Books Condemned to be Burnt

by James Anson Farrer

How soon Parliament acquired the evil habit of dealing by fire and the hangman with uncongenial publications is proved by the fact that in one year alone the following five leaflets or pamphlets suffered in this way:—

1. The Kentish Petition, drawn up at the Maidstone Assizes by the gentry, ministry, and commonalty of Kent, praying for the preservation of episcopal government, and the settlement of religious differences by a synod of the clergy (April 17th, 1642). The petition was couched in very strong language; and Professor Gardiner is probably right in saying that it was the condemnation of this famous petition which rendered civil war inevitable.

2. A True Relation of the Proceedings of the Scots and English Forces in the North of Ireland. This was thought to be dishonouring to the Scots, and was accordingly ordered to be burnt (June 8th, 1642).

3. King James: his Judgment of a King and a Tyrant (September 12th, 1642).

4. A Speedy Post from Heaven to the King of England (October 5th, 1642).

5. Letter from Lord Falkland to the Earl of Cumberland, concerning the action at Worcester (October 8th, 1642).

Thus did Parliament, and the House of Commons especially, improve upon the precedent first set by the Star Chamber; and the practice must soon have somewhat lost its force by the very frequency of its repetition. David Buchanan's Truth's Manifest, containing an account of the conduct of the Scotch nation in the Civil War, was condemned to be burnt by the hangman (April 13th, 1646), but may still be read. An Unhappy Game at Scotch and English, pamphlets like the Mercurius Elenchicus and Mercurius Pragmaticus, the Justiciarius Justificatus, by George Wither, perished about the same time in the same way; and in 1648 such profane Royalist political squibs as The Parliament's Ten Commandments; The Parliament's Pater Noster, and Articles of the Faith; and Ecce the New Testament of our Lords and Saviours, the House of Commons at Westminster, or the Supreme Council at Windsor, were, for special indignity, condemned to be burnt in the three most public places of London.

The observance of Sunday has always been a fruitful source of contention, and in 1649 the chief magistrates in England and Wales were ordered by the House of Commons to cause to be burnt all copies of James Okeford's Doctrine of the Fourth Commandment, deformed by Popery, reformed and restored to its primitive purity (March 18th, 1650). They did their duty so well that not a copy appears to survive, even in the British Museum. The author, moreover, was sentenced to be taken and imprisoned; so thoroughly did the spirit of persecution take possession of a Parliamentary majority when the power of it fell into their hands.

This was also shown in other matters. For instance, not only were Joseph Primatt's Petition to Parliament, with reference to his claims to certain coal mines, and Lilburne's Just Reproof to Haberdasher's Hall on Primatt's behalf, condemned to be burnt by the hangman (January 15th, July 30th, 1652), but both authors were sentenced, one to fines amounting to £5,000, the other to fines amounting to £7,000, which, though falling far short of the Star Chamber fines, were very considerable sums in those days. Lilburne, on this occasion, was also sentenced to be banished, and to be deemed guilty of felony if he returned; but this part of the sentence was never enforced, for Lilburne remained, to continue to the very end, by speech and writing, that perpetual warfare with the party in power which constituted his political life.

John Fry, M.P., who sat in the High Court of Justice for the trial of Charles I., wrote in 1648 his Accuser Shamed against Colonel Downes, a fellow-member, who had most unfairly charged him before the House with blasphemy for certain expressions used in private conversation, and thereby caused his temporary suspension. Dr. Cheynel, President of St. John's at Oxford, printed an answer to this, and Fry rejoined in his Clergy in their True Colours (1650), a pamphlet singularly expressive of the general dislike at that time entertained for the English clergy. He complains of the strange postures assumed by the clergy in their prayers before the sermon, and says: "Whether the fools and knaves in stage plays took their pattern from these men, or these from them, I cannot determine; but sure one is the brat of the other, they are so well alike." He confesses himself "of the opinion of most, that the clergy are the great incendiaries." In the matter of Psalm-singing he finds "few men under heaven more irrational in their religious exercises than our clergy." As to their common evasion of difficulties by the plea that it is above reason, he fairly observes: "If a man will consent to give up his reason, I would as soon converse with a beast as with that man." Nevertheless, how many do so still!