The decorum of news

Prose Studies

Volumn 21, Issue 2, 1998, Pages 12-38

  Levy, Fritz ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON   (United States)

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EID: 61949477070     PISSN: 17439426     EISSN: 01440357     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/01440359808586637     Document Type: Article

References (78)

1. James F. Larkin and Paul L. Hughes (eds.), Stuart Royal Proclamations, vol. I, James I (Oxford, 1973), No.208, pp.495-6. The quotation from the French Ambassador is on p.496n
2. Norman Egbert McClure (ed.), The Letters of John Chamberlain, 2 vols. (Philadelphia, 1939), II, 396. John Chamberlain to Sir Dudley Carleton (London, 4 Aug. 1621)
3. James Orchard Halliwell (ed.), The Autobiography and Correspondence of Sir Simonds D'Ewes, Bart., 2 vols. (London, 1845), I: 143, 154
4. Elisabeth Bourcier (ed.), The Diary of Sir Simonds D'Ewes (1622-1624) (Paris, 1974), 59, 85
5. T. McAlindon, Shakespeare and Decorum (New York, 1973), 1-18, has a useful discussion of the ramifications of the idea of decorum
6. Alan Hunt, Governance of the Consuming Passions. A History of Sumptuary Law (Basingstoke: Macmillan Press Ltd., 1996), 310-11
7. For details of the legislation, Frances Elizabeth Baldwin, Sumptuary Legislation and Personal Regulation in England, Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science, series XLIV, No.1 (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1926)
8. and Wilfrid Hooper, "The Tudor Sumptuary Laws," English Historical Review, 30 (1915): 433-49
9. Frederic A. Youngs, Jr., The Proclamations of the Tudor Queens (Cambridge, 1976), 161-70
10. J.R. Tanner (ed.), Tudor Constitutional Documents (Cambridge, 2nd edn. 1930), 94
11. Paul L. Hughes and James F. Larkin (eds.), Tudor Royal Proclamations, 3 vols. (New Haven, CT, and London, 1964-69), II: 119
12. George Puttenham, The Arte of English Poesie (London: Richard Field, 1589), 237, 127
13. Fulke Greville, "A Dedication to Sir Philip Sidney," in The Prose Works of Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke, ed. John Gouws (Oxford, 1986), 134
14. Francis Bacon, "On the Fortunate Memory of Elizabeth, Queen of England," in F.J. Levy (ed.), The History of the Reign of King Henry the Seventh (Indianapolis, IN, 1972), 266
15. Letters of John Holles, 1587-1637, ed. P.R. Seddon, 3 vols., Thoroton Society, Record Series, XXXI, XXXV, XXXVI (Nottingham, 1975-86), II: 222. To his loving son, John Holles, esq. [at London, 26 Jan. 1619]
16. John Donne, The Satires, Epigrams and Verse Letters, ed. W. Milgate (Oxford, 1967), 15, 18
17. On this point, Andrew Mousley, "Self, State, and Seventeenth Century News," The Seventeenth Century, 6 (1991): 150-52
18. An analysis of the political theory behind all this, in terms of the intersection of ascending and descending authority, is in J.G.A. Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment (Princeton, NJ, 1975), 353
19. On the early period, C.A.J. Armstrong, "Some Examples of the Distribution and Speed of News in England at the Time of the Wars of the Roses," in R.W. Hunt, W.A. Pantin, and R.W. Southern (eds.), Studies in Medieval History Presented to Frederick Maurice Powicke (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1948), 429-54
20. There is some discussion of these materials in Matthias A. Shaaber, Some Forerunners of the Newspaper in England, 1476-1622 (Philadelphia, PA, 1929), 177-9
21. James K. Lowers, Mirrors for Rebels, University of California English Studies, 6 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA, 1953), provides a list and studies them as reflections of the Elizabethan world order
22. there is another list in Shaaber, Some Forerunners of the Newspaper, 114-16
23. Joseph Lilly (ed.), A Collection of Seventy-nine Black-Letter Ballads and Broadsides (London: Joseph Lilly, 1867), 239-40
24. Edward Arber (ed.), A Transcript of the Registers of the Company of Stationers of London, 5 vols. (London and Birmingham, 1875-94), V: lxxvi. Order of Privy Council requiring all Books to be licensed before Publication
25. Walter Bourchier Devereux, Lives and Letters of the Devereux, Earls of Essex, 2 vols. (London, 1853), II: 99. 12 May 1599
26. Gabriel Harvey, Foure Letters and Certeine Sonnets... 1592, ed. G.B. Harrison, The Bodley Head Quartos (London: John Lane, 1922), 10, 25
27. Clifford Chalmers Huffman, Elizabethan Impressions. John Wolfe and His Press (New York, 1988), 99-121
28. Lawrence Stone, The Crisis of the Aristocracy 1558-1641 (Oxford, 1965), 388
29. Letters of Philip Gawdy, ed. I.H. Jeayes, Roxburghe Club (London, 1906), 5
30. On libels, Pauline Croft, "Libels, Popular Literacy and Public Opinion in Early Modern England," Historical Research, 68 (1995), 266-85
31. and her earlier "The Reputation of Robert Cecil: Libels, Political Opinion and Popular Awareness in the Early Seventeenth Century," Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th ser., 1 (1991), 43-69
32. and Thomas Cogswell, "Underground Verse and the Transformation of Early Stuart Political Culture," in Susan D. Amussen and Mark A. Kishlansky (eds.), Political Culture and Cultural Politics in Early Modern England (Manchester and New York, 1995), 277-300
33. Alastair Bellany, "'Raylinge Rymes and Vaunting Verse': Libellous Politics in Early Stuart England, 1603-1628," in Kevin Sharpe and Peter Lake (eds.), Culture and Politics in Early Stuart England (Stanford, 1993), 285-310 is slightly less relevant to my theme
34. Looking back over this whole period, the very shrewd John Selden remarked that these "light" writings best served to show which way the wind was blowing: "More solid Things do not show the Complexion of the times so well as Ballads and Libels." Table Talk in James Thornton (ed.), Table Talk from Ben Jonson to Leigh Hunt, Everyman's Library (London: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1934), 62
35. At the height of the London disturbances, libels were scattered about London: BL Lansdowne MS.78, f. 159, John Spencer, Lord Mayor of London, to Burghley, 29 Aug. 1595; f. 161, same to same. 23 July 1596
36. Joel Hurstfield, "The Succession Struggle in late Elizabethan England," in his Freedom, Corruption and Government in Elizabethan England (London, 1973), 104-34
37. See the sensible discussion of the ban in Cyndia Susan Clegg, Press Censorship in Elizabethan England (Cambridge, 1997), 198ff. Clegg argues that the censorship was related to the particular events of 1599 rather than to such general considerations as the genre of satire
38. The Letters of John Chamberlain, I: 97
39. Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1598-1601, 350
40. Simonds d'Ewes, The Journals of all the Parliaments during the Reign of Queen Elizabeth (London, 1682), 653
41. Peter S. Donaldson, Machiavelli and Mystery of State (Cambridge, 1988), 103-4, argues that Wolfe's reasons for publishing Machiavelli were republican; that is, Wolfe followed the line of Alberico Gentili in believing that Machiavelli revealed the secrets of princes and especially tyrants, and so publishing him was an anti-tyrannical move
42. Denis B. Woodfield, Surreptitious Printing in England 1550-1640 (New York, 1973), 21, believes Wolfe's motives were largely commercial
43. Woodfield, Surreptitious Printing, 24-5. The French translation was published by Thomas Vautrollier
44. Huffman, Elizabethan Impressions, 84ff., discusses the importance of Hurault
45. Newes Lately come on the last day of Februarie 1591 (London: John Wolfe, 1591)
46. Harvey, Foure Letters and Certeine Sonnets, 26
47. Henry R. Plomer, "Some Elizabethan Book Sales," The Library, 3rd ser., 7 (1916): 318-29
48. M. St. Clare Byrne and Gladys Scott Thomson, "'My Lord's Books': The Library of Francis, Second Earl of Bedford, in 1584," Review of English Studies, 7 (1931): 385-405. The inventory of Richard Stonley's books contains one or two titles that may represent books of news; the large number of bundles of pamphlets may conceal more
49. See Leslie Hotson, "The Library of Elizabeth's Embezzling Teller," Studies in Bibliography 2 (1949-50), 49-61
50. Robert Jahn, "Letters and Booklists of Thomas Chard (or Chare) of London, 1583-4," The Library, 4th ser., 4 (1924): 219-37
51. Donald Paige, "An Additional Letter and Booklist of Thomas Chard, Stationer of London," The Library, 4th ser., 21 (1940): 28, 30
52. Alexander Rodger, "Roger Ward's Shrewsbury Stock: an Inventory of 1585," The Library, 5th ser., 13 (1958): 247-68
53. Hyder E. Rollins, A Pepysian Garland (Cambridge, 1922), 160
54. D.C. Collins, A Handlist of News Pamphlets, 1590-1610 (London: Southwest-West Essex Technical College, 1943) lists one pamphlet about the landing, with two more (plus a ballad) about the defeat of the Spanish forces. One of the latter opens "In my last of the 19th of December," suggesting that another tract once existed. It is possible, of course, that one manuscript letter of a series fell into the hands of the printers, who then set it up without alteration
55. Diary of Walter Yonge, Esq., ed. George Roberts, Camden Society (London, 1848), 24, for an example
56. Yonge's diary is discussed in Richard Cust, "News and Politics in Early Seventeenth-Century England," Past & Present, 112 (1986): 79-87
57. and in Mousley, "Self, State, and Seventeenth Century News," 161-6
58. J.S. Morrill, "William Davenport and the 'Silent Majority' of Early Stuart England," Journal of the Chester Archaeological Society, 58 (1975): 115-29. At least one Elizabethan document could also be found in numerous collections: the exchange of letters between Lord Keeper Egerton and the Earl of Essex on the limits of obedience in a monarchy. That subject was of general interest for a very long time, and so there is no way of determining whether the copies were created contemporaneous with the event, or years (perhaps decades) later
59. William Barlow, writing from Amsterdam in 1620, complained that the trade had already got ahead of the amateurs: "If I should send you ouer the Relations both in Latin, Dutch, and French, which come to this Towne concerning the variety of Newes about the troubles of Europe, I should weary you with the multiplicity of Bookes and myselfe with the cunning of transportation: Besides, I am sure to be preuented in sending you Newes, because it will bee stale ere it come to your handes by my meanes." The quotation is from Laurence Hanson, "English Newsbooks, 1620-1641," The Library, 4th ser., 18 (1938): 355-84, at 379
60. William S. Powell, John Pory, 1572-1636 (Chapel Hill, 1977), 52-3
61. John Fletcher and Philip Massinger, Sir John Van Olden Barnavelt, ed. T.H. Howard-Hill, The Malone Society Reprints (1980 for 1979), 2
62. The Letters of John Chamberlain, II: 236. Chamberlain to Carleton [London, 8 May 1619]
63. T.H. Howard-Hill, "Buc and the Censorship of Sir John Van Olden Barnavelt in 1619," Review of English Studies, n.s. 39 (1988): 39-63, at 42
64. Richard Dutton, Mastering the Revels (London, 1991), 183
65. see also A.R. Braunmuller (ed.), A Seventeenth-Century Letter-Book (Newark, DE, 1983), 435-7
66. The Letters of John Chamberlain, II: 239. Chamberlain to Carleton [London, 31 May 1619]
67. Janet Clare, "Art made tongue-tied by authority" (Manchester, 1990), 153
68. T.H. Howard-Hill, "Crane's 'Promptbook' of Barnavelt and Theatrical Processes," Modern Philology, 86 (1988-89): 146-70
69. Dutton, Mastering the Revels, 207, 217
70. Battle of Nieuport 1600, ed. D.C. Collins, Shakepeare Association Facsimiles no. 9 (London: Humphrey Milford, 1935), v
71. F.J. Fisher, "The Development of London as a Centre of Conspicuous Consumption in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries," in E.M. Carus-Wilson (ed.), Essays in Economic History, 3 vols. (New York, 1962), II: 197-207
72. Lawrence Manley, Literature and Culture in Early Modern London (Cambridge, 1995)
73. On checking accuracy, see above, plus my "How Information Spread among the Gentry," Journal of British Studies, 21 (1982): 11-34
74. and Michael Frearson, "The Distribution and Readership of London Corantos in the 1620s," in Robin Myers and Michael Harris (eds.), Serials and their Readers (Winchester and New Castle, DE, 1993): 1-25
75. Alexandra Halasz, The Marketplace of Print. Pamphlets and the Public Sphere in Early Modern England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 163, 169
76. Douglas Bruster, "The Structural Transformation of Print in Late Elizabethan England," typescript kindly sent to me by the author, 17
77. Jürgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, trans. Thomas Burger with the assistance of Frederick Lawrence (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1991), 17
78. Joseph Mead to Sir Martin Stuteville, 22 Sept. 1621, quoted in Folke Dahl, A Bibliography of English Corantos and Periodical Newsbooks 1620-1642 (London: The Bibliographical Society, 1952), 49