The Press and Society

From Caxton to Northcliffe

Geoffrey Alan Cranfield

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317872535
• Subtopic: British History
• Index: History

First published in 1978.This book surveys the history of the Press as a whole in relation to the development of society - beginning with the introduction of the art of printing into England in 1476.

1 From the beginnings to 1695

The introduction of the art of printing did not effect a social or political revolution overnight: few people could read, and the printing press was regarded as a harmless novelty. But as the trade in printed books increased, printers began to show a distinct tendency to stray from the innocuous field of letters into the more exciting fields of religious and political controversy. Such a tendency no authoritarian government could permit – particularly one which, like Henry VIII’s, was already grappling with problems of unprecedented size and complexity. In religion, changes were in the air which were eventually to bring about a revolution rather than a mere reformation; in politics, what has, perhaps extravagantly, been called ‘the Tudor revolution in government’ was under way; and, in the background, there was the slow but sometimes painful adaptation to new social and economic conditions as the feudally organised society disintegrated, to be replaced by a society in which capitalism was to be the increasingly dominant force. The period was, in fact, one of unusual strain and tension, in which the development of the printing press as a critical and possibly subversive force could not be tolerated: and from the time of Henry VIII onwards, Authority sought to control this new threat.

The process was a lengthy one. The problem, like so many of those facing the Tudor monarchy, was entirely new. The first list of prohibited books appeared in 1529, and the following year saw the establishment of the first licensing system. This system was to be operated by ecclesiastics and applied only to books ‘concernynge holy scripture’, but it was extended by royal proclamation in 1538 to cover all types of printing, and the clerics were made responsible not only for suppressing theological errors but also for ‘expellinge and avoydinge the occasion of erroneous and seditious opinions’. In that age, in fact, religion was politics and politics religion. Gradually the system of control was improved. Mary Tudor brought the Stationers’ Company into it in 1557, when she granted the Company its charter and gave it wide powers over the craft, and it was completed by Elizabeth’s great Star Chamber decree of 1586 which set the pattern of regulation for the next hundred years. All books were to be licensed, the Company’s powers of search and seizure were confirmed, and the number of master printers, apprentices and printing presses severely limited.

Such was the Tudor system of control. But perhaps too much attention has been paid in the past to its purely negative aspects by historians whose judgement has been clouded by the modern doctrine of the freedom of the Press. Certainly, the Tudors worked on the principle that the peace of the realm demanded the suppression of all dissenting opinion: and in their efforts to stamp out what were called ‘lewd and naughty matters’ they were remarkably successful. But it has to be remembered that this was a period of uncertainty and insecurity – of religious upheavals, economic crises, dynastic doubts, plots and rebellions, of constant fears of foreign invasion. Under such conditions, the government naturally did its utmost to suppress criticism. However, the system was by no means as severe as it may seem on paper and permitted the publication of a surprisingly extensive and varied amount of printed matter, including news.

Long before the evolution of the newspaper proper, reports of news were being printed and sold, becoming quite common by the middle of the sixteenth century. The main agent in this development was, curiously enough, the government. Riots, rebellions and public executions could not be covered up, and often the government’s case had to be stated – and publicised – to instruct the nation in its duty and to scotch wild rumours. However much they might reject any notion of appealing to the vulgar, the fact remained that the Tudors were forced in their own interests to make frequent use of the printing press: in the last resort, they depended on popular support, or at least the good will of the governed. The first Tudor monarch to make extensive use of the printing press was Henry VIII; but as early as 1486 Henry VII had published the Bull of Pope Innocent VIII confirming his title to the throne and his marriage to Elizabeth of York, republishing it in 1494, a year of rebellion, to remind his subjects where their loyalty lay. Henry VIII found the press useful in his dispute with Rome, and in 1531 published The determination of the universities of Italy and Fraunce, that it is so unlafull for a man to marie his brothers wyfe, that the pope hath no power to dispence therewith. In 1536, another year of rebellion, he issued the Answere made by the Kynges hyghnes to the Petition of the rebelles in Yorkeshire. And, of course, proclamations were regularly printed. But not all the material published to inform public opinion, or lead it, was of so official and heavy a character, and the government also permitted the printing of publications aimed at a somewhat different level of the population. In particular, the ballad took on a new lease of life with the introduction of printing, and was to remain for many years to come the characteristic form of popular English art. Every plot, every rebellion, every public execution produced its ballads, aimed at the least critical class of reader and listener. Many of them were to all intents and purposes news-sheets. But from the point of view of Authority most were harmless enough: no printer was prepared to risk his neck over such trifles. Thus the Northern Rebellion of 1569–70 produced a flood of ballads: they contained some news, but more patriotism, with eulogies of the Queen which must have made even Elizabeth blush, denunciations of the rebels, and gloating forecasts of the painful end in store for those rebels.

At the same time the government also permitted the publishing of pamphlets and broadsheets dealing with news of a more general kind. Then, as now, war was the great attraction, and one of the earliest known news pamphlets concerned the Battle of Flodden in 1513: Hereafter ensue the trewe encountre or Batayle lately don betwene Englande and Scotlande. Printers and public, not to mention Authority, would undoubtedly have liked to read of the heroic exploits and triumphs of Englishmen against the foreign devil. Unfortunately, the achievements of English armies throughout most of the sixteenth century were, to say the least, disappointing, and the printers very wisely tended to ignore the various fiascos. Not until the 1580s, with the advent of the sea-dogs, could they give full vent to their patriotic ardour, with the sea-dogs invariably fighting against overwhelming odds, and equally invariably emerging victorious. Readers eagerly devoured accounts of a battle between ‘A Ship of 200 Tun having in her but 36. men and 2. Boyes who were … set upon by 6 Men of Warre of the Turkes, having at least 1500. men in them’, or of the encounter between ‘fyve shippes of London against xj. galleis and ij. fragates the strongest in Christendom’. And the propaganda element was well to the fore during the excitement of the Armada, with such publications as the New Ballet of the straunge and most cruel Whippes which the Spanyards had prepared to whippe and torment English men and women, or the detailed account of massacre and rape, village by village, perpetrated by Spanish troops in the Netherlands:

James Messier being stricken over his belly, so that his intrailes did issue forth, dyed a few dayes after. The wife of the said Messier was so sore beaten, that she can never be her owne woman again. Peter Riondet, killed as he came out of his bed, although he was seventie yeares olde, his wife is sore hurt, and is like hardly to recover it. Both her daughters defloured, and the one so hurt that the intrals came forth of her body, fifteene and eighteen years of age.

Already the atrocity story had taken the lead. But the tastes of the general public have changed little since the sixteenth century. Then, as now, blood and sex reigned supreme. This emphasis was obvious in reports of crime: unusually ghastly crimes were assured of a splendid coverage, with vivid descriptions of the crime itself and (often even more harrowing) of the punishment inflicted. In 1601 appeared a detailed account of the execution of six witches in Germany:

First they were all sixe brought before the towne house of Manchen where the woman (being plaest betwixt her two Sonnes) had both her Brestes cut off: and with the which Brestes the Executioner stroke her three times about the face; and in like manner her two Sonnes, who satt on each side of her were likewise beaten about the face with their Mothers Brests three times apiece. This beeing done in the presence of many people, the woman had sixe stripes given her with a Whip of twisted Wier: and after, had both her armes broken with a Wheel, and then set in a settle made of purpose: her body was immediately burnt. After this the other five witches had also six stripes apiece, and both their armes likewise broken with a Wheele, and foure of them tyde unto a stake in the same place, and burnt: But Paule Gamherle, the father and maister Witch of them all, was spitted alive, and so roasted to death.

Another type of news of which the sixteenth-century reader never seems to have wearied was that concerning miracles, prodigies and wonders. Such items were to remain standard fare for many years to come – and are not unknown today. A particularly outstanding collection was published in 1594 under the title Strange Signes seene in the Aire, strange Monsters behelde on the Lande, and wonderfull Prodigies both by Land and Sea, over, in and about the Citie of Rosenberge in high Germany … Truely translated out of the high Dutch Copie. In the air there had appeared a double rainbow full of ‘furious countenances’, three suns all shining at once, ‘through each was thrust a bloody sword from which many drops of blood fell on the earth’, and a huge cross covered with fresh blood. But this was not all:

At the same time as these portents in the air, a strange woman was delivered in the town of four monstrous children. The first without a head with eyes in his breast. The second with a roll of flesh growing on his head like a Turk’s Turban. The third with long upright hair long teeth and a nose like an Eagle’s beak, and on his fingers and toes long and sharp claws. The fourth was not deformed but wept tears of blood till he died.’

The woman and her unusual progeny all died and were placed in a coffin. But eight men had been unable to lift the coffin off the ground, although when it was opened there was nothing inside but three drops of blood.

Perhaps fortunately not all the news was of this nature. Then, as now, news of the Court and of royal pageantry was always popular, and the news-writers could regale their readers with descriptions Of the Tryumphe and the uses that Charles themperour & the Kyng of England were saluted with passyng through London (1522), or The Passage of most dred Soveraigne Lady Quene Elyzabeth to Westminster the daye before her Coronacion (1558).

In these various ways a surprising amount of printed news was available to the sixteenth century. It was news with limitations. By and large, printers confined themselves to foreign affairs, and steered well clear of such controversial subjects as religion and politics. In fact, the Tudors were remarkably successful in their efforts to control the press. The reasons are not difficult to find. The dominant classes – the merchants and the landowners – wanted above all else peace and prosperity, and they realised that a strong government was the best assurance against a return to the anarchy of the recent past. There was the emergent feeling of nationalism, and both Henry VIII and Elizabeth succeeded in identifying themselves with the outlook and ambitions of the nation. Even the seriousness of the religious problem can easily be exaggerated, for Catholicism and Protestantism did not really harden and crystallise until Elizabeth’s reign at the earliest. Finally, there was the fact that, pronounced as the spread of literacy may have been among the middle classes, the vast mass of the population was illiterate. And not only was it illiterate, but it was not politically conscious, save when its pockets were concerned or when events of quite exceptional interest occurred. Nevertheless, a great deal had been achieved. Printers had appeared who were prepared to publish news. They accustomed people to the idea of printed news, and assisted in the growth of an appetite for it. At the same time, conditions were changing as the century progressed. The ‘growth of capitalism’ was producing a strong and increasingly confident middle class, impatient of restraints of any kind: this class was the one most influenced by militant Puritanism. A new spirit was abroad and Elizabeth, despite the awe in which she was held, had to face evergrowing criticism from her parliaments. This new spirit manifested itself in the Press, and the later years of the century were marked by increasing violations of the press regulations. First, Elizabeth had trouble with the Catholics. More serious was the clash with the Puritans, who made the first effective challenge to the Tudor system, demonstrating for the first time the power of the Press. Despite all official efforts, the Martin Marprelate tracts of 1588 and 1589 achieved a wide circulation, and although the government eventually succeeded in suppressing them, it was not before they had made a deep impression on the literate public. And James I immediately found himself the centre of a widespread and articulate religious and political controversy. He naturally, and with some success, continued the Tudor system. But England was now lagging behind the continent in the publishing of news. By 1620 weekly periodicals or ‘corantos’ had evolved in Germany and the Netherlands. The idea was bound to be communicated to England, especially as so many corantos were published in translation there. Some stimulus was needed.

By the early seventeenth century interest in public affairs, both foreign and domestic, was growing steadily in England. The rise of England as a naval and maritime power had enlarged her horizons, and a wealthy and ambitious commercial class had developed. There were the economic and political problems caused mainly by the financial difficulties of James. But the dominant force of the age was religion, and it was the Thirty Years War which provided the required stimulus. That war seemed to be a war to the death between Protestantism and Catholicism, and one which the Protestant cause was losing. At the same time there was growing concern in England over a foreign policy which appeared to be lukewarm in its support of Protestantism. News was at a premium, and the traditional sources of news were no longer adequate.

The first printers to attempt to satisfy this demand for up-to-date news in England seem to have been a Dutch combination. The earliest known issue of their publication is dated 2 December 1620, and consists of a single sheet of small folio, printed in two columns, and bearing no title. It was ‘Imprinted at Amsterdam by George Veseler, Ao. 1620… And are to be soulde by Petrus Keerius, dwelling in the Calverstreete, in the uncertaine time’. At least fifteen more numbers appeared between this and 18 September 1621. But although this is usually regarded as the first English news-sheet, it was English only in language, and when the Dutch coranto from which it was translated contained actual English news, that section was carefully omitted. Even its presentation of foreign news was hardly exciting. At times a Protestant bias was apparent, but by and large the printer did everything to maintain a strictly neutral approach, even to the war – the great issue of the period. Nevertheless, it did contain reasonably up-to-date news, and seems to have been imitated by other Amsterdam printers, although actual evidence is lacking. Indeed, according to Dahl, only 0.13 per cent of the copies of the early corantos (and, in fact, of the later newsbooks) have survived. As Frank puts it, ‘three centuries ago, as now, old newspapers had little individual value, and from the beginning they served to line pots or to wrap fish’. It was clearly only a matter of time before an English printer entered the market. Of course, there was a risk involved: no printer would dare to include, much less comment on, domestic news. Unfortunately, at this particular stage the government was growing steadily more sensitive on the subject of foreign affairs, and when some time before August 1621 a London bookseller, Thomas Archer, began to issue a coranto, he was promptly charged with publishing a news-sheet on the war in the Palatinate without licence and imprisoned. His offence seems to have been ‘making, or adding to, his corrantos’; but accurate translations from the Dutch were apparently acceptable, for, according to a letter of the period, ‘now there is another that hath got license to print them and sell them, honestly translated out of the Dutch’.

This new printer ‘N.B.’ – presumably Nathaniel Butter, although Nicholas Bourne is a possible candidate – immediately began to publish a Corante, or newes from Italy, Germany, Hungarie, Spaine, and France … out of the Hie Dutch Coppy printed at Franckford. Butter and Bourne were virtually to monopolise the scene until the 1640s. They took the first step away from their Dutch model by issuing a quarto pamphlet of anything from eight to twenty-four pages, thus introducing the ‘book’ of news, a format which remained standard until 1655. Also, whereas the earlier corantos had not been numbered and bore varying titles, they now, from 1622, began to be numbered consecutively, and by 1624 had acquired a more or less permanent title, Mercurius Britannicus. They also began to appear at approximately weekly intervals, although this last step was not achieved easily, and the printers were still inclined to vary the frequency of publication according to the supply of news available. A glut of news could produce two newsbooks on the same day, but there could also be an interval of seventeen days between issues in a period of ‘slow’ news. As to content, no such advances were made. The supreme note remained one of caution. English news was virtually excluded, but even foreign news could easily lead to trouble. On 9 September 1622 the newsbook contained a somewhat rash report of the activities of Count Mansfield, the leading general on the Protestant side: ‘He hath burned and spoyled in Loraine, and upon the borders of France, sixti...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• 1 From the beginnings to 1695
• 2 Intelligence, instruction and entertainment, 1695–1760
• 3 Liberty, licentiousness and venality
• 4 The early Radical Press and the Sunday newspaper
• 5 The growth of a new reading public and the struggle to control it
• 6 The age of The Times
• 7 The provincial Press, 1701–1854
• 8 The explosion: from 1855 to the advent of Northcliffe
• Conclusion
• Sources and references
• Bibliography
• Index