and fall upon you unprovided; for the time of his comming is neerer than you thinke.
‘After the uttering of these wordes, the three dead Bodyes vanished and the Graves were shut againe, the heavens became cleere, the Tempest ceased, and all the people being released of their present horror and feare, rejoyced, and assembling themselves together, gave glory and laude, and praise unto the Lord for his Fatherly mercy and unspeakable goodnesse, in the mitigation of his furie, and withdrawing his heavy hand for the present. And thereupon appointed a sett day of supplications, prayers, and fasting, with true and unfained Repentance to be proclaimed, and observed.’
This account is supplemented by an ‘apology,’ setting forth that men must not be incredulous because they hear of miraculous occurrences—that God is able to bring back the age of miracles, &c. The writer evidently thought his readers might require to be strengthened by argument before they could place implicit faith in his narrative, and so he takes some pains in his ‘apology’ to convince them that however unnatural and uncommon may be the appearances he relates, the wickedness of the world was a sufficient justification for this and other extraordinary events. A copy of the woodcut that illustrates this curious production is shown on the preceding page.
| ‘GOOD NEWES TO CHRISTENDOME,’ 1620. |
In 1620 Nathaniel Butter printed an illustrated tract entitled ’Good Newes to Christendome, sent to a Venetian in Ligorne, from a Merchant in Alexandria, Discovering a Wonderfull and Strange Apparition, visibly seene for many dayes together in Arabia over the place where the supposed Tombe of Mahomet (the Turkish Prophet) is inclosed; By which the learned Arabians prognosticate the Reducing and Calling of the great Turke to Christianitie. With many other Notable Accidents: But the most remarkable is the miraculous rayning of Bloud about Rome.’ This tract, which is very long and discursive, relates, among other things, the apparition of a woman in the air, with a book in her hand, being the same apparition that is described at great length in a tract of 1642, which I shall quote hereafter. In the tract under notice there is a woodcut representing an army in the clouds—the clouds raining blood over a city; a woman with sword and book; and a crowd of men below watching the aerial phenomenon. The writer, in winding up his narrative, thus addresses his reader:—‘If you cannot beleeve it as truth, yet to make that use of it as if it were true; and then shall you know, there is but one way to happiness, and all the predictions, prophesies, visions, apparitions, comets, inundations, stormes, tempests, famine, warre, alteration, and subversion of kingdomes, with all the cabinet of mysteries, tend to this end that premium and pœna be the mastering curbs of the world; that is, that God hath a Magazine of judgements to inflict on the obstinate sinner with punishments: and a store-house of mercy to support the penitent soule with comfort.’
In 1627 we come upon a very curious and literal example of illustrated news. In that year Charles I., having declared war against France, fitted out an expedition of a hundred sail and an army of 7000 men for the support of the Protestant cause in that country. The King’s favourite, the self-confident and vainglorious Duke of Buckingham, took the command of the expedition, although he was totally unfit for that position. He was personally brave, but possessed no other quality of a commander. He had no knowledge or experience of the art of war, and was too proud and presumptuous to be guided by the advice of others. The expedition was destined for Rochelle, then in possession of the Huguenots; but Buckingham went to sea without any understanding with his allies; and, when he anchored off Rochelle, he was refused admission to the town. He then directed his course to the neighbouring Isle of Rhè, where he succeeded in landing his men under the fire of his ships, and defeated a small French force commanded by the governor of the island. Instead of immediately following up his success, Buckingham allowed the French commander to secure and strengthen the fortress of St. Martin; and when he did advance he foolishly left the enemy in possession of another fort in his rear. He besieged the Castle of St. Martin for many weeks, and then led his men to storm the place without having made a single breach in the walls. They were repulsed at all points with considerable loss, and attempted to retreat to their ships; but Marshal Schomberg with a French army had thrown himself between the Duke and the fleet, and had put a strong corps and artillery into the fort of La Prèe, which Buckingham had left in his rear. No precautions whatever had been taken, and they suffered great loss before they could re-embark. The expedition was a total failure, and Buckingham returned to England beaten and disgraced.
While the Duke of Buckingham was besieging the citadel of St. Martin, an attempt was made, or was said to have been made, upon his life by a French Papist or Jesuit, with a thick four-edged knife. An account of the Duke’s proceedings while in the Isle of Rhè appears to have been sent home, and was published probably with a view of influencing the people in his favour and showing to what dangers he was exposed in the national service. There is in the British Museum a tract entitled ‘A Continued Journal of all the Proceedings of the Duke of Buckingham his Grace, in the Isle of Ree since the last day of July. With the names of the Noblemen as were drowned and taken in going to releeve the Fort. As also the Portraiture of the knife with which his Excellence should have been murdered, which very knife was brought over by Captaine Buckestone and delivered unto the Duchess of Buckingham her Grace on Monday night last. Published by Authoritie. London, Printed for Thomas Walkley, and are to be sold at his shop at the Eagle and Childe in Britaines Bursse, 1627.’ The following account is given of the intended assassination of the Duke:—
‘Received the 27 of August.
‘Here I have sent you all the remarkable Newes that I have upon the last of July. There was taken by a Perdue of ours, in the night (a Frenchman), that was sent by Monsieur de Thorax, the Governour of the Citadell, with a full intent to kill my Lord Duke; and for the speedy effecting of the same he had prepared a strange and dangerous Poynado, which, although it was taken about him, he confidently denied that he came not with any intent to kill the Duke untill he came to the Tortures, which being presented before him he promised to discover all to my Lord if he would promise him life, the which he did, and doth so performe with him, like a noble and mercifull Generall.’ The tract contains a large woodcut of a knife, a reduced copy of which is given above, and underneath the engraving is the following description:—‘This is the true Portraiture of the poysoned knife, both in length and breadth, having foure edges, with which a Jesuited Vilaine was sent out of the Fort by Monsieur de Thorax, the Governour of that Island, with an intent to have killed his Excellence, but by God’s providence was delivered. His Grace hath used the French so nobly in all respects that he rather deserved their love than any wayes to have his life thus treacherously sought after, under the pretence that it was a meritorious act. Which knife was brought over into England by Captaine Buckestone, and by him delivered unto the Dutches of Buckingham her Grace on Monday night last.’
| KNIFE INTENDED FOR THE ASSASSINATION OF THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM, 1627. |
Whether the attempt on Buckingham’s life was a reality or was got up for the purpose of endearing the court favourite to all good Protestants, it foreshadowed his ultimate fate. In the following year, while he was at Portsmouth, and about to embark on a second expedition to Rochelle, he was stabbed by Felton, who had served under him in the expedition to the Isle of Rhè.
Besides the subjects already noticed, the old news-writers delighted in signs and portents in the air, and failed not to improve the occasion whenever they met with a text so much to their liking. There was a fall of meteorites in 1628, which was chronicled at the time in an illustrated pamphlet, entitled, ‘Looke up and See Wonders: a miraculous Apparition in the Ayre, lately seen in Barke-shire, at Bawlkin Greene, neere Hatford, April 9th, 1628.’ The author, like his fellow-chroniclers, already quoted, regards the occurrence as a sign of Heaven’s displeasure, and addresses his readers thus:—‘So Benummed wee are in our Sences, that albeit God himselfe Holla in our Eares, wee by our wills are loath to heare him. His dreadfull Pursiuants of Thunder and Lightning terrifie vs so long as they haue vs in their fingers, but beeing off, wee dance and sing in the midst of our Follies.’ He then goes on to tell how ‘the foure great quarter-masters of the World (the foure Elements) ... haue bin in ciuill Warres one against another.... As for Fire, it hath denied of late to warme vs, but at vnreasonable rates, and extreame hard conditions. But what talke I of this earthy nourishment of fire? How haue the Fires of Heauen (some few yeares past) gone beyond their bounds, and appeared in the shapes of Comets and Blazing Starres?... The Aire is the shop of Thunder and Lightning. In that, hath of late been held a Muster of terrible enemies and threatners of Vengeance, which the great Generall of the Field who Conducts and Commands all such Armies (God Almighty, I meane) auert from our Kingdome, and shoote the arrowes of his indignation some other way, vpon the bosomes of those that would confound his Gospell.... Many windowes hath he set open in heauen, to shewe what Artillery hee has lying there, and many of our Kings haue trembled, when they were shewne vnto them. What blazing Starres (euen at Noone-dayes) in those times hung houering in the Aire? How many frightfull Ecclipses both of Sun and Moone?... It is not for man to dispute with God, why he has done this so often ... but, with feare and trembling casting our eyes vp to Heauen, let vs now behold him, bending his Fist onely, as lately he did to the terrour and affrightment of all the Inhabitants dwelling within a Towne in the County of Barkshire.... The name of the Towne is Hatford, some eight miles from Oxford. Ouer this Towne, vpon Wensday being the ninth of this instant Moneth of April, 1628, about fiue of the clocke in the afternoone this miraculous, prodigious and fearefull handy-worke of God was presented.... The weather was warme, and without any great shewe of distemperature, only the skye waxed by degrees a little gloomy, yet not so darkened but that the Sunne still and anon, by the power of the brightnesse, brake through the thicke clouds....
‘A gentle gale of wind then blowing from betweene the West and North-west, in an instant was heard, first a hideous rumbling in the Ayre, and presently after followed a strange and fearfull peale of Thunder, running vp and downe these parts of the Countrey, but it strake with the loudest violence, and more furious tearing of the Ayre, about a place called The White Horse Hill, than in any other. The whole order of this thunder, carried a kind of Maiesticall state with it, for it maintayned (to the affrighted Beholders’ seeming) the fashion of a fought Battaile.
‘It beganne thus: First, for an onset, went off one great Cannon as it were of thunder alone, like a warning peece to the rest that were to follow. Then a little while after was heard a second; and so by degrees a third, vntil the number of 20 were discharged (or thereabouts) in very good order, though in very great terror.
‘In some little distance of time after this was audibly heard the sound of a Drum beating a Retreate. Amongst all these angry peales shot off from Heauen, this begat a wonderful admiration, that at the end of the report of every cracke, or Cannon-thundering, a hizzing noyse made way through the Ayre, not vnlike the flying of Bullets from the mouthes of great Ordnance; and by the iudgement of all the terror-stricken witnesses they were Thunder-bolts. For one of them was seene by many people to fall at a place called Bawlkin Greene, being a mile and a half from Hatford: Which Thunder-bolt was by one Mistris Greene caused to be digged out of the ground, she being an eye-witnesse amongst many others, of the manner of the falling.
‘The forme of the Stone is three-square, and picked in the end: In colour outwardly blackish, some-what like Iron: Crusted ouer with that blacknesse about the thicknesse of a shilling. Within it is soft, of a grey colour, mixed with some kind of minerall, shining like small peeces of glasse.
‘This Stone brake in the fal: The whole peece is in weight nineteene pound and a halfe: The greater peece that fell off weigheth fiue pound, which with other small peeces being put together, make foure and twenty pound and better....
‘It is in the Countrey credibly reported that some other Thunder-stones haue bin found in other places: but for certainty there was one taken vp at Letcombe, and is now in the custody of the Shriefe.’
This curious account is illustrated with a quaint woodcut, in the foreground of which the thunder-bolt seen by Mistress Green is being ‘digged out of the ground.’
| FALL OF METEORS AT BAWLKIN GREEN, BERKSHIRE, APRIL 9, 1628. |
Amongst the many publications relating to the victorious career of Gustavus Adolphus, king of Sweden, there was one entitled the Swedish Intelligencer, printed at London, in 1632, for Nathaniel Butter and Nicholas Bourne, both of them names associated with the first establishment of newspapers in England. The Swedish Intelligencer gives very full accounts of the exploits of Gustavus, and it is illustrated with his portrait, a bird’s-eye view of the siege of Magdeburg, a plan showing how the King of Sweden and his army crossed the river Lech into Bavaria, and a plan or bird’s-eye view of the battle of Lutzen, where Gustavus was killed. The portrait, the siege of Magdeburg, and the battle of Lutzen, are engraved on copper, but the passage of the Lech is a woodcut. I have copied the latter, the others being too elaborate for reproduction on a reduced scale. The three last named are very curious as illustrations of war news. Gustavus had crossed the Danube, and his troops overspread the country between that river and the river Lech. Field Marshal Tilly was in front of him, waiting for reinforcements from the army of Wallenstein, in Bohemia, and the junction of fresh levies raised in Bavaria, with which he hoped to drive the invaders back across the Danube. The account in the Swedish Intelligencer of this celebrated passage of the River Lech is too long for quotation, but I give a condensed version of the circumstances from other sources.
The Lech takes its rise among the mountains of the Tyrol, and, after washing the walls of Landsberg and Augsburg, falls into the Danube at a short distance from the town of Rain. The banks are broken and irregular, and the channel uncertain. Nor are there many rivers of the same size in Germany which can be compared with it in the strength and rapidity of its current. The united forces of Bavaria and the League, with this efficient means of defence in front, extended their right wing towards the Danube and their left towards Rain, while the banks of the river, as far as the city of Augsburg, were observed by their patrols, supported by detached bodies of infantry. Tilly had taken the precaution of breaking down the bridges over the Lech, and had thrown up field works at points where he judged the passage might be considered attended with fewest difficulties. That the Swedes would attack him in his main position was a pitch of daring to which, well as he was acquainted with the enterprising spirit of the king, he could scarcely suspect him of having yet attained. Such, however, was the full determination of Gustavus. After he had reconnoitred the course of the Lech for some miles, at the imminent peril of his life, he fixed upon a point between Rain and Thierhauppen, where the river makes a sweep to the eastward, as the spot for carrying his venturous design into effect. The king’s first intention was to throw a floating bridge over the stream, but the attempt was no sooner made than it was found to be rendered hopeless by the rapidity of the current. It was then imagined that tressels might be sunk, and firmly secured by weights in the bed of the river, on which the flooring of the bridge might afterwards be securely laid. The king approved of this plan, and workmen were commanded to prepare the necessary materials at the small village of Oberendorf, situated about half a mile from the spot. During the night of the 4th of April the work was entirely finished, the supports fixed in the stream, and the planks for forming the bridge brought down to the water’s edge. The king had, in the meantime, ordered a trench to be dug along the bank of the river for the reception of bodies of musketeers, and several new batteries to be constructed close to the shore, the fire from which, as they were disposed along a convex line, necessarily crossed upon the opposite side; those upon the left hand of the Swedes playing upon the left of the enemy, and those on the right upon the wood held by the Bavarians. Another battery, slightly retired from the rest, directed its fire against the entrenchments occupied by Tilly’s centre. By daybreak on the 5th, all necessary preparations having been made, the bridge was begun to be laid, and completed under the king’s inspection. Three hundred Finland volunteers were the first who crossed, excited by the reward of ten crowns each to undertake the dangerous service of throwing up a slight work upon the other side for its protection. By four in the afternoon the Finlanders had finished their undertaking, having been protected from a close attack by the musketry of their own party and the batteries behind them, from which the king is said to have discharged more than sixty shots with his own hand, to encourage his gunners to charge their pieces more expeditiously. The work consisted merely of an embankment surrounded by a trench, but it was defended both by the direct and cross fire of the Swedes. As soon as it was completed, Gustavus, stationing himself with the King of Bohemia at the foot of the bridge, commanded Colonel Wrangle, with a chosen body of infantry and two or three field-pieces, to pass over, and after occupying the work, to station a number of musketeers in a bed of osiers upon the opposite side. The Swedes crossed the bridge with little loss, and after a short but desperate struggle the Imperialists were routed. The whole of the Swedish army was soon upon the eastern bank of the Lech, where the king, without troubling himself with the pursuit of the enemy, commanded his army to encamp, and ordered the customary thanksgivings to be offered for his victory.[1]
The account in the Swedish Intelligencer is wound up in these words: ‘And this is the story of the King’s bridge over the Lech, description whereof we have thought worthy to be here in Figure imparted unto you.’ Then follows an ‘Explanation of the Letters in the Figure of the Bridge,’ given below the illustration. The engraving does not appear to have been entirely satisfactory to the author, for on its margin the following words are printed: ‘Our Cutter hath made the Ordnance too long, and to lye too farre into the River. The Hole also marked with R, should have been on the right hand of the Bridge.’
| PASSAGE OF THE RIVER LECH, BY GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. FROM THE ‘SWEDISH INTELLIGENCER,’ 1632. |
REFERENCES TO PASSAGE OF THE RIVER LECH.
‘A The King of Sweeden, and the King of Bohemia by him.
B The Bridge.
C A Trench or Brestworke, in which the Kings Musketeers were lodged, betwixt the severall Batteryes of the great Ordnance, which Musketeers are represented by the small stroakes made right forwards.
D Divers little Field-pieces.
E Plat-formes or Batteryes for the Kings greater Cannon.
F The Halfe-moone, with its Pallisadoe or Stocket, beyond the Bridge, and for the guard of it. It was scarcely bigge enough to lodge a hundred men in.
G A little Underwood, or low Bushy place.
H A plaice voyd of wood; which was a Bache, sometimes overflowne.
I A Brestworke for Tillyes Musketeers.
K K Tilly and Altringer; or the place where they were shot.
L The high wood where the Duke of Bavaria stood.
M Tilleyes great Batteryes to shoot down the Bridge.
N A small riveret running thorow the wood.
O Tillyes great Brestworke; not yet finished. Begun at sixe in the morning; and left off when he was shot.
P Some Horse-guards of Tillyes: layd scatteringly here and there all along the river from Rain to Augsburg.
Q The kings Horse-guards, and Horse-sentryes.
R A hole in the earth, or casual advantageable place; wherein some of the Kings Foot were lodged.
S The Hill behind Tillyes great worke.
T The fashion of the Tressels or Arches for the Kings Bridge.’
In 1636 the Sallee Rovers had become very troublesome, and not only hindered British commerce, on the high seas, but even infested the English coasts. They had captured and carried into slavery many Englishmen, for whose release a ‘Fleete of Shippes’ was sent out in January, 1636. Assisted by the Emperor of Morocco, the nest of pirates was destroyed and the captives released. A full account of this expedition is given in a curious pamphlet, entitled, ‘A true Journal of the Sally Fleet with the proceedings of the Voyage, published by John Dunton, London, Mariner, Master of the Admirall called the Leopard. Whereunto is annexed a List of Sally Captives names and the places where they dwell, and a Description of the three Townes in a Card. London, printed by John Dawson for Thomas Nicholes, and are to be sold at the Signe of the Bible in Popes Head Alley, 1637.’ This tract is illustrated by a large plan of Sallee, engraved on copper, with representations of six English vessels of war on the sea. After minutely describing the proceedings of the voyage, and giving a long list of the captives’ names, the journalist winds up in these words: ‘All these good Shippes with the Captives are in safety in England, we give God thanks. And bless King Charles and all those that love him.’
At the end of the pamphlet is printed the authority for its publication: ‘Hampton Court, the 20. of October, 1637. This Journall and Mappe may be printed.’
There is an illustrated pamphlet of this period which I have not been able to see. It is entitled, ‘Newes, and Strange Newes from St. Christopher’s of a Tempestuous Spirit, which is called by the Indians a Hurrycano or Whirlwind; whereunto is added the True and Last Relation (in verse) of the Dreadful Accident which happened at Witticombe in Devonshire, 21. October, 1638.’
The Weekly News, begun in 1622, had been in existence sixteen years when the idea of illustrating current events seems to have occurred to its conductors; for in the number for December 20, 1638, there is, besides the usual items of foreign news, an account of a ‘prodigious eruption of fire, which exhaled in the middest of the ocean sea, over against the Isle of Saint Michael, one of the Terceras, and the new island which it hath made.’ The text is illustrated by a full-page engraving showing ‘the island, its length and breadth, and the places where the fire burst out.’ I have not been able to find a copy of the Weekly News for December 20, 1638, either in the British Museum or elsewhere. My authority for the above statement is a letter in the Times of October 13, 1868. As far as I have been able to ascertain, no other illustrations were published in the Weekly News, so that we must conclude the engraving of the ‘prodigious eruption of fire’ was an experiment, which in its result was not encouraging to the proprietor or conductors of the journal.
| TAKING OF THE CASTLE OF ARTAINE, IRELAND, 1641. |
When the Irish Rebellion of 1641 broke out, many news-books were published describing the transactions in that country, and several of them are illustrated. I may here remark that the illustrations of events in these pamphlets, as well as many of those contained in the numerous tracts published during the Civil War in England, appear to be works of pure imagination, and were, probably, invented by the artist just as a modern draughtsman would illustrate a work of fiction. Others, again, were evidently old woodcuts executed for some other purpose. A few instances occur, however, where drawings have been made from actual scenes, and sometimes maps and plans are given as illustrations of a battle or a siege. This rising of the Roman Catholics in Ireland began with a massacre of the Protestants, and, according to the tracts published at the time, the atrocities of recent wars in Bulgaria and elsewhere were equalled in every way by the Roman Catholics in Ireland in the seventeenth century. The illustrations in these tracts are very coarse woodcuts. One represents the arrest of a party of conspirators, and another is a view of a town besieged, while a third gives a group of prisoners supplicating for mercy. The best illustration that I have met with of this Irish news is contained in a pamphlet entitled, ‘Approved, good and happy Newes from Ireland; Relating how the Castle of Artaine was taken from the Rebels, two of their Captaines kild, and one taken prisoner by the Protestants, with the arrival of 2000 foot, and 300 horse from England. Also a great skirmish between the Protestants and the Rebels at a place near Feleston, wherein the English obtained great renowne and victory: Whereunto is added a true relation of the great overthrow which the English gave the Rebels before Drogheda, sent in a letter bearing date the 27 of February to Sir Robert King, Knight, at Cecill house in the Strand. Printed by order of Parliament. London, Printed for John Wright 1641.’ The woodcut on the title-page of this tract represents the taking of the castle of Artaine, but there is only the following very short paragraph relating to it:—‘The last news from Ireland 7 March 1641. The 10 of February our men went to Artaine against a castle so called, which had before done some mischiefe, to some of our men, the enemy being in it. But the enemy fled before our second coming, and left the Castle, and a garrison was left in it by us.’ The other news is related more at length, and one of the paragraphs runs thus:—‘On the 13 a man was brought to our City, being taken by some of our scattering men scouting about our City, who confest without constraint, that he had killed an Englishwoman at a place called Leslipson, 6 Miles West of our City, and washed his hands in her bloud, being set on by the popish Priests so to doe; he was presently hanged, but dyed with much repentance and a protestant, which few do.’ The concluding paragraph of this pamphlet shows the writer to have been a man of a commercial spirit:—‘Tis to be feared that a famine is like to be in our City, in that still men come to us and provision is short, and none of yours that come to us bring any vittailes, great taxes are upon us, more than can be borne. He that had Butter, and Cheese, and Cloath, at between 6 and 14 shillings a yard here sent by any out of London might make a good trade of it. Cheshire Cheese is sould here for sixpence a pound already. Some of your Londoners are come hither (acquaintance of mine) that will send for such things, for great profit may be made by them and quicke returne.’ Annexed is a facsimile of the woodcut representing the taking of the Castle of Artaine.
Several other pamphlets relating to the Irish Rebellion are illustrated, but, with a few exceptions, the cuts bear very little relation to the subject, and were probably not executed for the purpose. One gives an account of a victory obtained by the English at Dundalk in 1642, and it has a woodcut of a man firing a cannon against a town, a copy of which is appended.
| VICTORY AT DUNDALK, 1642. |
The description is in the following words:—‘Newes from Ireland. On Monday morning came three Gentlemen to our City of Dublin from Sir Henry Tichbourne, who brought a message to the state of a great and happy victory obtained by the aforesaid Sir Henry Tichbourne with 2000 horse and foot marched to Ardee, and there put 400 of the Rebels to the sword, yet lost not one man of our side; from thence upon the Saturday following, he mustered up his forces against a place called Dundalke some 14 miles northward from Tredath, where the enemy was 5000 strong, and well fortified. At his first approach there issued out of the Towne 3000 of the Rebels who all presented themselves in Battallia, our Forlorne hopes of horse and foot had no sooner fired upon them, but they routed the Rebels. Captaine Marroe’s Troope of horse setting on killed great store of the Rebels who thereupon retreated to the Towne, made fast the gates, and ran out at the other end to their boats beforehand provided: Our Army coming in fired the gates, entred, and killed those within. Captain Marroe followed the flying foe, and slew abundance of them upon the strand, and it is reported by them that if he had known the Fords and the River, he had cut them all off, if he had gained the other side of the River, but being a stranger, could not doe it (wanting a guide) without endangering the Troope. There was slaine of the Rebels in this sudden skirmish not less than 1100 besides what they took prisoners. Sir Philomy O’Neale fled with the rest of the Commanders; but 10 common soldiers were lost of our side. Sir Philomy O’Neale made speed away to a place called Newry, a chiefe garrison of the Rebels. Sir Henry Tichbourne hath sent 600 men more to Dublin, intending that place shall be the next he begins withall, which is granted, and tomorrow there goeth to him 500 men, if not 5000, for whose safety and prosperity in the meantime is the subject of our daily prayers that he may have as good success as in all his other designs from the first till this time; for no man was ever so beloved by his souldiers, that protest to follow him while they can stand. We are in great hope he will recover the Newry very shortly; it is credibly reported, that they got 20,000 pounds at least in pillage at Dundalke.’
In another pamphlet, dated 1642, there is an account of a battle at Kilrush, which is also illustrated with a woodcut. The circumstances are related in detail, but they are sufficiently set forth in the title, without further quotation:—‘Captaine Yarner’s Relation of the Battaile fought at Kilrush upon the 15th day of Aprill, by my Lord of Ormond, who with 2500 Foot and 500 Horse, overthrew the Lord Mountgarret’s Army, consisting of 8000 Foot and 400 Horse, all well armed, and the choyce of eight Counties. Together with a Relation of the proceedings of our Army, from the second to the later end of Aprill, 1642.’
| BATTLE OF KILRUSH, 1642. |
Many other illustrated pamphlets relating to current events were published at this time. It would appear that in 1641 there was a visitation of the plague in London, and a tract of that date has reference to it. It is entitled:—‘London’s Lamentation, or a fit admonishment for City and Country, wherein is described certain causes of this affliction and visitation of the Plague, yeare 1641, which the Lord hath been pleased to inflict upon us, and withall what means must be used to the Lord, to gain his mercy and favour, with an excellent spirituall medicine to be used for the preservative both of Body and Soule.’ The ‘spiritual medicine’ recommended is an earnest prayer to heaven at morning and evening and a daily service to the Lord. The writer endeavours to improve the occasion very much like a preacher in the pulpit and continues his exhortation thus:—‘Now seeing it is apparent that sin is the cause of sicknesse: It may appear as plainly that prayer must be the best means to procure health and safety, let not our security and slothfulnesse give death opportunity, what man or woman will not seem to start, at the signe of the red Crosse, as they passe by to and fro in the streets? And yet being gone they think no more on it. It may be, they will say, such a house is shut up, I saw the red crosse on the doore; but look on thine own guilty conscience, and thou shalt find thou hast a multitude of red crimson sinnes remaining in thee.’ I have copied the illustration to this tract, and it will be seen that it is divided into two parts—one representing a funeral procession advancing to where men are digging two graves—the other showing dead bodies dragged away on hurdles. The first is labelled ‘London’s Charity.’ The second ‘The Countrie’s Crueltie.’ This was perhaps intended to impress the reader in favour of the orderly burial of the dead in the city churchyards, a subject on which public opinion has very much changed since that time.
| THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 1641. |
We have already noticed that the vicissitudes of the sea and the accidents of maritime life, which supply so much material to modern newspapers, were not less attractive to the early news-writers. There is a very circumstantial account of the voyage and wreck of a ship called the Merchant Royall in a pamphlet published in 1641. The engraving it contains is the same block used by Thomas Greepe in 1587. It is entitled, ‘Sad news from the seas, being a true relation of the losse of that good Ship called the Merchant Royall, which was cast away ten leagues from the Lands end, on Thursday night, being the 23 of September last 1641 having in her a world of Treasure, as this story following doth truly relate.’ Another illustrated pamphlet, dated 1642, contains a long and minute narrative of how a certain ship called the Coster was boarded by a native of Java, who, watching his opportunity, murdered the captain and several of the crew, but who was afterwards killed when assistance arrived from another ship. There is a woodcut representing the murders, and the title runs as follows:—‘A most Execrable and Barbarous murder done by an East Indian Devil, or a native of Java-Major, in the Road of Bantam, Aboard an English ship called the Coster, on the 22 of October last, 1641. Wherein is shewed how the wicked Villain came to the said ship and hid himself till it was very dark, and then he murdered all the men that were aboard, except the Cooke and three Boyes. And lastly, how the murderer himselfe was justly requited. Captain William Minor being an eye-witnesse of this bloudy Massacre. London: Printed for T. Banks, July the 18, 1642.’ The very full particulars given in this pamphlet show how minute and circumstantial the old news-writers were in their narratives. It will be seen by the following extracts that the story has an air of truth given to it by careful attention to various small matters of detail:—
‘On Friday the 22 of October last 1641 towards night there came aboard an English ship called the Coster, in a small Prow (or flat Boat with one paddle) a proper young man, (a Java, which is as much as to say as a man born or native of the Territory of Java.) This man, (or devill in mans shape) with a pretence to sell some Hews, (hatching mischiefe in his damned minde,) did delay and trifle time, because he would have the night more dark for him to do his deeds of darknesse. At last he sold 6 Hews for half a Royall of 8 which is not much above two shillings. There came also another Java aboard, (with the like small Prow or Boat) to whom he gave the half Royall, sent him away and bade him make haste; he being asked for what the other Java went for, the answer was that he had sent him for more Hews and Goates to sell.
‘Night being come, and very dark, (for it was the last night of the wane of the Moone) this inhumane dog staid lurking under the half deck having 2 Crests (or dangerous waving daggers) and a Buckler, of which he would have sold one and the Buckler with it, and as he was discoursing he took off one of the Crests hefts and put cloth about the tongue of the Blade, and made it sure fast: on the other Crest he rolled the handle with a fine linnen cloth to make it also sure from slipping in his hand; these things he did whilst the Master, Robert Start, Stephen Roberts, his mate, Hugh Rawlinson, Chirurgeon, William Perks, Steward, James Biggs, Gunner, and 3 Boys or Youths attending. At supper they were very merry, and this Caitiffe took notice of their carelessnesse of him to suffer him to sit on the quarter deck upon a Cot close by them.
‘Supper being ended about 6 at night the Master went to his Cabin to rest, the Gunner asked leave to go ashore, (the ship riding but half a mile from landing.) Afterwards Robert Rawlinson and Perks walked upon the quarter deck; and the devilish Java perceiving the Master to be absent, he asked the Boyes where he was, who answered he was gone to sleepe. This question he demanded 3 or 4 times of the Boyes, and finding it to be so, he arose from the place where he sate, which was on the starboard side and went about the Table next the Mizzen Mast (where Roberts, Rawlings and Perks were walking) with his Target about his Neck for defence against Pikes, or the like; and his 2 Crests in his hand, and upon a sudden cries a Muck, which in that language is I hazard or run my death. Then first he stabd Roberts, secondly he stabd Rawlinson, thirdly Perks, all three at an instant. After that he let drive at the Boyes, but they leapd down, and ran forward into the forecastle, where they found the Cooke, to whom the Boyes related what had happened.’
Further details are given at great length, showing how the savage continued his bloody work, and how he was finally overpowered. The narrative thus winds up:—
| MURDERS ON BOARD AN ENGLISH SHIP, 1642. |
‘It is observable that of all these men that were thus butchered, the Hel-hound did never stab any man twice, so sure did he strike, nor did he pursue any man that kept clear of his stand under the quarter-deck. So there dyed in all (in this bloody action) Robert Start, Master, Stephen Roberts, his Mate, Hugh Rawlinson, Chirurgeon, William Perks, Steward, Walter Rogers, Gunner’s Mate, and Francis Drake, Trumpeter of the Mary. And after the Muck, Java, or Devill, had ended the first part of this bloody Tragedy, there was only left in the ship, the Cooke, 3 Boyes, and one John Taylor, that was almost dead with a shott he foolishly made. So that 7 men were unfortunately lost (as you have heard) and the Gunner escaped very narrowly through God’s merciful prevention, from the like of these related disasters and suddaine mischiefs, Good Lord deliver us.’
The engraving, like all those belonging to this period, is very rough; but it was evidently prepared specially for the occasion, and some care appears to have been taken to represent the ‘Java’ as he is described. It is a genuine attempt to illustrate the story, and on that account is more interesting than some of the woodcuts in the early newspapers.
The Earl of Strafford, who was executed on Tower Hill, May 12, 1641, forms the subject of more than one illustrated tract of this period. In 1642 was published a curious pamphlet, consisting of an engraved title and eight pages of illustrations, representing the principal events of 1641-2. There are sixteen illustrations, exclusive of the title, two on each page. They are all etched on copper, and are done with some freedom and artistic ability. I shall have occasion to refer to this pamphlet hereafter; but at present I have copied the engraving entitled, ‘The Earle of Strafford for treasonable practises beheaded on the Tower-hill.’
In this example of illustrated news the artist has faithfully represented the locality in his background, but there the truth of his pencil stops. Strafford himself, although his head is not yet severed from his body, lies at full length on the scaffold, and instead of the usual block used for decapitations the victim’s head rests on an ordinary plank or thick piece of wood. There is no one standing on the scaffold but the executioner, whereas history asserts that the Earl was attended in his last moments by his brother, Sir George Wentworth, the Earl of Cleveland, and Archbishop Usher. These omissions, if they were noticed at all, were no doubt looked upon as trivial faults in the infancy of illustrated journalism, and before a truth-loving public had learnt to be satisfied with nothing less than ‘sketches done on the spot.’ What appears to be a more correct view of the execution was, however, published at the time. In the British Museum are two etchings by Hollar (single sheets, 1641), representing the trial and execution of the Earl of Strafford. They both look as if they had been done from sketches on the spot, that of the execution giving a correct view of the Tower and the surrounding buildings, but they are too crowded to admit of reproduction on a reduced scale.
| EXECUTION OF STRAFFORD, 1641. |
The taste of the time tolerated the publication of satires and petty lampoons even upon dead men. Soon after Strafford’s death a tract was published entitled ‘A Description of the Passage of Thomas, late Earle of Strafford, over the River of Styx, with the Conference betwixt him, Charon, and William Noy.’ There is a dialogue between Strafford and Charon, of which the following is a specimen:—
‘Charon.—In the name of Rhodomont what ayles me? I have tugged and tugged above these two hours, yet can hardly steere one foot forward; either my dried nerves deceive my arme, or my vexed Barke carries an unwonted burden. From whence comest thou, Passenger?
‘Strafford.—From England.
‘Charon.—From England! Ha! I was counsailed to prepare myselfe, and trim up my boat. I should have work enough they sayd ere be long from England, but trust me thy burden alone outweighs many transported armies, were all the expected numbers of thy weight poor Charon well might sweat.
| STRAFFORD CROSSING THE STYX, 1641. |
‘Strafford.—I bear them all in one.
‘Charon.—How? Bear them all in one, and thou shalt pay for them all in one, by the just soul of Rhodomont; this was a fine plot indeed, sure this was some notable fellow being alive, that hath a trick to cosen the devil being dead. What is thy name?
‘(Strafford sighs.)
‘Charon.—Sigh not so deep. Take some of this Lethæan water into thine hand, and soope it up; it will make thee forget thy sorrows.
‘Strafford.—My name is Wentworth, Strafford’s late Earle.
‘Charon.—Wentworth! O ho! Thou art hee who hath been so long expected by William Noy. He hath been any time these two months on the other side of the banke, expecting thy coming daily.’
Strafford gives Charon but one halfpenny for his fare, whereat the ferryman grumbles. Then ensues a conversation between Strafford and William Noy, part of which is in blank verse. The tract is illustrated with a woodcut, representing Strafford in the ferryman’s boat with William Noy waiting his arrival on the opposite bank.
| A BURLESQUE PLAY ABOUT ARCHBISHOP LAUD. ACT I. 1641. |
No man of his time appears to have excited the hostile notice of the press more than Archbishop Laud. The Archbishops of Canterbury had long been considered censors of the press by right of their dignity and office; and Laud exercised this power with unusual tyranny. The ferocious cruelty with which he carried out his prosecutions in the Star Chamber and Court of High Commission made his name odious, and his apparent preference for ceremonial religion contributed to render him still more unpopular. Men were put in the pillory, had their ears cut off, their noses slit, and were branded on the cheeks with S. S. (Sower of Sedition), and S. L. (Schismatical Libeller). They were heavily fined, were whipped through the streets, were thrown into prison; and all for printing and publishing opinions and sentiments unpleasing to Archbishop Laud, under whose rule this despotic cruelty became so prevalent that it was a common thing for men to speak of So-and-so as having been ‘Star-Chambered.’ No wonder, when the tide turned, that the long-pent-up indignation found a vent through the printing-press. Amongst the numerous tracts that were published after the suppression of the Star Chamber were many which held up Laud to public execration. He was reviled for his ambition, reproached for his cruelty, and caricatured for his Romish sympathies. During the four years between his fall and his execution, portraits of him and other illustrations relating to his career may be found in many pamphlets. I propose to introduce the reader to some of these, as examples of the kind of feeling that was excited by a man whose character and actions must have contributed not a little to bring about a convulsion which shook both the Church and the throne to their foundations. It must have been with a peculiar satisfaction that Prynne, one of the chief sufferers under Laud’s rule, found himself armed with the authority of the House of Commons to despoil his old enemy. Probably a similar feeling caused many others to chuckle and rub their hands when they read, ‘A New Play called Canterburie’s Change of Diet, printed in 1641.’ This is a small tract illustrated with woodcuts, and is written in the form of a play. The persons represented are the Archbishop of Canterbury, a doctor of physic, a lawyer, a divine, a Jesuit, a carpenter and his wife. The doctor of physic is intended for either Dr. Alexander Leighton, or Dr. John Bastwick, both of whom had their ears cut off; the lawyer is Prynne; and the divine is meant for the Rev. Henry Burton, a London clergyman, who also suffered under Laud’s administration. In the first act enter the Archbishop, the doctor, the lawyer, and the divine. Being seated, a variety of dishes are brought to the table, but Laud expresses himself dissatisfied with the fare placed before him and demands a more racy diet. He then calls in certain bishops, who enter armed with muskets, bandoleers, and swords. He cuts off the ears of the doctor, the lawyer, and the divine, and tells them he makes them an example that others may be more careful to please his palate. On the previous page is a copy of the cut which illustrates the first act.
| A BURLESQUE PLAY ABOUT ARCHBISHOP LAUD. ACT II. |
| A BURLESQUE PLAY ABOUT ARCHBISHOP LAUD. ACT III. |
In the second act the Archbishop of Canterbury enters a carpenter’s yard by the waterside, and seeing a grindstone he is about to sharpen his knife upon it, when he is interrupted by the carpenter who refuses to let him sharpen his knife upon his grindstone, lest he should treat him (the carpenter) as he had treated the others. The carpenter then holds the Archbishop’s nose to the grindstone, and orders his apprentice to turn with a will. The bishop cries out, ‘Hold! hold! such turning will soon deform my face. O, I bleed, I bleed, and am extremely sore.’ The carpenter, however, rejoins, ‘But who regarded “hold” before? Remember the cruelty you have used to others, whose bloud crieth out for vengeance. Were not their ears to them as pretious as your nostrils can be to you? If such dishes must be your fare, let me be your Cooke, I’ll invent you rare sippets.’ Then enters a Jesuit Confessor who washes the bishop’s wounded face and binds it up with a cloth. There is also an illustration to this act which is here copied.
| ASSAULT ON LAMBETH PALACE, 1642. |
In the third act the Archbishop and the Jesuit are represented in a great Cage (the Tower) while the carpenter and his wife, conversing together, agree that the two caged birds will sing very well together. The woodcut to this act represents a fool laughing at the prisoners.
There is a fourth act in which the King and his Jester hold a conversation about the Bishop and the confessor in the cage. There is no printer’s or publisher’s name to this play, only the date, 1641.
The pamphlet previously referred to as containing a picture of Strafford’s execution, has also an engraving showing how the tide of public feeling had set against Archbishop Laud. The powerful Churchman had been impeached for high treason; he was deprived of all the profits of his high office and was imprisoned in the Tower. All his goods in Lambeth Palace, including his books, were seized, and even his Diary and private papers were taken from him by Prynne, who acted under a warrant from the House of Commons. The engraving under notice is entitled ‘The rising of Prentices and Sea-men on Southwark side to assault the Archbishops of Canterburys House at Lambeth.’
In a tract entitled ‘A Prophecie of the Life, Reigne, and Death of William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury,’ there is a caricature of Laud seated on a throne or chair of state. A pair of horns grow out of his forehead, and in front the devil offers him a Cardinal’s Hat. This business of the Cardinal’s Hat is alluded to by Laud himself, who says, ‘At Greenwich there came one to me seriously, and that avowed ability to perform it, and offered me to be a Cardinal. I went presently to the king, and acquainted him both with the thing and the person.’ This offer was afterwards renewed: ‘But,’ says he, ‘my answer again was, that something dwelt within me which would not suffer that till Rome were other than it is.’ It would thus appear that the Archbishop did not give a very decided refusal at first or the offer would not have been repeated; and that circumstance, if it were known at the time, must have strengthened the opinion that he was favourably inclined towards the Church of Rome. At all events, the offer must have been made public, as this caricature shows.
Though Laud behaved with dignity and courage when he came to bid farewell to the world, if we are to believe the publications of the time, he was not above petitioning for mercy, while any hope of life remained. In 1643 a pamphlet was published with the following title, ‘The Copy of the Petition presented to the Honourable Houses of Parliament by the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, wherein the said Archbishop desires that he may not be transported beyond the Seas into New England with Master Peters in regard to his extraordinary age and weaknesse.’ The petition is dated ‘From the Tower of London this 6th of May 1643,’ and in it the petitioner sets forth that out of a ‘fervent zeal to Christianity’ he endeavoured to reconcile the principles of the Protestant and Roman Catholic religions, hoping that if he could effect this he might more easily draw the Queen into an adherence to the Protestant faith. He deplores that his endeavours were not successful, and he begs the honourable Parliament to pardon his errors, and to ‘looke upon him in mercy, and not permit or suffer your Petitioner to be transported, to endure the hazard of the Seas, and the long tediousnesse of Voyage into those trans-marine parts, and cold Countries, which would soon bring your Petitioners life to a period; but rather that your Petitioner may abide in his native country, untill your Petitioner shall pay the debt which is due from him to Nature, and so your Petitioner doth submit himselfe to your Honourable and grave Wisdoms for your Petitioners request and desire therein. And your Petitioner shall humbly pray &c.’
| CARICATURE OF THE DEVIL OFFERING LAUD A CARDINAL’S HAT, 1644. |
If Archbishop Laud was really the author of this petition he appears to have expected that his long imprisonment would end in banishment rather than death. He was beheaded on Tower Hill, January 10, 1645. There is a woodcut portrait of the Archbishop printed on the title-page of the petition.
| ARCHBISHOP LAUD. |
[1] Life of Gustavus Adolphus. Family Library.
CHAPTER III.
Ben Jonson’s Ridicule of the Early Newspapers—Fondness of the Old News-Writers for the Marvellous—The Smithfield Ghost—The Wonderful Whale—The Newbury Witch—Satirical Tracts and Caricatures at the Commencement of the Civil War—Religion Tossed in a Blanket—Caricatures of the Pope and the Bishops—Pluralists and Patentees—Taylor, the Water Poet—Mercurius Aulicus—Activity of the Pamphleteers—Welshmen Satirised—Satires on Prince Rupert—On the King and Queen—The Ladies’ Parliament—Illustrated Tracts relating to Social and Political Subjects—Sir Kenelm Digby’s Duel—The King entertained by the City of London, 1641—Executions in 1641—The Liquor Traffic and Sunday Closing in 1641—Abuses of the Ecclesiastical Courts—Ritualism and Nunneries in 1641—Truths enforced by Lieing—Stage Players and the Plague in 1641—Bartholomew Fair in 1641—Destruction of Charing Cross and Cheapside Cross—Strange Apparition—Method of Enforcing their Views adopted by the Puritan Pamphleteers—Parodies of Roundhead Sermons—Matthew Hopkins the Witch-finder—The Welsh Post of 1643—William Lilly the Astrologer—Three Suns seen in London on the King’s Birthday.
When Ben Jonson called the newspaper ‘a weekly cheat to draw money,’ and ridiculed the growing taste for news, he had some reason for satirising the journalism of the period. To satisfy the craving for news all kinds of impositions were freely circulated. Nothing was too wonderful for the credulity of the age, and people eagerly accepted what was placed before them, fully believing that whatever was in print must be true. It was not, however, till many years after Ben Jonson’s death that the so-called newspapers put forward their full powers as purveyors of the marvellous. Mercurius Democritus was the Punch of that day. While he satirised men and things he laboured to satisfy the popular taste for the wonderful, as in the following account of a ghost that was said to haunt the neighbourhood of Smithfield:—‘There is a great report of a ghoast that walks every Night amongst the Butchers at Smithfield Barrs, the Shambles, White-Chappell, and Eastcheape, in the habit of Mallet, the Lawyer, pulling the meat off the Butchers Tainters; many have adventured to strike at him with Cleavers and Chopping-knives, but cannot feel anything but Aire, every Saturday at night between 9 and 12, he walks his stations, in this very habit as you see, doing more mischiefe to the Butchers than ever Robin Goodfellow did to the Country Hindes.’
| THE SMITHFIELD GHOST. FROM ‘MERCURIUS DEMOCRITUS,’ 1654. |
Another example of the marvellous occurs in a tract entitled, ‘The Sea Wonder: a true and wonderful relation of a Whale pursued in the Sea, and incountered by multitudes of other Fishes as it was certified by divers Mariners of Weymouth, who, comming from France in the good ship called the Bonaventure, did shoote the said Whale, which making to Land did strike upon the Shore, within three miles of Weymouth, where being opened there was found in the belly of it a Romish Priest, with Pardon for divers Papists in England and Ireland, whose names are here inserted.’ Great pains appear to have been taken to give an air of truth to the narrative, which begins thus:—‘On the 19th of October being the Lord’s Day the good Ship called the Bonaventure of Weymouth being bound for England was bringing home her Merchandise from France which was wines, linning cloth, and abundance of Wall-nuts, the day was very fair and no wind stirring, so that the ship for above three hours space lay hulling upon the Seas, being not able to move either one way nor other for want of wind, although she was full sayled and prepared to take the advantage of every gale.’ The author gravely explains that the excitement of the fishes and their attacks on the whale were caused by their instinctively feeling the presence of the Popish Priest. Annexed is a copy of the woodcut on the title-page of this curious tract.
| THE WONDERFUL WHALE, 1645. |
‘Newes, True Newes, Laudable Newes, Citie Newes, Country Newes; The World is Mad, or it is a Mad World my Masters especially now when in the Antipodes these things are come to pass.’ Such is the lengthy title of a pamphlet containing an imaginary account of things at the Antipodes, and illustrated with a fanciful woodcut on the title-page. Then we have news from Boston in New England of a strange and prodigious birth of a child with two heads, also illustrated. Mercurius Democritus, besides such waggeries as giving an account of ‘a sight seen in the air by a blind philosopher,’ communicates ‘Many strange wonders out of the World, in the Moon, the Antipodes, Maggy Land, Tenebris, Fary-Land, Greenland, and other adjacent countries. Published for the right understanding of all the Mad-merry-people of Great Bedlam.’ Another example of the wonderful stories put forth to entertain the multitude relates to the discovery and punishment of a witch during the civil war. It occurs in a pamphlet entitled ‘A most Certain, Strange and true Discovery of a Witch, being taken by some of the Parliament Forces, as she was standing on a small planck-board and sayling on it over the River of Newbury.’ The illustration is of the rudest description, and the story is told in a breathless sort of way, without a full stop in the whole narrative:—
‘A part of the Army marching through Newbury, some of the Souldiers being scattered by the reason of their loytering by the way, in gathering Nuts, Apples, Plummes, Blackberries, and the like, one of them by chance in clambring up a tree, being pursued by his fellow or comrade in waggish merriment, jesting one with another, espied on the river being there adjacent, a tall, lean, slender woman, as he supposed, to his amazement, and great terrour, treading of the water with her feet, with as much ease and firmnesse as if one should walk or trample on the earth, wherewith he softly calls, and beckoned to his fellows to behold it, and with all possible speed that could be to obscure them from her sight, who as conveniently as they could they did observe, this could be no little amazement unto them you may think to see a woman dance upon the water, nor could all their sights be deluded, though perhaps one might, but coming nearer to the shore, they could perceive there was a planke or deale overshadowed with a little shallow water that she stood upon, the which did beare her up, anon rode by some of the commanders who were eye witnesses, as well as they, and were as much astonished as they could be, still too and fro she fleeted on the water, the boord standing firm boult upright, indeed I have both heard and read of many that in tempests and on rivers by casualty have become shipwracked, or cast overboard, where catching empty barrells, rudders, boards, or planks have made good shift by the assisting Providence of God to get on shore, but not in this womans kind to stand upon the board, turning and winding it which way she pleased, making it pastime to her, as little thinking who perceived her tricks, or that she did imagine that they were the last she ever should show, as we have heard the swan sing before her death, so did this devilish woman, as after plainly it appeared make sport before her death, at last having sufficiently been upon the water, he that deceived her alway did so then, blinding her that she could not, at her landing see the ambush that was laid for her, coming upon the shore, she gave the board a push, which they plainly perceived, and crossed the river, they searched after her but could not find her she being landed the Commanders beholding her, gave orders to lay hold on her, and bring her to them straight, the which some were fearful, but one being more venturous than other some, boldly went to her and seized on her by the arms, demanding what she was? but the woman no whit replying any words unto them, they brought her to the Commanders, to whom though mightily she was urged she did reply as little; so consulting with themselves what should be done with her, being it so apparently appeared she was a witch, being loth to let her goe & as loth to carry her with them, so they resolved with themselves, to make a shot at her, and gave order to a couple of their souldiers that were approved good marksmen, to charge and shoot her straight, which they prepared to doe; so setting her boult upright against a mud bank or wall; two of the souldiers according to their command made themselves ready, where having taken aime gave fire and shot at her, but with a deriding and loud laughter at them she caught their bullets in her hands and chew’d them, which was a stronger testimony than the water, that she was the same that their imaginations thought her for to be, so resolving with themselves if either fire or sword or halter were sufficient for to make an end of her, one set his Carbine close unto her brest; where discharging, the bullet back rebounded like a ball, and narrowly he mist it in his face that was the shooter; this so enraged the Gentleman, that one drew out his sword and manfully run at her with all the force his strength had power to make, but it prevailed no more than did the shot, the woman still though speechless, yet in a most contemptible way of scorn, still laughing at them, which did the more exhaust their furie against her life, yet one amongst the rest had heard that piercing or drawing bloud from forth the veins that crosse the temples of the head, it would prevail against the strongest sorcery, and quell the force of Witchcraft, which was allowed for triall; the woman hearing this knew then the Devill had left her and her power was gone, wherefore she began alowd to cry, and roare, tearing her haire, and making pitious moan, which in these words expressed were: And is it come to passe that I must die indeed? Why then his Excellency the Earle of Essex shall be fortunate and win the field, after which no more words could be got from her; wherewith they immediately discharged a Pistoll underneath her ear, at which she straight sunk down and died, leaving her legacy of a detested carcasse to the wormes, her soul we ought not to judge of, though the evils of her wicked life and death can scape no censure.’
| THE NEWBURY WITCH, 1643. |
On the outbreak of the great Civil War an immense number of tracts and pamphlets were published relating to social and political questions, many of which were illustrated. Satire was a weapon freely used, and many hard hits were made, the point and bitterness of which cannot now be understood. Caricatures, which are generally supposed to have made their appearance in England at a much later date, are of frequent occurrence. The wonderful and supernatural were freely dealt in, and many tracts were published which were not strictly news, yet had some reference to public men and passing events. The woodcuts in the tracts and pamphlets of this period were frequently repeated, being sometimes used where they had no relation to the subject treated.
| RELIGION TOSSED IN A BLANKET, 1641. |
The minds of men being much exercised on questions of religion at this time, it was to be expected that the subject would not escape the notice of the satirist. Accordingly, many tracts were published relating to religious matters, some of which are illustrated with woodcut caricatures. There is one of the date of 1641 containing a woodcut of four men tossing Religion (represented by a Bible) in a blanket. The writer condemns the numberless sects which were perplexing men’s minds and tearing the Church asunder:—
‘Religion is made a Hotch potch, and as it were tossed in a Blanquet, and too many places of England too much Amsterdamnified by several opinions. Religion is now become the common discourse and Table-talke in every Taverne and Ale-house, where a man shall hardly find five together in one minde, and yet every one presumes hee is in the right. The Booke of Common prayer which was established by Act of Parliament by that good and Godly King Edward the sixth, and after reestablished by another Parliament by that unparaled and peerlesse princesse Queen Elizabeth, and continued since in the happy Raignes of two gracious kings in the church of England for the service of God these ninetie yeares; yet one would have it to be cast out now, holding it to be a false worship; another is angrie at the vestments and habits of the Ministry; one will not kneel, another will not stand, one will sit downe, one will not bowe, another will not be uncovered, one holds all good manners to be popery, another that all decencie is superstitious, another that railes are Romish (which is false for the papists have no railes in their churches, nor anything so convenient). One foolishly assumes and presumes to save himselfe and some of his Neighbours too, by his good workes; another will be saved by a bare and lazie Faith that will do no work at all, and thus religion is puft and blowne to and fro with every wind of doctrine, and as it were tost in a Blanquet; but of this more largely hereafter in another part which will suddenly be printed, till when and ever it shall be my hearty prayers that as there is but one Shepheard, that is God in his gracious goodnesse and mercie would make us all one sheepfold.’
| CARICATURE OF THE POPE, 1643. |
The shafts of satire were frequently aimed at the Pope and the Bishops. One caricature represents the Pope seated, while a unicorn tumbles the triple crown from his head. The same woodcut illustrates a ‘Letter from the Devil to the Pope of Rome.’ Another tract has a representation of the Pope riding upon a seven-headed monster and holding in his hand a scroll on which are the words ‘Estote proditores’—‘Betraye your Country.’ This advice he is giving to a cavalier, a bishop, and a monk, and at the same time three devils are represented as leaving him and entering into them. This cut, which is repeated in other pamphlets, is curious as an early specimen of caricature, but its meaning is now lost.
| CARICATURE OF THE BISHOPS, 1642. |
The Bishops were treated with as little ceremony as the Pope. In one caricature four of them are represented as falling to the earth, with the following lines underneath the woodcut:—
| ‘The tottering prelates, with their trumpery all, Shall moulder downe, like elder from the wall.’ |
In a pamphlet called The Decoy Duck, printed in 1642, there is a quaint woodcut caricature and a satirical account of how the Bishops of Durham, Lichfield, Norwich, Asaph, Bath, Hereford, Oxford, Ely, Gloucester, Peterborough, and Llandaff were decoyed and deceived by the Bishop of Lincoln (Bishop Williams). I have copied the woodcut, but no quotation from the pamphlet would be understood unless given at great length. It doubtless refers to the charge of high treason against the twelve Bishops.
The abuses of the Established Church in an age when the spirit of dissent was strong were pretty sure to attract the notice of the satirical writer and the caricaturist. Accordingly, we find representations of the pluralist holding a church in each hand and one on each shoulder; while the non-resident clergyman was compared to the locust:—‘The Locust is given to spoile and devoure greene things; it was one of the plagues of Egypt. Non-residents devoure the tithes of many parishes in this kingdome; and they are not to be numbered amongst the least of those plagues that God inflicts upon us for our sins. The Locusts caused Pharaoh and his servants to cry unto Moses that he would entreat the Lord to take them away; and our Non-Residents cause all good people to cry mightily unto God, to the King’s Majesty, and to the Honourable House of Parliament, to reform them or remove them; that there may not be any carelesse Non-Resident in all the coasts of England.... Some of our carelesse Non-Residents have a cure of soules in one place and live in another, like fugitive Captaines forsake their Ensigne and Company at Barwick, and flee to Dover; who being with Jonah commanded for Nineveh, flee to Tarshish; being placed in the Country they run to the Cathedrals, they leave their charge as the Ostrich doth her eggs in the earth and sands, forgetting that either the foot may crush them or that the wild beast may break them, or at the best they leave their Congregations, as the Cuckoo doth her eggs to be hatched of a sparrow or some other bird.’
The following woodcut is copied from a pamphlet entitled ‘A Purge for Pluralities, showing the unlawfulnesse of men to have two Livings, or the Downefall of Double Benifices.’
| THE PLURALIST, 1642. |
The abuse of the Crown’s prerogative in the granting of patents and monopolies was very frequent in the reigns of Elizabeth and James, and was not diminished under Charles the First. The practice did not fail to attract the notice of the satirical writers of the day, and caricature laid hold on the ‘Projectors and Patentees,’ and held them up to ridicule. ‘A Dialogue or accidental discourse betwixt Mr. Alderman Abell, and Richard Kilvert, the two maine Projectors for Wine, 1641, contains a woodcut showing ‘The manner and forme how Projectors and Patentees have rode a Tylting in a Parliament time.’ The wit of the illustration is a little obscure to the modern reader, but at the time of its publication it was no doubt understood, and relished accordingly. The pamphlet describes how Messrs. Abell and Kilvert laid their heads together to obtain the patent for wine; how they put the patent in force, and how, after the tide turned against them, they reviled one another.
As the excitement of the Civil War increased, political animosity rose to a red heat. Cavaliers and Roundheads belaboured each other in many a merciless pamphlet, to which they often endeavoured to give additional bitterness by woodcut caricatures. Prominent individuals, such as Prince Rupert, became marks for the satirist’s wit. Even the throne itself did not escape, and it was broadly hinted that the Protestant king was unduly influenced by the Roman Catholic queen. The curious subject of the growth of caricature might be illustrated by numerous examples from the publications of this period, but it will be sufficient to refer to two or three more woodcut satires of this date.
The distractions of the times were epitomised by John Taylor, the Water Poet, in an illustrated rhyming pamphlet, published in 1642. It is entitled, ‘Mad Fashions, Od Fashions, all out of Fashion, or the Emblems of these distracted Times.’
| EMBLEMS OF THE DISTRACTED TIMES, 1642. |
The author compares England to the engraving on his title-page, where everything is represented upside down:—
The Water Poet sided with the Cavalier party, and verse and prose flowed plentifully from his pen in favour of the Royal cause. His effusions provoked many replies, one of which is entitled, ‘No Mercurius Aquaticus, but a Cable-Rope, double twisted for John Tayler, the Water Poet; who escaping drowning in a Paper-Wherry-Voyage, is reserved for another day, as followeth, viz.’
Then follows the subjoined woodcut, with verses underneath. The hint that the poet was born to be hanged because he had escaped from drowning refers to his having undertaken to sail from London to Queenborough in a boat made of brown paper. In this foolhardy exploit Taylor and a friend who was with him nearly lost their lives. The tract under notice affords a good specimen of the sort of language used by the partisans of each faction against their opponents: ‘I should be loathe to foule my fingers with any base Pamphlets that comes from Oxford, if the venom of their malicious spleens were darted against my particular self: But when through my sides they wound the honour of the Parliament and our Armies abroad, I cannot but set Pen to paper, and pay them back again in their own kinde. And who d’ye think I should meet abroad for a Rogue-in-Print but one of our City Water-rats, the doughty John Taylor, who according to the knavish custom, changes his name upon every new paper-designe? Sometimes he calls himself Thorney Ailo, Mercurius Aquaticus, and now he entitles himself No Mercurius Aulicus. I thought I had lately sent rope enough for all the Parrots in Oxford; But I perceive they will be prattling still; and therefore I must unmaske the Mysterious Masters of the science of railing. There are three grand paper conspirators well known by the name of Mercurius Aulicus, George Naworth, and reverend Master John Tayler the water-tankard, by whose sprinklings in this great dearth of Wit and Honesty the University is cherished and kept in credit. These three are they which pumpe and Pimpe about with their Prostitute Noddles in the behalf of Popery, Murder, and Rebellion against the state; they are Liars in all elements, Aulicus for Land-lies, Tayler for Water, and hungry George Naworth for all between Heaven and Earth, where I doubt not but to see them all meet together to take their farewell of the world, where the Parrots will find Ropes made of stronger Lines than mine, and such as will non-plus the very primest Wits in the University.’
| PREDICTED FATE OF JOHN TAYLOR THE WATER POET, 1644. |
The pamphleteer goes on to give the Water-Poet what he doubtless considered a thorough drubbing, and at the end he leaves him ‘to the Gallows, the proper cure for such Rebels.’ The words ‘London’ and ‘Oxford’ on the woodcut have reference to another voyage which the Water-Poet performed in a sculler’s boat between those places.
| MERCURIUS AULICUS IN THE PILLORY, 1645. |
Mercurius Aulicus was the organ of the Court party, and was published at Oxford. A curious satire upon this Court paper was printed in 1645, entitled, Newes from Smith the Oxford Jaylor. It consists of a dialogue between the author and the ‘Oxford Jaylor,’ and sets forth that ‘Mercurius Aulicus’ was sentenced, by a jury of women,’ to stand in the pillory three market-days in Oxford, for his lies, libels, and deceitful glozings;’ to have a written paper over his head announcing his shame; to beg forgiveness of ‘Mercurius Brittanicus;’ to be prevented from writing any more libels for one year. ‘That before two months’ expiration he be cut of the simples, and his braines be taken out, washt in white wine, and put in againe.’ ‘That for every morning during the said time he have one mess of stewd broth made of the interlinings of fower Court Parazites, and the braines of 26 Oxford Widgins boyld in the water of forgetfulnesse.’ ‘That he may never hereafter have so much as one graine of wit left him in his empty Hogshead (his brains being taken out and washed as before is ordered) to scandalize those whom if he had any grace he is bound to honour.’ There is a woodcut of Mercurius Aulicus in the pillory, which is supposed to represent Sir John Birkenhead, who acquired the title of the Loyal Poet, and suffered several imprisonments. This cut was used on several other occasions.
The troubles of the times are constantly indicated in the pamphlets of the period. In one the State is represented as a two-headed serpent, with these lines underneath the engraving:
| ‘This double-headed serpent is a wonder, It draws two ways and tears the womb in sunder; The wofull emblem of a troubled State Where civill warres doe threat to ruinate.’ |
| SQUARE CAPS TURNED INTO ROUND HEADS, 1642. |
The partisans of the Parliament faction appear to have been much more active pamphleteers than the Cavaliers. ‘Square Caps turned into Round Heads, or the Bishop’s Vindication and the Brownist’s conviction, being a Dialogue between Time and Opinion; showing the folly of the one and the worthinesse of the other,’ is a tract with an illustration representing Opinion turning a wheel, on which are five square caps and five round heads, while Time, with his scythe and hourglass, holds converse with Opinion. Under the woodcut are the following lines:—
| ‘Time doth Opinion call unto accompt, Who turns the Bishop’s downe and Roundheads mount; Upon her lofty wheels their Noddles are, But her Camelion feedeth on his aire.’ |
‘Cornucopia, or Room for a Ram head, wherein is described the dignity of the Ram head above the Roundhead or Rattlehead,’ is another tract, with a woodcut caricature representing a woman attempting to saw the horns from a man’s head. The letterpress consists of a dialogue between a man and his wife, wherein the man humorously praises horns. It was a favourite joke to represent the Puritan as a ‘cuckoldy Roundhead.’
| CARICATURE, 1642. |
Another satirical pamphlet has a woodcut representing Cavaliers and Roundheads exciting their dogs to fight. It is entitled, ‘A Dialogue or rather a Parly between Prince Rupert’s Dogge whose name is Puddle, and Tobies Dog whose name is Pepper, &c. Whereunto is added the challenge which Prince Griffin’s Dog, called Towzer, hath sent to Prince Rupert’s Dog Puddle, in the behalfe of honest Pepper, Tobie’s Dog. Moreover, the said Prince Griffin is newly gone to Oxford to lay the wager, and to make up the Match.’ In this satire, which is very highly flavoured, both Cavaliers and Roundheads are pelted with very vigorous epithets, but in the end the Roundhead dog is converted by his opponent, and seals his recantation in a very striking manner.
There is a tirade against the Jesuits entitled, ‘A Peece of ordnance invented by a Jesuite, for Cowards that fight by Whisperings, and raise jealousies to overthrow both Church and State, which with the help of a private Ensign in the Cabbinet Councell, or Westminster Hall is able to doe more mischiefe at twentie miles distance, than a whole Regiment of stout Souldiers, at Musket-shot. Which grievance is by way of Remonstrance humbly presented to the consideration of the Parliament.’ This tract has a woodcut of a man firing a cannon formed of the figure of a man.
| CARICATURE, 1643. |
‘Hell’s Hurlie-Burlie, or a Fierce contention between the Pope and the Devill,’ is illustrated; and there is a pamphlet, with a woodcut, entitled, ‘The Devill’s White Boyes: A Mixture of Malicious Malignants, with their much evill and manifold practises against the Kingdome and Parliament, with a bottomlesse Sack-full of Knavery, Popery, Prelacy, Policy, Treachery, Malignant Trumpery, Conspiricies, and Cruelties, filled to the top by the Malignants, laid on the shoulders of Time, and now by Time emptied forth, and poured out, to show the Truth, and shame the Devill. Beneath, the woodcut are the following verses:—
| ‘Malignants are the Divell’s Agents still, The Sack is England, which they strive to fill With misery and mischief, and this Sack Full stufft is laid upon Times aged back; Time pours it out now in an angry mood That all their knaveries may be understood.’ |
On the cut itself are printed the lines:—
| ‘Time now at the last pours out much knavery, The Devill holds down fast to hinder the discovery.’ |
| CARICATURE, 1644. |
The Welshman came in for a share of the satirist’s wit at the commencement of the Civil War. He generally figures under the name of ‘Ap Shinkin,’ and is made to speak English much the same as the Scottish Highlander does in Scott’s novels. ‘The Welsh mans Postures, or the true manner how her doe exercise her company of Souldiers in her own Country in a warlike manners,’ is a satire of a very broad character, and is illustrated with a woodcut representing men exercising with the pike. Shinkin is also ridiculed for the share he took in the battle of Edgehill, the first important engagement in the Civil War. There is an illustrated tract with the following title: ‘The Welsh mans Complements: or the true manner how Shinkin wood his Sweetheart Maudlin after his return from Kenton Battaile. Also Fair Maudlin’s reply and answer to all Shinkin’s Welch complements, full of merry wit and pleasant mirth.’ The ‘merry wit’ is certainly not refined, and the ‘pleasant mirth’ is founded on Shinkin’s supposed hasty departure from the neighbourhood of the fight. The woodcut represents Shinkin and Maudlin in conversation.
Prince Rupert is often the mark for the satirist’s wit. In ‘Rupert’s Sumpter, and private Cabinet rifled, and a Discovery of a Pack of his Jewels, by way of Dialogue between Mercurius Brittanicus and Mercurius Aulicus,’ there is a discussion as to the Prince’s merits and demerits, and he is charged with aiming at the crown. Both the King and Queen were brought under the caricaturist’s lash. In 1644 there was an illustrated pamphlet published, representing the King, Queen, and a bishop, with the following title: ‘The Sussex Picture, or an Answer to the Sea-gull.’ The address to the reader is headed: ‘The Sceptre’s Submission, the Distaffs Triumph, and the Crosiers Combination. Reader, If thou hast view’d that stately Picture, which was lately sent up to the Parliament by Collonel Morley, and was taken in a Flemish Ship upon the Sussex Shore; Thou hast beheld therein the weaker sexe triumphing over the stronger, and by the help of a Miter, thou hast seen a Scepter doing homage to the Distaffe. If thou hast never seen the Originall, yet here is to be seen a poore, rude, counterfeit of the chief part in it; use thy judgement freely, and impartially: let both the Peece itself, and that which is said by both sides, in judgement thereupon, be put into one equal ballance. If the Dutch Author be not to undergo censure, as if he intended an English Storie, yet neither art thou to be censured for doubting his intention, or for standing amazed at his phancie. Shadows which are not fashioned by some certain, neer, interposing body present nothing to the eye, and therefore work nothing upon the understanding. The language of a picture is to be borrowed from the veritie of the matter, if that be wanting, neither the Art of the Limner nor the imagination of the spectator can supply its vocall organs.’ This caricature may have referred to the influence which the Roman Catholic Queen was supposed to exercise over the Protestant king under clerical guidance.
| THE PARLIAMENT OF LADIES, 1644. |
Charles I. summoned a Parliament at Oxford in 1644, consisting of such members of both Houses as were devoted to his interests. There exists a satirical tract ridiculing this Parliament, and, in fact, representing it as a Parliament of old women. The tract is entitled ‘An exact Diurnall of the Parliament of Laydes,’ and is illustrated with a woodcut. It sets forth that ‘Countesses and other Ladies (on Monday morning early in a Prosopopia) being met in Mary Maudlins Hall in Oxford, they first made choyce of their speaker; and it was agreed by all that the Lady Oboney should have the chaire, the Lady Rivers was made Chancellor, Nurse Windham High Constable, the Countess of Derby High Treasurer, and the Countess of Essex High Chamberlain. These Ladies having all taken their places, Mrs. Powell was appointed cheefe Clerk to the House, and Mrs. Peele Chaire Lady to the Close Committee, and Moll Cut-Purse was made Sergeant at Arms.’ Prince Rupert and others are tried and sentenced for various crimes, but the ladies afterwards relent, and pardon all the prisoners brought before them. I give on the preceding page a reduced copy of the rough woodcut which illustrates this curious burlesque.
| CARICATURE, 1644. |
A writer of much verbosity satirised the Assembly of Divines at Westminster in another illustrated pamphlet, printed ‘by Martin Claw-Clergy for Bartholomew Bang-Priest, and sold in Toleration-street, at the sign of the Subject’s Liberty, opposite to Persecuting Court.’ The author states on the title-page that his production displays ‘many witty Synodian Conceits both pleasant and commodious,’ and adorns his work with the above curious engraving, which probably had some reference to a Papal Bull, but at this distance of time we look in vain for the point and meaning of many of these old caricatures.
Having glanced at the satirical side of illustrated journalism at the epoch of the Civil War, I will quote two or three examples relating to the social and political condition of the country before entering upon the stirring events of that time.
A great variety of subjects are embraced in this section. There are accounts of apparitions, signs and portents in the heavens, monstrous births, duels and murders, criminal trials and executions, besides many tracts relating to the vices and follies of the age. One of the first illustrated pamphlets we come to in this division of our subject describes a duel fought in vindication of the good name of King Charles I. The pamphlet is entitled, ‘Sir Kenelme Digby’s Honour maintained by a most couragious Combat which he fought with the Lord Mount le Ros, who by base and slanderous words reviled our King. Also the true relation how he went to the King of France, who kindly intreated and sent two hundred men to guard him so far as Flanders. And now he is returned from Banishment, and to his eternal honour lives in England.’ This is a tract written by an undoubted Royalist. It begins in praise of valour, which is divided into three kinds—that which is allied to rashness, that which is born of the fear of death, and temperate or true valour. It describes how Sir Kenelme Digby was dining with a French lord, who, having toasted most of the kings of Christendom, then proposed the health of the most arrant coward in the world; and on Sir Kenelme inquiring who that was, he was told, after he had drunk the toast, that it was meant for the King of England: ‘At which the good knight seemed very much discontent, knowing in what nature his Soveraigne was wronged; yet very wisely did he seeme to pass it by untill dinner being ended, then did he desire the same lord the next day to come and dine with him, who promised him upon his honour that he would.’
| SIR KENELM DIGBY’s DUEL, 1641. |
The next day the French Lord repaired to Sir Kenelme’s lodgings, where an entertainment befitting his rank was provided: ‘Neither did Sir Kenelme seeme to remember the former daies discontent, but was very frolic and merry, and in the midst of dinner time desired them all to be bare, for he would beginne a health to the bravest king in the world. The French Lord asked whom that was, Sir Kenelme made answer that when it had gone about he should know; well, about it went and then Sir Kenelme said that it was the health of the bravest king in the world, which is the King of England, my royal Master, for although my body be banished from him, yet is my heart loyally linkt; the French Lord at those words seemed to laugh repeating the same words before mentioned, then was Sir Kenelme throughly moved in the behalf of our Soveraigne King Charles whereupon he whispered the Lord in the eare, telling of him how that twice he had reviled the best King in the world in the hearing of me which am his faithful subject, wherefore for satisfaction I require a single combate of you, where either you shall pay your life for your sawcinesse, or I will sacrifice mine in the behalfe of my King. The French Lord being of a resolute spirit condescended to fight, the place was appointed, dinner being ended, they both arise from table and privately went together, being in field off they pluckt their doublets, and out they draw their weapons.
‘Mars would have bashful beene to have seene himselfe by Noble Digby there excelled, long work with the contemptible French Lord, he would not make, for fear lest any should lye in ambush and so he might hazard his own life, wherefore in four bouts he run his rapier into the French Lords brest till it came out of his throat againe, which so soon as he had done, away he fled to the Court of France, and made all knowne to the King thereof, who said the proudest Lord in France should not dare to revile his brother King.
‘A guard was presently chosen to conduct Sir Kenelme into Flanders, which they did, where he tooke shipping for England, where he now is, where in peace and quietnesse may he still remaine.
‘As for the French Lord he was paid according to his desert, and may all be so rewarded which shall dare to revile the Lords anointed, who suffers by other Nations, for the clemency he hath shown to his own Nation, sed beati sunt pacifici, but blessed is the peace maker; good king for thy patience in this world there are Crownes of immortal glory laid in store for thee in the world to come, there shall not traitors dare to show their faces, nor shall perplexity proceed from the great care of ruling of a kingdome, in the meanwhile may more such Noble Digbies increase to rebuke all cursing Achitophels and reviling Rabshakey’s.
‘Let God arise and then shall the enemies of our gracious King be sure to be scattered.
| ‘Now I conclude commanding fame to show Brave Digby’s worthy deed, that all may know He lov’d his king, may all so loyal prove And like this Digby to their king show love.’ |
Many portraits of Charles I. were published in tracts about this time. One of the best is contained in a poetical welcome to the King on his return from Scotland. ‘King Charles his Entertainment and Londons Loyaltie,’ 1641, contains a precept issued by the Lord Mayor, directing how the aldermen and citizens shall meet the King, on his return from Scotland, at Shoreditch Church, and conduct him to the Guildhall to a banquet, and afterwards to Westminster. There is also a a very spirited woodcut of a City trumpeter in this pamphlet, which is copied above. City entertainments to sovereigns and princes have always been fruitful occasions for illustrated newspapers.
| CITY TRUMPETER, 1641. |
The wholesale executions that used to take place at this period would astonish the modern newspaper reader. Sometimes as many as twenty-four persons were executed in one day at Tyburn. ‘A Coppy of the Prisoners judgement condemned to dy, from Nugate on Monday the 13 of December, 1641,’ gives an account of eight Jesuits and several other prisoners who were executed. A descriptive list is given of the condemned, and amongst them are the following:—
‘Charles James, an handsome gentile young man, was convicted for Robery and Burglary.
‘John Hodskins, a fine Scholler, a pretty fellow, yet wanted grace.
‘John Davis, a lusty stout personable man.
‘Francis Middlefield, a pretty youth, and a good Scholler, convicted of felonie.’
Several highwaymen, horse-stealers, and coiners, are also included in this gloomy list, which is adorned with a woodcut of an execution.
The regulation of the licensed victuallers’ trade and the Sunday closing movement appear to have been as troublesome questions in the seventeenth century as they are now. As early as 1641 the publican was uttering the complaints which he still continues to utter. In a pamphlet of that date there is a dialogue between a tapster and a cook, which sets forth the grievances of both these worthies. The pamphlet is entitled, ‘The Lamentable Complaints of Nick Froth the Tapster and Rulerost the Cook, concerning the restraint lately set forth against drinking, potting, and piping on the Sabbath day, and against selling meate.’ The publican expresses himself thus:—‘I much wonder Master Rulerost why my trade should be put downe, it being so necessary in a commonwealth; why the noble art of drinking, it is the soul of all good fellowship, the marrow of a Poet’s Minervs, it makes a man as valiant as Hercules though he were as cowardly as a Frenchman; besides I could prove it necessary for any man sometimes to be drunk, for suppose you should kill a man when you are drunk, you shall never be hanged for it untill you are sober; therefore I think it good for a man to be always drunk; and besides it is the kindliest companion, and friendliest sin of all the seven, for most sins leave a man by some accident or other, before his death, but this will never forsake him till the breath be out of his body; and lastly a full bowle of strong beere will drown all sorrows.’
To which master Cook rejoins:—‘Master Nick, you are mistaken, your trade is not put downe as you seem to say; what is done is done to a good intent; to the end that poor men that worke hard all the weeke for a little money, should not spend it all on the Sunday while they should be at some church, and so consequently there will not be so many Beggars.’
| THE COMPLAINT OF THE LICENSED VICTUALLERS, 1641. |
Froth—‘Alack you know all my profit doth arise onely on Sundays, let them but allow me that privilege, and abridge me all the weeke besides; S’foot, I could have so scowered my young sparks up for a penny a demy can, or a halfe pint, heapt with froth. I got more by uttering half a Barrell in time of Divine service, than I could by a whole Barrell at any other time, for my customers were glad to take anything for money, and think themselves much ingaged to me; but now the case is altered.’
Cook—‘Truly Master Froth you are a man of a light constitution, and not so much to be blamed as I that am more solid: O what will become of me! I now think of the lusty Sirloines of roast Beefe which I with much policy divided into an innumerable company of demy slices, by which, with my provident wife, I used to make eighteene pence of that which cost me but a groat (provided that I sold it in service time,) I could tell you too, how I used my halfe cans and my Bloomsbury Pots, when occasion served; and my Smoak which I sold dearer than any Apothecary doth his Physick; but those happy days are now past, and therefore no more of that.’
This pamphlet is illustrated with a woodcut showing the Cook and Tapster in confabulation, while in the background joints are roasting, and guests are seated in boxes, refreshing themselves with ‘half-cans and Bloomsbury pots.’
The abuses of the Ecclesiastical Courts did not escape the notice of the seventeenth-century pamphleteers. Doctors’ Commons and the Proctors were quizzed in an illustrated pamphlet, wherein ‘Sponge, the Proctor,’ and ‘Hunter, the Parator,’ hold a long conversation, and express their opinion that the only way to make men live in quietness is to beggar them with long suits and large fees. Other evil-doers were shown up in a similar manner. A certain Edward Finch, Vicar of Christ-church, London, gave so much offence to the parishioners by his manner of life that a petition was presented to Parliament on the subject. The petitioners said they were offended by their Vicar’s ‘frequent and unreasonable bowings’ before the altar, and by his ‘scandalous life and conversation.’ They set forth in the petition that they are ‘troubled in their church with singing, organs, and other Instruments of Musicke, not understood by them, whereby they are greatly distracted in the service of God, the same being altogether unprofitable, and no way tending to their spirituall edification.’ The Vicar is charged with drunkenness and incontinence—with exacting unreasonable fees—with being a non-resident; and the evidence in support of the petition shows that on one occasion he went to Hammersmith in a coach with certain loose companions and spent the day in a manner unfit for a clergyman. He is proved to have attempted to administer the Sacrament to a dying woman while he was in a state of drunkenness, and to have been guilty of many other disgraceful acts. The House of Commons passed a vote of censure on this graceless Ritualist; and the petition setting forth his misdeeds was printed and published, illustrated with a woodcut showing the journey to Hammersmith in a coach. Notwithstanding the condemnation of Parliament, the Rev. Edward Finch continued in his evil courses, and conducted his ‘life and conversation’ much the same as before.
| EVIL DOINGS OF THE REV. EDWARD FINCH, 1641. |
From the ‘perambulations’ of a Ritualistic clergyman we come to a nunnery, in a pamphlet published in 1641, entitled, ‘The Arminian Nunnery, or a briefe description and relation of the late erected Monasticall Place, called the Arminian Nunnery at Little Gidding, in Huntingdonshire.’ The writer of this pamphlet gives a minute and by no means ‘brief’ description of the institution, which he evidently believes to be Roman Catholic, or a stepping-stone to it, though the ‘Deacon’ who attended him on his visit assured him to the contrary. He, however, sets down all the tapers and crosses, the bowings and prostrations, as so many proofs of idolatry, and marvels that, in a settled Church government, the Bishops should suffer any such institutions to exist; particularly that Archbishop Laud, professing to be such an ‘Anti-Papist and enemy to superstition and idolatry, should permit this innovation and connive at such canting betwixt the barke and the tree in matter of Religion.’ While censuring the prelates for their criminal slothfulness, the writer gave his countrymen the benefit of his own acuteness and energy, and published his description, illustrated with an engraving representing one of the nuns, with a portion of the nunnery in the background.
| NUNNERY AT LITTLE GIDDING, HUNTINGDONSHIRE, 1641. |
The next illustrated pamphlet we come to is a curious attempt on the part of its author to satirise his literary contemporaries for the falsehoods contained in their writings, and he burlesques their productions by relating many things as lies which, however, he means to be understood as truths. It is called ‘The Liar, or a contradiction to those who in the titles of their Books affirmed them to be true, when they were false; although mine are all true yet I term them lyes. Veritas Veritatis.’
‘There was an Englishman which travelled to the Swedish Army, and began to relate very strange passages which he had seen here in England, thinking that travellers might lye by authority; for said he in the County of Berke, at a place called Abingdon, when the Earle of Strafford lost his head, was such thundering and lightning, and earthquakes, that it is almost incredible. Surely I think it is incredible indeed, for I know ’tis no such matter.
‘He told too that the very same day that my Lord Archbishop of Canterbury was committed to the Tower, there was a child born in the County of Somerset with a Mitre on its head, a marke on his breast like a Crucifix, and many other strange things which were there seene.’ Having invented the travelling Englishman for a mouth-piece and selected the Swedish army for an audience, the writer goes on to relate many other strange things, which, though told as lies, are evidently intended to be taken as truths.
| THE LIAR ON THE RACK, 1641. |
‘They heard him with patience till he had made an end of his lying, and then they asked him whether yea or nay he saw these things he spake of, he presently swore all the oaths of God that he saw these things with his own natural eyes, which he had reported, and he would maintaine it, though he spent his dearest blood in the doeing of it; well, they heard his protestations, and made a full account that they would prove his constancie whether he would be a Martyr yea or nay, in the meane time they horsed him, and this was the manner of it.
‘There was a great high thing raised to the height of twelve or fourteen yards, made of Iron, whereon he was seated, with two great weights on his toes, and the like on his hands where he sate in great paine, if he should chance to ease himselfe upwards, there were sharp nailes over his head which would prick him, thus he sate and thus he suffered, till they had sufficiently made a laughing stock of him; well, when he had suffered enough they let him downe.’
There is a woodcut representing the lying traveller on his ‘horse,’ and the tract winds up thus:—
‘Gentle Reader, I have heere related under the name of lies nothing but true tales, for if a man doth now speake truth he shall be sure to smart for it now-a-daies, either here or in other places: read gentlie and buy willingly.’
When the Plague visited London in 1641 the theatres were closed and the players were thrown out of employment. This state of things is discussed in a dialogue between ‘Cane of the Fortune and Reed of the Friars,’ in a tract illustrated with a woodcut which was frequently used afterwards in broadsides. Bartholomew Fair, which was proclaimed for the last time in 1855, was in all its glory in the days of Charles I. A contemporary tract gives a graphic description of the fair, and is illustrated with a woodcut representing a man swallowing a serpent. This probably represented a picture hung outside one of the shows. The title of the tract is, ‘Bartholomew Faire, or Variety of Fancies, where you may find a faire of wares and all to please your mind; with the several enormities and misdemeanours which are there seen and acted.’ The fair is described as beginning ‘on the twenty-fourth day of August, and is then of so vast an extent that it is contained in no lesse than four several parishes, namely, Christ Church, Great and Little Saint Bartholomew’s, and Saint Sepulchre’s. Hither resort people of all sorts, High and Low, Rich and Poore, from cities, townes, and countreys; of all sects, Papists, Atheists, Anabaptists, and Brownists, and of all conditions, good and bad, virtuous and vitious.’ It is said to be ‘full of gold and silver-drawers; just as Lent is to the Fishmonger so is Bartholomew Faire to the Pickpocket; it is his high harvest, which is never bad but when his cart goes up Holborn.
| A BARTHOLOMEW FAIR WONDER, 1641. |
‘It is remarkable and worth your observation to behold and hear the strange sights and confused noise in the Faire. Here a knave in a fool’s coat, with a trumpet sounding, or on a drum beating, invites you and would fain perswade you to see his puppets; there a rogue like a wild woodman, or in an Antick shape like an incubus, desires your company, to view his motion; on the other side Hocus Pocus, with three yards of tape or ribbin in’s hand, shewing his art of Legerdemain, to the admiration and astonishment of a company of cockoloaches. Amongst these you shall see a gray goose cap (as wise as the rest), with a what do ye lacke in his mouth, stand in his boothe, shaking a rattle, or scraping on a fiddle, with which children are so taken, that they presently cry out for these fopperies; and all these together make such a distracted noise that you would think Babell were not comparable to it. Here there are also your gamesters in action, some turning of a whimsey, others throwing for pewter, who can quickly dissolve a round shilling into a three-halfpenny saucer. Long Lane at this time looks very faire, and puts out her best cloaths, with the wrong side outward, so turned for their better turning off. And Cloth Faire is now in great request; well fare the ale-houses therein; yet better may a man fare (but at a dearer rate) in the pig market, alias Pasty-nooke, or Pye Corner, where pigges are all hours of the day on the stalls piping hot, and would cry (if they could speak) come eate me.’
| PULLING DOWN CHEAPSIDE CROSS, 1643. |
In 1641 an order of Parliament directed the removal of idolatrous pictures from churches and the demolition of crosses in the streets. It must have been on the passing of this order that ‘The Doleful lamentation of Cheapside Cross,’ with a woodcut of the Cross, was published, 1641. Also, ‘A Dialogue between the Crosse in Cheap and Charing Crosse,’ 1641, which has also a woodcut representing the two crosses, while a Brownist and an Anabaptist converse about their demolition. It was not, however, till 1643 that Charing Cross and Cheapside Cross were demolished. ‘The Downfall of Dagon, or the taking down of Cheapside Crosse this second of May, 1643,’ is a mock lamentation for the destruction of the Cross on account of its being a symbol of idolatry. The Cross itself is made to describe its history and to lament its errors. Divers reasons are given for its demolition, and the tract concludes in these words: ‘And so this Tuesday it is a taking down with a great deal of judgement and discretion, and foure Companies of the Traine Bands of the City to guard and defend those that are about the worke, and to keep others from domineering, and so I leave it to be made levell with the ground this second day of May 1643.’ The tract is illustrated with a woodcut representing the demolition of the Cross; and, as the day of publication is the day after the event, the persons concerned in its production must have been unusually prompt and energetic. The destruction of Cheapside and Charing Crosses is also recorded, under the date of 1643, in ‘A Sight of the Transactions of these latter yeares Emblemized with Ingraven Plates, which men may read without Spectacles.’ This pamphlet contains a reprint of the etched plates previously mentioned, together with six others, one of which represents the pulling down of Cheapside Cross, and a summary of the transactions of the reign of Charles I., in which occurs the following passage:—‘Cheapside Crosse, Charing Crosse, and all other crosses, in and about London utterly demolished and pulled down, and that abominable and blasphemous book of tolerating sports and pastimes on the Lord’s daies, voted to be burnt, and shortly after accordingly burnt, together with many crucifixes and popish trinckets and trumperies in the very same place where Cheapside Crosse stood.’ I have copied the plate representing the demolition of Cheapside Cross.
The affairs of Turkey would seem to have had an interest for the English public in the seventeenth century, if we may judge from a pamphlet printed in 1642, with the following lengthy title:—‘Strange and Miraculous Newes from Turkie, sent to our English Ambassadour resident at Constantinople, of a woman which was seen in the Firmament with a Book in her hand at Medina Talnabi, where Mahomet’s Tomb is. Also several visions of armed men appearing in the Ayre for one and twenty dayes together. With a prophetical interpretation made by a Mahomedan Priest, who lost his life in the maintenance thereof. London, printed for Hugh Perry neere Ivy Bridge in the Strand June 13, 1642.’ There is a woodcut of the apparition, and a lengthy description, passages from which I have extracted:—
‘There came newes to Constantinople of a strange Apparition or Vision, which was seene at Medina Talnabi in Arabia, whereat Mahomet their great Prophet was buried. To visit whose Tombe the Turkes used to goe in Pilgrimage, but they must first goe to Mecha, which is some few dayes journey off, and there they take a ticket from the Grand Seigniors Beglerbeg, else they are not allowed to go to Medina.
‘This Vision continued three weeks together, which terrified the whole country, for that no man could discover the truth thereof.
| STRANGE VISION IN THE AIR, 1642. |
‘About the 20 of September there fell so great a Tempest and so fearful a Thunder about midnight, as the Heavens were darkened, and those that were awake were almost distracted, but the Vapours being disperst, and the Element cleere, the people might read in Arabian characters these words in the Firmament, O Why will you believe in Lies. Betweene two and three in the morning there was seen a woman in white compassed about with the Sun, having a cheerfull countenance, holding in her hand a Booke, coming from the Northeast, opposite against her were Armies of Turkes, Persians, Arabians, and other Mahometans, ranged in order of Battaile, and ready to charge her, but she kept her standing, and onely opened the Booke, at the sight whereof the Armies fled, and presently all the lamps about Mahomet’s Tombe went out, for as soon as ever the Vision vanished (which was commonly an hour before sunne rising) a murmuring Wind was heard, whereunto they imputed the extinguishing of the lamps. The antient pilgrims of Mahomet’s Race, who after they have visited this place, never use to cut their haire, were much amazed, for that they could not conceive the meaning of this vision, only one of the Dervices, which is a strict religious order among the Turkes like unto the Cappuchins amongst the Papists, and live in contemplation, stepped up very boldly and made a speech unto the Company which incensed them much against him, so as the poore Priest for his plain dealing lost his life, as you shall hereafter heare.’
Then follows the speech of the Dervish to the Turks, who became so incensed that they put him to death, ‘the poore man crying to the last gaspe, O thou woman with the Booke save me, and so he died. At which time there was a feareful tempest.’
It seems to have been a favourite method amongst the Puritan pamphleteers of inducing belief in a particular creed or doctrine by setting forth the awful consequences arising from adherence to an opposite faith. Thus, in 1645, in the parish of Kirkham, a Popish gentlewoman was said to have become the mother of a child without a head, because she wished she might bear a child without a head rather than her offspring should become a Roundhead. Again, it was related that in Scotland a woman wished she might become the mother of a monster rather than her child should receive the rites of the Church of England. Accordingly, the child was born with two heads, long donkey-like ears, &c. In all these cases the pamphlets recording these extraordinary occurrences are illustrated. The apparitions of deceased persons were also used as a means of enforcing certain views. For example, in 1642, the ghosts of King James, the Marquis of Hamilton, George Eglisham, and the Duke of Buckingham, were made to hold a conversation, wherein Buckingham was charged with having caused the deaths of the others by poison. Buckingham confesses his guilt and promises to weep repentant tears. This pamphlet is also illustrated. The sermons of the Roundhead preachers were sometimes parodied, as in the case of a humorous pamphlet entitled, ‘A Seasonable Lecture, or a most learned Oration; disburthened from Henry Walker, a most judicious quondam ironmonger, &c.’ There is a woodcut to this pamphlet representing a person holding forth from a tub to several others who are listening to him. In ‘A Glasse for the Times, 1648,’ there is a woodcut representing the ‘Orthodox true Minister’ preaching in a church, while the ‘Seducer, or False Prophet,’ is holding forth to people in the open air; and the reader is instructed as to the difference between true ministers and false teachers.
Amongst the numerous executions that took place about the beginning of the Civil War, some of the sufferers belonged to the Roman Catholic Religion, and went to the gallows for conscience sake. In 1643 a certain Father Bell, a Romish priest, was hanged; and a few days after the execution a pamphlet was published, entitled ‘The Confession, Obstinacy, and Ignorance of Father Bell, a Romish Priest, wherein is declared the manner of his Tryall, Condemnation, and Execution on Munday December 11, 1643.’ There is a woodcut of the execution of Father Bell, and an account of his behaviour on the occasion, his speech at the gallows, and his disputatious conversation with the Sheriff.
Though many persons were put to death for witchcraft during the Long Parliament, I have met with no illustrated record of any such event. Matthew Hopkins was ‘witch-finder general’ at this time, and he had a flourishing trade. He had a regular system for finding out witches; but it appears that it must have been called in question, for the objections to his system and his answers thereto were delivered to the Judges of Assize for the County of Norfolk in 1647. A pamphlet of that date contains a full account of Hopkins’s rules for finding witches, and it is illustrated with a woodcut representing the interior of a house, with the witch-finder, two witches seated, and surrounded by their imps in the shapes of animals.
The Welsh Post of 1643 is a curious illustrated pamphlet which relates the news of the Civil War in language such as was supposed to be used by a Welshman speaking English. It begins thus:—‘Whereas there hath beene many Tiurnals and Passages, the truth whereof hath beene much suspected, so tat her doth not be certaine to heare the true report of her pretherns proceeding; her hath terefore chosen to herselfe a fery true Printer (tat do scorne to print lie) to print a weekly Tiurnall for her dear Countryman of Whales to understand te fery truth marke you me tat now, for ferily her will not lye truly, but tell her te pare naked truth.’ The news from Oxford is that ‘te kings forces are fery weake there, and that the Countrey are fery glad of it, because of teir intolerable trouble and charge.’ There is also news from Northamptonshire, Cheshire, Gloucester, Plymouth, Yorkshire, &c, all related in the same language.
| HOPKINS, THE WITCHFINDER, 1647. |
The Welsh Plunderer is another pamphlet, with a woodcut of a Cavalier, which is probably intended for Prince Rupert. It contains a rambling protestation from ‘Shinkin’ of his loyalty, and states what he will do in case Prince Rupert should visit Wales.