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John Crouch: a royalist journalist in Cromwellian England

2004; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 10; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/1368880042000311519

1469-9729

Jason McElligott,

Scottish History and National Identity

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes Correspondence: Dr Jason McElligott, IRCHSS Postdoctoral Fellow, School of History, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland. E‐mail: jason.mcelligott@ucd.ie * I would like to thank John Morrill, Kevin Sharpe, David L. Smith and Anne Marie O'Connor for their comments on various drafts of this article. The research for this paper could not have been completed without the generosity of the British Council in Dublin, which awarded me a Chevening Scholarship for 1997–99, and the National University of Ireland, which elected me to the Travelling Studentship in History. I also gratefully acknowledge the Master and Fellows of St John's College, Cambridge, and the electors to the Robert Gardiner Memorial Scholarship. I am indebted to the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences (IRCHSS) for electing me to a Post‐Doctoral Fellowship for 2003‐5. S.R. Gardiner, History of the Commonwealth and Protectorate, 4 vols (London, 1988 edn), vol. II, 83; J.B. Williams, A History of English Journalism to the Foundation of the Gazette (London, 1908), 145; Hyder E. Rollins, Cavalier and Puritan: ballads and broadsides illustrating the period of the Great Rebellion, 1640–1660 (New York, 1923), 58; W.M. Clyde, Freedom of the Press in England from Caxton to Cromwell (New York, 1934), 215; Joseph Frank, The Beginnings of the English Newspaper, 1620–1660 (Cambridge, MA, 1961), 230. David Underdown, 'The Man in the Moon: loyalty and libel in popular politics, 1640–1660', in A Freeborn People: politics and the nation in seventeenth‐century England (Oxford, 1996), 90–111; Marie Gimmelfarb‐Brack, Liberte´, Egalite´, Fraternite´, Justice! La vie et l'oeuvre de Richard Overton, Niveleur (Berne, 1979), 282; Lois Potter, Secret Rites and Secret Writing: royalist literature, 1641–1660 (Cambridge, 1989), xiv; Joad Raymond, Making the News: an anthology of the newsbooks of revolutionary England, 1641–1660 (Gloucestershire, 1993), 20; Robert Wilcher, The Writing of Royalism, 1628–1660 (Cambridge, 2001); James Loxley, Royalism and Poetry in the English Civil Wars: the drawn sword (London, 1997). The Man in the Moon, no. 11 (20–27 June 1649), 94; J.A.W. Bennett (edited and compiled by Douglas Gray), Middle English Literature, 1100–1400, in John Buxton, Norman Davis, Bonamy Dobree and F.P. Wilson, eds, The Oxford History of English Literature (Oxford, 1986), vol. I, 21–22; J.A.W. Bennett and G.V. Smithers, eds, Early Middle English Verse and Prose, 2nd edn (Oxford, 1968), 127–28. Alfred Harbage, Annals of English Drama, 975–1700: an analytical record of all plays, extant or lost, chronologically arranged and indexed by authors, titles, dramatic companies &c. (3rd edn, 1989, revised by Sylvia Stoler Wagonheim); The Man in the Moon Drinks Claret: as it was lately sung at the Curtain Holy wel to the same tune (1658–1664); A New Mad Tom of Bedlam, or, The Man in the Moon Drinks Claret: with powder beef turnip and caret (1690). Samuel Rowlands, The Complete Works of Samuel Rowlands, 1598–1628, 3 vols (Glasgow, 1880). D.F. MacKenzie, Stationers' Company Apprentices, 1605–1640 (Virginia, 1961), 115. On 3 October 1642 he bound an apprentice named George Crouch from Ware Westmill in Hertfordshire. This young man was freed on 12 November 1649. In August 1644 John was among 251 members of the Stationers' Company who protested against the importation of bibles from abroad. See D.F. McKenzie, Stationers' Company Apprentices, 1641–1700 (Oxford, 1974), 42 and Stationers' Company MS 'Liber A', 19 August 1644, fo. 150. Man in the Moon, no. 6 (14–21 May 1649), 56. Man in the Moon, no. 27 (24–31 October 1649), 225; David Underdown, 'Man in the Moon', 90–111. On 18 November 1648 his involvement with these pamphlets led the Commons to order its Committee on Printing to question him concerning 'divers scandalous pamphlets' (see Commons Journals, vi, 80). There is no information as to what action, if any, the Committee took against him on this occasion. He may have escaped any punishment, but if he was fined or briefly imprisoned for his actions it evidently did not succeed in persuading him to desist from producing royalist propaganda. W.M. Clyde, Freedom of the Press, 183; Man in the Moon, no. 2 (16–23 April 1649), 10. Man in the Moon, no. 43 (13–20 February 1650), 343. Mercurius Pragmaticus, no. 1 (28 March–4 April 1648), sig. A1r‐v. Man in the Moon, no. 57 (29 May–5 June 1650), 430–31. See 'An Act Declaring what Offences shall be Adjudged Treason' [14 May 1649], in C.H. Firth, ed., Acts and Ordinances of the Interregnum, 1642–1660, 3 vols (London, 1911), vol. ii, 120–21, 193–94. National Archives, State Papers (SP) 25/64/416; CJ, vi, 293, 11 September 1649. For more on Henry Marten see C.M. Williams, 'The Anatomy of a Radical Gentleman: Henry Marten', in Donald Pennington and Keith Thomas, eds, Puritans and Revolutionaries: essays in seventeenth‐century history presented to Christopher Hill (Oxford, 1978), 118–38; Susan Wiseman, '"Adam, the Father of all Flesh": porno‐political rhetoric and political theory in and after the English Civil War', in James Holstun, ed., Pamphlet Wars: prose in the English Revolution (London, 1992), 134–57; for an unsuccessful attempt to revise Marten's unsavoury reputation see Sarah Barber, A Revolutionary Rogue: Henry Marten and the immoral English Republic (London, 2000). David Underdown, 'The Man in the Moon', 90–111; Bob Scribner, For the Sake of Simple Folk: popular propaganda for the German reformation (Cambridge, 1981), 81; Pauline Croft, 'The Reputation of Robert Cecil: libels, political opinion and popular awareness in the early seventeenth century', Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th ser., 1 (1993), 43–69; Benne Klaas Faber, The poetics of subversion and conservatism: popular satire, c.1640–c.1649, DPhil thesis (Oxford, 1992), 28–30, 69, 79, 185–86, 190–91. Man in the Moon, unnumbered (16 April 1649), 3. Man in the Moon, no. 18 (15–23 August 1649), 147–48; no. 40 (23–31 January 1650), 319. Man in the Moon, no. 41 (30 January–6 February 1650), 322. Man in the Moon, no. 16 (1–8 August 1649), 138; no. 55 (8–23 May 1650), 410. Man in the Moon, no. 18 (15–23 August 1649), 153. Man in the Moon, no. 8 (28 May–5 June 1649), 70–71. Man in the Moon, no. 28 (31 October–7 November 1649), 228–29. Man in the Moon, no. 57 (29 May–5 June 1650), 228 [sic]. Man in the Moon, no. 30 (14–21 November 1649), 141 [sic]; no. 57 (29 May–5 June 1650), 229 [sic]. Man in the Moon, no. 9 (5–13 June 1649), 77. Man in the Moon, no. 4 (30 April–7 May 1649), 26; no. 14 (11–25 July 1649), 118. Man in the Moon, no. 14 (11–25 July 1649), 115. Man in the Moon, no. 22 (12–19 September 1649), 183. SP 25/63/395. SP 25/63/401; SP 25/63/420. An obvious candidate for involvement with The Man in the Moon during this period is the George Crouch (probably a relation) who was bound as an apprentice to John Crouch between 1642 and late 1649. See McKenzie, Stationers' Company Apprentices, 1641–1700, 42. Man in the Moon, no. 43 (13–20 February 1650), 342; no. 48 (13–20 March 1650), 374. SP 25/24/28‐9. Frank, English Newspaper, 354; Samuel Sheppard, The Weepers. Or, The bed of snakes broken ([13 September] 1652), 10. Man in the Moon, no. 27 (24–31 October 1649), 206 [sic]; Mercurius Bellonius, no. 2 (9–16 February 1652), 10–15; Bellonius, no. 3 (18–25 February 1652), 23. Man in the Moon, no. 48 (13–20 March 1650), 371. Man in the Moon, no. 29 (7–14 November 1649), 227–28. Man in the Moon, no. 24 (26 September–10 October 1649), 199. David Underdown, Royalist Conspiracy in England, 46. Paul H. Hardacre, The Royalists during the Puritan Revolution (The Hague, 1956), 64–85. C.H. Firth and R.S. Rait, eds, Acts and Ordinances of the Interregnum, 1642–1660, 3 vols (London, 1911), vol. II, 565–77; Hardacre, Royalists, 108. The question naturally arises as to why only four issues of this title ever appeared. It may be that Bellonius was found to be unprofitable, or it may have been suppressed after it carried a number of articles which may have been interpreted as criticisms of the regime's attitude to the poor, or favourable to the recently exiled former Leveller leader, John Lilburne (see Mercurius Bellonius, no. 2 (9–16 February 1652), 13). There may, however, be a much simpler explanation for the discontinuation of this title: whoever persuaded Crouch to write Bellonius was almost certainly aware of his previous allegiances and may have calculated that these few issues were enough to have tarnished his reputation with the royalists and to have demoralized anyone who had looked to him as a source of inspiration and resistance in 1649 and 1650. H.R. Plomer, A Dictionary of the Printers Who were at Work in England, Scotland and Ireland between 1641 and 1667 (London, 1907), 58. Mercurius Heraclitus, no. 1 (28 June 1652), 3; no. 3 (5–12 July 1652), 20. Heraclitus, no. 3 (5–12 July 1652), 8. The Laughing Mercury, no. 29 (20–27 October 1652), 24; Democritus, no. 4 (20–28 April 1652), 26; no. 12 (16–23 June 1652), 92; Democritus, no. 12 (16–23 June 1652), 90. W.M. Clyde, Freedom of the Press, 215. Joseph Frank, English Newspaper, 230. Joad Raymond, Making the News, 20. Robert Wilcher, The Writing of Royalism, 1628–1660, 308–23; David L. Smith, Constitutional Royalism and the Search for Settlement, c.1640–1649 (Cambridge, 1994), 259. David L. Smith, Constitutional Royalism, 259–89; Raymond A. Anselment, Loyalist Resolve: patient fortitude in the English Civil War (Cranbury, NJ, 1988); Timothy Raylor, Cavaliers, Clubs and Literary Culture: Sir John Mennes, James Smith, and the Order of the Fancy (Cranbury, NJ, 1994), 191–92, 197, 205; James Loxley, Royalism and Poetry, 192–241. Democritus, no. 33 (17–24 November 1652), 260. Laughing Mercury, no. 26 (29 September–6 October 1652), 202. Democritus, no. 38 (22–29 December 1652), 304. Democritus, no. 34 (24 November–1 December 1652), 265–66. Democritus, no. 35 (1–8 December 1652), 273. Democritus, no. 31 (3–10 November 1652), 243, SP 25/34/41. Democritus, no. 38 (22–29 December 1652), 243. Democritus, no. 44 (9–16 February 1653), 438–49. Democritus, no. 45 (16–23 February 1653), 353. Fumigosus, no. 18 (27 September–4 October 1654), 161. Democritus, no. 73 (14–21 September 1653), 583; Plomer, Dictionary, 135. Democritus, no. 72 (7–14 September 1653), 569. Ibid., 446–47. Mercurius Fumigosus, no. 1 (7 June 1644 [i.e. 1654]), 1. Fumigosus, no. 5 (28 June–5 July 1654), 34–35. Underdown, Royalist Conspiracy, 55, 98–101. Fumigosus, no. 6 (5–12 July 1654), 46. Another example of Crouch's recantation is afforded by the execution of a Leveller named Humphrey Marston in August 1654 for the murder of two messengers of the Council of State almost 4 years previously. Crouch, in his previous incarnation as The Man in the Moon, had praised Marston's action. After Marston's execution, however, Crouch gave an unfavourable account of his final moments which concluded with the words, 'he hath answered with his life; a sad example for all murderers'. Contrast Man in the Moon, no. 46 (6–13 March 1650), 364 with Fumigosus, no. 12 (16–23 August 1654), 108. Underdown, Royalist Conspiracy, 109–29. Fumigosus, no. 32 (3–10 January 1655), 249–50. Fumigosus, no. 42 (14–21 March 1655), 330. Fumigosus, no. 51 (16–23 May 1655), 403. Fumigosus, no. 70 (19 September–3 October 1655), 547. Plomer, Dictionary, 58. Democritus, no. 1 (3–10 May 1659), 1. Democritus, no. 13 (10–16 August 1659), 99, 102; Democritus in querpo, no. 9 (14 June–8 July 1659), 78. Democritus, no. 5 (31 May–7 June 1659), 40. Democritus in querpo, no. 9 (14 June–8 July 1659), 72. John Crouch, Democritus turned Statesman. Or, Twenty queries between jest and earnest, proposed to all true‐hearted Englishmen (1659), in Harleian Miscellany, VII (1810), 82–86. Democritus, no. 10 (1–9 June 1652), 76. Man in the Moon, no. 25 (10–17 October 1649), 209–10. Democritus, no. 47 (2–9 March 1653), 371; Democritus, no. 52 (13–20 April 1653), 411. Democritus, no. 7 [sic] (7–14 July 1659), 42; John Crouch, A Mixt Poem Partly Historicall, Partly Panegyricall upon the Happy Return of His Sacred Majesty Charls the Second (1660), 3. Fumigosus, no. 1 (28 March 1660), 8. John Crouch, A Mixt Poem, 8. Man in the Moon, no. 3 (8 October 1660), 18; no. 4 (26 November 1660), 31; Fumigosus, no. 7 (11 July 1660), 49–52. Man in the Moon, no. 2 (1 October 1660), 14. John Crouch, A Mixt Poem, 2. Man in the Moon, no. 1 (13–20 August 1660), 5. John Crouch, Census Poeticus. The poets tribute paid in eight loyal poems (1663), sig. A6; John Crouch, A Mixt Poem, 2.