credibility in elizabethan and early stuart military news

CREDIBILITY IN ELIZABETHAN AND EARLY STUART MILITARY NEWS

Political and Popular Culture in the Early

Modern Period

Series Editors: Alastair Bellany

Krista Kesselring

Jason Peacey

Ted Vallance

Forthcoming Titles

‘Commotion Time’: Th e English Risings of 1549

Amanda Jones

Th e Politics of Disclosure, 1674–1725

Rebecca Bullard

www.pickeringchatto.com/politicalpopularculture

CREDIBILITY IN ELIZABETHAN AND EARLY STUART MILITARY NEWS

by

David Randall

london

PICKERING & CHATTO

2008

© Pickering & Chatto (Publishers) Ltd 2008

© David Randall 2008

british library cataloguing in publication data

Randall, David

Credibility in Elizabethan and early Stuart military news. – (Political and popu-

lar culture in the early modern period)

1. Newspapers – Great Britain – History – 17th century 2. Newspapers – Great Brit-

ain – History – 16th century 3. News audiences – Great Britain – History – 17th

century 4. News audiences – Great Britain – History – 16th century 5. Power (Social

sciences) – Great Britain – History – 17th century 6. Power (Social sciences) – Great

Britain – History – 16th century 7. Great Britain – Politics and government – 17th

century 8. Great Britain – Politics and government – 16th century

I. Title

302.2’32’0941’09032

ISBN–13: 9781851969562

Published by Pickering & Chatto (Publishers) Limited

21 Bloomsbury Way, London WC1A 2TH

2252 Ridge Road, Brookfi eld, Vermont 05036-9704, USA

www.pickeringchatto.com

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced,

stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means,

electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise

without prior permission of the publisher.

∞

Th is publication is printed on acid-free paper that conforms to the American

National Standard for the Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials.

Typeset by Pickering & Chatto (Publishers) Limited

Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements vii

Note on Style ix

List of Tables xi

Introduction 1

1 From Oral News to Written News 21

2 Sociable news 49

3 Anonymous News 77

4 Building a New Standard of News Credibility 95

5 Extensive News 121

Conclusion 151

Appendix A: Documents 157

Notes 161

Works Cited 201

Index 225

– vii –

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I owe many debts of gratitude for this book. I have been aided fi nancially during

my academic career by Fordham University (thanks in particular to the good

offi ces of Bryant Ragan), Rutgers University and the Rutgers University His-

tory Department, Concordia University, the Making Publics Project (thanks in

particular to the good offi ces of Robert Tittler and Paul Yachnin), the Social

Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the History Center of

the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, the anonymous donor who

funds the Summer Seminar in Military History at the United States Military

Academy, and the Henry E. Huntington Library. I am grateful to the assistance

given me by librarians and archivists at the Rutgers University Library (especially

Tom Glynn), the Columbia University Library, the New York Public Library,

the British Library, the Bodleian Library, the Cambridge University Library,

the Folger Shakespeare Library, the Henry E. Huntington Library, and Andrew

Cambers, who went in person to York Minster Library to get me photocopies of

a dozen-odd corantos. For friendship and conversation, I am indebted to Rob-

ert Colburn, Ulrich Groetsch, Matthew O’Brien, David Rosen, Ethan Solomita,

Amos Tubb, Christopher Welser, and Peter Wong; for guidance, support, and

inspiration throughout my years in graduate school, at Fordham University and

Rutgers University, I am particularly indebted to Susan Wabuda, Peter Lake,

Phyllis Mack, Donald Kelley, Paula McDowell, and (especially) my advisor,

Alastair Bellany, who has taken great pains to read my work, and even greater

pains to comment on it, to my very great profi t. Th e manuscript was further

improved by critiques from anonymous readers at Cambridge University Press,

Manchester University Press and Pickering & Chatto; at the last-named press,

Jason Peacey as series editor and Michael Middeke as editor also provided a great

amount of helpful critique. Some of the ambitions in this book owe something,

I think, to my grandfather John Herman Randall, and his friend Paul Oskar

Kristeller; I hope they would look at this work with a kindly eye. My greatest

debts are to my parents Francis and Laura Randall, my sister Ariane Randall, and

(above all, always) my wife Laura Congleton.

NOTE ON STYLE

For clarity’s sake, I have modernized the punctuation and orthography of my

sources (th for y, i for j, etc.) and I have expanded most contractions (participa-

tion for pticipation, Majestie for Matie, etc.). I have left the spelling essentially

unchanged. In my own narrative, I have provided modern spelling and usage for

European place names and battles (Frankenthal, not Frankendale; the battle of

Breitenfeld, not the contemporaneous usage of the battle of Leipzig). When cit-

ing printed news reports, I sometimes abbreviate their rather lengthy titles; the

format by which I have cited corantos is idiosyncratic, but, I believe, more clearly

expresses their title, date, and numbering than the alternative systems available.

I have in any case provided in my bibliography the STC numbers for all printed

news reports cited. I have tried to use modern dating throughout, though it is

possible that through inadvertence I have left some events between January and

March off by one year. Where I was only somewhat confi dent of my ability to

make out a word, I have represented the word as [word]. Finally, a number of

printed news reports have neither pagination nor sigils; in those cases I have

perforce inserted my own pagination. Th is is represented by the use of italics in

my source pagination.

– xi –

LIST OF TABLES

Table 3.1: State Papers Foreign 101 (Newsletters), 1590–6 81

– 1 –

INTRODUCTION

Th e Transformation of the Standards of Credibility

Th e New Tydings Out of Italie Are Not Yet Come (2 December 1620) is the fi rst

English-language newspaper that survives. In this ‘coranto’, as these early news-

papers were called, Englishmen read that ‘between the King of Bohemia & the

Emperours folke hath beene a great Battel about Prage, but because there is dif-

ferent writing & speaking there uppon, so cannot for this time any certainety

thereof be written, but must wayte for the next Post’.1 Th is passage was marvel-

lously typical of early newspapers. Th e subject was a battle distant from England.

Th e source of the news of battle was an anonymous newswriter in far-off Cologne.

Th ere were varying reports of the battle, whose confl icting testimony impugned

the certainty of any one of them. For what it was worth – and what it was worth

is a very interesting question – the reader could have read in the coranto reports

from four diff erent letters of a battle in Prague. Here at the birth of the modern

newspaper, the credibility of the news was an essential issue.

In August 1622 one of Joseph Mead’s London correspondents reported that

‘the Anwerp post now brings, that 4000 musquetiers coming to have joyned with

Count Mansfeild & missing their way were set upon by the elector of Collen, &

most slayne’. Another London correspondent reported that ‘a letter from Brus-

sells by an expresse messenger to the king & but 4 days old relates the manner

of the fi ght in this fashion’, that Mansfi eld’s vanguard indeed was defeated, but

that his main army ‘met & fought with Cordova & remained master of the feild’.

Moreover, looking to Protestant sources in place of Catholic Antwerp and Brus-

sels, the same correspondent cited ‘letters from Zeland [that] say that the Enimie

lost 3000 & Mansfi eld 2000, but that the Enimie left behind him his ordnance

& a great part of his ammunition’. It was, moreover, a victory much against the

odds: ‘Th at Mansfeild was in horse (besides his foot) 8000, & Cordova in all

horse & foot 18,000 at this fi ght’.2 Which of these accounts could be believed?

How could Mead discern the truth from these variable reports?

In October 1622, John Chamberlain wrote Dudley Carleton his account of

how news from the siege of Bergen-op-Zoom had come to London:

2 Credibility in Elizabethan and Early Stuart Military News

We have ben as yt were wholly entertained with uncertain reports of Spinolas ris-

ing from Bergen: and great wagers were laide both in court, citie, and specially in

the Exchaunge pro et contra, which grew upon confi dence the Spanish faction had of

Spinolas forecast and resolution, confi rmed by Sir Richard Weston and his followers

who comming in the heat of the contention, cooled the most forward, in that they

heard nothing of yt by the way, and withall related how assuredly all at Brussells from

the highest to the lowest made full account to carrie yt: on the other side ther was

no more certaintie but that two stragling passengers (comming over in a pincke that

stayed at Sandwich,) saide they were at Middleburg and Flushing when thanckesgev-

ing was made in the churches for the raising of the siege, and that there were not boats

enough to be gotten for the people that fl ocked in great numbers to go to Berghen to

see the workes and manner of the siege. Th e Spanish ambassador to salve all this gave

out yt was but a false alarme upon the removing of Spinolaes quarter only, by reason

of some inconvenience he found in the ground: in this suspence we continued till

the post of Antwerp came on Wensday last and cleered the doubt: which was very

welcome newes and as well receved here as came many a day, wherin those people may

see our true hearts and goode aff ection toward them, that howsoever we complaine to

have found hard usage at their handes, yet we rejoyce excedingly at their prosperitie

and welfare.3

In Chamberlain’s account of Londoners’ reading of the news, credibility and

uncertainty are as much leitmotifs as they were in the writing of Th e New Tydings

Out of Italie Are Not Yet Come (2 December 1620). Commerce, partiality, eye-

witness, the attestation of a socially credible source, the ritual of thanksgiving,

tourism and emotional involvement in the news all interact with the assessment

of credibility, the acknowledgement and conveyance of belief and the manner

of reading the news. Against this prose poem of uncertainty, we may contrast

a letter that the Earl of Clare wrote in August 1627 to Dr Williams, Bishop of

Lincoln, about the Ré expedition: ‘Your Lordship hath heard how the Duke

escaped the poysond knyfe ... the knyfe is sent over to the king with the story’.4

‘Tokens’ – gauntlets, shirts, dead bodies – had provided credibility for reports

of battle as late as the battle of Flodden in 1513, and the physical object still

provided a highly traditional challenge to the credibility of news from Ré that

arrived by words, letters, or coranto.5 In the 1620s, English military news was

unstable in medium, uncertain in credibility, contradictory in content and never

to be read with blind faith.

News in general was undergoing a great transformation in Renaissance and

early modern Europe – and more particularly, in England.6 Th e defi nition of

news itself was in rapid fl ux: it is signifi cant that ‘news’ was fi rst construed in the

abstracting singular in 1566.7 Th e ways news was transmitted changed as rapidly

as the defi nition of news. Tellingly, Atherton writes that a host of words relating

to news and news culture entered the English language between 1580 and 1620:

newsmonger, intelligencer, newsmongery, news-bearer, news-man, news-carrier,

news-lover, news-teller, and adviso.8 Shaaber, who thought of the pre-1620 news

Introduction 3

reports essentially as ‘forerunners’ of newspapers, emphasizes the development

of periodicity and variety in the news of this period as the crucial attributes of

the modern newspaper.9 Fritz Levy instead emphasizes the increased velocity

and quantity of news, as well as the post-Elizabethan development of a national

chain of distribution, which, by escaping censorship, allowed for a free fl ow of

news.10 Halasz emphasizes a market-place of print, involving Stationers’ Com-

pany, author, textual property, and reading audience, although in sum an abstract

whole greater than the sum of these material components.11 All these changes

underscore the fundamental point of a transformation in news and news culture

during this period of time.

It is the contention of this study that a transformation of the standard of cred-

ibility was an essential prerequisite, and companion, to these further changes in

the news. It is more particularly the contention of this study that many specifi c

transformations in the way the news was written – the rhetoric of the news – and

the way the news was read, were results of these transformed standards of cred-

ibility. Th e causes, the evolution, and the results of these changing standards of

credibility must be explored to understand the changing news itself, and all that

followed from the changing news. Th e establishment of credit in news, by rhe-

torical and other means, within early modern England’s frameworks of politics

and power, is the subject of this study.

As the primary medium of English news shift ed in the hundred years before

the outbreak of the British Civil Wars, each change of medium required a cor-

responding shift in standards of credibility before such news could be believed.

News was fi rst conveyed either orally (an incredible medium) or by rituals that

established credibility by their communal, public performance. Th e shift to

written news, largely exchanged privately and sociably among English gentle-

men, relied upon the creation of a new standard of credibility, based upon the

honour of these gentle newswriters and newsreaders. Th e ensuing development

of commercial and printed news, public, anonymous, and vulgar, required yet

a new standard of credibility. Th e fi rst generation of printed news and news

pamphlets from 1585 to 1610 exaggeratedly mimicked ritual, honourable and

sociable standards of credibility; they also shift ed the focus of credibility from

the newswriter to the news text. Th e second generation of printed news, coran-

tos (early newspapers) from 1618 to 1637, developed the still-surviving standard

of extensive credibility, derived from the deritualized and increasingly unsocia-

ble reading of multiple, anonymous texts. Th is standard soon proved successful:

an examination of diaries and letters from the period shows a relatively quick

acceptance by newsreaders of the new extensive standard of credibility.


Defi nitions of News: Epistemology and Politics

‘News’ generally means ‘tidings; new information of recent events; new occur-

rences as a subject of report or talk’.12 But this is not suffi ciently precise: much

such ‘news’ is of interest only to local audiences. ‘News’, as it has come to be

understood, is the communication of new information about matters of public

concern; it belongs to the res publica. Switching etymological derivations, news

concerns the polis, and hence, broadly speaking, is political. Th e character of

the news – news itself in the abstract, and the human acts of communicating

or receiving news – is coloured by this political essence. Whatever defi nes the

political – recurring to the OED, it is ‘of, belonging or pertaining to, the state,

its government and policy; public, civil; of or pertaining to the science or art of

politics’ – also enters into the defi nition of news.13

But this defi nition immediately becomes an argument. Th e phrase ‘news itself

in the abstract’ indicates one tendency of news: that news not only addresses

matters of public concern, but also, by its very abstract and universal nature,

makes public concern a matter of universal concern, and creates by its implicitly

universal address a universal public. News inherently creates and constitutes an

unlimited, uncontrollable realm of public discourse. On the other hand, news

is also the human acts of communicating or receiving the news. If we focus on

these human acts, and relations, then news, political news, must be analyzed in

terms of the human eff orts to defi ne and control this realm of public discourse.

To use another critical vocabulary, news is also fundamentally only one category

of knowledge; and given Foucault’s insights that knowledge is the correlative

constituent of power throughout history, and that power is relational, then the

transmission of information is inherently a matter of power, and the particular

control of the transmission of news is therefore a matter of particular relations

of power.14 News, therefore, is inherently tense: it is a universalizing, uncontrol-

lable medium simultaneously subject to the localizing controls of human power.

We may usefully defi ne news as an argument universal in scope over the question

of who has the power to constitute the defi nition, the medium, and the content

of the transmission of information.

Th e defi nition of new information in early modern Europe as either ‘news’

or ‘gossip’ demonstrates how this process worked. Essentially, news and gossip

were communicated in the same fashion; the diff erence between the two lay in

their subject matter. By defi nition, gossip transmitted information that did not

rise to a matter of public concern; news was very defi nitely a matter of public

concern. Gossip was a matter of the pregnancy of a farmer’s unwed daughter or a

village feud; news was the pregnancy of a queen or a feud among earls. But these

labels were themselves political acts, which defi ned the political world. To say a

farmer’s daughter’s pregnancy was gossip was to say that farmers were excluded

Introduction 5

from the world of political signifi cance; to call a feud among earls news was to

say that earls were political actors. Similarly, to tell news was a political claim: a

villager who spoke of the feuds of earls asserted a right to know and to communi-

cate matters of the public, political world. To be the subject or the transmitter of

news was to enter into the political world; to be the subject or the transmitter of

gossip was to be an apolitical subject. Th e association of women with gossip was

among other thing a restatement of the emphatic (albeit oft en broken) principle

that women could not be part of the political world. Gossips were meant to be

ruled.15

But there is a further characteristic of the news to consider. News is funda-

mentally only one category of the transmission of information. It is therefore

essentially linked to uncertainty. Shannon’s information theory defi nes informa-

tion itself as the reduction of uncertainty, with the stipulation that information

cannot be perfect – uncertainty can be reduced, but never eliminated. Neither

our supply of information nor the process of information transmission can be

made certain; and the same proposition applies to the news.16 News, both as a

universal abstract and a matter of particularizing power and politics, must take

into account the essential uncertainty inherent in its nature.

Can we trust the news? In some form or another, this question has always

been with us. It is a component of broader questions. As a matter of epistemol-

ogy, we ask if we can trust human senses to perceive and accurately to convey the

truth. Th is particular problem of knowledge became sharper from the Renais-

sance on, as philosophers worked out the conclusions logically following from

that movement’s individualistic assumptions.17 Th e newswriters and newsread-

ers of early modern England may not have phrased the dilemma as formally or as

articulately as the philosophers, but they were acutely aware of it. As a matter of

private prudence and morality, we ask which other people, if any, we can trust to

tell us the truth. As a matter of sociology, we ask if we can trust strangers to tell

us the truth. As a matter of practical politics, we ask if we can trust a given datum

as a guide to political thought and action.

Credible news was meant to be the certain antidote to the uncertainties of

rumour. Th omas Bette’s A Newe Ballade, Intituled, agaynst Rebellious and False

Rumours (1570) was meant to quiet destabilizing rumours of governmental mis-

haps in handling the Northern Rebellion.18 In January 1602 John Chamberlain

expressed his gratitude to Dudley Carleton for his letter, for

we had heard a noise and uncertain bruit of something don [at Kinsale], which made

us the more impatient till we might learne the truth, for, with much disputing and

discoursing at all adventures, we so hammered out the matter and the manner that

we had almost wearied our wits, so that your relation came in goode time to relieve us

and settle the controversie.19


A 1631 coranto advertised on its title page

the great probability of the truth of the last Newes, being confi rmed in this, (concern-

ing the great overthrow given Monsieur Tilly at New-Brandenburgh) in a Letter from

Amsterdam, of the 9. ditto, contrary to the groundlesse rumours since spread abroad,

that they never met together, and that there [was] no such thing as the taking or

retaking of that Towne.20

But how could one distinguish the true antidote of news from the latest whisper

of false rumour?

Implicit in this question is a further one: what are our grounds for judging

the credibility of the news? For we do not simply remain in doubtful suspense

forever, of news, of information more broadly defi ned, or even of the most basic

sensory impressions. Eventually we decide what news to believe. We come up

with principles by which to weigh diff erent pieces of information, and – most

crucially – by which to decide between confl icting versions of the truth. By these

principles we judge the credibility of news and decide whom we can trust to

tell us the news. But the establishment and defi nition of these principles is not

simply a matter of abstract, universal principle: these, too, are a matter of politics

and power.

Th is argument is an extension of Shapin’s. Shapin claims that truth is ‘a mat-

ter of collective judgment … stabilized by the collective actions which use it as

a standard for judging other claims. In short, truth is a social institution’.21 Th is

statement should be rephrased: our apprehension of the truth is patterned very

considerably by our social institutions. But this proviso noted, Shapin’s descrip-

tion of the way social patterning of our apprehension of the truth governed the

operation of science in early modern England also describes the operation of

news in early modern England. Th is is not entirely surprising: as Shapin com-

ments, his study of scientifi c trust focuses largely on ‘communications about the

world’.22 Th at metaphor considered, the vocabulary (and character) of science

does not map perfectly onto the vocabulary of news. In news the word is ‘cred-

ibility’, evoking a limited aspiration towards certainty, rather than science’s more

ambitious total aspiration towards ‘truth’. Nevertheless, whether ‘truth’ or ‘cred-

ibility’, Shapin’s defi nition works remarkably well.

Focusing on Military News: A Justifi cation

Early modern English news, without narrowing modifi ers, would also be far too

broad a subject for this study. Diff erent subject matters lead naturally to dif-

ferent ways of telling the news, diff erent political constraints, and to diff erent

standards of credibility; the transformation of the standards of credibility there-

fore aff ected each separate subject area of the news in diff erent ways. A similar

logic has, for example, led Peter Lake to write on the ‘murder pamphlet’, a small,

Introduction 7

relatively homogenous genre of print culture.23 I likewise focus on English-lan-

guage military news, rather than on news writ large, so as to make a properly

fi ne-grained analysis within one particular genre of news, as well as to keep this

study to a manageable length.

Th is focus leads to an obvious question: why military news? But another

question must be answered fi rst: was there such a thing that can distinctly be

termed military news? During England’s decades of domestic peace between

1570 and 1637, military news was obviously part of foreign news; it was also (as

will be shown) part of religious exhortation, balladry, family news, diplomatic

information, propaganda, wrangles of honour and interest, and much more

besides. Simply to say that military news exists distinctly, as an essential thing, is

at once to call into question the grounds for saying so.

Th at such a thing exists is the simplest explanation for a variety of phe-

nomena. In the fi rst place, there are dozens of printed news pamphlets and

corantos with titles, and subject matters, such as A Plaine or Moste True Report

of a Daungerous Service (1580), A True Discourse of an Overthrow Given to the

Armie of the Leaguers (1591), A True Discourse of the Occurrences in the Warres of

Savoy (1601), A True Relation of All Such Battailes as Have Beene Fought in the

Palatinate (1622), A Historicall Relation of the Famous Siege of the Citie called the

Busse (1630), and A True and Briefe Relation of the Famous Seige of Breda (1637).

Statistically, Streckfuss categorized 199 of 1,251 news pamphlets published

between 1590 and 1610 under the category ‘War’.24 Parallel to these printed

accounts are manuscript letters solely devoted to military news: these include

reports with such titles, and subject matters, as ‘Th e Winninge of Cales by the

Earle of Essex’, ‘My Lord General Veres Relation of the Enterprise upon Ter-

heyden May 1625’, ‘Account of the Expedition to the Isle of Rhe’, and ‘A Breefe

Relatione of the Late Batle betweene the Duke of Saxony & the Emperor One

the One Sid & the Sweade One the 26 September 1636’.25 To these one should

add manuscript accounts devoted solely to the account of a battle or campaign,

though with no title at all.26 One may add to these newsletters written in the

1590s found in the English government’s archives. Th ese also (if their titles may

be trusted) concerned themselves solely with reports of military news. Such are

the news reports Wernham labels ‘Journal of proceedings in Brittany at the siege

of Craon’, ‘Th e report of a boy of some late actions in Brittany’, ‘A particular of

the estate of the army [in Brittany] and occurrences here’, ‘Note of Mansfelt’s

attempt to relieve Geertruidenberg’, ‘Th e taking of Doullens, in Picardy’, and ‘An

Italian Report on the taking of Cadiz’.27 Too many examples exist of news solely

devoted to military aff airs to regard military news simply as an attribute of some

other form of news, or other essential category. It certainly can be regarded as an

aspect of other essences, or be regarded in relation with other essences, but it is

also a thing itself, and therefore susceptible to and worthy of study.


Once we accept the existence of military news, we must also note that it

is a much broader category than the core of news reports composed simply of

military news. Around this core are a great number of news reports that include

military news, but are not solely devoted to it. Virtually all news reports dedi-

cated to foreign news – from 1620 on, virtually all corantos – included sections

about battles or campaigns, or at the very least skirmishes, in form nearly iden-

tical to the stand-alone military news reports. When they did not – oft en in

winter, when armies rarely fought28 – they usually reported the recruiting of new

armies and the movements of existing ones, echoing the threat of war even where

it did not immediately break out. Military news could also appear as part of a

composite work – one section of a varied whole. Printed military news could be

bound together with another piece of news, a military drill manual, an editorial-

izing dialogue, a martyrdom account, or a prayer of thanksgiving.29 Manuscript

commonplace books similarly jumbled together military news with drill man-

uals, sermons, and other disparate material.30 General newsletters included

military news in a hodgepodge of foreign, court, and parliament news.31 Private

letters could shift from family news and gossip to battle accounts in the blink

of an eye.32 Th e ‘Advertisements’ received by the government came with a con-

stant leaven of military news among them, regardless of their titles.33 Sections,

paragraphs, and sentences of military news are marbled throughout the news

accounts of the era. Furthermore, the way that military news was communicated

shift ed in medium and genre during this period. Military news consisted not

only of letters, manuscript newsletters, and printed pamphlets and corantos, but

also of ballads, sermons, plays, bell-ringing, thanksgivings, visual spectacles, and

whispered rumour. Military news developed from multiple ancestors, shift ed in

and out of several contemporary genres and media,34 and produced a surprising

variety of descendants. Its boundaries were expansive and fuzzy.

Yet for all its marbling and indefi nite boundaries, military news remained

a distinct form. Its scope can perhaps best be discerned by contemporaneous

perceptions of it. Levy broadly divides early modern Englishmen’s perceptions of

news into domestic news about ordinary men, domestic news about great men,

and foreign news.35 Of these three, military news was certainly a part of foreign

news – but we may discern within this general perception of military news as

part of foreign news a sense that military news was a thing itself. John Taylor

wrote of an English audience with a clear idea of, and desire for, military news:

And as for newes of battailes, or of War …

At Ordinaries, and at Barbers-shoppes,

Th ere tydings vented are, as thick as hoppes,

How many thousands such a day were slaine,

What men of note were in the battell ta’ne,

When, where, and how the bloody fi ght begun,

Introduction 9

And how such sconces, and such townes were won,

How so and so the Armies bravely met,

And which side glorious victory did get:

Th e month, the weeke, the day, the very houre,

And time, they did oppose each others power.36

A 1630 coranto wrote simply that ‘most mens desire is to heare of [military]

action’.37 Contemporaries also had a fair idea of what was a battle, what a skir-

mish, and what was peace (or at least the absence of open confl ict). Th omas

Gainsford certainly knew what battles were, defi ning ‘set Battails’ as ‘one dayes

tryall by equall agreement of both parties’, and carefully distinguishing between

such set battles and the more usual sallies and skirmishes engaged in by the Turks

and the Poles.38

And newswriters and newsreaders certainly knew what was not military

news. In September 1591 Anthony Bagot wrote from Calais to his father Richard

Bagot of a strenuous stretch of riding by Essex’s troops; there had been no fi ght-

ing yet, but ‘the Barron Byron is marching towardes us with the King hys Campe

at whose comynge we shall do somewhat’.39 In March 1612 Dudley Carleton

wrote from Venice to John Chamberlain, not of a full-scale battle, but merely

of ‘some bickering of late at Zara betwixt the Venetian horse, which lie there in

garrison, and the bordering Turks, wherein the captain of our horse was hurt and

40 Turks slain’.40 A letter from Ratisbon printed in a 1632 coranto commented,

laconically and dismally, that ‘all is indiff erently quiet for the present. Th e March

is up and downe, too and fro. Th e Souldiers daily ride a pillaging for bootie’.41

Military news was perceived by men who knew the diff erence between peace

and war; between everyday violence, skirmishes, and major battles; between the

ordinary news of armies preparing for war and marching around the countryside

and the extraordinary news of actual major combat; and discriminated among

these concepts as they transmitted the news.

Th e repetition of a standard account of a battle in this period also estab-

lishes a norm of military news. In private letter, governmental letter, and printed

account (see the Appendix) a battle happened at such a place and such a time.

So many of the enemy were killed and so many were taken prisoner. Such and

such notable incidents occurred. Th ese three examples, albeit somewhat varied

in their prose style, are concise versions of the standard news account of a battle

– and in their concision not entirely representative of the genre. Nevertheless,

military news would always bear a family resemblance, and fashion itself from

these basic building blocks. Th ese were the standards from which individual

reports would deviate.

Military news existed; but why focus upon it? First, as has been noted above,

it was a coherent, plentifully sourced genre of which a study can be made. Second,

military news was a central component of the news writing and news reading


of the day. Military news was a spur to the production of news in general: an

explosion of news pamphlets followed England’s entry into the war with Spain

in 1585, and the corantos were born as Europe descended into the Th irty Years’

War. To study military news is to study the heart of the transformation of early

modern news. Th irdly, English readers expressed continuous interest in mili-

tary news throughout this period, and associated it with the constant context

of international religious strife. Th ese continuities of contemporaneous interest

and conceptualization justify considering military news as a genre, and so justify

brutally abstracting sources within the confi nes of a genre study. Fourthly, and

most importantly, the nature of English military news peculiarly emphasized the

diffi culties of establishing sources of credibility.

Credibility was in any case a central concern in military news of the era: the

Florentine diplomat Lorenzo Magalotti was driven to write that ‘I think you

know how diffi cult it is to discover the truth about a solitary battle that is no

more than four leagues away from the court in which one writes’.42 In the fi rst

place, battlefi eld news possessed intrinsic uncertainties. In 1596 at Cadiz Dr.

Roger Marbeck wished he could report the good behaviour of all English par-

ticipants, ‘But for that I thincke yt an impossibilitie to be done because noe man

livinge, can so preciselie observe such A matter where so greate danger is alwayes

present to disturbe, and so many and divers intermedlinge to hinder everie par-

ticular observation’.43 As a 1631 coranto put it, ‘I beleeve and know, that of a

Battle, and of the taking of a Towne in this manner all particularities cannot be

knowne nor told by one man, how much soever he observe’.44

But for Englishmen the establishment of credibility was uniquely diffi cult,

and uniquely central, to the military news. It was possible for Englishmen to

verify most categories of news – the dying speeches of murderers, fl oods, two-

headed babies, etc. – to some extent, either by talking with witnesses, or by

comparing the reported events to similar events in their own experience. In the

case of military news, however, this process of personal verifi cation could not

operate normally. For the two long generations before the Civil Wars brought

battles back to English soil, most Englishmen learned about war as news from

abroad. War in England itself was scarce: the country’s wars were usually fought

on foreign soil. However diffi cult it was for a Kentishman to verify news from

Yorkshire, it was exponentially more diffi cult for any Englishman to verify news

of a battle in Flanders – much less a battle in the Palatinate, or Mantua, or Poland.

G. B. put it in Newes out of France for the Gentlemen of England (1591) that

the newes being not inacted in our own Countrey, comming from farre, as also wee

our selves not present, or oculati testes, but relying on letters, bare reportes, and heresay,

like testes auriti, wee must needes misse of much of the matter, & sometimes happily,

(or rather unhappily) either in too much, or too little commit an absurditie.45

Introduction 11

In 1623 Th omas Gainsford wrote that ‘what numbers of forces the Marquesse

of Jegerensdorff now hath in the fi eld, is not here certainely knowne; wee com-

monly from remote parts heare of many more, than they do there, for fame and

snowballs encrease as they goe’.46 As Girolamo Busoni noted, ‘the distance of the

places and the lack of information gives journalists [novellisti] great freedom’.47

Even the calendar was uncertain, as the Gregorian calendar spread patchily

through Europe: ‘the diff erence of stilo novo, and antiquo’ made it diffi cult to

date news, or to piece into a coherent narrative diff erent reports from the same

place.48 In England, for decades separated by water from war, military news

reports were the journalistic equivalent of what Shapin classifi es as ‘travelers’

tales’: reports of events from an unknown land, transmitted by unknown men,

whose trustworthiness could not be personally verifi ed – yet some of whose

reports had to be believed.49

But to an unusual extent, the grounds of belief could not be personal experi-

ence of any sort. One can compare a reported fl ood to a fl ood one has witnessed

oneself – but how can one verify the likelihood of a report of a battle if one has

never been in a battle? Few Englishmen were suffi ciently martial or unfortunate

to serve as soldiers, and the vast majority enjoyed the luxury of learning about

war as a literary experience.50 Th ey read about the progress of wars; they read

about the details of battles; they read treatises on tactics and strategy; they read

about the mettle of a soldier’s mind; they read about the nature of battlefi eld

experience itself. During England’s decades of peace, Englishmen’s experience

of war came largely fi ltered through various sorts of texts.51 As Anthony Nixon

wrote in 1610, it

is now stil possible to call together 20000. of our english nation into one place, and

amongst them all not to fi nd or picke out one Souldier, when in other forren realmes

(vext continually with uproares) it hath bin, and to this day is hard to call together

100000. and to cull out of them any other person but a Souldier.52

Unlike other Europeans, Englishmen, to an extraordinary extent, could only

judge the words of military news in reference to other words, and not in ref-

erence to direct experience. Th e transformation of the standards of credibility

within English military news can be examined particularly clearly because so few

external credibility checks interfered with their operation.

Th e Study’s Scope: Limits, Lacunae and their Consequences

Th is study largely limits itself to English-language sources. Partly this decision is

to keep the numbers of sources under control: include source material in foreign

languages, and the study would expand uncontrollably into a study of military

news throughout Europe. In some ways, this is inescapably a distortion of the


truth: there were foreign-language news reports bring read in England. A good

number of Englishmen were literate in foreign languages, particularly French,

Italian, and Latin, and were reading news in those languages. In December

1590 Cecil received a paragraph of news of the French Civil Wars in French.53

Between 1620 and 1622 Robert Bertie, Lord Willoughby, received at least three

manuscript newsletters describing the wars in Europe written in French.54 In

April 1622 Mead referred to reading Mercurius Gallobelgicus; that same month

he also received ‘the Emperors Answer given to the Popes Nuncio’ in Latin.55 In

September 1632 John Pory wrote to John Scudamore news of the siege of Maas-

tricht in ‘a note translated out of French’.56 Contrariwise, English news reports

were translated into foreign languages and entered continental news circuits.

Th e Fuggers received a plentiful supply of news from and about England in the

generation aft er 1570, largely via their agents in Antwerp. Th e Fugger newslet-

ters included in their English news a large amount of specifi cally military news,

including reports of the Hispano-Papal invasion of Ireland in 1580, of English

fi ghting in the Netherlands in 1586–7, of the English invasion of Portugal in

1589, of English fi ghting in Brittany in 1591, of the 1596 conquest of Cadiz,

and reports of English diffi culties in Ireland in 1598–9.57 We can talk of a sepa-

rate English world of military news only by some falsifying simplifi cation.

But falsifi ed and simplifi ed or no, there is still substantial truth to the idea

of a separate English world of military news. Englishmen preferred to read news

written by Englishmen, and the monolingual majority perforce read their mili-

tary news in English. As a community of news writers and readers, reacting to the

news and to each other’s reactions to the news, their material was in English. Th ey

were not isolated from news in foreign languages – but the act of translation was

an essential bridge to bring it into the community. If Joseph Mead read news in

Latin, it is essential to note that he wrote to Martin Stuteville that ‘because it was

in Latin I gott a scribe this morning to write it in English according as I could

read to him on the suddaine by that meanes I endeavored to make it the more

easie for you to communicate’.58 Th e great majority of letters of military news

written by foreigners that entered the English news circuits appeared in print,

translated and (where they were not already unknown) rendered anonymous by

the London printers. Th e act of translation, recorded in scores of printed news

reports, was an acknowledged, essential part of making a community of English-

language military news. English military news was inseparable from its European

sources – Englishmen probably read more military news written by continental

Europeans than military news written by Scotsmen, Welshmen, or Irishmen. So

the shadow of translation gave English military news an essential element of its

character. Yet English military news remained distinct, by dint of this transla-

tion, and even more by dint of the fact that the manuscript news circuits (which

retained superior credibility for much of this period) drew far more heavily on

Introduction 13

purely English sources. Th e limitation of this study to English-language sources

records a signifi cant reality.

Th e distribution of military news reports refl ected several main factors of

supply and demand. Christian-Muslim confl ict excited continuing interest,

despite the remoteness of England from the front lines of religious war, and Eng-

lishmen’s intraChristian hostility to the Catholic protagonists of these reports.

A steady trickle of military news came throughout this period from the bloody

Christian-Muslim frontiers of Europe – Malta, Cyprus, Croatia, Vienna, Hun-

gary, and Poland.59 Dramatic battles at any distance were likely to engage some

English interest, and a sporadic supply of reports of battles came from Geneva

or Sweden or Russia.60 News of interest to England’s foreign suppliers of news

was also overrepresented in England’s news circuits: For a notable example, given

the great infl uence of Dutch printers on English news, a very great number of

Dutch exploits were either printed in England or printed in English in the Neth-

erlands. A True Report of All the Proceedings of Grave Mauris before the Towne of

Bercke (1601), printed in London from a Dutch translation, and other reports of

Dutch feats in the Low Countries and nearer Germany probably also appealed

to a genuine English interest, but Hendrik Cornelis Loncq’s A True Relation of

the Vanquishing of the Towne of Olinda (1630), printed in Amsterdam, about the

Dutch capture of Pernambuco in Brazil, can hardly have been a subject of great

concern to England. Availability of copy rather than intense demand probably

best explains its publication in English.

But the strongest factor aff ecting the geographic distribution of these reports

was English interest in and participation in wars abroad.61 Th e wars Englishmen

cared about and the wars Englishmen fought in – largely overlapping catego-

ries – were heavily overrepresented in the English news circuits. Partly this was

a function of demand; partly it was a question of supply. A very large portion

of letters about battles, and a large portion of printed accounts of battles, were

provided by English participants writing home. So in the early period of this

study, when England was slipping towards, or engaged in, open hostilities with

Spain, a very large number of the reports concerned the wars in the Netherlands

(broadly, 1566 to 1609, though with the heaviest interest from 1585 to 1604)

and the civil wars in France (especially from 1589 to 1593). England was less

directly engaged in the Th irty Years’ War, but concern about the fortunes of the

Protestant cause, and some participation by English and Scottish soldiers, main-

tained a signifi cant level of interest. A considerable number of reports came from

Englishmen serving in the Netherlands (1622–37) and the Palatinate (1621–2),

and from Scots serving in the Swedish armies (especially 1629 to 1634). English

dynastic and religious aff ections also brought in signifi cant numbers of reports

from Bohemia and Germany throughout the Th irty Years’ War. Various English


expeditions throughout this period, including to Portugal in 1589, to Cadiz in

1596, and to Ré in 1627, also inspired numerous letters home by Englishmen.

It must be stated plainly that we will never have more than a hazy idea of who

read military news. By its very nature, reading leaves less of an impress on the

historical record than does writing. As Fritz Levy notes, there are no booksell-

ers’ inventories from the late 1580s to the early 1600s, and the surviving library

inventories provide fragmentary information at best.62 Heroic eff orts have begun

to give us something of a history of reading in early modern England, but these

are most eff ective as microstudies of individual readers who happen to have left

behind an unusually rich trove of evidence.63 We have some equivalent informa-

tion for readers of military news. Inventories taken in 1584 of the books owned

by Francis, second Earl of Bedford reveal that he owned a fair number of news

pamphlets, among them A Discourse of the Present State of the Wars in the Lowe

Countryes (1578) and Th omas Churchyard’s A Scourge for Rebels … Touching the

Trobles of Ireland (1584).64 In October 1596 Th omas Cornwallis sent a letter to

his London agent, John Hobart, thanking him for sending him a copy of Mercu-

rius Gallobelgicus.65 Morrill tells us that William Davenport, living in Cheshire,

was part of a newsreading circle: Davenport probably never owned any news

reports himself, but he possessed them long enough to write into his common-

place book reports of Mansfi eld’s army in 1625, of Ré in 1627, and of Gustavus

Adolphus’s campaigns.66 Family correspondence and a bookseller’s bill from the

1630s reveal that Th omas Barrington read and/or ordered ‘French curantoes’

and Th e Eighth Part of the Swedish Intelligencer.67 Atherton informs us that the

papers of Viscount Scudamore (1601–71) contain over one thousand letters

containing news, from at least forty-three correspondents, and include a great

many news separates. Scudamore received news from professional news writers,

government offi cials, and friends and family. He corresponded with several pro-

fessional newsmongers, including John Pory and one Mr Tucker in the 1620s,

although their reports do not survive.68 A few notables, such as Henry Wotton,

arranged for whole strings of foreign correspondents to write them foreign and

military news, in essence reproducing on a small scale the arrangements of the

English government.69 Joseph Mead’s decade-long series of newsletters to Martin

Stuteville provide us an extraordinary mine of information about what military

news these two men read. Th e diaries of Yonge, Rous, D’Ewes, Whiteway, and

Crosfi eld (see below) are invaluable sources. But these pieces of the jigsaw puz-

zle are scarcely comprehensive, and cannot tell us about the English readership

in general.

Sociable news (see below) was circulated amongst England’s gentry: letters

and manuscript newsletters seem to have been largely written by gentlemen (and

some nobles and merchants) to other men of their same class. At any rate, these

letters have come down to us in large numbers: poverty and illiteracy probably

Introduction 15

limited the number of letters written by lower classes, but such letters as they

wrote were also less likely to survive the test of time. Th e readers of manuscript

military news, whether given or sold, we may generally also take to be gentlemen

– but our evidence for gentry reading is largely drawn from a double-counting of

the transmission of news writing (see below). Where letter writers were passing

on news, rather than reporting eyewitness testimony, they logically were acting

as news readers (or listeners) as well as news writers. To this we can add their

comments in letters, diaries, etc. about their habits of newsreading and news-

listening. Th e picture of a letter- and manuscript-newsreading group bound by

class and social ties is moderately persuasive, if inevitably fuzzy and partial.70

But if there must be some doubt about this statement as it pertains to anony-

mous manuscript news separates, there is far more doubt as it pertains to printed

military news. Printed military news was not expensive, it was not distributed

socially, and it was perceived at the time as appealing to a broad, vulgar audience:

therefore we may reasonably believe that it included a much broader readership

(in social terms) than did manuscript military news. On the other hand, this

perception should not be taken too far. As Frearson notes,

the corantos were intended for a more sophisticated audience. Unlike the news bal-

lads, corantos were written in dense prose, tightly packed onto small quarto pages,

without the relief of woodcut illustrations or ballad tunes to aid the semiliterate.

Th e news was foreign, concerning distant places and unfamiliar fi gures, and involv-

ing complex reports of diplomatic and military aff airs. Comprehension of coranto

news depended on regular readership and the consistent purchase of weekly editions,

priced at between twopence and threepence per copy. Th us although individual cop-

ies sold for about the same price as a couple of ballads, an almanac, or a chapbook, the

corantos cost more than twelve shillings to buy in a complete series of fi ft y numbers.

Th ese factors remove the corantos from useful comparisons with the domestic news

ballads and other forms of ‘cheap print’ designed for the lowest levels of the liter-

ate.71

Moreover, printed news reports explicitly addressed themselves to an audience

of gentlemen. Good Newes for the King of Bohemia? (1622) addressed itself to the

‘Gentle Reader’, in a phrase that has come down to modern times.72 Th is address

was doubtless aspirational, as well as complimentary to an audience probably less

gentle in fact. Aft er all, A Trumpet to Call Souldiers on to Noble Actions (1627)

addressed itself to ‘Noble Souldiers, wishing you all no worse fortune in your

Battailes, no no lesse fame, than here the Sweves have atchieved, I leave you to

reade that which may serve as a patterne and president for all heroicall spirits

to follow’.73 Th e ‘Noble Souldiers’ of comfortable England doubtless thrilled to

think of themselves as martial; but this is addressed to the ideal self-image of the

audience, not to its actual characteristics. Th e same is very likely true of addresses

to gentlemen. Still, we should not assume that the disjuncture of aspiration and


reality was total: could it have been an eff ective selling ploy if there were no

actual gentle readers of printed military news? We may believe that military

news remained moderately exclusive and was not read universally – perhaps not

even by a majority of Englishmen.

Th at noted, the readership of corantos, and of military news in general, still

included a remarkably broad section of Englishmen. It included all those below

the offi cial political nation who, inchoately, expressed their wish to infl uence

policy by a keen reading of the news. In general, we believe that an extensive

network of formal and informal postal carriers disseminated corantos and other

written media of news from London to the farthest reaches of the country,74

and that men and women of all classes and places inquired aft er the latest word

from travellers of all sorts.75 By at least the 1620s, literate Englishmen not only

read the news themselves but also read the news out loud to their illiterate com-

panions.76 While the direct evidence we have of news reading is largely from the

gentry classes, with occasional pieces of evidence from the merchant and artisan

classes,77 indirect evidence suggests (if it does not prove) a far wider readership

of printed news.78 Th e evidentiary basis is unpleasantly thin: still, it suggests we

would be wiser to err in overestimating news readership than in underestimating

it.

Yet we do have evidence for newsreading in this period. Th is study draws

largely upon diaries, commonplace books, and letters of news written in England

recording news from abroad. However, the number of surviving sources from

which to draw a sense of how Englishmen read the news is lamentably small,

heavily weighted towards Protestant English gentlemen, and disproportionately

drawn from the 1620s and 1630s. As with many other studies of reading and

reaction of this period, the names Chamberlain, Mead, Yonge, Rous, D’Ewes,

Whiteway and Crosfi eld will recur frequently. Th is is not only an unrepre-

sentative sample of Englishmen but also a familiar unrepresentative sample to

specialists in the fi eld. While the evidence drawn from this narrow basis remains

signifi cant, it must of course be taken as intrinsically tentative.

Th is study’s evidence for newsreading relies heavily on a form of dou-

ble-counting. Some sources – letters – are being taken both as evidence of

newswriting and evidence of newsreading. To write the news is inevitably a reg-

ister of having read (heard) the news, and, to some extent, a way of fi guring out

what newsreaders considered important. Th ere is of course selection bias: this

was only the news that newsreaders considered worth writing down, with their

decision modifi ed by a sense of their intended audience and their unintended

audience (both censors and all the unknown public to whom a letter could be

shown). But such newswriting remains a window into newsreading, although it

must be interpreted cautiously.

Introduction 17

To use such sources at all is in part the result of following the counsel of

scarcity: our other sources are few and far between. Most diaries – to focus on

a somewhat purer source – do not say much about military news; those that do

are oft en not very revealing. In May 1622 Simonds D’Ewes wrote in his diary

that ‘the King of Bohemia was with Count Mansfi eld of which I speake the

lesse, because I have the bookes’.79 A few days later he added that ‘I studied little

and receaved much good newes concerning the King of Bohemia which I omitt

because I have it’.80 Th is tells us that he possessed books of news, and perhaps

received other sorts of news as well: this is mildly informative, but, all in all, sen-

tences of that nature are frustratingly circumspect. Th ere is not enough evidence

to address this subject without using these double-counted news letters.

But to use such newswriting as evidence of newsreading is also to recog-

nize that in early modern England reading and writing the news were twinned

activities: the news circuits required a mass of participants engaged in both. Th is

certainly applied to the world of military news, where readers were expected

to transmit the news in turn. As the author of Th e True Reporte of the Skirmish

(1578) wrote, ‘I praye you imparte these newes unto all our Country men’.81 In

June 1626 Viscount Scudamore wrote news to his great-uncle Rowland that

largely duplicated the news he had just received from James Palmer, including

Palmer’s commentary.82 Starting in 1620, Joseph Mead copied newsletters from

London and sent on the copies to Martin Stuteville for more than a decade.83

As friends engaged in sociability, and as active citizens (see below), news readers

were expected to reciprocate one act of writing with another, to transmute read-

ing into further writing. Th ere was no terminal reader in the news circuits: the

circuits were well-named, and involved endless and circuitous reading and writ-

ing. Th e use of news letters as twinned forms of evidence is in some ways faithful

to this basic reality. Th is study still attempts to discriminate between evidence of

writing and reading, but it does so knowing that this is neither entirely possible

nor entirely desirable.

Th e temporal focus of this study, 1570 to 1637, crosses over several major

infl ection points in news history. England’s entry into war with Spain in 1585

sparked a great upsurge in printed news, so great as to create in the early 1590s

something approaching serial, periodical news.84 In 1594 Mercurius Gallobelgi-

cus, a Latin semi-annual publication printed in Cologne by Michael ab Isselt,

fi rst appeared; this is oft en called the fi rst newspaper.85 Th e newspaper quickly

spread to much of Europe; Gallobelgicus was soon imitated in the Netherlands,

Germany, France, Italy, and Spain.86 Between 1618 and 1621 corantos appeared

in the Netherlands, were translated for the English market, and began to be pub-

lished by Englishmen themselves; these were, by many accounts, the fi rst English

newspapers. In 1632 corantos were banned: For the next six years only semi-

annual intelligencers, only marginally news, and with pretensions to be regarded


as histories, provided foreign news in England.87 I believe that the changes in

credibility standards in the news correspond roughly with these infl ection

points: that is to say, ritual, honourable, and sociable credibility, corresponding

with the dominance of rituals and letters of news, dominated before the upsurge

of printed news in the 1580s; the intensive credibility of commercial and anony-

mous news, corresponding with the dominance of the printed news pamphlet,

dominated between the 1580s and the 1610s; and the extensive credibility of

commercial and anonymous news, corresponding with the dominance of the

coranto, dominated in the 1620s and 1630s.

Th is study describes a transformation of news that in turn depends on a par-

ticular classifi cation of news. In terms of medium, I divide the transmission of

news into oral (conveyance of news by the spoken word), ritual (conveyance of

news by sign or action, both individual and communal), written (conveyance

of news by the written word), and printed (conveyance of news by the printed

word). In terms of genre, I divide written and printed news into the sociable

letter (conveyance of news within a written letter of personal communication),

the separate (conveyance of news separated from personal communication, but

generally communicated by sociable, written letter), the commercial manuscript

newsletter (written, separate news, sold rather than communicated sociably), the

news pamphlet (a sold, printed account of news, generally concerning one inci-

dent of news), and the coranto (a sold, printed newspaper, generally concerning

all news received within a set period of time). My taxonomy, and my narrative

of transformation from one mode of news to another, assume the existence of

these particular categories, and have led me to categorize the diff erent sorts of

news within them. While I have tried to be sensitive to the possibility that indi-

vidual pieces of news may blur or contradict these categories, the simple act of

categorization inevitably oversimplifi es the data. For reasons of space, I have also

excluded genre categories such as the printed news ballad.88

Furthermore, the structure of this book is analytical and oversimplifi es

by classifying and sorting diff erent texts by the mode of credibility they dem-

onstrate. I do not mean to assert any simple evolution or to assert any lack of

intermediary forms. Indeed, the rough chronological narrative for the credibil-

ity shift s analyzed in this study provided by the dates in the paragraph above

should be taken as only the roughest of guides: quotations demonstrating each

mode of credibility have, as much as possible, deliberately been drawn from each

of these chronological periods, so as to emphasize their complicated overlap and

interweaving. All these modes of credibility co-existed with one another; to say

that the dominant mode of establishing credibility shift ed is not to argue for cat-

aclysmic, all-encompassing transformation, but to argue for a shift of emphasis

among competing modes, amid continuities that stretched across these temporal

infl ection points and (to some extent) united these various media. For reasons

Introduction 19

of space, I have not illustrated this point here, but I direct the reader to my

previously published case study of the complex newsreading and newswriting

practices of Joseph Mead.89

Th e overall temporal focus of this study provides the obvious potential to

make more local arguments about the narrative of Elizabethan and early Stuart

British political history – to claim that this shift in news credibility, itself the

product of specifi c incidents and increasing tensions in British politics from the

late sixteenth century on, in turn undermined royal authority over the commu-

nication of information, and took its place among the contributing causes to

the collapse of the Stuart monarchy and the birth of a revolutionary English

polity. More generally, this study may also be read to support and to modify

the general arguments, whether Whig, Marxist or Habermasian, linking the

early modern transformation of the news with the transformations of political

culture, and eventually of regime, that led to the ultimate triumphs of liberal

democracy. Th ese arguments should be considered to be hovering in the back-

ground of this study, but only explicitly addressed by way of brief corollary in the

conclusion. To tie my argument in this fashion to political history and political

theory would require another study of equal length to make properly, and does

not seem essential to prove or disprove this study’s more narrowly focused thesis.

A study tying the history of news credibility to the British political narrative, or

to the emergence of the public sphere, would be worth undertaking, but is not

undertaken here.

Th is study makes arguments about news as a whole based very largely on

sources drawn from the specifi c genre of military news – indeed, I would like to

stress again to the reader that this monograph does not address itself to any of the

other genres of news. While I believe that the transformation of the standards of

credibility also operated in the other genres of English news in this period, and

that this work speaks more largely to early modern English (and European) news,

I recognize that military news was not a genre that qualifi es as a microcosm of

the whole. Indeed, because it was uniquely unverifi able, it is in some ways atypi-

cal of English news: the very clarity the genre provides for issues of credibility

marks it as an outlier among the news genres. Th e cautious reader is encouraged

to take all narratives and interpretations off ered here as applying only to military

news; and to use it as an aide, not a model, for the study of other genres.

With these notes in mind, let us begin with an examination of oral news.

– 21 –

1 FROM ORAL NEWS TO WRITTEN NEWS

News traditionally was communicated by word of mouth and by participation in

or observation of ritual actions; oral and ritual news persisted into early modern

England, and formed the matrix within which written news would accommo-

date itself. Late medieval and Renaissance England saw the rise of news conveyed

by writing: formed by the genre conventions of the ars dictaminis, the art of let-

ter-writing primarily used by medieval administrators, the news letter spilled out

of the bureaucratic letter and into the genre of the private letter. Th e supply of

such letters rose sharply along with the rise in size of the Renaissance English

state; so too did the demand for such letters, as humanist notions of civic virtue

and the duty to counsel combined to provide England’s political nation a ration-

ale to read and write the news. England’s sovereigns, however, while sometimes

willing to channel this urge toward their own purposes, persistently mistrusted

the impulse to communicate news independent of royal sanction; indeed, the

proliferation of news in early modern England, particularly printed news, may

even have sharpened the impulse to censor news by early Stuart times. Th e con-

fl icting impulses of censorship and counsel turned upon the credibility of the

news; news, to justify itself against censorship, would have to establish itself as

credible.

Oral News

Early modern Englishmen (all too human) were an incurably gabby lot: they

talked, they listened, they hungered for news. Peddlers’ gossip and private let-

ters broadcast the latest tidings. News spread by rivers, coasts, and roads, was

shared at a family dinner, imbibed by friends at the back table of an alehouse,

and chance-met at fairs, and circulated by all these arteries of communication

to the farthest corners of the realm.1 Men and women of all classes and places

inquired aft er the latest word from travellers of all sorts, and by at least the 1620s

literate Englishmen not only read the news themselves but also read the news

out loud to their illiterate companions.2 News in early modern England passed

privately from individual to individual.3


Such private news was, in the fi rst instance, oral; a chain of communica-

tion from mouth to ear, mouth to ear, that could stretch across Europe. It was

accepted as normal that most oral news depended on chains of oral communica-

tion: Mead’s London correspondent wrote in 1621, ‘an houre since, A gentleman

my old freind was with me, who landed but yesternight from the Hagh, & saith

that a week agoe a messenger came to the King from Silesia with newes’.4 In

November 1627 John Rous wrote in his diary that

at Brandon, mr. Paine of Riddlesworth, mr. Howlet sitting by, in Grimes hall, tould

me that a Frenchman, sir Th omas Woodhouse’ man, tould him that one Cornelis, or

the like, an enginer that went with the duke and yet was now at London, did tell him

that the forte [at Ré] was not to be wonne but by starving; and that it was many times

victualled, &c.5

Such chains of oral transmission could reach ludicrous lengths; nevertheless,

they were perforce the foundation-stones of much military news.

Written and printed news, when they emerged, had fi rst to fi t themselves

to this oral model of news. Whatever mental transformation resulted in the

long run and in theory from this transformation from orality to literacy, in early

modern England the transformation was slow in coming, complex in its mani-

festations, and characterized by a persistence of the oral regime. Oral news in

all its forms still throve, and strongly conditioned the contexts in which written

and printed news were produced and read.6 Th is general statement equally well

characterizes the particular genre of military news: One of Mead’s London cor-

respondents wrote in February 1621, ‘no Corranto from Cullen; but the old

gentlemen to whom they use to be written saw a letter from Cullen & heard

of some others written from Prague & Vienna to this purpose’.7 Mead himself

added to Stuteville, as a supplement, that ‘though Dr M wrot not hither yet one

who came hither … told me he saw a letter of his read on Th ursday before (sent

into Hartfordshire)’.8

Such oral military news was also aural, and partook fully of the acoustic

dimensions of early modern English life.9 Th e language of these news reports

echoes to the sounds of battles and of spoken news. In October 1601 John

Chamberlain wrote to Dudley Carleton that ‘I make no doubt but your eares

ringe with the report of the Spaniards landing in Ireland’.10 A 1622 coranto

reported that ‘this weeks Low Dutch Currants … fi ll their Readers eares with

that cracke of Spinolaes breaking up his siege [of Bergen-op-Zoom]’.11 Sound

even played into judgements of the validity of news: Passengers on a ship sailing

past Spinola’s camp around Ostend in 1604 reported ‘great shouting on all sides

at Ostend, for the space of seven houres upon the Seas’, and speculated that the

shouting indicated a battle.12 Th e news of Breitenfeld was of a world alive with

sound:

From Oral News to Written News 23

Th e King of Sweden upon the fi rst full view of the Imperiall Armie, (now within a

league of him:) shewing them unto his owne men, tides from Regiment to Regiment,

and from rancke to rancke, with a loud voice asking of his Souldiers; Come on, Com-

rades, will you fi ght to day for the name of Jesus Christ? Th is question was by the whole

Armie presently answered with the eccho of this joyfull acclamation, Vivat Gustavus

Adolphus, vive, vive, vive.13

Even where military news was less resounding, it was inescapably oral. In Septem-

ber 1601 John Chamberlain wrote to Dudley Carleton that ‘we have nothing of

late out of Ireland: only Ostend fi ndes us talke’.14 A 1621 coranto reported from

Cologne that ‘Heer is speech of a besieging of Gulick’; a 1631 coranto presented

a relation of a French victory that ‘sounds as followes’.15 Th e very language of news

assumed it to be primarily spoken.

Indeed, much military news was oral – and therefore is as invisible to the his-

torical record as it was pervasively conspicuous to contemporaries. Fortunately,

enough traces of this oral communication remain for us to be able to talk about

the structure of this form of news, if rarely about its content. Letters referring to

military news sometimes told the reader that the details of battle would be pro-

vided by the letter’s bearer. In 1596 Raleigh wrote to Cecil from Cadiz that ‘this

bearer, Sir Antony Ashley, that hath seen all, can better report all then any letter

or discource’.16 Charles Howard also wrote from Cadiz to his father-in-law Lord

Hunsdon, the Lord Chamberlain, that ‘this Bearer whoe hath behaved him self

wiselye and valiently will shewe your Lordship the particulers which is not pos-

sible for me to write’.17 Aside from such examples of informative letter-bearers,

traces of oral communication of military news remain throughout the histori-

cal record. In April 1586 Leicester wrote to Walsingham that Th omas Heneage

could expand and confi rm Leicester’s account of a shameful English retreat at

Grave, since he ‘was at the place, and indeed had the salutacion of enemyes can-

non, and he had the truth of all’.18 In August 1623 Simonds D’Ewes wrote in

his diary that news of Tilly’s defeat of Brunswick came from one ‘Mr Wheate, a

barrister of our howse, travailing then for his pleasure, [who] was in the armye

and amongst the rest fl edd for his life and now comming home, brought the fi rst

miserable tidings’.19 William Brereton, travelling in the Netherlands in 1634,

supped with Queen Elizabeth of Bohemia herself, and heard from her own lips

news of ‘a great defeat given by Arnheim, the Saxon general, to the Imperialists,

in Silesia: four thousand slain in the place’.20

A longer quotation will illustrate the quite detailed information that could

be gleaned from oral military news. In January 1623 one of Mead’s London cor-

respondents, preferring oral communication from the horse’s mouth over more

distant written and printed reports, went to talk in person with Horace Vere’s

preacher, Horace Vere’s physician, and Horace Vere himself, to get an accurate


account (or perhaps more accurately a fi rst-hand apologia!) of the recent fi ght-

ing in the Palatinate:

On Munday fornoone I fi rst sought out Mr French the Generalls preacher, aft erwards

Dr Welles his Physitian: Aft er dinner went & saluted the Generall himselfe, and

learned by them all; Th at the day & night before the yeelding up of Manheim-Castell

they had susteined 2 fi erce assaults; Th at the Enimie had received 3000 fresh men;

that themselves had not suffi cient powder left to serve two assaults more, which att

their departure thence they carried all away with them, & more also of the Enimies

to make up the proportion, which was agreed upon for them to have; wanted water,

had not men enough to defend it on the walles (the Citadell being full treble as big as

the Tower of London,) each man standing single & a pikes length assunder; had no

hope of any succours; & that had they not yeelded when they did, they must have bin

within 3 dayes aft er taken by assault & had all their throats cutt.21

Such oral news was capable of conveying from multiple eyewitnesses the geo-

graphical details, timing of individual actions, precise numbers of combatants,

and logistics that together allowed an informed, if partisan, analysis of the exact

correlation of forces at Mannheim. Th is is no mean sum of knowledge to be

extracted from oral news.

Oral news was detailed and pervasive – and it was also of highly uncertain

credibility. On occasion, such oral transmission seems to have had a premium of

credibility: in November 1620 Henry Wotton was reluctant to believe reports

of the Battle of the White Mountain until such time as a messenger brought

news of it directly to the Emperor in Vienna.22 Th e True Coppie of a Letter, writ-

ten fr om the Leager by Arnham (1591) added to the translated Dutch account,

with no evident anxiety, ‘the running report of the occasion of this confl ict, as it

hath beene delivered by woord of mouth’.23 But for the most part oral news aroused

more doubt than trust. Some news was known to be pure invention. In August

1619 John Chamberlain wrote Dudley Carleton that ‘I never knew a more

empty and barren time for newes then this vacation hath ben, so that they are

faine almost every weeke to coyne great battells in Bohemia … with a number of

other such unlikelihoods’.24 In June 1632 John Pory wrote to John Scudamore

that ‘the report of the deaths’ of numerous English and Scottish offi cers ‘vented

upon the Exchange by an Irishman on Fryday was sennight, who pretended hee

came from Midleburgh & Flushing, was on Tuesday refuted as fabulous by all

three Partes of Holland, Andwerp, and France’.25 John Taylor put the situation

into lively verse. Bohemian battles were constantly spoken of in England, but

Th ese things in England pratling fooles do chatter,

When all Bohemia knowes of no such matter:

For all this Summer, that is gone and past,

Untill the fi rst day of October last,


Th e Armies never did together meete,

Nor scarce their eye sight did each other greete ...’.26

It is against this background that in January 1618 George Lord Carew felt it

necessary to assure Th omas Roe, serving as Ambassador to India, that ‘I will not

sweare thatt all which I have written is trew, but you may well beleeve thatt I have

coyned nothinge’.27 Such coining, alas, was the common currency of the news.

Even where the news was better than pure fantasy, Englishmen had to worry

about the linked issues of certainty and credibility. In August 1591 Henry Unton

wrote news of battles in France to Burghley, cautioning him that ‘to advertise

your Lordship of Frontier newes I am somewhat fearefull, for that they are com-

monly of no vallewe, and at this time very doubtfull; yett because Monsieur

Incarville is my reporter, I will presume to write some what; not inforcinge your

Lordships beleife’.28 John Chamberlain wrote to Dudley Carleton in November

1606 that ‘for all the great noise of taking of Groll and Linghen by the States, yet

because there comes no confi rmation of yt thence, men begin to doubt yt was

but a golden dreame’.29 In January 1633 Peter Moreton wrote from Westminster

to his father with ‘noe certainty of the King of Swedens [Gustavus Adolphus’s]

life or death’ following the battle of Lützen.30

Peter Moreton, if anyone, should have known precisely how normal such

uncertainty was. Th e lad, in a series of letters to his father, was a participant in

the prolonged and ghastly comic guessing-game: is Tilly really dead? English-

men were eager to hear that the renowned Catholic general was truly defunct,

and they reported each rumour of his death eagerly. In April 1631 Peter More-

ton wrote with the sad news that ‘the voyce of the King of Sweds prosperity is

generall, but it is not beleeved the Count Tilly is deade, as hee was reported

to bee drowned in fl ight from that King’.31 In November 1631, he wrote that

‘the Victorie of the King of Sweden against Tilly is beleeved to be very greate;

Tilly himselfe escaped disguised, (his surgeant that had dressed his wounds once

being taken, confessed them to bee very daungerouse, but that hee bee yet dead

I heare of none can report for certaine)’.32 In April 1632 he announced that ‘but

yesternight came an other Carrier, who affi rmeth that Tilly is dead’.33 Tilly actu-

ally did die in April 1632; but this is no proof that the news was getting any more

accurate, only that Tilly was mortal, and that his actual death was bound to coin-

cide with some oral rumour of his death. Th e whole farcical episode illustrated

nicely the uncertain, incredible nature of oral news.34

For oral military news was still tight-tied to its Janus-face, oral military

rumour. In the military camp itself, rumour was endemic. In June 1592 Henry

Wotton wrote to Lord Zouch that when the Duke of Parma was wounded, ‘he

caus’d many Souldiers to be present, that they might see it was a wound of no

importance, a thing very considerately done, to avoid Rumours in the Camp’.35


In 1622 in the Netherlands, the rumour of reinforcements from England ‘can-

not be so sparing but that they know by name the Captaines of every Countrey

and the manner of raising their men’.36 In England, rumour duplicated Protes-

tant victories abroad, by reporting the same battle under the name of diff erent

generals.37 Rumour multiplied enemies: in 1624 the Catholics invaded Gelder-

land with ten thousand soldiers, ‘yet the rumor terrifi ed us with thirty thousand

at the least’.38 Rumour was a weapon of war: ‘Rumours of succours comming

encourage our souldiers, discourage the enemie … Wordes making for us coming

to the enemies eares doe oft en strike a terror in them … Suborned messengers are

dangerous, if credit be given unto them’.39

Th e very language of military news betrays the constant alliance of news and

rumour.40 In September 1627 John Beaulieu wrote to Th omas Puckering of both

‘a strong rumour spread of a great loss received in my lord duke’s army [at Ré]’

and a contrary report, neither confi rmed by any solid news.41 In November 1632

John Beaulieu wrote to Th omas Puckering that he was still uncertain about the

truth of news of Gustavus Adolphus’s victory at Breitenfeld. He awaited con-

fi rmation, and hoped that ‘the common rumour [of the news] will come into

your parts before my next can come unto you’.42 Private, oral news was essentially

rumour, essentially incredible.

Ritual News

But the question was not precisely whether oral news was credible, but whether

it was publicly or privately credible. Clearly, the pervasiveness of oral news indi-

cates that it was privately credible to a great many people. But it was one thing

to believe an item of news was true, another thing to stake one’s own reputation

on the truth of that item of news, to state by a public act of belief, of assigning

credibility, that the news was true. In May 1622 Mead thought news of a victory

in the Palatinate in May 1622 more likely because ‘Mr Hurst sayes he heard Dr

Meddus tell it in the open streat for joy: for he supped that night at one of the

Doctors neighbours who was also come from Exchange & had seene the let-

ters’.43 Th e public credibility of such news distinguished it from private, oral news.

Indeed, the claim that news was credible was meaningless without the presence

of oral news, the other against which those public claims of credibility defi ned

themselves. Th e credibility of public news was in good part constituted by the

constant comparison with incredible, private, rumourous oral news.

Public ritual was the traditional means by which news acquired public cred-

ibility.44 Let us look at the means of determining news credibility prescribed

at the end of Ben Jonson’s Newes fr om the New World Discover’d in the Moone

(1620), a court masque chiefl y concerned with the problem of news. It addressed

directly ‘the knowing King’, and incorporated the court, and all England, in the


Chorus that declared that ‘All eares will take the voyce’.45 Th e authority behind

the masque’s words lay in active participation of the sovereign and court in the

masque itself, performers as well as spectators. James and his courtiers spoke,

moved, and acted in ritually precise and prescribed manners, and communicated

and interacted with each other in equally precise and prescribed fashion. Engag-

ing in collective action, whose medium most emphatically contained a message,

the participants of the masque communicated the essential information of this

ritual: they were a community, a unity articulated by the sovereign’s gesture and

word, whose unity transformed the transmission of information from dialogue

to soliloquy. Ritual, by bundling the transmission of information with the pub-

lic statement of communal identity, guaranteed credibility as could no form of

news transmitted privately between separate individuals.46 When at the end of

the masque, uncertain news had been exorcised from this ritual-bound commu-

nity, this banishment indicated the proper means by which news was meant to

be communicated: bundled in ritual actions, ritual performances.

Where military news was concerned, such rituals drew ultimately from a

language of military symbols that was, by and large, mutually intelligible across

much of western and central Europe.47 A very large number of specifi c acts com-

municated specifi c military information; as A Trumpet to Call Souldiers on to

Noble Actions (1627) said of Count Th urn, his ‘warlike acts in this Enterprise,

are his speaking Chronicles’.48 Beyond this general statement, actions doubled

as emphatic communication, more sure than the vagaries of falsifi able report.

To capture a castle communicated military power beyond the ability of enemy

lies to disguise.49 Th e capture of regimental colors also communicated the truth

of defeat: the humiliation of Ré was signifi ed by the fact that ‘the French have

hang’d up in our Ladies church at Paris 42 ensignes, the greatest dishonour that

ever our nation underwent’.50 Th e formal departures of defeated garrisons com-

municated enough information about the gradations of defeat and victory that

they sometimes received extended descriptions in the news, and even separate

news pamphlets devoted to them.51 The fi ring of cannons could serve as an

abbreviated means to register and communicate good news: in September 1622

at Bergen-op-Zoom, ‘the 3. wee had newes from Breda, of Count Mansfi elds

arrivall there: in the evening was all our Cannon as well within as without the

City, discharged to welcome Count Mansfi eld’.52 Not every signal was absolutely

clear: in December 1624 at the siege of Breda, the Spaniards fi red their cannon

toward the town, ‘but whether it was by reason that it was Christmas Eve, or to

give some token, we could not learne’.53 But generally such signs were compre-

hensible and comprehended.

Th e most common of these signs was the public thanksgiving to God. Th e

performance of this elaborate ceremony, done with ritual solemnity and splen-

dour, communicated that an army believed to be true a particular report of


military victory. So in October 1588 the besieged garrison of Bergen-op-Zoom

responded to news of the Spanish naval disaster off the coast of Ireland with

thunderous commemoration: ‘Th e great belle was ronge, dyvers peales of smalle

shot and all the artillery shot … and fi res caried round about the walles veary

triumphantly’.54 In 1622 soldiers at Spinola’s leaguer around Bergen-op-Zoom,

when they heard news of a victory over Mansfi eld, made ‘great shewes of mirth,

making of Bon-fi res, discharging of our ordnance, the Musquiteres gave likewise

3. volies with their shot, and those which carried Pikes, put bundles of straw

on them, and went so with them aloft to spite the Enemy’.55 In 1629 the Dutch

besiegers of s’ Hertogenbosch performed a thanksgiving for the taking of Wesel

where each part of the army communicated their knowledge of victory: the

artillerists fi red their cannons, the musketeers shot their guns, the pikemen put

burning straw on their pikes, the horsemen’s servants put fi re on staves, the ships

made bonfi res with pitch-fi lled barrels. Th e blazing lights travelled from quarter

to quarter around the besieged garrison, and a single mortar was fi red into the

town.56

Away from the armies, the public thanksgiving was also used to communi-

cate belief in victory. When Spinola abandoned his siege of Bergen-op-Zoom

in 1622,

the Townsmen fell to their triumphes, where imagine (besides some volleyes of shot

discharged) that you heard of Bels, Bone-fi res, and barrels of Bergen beere, and you

have most of their triumph in the Towne: Neither did Amsterdam itselfe, hold it any

superstition, to hang an hundred and fi ft ie lights upon their Church-steeple, in signe

of joy, all night long, and to make a thousand Bone-fi res.57

In April 1630 William Whiteway wrote in his diary that ‘they made great tri-

umphs in Holland’ at the news of the Dutch capture of Pernambuco in Brazil.58

In September 1631, the Dutch Ambassador in London ‘caused a letter publicly

to be read in the Dutch church, and thereupon a general thanksgiving to be made

for a glorious and memorable victory on Friday last, obtained by the Prince of

Orange upon the Spaniards’.59 Th e Dutch knew of their armies’ victories because

they all rejoiced in them.

Yet precisely because such rituals were so credible at transmitting belief of

news, they were anything but simple mirrors of belief. Th anksgivings were self-

consciously used for persuasion and propaganda, performed with an audience

in mind. First and foremost, the performers were themselves the audience, and

thanksgivings inevitably came to be commanded with the benefi cial eff ect on

the performers’ morale in mind. (See below for the link between military news

and morale.) As a corollary, the message of victory was communicated to ene-

mies with the hopes of disheartening them. In 1631 the Dutch army celebrated

the defeat of a Spanish naval invasion of Zealand by a thanksgiving, and passed


on the news ‘with the report and thundering of a thousand Canon shot, towards

the faces of our Enemies; to make them understand in their Army … what God

hath done for us’.60 Th e thanksgiving at s’ Hertogenbosch in 1629 for the taking

of Wesel was directed particularly towards the enemy garrison besieged inside

the walls.61 Retroactively, Henry Hexham judged that this attempt to aff ect the

garrison’s morale by the ostentatious performance of a thanksgiving had been

successful: ‘Th ose of the Towne acknowledged aft erward, that shooting at

once with so many ordinance … did much amaze them. And then they began

to beleeve indeed that Wesell was Geux, though the governour by all meanes

laboured to conceale it from them’.62 A Catholic soldier’s journal of the siege

supported the contention that the message was understood accurately within

the garrison: ‘At night the Enemies did make Bone fi res, and joyfull tokens for

the taking of Wesell, they plaid also with Ordnance and Muskets that never was

seene the like’.63 Th e journal did not confi rm that the garrison was actually dis-

heartened by the thanksgiving, but it can hardly have made them cheerful.

But with such morale eff ects in mind, the temptation to falsify thanksgivings’

was very high – and so was the suspicion that the enemy falsifi ed thanksgivings.

At any rate, in September 1626 Joseph Mead’s London correspondent was scep-

tical of the ritual clamour and fl ames in the Spanish Netherlands that celebrated

news of Tilly’s victory over the Danish king. ‘Great triumphs & bonfi res have

bin made in hir [Archduchess Isabella’s] Country, which sometimes heretofore

among them have fl amed out of faction & falshood as well as out of truth’.64

Signs could deceive as fl uently as words.

Moreover, even where there was no intent to deceive, false news of victory

could trigger a groundless thanksgiving. Midway through the battle of Newport

in 1600, the Archduke Albert, precipitately and (as it turned out) mistakenly

sent word that he had won the day; the towns near Bruges passed on his news

of victory by ‘ringing their bells’.65 At the siege of Bergen-op-Zoom in 1622,

contrary reports made for duelling bonfi res: the besieging Spanish lit a bonfi re

to celebrate Count Mansfi eld’s defeat, and the besieged Dutch lit a bonfi re to

celebrate his victory.66 Clearly, one army must have been mistaken. In December

1632, John Pory wrote that a report that Gustavus Adolphus was alive, though

probably false, had nearly caused a number of Londoners to light bonfi res; only

the contrary advice of their more discreet neighbours had prevented them.67 Th e

thanksgiving ritual was traditionally credible, perhaps even particularly credible,

but it was by no means absolutely credible.

Nevertheless, the thanksgiving itself, and the report of the thanksgiving,

remained a basic guarantor of the credibility of military news. Th e examples

above, largely drawn from reports in the English news circuits of rituals per-

formed in the Netherlands, demonstrate that ritual directed information beyond

the community as well as within it – not as credibly, since the message of iden-


tity was lacking, but with all the credibility that observation of somebody else’s

ritual actions could instil. Such observed rituals infused credibility into non-

ritual forms of news transmission. In October 1620 John Chamberlain wrote

Dudley Carleton that ‘yesterday by a pincke of Flushing here came newes that

the Princes of the Union had geven Spinola a great overthrow and slaine 8000 of

his men, and that order was come from the Hagh to all the townes to geve God

thancks and make bonfi res’. Although Chamberlain thought the tale without

‘sound foundation’, he wished that in sober fact ‘the fellow had seen these rejoy-

cings’.68 Peter Moreton, writing to his father of the 1631 public thanksgiving

by the Dutch Ambassador and the Dutch church mentioned above, explicitly

stated that the performance of the thanksgiving was the reason that the reports

of victory were ‘generally beleeved’.69 In April 1632 Th omas Barrington wrote

to his mother, Lady Joan Barrington, confi rming good news of Gustavus Adol-

phus’s victories in Germany, in that ‘yesterday newes came that the Hague hath

made bonfyres for the joyes of his conquest’.70 Of course, the credibility of a

thanksgiving was diminished by the weaknesses of the other links of the news

transmission chain. Th e rumour of a thanksgiving remained a rumour: in Octo-

ber 1622 John Chamberlain wrote Dudley Carleton that the Londoners who

maintained that Spinola had abandoned the siege of Bergen-op-Zoom relied

upon ‘no more certaintie but that two stragling passengers (comming over in

a pincke that stayed at Sandwich,) saide they were at Middleburg and Flushing

when thanckesgeving was made in the churches for the raising of the siege’.71 A

written or printed report of a thanksgiving remained, ultimately, only as credible

as writing or print. But all in all, the ritual of a thanksgiving added credibility to

the military news.

Other public rituals provided credibility for military news in similar fashion.

In far-off Vienna, Henry Wotton reported in November 1620 that the Emperor,

upon fi nally hearing certain news of the Battle of the White Mountain, com-

municated his belief in its truth by going ‘in an Eucharistical procession to the

cathedral church, accompanied with all the public Ministers, save the French

and Savoy ambassadors and the Venetian agent’.72 A 1625 coranto reported that

‘they have through all Brabant made great Triumphes of joy, but especially at

Antwerpe, by reason of the surrendring of Breda’.73 In Paris in 1628, news of the

victorious conclusion of the siege of La Rochelle was given offi cial sanction by a

Te Deum Mass, a ceremonial royal entry into the city, triumphal arches, fi reworks,

and (last, but certainly not least) the carefully arranged printing of the news of

victory, ‘with permission’.74 In England, both bonfi res and bells, whose ‘vocabu-

lary of celebration’ encompassed weddings, coronations, royal processions, holy

days, and patriotic anniversaries, also carried news of military victory.75 In 1596

various London parishes ‘lit bonfi res and rang bells’ to celebrate the triumph

at Cadiz; in 1631 Dorchester rang its bells to celebrate the Swedish victory at


Breitenfeld.76 A fast could also commemorate and communicate military vic-

tory: in April 1631, also in Dorchester, William Whiteway wrote in his diary

that ‘this day there was a solemne generall privat fast kept for the good success of

the King of Sweden, who went on very prosperously in his warrs’.77

Sermons, which in England’s Church Established partook of both public

pronouncement and Christian ritual, also communicated military news; some

examples include An Homelie against Disobedience and Wylfull Rebellion (1570),

which had appended to it ‘a thankesgeving for the suppression of the last rebel-

lion’ (sigs. K2v-K3r), Th omas Nun’s A Comfort against the Spaniard (1596), and

Th omas Scott’s Th e Belgick Souldier (1624).78 As Raymond notes, such sermons

‘furnished providential interpretations of the European wars which provided

such a mainstay for the news pamphlet market from the 1580s’.79 Th e sermon’s

role in transmitting military news was particularly evident in the tense 1620s,

when at various points the government felt it had to censor this communica-

tive function. In March 1622 one ‘Dr Winiff e preaching at Whitehall before

the Prince … was fi rst commanded to his chamber for comparing the Palatinate

to the soule & Spinola to the Devill; but that God our great king would deliver

the one & destroy the other. Aft erward he was comitted to the Tower’. Fortu-

nately for the good Dr. Winiff e, Gondomar (the Spanish ambassador, suitably

diplomatic) worked behind the scenes to get him released the next day.80 Aft er

the disaster at Ré, we can again glimpse the government gagging sermons that

normally would have talked of military news. In November 1627 an anonymous

newswriter wrote to Joseph Mead that one Dr. Mountayne had ‘prohibited the

clergy of the city to speak aught that hath any way concerned what hath befallen

in the business of Rhé. And an Oxford man, who that day preached at the cross,

had his sermon perused and castrated before he came there.’81 Th e government

found sermons all too credible a means of conveying military news.

Finally, we may note a spectacle that in October 1622 conveyed news of the

siege of Bergen-op-Zoom to Londoners by means of an astonishingly detailed

re-enactment:

Upon Tuesday the raising of the seidge at Bergen was artifi [ci]ally acted by those of

the militarie yard. It was a sight so full of martiall varietie, as they say, an eyewitnes

of Bergens siedge might have seene lesse. Alderman Hamersbey was Governor of the

Towne: my Lord President & my Lord Mayor among the Spectators. Among other

things the dead men according to the Cerimonies of warre were sollemly buried in

time of truce. And one of Spinola’s men for violating the law of Martiall discipline by

giving fi re during the truce was gibbeted in a bundle of clouts, that satisfaction being

by the Towne demanded. Either side had 2 pieces of Ordnance which played upon

each other with powder: Great smoking there was with the muskett & pushing with

the pikes; the outworks taken; but in time aft er, a duell of 2 combattants on each

side, neither being but to the worse, the siedge was raised & Spinola’s souldiers by the


people mocked, & so the Lords being saluted with 2 brave volleys of shott, every man

went to his home.82

Th is simulacrum of battle was a marvellous example of the operation of public

ritual as news. Its credibility was compared favourably to eyewitness report. It

gained further credibility from the participation of civic worthies both as par-

ticipants and spectators. Its detailed depictions of military law, chivalric combat,

and the varieties of modern warfare melded credibility and entertainment. Most

crucially, it established the communal identity of the soldiers on the battlefi eld

of Bergen-op-Zoom, the re-enactors of London, and the London spectators, all

one, and all opposed to the designated black hats, the inevitably dishonourable

Spanish soldiery. Th e identity was confi rmed as the Londoners mocked Spinola’s

men; identity, news, and opinion were all one.83

Written News: Th e Dictaminal Tradition

Both oral and ritual news fundamentally derived their credibility from the per-

sonal presence of the act or word, from what was seen, heard, or done. Writing,

which attempted to erase distance between the writer and the reader, created a

new, impersonal form of presence that in its very nature challenged this system of

credibility.84 Many of the changes noted in this study may be taken to be succes-

sive fulfi lments of the logic of the written medium. But other changes depended

upon the particular cultural contexts by which written news was introduced to,

and became pervasive in England. In particular, the character of news and news

credibility emerged from the historical roots of the standard written genre of

news in early modern England: the letter.85

Th e early modern English letter of news, or newsletter, had multiple sources.

A major source appears to have been the unselfconscious report of recent events,

haphazardly recorded in medieval England as newsletter or chronicle, and with

undigested newsletters incorporated into chronicles as blithely as undigested

newsletters would later be incorporated into corantos. Th e writers of these news-

letters were likely to have been the ancestors of the sorts of English gentlemen

who wrote newsletters in early modern England, but their general anonymity

makes any such statement highly speculative. In the substance of military news,

there would be great continuity between these medieval newsletters and early

modern news pamphlets and corantos.

But if the unselfconscious medieval newsletter was the ancestor for the

substance of early modern news, it was the highly self-conscious, classicizing

letter that was the ancestor of its form and intellectual assumptions. Derived

from the medieval Latin tradition of the ars dictaminis, by way of the early fi f-

teenth-century transition of the English government under Henry V to writing

bureaucratic letters in English, the English private letter, modelled upon these


dictaminal letters, established itself as a genre in fi ft eenth- and sixteenth-century

England. In particular, the English private news letter emerged directly from the

late medieval and Renaissance modelling of familiar letters upon offi cial letters.

Th e internal communications of the state, the letters written from one bureau-

crat to another, provided the content and the form for the private news letter;

parallel to the letter of news they sent to other bureaucrats, government agents

also began to write familiar letters of news to their friends and their kin.

As Englishmen came to write of news in their vernacular private letters, they

placed them within the traditional categories of epistolary rhetoric. But episto-

lary rhetoric was changing in early Renaissance Europe: the introduction into

the epistolary genres through the fourteenth century of the complex of human-

ist ideals had greatly changed the purpose of letters. Now, as a matter of theory as

well as of practice, the Renaissance private letter came to be seen to have both the

capability and the duty to include public aff airs among its subject matters – to

include letters of news. Furthermore, humanist ideals also shaped the way these

letters of news were meant to be read. Reading news, as much as writing news,

became a matter of ethical, public duty; newsreading was a deliberate action,

one of the most important possible services to the state, to be done prudently

and deliberately.

Th e varieties of written military news in early modern England combined a

traditional medieval subject matter with a form and ethical purpose born from

the humanist letter. Th e genre conventions of the humanist letter – the address

of a single writer to a reader, plain style, the willingness to comment on the

public world, and the ambiguous ability to partake of both private and public

communication – would also help to form the rhetoric of the news throughout

this period, in all its multiplying genre and media. Th e impress of the human-

ist letter would persist in the news media of early modern England, through all

their great and rapid transformations.86

Th e Growth of the State: Internal Communications

Th e ever-larger medieval and Renaissance state was the cradle of the letter, and as

a direct result it was also the cradle of the news. Th e internal communications of

the state provided the content and the form for the newsletter: as Zaret puts it,

‘transmission of news by private letters evolved as a literary practice as an exten-

sion of scribal practices animated by narrowly strategic purposes: diplomatic

dispatches, military intelligence, offi cial record keeping, and business commu-

nications’.87 In particular, medieval and Renaissance diplomatic letters were the

cradle of the newsletter concerned with foreign and military aff airs. Some such

letters were part of direct state-to-state communication; one such was Gusta-

vus Adolphus’s letter to Charles in 1631, which combined friendly salutation,


notice of his victory at Breitenfeld, and a gentle intimation that money and

other proofs of friendship would be greatly appreciated.88 Th e diplomatic revo-

lution of Renaissance Europe, which transformed from sporadic to continuous

such contact between governments, ensured that such letters from government

to government increased in number every year.89

But far more important as a source of the military news were the internal

communications of the states’ agents, keeping the state apprised with fresh infor-

mation from which to make proper policy, and providing the central state with

enough information to keep some minimal control over its far-fl ung extremities.

In the foreign and military sphere, these letters consisted in very large part of

recent news of alliances and peace treaties, court gossip and rumours of muster-

ing men, the march of armies and the location of skirmishes, the course of sieges,

the results of battles, and the lists of the dead. Not all such news needed to be

conveyed by letter: in November 1591 Roger Williams came to the court in

person with news of the war in France.90 But generals could not commute from

the battlefi elds as a matter of course, and letters were a necessity. So in 1544

Henry VIII wrote to Katherine Parr that ‘we have won (and that without any

loss of men) the strongest part of the town [of Boulogne], which is the bray of

the castle’.91 In September 1579 Lord Justice Drury and the Council in Ireland

collectively sent a letter to the Privy Council in England from the camp near

Aherlow stating that ‘as we have in our other letters made a kynd of journall of

our doyngs since the last dispatch sent from Corke … so have their been other

accidents in the service meet to be made knowen to your Lordships’.92 And dur-

ing his 1591–2 expedition to Rouen, Essex wrote regular military news reports

to Burghley; he also wrote to Burghley in 1596 with news of his expedition to

Cadiz.93

While many of these letters of foreign and military news came from generals

writing home about their victories and (soft -pedalling) their defeats, most such

information came from the professional information-gatherers of the state – the

diplomats. By the mid-sixteenth century, the great bulk of military informa-

tion came through diplomatic correspondence from the permanently stationed

ambassadors in foreign courts – though well supplemented by letters between

kings, reports by spies, reports from other agents of the state, and the semi-pri-

vate intelligence networks belonging to notables such as Walsingham, Leicester,

Burghley, Essex, and Ellesmere.94 England under the Tudors and Stuarts was, of

course, a full participant in this Renaissance revolution of diplomatic informa-

tion gathering. During Elizabeth’s reign in particular, the system had undergone

a ‘subtle revolution’, and it had achieved a very high pitch of professionalism,

standardization, and organization by the end of the sixteenth century.95 As this

process of information gathering became standardized by long usage, so too

did the letter of foreign news sent home to the central government. Within the


genre conventions of the letter, retaining more or less personalized address and

rhetoric of sociability, government agents abroad began to write an increasingly

standardized letter of pure news.96

It is important to emphasize here how jumbled together military and foreign

news were in these letters. Th e most dramatic foreign news was always news of

wars – their beginnings, their courses, and their ending – and much other foreign

news included the risks of war and the preparations for war. Contrariwise, battles

were normally analyzed for their broader diplomatic and political signifi cance.

Governments therefore sought information indiscriminately about both subject

matters. Henry Unton, acting as ambassador to France, along with his regular

diplomatic reports forwarded battlefi eld reports to the Queen and Royal Coun-

cil in London during the Rouen campaign of 1591–92 when he was not on the

scene of battle, and provided fi rst-hand reports of the campaign’s progress when

he was.97 In November 1598 Robert Cecil wrote to Th omas Edmondes a letter

that combined news of court, of plots against Elizabeth’s life, and of military

events.98 Between 1615 and 1618, George Lord Carew sent details of battles and

sieges in Jülich, Brunswick, and Savoy to Th omas Roe, serving halfway around

the world as His Majesty’s Ambassador to India, as part of his regular news let-

ters – though these details cannot have been of much use to Roe in the Mughal’s

court, and probably were also meant to keep Roe up-to-date and entertained as a

private individual.99 Th is intermixture of foreign and military news would carry

over to the various new media of news; military news could disentangle itself

from foreign news to some extent, but never completely.

Censorship, Counsel, and the Growing Interest in the News

England’s monarchs were not indiff erent to the communication of news, whether

oral, written, or (eventually) printed. News, aft er all, had a way of inspiring the

sovereign’s subjects to action of one sort or another – at the worst, panic and

opportunistic treason – and so England’s sovereigns were perpetually disin-

clined to allow the uncontrolled transmission of news. At least as far back as

the fourteenth century, royal proclamations fulminated against unlicensed news

– ‘rumour’ – which (signifi cantly) had oft en coincided with times of war.100 In

1487, as the Tudor era began, Henry VII had prescribed the pillory for the tellers

of ‘feigned, contrived, and forged tidings and tales’.101 In 1549 one proclamation

denounced those who

feigning falsely great overthrows, losses, and dangers, to the slander of the King’s

highness, impairing of his majesty’s service and discouraging of the King’s subjects;

besides that thereby they have given to strangers occasion to write into distant coun-

tries such tales for news, to the great dishonor of his highness, the same being most

false and untrue.102


Such rumour-mongers, as another proclamation in 1549 put it, were ‘lewd ruf-

fi ans, tale-tellers, and unruly vagabonds’.103

It is worth emphasizing that sovereigns did not just dislike reports of

defeat, but rather uncontrolled news of any sort. In 1544 Henry VIII forbade

even uncontrolled reports of English victories in Scotland.104 Under Elizabeth,

English censorship laws tightened aft er the 1569 revolt and in 1586 aft er the

beginning of open war with Spain (albeit Elizabeth delegated the operation of

censorship to the Stationers’ Company).105 James was extraordinarily sensitive

to the corantos and the entire apparatus of Jacobean news culture. In December

1620 James issued a proclamation attempting to ban corantos, and told his sub-

jects to ‘take heede, how they intermeddle by Penne, or Speech, with causes of

State, and secrets of Empire, either at home, or abroad’.106 His poem ‘Th e wiper

of the Peoples teares’ (c. 1622–3) further elaborated upon the theme of royal

knowledge and the proper obedience and ignorance of subjects, as they related

to policy-making:

O stay your teares yow who complaine

Cry not as Babes doe all in vaine

Purblinde people why doe yow prate

Too shallowe for the deepe of state

You cannot judge what truely myne

Who see noe further then the Ryne

Kengs walke the heavenly milky way

But yow by bypathes gadd astray

God and Kings doe pace together

But Vulgar wander light as feather

I should be sorie you should see

My actions before they bee

Brought to the full of my desires

God above all men Kings enspires

Hold you the publique beaten way

Wounder at Kings, and them obey

For under God they are to chuse

What right to take, and what refuse.107

Th e right to communicate the news, not simply the content of the news, was

fundamentally at issue in all these assertions of royal power.108

To their exceeding comfort, the English sovereigns appear to have been

blessed with relatively cooperative subjects well into Tudor times. Henry

Machyn, a well-to-do merchant tailor, wrote a diary in the middle of the six-

teenth century that scarcely mentioned foreign or military news at all. In 1557

he briefl y noted that ‘the xviii day of November cam tydynges from the yerle of

Northumberland owt of Skottland that the [Scots] and our men mett and ther


fowth, and ther was taken and ... of the Skotts, att a place called (blank)’.109 Th e

next year he wrote of the taking of Calais:

Th e iii of January cam tidings to the Queen] that the Frenche kyng was [come to]

Nuwnam bryge with a grett host of men [of war], and layd batheryng pessys unto ytt,

and unto Rysse-banke by water, and to Cales, [and] led grett batheryng peses to hytt,

for ther wher [great shooting] ... Th e x day of January heavy news came to En]gland,

and to London, thatt the Fre[nch had won] Cales, the wyche was the hevest tydy[ngs

to London] and to England that ever was hard of, for lyke a trayter yt was sold and

d[elivered unto] them the (blank) day of January; the duke of [Guise was] cheyff

capten, and evere man dyscharged the town.110

But there is nothing else in the entire diary of this prosperous Londoner that

refers to foreign military events.

We cannot know the extent of the overlap between Machyn’s diary entries

and his actual concerns, but Machyn seems to have been the sort of subject

sovereigns desired. Foreign news, including military news, was simply not his

concern. As Rowland Whyte wrote, ‘Arcana principis are not to be medled in’.111

Th e business of the crown was not the business of the private citizen, and Machyn

did not waste much ink on what he had no reason to speak of or to know.112

Th e sovereigns of England would continue to rule many loyally incurious

Machyns right through to the outbreak of the Civil Wars. Donald Lupton, in

his satirical London and the Countrey Carbonadoed (1632), still called corantos

‘busie fellows, for they meddle with other mens Aff aires: No Pope, Emperour,

or King, but must be touched by their pen’.113 Humphrey Mildmay’s entire diary

from 1633 to 1637 includes only one piece of foreign military news, written in

November 1635: ‘Th e day Came the Newes of the greate defeate In Lorraine of

La force & all fl oure of france att one Battle by gallas, for ferdinando’.114 Why

this one battle should attract his attention is unclear; what is clear is that the

battles of the Th irty Years War scarcely impinged on his written diary. A great

many Englishmen – the endless number who did not write of foreign or military

news – were similarly silent, whether from loyal abstention, disinterest in these

sorts of news, or chariness of committing their opinions into writing. While

we should not draw conclusions too boldly from absence of evidence, it seems

reasonable to believe that these silences indicate that for a good many English-

men the traditional assumption that such news was not their business endured

unchanged.

Yet the vast silence was breaking down as more and more Englishmen began

to express their interest in all sorts of news. As early as 1548, William Patten

wrote that

I more then half assure me, that (even as I would be in case like my selfe) so is every

man desyrous too know of the maner and circumstaunces of thys our most valiant vic-


torie over our enemies, and prosperous successe of the rest of our journey. Th e bolder

am I to make this general judgement, partly, for that I am sumwhat by learning, but

more by nature instruct to understonde, the thursty desyer, that all our kynde hath to

knowe. And then for that in every company, and at every table (whear it hath bene

my hap to be since my cummynge home) the hole communicacion was in a manner

nought els, but of this expedicion and warres in Scotland.115

Th e interest in news was on the rise from at least the late sixteenth century, and

by Stuart times contemporaries recognized it to be a national obsession, among

gentleman and commoner alike.116 Levy itemizes varied evidence of a sustained

rise in the reading and writing of news in England throughout the period from

the 1590s to the 1620s, including the increased circulation and quantity of

printed news, both English and foreign, the rise of ‘separates’ as a form of manu-

script news, and the appearance of news diaries.117

Contemporaneous comment on the growing interest in news also endorses

Levy’s judgment. Th e author of Articles of Agreement, Concerning the Cessation

of Warre (1607) wrote,

Such is the time, that when friends congratulate, the second word is what’s the newes?

So likewise, when our urgent occasions require conference by letters, yet wee expect

with those letters, what Newes, if we come from the Court, what Newes; if we come

from the Countrie, what newes: So from whencesoever wee come or goe, what

Newes.118

In April 1623 Th omas Lushington could preach an entire sermon that riff ed

elaborately on the growing interest in the news.119 Th e very prayers of the Har-

leys at Brampton Bryan in the 1620s and 1630s followed the news of wars

abroad.120

Th is increasing interest was not least for military news, and evidence of curi-

osity about military news in particular was extensive from the 1590s on. In 1592

Walter Raleigh wrote Robert Cecil asking him for news of the rebellion in Ire-

land.121 In 1593 Th omas Cornwallis asked his London agent, John Hobart, for

‘eny advertysmentes of the Crystian warres ageynst the Turke, or other foreyn

partes’.122 Baron Staff ord wrote to Richard Bagot in August 1596 to request that

he write to him ‘what certeinty you have to thinke of the particuler worthy suc-

cesses of the noble earle of Essex & my Lord Admiral agenst our publike foreyn

enymyes, & whether you think that ther Lordshipps have envaded any part of

the spanysshe domynyons’.123 A generation later the general interest in military

news from Germany was so great that More News fr om the Palatinate (1622)

went into at least two editions.124 In August 1620 William Sterrell wrote to the

Spanish spymaster Charles della Faille that ‘we longe here like woemen with

childe to heare of the Germaine aff aiers’.125 Indeed, William Sterrell’s interest in

European news was so great that this patriotic, Protestant Englishmen seems to


have become a spy for the Spaniards largely in order to receive the latest Euro-

pean news from them in return for his reports!126

In addition to active curiosity, we may also note a great number of terse men-

tions of military news, provided without comment. In 1601 Walter Raleigh

wrote to John Gilbert that ‘newse here is none, but that Ostend is hardly

besieged’.127 In April 1611 Walter Yonge wrote in his diary that ‘the Duke of

Savoy made an off er to besiege Geneva, against which there was great aid sent by

the Protestants from all parts of France, and divers gallant Protestants came to

assiste them’.128 Th omas Crosfi eld’s entries of military news from the Isle of Ré

during the summer and fall of 1627 are similarly uncommunicative. On August

1 he wrote ‘Newes of the Dukes successe in St Martins Island’. On August 18, he

recorded false ‘newes of the conquest of the Isle Ree or St martins by the Duke of

Buckingham’, and went so far as to call Buckingham ‘a man in whome are com-

bined Religion, fortitude & Clemency which are the true Characters of a noble

generall’.129 But on November 16 he added, laconically, ‘bad newes of the Dukes

returne & overthrowe at the Isle of Ree’.130 From these very frequent mentions

of the existence of military news, we can tell that many Englishmen did read

about or hear about such news, did consider it important, and even thought it

appropriate to write down and memorialize its existence. Men such as Walter

Yonge, William Whiteway, John Rous, and Joseph Mead read and mentioned

such news with avidity for decades. We cannot overinterpret such intractable

evidence, but its presence is still a very signifi cant datum. Military news mat-

tered and was present for the news reader of England.

Th ere were a number of reasons for this growing interest in military news. In

the fi rst place, many Englishmen desired an education in the practice of modern

warfare, whether to prepare themselves for a soldierly career abroad, or as prepa-

ration against the dismal possibility that war would someday spread to England.

Th ey looked to military news to provide a good portion of this educational lit-

erature: For example, the author of a 1572 translation of an Italian report of

the Turkish siege of Famagosta in Cyprus thought it would be ‘necessary to

be knowen for divers of our Captaines and other our countreymen, which are

ignoraunt in the Italian toung’. But that same news report also claimed that it

would be ‘pleasant to read’.131 News was also entertaining – bull-ring excitement

with the thrill of human blood. Th e author of Th ree Great Overthrowes (1622)

happily informed his readers that they had ‘come to that you desire, the second

Skirmish I promised you, which was against Monsieur Tilley in the Palatinate’.132

Th e author of Th e Aff aires and Generall Businesse of Europe (24 February 1624,

no. 14) wrote of himself and the printer as ‘willing every weeke to please or pleas-

ure you, and aff ord such novelty, as the season aff ordeth us’.133 Even an account

of soldierly misery and battlefi eld defeat could confi dently appeal to a curious

species of ghoulish interest, which found entertainment in the retelling of true-


life misfortunes. Anthony Nixon, ghostwriting an enlisted man’s account of his

service in the Swedish army, unabashedly exposed the soldier’s suff erings to his

readers so as to entice their purchase of his pamphlet.134

Religion provided another, more spiritual motivation to read military news.

Aside from the fact that the wars of the era were very oft en infl ected by religious

confl ict, and religio-political signifi cance, battles verifi ed the action of God in

this world. To spread news of victories in His name, to hear such news, and to

meditate upon them, were ways to honour God. So in 1596 ‘Th e Apologie of

the Portingall Voyage’, a news report of the 1589 expedition to Portugal, was

reissued and appended at the end of a sermon entitled ‘A Comfort Against the

Spaniard’; the context is a marked indication of the religious signifi cance of the

military news.135 Commonplace-books, which included ‘precedents, history,

sermons, and the sayings of the great and the good and the dead’ that would

serve as ‘moral exemplars, reminders and examples of moral, honorable, and holy

behavior’,136 also included military news, since it was perceived as homiletic. So

Gilbert Frevile included in his commonplace book, in a helter-skelter admixture

of edifying religious and political items, the news of the 1596 victory at Cadiz.137

In 1620 Mead, passing on to Stuteville a copy of ‘A Relation of the manner of

the losse of Prague by an English Gentleman there & then present’, commented

on almost none of the extensive, worldly detail of the report. He apparently had

read the news of the Battle of the White Mountain solely for its religious import,

and reacted exclusively to the tale it contained of the Duke of Bavaria’s consul-

tation with his Dominican friar: ‘I send you besides a Relation of the manner

of the loose of Prague … which you will fi nd so strange that it can hardly be

imputed to any other meanes but sorcery & witchcraft . I am almost perswaded

they consulted with the oracle of the bottomelesse pitt.’138

Military news was also read to fi t into prophecy and the perceived onset of

the last days. In April 1621 one of Mead’s London correspondents wrote that ‘It

seemes by our German letters come this morning that the most greivous persecu-

tion foretold of before Antichrists fall, is beginning; where in God will thrash

& winnow the pure wheat of his church with a bitter & cruell tryall’.139 What

this referred to was a perfectly ordinary sequence of news: ‘Th at the Hungarians

like unto the perfi dious Bohemians have utterly forsaken Gabriel Bethlin, who

thereupon threateneth to bring the Turk upon them’. Silesia had also returned to

its Imperial loyalties.140 In May 1622 Mead wrote that ‘I have seene Gallobelgi-

cus who tells us of 3 sunnes seene in many places of Germanie’.141 In November

1631 John Rous wrote in his diary of the advance of the Swedish and Saxon

forces, and placed this within the context of a prophecy written by Paulus Greb-

nerus in 1582.142

Th e desire to know the news also had economic roots. Zaret writes that from

at least 1200 on ‘the strategic value of news for merchants and traders involved


in international commerce made merchant communities in foreign lands impor-

tant sources of political intelligence’.143 Merchants and factors abroad in this

period remained a signifi cant source of military news for Englishmen outside

government. In February 1575, Nathaniel Bacon’s factor in the Netherlands,

Francis Johnson, sent him a report largely containing commercial news, but also

including a report that ‘the prins of orangin have driven kerck and osstende and

newpoorte and grevesing’.144 In September 1604 Lord Cranborne wrote to Ralph

Winwood that the news of the taking of Ostend ‘was very ordinary amongst the

Merchants at the least three or four Days before the Arrival of your Dispatch’.145

In December 1630 Mead wrote that ‘the last week, our merchants letters reported

the great fi ght betweene the Imperiallists & the King of Sweden’.146 Signifi cantly,

many reports of military news refer to letters or oral reports publicized at the

London Exchange.147 We may presume that the economic interest in military

events which spurred merchants to gather such news was shared to some extent

by those newsreaders who benefi ted from merchants’ news networks. However,

except for those Englishmen directly involved in foreign trade, we may also pre-

sume that this motivation was not terribly important.

Finally, the growing interest in military news was political. In the fi rst place,

the interest in military news was clearly embedded in interest in the political

framework and signifi cance of battles. In October 1594 George Clarke wrote

from Ostend to Richard Bagot what he had heard of news of a Turkish victory

over the Austrians near the town of Raba, and added as a postscript that ‘thopin-

ion of all those that understand matter of Estate in these partes is, that, Th e

Turckes warr will sett at peace all Christendome’.148 I. E. noted in A Letter fr om

a Souldier of Good Place in Ireland (1602) that the eff ect of the victory at Kin-

sale would be ‘the diminishing of her Majesties Charge, daunting of the Rebels,

quiet, comfort, and encouragement of the good’.149 In September 1619 William

Whiteway wrote in his diary the political circumstances by which Frederick had

been crowned king of Bohemia as a preliminary before recording that then ‘the

Pope and Emperour tooke up Armes, and amongst others had the overthrow,

Bucquoy, being Generall of their Army, in which battell were slaine 2000 of the

Palsgraves side, and 5000 of the other’.150 Th e appending of articles of peace or

truce to military news also manifested this essentially political interest in the

news.151 Writers varied the amount of attention they paid to individual battles,

but it was always realized that battles provided the essential punctuation of the

political narrative.

Parmelee believes that a signifi cant portion of the interest in news of the

French Civil Wars aft er 1585 sublimated worry for what might happen to Eng-

land aft er Elizabeth died: the news of France, depicting a brutal religious civil

war, mass suff ering, and Spanish military intervention, was a shadow of what

England might become. Happiness that England had so far avoided France’s fate,


and the fascinating, horrifying possibility that England was destined to share

France’s fate, together sparked a steady readership of French news.152 Indeed, in

April 1593 Anthony Poulett wrote to Francis Hastings with news of the French

Civil Wars, and included the comment that ‘I utterly dispaire to see the Issew

of ther [the French’s] bloudy civil warre, God graunt the contemplation of our

neighbours miseries, may make us thanckfull for our ease and happiness’.153 Like-

wise, the translator’s preface to A True Declaration of the Streight Siedge Laide to

the Cytty of Steenwich (1592) spoke feelingly of England’s good fortune in avoid-

ing the Netherlands’ fate:

Gentle Reader, as you maye by this present declaration perceyve the miseries and calami-

ties which are dayly suff ered in the Low-countries by the people there, so can you not but

withall acknowledge how greatly you are bounden unto almightie God for all the benefi ts

wherewith it hath pleased his Divine Majestie so many yeares to blesse our countrie for

these foure and thirtie yeares and more … what countrie under the vale of heaven hath

bene more adorned with the ensignes of peace than England?154

Th e fear of a Catholic off ensive, or conquest, presumably also informed inter-

est in military news during the Th irty Years War. Horrifi ed contemplation

that England might become Germany – or any other war-torn land – infl ected

readership throughout, perhaps more and more strongly as England’s record of

peace became longer. While Englishmen were not specifi cally looking forward

to the Civil Wars, they knew that war, for whatever reason, could not be kept

from them forever: So they read the news, fearing what might (and did) come to

pass. Furthermore, by 1621, when English political opinion was extraordinarily

focused on the Palatinate, the course of battle was understood to have a clear

relationship to both England’s foreign and domestic policy; to the struggle (sim-

plifying grossly) between godly Englishmen eager both to intervene on behalf

of fellow-Protestants abroad and to continue England’s domestic Reformation,

and their less zealous brethren, less willing to commit England either to foreign

intervention or further religious reform.155 As Jonson noted in ‘Th e New Crie’,

newsreaders who

At naming the French King, their heads they shake,

And at the Pope, and Spaine slight faces make.

Or ‘gainst the Bishops, for the Brethren, raile,

Much like those Brethren; thinking to prevaile

With ignorance on us, as they have done

On them: And therefore doe not onely shunne

Others more modest, but contemne us too,

Th ey know not so much state, wrong, as they doo.156

Th e growing interest in news by Renaissance Englishman may also be regarded

as a claim to political authority. Th e desire to know implied the right to know;


and knowledge implied a right to participate in the making of governmental

policy. As the anonymous author of a 1621 letter from Brussels noted, mak-

ing implicit comparison between the authoritarian Spanish Netherlands and

widely-governed England, ‘in an Aristocratie … many governe and consequently

many participate of the intelligency’.157 In Elizabethan and early Stuart England,

the urge to participate in making policy, and its corollary of self-conscious, self-

avowed opposition to government policy, was just beginning to express itself

openly.158 Rather, such desires were generally subsumed under the humanist idea

of counsel.

In Tudor political thought, the benefi cial exercise of the sovereign’s power

depended on the good counsel of his advisors. Th eir prudence cautioned and

restrained the passions of the sovereign, and their store of knowledge (which

was to be provided to the sovereign in a plain and open manner) was a nec-

essary adjunct for the sovereign, since he could not claim omniscience among

his attributes. As Th omas Elyot put it, ‘Aristotell in his politykes exorteth gov-

ernours to have their frendes for a great numbre of eyen, earis, handes, and legges:

considering that no one man may see or here all thinge than many men may see

and here’.159 Or, as Richard Edwards would state matters in his play Damon and

Pithias, ‘Th e strongest garde that Kynges can have, / Are constant friends their

state to save: / True friends are constant, both in word and deede, / True friends

are present, and help at each neede: / True friends talke truly, they glose for no

gayne’.160

Th e crucial ambiguity in this praise of counsel was in the defi nition of the

sovereign’s friends qualifi ed to give counsel. Aft er all, every subject should feel

friendly towards the monarch, and should wish to give him every aid. Every sub-

ject should give what good counsel he could. Yet before the subject could act as

a counsellor, he had to be supplied with good information. Good information

(rather than simply good character) was increasingly regarded as the prerequi-

site for giving good counsel, and to give good counsel was to have a claim to

be listened to by the king: it was as much a duty for the sovereign to listen to

good counsel, (although he was not bound to follow it,) as it was a duty for his

counsellors to proff er it.161 It therefore followed that knowledge of the news not

only would qualify subjects to provide counsel but also would give them a duty

to provide that counsel.

Th is interpretation is somewhat speculative: any desire by a broad spectrum

of Englishmen to regard the news as a mechanism of dutiful counsel would have

been dangerous to articulate, as the example of mutilated John Stubbs showed

(see below); nor, indeed, was this desire necessarily yet entirely clear to the desir-

ers themselves. Yet certain phrases in the news do indicate a tendency to regard

it as a form of counsel. In 1576, George Gascoigne intended that Th e Spoyle of

Antwerpe should ‘become a forewarnynge on bothe handes: and let them [his


words] stande as a Lanterne of light beetween two perillous Rockes: Th at bothe

amendyng the one, and detestynge the other, wee may gather fyre out of the

Flint, and Hunny out of the Th ystle’.162 Gascoigne did not specify the rulers of

England as the intended audience for his ‘forewarnynge’, but his wording was

openended. Rarer in its explicitness was the 1626 statement of a newswriter, who

in part justifi ed his decision to ‘have caused to be published this small booke’

with the hope ‘that the reading and consideration of this might bee a motive to

all in authoritie that put men in offi ce, to beware of advancing base minded men,

men that regard goods more then God, their owne profi t more then the honour

of their Prince and Countrie’.163 Perhaps the best register of the pressing claims

of counsel comes in ‘A Discourse of the beseiginge, defendinge and releevinge

of the Towne of Bergen up Zome in the yeare 1622’, an anonymous account

addressed ‘To the Prince his Highnes’. Th e author’s vehement rejection of any

claim to provide counsel strongly argues that contemporaneous news was taken

(at least in court circles) to make a claim to provide such counsel:

Unto your Highnes humbly I present

Th is poore discourse, which shewes no discontent

Of present times, nor of Church government

Nor dares it once to name a Parliament,

Nor yet complaines of peace; But it relates

Matters of fact, and meddles not with states:

For I nor Papist am, nor Puritan,

Nor yet for faction, or aff ection can

Or ere will write: Th is are my onely ends

To doe my Masters will and love my freinds.

I neither Spaine nor Holland love or hate

For their owne sakes, but as they may relate

To the Kings honor, or his childrens weale:

I’le watch my thoughts that they shall never steale

to pry into such hidden Misteries,

But rest content to see with my Kinges eyes

him with a faith implicit will I credit

in points of State; which doe of him best merit

hee best knowes to respect, but which doth so

I neither ask, nor yet desire to knowe.164

Both the occasional, cautiously articulated claims to counsel and the anxious

denial of such claims argue for, although they do not prove conclusively, a con-

nection in early modern England between the desire to know the news and the

desire to counsel the sovereign.

England’s monarchs, no fools, realized that, as Schultz puts it, ‘this world is

fi lled with people who are anxious to function in an advisory capacity’.165 Th ey

were in no mood to be given unasked-for counsel by anyone, and, by Tudor and


Stuart times, their proclamations against news (see above) also may be taken

as a decided urge to reduce the number of would-be counsellors. Nevertheless,

although the Tudor-Stuart monarchs in theory preferred a culture of political

secrecy, with voice reserved for the sovereign save for a tightly defi ned insti-

tutional role for counsel (e.g., in Parliament and by petition), their practice

undermined their theory.166 As early as the 1580s the Elizabethan government

sought de facto assent for its policies from the broadening political nation, and

it was increasingly willing to inform the nation beyond the circle of formal

policy makers with military news. In February 1586 Leicester found it worth

his while to write to the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of the City of London, in

their offi cial collective capacity, and, inter alia, inform them of recent skirmishes

between the Anglo-Dutch and Spanish forces in Friesland.167 In June 1589 Wal-

singham wrote to an unnamed Lord (presumably out of government, since he

was not privy to governmental information) that ‘because that I do understand

that there are divers bruites & reportes given foorth of the successe of our navye

in Portugal. I have thought good to send yow a true report of that which hath

happened since their being at the Groyne’.168 Presumably, some of the recipients

of the news were informed because they might return to government service at

some future point: Walsingham’s letter to an unknown Lord can be read in this

more immediately prudential light. But London aldermen, little diff erent in sta-

tus from Henry Machyn, were never going to be part of the apparatus of foreign

policy: to inform such men was to acknowledge an interest in foreign policy by

men who could never hope to execute it directly. Th e broadening dispersion of

interest in military news registered the broadening dispersion of political power

in England. Th e sovereign had his Royal Council to help him run the state; Par-

liament was an institutionalized, representative council of the English political

nation that felt itself duty-bound to provide good counsel; and the entire politi-

cal nation could proff er counsel directly,169 properly informed by the mechanism

of the news.170

James, as the various proclamations cited above witness, had a distinctly more

tense attitude toward the news than had Elizabeth. In part this was due to the

contingency of politics in the 1620s, and James’s remarkable alienation at that

point from the English political nation.171 In part, this may be because corantos,

continuous rather than occasional, and communicated publicly rather than pri-

vately, were perceived to present a sharper challenge toward royal authority than

had the news letters and news pamphlets prevalent under Elizabeth. It is worth

noting in this context that the early Stuarts were persistently disinclined to cen-

sor, or incapable of censoring, manuscript news.172 Whatever the motivation for

James’s censorious actions, in the end he was forced, however reluctantly, to tol-

erate the spread of news and unasked-for counsel. Salzman notes that in ‘January

1621, King James requested the States General of Th e Netherlands to ban the


export of corantos to England, but the ban was never enforced’.173 In October

1621 James settled for licensing the corantos.174 Royal power to control the news

continued to erode in early Stuart England.175 Even Charles’s ban of corantos in

1632 was vitiated by the immediate appearance of semi-annual books of ‘recent

history’, which, to a considerable extent, replaced corantos and subverted the

spirit of the law.176 Th e lapse of the ban in 1638 registered Charles’s fi nal realiza-

tion that it was no longer tenable.

Th e preceding discussion of censorship and counsel has temporarily

departed from questions of medium – and leaped ahead to cover print news.

Th is departure has been deliberate: certainly English sovereigns expressed fre-

quent reservations to independent news of any sort, whatever the medium, and

we should not impute to them excessive scholarly nicety. Nevertheless, medium

must also be considered. Th e growth of independent news in early modern Eng-

land was, above all, the growth of written and printed news. Late medieval kings

had focused their ire on oral rumour; James sought to ban corantos. In this era,

therefore, it was the authors of written and printed news that sought particularly

to justify themselves, both to their readers and, implicitly, to their censoring sov-

ereigns.

At the heart of such justifi cations was the question of which sorts of written

and printed news provided good information. It was one thing for the sovereign

to extend the distribution of royally authorized news among the political nation;

it was another to accept counsel based on news that had not received this stamp

of authority. Th is distinction was not conveyed with absolute clarity to the pop-

ulace: in 1579 John Stubbs apparently was genuinely shocked to fi nd out his

unasked-for counsel on the subject of Elizabeth’s marriage was considered sedi-

tious.177 It is signifi cant, however, that his counsel was rejected as illegitimate in

good part because it relied on unreliable news – ’malitious reportes of hearesayes

uncertaine or of vaine gessings and supposals’.178 Th e government did not reject

the theory of counsel, or reject the contention that news theoretically could

qualify a subject to give counsel; it merely rejected this particular instance of the

news as unreliable. Since all non-royal news could be considered rumour sub-

ject to prosecution, this was not much of an immediate concession; still it was a

signifi cant acknowledgement of the theoretical rights to provide well-informed

counsel. If such news could establish itself as credible, it would then become a

foundation for the right to provide counsel.179

*****

News began this period essentially divided between a dyad of public, ritual news,

whose credibility was guaranteed by its communal performance, and private,

oral news, an incredible medium allied to rumour and gossip. Th e rise of written

news in late medieval and Renaissance England, based upon the medieval ars


dictaminis and the internal communications of the state, disrupted this dyad.

Gentle Englishmen, adapting the structure of bureaucratic letters to personal

use, began to exchange private letters of news. Th eir motivations for doing so

included the imperatives of religion and entertainment, but focused upon a

desire to be well-enough informed so as to have the capacity, and claim the right,

to counsel the sovereign. An awareness of their subjects’ pressing claims to coun-

sel lay behind the Tudor and Stuart sovereigns’ intermittent desire to censor the

news. Th e monarchs’ slow abandonment of censorship in Elizabethan and early

Stuart England, de facto and de jure, as well as their gradual extension of informa-

tive governmental news letters to a signifi cant fraction of the political elite, both

registered their half-unwilling, piecemeal acquiescence to their subjects’ claims.

– 49 –

2 SOCIABLE NEWS

Letters of news fi rst acquired credibility by adapting themselves to the canons of

sociability and honour. Letters of news were exchanged sociably among gentle

Englishmen and guaranteed as credible by their honour as gentleman; the very

act of news exchange constituted part of their mutual recognition of one anoth-

er’s gentility. Th e canons of sociable newswriting, from known correspondent

to known recipient, therefore emphasized eyewitness detail as a way to provide

sociable credibility. Sociable newsreading, in turn, emphasized friendly partial-

ity, steady judgment, and public-spirited concern for the commonwealth. Gentle

newswriters and newsreaders proved their worthiness to write and read the news

by their provision of credible news and by their proper judgment of the cred-

ibility of the news.

Sociable Letters

Th e letter was the primary form of intra-governmental communication of

military news, and it was by the letter, conveyed discreetly through England’s

sophisticated, dense, and largely uncensored networks of manuscript copying

and circulation, that military news fi rst burst the bounds of government.1 Th e

letter’s ambiguous ability to be used for both public and private communica-

tion made it the natural vehicle for this transformation. A letter written to the

government could be easily copied and redirected to a private recipient, with

only minimal changes to the body of news conveyed. Th e era’s fuzzy dividing line

between public and private life further facilitated the slippage of newsletters into

‘private’ correspondence.2 Th e form of the letter facilitated this transformation,

whether at the desire of the government or by the desire of private recipients of

news.

It is crucial to note that both desires operated at once. Government agents –

from high courtiers to merchants abroad – were called upon by the government

to dispense news as a form of propaganda, shaping the populace’s desires either

to match or to change the government’s policy. Where there was governmental

consensus, a proclamation would serve to inform public opinion and encourage

it to endorse a unifi ed government policy: needless excitement of the masses


was never a preferred government goal. But when diff erent factions within

the government preferred diff erent policies, the various factions now found it

worthwhile to appeal to the support of the broader political nation, so as to

apply political pressure upon the monarch and/or upon rival government poli-

cymakers.3 As part of this appeal, fi gures in government began to leak suitably

distorted military news. Aft er the 1596 expedition to Cadiz, Burghley and Essex

raced to produce versions of the raid for the press, their rival versions meant to

serve their factional interests. Th eir roughly equal political strength resulted in

a peculiar deadlock: the Queen and Privy Council ordered a ban on printing

any account of Cadiz.4 Nevertheless, manuscript accounts of the battle did man-

age to circulate in England. Essex’s faction circulated manuscript newsletters

of Essex’s quite partisan ‘A true relacion of the action of Calez’ through Eng-

land, Scotland, the Netherlands, France, and Italy.5 A generation later, in 1627,

Buckingham promoted his political position against a broader, more inchoate

opposition by arranging for publication of upbeat relations from Ré – until the

fi nal disastrous retreat, at which point his pet printer Th omas Walkley adopted

a most discreet silence.6 By the 1630s, secretaries of state, or their subordinates,

were also sending out manuscript newsletters with carefully edited digests of the

news they had received to equally carefully selected recipients among the news-

readers of England.7 Th e availability of news for these private news networks

depended to a considerable extent on the self-interested provision of material by

the government, and its factions.

But these government agents were under at least as great pressure by the

broader public to provide news. More specifi cally, they were under pressure

from their families and friends to keep them informed. Th is was only natural:

the Elizabethan government (as were early modern European governments in

general) was employing an ever-larger number of state servants, increasingly

drawn from the same gentry families who most urgently desired to know the

news. Where it employed merchants, these merchants were likely to possess

commercial and social links to these same gentry families. Once the initial reluc-

tance to inquire aft er military news at all had been overcome, it was natural for

the gentry families to turn to these state agents for news, and it was as natural for

these state agents to respond favourably to their requests. So in October 1594

George Clarke, employed conveying ‘Letters from her Majestie to the said Duke

Ernestus, heare at Brussells’, wrote from Ostend to Richard Bagot what he had

heard of news of a Turkish victory over the Austrians near the town of Raba.8

In 1602 John Willoughby received a copy of ‘Th e Lord Mountjoye’s Letter to

the Counsayle of Dublyn’, describing the victory at Kinsale, from his Dublin

cousin Robert Culme.9 Th e author of a newsletter written in June 1622 from

Mannheim appears to have been an Englishman serving on a diplomatic mis-

sion, probably as part of Lord Chichester’s embassy.10

Sociable News 51

It is important to note that these letters were at fi rst sent only between kin

and friends. To write news independent of royal authority required a positive

justifi cation. Such a justifi cation was found, but at fi rst it was strictly within the

conventions of sociable exchange.

Despite already considerable inroads by commercialization, sociable exchange

remained the preferred manner for the gentry (and, indeed, for most every group

in society) to order their lives. Goods and services were not meant to be bought

and sold between strangers, but to be given in exchange among kin and friends.

Patronage and loyalty were exchanged by unequal men who termed themselves

friends as an essential method of annealing their rather practical relationship.

Lords freely gave their revenues to the government by serving as ambassadors

without pay, or funding and leading military expeditions, asking no recompense

– though rather hoping that a plum title, position, or tract of land would be as

freely given in return. Commerce among men was cast as the mutual gift s of

friends wherever possible, and cemented by social exchanges whenever possible.

In this regard, women retained something of their primordial anthropological

role as human gift s that allied families in friendship. Sociability, as a means of

structuring gift -exchange, underpinned much of the economics and society of

early-modern England.11

Crucially, military news could be perceived as a gift of information, meant to

be exchanged either for diff erent information or for other gift s. In 1592 Walter

Raleigh asked Robert Cecil for news of the Irish rebellion, and off ered in return

his own news that ‘I here that ther ar three thowsand of the Burgks in arms and

younge Odonell and the soonns of Shane Oneale’.12 When in July 1631 Amias

Steynings wrote a long letter to his uncle John Willoughby from the leaguer at

Maastricht, the news he sent was quite obviously the only gift he could off er to

facilitate begging his ‘good Uncle, to send us over four or fi ve pounds, with all

the convenience you may, for the redeeeming of our trunks which are now in

lumbar with our clothes, which we shall lose if you send not unto us, and then

we are quite undone’.13

Much of this sociable exchange of military news remained oral and face-to-

face, as news was reinscribed within the social norms of conversation. In October

1618 John Chamberlain wrote Dudley Carleton that ‘I heard this night at sup-

per that … the Polonians are stronge in the feild and within seventy miles of

Mosco’.14 In October 1622 Simonds D’Ewes wrote in his diary that ‘aft er dinner

I went to visite Mr Reginalds, my olde schoolemaster, with another gentleman.

Heere I heard that a towne in the Low Cuntries was taken by the States, but little

certaintye was of it’.15 In November 1629 Th omas Meautys wrote to his cousin

Jane Lady Cornwallis a report that Colonel Morgan and Gustavus Adolphus

had delivered a serious blow to the Imperial army; ‘this I had more perticularly

from Sir James Fullerton yesterday, at dynner, at my Lord of Cleveland’s.16 Th e


exchange of food and the exchange of news clearly complemented each other,

and such rituals of sociability allowed for a smooth digestion of new informa-

tion.

But where distance intervened to make oral communication impossible, let-

ters substituted for speech very well, fi tting nicely into the framework of sociable

exchange. Manuscript communication in general simulated the oral world and

created a familiar, embodying link between writer and reader.17 News in particu-

lar, as Scott-Warren puts it, ‘cements the intimacy between writer and addressee

by enabling them to show their understanding of decorum … And news is a kind

of gift , something for which the recipient feels he must try to make ‘requital’,

even if what he returns is unsatisfactory’.18 In October 1619 John Chamberlain

wrote Dudley Carleton that ‘I had a letter from Sir Isaac Wake without any great

matter of newes but compliment and kindenes, which I am much beholden to

him for without any manner of cause or desert, but that yt is his pleasure’.19 Or as

the Earl of Denbigh put it in 1629, counselling his soldier son to send frequent

news from his post at the leaguer of s’ Hertogenbosch to Lord Hamilton, ‘he will

bee your beste brother’.20

As for the precise mechanisms of this sociable exchange of news, we may

profi tably apply Ezell’s concept of ‘social authorship’. Ezell writes of the social

authorship of literary manuscripts that

the dynamic network of writer and reader that in my view characterizes manuscript

literary culture and social authorship is created by the process of being an author

rather than by the production of single text, in Eisenstein’s terms, once capable of

being fi xed, attributed, and catalogued. Likwise, a reader in a manuscript culture,

with a fl uid text constantly subject to change, is responsible for participating in liter-

ary production as well as consumption; it interesting to note here, too, how oft en

the role of the reader of manuscript text becomes confl ated with the roles of editing,

correcting, or copying the text and extending its circulation of readers.21

Ezell’s conceptualization applies very well to the news, and the term ‘social

authorship’ will also be used henceforward to describe this aspect of manuscript

news culture.

As a gift exchange, a sociable letter of military news retained the ritual nature

of sermons or thanksgiving. Th is common rituality, as much as the ambiguously

public/private nature of the letter, smoothed the transformation in the nature of

military news. But in vital contradistinction to the sermon and the thanksgiving,

the sociable letter was a private ritual, whose privately ritual nature cemented it

fi rmly to the innocuous private world. Furthermore, since these letters at fi rst

followed the bonds of friendship and family, sociability and patronage, they lim-

ited themselves in scope to a limited number of recipients. Th eir address was to

a known few, not to an unknown, unlimited public readership.

Sociable News 53

In short, sociable news depended on the mutual trust of people who knew

one another. Temporarily separated, their letters stood in for them, and could

be verifi ed upon the correspondent’s return. When a sociable news letter com-

mended someone else’s testimony of the news, it was tantamount to a social

introduction: the commendation declared that the recipient could trust him

because he could (and should) in honour enter into social intercourse with him.

Th e expectation of such news was that it could eventually be justifi ed by personal

communication and knowledge.22

Letters of military news quickly fashioned themselves to work within these

ritual structures of sociability. A letter of news that Richard Ensore wrote

from London in May 1568 to Richard Bagot, fi lled with much military news,

evokes clearly both the broadening desire for news and the frameworks of social

exchange that governed it: ‘Sir havinge so convenyent a messinger as this bearer

your tenante & remembrynge how desyrous I am my selfe (beinge in the con-

tre[)] to heare of news & thereby judginge the same desyar to be in others I have

for thease cawses wrytte you briefely the some of sutche ocurants as nowe we

have at London’.23 In November 1630, Joseph Mead wrote to Martin Stuteville

to evoke the sociability of news with equal vigour: ‘I have bin at the Colledge

ever since Monday befoe dinner, & yet could I never so well fancie my selfe to

be at mine old & wanted home, as now when I took my pen on Saturday … to

write according to my custome unto dalham’.24 And in November 1631 William

Masham wrote to his mother-in-law, Lady Joan Barrington, to proff er a report

of the aft ermath of the battle of Breitenfeld as part of the exchange of sociabil-

ity: ‘I must give you great thanks for your greate care of my wife in my absence;

this reciprocation of love is a great confi rmation therof and incryment of our

dutifull aff ections to you. I cannot requit your love better then by relation of our

occurrents here’.25

Th e evidence for this form of sociable news exchanges runs throughout this

period, profusely from the 1580s on. Levy states that manuscript news letters in

general surged markedly in frequency in the 1590s, when England was at war

with Spain26 In particular, we may note that from the 1590s to the 1620s John

Chamberlain and Dudley Carleton exchanged an extraordinary series of letters

where news (including much military news), gossip, a highly political interest

in keeping informed, and friendly sociability easily intermingled and forwarded

each other.27 (Carleton’s position as a state servant made him a natural corre-

spondent for a private gentleman interested in the news.) Th e Harleys received

newsletters that addressed themselves to the aff airs of the Palatinate and the

Netherlands from the early 1620s to the early 1630s.28 Lady Joan Barrington’s

letter-book, preserving letters from 1628 to 1632, reveals how an extended fam-

ily (and friends) exchanged a dense network of letters, many of them letters of

news.29 Peter Moreton’s extended series of newsletters to his father in the late


1620s and 1630s, mostly a retailing of London news of the German wars, but

including some missives sent directly from Italy to describe the Mantua war, sim-

ilarly frame news transmission within the constraints of familial sociability.30

Th at the intermixture of sociability and news was deep-rooted and intense is

particularly well shown in a peculiar letter that Poynings More wrote from Paris

ca. August 1630 to his grandfather, George More. Poynings’s avowed reason for

writing was intensely personal: to beg forgiveness for his hasty fl ight from Eng-

land. Yet Poynings immediately followed up his abject, if evasive, apology with

a report of the latest Paris news. Poynings concluded: ‘Th us having no more to

write, craving pardon for the faults comitted I desire heer to rest, your dutifull,

obedient grand-sonne’.31 His lengthy intermixture of news with personal apol-

ogy underscored how deeply embedded military news had become in private

sociable communication.

Th e sociability of military news relates curiously with matters of gender. As

has been noted by various writers, politics and the public realm were tradition-

ally assumed to be masculine; women were meant to inhabit a private feminine

world, to be uninterested in public aff airs, and silent about them. Th e necessity of

a reigning queen, for a notable example, was deeply jarring to these assumptions,

and required a massive amount of justifi cation, with far-reaching ramifi cations

for English culture, society, and politics.32 Among other consequences, the exist-

ence of a regnant queen meant that Elizabeth presumably received more military

news than any other woman in England (and probably about as much as the men

of her Council, whom we may guess to have been the Englishmen of her day

most informed of military news). Th e second-best informed woman in England

in this period about military matters was probably Mary Tudor. However, as

reigning monarchs, their means of receiving military news were governmental

rather than sociable. Th eir cases were in any case anomalous (to put it mildly).

Sociability, being private, lent itself to feminine activity: Ezell has described

how women’s literary activity fl ourished in the modes of social authorship and

manuscript circulation.33 All other things being equal, one would expect sociable

news to boost women’s participation in English military news networks. Th e dif-

fi culty, of course, was that the subject matter of military news remained public

(and masculinely martial), even if the method of transmission remained private

and sociable. We cannot tell if women were writing or reading news separates,

but, so far as we can tell from letters with named writers or recipients, women’s

participation in these sociable networks of military news remained very slight.34

Although Englishwomen collectively wrote a great many letters in this period,

their subject matter was very largely private and familial: political, foreign, and

military news were rarely written to them or transmitted by them. When they

did take part in this news network, it was more oft en as recipients than as trans-

mitters. In October 1590 John Norreys wrote to his mother of a rumour that

Sociable News 55

the Spaniards had landed in Brittany, and added that ‘my Brother hath had some

good srvise in the takynge of oldenborge the perticularyties I send … the matter

is of more importans then any thynge yet donne in those cuntryes bycause my

lysure is not great I beseach your Ladyship Import these newes to my son’.35 True

Newes fr om One of Sir Fraunces Veres Companie (1591) claimed to be ‘Th e cop-

pie of a Letter written by a Gentleman of account, sent to a Ladie in England,

concerning the present state of the Lowe Countries’.36 In February 1621 Walter

Trew wrote to his mother Margaret Trew a detailed account of the latest news

of the wars in Germany.37 Lady Judith Barrington actually wrote three letters

of military news in 1631 and 1632 to her mother-in-law, Lady Joan Barrington

– but these brief notes ought to be taken more as evidence of Lady Joan’s desire

to receive such news than Lady Judith’s eagerness to write them.38 Various of

Lady Joan Barrington’s kindred wrote her at least twenty-seven letters contain-

ing battlefi eld news between 1629 and 1632.39 Th is is some evidence (though

not conclusive) that Lady Joan had an active appetite for military news, and was

not merely a passive recipient. Likewise, Lady Jane Bacon received at least six

letters including military news between 1624 and 1636, including two from her

sister-in-law Lady Anne Meautys, who was living in the Netherlands in 1635–6

while her husband served in the Dutch army.40 Ambrose Randolph prefaced his

report of Breitenfeld to Lady Jane by noting that ‘I knowing youre love to the

truth of newse, rather then fi rst or common report of it, shall, as you wisht me,

send you a relation of the King of Swedland’s great victory’.41 And (extending a

little beyond the period of this study) in 1639 Lady Brilliana Harley wrote to her

son that ‘I would have sent you the relation of the takeing of Brisacke, which is of

great importance, but your father leaft it at the bischops’.42 Lady Joan, Lady Jane,

and Lady Brilliana were harbingers of times to come.43 But the general absence of

women from the circuits of military news argues that their traditional exclusion

from the spheres of war and politics still largely proscribed their participation in

this form of sociability.

As mentioned above, relationships of patronage and power also incorporated

the language of sociability and friendship – and the exchange of military news

along these links of power was also expressed in sociable terms. In October 1594

George Clarke wrote from Ostend to Richard Bagot that ‘although I make no

doubt you have farr better entelligence, then the barrainnes of this place can yild,

Yet for the perfourmance of my promise, and to geve Testimony of the desire I

have to doe your service, It maie please you to accept of this short Letter, and

these feaw occurrants’.44 Th e author of the 1596 ‘Report of Cales’ wrote to his

correspondent that he wrote as ‘an oportunitie bothe of satisfyinge your request

and shewinge my self not altogether unmyndfull of your continuall favors’.45 In

September 1614 Richard Daniell wrote to John Egerton with a variety of items

of foreign news, including of the war in Jülich; he wrote, he said, because he did


not live ‘in a place wherein I might doe your honnour some acceptable service,

butt since my fortune hath debarred mee that, I most humbly crave your hon-

ourable acceptance of my devotion, which accasions mee to trouble your leasure

with the ordnary passages of occurrences here’.46

Such language sometimes bore only a sketchy relationship to reality: when

news ascended precipitously up the social scale, a sociable presentation of news

might not elicit much response from a powerful recipient. In March 1587 George

Gilpin wrote to Leicester that ‘although never since my fi rst wrytinge I hitherto

receavyd any one worde of a answere, which I am sure proceedeth by reason of

the multitude of weightie aff aires … I would not omitt to continew: unlesse and

till I be commaunded the contrary’.47 Th e lack of exchange had strained the com-

munication of news, although in this case it had not yet broken. But if Leicester’s

naked power could ignore the expectations of sociable exchange as they applied

to news, it could not do so without comment. Gilpin knew what was proper,

and he reminded Leicester of what he ought to do even as he let power outweigh

sociability.

In these patronage networks, military news also appeared as an item to be

exchanged for honourable reward – straining the borders between gift exchange

and commercial exchange, but staying just within the limits of sociability. In

1596 Walter Raleigh wrote to Robert Cecil from Cadiz that

this bearer [[Arthur] Savage] hathe deserved with the fi rst and had the poynt att the

entrance of Calize, butt hee came with others in the reregard of profi tt and good for-

tune and I assure your honor by the love I beare yow that yow shall not favor any man

more honest and valiant. Hee can yeild a good accompt of what soever hath past.48

In 1601 Walter Raleigh wrote to Robert Cecil a correction at the end of his let-

ter: ‘I had thought that this bearer had byn Stuckly [probably Raleigh’s kinsman

Lewis Stukely], which made me write as I did, butt he is still in Irlande and ther-

fore I do not much desire any thing in his behalf ’.49 Lord Deputy Mountjoy sent

one Henry Davers to Elizabeth with news of the victory at Kinsale, ‘as a good

Opportunity to help him to kysse her Majesties Hands; in whose good Opinion

he hath been a good while suspended, beinge knowne to be more devoted to the late

Earle then became him’.50

Th e address of socially authored military news to sociably known readers

meant that such news retained the format of a personal letter for a prolonged

period of time. Public and personal news were mixed up together, and the puri-

fi cation of news into an impersonal, public genre remained very slow. News to

a friend could be a formally composed account many pages long, but as oft en

as not it was a dashed-off note, or a paragraph interspersed among more pri-

vate business and greetings.51 When friends did write pure newsletters, they

tried to accompany them with more personal missives: in October 1602 John

Sociable News 57

Chamberlain wrote to Dudley Carleton that ‘now I have dispatcht the ordinarie

occurrents [in another letter of the same day], it will not be amisse to informe

you of some privat matters apart’.52 But it was the continuing presence of private

news that was characteristic, and stamped all such written news with the mark

of sociability.

Furthermore, the subject matter of such sociable military news remained dis-

tinctive, since it was likely to include personal details about relations or friends,

either of the author or the reader, in addition to matters of universal, public

interest. In 1586 Leicester wrote to Francis Walsingham that at the assault of the

town of Axel in the Netherlands, ‘your son Philip with his bands had the leading

and entering the town’.53 In November 1621 T. Sheffi eld wrote to Th omas Fair-

fax that he had heard at court that in the relief of Frankenthal in the Palatinate,

‘the worthy carriage of your son hathe been much observed, and is here reported

to his great applause and commendation’.54 In June 1636 Anne Lady Meautys

wrote from Delft to her sister-in-law Jane Lady Cornwallis that her husband ‘Mr

Meautys is in the feeld before the Conac … I have not seene him this halfe yeare,

and I feere a winter campayn will detaine him the longer from mee, in that hee

hath the command over those companies that lies there’.55

Reports of individual wounds and deaths provided the largest single cate-

gory of such personalized news: these are pervasive in the letters of the period.

So in Peregrine Bertie, Lord Willoughby’s 1588 account of his defense of Ber-

gen-op-Zoom, he wrote that on 21 October he was ‘lightly shott in the heele

with a musquet bullet’.56 In September 1601 John Chamberlain wrote to Dudley

Carleton that a number of their acquaintance had died at Ostend, ‘among whom

Captain Holcroft and Mr. Lucas are of most marke … Mrs. Bodley hath likewise

lost one of her younger sonnes there, and so hath Mr. Poulter’.57 In September

1621 John Fairfax wrote from Frankenthal to his father Th omas Fairfax that ‘it

pleased God I should receive so favourable a shot through my arm, and made not

entrance into my side, but only bruised a rib, that in three weeks was well recov-

ered’.58 Even intra-governmental letters, ambiguously sociable and personalized,

oft en mentioned wounds. In November 1591 Essex wrote to Burghley from the

camp before Rouen that ‘of the gentlemen which charged on horseback, only

two [are hurt]; both of them are well known to your Lordship; Capt. Allen

through the thigh, and Capt. Matthew Morgan in the belly; but they are both

out of danger, and will be well within ten days’.59 In 1596 Walter Raleigh wrote

to Robert Cecil from Cadiz that ‘I have receved a blow which now, I thanck

God, is well amended. Only a little ey sore will remayne’.60 Th e report of the

individual wound, everywhere, was a register of sociable news.


Honourable Credibility

Sociable, written news was not automatically credible. To the extent that it

was ritual, it tapped into ritual’s performative and communal credibility. Yet it

was private, and so was denied the credibility of publicity which traditionally

accompanied the credibility of ritual. It was in some senses similar to oral news,

unbelievable rumour – but, lacking the personal presence of oral news, it lacked

even that amount of personal credibility. In a very real sense, written news had

no traditional (ritual, public, communal) credibility. Its certainty and credibility

had to be constructed – given a standard that fi t the culture of the day. It would

have to be a standard bound up so tightly in the cultural fabric of early modern

Europe that it could be substituted successfully for the old certainties of ritual

and publicity. For sociable, written news this standard would be honour.

Honour, of course, was laced all through traditional society. When we list

with honour some of its more notable synonyms – nobility, fame, credit, reputa-

tion, and (for women) chastity – we have a map of a very large portion of early

modern European culture. Whether speaking of sex, class, nation, or individual

character, Europeans divided themselves fundamentally into honourable and

dishonourable men and women. Honour underlay the structures of family, com-

munity and nation; it justifi ed martial vigour and loyalty; sparked rivalry, ethical

aspiration, and piety; and, not least, was used as a justifi cation of rule by the

noble few over the common multitude. All levels of society and the state defi ned

themselves (albeit not exclusively) in terms of honour.

Honour’s pervasiveness guaranteed the strength of the credibility it would

provide; certain attributes of honour made it particularly appropriate as a means

of providing such credibility. Both the letter and honour operated on the ambig-

uous margin of public and private. Honour was a personal quality, but it was

also a public statement of worth, expressed and defended by ritual means, and

dependent upon public and ritual recognition. But honour was also a guarantee

that one’s private behaviour and status corresponded to one’s public honour – a

representation as well as an identity. Some looseness was allowed in the equa-

tion: a secret dishonour could be as secretly vindicated, to restore honour before

it had been publicly besmirched. Honour, as an ambiguously public guarantee

of unknown personal information, worked well as a guarantee of news in a letter,

providing (as it were) a stamp of ritual, public credibility on private, unknown

contents. News of character and news of the world were equally well conveyed

by honour.61

Furthermore, honour also connoted reliability and trustworthiness.

Fundamentally, a man of honour told the truth: honour and honesty were inter-

changeable concepts. Nicely proving this point, in 1631 Charles knighted one

John Cassill for his description of the battle of Breitenfeld, ‘his relation being the

Sociable News 59

surest, and in all likelihood the truest, of all the advertisements we have hitherto

had of the contingents of that victory’.62 Contrariwise, to discredit an enemy’s

truthfulness, it was necessary to discredit his honour as well: honour was not

the only source of credibility, but it was the dominant component. So in 1569

French Catholic misinformation about the course of battle was deemed not only

false but ‘shameless’.63 To accuse a man of lying was to label him dishonourable.

Honour also reinforced the scope of sociable news circulation, by inscribing

those limits within the self-defi nition of the ruling class. Th is class justifi ed its

rule in part by blood, in part by wealth, but most fundamentally by honourable

and mannerly behaviour that was constituted by its mutual recognition among

gentleman. Th is mutual recognition of honourable behaviour – this assumed

imputation of mutual honour, what Shapin calls ‘the great civility’ – produced,

and was an identifi cation of, bounded moral trust coterminous with the bounds

of social intercourse and political power.64 Th is honourable trustworthiness

operated as strongly in the transmission of information as it did in any other

political and social sphere: a gentleman was honourable because he was a gen-

tleman, and on those circuitous grounds his word should be trusted. As Segar

wrote in Honor, Military and Civill (1602), ‘in giving witnesse, the testimony of

a Gentleman ought to be received and more credited than the word of a com-

mon person’.65 And it was precisely this honourable credibility that underpinned

the exchange of sociable news. News exchanged sociably among gentlemen was

trustworthy by virtue of their honour; to transmit trustworthy news to one

another, and only to one another, came to constitute an increasingly integral

aspect of their mutual recognition of one another’s honour and fi tness to rule.66

An examination of who actually wrote these sociable newsletters confi rms

that they came very largely from these gentle, ruling classes. Most newswriters

actually serving in the army appear to have been offi cers and gentleman volun-

teers. Some of these were highly placed – among them Charles Howard, Walter

Raleigh, Francis Vere, and Horatio Vere.67 Most, however, were gentlemen of

lower military rank and lower social status: so in 1589 Ralph Lane wrote a report

of the expedition to Portugal, in 1596 one Captain Price reported to Burghley

of the capture of Cadiz, and Edward Vere wrote to Abraham Williams from the

siege of s’ Hertogenbosch in 1629.68 Commenting generally, in May 1625 John

Holles wrote to his brother George Holles, serving at the siege of Breda, that

‘from your army letters cum every weeke hither, from Captayns and others’.69

Gentle civilian members of the armies also contributed substantially to

the news. Th omas Digges, a mathematician, served Leicester in quasi-military

capacity as his muster-master, and wrote lengthy narratives of Leicester’s Dutch

campaigns.70 Doctors and chaplains in particular took it upon themselves to send

eyewitness accounts of battlefi elds back home to England. Dr Roger Marbeck,

‘attendinge upon the person of the right honourable the Lord high Admirall of


England at the time of the said Action’, wrote a lengthy narrative of the 1596

expedition to Cadiz.71 In January 1623 one of Mead’s London correspondents

received news of the recent fi ghting in the Palatinate by talking with ‘Mr French

the Generalls [Horatio Vere’s] preacher, [and] aft erwards [with] Dr Welles’.72

Hugh Peters was serving as regimental chaplain in the Netherlands when he

wrote Digitus Dei (1631). In March 1632 John Pory identifi ed the source of a

letter of news as one ‘Mr Francis Blechinden Chaplain to Sir Henry Vane nowe

in Germany’.73

As we would expect from the strictures of sociable news, soldiers or civilians

below gentle status wrote few or none of the military news accounts. Illiteracy

doubtless also accounted for much of this silence: relatively few Englishmen

below gentle rank could write at all, and even fewer could write coherent bat-

tlefi eld narratives. We would not expect English common soldiers, drawn

disproportionately from the poorer and more illiterate strata of society, to be

overblessed with such literary ability.74 Furthermore, if they did write letters, we

would not expect them (for good sociable reasons) to enter into the circuits of

gentry letters from which the commercial news drew most of its material.

Honour therefore provided the basic ‘envelope’ of credibility for the sociable,

written news. Fundamentally, the handwriting, the signature, and the reader’s

knowledge of the writer’s honourable status provided the basic credibility of

these newsletters. But the envelope was not impermeably separated from the

contents. Th e rhetoric of sociable news adjusted itself to fi t the assumptions of

honourable credibility. In a variety of diff erent manners, we may see how the way

military news was written came to refl ect those assumptions.

To begin with, within the world of the gentle ruling class, although the

essential division was between the gentle and the common, higher noble sta-

tus implied increasing honourable truthfulness as much as it implied increasing

power. So a great many letters of military news imputed their credibility to a

particularly noble source. Th e court was particularly credible not only because it

was the centre of the machinery of state, and hence privy to the latest state intel-

ligence, but also because it was the pre-eminent locus of honour. So in February

1617 George Lord Carew wrote news of a victorious siege in Savoy, saying it

came from ‘advertisements of good assurance [that] was brought to the Kinge’.75

In October 1631 William Masham enclosed in a letter to his mother-in-law

Lady Joan Barrington news of Gustavus Adolphus’s victory at Breitenfeld, say-

ing that ‘it came post from Prauge to the kinge and is generally reported to be

true’.76 In November 1631 Edmund Moundeford, presumably referring to the

same post of news, wrote to Framlingham Gawdy that ‘on Saterdaie last one Mr

Castle brought letters to the King, from the King of Sweden, informing the tru-

the of those aff aires’.77 Th e members of the court were correspondingly anxious

to maintain their particular credibility as a source of news, as an attribute both

Sociable News 61

of their honour and their power. It is instructive to read a letter of diplomatic

correspondence written in May 1599 by Cecil to Henry Neville, newly arrived

as Ambassador in Paris:

For the Newes that was told you by the French King, this is all I have to say unto you,

that yt is possible, that many things may fl y over by common bruits, whereof you have

not hard by me: But those I wishe you to credit as things eyther likely to be false, or

so uncertainly advertised, as yt would be a towche to the Credit of my Place, to wryte

unto you such Reports, and turne to your discreditt, yf (being her Majesties public

Minister) you should pronounce occurents from your own State, that prove untrue

by that tyme you have reported them.78

Th e exclusivity of honour also meant that sociable news framed its claims to

credibility in terms of news exclusivity: the credibility of news was degraded

when it was common and public, more valuable when known only to a noble

coterie. Th e author of the 1596 ‘Report of Cales’ wrote to his correspondent

because he knew ‘of oulde your great desire to have more then Vulgar notice of

all our occureances’.79 Th e author of a 1621 letter from Brussels wrote ‘Yet may I

… acquaint you with something not comon, but very worthy the consideration’.80

Public knowledge, transcending the limits of honourable gentility, positively

degraded credibility.

Honourable credibility also placed a decided premium on the rhetoric of

eyewitness.81 It was preferable to minimize the number of links of newstellers

to an actual event: an honourable man could only attest with all his honourable

credibility to what he had actually seen himself. Th e geographical bias of manu-

script military news towards the theatres of war where Englishmen fought, such

as the Netherlands, France, and the expeditions to Iberia, (see introduction), and

could provide eyewitness accounts of battle, was overdetermined by the rhetoric

of eyewitness. Furthermore, these letters showed a decided preference for the

forms of eyewitness. In 1594 the author of a campaign diary in Brittany sent

it to his friend, saying ‘I can assure you [the report] to be most trew being my

selfe an eye-wyttnes dayle noteing every dayes accons’.82 In May 1625 Michael

Wentworth avouched to his brother Th omas Wentworth that his account of

fi ghting at Terheyden was ‘true for I was an actor in it’.83 In November 1632

George Fleetwood wrote to his father William Fleetwood a detailed account of

Gustavus Adolphus’s death at the battle of Lützen that depended upon the eye-

witness report of ‘one Truckes his chamber younker, whoe was brought off alyve,

but since deade’, who fell with the king and saw how he died.84

An account began and ended with an individual’s eyewitness, rather than

with the entire course of a campaign. Th e author of a manuscript account of

Ré wrote that he had heard that the fi nal disastrous retreat was due to a failure

to fortify the bridge, but ‘because I can only speake of this by report of others I


will not further enlarge therein; neither will I discourse of those other unfortu-

nat passages which happened aft er my coming away but leave it to the relation

of those who were’.85 In August 1629 Andrew Withers, at the siege of s’ Her-

togenbosch, forwarded to a Lord in England a letter of news that said, aft er a

description of the quarters of the Prince of Orange, Lord Brederode, and Grave

Ernest, ‘Th us farr I have travailed & scene. As for the quarters of Grave William

& Pinsen I heare not of any great forwardness of theirs neither have I yet visited

there workes in that respect’.86 A 1632 manuscript report of the battle of Breiten-

feld ended in media res with the note that ‘when this messenger came away, that

saw all the fi ght, Tilly was alive, and had been prisoner half an houre, but, being

unknown, escaped, hurt in the neck, arme, and shoulder, which his chyrurgeon,

who is now prisoner, sayeth doth gangrene so that he cannot live’.87 Furthermore,

since the scope of military news was confi ned to the interpretation of a single

man, the entire account could be shaped around a recent battle strong in the

eyewitness’s memory: so the form of ‘Jornals sent from the Campe at Arques

September 18 1589’ is of the lead-up to a single battle from September 13 on,

but very largely addresses itself to the single fi ght itself on September 16.88

Th e canons of eyewitness also led to a fascination with the ‘manner of bat-

tle’. Shapin notes the era’s general belief that the manner by which testimony

was conveyed was a ground for credibility.89 Th is general rule certainly oper-

ated in military news. In November 1579 Nicholas Walsh wrote to Lord Justice

Pelham not only the fact of the taking of Youghall by the Earl of Desmond, but

also, at some length ‘the maner of the winnyng of the towne’.90 Th e author of the

1596 ‘Report of Cales’ avowed that he would ‘set doune the particulars as the

happened’. 91 In July 1629 Edward Vere apologetically wrote Abraham Williams

that he did not have enough leisure ‘to tell you the particulars of the enemies

passage over the Issell’.92 Th ese ‘particulars’ were crucial to the establishment

of credibility within the text itself. A general lie could be easily fabricated; a

specifi c lie took more eff ort to construct. To provide superfl uous details was to

engage in an activity far easier for a credible eyewitness than for a distant liar or

rumourmonger: such details, by establishing eyewitness credibility, attested to

the newswriter’s honourable truthfulness. Moreover, a detailed report implicitly

subjected itself to a greater degree of corroboration. (For the impulse to cor-

roborate news, and the growth of extensive newswriting and newsreading, see

below.) Th e more details provided, the more the reader could check up on the

account either by checking the internal consistency of the details provided or by

checking them against other accounts. For example, in May 1632 Th omas Bar-

rington wrote to his mother, Lady Joan Barrington, that

Th e latest newes is that the king of Sweden, sitting doune and intrenching before

Ingolstadt whare the duke of Bavaria was at that time allso intrenched, the towers

of the toune gave the canon of the enemye that advantage as that the greate shott

Sociable News 63

raked along the king his trenches and did much mischiefe, in so much as that the king

his horss was slayne under him by a cannon shott, and the marquis of Turlaugh and

Baden slayen and Saxon Wymar is reported hurte.93

Th e news that Gustavus Adolphus was besieging Ingolstadt, and facing the Duke

of Bavaria, was supported by the details of a particular cannonade, and whom it

had struck; either by itself, or if supported by other letters of news describing that

same cannonade, the details supported the credibility of the general report that

Gustavus Adolphus was at Ingolstadt. If such a cannonade were not mentioned

elsewhere, that in turn cast doubt on the idea that Gustavus Adolphus was any-

where in the area. Details were a hostage given to the newsreader – and hence a

guarantee of credibility. Th is stricture does much to explain the development of

the entire genre of the military news pamphlet towards the lengthy, fi rst-person

account fi lled with superfl uous detail. Print made longer reports possible, but it

did not require the growth in lengthy narratives, nor the inclusion of so much

detail not essential to the main point of the news. Th e reasons for brevity and

concision still operated: there must have been an impulse towards length and

prolixity powerful enough to countermand them. Th e need to establish cred-

ibility within the text of the military news itself by means of profuse detail was

that impulse.

So a month aft er his fi rst report of the taking of Youghall in 1579, Nicho-

las Walsh, and the Earl of Ormond, by examination of various witnesses, could

now write of ‘the treachery of the inhabitants of Youghall’. Knowledge of details

allowed for this change of judgement. ‘Some of the townesmen have gonne over

the walles by night on Sunday, and sent some laidders to helpe the rebels to enter,

and some haled up rebels with cordes’.94 In August 1622 Henry Wotton wrote to

George Calvert news of an Anglo-Persian conquest of Ormuz, then added in a

postscript that ‘the above written intelligence touching Ormuz we have with this

addition, that the castle did yet hold out, but could not long, for lack of water;

which particularity doth win some credit to the rest’.95 In September 1629 John

Holles wrote to his son John Holles, the Lord Haughton, at the Hague, that

‘divers letters ar cum since, signifying the rendring the town, and uppon what

capitulation, that allso the Queen of Bohemia, and my Lady Vere have been

there, with many other particularities’.96

Contrariwise, lack of detail diminished credibility. In August 1631 Peter

Moreton wrote from Westminster to his father that ‘heere is a rumor that the

Marquis Hammilton hath had som good successe in som enterprise already, &

that the Devices & strange engines hee carryed from heare ave beene of good

service; but I heare of noe particulars’.97 A year later, in September 1632, More-

ton wrote that ‘What little news wee have since my last may conveiently bee

written heere. Th ere is noe certainty from the King of Sweden, but letter from


France affi rme that hee hath given Wallensteine a greate blow; the manner the

mention not’.98

Particulars could lie too, of course. In August 1627 John Beaulieu wrote to

Th omas Puckering about the Ré expedition that

we had news here of the rendering of the fort St. Martin’s into my lord duke’s hands,

which had been brought and delivered at Plymouth by a Dutchman, with such cir-

cumstances as made the tale very credible, and so it was believed by many. But since,

hitherto, there is not confi rmation thereof come from my lord duke, it is held to be

a made tale given out by the Dutchman, either to delude our expectation, or to make

himself welcome to that place99

But in general they were truthful. In any case, they could be more easily cor-

roborated against other reports, and so gauged as true or false. In November

1627 Mead wrote to Stuteville that ‘I heare so many particulars [of news about

the defeat at Ré] that I know not which of them to believe’.100 In August 1629

Andrew Withers, at the siege of s’ Hertogenbosch, forwarded to a Lord in Eng-

land a letter of news that omitted much of the fi rst reports of the capture of Wesel,

since ‘so great varieties and contradictions are here in both those points’.101 Too

great a variation of particulars was an indication that the news was not credible.

An honourable man could not commend someone else’s report with the full

authority of saying ‘Th is I have seen’. Nevertheless, where immediate eyewitness

was not possible, an honourable man could judge other men to be honourable

and honest, and by his letters lend an intermediary credibility to someone else’s

eyewitness testimony. In 1591 Henry Unton wrote to Burghley from the siege

of Rouen that Henri IV’s forces had captured a counterscarp outside the town.

Following his description, he wrote that ‘the more particular discowrse hearof

I leave to my Lord Genneralls report, whoe can best descrybe the same, wherin

hee was an actor; and this gentleman [the messenger], captayne Boswell, can suf-

fi ciently enforme your Lordship, whoe hath servede very well’.102 In 1601 Raleigh

wrote Robert Cecil: ‘Th is bearer hath brought an Inglishman which came in the

Spanish fl eet. Hee will tell yow that … Th e Inglish [outside Kinsale] serve with

invincabell currage agaynst them, many Spanierds ar alreddy taken’.103 W. C’.s

Th e Copie of a Letter, Lately Sent to an Honourable person in England, fr om the

Campe before Grave (1602) boasted in its title of precisely this sort of intermedi-

ary credibility – not that an honourable person wrote it, but that an honourable

person had received it, and lent the letter his authority by circulating it further.

Th e mutual recognition of honour allowed news credibility to travel in chains

beyond the bounds of eyewitness.

On the other hand, honour also imposed limits on what information could

be sent. An honourable man’s fame spoke for him, but an honourable man was

not necessarily supposed to sound his trumpet himself, and speak too much of

Sociable News 65

his own deeds. As William Segar put it in Honor, Military and Civill (1602),

one of the offi ces and duties of a knight or a gentleman was ‘to be sober and

discreet, no boaster of his owne actes, nor speaker of himselfe’.104 So in 1596

Walter Raleigh wrote to Robert Cecil from Cadiz that ‘for particulers your

honor shall receve by others which I had rather should so be written then by

mee’.105 Essex was similarly modest in writing to Burghley of the victory at

Cadiz: ‘I shall less need to relate the particular circumstances of either; for as

Fame itself will bring the fi rst, so this gentleman that carries my letter will per-

form the second.106 Th ese heroes could expect the news of their deeds would

be spread soon enough within the tight cluster of sociable news.

If the reluctance of honourable friends guaranteed one sort of credibility,

the reluctance of defeated enemies provided another sort of credibility. One’s

enemies were assumed to have some honour too – enough honour that they

would speak the truth of their defeat, albeit extremely unhappily. When they

did speak of their defeat, to the disservice of their reputations, their words had

especial authority. In Peregrine Bertie, Lord Willoughby’s 1588 account of his

defence of Bergen-op-Zoom, he wrote that aft er a repulse of the enemy in an

initial skirmish, ‘many of them [were] slaine, and dyvers hurt, as was confessed

by a Lieutennant Collonell of the Regiment late Barlaimontes, who was then

taken prisoner’. Th at same evening, a captured Scottish lieutenant ‘confessed

that in the tyme of the saide skirmishe the Duke of Parma ridinge about to

view the Towne on that side toward Antwerp, had two of his pages slaine with

a shott from the towne’.107 In December 1601, Lord Mountjoy wrote aft er the

victory at Kinsale that ‘it is affi rmed by one that came from them [the Irish

army], that themselves account they loste 1,000 men, and had 7 or 800 hurte,

besides the losse of there armes, which could not be lesse then 2,000’. 108 Th e

1632 manuscript ‘A True Relacon of the Bloody Fight betweene the King of

Sweden &c. and the Emperors Army’ reported that ‘the prisoners affi rme that

two thirds of their Army are slaine’.109

It should be noted that partiality was an essential component of sociable

news. Partly this refl ected the urge to keep up the morale of the political nation

as a whole. Partly partiality sustained the claim that news was a prerequisite

of good counsel; since good counsel was to be provided in a spirit of amicitia,

news had to be friendly in spirit, partial, to sustain its claim to provide good

counsel.110 But more fundamentally partiality was sociable: friends were not

merely supposed to supply the news, but to wish well of their friends as they

told the news, and to believe the best of their friends. Impartiality, objectivity,

was unfr iendly.

So in December 1591 Henry Unton wrote to Robert Cecil of the loss of

a counterscarp at the siege of Rouen: ‘It killeth our hope of Roan, yett we

saie and write the beste’.111 In November 1629 John Barrington wrote to his


mother Lady Joan Barrington that the English soldiers in Swedish service ‘being

placed in the front of the king’s army weare cut of by the Polanders, however

that cannot daunt us; allthough the kinge is very much blamed for placing such

younge souldiers in the front, yet wee thinck the best’.112 Gustavus Adolphus

wrote to the King of France aft er Breitenfeld aware of this process:

wee have thought good to advertize and assure your majestie (by this gentle one of ours

most confi dent & trustie,) that wee are not disenabled & weakned as our enemies doe

publish & spread abroad under a … collourable pretence of haveing some advantage

against us, Our forces (god be blessed) are as great & able to resist & oppose them as

ever they were and ready at all times & upon all occasions that shall or may be off ered

to encounter with theirs.113

Partiality and sociability were essentially twined.

At this point it is worth noting that to say that honour underlay news

credibility is not to say that news was interpreted in exclusively honourable

terms. News was also accepted unselfconsciously, judged in a universally prac-

tical fashion, or according to some of the modes which (see below) were more

closely associated with commercial and print news. Honour was the dominant

mode of news credibility, but these traditional forms of news already contained

the seeds of the credibility standards that would soon assume a new promi-

nence. Among these was the listing of sources – not so much to judge them

as honourable or dishonourable, but simply to give a news reader a chance to

know one’s informants, and so evaluate their credibility according to whatever

standard he preferred. So in 1622 an account of the surrender of Heidelberg

was ‘collected … by discourse with the Gouvernor, Captaines and offi cers,

come hither, and out of such [Letters] as are come unto me at Francfort’.114

In September 1626 John Pory wrote to Joseph Mead that ‘all Low Country

letters are full of the King of Denmark’s defeat of Tilly, and how Count Mans-

fi eld being approached within twenty-fi ve miles of Vienna, the emperor is fl ed

from thence to Gratz, situate on the Alps’.115 In April 1632 Th omas Barrington

wrote to his mother, Lady Joan Barrington, that ‘letters yesterday came from

Hambrogh, Norinburg, the Hage to confi rme this victory [of Gustavus Adol-

phus]. All conclude that the kinge is master of the feeld’.116 Th e importance

of sourcing, independent of honour, illustrates an important point: honour

was not the sole source of credibility in sociable news, nor the sole rhetoric

of military news. Th e credibility of honour was characteristic of sociable, writ-

ten news, but not its exclusive mold; the mode of credibility and the genre of

news were not tied together rigidly. Although this study emphasizes the ties of

mode and genre, it is aware that they should not be overstated.

Sociable News 67

Sociable Newsreading

Newsreading, as a category of individual, private reaction registering on the

historical record, fi rst becomes relevant in the world of private letters. As men-

tioned above, people registered their reading of the news by public actions

as well as words – by thanksgivings, fasts, sermons, etc. – but since read-

ing and transmission were fused and collective, a separate section on ‘ritual

newsreading’ was unfeasible and unnecessary. However, the presence of such

ritual newsreading, and of the undetectable reactions in oral news and inner

thought, should be kept in mind, as a context for the diff erent sorts of news-

reading explored hereaft er.

It should be recollected that to read military news at all in early mod-

ern England was implicitly a means by which to claim the ability to provide

counsel, and rendered innocuous to the sovereign by the fact that it was done

privately, among sociably known men. Reading, as much as writing, was to be

done by honourable men, whose judgement of the news and its credibility was

an intrinsic part of the news circuits. Reading was not the passive reception of

information, but the active judgement of sender and text by these canons of

credibility, an active judgement that allowed the news reader in turn to trans-

mit information, and to keep the news circuits operating. Reading the news

well was a social and political responsibility.

Honourable men, of course, were defi ned presumptively on the basis of

inherited status. Reading, like clothes, was prescribed to Englishmen in accord

with their status on the ‘Great Chain of Being’. Th is was most explicit in the

highly sensitive fi eld of religion, where the Elizabethan government fi nally

gave the humbler laity legal sanction to read the Bible only aft er a generation

of religious and legal about-faces.117 Th e higher your social status, the greater

your ability to read the news unquestioned. James VI and I rather thought that

none of his subjects had a right to concern themselves with foreign aff airs, or,

by implication, read foreign news. Th e gentlemen who participated in manu-

script news networks rather thought they had the right to read the news, but

the semi-surreptitious nature of the manuscript networks indicates that this

was still a contested right. Th ose below the gentry – the presumptive readers

of printed news – were also presumptively too low-born to have a right to read

such news. To read such news was an act of arrogance, akin to disobeying the

sumptuary laws and wearing too fi ne a suit of clothes for one’s station.

Social status helped guarantee honourable reading – but it was not suf-

fi cient. A frame of mind, a maturity of judgement – casually associated with

education and rank, but not identical – was the essential virtue necessary for

a good reader. Th is modifi cation of caste honour was inherent in the norms

of humanism that informed the acts of letter-writing and letter-reading that


underlaid the news (see above), and that made these acts civic duties. To

read the news properly was simply an attribute of high birth. It was also, and

increasingly, the duty of a citizen, bound up in the public-spirited habits of

mind necessary to produce such citizens.

Th is public-spiritedness was of very great importance in the way news was

initially supposed to be read. News was written to worthy recipients, and meant

to be worthy of those recipients.118 More broadly, gentlemen were supposed to

possess what Shapin calls ‘perceptual competence’: the ability to assess evidence

with sense, intelligence, and reason.119 Th e news reader was supposed to have,

essentially, a form of Stoic virtue: practicing constancy, refraining from emo-

tion in pursuit of virtuous goals, he should not be too easily moved by rumour,

should wait for multiple reports to come in, and judge of them slowly and

steadily.120 In July 1600 John Chamberlain wrote to Dudley Carleton news

of the battle of Newport, knowing that Carleton had probably already heard

news of it, but thinking that ‘it may be I shall send you somewhat you knew not

before; though peradventure not all gospell, yet with the best choise I could

make amonge such varietie of reports’.121 In November 1620, Henry Wotton

in Vienna expressed pride in his reluctance to believe the fi rst rumours of the

Battle of the White Mountain:

Yet doth the noise continue here by the facility of the fi rst believers, who maintain

their own lightness. I would be loth to be too ingenuous in the collection of cir-

cumstances to discredit all this news, for fear that some part of it should be true;

otherwise I would tell your Lordship again and again, as I did before, that the fi rst

authors of the report are enough of themselves to discredit the whole. For it came

from Slabada and Messhanski (as I wrote), two of the defenestrated men, who lie at

Passawe as lieger-intelligencers, fi ngentes credesque. Be it how it will, I will be bold

to say that, though it be true, yet, all things considered, we shall have the greater

glory that do not believe it.122

In July 1627 John Beaulieu wrote to Th omas Puckering that news of the expe-

dition to Ré so far depended on ‘the relation of a Hollander that came that

way’, who saw ‘shooting against the island’, and rumour in Calais that the

English ‘should have taken the island’. He emphasized, however, that ‘we can

believe nothing of all those rumours, till we hear from the fl eet itself ’.123 In

October 1620 John Chamberlain wrote Dudley Carleton that he was reluc-

tant to believe a report of a Dutch victory over Spinola delivered by a man who

had delivered a similar fairy-tale of victory before: ‘I could be as glad to geve

credit to him as to any man, for I wish as well to the cause, but I love not to

go backward in beleefe’.124 Well-wishing and steadiness of news judgment are

explicitly compared here; the latter is preferable.

It is worth mentioning here that when one 1623 coranto complained ‘Gen-

tle readers; for I am sure you would faine be known by that Character, how

Sociable News 69

comes it then to passe, that nothing can please you? … you must be fi nding faul-

tes, though you know no cause … If we talk of novelty indeed, you make a doubt

of the verity’, this was a deliberate misunderstanding of the nature of gentility.125

A gentle reader, precisely because he was a gentle reader, assuredly ought to have

been doubtful of such a trifl ing source as a coranto. Readers, aft er all, were quite

aware of the uncertain character of the news, and frequently acknowledged that

individual pieces of news were of uncertain credibility. In October 1620 Wil-

liam Whiteway wrote in his diary ‘the truest’ of ‘many reports out of Germany’.

He also noted calmly that ‘Boquoy is not slayne though it was so reported’.126 In

June 1622 Simonds D’Ewes wrote in his diary that he ‘heard some newes as that

things went ill in the Palatinate and that the Spanish match was concluded, but

they weere not certaine and therfore noe more of them’.127 In December 1631

John Rous wrote in his diary that there was ‘certaine newes that Prague is taken

and Bohemia revolted from the emperor’.128

Th ey were also aware that military news was changeable, and could be

reversed. In 1623 Mead crossed out a section of news on France and wrote in

the margin ‘Not credible. & Mr Bosw. writes contrary’.129 A letter from Den-

mark in September 1626, copied by Mead’s London correspondent, reporting

that ‘the speach is, that Tilly is slayne’, added in the margin ‘But this speech

was too good to prove true’. Th e letter continued ‘I do here send you the truth’,

carefully distinguishing between rumoured speech and known truth.130 In July

1629 Mead wrote ‘there is doubtfull newes from Prussia, that the King of Swe-

den with but an indiff erent Army, waylayd the 18,000 Imperiallists that came

to the Poles ayd to hinder their joyning with the Poles … Its diversly written

who kept the feild, & how many were slayne on both sides’.131

Th ere was also much practical acknowledgment that individual pieces of

news had turned out to be false. In May 1621 Walter Yonge wrote in his diary

a report that a Turkish army had landed in Spain. Th is he followed with the

comment, ‘A false report’.132 In September 1622 Simonds D’Ewes wrote in

his diary that ‘I heard good newes as that Spinola had raysed his seige before

Berghen-up-Zoome and was overthrowne in the retiring; but because this as

yett was but an uncertaine report, I say noe moore of it’. Only the next day did

he add that ‘my newes was in part verifi ed, as that the seige was raysed, but not

wholly true’.133 In the summer of 1636 John Rous wrote in his diary that an

Imperial-Spanish army had occupied Paris and Orleans – then wrote that ‘this

larum was in greate part false’.134

Against this background of acknowledged, indeed endemic uncertainty and

falsity in the news, intelligent newsreading became a test of character. So did

intelligent passing on of the news, and intelligent censoring, where relaying news

of a defeat might demoralize comunicatees – as in 1599, when one G. Coppin, a

Londoner, wrote to Robert Cecil


of the strange rumours and abundance of news spread abroad in the city, and so fl ying

into the country, as there cannot be laid a more dangerous plot to amaze and dis-

courage our people, and to advance the strength and mighty power of the Spaniard,

working doubts in the better sort, fear in the poorer sort, and a great distraction in

all.135

Th is last sentence is of crucial importance: public-spirited, self-controlled cit-

izens were acutely aware that they were only a minority, not only among the

unstable mob, but even among the political classes. Th omas and Leonard Digges

wrote in 1579, ‘A General may sometimes invent and spreade Rumors of ayde and

assistaunce from Forraine Princes, or such like, to Annimate his owne people, &

terrify his adversarie’.136 John Rous recorded in his diary, about the anti-Buck-

ingham poem ‘And arte returnde againe, with all they faultes’, that ‘those which

are in esteeme and greatest favour with princes are most subjecte to slander of

tongues, the vulgar delighting herein, who judge of all things by events, not by

discretion. At the fi rst reporte of this voyage [to Ré], they could speake well’.137

Most people were easily moved by news of victory to euphoria, and by news

of defeat to despair. At any rate, they were believed to be so: the English elite

had a low opinion of their compatriots’ mental capacities, not least as newsread-

ers.138 And certainly even elite English newsreaders were moved to emotion by

the news. However much dispassionate newsreading was their ideal, in practice

they were quite susceptible to emotional newsreading. Quite oft en, the military

news was not of mere factual interest, or something to be considered calmly, but

an object of intense emotional concern.

We can see this fi rst in newsreaders’ expressions of approval or disapproval

of the news, which indicated their basic emotional stance towards the news. In

May 1632 Th omas Barrington wrote to his mother, Lady Joan Barrington, that

the Swedish general Johan Baner had let ‘1200 Sottish and English to be cutt

of neear Stode ... whether he be executed (as he deserves) or only displaced, I

yet heear not, but he hath made me so passionate I have allmost forgotten to

wright sence’.139 In July 1632 John Holles wrote to his son John Holles, the

Lord Haughton, of news of Protestant victories in Germany: ‘if this be trew,

the Papists will hang down their heads like bull-rushes, for warme water freeses

soonest, and a little misfortune putts a cockett man out of countenance. God

I hope will maintaine his owne cause, and confound his enemies. Amen’.140

Reading military news could be a passionate aff air.141

Indeed, reading military news could be an all-encompassing aff air, verging

on paranoiac totality. In September 1627, Mead’s London correspondent wrote

in a remarkable fashion. To begin with, he displayed some sense of proportion:

setting aside national egocentrism, and a narrow focus on Ré, he wrote that ‘the

two capitall subjects of newes are now the King of Denmark & Duke of Buck-

ingham’. He then reported both the bad and good news of the situation of the

Sociable News 71

Danish king, in fairly even tone, and proceeded to a strategic analysis not too

dissimilar from the actual Hapsburg strategy:142

For if the King of Spaine, or the Emperor his dependant, become once Master of the

Sounde, what navall furniture are not they able to stop, & in what huge fl eets will

they be able to transport (especially by the meanes of Hamburgh & Lubeck, who

already leaning to their part, the King failing, wilbe theire altogether) the Armies

of Tilly or Friedland out of those Northern Regions into the North of his majesties

Dominions, or elsewhere.

But then he switched into bizarre paranoia and localism:

And it is probable that Spinola out of Flanders may attempt Lyncolnshire, Norff olk

Suff olk Essex. Th e French King, Kent Sussex, Hamshire, Dorsetshire & Somerset-

shire: Th e Spanyard Devonshire & Cornwall. For now (I need not alledge one of

the greatest privy Counsellors, whom I heard speak it but yesternight, every plebeian

knowes it) we have no lesse, nor fewer enimies at this one time, then the Pope, the

Emperor, the French King, & the Spanish; who have now just cause, to make an Union

against us, since the Duke of Buckingham in his late Manifesto hath made Religion;

viz: the righting of the Protestant churches in France, the grownd of this paradoxall

warre: which Remonstance of this, because it was done without order from hence, I

heare is distasted by his Majestie, I am sure (if I may beleeve their wordes) by some of

the Grandes of his Counsell.143

Granted there was overdetermined hatred of Buckingham behind this para-

noiac spiel, which actually brought the Danish news back to an English focus,

and granted that it was still within the bounds of reason at this time to fear

an attempted Catholic reconquest of Protestant England, still this was a lulu

of worry! Th is is newsreading with uncontrolled emotion and uncontrolled

judgement par excellence; a brilliant example of why self-controlled newsread-

ing was necessary. Such paranoia, euphoria, and despair could in turn inspire

further actions, so news could become a self-fulfi lling prophecy, and news of

defeat (in particular), whether true or false, might cascade into an overwhelm-

ing defeatism. In August 1599 John Chamberlain wrote to Dudley Carleton,

telling him that the last Monday ‘came newes (yet false) that the Spaniardes

were landed in the Ile of Wight, which bred such a feare and consternation in

this towne as I wold litle have looked for, with such a crie of women, chaining

of streets, and shutting of the gates, as though the ennmie had ben at Black-

ewall’.144 In 1601, at the siege of Berck, ‘And now report did tell abroad, / the

Cardinall was at hand, / With syxteene thowsand soldiers, / well-armèd, in his

band. / But when our foes perceivèd / this newes did not prove true, / Th ey did

dispare of succour, / and bad their hopes adyew’.145 Given the eff ects of rumours

of defeat, bad news was not to be passed on to the volatile, vulgar majority.

Moreover, Mead’s correspondent’s paranoia also indicates that the elites were


scarcely immune to emotional perturbation; the elites’ self-control was intended

to rein themselves in as well as the mob. For all their sakes, the governing classes

were supposed to receive news of defeat calmly.

Th erefore, to prevent a cascade of panic, a news reader had to judge the

news carefully, not only for its truth value, but also for its eff ect on the com-

monwealth. Th e only news that should be spread, and spread publicly, was

what was good for the commonwealth. Bad news should only be acknowledged

privately, whether to one’s own soul, or to other men capable of self-control,

who could withstand news of defeat without despairing. Partisan news that

deepened internal divisions in the state should not be spread either. (Although

the line between partisan news and partial news was obviously thin.)146 Self-

controlled reason was meant to overcome the passions; self-controlled reading

was likewise meant to be an exercise in reason that controlled both one’s own

passionate reading and the passionate reading of others.147

So Leicester wrote to Walsingham in April 1586 news that during the victory

at Grave, fi ve hundred veteran English soldiers ‘ran fl atly and shamfully away’;

this news was ‘in secret’, and ‘not fi tt to be knowen to many.’148 In August 1627

John Beaulieu wrote to Th omas Puckering some promising news about the Ré

expedition commonly retailed in London, but added to it ‘another part of the

tale, not so publicly divulged, that notwithstanding all that, there are some barks

gotten with relief in the said fort, and that the King of France is preparing greater

succours both for it and for the island of Oleron’.149 In November 1632 George

Fleetwood wrote to his father William Fleetwood that he mistrusted a certain

Saxon duke for various actions: ‘but that which I misliked most, within three

dayes he posted from the army to Wyttingberge, thence to the duke of Saxen,

and in all places openly gave out that the Kinge was killed, a thinge not soe fi t-

ting to be done, especially amongst the vulger sorte’.150

Slow and careful judgment was expected by these newsreaders. In October

1601 John Chamberlain wrote to Dudley Carleton of news that the Spaniards

had landed at Kinsale:

Many of our discoursers geve the Spaniards for lost, and make it a matter of ease

to defeat them by sicknes, famine, or the sword; for mine owne part, I see not that

Spaine is so overladen with people, nor thincke not so meanly of theire wit that they

wold wilfully cast them away, or not provide for so open and ordinarie inconven-

iences.151

In April 1632 Th omas Barrington wrote news to his mother, Lady Joan Bar-

rington, ‘desyreing yow to accept it with the same respect that I doe, even

probable enough to be contraryed before it gett a roote of truth; when com-

ing from so remote distance the portage may well alter the fi rst originall’.152 In

December 1632 John Pory wrote that a minister had declared that ‘he would

Sociable News 73

preach a funeral sermon in lamentation of the death of that brave king [Gusta-

vus Adolphus]. But when Sunday was come, he treated upon another argument,

because, said he, the news of his death had all that week been so neutral and

uncertain’.153 And as part of their slow and careful judgement, readers made sure

to check and confi rm the news. Burghley, writing to Henry Unton in France in

May 1592, mentioned that he had heard of a victory by Henri IV over the Duke

of Parma near Caudebec. Writing the details he had heard, Burghley hinted to

Unton that ‘this is the substance of the report, which howe trewe it is yourselfe

knoweth, and we shall certainely understand, I am sure, by your next letters’.154

In May 1625 John Holles wrote to his brother George Holles, serving with the

Dutch army near Breda, ‘I now long to hear from yow, whither, and for what

eff ect, your great army mooves. Th is town rings out Bredaes passing peale, that

yow can not rellieve the besieged … Th ese intertainments, with divers others

frendly to the Spanniards, fl utter heer up and down’.155

Another aspect of public-spirited newsreading was that newsreaders desired

the best news from abroad, were reluctant to believe bad news too quickly, and

preferred to read the best to the worst. In 1627 John Rous was slow to believe

news of the setbacks and defeat of the expedition to Ré, and argued with the

men who fi rst told him such reports.156 In December 1632 John Pory wrote to

John Scudamore that reports of Gustavus Adolphus’s death had been disbelieved

as long as possible. ‘Yet mens mindes were so averse from so dolefull a Tragedy,

as fewe or none that wisht him well would beleeve it; untill yesterday Dalbier ...

[who] came from the army did upon his knowledge and ey-sight report it to his

Majesty’.157

Nevertheless, although one ought to believe the best, the self-controlled

newsreader needed to maintain his emotional balance: to keep himself on an

even keel, he needed to steel himself to defeat, to expect the worst, and to be

suspicious of good news. Bad news had wings, and it was best to give a certain

minimal credibility to it. In May 1592 Henry Unton invoked the bad news trope

in a letter to Burghley: ‘Fame comonly caryeth the best and worste newes before

letters, wherfore I doe not doubt but your Lordship hath already receaved the

advertizements of the late unhappie accident and overthrowe given by the Duke

Mercury to the Prince of Conty and D’Ombes’.158 When in November 1627 an

item of bad news reached Stuteville before Mead, Mead wrote that ‘just now I

received your letter, whereby I perceive that ill newes is quick. And you have

some particulars more then I yet heard & it may be true, if your author misreport

not the letter which came to Sir Th omas Jarmin’.159 In 1632 Donald Lupton,

albeit writing to satirize coranteers, noted that when they ‘write good Newes of

our side, it is seldome true; but if it be bad, it’s alwayes almost too true’.160 Nor

could extraordinary good news be immediately believed. In November 1632

John Beaulieu wrote to Th omas Puckering that


for the matters of Germany we have, at this present, such tidings here and of such

a nature, as we dare not as yet believe; although the report of them seem to carry

much probability with it … But that the King of Sweden should have taken from

Wallenstein the town of Leipsic, which had newly yielded unto him, and aft erwards

overthrown him and his whole army, with the slaughter of 15,000 of his men, and

the gain of 166 of his colours; it is that which our beliefs stick at, till we have the

news thereof confi rmed.161

It is worth emphasizing here that when English readers censored themselves

– preferred good news to bad, and failed to pass on bad news – they were

fully aware that bad military news existed. In February 1582 Richard Madox

wrote in his diary that ‘news came that Antwerp was yelded to the Prince of

Parma who kept yt with 10,000 men, that the prince of Orenge was taken’.162

In April 1621 Mead read from London that ‘in Bohemia also, as it is written,

all or most is lost againe’. His reaction to this was to take the terrible news at

face value: ‘I send you now the funeralls of the Bohemian aff airs, if that be

true which the enclosed reporteth’.163 Both Tilly’s defeat of Christian IV of

Denmark in the fall of 1626 and Buckingham’s disastrous 1627 expedition

to Ré were acknowledged by newsreaders throughout England. Walter Yonge,

William Whiteway, and John Rous all recorded the defeat of Christian IV

of Denmark by Tilly – a multiplicity that indicates that knowledge of any

one defeat could spread widely among the readership of England.164 Th e bias

towards good news can not be attributed to ignorance; it must rather be called

an act of will.165

In sum, sociable newsreading, humanist and self-controlled reading, was

active newsreading. Th e judgement of credibility was never simply a judge-

ment of the facts, but also a judgement of how one’s stated belief would aff ect

the commonwealth at large. Sociable gentlemen judged news and ascribed it

credibility with an overwhelming sense of political responsibility as they did

so.

*****

Written news perforce acquired a new standard to replace the credibility of

public, ritual performance. Written news first conformed to the standards of

sociable exchange among honourable gentlemen, then attached itself to their

honour as a means by which to acquire new credibility. As a result of adhering

to the standards of honourable sociability, written news acquired a particu-

lar rhetoric, which emphasized the claims of eyewitness, copious detail, and

partial enthusiasm for the fortunes of friends – enthusiastic dissemination of

their victories and quiet and reluctant mention of their defeats. Honourable

sociability also encouraged public-spirited newsreading, which involved a

parallel eagerness to read about friendly victories, and a prudent and civically

Sociable News 75

sceptical reading of news of friendly defeats. Both newswriting and news-

reading amalgamated traditional conceptions of honour and sociability and

newer conceptions of civic duty, and, by the mere fact of the interchange of

news, became one of the means of mutual recognition by which England’s

political elites constituted themselves.

– 77 –

3 ANONYMOUS NEWS

Successive, overlapping transformations reshaped sociable English news letters

in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. First, the sheer expansion

of newswriting led to the abstraction of news from its sociable context into

separates of news; these, copied promiscuously, led to the separation of corre-

spondent from recipient, and the production of anonymous news that could not

be guaranteed by sociable or honourable means. Second, news became commer-

cialized, bought and sold as commercial manuscript newsletters; the exchange of

news by means of the cash nexus further disrupted the conventions of sociable

and honourable news transmission. Th ird, the transition of news into printed

news pamphlets, and then corantos (early newspapers), by attaching the stigma

of print, completed the destruction of the sociable guarantees of news credibil-

ity. Th e genres of the printed news pamphlets and the coranto were born shorn

of credibility; they were by traditional standards only vile rumour.

Defamiliarization

As noted above, sociable news depended on the mutual trust of people who

knew one another. Temporarily separated, their letters stood in for them, and

could be verifi ed upon the correspondent’s return. When a sociable news letter

commended someone else’s testimony of the news, it was tantamount to a social

introduction: the commendation declared that the recipient could trust the tes-

tifi er because he could (and should) in honour enter into social intercourse with

him. Th e expectation of such news was that it could eventually be justifi ed by

personal communication and knowledge.

Yet the developments of written news undermined this assumption. Writing

in general, a written letter of news in particular, was inherently uncontrollable. A

letter could be passed on to an unknown reader. A letter could be copied for other

unknown readers. Th e restraints of sociability against passing on and copying

news were soft and ambiguous: since a letter took time to write, it made sense to

have a recipient show it to some close family members and friends. But what if

a mild acquaintance or a distant cousin wanted to read it? Could your recipient

prevent him? Would he want to? If he did pass it on, could your distant cousin


be trusted not to pass it on to his friends? With an ever-growing number of writ-

ers and readers, and the ensuing multiplication of coulds, the chance that news

would be passed from writers to readers unfamiliar with one another grew in

likelihood from could to probably, and then to almost certainly. It became impos-

sible to know who wrote the news.

We can see how the rhetoric of the putatively sociable news accommodated

itself to this process of defamiliarization. In November 1579 Justice Walsh and

the Mayor of Waterford wrote to Lord Justice Pelham a letter of military news

from a known man: ‘Wee doe send unto your honour hereinclosed (to our great

griefe) the copie of a letter sent unto us from the Lord Powre purporting the

taking of Youghall and Kinsale’. But Lord Power had written to the Mayor of

Waterford news from an unknown source: ‘Th e newes here are that the traytor

th’erle of Desmond hath burned and broken the howses and wales of Youghall,

and doth continewe there yet; and that the traytors Th ’erle of Clancarre and

James Mc Dynnole have broken Deynsale and spoiled it, which are sorrowful

tidyngs’.1 Th e author of a ‘Report from Cales’ in 1596 assured his correspondent

that he wrote of the victory, ‘my purpose beinge onely to shew you and oth-

ers our good frendes to whome it shall please you to impart them’.2 Th e author

kept the form of sociability, but, if this is not simply a fi g-leaf to cover a purpose

of widespread dissemination, he left the decision of recipients to the uncertain

choice of his recipient. Th e prologue of Extremities Urging the Lord Generall Sir

Fra: Veare to the Anti-parle (1602) claimed to be a letter written ‘for your wor-

ships satisfaction, and better contentment of all Gentlemen to whome it shall

please your worship to impart the same’.3 In May 1625 John Holles wrote to his

brother George Holles, serving at the siege of Breda, by way of encouraging him

to write more frequently, that ‘I have shewed your letters to sum great ones, with

muche your approbation’.4 Who these great ones were remained unknown to

George Holles. George Fleetwood’s 1632 letter to his father William Fleetwood

describing the battle of Lützen was copied at least once, the copy ending up in

the papers of his uncle’s wife’s uncle, Arthur Lord Grey of Wilton.5 Even if we

grant stronger kin relationships in early Stuart England, an uncle’s wife’s uncle is

a rather distant relationship: kin networks still guided the fl ow of such letters,

but the acquaintanceship within them between writer and reader was growing

ever hazier.

But this accomodation could only go so far. ‘News’ – generic, impersonal,

and personifi ed – emerged from this drawnout process of defamiliarization. In

October 1594 George Clarke wrote to Richard Bagot that news (impersonal,

without attribution) had come to Ostend from Raba, in Austria, ‘of a greate

overthrow geven by the Turcke, to our Christian-Army’.6 No personal warranty

supported this news. In August 1629 Andrew Withers, at the siege of s’ Her-

togenbosch, forwarded to a Lord in England a letter of news: ‘Meeting with

Anonymous News 79

this letter above coppied out, aft er I had delivered that other of mine inclosed to

the carrier, I thought it my duty to present your Lordship: [thoriginal], though

never so hastily and so raggedly scribled’.7 It is a little unclear whether this was

the original enclosed, or a hasty copy. In either case, the social network of news

haphazardly incorporated chance-met, anonymous news. One 1621 letter, rec-

ognizing the existence and the signifi cance of this transformation, was playfully

entitled ‘Th e copy of a letter written by a dutyfull Servant Nobody[.] Sent from

Bruxells to his Worthy Master Nemo’.8 Titles such as ‘Th e copie of a letter’, ‘Th is

is a true coppie’, etc., began to appear in large numbers, assevering the credibility

of the contents, but blankly shorn of superscriptions naming either the original

author or the original recipient.9

Th e multiplication of surviving copies of letters of military news in the

records is another register of this defamiliarization. While in most circum-

stances we cannot know whether the diff erent copies were read by people who

knew each other, and who knew the author, the sheer fact of multiplication

(especially of anonymous news letters) argues that at least one of these copies

was evidence of a defamiliarized news relationship. It is therefore worth noting

that Advertizement fr om Caskcales in the River of Lishborne the vth of June 1589

also appears in a letter written from Walsingham to an unknown recipient, Dr

Roger Marbeck’s account of the 1596 expedition to Cadiz appears in two dif-

ferent places, an oration by the Marquis Spinola to his troops as he prepared

to cross the Rhine appears in two copies, ‘Th e Copy of a Letter Written by a

Dutyfull Servant Nobody[.] Sent from Bruxells to his Worthy Master Nemo’

appears in two copies, and the ‘Account of the Expedition to the Isle of Rhe’

appears in three.10 Th is is not yet mass media, but there is evidence of a certain

defamiliarizing weight.

But Englishmen did not simply respond to a process of defamiliarization: they

were participants (sometimes eager, sometimes reluctant), and their newswriting

rhetoric did not merely accommodate itself to this process of defamiliarization,

but actively abetted it. Th ey took advantage of anonymity to write daringly: as

one newswriter put it, ‘it is a common thing in Letters of newes and occurences,

wherein all men would be glad to participate ther secrets for the common good,

but not publish the Authors for feare of private traducing’.11 Anonymity allowed

the truth to be made public without fear of retribution; equally, it could let slan-

der and falsehood to be made public without fear of retribution. But form as

well as content changed: if the news were to be read by strangers, they would not

bother with the niceties of sociable news. Instead they would produce a stream-

lined letter of pure news, shorn of sociable context. Th e news would appear as a

solid paragraph, an outline, or a very long narrative.12 Th e polish and standardi-

zation of this form is some evidence of the desire to write such purifi ed news.

Its growing frequency is some evidence of the desire to read such purifi ed news.


Collectively, the polish and frequency tell us that this defamiliarized military

news was habituating itself to early modern England.

As this news began to separate itself in form from sociable news, physi-

cally it also began to become a separate. Among examples of these separates

we may include ‘Jornals sent from the Campe at Arques’ (1589), ‘Th e Copy of

Occurants of the 8 of February 1590 in London’ (1590), ‘A True Reporte of

our Service by Lande’ (1622), ‘A True Relacon of the Bloody Fight betweene

the King of Sweden &c. and the Emperors Army’ (1632), and ‘A Breefe Rela-

tione of the Late Batle betweene the Duke of Saxony & the Emperor One the

One Sid & the Sweade’ (1636).13 In August 1631 Peter Moreton wrote from

Westminster to his father that ‘the news that I have I will send you in a paper

aparte’.14 Moreton’s whole series of letters are interesting in the way they oscil-

late back and forth between interspersing public and private news and placing

them on separate pieces of paper.15 Th e military news here is largely desocialized,

but not entirely, and the progession towards defamiliarized news is anything but

straightforward. Peter Moreton socialized and desocialized his news haphaz-

ardly; emblematically, perhaps, of Englishmen’s general haphazard progression

towards defamiliarized news.

In this context, it is worth taking a brief look at the English government’s

own use of such defamiliarized, separate news letters. Th e news letter, having

broken out of the government and defamiliarized itself, was now reabsorbed by

the government into its own internal communications, its supply of information

increasingly in the form of the pure newsletter. Th is development dates at least

as far back as 1566, when the English ambassador in Venice began to collect

the weekly, handwritten Venetian gazzette and send them back to England in

his diplomatic dispatches.16 By the 1580s, such defamiliarized newsletters seem

regularly to have accompanied the informal letters of news government agents

dispatched to London. Between February and August 1585 English diplomats

received a series of newsletters from Rome. Th ese newsletters were written in

Italian, included news from Prague, Cologne, Antwerp, and Venice, and prob-

ably came to London via a chain of English agents including the ambassador

in Paris. Henry Cobham, the English ambassador in Paris from 1579 to 1583,

copied such newsletters, virtually unchanged, into his dispatches to London.17

Th ese reports included details of the war in the Netherlands and the civil war

in France; and, indeed, of the spiral towards war between England and Spain.18

In 1588 Peregrine Bertie, Lord Willoughby, received a French newsletter from

Frankfurt that mentioned the wars in France, the Rhineland, and Poland, the

preparations of the Turks to invade Hungary, and, lastly, of an ominous battle

between geese and ducks in Hungary.19 It is also worth noting that a message

that Burghley and Walsingham sent to William Asheby from Dieppe in Decem-

ber 1589 took the form of a bulleted series of news headlines.20

Anonymous News 81

Now, the distinction between the reasonably pure letter of news (which, as

mentioned above, the members of the government had exchanged for quite a

while) and the impersonal newsletter is a fi ne one, but it is real. It is beyond the

scope of this study to evaluate the entire State Papers Foreign for the evolution of

the forms of diplomatic correspondence – but it is worth noting that the Public

Record Offi ce later found it possible to distinguish the newsletters the English

government received between 1565 and 1763 from other sorts of papers in the

archives, and to segregate them into the State Papers Foreign 101 (Newslet-

ters).21 Other parts of the State Papers Foreign include a great many newsletters

– but these letters in SP 101 are exclusively newsletters. Furthermore, thanks to

the monumental labours of Richard Wernham, some of these newsletters can be

quantifi ed, and their quantifi cation tracked over a period of time. In the second

through seventh volumes of his List and Analysis of State Papers. Foreign Series

Elizabeth I, dating from 1590 to 1596, Wenham categorizes the State Papers by

source. Th is allows us to perform a rough-and-ready exercise in quantifi cation:

Table 3.1: State Papers Foreign 101 (Newsletters), 1590–622

Source7/1590–

5/1591

6/1591–

4/ 1592

5/1592–

6/1593

7/1593–

12/1594

1/1595–

12/1595

1/1596–

12/1596Total

Flanders 0 2 0 1 0 2 5France 5 5 5 8 9 12 44Germany and Austria 10 8 19 49 13 19 118Holland 1 3 3 4 0 5 16Italy and Switzerland 2 3 1 1 37 19 63Spain and Portugal 0 2 0 3 0 9 14Miscellaneous 0 1 1 0 14 27 43Total 18 24 29 66 73 93 303

Th is six-year source, despite its narrow evidentiary basis, allows for some tenta-

tive conclusions. Th e number of newsletters received by the London government

as late as 1590–91 was still low: only 18 from all of Europe were archived in SP

101. By 1596 this number had quintupled, in a steady year-by-year rise, to 93. Th e

number of newsletters from each of the diff erent parts of Europe also tended to

rise, though with more variation and less certain trend. If we jump ahead a gen-

eration, in 1624 alone the English diplomat William Trumbull received at least

several dozen newsletters.23 Th e growth of defamiliarized news appears to be a

steady trend. While Francis Bacon echoed the traditional standards of credibil-

ity when he judged (in a signifi cant metaphor) that a ‘kingdom or state’ would

be insecurely grounded if it ‘were to govern its debates and aff airs, not on the

strength of letters and reports sent by ambassadors or trustworthy messengers,

but of the gossip of the townsfolk and the streets’, it is apparent that the English

government was already beginning to use defamiliarized news – which, so far as

traditional standards of credibility were concerned, was more like street gossip

than like sociable news.24


Th e defamiliarized (military) newsletter had become a form in its own right

– even, perhaps, a genre.25 Th is genre would be the basis for the next great trans-

formation of the news: its entrance into the worlds of commerce and print.

Commerce

Near to his conclusion, the author of a letter from Brittany printed in Advertise-

ments fr om Britany, and fr om the Low Countries (1591) off ered to send more

news ‘upon the promise of some honest bribe’.26 In July 1600 John Chamberlain

quipped to Dudley Carleton at the end of his description of the Battle of New-

port that ‘it may be much of this wilbe countermaunded, in the mean time you

have it as goode cheape as I’.27 Th e use of ‘honest bribe’ and ‘cheape’ revealed

uneasy wit, anxious about the shadow commerce was already spreading on these

networks of sociable exchange of military news. Sociable news was resilient to

the pressures of commerce and publicity – but (witness the fact that the letter in

Advertisements fr om Britany, and fr om the Low Countries (1591) self-evidently

had been printed) it was not impervious.

Military news began to be sold. A great deal of military news was fl oating

around, but only through the networks of kin and friends. Th e professional

writers of early modern England, many of them possessed of military experi-

ence, oft en took a hand at writing military news for frankly commercial purpose:

among their number we may put George Gascoigne, Th omas Churchyard, and

Anthony Nixon.28 If you were not in the proper network – if you were anxious

or excited about reading about some battle – if you were a commoner perma-

nently excluded from the networks of sociability – if for any reason at all you

wanted military news, you could express your desire in cash. And in a commer-

cializing era, where more and more of the goods and services of life began to

fi nd their price, eventually people could be found willing to sell military news.

Slowly, gradually, military news became a commodity;29 as Richard Brathwait

noted in the satirical Whimzies: Or, A New Cast of Characters (1631), credibility

became interchangeable with vendibility.30

By the 1620s and 1630s, the sale of manuscript news letter separates (sup-

plemented by the sale of transcriptions of political discourses) was a regular

business for newswriters such as John Flower, John Pory, Edward Rossingham,

and Ralph Starkey: Lord Scudamore paid Pory £20 a year for weekly newslet-

ters in 1631/32, and Atherton notes that ‘Ralph Starkey had a sliding scale of

charges for separates ranging from twenty shillings a quire for parliamentary

proceedings to ten pounds for a copy of the Black Book of the Order of the

Garter’.31 A little beyond our period, in 1640, Edward Rossingham was (by con-

temporaraneous estimate) receiving at least the same amount from each client

for his newsletters, and an annual income of £500 a year.32 Pory and Rossingham,

Anonymous News 83

each with perhaps only a few dozen recipients, provided a premiere service; Pory

varied his letters to suit the particular interests of each recipient.33 No evidence

survives from early Stuart England for the commercial details of less elite news-

letters – but we do know that scriptoria producing political separates at prices

comparable to printed works existed in early Stuart England, that up to fi ft y

contemporary copies of some political separates survive from that period, and

that the internal structure of some political manuscripts indicate that they drew

their source material from manuscript newsletters. Furthermore, we know that

by the time of the Restoration, scriptoria of scribal journalists mass-produced

manuscript newsletters for some hundreds of recipients a week throughout Eng-

land. Th ese facts indicate that it is reasonable to speculate that similar scriptoria

were in operation before the British Civil Wars.34 Love estimates that the cost

of copying such separates would have been perhaps 3d. per sheet in early Stuart

England, and makes a rough calculation that ‘the cost of setting and printing

ten copies of a printed sheet can hardly have been less than the cost of a week’s

labour by a scribe’. Th e advantages of manuscript copying, however, were not

merely that of cost for small editions; they also possessed an advantage both for

secrecy and prestige.35 Th ese manuscript newsletters circulated not only by the

traditional methods of servant, professional carrier, and travelling trader, but

also via the network of private posts, coordinated by urban postmasters and sub-

ject to intermittent royal edict, which had emerged in England in the 1580s and

1590s, and provided regular and (fairly) frequent service through much of the

country by the 1630s.36 Th e market for such newsletters, in consequence, was

eff ectively nation-wide.

It is a measure of this commercialization that news became the subject of

wagers at the Court and the Exchange. Granted, gambling had a long pedi-

gree as a traditionally honourable activity, but to make the news the subject of

gambling was rather less traditional. Such a gamble fundamentally denied hon-

ourable authority over the credibility of the news, and subjected the news to

the gambler’s individual judgement, expressed publicly in the form of his cash

wager. Literally commodifi ed as the subject of multiple wagers, a market con-

stituted by a mass of gambling, news became subject to the collective valuation

of commercial society, without belief in or reference to the honour of the teller.

As early as 1570 the author of News fr om Northumberland, commenting sar-

donically on doubters of news of the Queen’s victory against the Northern Earls,

wrote ‘Why walk ye not by three and three, / In Polles, as ye weare wonte to be,

And saye, as you were wonte to do, / ‘I hold you a crowne it is not trewe?’’37 In

June 1589 a Fugger informant in Middelberg wrote that news had just arrived

from Dover that an English fl eet had taken Lisbon, and that ‘the English mer-

chants are betting three sovereigns to one that this news is true’.38 In October

1622 John Chamberlain wrote Dudley Carleton that ‘we have ben as yt were


wholly entertained with uncertain reports of Spinolas rising from Bergen: and

great wagers were laide both in court, citie, and specially in the Exchaunge pro

et contra’.39 In December 1632 Peter Moreton wrote from Westminster to his

father that with the uncertainty of whether Gustavus Adolphus was alive or dead

following Lützen, ‘wee have wagers laide both in Courte & Citty that hee is

alive, & myselfe sawe but yesterday, two peces given to two severall persons to

have twenty pounds for each upon his life, & would have disbursed more upon

those termes could hee have found customers’.40 Th is commodifi cation of news

by wager was allied to the willingness to buy news in manuscript or print form,

and just as far as commercial news from sociability and honour.

Th e shift ing locus of the news from the Court to the Exchange also regis-

tered the commercialization of news. (Th at the locus of a number of the wagers

mentioned above was in the City or among merchants further refl ects this com-

mercializing shift .) In November 1627 one of Mead’s London correspondents

reported that ‘On Tuesday at noone the newes of Re was extreme upon the

Exchange as if almost all our men had bin slayne & our ordinance lost’.41 John

Pory wrote to Th omas Puckering in September 1632 that ‘On Monday, at night,

there was one read a letter publicly upon the Exchange, written or pretended to

be written by one Mr. Lionel Wake, a popish merchant at Antwerp, some eleven

days ago’.42

Th e defamiliarized nature of the news aided this commercializing transfor-

mation: essentially asocial, its form had already become an address from strangers

to strangers. In terms of sheer physical practicality, a separate news letter, shorn

of sociability, could be copied by hand or set into print with little or no altera-

tion – without editing or, in essence, thought. Th e only limit on copying such

defamiliarized news was physical: supplies of paper and ink, the speed of press

composition, the strength of a scribe’s fi ngers. Mental eff ort, theoretically, could

be at a minimum. So far as commercial manuscript copying is concerned, the

transition was so seamless that it is nearly impossible to tell a socially transmit-

ted separate from a commercially copied separate. Th e neater hands are more

likely to have been scribes; but, short of a handwriting analysis like Beal’s of his

Feathery Scribe (who, alas, did not specialize in military news), nothing defi nite

can be said.43

Where printed military news reports are concerned, we may note that a

number of them (particularly the early ones) were essentially a title page attached

to a single letter put in type, such as A Discourse of Such Th ings as Are Happened

in the Armie (1569), A True Rehersall of the Honorable and Tryumphant Victory

(1573), A Brief and True Rehersall of the Victory and Overthrow (1573), A True

Reporte of the Taking of the Great Towne and Castell of Polotzko (1579), and Th e

True Coppy of a Certaine Letter Written fr om Sluce (1606). Most of these early

accounts seem to have been manuscript letters snatched for the press, and usually

Anonymous News 85

made anonymous if they were not already. Th e practical ease of commercializing

defamiliarized news should not be underestimated as a factor promoting this

transformation.

Neither should commercialization’s signifi cance be underestimated. Th ere

was a great diff erence between asocial content exchanged along social lines

and asocial content anti-socially exchanged by means of the cash relation.44 At

least in its means of transmission, defamiliarized news had retained the vestiges

of the assumptions (not least the honour guarantee of credibility) of sociable

news. Now this too was gone: the means of commerce radically disrupted the

cultural context of the news. As Raymond notes, ‘commercially produced news

publications were always suspected of being false, partly because they contained

inaccuracies, but also because they triggered anxieties about information and

publicity’.45 Payment could be disguised as barter, still half in the world of gift

exchange: Scudamore’s news writers sometimes took their payment in silk stock-

ings or in services.46 Social connections would continue to struggle to incorporate

the cash relation into them, not without success.47 Yet anti-sociability remained

the characteristic of commerce, and this fact would have to be accomodated.48

Print

As signifi cant was the transfer of military news into print. Th is shift , it should

be emphasized, was not a sudden revolution. As early as 1482, a translation of

Guillaume Caoursin’s Th e Siege of Rhodes had been printed in English. A trickle

of printed news reports followed over the next eighty years: those which survive

include Hereaft er Ensue the Trewe Encountre (1513), Th e Tryumphant Vyctory of

the Imperyall Mageste agaynst the Turkes (1532), Alfonso Avalos Vasto’s A Joyfull

New Tidynges of the Goodly Victory that Was Sent to the Emperour (1543), Th e

Late Expedicion in Scotlande (1544), Certayn and Tru Good Nues, fr om the Syege

of the Isle Malta (1565), A Copie of the Last Advertisement that Came fr om Malta

(1565), and Newes fr om Vienna (1566). But these, to my knowledge, are all the

surviving printed military news pamphlets in English dating up to 1566.49 We

may presume that more were printed, but that this long prehistory of printed

military news made a very light impress on England for generations.50

Only with the wars in France and the Netherlands from the 1560s onward did

the number of printed military news pamphlets begin to rise to an appreciable

number; only with the entrance of England into the war with Spain in 1585 did

these pamphlets begin to appear in mass. Streckfuss’s tabulation of the number

of extant English news pamphlets shows a decided increase in these decades:

1561–70 (55); 1571–80 (68); 1581–90 (161); 1591–1600 (165). Th is rise cor-

relates remarkably with the onset of war, and much of it was accounted for by the

rise in the number of pamphlets of military news and related subjects.51 Bennett


notes that news from France in the year 1590 alone included a ballad and four

news reports about the battle of Ivry; two ballads about the siege of Paris and

conditions within the besieged city; another ballad about an English expedition

to aid the Huguenots, and ten pamphlets (including one published in mid-Janu-

ary 1591) summarizing the (largely military) news from June to December.52

But when printed military news did appear in signifi cant numbers, in the lat-

ter half of the sixteenth century, it coincided strongly with the commercialization

of military news. Hence it is somewhat diffi cult to disentangle this transforma-

tion from the eff ects of commercialization. Signifi cant evidence of commercial

manuscript newsletters only begins in the 1590s, while the heyday of the com-

mercial manuscript newsletter was the 1620s and the 1630s.53 Th is remarkably

paralleled both the fl ourishing of the printed military news aft er 1585 and the

peaking of coranto production in the 1620s and 1630s.54 Still, the two processes

should not be confused. Commerce did not necessarily imply print – as John

Pory’s career selling manuscript news well testifi ed. Nor did print necessarily

imply commerce: a printed proclamation or petition, although the printer was

paid for his pains, was not printed by the government with the profi t motive in

mind. Although extraordinarily entangled, print and commerce should be rec-

ognized as distinct.55

Certainly print did have distinct and signifi cant eff ects. All previous con-

ditions of news had been governed by its paucity, and diffi culty to produce or

reproduce. It was entirely typical that when Mead passed on news, he desired the

return of his materials. When he sent the Latin original and an English transla-

tion of a letter by the Emperor to Martin Stuteville in April 1622, he asked to

have the Latin copy returned ‘if you have not much use of it’.56 Print did not

immediately remove scarcity: in the same letter Mead told Stuteville that ‘I send

you divers books & corrantos looking for to have none againe but Count Mans-

felds Apologie’.57 But newsbooks came from the presses each week in editions

of several hundred, in greater quantity and at a lower price than any scribal net-

work could achieve.58 Th e printing of hundreds of copies of a single report year

by year replaced the traditional condition of news scarcity with a condition of

news plenitude.

Beyond creating plentiful news, however, the most distinctive feature of

printed military news was its publicity. Sociable news, defamiliarized news,

commercial news – all had remained essentially private. While their circulation

implicitly constituted a claim to public knowledge, public counsel, and public

power, the claim was sanitized by never offi cially entering into the public realm.

Printed news, however, was inescapably public. Its sale took place in the open

marketplace. To write for the printed news was to write for a mass of strangers; to

read the printed news was to read with a mass of strangers. Th e printed military

Anonymous News 87

news helped constitute this mass as a community, a new-born public readership

based on principles radically diff erent from those of tradition.

Th is is bald abstraction: the situation on the ground was, inevitably, more

complex. Military news could tumble back and forth from one method of trans-

mission to another, incorporating multiple modes to transmit one item of news.

In February 1621 Mead’s London correspondent wrote that there was ‘no Cor-

ranto from Cullen; but the old gentlemen to whom they use to be written saw

a letter from Cullen & heard of some others written from Prague & Vienna to

this purpose’.59 In September 1631, the Dutch Ambassador in London ‘caused a

letter publicly to be read in the Dutch church, and thereupon a general thanks-

giving to be made for a glorious and memorable victory on Friday last, obtained

by the Prince of Orange upon the Spaniards’.60 Th e fact that Mead transcribed

printed corantos for Stuteville is itself marvelous testimony to the multiplicity

of mode.61 Print amalgamated with other modes throughout this period, oft en

leaving its eff ects obscured and tentative. Nevertheless, the publicity of print was

a constant pressure on news, on culture, and on society.

Th e Old Standards of Credibility Destroyed:

Printed News as Vile Rumour

Military news had undergone great transformations, and was now commercial,

printed, and/or public.62 But in the process it had abandoned everything that

had guaranteed the credibility of the news. It was not offi cial; it was not tradi-

tionally ritual; it was not sociably honourable; it was commercial and vulgar.

It was incredible, could not be believed. Above all, it was anonymous. (Th e

extent of this anonymity can be measured by the fact that Dahl found only two

named sources for news in his entire bibliography of more than four hundred

corantos.63) Th e importance of anonymity in rupturing traditional letter-writ-

ing assumptions cannot be overstated. Going back to the dictaminal roots of the

letter, it is instructive to note that the twelft h-century Rationes dictandi devoted

nearly one half of its space to the Salutation, listing the diff erent salutations

appropriate for diff erent social relations between the correspondent and the

recipient.64 While the ars dictaminis was much decayed, early modern English

letter manuals retained as an imperative the articulation of the relative social

status of correspondent and recipient.65 To become anonymous was, eff ectively,

to lose one half the mental map that underpinned the letter. It was entirely pre-

dictable that shorn of the support of a known correspondent printed military

news would begin, in essence, as vile rumour. Let us examine some of the details

of this situation.

Newsreaders and newswriters were a common butt of satire in the early

seventeenth century, constantly accused of inconstancy, truthlessness, and


untrustworthiness.66 Many writers did not bother to provide their reasons, but

simply stated this as a fact. John Donne satirized the Mercurius Gallo-belgicus for

congenital credulity, hence lying:

Like Esops fellow-slaves, O Mercury,

Which could do all things, thy faith is; and I

Like Esops selfe, which nothing; I confesse

I should have had more faith, if thou hadst lesse;

Th y credit lost they credit: ‘Tis sinne to doe,

In this case, as thou wouldst be done unto,

To beleeve all: Change thy name: thou art like

Mercury in stealing, but lyest like a Greeke.67

In 1624 John Davies likewise termed military news ‘shameful lies’:

To see such Batter everie weeke besmeare

Each publicke post, and Church dore, and to heare

Th ese shamefull lies, would make a man in spight

Of Nature, turne Satyrist, and write

Revenging lines, against these shamelesse men,

Who thus torment both Paper, Presse, and Pen.68

Ben Jonson, pursuing a career in bile, devoted much of the masque Newes fr om the

New World Discover’d in the Moone (1620), the play Th e Staple of News (1626),

and his epigrams ‘Th e New Crie’ and ‘To Captayne Hungry’ to extended and

varied mockeries of all aspects of the commercial, printed news.69

Th e accusation was current beyond the poets. Th e author of Newes fr om

France (1591) wrote that ‘I heare, and it is common with us here, that many

idle heads with you, hearing the unhappie state of Fraunce, and conjecturing by

their strong imaginations what is likely, or may indeed chaunce, set pen to paper,

and men to the presse, and publish that for truth’.70 Bacon, in a letter to James in

1616 described one of the charges against Somerset as ‘No better than a gazette

or passage of Gallo-Belgicus’.71 In February 1622 John Chamberlain wrote to

Dudley Carleton that ‘the uncertaintie likewise and varietie of reports is such

that we know not what to beleve … for since two yeares that the forge or mint

was set up at Amsterdam we have never left off coyning, so apish are we in imita-

tion of what is worst’.72 Donald Lupton, in his satirical London and the Countrey

Carbonadoed (1632), thought that corantos had ‘as many Leyes as Lines … these

[items of news] are all conceites ordinarily, which their owne idle braine, or

busie fancies, upon the blockes in Paules, or in their Chambers invented … now

every one can say, its even as true as a Currantoe, meaning that it’s all false’.73

Most deadly in his matter-of-fact acknowledgement of a universal truth, a news-

man writing in 1632 of a providential wind that had aided Gustavus Adolphus

confessed that he had read the report some time before, but had not dared to

Anonymous News 89

publish it ‘upon the bare credite of a common Curranto’. Even if he had believed

it, ‘popular opinion ... [was] set against the credite of these weekly Currantoes’.74

Th e news, especially the printed, commercial news, was simply a nest of lies.

Printers were taken to be a low class of people, who stigmatized the print

with their own vulgarity. Th omas Gainsford wrote in a 1623 coranto that ‘whole

Volumes [of news] might be written. But because rude hands must not deale

too roughly with raw wounds, & that we can not tell you of substantial matters,

I leave them all to private letters, or your owne better intelligence’.75 Th e ‘rude

hands’ belonged to such as John Wolfe, Richard Field, Nathaniel Butter, Nicholas

Bourne – commercial men, not gentlemen, the sort of people who were clapped

in jail for piratical printing, or used as surreptitious tools by their betters, who

wished to keep their own hands clean, to spread English propaganda abroad.76

Nathaniel Butter’s unfortunate name inspired an excremental comment by

John Davies on all printers: they left ‘the wals / Butter’d with weekely Newes

compos’d in Pauls’.77 Th eir immediate source for much of their news was the yet

more anonymous news produced by foreign printers – Frenchmen, Germans,

and especially Dutchmen, from the same social classes as their English brethren,

and even more unknown to the English reader – which was quickly translated in

undigested form into English and presented to English readers.78 Th ese printers’

ungentlemanly nature contributed to the ‘stigma of print’ that made gentlemen

reluctant to have their works appear in print.79 Th e ‘character’, the honourable

credibility of printers, was never nil; but it was very low in the period before the

British Civil Wars, and had constantly to be re-produced by printers to convince

a skeptical public.80 As of the late sixteenth century, the pamphlet was generi-

cally ‘disreputable’,81 such that John Taylor could compare it to a whore, to be

bought and sold:

For like a Whore by day-light or by candle,

’Tis even free for every knave to handle:

And as a new whore is belov’d and sought,

So is a new Booke in request and bought.

When whores wax old and stale, they’re out of date,

Old Pamphlets are most subject to such fate.

As whores have Panders to emblazen their worth,

So these have Stationers to set them forth.82

In 1602 Richard Robinson could not present his printed military news to the

sovereign: he had to write it out in his own hand to make it a fi t present.83

Th ese principles allowed a general judgment that there was no reason to

impute credibility to the news. Once this judgment was taken, there were no

end of practical comments to be made to explain why the news was untrustwor-

thy, which will be listed below. All of these were signifi cant in themselves, but

it should be noted that they were not the fi rst cause for the lack of trust in the


news. Any form of news could suff er similar accusations. Only a form of news

already regarded as unreliable on epistemological principle, lacking any buff er-

ing of trust, would suff er them.

Th e news could simply be faked outright. A 1622 coranto denied they had

done any such thing: the news of Spinola abandoning the siege of Bergen-op-

Zoom ‘have we out of the Low Dutch copies, and Englishmens letters to their

friends here … wee make no newes our selves, nor put in any thing which wee

fi nde not written; and upon their credits we request you to take it’.84 Th e request,

of course, was humiliating, since it acknowledged that the printers’ own credit

was insuffi cient. A Certaine and Perfect Relation of the Encounter and Bloody

Slaughter (1625), having admitted that its normal sources of news had been

either prevented from reaching England by the contrary winds of the North Sea,

or hijacked by Dunkirkers, had to explain how exactly it had gotten its news so

as to prevent a logical suspicion that the news it was now printing was a forgery:

‘there was a Post which passed through Flaunders into France, and so from Calice

sayled to this our soyle, by whom we have this intelligence’.85 Where the news-

men did provide facts, it was suspected that they sometimes made ‘certain false

additions for enlargement sake, wherby the truth of all things is much in suspence’.86

Alternately, they compressed the news so much that the digestion eff ectively

misrepresented the truth: ‘judge thy selfe (gentle reader) whether I have not cho-

sen the better part in refusing the Coranto; which was but a poore abstract of the

businesse [news from Turkey], and exposing an honest letter, which hath some

substance and helpfull discovery’.87

To guard against the suspicion of forgery, the printer could claim that he had

the original letter in his shop, to be perused on demand so that his bonafi des

could be proved. William Watt wrote in Th e Swedish Intelligencer. Th e Th ird Part

(1633) that ‘I will here aff oord them the Relation made by the Spanish Gentle-

man before quoted: fairely, barely, without additions or alterations translated:

the originall whereof I am ready to communicate unto any ingenuous Gentle-

man’.88 To be credible, of course, this assumed a largely local, London audience,

that could physically walk to the printer’s shop. Th is was a fairly reasonable

assumption – though in the nature of things this could not assure any readers

beyond the city. It was also the ultimate admission that the printed military

news still had no intrinsic credibility.

Th e partisan distortions in the news obvious to the historian were also

obvious to contemporaries: they recognized that the interests of religion and

state and faction infl uenced news reporting. Th e partisan nature of writing was

suffi ciently recognized that it was oft en physically dangerous for the writers.

Correspondence from Wimpfen in 1631 was itself a perilous act: ‘I have not of

long written unto you, because we dare not write, it being dangerous every where

about us’.89 Where there was no such physical danger, partisan writing fl ourished

Anonymous News 91

(relatively) unrestrained. In 1569, ‘shameless’ French Catholics were believed to

have lied about the course of a battle, and told the world that their defeat was

in point of fact a victory.90 W. M. wrote in 1585 that ‘divers people are given to

speake diversly, some for favour, and some for malice, making sundrye reportes

of one matter either adding or diminishing, as best it fi tteth their fancies, or

according as they beare an aff ection’.91 In 1589 Anthony Wingfi eld described

at length how faction, laziness, and credulity combined to impair the spread of

truthful news:

For as our Countrey doth bring forth manie … dull spirited [men], who though their

thoughtes reach not so high as others, yet doo they listen how other mens acts doo

passe, and eyther beleeving what anie man will report unto them, are willingly car-

ied away into errors, or tied to some greater mans faith, become secretaries against a

noted truth. Th e one sort of these do take their opinions from the high way side, or at

the fardest goe no farther than Paules to enquire what hath been done in this Voyage:

where, if they meete with anie, whose capacti before their going out could not make

them live, nor their valour maintain their reputation, and who went onely for spoyle,

complayning on the hardnesse and miserie thereof, they thinke they are bound to give

credite to these honest men who were parties therein, and in verie charities become

of their opinions. Th e others to make good the faction they are entred into, if they see

anie of those malecontents (as everie journey yeeldeth some) doo runne unto them

like tempting spirits to confi rme them in their humour, with assurance that they fore-

sawe before our going out what would become thereof.92

Th is portrait was not one to instill great confi dence in the printed news, itself a

denizen of that den of partisan vice, St. Paul’s.

Th e printed news also regularly shift ed and reversed itself, and was subject to

sudden, panicking rumour. A True Declaration of the Honorable Victorie Obtained

by the French King (1591) felt the need to deny that it was ‘fetched from fl ying

and fabulous letters, ordinarie reports on the Exchange, or published uppon rash

warrant’.93 A 1631 coranto announced the probable confi rmation of the ‘great

overthrow given Monsieur Tilly at New-Brandenburgh) in a Letter from Amster-

dam, of the 9. ditto, contrary to the groundlesse rumours since spread abroad,

that they never met together, and that there is not such thing as the taking or

retaking of that Towne’. Th e same report used the peculiar phrase that ‘it contin-

ues for certaine that the King of Sweden hath taken the Castle Damin by force

of Armes’.94 It is notable how similar this language is to the language used about

the ‘fl ying tale’ of whispered rumour. In May 1600 John Chamberlain wrote to

Dudley Carleton that ‘we have a fl ienge tale that O Conor Sligo hath taken O

Donell, but there is no great credit geven to it’.95 In October 1622 Chamberlain

wrote Carleton that ‘we have ben fed all this weeke with a foolish report that the

Prince of Orenge had taken Hulst in Flanders, whereas for ought I can learne he


was not on that side of the water’.96 Judging by the language of these examples

above, printed news at this stage had no more credibility than any rumour.

It is notable in this regard that even the printers of the news were affl icted

with some hesitance about the credibility of their product, and would not always

guarantee their content to be true. Newes fr om Ostend (1601) reported that ‘it

is reported by some that came very lately from Callice, that … there was a great

Skirmish begunne by those of the Towne … but how certaine this is (being but

a reporte) I cannot write, the trueth thereof will be hereaft er better knowne’.97

A 1627 coranto included a report from Hamburg that ‘for this last weeke we

have here no certaine newes to relate, all reports being so uncertaine: but for the

rumors that here are I shall relate, hoping they will prove true’.98 And while Late

Newes Or true Relations (3 July 1624, Numb. 30) declared that ‘I will assure you

likewise on the other side that I will use discretion in reporting of rumors, or

uncertaine tidings, and follow rather sure Newes of which wee get store enough;

and are now dayly to receive more and more’, it undercut this statement (which

in any case held only so long as there was a sure supply of news!) by saying ‘that

I rather will write true tidings only to be rumoured, when I am not fully sure

of them, then to write false tidings to bee true, which will aft erwards prove

otherwise’.99 Th is sentence apparently meant that while the printer wouldn’t

deliberately print falsehoods, he would print unverifi ed news, so long as he had a

fair sense that it was true. In short, caveat emptor.

Printed and commercial military news had no credibility. Th e standards of

sociable news could not sustain them. Without that buttress, their many infi rmi-

ties (whether we think them universal to the news, or particular to that time and

place) of fantasizing, partisan, or ignorant informants, of news no better than

rumour, of reports from the intrinsically uncertain site of the battlefi eld, overde-

termined such news as untrustworthy. As Cook notes in reference to epistolary

novels, the printed letter lacked full authority; fi ctive as well as factive, ‘ontologi-

cally ambiguous’, it simultaneously provided both certainty and doubt.100 Th e

new news, if it were to have any credibility at all, would have to construct a new

standard of credibility, and by means of a new rhetoric instil that belief in its

readers.

*****

A series of rapid changes transformed the way news was communicated in

Elizabethan and early Stuart England. As news was copied and recopied,

correspondent and recipient lost track of one another; in a process of defamil-

iarization, anonymous news physically removed itself from its sociable matrix, to

become a manuscript ‘separate’ of pure, abstracted news. Such news also began

to be bought and sold – exchanged commercially rather than socially. Finally,

these commercial separates came to be printed by a class of men stigmatized as

Anonymous News 93

disreputably commercial. Printed news, shorn of either the credibility of ritual

performance or of honourable sociability, was initially regarded as intrinsically

incredible, a form of vile rumour essentially inferior to written news. To become

credible, and vendible, printed news would have to develop a new standard of

credibility.

– 95 –

4 BUILDING A NEW STANDARD OF NEWS CREDIBILITY

Commercial news, especially printed news, began this period regarded as

scorned and untrustworthy, the product of base men for base men. It ended this

period with a modicum of respect – hedged about with qualifi ers by the good

gentlemen of England, but nonetheless real. Th is was an extraordinary transfor-

mation. Some basic fund of credibility had been ascribed to printed military

news reports. But this did not happen automatically. Such credibility had to

be acquired step by step. Newswriters waged a campaign to have their reports

believed, fi rst by claiming to be an accurate imitation of traditionally credible

news, and then by the radical expedient of shift ing the claim of credibility from

the (now unknown) author to the text – by emphasizing the claims to credibil-

ity of what would become genre characteristics of the military news pamphlet,

the texts’ plain style, corroborative detail, and partiality. Th e shift of credibility

claims from author to text in turn successfully provoked a shift in reading prac-

tices by newsreaders in the course of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth

centuries, who began to judge the credibility of the news by reference to the

text rather than to the author. In this fi rst stage of transformation, newsreaders

became intensive readers of texts.

Mimicry – Governmental Information and Sociable News

A fi rst solution was to mimic traditional forms of credibility. Parasitically, mili-

tary news could pretend that it was something other than what it was, something

the culture of the day credited more, so as to gain some of the credibility adher-

ing to these other genres. Now, doubtless some of these pretensions were true:

some, perhaps much, of the printed news was precisely what it claimed to be. But

much was not. And both required such mimicry, regardless of the truth of the

matter, as a way to establish their credibility. Th is was not an expedient for the

long term, but it served until such time as military news could fi nd a theory of

credibility that fi tted new circumstances.


Th e simplest solution for commercial, defamiliarized news to gain credibil-

ity was simply to pretend that it was not commercial and defamiliarized at all,

but still sociable, still guaranteed by the traditional forms of credibility. It really

was a copy of governmental information; it really had been sent from gentlemen

to another; it really was personally known and knowable. Indeed, some of these

printed and commercial items of news doubtless were straight transcriptions

of sociable news, simply shorn of the salutation. But which were genuine and

which were mere simulations of sociable news, palmed off by unscrupulous pur-

veyors of news? We cannot know and the contemporaneous readership could

not know. Sometimes the claim of sociability refl ected the truth of the matter

– but the claim was constant, regardless of the truth. Indeed, it was not only

constant, but loud. Where sociable news letters had quietly assumed their per-

sonal connections, defamiliarized news claimed it stridently, albeit never with

complete conviction. Th is rhetoric was persuasive for a while (see below), but

it could not ultimately sustain itself against the overwhelming truth of news’

commercial anonymity. Still, the rhetoric of sociability was for some decades

pervasive in the news.

As military news was in its essence a decayed form of state intelligence, so

the most prestigious form for news to mimic was state intelligence. Since such

intelligence was by defi nition not available to readers outside of the government,

or verifi able by them as accurate, the closest news could come was to claim that

it was an accurate eavesdropping of state intelligence, presumably by people in

the know. Th is they did. Th e news from Ireland in 1580 included ‘some imparted

unto me (by the addvertisements of men of good credit) out of those letters

which were sent unto her Majestie’.1 Th omas Digges’ A Briefe Report of the Mili-

tarie Services done in the Low Countries, by the Erle of Leicester (1587) claimed

to be ‘written by one that served in good place there in a letter to a friend of his’,

but was also clearly a public apologia for Leicester’s conduct in the Netherlands.2

A True Declaration of the Honorable Victorie obtained by the French King (1591)

advertised itself as ‘published according to the Copie sent into England to the Lord

Ambassadour for France’, and boasted within that its contents were ‘set forth for

such credit as cannot be disproved, being agreeable to the intelligence sent from

his Majestie into England, to the Lord Ambassador for Fraunce’.3

Th e trouble with claiming that you had an accurate transcription of state

intelligence was – what would they do to you if your claim were correct? Clap

you in the Tower of London for espionage, and the publication of state secrets?

Worse? In addition, it was of course almost always impossible to name one’s

immediate source for this sort of material – said source also having a healthy

appreciation for his neck. Both the safety and credibility of claiming state infor-

mation as one’s source were dubious – which explains the relative scarcity of this

Building a New Standard of News Credibility 97

sort of claim. Clearly, less prestigious forms of military news would have to be

mimicked.

Th at meant sociable news – and so the military news assumed a rhetoric of

sociability with a vengeance. To begin with, its salutations were relentlessly socia-

ble. Th e manuscript newsletters of John Pory included personalized greetings

for the diff erent recipients of his professional news letters.4 Turning to print, we

may note that a letter from Malta in 1565 saluted ‘My right honorable Lorde

and gossip’.5 T. B., the author of Th e Copie of a Letter, sent by an English Gentle-

man out of France (1590), wrote to his

good Friend ... that I fi nde you not slack to signifi e unto me from time to time, such

newes as Englande aff ordeth, I thought it good therefore to make a requitall of some

part of your paines by certefi eng unto you, the most happie and joyfull newes now

generally knowne for truth throughout the whole Realme of France.6

A Continuation of More Newes fr om the Palatinate (26 July 1622) described

itself as ‘the Contents of a Letter to a speciall Friend’, but also addressed, appar-

ently interchangeably, the generic ‘Reader’.7 Th e address to ‘Gentle Readers’ in

the printed news generically indicated mimicry of sociability; witness the 1623

coranto that addressed itself to ‘Gentle readers; for I am sure you would faine be

known by that Character’.8 By its rhetoric, the coranto aspired to the sociable

gentility that allowed it to address Gentle Readers – just as readers who aspired

to gentle status could try to substantiate their claim by acknowledging, and tak-

ing as credible, the equally aspirational gentility of the coranto.9 Likewise, Th e

Principall Passages of Germany, Italy, France (1636) used a fi gure of speech that

imputed personifi ed sociability to the history/news itself: ‘the Papers were fi rst

intended for your use, and now come to tender you their personall service’.10 Personal

service to an unknown reader was an oxymoron, as was the ascription of gentility

to an unknown – and so the rhetoric of the printed news emphasized once more

the impossibility of squaring the circle of anonymity and sociability.

Another way to imitate the sociable networks of manuscript news was to

attribute your sources to the places and people whose gentle status guaranteed

the credibility of news. So to locate the source of your news in the court, popu-

lated by those whose status rendered them presumptively honourable, (and

nearest on hand to overhear the ever-credible intelligence of state,) was a way

to gain credibility. As Th omas Churchyard wrote in 1580, ‘it happened I beyng

at the Court (where the trothe of many thynges is moste certain) I sawe a letter

written out of Flaunders’.11 Newes Sent to the Ladie Princesse of Orenge (1589), as

its title reveals, also used such courtly credibility; so too did Henri de Schomb-

erg’s A relation sent to the French king by the Marshall de Schomberg (1632). But

far more oft en it was a declaration of gentle social status – so common as to

be a nervous tic in the profusion of prefaces, aft erwords, apologetic insertions,


subtitles, etc. – that justifi ed the credibility of the printed press. Th e letter from

Flanders Th omas Churchyard had seen in Court in 1580 came

from the handes of a gentilman, whose eyes beheld the very service and enterprise,

and the winnyng of the great towne of Macklin, and the letter was so well penned, &

went so directly to the matter in every point and order) touchyng the particulars and

generall takyng of the same …, that I was forced by the credite of the gentilman that

wrote (and by probable confi rmation of sonderie other reportes) to beleve the letter

to be moste true, and worthie the rehearsall to the open world.12

Anthony Wingfi eld’s A True Coppie of a Discourse Written by a Gentleman,

Employed in the Late Voyage of Spaine and Portingale (1589) declared in its title

the status of its author. Extremities Urging the Lord Generall Sir Fra: Veare to the

Anti-parle (1602) was ‘written by an English Gentleman of verie good account

from Ostend, to a worshipfull Gentleman his fr iend here in England’.13 A True and

Very Memorable Relation (1628) claimed its source as ‘a Relation, extracted not

out of common Currantoes, but of divers Letters coming fr om worthie hands’.14

Contrariwise, to mention a source from the lower social classes was clearly

problematic in the rhetoric of anonymous news, and required highly self-con-

scious justifi cation. Aft er all, the truthfulness of the ungentle, whether merchants

or poor labourers, was generally untrustworthy.15 In April 1622, Mead’s London

correspondent was uncertain whether to believe the report of the messenger

from Antwerp that Tilly had been given a very great defeat: ‘I know not what

credit may be given the Post, who are men of large consciences’.16 In 1624 it

required explanation to say why Dutch news came from commercial Amsterdam

rather than the court at the Hague.17 In 1632, fl eeing Imperial soldiers brought

word that their army had been routed by the Saxons and the Swedes. Th eir story

eventually proved essentially correct, ‘but because these Troupes had no offi cers

amongst them, they could not then be beleeved, but onely were held for stra-

gling persons, and counterfeits’.18

Military news in particular tied a soldier’s honour into this system of cred-

ibility justifi cation. Th e honour of a soldier, although related to the honour of

a gentleman, was not quite identical; functional, vocational, honour remained

particularly central to the cultural defi nition of a soldier. Most relevantly for

the news, a soldier was supposed to be truthful: soldiers emphasized even more

heavily the gentlemanly honour of keeping one’s word.19 As William Segar put it

in Honor, Military and Civill (1602), one of the offi ces and duties of a knight or

a gentleman was ‘to esteeme trueth, and without respect maintaine it’.20 Indeed,

his truth was typically spoken bluntly and written awkwardly. A soldier who

thus bluntly and inexpertly wrote of the battles he had witnessed ought there-

fore to be credited with the truth – and this trope was frequently invoked in the

rhetoric of the printed military news.


So the author of Newes fr om Brest (1594) wrote that ‘a soldior hath small

retoricke, for whosoever followeth Mars taketh little aquantance of the Muses,

yet being loth deserved honnor should be obscured and cast in dark oblivion I

have bluntly presumed to write y[ou] the naked truth’.21 In 1610 Anthony Nixon

wrote that ‘I vow by the honor of a souldier, and by the love, obedience and

loyaltie which I owe to no other than my owne native countrey, I will set downe

nothing but that of which (for the most part) I have bin Oculatis testis (an eie-

witnes.)’22 S.W. wrote in 1622,

But marvell not if wee Swordmen who use to hew out our way, now and then hacke

at a word: a souldiers writing stile, is his stilletto, and when wee parlee, wee send sum-

mons, not orations, and their owne necessity perswades the vanquished to yeeld, and

not the victors Rhetoricke: but if it be plaine, plainnesse best sets forth truth, as this

is. And peradventure it will be the better thought to be so, for the Author profession:

for a souldier as much scornes to give the lye, as to take it.23

Th ese news reports were credible because the writer was not only gentle, but also

an honest soldier – and hence a trustworthy reporter.

Th e printed news also adopted a rhetoric of exclusivity to guarantee its socia-

bility: this news report, unlike its vulgar rivals, was honourable and trustworthy,

as a gentleman talking only to other gentlemen. G. B. assured the readers of

Newes out of France for the Gentlemen of England (1591) that although most of

his rivals were ‘apish Pamphleters’, who ‘know not, or care not for truth, or will not

inquire aft er the truth’, his work was ‘under sureties, on condition, that he neither

mutter, speake, nor write any thing but truth’. Th e sureties, apparently, were that

his pamphlet was gently late to market, that G. B. could quote Quintilian and

Caesar, and that he knew enough Latin to say ‘Magna est veritas, et prevalet’.24

Th e author of A Continued Journall of All the Proceedings of the Duke of Bucking-

ham his Grace, in the Ile of Ree, Containing Th ese Particulars (1627) attributed

negative reports about Buckingham’s conduct at Ré to ‘those who are of vul-

gar apprehensions’.25 Th e pretensions of the compilers of the semi-annual news

digests of the middle 1630s to be writing history – a much higher-class genre

than news, and therefore also more credible – also refl ects some of this rhetoric

of exclusivity. As Th e Principall Passages of Germany, Italy, France (1636) put it,

‘I here present you not with Newes snatcht fr om the mouthes of every pratling Athe-

nian, but Historie confi rmed by authenticall persons of good credit’.26

Another tactic (mostly used in the late-sixteenth century news reports, and

particularly for the more literary specimens) was to append a dedicatory epistle

to a noble lord. Th is served a double function. In the fi rst place, most tradition-

ally, such a dedication used the dedicatee’s honour to provide credibility for the

news enclosed. In the second place, it reinscribed an anonymous news report

within the world of named, sociable news. At any rate, it attempted this feat:


Elizabethan authors oft en dedicated their works in hopes of patronage – money

and/or social connections – without yet possessing it, or ever getting it. Th e

wide variety of dedicatees used by authors in their careers, as well as the practice

of multiple dedications in one work, are both evidence of the indiscriminate

search for a patron by authors.27 Still, a dedication to a specifi c, named gentle-

man or nobleman was worth more than the invocation of a hundred unnamed

ones. Th e gentleman-dedicatees guaranteed, therefore communicated the news.

Th e communication function is underscored in the examples below in that it

is emphasized that the dedicatees already knew the news printed: they were

informing, not being informed.

So a 1572 translation of an Italian report of the Turkish siege of Famagosta in

Cyprus was dedicated to Leicester, ‘although I shall present no new thing to your

honour, because you are so well acquainted with the Italian copy, as I know: yet I

trust your Lordship will not mislike, that the same … may thus now shewe it selfe

abroad, covered under the wing of your Lordships protection’.28 In 1615 Henrie

Peacham dedicated his account of the campaign in Jülich to his commanding

offi cer, John Ogle; not to ‘bring you newes of that you know alredie’, but so that

his account ‘might under your name winne a better reputation with the World’.29

As late as 1633, Henry Hexham dedicated A Journall of the Taking in of Venlo,

Roermont, Strale (1633) ‘To His honored Kinsman, Maister Frauncis Morrice

Clarcke of his Majesties Ordnance’.30

Emphasizing the trope of reluctance also served to mimic the credibility of

sociability. Sociable news was supposed to originate in the word of a gentleman

– but gentlemen, as noted above, were reluctant to put their words in print at

all, or to write to men they would not know socially. Since gentlemen worried

about the vulgarity of seeing themselves in print, a writer who purported not

to want his letter printed appeared gentle.31 But how could a commercial news

report plausibly have acquired a gentleman’s letter? To say they had bought it, or

stolen a copy, which was the likely truth, was to admit oneself unsociable, and

possibly illegal, and by such dishonour erase the credibility one hoped to gain

in the fi rst place by printing a gentleman’s letter. Some other method had to be

used. Reluctance of various sorts was the way most chosen to establish a certain

gentlemanly credibility: the author’s volition was not to be printed, or even nec-

essarily to write. Th e statement of this reluctance, in one form or another, was

in itself a proof that he was a credible gentleman. It did not redound highly to

the credit of the printer to print a letter without permission – but then, it was

already assumed that he was no gentleman.

Sometimes an author avowed he had written at the recipient’s request rather

than of his own desire. Th omas Digges declared to his putative correspondent

that, ‘to satisfi e your oft en earnest requestes, I have taken time these holydaies to

set you downe a briefe reporte of the military services done in the lowe Coun-


tries, by the Earle of LEICESTER, and his armies’.32 Henrie Peacham wrote of

the campaign in Jülich in 1615 to satisfy his friends in England, ‘who desired mee

at my comming over (as it is commonly the parting request of fr iends) to write such

newes as hapned’.33 Alternately, the printer could claim that he had published the

letters against the wishes of the correspondent: ‘these Letters are Printed without

the privitie of those that sent them’.34 Th e printer of A True Coppie of a Discourse

Written by a Gentleman, Employed in the late Voyage of Spaine and Portingale

(1589) explained that the author sent him the letter ‘with his earnest request

to reserve it to my selfe’.35 Th e printer of Two Memorable Relations (1631), in a

postscript, claimed that ‘this precedent Relation coming fr om a Noble and worthy

gentleman to his fr iend here in England, was obtained to the Presse, with much

importunity’.36

Th e weakening of this convention is witnessed by some later examples of the

genre, which do not take this aff ectation of modesty entirely seriously. A True

and Ample Relation of All Such Occurrences as Have Happened in the Palatinate

(1622), supposedly printing a letter written by one Doctor Welles, had the good

doctor declare that ‘I doe not write this Letter with any desire of publication,

because the best Compositers are subject to the worst censures’. On the other

hand, Doctor Welles allowed that ‘in supplying the Presse there is a kind of

commenditory zeale and honest wellwishing manifested’. Finally, in a loud exhi-

bition of modesty, Welles asks his correspondent that ‘if you meane to divulge

any thing I write, I pray you give the world notice, that it is against my will’.37 Th is

is a very arch obeisance to the rhetoric of modesty.

In all circumstances, the printed news reports claimed that they approxi-

mated the accuracy of oral or written news: they still acknowledged these forms

of news, with their sociable associations, as the standard for credibility. Th e lan-

guage of the printer of A True Relation Written fr om Midelbourg (1622) was of a

handmaiden to the written news: ‘I thus fall to the businesse, and tell you, what

the Letter told me’.38 More Newes of the Good Successe of the Duke of Brunswick

(29 July 1623, no. 42) only promised the negative virtue that ‘wee have added no

one particular in the writing, but can readily shew the eff ect of every point, out of

the severall letters of severall dates, from Franckford, Cullen, Aquisgrave or Aken,

Antwerp, Dort, and other places’.39 Th e titles of A True Coppie of a Discourse Writ-

ten by a Gentleman, Employed in the Late Voyage of Spaine and Portingale (1589),

Th e True Coppie of a Letter, Written fr om the Leager by Arnham (1591), Th e True

Coppy of a Certaine Letter Written fr om Sluce (1606), and Francis Nethersole’s

Th e True Copies of Two Especiall Letters (1622) also refl ected the concern that

printed news had to be faithful not only to the reality, but also to the letters that

had originally, and more credibly, narrated the news. In all these cases, printed

news regarded letters as retaining their essential pedigree of sociable credibility.


Th e Socially Unmoored Report

Yet all such mimicry was fundamentally unconvincing. Th e author of Newes fr om

France (1591) assured his readers ‘on my credit’ that his abstract of Lesdiguières’

report to Henri IV accurately conveyed the sense of the original letter.40 Th e King

of Bohemia’s Welcome to Count Mansfi eld (1622) warranted itself as ‘faithfully

taken out of the Letters of best Credit’.41 Hugh Peters reported that one broad-

side killed twenty-three men, according to ‘credible testimony’.42 But in all these

cases the credit of an unknown was fundamentally worthless. Th e bald assertion

of credibility, though a good-faith genufl ection towards traditional standards,

was no guarantee at all. Vulgar, anonymous, commercial newswriters could

assert as long as they liked that their news was guaranteed by the traditional

standards of honourable credit, but their mode of communication itself belied

that claim.43 As Richard Brathwait put it in the satirical Whimzies: Or, A New

Cast of Characters (1631), a coranteer ‘thanks to his good invention … can col-

lect much out of a very little: no matter though more experience’d judgements

disprove him; hee is Anonymos, & that wil secure him’.44

Some newswriters acknowledged their credibility problem, hoping to mini-

mize it. Th omas Digges based his account ‘of the enimies doings’ in A Briefe

Report of the Militarie Services Done in the Low Countries, by the Erle of Leicester

(1587) in part ‘upon the advertisements of our best intelligencers: who in cir-

cumstances may erre, but swarve not much from truth, I thinke, in any materiall

point’.45 Th is was becomingly modest, but still not terribly assuring. Th e printer

of Newes fr om Turkie and Poland (1622) acknowledged that he did not know the

author of his account. All he could do was provide it to the reader, who when he

had read it could ‘judge whether it be worth the publishing or no’.46 Th e printer

of A True Coppie of a Discourse Written by a Gentleman, Employed in the Late

Voyage of Spaine and Portingale (1589), raising enigma to an art, left his author

nameless, ‘least I might increase mine off ence against him; & be namelesse my

selfe for other good considerations: which I leave friendly Reader to thy best

construction’.47 Here we have an honest expression of the limits of credibility an

anonymous printer could get in the sociable system of credibility: none beyond

the ‘best construction’ of his readership. Th e printer of Two Memorable Relations

(1631), in a postscript, acknowledged that anonymity impaired the credibility

of his news: ‘If wee durst manifest the Author, [it] would give suffi cient credit to

the matter’.48

What then to do? Military news could not rely on the external credibility

guarantees of sociable communication. Perforce, it must base its credibility on

internal grounds – the text itself, without external, authorial support. Th e text

had to present itself as credible purely by its rhetoric and its words, by the details

of its content and its presentation, regardless of the author or transmitter. In


eff ect, military news began to demand a New Critical approach to reading avant

la lettre; the text, not the author, was to be read, the reader (more on this later)

was to judge the character of the text, not the author.

Th is was a terribly important shift – from credibility guaranteed by people

to credibility guaranteed by the text itself – but it did not change all the cultural

assumptions of newswriting at once. Th e assumptions of honourable witness and

communication were still present, and demanded for basic credibility. However,

they could not be provided in shorthand by the knowledge of the writer/trans-

mitter. Th ey had to be spelled out in the text itself – elaborately, at length. Th e

words themselves had to express honourable credibility, now that a person could

not. Th is demand had signifi cant eff ects on the way military news would be

presented. Th e entire military news pamphlet genre, which reached its height

between 1585 and 1605, assumed its form in good part as a response to new

conditions of credibility justifi cation. Two of the genre’s most notable character-

istics would be an intense exaggeration of the sociable news letter’s rhetorics of

eyewitness and of partiality.

Eff ects of First-Person Eyewitness

Th e credibility of honour was intimately bound up with the credibility of eye-

witness. Any honourable man was supposed to report truthfully what he had

seen, and equally truthfully distinguish his own eyewitness from hearsay. As W.

M. wrote in 1585,

I have sent you here a certaine draught of our attemptes, since our arivall into these partes

of Flaunders; the truth whereof you need not to doubt, for that my pen hath written

nothing but what my owne eies have behelde and seene. Th erfore as you esteeme of my

deedes give credit to my wordes, and as you have tryed my truth, make accoumpt of my

tydings.49

Newswriters therefore shaped their texts very strongly around the rhetoric and

claims of eyewitness. George Gascoigne took certain second-hand testimony of

the 1576 sack of Antwerp ‘for a truth’, but he took care to distinguish for his

readers what he had and had not seen with his own eyes.50 In 1591 Fabian John-

son wrote that in his news of Essex’s expedition to France he ‘set forth nothing but

that which is to be justifi ed for truth, by those that were eye witnesses of the contents

thereof ’.51 Henrie Peacham assured his readers that his description of the cam-

paign in Jülich in 1615 was confi ned to incidents ‘whereof my selfe have for the

most part bin an eie-witnesse’.52 William Lithgow’s A True and Experimentall

Discourse, upon the Beginning, Proceeding, and Victorious Event of this Last Siege

of Breda (1637) advertised on its title page that it was ‘written by him who was an

Eye witnesse of the siege’.53


Th e privileging of individual eyewitness also encouraged military news

reports to present the sort of story amenable to individual eyewitness. Th is meant

a single, complete story, as witnessed by a single individual. In 1580 Th omas

Churchyard asked his readers to ‘heare what an other man of good credite wrote

of this matter, who stoode and plainely behelde the service from the beginning

to thende’.54 In 1629 Henry Hexham claimed that he could claim to provide a

fairly good account of the year’s campaign in the Low Countries, since ‘being an

eye-witnesse in the most of them: I hope they [the particulars of his account]

will carrye more truth a long with them’.55 Hugh Peters in 1631 emphasized that

‘the Lord by an especiall hand led me to looke uppon the beginning & end of

this late deliverance’.56 One individual could make sense of the signifi cance of an

entire battle or campaign and so he oft en reported in those discrete units, where

the medium of scale was part of the message. Th e standard of honourable eye-

witness contributed to making military news reports focus on discrete battles,

sieges, and campaigns.

Th e abrupt beginnings and ends of some of these reports also were due to

their status as fi rst-hand reports by English soldiers. A Recitall of that which Hath

Happened in the Kings Armie (1590) broke off in the middle of Henri IV’s cam-

paign, when ‘the King gave the English men leave to depart’.57 Th e author of Th e

True Reporte of the Service in Britanie (1591) explained that he had to put down

his pen because ‘we are presently to march against Morlays’.58 Th e author of A

True Relation of this Present Siege of Shertoken-Busse (1629) ended his narration

of the siege in mid-skirmish: ‘Whether these Workes … be againe recovered by

our men, I cannot positively relate, for the next day in the morning I came out

of the Leaguer, being to goe for England’.59 Th e abrupt ends of these reports

refl ected (in addition to the exigencies of lack of copy) a culture of individual

eyewitness, which, from various second-best options, preferred to begin or end a

narrative abruptly rather than jumble together diff erent accounts.

Related to the standard of eyewitness was the use of the fi rst-person narra-

tive. If individual eyewitness was the canon of credibility, than a report declaring

itself to represent such eyewitness, written in the fi rst-person ‘I saw’, was par-

ticularly valuable. As Würzbach notes with reference to street-ballads, the use of

fi rst-person narration, and the accompanying address to specifi ed groups (maid-

ens, bachelors, countrymen) was a way of creating within the text a familiar

relation between the singer and the audience.60 Harper and Würzbach both add

that the fi rst-person narration of ballads was also used to guarantee authentic-

ity, either as a putative eyewitness or a reliable news-transmitter.61 Military news

likewise used (and perhaps pioneered) the prose techniques attendant upon the

fi rst-person narrative.

As much as in sociable news, if not more so, the specifi c detail resulting from

fi rst-person narrative and eyewitness enhanced credibility. Th is was said most


elegantly (albeit in 1638, just beyond the period covered by this study) as ‘there is

fr aud in generalities, [so] we thought fi t to acquaint you with each particular’.62 As

Henrie Peacham prepared to go off to Jülich in 1615, his friends wanted him to

write news that included ‘things of small moment seene or done upon the way,

which have also their delight aswell as the most serious aff aires’.63 A Relation of

the Weekely Occurences of Newes (1622) noted that since ‘men desire to heare the

thing, and then the manner of it, please you to take in their owne words, how

Spinolaes forsaken quarters [around Bergen-op-Zoom] were fi rst visited by the

besieged, and the Prince of Orange himselfe, and the most part of his Army’.64 A

1631 coranto reported ‘credible’ news of a Swedish victory in Brandenburg, near

Alt Ruppin and Neuruppin, but noted that ‘the particularities do not appeare’.

A letter from Amsterdam in the same report corroborated a victory, but also

cautioned that they awaited ‘further and more certainely of the particulars, as

time will aff ord’.65

Personal details were particularly credible. Relating to the author himself, or

to people he had personally witnessed, they combined the credibility of eyewit-

ness, personal experience, and detail. So in June 1589 a report of the expedition

to Portugal declared that at their fi rst landing, the Earl of Essex ‘was the fi rst

man that landed who by reason that the byllowes were highe did wade to the

shoulders to come to the shoare’.66 Th e author of A True Reporte of the Great

Overthrowe Lately Given unto the Spaniards in their Resolute Assault of BER-

GEN OP ZOAM (1605) mentioned that aft er a long and weary fi ght, ‘I my selfe

was so moiled and wette, as if I had beene but newely drawne out of the River’.67

But it was the detailed descriptions of wounds suff ered, in particular, that were

studded most profusely through the military news – text and wounds not only

mimiced the mention of wounds in familial, sociable news, but also bore viscer-

ally embodying witness within the text of participation in battle. A Copie of the

Last Advertisement that Came fr om Malta (1565) detailed the writer’s wounds

upon his body, legs and arms.68 Th e author of Th e True Reporte of the Service

in Britanie (1591) wrote that at the assault of Guingamp ‘Captaine HERON

received a shot in the throate, whereof he presently dyed …. Captaine WOLFE

in the top of the breach had three dangerous woundes in the head, and others in

his body; Captaine CATESBYE a voluntarie gentleman sore hurt in the arme’.69

A True Report of All the Proceedings of Grave Mauris before the Towne of Bercke

(1601) reported that in a skirmish ‘the Governour of Bercke, Don Lowis Ferdi-

nandus Afr icano, standing in the Roundhouse to behold the fi ght, was shotte

through his cheeke, the shot smiting out his teeth, and wounding his tongue’.70

William Fleetwood wrote that at the retreat at Ré from St Martin to the boats,

he ‘was forst to take an Infi rme salt pitt; where both my selfe and my horse stucke

fast in the ground, and where I had sodainely a gastly wound in the legg with a

bullett’.71


Orienting geographic detail also enhanced credibility. Th e impulse to orient

the reader as to the scene of action was very great, and many of these reports tried

to describe the location of a campaign or siege in realistic detail. Some part of

this detail was educational; some part an attempt not to confuse the audience.

We can see parallels of geographic orientation in diplomatic correspondence,

where it was not needed to provide credibility. In September 1591 Henry Unton

wrote to Christopher Hatton from Henri IV’s army at Gournay, describing the

king’s successful assault of it. To give a sense of its location and strategic impor-

tance he wrote,

this towne is eight leagues distant from Roan in the countrey of Caux in the middest

of divers townes, which holde for the Kinge; it is the suberbes of Picardie and Nor-

mandie, of greate importance to us for the seege of Roan, bothe for the safe passage of

our victuells thither, without the which we mighte have bene famished, as also to take

away the only place of retreate from the enemy, who when he should attempte anie

thinge uppon us (beinge beaten) would retyer hither, and place a garrison of 1500

horse and foote to annoy us, and keepe us watchinge; so that of necessitie we were

forced to beseege it, only for the enterprise of Roan.72

But in anonymous military news the provision of geographic detail should also

be seen as part of this eff ort to use detail to build credibility; aft er all, geographic

detail, if anything, was subject to corroboration. Th omas Gainsford in a 1623

coranto, judging reports of a redeployment of the garrisons of Bohemia, evi-

dently looked over a map of Bohemia and concluded that ‘the places likewise

theither they are to march lying so handsomely together, may also second the

credit of this relation’.73 On a smaller scale, geographic detail provided eyewit-

ness credibility – an assurance that the author had indeed seen what he described.

So the author of Newes fr om Brest (1594) described the fort of Crozon and its

siege in detail, while Newes fr om Ostend (1601) described Ostend down to the

eff ects of the changing tides in its harbor, and deduced from that description a

sense of its strategic importance.74 A Journall of All the Principall Passages (1632)

quickly sketched Maastricht’s location, and the exact location of the besieging

Dutch army’s four quarters around the town, before proceeding to the details

of the siege.75 Maps also provided credibility, simulating the visual credibility of

eyewitness. Th e printer of Th e Continuation of the Weekly Newes (16 September

1624, no. 33) advertised a map of the siege of Breda, ‘wherein you may with the

eye behold the siege, in a manner, as lively as if you were an eye-witnesse’.76

English readers presumably knew a little bit of the geography of the nearer

parts of the Continent, so these reports probably conveyed real information to

them. But sometimes these attempts to set the scene must have meant very lit-

tle to the English reader. Aft er all, as Taylor noted, English readers were very

sketchy on the geography of the farther parts of the Continent:


First John Easie takes me, and holds mee fast by the fi st halfe an houre, and will needes

torture some newes out of me from Spinola, whom I was never neere by 500 miles; for

hee is in the Pallatinate country, and I was in Bohemia. I am no sooner eased of him,

but Gregory Gandergoose, an Alderman of Gotham catches me by the goll, demaund-

ing if Bohemia bee a great towne, and whether there be any meate in it, and whether

the last fl eet of shipps be arived there.77

So it must have been pure gibberish when a report on the wars in Poland reported

that ‘His Majestie agreed to beseege the Citie of Polotzko, because that Towne

lyeth in the border of the great Dukedome of Litto, and principallye of the

Towne of Villo, and there lyeth no Fortresse betweene that and the Wilde’.78 Th is

is the sort of thing that inspired parody by Th e Tatler and Th e Spectator a century

later.79 However, at least the reader knew vaguely why Polotzk mattered. More

to the point, this Polish example makes clear that the provision of geographic

detail was far more to establish credibility than to educate. It did not matter how

much the names of Polish towns and regions were unknown and unknowable

gibberish to Englishmen. Th ey were also hostages to fortune: the names, once

given, could be contradicted, and so the willingness to provide a verifi able name

(no matter how unlikely the average reader was to bother to verify) provided the

report minimal credibility.

Th e insertion of reported speech also served to create the sense of credible

detail. So these news reports include extracts of soldiers’ speech, in foreign lan-

guages, scattered throughout them. In 1576, as the Spanish mutineers began

their assault on Antwerp, George Gascoigne recorded the rallying speech of a

Walloon Trumpeter who ‘drew his sworde, and layd about him crying, Ou est

que vous eufuiez canaille? faisons teste pour le honeur de la patrie’.80 In 1591 a

Spanish soldier captured in Brittany swore that his testimony as to the location

of the enemy forces was true, ‘Bota dios … per Caritad’.81 In August 1623 Th omas

Gainsford narrated in a coranto an account of a defeat of Christian of Bruns-

wick: ‘Th is disaster was occasioned by the Germanes themselves, who in the face

of the pursueing Enemy cried out Gelt, Gelt, as their manner is, tumultuously

demaunding their pay, chusing rather to be cut in pieces, then to stay a while for

their wages’.82

Another aspect of fi rst-person narrative was the inclusion of the eyewitness’

thoughts. Th ese news reports included not only an account of what happened,

but sometimes also minute-by-minute accounts of the narrators’ fears of dangers

– even when nothing actually harmed them. In 1576 George Gascoigne, advanc-

ing to take a look at the Spanish assault on Antwerp as the defending milita

retreated,

seeing them ronne so fast, began thus to bethinke me. What in Gods name doe I

heare which have no interest in this action? synce they who came to defend this town

are content to leave it at large, and shift for themselves: And whilest I stoode thus


musing, another fl ocke of fl yers came so fast that they bare me on my nose, and ran as

many over my backe, as erst had marched over my guttes. In fi ne, I gotte up like a tall

fellow, and wente with them for company.83

In August 1629 Andrew Withers, at the siege of s’ Hertogenbosch, forwarded

to a Lord in England a letter of news that said: ‘He [the Prince of Orange] hath

a gallery made halfe over the towne ditch already, into which my foole hardiness

did carry me, soe that I could have wrapped up my gloves & then throwen them

in to the towne’.84 In 1631 Hugh Peters wrote that his regiment had thought

‘that the enemy had made an attempt to come forth and was beaten back by our

men, when as it appeared otherwise the next day, for the next morning being

Friday wee discerned uppon the wals of Bergen a fl eete of 80. sayle or more com-

ming towards the towne’.85 His regiment’s misconceptions are as much a part of

the news as the actual events: here the news is as much about thoughts as actions.

Th e record of the narrator’s ongoing thoughts, an attribute of fi rst-person narra-

tion, was futher evidence of his eyewitness presence on the battlefi eld, and so a

further guarantee of the credibility of the news.

Another eff ect of the reliance upon fi rst-person narration to provide cred-

ibility was to emphasize the plain style as a method of communicating military

news. Plain style, as noted above, was characteristic of medieval epistolary rheto-

ric, which was the genre ancestor of the news pamphlet. Furthermore, from the

sixteenth century on, plain language, unstylish but informative, was coming to

be perceived as an indicator of truth.86 Plain style also refl ected Neostoic (and

therefore Tacitean) tersity – a self-controlled language fi t for a self-controlled

reader, that by its very self-control supported its claim to provide good infor-

mation and good counsel.87 Such Tacitean-infl uenced prose, popularized as a

vernacular plain style, soon became the standard for journalism in general, and

military news in particular.88 Unlike deliberately literary style, which implied the

leisure to write exquisitely, and hence distance in time and place from the events

described, plain style gave the impression of unmediated, immediate description

of events, and the pressure of military life. As William Lithgow put it, ‘if this

familiar stile seeme not to thee so accurate and Elegant, as I have done heretofore

in other Workes, impute the fault thereof to a disordered Leaguer, my miserable

lying on cold straw … to the clangor of Armour, the ratling of Pikes, the hurling of

shouldring Muskets’.89 Plain style also fi t the canons of soldierly honour and style

– a soldier was plain-spoken, bluff , unlike the courtier who knew how to shape

his words with deliberate eff ect (see above). Plain writing was also presented as

a means to bring the news out while it was still news. In 1622 a newswriter said

to his ‘GENTLE READERS’ that ‘you are so hasty of newes, that you will not

give way to any preamble, or induction, nor scarce a breathing time to the Post


himselfe to deliver his Letters, and therefore I will here observe you accordingly,

without any maner of evasion, or devise of Oratory’.90

So plain style was declared a deliberate goal in writing military news. In

1591 G. B., citing Roman fi gures iconically associated with plain style, wrote

that ‘nothing (saith Quintilian) so much commendeth the person of the writer, as

the truth of the subject, he proposeth to write: And certes nothing advanced so highly

Julius Caesars historie, as truth polished with Eloquence discreetly’.91 Th e author of

a ‘Report from Cales’ in 1596 assured his correspondent that ‘I have plainely and

faithfullie without eyther exactnes of forme colour of wordes or amplifyinge any

one pointe beyond the truthe set doune the particulars as the happend’.92 In 1631

Hugh Peters called himself ‘a stranger to the Language’ who would ‘shew truth

in her nakednesse’.93 Indeed, literary polish became a whipping boy for newsmen

boasting of their crude truthfulness. Th e author of a letter describing the 1596

expedition to Cadiz concluded by saying of his account that ‘yew shall fi nd [it]

neyther coulored with awle, nor in anye part amplyfyed beyond the truth, … and

a playne and direct narration of perticulars religiouslye observed’.94 As the author

of a 1626 account boasted, ‘Expectest thou fr om hence a matter beautifi ed with

Learned phrayses, or adorned with Schollerlike tearmes, thy expectation is fr us-

trated’.95 Plain style declared an eyewitness who wrote his impressions without

thinking of them, thought itself a traitor to sense. Plain style organized words so

as to give the impression of honourable eyewitness.

Partiality

Impartiality was a source of credibility as far back as the ancient historians, and

had never disappeared as a source of credibility in the Western tradition.96 Nev-

ertheless, it was distinctly a minor register in these anonymous news reports

simulating sociability. A partial, committed point of view was an essential part

of the simulation of sociability by the anonymous news. But in anonymous news

this encouragement had to be particularly emphasized when news lost the actual

guarantee of sociability. Th is is worth emphasizing: at this stage, anonymous

news was not supposed to be impartial and objective. It was not supposed to

lie, either, or distort the truth too woefully – but it was supposed to put the

best possible construction on events. Th e emphasis on victory was also clearly

commercial – newsreaders presumably enjoyed reading about victories more

than they enjoyed reading about defeats – but the imperatives of commerce and

entertainment alone do not explain the overwhelming partiality of anonymous

news. Th e credibility of the news depended on the demonstration of friendly

partiality.

So victories were reported far more oft en than defeats. Th ere are a large number

of pamphlets with encouraging titles: a partial list includes True Discourse of the


Discomfi ture of the Duke of Aumalle (1589), Discourse and True Recitall of Everie

Particular of the Victorie Obtained by the French King (1590), Overthrow of the

Most Part of the Prince of Parma his Forces (1591), True Relation of the French

Kinge his Good Successe (1592), True Discourse of the Overthrowe Given to the

Common Enemy at Turnhaut (1597), True Newes of a Notable Victorie Obtayned

against the Turkes (1598), True Relation of the Famous and Renowned Victorie …

Neere to Newport (1600), True Reporte of the Great Overthrowe Lately Given unto

the Spaniards in their Resolute Assault of BERGEN OP ZOAM (1605), Good

Newes fr om Florence (1614), Th ree Great Overthrowes (1622), More Newes of the

Good Successe of the Duke of Brunswicke (1623), and Hendrik Cornelis Loncq’s

A True Relation of the Vanquishing of the Towne of Olinda (1630). Contrariwise,

very few titles even hinted of defeat: the surrender of Breda in 1625, when it was

fi nally acknowledged in a coranto, failed to be mentioned on the title page.97 A

Continuation of the Newes of this Present Weeke (16 November 1622, no. 7) was

almost alone in mentioning a defeat on its title page: ‘Together with the Articles

granted to Generall Veere, upon the yeelding up of MANHEIM Castle’.98

Th e greatest fault line of partiality – of sociability and credibility – in these

military news divided Protestant and Catholic, in England and Europe.99 Th is

was the age of religious war – civil and foreign, across all western and central

Europe, reaching its peaks in northwestern Europe’s late sixteenth-century wars

with Spain and the Th irty Years War, and thus coinciding exactly with and

prompting the peak production of military news. Not all wars were religious, of

course, and not all military news was about religious wars. Th e ballad Th e Joyful

Peace Concluded between the King of Denmark and the King of Sweden (1613)

and the manuscript separate A True Reporte of our Service by Lande (1622) both

described wars between Lutheran Denmark and Lutheran Sweden; A True

Discourse of the Occurrences in the Warres of Savoy (1601) reported on Catho-

lic France’s invasion of Catholic Savoy; and Henri de Schomberg’s A Relation

Sent to the French king by the Marshall de Schomberg (1632) narrated a civil war

among Catholic French factions.100 Th e usual complications acknowledged, the

members of these faiths conceived of themselves as bitter enemies, and as bitter

enemies Protestant and Catholic were engaged in what Shapin refers to as ‘the

ultimate incivility[, which] is the public withdrawal of trust in another’s access

to the world and in another’s moral commitment to speaking truth about it’.101

Th e great civility, aft er all, was with the highest truth, God himself; to be out

of communion with that truth was to make all lesser truths impossible. At the

very least, Catholics, even gentle Catholics, could not be trusted to tell the truth

‘in any matter impinging upon their faith’.102 News of Protestant-Catholic bat-

tles clearly fell into this category. To be credible, reports of these battles had to

express partiality with the Protestant cause, and deny all credibility to Catholic

reports. Th ere is an obvious sectarian application to the claim that ‘I will by Gods


grace speake nothing but the Truth’.103 Th ose without God’s grace – Catholics

– by obvious corollary could only speak lies. As Barnaby Riche put it,

Would you have some speciall markes howe you may knowe them [Catholics], then

listen, and by these meanes you may easely smell them out: You shall have them

inquiring of newes, spreading of rumours, lying, forging, counterfeiting and dissem-

bling, what action hath there beene so honourably performed, sithe that noble Earle

of Leicester undertooke these lowe country servies, whych hath not beene defaced

(heere at home) by our slaundering Papistes.

What good news hath there come over which they have not paraphrased, what

enterprise so justly attempted, wheich they have not eclipsed, or what exployt so

bravely accomplished; which they have not metamorphised.104

Indeed, Catholics evidently did have their own source of news, as partial to Cath-

olic successes as the mass of Protestant news was partial to Protestant success. In

May 1622, Mead’s London correspondent wrote that ‘we had here by Gonde-

mars advertisement a false report, that Count Mansfeild & 10000 of his men

were slayne the King taken prisoner or fl ed & all the Lower Palatinate lost’.105

In February and March of 1631 multiple reports of Tilly defeating Gustavus

Adolphus came to London, but were all disbelieved (although reported) because

the sources were Catholic: ‘all is still supposed to be forged in some Jesuiticall

shopp’.106 In April 1632 John Pory wrote to Scudamore that

here was newes sprinkled up and downe both court and towne by Papistes, that the

king of Sweden had suff red a great overthrowe … But Sir John Suckling being come

from Sir Henry Vane on Tuesday night, and bringing word that the king was gott into

Bavaria without any opposition, conjured downe that lying spirit.107

Each network, from hope and calculation, tended to report advantageous events

and discount disadvantageous ones.108 To report a Catholic victory opened

the not unreasonable suspicion that you yourself were a Catholic or a Catholic

sympathizer; to report news of Protestant victories abroad was to declare one’s

Protestant identity and sympathies. Th is tendency was to have inhibitory eff ects

on the printed news, as newswriters tied themselves in prefatory rhetorical

knots, disavowing any hint of sympathy with enemies, before daring to report

their victories.

So, while soldiers, doctors, and chaplains could be coolly secular in their tone,

and occasionally even critical of Puritan fervour,109 by and large any sentiment,

or explanatory religious framework, was fervently anti-Catholic in tone.110 It is

also noteworthy that the networks of social authorship that passed on the mili-

tary news through England – the Moretons, Breretons, Barringtons, D’Ewes,

and others – were oft en Puritan in character, fervently partial and sociable with

regards to their co-religionists abroad and especially unwilling to countenance


civility with Catholics, at home or abroad. Incivility across the confessional line

was the great determinant of partiality, and hence credibility, in this period.

So very little military news written by Catholics (whether English or for-

eign) was read in England by Protestants. Th is was unlikely to have been caused

by any diff erence other than religion. Catholic news was probably rather similar

in form and content to English news; Spanish printed news in the 1620s and

1630s certainly seems very similar to its English counterparts.111 When bits of

Catholic military news did appear in the Catholic English news circuits, their

writers appear to have been the same sort of gentlemen writing the same sort of

sociable news.112 But Catholic military newswriters are most notable for their

absence. England was itself (offi cially) Protestant, oft en in cold or hot wars with

Spain or France on religious grounds, and so both its sympathies and sources of

news came along religious lines. Th e great majority of translated news was from

reports by Protestant Dutchmen, Frenchmen, and Germans, writing avowedly,

and oft en stridently, as (usually Reformed) Protestants. Aft er the publication

of Álvaro de Bazan’s Relation of the Expongnable Attempt and Conquest of the

Yland of Tercera (1583), a Spanish account of the conquest of the Azores from

Portuguese and French troops, the eruption of open war with Spain meant that

virtually no military news of Catholic origin appeared in print (or even directly

in the manuscript networks) for two generations. To listen to enemies, to repeat

their lies, could only undermine the credibility of the news. When it did appear,

it had to be explicitly labelled a lie. A translation of a Spanish report of a battle in

the Caribbean between English and Spanish ships only appeared under the mar-

velously declarative title A Libell of Spanish Lies (1596).113 When a report from

the siege of s’ Hertogenbosch in 1629 included the sermon given by the town’s

Catholic bishop to enhearten the townsmen to endure the Protestant siege a

while longer, the newswriter had to counter the speech with a poem at the end of

the news report: ‘You fr iendly Reader heare, / how that this foolish Prelate, / Poore

peoples eyes would bleare / with fabl’s he doth relate, / In stead of giving glory / to

God, and Christ our hope, / To trust in his false story, / and Pardons of the Pope’.114

Th e exception to this rule of Protestant partiality was English translations

of Catholic reports of battles against Muslim enemies. Th ese were printed in

England throughout this period: for example, Certayn and Tru Good Nues, fr om

the Syege of the Isle Malta (1565), Newes fr om Vienna (1566), Th e True Report of

All the Successe of Famagosta (1572), True Newes of a Notable Victorie Obtayned

against the Turkes (1598), A True Relation of Taking of Alba-Regalis (1601), Good

Newes fr om Florence (1614), and Newes fr om Poland (1621). Manuscript reports

also appeared, such as Henry Tweedy’s forwarding to John Egerton ca. Septem-

ber 1608 reports of a Florentine raid against Cyprus.115 In these circumstances, a

common Christian identity apparently overcame the reluctance to use Catholic

sources. A similar chain of logic probably explains the publication of A True


Reporte of the Taking of the Great Towne and Castell of Polotzko (1579), which

narrates a Catholic Polish triumph over Orthodox Muscovite enemies. But these

reports were few and far between. By and large, the Catholic was the enemy to

English newsreaders, and they did not take him as a source of news.

Th ese exceptions aside, news reports were supposed to encourage confi dence

in the fate of the Protestant cause. A. M’.s Th e True Reporte of the Prosperous

Successe which God Gave unto our English Souldiours (1581) declared that it

was meant to act as ‘a singuler comfort to all godly Christians, & true harted

subjectes, and an exceeding encouragement to them to persist valiantly in their

true Religion and faithe towards God, [and] their due obedience and loove to

their Prince’.116 Th e author of Newes fr om France (1591) wished that he ‘had just

occasion everie daie to acquaint you with such successful newes’. 117 Th e Generall

Newes of Europe (28 April 1624, no. 22) told its readers not to be dismayed at

the ill success of the Protestant cause abroad: ‘Doe not wonder, that either the

Warres of Germany goe forward so slowly, or the recovery of the Palatinate coms

lagging behind, may hinder other designes: for as the case now stands, it is an

Herculian labour’.118

It was also constantly repeated in these news reports that a good reader was

well-aff ected to the side of God and the good, and that those who denied a true

and godly report were clearly disaff ected (Catholic) enemies of God. Good read-

ers believed in Protestant victories; bad readers believed in Catholic victories.

Th e printer of A True Coppie of a Discourse Written by a Gentleman, Employed

in the Late Voyage of Spaine and Portingale (1589) sought to publish the truth of

the campaign, and to ‘confi rme others who maie remaine doubtfull of either [the

true and false accounts]; and reforme them that have been seduced, are become

sectaries agaynst the same [the truth]’.119 Th e writer of Th e Certaine Newes of this

Present Weeke (23 August 1622) fl aunted his allegiance visually, stamping it ‘with

the Armes of the King of Bohemia’.120 In 1622 Doctor Welles wrote from Ger-

many ‘especially [to] such as are friends of the cause of the Pallatinate, and fi nde

their hearts aff ected to the true understanding of the businesse’. He expected

that his upbeat report on the progress of the Protestant cause, ‘the truth it selfe’,

would be ‘well come to all Religious hearts; as for such as are otherwise addicted,

it matters not to satisfi e them, for Charmes will not move Adders out of their

holes’.121 Contrariwise, in Newes fr om the Palatinate (1622), the reader was told

that disheartened or disheartening reports about the prospects of the Elector

came from men in whose hands was ‘a cunning of deciphering his weakenesse

and temerity’, and who spread ‘calumnious Pictures, and scandalous reports’.122

Th at said, Catholic news could be read when it testifi ed against the Catholic

interest. Th is was not the voluntarily given news of a friend, but news captured,

so to speak, from an informant and extorted against his will – not given in

exchange in any sense, but taken by force and therefore acceptable. Th e proof that


such information was credible was that it spoke badly of Catholics. An inform-

ant who reported against his own interest must be presumed to be reporting

reluctantly, under the coercion of the truth and his captors, and therefore with

some credibility. A Protestant reader could take as credible Catholic testimony

of Catholic defeats.

So Th omas Digges in A Briefe Report of the Militarie Services Done in the

Low Countries, by the Erle of Leicester (1587) based his account ‘of the enimies

doings’ in part upon the enemy’s own ‘intercepted letters’.123 A report of Tilly’s

defeat in 1622 was considered particularly credible because it came from the

Spanish garrison at ‘Crutznach, … and therefore I am perswaded they would

make the best of a businesse against them, and bee as sparing as they could to

discredit their owne aff ayres’.124 Th e Swedish Discipline (1632) explained

Tilly’s defeat at the battle of Breitenfeld in 1631 out of Tilly’s own mouth: ‘Th e

whole fault, he layd upon the Crabats & Imperiall horse’.125 Indeed, the wish

for the enemy to have witnessed the victory of friends sometimes made the very

absence of such witness notable. A Jornall of Certaine Principall Passages (1629)

remarked that the Protestant thanksgiving for the victory at Wesel celebrated at

the siege of s’ Hertogenbosch was not witnessed by the commander of the Span-

ish garrison, ‘because hee had the gout’.126

It is worth noting that A Description of S’Hertogenbosh … Together with the

Principall Points and Passages Concerning the Last Siege (1629) included what

purported to be a Spanish journal of the entire victorious Dutch siege of S’

Hertogenbosch.127 It is diffi cult to tell whether it is real or not: it is somewhat

more dour and downcast than the Protestant siege-journals that appear in the

printed news (e.g., A Journall or Daily Register of All Th ose Warlike Atchievements

which Happened in the Siege of Berghen-up-Zoome in the Low-Countries (1622),

describing an unsuccessful Spanish siege), but comparable to manuscript jour-

nals of the disastrous expedition to Ré. Whether true or not, its appearance in

English translation still testifi ed to the English urge to publish accounts of vic-

tory from enemy sources.

Th e unwillingness to speak of defeat in these military news reports also reg-

istered the great importance of partiality. S. W’.s Th e Appollogie of the Illustrious

Prince Ernestus, Earle of Mansfi eld (1622) explained that the defeat at Zablati

came only aft er Mansfi eld’s forces ‘spent all their bullets, as also the buttons of

their dublets, and their powder, and being out of all hope of reliefe, they yeelded

upon condition’.128 Th e Continuation of Our Weekely Newes (28 June 1625, no.

28) only got around to mentioning the surrender of Breda aft er some weeks had

passed; by a most remarkable coincidence, ‘we received none [news] from the

United Provinces in the space of 5. or 6. weekes, (by reason of contrary winde,

which was not seene in the space of 30 years)’.129 A 1627 coranto spoke of the

defeat of Danish forces by Tilly, but only aft er a stiff and honourable defense.130


Where defeats were mentioned – such as an English mine blowing up friendly

soldiers by accident at ‘s Hertogenbosch in 1629 – they were usually within the

context of an eventual victory that drew the sting from what now became merely

a tactical setback.131

Swethland and Poland Warres (1610) did relate a defeat, in excruciating

detail, but there are a number of reasons for this. To begin with, this report of an

English regiment’s misfortunes in Swedish service – shipwrecked in Denmark

and almost massacred by the Danish peasantry, marched from Finland into

Russia in the heart of winter, abandoned by their Russian allies when the Poles

attacked them, and utterly defeated by the Poles – was an admonitory piece,

clearly meant in part (despite the protest that ‘farre are my thoughts (God beares

record of them) from any such disswasion’) to ‘terrifi e those that never bare

Armes; nor followed the fortunes of a Souldier, from ever going into Sweden

and to serve in those warres’.132 In a piece which spent more than half its length

on the diffi culties the shipwrecked soldiers had escaping with their lives from

murderous Danish peasants, the emphasis was clearly on the suff erings of the

soldiers, not on the outcome of the war. Furthermore, this was a relatively low-

stakes war for the English readership: not fought directly by the English state, or

even by neighboring Calvinists such as the Dutch or the Huguenots, nor against

England’s traditional Spanish or French antagonists. A defeat could be admitted

with relative ease in a contest between Lutheran Swedes and Catholic Poles in

the heart of distant Russia. For all that, it is interesting to note that the title page

of this report referred to the ‘fortunes and successe’ of the English regiment:

ambiguous words which somewhat concealed a story of suff ering and defeat.133

But such examples were few and far between in an overwhelming report of vic-

tories. Censorship mattered, but the unwillingness to mention defeat at all was

so marked as to suggest something more was involved. Th ere was: to mention

defeat was to seem unfriendly, unsociable, untrustworthy. When friendliness

was in doubt, to speak of defeat became nearly impossible.

It is important to mention here that this was a result of the simulation of

sociability, providing credibility when friendliness was not known for certain.

By contrast, in sociable letters themselves, where friendliness was certain, it was

possible to speak of defeat. In 1569 Leicester wrote to the Earl of Huntingdon

that ‘Our newes out of France be very naught, the Admyrall hath receaved a

great overthrow lately all his footement almost slayne sundry of his best captains

taken, most of his towens he had fortifi ed, upon the losse of the battell rendred

& abandoned’.134 John Chamberlain wrote to Dudley Carleton in 1598 of the

defeat at the Battle of the Yellow Ford, calling it ‘the greatest losse and dishonour

the Quene hath had in her time’.135 In October 1627 the author of ‘A Journall

of the Voyage of Rease’ wrote that as the English retreated from the fort of St.

Martin to their ships the French harried, then assaulted them:


in an instante (such a panique fayre wee tooke) that there was nothinge to be seene

one our partes, but disorder, & the eff ecte there running away, And the enemy know-

ing well to make use of the advantage pursued it with an unsparing execucon, & that

with out respecte of persons, & little regard of quarteres in breefe wee lost not fewer

in this shamefull retreate (partely by the sword of them & partely by treading one

upon the other & drowning in the Ditches) then one thousand men.136

But even in the privacy of letters and manuscript newsletters, where known

sociability allowed the possibility of discussing defeat, newswriters still disliked

doing so. In June 1589 Ralph Lane wrote from Portugal a most disingenuous

account of the English retreat from Lisbon.137 In May 1592 Unton used a rhet-

oric as disliking of defeat as in any printed pamphlet: ‘I [am] bound in duty

to wryte somewhat of the same [a defeat in France], though not to my likinge,

beinge lothe to be the messenger or confi rmer of our Lordship’s sorrowe, and

lamentinge the accident myselfe as much as any’.138 In November 1632 George

Fleetwood explained to his father that because Gustavus Adolphus had died at

the battle of Lützen, ‘I have slipped some opportunitye of writeing, not being

willing to bee the fi rst messenger of soe ill newes’.139

When they did speak of defeat, letter-writers preferred to obscure the sub-

ject. One could look for the little victories that let you claim that you had really

won. In June 1589 a report of the expedition to Portugal declared that, despite

failing to take Lisbon or raise Portugal for Don Antonio, ‘in all these encounters

our men had alwayes the upper hand’.140 In 1622 a letter written from Frankfurt

detailed at miserable length the recent capitulation of Heidelberg, but detailed

both English heroism and unwillingness to surrender as ways to lighten the

defeat.141 Treason was a good excuse for defeat. In June 1586 Dr. John James

wrote in his diary of Leicester’s expedition to the Netherlands that ‘there came

advtisement that Venloo was without eyther assault or batterie suffi cient) yealded

up to th’enimie, onely by the treason of the Burghers, who whilest the soldiars

weare upon the walles for the defence thereof, in the meane tyme lett in 800.

Spaniardes at a backe gate’.142 One manuscript account of the defeat of Ré subti-

tled itself ‘Th e generall expectation of our mighty fl eet was soone delivered of a

hopefull birth, but through willfulnes in some not without suspition of treach-

ery, and perchance in others an overcarefull feare, the Action in conclusion

happened to be very disastrous’.143 Where all else failed, a dead commander was a

good excuse. In November 1632 George Fleetwood wrote to his father William

Fleetwood that at the battle of Lützen, ‘the distraction was soe great by reason

of the losse of our noble Kinge, that wee pursued not our victorie that night, but

contented outselves with the wynning of the feild and cannon’.144

For similar reasons, it was unacceptable to acknowledge in printed news that

friendly soldiers were weak and miserable. Save for rare and genre-bound anoma-

lies like Swethland and Poland Warres (1610),145 there was silence in print about


the parts of a soldier’s life that would inspire pity – and contempt. Th ese were

reserved for letters – as oft en as not letters within the government, where such

information was vital. Th roughout the period covered by this study, descriptions

of friendly weakness and misery remained too unfriendly to let into print.

So Walter Raleigh wrote Francis Walsingham in 1581 from Ireland that ‘ther

is great need of a supply in Munstre for the bandes ar all miche decayed …. the

men ar suche poore and misserable cretures as ther captaynes dare not lead them

to serve. If your honours beheld them when they arrive here you would think

them far unfi tt to fi ght’.146 In November 1591 Richard Broughton wrote to

Richard Bagot that Roger Williams had brought news that most of the English

soldiers who had gone to France were sick or wounded, and already returned

to England.147 In June 1622 the author of a letter from Mannheim described

Mansfi eld’s army as

an Army composed of reasonable good persons: but ill Armed, & worse comaunded.

Th ey runne all the all the [sic] country over to gett victualls, and to waste and spoyle

the places where they come, Leaving nothing behind them that is not too hote or too

heavye. Th ere are as many whores & boyes as men, and the most infi nite company

of wagons attending the Army (I suppose) that ever wayted on such forces, and to

conclude I thinke them better provided to run awaye then to fi ght’.148

Close Reading

Newsreaders became readers of texts. As the rhetoric of the defamiliarized mili-

tary news report demanded, they read by examining the texts shorn of sociable

context. Th ey read as textual critics. Th ey continued to respond to sociable con-

ventions, but the emphasis was rather on the text’s simulation of credibility than

on their own actions. Th ey had incorporated active reading into their behaviour

as active citizens.

Newsreaders ascribed particular credibility to news that came from the

court, the traditional locus of honour and credibility. In October 1622 Simonds

D’Ewes wrote in his diary that ‘too day newes was brought to the Court, that

Mainheim was leagred moore straightlye, the outworks lost and the towne with

that incomparable Sir Horace Vere in great danger’.149 In September 1626 Mead’s

London correspondent added marginal credibility to ‘A Copie of a letter sent

from beyond sea containing a true Relation of the Battaile between the King

of Denmark & Tilly, &c’. with a note in the margin: ‘some say from Sr James

Hanstrudder our Ambassador in Denmark’.150 In July 1628 Mead passed on

the report that ‘his Majesties Ambassador for the King of Sweden writes, that

he gave a great overthrow to the Pole in Leifl and this last May, that he hath so

blocked up the mouth of the vistula as he hath debarred them of all trade &c. so

that they have no money to pay their souldiers’.151


Th e rhetoric of anonymous news emphasized the importance of details for

credibility, and newsreaders in turn noticed these details. In September 1620

Walter Yonge wrote in his diary, apparently in reference to a part of Count Mans-

fi eld’s army, that ‘Colonel Francis his regiment, especially the soldiers called the

Dragons, do continually make incursions upon the enemy, so that they dare not

come out of their trenches’.152 In October 1620 William Whiteway wrote in his

diary that in a battle in Austria, ‘Tampire, one of the Emperors Generalls was

shot through the head with a Musquet, and aft er his body beheaded, caryed away

by the enmyes and put to Ransome’.153 In September 1622 Simonds D’Ewes

wrote in his diary that Dudley North had told him ‘that Mr Garrett Herbert,

the captaine, was slaine aft er three pikes fi rst valiantly brooken, being then shott

in the head. Th is hapned through the cowardice of the Dutchmen in the out-

workes, as hee fullye dilated it to mee’.154 Newsreaders particularly examined the

details of these reports to judge the credibility of military news. In September

1626, Mead wrote that a rumour that Flushing was surprised and Sluys besieged

was unlikely to be entirely true since ‘by the manner of their relation they should

seeme to be mistaken in both; but some thing it is like there is, which we shall

understand today’.155

Th e sense of news as inescapably dependent on multiple links was very

strong: in October 1626 Mead’s London correspondent wrote that ‘We have

from Germany this week onely one letter written from Collen to our Dutch

Postmaster of our third of this present, which he shewed me 2 dayes since & is

to this eff ect’.156 In July 1635 Th omas Crosfi eld recorded military news that had

come to him in the following manner: ‘Newes forreine sent from Mr Smythers

unto his sonne as followeth. By the post of Antwerp is brought much ill newes,

& I feare it is true for the most part’.157 News judgement could not leap entirely

above the limits imposed by intermediaries. Nevertheless, just as Locke and

Bacon preferred to receive their information through as few intermediaries as

possible,158 so news readers judged credibility by the number of intermediaries,

and preferred to receive news through as few of them as possible. In May 1626,

Mead’s London correspondent wrote that the news of Mansfi eld’s defeat came

directly from a letter written from Mansfi eld’s camp.159 In September 1629 Mead

wrote to Stuteville that ‘though the taking of Wesell be stale newes yet having

seene the copie of a letter from Mr Dineley Tutor to the Prince Palatine now

eldest son to Sir H Wotton thereabout; I will exscribe his relation of the manner

thereof, though the letter be of an old date’.160

Th e least intermediation of all was, of course, eyewitness, and so newsread-

ers far preferred the testimony of eyewitness in their judgement of credibility.

In September 1626 Mead took care to mention to Stuteville that he was not

himself an eyewitness to the letters reporting Tilly’s defeat of Christian IV: ‘Th e

ill newes of the King of Denmarks overthrow partly intimated partly expressed


in the enclosed (but then scarce beleeved) is mightily encreased this week at the

Faire. Th eir letters I have not seene’.161 In December 1632 John Beaulieu wrote

to Th omas Puckering that ‘ here, at court, we make no more doubt of his [Gusta-

vus Adolphus’] death, having it confi rmed (besides the former informations out

of the Low Countries and out of France) by the mouth of an eyewitness’.162

Newsreaders also responded to the tropes of religious partiality mentioned

above; for them it was ‘a blessing from God to understand the Truth from honest

Relations’.163 Such partiality was reinforced by the evolution of humanist, Repub-

lican thought that tied religious faith to (Stoic) constancy, and made religiosity

a foundation stone for proper civic-mindedness.164 So in September 1629 John

Holles wrote to his son John Holles, the Lord Haughton, at the Hague, that

‘our papists new coyned lyes … gett good footing, and spread even through the

kingdom, when truthe is longe in cumming; these be all for the king of Spayn,

not in pryvat prayers, but in all publik profession, glad ar they when the news

byas on their side’.165 In March 1632 John Pory wrote to John Scudamore that

‘Sir John [Caswell] turning about to some of his followers, should aske them,

whether their lord were a Papist, because hee gave to little countenance to the

victory of Protestants?’166 Th e partial reaction to Catholic military success is also

well represented by the fact that in March 1623 Mead passed on to Stuteville a

blasphemous parody attributed to the Jesuits:

I send you here a metamorphosis of the 114 115 psalmes which are usually sung in

every masse but were thus transformed by the Jesuites for their late massings for joy

of their successe againste the hereticke ....

1. In exitu Spinola de Brabantia, domus martis de populo fl orido

2. Facta est Judaea glorifi cation ejus, Palatinatus potestus

3. Hansbach vidit et fugit Wirtemberg conversus est retrorsum,

4. Electores exultaverunt ut Arietes, et Catholici sient Agni ovium …

7. A facia Spinola mota est terra, à facia Duium caesaris

8. Qui convertit gladium in stagnat Calvinistarum & arma in fontes rebelliam.167

Such polemical parody was not incidental to reporting the loss of the Palatinate;

it was an essential means of conveying partiality, and therefore credibility.

*****

In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, pamphleteers and coran-

teers searched for a way to have their printed works compete on equal terms

with gentlemen’s letters. At fi rst they engaged in various sorts of mimicry: prose

news pamphlets tended to imitate letters closely, to assure their readers that the

pamphlet was a faithful copy of a traditionally credible written letter. Yet all

such mimicry was fundamentally unconvincing, and the pamphleteers devel-

oped a new sense of credibility for their socially unmoored texts, based upon an

examination of the text itself rather than of the author of the news report. News


pamphlets therefore began to emphasize both details that proved the news was

written by an eyewitness and partial friendliness to Protestants and Englishmen

fi ghting abroad. As a result, printed news pamphlets became much longer and

more glossily optimistic than their written counterparts. Newsreaders in turn

began to adopt a credibility standard based on close reading.

– 121 –

5 EXTENSIVE NEWS

Shapin has shown that in the world of science the advance of knowledge depended

on a calculated and courteous imprecision, where the preservation of the honour

of disagreeing scientists occasionally of necessity took precedence over the rigor-

ous discourtesy of precisely established truth.1 Th e world of commercial news,

in contrast, faced a situation where the sociable community excluded it from

credibility. In news, courtesy and the new form of news were in direct confl ict.

Sociable military news had been born with the assumption that honour and

credibility were tied – that an honour-based system of credibility was both the

ideal and possible. Defamiliarized and commercial military news had adopted a

standard which based credibility upon the intensive reading of the texts of news,

but, in the last analysis, these texts attempted to ape the traditional guarantees

of honour, and so still acknowledged honour as the ultimate guarantor of cred-

ibility. Now, in a second stage of transformation, the news would cut its ties to

the traditional standards of credibility. Defamiliarized, commercial, printed mil-

itary news could never compete on equal terms with its rivals if it accepted the

postulates of honour; it could only weakly, and ultimately ineff ectively, imitate

them. Th e new form of news therefore had to undertake a radical assault on the

assumptions of honour and sociability, separating them from credibility, so as

to compete – even to triumph – over their predecessors. Th e establishment of a

new standard of credibility was necessary to make possible the assertion that any

anonymous, vulgar newswriter was as capable of telling the truth as the noblest

lord of England. Th e adoption of this new credibility standard by English news-

writers and English newsreaders – the examination and comparison of multiple,

presumptively dishonourable texts according to the standard of extensive cred-

ibility – begun in the late sixteenth century, accelerated enormously with the

introduction of corantos in the late 1610s and early 1620s, and was remarkably

complete by 1637. Th e adoption of intensive credibility had shift ed the locus of

credibility from the person of the newswriter to the singular anonymous text;

the adoption of extensive credibility completed the two-step transformation, by

creating a system of credibility suited to a world awash in anonymous texts.


Extensive Credibility

Th is transformation in military news was by no means solitary: early modern

English culture was undergoing a sea-change in the way it regarded the linked

concepts of honour, truth, fact, probability, and belief, and the appropriate

methods of cognition and judgement.2 As Shapin writes,

Trust is integral to social order, yet the manner in which trust is reposed is said to dis-

tinguish modern from premodern order. Modernity produces a highly complex array

of social information while reducing the familiarity with people that was the basis of

traditional trust. In the past, we made judgments of other people; now we are obliged

to trust in impersonal systems, for the cost of doing otherwise is unbearable. Anthony

Giddens diagnoses the modern condition as a set of ‘disembedding mechanisms’ by

which relations more and more take place between individuals separated in space and

in which social relations in a given space and time are more and more infi ltrated by

physically absent others. Social relations are lift ed out of local scenes of interaction

and restructured in abstract time-space. All disembedding mechanisms – think of

money – depend upon trust. Like Simmel and Luhmann, Giddens sees modernity as

the shift from reposing trust in individuals in contexts of face-to-face interaction to

trust in systems and abstract capacities.3

Th e change in the presentation and judgement of news was only a part of this

bundled series of modernity’s disembedding mechanisms. Certainly, the changes

in printed news did not initiate this transformation – though they may have

been crucial in amplifying its scope, transmitting changes in the elite intellectual

world to the world of popular culture, and so passing the new model of cogni-

tion from scientists, philosophers, and lawyers to the average reader of news.

Nor did these changes solely result from changes in credibility. Partly they

were the result of changing journalistic format in Amsterdam and across Europe

– the evolution of the coranto and the invention of Mercurius Gallobelgicus

between the English wars in the 1580s and 1590s and the German wars of the

1620s and 1630s. Partly good commercial motivations encouraged the trend:

some reports were interrupted merely as a way of encouraging readers to return

and buy another news report. ‘If I may fi nde this acceptable to the Reader, I shall

be willing to acquaint him with the rest, as it shall come unto my handes’.4 Yet this

general evolution was signifi cantly driven by the desire to establish credibility;

and these other factors worked in parallel to reinforce this search for credibility.

Newsreaders had long known that news could be unreliable; they empha-

sized honour so heavily so as to counteract its susceptibility to unreliability. Now

the writers of commercial news began to attack the ability of honour to provide

any credibility at all. No honour could guarantee the truth. All men were partial;

all men could alter the truth to fi t their interests; the noblest of men could lie

basely – and the noblest of men could lack the perceptual competence to witness

correctly, or avouch someone else’s testimony correctly. Th e general philosophi-

Extensive News 123

cal shift towards doubt, undermining trust in human perception and knowledge,

honourable status or no, was highly relevant to this new system of news credibil-

ity.5 If one followed the new scepticism, no system of news credibility based on

honour had a solid foundation.

As Dooley notes, with reference to both news and history, this could lead

simply to a principle of universal doubt and scepticism.6 But it did not have to

– and in England, more oft en than on the Continent, did not.7 An alternate

form of credibility could be constructed – one that allowed that any individual

news report was susceptible to doubt, but that credible news, in the abstract,

could still be constructed from uncertain components. By extensive reading of

numerous essentially partisan and fl awed reports, by comparing and judging

them against each other, a newsreader could come up with his own judgement

of the actual, credible truth from out of his fl awed sources. As John Pory wrote

to John Scudamore in March 1632,

Th e reason why I would have your lordship read all Corantos are. First because it is a

shame for a man of quality to be ignorant of that which the vulgar knowe. Secondly

a man that reads those toyes every week as they come forth is like one that stands

in a fi elde of Archers, where though hee sees not the marke, but observing how the

arrows fall, some short, some gone, some on the right and some on the left e hand,

he hath a near guesse where about the marke is; so hee that reads those bables for

a year or however will be able very handsomely to conjecture at the general state of

Christendome.8

Scudamore in turn wrote to his great-uncle that ‘Because I presume you to desire

to know the certainty of things in these uncertaine and most perilous times, I am

bold to impart to you such occurrences as come from good hands, that by com-

paring these with other intelligence & reports, truth may shew it self sooner to

you’.9 In its origins, this point of view could be reconciled with a form of human-

ist prudence (and so make the intellectual transition easier): the wise man gained

much by extensive counsel. As Essex wrote to the Earl of Rutland in January

1596,

to profi t much by conference, you must fi rst chuse to confer with expert men, I mean

expert in that which you desire to know; next with many, for expert men will be of

sundry and contrary opinions, and every one will make his own probable, so as if you

hear but one, you shall know in all questions but one opinion; whereas by hearing

many, you shall, by seeing the reason of one, confute the reason of another, and be

able to judge the truth.10

But the logic of extensive sourcing became independent of its prudential ori-

gins. Extensive reading did not have, or claim, the absolute credibility of ritual

performance, or even of sociable honour, but it could be maintained that in a

doubt-ridden world, extensive reading was more credible than either ritual or


sociability – themselves futile methods of establishing credibility. Absolute

knowledge remained alien to humanity, but extensive (news) reading minimized

imprecision and doubt and maximized credibility.11

Th is shift towards extensive reading implied a number of profound shift s in

the military news. In the fi rst place, this was a system for which printed news was

uniquely suited. Older forms of news could incorporate multiple sources and

extensive reading – although the incentives of brevity meant that this tended to

reduce the news to the barest outline. So William Asheby’s newsletters included

outlines such as ‘Advertisements out of France’ (1589) and ‘Th e Copy of occur-

ants of the 8 of February 1590 in London’ – the second simply fi ft een numbered

heads listing the diff erent items of news.12 One typical manuscript newsletter

that was sent from France in August 1589 exemplifi es this new form of news.13

Indeed, there is some evidence that manuscript newsletters began to adopt this

extensive format in increasing numbers: Wernham’s tabulation indicates a pro-

nounced rise of miscellaneous newsletters received by the government in the

1590s (in the years from 1590 to 1596, the numbers in SP 101 are, respectively,

0, 1, 1, 0, 14, 27 and 43), where ‘miscellaneous’, is a reasonably good proxy for

‘extensive’.14 But the printing press was comparatively important in stimulating

the desire to shift towards extensive reading of the news, and had a comparative

advantage in satisfying the demand once aroused. Printed reports, not forced by

scribal limitations to be concise, could fi ll out manuscript outlines into full let-

ters of news, the format roughly similar, but each section provided with far more

detail. By their rapid multiplication of copies, they exponentially increased read-

ers’ ability to compare diff erent accounts of one event and judge among them.

Printed reports, which could contain within them multiple letters, allowed for

extensive reading within a single pamphlet of news. All this could be done easily

and cheaply.15 Th e shift towards extensive credibility, in practical terms, implied

the dominance of print as a means of providing news.

Within the world of printed news, the shift towards extensive credibility also

implied a shift in genre from the news pamphlet to the coranto. In the fi rst place,

diminishing reliance was placed upon the eyewitness report. When individual

honour was no longer particularly credible, the single eyewitness account lost

its particular value. Instead, what were preferred were multiple accounts of the

same battle. A pamphlet was best suited for the exposition of a single, sustained

account.16 Th e coranto, prototype of the modern newspaper, was centred around

the provision of multiple sources of information, whether on the same subject

or about diff erent items of news, allowing for extensive reading and judgement

among them.17 Calendrical time, not individual experience, governed the coran-

tos: the author of A Continuation of the Newes of this Present Weeke (16 November

1622, no. 7) described his method as ‘following the method of a Journall, and

telling things in the same order of time, as wee heare that they were done’.18 Now,

Extensive News 125

both pamphlet and coranto strayed from their ideal types. Pamphlets began the

transition towards coranto form at least as far back as 1589, by bundling together

multiple items of news or multiple versions of the same item of news: this was

done, for example, in A True Discourse of the Discomfi ture of the Duke of Aumalle

(1589), Credible Reportes fr om France, and Flanders (1590), Newes fr om Rome,

Spaine, Palermo, Genevae, and France (1590), Th e Coppy of a Letter Written by

the Lord of Th emines (1593), Newes fr om Rome, Venice, and Vienna (1595), and

Newes fr om Divers Countries (1597). And corantos could depend heavily on a

few individual letters for their material: examples include Th e Present State of the

Aff aires betwixt the Emperor and King of Bohemia (1620), Francis Nethersole’s

Th e True Copies of Two Especiall Letters (1622), Th e Continuation of the Most

Remarkable Occurrences of Newes (16 July 1630, no. 9), and Th e Continuation

of Our Forraine Intelligence (8 February 1632, no. 10).19 Corantos also incorpo-

rated letters that used the rhetoric of eyewitness; Th e Newes of this Present Weeke

Continued (20 October 1624, no. 38) included ‘A Letter written from a Com-

mander of the Prince of Oranges leager’ that ended with the assurance that ‘of all

this, the relater hereof was an eye witnes’.20 But simply to incorporate the claim

to eyewitness among multiple, confl icting accounts was an implicitly sceptical

devaluation of its epistemological primacy; the extensive context of the coranto

leached the claim of its power. With all due qualifi cations noted, the shift to

extensive reading matched the shift in genre from pamphlet to coranto.

Th e rhetoric of the printed news also shift ed, so as to support the new cred-

ibility standard of extensive reading. As early as 1607, the author of Articles of

Agreement, Concerning the Cessation of Warre (1607) wrote that ‘there are letters

come from Breda, that 2000 Spaniards are entred a backe way into the Castle of

Antwerpe, have turned the Artilleries upon the Towne, and doe make warre with

the Citizens. Th is is beleeved at the Haghe: but I will not report it for trueth,

until the fi rst be seconded’.21 But the shift in rhetoric was most pronounced aft er

the arrival of the corantos. Newes fr om Most Parts of Christendome (25 Septem-

ber 1622) noted that diff erent members of Count Mansfi eld’s army ‘diff er so

much in their Relations’, that ‘wee cannot understand the certaintie of all that

which happened’. Th e correspondent from the Grave confi ned himself to send-

ing the pieces of information wherein his diff erent informants largely agreed

with one another.22 Newes fr om most parts of Christendome (25 September 1622)

itself included three diff erent reports of the battle between Don Gonzalez de

Cordoba and Mansfi eld and Brunswick – although it should be noted that the

third one advertized itself as ‘set downe by one which hath beene in the Battell

himselfe’.23 Th e Continuation of our Weekely Newes (6 October 1631, no. 42) con-

tained four diff erent letters over nine pages, reporting the breaking news of the

battle of Breitenfeld.24


Military news also began to move away from fi rst-person narrative. At fi rst

coranto editors would introduce a letter, slip into the letter’s fi rst-person voice,

and then slip out again: in 1623 Th omas Gainsford wrote ‘we here (at Vienna

say the letters) stand in great feare of him [Margrave Jägerndorf ], and of Beth-

lem Gabor’.25 Gainsford’s entire modus operandi – an overt narration of the news,

highly colloquial and conversational, which directly addressed the reader –

formed an idiosyncratic stage in the transformation towards the third person.26

Th e author of Newes of Europe (12 March 1624, no. 17) wrote in fi rst-person only

to introduce the letters: ‘I have three several letters from Brussels … Now because

you shall not say, that either out of my owne conceit I misliked the phrase, or

presumptuously tooke upon me to reforme any thing amisse, I will truly set you

downe their owne words’.27 And in 1625 the coranteer wrote of a report of an

attack on Cleves that ‘they write from Cleve with Letters of the 25 of February

in this manner … Another letter written in the Towne of Cleve on the 16. of Feb-

ruary, relate this matter almost in the like manner’.28 But the new conventions

ultimately encouraged newswriters to relate the news purely, without reference

even to an anonymous fi rst-person: the narrator’s person and thoughts disap-

peared from the reports. As early as Th e Chiefe Occurences of Both the Armies

(1592), one may read a news report virtually denuded of the fi rst person; the

battlefi eld narrative of Th e Great and Famous Battel of Lutzen (1633) appears

entirely without the use of third person.29 Th e newswriters of the corantos of the

later 1620s and the early 1630s generally avoided using ‘I’ or ‘we’ in their own

persona; when they quoted letter-writers’ use of ‘I’ and ‘we’, it was generally to

pass on reports such as ‘From Millan, we learne that the Dutch are arrived in the

same command … We heare from Piedmont, that being his Majestie of France

had well beset the City of Chambery … we understand from Hungary that the

Turks doe assemble very strong’, rather than to indicate personal participation in

the news.30 Henry Hexham, then serving as a quartermaster at the 1629 siege of

s’ Hertogenbosch, went so far as to record in the Caesarian third person a meet-

ing of the army’s quartermasters that he must have attended himself.31 Th e odd

moment of personal witness that remained seemed oddly out of place. Th e Newes

which Now Arrive fr om Divers Parts (20 September 1622) provided a general

survey of European news, but included from the siege of Bergen-op-Zoom the

report that ‘my selfe was lately in great danger in a sally with our Companie’.32

Before, this would have been the essence of the news; now this expression of the

fi rst-person was a rare, inadvertent escapee from the third-person voice.

As the fi rst person narrative diminished, so did the various prose/novelistic

touches that had depended on eyewitness immediacy. Details began to matter

less to provide internal corroboration. Th ey perhaps could be used to compare

diff erent accounts for likelihood, and to make up a composite picture – but their

intrinsic importance began to diminish. Details had mattered because of the

Extensive News 127

strictures of honourable eyewitness; remove those strictures, and the importance

of details went too. Th ey were assumed likely to be false. Indeed, their remaining

importance was to prove that one’s sources were indeed diff erent, and amenable

to extensive reading, rather than all variants of one account. It was the variance

of small details, not their similarity, that now provided credibility. Th e author of

More Newes of the Good Successe of the Duke of Brunswick (29 July 1623, no. 42)

wrote that

it may be thought, that all this rumour came up at fi rst, only upon one letter written

from Cullen, upon some misprision of the writer; you may easily answer this by the

particulars forementioned, which being diverse, both in the manner and numbers …

so that it is very unlikely that all this varietie should arise out of one letter.33

What remained, and even was emphasized, was the soldierly, plain language

of journalism. Within fl atter, more synthetic pieces of text, assimilating mul-

tiple pieces of news and presenting them effi ciently, the plain style and realism

remained functional. As Th omas Gainsford put it in a 1623 coranto, ‘the Letters

from Vienna are divers, and diversly dated: and therfore both to avoid confu-

sion and tediousness, I thinke it not amisse to extract the principall matters out

of them all, and thus contrive them orderly into one Discourse’.34 Newswriting

internalized the style of plain realism that strove to persuade by simulated objec-

tivity.35 War news in particular came to benefi t from a reputation for conveying

information largely unadulterated by editorial comment.36

Military news also began to highlight the source of information.37 Th is was

a subtle shift . Before, the person who wrote or transmitted the news guaran-

teed credibility in himself: the news was subsumed into his honour. It was worth

mentioning one’s sources, and claiming to have good sources. Some pamphlets

reproduced the foreign-language originals of their news letters, allowing the

reader to judge the accuracy of the translation and adding credibility to the

claim that the English was indeed translated, not invented.38 Th e Proceedings of

Bethelem Gabor (26 November 1623, no. 5) entitled one section as ‘Th e particu-

lar aff aires of severall places, as the Letters of credit warrant the businesse’.39 In 1625

a newswriter attributed news of new supplies sent to the Dutch army to ‘men of

good account’.40 But the judgement of source credibility was subordinate to the

judgement of honour. Th e new rhetoric of the news assumed a reserve on the part

of the reader: individual honours were to be added up, contrasted, and weighed

by sceptical news readers. Sources were material for individual judgement, not a

categorical judgement. And the place or time of a source mattered as much as the

person: all were facts of equal weight. But if any individual source was dubious,

still sourcing had to be emphasized: since the credibility of news constructed by

extensive reading depended on the quality of its sources, the news would have to

be explicit and transparent about its sources, and emphasize their quality.


So G. B. in Newes out of France for the Gentlemen of England (1591) assured

his readers that he had

off red unto your view nothing but that we have seen in the letters of credible

persons, or been instructed of at the hands of men of account, or that commonly

passeth for trueth at the Exchange, or hath been preached to the French congrega-

tion, or is tossed up & down at the Ambassadours house in the mouthes of the best;

which al in my opinion may serve for a certifi cate autentique.41

Th is list is fascinating for listing the variety of sources that were considered

credible. At this early stage, however, G. B. was not entirely confi dent that they

would impress the reader: ‘I beseech you in courtesie be not too curious, but

more willing to lep over a block, than wilfull to stumble at a strawe, considering

the fi nest Velvet hath his brack [break], and no thing is so currantly written,

but admitts some crabbed imperfection, & may captiously bee misconstred’.42

What is most important about the list is the accumulation of credible sources:

if no one was to be trusted, perhaps they might all be collectively trustworthy,

in the extensive aggregate.

Th is style of sourcing was even more common a generation later. Corante,

or, Newes fr om Italy, Germany, Hungaria, Polonia, France, and Dutchland (10

August 1621) reported the death of Buquoy in a separate section, with a larger

font, in ‘A particular Letter from Vienna certifying the Death of Bucquoy’.43

In September 1622 a letter written from Frankfurt describing the surrender

of Heidelberg averred that ‘Th is is the true relation of this last unfortunate

accident, as I have collected it by discourse with the Gouvernor, Captaines

and offi cers, come hither, and out of such [Letters] as are come unto me at

Francfort’.44 In April 1632 a letter affi rmed that reports of a Swedish victory

over the Bavarian army were true, because ‘itt is so generally confi rmed by

advise of letters to our Marchants here of all parte’.45 In October 1627 Th omas

Archer, faced with a new rival coranto, argued that his coranto’s news was bet-

ter because ‘wee have endeavoured to procure fr om all parts beyond the Sea, to

our great charge, being not only at a yearely charge in the Imployment of men of

understanding in many parts of Germany, France, Italy, Swethland, Denmarke,

the seventeene Provinces, and elsewhere’, while his rival derived his news ‘just as

far as Amsterdam’.46

Indeed, the amount of space devoted to sourcing could become quite

lengthy. A Continuation of the Newes of this Present Weeke (5 November 1622,

no. 5) detailed at length the sorts of reports it had been receiving of Bethlem

Gabor’s invasion of Bohemia:

Yesterday there came newes hither, that the Marquesse of Jegerensdorp is about Glatz

to rescue it: and that Bethlem Gabor, or his Brother hath invaded Bohemia: Which

last newes went not onely currant at Embricke, but we had heard newes in London

Extensive News 129

about the 28. of our October; that Prague it selfe was also taken: And thus also some

of our Franckford Merchants who came home hither October the 30. report, that

the taking of Prague was also spoken of at Franckford before they came thence;

but they stay’d not there to here it confi rmed, nor was it there then beleeved: but

thus much they further say, that when they came to Flushing, the newes was there

very rife, and men would beleeve it. And yet neverthelesse for all this that it be also

confi rmed from divers other places; (that you may not thinke wee are eyther gull’d

our selves, or would gull you,) wee heare from Vienna it selfe, and from some such

hands too, as would not omit to write of such things; that there is heard no such

newes at all in the Emperours Court. But that the siege of Glatz goes still on; and

that neither Bethlem Gabor, nor his Brother, nor the Marquesse of Jegerensdorp, nor

the old Count Th urne, doe make any such stirre, but keepe themselves quiet. And

thus though we rather beleeve this report from Vienna, then the taking of Prague;

yet neverthelesse, this rumor had certainely some beginning.47

William Watt in Th e Swedish Intelligencer. Th e First Part (1634) likewise

detailed his sources extensively:

Some part of it was received from the papers of an honourable personage; a Com-

mander of prime credit and activity, with that victorious King. Wee have beene

made to understand much of these Actions, by discourse with another gallant

Gentleman & he also a great Commander in the Army. Some printed High Dutch

bookes wee have had. For some things we have had private writing, and from good

hands too. In other things we have made use of Gallobelgicus: especially where he

deales upon publike Record, and where wee thought the poore man durst speake

freely: Sometimes, sure, he writes but by Commission; and is every where sparing

in reporting the Emperours losses. And yet in this, (to take away all exceptions) we

have followed him too; notwithstanding we by others found greater numbers and

defeates, specifi ed.48

And Watt wrote in Th e Swedish Intelligencer. Th e Th ird Part (1633) that

Two or 3. other Relations (I confesse) I have in French, printed at Brussels: which

are so ignorantly and insolently done, that even that side may be ashamed to give

credit to them. I have taken nothing out of le Soldate Suedou; for that ther’s little

but words in him. Two or three High-Dutch pieces, and some Latine also I have by

me, as foolish as the former: but this onely of the Spaniard, I have thought worthy

your perusall.49

Th e very format of the military news also began to shift to make the places

and times of their sources more transparent. Newes fr om Rome, Venice, and

Vienna (1595) included headings such as ‘From Venice the 13.of Januarie …

From Vienna the 11. of Januarie … From Prage the 10. of Januarie … From

Presbergh, the last of December … From Cassau, December the 28’.50 Newes

fr om Divers Countries (1597) labelled its sources as


Newes from Antwerp, the fi ft h day of Maie. 1597 … Newes from Antwerp the 14. of

Maie. 1597 … From Rome the 24. of the said moneth … From Cullen the 19. of the

same moneth … From Antwarpe, the 21. of Maye 1597 … From Coleine the 26. of

the same moneth … From Venice the 23. of Maye … From Venice the thirtieth of May.

1597 … From Venice the 6. of June, 1597.51

By the time of the corantos, this method of labelling news by place and date

was pervasive in the printed news. Even a 1635 manuscript newsletter organized

its sources very clearly by location and date: ‘Vienna the 8/18 of Jan: 1634 …

Venice the 20/10 of Jan: … Augspurg the 25/15 of Jan: … Berlin the 17/7 of Jan:

Preslaw the 24/14 of Jan: … From Collen the 30/20 of Jan: … Regenspurg the

22. of Jan. 1. of Feb’.52 As Richard Brathwait put it in the satirical Whimzies: Or,

A New Cast of Characters (1631), a coranteer ‘to make his reports more credible

(or which he and his Stationer onely aymes at) more vendible, in the relation of

every occurrent: he renders you the day of the Moneth’.53

Gainsford rejected this practice:

you must consider that what extractions wee have, are out of Letters, peradventure

of a whole moneths antiquity, so that though we expose to your view the 7. or 8. of

November, yet are the actions of former date, and so to avoide breakings off , and

fractions of matter, I will not precisely name either the Letters, or the time of their

mission: Let it suffi ce that you know we were not eye-witnesse of the businesse, but

we must trust other mens relations, as you are curteous enough to give credit to our

secondary reports.54

But it must be pointed out that Gainsford was a peculiar transitional fi gure

operating in the earliest days of the corantos – and that even so early, he was

self-consciously rejecting what was already becoming standard practice. His col-

leagues tended rather to point to their methods of organization, geared towards

source transparency, as a virtue. In 1624 one editor wrote that ‘As I have severall

Letters from Vienna concerning the troubles of Hungary, & watchings of Beth-

lem Gabor at this instant more especially, then any other aff aires or businesse of

Germany: so will I divide them asunder for you, and not huddle them together,

to avoid confusion’.55 In 1634 another wrote that ‘wee have drawn each Com-

manders severall actions to its own proper head; therein observing both time

and place, and paralelling their actions together, as neere as wee could collect,

giving to each side what to them belongeth’.56 William Watt likewise stated in

Th e Swedish Intelligencer. Th e First Part (1634) that ‘Our methode is this: to

handle every Story by it selfe, and then to bring all together at the day of Battell.

Carefull have we beene, (yea no small paines have we taken;) to note the times

and to describe the places of the most famous actions’.57

Signifi cantly, such sourcing was at least as concerned with the mere fact of

the place and time it came from as with the person who told the news. Th omas

Extensive News 131

Gainsford wrote in a 1623 coranto, judging reports of a redeployment of the

garrisons of Bohemia, that ‘the likelihood of the truth of this Newes is the place

whence it comes, which is Prague’.58 Gainsford also compared the dates of letters

so as to see if it was credible for a battle to have been reported from one place but

not from another:

And whereas the letters from Franckford which beare date the 12. of our July, which

was eight whole daies aft er the 3. of July, which is reported to be the last day of the

fi ght; doe yet mention no such thing: we may readily answer to that, that though

these letters intimate no mention of these particulars, yet doe they not inferre any

contradiction to them: for it is very easie for such a businesse to be eight daies in

coming out of Hessenland unto Franckford. And againe, the writer of that intelligence

professes thus much, that hee had heard of Tillyes fl ight or retreate for three Dutch

miles: and affi rmes that hee was that day to receive letters out of Hessen, Duringen,

and those parts from whence the noise of this battell should come.59

In November 1632 John Beaulieu wrote to Th omas Puckering that initial reports

of Gustavus’ victory at Breitenfeld came from ‘divers merchants from Hamburg’

and ‘by some skippers from Dunkirk’.60

Of course the old standard of honourable credibility and the standard of

extensive credibility could mix together. Th e letter from Flanders Th omas

Churchyard had seen in Court in 1580 came

from the handes of a gentilman, whose eyes beheld the very service and enterprise,

and the winnyng of the great towne of Macklin, and the letter was so well penned, &

went so directly to the matter in every point and order) touchyng the particulars and

generall takyng of the same …, that I was forced by the credite of the gentilman that

wrote (and by probable confi rmation of sonderie other reportes) to beleve the letter

to be moste true, and worthie the rehearsall to the open world.61

Th e printer of A True Coppie of a Discourse Written by a Gentleman, Employed in

the Late Voyage of Spaine and Portingale (1589) thought it trustworthy not only

because its writer was honourable, but also ‘because I have oft en conferred with

manie that were in the same Journey, verie nere upon everie particular of his rela-

tion, and fi nde as much confi rmed as I have received, [therefore] I presume to

deliver it unto you for true & exact’.62 Th omas Gainsford judged the credibility

of a 1623 coranto by the credit of ‘one Faber, a very honest and substantiall man,

being at that time Burgomaster or Maior of Budensberg’, by the six-page relation

of both the campaign leading up to the battle and the battle itself, which was ‘the

most particular, & the largest that hath come into England’, and by the fact that

the relation was written ‘within a day or two of the time, and a dayes journey

of the place, where, and when, this Battell was strooken’.63 Even the extensive

format of the news could genufl ect towards the precedencies of honour. Th omas

Gainsford oft en began his corantos with news from the Emperor’s court, since


‘to begin at the head, whence the beginnings of all motion, infl uence, and direc-

tion to the whole body, and the severall parts and organs proceed; We thinke it

manners fi rst to relate the businesse of the Emperiall Majesty’. Two weeks later

he wrote that ‘we will still give the best man the fi rst place, and beginne with

Caesar’.64

Yet extensive reading fundamentally ruptured the old tie of gentle status and

credibility. So acknowledgement of the (lower status) mercantile origin of many

of these letters became more explicit in the era of extensive news. Th e author of

Newes fr om France (1591) wrote in a post script that ‘aft er I had ended my Letter,

by chaunce I mette with a friend of mine, a marchant, who acquainted mee with

certaine newes out of the Lowe Countries, and such as they are I will impart them

unto you’.65 Th e author of Newes of Europe (12 March 1624, no. 17) wrote that

his letters from Venice were written by merchants, ‘who acquaint one another

with all occurences, and keepe good correspondencie one with another’.66 Some

letters in corantos also explicitly presented themselves as mercantile in origin. A

1629 coranto included a letter from Delft that before discussing the taking of

Wesel began ‘Sir, I received your Letter of the 29. of the last wherein I under-

stand your minde concerning those goods formerly consigned unto me, & which

came so unto my hands last fl eet, I shall give you an account concerning your

businesse, and of each particular by the next Post’.67

Th e avowed audience of such news also began to extend self-consciously, if

hesitantly, beyond the ranks of the gentleman: the writer of Th e Certaine Newes

of this Present Weeke (23 August 1622) addressed himself to ‘any Gentleman or

other accustomed to buy the Weekely Relations of Newes’.68 Furthermore, in

dramatic contrast to sociable letters, the experiences of common soldiers began

to enter the printed news. Anthony Nixon, for example, ghostwrote Swethland

and Poland Warres (1610) on behalf of a common soldier.69 Usually, however,

the experiences of common soldiers were rendered through the mediating voice

of a narrating offi cer. A report of the siege of Jülich in 1610 told that ‘as the

mine blew, which blew up onely one of our Antients, which was all covered with

earth, save onelie some part of the face: which one of his companie perceiving,

came to him, and with his hands uncovered the earth and brought him out, who

is now living and verie well’.70 A report from Ré in 1627 told of how two Irish

soldiers wandered into the French trenches. One was killed by a French sentinel;

the other ‘drew out his skeane, and slew the French man, and being shot at (but

mist) by another French Muskatier, hee killed him likewise, and leaping out of

the Trenches, into which hee had ingaged himselfe unadvisedly, hee came off

cleare, and without any hurt at all’.71 Henry Hexham’s journal of the 1633 siege

of Maastricht, described an extraordinary providential salvation of ordinary sol-

diers. He wrote that aft er the Spaniards exploded a mine underneath an English

sap,

Extensive News 133

wee had three or foure men a sapping forward, the earth fell upon them, and buried

two off them 12: or 13: foote deepe under it in the mouth of our sapp...these two

Souldiers of Sarjant Major Generall Witts his Company, which were buried under

the Earth, when the Enemies myne was blowne up, lying in the concave thereof,

wrought themselves out with their hands, and a spade, and tumbled into our sapp,

among our men, who supposing they had bin the Enemy, were ready to give fi re upon

them, which they seeing, cryed out that they were our owne men, thus it pleased God

miraculously to preserve these two poore men, which lay buried under the Earth 15:

houres.72

If dishonourable sources of news were increasingly acknowledged, so too were

dishonourable methods of acquiring the news. Newswriters began to admit,

without blushing, that they had bought their news. A Certaine and Perfect

Relation of the Encounter and Bloody Slaughter (1625) said outright that it had

‘purchased the possession’ of news from Breda.73 Indeed, underhanded methods

of news acquisition were presented as only another reason to engage in extensive

reading, and buy as much product as possible. An illuminating exchange of pref-

aces illustrates this process. A true relation of such battailes (1622) boasted that it

contained ‘Letters of newes From the Palatinate, brought to speciall Friends in

London, by Mr Balaam, newly deceased, since his last comming into England’,

and that

I leave al the fallaces of Coranto’s, and fopperies of idle Relations to get money, and

apply my selfe to the businesse in hand for your satisfaction, which is the publishing

of two private Letters, not varying from the Germaine phrase, nor so much as trou-

bling you with the Superscription, or Authors name, and yet both (I will be bold to

say) suffi ciently justifi able.74

In response to this boast, A True Relation Written fr om Midelbourg (1622)

acknowledged that

Maister Balam the Post of the Palatinate lately deceased in London, I confesse, did

bring many private Letters from his private Friends in Heidelberg, Mainhem, and

Frankendale to men of honour and worth in England, yea, London it selfe, which

I make no doubt, passe through so many mens hands, that without question, some

nimble fi nger hath either caught them to translate, or brought them to the Presse,

so that now to expose Newes out of the Palatinate would eyther seeme a needlesse

labour, or unprofi table worke.

But this confession had a dig in it: these rivals referred to were by this logic

not particularly honourable members of a news circuit, but nimble-fi ngered

eavesdroppers making a profi t somewhat disreputably. It is in this context, com-

peting with dishonourable commercial men, that the publisher/translator made

his pitch: ‘because varietie hath an easie passage amongst men, I have for thy

sake changed the place, and the Newes, not that I presume of my proportion


of knowledge, which commeth not within the fast holding hands of another’.75

Th at his rival was dishonourable he did not doubt; but this did not make him a

liar, merely a normally shady member of the print culture. Th e proper response

was not to accuse him as a liar, but to bring out another news report to add to

readers’ source of information – an enriching thesis for all news pedlars. Exten-

sive reading and friendly commercial rivalry, preserving the market as a whole,

went together in this new mode of the production of news.

But the most profound eff ect of the shift to sourcing was that printed news

reports were increasingly willing to credit each other as sources. Th ere remained

a certain amount of badmouthing. Newes fr om the Palatinate (1622) had taken

Dutch Corantoes to task for their mistakes in time and place, their reliance on

hear-say, and their partiality for the Dutch.76 Th e author of Th e Strangling and

Death of the Great Turke (1622) dismissed reports of great battles between the

Turks and Poles, and wrote that

I can but wonder at the shamelesse reports of strange men, and weake Certifi cates

by Corantes from Foraine parts, especially to have them Printed, to talke of so many

Th ousands slaine, the Prince kill’d, Sigismond defeated, and the whole Army put

to fl ight, when yet as I said, there was never any such matter, nor any set Battaile

fought.77

Th omas Gainsford dismissed foreign, Catholic printed news: ‘the last Antwerp

Post brought divers Letters, and some Gazets, in which are many unjustifi able

things, as is most lamentably apparent by their Latin Gallobelgicus, & incon-

siderate certifi cats: therefore I have onely extracted, what may be warranted’.78

But this was in good part the criticism of mere rivalry. Aft er all, English news

seems to have been regarded for a while as inferior to Dutch news, which was

closer to the events described, more reliable, and perhaps as the fi rst source of

printed news more prestigious than English. Th e Newes and Aff aires of Europe

(7 January 1624, no. 9) referred to ‘the very printed Dutch Corantoes’ as more

reliable than normal ‘letters and credit’.79 We can also perceive this by news that

purported to be translated from the Dutch, but whose content so focused on the

exploits of English soldiers as to make that designation unlikely.80 We may also

note the three corantos putatitively printed in ‘Altmore’ in 1621, which Hanson

believes to have been actually printed in London.81 Th e motivation for this for-

eign imprint was probably in part to evade the Stuart censoring machinery, but

perhaps also to gain the credibility cachet of a Dutch imprint.82 With English

printed news second-class compared to foreign printed news, we would expect a

certain amount of badmouthing of the foreign press.83

Far more signifi cant than these persisting criticisms was the growing willing-

ness to ascribe real credibility to the printed news. Certayn and Tru Good Nues,

fr om the Syege of the Isle Malta (1565) was ‘translat owt of Frenche yn to Englysh.

Extensive News 135

And nuli prented yn Gaunt’; Newes fr om Vienna (1566) was ‘translated out of

hye Almaine into English, and printed in Augspurge by Hans Zimmerman’.84

A true discourse of the discomfi ture of the Duke of Aumalle (1589) was ‘printed

by Richard Field, according to the French Copies fi rst printed at Tours’, as A

Most Excellent Exploit Performed by Monsieur de Diguieres (1591) was likewise

‘printed at Toures by James Mettayer Printer to the Kings Majesty, and truly trans-

lated into English, according to the same coppy’.85 Th e translator of Newes fr om

Gulick and Cleve (1615) assured his readers that this report was ‘a faithful report

of the trueth, & nothing but the truth, translated out of a Dutch coppie printed at

Amsterdam by Nicholas van Gelkerken’.86 Th e Continuation of the Weekely Newes

(11 September 1624, no. 32) attributed its fi rst section to ‘the Dutch Coranto

printed at Amsterdam, by Joris Veseler’, and claimed the second section was ‘word

for word out of the Coranto printed by Broer Janson Currantier to the Prince of

Orange, and for the Leaguer’.87 In 1634 N. C. had words of praise for the printed

news as a genre: ‘Very good use have we also made of the Weekeley Currantoes:

which if a man of judgement reads, he shall for the most part fi nde (especially

those of latter times) very true, and very punctuall. Whosoever … would under-

stand these warres, let him not despise Currantoes’.88 Jonson’s satiric claim in Th e

Staple of News (1626), ‘Unto some, / Th e very printing of them makes them

news, / Th at ha’ not the heart to believe anything / But what they see in print’,

albeit a gross exaggeration, refl ected a very real rise of credibility in the printed

news.89 Perhaps the most important evidence is of absence: by the mid-1620s,

corantos generally stopped bothering inserting prefaces justifying their credibil-

ity. Th ey assumed it had been suffi ciently established.

Yet respect for printed news did not mean that it was meant to be used as

the sole source of news. A Relation of the Weekely Occurences of Newes (1622)

reported that the news of Spinola abandoning the sige of Bergen-op-Zoom ‘have

we out of the Low Dutch copies, and Englishmens letters to their friends here’.90

If in March 1632 John Pory wrote to John Scudamore that ‘almost all the forren

newes that I know is contained in Wedensdayes Coranto’, this did not mean that

Pory’s manuscript services were useless. A new letter of detailed military news

from Germany had arrived from Mainz since the coranto was published, and

Pory forwarded its page-long contents to Scudamore.91 Printed news and manu-

script news were meant to work in tandem, as complements rather than rivals.

Another notable shift inherent in this new standard of credibility was towards

the claim of objectivity and impartiality. It is worth emphasizing that impartial-

ity required extensive reading to be possible. Early modern Englishmen thought

they could arrive at an impartial account of the truth from readings of multiple,

biased sources.92 Furthermore, where sociability had provided the standard of

credibility, a partial telling of the news, creating a mutual civility, had been nec-

essary to provide credibility. But where sociability did not matter, what mattered


most was news least affl icted by other people’s partiality. News therefore gained

credibility by attempting to strip off partiality, or simulating such an attempt, to

provide the reader with the most impartial, objective news possible. In general,

impartiality, and disinterestedness had now become grounds for credibility in

early modern England, and it was increasingly assumed that these were desirable

components of writing and reading the news.93 While the well-aff ected or godly

reader had been appealed to earlier, now the news increasingly was addressed

‘To the Impartiall Reader’ or to the ‘Indiff erent Reader’.94 Th e author of A True

Relation of the Aff aires of Europe (4 October 1622) wrote that

Th ere are so many Letters from the severall parts of the Low Countries, and so much

contradiction, as men on either side favour the cause, that I know not how to satisfi e

the Reader: yet considering there is but one truth, and to be honest in a plaine nar-

ration of the same, is allowable, therefore as neere as I can, I will relate, what is most

probable and worthy of your acceptation.95

Th e printer of Two Memorable Relations (1631), in a postscript, claimed that

‘this precedent Relation … [is] the most exact and impartiall discourse that hath

come to our knowledge, concerning this action’.96 William Watt wrote in Th e Swed-

ish Intelligencer. Th e Th ird Part (1633), ‘And now for that the contrarily aff ected

may not say, that my Intelligence is particular, or all from one side: I will here

aff oord them the Relation made by the Spanish Gentleman before quoted: fair-

ely, barely, without additions or alterations translated’.97

Th e transformation towards an impartial rhetoric was slow, and oft en mixed

with the continuing claims of partiality. Th e author of Newes of Europe (12

March 1624, no. 17) noted the zealous Protestantism of one of his sources in a

manner ostensibly sympathetic, yet also functioning to note his source’s partial-

ity: ‘he keepes his conscience untainted, and is able religiously to expresse his

mind & is no doubt zealous in his Protestant profession’.98 Th e printer of Good

and True Tydings out of the Indies (29 March 1625, no. 15) wrote

To the indiff erent Reader. May it please you to understand, that whereas we have

hetherto printed (for the most part) the Occurrances which have come to our hands,

from the Protestants side, which some have excepted against: wherefore to give them

content, we purpose to publish (as they com now to our hands) such Relations as are

printed at Antwerp, Utopia, or other such like places, that they may from time to

time have somewhat to build their miraculous faith upon: and to feede them with

Milke from their owne dame, and this we do not for profi t, but to free our selves from

partiallity, and to make a destinction t’wixt each relation let the Readers judge, of the

verity by the event. So we give you one for a taste.99

Impartiality also began to subsume the claims of eyewitness. I. B. claimed in A

Plaine and True Relation, of the Going Forth of a Holland Fleete (1626) that he

was an unimpeachable witness because ‘I have not beene a stranger to these things,

Extensive News 137

that any should challenge me of ignorance, but I have ben an eye witnesse of all

things fr om the going out of the Fleete fr om Taxel in Holland … til our comming

forth fr om Bay’. Nevertheless, he placed this claim within the context of a claim

of impartiality: ‘I being not an offi cer in Salvedoe, let not any thinke I have masked

the matchlesse basenese of these offi cers: nor being a souldier I may not bee suspected

to have drawne a curtaine before the condemned faults of souldiers’.100 Eyewitness

required impartiality to sustain its claim to credibility. In this mixture of partial-

ity, eyewitness, and impartiality, it was the latter that was in the ascendant.

Th is claim of impartiality sometimes was obviously bogus. Extremities Urg-

ing the Lord Generall Sir Fra: Veare to the Anti-parle (1602) claimed to ‘plainely

and faithfully set downe the truth without all favour or aff ection’, though it

clearly sought to defend Vere’s reputation.101 I. B. claimed in A Plaine and True

Relation, of the Going Forth of a Holland Fleete (1626) that he could impartially

report upon the failure of the Dutch expedition to Brazil, but the author was

an Englishman, and we may suspect that his impartial willingness to identify

incompetence throughout the Dutch expedition revealed English national

bias.102 A Continued Journall of All the Proceedings of the Duke of Buckingham his

Grace, in the Ile of Ree, Containing these Particulars (1627) denigrated critics of

Buckingham’s tactics at Ré as ‘either aff ected to the French, or disaff ected to his

Excellencie’, and claimed that to speak well of Buckingham was to exercise ‘serene

and more impartiall judgements’.103 But the fact that obviously partial reportage

used the language of impartiality was still an important development.104

Also, the judgement of partiality on one side or the other became more acute

– in the language of partiality, it should be noted, rather than of truth-tellers and

liars. As early as the 1620s, some reports noted the partiality of both sides. Th e

King of Bohemia’s welcome to Count Mansfi eld (1622) noted that

though never so good Letters of credit come amongst us, they shall receive a soyle of

calumniation ... as either some strange credulity transports them, or their own pas-

sions oversway reason and probability, and this is and hath beene reciprocall both

betweene Papist and Protestants, since that fatall day in which the King of Bohemia

was driven out of Prague.105

A 1623 coranto told the ‘Gentle Reader’ that

we must advertise you that in our Newes we delivered some things in severall places as wee

get the tidings in severall parts, to shew you how the parties agree in their relations, seeing

it is knowne that many write partially, and the one addes some circumstances more then

the other: and hereaft er we will put down very exactly fr om whence every thing commeth

… we set downe some things as we receive them fr om the High Dutch Copies, and some

fr om the Low Dutch, printed at Antwerpe which peradventure may speake partially,

which I desire you take notice of, and to judge accordingly.106


A 1630 coranto wrote that it would provide an account of news from Italy both

from relations from Turin and from France, ‘so that you may see what both parties

say for themselves’.107 Or as Th omas Lushington noted in his April 1623 sermon

‘Christ, Dead or Alive?’,

the News goes not as Th ings are in themselves, but as Men’s Fancies are fashioned,

as some lust to report, and others to believe. To some relation shall go for true or

false, according to the key wherein men’s minds are turned; but chiefl y as they stand

diverse in religion, so they feign and aff ect diff erent News. By their news ye may know

their Religion, and by their Religion fore-know their News … each Party think that the

safety of the Church and Success of Religion depends upon the Event of one or other,

and therefore they cross and counter-tell each others News.108

Furthermore, some reports made signifi cant strides towards a genuinely impartial

reportage. According to Dahl, a comparison of one English coranto purporting

to present Catholic news with the Antwerp coranto it drew its material from

shows that the English coranto indeed ‘follows the original word for word’.109 A

1627 coranto provided news from Paris during the Ré expedition, providing the

enemy point of view, and both good and bad news for the English, without hesi-

tation.110 And some translations of foreign accounts of English service do seem

impartial in their laconic style: ‘On the 7. this month [of December], about

the evening, sallied the English forth out of their Quarter, and demolished two

sconces which the Enemies had raised about the Tetteringen, and they (the Eng-

lish) carried aft erwards the wood which was in them, into their Quarter’.111 It is

of some signifi cance that the surrenders of Heidelberg and Breda in 1622 and

1625 were noted by the corantos.112 Defeat could now be mentioned.

Th e genuineness of this shift towards impartiality is best registered by the

growing willingness of the military news to broach the ultimate taboo of par-

tial news and incorporate and acknowledge Catholic-authored military news.

Whether or not Catholics were untrustworthy and beyond the bounds of civil-

ity was now beside the point (though this does also indicate a diminution of

distrust of Catholics): every piece of news, no matter how biased, was neces-

sary to assemble the truth. So, aft er about 1620, and particularly in the extensive

corantos, Catholic news began to enter the world of military news.

At fi rst this process was cautious: Catholic news could only be presented

with a certain amount of ritual denunciation and scorn. When A Coranto. Relat-

ing Divers Particulars (7 November 1622, no. 6) printed an announcement by

the Archduchess Isabella, ‘Imprinted at Bruxels, by Hubrecht Anthoon, sworne

Booke-Printer of the Court’, announcing the punishment of a band of soldiers

that had run to the enemy at the siege of Bergen-op-Zoom, the printer made sure

to add the reassuring information that a Dutch discourse stated

Extensive News 139

Th at this device [the proclamation] was taken for no other end, then by naming but

fi ft eene only, to make the Boores of their owne Countrey believe, that there were no

more that came away: wheras the Journals of Berghen affi rme, that they came running

by ten, twentie, thirty or more at a time, out of the Campe, into the Towne.113

A 1623 coranto included ‘Th e Copy of Letters printed at Antwerpe’ – but seg-

regated them from the regular news.114 And Th e Continuation of our Weekely

Newes (23 May 1626, no. 13), describing another of Mansfi eld’s defeats, wrote

that ‘I hope these Relations are suffi cient to understand the truth of the matter,

neverthelesse, to conceale nothing, and to keepe my promise to deale sincerely in

matters of translation, I will adde to these the untrue relation which is sent from

Prague’.115 Henry Hexham declared in the introductions of both A Journall of

the Taking in of Venlo, Roermont, Strale (1633) and A True and Briefe Relation of

the Famous Seige of Breda (1637) that he was writing these works as responses to

Herman Hugo’s Th e Seige of Breda (1627). His proclaimed motive was to pro-

duce a Protestant work to rival Hugo’s tome, but in the process he necessarily

admitted to reading Catholic words.116

Despite these hesitancies, it is signifi cant that Catholic military news was

presented at all. And increasingly it was presented without apologies, simply as

part of the extensive range of news. Corantos began to list letters from Brussels

or Antwerp regularly – though oft en to present news unfavorable for the Catho-

lics, as in a February 1625 coranto that included news from Brussels that spoke

largely of the Spanish loss of Goch, and of Spinola’s inability to conclude the

siege of Breda.117 But news neutral to or favorable to Catholics began to slip in

too. Newes fr om most parts of Christendome (25 September 1622) incorporated

without comment a report from Brussels of a victory by Don Gonzalez de Cor-

doba over Count Mansfi eld and Duke Christian of Brunswick, where Mansfi eld

and Brunswick ‘lost about 2500, and we about 700’.118 A 1627 coranto matter-

of-factly included a letter written from Catholic Antwerp narrating a victorious

skirmish by Count Henry van den Bergh over the Netherlanders.119 Th e semi-

annual news-digest German History Continued. Th e Seventh Part (1635) went

so far as to include a jubilant Catholic account of the Swedish defeat at Nör-

dlingen.120 While the account ended with the sour editorial insertion that ‘this

Catholike Gallant with a large preface of himselfe, writes gloriously of his owne

adventure, and the victory, adding something peradventure to the tale, which is

delivered otherwise in the next discourse’, it mattered more that Englishmen had

been able to read in the printed news a Catholic statement that ‘our Currassiers

assaulted them with all their force, and within the space of two houres, rather by

the cleare assistance of GOD, than by humaine hands obtained the victory’.121 In

all, the wording of these pieces of Catholic news oft en remained prejudicial; nev-

ertheless, what the papists said had to be repeated as well. It was still begrudged,


regularly doubted and scorned, but it had to be read. Impartial news now had a

higher value than honourable, religion-bound, optimistic, partial news.

Extensive Newsreading

Newsreaders came to read extensively.122 In part this was a result of the gen-

eral shift from intensive to extensive reading promoted by print culture’s vast

multiplication of available texts;123 in part this was a specifi c reaction to the

increasingly extensive practice and rhetoric of the news. Honour and public-

spiritedness were not essential to such readings. Th e sort of reader desired by

commercial newsmen was coming into existence.

Th e attribution of credibility on the basis of social status, honour, began to

diminish. In December 1587 Philip Gawdy wrote to his father, Bassingbourne

Gawdy ‘some newes of landing of certyne Spanyardes in Irland and of winning of

a castle wher they shold have taken Mr Denny a prysoner. But it is very unlike to

be true, and yet reported in most places, and in the best places’.124 To be reported

in ‘the best places’ was no longer a guarantee of credibility. In December 1625

Joseph Mead wrote to Martin Stuteville that ‘last Saturday brought us nothing of

the fl eet; but that the court was not then, as seemed, fully informed concerning

it, which occasioned all the letters which the Antwerp post brought the week

before to be intercepted at Dover, and brought to the king, to see what they

advertised’.125 Mead had not only imputed ignorance to the court, but also con-

trasted it with the superior, more credible information of the far less honourable

Antwerp post. Even members of lower social classes came to possess some cred-

ibility. One of Mead’s London correspondents wrote in September 1627 ‘that on

Monday came a mercers apprentise from the Ile of Rez, having bin a fortnight or

more in coming. He sayeth only that the Fort then was not relieved & that they

hoped when once our new supplyes were come it would not long hold out’.126

Instead, newsreaders began to judge the credibility of the news by extensive

reading. In January 1596, Essex wrote in a letter of advice to the Earl of Rutland

that

I hold it for a principle in the course of intelligence of state, not to discourage men

of mean suffi ciency from writing unto me, though I had at the same time very able

advertisers, for either they sent me some matter which the other had omitted, or made

it clear by delivering the circumstances; or if they added nothing, yet they confi rmed

it, which coming single, I might have doubted.127

In August 1620 William Sterrell wrote to the Spanish spymaster Charles della

Faille that ‘I was told from one Mr Willyams, who is an agent for the Count

Palatine, that the Marcus Spigniola was sett downe before Francfort, ten daies

gone, but it is so improbable that I can not believe it, for it is this day but 16

dayes since he passed the Reine according to your avises’.128 In November 1632

Extensive News 141

John Pory wrote to John Scudamore that there had been news of a great victory

by Gustavus Adolphus, but

yet now that the Post of Antwerpe is come, though there be no contradiction, yet

because there is no confi rmation, wee begin to doubt of it, but will not despaire till

we heare it plainly contradicted indeed. Here is on[e] Cole a messenger that the 11th

of this moneth sett forth from Mentz, who saith there was then no suche newes come

thither; and it might well bee, and yet the newes true .... Th erfore though the edge of

our beleef be a little blunted, yet out hope shall not faile us, till wee see it gainsayd by

better authority.129

Th e format in which newsreaders began to record the news also began to refl ect

the format of extensive news in the news reports. In July 1622 Mead received a

letter from London including information about the siege of Heidelberg, the

movements of the Duke of Brunswick and Mansfi eld in Alsatia, the beginning

of Spinola’s siege of Bergen-op-Zoom, a victorious sally by the English regiments

in the Bergen-op-Zoom garrison against Spinola’s army, the seizure by the Prince

of Orange of a Spanish supply convoy between Antwerp and Bergen-op-Zoom,

and an ineff ective ploy by the French King to arrange for a treasonous surrender

of some French towns.130 To this was appended more bulletins ‘Out of Printed

newes’, including the latest from the succession struggle in the Ottoman Empire,

the entry of Count Th urn’s army into Moravia, and further news of Mansfi eld’s

progress in Alsatia.131 In October 1631 William Whiteway wrote down news

extensively, even when one item was the battle of Breitenfeld:

at this time came the newes of the great battell of Leipsich, in which the King of

Sweden and the Duke of Saxony overthrew Tily and all his army, slew above 20000 of

them and Tilly amongst the rest. Th is battell was fought the 7th September old Stile.

And the 11th of the Same moneth the Hollanders obtained a great victory over the

Spaniards in Princeland. Th en the King of Sweden came downe through all Germany,

took in Erfut, Hanau, francfurd etc.

Th e Duk of Saxonys forces under the Earle of Th urn took in Prague and all Bohe-

mia. Martquis Hamelton, and Generall Horne overran Silesia.132

And in November 1621 Walter Yonge wrote in his diary an entire series of

dispatches of military news, which read like the summary of a newspaper or a

newsletter.133

Newsreaders also began to note the various sources of their news, as plain

facts rather than honourable guarantees, as a way of judging credibility. In June

1589 Richard Broughton wrote to Richard Bagot that

the newes out of France & the Lowe contreys doth still hold without contrallent that

our men have wonne lisbone great hope then is that it is true for that ill newes would

have bene sent in post by Land to France & Italie. But from the fl eete there came no


newes sins the letters from Groyne. If god successe happen there, it is … wyll that my

Lord of Essex might bring the newes & then he should be generally welcomed.134

In February 1617 Walter Yonge wrote in his diary that various pieces of domestic

and foreign news, including that the Duke of Bouillon expected to be besieged

by the Spanish army under Spinola, and that Savoy was full of terrible wars, came

‘Out of a letter sent Mr. Every from London, brought me by John Bragge, the

fi rst of Feb. 1616–17’.135 In September 1629 John Rous wrote in his diary that

there was ‘newes from Sturbridge that the Bosche or Busse is yeelded to the Hol-

landers’.136

Newsreaders began to note partiality as a factor degrading credibility, implic-

itly or explicitly engaging in extensive reading to counteract its eff ects. In July

1600 John Chamberlain wrote to Dudley Carleton a judgement that one report

of the Battle of Newport was too partial to be credible:

his relation (to my understandinge) is so partiall, as if no man had strooke stroke but

the English, and among the English no man almost but Sir Francis Vere .... Th e truthe

is he plaide his prises, and Barnevelt hath written to the Quene in commendation of

our nation, but specially of his great service that day.137

Mead’s London correspondent wrote him in September 1626 that ‘there hath

bin since a sharp encounter betweene the [Danish] King & Tilly. Of the suc-

cesse whereof we can hardly yet learne the truth. For from Anwerp is written

that Tilly hath quite defeated the King; but from Holland, that the King had

the better’.138 In October the news was still unclear, and Mead was noting its

geographic origin as a check for bias: ‘I heare againe of the King of Denmarks

second encounter by such as come from Lynne where they report he went off

with the better. But it is Holland newes’.139 In August 1627 John Holles wrote

to the Earl of Somerset that ‘my Lord of Buckingams reported victory, and half

taking in this Iland of Ré, is not the cause of this letter. I know yow have had

those news from divers, this town talking nothing else, but diversly, either as it is

severally related, or severally aff ected’.140

Th e greatest register of newsreaders’ increasing willingness to read impar-

tially, however, was that Catholic news began to be mentioned. At fi rst it was

usually mentioned as an obvious lie – but still mentioned, to be processed with

all other information. While serving with the Dutch in 1620, one of the Fair-

faxes acquired a Catholic news pamphlet listing the formidably large number of

soldiers serving under Spinola.141 In May 1622 John Chamberlain wrote Dudley

Carleton that ‘here is a constant report of a great overthrow geven to Count

Mansfeld by Don Gonsales de Cordova and Tilli … though this newes come

lowde and brimme from the Spanish side yet shold I geve no great credit to yt,

but that commonly yll newes proves too true on our side’.142 In February and

Extensive News 143

March of 1631 multiple reports of Tilly defeating Gustavus Adolphus came to

London, but were all disbelieved (although reported) because the sources were

Catholic.143 In April 1632 John Pory wrote to Scudamore that ‘here was newes

sprinkled up and downe both court and towne by Papistes, that the king of Swe-

den had suff red a great overthrowe … But Sir John Suckling … bringing word

that the king was gott into Bavaria without any opposition, conjured downe that

lying spirit’.144

Finally, even commercial, printed news came to have some credibility. Th is

was a slow process. At fi rst such news had scarcely more credibility than rumour.

In October 1624 John Chamberlain wrote Dudley Carleton that in London

they debated the course of the siege of Breda: ‘yf the corantoes say true they

are largely provided of all thinges necessarie to hold out a long siege: but those

that wold seeme to know more then ordinarie make a question of yt and rather

affi rme the contrarie’.145 In January 1626 Mead wrote that ‘for the taking of Tilly,

it was Corranto newes & not seconded by our letters & therefore I wrot it not.

I send you a later Coranto which will enforme you as much as I know of that

busines’.146 Somewhat dismissively, in January 1632 Gilbert Gerrard wrote to his

mother-in-law, Lady Joan Barrington, that ‘there is noe newes at London but

what you may fi nd in the Swedish inteligencer or the last new curant’.147 Such

news was worth mentioning, but not yet worth trusting.

Yet, increasingly, real credibility was imputed to the printed news. Readers

began to refer to the printed news more and more, enclosing it with their manu-

script newsletters, sometimes accepting it without comment, and occasionally

even privileging it over manuscript news. In July 1600 John Chamberlain wrote

to Dudley Carleton at the end of his description of the Battle of Newport, ‘so

much of that matter till you heare it more at large in some pamfl et’.148 Joseph

Mead inserted printed news reports in his letters to Martin Stuteville – Cour-

ante, or, Newes fr om Italy and Germany (9 April 1621), Courante, or, Newes fr om

Italy and Germany, &c. (22 April 1621), Courant Newes out of Italy, Germany,

Bohemia, Poland &c (25 May 1621), Corante, or, Newes fr om Italy and Ger-

manie (6 June 1621), Corante, or, Newes fr om Italy, Germanie, Hungarie and

Spaine (25 June 1621), and Corante, or, Newes fr om Italy, Germanie, Hungarie,

Spaine and France (3 July 1621) – and he mentioned many more enclosures of

printed news, which do not survive.149 In October 1626 John Rous wrote in

his diary that ‘many corantoes confi rmed an overthrowe given to the duke of

Friedland’.150 In October 1631 William Masham wrote to his mother-in-law,

Lady Joan Barrington, of various military news from Germany, including a fi rst

report of Gustavus Adolphus’ victory at Breitenfeld, and concluded his letter by

saying that ‘when the booke of newes comes forth I will send it you’.151 In Sep-

tember 1632 Peter Moreton wrote from Westminster to his father that ‘there is


noe addition yet come forth, that I can learn of, to the Swedish Intelligencer, but

one expected shortly’.152

In part this new willingness to credit print simply refl ects the increased

volume and availability of corantos in the 1620s, as compared to an earlier gen-

eration of printed news pamphlet – but it must be recollected that the relatively

numerous corantos still competed with an even larger number of manuscript

news sources, which retained great reserves of credibility. In the context of

persisting manuscript news transmission, the willingness to cite printed news

indicates not only an increased volume of printed news but also a real and sig-

nifi cant shift towards belief in the credibility of the printed news.153 Indeed, at

least Joseph Mead came to have some trust in the credibility of the coranteers

themselves, commercial men though they were. In September 1621 Mead wrote

that ‘my Corrantoer Archer was layd by the heales for making or adding to Cor-

rantoes … But now there is another who hath gott license to print them & sett

them honestly translated out of Dutch’.154 In November 1623 he further wrote

I send you our last, & a Corranto whose newes, as himself confesses is not very new.

Our old Corrantoer when he had continued a yeare & come to Num 52 gave over the

trade: whereupon wanting one to marshall the newes, the Corranto & Gazette came

barely out as they were wont, with Numb 1. By the next time they had gotten a new

man to take in hand the busines whose fi rst proofe I sent you last Numb 2. But he

was not liked & therefore they have gotten another which now I send Numb 3. And

I think in time he will do well.155

Th e government itself, taking advantage of this growth of news intended for pri-

vate readers, began to use, and therefore presumably to credit, commercial news.

Th e government records began to fi ll up with newsletters written for a broader

public, but sent home by their agents abroad. Wernham notes that ‘Th e taking

of Doullens, in Picardy’ is a ‘Copy, in A. de Mouy’s hand, of a pamphlet printed

in Antwerp by Antoine de Batts, aft er being passed by Henry Binghen, doctor

in theology and canon of the cathedral of Notre Dame in Antwerp, inspector

of books. French’.156 Th ese newsletters, incidentally, registered the growth of

importance of London as a center of private news production. William Asheby’s

newsletters included one entitled ‘Th e Copy of Occurants of the 8 of February

1590 in London’.157 Members of the English government were beginning to use,

and depend upon, London news-gathering, rather than getting their informa-

tion straight from the source.

Th e extensive newsreader read everyone, and, implicitly, could pass the news

on to everyone. Civic-minded restraint thus was divorced from the exact opera-

tions of the news circuits. But the process was slow and incomplete: the author

of Newes of Europe (12 March 1624, no. 17) wrote his readers that although the

news from the Netherlands and the Palatinate were grim, ‘the world is a Stage

Extensive News 145

of Varietie, and many places aff oord severall contingents, [so] you shall still be

supplied with one Newes or other, and no malignitie of time shall so pervaile,

but you shall be acquainted with such things as are befi tting for you to know,

and mee to relate’.158 Th e Continuation of Our Weekly Newes (18 January 1626,

no. 49), whether from censorship or self-control, reported that ‘I dare not write

all that I know least trouble should ensue’.159 And this mental transformation may

have been less than it seemed: it may simply have registered a belief that Prot-

estant England, although hardly secure, was in less danger by the 1620s than it

had been in the 1580s and 1590s, and no longer had to fear the consequences

should the mob learn of a Catholic victory abroad. If England’s rulers did believe

themselves to be more secure, the corollary of this belief would be that the mass

audience of the printed pamphlets and corantos could be trusted with relatively

uncontrolled news.

Whether or not such a belief operated, this mental transformation certainly

refl ected an increasing trust in the capacities of the literate mob to control them-

selves and act as marginally responsible citizens: controls on circulating the news

became irrelevant when all citizens could be trusted to control their reactions to

the news. Th ree Great Overthrowes (1622), addressing itself to all its unknown

audience, aspirationally deemed them as ‘such men, who out of civill honestie

entertaine good newes with joy, and welcome bad with commiseration and

pittie; making this use of both, that God is the manifester of his owne judge-

ments and mercy to all the world’.160 It was in the interest of the newswriter to

characterize his audience as publicspiritedly self-controlled – but he would not

have used such rhetoric if it were not deemed plausible. It would be too much

to say that England’s elites gained a good opinion of their social inferiors, but

they appear to have become more willing to tolerate (albeit with great reluctance

and continuing mistrustfulness) the mass circulation of bad news. But with all

these caveats, it still refl ected a great transformation: the news was to be univer-

sally accessible, and the anonymous, potentially universal readership would be

responsible for the consequences.

Editors

Much of the early news was, or presented itself, simply as the presentation of

these assembled letters to the judgement of gentlemen; indeed, one was supposed

to mention the most fantastic rumours, and probable lies. Since newsreaders

knew that much of the news would be false, they passed on everything, as part

of their way of allowing each newsreader on his own to discern the fi nal truth.

Th at something was written down does not mean they ever much believed it,

just that they thought they ought to include it so each person could incorporate


the material as part of their process of careful news reading. As the author of Th e

Continuation of Our Weekely Newes (28 June 1625, no. 28) put it,

I hope that none that have any sence or judgement will blame me if either hee, I, or

any other shall receive or publish hereaft er any thing contrary to this newes. For I

translate onely the Newes verbatim out of the Tongues or Languages in which they are

written, and having no skill in Prognostication, leave therefore the judgement to the

Reader, & that especially when there are tidings which contradict one another.161

Th e gentleman not only could be trusted to act as his own editor, but indeed

required the delivery of all these tales, no matter how fabulous, so as to be able to

sort out the truth for himself. Atherton believes this is because newsletters were

written from social inferiors to social superiors, and that these inferiors, deferen-

tially, would not impose their interpretation on a superior reader.162 But where

newsletters were written among sociable equals, it was rather the deference each

gentleman paid to his fellows’ gentlemanly judgment.

So in February 1621 Mead was willing to pass on his London correspond-

ent’s note of a rumour ‘too good to be true yet I have heard it reported, but feare

to beleeve it. For they say that the garrisons of Pilsen conspired with the citizens

of Prague to massacre the Emperors souldiers therein, & so themselves being

entred, to defend them from forraine attemps’.163 Th e correspondent was careful

to identify it as rumour, specifi cally disavowed his own belief in it, yet hoped it

would be true and passed it on to be judged by Mead himself. Mead, by repeat-

ing his words, gave Stuteville the same option. Even what was acknowledged

to be the most unlikely news got passed on for the reader’s own judgement: in

September 1626 Mead’s London correspondent wrote ‘Mansfeild & Bethlem

are mett as I am absurdly told’.164 In June 1628 John Rous wrote in his diary

‘Ridicula. Th at ships were sent to relieve Rochell, and the Dunkirkers had taken

them, and said the duke sent them word where they should meete them, &c.

Former times of late have had more foolish newes then these, related and cred-

ited by some that think themselves wise’.165 Yet Rous recorded this folly in his

diary. A gentleman needed not believe such folly; but, as part of his editorial

function, he could not ignore it.166

Th is assumption also changed with the shift to extensive reading. An impor-

tant result of this transformation was the creation of the professional editor, and

of his essential role in providing credible military news. Th e claims for the role of

the editor advance extraordinarily in this conceptual shift . Th is role developed in

several stages. To begin with, someone was needed to assemble multiple letters of

news, either to provide multiple accounts of the same item of news or to provide

news about wider and wider parts of Europe. Any reader could assemble separate

letters that came to him – indeed, every civic-minded gentleman (see above) was

required to engage in this process of assembling diff erent letters, so as to have a

Extensive News 147

proper base of information from which to extract the truth. But this process of

assemblage took time and eff ort at the best of times, and more and more as both

the volume and scope of news grew. Moreover, the assumptions of the amateur,

gentle news-reader no longer entirely held sway. He had worked best as a reader

of men, in mutual civility, or perhaps as an intensive reader of a few anonymous

reports. He could not judge multitudes of anonymous and extensive reports.

Instead, the printer – the editor – would assemble the commercial news for the

gentlemen as a commercial service, by means of a thoroughly commercial cred-

ibility.

But it was always more than that. An editor was always implicitly present,

to fi lter out seditious untruth (i.e., Catholic accounts) or arrant nonsense.

Whatever low credibility the printed news possessed depended on this implicit

presence. But this presence became more important as the news adapted itself

to extensive news reading. If ten letters were presented as the range of extensive

news, one hundred lurked in the background, unread and rejected. Th e gentle-

man should do this job – but he could not, or would not. He would leave it to

the commercial gentlemen of the press. He was buying not only their assembling

skills, but their judgement as to which news was credible to read.

Th e editor, in short, was implicitly a man hired to read extensively from the

news. He would receive reports of multiple battles and campaigns, engage in

extensive reading himself, extract what he considered to be the verifi able pith of

truth and newsworthiness, and collate them together. Th e news editor should

be seen as a professional reader parallel to the scholarly reader/researcher gather-

ing information for a single employer, who also began to emerge in Elizabethan

England.167 He was, implicitly, a professional: his guarantee of virtuous reading

was not his membership in the sociably honourable gentry, but that of the work-

man: that he would give good value for money received. His credit was akin to

a merchant’s credit: it depended on the commercial exchange to operate, but

when in operation, guaranteed credibility within its scope. Th e properly-paid,

professional editor would read extensively and impartially:

Gentle Readers: for there are two sorts of you I know: the one wishing well to the

Emperor and his proceedings: the other, murmuring and repining that the Palatines

cause and Bohemias businesse thrives no better: Now how can you both be satisfi ed

with any report or newes that concerne either party? therefore to avoid partiality

and take an eaven course concerning the reports abroad, and passions at home, I will

directly proceed in my accustomed manner of searching and opening the Letters that

came from beyond the seas, and so acquaint you with their secrets.168

Th e shift to the professional editor was also slow, and initially mimiced the older

norms of gentle news-reading. Military news professed that its news had been

read by a member of the traditional elites, whose perceptual competence applied


even in the world of anonymous, commercial news: ‘All this, lastly, hath passed

the allowance of a Gentleman (of the best judgement and intelligence for these

matters) in the Kingdome’.169 And Captain Gainsford, the notorious Captain

Pamphlet hired by Butter and Bourne between 1622 and his death in 1624 as

the fi rst full-time editor, was indeed a decayed gentleman who could provide

a minimum of sociable credibility.170 Gainsford’s presence in this tradesmen’s

world was an indication of the complexities of the social world of printers: they

included Gainsfords, but had to include Gainsfords, to provide gentle cred-

ibility. William Watt, Oxford clergyman, provided a similar social-credibility

function when he worked as a coranto editor in the early 1630s.171 John Pory,

providing an equivalent editorial function in the realm of manuscript newslet-

ters, also retained minimally gentle status.172

But the credibility of the news now began to lie in the professional editor

as well as in the assembled, extensive sources. Th at being the case, not all the

sources needed to be presented. Th ey would never be replaced entirely, but they

would become squeezed, digested, their information assimilated by the editor

and expressed in his own point of view. Th e news had been presented from the

point of view of a letter-writer, or letter-writers: now it began to be presented

from the point of view of the editor, the letter-reader. Th e editorial voice, and

narration, began to squeeze out the extensive voices of his sources.

At fi rst this process was minimal: in reports in the 1590s, the editor was

largely present in the prefaces, while the letter-writers (as shown above) retained

their individual voices. Th e claim made in A. M’.s Th e True Reporte of the Pros-

perous Successe which God Gave unto our English Souldiours (1581), that the

report was ‘gathered out of the Letters of moste credit and circumstaunce, that

have been sent over’, and the title of An Abstract of the Proceedings of the French

King (1590) were anomalously early acknowledgements of editorial activity.173

Th e editor grew stronger as time progressed. Th e coranto form from 1620 on

slowly squeezed out individuality from the news items. Self-consciously, Th o-

mas Gainsford, the editor hired by Bourne and Butter, announced that he was

reading and selecting the news, and providing his own editorial voice and inter-

pretation. Good Newes fr om Alsasia and the Palatinate (1622) advertised itself as

‘the abstract of three several letters’.174 In a 1623 coranto Gainsford wrote

Gentle Readers: By this time I hope you your selves will justifi e my simplicity or inno-

cency, that I acquaint you with nothing, but what is extracted out of true and credible

Originals; that is to say, either Letters of justifi able information, or Corantos pub-

lished in other Countries in the same manner, as we here accustome; and these you

know are either publiquely brought over by the Posts from Amsterdam, and Antwerp;

or privately sent to such friends and Gentlemen as do correspond with understanding

men in forraigne parts; that is, watch the time, and observe the passages of aff aires,

as they are widened & straightned in severall places. Now because the last Methode I

Extensive News 149

used was acceptable unto you, and the orderly setting downe of the businesse got the

start of opinion, and prevented rash censure concerning devises, and partiall inven-

tion, I will still keep my selfe within the same limitation.175

In 1625 an extract of a letter describing the siege of Cleves was followed by

the judgement of the newswriter that ‘Another letter written in the Towne of

Cleve on the 16. of February, relate this matter almost in the like manner … Th e

remainder of the Letter directly agreth with the fi rst, and therefore to shunne

tediousnesse: wee will not make any repeticion’.176 N. C. and others acted simi-

larly aft er 1632, when, aft er corantos were banned, and pretending to the practice

of a historian, they extracted semi-annual news digests from the news letters of

the year. Th e avowedly impersonal news under an implicit editorial voice, and

dependent upon that editorial voice for its credibility, was an integral result of

the shift to extensive news and credibility.

*****

As close reading of the texts became the norm, newswriters developed a standard

of extensive credibility, based on reading multiple texts and assembling truth

from their multiplicity. Th eir practice, particularly associated with corantos,

paralleled the development of Baconian and Lockean theories of empiricism,

dismissed honour and sociability entirely from newsreading, and reduced gen-

tleman and pauper to equally credible sources of news. Newswriters quickly

accepted this standard in the 1620s and 1630s, and transformed their reading

practices to accommodate this accumulative, extensive standard. Th e accumu-

lation of texts also required the development of the editor as the professional

newsgatherer, whose judgment increasingly supplanted the private, honourable

judgment of the gentleman. By 1637, and the outbreak of the British Civil Wars,

English newswriters and newsreaders had undergone a broad transformation in

their everyday judgment of the sources of credibility in the news.

– 151 –

CONCLUSION

Th e genre of military news in England registered an astonishing transformation

in its standards of credibility in the hundred years before the outbreak of the

British Civil Wars. Credibility – truth – resided fi rst in news transmitted and

believed by means of oral communication and public ritual. A fi rst challenge to

this was by the class of English gentlemen, who formed a new standard of cred-

ibility based on honour and sociability, transmitted semi-privately by means of

the humanist letter. Commercialization of the military news undid the standard

of credibility based on honour and sociability; the fi rst generation of printed

news attempted in various ways to mimic honourable and sociable standards of

credibility; while this was not ultimately successful, it did serve to shift the object

of credibility from the person writing to the naked text. Th e second generation

instead proff ered the new standard of extensive credibility, whereby credibility

was assembled from multiple, anonymous texts; it also brought forth the edi-

tor, the commercial professional whose judgement of credibility, better suited

for a world of extensive anonymity, replaced the honourable gentleman’s. Gentle

newsreaders, so far as we can tell from a relatively thin evidentiary base, seem

fairly quickly to have accepted the shift ing standards of credibility proff ered by

the rhetoric of the newswriters; the rhetoric is itself circumstantial evidence that

newsreaders in general accepted these shift ing standards.

Military news does not necessarily tell us much about the other genres

of news in pre-Civil War England – domestic political news, wonder-stories,

crime-stories, etc. To the extent that they also became anonymous and commer-

cial at the same time, it seems likely that a similar transformation in standards

of credibility occurred in them. Nevertheless, they were never travellers’ tales in

the same way as military news, and so unlikely to have become so totally socially

unmoored as the military news. Even if they did acquire extensive credibility at

the same time, we should expect that the specifi c circumstances of their genres

played as important a part in the narrative of their transformations as the specifi c

circumstances of the military news played in its narrative. Th e credibility trans-

formations of the military news doubtless tell us something about the credibility


transformations of the other genres of English news – but we should not assume

too great a similarity.

It is more likely that this study tells us about the operation of foreign and

military news throughout late-sixteenth and early-seventeenth century Europe.

Frenchmen and Dutchmen and Spaniards had greater personal experience of the

nature of war, and they could personally corroborate the facts of many more

battles than could Englishmen, but all Europeans were essentially dependent on

travellers’ tales to learn about the great majority of foreign and military news

– news of far-off truces and treaties, of distant battles and sieges. Moreover,

the shift towards commercial and printed military news seems to have taken

place at much the same time in Spain, France, the Netherlands, and Germany

as in England, during the century of war between 1540 and 1640. While a

healthy scepticism towards sourcing is always appropriate, the English claim to

be reprinting foreign military news seems genuine enough; we should assume

that much the same body of military news was being read throughout much of

Europe. Doubtless each nation’s military news had its own peculiar character-

istics and chronology – for example, London’s singular prominence in English

printing was not duplicated in any other nation – but the broad outlines of the

transformation of the military news, and of its standards of credibility, is likely

to have been European in scope, not merely English.

Th is transformation, it should be emphasized, was never total. It proceeded

as gradually as did the shift in genre throughout Europe from the occasional

pamphlet to the periodical newspaper.1 Traditional judgements of credibility

never disappeared; nor did traditional media and genres. As late as 1637, Wil-

liam Lithgow could write that his account of the siege of Breda ‘thou shalt not

peruse like to fl ashing Currants, lying surmises, blind-folded Gazetoes, feined by

Domesticke imaginations, or fr ivolous reports of fl ying doubts. No, no, but receive

and read this Worke fr om my owne occular experience, whereof I was a daily Testa-

tor’.2 Diff erent modes of establishing credibility overlapped in time and in genre.

Th e shift towards extensive credibility was a shift in weight among the modes;

revolutionary in its fi nal results but incremental in its progress. Indeed, it was

still a work in progress as the Civil Wars began. Th e same world of news, the

same issues of credibility, and the same range of responses to provide credibil-

ity, would persist through the Civil Wars and into the Restoration.3 Extensive

credibility would only wholly triumph in the eighteenth century (if ever), by

numerous re-inventions. Th e transition recorded in this study is one battle in a

very long war.

If this study’s thesis may be taken as proven, and to have some relevance for

other genres of news, what then are the implications? First, it places transforma-

tions of credibility at the heart of the news revolution of early modern Europe, and so

both fuses the news revolution with the other intellectual revolutions of the era and

Conclusion 153

reshapes our view of these other revolutions in light of the credibility transformations

of the military news. Historians of science and philosophy have located an enor-

mous disjunction in the seventeenth century, fi nding in the thought of Bacon

and Locke, among others, a radically new fact-based, sceptical, empirical, and

liberal epistemology.4 Th is new epistemology is refl ected in the military news in

the shift to extensive rhetoric and reading. (Indeed, to some extent the shift in

the military news precedes the writings of Bacon and Locke.) Foucault, with ref-

erence to Kantorowicz, has theorized about the transformation in early modern

Europe to a disciplinary, disembodied state:5 the shift from ritual news fi rst to

self-disciplined social news and then to the disembodiments of textual, anony-

mous news provides some evidence for the larger change he proposes, and gives

it a new dimension. Shapin has focused on the production of scientifi c truth dur-

ing the Scientifi c Revolution in early modern England as a mechanism of social

recognition and exchange; this mechanism also was present in the development

of the sociable news.6 Elizabeth Eisenstein has described a printing revolution in

early modern Europe, which was an essential prerequisite for the rise of a read-

ing public. One may, like Johns, qualify her arguments, but this print revolution

clearly operated in the military news, and is an essential component of it, as it

accelerated the commercializing and anonymizing tendencies of the military

news, and made them the new norm. Doubt, fact, print, sociability, disciplinary

state – all of these concepts are interrelated, partial descriptions of a greater

whole – the birth, if not of modernity writ large, than at least of the modernity

that spread through Europe aft er 1660 for at least another century. Th eir tight

interrelation in the military news refl ects their tight interrelation in the larger

world. As this study’s indiscriminate absorption of several critical vocabularies

indicates, several diff erent transformations ascribed to the seventeenth century

are, in fact, complementary descriptions of the same transformation.

Second, this study highlights the importance of letters in the European evolution

of discourse. Th e letter, explicitly an address of separated writers and readers, pio-

neered the establishment of new spheres of written discourse. By the ambiguities

of its form, the letter allowed for the slow emergence of private, sociable com-

munication from the cradle of public, governmental communication, and then

for the transformation from private, sociable communication to anonymous,

commercial, printed communication. Th e defi nitions of writer and audience

explicit and implicit in the diff erent stages of the letter, by controlling the terms

of discourse, defi ned successive epistemological and political communities. Th e

history of the rhetoric of the letter is the palimpsest of the history of European

epistemology and politics.

Th is study also widens our sense of the role of ‘letters’ in early modern

Europe. Altman has emphasized the role of letters in the birth of the novel, and

Habermas and Jagodzinski have emphasized the role of the letter as the cradle of


privacy, individuality, and personal expression.7 But since anonymous journalism

was also born from the letter, we must broaden our sense of the letter’s function;

the letter, transformed into the news pamphlet and the newspaper constituted a

new journalistic discourse of unknowns addressing unknowns. Th e letter’s func-

tion in creating privacy and individualism was relatively minor compared to its

role as the cradle of anonymity.

Th ird, this study argues that the great mental transformation involved in the

transformation of the standards of credibility was not limited solely to Europe’s

intellectual elites. Shapin’s argument pertains to scientists, while Dooley’s per-

tains to historians. Intellectual historians have tracked the thought of Bacon,

Locke, and their peers. Shapiro, looking at evolving attitudes towards probabil-

ity and fact, does expand her argument to include, a broad spectrum of educated

Englishmen in various walks of life, including all Englishmen involved in the

law courts.8 Th is study would expand this mental transformation further still, to

include all the newsreaders of England. Th e rhetoric of anonymous news was as

radical in its implications as the theory of Bacon – and far more widespread in

its readership, and, presumably, in its eff ects. Locke and Bacon were not simply

intellectual pioneers, but partakers of a broad epistemological shift conducted

among a large portion of the English nation.

Fourth, the ideology of a fr ee press is implicit in the shift to a system of extensive

credibility. It is noteworthy that a 1624 coranto made favorable reference to ‘a cus-

tome and liberty at Amsterdam of printing the Dutch Corantoes’: Amsterdam’s

news was credible in part because of the city’s comparatively greater freedom

of the press. Th is quotation is an early recognition of the fact that an extensive

system of news credibility ultimately assigns credibility to news in inverse pro-

portion to the amount of censorship aff ecting it. Where credibility derives from

the accumulation of multiple accounts, any interference in the accumulation of

news must impinge on its credibility; and the desire for systemically credible

extensive news requires the equally systemic removal of all barriers to such accu-

mulation. Before the Civil Wars, one can say only that extensive credibility was

establishing a preference for a freer press; but once that preference was estab-

lished, it would take a relatively minor intellectual shift to turn that preference

into a principle, and make the free press a cornerstone of political ideology.9

Fift h, the sociable communication of news was a crucial component of the politi-

cal culture of early modern England. Th e sociable communication of news was

bound up with concepts of counsel, honour, and public-spiritedness, and both

registered and helped to constitute the ideology and practice of gentlemanly rule

in England. In other words, the right to rule, the right to write and read news,

and the linked capacity and duty to write and read the news both accurately and

with a proper sense of responsibility toward the polity, were all bound up with

Conclusion 155

one another. Th ese assumptions underpinned, and help explain, the political

culture of England in the reigns of Gloriana and her successors.

Sixth, the transformation of the public and private spheres in early modern

Europe involved a transformation of public and private credibility. Scholars such

as Habermas and McKeon have located in early modern Europe a great trans-

formation in the conceptions of public and private in the realms of culture,

society, and politics.10 Th is transformation involved standards of credibility. At

the beginning of this period, news was communicated by ritual performance or

by oral means; the one means was public and credible, the other private and

incredible. Th e rise of written news disrupted this dyad by providing a form of

news that was both private and credible, whose credibility was guaranteed by

the honour of the correspondent and the recipient. Printed news brought with

it the innovation of extensive credibility – a public credibility derived from the

collective private judgment of individual newsreaders exercised upon publicly

distributed, individually unreliable pieces of printed news.

It is worth noting that the diffi culties early modern governments faced in

censoring the news proceeded in good measure from this unprecedented trans-

formation. Since governments had always been more concerned to control the

ritual and public ascription of credibility to news, they were unprepared for the

shift of credibility to private, written news. Th e early Stuart disinclination and

inability to censor manuscript news, noted by Baron,11 partly stemmed from their

slow recognition of the fact that much news credibility had shift ed to the private

sphere. Th e shift from brute censorship of printed news to adroit manipulation

of the content of printed news, a process that began in Elizabethan England

and continued far past the period studied here, registered the fact that public

credibility now could only be adjusted by the delicate operation of infl uencing a

myriad of private judgments.

Seventh, the shift to a system of extensive credibility implies not only a shift in

epistemological authority but also a shift in political authority; any given standard

of credibility as applied to the news expresses the power structure of a given polity;

a transformation of those standards of credibility is the register, cause, and result of

changes in that polity’s power structure. As sociable and honourable news aligned

itself with the authority of gentlemen, so printed news and extensive credibility

aligned itself with the authority of every newsreader. Extensive credibility democ-

ratized judgment; extensive credibility presupposed a liberal epistemology; and

so the emergence of extensive credibility in the news implied the emergence of a

liberal, democratic polity.12 Th e establishment of a system of extensive credibil-

ity by 1637 has a more than casual correlation with the innovations in political

practice and thought that would shortly emerge during the British Civil Wars:

the peculiar combination of private judgment and public credibility pioneered

in the news foreshadowed and modelled the means by which a multiplicity


of private judgments – public opinion – would come to constitute sovereign

authority itself. While it would be foolish to claim a directly causal relationship

between a transformation in newsreading and a political revolution, it is, I think,

plausible to perceive an aligning logic. Th is study supports the camp of histori-

ans who argue that transformations in the political and intellectual culture of

Elizabethan and early Stuart England helped set the stage for the onset of the

British Civil Wars, and seeks to place the transforming standards of credibility

in military news among those cultural transformations.

In conclusion, it is worth emphasizing the persistence and the relevance to

our own times of these transformations of credibility. Th e credibility of exten-

sive reading has remained to the modern day as the theoretical presupposition

for journalism. Yet if extensive reading remains our norm, the questions of cred-

ibility and medium remain evergreen. Th e recent challenge of electronic media,

especially ‘weblogs’, to print, televisual, and radio media has brought to the fore-

front once more the perennial question of trustworthiness in the news; these

new media also raise the possibility that they are creating new types of publics by

virtue of their new forms of refl exivity (electronic links, comment boxes); and,

in curious ways, are also deprofessionalizing the editorial function and evoking

once again the sociable credibility of the news. Whether this is the return of the

repressed, or something new, is unclear; what is clear is that an examination of

the last great transformation of standards of credibility in the news will help to

ground us as we examine the implications of what may be the next one.

– 157 –

APPENDIX A: DOCUMENTS

Document 1

In 1513 Humphrey Rudyng wrote to William Mocklow to describe the siege of

Th érouanne:

On the 10th of July, Frenchmen in Terouenne [sic] made a great skrye about midnight,

and rung the bells in alarm, for Englishmen shot guns so fi erce and so thick against

the walls and the gates, and into the town, that they thought to have lost the town and

to have been slain, man and child. Th at same night, the fairest young women within

the town, many dozen in number, were slain by the falling of a house, whose death is

greatly moaned amongst the best within the town. Th e walls of Terouenne are sore

beaten with guns, and many houses are broken and destroyed. Our guns lie within

birdbolt shot to the walls and our miners are near the walls. I trust that by St James’s

day the lord captain and the army shall drink wine in Terouenne of the best.1

Document 2

In October 1579 Nicholas Malbie wrote in a private letter to the Privy Council

in England that in his recent battle with the Irish rebels:

the rebels came towards us with as great courage, in as good order, and with as reso-

lute myndes as ever I sawe any souldiers of anie nation in my life to doe, and I am sure

I have seene the best of Christendome.

Th ey were well 1000 gallowglasses of the choysest men of all Mounster and the

best leaders, and John and James of Desmond on horsebacke but with 30 horsemen.

Th ey came to the voley of our shott, and answered it with theirs, and most resolutely

(or I might say most desperatlie) ranne uppon our battaile, who had couched their

pykes to receave them.

Untill our forlorne hope had discharged, and one of our winges, the other winge

did give it them in the faces, and theruppon they began to wheele about, and I

standing with my horsemen within 80 yardes of them, taking the advantage of their

wheeling, did charge them (which I durst not doe before all our shott had done), and

theruppon they gave us their backes.


I entred among them thincking my horsemen had followed mee, but they seyng

John and James fl ying on horseback (which they did before their horsemen did breake)

left mee and followed them, and did kill three or fower of the horsemen but the two

brethren by the footmanshippe of their horses escaped by recovereng a woodd.

I followed killing of the footmen which was the mark I shott at (because I knewe

I could doe no good uppon the two brethren beyng so farre fl edd), and with mee

only was Mr. Henrie Guldeford and vi of my horsemen, which small number did

great execucion.

Th ere were slaine by shott and by the horsemen 140 or 160, and all the principall

captaines and leaders of the galloglasses, which were the Erle of Desmondes owne

men, and were never reputed for the traytors untill this encounter, and because it can

not bee denied I have their heads in campe.2

Document 3

In 1591 Andrew White had printed for him Th e True Coppie of a Letter, written

fr om the Leager by Arnham (1591), whose core was the following account:

Th e passage of the Rhyne and the Maes is shut up, that there can passe nothing neither

up nor down, the Prince of Parma lieth afore the Sconce of Knodtfenburgh hard by

Nymweyghen, who hath twice assaulted the same, but was valiantly put to repulse to

his great hinderance and losse, in which assault the Prince of Parma hath lost between

6. and 700. men. Th ere is also slaine 20. captains: the principall wherof was the Conte

Octavio de Mansfvelt, brother to the Conte of Mansfvelt: with Lamberlot his Lieu-

tenat, and an Italian prince, and there is more then 3. or 400. sore hurt, which are

carried into Nimweighen. Th is was doon on Monday the 22. of July, 1591. according

to the computation of the church of Rome.

On Th ursday morning next following, his excellencie the Grave Morrice discom-

forted seaven Cornets of Horsemen, and hath taken 400. Horse, with their furniture,

and 300. Men prisoners, under whom was the bloudy Ensigne of the Prince of Parma,

and their Captains or leaders, being most Albanises, having since environed 4. Cor-

nets of Ruyters, so as it is hoped ere this they are taken, for that all passages are laide

for them, that they can no way escape.

So it is, that since the inclosing of my said Letter, the Poste is come from the

Leager, who hath brought the particularities to the Majestrates of Dort: And here-

aft er followeth the names of those that were taken prisoners at Arnham and brought

in.

1 Companie Don Pedro Francisco Denicello, Captaine of the Guarde of the Prince

of Parma, Generall of the cavalrie or Horsemen, in the absence of the Marquis Del

Guasta, also his Cornet, and Sir Tarquima Geapido a great Gentleman.

2 Companie Conte de Syo de Matere Lieutenant to Captain Jeronimo Caraff o.

3 Company Captain Paradilia, who being sore wounded with 3. woundes, is

since dead, and off ered in his life time for his raunsome 15000. Crownes.

4 Company Don Eteveso de valy Brother to the Marquis del Guasto, who prof-

fereth for his raunsome 30000. Ducats, and his cornet is taken.

5 Company Don Antonio Lejajo, with certain Gentlemen.

6 Company Roajo Capizozo, with certain Gentlemen.

Appendix A: Documents 159

7 Company were all common Ruyters or Horsemen.

Th is battell was done afore the Towne of Arnham in the Betu, where the enemy

came to seek a convenient place to encamp himselfe hard by our Leager, where his

excellencie in person with his forces, set upon them unawares, and so discomforted

them.3

– 161 –

NOTES

Introduction

1. Th e New Tydings Out of Italie Are Not Yet Come (2 December 1620), recto.

2. Newsletters, Joseph Mead to Martin Stuteville (1620–5), British Library, Harley MS

389, f. 223r–v.

3. Th e Letters of John Chamberlain, ed. N. McClure, 2 vols (Philadelphia, PA: Th e Ameri-

can Philosophical Society, 1939), vol. 2, pp. 453–4.

4. Letters of John Holles 1587–1637, ed. P. R. Seddon, 3 vols (Nottingham: Produced for

the Th oroton Society by Technical Print Services Ltd., 1983), vol. 2, p. 370.

5. 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. South-

ern (eds), Studies in Medieval History Presented to Frederick Maurice Powicke (Oxford:

Clarendon Press, 1948), pp. 429–34; pp. 436–7. More generally, see W. Ong, Orality

and Literacy: Th e Technologizing of the Word (London and New York: Routledge, 1982),

p. 97.

6. For a survey of the print aspects of seventeenth-century England’s news revolution,

see J. Raymond, Pamphlets and Pamphleteering in Early Modern Britain (Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 98–160. For the news revolution throughout

seventeenth-century Europe, see B. Dooley and S. Baron (eds), Th e Politics of Information

in Early Modern Europe (London and New York: Routledge, 2001), pp. 123–272.

7. Th e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, 2 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1936), vol. 2, p.

1324.

8. I. Atherton, ‘“Th e Itch Grown a Disease”: Manuscript Transmission of News in the Sev-

enteenth Century’, in J. Raymond (ed.), News, Newspapers, and Society in Early Modern

Britain (London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 1999), pp. 39–65; pp. 60–1, fn. 29.

9. M. Shaaber, Some Forerunners of the Newspaper in England, 1476–1622 (Philadelphia,

PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1929), p. 301.

10. F. Levy, ‘Th e Decorum of News’, in Raymond (ed.), News, Newspapers, and Society, pp.

12–38; pp. 31–4.

11. A. Halasz, Th e Marketplace of Print. Pamphlets and the Public Sphere in Early Modern

England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).

12. Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, vol. 2, p. 1324. Also see the defi nition of news in J.

Vansina, Oral Tradition as History (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985),

pp. 3–4.

13. Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, vol. 2, p. 1537.

14. M. Foucault, Discipline and Punish: Th e Birth of the Prison, trans. A. Sheridan, (New

York: Vintage Books, 1979), p. 27; M. Foucault, Power/Knowledge. Selected Interviews

and Other Writings 1972–1977, trans. C. Gordon (New York: Pantheon Books, 1980),

p. 198.

15. For some of the interrelations of news, gossip, and gender in early modern England, see

A. Fox, Oral and Literate Culture in England 1500–1700 (Oxford: Oxford University

Press, 2000), pp. 177–8, 340–63.

16. C. Shannon and W. Weaver, Th e Mathematical Th eory of Communication (Urbana, IL:

Th e University of Illinois Press, [1949] 1964).

17. D. Kelley, ‘Th e Problem of Knowledge and the Concept of Discipline’, in D. Kelley (ed.),

History and the Disciplines: Th e Reclassifi cation of Knowledge in Early Modern Europe

(Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 1997), pp. 13–28; p. 13.

18. T. Bette, A Newe Ballade, Intituled, Agaynst Rebellious and False Rumours (1570); Levy,

‘Decorum of News’, p. 19.

19. Letters Written by John Chamberlain, ed. S. Williams, Camden Society, 1st series, 79

(Westminster: Camden Society, 1861), pp. 123–4.

20. Th e Continuation of Our Weekly Avisoes (18 April 1631, no. 25), title page.

21. S. Shapin, A Social History of Truth. Civility and Science in Seventeenth-Century England

(Chicago, IL, and London: University of Chicago Press, 1994), p. 6. Adrian Johns uses

Shapin’s assumptions to make related arguments about the nature of the printed book in

general (A. Johns, Th e Nature of the Book: Print and Knowledge in the Making (Chicago,

IL, and London: University of Chicago Press, 1998), p. 2).

22. Shapin, Social History of Truth, p. 8.

23. P. Lake, ‘Deeds against Nature: Cheap Print, Protestantism and Murder in Early Seven-

teenth-Century England’, in K. Sharpe and P. Lake (eds), Culture and Politics in Early

Stuart England (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1993), pp. 257–83.

24. R. Streckfuss, ‘News before Newspapers’, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly

75:1 (Spring 1998), pp. 84–97; pp. 86–8. Another 237 are categorized under ‘Foreign

Politics’.

25. British Library, Sloane MS 1303, f. 3r; British Library, Egerton MS 2596, f. 164v; British

Library, Additional MS 4106, f. 160r; British Library, Additional MS 27402, f. 73r.

26. E.g., British Library, Additional MS 11043, ff . 85–6; British Library, Additional MS

34218, ff . 28v–29r; British Library, Additional MS 36446, ff . 62–3; British Library,

Egerton MS 2598, ff . 93–4. Printed news accounts solely devoted to military news also

oft en had generic titles, such as Newes fr om France (1591), Newes fr om Ostend (1601),

Newes fr om Turkie and Poland (1622), J. Forbes’s A Letter Sent fr om Sarjent Major Forbes

(1631), but almost always with some indication of the exact military subject matter

appearing somewhere on the title page.

27. R. Wernham (ed.), List and Analysis of State Papers. Foreign Series Elizabeth I, 7 vols

(London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Offi ce, 1964–2000), vol. 3, p. 81;vol. 4, p. 64; vol. 5,

p. 112; vol. 6, p. 53; vol. 7, p. 65.

28. Th e Continuation of the Most Remarkable Occurrences of Newes (16 July 1630, no. 9), p.

14.

29. Corantos as a genre bound together military with non-military news. Among news

pamphlets, military news was bound together with other texts in, among others, the fol-

lowing manners: Th omas Digges’s A Breife and True Report of the Proceedings of the Earle

of Leycester for the Reliefe of the Towne of Sluce (1590) was bound together with Th omas

Digges’s addenda to Leonard and Th omas Digges’s second edition of An Arithmeti-

162 Notes to pages 4–8

call Militare Treatise named Stratiaticos (1590); these addenda included a comparison

of good and bad offi cers and a discussion of ‘Abuses that may be practized to the great

dishonour of the Prince’. Th e Famous Victorie of Leipsich was bound up in Th e Swed-

ish Discipline (1632). A True Discourse of that which is Hapned in the Towne of Ostend

(1602) was bound together with A Dialogue and Complaint Made upon the Siedge of

Oastend (1602). True Newes fr om One of Sir Fraunces Veres Companie (1591) was bound

together with ‘Th e Bloodie Persecution and Marterdome which Sundrye Cheefe Persons of

Account, Did Latelie Suff er in Spaine’. A printed Dutch thanksgiving is appended to W.

C., Th e Copie of a Letter, Lately Sent to an Honourable Person in England, fr om the Campe

before Grave (1602).

30. In British Library, Additional MS 26051, ‘A Journall of the Voyage of Rease’ and ‘Errours

Committed in the Voyage to the Iland of Rea’ are bound together with ‘Th e True Order

of a March togither with a Direction How a Companie Should Be Exercised, According

to that Exact Manner Lately Perfected by the Great and Famous Generall of these Tymes

his Excelencie Prince Maurices. Gathered from the Practise of Generall Cecills Com-

panie into these Plaine Geometricall Figures, By John Waymouth Gent’. Gilbert Frevile’s

commonplace book included, among sermons and other material, ‘A True Relation of

the Earle of Essex & Lord Admiralls Exployt at Cales (a great [Haven] towne in Spaine:)

Ao Dm 1596’. British Library, Egerton MS 2877, ‘Commonplace Book of Gilbert Fre-

vile’, ff . 76v–77r.

31. See Joseph Mead’s newsletters to Martin Stuteville, in British Library, Harley MSS

389–90; and selections of John Pory’s newsletters to various recipients, in John Pory

1572–1636, ed. W. Powell, microfi che supplement (Chapel Hill, NC: University of

North Carolina Press, 1977).

32. See for example the letter Poynings More wrote c. 1630 to his grandfather George More,

discussed below. Folger Shakespeare Library, Losely Collection, L.b.679, recto.

33. E.g., ‘Advices from Brussels’ (NL1, [11]/21 July 1591), ‘Occurents from Various Parts’

(NL6, [25 Nov.] 1591), and ‘Advices from Italy, Spain, and Guienne’ (NL24, [c. early

Nov.] 1591). Wernham, List and Analysis of State Papers, vol. 3, pp. 80, 82, 92, 226,

305.

34. Fox, Oral and Literate Culture in England, p. 40.

35. Levy, ‘Decorum of News’, p. 17.

36. J. Taylor, Taylor his Travels (1621), sig. A4r.

37. Th e Continuation of the Most Remarkable Occurrences of Newes (16 July 1630, no. 9), p.

14.

38. Th e Strangling and Death of the Great Turke (1622), p. 10.

39. Anthony Bagot to Richard Bagot, 6 September 1591, Folger Shakespeare Library, Bagot

Papers, L.a.43, recto.

40. Dudley Carleton to John Chamberlain 1603–1624. Jacobean Letters, ed. M. Lee Jr (New

Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1972), p. 123.

41. Th e Continuation of our Weekely Avisoes (6 July 1632, no. 32), sig. A1v.

42. Cited in B. Dooley, Th e Social History of Skepticism: Experience and Doubt in Early Mod-

ern Culture (Baltimore, MD, and London: John Hopkins University Press, 1999), p.

140.

43. Dr R. Marbeck, ‘A Breife & a True Discourse of the Late Honourable Voyage unto Spaine

& of the Wynninge, Tackinge & Burninge of the Famous Towne of Cadiz’ (1596), Brit-

ish Library, Stowe MS 159, f. 363r.

Notes to pages 8–10 163

44. Th e Continuation of our Forreign Newes (16 May 1631, no. 28), p. 4. Also see P. Voss,

Elizabethan News Pamphlets: Shakespeare, Spenser, Marlowe & the Birth of Journalism

(Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press, 2001), pp. 54–66.

45. G. B., Newes out of France for the Gentlemen of England (1591), sig. C2r.

46. A Relation of the Last Newes (8 April 1623, no. 25), p. 10.

47. Dooley, Social History of Skepticism, p. 76.

48. Newes fr om Turkie and Poland, p. 39.

49. Shapin, A Social History of Truth, pp. 243–7. And see B. Shapiro, A Culture of Fact: Eng-

land, 1550–1720 (Ithaca, NY, and London: Cornell University Press, 2000), pp. 70–6.

50. J. Hale, Th e Art of War and Renaissance England (Washington, DC: Folger Books,

1961), p. 5. Militia duty technically counted as armed service, but it was a far cry from

actual battle.

51. B. Donagan, ‘Halcyon Days and the Literature of War: England’s Military Education

before 1642’, Past and Present, 147 (May 1995), pp. 65–100.

52. A. Nixon, Swethland and Poland Warres (1610), sig. B1v.

53. Anonymous to Robert Cecil, 24 December 1590, British Library, Additional MS 4125,

f. 17r.

54. Report on the Manuscripts of the Earl of Ancaster (Dublin: Printed for His Majesty’s Sta-

tionery Offi ce by John Falconer, 1907), pp. 395–8.


389, ff . 173v, 176r.

56. John Pory, microfi che supplement, p. 287.

57. V. von Klarwill (ed.), Th e Fugger News-Letters, First Series. Being a Selection of Unpub-

lished Letters fr om the Correspondents of the House of Fugger during the Years 1568–1605,

trans. P. de Chary (London: John Lane the Bodley Head Ltd, 1924), pp. 56, 148–9; V.

von Klarwill (ed.), Th e Fugger News-Letters, Second Series. Being a Further Selection fr om

the Fugger Papers Specially Referring to Queen Elizabeth and Matters Relating to England

during the Years 1568–1605, trans. L. S. R. Byrne (London: John Lane the Bodley Head

Ltd, 1926), pp. 29–30, 34, 42, 47, 105, 112, 120–1, 123–4, 144, 191–4, 226–7, 277–81,

312, 319.


389, f. 176r.

59. Certayn and Tru Good Nues, fr om the Syege of the Isle Malta (1565), Newes fr om Vienna

(1566), Th e True Report of All the Successe of Famagosta [Cyprus] (1572), A True Discourse

wherin is Set Downe the Wonderfull Mercy of God [Croatia] (1593), A True Relation of

Taking of Alba-Regalis [Hungary] (1601), and Newes fr om Poland (1621).

60. Th e Troubles of Geneva (1591), A. Nixon, Th e Warres of Swethland (1609), H. Brereton,

Newes of the Present Miseries of Rushia (1614).

61. Shaaber, Some Forerunners of the Newspaper in England, pp. 123–6. For English partici-

pation in the wars abroad, see M. Fissel, English Warfare, 1511–1642 (London and New

York: Routledge, 2001), passim.

62. Levy, ‘Decorum of News’, p. 25.

63. For microstudies of the history of reading in early modern England, see L. Jardine and

A. Graft on, ‘“Studied for Action”: How Gabriel Harvey Read his Livy’, Past and Present,

129 (November 1990), pp. 30–78; J. Morrill, ‘William Davenport and the “Silent Major-

ity” of early Stuart England’, Journal of the Chester Archaeological Society, 58 (1975), pp.

115–29; K. Sharpe, Reading Revolutions: Th e Politics of Reading in Early Modern Eng-

land (New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, 2000); W. Sherman, John


Dee: Th e Politics of Reading and Writing in the English Renaissance (Amherst, MA: Uni-

versity of Massachusetts Press, 1995). For more general studies of the history of reading

in early modern England, see J. Anderson and E. Sauer (eds), Books and Readers in Early

Modern England: Material Studies (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press,

2002); D. Cressy, Literacy and the Social Order: Reading and Writing in Tudor and Stu-

art England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980); E. Kintgen, Reading in

Tudor England (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1996); D. Woolf, Read-

ing History in Early Modern England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).

64. N. Mears, Queenship and Political Discourse in the Elizabethan Realms (Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 2005), p. 113.

65. J. Scott-Warren, ‘News, Sociability, and Bookbuying in Early Modern England: Th e Let-

ters of Sir Th omas Cornwallis’, Library, 7th series, 1:4 (December 2000), pp. 381–402;

p. 391.

66. Chester City Record Offi ce (C.C.R.O.) [now Cheshire Record Offi ce], CR 63/2/19, ff .

39, 40, 42, 59, 68, 77–8, cited in Morrill, ‘William Davenport and the “Silent Majority”’,

pp. 120–1.

67. M. E. Bohannon, ‘A London Bookseller’s Bill: 1635–1639’, Library, 4th series, 18:4

(March 1938), pp. 417–46; pp. 423, 428.

68. Atherton, ‘‘Th e Itch Grown a Disease’’, p. 41.

69. For Henry Wotton’s December 1594 description of his personal Europe-wide network of

informants, which he seems to have been in the process of transferring to Essex’s service,

see Th e Life and Letters of Sir Henry Wotton, ed. L. P. Smith, 2 vols (Oxford: Clarendon

Press, 1907), vol. 1, pp. 299–301.

70. England’s literate elites were well served by manuscript newsletters. R. Cust, ‘News and

Politics in Seventeenth-Century England’, Past and Present, 112 (1986), pp. 60–90; pp.

62–9; Fox, Oral and Literate Culture in England, pp. 368–72; F. Levy, ‘How Informa-

tion Spread Among the Gentry, 1550–1640’, Journal of British Studies, 21:2 (1982),

pp. 11–34; pp. 20–4. News circles were also defi ned by ideological affi nity. A. Bellany,

Th e Politics of Court Scandal in Early Modern England: News Culture and the Overbury

Aff air, 1603–1660 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 89.

71. M. Frearson, ‘London Corantos in the 1620s’, in M. Harris (ed.), Studies in Newspa-

per and Periodical History: 1993 Annual (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1994), p. 4.

For popular reading habits in early modern England, see M. Spuff ord, Small Books and

Pleasant Histories: Popular Fiction and its Readership in Seventeenth-Century England

(Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1981), pp. 1–18; T. Watt, Cheap Print and Popular

Piety 1550–1640 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).

72. Good Newes for the King of Bohemia? (1622), p. 1. Th e address to the ‘Gentle Reader’

was also used in A True Declaration of the Streight Siedge Laide to the Cytty of Steenwich

(1592), sig. A3r; A True Relation of Such Battailes (1622), p. 1; Th e Aff aires of Italy (20

November 1623, no. 4), p. 1; and Th e Newes and Aff aires of Europe (15 January 1624, no.

10), p. 1. Coppies of Letters Sent fr om Personages of Accompt (1622) addressed itself to the

‘Courteous Reader’(sig. A2r).

73. A Trumpet to Call Souldiers on to Noble Actions (1627), pp. 1–2.

74. M. Frearson, ‘Th e English Corantos of the 1620s’ (Dissertation, Cambridge University,

1993), pp. 11–77.

75. Mears, Queenship and Political Discourse, pp. 154–61; Fox, Oral and Literate Culture in

England, pp. 340–63.


76. M. Frearson, ‘Th e Distribution and Readership of London Corantos in the 1620s’, in R.

Myers and M. Harris, Serials and their Readers 1620–1914 (New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll

Press, 1993), pp. 16–17. For a general description of how written news sparked and was

incorporated into oral news in early modern England, see Fox, Oral and Literate Culture

in England, pp. 363–93.

77. P. Seaver, Wallington’s World: A Puritan Artisan in Seventeenth-Century London (Stan-

ford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1985), pp. 45–66, 143–81.

78. Bellany, Politics of Court Scandal in Early Modern England, pp. 129–31; Fox, Oral and

Literate Culture in England, pp. 393–405; Raymond, Pamphlets and Pamphleteering in

Early Modern Britain, pp. 89–96.

79. Th e Diary of Sir Simonds D’Ewes (1622–1624), ed. É. Bourcier (Paris: Didier, 1974), p.

75.

80. Ibid., p. 76.

81. Th e True Reporte of the Skirmish (1578), p. 8.

82. Atherton, ‘“Th e Itch Grown a Disease”’, p. 44.

83. Newsletters, Joseph Mead to Martin Stuteville (1620–31), British Library, Harley MSS

389–90.

84. P. M. Handover, Printing in London fr om 1476 to Modern Times (Cambridge, MA: Har-

vard University Press, 1960), p. 109; Raymond, Pamphlets and Pamphleteering in Early

Modern Britain, pp. 106–8; Voss, Elizabethan News Pamphlets, pp. 66–75.

85. Shaaber, Some Forerunners of the Newspaper in England, pp. 309–10. But Kortepeter

describes a semi-annual Zeitung dating from 1588 that sounds as if it preceded Mercurius

Gallobelgicus. M. Kortepeter, ‘German Zeitung Literature in the Sixteenth Century’, in

R. J. Schoek (ed.), Editing Sixteenth Century Texts (Toronto, ON: University of Toronto

Press, 1966), pp. 123–4. Also see J. Weber, ‘Strassburg, 1605: Th e Origins of the News-

paper in Europe’, German History, 24:3 (August 2006), pp. 387–412.

86. Dooley, Social History of Skepticism, pp. 45–86; M. D. Sáiz, Historia del periodismo en

España, I. Los orígenes. El siglo XVIII (Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 1983), pp. 26–46; H.

Ettinghausen, ‘Th e News in Spain: Relaciones de sucesos in the Reigns of Philip III and

IV’, European History Quarterly, 14 (1984), pp. 1–20; C. Harline, Pamphlets, Printing,

and Political Culture in the Early Dutch Republic (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff Pub-

lishers, 1987); Kortepeter, ‘German Zeitung Literature in the Sixteenth Century’, pp.

113–29; J. Sawyer, Printed Poison. Pamphlet Propaganda, Faction Politics, and the Public

Sphere in Early Seventeenth-Century France (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University

of California Press, 1990).

87. Dahl does not include these semi-annuals in his bibliography. F. Dahl, A Bibliography of

English Corantos and Periodical Newsbooks 1620–1642 (London: Th e Bibliographical

Society, 1952), pp. 221–2.

88. For printed news ballads, see D. Randall, ‘Sovereign Intelligence and Sovereign Intelli-

gencers: Transforming Standards of Credibility in English Military News from ca. 1570

to 1637’ (Dissertation, Rutgers University of New Jersey, 2005), pp. 238–54.

89. D. Randall, ‘Joseph Mead, Novellante: News, Sociability, and Credibility in Early Stuart

England’, Journal of British Studies, 45:2 (April 2006), pp. 293–312.

1 From Oral News to Written News

1. A. Fox, ‘Rumour, News and Popular Political Opinion’, Historical Journal, 40 (1997), pp.

597–620; pp. 606–10.


2. Cust, ‘News and Politics in Seventeenth-Century England’, pp. 62–9; Frearson, ‘Th e

Distribution and Readership of London Corantos in the 1620s’, pp. 16–17; Levy, ‘How

Information Spread Among the Gentry’, pp. 20–4.

3. Taverns and fairs, among other places, did associate sociability and publicity with the

news; but they were not the dominant institutions of news sociability, as coff ee houses

would become in Restoration and Augustan England. B. Cowan, ‘Th e Rise of the Coff ee

House Reconsidered’, Historical Journal, 47:1 (2004), pp. 21–46; Fox, Oral and Literate

Culture in England, pp. 352–3, 375–9, 403–4; J. Habermas, Th e Structural Transfor-

mation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society, trans. T.

Burger and F. Lawrence (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1991), pp. 32–3; S. Pincus, ‘“Cof-

fee Politicians Does Create”: Coff eehouses and Restoration Political Culture’, Journal of

Modern History, 67:4 (1995), pp. 807–34.


389, f. 65r.

5. Diary of John Rous, ed. M. Green (London: Camden Society, 1856; repr. New York:

AMS Press, 1968), p. 11.

6. For the precedence of orality to literacy, and the ultimately revolutionary nature of the

transformation from the former to the latter, see Ong, Orality and Literacy. For a review

of the literature critiquing, controverting and complicating Ong, see J. Coleman, Pub-

lic Reading and the Reading Public in Late Medieval England and France (Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 1–33. For the slow and complex nature of the

transformation to literacy (acknowledged briefl y by Ong; Ong, Orality and Literacy, pp.

115–16) as it applied to news in early modern England, and for the persistence of oral

news, see Fox, Oral and Literate Culture in England, pp. 335–405.


389, f. 11r.

8. Ibid., f. 11v.

9. For these acoustics, see B. Smith, Th e Acoustic World of Early Modern England: Attend-

ing to the O-factor (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1999). For the aurality of

news, see H. Love, Scribal Publication in Seventeenth-Century England (Oxford: Claren-

don Press, 1993), p. 193.

10. Letters Written by John Chamberlain, p. 119.

11. A Relation of the Weekely Occurences of Newes (1622), p. 15.

12. Newes fr om Flanders and Ostend (1604), sig. B2r.

13. Th e Swedish Discipline, second pagination, pp. 11–12.


15. Courant Newes out of Italy, Germany, Bohemia, Poland, &c. (25 May 1621), recto; Th e

Continuation of Our Forraine Newes (8 December 1631, no. 2), p. 9.

16. Th e Letters of Sir Walter Ralegh, ed. A. Latham and J. Youings (Exeter: University of

Exeter Press, 1999), p. 151.

17. Charles Howard to Lord Hunsdon, 8 July 1596, British Library, Additional MS, 48152,

f. 242v.

18. Correspondence of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leycester, during his Government of the Low

Countries, ed. J. Bruce, Camden Society, 1st series, 27 (London: Camden Society, 1844),

p. 245.

19. Diary of Sir Simonds D’Ewes, p. 151.

20. W. Bereton, Travels in Holland the United Provinces England Scotland and Ireland, ed. E.

Hawkins (London: Printed for the Chetham Society, 1844), p. 34.



389, f. 276r.

22. Life and Letters of Sir Henry Wotton, vol. 2, pp. 198–9.

23. Th e True Coppie of a Letter, Written fr om the Leager by Arnham (1591), sig. A2r.

24. Letters of John Chamberlain, vol. 2, p. 259.


26. Taylor, Taylor his Travels, sigs A4r–A4v.

27. J. Maclean (ed.), Letters fr om George Lord Carew to Sir Th omas Roe. Camden Society, 1st

series, 76 (Westminter: Camden Society, 1860), p. 139.

28. Correspondence of Sir Henry Unton, Knt, ed. J. Stevenson (London: William Nicol,

Shakespeare Press, 1847), p. 23.


30. Correspondence of the Family of Moreton of Moreton, co. Chester, Vol. II. 1632–1642,

British Library, Additional MS 33936, f. 51r.

31. Correspondence of the Family of Moreton of Moreton, co. Chester, Vol. I. From the

Times of Henry VII to 1631, British Library, Additional MS 33935, f. 306v.

32. Ibid., f. 352r.



34. For more speculation on Tilly’s death, see Th e Continuation of Our Late Avisoes (20 Octo-

ber 1631, no. 44), title page, verso; and C. R. Mannin, ‘News-letters from Sir Edmund

Moundeford, Knt., M.P., to Framlingham Gawdy, Esq., 1627–1633. In the possession of

Daniel Gurney, Esq.’, Norfolk Archaeology, 5 (1859), pp. 53–73; p. 70.

35. Henry Wotton, Reliquiae Wottonianae (London: B. Tooke, 1685), pp. 669–70.

36. A True, Plaine, and Compendious Discourse of the Besieging of Bergen Up Zome (26 July

1622), p. 15.

37. A True Relation Written fr om Midelbourg (1622), pp. 9–10.

38. Newes of Europe (12 March 1624, no. 17), p. 11.

39. M. Sutcliff e, Th e Practice, Proceedings, and Lawes of Armes (1593), pp. 194–5.

40. For the confl ation of news and rumour in early modern England, see Fox, Oral and Liter-

ate Culture in England, pp. 354–63.

41. T. Birch (ed.), Th e Court and Times of Charles the First, 2 vols (London: Henry Colburn,

Publisher, 1848), vol. 1., pp. 268–9.

42. Ibid., vol. 2, p. 199.


389, f. 184r.

44. I will follow Kertzer’s defi nition of ritual as ‘symbolic behavior that is socially standard-

ized and repetitive’. D. Kertzer, Ritual, Politics & Power (New Haven, CT, and London:

Yale University Press, 1988), p. 9.

45. Ben Jonson, ed. C. H. Herford Percy and E. Simpson, 11 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press,

1941), vol. 7, pp. 524–5 (lines 371 and 376).

46. For the ritual expression of royal authority in masques, see M. Butler, ‘Reform or Rever-

ence? Th e Politics of the Caroline Masque’, in J. R. Mulryne and M. Shewring (eds),

Th eatre and Government under the Early Stuarts (Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 1993), pp. 118–56; S. Orgel, Th e Illusion of Power: Political Th eater in the English

Renaissance (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1975); and K.

Sharpe, Criticism and Compliment: Th e Politics of Literature in the England of Charles I

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 195–264.


47. For a semiotic analysis of symbols as a form of communication, see M. Danesi and P.

Perron, Analyzing Cultures: An Introduction and Handbook (Bloomington and Indiana-

polis, IN: Indiana University Press, 1999), pp. 73–5, 87–90.

48. A Trumpet to Call Souldiers on to Noble Actions, p. 2.

49. A Discourse of Such Th ings as Are Happened in the Armie (1569), sigs B4r–B4v.


390, f. 322r.

51. A True Report of All the Proceedings of Grave Mauris before the Towne of Bercke (1601),

sig. C2r; H. Hexham, A Historicall Relation of the Famous Siege of the Busse (1630), pp.

43–4; A Short Description of the Marching forth of the Enemie out of Breda (1637).

52. A Journall or Daily Register of All Th ose Warlike Atchievements which Happened in the

Siege of Berghen-up-Zoome in the Low-countries (1622), p. 15.

53. A Journall or, Historicall Relation of … the Present Siege of Breda (1625), p. 25.

54. Report on the Manuscripts of the Earl of Ancaster, p. 211.

55. A Relation of Many Memorable Passages (14 September 1622), p. 20.

56. A Description of S’Hertogenbosh … together with the Principall Points and Passages Con-

cerning the Last Siege (1629), pp. 27–8.

57. A Relation of the Weekely Occurences of Newes, p. 19.

58. William Whiteway of Dorchester. His Diary 1618 to 1635 (Dorchester: Dorset Record

Society, Volume 12, 1991), p. 110.

59. Birch (ed.), Th e Court and Times of Charles the First, vol. 2, p. 127.

60. Two Memorable Relations (1631), p. 17.

61. A Jornall of Certaine Principall Passages (1629), p. 7.

62. Hexham, A Historicall Relation of the Famous Siege of the Busse, p. 28.

63. A Description of S’Hertogenbosh … together with the Principall Points and Passages Con-

cerning the Last Siege, pp. 49–50.


390, f. 121r.

65. Henry Hexham, A True and Briefe Relation of the Bloody Battel of Nieuport in Flanders

(1640), p. 4.

66. Count Mansfi elds Proceedings (9 September 1622), p. 19.




Times of Henry VII to 1631, British Library, Additional MS 33935, f. 332r.

70. A. Searle (ed.), Barrington Family Letters 1628–1632, Camden Society, 4th series, 28

(London: Camden Society, 1983), p. 237.


72. Life and Letters of Sir Henry Wotton, vol. 2, pp. 199–200.

73. Th e Continuation of Our Weekely Newes (28 June 1625, no. 28), p. 19.

74. C. Jouhaud, ‘Printing the Event: From La Rochelle to Paris’, in R. Chartier (ed.), Th e

Culture of Print: Power and the Uses of Print in Early Modern Europe, trans. L. Cochrane

(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989), pp. 290–333.

75. D. Cressy, Bonfi res and Bells: National Memory and the Protestant Calendar in Eliza-

bethan and Stuart England (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press,

1989), pp. 67–92; S. Gunn, ‘War, Dynasty and Public Opinion in Early Tudor England’,

in G. W. Bernard and S. Gunn (eds), Authority and Consent in Tudor England: Essays

Presented to C. S. L. Davies (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002), pp. 131–49.


76. Cressy, Bonfi res and Bells, pp. 76–7.

77. William Whiteway of Dorchester. His Diary 1618 to 1635, pp. 115–16.

78. For the Protestant English sermon’s roots in later medieval English liturgical ritual, and

its persisting liturgical and ritual character, see S. Wabuda, Preaching during the English

Reformation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 20–106.

79. Raymond, Pamphlets and Pamphleteering in Early Modern Britain, pp. 144–5. For ser-

mons’ roles in communicating news and forming opinion in early modern England, see

T. Claydon, ‘Th e Sermon, the ‘Public Sphere’ and the Political Culture of Late Seven-

teenth-Century England’, in L. Ferrell and P. McCullough (eds), Th e English Sermon

Revised: Religion, Literature and History 1600–1750 (Manchester and New York: Man-

chester University Press, 2000), pp. 208–34, esp. 215–20.


389, f. 168v. Also see T Cogswell, Th e Blessed Revolution: English Politics and the Coming

of War, 1621–1624 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), p. 27.



389, f. 242v.

83. For royal articulations of ritual news, as a means of enhancing sovereign authority, see

Randall, ‘Sovereign Intelligence’, pp. 74–84.

84. W. Ong, Interfaces of the Word: Studies in the Evolution of Consciousness and Culture

(Ithaca, NY, and London: Cornell University Press, 1977), pp. 77–8.

85. For the need to study the intertwining of genre and reading in early modern England,

see K. Sharpe and S. Zwicker, ‘Introduction: Discovering the Renaissance Reader’, in

K. Sharpe and S. Zwicker (eds), Reading, Society and Politics in Early Modern England

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 1–37; pp. 9–10.

86. Th is section abbreviates D. Randall, ‘Epistolary Rhetoric, the Newspaper, and the Public

Sphere’, Past and Present, 198 (February 2008), pp. 3–32.

87. D. Zaret, Origins of Democratic Culture: Printing, Petitions, and the Public Sphere in

Early-Modern England (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000), pp. 118–19.

88. Gustavus Adolphus to Charles I, September 1631 [Copy], British Library, Sloane MS

22, ff . 5–6.

89. G. Mattingly, Renaissance Diplomacy (New York: Dover Publications, 1988).

90. Richard Broughton to Richard Bagot, 6 November [1591], Folger Shakespeare Library,

Bagot Papers, L.a.264, recto.

91. E. Sanger (ed.), Englishmen at War: A Social History in Letters 1450–1900 (Stroud: Alan

Sutton, 1993), p. 12.

92. J. Hogan and N. M. O’Farrell (eds), Th e Walsingham Letter-Book or Register of Ireland.

May, 1578 to December, 1579 (Dublin: Stationery Offi ce for the Irish Manuscripts

Commission, 1959), p. 172.

93. E.g., W. Devereux (ed.), Lives and Letters of the Devereux, Earls of Essex, Vol. I (London:

John Murray, 1853), pp. 247–9, 256–60, 269–72, 372.

94. England’s State Papers Foreign amply confi rm the bulk of diplomatic correspondence.

For suffi ciently lengthy extracts of such diplomatic correspondence in the late sixteenth

and early seventeenth centuries, see E. Sawyer (ed.), Memorials of Aff airs of State in the

Reigns of Elizabeth and K. James I. Collected (Chiefl y) fr om the Original Papers Of the

Right Honourable Sir Ralph Winwood, Kt., 3 vols (London: T. Ward, 1725). For mili-

tary news coming to Ellesmere, see Huntington Library, Ellesmere Collection #1634,

#1641, #1658, #1659, #1662, #1664, #1666, #6899, #6905 and #6909. For the semi-


private intelligence networks of Walsingham, Leicester, Burghley, Essex and others, see

M. Graves, Burghley: William Cecil, Lord Burghley (London and New York: Longman,

1998), p. 110; P. Hammer, Th e Polarisation of Elizabethan Politics: Th e Political Career

of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, 1585–1597 (Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 1999), pp. 152–98; A. Haynes, Invisible Power: Th e Elizabethan Secret Services

1570–1603 (Stroud: Alan Sutton, 1992), esp. pp. xvi, 12–35, 103–10, 121–7, 146–52.

95. G. Bell, ‘Elizabethan Diplomacy: Th e Subtle Revolution’, in M. Th orp and A. Slavin

(eds), Politics, Religion & Diplomacy in Early Modern Europe: Essays in Honor of De

Lamar Jensen (Kirksville, MD: Sixteenth Century Journal Publishers, 1994), pp. 267–

88; Handover, Printing in London fr om 1476 to Modern Times, p. 102; L. Parmelee,

Good Newes fr om Fraunce: French Anti-League Propaganda in Late Elizabethan England

(Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 1996), p. 40.

96. E. g., Lord Mountjoy’s letter describing the victory at Kinsale, in J. P. Collier, (ed.), Trev-

elyan Papers, Part II, Camden Society, 1st series, 84 (London: Camden Society, 1862),

pp. 104–6.

97. Correspondence of Sir Henry Unton, Knt, pp. 23, 29–30, 33, 99, 146–7, 189, 200, 233–4,

240, 246–7, 249, 285–6, 311–12, 355–6, 413–14, 426, 429, 460–1.

98. Robert Cecil to Th omas Edmondes, 6 November 1598, British Library, Stowe MS 167,

ff . 60r–61v.

99. Maclean (ed.), Letters fr om George Lord Carew to Sir Th omas Roe, pp. 7–8, 20, 86–7,

114.

100. Armstrong, ‘Some Examples of the Distribution and Speed of News’, pp. 433–4; P.

Hughes and J. Larkin (eds), Tudor Royal Proclamations Volume I. Th e Early Tudors

(1485–1553) (New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, 1964), pp. 329,

455, 469–70; P. Hughes and J. Larkin (eds), Tudor Royal Proclamations Volume II. Th e

Later Tudors (1553–1587) (New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, 1969),

pp. 93–4, 181, 185–6, 534–5. For (justifi ed) Tudor dislike of rumour, and attempts to

police it, see G. R. Elton, Policy and Police: Th e Enforcement of the Reformation in the Age

of Th omas Cromwell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), pp. 63–82.

101. Hughes and Larkin (eds), Tudor Royal Proclamations Volume I, pp. 12–13.

102. Ibid., p. 456.

103. Ibid., p. 469.

104. Ibid., p. 329.

105. Levy, ‘Decorum of News’, p. 19. For the regulation of print in Elizabethan and Early

Stuart England, particularly the operations of the Stationers’ Company, see F. Siebert,

Freedom of the Press in England 1476–1776: Th e Rise and Decline of Government Control

(Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1965), pp. 64–87, 127–146. For arguments of

the eff ectiveness of censorship and self-censorship in pre-Civil War England, see C. Hill,

‘Censorship and English Literature’, in Th e Collected Essays of Christopher Hill: Volume

One. Writing and Revolution in 17th Century England (Amherst, MA: University of

Massachusetts Press, 1985), pp. 32–71; and A. Patterson, Censorship and Interpretation:

Th e Conditions of Writing and Reading in Early Modern England (Madison, WI: Uni-

versity of Wisconsin Press, 1985), esp. 3–23, 44–119. For contrary arguments, see C.

Clegg, Press Censorship in Jacobean England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

2001), pp. 161–96; S. Lambert, ‘State Control of the Press in Th eory and Practice: Th e

Role of the Stationers’ Company before 1640’, in R. Myers and M. Harris (eds), Censor-

ship & the Control of Print in England and France 1600–1910 (Winchester: St. Paul’s

Bibliographies, 1992), pp. 1–32; and E. Miller, Th e Professional Writer in Elizabethan


England: A Study of Nondramatic Literature (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University

Press, 1959), pp. 171–202.

106. P. Hughes and J. Larkin (eds), Stuart Royal Proclamations Volume I. Royal Proclama-

tions of King James I 1603–1625 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973), pp. 495–6. A similar,

equally ineff ective proclamation was issued the next year. Hughes and Larkin (eds), Stu-

art Royal Proclamations Volume I, pp. 519–21; Levy, ‘Decorum of News’, p. 12. Also see

Frearson, English Corantos of the 1620s, pp. 234–45.

107. Th e Poems of James VI. of Scotland, ed. J. Craigie, 2 vols (Edinburgh and London: Printed

for the Scottish Text Society by William Blackwood & Sons Ltd., 1955–8), vol. 2, p.

182.

108. Statutes from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century also forbade rumourmongering

and the telling of ‘false news’. See 3 Edw. I, Stat. Westm. 1, c. 34 (1275); 2 Ric. II, Stat.

1, c. 5 (1378); 12 Ric. II, c. 11 (1388); 1 & 2 Phil. & Mar., c. 3 (1554–5); 23 Eliz., c. 2

(1580–1). Th ese statutes may be found in Statutes of the Realm (London, 1810–24), vol.

1, p. 35; vol. 2, pp. 9, 59; vol. 4, pt. 1, pp. 240–1, 659–61.

109. Th e Diary of Henry Machyn, ed. J. G. Nichols, Camden Society, 1st series, 42 (London:

Camden Society, 1848), p. 157.

110. Ibid., pp. 162–3.

111. HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, II: 397, cited in Levy, ‘Decorum of News’, p. 20.

112. Mortimer argues that Machyn’s ‘diary’ is in good part a historically minded chronicle,

a ‘public diary’, and a personal and business memorandum book. I. Mortimer, ‘Tudor

Chronicler of Sixteenth-Century Diarist? Henry Machyn and the Nature of His Manu-

script’, Sixteenth Century Journal, 23:4 (Winter 2002), pp. 981–98. If so, this further

highlights Machyn’s unwillingness to record foreign and military news, since it then

becomes a deferential silence both personal and public in nature.

113. D. Lupton, London and the Countrey Carbonadoed (1632), pp. 140–1.

114. Typescript of Sir Humphrey Mildmay’s diary; original in British Library, Harley MS

4454. Folger Shakespeare Library, w.b.600, 42.

115. W. Patten, Expedicion into Scotlande (1548), sigs [+]4v–[+]5r.

116. S. Clark, Th e Elizabethan Pamphleteers: Popular Moralistic Pamphlets 1580–1640

(Rutherford, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1983), p. 86; Fox, Oral and Lit-

erate Culture in England, pp. 341–2.

117. Levy, ‘Decorum of News’, pp. 27–8.

118. Articles of Agreement, Concerning the Cessation of Warre (1607), p. i.

119. T. Lushington, ‘Christ, Dead or Alive?’, in J. Chandos (ed.), In God’s Name: Examples

of Preaching in England fr om the Act of Supremacy to the Act of Uniformity 1534–1662

(Indianapolis and New York: Th e Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1971), pp. 256–66.

120. J. Eales, Puritans and Roundheads: Th e Harleys of Brampton Bryan and the Outbreak of

the English Civil War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. 88.

121. Letters of Sir Walter Ralegh, p. 71.

122. Scott-Warren, ‘News, Sociability, and Bookbuying in Early Modern England’, p. 392.

123. Staff ord, Edward Staff ord, 12th Baron to Richard Bagot, 12 August 1596. Folger Shake-

speare Library, Bagot Papers, L.a.872, recto.

124. More Newes fr om the Palatinate (1622); More Newes fr om the Palatinate, the Second Time

Imprinted (1622).

125. Sterrell to [della Faille], [London], 24 Aug. 1620 (OS), State Papers, Public Record

Offi ce, 56/312&v, cited in C. Carter, Th e Secret Diplomacy of the Habsburgs, 1598–1625

(New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1964), p. 159. Della Faille was the


‘secretary of the Privy Council and of the Council of State in the Spanish Netherlands’;

ex ofi cio, he ran the Spanish Netherlands’ espionage networks in England. Carter, Secret

Diplomacy of the Habsburgs, pp. 3, 81–2.

126. Ibid., pp. 153–4.

127. Letters of Sir Walter Ralegh, pp. 204–5.

128. Diary of Walter Yonge, Esq., ed. G. Roberts (London: Printed for the Camden Society by

J. B. Nichols and Son, 1848), p. 23.

129. Th e Diary of Th omas Crosfi eld, ed. F. S. Boas (London: Oxford University Press, 1935),

p. 15. Th is is clearly taken from the title page of A Continued Journall of All the Proceed-

ings of the Duke of Buckingham his Grace, in the Isle of Ree, a Part of France (1627), which

continues to say ‘In whom are combined Religion, Fortitude, and Clemencie; being the true

Characters of a noble Generall’. I am grateful to Alastair Bellany for noting this repetition,

which provides direct evidence that Crosfi eld had read this particular newsbook.

130. Diary of Th omas Crosfi eld, p. 16.

131. True Report of All the Successe of Famagosta, sig. A4r; Donagan, ‘Halcyon Days and the

Literature of War’, pp. 78–81.

132. Th ree Great Overthrowes (1622), p. 15.

133. Th e Aff aires and Generall Businesse of Europe (24 February 1624, no. 14), p. 2.

134. Nixon, Swethland and Poland Warres, sigs A3r–A3v.

135. T. Nun, A Comfort against the Spaniard (1596), sigs C2v–C4r.

136. Atherton, ‘“Th e Itch Grown a Disease”’, pp. 45–6.

137. ‘Commonplace Book of Gilbert Frevile’, British Library, Egerton MS 2877, ff . 76v–77r

[‘A True relation of the Earle of Essex & Lord Admiralls exployt at Cales (a great [Haven]

towne in Spaine:) Ao Dm 1596’].


389, ff . 1, 9r.

139. Ibid., f. 54r.

140. Ibid., f. 54r.

141. Ibid., f. 188r.

142. Diary of John Rous, p. 65.

143. Zaret, Origins of Democratic Culture, p. 120. Also see Armstrong, ‘Some Examples of the

Distribution and Speed of News’, pp. 441–2.

144. Francis Johnson to Nathaniel Bacon, 22 February, 1575, Folger Shakespeare Library,

Bacon-Townshend Family Papers, L.d.379, recto.

145. Sawyer (ed.), Memorials of Aff airs of State in the Reigns of Elizabeth and K. James I, vol. 2,

p. 31.


390, f. 525v.


389, f. 455r. Newsletters, Joseph Mead to Martin Stuteville (1626–31), British Library,

Harley MS 390, f. 316v. Birch (ed.), Th e Court and Times of Charles the First, vol. 2, p.

178.

148. George Clarke to Richard Bagot, 25 October 1594, Folger Shakespeare Library, Bagot

Papers, L.a.390, f. 2v.

149. I. E., A Letter fr om a Souldier of Good Place in Ireland (1602), p. 24.

150. William Whiteway of Dorchester. His Diary 1618 to 1635, p. 25.


151. E.g., A Discourse of the Present State of the Wars in the Lowe Countryes (1578), sigs B2r–

B3r; H. Peacham, A Most True Relation of the Aff aires of Cleve and Gulick (1615), sigs

D4r–F2r; Newes fr om Turkie and Poland, pp. 46–51.

152. Parmelee, Good Newes fr om Fraunce, pp. 53–6.

153. Anthony Poulett to Sir Francis Hastings, 23 April 1593. Huntington Library, Hastings

Collection #10356, f. 1r.

154. A True Declaration of the Streight Siedge Laide to the Cytty of Steenwich, sig. A3r.

155. Cogswell, Blessed Revolution, p. 21; D. Loades, ‘Illicit Presses and Clandestine Printing

in England, 1520–1590’, in A. C. Duke and C. A. Tamse (eds), Too Mighty to be Free:

Censorship and the Press in Britain and the Netherlands (Zutphen: De Walburg Pers,

1987), p. 24.

156. Ben Jonson, vol. 8, p. 59.

157. ‘Th e Copy of a Letter Written by a Dutyfull Servant Nobody. Sent from Bruxells to his

Worthy Master Nemo’ (1621). British Library, Additional MS 34217, f. 20v.

158. Although Cogswell states that in the 1620s ‘the key to all ‘opposition’ to royal policies

was accurate information, and that the Paul’s walkers, more likely than not, were able to

provide’. Cogswell, Blessed Revolution, pp. 23–4.

159. T. Elyot, Th e Boke Named the Governour (1531), p. 169r.

160. R. Edwards, Th e Excellent Comedie of Two the Moste Faithfullest Freendes, Damon and

Pithias (1571), sig. H4r.

161. J. Guy, ‘Th e Rhetoric of Counsel in Early Modern England’, in D. Hoak (ed.), Tudor

Political Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. 292–310; pp.

292–4, 309. J. Guy, ‘Th e Henrician Age’, in Politics, Law and Counsel in Tudor and Early

Stuart England (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000), pp. 13–46; pp. 13–22. Levy, ‘Decorum of

News’, pp. 15–16. For an overview of the later medieval and Tudor ideas of counsel as

civic duty, and the infl uence of humanism on their evolution, see A. Ferguson, Th e Artic-

ulate Citizen and the English Renaissance (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1965).

For the parliamentary and courtly cultures of counsel, and their relation via patronage of

the news to the emerging world of public debate, see N. Mears, ‘Counsel, Public Debate,

and Queenship: John Stubbs’s Th e Discoverie of a Gaping Gulf, 1579’, Historical Journal,

44:3 (September 2001), pp. 629–50.

162. G. Gascoigne, Th e Spoyle of Antwerpe (1576), sig. A2v.

163. I. B., A Plaine and True Relation, of the Going Forth of a Holland Fleete (1626), p. 22.

164. ‘A Discourse of the Beseiginge, Defendinge and Releevinge of the Towne of Bergen up

Zome in the Yeare 1622’, British Library, Royal MS 18A LXIII, ff . 1*r, 1r.

165. C. Schultz, What Makes Musicians so Sarcastic? (New York: Henry Holt and Company,

1976), f. 49r.

166. Zaret, Origins of Democratic Culture, pp. 44–67.

167. Correspondence of Robert Dudley, pp. 85–6.

168. Francis Walsingham to Anonymous, 29 June 1589, Folger Shakespeare Library, V.b.142,

f. 6r.

169. Mears, ‘Counsel, Public Debate, and Queenship’, pp. 640–6, 648–50.

170. For the evolution of the word ‘counsel’ into its modern meanings of ‘council’ and

‘counsel’, see Guy, ‘Th e Rhetoric of Counsel in Early Modern England’, pp. 293, 298–9.

Conrad notes that Th omas Elyot’s defi nition of the ‘friends’, inferior governors infused

with a spirit of amicitia, who should provide counsel to the monarch is not confi ned

to any one institutional body, but fl uid, and could embrace men from many diff erent

parts of the political nation. F. W. Conrad, ‘Th e Problem of Counsel Reconsidered: Th e


Case of Sir Th omas Elyot’, in P. Fideler and T. F. Mayer, eds, Political Th ought and the

Tudor Commonwealth: Deep Structure, Discourse and Disguise (London and New York:

Routledge, 1992), pp. 75–107; pp. 77–85.

171. Cogswell, Blessed Revolution, passim.

172. S. Baron, ‘Th e Guises of Dissemination in Early Seventeenth-Century England: News

in Manuscript and Print’, in Dooley and Baron (eds), Politics of Information in Early

Modern Europe, pp. 41–56.

173. P. Salzman, Literary Culture in Jacobean England: Reading 1621 (Houndsmills: Palgrave

Macmillan, 2002), p. 141.

174. Frearson, ‘London Corantos in the 1620s’, p. 10.

175. For the licensing of news under Elizabeth and James, see Lambert, ‘State Control of the

Press in Th eory and Practice’, pp. 9–20; and Frearson, English Corantos of the 1620s, pp.

245–70. For the increasing importance of news in English politics in the early 1620s,

and decreasing royal control over the news, see Cogswell, Blessed Revolution, pp. 20–35;

Frearson, English Corantos of the 1620s, pp. 151–226.

176. E.g., W. Watt, Th e Swedish Intelligencer. Th e Th ird Part (1633); W. Watt, Th e Swedish

Intelligencer. Th e First Part (1634); N. C., German History Continued. Th e Seventh Part

(1635).

177. Mears, ‘Counsel, Public Debate, and Queenship’, pp. 629–30.

178. Proclamation against Th e Gaping Gulf, 27 September 1579, PRO, SP12/132/11, ff .

24–6, cited in ibid., p. 649.

179. Note, incidentally, how the word ‘advice’, meaning counsel, evolved into the ‘adviso’ or

‘aviso’, meaning information, and that early corantos gave themselves titles such as Th e

Continuation of our Weekely Avisoes or Th e Continuation of Our Forraine Avisoes.

2 Sociable News

1. Zaret, Origins of Democratic Culture, pp. 118–32. For scribal publication and manuscript

transmission in early modern England, see Atherton, ‘“Th e Itch Grown a Disease”’, pp.

39–65; P. Beal, In Praise of Scribes: Manuscripts and their Makers in Seventeenth Century

England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998); Bellany, Politics of Court Scandal in Early

Modern England, pp. 85–114; and Love, Scribal Publication in Seventeenth-Century

England.

2. Zaret, Origins of Democratic Culture, p. 119.

3. P. Lake and M. Questier, ‘Puritans, Papists, and the “Public Sphere” in Early Modern

England: Th e Edmund Campion Aff air in Context’, Journal of Modern History, 72 (Sep-

tember 2000), pp. 587–627; pp. 595–9.

4. P. Hammer, ‘Myth-Making: Politics, Propaganda and the Capture of Cadiz in 1596’,

Historical Journal, 40:3 (September 1997), pp. 621–42; pp. 631–5.

5. Hammer, ‘Myth-Making’, pp. 626, 631–3.

6. T. Cogswell, ‘Th e Politics of Propaganda: Charles I and the People in the 1620s’, Journal

of British Studies, 29 ( July 1990), pp. 187–215; pp. 202–3; T. Cogswell, ‘Th e People’s

Love: Th e Duke of Buckingham and Popularity’, in T. Cogswell, R. Cust, and P. Lake

(eds), Politics, Religion and Popularity in Early Stuart Britain: Essays in Honour of Con-

rad Russell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 211–34; pp. 224–31.



Papers, L.a.390, f. 2r.


9. Collier (ed.), Trevelyan Papers, Part II, pp. 104–6; W. Trevelyan and C. Trevelyan (eds),

Trevelyan Papers, Part III, Camden Society, 1st series, 105 (London: Camden Society,

1872), pp. 38, fn. a; 39.

10. ‘Th e Copy of a Lre Sent from Manheim the 2 of June 1622’, British Library, Additional

MS, 34217, f. 38v.

11. For a classic anthropological work on gift s, see M. Mauss, Th e Gift : Th e Form and Rea-

son for Exchange in Archaic Societies, trans. W. D. Halls (New York and London: W. W.

Norton, 1990). For gift -giving and sociability in early modern English government and

society, see L. L. Peck, Court Patronage and Corruption in Early Stuart England (Boston,

MA: Unwin Hyman, 1990); and S. Whyman, Sociability and Power in Late-Stuart Eng-

land: Th e Cultural Worlds of the Verneys 1660–1720 (Oxford: Oxford University Press,

1999).


13. Trevelyan and Trevelyan (eds), Trevelyan Papers, Part III, p. 181.



16. Th e Private Correspondence of Jane Lady Cornwallis 1613–1644, ed. Lord Braybrooke

(London: S. and J. Bentley, Wilson, & Fley, 1842), p. 216.

17. Love, Scribal Publication in Seventeenth-Century England, pp. 141–8.

18. Scott-Warren, ‘News, Sociability, and Bookbuying in Early Modern England’, pp. 388–

9.



21. M. Ezell, Social Authorship and the Advent of Print (Baltimore, MD, and London: John

Hopkins University Press, 1999), p. 40.

22. Chapter 3 will explore what happened when such letters slipped into wider circulation

and escaped the bounds of personal knowledge and social intercourse.

23. Richard Ensore to Richard Bagot, 18 May [1568], Folger Shakespeare Library, Bagot

Papers, L.a.447, recto.


390, f. 522r.

25. Searle (ed.), Barrington Family Letters, p. 212.

26. Levy, ‘How Information Spread among the Gentry’, p. 20.

27. Dudley Carleton to John Chamberlain 1603–1624; Letters of John Chamberlain, vols 1

and 2.

28. British Library Loan 29/202, ff . 56r–59r; British Library Loan 29/46/309; British

Library Loan 29/172, ff . 44r–48v, cited in Eales, Puritans and Roundheads, p. 92, fn.

60.

29. Searle (ed.), Barrington Family Letters, pp. 82–3, 101–2, 133–4, 195–7, 203, 210–18,

224, 226–7, 230, 233–41, 243–4, 246–7.

30. Correspondence of the Family of Moreton of Moreton, co. Chester, Vols I and II, British

Library, Additional MSS 33935–33936.

31. Poynings More to George More, 20 August [1630?], Folger Shakespeare Library, Losely

Collection, L.b.679, recto.

32. For the eff ect of Elizabeth’s gender on English politics and political theory, see A. N.

McLaren, Political Culture in the Reign of Elizabeth I: Queen and Commonwealth 1558–

1585 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).

33. Ezell, Social Authorship and the Advent of Print, pp. 21–44.


34. Or in public news in general. See Atherton, ‘“Th e Itch Grown a Disease”’, p. 49. In the fi f-teenth-century Paston letters, there was far heavier female involvement in the circulation of military news, both as correspondents and recipients. See for example Paston Let-ters and Papers of the Fift eenth Century, ed. N. Davis, 2 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971–6), vol. 1, pp. 437–8, 667–9.

35. John Norreys to his Mother, Lady Norreys, 21 October 1590, British Library, Addi-tional MS 11342, f. 21r.

36. True Newes fr om One of Sir Fraunces Veres Companie, sig. A3r.37. Walter Trew to Margaret Trew, 22 February [1621?], Folger Shakespeare Library, Bagot

Papers, L.a.908, recto.38. Searle (ed.), Barrington Family Letters, pp. 215, 239, 242. 39. Ibid., pp. 82–3, 101–2, 133–4, 195–7, 203, 210–18, 224, 226–7, 230, 233–41, 243–4,

246–7.40. Private Correspondence of Jane Lady Cornwallis, pp. 109, 216, 239–41, 250–1, 275, 286. 41. Ibid., 239.42. Letters of the Lady Brilliana Harley, ed. T. T. Lewis (London: Camden Society, 1854), p.

27. Lady Brilliana also commented on foreign military news in 1638 on pp. 10–11, 19.43. For women’s letter-writing in early modern England, see J. Daybell (ed.), Early Mod-

ern Women’s Letter-Writing, 1450–1700 (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001). For some roles women played in the news circuits of late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century England, see P. McDowell, Th e Women of Grub Street: Press, Politics, and Gender in the London Literary Marketplace 1678–1730 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998).

44. George Clarke to Richard Bagot, 25 October 1594, Folger Shakespeare Library, Bagot Papers, L.a.390, f. 1r.

45. Charles Howard to Lord Hunsdon, 8 July 1596, British Library, Additional MS 48152, f. 249r.

46. Richard Daniell to John Egerton, 19 September 1614, Huntington Library, Ellesmere Collection #1658, f. 1r. For the interrelations of news and patronage, also see R. Adams, ‘“Both Diligent and Secret”: Th e Intelligence Letters of William Herle’ (Dissertation, University of London, 2004), esp. pp. 68–115.

47. George Gilpin to Leicester, 7 March 1587, British Library, Egerton MS 1694, f. 114r.48. Letters of Sir Walter Ralegh, p. 153.49. Ibid., p. 222.50. Sawyer (ed.), Memorials of Aff airs of State in the Reigns of Elizabeth and K. James I, vol. 1,

pp. 370–1.51. Atherton, ‘“Th e Itch Grown a Disease”’, p. 41; Cust, ‘News and Politics in Seventeenth-

Century England’, p. 62.52. Letters Written by John Chamberlain, p. 152.53. Sanger (ed.), Englishmen at War, p. 17.54. G. Johnson (ed.), Th e Fairfax Correspondence: Memoirs of the Reign of Charles the First

(London: Richard Bentley, 1848), p. xlv.55. Private Correspondence of Jane Lady Cornwallis, p. 286.56. Report on the Manuscripts of the Earl of Ancaster, 214.57. Letters Written by John Chamberlain, p. 118.58. Johnson (ed.), Fairfax Correspondence, p. xliv.59. Devereux (ed.), Lives and Letters of the Devereux, Vol. I, p. 259.60. Letters of Sir Walter Ralegh, p. 152.61. For the publicity of honour in early modern Europe, see J. Pitt-Rivers, ‘Th e Anthropol-

ogy of Honour’, in Th e Fate of Shechem, or Th e Politics of Sex: Essays in the Anthropology

of the Mediterranean (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), pp. 6–7.


62. Birch (ed.), Court and Times of Charles the First, vol. 2, p. 138.

63. Discourse of Such Th ings as Are Happened in the Armie (1569), sig. B4r.

64. Shapin, Social History of Truth, pp. 7, 36, 42–64. Donagan also examines military honour

as a matter of personal civilities. B. Donagan, ‘Th e Web of Honour: Soldiers, Christians,

and Gentlemen in the English Civil War’, Historical Journal 44:2 (2001), pp. 365–89;

pp. 384–7. But Shapiro, with reference to the operation of the English law courts, argues

against Shapin’s emphasis on social status and mutual civility as constituents of credibil-

ity. Shapiro, Culture of Fact, pp. 16, 25.

65. W. Segar, Honor, Military and Civill (1602), p. 229.

66. Cf. K. Neuschel, Word of Honor: Interpreting Noble Culture in Sixteenth-Century France

(Ithaca, NY, and London: Cornell University Press, 1989), pp. 69–78. For an anthro-

pological defi nition of honor in early modern Europe, see Pitt-Rivers, ‘Anthropology

of Honour’, pp. 1–17. For honour in early modern England, see R. Cust, ‘Honour and

Politics in Early Stuart England: Th e Case of Beaumont v. Hastings’, Past and Present,

149 (November 1995), pp. 57–94; Donagan, ‘Web of Honour’, pp. 365–89; M. James,

‘English Politics and the Concept of Honour, 1485–1642’, in M. James, Society, Poli-

tics and Culture: Studies in Early Modern England (Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 1986), pp. 308–415.

67. Charles Howard to Lord Hunsdon, 8 July 1596, British Library, Additional MS 48152,

ff . 241r–243r. ‘Sir Walter Raugh[leigh] his Letter Concerning Calze Voyage’ (1596),

Folger Shakespeare Library, V.b.214, ff . 106v–109r. F. Vere, ‘A Relation of the Battaile

of Niewporte’ (1600), British Library, Sloane MS 827, ff . 24r–34r. ‘My Lord General

Veres Relation of the Enterprise upon Terheyden May 1625’, British Library, Egerton

MS 2596, ff . 163r–164v.

68. ‘Th e Copie of a Letter Wrytten by Mr Raphe Lane of the Proceadinge of their Portugall

Voyage’ (1589), British Library, Stowe MS 159, ff . 370r–371v. J. Price to Burghley, 28

June 1596, British Library, Lansdowne MS 82, ff . 210r–210v. And. Withers to Anony-

mous, 10 August 1629, British Library, Additional MS 46189, f. 22r.

69. Letters of John Holles, vol. 2, p. 304.

70. H. Webb, ‘Military Newsbooks during the Age of Elizabeth’, English Studies, 33 (1952),

pp. 241–51; p. 244.

71. Marbeck, ‘A Breife & a True Discourse of the Late Honourable Voyage unto Spaine &

of the Wynninge, Tackinge & Burninge of the Famous Towne of Cadiz’, British Library,

Stowe MS 159, f. 353r. Th e entire narrative is on ff . 353–69.


389, f. 276r.

73. John Pory, microfi ches, p. 229.

74. For the growth in, and level of literacy in early modern England, by social class, region,

and gender, see Cressy, Literacy and the Social Order; Raymond, Pamphlets and Pam-

phleteering in Early Modern Britain, pp. 89–91. Th e traditional view was that Elizabeth’s

army was drawn disproportionately from ‘rogues and vagabonds … the dregs of society’

(C. G. Cruickshank, Elizabeth’s Army (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1966), pp. 26–

7), among whom one could presume that literacy was limited. Trim, however, notes that

Englishmen serving in the France and the Netherlands were recruited from ideologically

committed political affi nities, including an astonishingly high proportion of the com-

mon soldiers (D. Trim, ‘Fighting ‘Jacob’s Wars’: Th e Employment of English and Welsh

Mercenaries in the European Wars of Religion: France and the Netherlands, 1562–1610’

(Dissertation, University of London, 2002), esp. pp. 287–91), from whom a higher level


of literacy could be expected. In either case, few or no such letters from common soldiers

appear to have survived.

75. Maclean (ed.), Letters fr om George Lord Carew to Sir Th omas Roe, p. 87.


77. Mannin, ‘News-letters from Sir Edmund Moundeford, Knt., M.P., to Framlingham

Gawdy, Esq.’, pp. 71–2.

78. Sawyer (ed.), Memorials of Aff airs of State in the Reigns of Elizabeth and K. James I, vol. 1,

p. 40.

79. Charles Howard to Lord Hunsdon, 8 July 1596, British Library, Additional MS 48152,

f. 249r.

80. ‘Th e Copy of a Letter Written by a Dutyfull Servant Nobody. Sent from Bruxells to his

Worthy Master Nemo’, British Library, Additional MS 34217, f. 20v.

81. Also see Shapiro, Culture of Fact, pp. 36 47–8, 66–7, 71, 100–1. Eyewitness credibility

drew upon the assumptions of oral culture. Ong, Orality and Literacy, p. 96.

82. [‘A Diurnall of All that Sir John Norreys Did Sinc his Last Arryvall at Pompell in Bry-

taine’] (1594), British Library, Additional MS 11342, f. 26v.

83. J. P. Cooper (ed.), Wentworth Papers 1597–1628, Camden Society, 4th series, 12 (Lon-

don: Camden Society, 1973), p. 235.

84. P. Egerton (ed.), ‘Letter from George Fleetwood to his Father’, in Th e Camden Miscel-

lany. Volume the First (London: Camden Society, 1847), pp. 7–8.

85. ‘Account of the Expedition to the Isle of Rhe’, British Library, Additional MS 4106, f.

165r.

86. And. Withers to Anonymous, 10 August 1629, British Library, Additional MS 46189, f.

25r.

87. Private Correspondence of Jane Lady Cornwallis, pp. 240–1.

88. ‘Jornals Sent from the Campe at Arques September 18 1589’, British Library, Egerton

MS 2598, ff . 93r–94v.

89. Shapin, Social History of Truth, pp. 221–3.

90. Hogan and O’Farrell (eds), Walsingham Letter-Book, p. 228.

91. ‘Report of Cales’ (1596), British Library, Additional MS 48152, f. 249r.

92. Extract of a Letter from Sir Edward Vere to Sir Abraham Williams from the Leaguer

before the Bosh (1629), British Library, Additional MS 46189, f. 22r.


94. Hogan and O’Farrell (eds), Walsingham Letter-Book, pp. 261–2.

95. Life and Letters of Sir Henry Wotton, vol. 2, p. 247.



Times of Henry VII to 1631, British Library, Additional MS 33935, f. 327v.





390, f. 320r.


24r.

102. Correspondence of Sir Henry Unton, Knt, p. 247.


104. Segar, Honor, Military and Civill, p. 60.



106. Devereux (ed.), Lives and Letters of the Devereux, Earls of Essex, vol. 1, p. 372.


108. Collier (ed.), Trevelyan Papers, Part II, p. 105.

109. ‘A True Relacon of the Bloody Fight betweene the King of Sweden &c. and the Emprs

Army the 5. and 6. of Nber 1632 Nere Lutzen Two Myles from Lepsich’, Huntington

Library, Hastings Collection Military Box 1, Folder 23, f. 1v.

110. Guy, ‘Rhetoric of Counsel in Early Modern England’, p. 294.



113. Gustavus Adolphus to Louis XIII, 24 August 1631 [Copy], British Library, Sloane MS

22, f. 7r.

114. [Letter from Frankfurt about the Surrender of Heidelberg] (1622), British Library,

Additional MS 36446, f. 63r.



117. Levy, ‘Decorum of News’, pp. 13–14.


119. Shapin, Social History of Truth, pp. 75–8. For early modern English belief that the ‘vul-

gar’ lacked perceptual competence, see Fox, Oral and Literate Culture in England, p. 339.

But Shapiro argues that no particular perceptual competence is imputed to gentlemen in

the legal records of early modern England. Shapiro, Culture of Fact, p. 26.

120. For the Neostoicism of the era, see R. Barbour, English Epicures and Stoics. Ancient Lega-

cies in Early Stuart Culture (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1998),

pp. 145–94; P. Burke, ‘Tacitism, Scepticism and Reason of State’, in J. H. Burns and

M. Goldie (ed.), Th e Cambridge History of Political Th ought, 1450–1700 (Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 479–98; pp. 491–8; G. Oestreich, Neostoicism

and the Early Modern State trans. D. McLintock (Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 1982), pp. 57–75, 114–17; K. Schellhase, Tacitus in Renaissance Political Th ought

(Chicago, IL, and London: University of Chicago Press, 1976), esp. pp. 127–49.

121. Letters Written by John Chamberlain, pp. 83–4.

122. Life and Letters of Sir Henry Wotton, vol. 2, p. 199.

123. Birch (ed.), Court and Times of Charles the First, vol. 1, pp. 253–4.


125. Th e Aff aires of Italy (20 November 1623, no. 4), p. 1.

126. William Whiteway of Dorchester. His Diary 1618 to 1635, pp. 30–1.




389, f. 277v.


390, ff . 127r–127v.

131. Ibid., f. 468r.

132. Diary of Walter Yonge, p. 39.



135. British Library, Additional MS 38492, f. 100, cited in Levy, ‘Decorum of News’, p. 21.

136. Digges and Digges, Arithmeticall Militare Treatise, p. 169.



138. Miller, Professional Writer in Elizabethan England, pp. 29–32; J. Raymond, ‘Irrational,

Impractical and Unprofi table: Reading the News in Seventeenth-Century Britain’, in

Sharpe and Zwicker (eds), Reading, Society and Politics in Early Modern England, pp.

185–212; p. 186.


140. Letters of John Holles, vol. 3, pp. 441–2.

141. For emotional readings of news in early modern England, see Raymond, ‘Irrational,

Impractical and Unprofi table’, pp. 185–212.

142. M. Roberts, Gustavus Adolphus. A History of Sweden 1611–1632, 2 vols (London: Long-

mans, Green and Co., 1958), vol. 2, pp. 345–56.


390, f. 292r–292v. For printed news that encouraged such paranoia, see A Journall or

Daily Register of All Th ose Warlike Atchievements which Happened in the Siege of Berghen-

up-Zoome in the Low-countries, pp. 31–3.


145. A. Clark (ed.), Th e Shirburn Ballads 1585–1616 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1907), p.

275.

146. Atherton, ‘“Th e Itch Grown a Disease”’, p. 56. For a negative view of partisan news, see

Jonson’s satiric references to ‘Reformed news’, ‘Protestant news’, and ‘Pontifi cial news’. B.

Jonson, Th e Staple of News, ed. D. R. Kiefer (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press,

1975), p. 27 (I.v.14–15).

147. For the argument that reading in early modern England was supposed to be self-con-

trolled, controlling the passions that degraded one’s accurate perception of information,

(albeit without the label ‘Neostoic’), see Johns, Nature of the Book, pp. 380–443.

148. Correspondence of Robert Dudley, pp. 244–5.


150. Egerton (ed.), ‘Letter from George Fleetwood to his Father’, p. 12.






156. Diary of John Rous, pp. 11–12.

157. John Pory, microfi che supplement, pp. 334–5.



390, f. 320r.

160. Lupton, London and the Countrey Carbonadoed, p. 143.


162. An Elizabethan in 1582: Th e Diary of Richard Madox, Fellow of All Souls, ed. E. S. Donno

(London: Th e Hakluyt Society, 1976), p. 82.


389, ff . 54v, 61r.

164. For acknowledgement of Tilly’s 1626 victory, see Diary of John Rous, p. 7; William

Whiteway of Dorchester. His Diary 1618 to 1635, p. 84; Diary of Walter Yonge, p. 97. For

acknowledgement of the defeat at Ré, see Diary of Walter Yonge, pp. 108–11, 116; Diary


of John Rous, p. 13; Newsletters, Joseph Mead to Martin Stuteville (1626–31), British

Library, Harley MS 390, f. 316r.

165. Given the sustained optimism of the printed news, knowledge of defeat is also evidence

that newsreaders drew heavily on manuscript news circuits, where defeat could be men-

tioned openly.

3 Anonymous News


2. ‘Report of Cales’, British Library, Additional MS 48152, f. 249r.

3. Extremities Urging the Lord Generall Sir Fra: Veare to the Anti-parle (1602), p. 3.


5. Egerton (ed.), ‘Letter from George Fleetwood to his Father’, p. 3.


Papers, L.a.390, f. 1r–1v.


25r.


MS 34217, f. 20v. Much the same letter, untitled but written by ‘Noebodie’ appears in

Huntington Library, Ellesemere Collection, #6905.


MS 34217, f. 38v; Charles Howard to Lord Hunsdon, 8 July 1596, Dr R. Marbeck, ‘A

Breife & a True Discourse of the Late Honourable Voyage unto Spaine & of the Wyn-

ninge, Tackinge & Burninge of the Famous Towne of Cadiz’, British Library, Additional

MS 48152, f. 243r, British Library, Stowe MS 159, f. 370r.

10. Th ese are minimum estimates: they may very well appear in others. ‘Advertizement from

Caskcales in the River of Lishborne the vth of June 1589’ appears in British Library, Stowe

MS 159, ff . 373–4, and is repeated in Walsingham’s letter in Folger Shakespeare Library,

V.b.142, f. 6. Dr Roger Marbeck’s account of the 1596 expedition to Cadiz appears in

British Library, Sloane MS 226, and British Library, Stowe MS 159, ff . 353–69. ‘Marqes

Spinola his Oration to his Armye when he Brake his Bridge of Botes Beinge Passed over

the Rhyne nere the Confynes of the Palatinate’ appears in Huntington Library, Ellesmere

Collection #6899, while the nearly identical ‘Th e Oration that Marques Spinola Deliv-

ered to his Army when he Bake the Bridge Made with Boates aft er hee Had Passed over

the River nere to the Confi nes of the Palatinall’ appears in Folger Shakespeare Library,

V.a.402, f. 20. ‘Th e Copy of a Letter Written by a Dutyfull Servant Nobody’ appears in

British Library, Additional MS 34217, ff . 20–1, while much the same letter, untitled but

written by ‘Noebodie’ appears in Huntington Library, Ellesemere Collection, #6905.

Th e same account of the 1627 expedition to Ré, albeit with very signifi cant variations,

appears in ‘Account of the Expedition to the Isle of Rhe’, British Library, Additional MS

4106, ff . 160–5; ‘A True and Exact Journall or Diarie of the Most Materiall Passages

Happening at and aft er Our Landing at the Isle of Ree’, British Library, Additional MS

72319, ff . 1–12; and ‘A Relation of the Occurrances Happening in the Beginning and

aft er Our Landing in the Isle de Ree’, Huntington Library, HM 45148, ff . 2–20.

11. Newes fr om Turkie and Poland, pp. 39–40.

12. E.g., Folger Shakespeare Library, Bagot Papers, L.a.261 (Richard Broughton to Rich-

ard Bagot, 2 July 1591); British Library, Egerton MS 2598, f. 45r (‘Advertisements out


of France’ (1589)); British Library, Stowe MS 159, ff . 353–69 (Dr Roger Marbeck’s

account of the 1596 expedition to Cadiz).

13. British Library, Egerton MS 2598, ff . 93–4; British Library, Egerton MS 2598, f. 273;

Huntington Library, Ellesmere Collection #1641; Huntington Library, Hastings Collec-

tion Military Box 1, Folder 23; and British Library, Additional MS 27402, ff . 73r–74r.


Times of Henry VII to 1631, British Library, Additional MS 33935, f. 325r.

15. Ibid., ff . 306v, 308r, 325, 317, 319r, 325r, 340v, 351–352; Correspondence of the Family

of Moreton of Moreton, co. Chester, Vol. II. 1632–1642. British Library, Additional MS

33936, ff . 4, 6r, 8r, 11r, 12r, 13r.

16. Stephens, History of News, pp. 151–6.

17. S. Lomas (ed.), Calendar of State Papers, Foreign Series, of the Reign of Elizabeth, Vol.

XIX, August 1584–August 1585 (London: Printed under the authority of His Majesty’s

Stationery Offi ce, 1916), pp. liii–liv.

18. Ibid., pp. 581, 589–90, 601, 610, 627, 641–2.


20. Burghley and Walsingham to William Asheby, 9 December 1589, British Library, Eger-

ton MS 2598, f. 213r.

21. For newsletters in the Public Record Offi ce, see L. Atherton, Never Complain, Never

Explain: Records of the Foreign Offi ce and State Paper Offi ce 1500–C.1960 (London:

PRO Publications, 1994), pp. 17–18.

22. Wernham (ed.), List and Analysis of State Papers, vol. 2, pp. 81–3; vol. 3, pp. 80–2; vol. 5,

pp. 105–12; vol. 6, pp. 51–9; vol. 7, pp. 58–68.

23. Newsletters, to William Trumbull (1624), British Library, Additional MS 72388, ff .

135–87.

24. F. Bacon, Novum Organum. With Other Parts of Th e Great Instauration, trans. and ed. P.

Urbach and J. Gibson (Chicago and La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1994), p. 107.

25. For a contemporaneous sense of genre expectations of how letters of news should be

written, see T. Gainsford, Th e Secretaries Studie (1616), pp. 104–24.

26. Advertisements fr om Britany, and fr om the Low Countries (1591), p. 9v.


28. Miller, Professional Writer in Elizabethan England, pp. 203–9; Shaaber, Some Forerun-

ners of the Newspaper in England, pp. 226–7. E.g., Gascoigne, Th e Spoyle of Antwerpe,

T. Churchyard, A Plaine or Moste True Report of a Daungerous Service (1580), Nixon,

Swethland and Poland Warres.

29. Habermas, Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, p. 21.

30. R. Brathwait, Whimzies: Or, A New Cast of Characters (1631), pp. 17–18.

31. Atherton, ‘“Th e Itch Grown a Disease”’, p. 41; W. Powell, John Pory 1572–1636: Th e Life

and Letters of a Man of Many Parts (Chapel Hill, NC: Th e University of North Caro-

lina Press, 1977), pp. 55–6; Love, Scribal Publication in Seventeenth-Century England, p.

10.

32. Love, Scribal Publication in Seventeenth-Century England, p. 10.

33. Powell, John Pory, p. 58.

34. Cust, ‘News and Politics in Seventeenth-Century England’, p. 64; Love, Scribal Publica-

tion in Seventeenth-Century England, pp. 11–13, 19–20, 22.

35. Beal, In Praise of Scribes, pp. 18–19; Love, Scribal Publication in Seventeenth-Century

England, pp. 131, 133.

36. Fox, Oral and Literate Culture in England, pp. 369–71.


37. R. Jamieson (ed.), Popular Ballads and Songs, Vol. II (Edinburgh: J. Balltyne & Co.,

1806), p. 212.

38. Klarwill (ed.), Th e Fugger News-Letters, Second Series, p. 194.





390, f. 316v.


43. For Beal’s study of the ‘Feathery Scribe’, and a catalogue of manuscripts copied by the

Feathery Scribe, see Beal, In Praise of Scribes, pp. 58–108, 211–68.

44. For the role of commerce as an essential component of the social disembeddings of

modernity, see A. Giddens, Th e Consequences of Modernity (Stanford, CA: Stanford

University Press, 1990), p. 22.

45. Raymond, Pamphlets and Pamphleteering in Early Modern Britain, p. 129.


47. C. Muldrew, Th e Economy of Obligation: Th e Culture of Credit and Social Relations in

Early Modern England (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998), esp. pp. 123–95, 315–33.

48. Zaret, Origins of Democratic Culture, p. 119.

49. Th e Triumphant Victory of the Imperyall Mageste agaynst the Turkes (1532) is analyzed

and transcribed in M. C. Erler, ‘Suleyman’s 1532 Vienna Campaign: An English News

Dispatch’, Slavonic and East European Review 65:1 ( January 1987), pp. 101–12. J. de

Bourbon, Th e Begynnynge and Foundacyon of the Holy Hospytall, & of the Ordre of the

Knyghtes Hospytallers of Saynt Johan Baptyst of Jerusalem (1524) largely consists of an

account of the entirety of the 1522 Turkish siege of Rhodes, on the borderline between

history and news, titled ‘Th e Syege Cruell Oppugnacyon and Lamentable Takynge of

the Cyte of Rodes’.

50. For the existence of a ‘print revolution’ in early modern Europe, see E. Eisenstein, Th e

Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

1983). For its slow, complex unfolding, and an interpretation that emphasizes social and

cultural transformation over technological transformation, see Johns, Nature of the Book.

For a general history of the English press before Elizabeth, see D. Loades, ‘Th e Press

under the early Tudors’, Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society 4:1 (1964),

pp. 29–50.

51. Streckfuss, ‘News before Newspapers’, p. 87.

52. H. S. Bennett, English Books & Readers 1558 to 1603 (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-

sity Press, 1965), p. 236.

53. For the general operation of scriptoria, see Beal, In Praise of Scribes, pp. 1–30.

54. For the structure and scale of English coranto production, see Frearson, English Corantos

of the 1620s, pp. 78–150.

55. Albeit Zaret writes, ‘Th e essential point remains: printing put commerce squarely at the

center of textual production’. Zaret, Origins of Democratic Culture, p. 136.


389, f. 176r.

57. Ibid., f. 176r.

58. Frearson, ‘Distribution and Readership of London Corantos in the 1620s’, p. 5.


389, f. 11r.




389, ff . 73v, 75r, 252v–253r.

62. Henceforward my sources for news are very largely, but not entirely, drawn from print.

I have deliberately chosen to include some sources of commercial and/or anonymous

manuscript news, so as to highlight my belief that commerce and anonymity were the

driving forces in changing credibility standards, and that print, although largely coter-

minous with commerce and anonymity, amplifi ed rather than created their eff ects.

63. In A Continuation of More Newes fr om the Palatinate (26 July 1622), p. 3, a letter of news

from Brazil was attributed to one William Clarke; and on the title page of Th e Continua-

tion of Our Weekly Newes (28 October 1628, no. 19), an account of a naval battle against

the Maltese was attributed to Th omas Roe. Dahl, Bibliography of English Corantos and

Periodical Newsbooks 1620–1642, pp. 73, 162.

64. J. Murphy, ‘Th e Principles of Letter Writing’, in J. Murphy (ed.), Th ree Medieval Rhetori-

cal Arts (Tempe, AZ: Arizona Center for Medival and Renaissance Studies, 2001), pp.

5–25. For the recapitulation of the medieval social hierarchy in the salutations of dicta-

tores, see G. Constable, ‘Th e Structure of Medieval Society According to the Dictatores

of the Twelft h Century’, in K. Pennington and R. Somerville (eds), Law, Church, and

Society: Essays in Honor of Stephan Kuttner (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylva-

nia Press, 1977), pp. 253–67.

65. C. Jagodzinski, Privacy and Print: Reading and Writing in Seventeenth-Century England

(Charlottesville, VA, and London: University Press of Virginia, 1999), p. 76.


67. J. Donne, Th e Satires, Epigrams and Verse Letters, ed. W. Milgate (Oxford: Th e Claren-

don Press, 1967), p. 53.

68. J. Davies, A Scourge for Paper-Persecutors (1624), second pagination, p. 7.

69. Jonson, Staple of News; Ben Jonson, vol. 7, pp. 511–27; vol. 8, pp. 58–9, 68.

70. Newes fr om France, p. 1.

71. Th e Works of Francis Bacon, ed. J. Spedding, R. Ellis and D. Heath, 14 vols (New York:

Garrett Press, Inc., [1857–64], 1968), vol. 12, p. 289.


73. Lupton, London and the Countrey Carbonadoed, pp. 140, 141–2.

74. Th e Swedish Discipline, p. 34.

75. Th e Wonderfull Resignation of Mustapha (11 November 1623, no. 3), pp. 20–1.

76. For an initial prosopography of English news printers in this period, see L. Hanson,

‘English Newsbooks, 1620–1641’, Library, 4th series, 18:4 (March 1938), pp. 355–84;

pp. 363–4; H. Hoppe, ‘John Wolfe, Printer and Publisher, 1579–1601’, Library, 4th

series, 14:3 (December 1933), pp. 241–89; C. Huff man, Elizabethan Impressions: John

Wolfe and His Press (New York: AMS Pres, 1988), pp. 69–97; A. E. M. Kirwood, ‘Rich-

ard Field Printer, 1589–1624’, Library, 4th series, 12:1 ( June 1931), pp. 1–39; G. Leth,

‘A Protestant Public Sphere: Th e Early European Newspaper Press’, in M. Harris (ed.),

Studies in Newspaper and Periodical History: 1993 Annual (Westport, CT: Greenwood

Press, 1994), pp. 67–90; pp. 71–2, 78; L. Rostenberg, ‘Nathaniel Butter and Nicholas

Bourne, First “Masters of the Staple”’, Library, 5th series, 12:1 (March 1957), pp. 23–33;

D. Woodfi eld, Surreptitious Printing in England 1550–1640 (New York: Bbliographical

Society of America, 1973), pp. 6–15, 24–30, 34–45.

77. Davies, A Scourge for Paper-Persecutors, second pagination, pp. 6–7.


78. For the foreign printers who provided the source material for much English printed news,

see D. H. Couvée, ‘Th e First Coranteers – Th e Flow of News in the 1620’s’, Gazette, 8

(1962), pp. 22–36; p. 25; F. Dahl, ‘Amsterdam – Cradle of English Newspapers’, Library,

5th series, 4 (1950), pp. 166–78; pp. 168–70; Leth, ‘Protestant Public Sphere’, pp. 71–2;

Shaaber, Some Forerunners of the Newspaper in England, pp. 169, 186; Z. Šimeček, ‘Th e

First Brussels, Antwerp and Amsterdam Newspapers: Additional Information’, Revue

Belge de Philologie et d’Histoire, 50:4 (1972), pp. 1098–115. For evidence of the undi-

gested nature of the English redactions of the foreign news, see for example Discourse of

All Such Fights … which Have Happened in France (1590), which is a virtually word-for-

word translation of Sommaire discours au vray de ce qui est aduenu en l’armée (1590).

79. J. W. Saunders, ‘Th e Stigma of Print: A Note on the Social Bases of Tudor Poetry’, Essays

in Criticism, 1:2 (April 1951), pp. 139–64. For a critique of Saunders’ argument, see

S. May, ‘Tudor Aristocrats and the Mythical “Stigma of Print”’, Renaissance Papers, 10

(Spain: Southeastern Renaissance Conference, 1980), pp. 11–18.

80. Johns, Nature of the Book, pp. 136–60.

81. Raymond, Pamphlets and Pamphleteering in Early Modern Britain, p. 9.

82. J. Taylor, [from A Comparison betwixt a Whore and a Booke], in D. Norbrook and H. R.

Woudhuysen (eds), Th e Penguin Book of Renaissance Verse 1509–1659 (London: Allen

Lane / Th e Penguin Press, 1982), p. 740.

83. Richard Robinson, Robinsons Eupolemia; Archippus; and Panoplia, British Library,

Royal MS 18A LXVI, f. 1r.

84. A Relation of the Weekely Occurences of Newes, pp. 21–2.

85. A Certaine and Perfect Relation of the Encounter and Bloody Slaughter (1625), pp. 1, 2–3,

cited in Dahl, Bibliography of English Corantos and Periodical Newsbooks, pp. 275.

86. Th e True Coppie of a Letter, Written fr om the Leager by Arnham, sig. A2r.

87. Th e Newes and Aff aires of Europe (15 January 1624, no. 10), p. 8.

88. Watt, Th e Swedish Intelligencer. Th e Th ird Part, p. 159.

89. Th e Continuation of our Weekely Avisoes (12 January 1632, no. 6), p. 7.

90. Discourse of Such Th ings as Are Happened in the Armie, sig. B4r.

91. W. M., A True Discourse of the late Battaile fought betweene our Englishmen, and the

Prince of Parma (1585), sig. A1v.

92. A. Wingfi eld, A True Coppie of a Discourse Written by a Gentleman, Employed in the Late

Voyage of Spaine and Portingale (1589), pp. 7–8.

93. A True Declaration of the Honorable Victorie obtained by the French King (1591), p. 10.

94. Th e Continuation of our Weekly Avisoes (18 April 1631, no. 25), title page, p. 3.


96. Letters of John Chamberlain, vol. 2, pp. 457–8.

97. Newes fr om Ostend, sig. B2r.

98. Th e Continuation of Our Weekly Newes (17 October 1627, no. 38), p. 12.

99. Late Newes or True Relations (3 July 1624, no. 30), p. 2.

100. E. H. Cook, Epistolary Bodies: Gender and Genre in the Eighteenth-Century Republic of

Letters (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996), pp. 5–20.

4 Building a New Standard of News Credibility

1. A. M., Th e True Reporte of the Prosperous Successe which God Gave unto our English Soul-

diours (1581), sig. A2v.


2. T. Digges, A Briefe Report of the Militarie Services Done in the Low Countries, by the Erle

of Leicester (1587), title page.

3. A True Declaration of the Honorable Victorie Obtained by the French King, title page, p.

10.

4. Warwickshire Record Offi ce, CR2017/C1/1, cited in Atherton, ‘“Th e Itch Grown a

Disease”’, p. 41.

5. A Copie of the Last Advertisement that Came fr om Malta (1565), p. i.

6. T. B., Th e Copie of a Letter, Sent by an English Gentleman out of France (1590), p. 1.

7. A Continuation of More Newes fr om the Palatinate, sig. A2v.


9. Th e gentle reader was also supposed to a friendly reader; the address to and invocation

of the gentle reader reinforced the ideals of partiality. H. B. Hackel, Reading Material in

Early Modern England: Print, Gender, and Literacy (Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 2005), pp. 116–25.

10. Th e Principall Passages of Germany, Italy, France (1636), p. i.

11. Churchyard, A Plaine or Moste True Report of a Daungerous Service, sigs B2r–B2v.

12. Ibid., sigs B2r–B2v.

13. Extremities Urging the Lord Generall Sir Fra: Veare to the Anti-parle, title page.

14. A True and Very Memorable Relation (1628), p. 1, cited in Dahl, Bibliography of English

Corantos and Periodical Newsbooks, p. 277.



389, f. 172v.


18. Th e Continuation of our Forraine Avisoes (3 October 1632, no. 48), pp. 2–3.

19. Donagan, ‘Web of Honour’, pp. 376–7.

20. Segar, Honor, Military and Civill, p. 60.

21. Newes fr om Brest (1594), sig. A2r.

22. Nixon, Swethland and Poland Warres, sig. B2r.

23. S. W., Th e Appollogie of the Illustrious Prince Ernestus, Earle of Mansfi eld (1622), pp.

iii–iv.

24. G. B., Newes out of France for the Gentlemen of England, sigs A4r–A4v.

25. A Continued Journall of All the Proceedings of the Duke of Buckingham his Grace, in the Ile

of Ree, Containing these Particulars (1627), p. 9.

26. Th e Principall Passages of Germany, Italy, France (1636), p. i.

27. Miller, Th e Professional Writer in Elizabethan England, pp. 111–21.

28. True Report of All the Successe of Famagosta, sig. A4r.

29. Peacham, A Most True Relation of the Aff aires of Cleve and Gulick, pp. i–ii.

30. H. Hexham, A Journall of the Taking in of Venlo, Roermont, Strale (1633), p. i.

31. For the true or feigned reluctance of gentlemen to appear in print, see Bennett, English

Books & Readers, pp. 292–3.

32. Digges, A Briefe Report of the Militarie Services Done in the Low Countries, by the Erle of

Leicester, p. 1.

33. Peacham, A Most True Relation of the Aff aires of Cleve and Gulick (1615), p. ii.

34. Coppies of letters Sent fr om Personages of Accompt, p. i.

35. Wingfi eld, A True Coppie of a Discourse written by a Gentleman, employed in the late Voy-

age of Spaine and Portingale, sig. A2r.

36. Two Memorable Relations, p. 18.


37. Dr Welles, A True and Ample Relation of All Such Occurrences as Have Happened in the

Palatinate (1622), pp. 1–2.

38. A True Relation Written fr om Midelbourg, p. 2.

39. More Newes of the Good Successe of the Duke of Brunswick (29 July 1623, no. 42), p. 26.


41. Th e King of Bohemia’s Welcome to Count Mansfi eld (1622), title page.

42. H. Peters, Digitus Dei (1631), p. 7.

43. Harper mentions the parallel circumstance that street ballads oft en sought to impute

credibility to their news by means of ‘the hearsay of witnesses of good repute’. A. Harper,

‘News and Popular Balladry’, Melbourne Historical Journal, 26 (1998), pp. 82–100; p.

90.

44. Brathwait, Whimzies, p. 17.


Leicester, p. 2.

46. Newes fr om Turkie and Poland, p. 40.

47. Wingfi eld, A True Coppie of a Discourse Written by a Gentleman, Employed in the Late

Voyage of Spaine and Portingale, sig. A2v.


49. W. M., A True Discourse of the Late Battaile Fought betweene our Englishmen, and the

Prince of Parma, sig. A1v.

50. Gascoigne, Th e Spoyle of Antwerpe, sig. B1r.

51. F. Johnson, True Intelligence Sent fr om a Gentleman of Account (1591), p. 2.

52. Peacham, A Most True Relation of the Aff aires of Cleve and Gulick, p. iii.

53. W. Lithgow, A True and Experimentall Discourse, upon the Beginning, Proceeding, and

Victorious Event of this Last Siege of Breda (1637), title page.

54. Churchyard, A Plaine or Moste True Report of a Daungerous Service, sig. C3r.

55. Hexham, A Journall of the Taking in of Venlo, Roermont, Strale, p. i.

56. Peters, Digitus Dei, p. 2.

57. A Recitall of that which Hath Happened in the Kings Armie (1590), p. 26.

58. Th e True Reporte of the Service in Britanie (1591), sig. B2r.

59. A True Relation of this Present Siege of Shertoken-Busse (1629), p. 17.

60. N. Würzbach, Th e Rise of the English Street Ballad, 1550–1650, trans. G. Walls (Cam-

bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), pp. 41–74.

61. Harper, ‘News and Popular Balladry’, p. 85; Würzbach, Rise of the English Street Ballad,

p. 151.

62. An Abstract of Some Speciall Forreigne Occurences (1638), pp. 3–4.

63. Peacham, A Most True Relation of the Aff aires of Cleve and Gulick, p. ii.


65. Th e Continuation of our Weekly Avisoes (18 April 1631, no. 25), pp. 6, 10.


f. 6r.

67. A True Reporte of the Great Overthrowe Lately Given unto the Spaniards in their Resolute

Assault of BERGEN OP ZOAM (1605), sig. B2r.

68. A Copie of the Last Advertisement that Came fr om Malta, p. i.

69. Th e True Reporte of the Service in Britanie, sigs A4v–B1r.

70. A True Report of All the Proceedings of Grave Mauris before the Towne of Bercke, sig. A3r.

71. W. Fleetwood, ‘Censure of the Ill Behaviour of the Duke of Buckingham at Rhé’ (1627),

British Library, Sloane MS 363, ff . 67r–67v.



73. Th e Continuation of Our Weekely Newes (21 April 1623, no. 27), p. 8.

74. Newes fr om Brest, sig. A4v; Newes fr om Ostend, sigs A1v–A2v.

75. A Journall of All the Principall Passages (1632), pp. 2–6.

76. Th e Continuation of the Weekly Newes (16 September 1624, no. 33), last page, cited in

Dahl, Bibliography of English Corantos and Periodical Newsbooks, p. 125.

77. Taylor, Taylor his Travels, sigs A2r–A2v.

78. True Reporte of the Taking of the Great Towne and Castell of Polotzko (1579), sig. A2v.

79. E. Mackie (ed.), Th e Commerce of Everyday Life. Selections fr om Th e Tatler and Th e Spec-

tator (Boston, MA, and New York: Bedford, 1998), pp. 58–61, 65–70, 104–7.

80. Gascoigne, Th e Spoyle of Antwerpe, sig. B4v.

81. Advertisements fr om Britany, And fr om the Low Countries, p. 4r.

82. Our Last Weekly Newes (21 August 1623, no. 44), p. 11.

83. Gascoigne, Th e Spoyle of Antwerpe (1576), sigs B5r–B5v.


24v.


86. B. Shapiro, Probability and Certainty in Seventeenth-Century England: A Study of the

Relationships between Natural Science, Religion, History, Law, and Literature (Princeton,

NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983), pp. 227–66; Shapiro, Culture of Fact, pp. 58–9,

72, 94–5, 160–5. For the general shift towards the plain style in in early modern English

prose, see R. Adolph, Th e Rise of Modern Prose Style (Cambridge, MA, and London:

MIT Press, 1968), esp. pp. 132, 135, 141–241.

87. Guy, ‘Rhetoric of Counsel in Early Modern England’, pp. 293–4; A. McCrea, Constant

Minds: Political Virtue and the Lipsian Paradigm in England, 1584–1650 (Toronto,

ON: University of Toronto Press, 1997), pp. 11–16.

88. Shaaber, Some Forerunners of the Newspaper in England, pp. 218–21; J. Raymond, Th e

Invention of the Newspaper. English Newsbooks 1641–1649 (Oxford: Clarendon Press,

1996), p. 129. For explicit Taciteanism in the news, see Th e Great and Famous Battel of

Lutzen (1633), sig. A4v.

89. Lithgow, A True and Experimentall Discourse, upon the Beginning, Proceeding, and Victo-

rious Event of this Last Siege of Breda, sig. A4r.

90. A True Relation of Such Battailes, p. 1.

91. G. B., Newes out of France for the Gentlemen of England, sig. A4r.

92. ‘Report of Cales’, British Library, Additional MS 48152, f. 249r.


94. ‘Th e Winninge of Cales by the Earle of Essex’ (1596), British Library, Sloane MS 1303,

f. 6v.

95. I. B., A Plaine and True Relation, of the Going Forth of a Holland Fleete, p. iii.

96. J. Marincola, Authority and Tradition in Ancient Historiography (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 1997), pp. 158–74; Shapiro, Probability and Certainty in Seventeenth-

Century England, pp. 147–9, 190–2; Shapiro, Culture of Fact, pp. 26–30, 56–8, 93–4.

97. Th e Continuation of Our Weekely Newes (28 June 1625, no. 28), title page, p. 2.

98. A Continuation of the Newes of this Present Weeke (16 November 1622, no. 7), title

page.

99. English Protestants during this period suff ered from severe internal religio-politi-

cal strains and disagreements – particularly in the 1620s, as Puritans (overrepresented

among the newsreaders studied here) challenged James’s pacifi c foreign policy. Cogswell,


Th e Blessed Revolution, pp. 21–32; Loades, ‘Illicit Presses and Clandestine Printing in

England’, p. 24. I do not wish to minimize the importance of these internal strains in

English history writ large; nevertheless, I have found no signifi cant evidence that these

internal strains aff ected partiality in the military news. My emphasis upon the Catho-

lic–Protestant divide in military news follows my sources.

100. H. E. Rollins (ed.), A Pepysian Garland: Black-letter Broadside Ballads of the Years 1595–

1639 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1922), pp. 44–8; ‘A True Reporte of

our Service by Lande’ (1622), Huntington Library, Ellesmere Collection #1641; A True

Discourse of the Occurrences in the Warres of Savoy (1601); and H. de Schomberg, A Rela-

tion Sent to the French King by the Marshall de Schomberg (1632)

101. Shapin, Social History of Truth, p. 6.

102. Ibid., 96.

103. Welles, A True and Ample Relation of All Such Occurrences as Have Happened in the

Palatinate, p. 3.

104. B. Riche, A Path-way to Military Practise (1587), sig. C3v.


389, f. 190r.


390, ff . 538r, 540v.


108. For further evidence of the transmission of military news in Catholic news networks, Th e

Letters and Despatches of Richard Verstegan, ed. A. G. Petti (London: Catholic Record

Society, 1959), pp. 114–15, 131, 155–6, 163, 174, 177, 224, 238; M. Questier (ed.),

Newsletters fr om the Archpresbyterate of George Birkhead (London: Cambridge Univer-

sity Press, 1998), pp. 84–5, 109–10.

109. ‘A Discourse of the Beseiginge, Defendinge and Releevinge of the Towne of Bergen up

Zome in the Yeare 1622’, British Library, Royal MS 18A LXIII, f. 1*r; Lithgow, A True

and Experimentall Discourse, upon the Beginning, Proceeding, and Victorious Event of this

Last Siege of Breda, pp. 34–5.

110. E.g., A Discourse … of the Late Overthrowe Given to the King of Spaines Armie at Turnehaut

(1597), pp. 5, 7; Hexham, A Historicall Relation of the Famous Siege of the Busse, p. 45;

A Supplement to the Sixth Part of the Germane History (1634), pp. 46–7. ‘Anti-Catholic’

here follows Lake’s defi nition, and means the spectrum of Protestants, including but not

limited to the intensely godly, who could be mobilized by anti-popery sentiments. P.

Lake, ‘Anti-Popery: Th e Structure of a Prejudice’, in R.Cust and A. Hughes (eds), Con-

fl ict in Early Stuart England: Studies in Religion and Politics, 1603–1642 (London and

New York: Longman, 1989), pp. 72–106.

111. See the collection of Spanish printed news reports in British Library, 593.h.17.

112. Letters and Despatches of Richard Verstegan, pp. 114–15, 131, 155–6, 163, 174, 177, 224,

238; Questier (ed.), Newsletters fr om the Archpresbyterate of George Birkhead, p. 84–5,

109–10.

113. Th is is a naval battle report, not a land one, but it is too good to avoid.

114. A Jornall of Certaine Principall Passages, pp. 12–18.

115. Henry Tweedy to John Egerton, 14 September [1608?], Huntington Library, Ellesmere

Collection #1666.

116. A. M., Th e True Reporte of the Prosperous Successe which God Gave unto our English Soul-

diours, title page.



118. Th e Generall Newes of Europe (28 April 1624, no. 22), p. 1.


Voyage of Spaine and Portingale, sigs A2r–A2v.

120. Th e Certaine Newes of this Present Weeke (23 August 1622), p. 19.

121. Welles, A True and Ample Relation of All Such Occurrences as Have Happened in the

Palatinate, pp. 1–2.

122. Newes fr om the Palatinate (1622), p. 1; also see pp. 19–20.


Leicester, p. 2.

124. Th ree Great Overthrowes, p. 15.

125. Th e Swedish Discipline, second pagination, p. 31.

126. A Jornall of Certaine Principall Passages, p. 7.

127. A Description of S’Hertogenbosh … Together with the Principall Points and Passages Con-

cerning the Last Siege, pp. 34–52.

128. S.W., Th e Appollogie of the Illustrious Prince Ernestus, Earle of Mansfi eld, p. 13.



131. Hexham, A Historicall Relation of the Famous Siege of the Busse, p. 19.

132. Nixon, Swethland and Poland Warres, sig. B2r.

133. Ibid., title page.

134. Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester to the Earl of Huntingdon, 24 October [1569?], Hunt-

ington Library, Hastings Collection #2375, f. 2r.


136. ‘A Journall of the Voyage of Rease’ (1627), British Library, Additional MS 26051, ff .

9r–9v.

137. ‘Th e Copie of a Letter Wrytten by Mr Raphe Lane of the Proceadinge of their Portugall

Voyage’, British Library, Stowe MS 159, ff . 370v–371r.


139. Egerton (ed.), ‘Letter from George Fleetwood to his Father’, pp. 4–5.


f. 6v.


Additional MS 36446, f. 62r–62v.

142. Dr John James, ‘Journal of Lord Leicester’s Expedition to the Netherlands, 1585–86’

(Copy), British Library, Additional MS 48014, f. 158r.

143. ‘Account of the Expedition to the Isle of Rhe’ (1627). British Library, Additional MS

4106, f. 161r.

144. Egerton (ed.) ‘Letter from George Fleetwood to his Father’, p. 8.

145. For example, Nixon, Swethland and Poland Warres, sig. D3r.


147. Richard Broughton to Richard Bagot, 6 November [1591], Folger Shakespeare Library,

Bagot Papers, L.a.264, recto.


MS, 34217, f. 38v. For a particularly vivid sequence of letters illustrating the misery of

English soldiers, see John Norreys’s 1587 letters to Leicester in British Library, Egerton

MS 1694, ff . 84r, 91v, 106r, 110r.




390, f. 127r.

151. Ibid., f. 424v.

152. Diary of Walter Yonge, p. 35.

153. William Whiteway of Dorchester. His Diary 1618 to 1635, p. 31.



390, f. 123r.

156. Ibid., f. 141r.

157. Diary of Th omas Crosfi eld, p. 78.



390, f. 64r.

160. Ibid., f. 471v.

161. Ibid., f. 123r.


163. A True Relation Written fr om Midelbourg, pp. 1–2.

164. For religious components in English civic consciousness before the Civil Wars, also see J.

G. A. Pocock, Th e Machiavallian Moment: Florentine Political Th ought and the Atlantic

Republican Tradition (Princeton, NJ, and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 1975), pp.

336–48; and B. Worden, Th e Sound of Virtue: Philip Sidney’s Arcadia and Elizabethan

Politics (New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, 1997), pp. 23–37.

165. Letters of John Holles, vol. 3, pp. 394–5.



389, ff . 304r, 306r.

5 Extensive News

1. Shapin, Social History of Truth, pp. 114–25, 243–354.

2. Shapiro, Probability and Certainty in Seventeenth-Century England; Shapiro, Culture of

Fact.

3. Giddens, Consequences of Modernity, esp. pp. 21–7, 79–85; N. Luhmann Trust and

Power, trans. H. David, J. Raff an and K. Rooney (Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, 1979),

pp. 4–95; Shapin, Social History of Truth, p. 15. Whatever the eff ects of modernization,

credibility as ‘an attribute of the person’ persisted as a general assumption in England

beyond the period of this study, long into the Restoration, and presumably far beyond.

R. Weil, ‘“If I Did Say So, I Lyed”: Elizabeth Cellier and the Construction of Credibility

in the Popish Plot crisis’, in S. Amussen and M. Kishlansky (eds), Political Culture and

Cultural Politics in Early Modern England (Manchester and New York: Manchester Uni-

versity Press, 1995), pp. 189–209; p. 190.

4. Advertisements fr om Britany, and fr om the Low Countries, sig. A3r.

5. For some places to start in a vast literature on scepticism in early modern Europe, see R.

Flathman, Th omas Hobbes: Skepticism, Individuality and Chastened Politics (Newbury

Park, CA: Sage Publications, 1993); G. Hanratty, Philosophers of the Enlightenment:

Locke, Hume and Berkeley Revisited (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1995); R. Popkin,

Th e History of Skepticism fr om Savonarola to Boyle (Oxford: Oxford University Press,

2003). For the empiricist tradition from Bacon to Hume, in good part a response to the


challenges posed by scepticism, see R. S. Woolhouse, Th e Empiricists (Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 1988).

6. Dooley, Social History of Skepticism, pp. 114–54.

7. Shapiro, Probability and Certainty in Seventeenth-Century England, p. 61.


9. Cited in Atherton, ‘“Th e Itch Grown a Disease”’, p. 45.

10. Devereux (ed.), Lives and Letters of the Devereux, vol. 1, pp. 329–30. Also see L. Jardine

and W. Sherman, ‘Pragmatic Readers: Knowledge Transactions and Scholarly Services

in Late Elizabethan England’, in A. Fletcher and P. Roberts (eds), Religion, Culture and

Society in Early Modern Britain: Essays in Honour of Patrick Collinson (Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1994), pp. 102–24.

11. Th e theory of extensive reading – to rely on multiple sources providing multiple accounts

of the same event – echoes Shannon’s theory of communication, which emphasizes the

use of multiple communication channels conveying redundant information as a way to

minimize the loss of information conveyed. Shannon and Weaver, Mathematical Th eory

of Communication.

12. British Library, Egerton MS 2598, ff . 45r, 273.

13. ‘Advertisements out of France’ (1589), British Library, Additional MS 40629, f. 91r–

91v.

14. E.g., the events described in ‘Advices from Italy, Spain, and Guienne’, listed as Miscella-

neous, included news from Turkey, Italy, France, Spain, and the Azores. Wernham (ed.),

List and Analysis of State Papers, vol. 3, p. 82. For Wernham’s lists of Miscellaneous news-

letters, see Wernham (ed.), List and Analysis of State Papers, vol. 2, pp. 81–3; vol. 3, pp.

80–2; vol. 4, pp. 64–6; vol. 5, pp. 105–12; vol. 6, pp. 51–9; vol. 7, pp. 58–68.

15. Eisenstein, Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe, pp. 43–4.

16. E.g., Newes fr om Vienna, A True Reporte of the Taking of the Great Towne and Castell of

Polotzko, Á. de Bazan, Relation of the Expongnable Attempt and Conquest of the Ylande of

Tercera (1583), Th e True Reporte of the Service in Britanie, A True Relation of the Famous

and Renowned Victorie … Neere to Newport (1600).

17. Th e desire for multiple witnesses also developed in this period in the legal fi eld. Shapiro,

Culture of Fact, pp. 18–19.

18. A Continuation of the Newes of this Present Weeke (16 November 1622, no. 7), p. 11.

19. Th e Present State of the Aff aires betwixt the Emperor and King of Bohemia (1620), pp.

5–10; F. Nethersole, Th e True Copies of Two Especiall Letters (1622), pp. 3–6; Th e Con-

tinuation of the Most Remarkable Occurrences of Newes (16 July 1630, no. 9), pp. 13–14;

Th e Continuation of our Forraine Intelligence (8 February 1632, no. 10), pp. 11–14.

20. Th e Newes of this Present Weeke Continued (20 October 1624, no. 38), p. 21

21. Articles of Agreement, Concerning the Cessation of Warre, sig. B3v.

22. Newes fr om Most Parts of Christendome (25 September 1622), pp. 9–10.

23. Ibid., pp. 6–7, 9–10, 12–14.

24. Th e Continuation of Our Weekely Newes (6 October 1631, no. 42), pp. 1–9. For extensive

reading in corantos, also see Frearson, English Corantos of the 1620s, pp. 202–3.


26. E.g., Th e Continuation of Our Former Newes (17 April 1623, no. 26); Th e Continuation of

Our Weekely Newes (21 April 1623, no. 27); Th e Continuation of Our Former Newes (24

April 1623, no. 28); Th e Continuation of Our Weekly Newes (2 May 1623, no. 29).


28. Th e Continuation of Our Weekly Newes (7 April 1625, no. 16), pp. 6–7.


29. Th e word ‘our’ appears three times in one paragraph of Th e Chiefe Occurences of Both the

Armies (1592), on p. 4. Th e battlefi eld narrative of Th e Great and Famous battel of Lutzen

(1633) is on pp. 1–25.

30. Th e Continuation of the Most Remarkable Occurrences of Newes (16 July 1630, no. 9), pp.

2, 4–5.

31. Hexham, A Historicall Relation of the Famous Siege of the Busse, pp. 6–7.

32. Th e Newes which Now Arrive fr om Divers Parts (20 September 1622), p. 13.

33. More Newes of the Good Successe of the Duke of Brunswick, pp. 26–7.

34. Weekely Newes fr om Germanie (13 December 1623, no. 7), p. 7.

35. Raymond, Invention of the Newspaper, pp. 129–30.

36. Shaaber, Some Forerunners of the Newspaper in England, p. 120.

37. For the growing interest in sources in history, see Shapiro, Probability and Certainty in

Seventeenth-Century England, 141–6; Shapiro, A Culture of Fact: England, 1550–1720,

49–53.

38. P. de L. Th émines, Th e Coppy of a Letter written by the Lord of Th emines (1593), second

pagination, 1–5; Th e Present State of the Aff aires betwixt the Emperor and King of Bohe-

mia (1620), pp. 3–4; Th e Continuation of our Weekly Newes (14 March 1631, no. 23), pp.

7–10.

39. Th e Proceedings of Bethelem Gabor (26 November 1623, no. 5), p. 20.


41. G. B., Newes out of France for the Gentlemen of England, sigs C2r–C2v.

42. Ibid., sig. C2v.

43. Corante, or, Newes fr om Italy, Germany, Hungaria, Polonia, France, and Dutchland (10

August 1621), p. 2.


Additional MS 36446, f. 63r.

45. [Letter of News of Gustavus Adolphus’ Army] (1632), Folger Shakespeare Library,

V.b.277, f. 241r–241v.


47. A Continuation of the Newes of this Present Weeke (5 November 1622, no.5), p. 15.

48. Watt, Th e Swedish Intelligencer. Th e First Part, p. ii.

49. Watt, Th e Swedish Intelligencer. Th e Th ird Part, p. 159.

50. Newes fr om Rome, Venice, and Vienna (1595), sigs A4v–B1r, B2v–B3r.

51. Newes fr om Divers Countries (1597), pp. 3, 6–8, 10, 13, 17.

52. Huntington Library, Parker Family Letters, Newsletters, Huntington Location # L9 G1.

A 1635 newsletter. Th e Parker Family Letters are still uncatalogued.

53. Brathwait, Whimzies, pp. 17–18.

54. Th e Wonderfull Resignation of Mustapha (11 November 1623, no. 3), p. 1.

55. Th e Aff aires and Generall Businesse of Europe (24 February 1624, no. 14), pp. 5–6.

56. N. C., Th e History of the Present Warres of Germany. A Sixt Part (1634), p. i.

57. Watt, Th e Swedish Intelligencer. Th e First Part, p. iii.


59. More Newes of the Good Successe of the Duke of Brunswick, p. 27.

60. Birch (ed.), Court and Times of Charles the First, vol. 2, p. 199. It should be noted that

Frearson associates advances in impartiality, sourcing, and editorial diligence in the

corantos of the early 1620s with responses to the presence in London of the frequently

absentee licenser of corantos, Francis Cottington. Frearson, English Corantos of the

1620s, pp. 257, 263–4.


61. Churchyard, A Plaine or Moste True Report of a Daungerous Service, sigs B2r–B2v.


Voyage of Spaine and Portingale, sig. A2r.

63. More Newes of the Duke of Brunswick (22 July 1623, no. 41), pp. 11–17.

64. A Relation of the Last Newes (8 April 1623, no. 25), p. 1; Th e Continuation of Our Weekely

Newes (21 April 1623, no. 27), p. 1.



67. Th e Continuation of the Weekely Newes (18 August 1629, no. 40), p. 13.

68. Th e Certaine Newes of this Present Weeke (23 August 1622), p. 19.

69. Nixon, Swethland and Poland Warres, sig. B2v.

70. Newes out of Cleave-land (1610), p. 2.

71. A Continued Journall of all the Proceedings of the Duke of Buckingham, in the Isle of Ree

(1627), p. 9.

72. Hexham, A Journall of the Taking in of Venlo, Roermont, Strale, p. 17.

73. A Certaine and Perfect Relation of the Encounter and Bloody Slaughter (1625), pp. 2–3,

cited in Dahl, Bibliography of English Corantos and Periodical Newsbooks, p. 275.

74. A True Relation of Such Battailes, p. 1.

75. A True Relation Written fr om Midelbourg, p. 1.

76. Newes fr om the Palatinate, pp. 19–20.

77. Th e Strangling and Death of the Great Turke, p. 10.



80. A Journall or Daily Register of All those Warlike Atchievements which Happened in the

Siege of Berghen-up-Zoome in the Low-countries, title page and passim.

81. Hanson, ‘English Newsbooks, 1620–1641’, pp. 357–63.

82. S. Lambert, ‘Coranto Printing in England: Th e First Newsbooks’, Journal of Newspaper

and Periodical History 8:1 (1992), pp. 2–19; p. 7.

83. For badmouthing of domestic rivals, see A Continuation of the Newes of this Present Weeke

(16 November 1622, no. 7), p. 22.

84. Certayn and Tru Good Nues, fr om the Syege of the Isle Malta, title page; Newes fr om Vienna

(1566), title page.

85. A True Discourse of the Discomfi ture of the Duke of Aumalle (1589), title page; A Most

Excellent Exploit Performed by Monsieur de Diguieres (1591), title page.

86. Newes fr om Gulick and Cleve (1615), p. i.

87. Th e Continuation of the Weekely Newes (11 September 1624, no. 32), p. 8, ?, cited in

Dahl, Bibliography of English Corantos and Periodical Newsbooks 1620–1642, p. 124.

88. Watt, Th e Swedish Intelligencer. Th e First Part, pp. ii–iii.89. Jonson, Th e Staple of News, p. 29 (I.v.51–4).




93. Ibid., pp. 224–7.

94. Th e Continuation of Our Forraine Avisoes (2 September 1631, no. 37), p. i. Th e Continu-

ation of Our Late Avisoes (20 October 1631, no. 44), title page, verso.

95. A True Relation of the Aff aires of Europe (4 October 1622), p. 17.



97. Watt, Th e Swedish Intelligencer. Th e Th ird Part, p. 159. For the impartiality and facticity

of early modern English news, see Shapiro, Culture of Fact, pp. 86–104.

98. Newes of Europe (12 March 1624, no. 17), pp. 17–18. For a slightly diff erent interpreta-

tion, see Frearson, English Corantos of the 1620s, pp. 199–200, 204–5, 210.

99. Good and True Tydings out of the Indies (29 March 1625, no. 15), title page, cited in

Dahl, Bibliography of English Corantos and Periodical Newsbooks 1620–1642, p. 137.

100. I. B., A Plaine and True Relation, of the Going Forth of a Holland Fleete, sigs A3r–A3v.

101. Extremities Urging the Lord Generall Sir Fra: Veare to the Anti-parle, p. 3.

102. I. B., A Plaine and True Relation, of the Going Forth of a Holland Fleete, p. 5.

103. A Continued Journall of All the Proceedings of the Duke of Buckingham his Grace, in the Ile

of Ree, Containing these Particulars, p. 9.

104. Hackel notes that ‘parcial’ reading was sometimes taken to indicate a hostile bias, while

‘unpartiall’ reading could mean friendly reading. Hackel, Reading Material in Early

Modern England, p. 119. I believe these usages register the shift in positive valence from

friendly to impartial reading.

105. Th e King of Bohemia’s Welcome to Count Mansfi eld, p. 1.

106. Weekely Newes (31 January 1623, no. 16), p. i.

107. Th e Continuation of the Weekely Newes (21 April 1630, no. [Blank]), p. 1.

108. Lushington, ‘Christ, Dead or Alive?’, in Chandos (ed.), In God’s Name, p. 256.

109. Dahl, Bibliography of English Corantos and Periodical Newsbooks, p. 138.


111. A Journall or, Historicall Relation of … the Present Siege of Breda (1625), p. 23.

112. Newes fr om Most Parts of Christendome (25 September 1622), p. 3; Th e Continuation of

Our Weekely Newes (28 June 1625, no. 28), pp. 2, 19–22. Th e surrender of Heidelberg

even got title page billing – albeit directly below an account of a repulse of Spinola’s army

from Bergen-op-Zoom. Newes fr om most parts of Christendome (25 September 1622),

title page.

113. A Coranto. Relating divers particulars (7 November 1622, no. 6), pp. 13–14.

114. Weekely Newes (31 January 1623, no. 16), pp. 11–18.

115. Th e Continuation of Our Weekely Newes (23 May 1626, no. 13), cited in Hanson, ‘English

Newsbooks, 1620–1641’, p. 383.

116. Hexham, A Journall of the Taking in of Venlo, Roermont, Strale, pp. i–ii; H. Hexham,

A True and Briefe Relation of the Famous Seige of Breda (1637); H. Hugo, Th e Seige of

Breda, trans. Gerrat Barry (1627).

117. Th e Continuation of Our Weekly Newes (1 February 1625, no. 6), p. 15.

118. Newes fr om Most Parts of Christendome (25 September 1622), pp. 6–7.

119. Th e Continuation of Our Weekely Newes (17 August 1627, no. 29), pp. 7–8.

120. N. C., German History Continued. Th e Seventh Part (1635), pp. 52–60.

121. Ibid., 58, 60.

122. Cf. Atherton, ‘“Th e Itch Grown a Disease”’, p. 45.

123. Eisenstein, Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe, pp. 43–4.

124. Letters of Philip Gawdy, ed. I. H. Jeays (London: J. B. Nichols and Sons, 1906), p. 27.



390, f. 295v.

127. Devereux (ed.), Lives and Letters of the Devereux, vol. 1, pp. 322–3.


128. Sterrell to [della Faille], [London], 24 Aug. 1620 (OS), State Papers, Public Record Offi ce, 56/312&v, cited in Carter, Secret Diplomacy of the Habsburgs, 1598–1625, p. 159.

129. John Pory, microfi che supplement, p. 333.130. Newsletters, Joseph Mead to Martin Stuteville (1620–5), British Library, Harley MS

389, f. 218r–218v.131. Ibid., ff . 218v–219r.132. William Whiteway of Dorchester. His Diary 1618 to 1635, p. 119.133. Diary of Walter Yonge, pp. 45–6.134. Richard Broughton to Richard Bagot, 23 June 1589, Folger Shakespeare Library, Bagot

Papers, L.a.253, recto.135. Diary of Walter Yonge, pp. 30–1. For Walter Yonge’s concern with sources, also see A.

Mousley, ‘Self, State, and Seventeenth Century News’, Seventeenth Century, 1:2 (Autumn 1991), pp. 149–68; pp. 164–5.

136. Diary of John Rous, p. 43.137. Letters Written by John Chamberlain, p. 84.138. Newsletters, Joseph Mead to Martin Stuteville (1626–31), British Library, Harley MS

390, f. 131r.139. Ibid., f. 137v.140. Letters of John Holles, vol. 2, p. 359.141. Johnson (ed.), Fairfax Correspondence, pp. xxxvii–xl.142. Letters of John Chamberlain, vol. 2, p. 437.143. Newsletters, Joseph Mead to Martin Stuteville (1626–31), British Library, Harley MS

390, ff . 538r, 540v.144. John Pory, microfi che supplement, pp. 245–6.145. Letters of John Chamberlain, vol. 2, p. 584.146. Newsletters, Joseph Mead to Martin Stuteville (1626–31), British Library, Harley MS

390, f. 17r.147. Searle (ed.), Barrington Family Letters, p. 224.148. Letters Written by John Chamberlain, p. 86.149. Th e six corantos are in Newsletters, Joseph Mead to Martin Stuteville (1620–5), British

Library, Harley MS 389, ff . 56, 68, 79, 82–4, 104, 106. References to further enclosures of printed news are in Newsletters, Joseph Mead to Martin Stuteville (1620–5), British Library, Harley MS 389, ff . 176r, 188r, 200r, 235r, 316r, 381r; Newsletters, Joseph Mead to Martin Stuteville (1626–31), British Library, Harley MS 390, ff . 13r, 473v, 496r.

150. Diary of John Rous, p. 7.151. Searle (ed.), Barrington Family Letters, p. 211.152. Correspondence of the Family of Moreton of Moreton, co. Chester, Vol. II. 1632–1642,

British Library, Additional MS 33936, f. 34r.153. Some expressions of belief in the printed news were tainted by self-interest. Gabriel

Harvey descanted on the news from France, including what ‘the credible relation of inquisitve frendes, or imployed straungers shall acquaint me withall’. [Gabriel Harvey to Christopher Bird, 5 September 1592, London], G. Harvey, Foure Letters, and Certaine Sonnets (London: John Wolfe, 1592), pp. 14–15. But Harvey’s ties with John Wolfe lead to the reasonable suspicion that he was advertizing his printer’s wares. John Pory’s praise of corantos a generation later also almost certainly had something to do with his close

ties to Nathaniel Butter. John Pory, microfi che supplement, pp. 212, 228–30, 276.


389, f. 122r.


155. Ibid., f. 381r.

156. Wernham (ed.), List and Analysis of State Papers, vol. 6, p. 53.

157. British Library, Egerton MS 2598, f. 273r–273v.


159. Th e Continuation of Our Weekly Newes (18 January 1626, no. 49), p. 14.

160. Th ree Great Overthrowes, pp. 6–7.




389, f. 11r.


390, f. 116r.


166. For the need for gentlemen to take note of follies, see also Diary of John Rous, p. 109; and

Table Talk of John Selden, ed. S. Reynolds (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1892), p. 105.

167. Jardine and Sherman, ‘Pragmatic Readers’, pp. 102–24.

168. Th e Aff aires and Generall Businesse of Europe (24 February 1624, no. 14), p. 1.

169. Watt, Th e Swedish Intelligencer. Th e First Part, p. iii.

170. M. Eccles, ‘Th omas Gainsford, “Captain Pamphlet”’, Huntington Library Quarterly, 45:4

(Autumn 1982), pp. 259–70; pp. 265–6. For Gainsford’s role in the development of the

editorial profession, see J. A. Hart, Th e Developing Views on the News: Editorial Syndrome

1500–1800 (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1970),

pp. 18–20.

171. Hanson, ‘English Newsbooks, 1620–1641’, p. 376; Hart, Developing Views on the News,

p. 21.

172. Powell, John Pory, pp. 3–65.

173. I. M., Th e True Reporte of the Prosperous Successe which God Gave unto our English Soul-

diours (1581), title page.

174. Good Newes fr om Alsasia and the Palatinate (1622), title page.

175. Weekely Newes fr om Germanie (13 December 1623, no. 7), pp. –2.

176. Th e Continuation of our Weekly Newes (7 April 1625, no. 16), pp. 6–7.

Conclusion

1. Couvée, ‘Th e First Coranteers – Th e Flow of News in the 1620s’, p. 22.

2. Lithgow, A True and Experimentall Discourse, upon the Beginning, Proceeding, and Victo-

rious Event of this Last Siege of Breda, sig. A3v.

3. Mousley, ‘Self, State, and Seventeenth Century News’, p. 165; Raymond, Invention of the

Newspaper, pp. 269–313; J. Sutherland, Th e Restoration Newspaper and its Development

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), pp. 123–45.

4. Hanratty, Philosophers of the Enlightenment; Popkin, History of Skepticism fr om Savon-

arola to Boyle; Woolhouse, Th e Empiricists.

5. Foucault, Power/Knowledge, p. 105; E. Kantorowicz, Th e King’s Two Bodies: A Study in

Mediaeval Political Th eology (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1957).

6. Shapin, Social History of Truth.

7. For the function of epistolary discourse in the novel, see J. Altman, Epistolarity:

Approaches to a Form (Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 1982); Jagodzin-

ski, Privacy and Print, p. 77; G. Singer, Th e Epistolary Novel: Its Origin, Development,


Decline, and Residuary Infl uence (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press,

1933). For the letter’s association with privacy and individuality, see Habermas, Struc-

tural Transformation of the Public Sphere, 48; Jagodzinski, Privacy and Print, pp. 1–2. For

epistolary discourse in early modern England, see S. Fitzmaurice, Th e Familiar Letter in

Early Modern English: A Pragmatic Approach (Amsterdam and Philadelphia, PA: John

Benjamins Publishing Company, 2002).

8. Shapiro, Culture of Fact, pp. 8–33.

9. Th e Newes and Aff aires of Europe (7 January 1624, no. 9), p. 19. I am grateful to Alastair

Bellany for this important insight.

10. Habermas, Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere; M. McKeon, Th e Secret His-

tory of Domesticity: Public, Private, and the Division of Knowledge (Baltimore, MD: John

Hopkins University Press, 2005). Also see P. Ariès and G. Duby (gen. eds), A History of

Private Life, trans. Arthur Goldhammer, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,

1989); and J. Weintraub, ‘Th e Th eory and Politics of the Public/Private Distinction’, in J.

Weintraub and K. Kumar (eds), Public and Private in Th ought and Practice: Perspectives

on a Grand Dichotomy (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1997), pp. 1–42.

11. Baron, ‘Guises of Dissemination’, pp. 41–56.

12. Whig and Marxist historians have long associated revolutions in the news and in politics,

and the latest work on the subject by Raymond continues, persuasively, to argue the tie.

B. Dooley, ‘From Literary Criticism to Systems Th eory in Early Modern Journalism His-

tory’, Journal of the History of Ideas 51:3 ( July–September 1991), pp. 461–86; Raymond,

Pamphlets and Pamphleteering in Early Modern Britain, pp. 27–52, 161–275, 323–81.

Appendix A: Documents

1. Sanger (ed.), Englishmen at War, p. 7.


3. Th e True Coppie of a Letter, written fr om the Leager by Arnham (1591), sigs A3r–A4r.


– 201 –

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– 225 –

Aachen 101

Acuña, Diego Sarmiento de, Conde de

Gondomar 2, 31, 111

Admiral see Coligny, Gaspard de; Howard,

Charles

Aherlow 34

Albert, Archduke of Austria 29

Alsace 141

Alt Ruppin 105

amicitia 65

Amsterdam 6, 13, 28, 88, 91, 98, 105, 122,

128, 135, 148, 154

Anglo-Spanish War (1585–1604) 10, 13,

17, 36, 53, 85, 110, 112, 122

anonymity 32, 79, 87, 96–7, 102, 151, 154

Anthoon, Hubrecht 138

António, Prior of Crato 116

Antwerp 1–2, 12, 24, 30, 65, 74, 80, 84,

98, 101, 103, 107, 118, 125, 130, 134,

136–42, 144, 148

Archduchess of Austria see Isabella

Archduke of Austria see Albert

Archer, Th omas 128, 144

Aristotle 43

Arnheim, Hans Georg von 23

Arnhem 158–9

ars dictaminis 21, 32–3, 46–7, 87

Asheby, William 80, 124, 144

Ashley, Sir Antony 23

Augsburg 130, 135

Austria 78, 81, 118

d’Auvergne, Henri de la Tour, Duc de Bouil-

lon 142

Axel 57

Azores 112

Bacon, Sir Francis 81, 88, 118, 149, 153–4

Bacon, Lady Jane 55

Bacon, Nathaniel 41

Baden-Durlach, Margrave Georg Friedrich

63

Bagot, Anthony 9

Bagot, Richard 9, 38, 41, 50, 53, 55, 78, 117,

141

ballads 7–8, 15, 18, 86, 104, 110

Baner, Johan 70

Barrington, Lady Joan 30, 53, 55, 60, 62, 66,

70, 72, 143

Barrington, Sir John 66

Barrington, Lady Judith 55

Barrington, Sir Th omas 14, 30, 62, 66, 70,

72

Barrington family 111

Batts, Antoine de 144

Bavaria 111, 143

Bavaria, Duke of see Maximilian I

Bazan, Álvaro de 112

Beaulieu, John 26, 64, 68, 72–3, 119, 131

Bedford, Earl of see Russell, Francis

Berck 71, 105

Bergen-op-Zoom 1–2, 22, 27–32, 44, 57,

65, 69, 84, 90, 105, 108, 126, 135,

138–9, 141

Bergh, Count Henry van den 139

Berlin 130

INDEX


Bertie, Peregrine, 13th Baron Willoughby

57, 65, 80

Bertie, Robert, 14th Baron Willoughby 12

Bethlen, Gabriel 40, 126, 128–30, 146

Bette, Th omas 5

Binghen, Henry 144

Biron, Baron de see Gontaut, Charles de

Blackwell 71

Blechinden, Francis 60

Blount, Charles, Lord Mountjoy 50, 56, 65

Bohemia 13, 24, 69, 74, 106–7, 128, 131,

141, 147

Bohemia, King of see Frederick V

Bohemia, Queen of see Elizabeth

Balbases, Marqués de los see Spinola, Ambro-

sio

Bonne, François de, Duc de Lesdiguières 102

Bosch see s’ Hertogenbosch

Bouillon, Duc de see d’Auvergne, Henri de

la Tour

Boulogne 34

Bourbon, Henri de, Prince de Dombes 73

Bourne, Nicholas 89, 148

Brabant 30, 119

Bragge, John 142

Brampton Bryan 38

Brandenburg 105

Brandon 22

Brathwait, Richard 82, 102, 130

Brazil 13, 28, 137

Breda 27, 30, 59, 73, 78, 106, 110, 114, 125,

133, 138–9, 143, 152

Breisach 55

Breitenfeld 22, 26, 31, 34, 53, 55, 58, 60, 62,

66, 114, 125, 131, 141, 143

Brereton, Sir William 23, 111

Breslau 130

Bridgewater, Earl of see Egerton, John

British Civil Wars 3, 10, 37, 42, 83, 89, 149,

151–2, 154–6

Brittany 12, 55, 61, 82, 107

Broughton, Richard 117, 141

Bruges 29

Brunswick 35

Brunswick, Duke Christian 23, 107, 125,

139, 141

Brussels 1–2, 43, 50, 61, 79, 126, 129, 138–9

Buckingham, Duke of see Villiers, George

Budenberg 131

Buquoy, Charles Bonaventura 41, 69, 128

Burghley, Lord see Cecil, William

Busoni, Girolamo 11

Butler, Th omas, Earl of Ormonde 63

Butter, Nathaniel 89, 148

Cadiz 10, 12, 14, 23, 30, 34, 40, 50, 56–7,

59–60, 65, 79, 109

Caesar, Gaius Julius 99, 109

Calais 9, 37, 68, 90, 92

Calvert, Sir George 63

campaign diaries 29, 61, 114, 116, 138

Caoursin, Guillaume 85

Carew, Lord George 25, 35, 60

Carey, Henry, Lord Hunsdon 23

Caribbean 112

Carleton, Sir Dudley 1, 5, 9, 22–5, 30,

51–3, 57, 68, 71–2, 82, 84, 88, 91, 115,

142–3

Carr, Robert, Earl of Somerset (Ker) 88, 142

Cassau 129

Cassill, John 58

Caswell, Sir John 119

Caudebec-en-Caux 73

Caux 106

Cecil, Sir Robert, Viscount Cranborne 12,

23, 35, 38, 41, 51, 56–7, 61, 64–5, 69

Cecil, William, Lord Burghley 25, 34, 50,

57, 59, 64–5, 73, 80

censorship 3, 16–17, 21, 31, 35–6, 45–7,

49–50, 69, 115, 134, 145, 154–5

Chamberlain, John 1–2, 5, 9, 16, 22–5, 30,

51–3, 57, 68, 71–2, 82, 84, 88, 91, 115,

142–3

Chambery 126

Charles I, King of England 33, 46, 58, 73,

140

Charles Emmanuel I, Duke of Savoy 39

Cheshire 14

Chichester, Lord Arthur 50

Christian IV, King of Denmark 29, 66,

70–1, 74, 117, 119, 142

chronicles 27, 32

Churchyard, Th omas 14, 82, 97–8, 104, 131

civic duty 68, 75

civic mindedness 74, 119, 144, 146

civic virtue 21

Index 227

civility 59, 112, 135, 138, 147

Clancarre, Earl of see More, McCarthy

Clare, Earl of see Holles, John, Lord Haugh-

ton

Clarke, George 41, 50, 55, 78

Cleveland, Earl of see Wentworth, Th omas

Cleves 126, 149

Cobham, Sir Henry 80

Coligny, Admiral Gaspard de 115

Cologne 1, 17, 22–3, 80, 87, 101, 118, 127,

130

Cologne, Elector-Archbishop of see Ferdi-

nand

commonplace books 8, 14, 16, 40

corantos 1–3, 6–10, 15–18, 22–3, 30,

32, 36–7, 45–6, 68–9, 77, 86–92,

97–8, 105–7, 110, 114, 121–8, 130–5,

137–9, 141, 143–5, 148–9, 152, 154

Cordoba, Gonzalez de 1, 125, 139, 142

Cork 34

Cornwall 71

Cornwallis, Lady Jane 51, 57

Cornwallis, Sir Th omas 14, 38

counsel 21, 43–7, 65, 67, 86, 108, 123, 154

court 2, 26–7, 34–5, 38, 44, 57, 83–4, 97–8,

111, 117, 119, 131, 140, 143

Cranborne, Viscount see Cecil, Sir Robert

credibility

court 60–1, 97, 117

defi nition 6

extensive 3, 18, 121–40, 149, 151–2,

154–6

honourable 3, 18, 49, 58–67, 74, 77,

83–5, 87, 89, 93, 97–100, 102–4,

109, 117, 121–4, 127, 131–4, 140–1,

149, 151, 154–5

intensive 3, 18, 103, 120–1, 151

intermediary 64, 77

multiple sourcing 121, 124–5, 127–30,

135, 141, 146–7, 149, 151, 154

print 97–8, 101, 134–5, 143–4

private 26, 58, 155

public 26, 58, 155

ritual 3, 18, 21, 26–32, 46, 58, 74, 87, 93,

123, 151, 155

sociable 2–3, 18, 49, 51–7, 77, 96, 100–

2, 110, 121, 123, 148, 151, 154–6

sources 66, 97–8, 114, 123, 127–35

standards 1–3, 6, 11, 17–19, 95, 121–2,

149, 151–6

Croatia 13

Crosfi eld, Th omas 14, 16, 39, 118

Crutznach 114

Culme, Robert 50

Cyprus 13, 39, 100, 112

Dalham 53

Daniell, Richard 55

Davenport, William 14

Davers, Henry 56

Davies, John 88–9

dedicatory epistles 99–100

defamiliarization 77–82, 84–6, 92, 96, 117,

121

Delft 57, 132

Denbigh, Earl of see Fielding, William

Denmark 69, 110, 115, 117, 128

Denmark, King of see Christian IV

Desmond, Earl of see FitzGerald, Gerald

details, corroborating 11, 23–5, 31–2, 35,

40, 49, 55, 57, 61–4, 73–4, 80, 95, 102,

104–7, 115–18, 120, 124, 126–7, 135,

158

Desmond, Sir James (Fitzedmund Fitzger-

ald) 157–8

Desmond, Sir John 157–8

Devereux, Robert, Earl of Essex 9, 34, 38, 50,

57, 64–5, 103, 105, 123, 140, 142

Devonshire 71

D’Ewes, Sir Simonds 14, 16–17, 23, 51, 69,

111, 117–18

Deynsale see Kinsale

diaries 3, 14–17, 22–3, 28, 31, 36–41, 51,

69–70, 74, 117–18, 141–3, 146

see also campaign diaries

Dieppe 80

Digges, Leonard 70

Digges, Th omas 59, 70, 96, 100, 102, 114

dinners 21, 24, 51–3

Dombes see Bourbon, Henri de

Donne, John 88

Dorchester 30–1

Dorsetshire 71

Dort 101, 158

Dover 84, 140

drill manuals 8


Drury, Sir William 34

Dudley, Robert, Earl of Leicester 23, 34, 45,

56–7, 59, 72, 96, 100–1, 111, 115–16

Dunkirk 131

Dunkirker privateers 90, 146

Duringen 131

editors 8, 126–7, 130, 139, 145–9, 151, 156

Edmondes, Sir Th omas 35

Edwards, Richard 43

Egerton, John, Earl of Bridgewater 55, 112

Egerton, Th omas, Baron Ellesmere 34

Elector Palatine see Frederick V

Elizabeth I, Queen of England 34–6, 41,

45–6, 50, 54, 56, 83, 96, 115, 142, 155

Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia 23, 63

Ellesmere, Baron see Egerton, Th omas

Elyot, Sir Th omas 43

Emperor see Ferdinand II

England 1–3, 5–7, 10–17, 21–2, 24, 26,

30–5, 37–9, 41–7, 49–51, 53–5,

59–60, 62, 64, 67, 71, 74–5, 78, 80,

82–3, 85, 90, 92, 95–8, 101, 104, 108,

110–12, 115, 117, 121, 123, 131, 133,

136, 145, 17, 151–7

England, King of see Henry V; Henry VII;

Henry VIII; James VI and I; Charles I

England, Queen of see Elizabeth I; Parr,

Katherine; Mary

Ensore, Richard 53

epistolary rhetoric 33, 108

Erfurt 141

Essex 71

Essex, Earl of see Devereux, Robert

Exchange 2, 24, 26, 41, 83–4, 91, 128

exclusivity 61, 99

eyewitness 2, 10, 15, 24, 31–2, 49, 59, 61–2,

64, 73–4, 99, 103–9, 118–20, 124–7,

136–7, 152

Faille, Charles della 38, 140

Fairfax, Sir John 57

Fairfax, Sir Th omas 57

Famagosta 39, 100

Farnese, Alexander, Duke of Parma 25, 65,

73–4, 158

Feathery Scribe 84

Ferdinand, Elector-Archbishop of Cologne

1

Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor 1, 12,

24, 30, 41, 66, 69, 71, 86, 118, 129,

131–2, 146–7

Field, Richard 89, 135

Fielding, William, Earl of Denbigh 52

Finland 115

FitzGerald, Gerald, Earl of Desmond 62,

78, 158

Flanders 10, 71, 81, 90, 92, 97–8, 103, 131

Fleetwood, George 61, 72, 78, 116

Fleetwood, Colonel William 105

Fleetwood, Sir William 61, 72, 78, 116

Flodden Field 2

Flower, John 82

Flushing 2, 24, 30, 118, 129

France 13, 17, 24–5, 34–5, 37, 39, 41–2,

50, 61, 64, 69, 71, 73, 80–1, 85–6, 90,

96–7, 103, 110, 112, 115–17, 119, 124,

128, 138, 141, 152

France, King of see Henri IV; Louis XIII

Francis II, Duc de Guise 37

Frankenthal 57, 133

Frankfurt 66, 80, 101, 116, 128–9, 131, 140

Frederick V, Elector Palatine and King of

Bohemia 1, 17, 22, 41, 111, 113, 137,

147

Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange 28, 62,

87, 108

freedom of the press 154

Frevile, Gilbert, Bishop of Middleham 40

Friedland, Duke of see Wallenstein, Albrecht

von

Friesland 45

Fullerton, Sir James 51

Gainsford, Th omas 9, 11, 89, 106–7, 126–7,

130–1, 134, 148

Gallobelgicus see Mercurius Gallobelgicus

Gascoigne, George 43–4, 82, 103, 107

Gawdy

Bassingbourne 140

Framlingham 60

Philip 140

Gelderland 26

Gelkerken, Nicholas van 135

Geneva 13, 39

Index 229

gentility 49, 61, 69, 97

Germany 13, 17, 30, 38, 42, 55, 60, 69–70,

74, 81, 113, 118, 128, 130, 135, 141,

143, 152

Gerrard, Sir Gilbert 143

Ghent 135

gift exchange 51–2, 56, 85

Gilbert, Sir John 39

Gilpin, George 56

Glaz 128–9

Goch 139

godly see Puritans

Gondomar see Acuña, Diego Sarmiento de

Gontaut, Charles de, Baron de Biron 9

gossip 4–5, 8, 21, 34, 46, 53, 81–2, 97

Gournay 106

Grave 23, 72, 125

Graz 66

Grebner, Paul 40

Grey, Arthur, Baron Grey de Wilton 78

Groll 25

Groyne see La Coruña

Guingamp 105

Guise, Duc de see Francis II

Guldeford, Henrie 158

Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden 14,

23, 25–6, 29–31, 33, 41, 51, 55, 60–1,

63–4, 66, 69, 72–4, 84, 89, 91, 111,

116–17, 119, 129, 131, 141, 143

Hague 30, 63, 66, 98, 119, 125

Hamburg 66, 71, 92, 131

Hamilton, James, Marquis of Hamilton 52,

63, 141

Hampshire 71

Hanau 141

Hanstrudder, Sir James 117

Harley, Lady Brilliana 55

Harley family 38, 53

Hastings, Sir Francis 42

Hastings, Henry, Earl of Huntingdon 115

Hatton, Sir Christopher 106

Haughton, Lord see Holles, John

Heidelberg 66, 116, 128, 133, 138, 141

Heneage, Th omas 23

Henri IV, King of France 9, 61, 64, 73, 96,

102, 104, 106, 135

Henry V, King of England 32

Henry VII, King of England 35

Henry VIII, King of England 34, 36

Herbert, Garrett 118

Hertfordshire 22

s’ Hertogenbosch 28–9, 52, 59, 62, 64, 78,

108, 112, 114–15, 126, 142

Hesse 131

Hexham, Henry 29, 100, 104, 126, 132, 139

Hobart, John 14, 38

Holland 24, 28, 44, 81, 137, 142

Holles, Sir George 59, 73, 78

Holles, Sir John 59, 63, 70, 73, 78, 119, 142

Holles, John, Lord Haughton and Earl of

Clare 2, 63, 70, 119

honour see credibility, honourable

honour, military 98, 108

Horn, Gustav 141

Howard, Charles, Lord Admiral 23, 38,

59–60

Hugo, Herman 139

Hulst 92

humanism 21, 33, 43, 67, 74, 119, 123, 151

Hungary 13, 80, 126, 130

Hunsdon, Lord see Carey, Henry

Huntingdon, Earl of see Hastings, Henry

Iberia 61

impartiality 65, 109, 135–8, 140, 142, 147

incivility 110–12

India 25, 35

Ingolstadt 63

interest in the news 8–9, 13–14, 36–43,

47, 53

Ireland 12, 22–3, 28, 38, 56, 96, 117, 140

Isabella, Archduchess of Austria 29, 138

Issell 62

Isselt, Michael ab 17

Italy 17, 50, 54, 81, 128, 138, 141

Ivry 86

Jägerndorf, Margrave Johann-Georg von 11,

126, 128–9

James VI and I, King of Scotland and Eng-

land 27, 36, 45–6, 67, 88

James, John 116

Janson, Broer 135

Jarmin, Sir Th omas 73

Johann Georg I, Elector of Saxony 141


Johnson, Fabian 103

Johnson, Francis 41

Jonson, Ben 26, 42, 88, 135

Judea 119

Jülich 23, 35, 56, 100–1, 103, 105, 132

judgement 6, 11, 22, 49, 63–4, 66–8, 71–4,

81, 83, 89, 95, 103, 106, 118, 122–4,

127, 131, 136–7, 140–2, 145–9,

151–2, 155–6

Kent 71

King’s Lynn 142

Kinsale 5, 41, 50, 56, 64–5, 72, 78

La Coruña 45, 142

Lane, Ralph 59, 116

La Rochelle 30, 146

Leicester, Earl of see Dudley, Robert

Leipzig 74

Lesdiguières, Duc de see Bonne, François de

letter-bearers 23, 53, 56, 64

letter-manuals 87

letters

bureaucratic 9, 21, 32–5, 47, 49, 96, 153

diplomatic 33–5, 61, 80–1, 106

familiar 33

humanist 33, 151

news see news, letters

private 8–9, 21, 32–3, 47, 49, 67

sociable 18, 49–57, 153

limitations of study 11–19

Lincolnshire 71

Lingen 25

Lisbon 84, 116, 141

Lithgow, William 103, 108, 152

Lithuania 107

Livonia 117

Locke, John 118, 149, 153–4

Loncq, Hendrik Cornelis 13, 110

London 1, 12–14, 16–17, 22, 28, 30, 32, 35,

37–8, 45, 53–4, 72, 74, 80, 87, 90, 111,

129, 133–4, 141–4, 152

London correspondents of Joseph Mead 1,

22–3, 29, 40, 60, 69–71, 84, 87, 98,

111, 117–19, 140, 142, 146

Lorraine 37

Louis XIII, King of France 66, 71–2, 126,

141

Low Countries see Netherlands

Lübeck 71

Lupton, Donald 37, 73, 88

Lushington, Th omas 38, 138

Lützen 25, 61, 78, 84, 116

Maas 158

Maastricht 12, 51, 106, 132

McDonnell, James 78

Machyn, Henry 36–7, 45

Madox, Richard 74

Magalotti, Lorenzo 10

Malbie, Sir Nicholas 157

Mainz 135, 141

Malta 13, 97

Manners, Roger, Earl of Rutland 123, 140

Mannheim 24, 50, 110, 117, 133

Mansfi eld, Count Ernst von 1, 14, 17, 27–9,

66, 111, 114, 117–18, 125, 139, 141–2,

146

Mansfi eld, Count Octavio von 158

Mansfi eld, Count Peter Ernst von 158

Mantua 10, 54

Marbeck, Roger 10, 59, 79

martyrdom accounts 8

Mary, Queen of England 37, 54

Masham, Sir William 53, 60, 143

masques 26–7, 88

Maurits, Prince of Orange 92, 105, 125, 135,

141, 158

Maximilian I, Duke of Bavaria 40, 63

Mead, Joseph 1, 12, 14, 16–17, 19, 22–3, 26,

29, 31, 39–41, 53, 60, 64, 66, 69–71,

73–4, 84, 86–7, 98, 111, 117–19,

140–4, 146

Meautys, Lady Anne 55, 57

Meautys, Sir Th omas 51, 57

Mechelen 98, 131

Mercouer, Duc Philippe Emmanel 73

Mercurius Gallobelgicus 12, 14, 17, 40, 88,

122, 129, 134

Métayer, James 135

Middleberg 2, 24, 30, 83

Milan 126

Mildmay, Sir Humphrey 37

military news

defi nition of genre 7–9

reasons to study 6–11

Index 231

military style 98–9

Mocklow, William 157

modernity 122, 153

modesty 65, 100–1

morale 28–9, 65

Moravia 141

More, Sir George 54

More, McCarthy, Earl of Clancarre 78

More, Sir Poynings 54

Moreton, Peter 25, 30, 53, 63–4, 80, 84,

111, 143

Morgan, Sir Charles 51

Morgan, Sir Matthew 57

Morlaix 104

Morrice, Francis 100

Moscow 51

Moundeford, Sir Edmund 60

Mountjoy, Lord see Blount, Charles

Munster 117, 157

narrative

coherent 11

fi rst-person 104, 107–8, 126

lengthy 63, 79

overt 126

third-person 126

Neostoicism 108

Netherlands 12–13, 17, 23, 26, 29, 41–2, 45,

50–1, 53, 55, 57, 60–1, 66, 80, 85, 96,

100–1, 104, 114, 116, 119, 128, 132,

136, 141, 144, 152

Nethersole, Francis 101, 125

networks, intelligence 34, 41

Neubrandenburg 6, 91

Neuruppin 105

Neville, Sir Henry 61

Newport 29, 41, 68, 82, 142–3

news

anonymous 1, 3, 12, 15, 18, 31, 43–4,

77–93, 96, 98–9, 102, 106, 109, 118,

121, 126, 145, 147–8, 151, 153–4

aurality 22

bell-ringing 8, 28–30

bonfi res 28–30

Catholic 1, 110–14, 134, 137–9, 142–3,

147

changeable 69

circuits 12–13, 16–17, 29, 41, 49–50,

53–5, 60, 67, 78–9, 82–3, 86, 97,

111–12, 133, 144

commercial 2–3, 18, 41, 56, 60, 66, 77,

82–5, 87–9, 92–3, 95–6, 100, 102,

109, 121–2, 133–4, 140, 143–4,

147–8, 151–3

court 8

defi nitions 4–6

dishonourable acquisition 133–4

domestic 8, 15, 142, 151

epistemology 2, 5, 90, 125, 153–5

espionage 38–9

extensive 121–49, 154

false 2, 6, 29, 35, 39, 59, 61, 64, 69, 71,

79, 85, 88, 90, 92, 111–13, 127, 138,

145

family 7–8

foreign 7–8, 14–15, 17, 33–7, 54, 56, 67,

142, 152

foreign-language 12–14, 17, 22, 24, 42,

80, 89–90, 98, 100, 112, 114, 129,

134–5, 137–8, 144, 152, 154

letters 1–3, 7–8, 10, 12–18, 21, 23,

25–6, 32–5, 38, 40–1, 45, 47, 49–57,

59–61, 63–4, 66–7, 73, 77–83, 85,

89–91, 96–8, 101–2, 109, 114–17,

119, 124–8, 130–7, 139–40, 142–9,

153

mimicry of traditional forms 95–121

networks see news, circuits

oral 3, 18–19, 21–6, 32, 35, 41, 46, 51–2,

58, 67, 101, 151, 155

pamphlets 3, 7–8, 10, 14, 18, 27, 31–2,

40, 45, 63, 77, 85, 89, 95, 99, 103,

108–9, 116, 119–20, 124–5, 127,

142–5, 148, 152, 154

parliament 8

plays 8, 43, 88

political context 4–6, 19

print 3, 7–9, 12–13, 15–18, 21–3, 30,

35, 38, 46, 63, 66–7, 77, 82–93,

95–101, 111–12, 114, 116–17,

119–22, 124–5, 129–30, 132, 134–9,

141, 143–5, 147, 151–5, 158

private 3, 8–9, 21–2, 26–7, 33, 45–7,

49–50, 52, 54, 56–7, 58, 67, 80, 86,


89, 129, 133, 144, 148, 151, 153, 155,

157

propaganda 7, 28, 49–50, 89

Protestant 1, 16, 110–14, 120, 136–7,

139

public 3–5, 26–8, 30–2, 41, 45–6, 52,

56, 58, 61, 72, 74, 80, 84, 86–8, 151,

153–5

revolution 152–3

ritual 3, 18, 21, 26–32, 46, 52–3, 58, 67,

74, 87, 93, 123, 151, 153, 155

salutations 15, 34–5, 68–9, 87, 96–7,

104, 136

sociable 14, 18, 49–75, 77–80, 82, 84–7,

92–3, 96–7, 99–101, 103–5,109,

111–12, 116–17, 121, 149, 153–6

socially unmoored 102–3, 120, 151

spectacle 8, 31–2

transmission 2, 4–5, 9, 11, 15, 17–18, 22,

24, 27–8, 30–1, 33, 35, 54, 59, 67, 77,

84–5, 87, 102–4, 127, 144, 151

vile rumour 77, 87–93

written 3, 12, 14, 16, 18, 21–2, 30, 32–3,

35, 46, 50, 57–8, 60, 63–6, 68, 74,

77–80, 84, 87, 89–91, 93, 96–8, 101,

104–4, 112, 116, 118–20, 126–8,

131–2, 139, 142, 144, 146, 149, 155

news digests, semi-annual (1632–8) 17, 46,

99, 149

newsletters, Fugger 12, 83

newsletters, manuscript 8, 12, 14, 18, 50, 53,

77, 82–3, 86, 97, 116, 124, 130, 143,

148

newspapers see corantos

newsreaders 2–3, 5, 9, 12, 14–17, 19, 41–2,

49–50, 63, 70, 72–4, 88, 95, 97, 106,

109, 113, 117–23, 140–2, 144–5, 149,

151, 154–5

newsreading

extensive 62, 123–5, 127, 132, 134–5,

140–7, 153, 156

intensive 95, 117–21, 147, 149

paranoiac 70–1

partial 73

passionate 2, 70–2

public spirited 67–70, 73–4

self-controlled 33, 68, 72–3, 108, 145

sociable 49, 67–74, 149

newswriters 1, 3, 5, 9, 12, 14–15, 31, 44, 49,

59, 62, 79, 82, 85, 88, 95, 102–3, 108,

111–12, 116, 121, 126–7, 133, 145,

149, 151

newswriting 10, 15–17, 19, 49, 62, 74, 77,

79, 103, 127

Nijmegen 158

Nixon, Anthony 11, 40, 82, 99, 132

Nördlingen 139

Norfolk 71

Normandy 106

Norreys, Sir John 55

North, Dudley, Baron North 118

Northern Rebellion 5, 83

Northumberland, Earl of see Percy, Th omas

Nun, Th omas 31

Nuremberg 66

O’Conor Sligo, Sir Donnchadh 91

O’Donnell, Rory, Earl of Tyrconnell 91

O’Donnell, Red Hugh 51

Ogle, Sir John 100

Oleron 72

O’Neill, Shane 51

Orange, Prince of see Frederick Henry;

Maurits; William the Silent

Orleans 69

Ormonde, Earl of see Butler, Th omas

Ormuz 63

Ostend 22–3, 39, 41, 50, 55, 57, 78, 92, 98,

106

Palatinate 10, 13, 24, 26, 31, 39, 42, 53, 57,

60, 69, 107, 111, 113, 119, 133, 144

Palatine see Frederick V

Palgrave see Frederick V

Palmer, James 17

pamphlets, murder 6, 10

Paris 27, 30, 54, 61, 69, 80, 86, 138

Parliament 44–5, 82

Parma, Duke of see Farnese, Alexander

Parr, Katherine, Queen of England 34

partiality 2, 49, 65–6, 68, 74, 90–1, 95, 103,

109–17, 119–20, 122, 134–8, 140,

142, 147, 149

particulars see details, corroborating

Passau 68

patronage 51–2, 55–6, 100

Index 233

Paul V, Pope 41

Paul’s see St Paul’s

Paulet, Sir Anthony 42

petition 45, 86

Patten, William 37

Peacham, Henrie 100–1, 103, 105

Pelham, Sir William, Lord Justice of Ireland

62, 78

perceptual competence 68, 122, 147

Percy, Th omas, Earl of Northumberland 36

Pernambuco 13, 28

Peters, Hugh 60, 102, 104, 108–9

Philip IV, King of Spain 71, 119

Picardy 106

Piedmont 126

Pilsen 146

plain style 33, 95, 108–9, 127

Plymouth 64

Poland 10, 13, 80, 107

Poland, King of see Sigismund III

polis 4

Polotzk 107

Pope see Paul V; Urban VIII

Portugal 12, 14, 40, 45, 59, 81, 105, 116

Pory, John 12, 14, 24, 29, 60, 66, 72–3,

82–4, 86, 97, 111, 119, 123, 135, 141,

143, 148

Prague 1, 22, 40, 60, 69, 80, 87, 129, 131,

137, 139, 141, 146

Preslaw see Breslau

Pressburg 129

Prinsenland 141

printers 12–13, 39, 50, 86, 89–90, 92–3,

100–2, 106, 113, 131, 135–6, 138,

147–8

print culture 7, 134, 140

print revolution 153

print, stigma of 77, 89, 93, 100

Privy Council 34, 50, 157

Privy Council in Ireland 34, 50

proclamations 35–6, 45, 49, 86, 139

prudence 5, 33, 43, 74, 123

Prussia 69

publicity 58, 82, 85–7

public opinion 49, 156

public readership 52, 87

public sphere 19, 155

public spirit 49, 68, 70, 73–4, 140, 145, 154

Puckering, Sir Th omas 26, 64, 68, 72–3, 84,

119, 131

Puritans 42, 44, 111, 113, 136

Quintilian 99, 109

Raba 41, 50, 78

Raleigh, Sir Walter 23, 38–9, 51, 56–7, 59,

64–5, 117

Randolph, Ambrose 55

Ratisbon see Regensberg

Ré 2, 14, 22, 26–7, 31, 39, 50, 61, 64, 68, 70,

72–4, 84, 99, 105, 114–16, 132, 137–8,

140, 142

realism 106, 127

Regensberg 9, 130

Restoration 152

rhetoric 3, 33, 35, 60–1, 66, 74, 78–9, 92,

96–9, 101–3, 108, 111, 116–18, 125,

127, 136, 140, 145, 151, 153–4

Rhine 79, 140, 158

Rhineland 80

Riche, Barnaby 111

ritual see credibility, ritual; news, ritual

Robinson, Richard 89

Roe, Sir Th omas 25, 35

Rome 80, 130

Rossingham, Edward 82–3

Rouen 34–5, 57, 64–5, 106

Rous, John 14, 16, 22, 39–40, 69–70, 73–4,

142–3, 146

royal authority 21, 45, 51

Royal Council 35, 45

Rudyng, Humphrey 157

rumour 5–6, 8, 25–6, 30, 34–6, 46, 55, 58,

68–71, 77, 87, 91–3, 111, 118, 127,

143, 145–6

Russell, Francis, 2nd Earl of Bedford 14

Russia 13, 115

Rutland, Earl of see Manners, Roger

St Martin see Ré

St Paul’s 83, 88–9, 91

Salvador 137

Sandwich 2, 30

Savage, Sir Arthur 56

Savoy 35, 60, 110, 142

Savoy, Duke of see Charles Emmanuel I


Saxe-Weimar, Bernard 63

Saxony, Elector of see Johann Georg I

scepticism 74, 123, 125, 127, 153

Schomberg, Count Henri de 97, 110

Scotland 36, 38, 50

Scott, Th omas 31

Scudamore, John, Viscount Scudamore 12,

14, 17, 24, 73, 82, 85, 111, 119, 123,

135, 141, 143

Segar, Sir William 59, 65, 98

self-censorship 69, 72, 74, 144

separates 14–15, 18, 38, 54, 77, 80, 82–4,

92–3, 110

sermons 8, 31, 38, 40, 52, 67, 73, 112, 138

Seventeen Provinces see Netherlands

Sigismund III, King of Poland 134

Silesia 22–3, 40, 141

Sluys 118

sociability see credibility, sociable; news,

sociable

sociable exchange 3, 49, 51–3, 56, 74, 82

social authorship 52, 54, 56, 111

Somerset, Earl of see Carr, Robert

Somersetshire 71

Spain 10, 13, 17, 36, 42, 44, 53, 69, 72,

80–1, 85, 110, 112, 152

Spain, King of see Philip IV

Spanish Match 69

Spanish Netherlands 29, 43

Spectator 107

Spinola, Ambrosio, Marqués de los Balbases

2, 22, 28, 30–2, 68–9, 71, 79, 84, 90,

105, 107, 119, 135, 139–42

Stade 70

Staff ord, Edward, Baron Staff ord 38

Starkey, Ralph 82

State Papers Foreign (101) Newsletters 81,

124

Stationers’ Company 3, 36

Sterrell, William 38, 140

Steynings, Amias 51

Stoicism 68, 119

Stubbs, John 43, 46

Stukeley, Sir Lewis 56

Sturbridge 142

Stuteville, Sir Martin 12, 14, 17, 22, 40, 53,

64, 73, 86–7, 118–19, 140, 143, 146

Suckling, Sir John 111, 143

Suff olk 71

Sussex 71

Sweden 13, 110, 115, 128

Sweden, King of see Gustavus Adolphus

Switzerland 81

Taciteanism 108

Tatler 107

Taylor, John 8, 24, 89, 106

Terheyden 61

testimony 1, 15, 53, 55, 59, 62, 64, 77,

102–3, 107, 114, 118, 122

Texel 137

thanksgivings 2, 8, 27–31, 52, 67, 87, 114

Th érouanne 157

Th irty Years War (1618–48) 10, 13, 37, 42,

54–5, 110, 122

Th urn, Count Henry 27, 129, 141

Tilly, Count see Tserclaes, Johann

translation 12, 13, 17, 24, 39, 42, 85–6,

89–90, 100, 112, 114, 127, 133–4,

135–6, 138–9, 144, 146

travellers tales 11, 151–2

Trew, Margaret 55

Trew, Walter 55

Trumbull, William 81

trustworthiness see credibility

Tserclaes, Johann, Count Tilly 6, 23, 25, 29,

39, 62, 66, 69, 71, 74, 91, 98, 111, 114,

117, 119, 131, 141–3

Turin 138

Turkey 90, 141

Tweedy, Henry 112

Tyrconnell, Earl of see O’Donnell, Rory

United Provinces see Netherlands

Unton, Sir Henry 25, 35, 64–5, 73, 106, 116

Urban VIII, Pope 71

Vane, Sir Henry 60, 111

Vasto, Alfonso Avalos 85

Venice 9, 80, 129–30, 132

Venlo 116

Vere, Sir Edward 59, 62

Vere, Sir Francis 59, 137, 142

Vere, Sir Horatio 23, 59–60, 110, 117

verifi cation 10–11, 19, 53, 69, 77, 92, 96,

147

Index 235

Veseler, Joris 135

Vienna 13, 22, 24, 30, 66, 68, 87, 126–7,

129–30

Villiers, George, Duke of Buckingham 2, 39,

50, 64, 70–1, 74, 99, 137, 142, 146

Vilna 107

Vistula 118

wagers 2, 83–4

Wake, Sir Isaac 52

Wake, Lionel 84

Walkley, Th omas 50

Wallenstein, Albrecht von, Duke of Fried-

land 64, 71, 74, 143

Walsh, Sir Nicholas 62–3, 78

Walsingham, Sir Francis 23, 34, 45, 57, 72,

79–80, 117

Walsingham, Sir Philip 57

Watt, William 90, 129–30, 136, 148

Welles, Dr 24, 60, 101, 113

Wentworth, Sir Michael 61

Wentworth, Sir Th omas 61

Wentworth, Th omas, 1st Earl of Cleveland

51

Wesel 28–9, 64, 114, 118, 132

Westminster 25, 63, 80, 84, 143

Weston, Sir Richard 2

White, Andrew 158

White Mountain, Battle of 1, 24, 30, 40, 68

Whitehall 31

Whiteway, William 14, 16, 28, 31, 39, 41,

69, 74, 118, 141

Whyte, Rowland 37

Wight 71

William the Silent, Prince of Orange 41, 74

Williams, John, Bishop of Lincoln 2

Williams, Abraham 59, 62

Williams, Sir Roger 34, 117

Willoughby, John 50–1

Willoughby, Lord see Bertie, Peregrine;

Bertie, Robert

Wimpfen 90

Wingfi eld, Anthony 91, 98

Winiff e, Th omas 31

Winwood, Sir Ralph 41

Withers, Andrew 62, 64, 78, 108

witness, enemy 65, 113–14

Wittenberg 72

Wolfe, John 89

women 5, 51, 54–5, 58

Wotton, Sir Henry 14, 24–5, 30, 63, 68, 118

Wurtemberg 119

Yellow Ford, Battle of the 115

Yonge, Walter 14, 16, 39, 69, 74, 118, 141–2

Yorkshire 10

Youghall 62–3, 78

Zablati 114

Zara 9

Zealand 1, 28

Zimmerman, Hans 135

Zouch, Edward, Lord Zouch 25