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The burning of the Book of Sports at the site of Cheapside Cross

In the space of a few weeks in late spring and early summer Parliament had accepted the Weekly Assessment and Sequestration ordinances, and given serious consideration to an excise. These were no longer measures to defend the country from the innovations of the Personal Rule, but measures necessary to support Parliament in defensive arms – a case made at some length by Husbands” collection of declarations. But it was also a war in defence of the Reformation, something now given clearer official licence and put in the hands of committees. This pre-empted but did not defeat the polemical counter-case, that this was an ignorant zeal, associated with religious and social disorder. This debate about discipline centred on church government, which remained a potentially divisive issue within the parliamentary coalition – defined in these terms more by anti-episcopal views than by a positive vision of the proper constitution of the church. Progress on images and the Word avoided saying anything much about what changes in church government were necessary for the promotion of reformation – for the early reformers the Word and the sacraments had been the priority. But this remained an uneasy truce. Mechanic preachers and sectarians were no more welcome to Presbyterians than bishops.

Further reformation was the justification for vigorous military action by Parliament in defensive arms. But this identified the parliamentary cause ever more clearly with religious and constitutional innovation. Neither were these things abstract questions – they resonated deeply in parish conflicts about religious practice and in the material demands the war was now making. An increasingly clear identity as ‘well-affected’ took shape amongst those raising money, purging churches and ejecting scandalous ministers, in contrast to those identified as ‘malignants’.47 The royalists picked at these problems very effectively. Early in January, Mercurius Aulicus, a royalist newsbook, had begun to appear in Oxford. Authorized by the King himself, it represented quite a change of posture since the 1630s. The first editor, Peter Heylin, was succeeded by Sir John Berkenhead, but the approach was fairly consistent. It was written in a relatively plain style, but with substantial editorial comment, much of it bitingly satirical, and it was clearly intended as a counter-blast to the parliamentary press in London. It affected a higher literary style than the ‘Puritan’ papers and was also better produced. It asserted, in other words, the literary and cultural superiority of the royalist cause.48 In May, perhaps prompted by the new wave of iconoclasm, a second and equally scabrous newsbook appeared: Mercurius Rusticus, subtitled The Countries Complaint of the barbarous Outrages committed by the sectaries of this late flourishing kingdom.49 Much of the coverage was retrospective, and the first issue opened with the Stour Valley riots of August 1642. Eventually, it gave a very full catalogue of the depredations of crowds and soldiers, and of iconoclasm. Separate editions were produced covering attacks on the cathedrals and universities. It has proved an attractive source for subsequent generations, and it is unlikely that much of it was completely invented, but there was a consistent polemical purpose.

Bruno Ryves, the editor of Mercurius Rusticus, reported on the actions of parliamentarian soldiers, crowds and religious radicals, juxtaposing their behaviour with their claim to be acting to preserve religion and liberty. The detail was often significant in these narratives: for example, soldiers were frequently said to have entered houses by the window, having failed to secure access by the door. In common law this made entry necessarily forced and therefore felonious. Servants frequently appear loyally defending their master’s interests, their loyalty and deference a sharp contrast with the fury of their attackers. Women and children