Marchamont Nedham

Marchamont Nedham, also Marchmont and Needham (1620 – November 1678), was a journalist, publisher and pamphleteer during the English Civil War who wrote official news and propaganda for both sides of the conflict.

A "highly productive propagandist",^[1] he was significant in the evolution of early English journalism, and has been strikingly (if hyperbolically) called the "press agent" of Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell.^[2]

Early life

Nedham was raised by his mother, the innkeeper of The George Inn,

Reportedly Nedham obtained an audience with King Charles I, and gained a royal pardon. Despite his history of writing parliamentary propaganda, he was commissioned to print a Royalist periodical, Mercurius Pragmaticus, starting in September 1647 and continuing for two years. It has been claimed as "one of the wittier and less ephemeral" of the "Cavalier weeklies".^[6] Pragmaticus opened each issue with a satirical poem directed at various parliamentary figures and is notable for the quality of its sources. Nedham certainly didn't tone down any of the scandalous nature of his personal attacks, referring to Cromwell at various points as "Copper- Nose," "Nose Almighty," and "The Town-bull of Ely." Although he was responsible for the majority of issues, this particular newsbook was notable for the number of counterfeits that it inspired, with as many as 17 different versions available at various times. While some would have been created to trade off the name of the original to make money, there seems to be disagreement as to who owned the "true" Pragmaticus. It seems that some fellow royalists had never really accepted that Nedham had changed sides in good faith, calling him a "turne-coat and inveterate enemy to the late king."^[7] In this way they attempted to remove him from the paper.

Interregnum

Mercurius Politicus

The triumph of the

Politicus continued for the next decade, the term of the Commonwealth era, under alternative titles like the Public Intelligence or Public Intelligencer. In 1655 Cromwell rewarded Nedham with an official post, so that Nedham was then perceived as a spokesman for the regime, albeit under the editorial aegis of John Thurloe, spymaster of Cromwell.^[10]

With the royalist faction suppressed or in exile abroad, Nedham turned away from his previous scurrilous reporting and aimed to educate his readers in political principles of humanism and republicanism. As the early radicalism of the Commonwealth began to wane, the revolutionary ideas expressed in Politicus also softened, with a greater emphasis on the merit of a stable state. This did not mean that he did not on occasion criticise some of the conservative and authoritarian aspects of Cromwell's Protectorate and, like others, called for a return to more republican ideals. The newspaper was widely read in England and Europe amongst exiles and Europeans alike. Another significant innovation was the inclusion of regular advertising.

Nedham was associated with a set of influential republican writers of his generation, a circle that included Algernon Sidney, Henry Nevile, Thomas Chaloner, Henry Marten^[11] – and John Milton. Milton, as a secretary to the Council of State in the early 1650s, would have overseen Nedham's publishing activity; later, the two men reportedly became personal friends.^[12]

Nedham was notable as an advocate of the commercial interests of emerging capitalism in preference to the pillars of the older order. In 1652, he wrote that commercial interest "is the true zenith of every state and person...though clothed never so much with the specious disguise of religion, justice and necessity".^[13] Consistent with this outlook, Nedham translated John Selden's Mare Clausum (1636) as Of the Dominion or Ownership of the Sea (1652).

Restoration

Nedham predicted and wrote pamphlets agitating against the

the design of this pamphlet being to undeceive the people, it must be written in a jocular way, or else it will never be cried up: for those truths which the multitude regard not in a serious dress, being represented in pleasing popular airs, make music to the common sense, and charm the fancy, which ever sways the sceptre in vulgar judgement, much more than reason.

Machiavelli

to compare the motivations for each side's actions and predicting the ensuing political climate. He pioneered this kind of analysis of an ongoing event and used it to determine his own stance

Character assessment

Nedham's political reversals were depicted as dishonest; but he seems to have regarded religious toleration, usually advocated by the king's party, as the best way to cure the political problems of the times.

Whigs.^[17]

In the 18th century, Nedham's theories of republicanism were severely criticised by American Founding Father John Adams in the third volume of his A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America (1787–88).^[18]

In the next century, Nedham's name was used as a pseudonym by other republican political writers; both John Adams and Josiah Quincy Jr. published pieces signed "Marchmont Nedham" in the early 1770s.^[19]

Nedham's later reputation was coloured by the apparent cynicism and opportunism of his wavering allegiances, and by hostility towards his republicanism from subsequent generations of English critics. Yet even some hostile critics have conceded his literary talent and his influence. Sympathetic modern commentator Paul Rahe has called Nedham "the world's first great journalist".^[20]

Selected works by Nedham

• The Levellers Levell'd, 1647
• The Case of the Commonwealth of England Stated, 1650
• The Excellencie of a Free-State 1656
• A Short History of the English Rebellion, 1661
• A Discourse Concerning Schools and Schoolmasters, 1663

Notes

1. ^ Baldwin, Geoff (2000), "The 'public' as a rhetorical community in early modern England", in Shepard, Alexandra; Withington, Phil (eds.), Communities in Early Modern England: Networks, Place, Rhetoric, Manchester University Press, p. 207
2. ^ Frank, Joseph (1980), Cromwell's Press Agent: A Critical Biography of Marchmont Nedham, 1620–78, Lanham, MD: University Press of America^{[page needed]}
3. ^
   ISBN 9780199560608
   .
4. ^ "Biography of Marchamont Nedham". bcw-project.org. Retrieved 3 February 2016.
5. ^ Nedham, Marchamont (10 October 1643). "Mercurius Britanicus".
6. JSTOR 2708343
   see p. 595.
7. ^ Anon (8 May 1649). "Mercurius Pragmaticus for King Charles II" – via EBBO.
8. ^ Anthony 1966, pp. 595–6.
9. ^ Franklin, J. (2001), The Science of Conjecture: Evidence and Probability Before Pascal, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, p. 82
10. ^ "Biography of John Thurloe". bcw-project.org. Retrieved 3 February 2016.
11. ^ Susan Wiseman, Drama and Politics in the English Civil War, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1998; p. 71.
12. ^ Anthony 1966, pp. 593–4.
13. ^ The Case Stated Between England and the United Provinces; quoted in: Knights, Mark (2005), Representation and Misrepresentation in Later Stuart Britain: Partisanship and Political Culture, Oxford University Press, p. 351
14. ^ ^{a b} "ProQuest | Better research, better learning, better insights".
15. ^ "ProQuest | Better research, better learning, better insights".
16. ISBN 0819111937
    .
17. ^ Hill, Christopher, The Experience of Defeat (1984), London: Faber and Faber, p20
18. OL 7065581M
    .
19. ISBN 9781317403371
    .
20. ^ "Wayback Machine has not archived that URL". CBSi. Retrieved 29 September 2023 – via Find Articles.^{[dead link]}

References

Wikisource has the text of the 1885–1900 Dictionary of National Biography's article about Needham, Marchamont.

• Drabble, Margaret (1997). The Oxford Companion to English Literature. London: Oxford University Press.
• Raymond, Joad (2004). "Nedham , Marchamont (bap. 1620, d. 1678)".
  doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/19847. (Subscription or UK public library membership
  required.)