The Stationers’ Registers contain an entry on May 18th of A Currant of generall newes. Dated in 14th May last; no copy of this issue is preserved, but what is presumably the next number is to be found in the Burney collection. It is entitled “The 23rd of May—The Weekely Newes from Italy, Germany, &c., London, printed by J. D. for Nicholas Bourne and Thomas Archer.” On many subsequent numbers the name of Nathaniel Butter appears in connexion sometimes with Bourne and sometimes with Archer; so that there was probably an eventual partnership in the new undertaking. Archer is known as a publisher of “relations” since 1603; he died in 1634. Butter had published Newes from Spaine in 1611, and he continued to be a publisher of news until 1641, if not later,[1] and died in 1664.
For details of the history of the development of the news-book down to 1641, and thence to the starting of the London Gazette in 1665, reference should be made to Mr J. B. Williams’s History of English Journalism (1908), already referred to. Mr Williams, by his study of the materials preserved in the British Museum in the Burney and Thomason[2] collections, has considerably modified many of the previously accepted views as to the affiliation and authorship of these early English periodicals. The leading facts can only be summarized here.
The Weekely Newes (1622), though the first English “Coranto,” had no regular title connecting one number with the rest; it was simply the news of the week, and so described. The first periodical with a title was a Mercurius Britannicus published by Archer (1625; the earliest copy in existence being No. 16, April 7th), which probably lasted till the end of 1627. But the activity of the Coranto-makers was checked by the Star Chamber edict in 1632 against the printing of news from foreign parts. The next step in the evolution of the newspaper was due to the abolition of the Star Chamber in 1641, and the consequent freeing of the Press; and at last we come to the English periodical with domestic news. In November 1641 begins The Head of severall proceedings in the present parliament (outside title) or Diurnal Occurrences (inside title), the latter being the title under which it was soon known as a weekly; and on Jan. 31st 1642 appeared A Perfect Diurnal of the Passages in Parliament. These were printed for William Cooke, and were written apparently by Samuel Pecke, “the first of the patriarchs of English domestic journalism” (Williams). It is unnecessary here to mention every domestic journal which played its part in the verbal warfare in the Great Rebellion. The weekly Diurnals were soon copied by other booksellers. At first they were naturally on the side of the parliament. In January 1643, however, appeared at Oxford the first Royalist diurnal, named Mercurius Aulicus (continued till September 1645, and soon succeeded by Mercurius Academicus), which struck a higher literary note; its chief writer was Sir John Birkenhead. Mercurius Civicus, the first regularly illustrated periodical in London, was started by the parliamentarian Richard Collings on May 11th, 1643 (continued to December 1646); Collings had also started earlier in the year the Kingdome’s Weekly Intelligencer, which lasted till October 1649. In September 1643 appeared another Puritan opponent of M. Aulicus in the Mercurius Britanicus (sic) of Captain Thomas Audley, which temporarily ceased publication on September 9th, 1644, only to be revived on September 30th by Marchamont (or Marchmont) Nedham, a writer who plays a prominent part in the journalism of this period, and to be continued till May 18th 1646.
In January 1647 was started the Perfect Occurrences by Henry Walker (“Luke Harruney”), who was not only a great journalist on the parliamentary side but is important as having originated the introduction of advertisements into the news-books. Later in the year a number of new Royalist Mercuries came into the field from which Aulicus and Academicus had now withdrawn: the first was Mercuricus Melancholicus (until 1649), and the most important were Mercurius Pragmaticus (Sept. 1647 to May 1650) and Mercuricus Elencticus (Nov. 1647 to Nov. 1649). M. Pragmaticus was not, as has been stated, originated by Marchamont Nedham (who about this time turned his coat and became Royalist), but in 1648–1649 he was its writer until he again turned parliamentarian; “history,” says Mr Williams, “has no personage so shamelessly cynical as Marchamont Nedham, with his powerful pen and his political convictions ever ready to be enlisted on the side of the highest bidder; he even wrote for Charles II. in later years.” Against the unlicensed Royalist Mercuries in London, where the people were on the king’s side, the parliament waged active war, but some of them managed to come out, although writer after writer was imprisoned, until the middle of 1650. Meanwhile from October 1649 to June 1650, by a new act of parliament, the licensed press itself was entirely suppressed, and in 1649 two official journals were issued, A Brief Relation (up to October 1650) and Severall Proceedings in Parliament (till September 1655), a third licensed periodical, A Perfect Diurnall (till September 1655), being added later in the year, and a fourth, Mercurius Politicus (of which Milton was the editor for a year or so and Marchamont Nedham one of the principal writers), starting on June 13th, 1650 (continuing till April 12th, 1660). After the middle of 1650 there was a revival of some of the older licensed news-books; but the Weekly Intelligence of the Commonwealth (July 1650 to September 1655), by R. Collings, was the only important newcomer up to September 1655, when Cromwell suppressed all such publications with the exception of Mercurius Politicus and the Publick Intelligencer (October 1655 to April 1660), both being official and conducted by Marchamont Nedham.
Till Cromwell’s death (Sept. 3rd. 1658) Nedham reigned alone in the press, but with the Rump he fell into disgrace, and in 1659 a rival appeared in Henry Muddiman (a great writer also of “news-letters”), whose Parliamentary Intelligencer, renamed the Kingdom’s Intelligencer (till August 1663), was supported by General Monck. Nedham’s journalistic career came finally to an end (he died in 1678) at the hand of Monck’s council of state in April 1660. The following announcement was published in the Parliamentary Intelligencer: “Whereas Marchmont Nedham, the author of the weekly news-books called Mercurius Politicus and the Publique Intelligencer is, by order of the council of state, discharged from writing or publishing any publique intelligence; the reader is desired to take notice that, by order of the said council, Giles Dury and Henry Muddiman are authorized henceforth to write and publish the said intelligence, the one upon the Thursday and the other upon the Monday, which they do intend to set out under the titles of the Parliamentary Intelligencer and of Mercurius Publicus.” This arrangement with Muddiman lasted till 1663, when he was supplanted by Sir Roger L’Estrange, who was appointed “surveyor of the Press.” On him was conferred by royal grant—and, as it proved, for only a short period—“all the sole privilege of writing, printing, and publishing all narratives, advertisements, mercuries, intelligencers, diurnals and other books of public intelligence; . . . with power to search for and seize the unlicensed and treasonable schismatical and scandalous books and papers.” L’Estrange discontinued Mercurius Politicus and Kingdom’s Intelligencer and substituted two papers, the Intelligencer (Aug. 1st) and the Newes (Sept. 3rd) at a halfpenny, the former on Mondays and the latter on Thursdays; they were continued till January 29th, 1666, but from the beginning of 1664 the Intelligencer was made consecutive with the Newes, numbered and paged as one.
We come now to the origin of the famous London Gazette. Muddiman, obliged to devote himself solely to his news-letters, was associated with Joseph Williamson (under-secretary and afterwards secretary of state), who was for a time L’Estrange’s
- ↑ It is to him that a passage in Fletcher’s Fair Maid of the Inn (Act iv. Sc. 2) obviously refers (written in 1625): “It shall be the ghost of some lying stationer. A spirit shall look as if butter would not melt in his mouth; a new Mercurius Gallo-Belgicus.” The quotation also illustrates the contemporary regard paid to the Mercurius Gallobelgicus.
- ↑ George Thomason (d. 1666) was a London bookseller who in 1641 began collecting contemporary pamphlets, &c. His collection was ultimately bought by George III. and presented to the British Museum in 1762. A catalogue was completed in 1908, with introduction by Dr G. K. Fortescue. There is also a catalogue of early English newspapers in the Bibliotheca Lindesiana, Collections and Notes No. 5, of Lord Crawford (1901).
