God's Fury, England's Fire_ A New History of the English Civil Wars - Michael J. Braddick [34]
These news pamphlets fed, and fed upon, what was pretty clearly a growing appetite for news, fuelled by rumour and circulating manuscripts as well as print. This caused unease among the country’s governors, but the circulation of news was restrained rather than controlled. Semi-regular news pamphlets, the ‘corantos’ (the name is related to courant), appeared in the 1620s. Forerunners of the later newsbooks, they published news of European affairs, respecting the ban on domestic news but still causing enough concern for them to be closed down during the 1630s. An unfulfilled appetite existed, and reliable news (and reliable guidance as to its meaning) was at a premium, even for those who could pay around £20 a year for the services of a manuscript newsletter writer. For governments the destabilizing effects of the news culture lay partly in the danger of misinformation – ill-founded rumours had played a part in riot and rebellion – and their solution was to try to stop the circulation of news rather than to improve its quality. When governments sought to regulate information, therefore, they were not simply seeking to safeguard hierarchy. It was a losing battle however: it is clear that comment on public affairs was opinionated, common and widely circulated. Libels and seditious verses, penned in response to particular incidents or personalities, circulated in manuscript copies, and news spread orally with the passage of trade around the country. Alehouses and taverns were often alive with the buzz of news.45
In all this represented an increasingly sophisticated print market, reaching a wide section of the population directly, and much of it intended to be passed on to the non-literate by being read out or sung. Official publications circulated too, pasted up or fixed to posts in prominent places – the marketplace or the porch of the church. They could be deciphered by the literate for their neighbours, reaching into every corner of the kingdom. Oral and literate forms of communication overlapped and informed one another – print seeping into networks of gossip and rumour, rumours and stories finding their way into print from these conversations.46 Central to this world of opinion was religious and political awareness, often attached to critical views of particular events or personalities.
The Royal Exchange in 1644: a centre of trade, gossip and news
The royal court was the nerve centre of the political system, the seat of royal patronage and the place at which the fortunes of particular views of church, state and foreign policy were most easily to be followed. Here was another source of the hostility to Buckingham – he had managed to become a favourite both of the old king and of the new, so that those who had hoped he would fall with the death of the father were disappointed. In fact, there was a persistent rumour that the change of master had been facilitated by the poisoning of James I, arranged by Buckingham and even, perhaps, connived at by Charles. At court in the later 1620s ‘new counsels’ were increasingly influential, advising against participation in the European war, advocating support of Laud and the anti-Calvinists, very hostile to ‘popularity’ and in favour of avoiding parliaments. These voices did not have a monopoly at court, but they were increasingly powerful.47
Parliaments, presses and crowds offered opportunities to try to pressure the royal court, the affairs of which were a frequent topic of public comment. Periodically since the reign of Elizabeth prominent politicians, including courtiers, had appealed to wider publics, often presenting current political issues