The Pictorial Press: Its Origin and Progress

by Mason Jackson

It is well known that General Harrison, Hugh Peters, and others were executed with all the barbarous circumstances indicated in the words of their sentence. Peters was made to sit upon the scaffold, exposed to the jibes and jeers of the mob, and compelled to witness the mutilation of his fellow-victims. The executions were continued day after day both at Charing-cross and at Tyburn, and were stopped at last, not for lack of victims, or disinclination for more slaughter on the part of the authorities, but from a dread of the effect such bloodthirsty proceedings might have on the minds of the people. The horrors of such a scene, of course, attracted the sensational news-writer of the day; and a broadside of the time gives us a picture and description of the executions, coupled with a representation of the execution of Charles I. This broadside was evidently intended to exhibit at one view the commission of a great crime and its just punishment. The engraving shows on one side the execution of the King and on the other the punishment of the regicides. The description of the latter is preceded by an account of the trial and death of Charles. The title runs thus: ‘A true and perfect Relation of the Grand Traytors Execution, as at severall times they were Drawn, Hanged, and Quartered at Charing-Crosse, and at Tiburne. Together with their severall Speeches and Confessions which every one of them made at the time of their Execution. London, printed for William Gilbertson, 1660.’

EXECUTION OF THE REGICIDES, 1660.

The following account is given of the execution of Major-General Harrison: ‘The next day being Saturday Major-Gen. Harrison was drawn upon a Hurdle from Newgate to the Round, or railed Place near Charing-Crosse, where a Gibbet was set upon which he was Hanged. Many of his acquaintance did seem to triumph to see him die so Confidently; whiles numbers of true Christians did grieve in earnest to see him die so impenitently. We have been told that when he took his leave of his wife, he comforted her, and told her that he would come again in three days; but we hear nothing as yet of his Resurrection.’ In describing the execution of Hugh Peters, it is said, ‘He came to the Ladder unwillingly, and by degrees was drawn up higher and higher. Certainly he had many Executioners within him; he leaned upon the Ladder being unwilling to part from it, but being turned off, the spectators gave a great shout, as they did when his Head was cut off, and held up aloft on the point of a Spear. The very souldiers themselves whom heretofore he did animate to slaughter, and a thorough execution of their Enemies were now ashamed of him, and upon the point of their Spears showed that guilty head which made them guilty of so much blood.’

Pepys, in his Diary, says, under date October 13, 1660:—‘I went out to Charing Cross, to see Major-General Harrison hanged, drawn, and quartered; which was done there, he looking as cheerful as any man could do in that condition. He was presently cut down, and his head and heart shown to the people, at which there were great shouts of joy. It is said, that he said that he was sure to come shortly at the right hand of Christ to judge them that now had judged him; and that his wife do expect his coming again. Thus it was my chance to see the King beheaded at White Hall, and to see the first blood shed in revenge for the King at Charing Cross.’

It will be seen by the copy made from this woodcut that the design is of the rudest possible description, and must have been the work of a common ballad illustrator, whose fee was probably on a par with his ability. He evidently thought that, in such a scene as the execution of Charles I., the Church should be paramount, for he has made Bishop Juxon a much more prominent figure than the King.

The reign of the ‘Merry Monarch,’ though not the most creditable period in English History, would have supplied abundant materials for the journalist if there had been any newspapers. The Great Plague, the Fire of London, the sea-fights with the Dutch, were splendid opportunities for the pencil of the ‘special artist’ or the pen of ‘our own correspondent.’ A law had been passed prohibiting the publication of newspapers without being duly licensed. Sir John Birkenhead was appointed Licenser of the Press, and he was succeeded by Sir Roger L’Estrange. There was scarcely anything that could be called a newspaper except the London Gazette, and it only contained such news as the Government thought proper to make public, and it was never illustrated. The little that was done in the way of pictorial journalism was of a satirical or humorous character, or had reference to foreign affairs, and was either published in the form of broadsides or was put before the public in such a questionable shape that it was difficult to tell whether it was truth or fiction. As soon as the people were released from the domination of Puritanism a reaction set in, and the humours of Mercurius Democritus were supplemented by the still broader fancies of Mercurius Fumigolus. Occasional entertainment of a more serious character was supplied, such as ‘A True and Perfect Relation of the Happy Successe and Victory obtained against the Turks of Argiers at Bugia.’ The popular taste for the mysterious and supernatural was touched by ‘A true and perfect Relation, of a strange and wonderful Apparition in the Air, the Fourteenth of August, near Goeree in Holland.’ This was an illustrated broadside containing the following account:—‘On the fourteenth of August this year 1664, towards the evening near Goeree in Holland, there was seen by many Spectators an Apparition upon the Ocean of two several Fleets of Ships engaged in a Fight, which lasted for the space of about half an hour, and then vanished. Afterwards there appeared two Lyons, who with great fury and violence, assaulted each other three several times, neither of them prevailing against the other, till at length both of them wearied with their continual striving, did, as it were, give over for breath, when on a sudden a third Lyon of a very great and huge stature appeared and falling first upon the one, and then on the other, destroyed them both. They being vanished, there appeared a King, with a Crown upon his head, and he so plainly and visibly discerned as that the spectators did discover the very Buttons on his Coat. After all was vanished, the said Spectators continueing there, and walking too and fro upon the sands, the Ocean, so far as they could see, seemed to be Blood. On the next morning, the same Apparition, in all its Circumstances, was seen again, and the truth thereof attested upon Oath, before the Magistrates of Goeree, by the said Spectators; so that there is no doubt made of the truth thereof. And this happening in this juncture of time, begets some strange apprehensions; for that about six Months before Van Trump was slain in the former Wars with England, there was seen near the same place, an Apparition of several Ships in the Air, as it were fighting with each other.’

APPARITION IN THE AIR AT GOEREE IN HOLLAND, 1664.

This broadside was printed at London, ‘by Thomas Leach in Shooe Lane in the Year 1664. With Allowance October 13, 1664. Roger L’Estrange.’ The illustration is an etching, very well and freely executed.

Amongst other things which appear to have been revived at the Restoration was the Mercurius Civicus. In Dr. Burney’s collections in the British Museum there is preserved a copy of Number 4 of Mercurius Civicus, dated May 1, 1660. On the title-page it is stated to be ‘published by order of the Lord Mayor and Court of Aldermen;’ but it is not illustrated, as was its predecessor of the time of the Civil War.