CHAPTER IV. THE PRESS OF THE COMMONWEALTH, THE RESTORATION, AND THE REVOLUTION. "This is true liberty, when free-born men, EURIP. Hicetid. in Areopagitica. Bacon and Sir Lionel Cranfield.-The Long Parliament and the Press.— Ordinances.-Milton's Plea for Unlicensed Printing.-The Restoration shackles the Press.-Trial and Fate of Twyn.-L'Estrange the Censor and Editor.-The London Gazette appears.-The Revolution of 1688. ACON, after he was sentenced in Parliament, BACON met Sir Lionel Cranfield, whom King James had then just made Lord Treasurer. The disgraced philosopher, having first congratulated the newlyappointed dignitary on his advancement to so eminent a place of honour and trust, says Petyt,* told him, between jest and earnest, that he would recommend to his Lordship, and in him to all other great officers of the Crown, one considerable rule, to be carefully observed, which was, to Remember a Parliament will come. Was this only a friendly warning to the newlyinstalled minister to avoid the shoals of corruption * Miscellanea Parliamentaria. Lond., 1680. Preface. THE LONG PARLIAMENT AND THE PRESS. 117 upon which his own bark had been wrecked? Or did the author of the Organon see into the future, when the people should seize the reigns of power, to correct abuses which kings refused to reform ? Certain it is, that the prophetic words of the disgraced philosopher gained strange significance by the progress of subsequent events. A Parliament did come, and it gave the nation an account of its stewardship; but though it continued to state its affairs openly so long as it had power, yet it betrayed at times a morbid sensibility when its conduct was attacked. Hence a number of ordinances for the regulation of printers and printing, and for the control of the issue of the very reports which this Parliament was the first to permit. A Committee of the House of Commons had been appointed, in February, 1640, "to consider and examine all abuses of printing, licensing, importing, and suppressing books of all sorts;" and, in the May of the following year, a committee was named to consider the printing of speeches.* This was only the commencement of a series of steps on the subject, which had in view the suppression of such publications as were thought objectionable. Nor did the members who had the courage to show a bold front to their King, hesitate to act very summarily on any of their own body who gave cause of offence. An instance of this occurred in the case of Sir E. Dering, who, on the 2nd of February, 1641, was expelled from the House of Commons, by a vote of that assembly, for printing his speeches. These publi * Journ. Ho. Comm., Vol. II. cations were also ordered to be burnt by the common hangman in Westminster, Cheapside, and Smithfield. Sir Edward was brought to the bar of the Commons, where he knelt whilst the Speaker pronounced his He was then ordered into custody, and was imprisoned in the Tower, but was discharged a few days afterwards. sentence. It was thus shown that, whilst the Parliament were willing enough to admit the general right of the people to printed information of public affairs, they were yet ready enough to exercise the power in their hands, as such power had customarily been used, for the purpose of crushing the manifestation of any spirit regarded as especially dangerous to their authority. Still the press went on enlarging the field of its power and extending its influence. The Newspapers from time to time gave bold utterance to popular thoughts, and had a strong tendency to tell unpalateable truths. The increase of this temper, by the middle of the succeeding year, gave rise to another order of the House of Commons, dated June 14, 1642, “for preventing the printing and publishing of any scandalous or libellous pamphlets that may reflect upon the King or the Kingdom, the Parliament or Scotland, and for suppressing of such as have already been printed." The Diurnals that first told of Parliamentary doings appeared with an imprint, simply giving the names of those who printed and offered the sheets to the public. It was apparently an open trade for those who chose to embark in it; but these orders upon the subject of printing soon effected a change in this, and we begin to find "authorities" appended to various publications. Thus, in this same year, 1642, the Commons ordered the speech of Mr. Hollis, on impeaching the nine Lords at York, to be printed by some one appointed by him; and we see in the title of the pamphlet the formal words, "I appoint that none shall print this but Thomas Underhill, Denzil Hollis." The "True Diurnal" of Parliamentary proceedings also displays the signature "Io. Browne, Cler. Parliamentor." But types and presses had been unshackled, and they increased; and now it became day by day more difficult, amid the struggle of parties, to prevent the printing of what the belligerents were anxious the people should see and consider. The special wrath of the Parliament was directed against what they chose to regard as irreligious publications; and we find the men who smarted under the intolerant tyranny of the Star Chamber, when that Court attempted to suppress attacks on Prelacy, inclined to be almost equally intolerant when any writer's productions were thought to be injurious to the Puritan cause. There are bigots in infidelity as well as bigots in faith, and proofs of this tendency to intolerant temper were shown in the Long Parliament. On the 5th of May, 1643, an order of Parliament was made,* "that the book, enjoining and tolerating of Sports upon the Lord's day, be forthwith burnt by the hands of the common hangman in Cheapside and other usual places." The sheriffs of London and Middlesex were to attend and see this order duly executed, and all persons who had any of the denounced books were ordered "to bring them to one of the sheriffs for their utter destruction." *Parl. Hist., Vol. III., p. 114. But still on, on went the writers and the printers, and still hotter and hotter became the battle fought through the press. Only a month after the Book of Sports had helped to raise the hangman's fire in Smithfield, and had been burnt for the edification of the prentices of Cheapside, the Parliament was again compelled to resort to an ordinance still more stringent than those which had preceded it. The liberty of the press, says the Parliamentary historian,* "having of late been very grevious," the Commons passed an ordinance to restrain it, and to strengthen some former orders made for that purpose. The preamble to this ordinance sets forth: "That whereas divers good orders have been lately made, by both Houses of Parliament, for suppressing the great abuses and frequent disorders in printing many false, forged, scandalous, seditious, libellous, and unlicensed papers, pamphlets, and books to the great defamation of religion and government; which have taken little or no effect, by reason the bill in preparation, for redress of the said disorders, hath hitherto been retarded: and that through the present distractions, very many persons, as well stationers and printers, as others of sundry other professions, have taken upon them to set up private printing presses in corners; and to print, vend, publish, and disperse books, pamphlets and papers, in such multitudes, that no industry could be sufficient to discover or bring to punishment all the several abounding delinquents: therefore," &c. The most material clauses are these :-"That no Order or Declaration of either House shall be printed without order of one or both the said Houses; nor any other book, pamphlet, paper, nor part of any such book, pamphlet, or paper, shall from henceforth be printed, bound, stitched, or put out to sale, by any person or persons whatsoever, unless the same be first approved and licensed under the hands of such persons as both, or either, of the said * Parl. Hist., Vol. III., p. 131. |