Rumour, news and popular political opinion in elizabethan and early stuart England

The Historical Journal

Volumn 40, Issue 3, 1997, Pages 597-620

  Fox, Adam ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH   (United Kingdom)

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EID: 85010160440     PISSN: 0018246X     EISSN: 14695103     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0018246X97007346     Document Type: Article

References (136)

1. See, for example, Derek Hirst, The representative of the people? Voters and voting in England under the early Stuarts (Cambridge, 1975), ch. 9
2. J. S. Morrill, ‘William Davenport and the “silent majority” of early Stuart England’, Journal of the Chester Archaeological Society, LVIII (1975), 115–29
3. F.J. Levy, ‘How information spread among the gentry, 1550–1640’, Journal of British Studies, xxi (1982), 11–34
4. Richard Cust, ‘News and politics in early seventeenth-century England’, Past & Present, CXII (1986), 60–90
5. Thomas Cogswell, ‘The politics of propaganda: Charles I and the people in the 1620s’, Journal of British Studies, XXIX (1990), 187–215
6. Pauline Croft, ‘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.
7. Cust, ‘News and politics in early seventeenth-century England’, p. 65.
8. 23 Elizabeth, c. 2, in Statutes of the realm (11 vols., London, 1810–24), in, 508–9
9. Iv, pt i, 240–1, 659–61
10. J. F. Larkin and P. J. Hughes, eds., Stuart royal proclamations (3 vols., Oxford, 1973), 1, 495–6, 519–521.
11. For discussion, see G. R. Elton, Policy and police: the enforcement of the Reformation in the age of Thomas Cromwell (Cambridge, 1972), ch. 6
12. John Bellamy, The Tudor law of treason: an introduction (London, 1979), pp. 14, 27,45–6,84, 184
13. Roger B. Manning, ‘The origin of the doctrine of sedition’, Albion, XII (1980), 99–121.
14. Public Record Office, London (hereafter P.R.O.), SP15/12/73
15. P.R.O., SP12/279/62
16. P.R.O., SP16/110/13
17. For many other comments of this sort, see Christopher Hill, ‘The many-headed monster’, in his Change and continuity in seventeenth-century England (London, 1975) pp. 181–204.
18. P.R.o., ASSI35/I-67. These indictments are calendared in J. S. Cockburn, ed., Calendar of assize records (10 vols., London, 1978–1982).
19. For attempts to use cases ofseditious words in order to gauge popular opinion, see Elton, Policy andpolice, passim; Joel Samaha, ‘Gleanings from local criminal-court records: sedition amongst the “inarticulate” in Elizabethan Essex’, Journal ofSocial History, VIII (1975), 61–79
20. Buchanan Sharp, In contempt of all authority: rural artisans and riot in the west of England, 1586–1660 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1980), pp. 36–42
21. idem, ‘Popular political opinion in England 1660–1685’, History of European Ideas, x (1989), 13–29
22. Tim Harris, London crowds in the reign of Charles II (Cambridge, 1987), pp. 50–1, 158, 161–3, 165–6, 213, 220–1
23. Dagmar Friest, ‘The formation of opinion and the communication network in London 1637 to c. 1645’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Cambridge 1992), pp. 159–264.
24. P.R.O., SP12/273/35
25. P.R.O., SP14/126/1.
26. John Florio, Florios second frutes (London, 1591), sig. A2
27. Margaret Spufford, Small books and pleasant histories: popular fiction and its readership in seventeenth-century England (London, 1981), p. 65
28. George Widley, The doctrine of the sabbath (London, 1604), p. 114
29. William Harrison, The difference of hearers (London, i6i4),p. 39
30. Thomas Shepherd These sabbaticae (London, 1655), p. 314
31. cf. Robert Burton, The anatomy of melancholy, ed. Holbrook Jackson (3 vols., London, 1932), 1, 320.
32. Martin Ingram, Church courts, sex and marriage in England, 1570–1640 (Cambridge, 1987), p. 305
33. Bodleian Library, MS Eng. Lang. e. 6., fo. 65v
34. Cambridge University Library, EDR/B2/21, fo. 50
35. Oxfordshire Record Office, ODR c. 24, fo. 219.
36. Desiderius Erasmus, The colloquies or familiar discourses of Desiderius Erasmus of Roterdam, trans. H.M. (London, 1671), p. 51
37. E.R.C. Brinkworth, ed., The archdeacon s court: liber actorum, 1584 (2 vols., Oxfordshire Record Society, 23–4, Oxford, 1942–1946), 1, 131
38. Historical Manuscripts Commission (hereafter H.M.C.), 10th report appendix part iv (London, 1885), p. 481
39. F. G. Emmison, Elizabethan life: disorder (Chelmsford, 1970), p. 56
40. Acts of the privy council of England, 1542–1631 (46 vols., London, 1890–1964), (hereafter, A.P.C.), 1591–92, p. 410
41. P.R.O., SP16/ 317/16. For remarks on the relationship between carriers and news, see J. Crofts, Packhorse, waggon and post: land carriage and communications under the Tudors and Stuarts (London, 1967),pp. 20- 21
42. R. W. Scribner, ‘Oral culture and the diffusion of Reformation ideas’, History of European Ideas, v (1984), 237–56
43. M. C. Frearson, ‘The English corantos of the 1620s’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Cambridge, 1993), ch. 1.; P.R.O., SP12/261/1 oii, 12/262/4, 12/261/15iv
44. see John Walter, ‘A “rising of the people ”? The Oxfordshire rising of 1596’, Past & Present, cvII (1985), p. 97.
45. Angelo Raine, ed., York civic records (8 vols., Yorkshire Archaeological Society, Wakefield, 1939–1953), v, 107
46. H.M.C., 4th report (London, 1874), p. 115; P.R.O., SPi 6/456/13
47. Frederick J. Powick, ed. ‘The reverend Richard Baxter's last treatise’, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, x (1926), 182.
48. For other examples, see P.R.O., SP12/60/1; P.R.O., SP12/60/27; P.R.O., SP12/272/48;P.R.O., SP15/12/74; P.R.O., SP14/72/31.
49. On the association of vagrancy and sedition, see Alan Everitt, ‘Farm labourers’, repr. in Christopher Clay, ed., Rural society: landowners,peasants and labourers, 1500–1750 (Cambridge, 1990), p. 228
50. Christopher Hill, The world turned upside down: radical ideas during the English revolution (London, 1972), pp. 39, 45
51. A. L. Beier, Masterless men: the vagrancy problem in England, 1560–1640 (London, 1985), pp. 139–142.
52. John Smith, Advertisements for the unexperienced planters of New England (London, 1631), sig. A2
53. quoted in H. S. Bennett, English books and readers, 1603 to 1640 (Cambridge, 1970), p. 179
54. Donald Lupton, London and the countrey carbonadoed and quartred into severall characters (London, 1932), p. 24
55. John Earle, Micro-cosmographie. Or, a peece of the world discovered: in essayes and characters (London, 1928), sigs. K1r-K3r
56. P.R.O., SP12/239/26. In 1632, the ‘foryners and strangers’ who frequented Paul's churchyard were described as being ‘for the most part men of greater sort and qualitie ‘; the noise they made on a Sunday in ’ walkinge and talkinge ’was said to disturb divine service: P.R.O., SP16/214/94.
57. P.R.O., SP16/142/102
58. P.R.O., SP14/185/95
59. P.R.O., SP12/199/14
60. P.R.O., SP12/ 274/113.
61. P.R.O., SP12/60/48, 12/60/49, 12/60/54
62. P.R.O., SP14/18/65
63. P.R.O., SP16/63/113.
64. Peter Mundy, The travels of Peter Mundy, in Europe and Asia, 1608–1667, eds. Sir Richard Carnac Temple and Lavinia Mary Anstey (5 vols., in 6, Hakluyt Society, 2nd ser., Cambridge, 1907; London, 1914–36), iv, 41
65. John Smyth, A description of the hundred of Berkeley in the county of Gloucester and of its inhabitants, ed. Sir John Maclean (Gloucester, 1885), p. 30.
66. P.R.O., ASS135/29/1 /33
67. P.R.O., SP16/163/61, 16/166/43
68. P.R.O., SP16/422/80.
69. P.R.O., SP14/121/goi-iv
70. P.R.O., SP14/118/37, 14/118/38.
71. For a discussion of the newsbooks produced on these events and some of the reactions that they evoked, see M. A. Breslow, A mirror of England: English puritan views of foreign nations, 1618–1640 (Cambridge, Mass., 1970), pp. 10–22, 63–71.
72. The circulation of such news in the West Country is evident in the diary of the Devonshire gentleman, Walter Yonge: George Roberts, ed., Diary of Walter Yonge, esq. (Canadian Society, 1st ser., XLI, London, 1848), pp. 33–37.
73. P.R.O., SP12/259/51
74. P.R.O., SP16/293/72
75. P.R.O., SP16/456/36, 16/461/46ii.
76. P.R.O., SP16/10/33, 16/10/55, 16/12/54, 16/21/61.
77. P.R.O., SP16/237/27–30, 16/237/42, 16/237/45, 16/237/60i-iv, 16/238/33i-ii, 16/239/ 6ii-iv, 16/239/85.
78. For discussion of the many rumours about papists rising, see Robin Clifton, ‘The popular fear of catholics during the English revolution’, Past & Present, LII (1971), 23–55.
79. P.R.O., SP16/321/19
80. Brinkworth, ed., The archdeacon's court, 1, 152
81. Peter Clark, The English alehouse: a social history, 1200–1830 (London, 1983), p. 145.
82. Brinkworth, ed., The archdeacon's court, I, 230
83. P.R.O., SP12/244/123
84. P.R.O., SP16/252/ 67i-ii.
85. P.R.O., SP14/18/73
86. P.R.O., SP16/6/68i.
87. A proclamation of 1607 forbad any unauthorized person from carrying packets or letters: P.R.O., SP 14/45/50.
88. The postmaster of Ware, Hertfordshire, was reproved for failure to observe this in July 1617: P.R.O., SP14/92/100.
89. P.R.O., SP14/107/66i-v.
90. For a similar example, involving a seditious letter sent from a son in London via the carrier to his father in Leicestershire during May 1637, see P.R.O., SP16/357/102i-III.
91. P.R.O., SP16/60/25i-III, 16/60/26.
92. Mary Anne Everett Green, ed., Diary of John Rous, incumbent of Santon Downham, Suffolk, from 1625 to 164.2 (Camden Society, 1st ser., LXVI, London, 1856), 10–11, 34, 37
93. P.R.O., SP16/276/42
94. see William Hunt, The puritan moment: the coming of revolution in an English county (Cambridge, Mass., 1983), pp. 261- 262
95. Cust, ‘News and politics in early seventeenth-century England’, pp. 65–66.
96. William Whiteway of Dorchester: his diary, 1618 to 1635 (Dorset Record Society, XII, Dorchester, 1991), p. 54
97. P.R.O.,SP16/27/8o
98. P.R.O.,SP16/64/11, and Acts of the Privy Council [A.P.C.], 1627, p. 301.
99. For the circulation of such ballads in Suffolk, see Everett Green, ed., Diary of John Rous, pp. 18–22, 29–30, 31.
100. On news items in printed ballads, see Hyder E. Rollins. ‘The black-letter broadside ballad’, Publications of the Modern Language Association, XXXIV (1919), 265–73, 295, 315–17, 335–6
101. Matthias A. Shaaber, Some forerunners of the newspaper in England, 1476–1622 (Philadelphia,1929).
102. P.R.O., SP14/118/102–3
103. P.R.O., SP14/124/113.
104. On Scott's pamphlets and their impact, see S. L. Adams, ‘Captain Thomas Gainsford, the Vox spiritus and the Vox populi ’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, XLIX (1976), 141–4
105. P.G.Lake, ‘Constitutional consensus and puritan opposition in the 1620s: Thomas Scott and the Spanish match’, Historical Journal, XXV(1982), 805–825.
106. On the development of the printed newsbooks, see Joseph Frank, The beginnings of the English newspaper, 1620–1660 (Cambridge, Mass., 1961)
107. Laurence Hanson, ‘English newsbooks, 1620–1641 ’, The Library, 4th ser., XVIII (1938), 355–84
108. Frearson, ‘The English corantos of the 1620s’.
109. P.R.O., SP14/160/73i.
110. This is either an unknown work by Breton, or else a misattribution of one of the many pamphlets that were written on this subject, such as: John Taylor, Prince Charles his welcomefrom Spaine (London, 1623, S.T.C., 23789.7)
111. Anon, The joyfull returne, of the most illustrious prince, Charles (London, 1623, S.T.C. 5025).
112. For a discussion of this episode and the literature which it provoked, see David Cressy, Bonfires andbells: national memory and the protestant calendar in Elizabethan and early Stuart England (London, 1989), ch. 6.
113. P.R.O., SP16/3/53i-v.
114. P.R.O., SP14/126/1.
115. On the forms and functions of rumour, see in particular, Gordon W. Allport and Leo J. Postman, The psychology of rumour (New York, 1947)
116. Tamotsu Shibutani, Improvised news: a sociological study of rumour (New York, 1966)
117. James C. Scott, Domination and the arts of resistance: hidden transcripts (New Haven, 1990), esp. pp. 144–145.
118. A classic case study is George Lefebvre, The great fear of 1789: rural panic in revolutionary France, trans. Joan White (London, 1973).
119. The events described in this and the following paragraph are based upon P.R.O., SP16/110/6i, 16/110/13,16/110/41,16/111/21i-ii, 16/114/23i.
120. George Eglisham, The forerunner of revenge (Frankfurt, 1626, S.T.C. 7548). (I am grateful to Alastair Bellany for the reference to this pamphlet and for discussion of this issue.)
121. John Harvey, A discoursive probleme concerning prophesies (London, 1588), pp. 61–2
122. for examples, see P.R.O., SP12/184/50, 12/184/70; P.R.O., ASSI35//20/5/36; ASSI35/21/7/3; ASSI35/21 /7/24; ASSI35/28/2/36; ASSI35/29/1 /33; ASSI35/36/2/39
123. A.P.C., 1552–54., p. 363
124. A.P.C., 1554–56, pp. 122, 221
125. A.P.C, 1579–80, pp. 194, 214 371
126. A.P.C, 1580–81, pp. 23–24, 29, 353–4.
127. This phenomenon is discussed in Keith Thomas, Religion and the decline of magic: studies in popular beliefs in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England (London, 1971), pp. 419–422.
128. P.R.O., SP16/68/28, 16/70/10, 16/70/24, 16/70/45, and British Library, London. Lansdowne MS 620 (Reports of the Star-Chamber cases from pasch. 1 Car. 1 to hill. 3 Car. 1 inclusive), fos. 50–51; P.R.O., SP16/278/12. For the full text of this Ile de Rhe ballad, see P.R.O., SP16/85/84 and F. W. Fairholt, ed., Poems and songs relating to George Villiers, duke of Buckingham (Percy Society, XXIX, London, 1850), pp. 19–24
129. see the discussion in Cust, ‘News and politics in early seventeenth-century England’, pp. 67–9
130. 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 (London, 1994), pp. 285–310.
131. On a cruder level, there must have been many with the modicum of invention displayed by Cornish gentleman, Charles Tregion, a prisoner in the Fleet at this time, who ‘used to sing a prophane songe, in the foote of which songe, in scandall and disgrace of the name of the duke of Buckingham, he would singe him by the name of the duke of Fuckingham’: P.R.O., SP16/89/69.
132. See also J. C.Jeaffreson, ed., Middlesex county records (4 vols., Middlesex County Record Society, London, 1886–92), in, 74, 81.
133. P.R.O., SP16/317/16
134. H.M.C., 13th report, appendix, part IV (London, 1892), p. 208.
135. On the influence of the bible in structuring political opinion, see Christopher Hill, The English bible and the seventeenth-century revolution (London, 1993), esp. chs. 1–2.
136. P.R.O., SP16/409/102; P.R.O., SP16/395/40; James Raine, ed., Depositions from the castle of York relating to offences committed in the northern circuit in the seventeenth century (Surtees Society, XL, Durham, 1861), pp. 4–5.