Peter Lake on Joseph Mede

 Well, I I I I nearly did it. I I did. We're ready to go. Okay. I think we'll, we should make a start.

Sorry. We're we're a minute or 2 late. We've had 1 or 2 issues with the room, but I hope they're gonna get get sorted out. Welcome everybody to the, second seminar of this term. We haven't got park point this week.

Peter's talking and, he he he needs to manage it out. So, well, just let me say a few words. I mean, it's a real pleasure to welcome Peter back. I mean, he's probably given more papers in this seminar. Anybody else anybody else in its history.

And he and I and, Nicholas Tarrick is here, probably, probably 3 of the longest standing members of the the seminar. We go back to the late seventies, friend. Guy. That's right. You know, her still was presiding over it.

That's right. So, and I don't know how many papers Peter's done sitting there, but it's it's a lot longer. And Joseph Meade respond to the crisis of the early 16 twenties. Yeah. Well, I'm and very pleased to me.

And I I just want to say something about where I'm speaking as the slot that Simon Heague was supposed to occupy and, this is all unfortunate, obviously. I just want to say that Simon, I think, sort of saved the seminar, the crucial moment in its history, and played a very significant role in keeping it going. And I think we're all in that sense in his debt. We want to just sort of say that. The other thing is, as as Richard said, this this does go back to work.

I was doing the 7th to the early eighties, and and it's sort of a continuation of a of a conversation I've been having in my head with Conrad Russell and Ziff's are very significant figure than it is in the seminar. I'm kind of person to say that this is part of my, I'm I've told my own tribute band. And I'm not really gonna get a I'm not here at all. I'm not here at all. I'm not here at the first time.

I'm not here at the first time. Possible. It was so possible. So great. Some of the opposition to the central aspects of royal policy.

The first response, and so far as there was one, it was not an article that tore up any trees, I have to say, from various revisionists, most notably Conrad, was that Scott was an outlier, too extreme, too articulate to allow such wide conclusions to be drawn. The second slightly later response from a certain sort of historian of Klitschmann thought was that Scott was no sort of puritan at all, but a republican, which, of course, if true, and, of course, it wasn't true, but, obviously, I don't think it's true, made him even more of an outlier than Conrad Russell thought he was. Of course, there's an innovative peasant, the tear in a plinth of a gandist who had gone far up out in the limb to be driven into exile once he conducted something of a plinth campaign organized around the Protestant cause in the Spanish match before being assassinated in 1626. Scott was clearly not your average moderate puritan divine, even though he was that that was the persona from which he wrote the majority of his propaganda. Nevertheless, I argued his works articulated in an unusually sharp and coherent terms, assumptions and attitudes, expectations, and fears that were far more widely held.

And in this paper, I want to test that I hope to confirm that claim through the example of Joseph Mead and his response to the parliament of 16/21 and its immediate aftermath. Now the point here is most definitely not to argue that Mead was more radical than his head those who've been thought. Despite his moderate period origins in the crisis of William Perkins and his continued closeness to Lawrence Chaberson, by this point, Mead was scarcely any sort of period in the tool. Indeed, he was well on the way down a path that would end with him coming out in the mid 16 thirties as something of a Laudian fellow traveler and ending up as a chap in the Archbishop Laud. Now the point here is to use Mead newsletters that he wrote for his friend, the subject gentleman, Sir Martin Stoodwell, as a sort of radio receiver assimilating currantos, formal newsletters sent on a weekly basis from London, letters and oral reports from other sources, gossip from High Table, and from persons recently arrived from London, and reports from abroad.

So Brit Meade was not merely a passive receiver of news, rather he organized the work wide range of materials, messages, and rumors that he received in certain patterns and around certain themes and concerns for his friend for his friend's suit Stuttgart's instruction and delectation. Then Mead knew very well that some of the material in his letters were sensitive in the extreme. In July 16/21, he worried about the delay in his letters arriving at Dalam, observing into Stuttgart that you have such wicked neighbors at Dalam that would call any man's zeal in writing. I write no letter I I I wrote no letter of good while which I should be so low to come into any man's hands. In in March 16 22, observe observed, I hope my letter miscarried not.

If I if it did, I'm in a sweet pickle to hear nothing from you with the receipt and extinction of it, but I've not yet received anything. He knew the dangers of dealing with such stuff, even in private letters. Indeed, at one point, he excused himself even to stoop you, but asking that if if he that tells me or myself in telling you shall commit any solipsism, I hope you will not impute it. Knowing that these are things altogether out of the sphere of our experience. But be but out of the sphere of his experience or not, me could just not stop stop himself writing about such high matters as you put it.

Just as soon as we continue to provide an ease of both eager audience for the effusions. Because of such fears and misgivings, Meek kept his direct comments on the news to a random, leaving his own attitudes and opinions largely unstated and implicit. That means that those views have to be recovered to a close reading of his tone and the ways in which they juxtapose one item of news with or against another. But in his letters are subjected to the sort of close reading that those that those constraints and self self constraints require as whole series of expansions, preoccupations, and values are revealed, at least I claim they are, that also that also form the central organizing concerns of the works of Tom Scott. Now what are the characteristics of Scott's thought do I mean?

Central here was his anti pumpery, his obsession with the Protestant cause, and the ins and insistence on the necessity of England coming to the military aid of James' son-in-law, the elected Palatine, and indeed in entering into a large with the Dutch against the aspirations, the universal monarchy of the Spanish Hackford. An alliance predicated on the blue water policy involving a naval water before by the English as the Dutch took on the Spaniard on the continent. The analysis of why James was not doing that and what needed to happen in order to get him to do it was at the center of Scott's pamphlets. That analysis involved an expedition of the ways in which the political system ought to work and why it was currently not working. Central here was a vision of the basic division between the court and the country.

It's a center of power and patronage, status of wealth. The court had an inherent tendency towards corruption, and the pursuit of private roles in the public interest. It attracted private spirits in search of personal gain, desperate to misuse the royal property in their own interest, and to mislead the king. Such tendencies were structural, indeed left unchecked. They were inevitable and must not the prince's fault.

What was needed was the intermittent but regular intervention of the parliament, which through the freely direct elected public men that made up the House of Commons, would bring the virtue of the country to bear on the corruption of the court, thus informing the king about the real condition of his kingdom and the just grievances of his subjects, enabling him to identify the guilty men and reform the Commonwealth. No wonder then that so many corrupt courtiers denigrated parliament and exhorted the royal provinces in a desperate bid to prevent this from happening. Here, the image of the evil councilor reared its ugly head. Private spirits. These men use the private connections and backstairs influence of the court to have their evil way with the with the prince.

The image of court corruption and evil council was indelibly associated by Stolt potpourri and his trapped speeches as the ultimate evil counselor, the Spanish ambassador, Gondermont. Now I want to spend the first part of this paper arguing that Mead shared a great deal of that worldview, and the second tracking what sort of conclusions that worldview led Mead to draw from the failure of the 16/21 parliament and the general's tenure of subsequent royal policy. First Mead was an ardent Protestant causer. His letters to Stoltewell leaders know in no doubt about that. Thus, on 5th grade of 16/21, he can't comment it on the current news that there was at present no appearance to human reason how the church and religion could escape after ruin, all neglecting it in the greatest danger it ever was in.

Mead saw the Protestant cause epitomized by the elective counterpart and his wife to whom he regularly referred simply as the king and queen of what it Hemia is. It was in short a fan observing at one point that we have recalled here that the queen of the the Hemia is likely child again to the the great last. She had 3 already. God make her happy with the 6th. The depths of this thought into which the Palatine cause was sinking could at times move me to something like despair.

And so he told Stupel, like, 16/21, the news you see what it is. Naught naught. But I hope over a year or 2, we shall begin to hear to hear better for as yet we see it is fatal. That all things should go downward and God will have his way whatsoever we think or say. The single way of life in what was otherwise a desperately dark scene was provided by the Dutch.

Only the states roused them like the lion and might be God's might be might be God meant to give a deliverance by Gideon's handful. In an earlier letter, Mead praised the Dutch ambassadors to the skies. They have not come succulent succulents or suitors. He said, for they thank God they neither needed nor did fear the greatest monarch in the world. I have not not received an answer from James that is.

Yet there are some there are, it seems, who are somewhat affected to their emotion that they could wish their entertainment and lodging were so well provided for as Don Gondermars. From you can see what's going on there. The Dutch had proved themselves true and faithful Confederates and supporting James' son-in-law in support to the restoration of the plight of the Crown of Bohemia into which he had been so justly elected. Still with supporters of the Palestine cause, the Dutch also set their fleet to the West Indies to brothel the king of Spain. And if he's managed, he would join with them.

He should no doubt retreat with the king of Spain on such conditions as he should, within a short time, realizes all his goals. Accompanying that obsession with the malign pens and underground influence of the Spanish was a deep anxiety about the activities of English Catholics, which is also he also shares with Scott. In another letter to Stuartville, Mead quoted a speech as to Edward Fox in parliament, which had insisted on the enforcement of the Elizabethan statute against reckons, I know not which. For that upon certain information, he had learned that 40,000 of them gathered in the city this parliament time. Some of them did such as crawled up, knocked out of their doors many years before.

What their what their means was he knew not. Later, Mead apologized to suitable that he could not copy, only epitomized the common petition against the Jewish priests and and recognitions. And then he told him in in certain amount of detail all the horrible things that the parliament was gonna describe to stop the Catholics, you know, gambling down the streets and doing horrible things. I mean, that is, the sum of firm that his majesty granted these positions, that's for the substance in the main. But as for the particular and manner of proceeding and and other circumstances, he will refer these unto himself to take some order as such such order as he should think fit, which is an element of skepticism, which which recurs again and again in Mead to counter these things.

The other central theme from Scott's works, with which Mead was in complete agreement, was the centrality of parliament the only means whereby the Commonwealth might be in fall reformed and the corruption the court held back. But remarkably, Meade made that point by quoting remarks attributed to King himself and to his favorite, Buckingham. That's on 17th of the party, Tolstupil of a speech made by Buckingham on the subject of monopolies, in which he had admitted that he had seen had been drawn to the to be a means to further many of those grounds was not thinking out of his youth and incapacity and matters of the Commonwealth, anyway prejudicial there on too. That now he perceived the country and that though his father had 2 sons questioned for offenders in that kind, if his father should have a 3rd son who would be so far from from approving or maintaining them in what they've done that he would be first to subscribe and assent to contondyne punishment. He, but he also acknowledged that he had been a slight hinder of calling of a parliament for seeking a prejudition to the king's prerogative and honor and profit.

But he also now saw it far otherwise and would therefore expiate the error by being a means here after the parliament should be called more frequently than ever they had been before. They followed with the paragraph stating that he is generally affirmed in London this week that the king sends parliament wonderful gracious messages that have not been known. That he will continue the parliament till they are fully satisfied in all things. They should ask nothing but he would grant it and bid they try and trust him. That he would not be a hint of their proceedings in these matters.

Forward. They should lay punishment for those offenders that any problem that that of lay any pa punishment upon these offenders that any problems here to for it haven't ever to give them precedent of. On the April 7th, Mead told the students excitedly that a gentleman merchant would come from London at 6 o'clock 7 o'clock that morning, brought the king's last speech speech and he printed. I read it but could obtain no more. The king said that he could never have any house of commons that would use him with any respect until now.

That this had shown more love and regard unto him than any that not only himself, as the idea had, but that any of his predecessors had received in yielding unto him 2 subsidies in nature of a free gift. That that his government and his kingdom have seemed to him till now to be the best and happiest governed in the world, which now with astonishment he found to be otherwise. He saw it much like unto a coppice, which on the outside seemed thick and well grown, but when he ripped into the middle, he found them all found them all bare. He decided he desired that that what he spoke that day should be put in the records of the house. Now in detailing the proceedings, the house's proceedings against the Giles Monperson, the notorious alehouse patentee, But he preferred to a bill that a little touch to King, but explained that when it was brought to James, he then professed that he had been they believed by those about him that his subjects loved him not.

But saw now, by this, he had been how he had been abused and sent to the parliament to give them thanks, telling them that they should adjourn for all the parliament both when and for how long they should think fit and continue it at their pleasure. Conclude and do what they they would. All should be at their discretion and thereafter, he would have a parliament every 3 years as long as God granted him to reign over them. Now, Mead's final comment on this is not this good if it be true, I have it here by relation. Rather gives the game away.

But we are surely dealing here with decidedly of Panglossian readings of statements from Buckingham James. But nevertheless, we see here the king in favor certainly is perceived by Mead, and I think as they've intended it themselves, acting according to a script that could well have been written by Thomas Scott himself. For him, it was James admitting that he had been misused and misled about the condition of his kingdom and the affections of his people by those about him. Here were the here were the quintessential evil councilors, private men out for their own ends by turning the king against parliament and convincing him that all was well with his sat with his subjects. Errors of which he it had taken a parliament to disabuse him just as it just as in Scott world, it it was supposed to do.

And again, just as Scott thought proper, it was James attempting to put things right and through even through parliament. Giving the parliament their head to bring the guilty men to book and chase down further abuse wherever they could find it. And here was James' favorite, Buckingham, admitting that in his youth and inexperience, he'd been led to play the role of corrupt culture in relation to monopolies and patience, and patents, and of evil councilor in relation to the Royal Prohibitive and Parliaments. And once again, they've taken a parliament to convince him of the area's ways and convert him to the path of virtue along the parliamentary way. Another area of close agreement with Scott and Mead was this sense that the forces of corruption and the grievances of the Commonwealth, they're the most not just personification in the figure of the monopolist or is the type of one of Scott's sermons had it, the projector.

In a letter of the 3rd March, media informed Stuttgart that it was reported from London on Saturday and Saint Edward Crook had spoken much concerning monopolies, and that he had taken much pains to be truly informed concerning them. They had found 2,000 monopolies that their yearly revenue came to 4 £400,000 all of which there was but of all of which there was but 400 patents to the exchequer. Some of them were in the hands of Christfellows and most of them bestowed from such as never deserved anything of either king or kingdom. We followed with avidity that perceived with the monopolist and their backers, as the parliament were after not just a relatively small fry, like the referees Serena Yalboutin and the Sopranos Michael, but the big fish too, if not quite Buckingham and and his brothers, then certainly Lord Chancellor Bacon. And I've I've got a quite a lot of of actual detail here, which I'm gonna think I'll cut.

It which shows Mead following the fights visited upon Mortensen and Bacon with and and Michael with a a great deal of sort of, you know, almost perverse interest. And he really wants to get how badly they behave and and the extremity of of of their punishment. And so for instance, he reports the parliament news. I know it is impossible that you should not you should be now ignorant about what is reported of our great lord chancellor. Strange bills against him and himself sticking the head or swollen in his body and suffering none to come about him.

Strange to hear what they talk of at London of his former actions and now of his present sickness. He then he then on the 5th of May, he recounts the full extent of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of Bacon's punishment. And then on the 23rd, it's terrible glee that Mead informs Stuart Mill of the degradation of Sir Francis Michael in the presence of the likes of the earl of Andrew and Lennox and the Marquess of Buckingham, noting that none should hereafter stall him by the name of Sir Francis Michael Knight, but Sir Francis Michael and Nave. Then he went back by his coach to his prison at Finsbury, all the boys shouting after him. Yet they rode with him in his coach too with gold chains about their necks in the side of all men, as one told me, would have said he saw it.

But Michael himself sat in the corner unseen. Generally, it Michael end Mead ended one of these accounts of the precipitate fall of Bacon with a cliche written pin of praise to the virtue and contempt in the country as against the corruption and the and danger of the court. Vanity is vanity. Always vanity. How happy you are, the down, that live as it were out of the jurisdiction of those great temptations and will look upon those dangerous pinnacles of these of these tottering pyramids as such false happy dignises.

In our letters, we discussed the fate of a very different miscreant. 1 Floyd, a councilor, steward, and receiver of the Lord Chancellor of Ellesmere, and the other suburb, a papist and a prisoner in the fleet as he described him, who was censored on Tuesday in the Commons to write thrice with papers and stand in the pillory, 1st at Westminster, for saying goodman Porthgrave and good goody Porthgrave, male must go pack their children on their back and beg. The king had intervened to query the common's right to judge Floyd, but having done so and upon review, appeared to have endorsed the punishment. Now thereafter, for the following months, Mead spends a lot of time trying to find out whether whether Floyd has been in punished, whether he's been punished to full extent, who's tried to stop it, what's happened. I don't know.

I I got some detail about that, but I'm not I'm not gonna bore you with. I'm sorry. On the June it's a month later on June 2nd detailed. See, I hear Saturday of this domestic news. It is reported for certain that the censure was executed upon Florida about Wednesday when he stood in the perimeter of Cheapside, had a cave Randy on his forehead and his ears cut off.

But this turns out to be mere rumor, and it was not until 8th that with considerable relief, Mead was able to finally inform Stuteville that he had thought he'd had his last riding with paper gone back and breast without hat or cloak and face towards the tail fleet straight to Westminster, where he stood for 3 hours in the artillery and then back in a manner as before to Newgate. But his ears are whipping the lord remitted at the prince's request. But in line, what Mead was reporting with alarm that he had received news from a man newly arrived from London, but yesterday, concerning Floyd, that I'm long to believe till I hear it again, visit the center for branding, etcetera, that he would have given a £1,000 to have been hanged, that he might have got a marker in so good a cause, and that a gentleman should affirm openly of his writing that he had injury and censorship was most unjust. When a constable tried to arrest the man for his words, he was presently run through with a rapier. His assailant made an made an escape.

The war horseback through some streets at the city, but at last was apprehended and now laid in in Newgate. If you hear it again, called Stuttgart, you may believe it. But I suspect it because someone came from London in on Tuesday could not tell of it. Now we need to have a Jewish obsession with the glory details of Floyd's punishment. Seems somewhat out of character until he realized that he regarded Floyd's very public humiliation as something of an acid test to both the king and the house of lords commitment to the Palatine and Protestant causes.

The strikes were rated the higher given the story he was rigorously handing on to Stupel about the severity, indeed the savagery with which hostile comments about the Spanish or the match were being punished. A long anecdote that he had recounted to student beginning of April about the fate of some London apprentices makes the point. And this is the famous occasion in which some some London apprentices basically, front down, the the passing coach of the French well, no. That that that that that that that's front down. They say, we'll go in there, and then and then the other one other one says, there goes the devil in a gun car.

That's the gun. Cue of modularity, which drew from the ambassador's attendants, a threat a threat from the the defending apprentice. Shall shall shall you shall see you shall see bright where I long for your mirth. Shall we go to right where such a Spanish dog as thou? Shot back the apprentice and there with gave him a box on the ear and struck up his hands.

Unsurprisingly, God damn it. He complained the Lord Mayor who, according to me needs somewhat unwillingly, felt compelled to give the for instance, exemplary punishment. They would be ripped from all gates of London tied to a cast tail. When the punishment was carried out the following Wednesday, it was not much known what the fall was the beginning, but it being so ruined and noticed given when they came to Temple Bar, they found a crowd of about some 300 of all sorts who proceeded to effect the rescue of the apprentices, took them from the car, and beat the marshals men. At that moment, coming up and Saint Paul's chain were the best part of a foul of a more equally intense on rescuing young men, but it would disperse once they realized that, you know, the business was over.

Golda Meir immediately complained to the lord mayor who sent him off with a saying he was not to give an account to him of the city government. And then when the king the king rushes back and Tibbals goes to Guildhall, you know, who he gave a long speech, threatening to put a garrison in the city and to make them maintain them if they were no better rule there were no better rule kept and to take away the charter and sold. So that the blue accretive for offensive words delivered during the first whipping was now himself whipped to the city with the shrive of London, a 100 halberdiers in attendance. Every constable in his precinct and end every house of the standing at his door with a howl bird. The watch continues for 3 o'clock the next morning.

On the Sunday next, the terrible pro strict proclamation which I have seen, no man so much as by his countenance to abuse no man, but to look on but to be equal in thought was issued. To make matters worse, while the proclamation was reading, a gentleman in the crowd stood up on a Spaniard's Tahoe who took a box in the air, but asked him what reason he had for, and he gave him another, and the gentleman took both. It has not always been so. The previous month, Mead had explained to Super Bowl that they told also as though this week there had been a Spaniard beaten in the exchange for drawing upon and misusing some gentlemen, who when they are done, slipped away in the crowd and are not known. Now Mead doesn't comment directly on any of this, but the message I think is clear.

While expressions of anti Spanish sentiment elicited the most sarcastic common punishments, the Spanish in the papers were allowed to run riot, and the current crackdown of the English gentlemen, let alone the sit citizenry in the impotent in the face of of Spanish and Catholic insolence. So back in February, Mead had told Stupel, and not long since, for supposed about New Year's tide, a plane before his majesty, where there was a Puritan brought up. Having low ass his ears, who should speak in this manner. Is it now a time to give gifts and to make merry? This should be a time of fasting and prayer when the church of God is in great affliction in Bohemia in Germany, not of masking in music, etcetera.

I will not believe this was entertained with applause, yet I am told so. It was it was there for open seasonal appearance in the pros and cons, then but any satiric or critical comment on Spaniards or poultry or the wisdom of the match provoked a severe reaction. So later Mead noted astute rule during the Cambridge act, our our character was committed before he had done his act, but telling us that he would give us give us mass, but he shouldn't but he should he would not play upon Goglerall's fistula, Gogolaw's pipe. On the 1st June 16 21, many reported that sir George Shirley Shirley disarmed 4 years ago, and then on Tuesday his arms restored on to him go a great reckons and a £4,000 yearly revenue. Hence, meets anxiety that despite the objections of the king and the House of Lords, Floyd did eventually receive his due punishment as the House of Commons had recently meted it out.

Such misgivings were reflected in the regularity with which made track the fate of a a range of creatures disciplined or imprisoned for expressing sympathy for the foreign reform churches or opposition to the Spanish match. These included Thomas Scott, Samuel Ward, John Abraham, and then mister Winnif. And I've and I've got some more details about what he said about what they said and what, you know, what happened to them, which I won't bore you with. But he he he's clearly very concerned. These people are being cracked down on for for for saying what he what what what he implies are sensible things about the match and the the threat in Spain.

But beyond such debt anecdotes lay deeper doubts about the soundness of the king's intentions. And he knew very well that any action on the Palatinate or against Spain was dependent on diplomatic developments elsewhere, And the king's search for a peaceful settlement was ongoing and turned on the prospect of a match with Spain. His letters are therefore full of perverted rumors about the death of the king of Spain, the meaning of the fall of Lerma, and the imminent return of Gondola. They talk of London, the king of Spain dying, charge his daughter upon his blessing never to marry with heretic. And amongst the rest to his son, that he should not he should make much of his sister and never leave her till she were an empress, which words folk understand not.

On the on March 17, 16 21, he told civil there was idle talk as if there had been some press of soldiers about London, but it was nothing but some captains of the states taking up volunteers. But as for the plasinate, nothing is expected before my lord did be returned. From the asked you. As a spoke, comes to the same letter he added, the parliament meddle not with the match nor will not, as he said, unless the king himself notice it to them, and then they will have the then they have their answer ready. All this force that was rumored to the contrary.

And he then gave assume very good sense of what the answer would have been when he described the declaration of protestation like the they put the House of Commons on the 4th June, which is, you know, which is then basically copies out in which they basically say, you know, we stand stand for the for the Protestant church. We stand for the for the church abroad. We're ready to back you if you want if you want us to back you. Please help me up with the negotiations with the Spanish, and then let's get on with defending the, you know, the the the the the cause of treaty religion. But if he was confident in parliament's intentions, Mead remained deeply worried about the king's.

Such doubts ran implicitly throughout his letters to Stupel. They emerged clearly in the reading of the accounts at the Stoopville, which as Mead explained it, he had gained access to in a news letter sent to Lawrence Chatterson by doctor Metis. With material so sensitive, the Mead had remained content to be made partaker of such as he was pleased to read me, not inquisitive of the rest. In other words, please don't show make me read it. It's too dangerous.

Nevertheless, despite the initial caution, Mead had such would be able to gain a sense a good sense of what was so sensitive about the letter when he heard that the Queen of Bohemia was desirous to come into England, but that a part of Absolutley for prisoner. And that the King of Bohemia should say that were it not for the person of his lady, which he loved above or rather, he could have wished he had married rather a ball's daughter than the King of Great Britain. Meade did not comment on that anecdote. And then, again, its meaning was not was clear enough. And despite its potentially subversive and alarming implications, he chose to commit the story to writing enough and then to pass it on to Stuteville.

Now perhaps I'm surprised when in December 16 21, the parliament was suddenly dissolved in a blast of war recrimination and arrests. Mead did not directly comment or even attempt in a right what precisely had happened. Instead, really interestingly, he relied on Stupel's prior knowledge when a letter of 9 19th January told him, you know me have this at the certain dissolution to parliament. It was proclaimed at London the week the Wednesday the week I came from Durham, but not have called till Saturday after, after which it it gave hope that it should have been recalled. His attitude is unlocked for and for him and entirely are welcome to know him.

As as as, therefore, to be extrapolated out of his account of the aftermath, which centers on the identity supposed offenses and faints of those arrested after the parliament. In a letter which begins, news is now grown now grown very quiet. No men write. I can only tell you what I hear. Meade told Stupel of the arrest of Cook and Phillips.

Sir Edward Cook was examined by the Earl of Ireland, little chamber, little president. Sir Robert Phillips is likewise committed to the Tower being sent for Barker Sweden in the midst of his geology and feasting of his friends in the country. But I have nothing yet but laid his dish to his charge. Although against that news, he juxtaposed the fact that the Earl of Somerset is left out of the town at liberty. The contrast between the release of the imprisonment of such a quintessentially corrupt creature of the court and the attachment of such swords to the parliament and the Protestant cause as Coke and as as as Cook and Phelps was left uncommitted upon, but it seems clear enough.

Mead followed this up with further details of the exchange between Arundel and Cook. Arundel having told Cook that he had that he should go about to withdraw the subject's hearts from their king. But the he should go about to draw withdraw the subject's hearts from their king was a traitor. So Edward answered that he also indeed, and he that went about to withdraw the king's hearts from his subjects, he ought to be an arch traitor. When Aarondorf, as an example of the king's mercy, the fact that he would allow Cook, a close prisoner, to be visited by 8 of the best learned in the law to advise him about his cause, Cook replied that he knew himself to be accounted to have as much skill in the law of any man in England, and therefore needed no such help nor feared to be judged by the law in that he was accused.

So I think the authority of a Cheshire gentleman, my friend, who I chanced to meet with when he came up from London, and who having been there well nigh this 3 weeks, had better intelligence both in the court and other reports. Meade told Stovall that this man had told him that according to a councilor at law who had visited Selden in prison, Selden had told him that as soon as sir Edwin felt Sands and in and my himself were apprehended, their studies were presently searched and all their parliament notes and pages carried away. And the newsletter forwarded to Stuteville dated London, June 21st, it was claimed sir Edwin's son's study had been searched by 2 sheriffs. One of them is notorious papers, sir Henry Spiller, and the other one files. What one of the love late patent is for gild gold and silver fled, who when they had finished with sir Edwin's, required us the lady's keys to search her cabinet and boxes, which she readily gave up.

And with this speech, that she wished it is majesty had a key to unlock her husband's heart. That is your majesty see that there that there was not there there was there was nothing, you know, the bar biting there, bearing the loyalty. As for the elders, so Hampton arrested like Sheldon after the first session of the parliament, Mead entertained a couple of reasons for his imprisonment. The first, searching searching concerning the law of the Earl of Hartman's marriage was dismissed. Once Mead heard that the Earl was thoughtful and had some private intercourse and practice with the king and queen of Bohemia to further their course and means of relief from hence, and some beginning as it were of a confederation, and that there were letters sent by him subscribed with many hands undertaking in that behalf.

In other words, a leading peer had been locked up for doing what the general tenor of Mead's letters made clear was the duty of any god fearing Englishman and law of subject. That is to say, rally to the support of the king's daughter and her husband and the Protestant cause. All of which squared with the rumor forwarded by me to Stuttgart in September 21, that God damar had gone forced to meet his majesty from progress and made complaint to Horatio Vere to that which is likely down in the Palatinate. But but like it grieves him that some of the dogs were killed. In another letter to Stupel, at January 22, Mead gave full expression to his fears about the direction of events that the events were taking.

He did so by repeating a clutch of rumors about mister being at Rochester, his man his man, who for speaking seditious words about the dissolving of parliament is committed. And how can they say, wracked? Others say it had to stop Pablo. Some say he's dead with racking, as if that he is or shall be hanged, drawn, and quartered. Some can see he is wracked to learn whether he he had anything against his master.

These were clearly preferred preferred stories ricocheting around Cambridge about the dreadful fate visited about a local man. By repeating them, Meade introduced the possibility of the most arbitrary government repression of the sort previously restricted to papers and traitors. He ended with the comment, this they talk, but I hear nothing but that they are innocent. It's a remark which expresses skepticism, not so much about the stories themselves as of the guilt of the alleged victims. In the news letter that made forward it to stupidly was claimed, the means now used for money is by large benevolence which would who refuse or set down to serve the king in the Palatine wars.

The money is, but not withstanding, coming slowly. That's been confirmed by an 80 year old London cheese maker who's who's basically threatened with all sorts of horrible things, unless he pays up. And he he has to pay up the the equivalent of 9 subsidies in order in order to be, or to avoid being locked up. They talk also of pretty seals. This account was followed immediately by another about how his majesty of Tibbald's, discussing publicly how he meant to govern, was heard to say that he would govern got it it it it it it it that he would govern according to the god of the commonwealth, but not according to the common will.

And then by another about Prince Charles interceding for Sir Edward Cook, the the the king replied that he knew no man, no such man. When the prince persisted, the king answered that he knew none of them. No. He knew neither, but he swore there was a captain Kirk, the leader of the faction in Poland. In the same lesson which he recounted Cook's exchanges with Arundel, made the report that the same informant had told him that some lawyer who he knew not was brought to the council table to demonstrate that if a parliament were called and for the full of those assembled, no session made.

His majesty might, by his prerogative, ordain laws for the matter there in them, unconcluded, and besides dispose of many other things by a right the laws or customs of the kingdom gave unto him in such a cause, and that some of the council undertook to show the king away to furnish itself with money with money for the maintenance of 8,000 men without any subsidies or help of parliament. All of which can be just opposed against the report contained in the newsletter forward to the suit will in June 16 22 that my lords say have been sent up about some words used in the country concerning the benevolence as is also doctor James of Oxford. The said law by commandment of the laws of the council has set the words he spake down in writing, which some say out of this effect, that he knew no law besides by parliament to compel men to give away their goods. That's worth noting. I think that many of these stories originate in things that made it have been told orally rather rather than that that he that he read.

Certainly, there remains a sense in these letters that the really sensitive stuff clearly passed easier by word-of-mouth and by newsletter or even by private letter. And all involved in these exchanges clearly knew it. That in April 16 22, Mead commended to Stroupville, a mister Hurst who preaches to Myla Allen at my entry in procurement. He's an MI of our house, and if he knows where he is, can talk desperately if he list of news or anything. It may be he should be the bearer of this letter.

Particularly, Mead Mead himself was prepared to commit such sensitive stuff to writing. If only in his private letters to his friend Stovall. And in those letters, it is hard not to see built up to the accretion of anecdote and reputed speech, the threatening prospect of an arbitrary even absolute historic rule based on the prerogative and a decidedly authoritarian reading of the laws and customs of England, emanating from the king and the court, and resisted by a series of brave parliament men and peers standing for their rights and the rights of all Englishmen under the law. But Mead more than implied, the resistance to those new courses these new courses was not restricted to denizens of the parliament, but also included pre councils. In the same letter which recounted arrogance of Cook, he reported that while Lord Pembroke and Marcus Hamble spoke vehemently at the council table against dissolving the parliament, affirming the day would come when this error would be imputed to the council and not the king, and they protested against it.

Earlier, me to chair my interest in the composition of the council, in particular, the fortunes of that champion of the Protestant Court, Archbishop Abbott. And I've got again, I've got some detail, which I won't bother you with. You know, as you know, Abbott's suspended because he could be gamekeeper, and he's reporting a series of rumors about what is he gonna make it? Is he gonna get removed? What happens if he's removed?

If, they say, that he shall have a literal pension for life, that my lord keeper William should be Canterbury, others that Winchester last for Andrew should be asked Bishop, and my lord keeper Bishop of Winchester, and my lord Clamton will treasure if my lord keeper is asked Bishop. And so the house is a preferred, you know, rumors around the fact that Abbott is really clearly extremely concerned that Abbott should should should should should should should deny. On this basis, it seems fair to conclude the view taken by me that the political system in general, you know, the situation confronting him in 16 21 to 2, in particular, was anything but a crudely Riggish one, which saw things in terms of the face off between crown and parliament or government and opposition. On the contrary, this was a rather more sophisticated revisionist in the post revisionist division. The silver political scene defined by a fault line organized around the Protestant cause and the threat of Pompey.

The role of parliament, and both the corruptions and the actual potential virtues of the court. It's a fraction that ran to the whole English the whole of English state and society, court and council included. While that divide had not been produced, it's certainly been exacerbated by the failure of the 16/21 parliament, which having promised so much, been broken on the king's aversion to war with Spain and his desire for Spanish match, the wiles of Gondelbar, and the machinations of a large of largely nameless courtiers and councilors. Thomas Scott had been proved right yet again. Now following this to the company by the drip drip drip of repeated rumors that returned to the trough of the Spanish match and the continued sinister influence of Gondola.

That's in the same letter in which repeated the rumors about the tyrannical troop treatment of mister Binsman. Mead told Stupel, I forgot to tell you that the talk of the court is that the king has received not long since a very kind letter from Spain, whereby they conclude the plasmid will be restored, but I hope it is not unlawful not to believe it until we see it. Meade's hopes and fears about the life of the the match seesaw and wildly with each new litigious shift and when the mood of the court. On 9th February 16 22, it warns people that the news enclosed as the very funeral of all hope. And yet what it should be, I cannot understand.

Whatsoever it be, it seems, be proved true, like to him, undo all. For mister Ramsey, coming from the court last night, told me that the talk there for the restitution of palates palates palates and make by treaty is now again turned clean contrary. One offering for a piece in hand to give him 10 pieces for it when the Palatinate was either restored by treaty or won by sword. But on Mars 9th, even he informed Stupeville that our last news from London was that all this week till yesterday was great speech as if the match were dashed by Spain's unreasonable demands, but now it's otherwise said and my little big thingy goes to big thingy goes to Spain speedily. This little bit burst of call gossip was then immediately followed by a report of the this week at Winchester, there was a poor man so many executed to sign that the king should change his religion.

He should be the first one to cut his majesty's throat. God preserve his majesty and give his subjects more grace and more honesty, was Mead's comment. This move, typical of Mead, allowed him to more than imply that talk to the king's conversion to Catholicism was a function about the function of the immigrants of the Spanish match and the subject of very considerable popular rumor and anxiety. At the same time, registering his own loyal skepticism about all such wild speculation, but nevertheless passing the information and therefore the rumor onto Stroup. Around the same time, Mead reported that it was news that our lady was sent for to come from the Straits to line the narrow seas to keep them from pirates.

But they talk at London, as they used, that it was about that it was to keep the Homburg from robbing the Spaniard. Mead followed this piece of potentially explosive Metropolitan, gossiped with the report that it was written from the Hague that the Armenians stir again, said the work was thought by someone's undermining instinct of Spain, and feared would disturb all other designs. Thomas Scott, of course, had insisted that the machinations of old Van Der Hoffen and the Dutch Armenians were part of a Spanish underground conspiracy driven on England by the Catholics and Goldemar to undermine the constant cause with within. Meanwhile, Goldemar was being fated and feasted at court, and and and he includes a long a long account of a a a a major a major banquet given in in in in in in court in in Gondor Myers. Omar, with huge amounts of plates displayed, huge amounts of food, and display, and and Gondermars seated up even above the king.

Earlier earlier, he told Stuttgart that I will tell you above the improbable talk at London that Gondermars has obtained to the king some 1,000 against the Hollanders. That Pompey Matthews the younger should be the king's set the prince's secretary. That they are Jesuits of all whom for their liberty, that no man should touch them. Have shown I know not how many of the council's hands and such like. I believe them not yet.

That's what he says. All of which was attempted by rumors of an impending Spanish armada. And then they and and and and the the stopsman who's come from Spain and spreads rumors that the Spanish are coming. Spanish are coming. Yeah.

We keep keeps cropping up in a a series of made letters. And and and and the last of which explains that the the man had served as a pilot for the Spaniards, in Italy, a a a a consail, and there he'd lost his leg. So he, you know, he knew what he was talking about, and he was likely motioned to be a pilot for the Armada on the backside of Ireland. But if the king was riding and dying in Gondevar while the Spanish were plotting an invasion at home, the English Catholics were stirring. The first room of the arm room of the Armada was accompanied in me to let a bomb report that they talk of the Catholics of England was strangely provided of armor.

No man knows to what purpose. Some talk only of some secret concerning state lately discovered which others interpret to be the aforesaid armada. That report came in March 16 22. By June, Mead was forwarding a report that all the Jesuits and priests that were in prison in London and elsewhere were, this week, set at liberty. Mister Feitley on Thursday told me there was 400, they and that they went went under bond to be forthcoming when they when the when when they should be called for.

On the 6th July, he reported that we talk here that there was a dozen or 14 Jesuits at our commencement. By September, he was informed informing the student that I'm told that one condition of the Pope's dispensation for the match should be the in fact, it should have what chaplain she would, and they and they to be exempted from all jurisdiction in England and only liable to his holiness, who forever whatsoever they should do or say. And some say a family in law like manner, that the penal laws also against papers should be repealed by parliament and such like staff. In the midst of all this, me told an anecdote about James himself. Mister Downman was with me on Monday, and you come from London.

He told me that it it was 3 years ago since those verses were delivered to the king in a dream by master Buchanan, who seemed to check him severely as he used to do. And his majesty and his dream seemed desirous to pacify him, but turning away with a frowning countenance should utter those these those verses, which is his majesty perfectly remembering remembering repeated the next day. Now under the impact of an injury to his arm, James had had the same dream again. Now God be fancy as well and cheerful was needs typically loyal comment, or was anything but a straightforwardly loyal or cheerful story. All of which left the significance of the queen, king's having been revisited and demolished again by his old tutor, that epitome of the Protestant Court, George Buchanan, up for grabs, and certainly up to Stoopville as well as Mead's interpretation.

It may not really have significance that this story was told immediately after the opening paragraph about what a sweet pickle would be meat would be in if his letters went to stay, which I've already mentioned. And succeeded by the count by the same mister Downham of the unreasonable demands of the king of Spain, whereupon the match for a while seemed to be broken off. These included that his majesty and his son should reconcile with Rome and become Catholics because that his holiness without those consent, he, the king of Spain, might not might do nothing in this case, would not otherwise give way to it. Nevertheless, he would still permit his subjects freely to enjoy their religion. Now it was that his master should surrender like the king of Spain to Genu and the Bermutas and altogether quit the West Indies.

He affirmed to me that these thing that these were true to to to these 2 these 2 things were the sign, which if true is very strange. Ringers like this coming from center of the court by the testimony of the entirely respectable and reliable mister Downing rendered the seemingly pan paranoid fears of that poor wretch executed at Manchester about the king changing his religion look a lot more reasonable and and more alarming. I I have a section now about, get to I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm gonna conclude. So to return this the assertion which I started, that that that there was a pretty tough fit. Indeed, almost a a one to one equivalence between the attitudes and values, the expectations and fears expressed in current currently and intimately needs correspondents.

It's still good. And that was given a far more coherent and aggressive expression with patents of Thomas Scott. But I think I hope I think I've I've proved that case, I think. Indeed, we find the basic commitment of the Protestant cause, an anti Popish and anti Spanish worldview based not really on prejudice or received versions of the individuals past, but on current geopolitical realities, on on the present state of negotiations about the Spanish match, and indeed, on political events in England. We find the same admiration for Dutch, the same sense that they represent England's natural allies against the aspirations of the iceberg, and the pope's toward pope towards universal monarchy.

We found the same opinions about the way the political system works, all to work, the same analysis of what was wrong, has gone wrong, and how to fix it. That's to say, the necessity of frequent parliaments to counter the inherently the inherent tendency will collapse in an evil council that attended all the monarchical cause. We have the same sense of monopolies and patentees as as the epitome of what helped the kingdom and as the role of corrupt councilors turning the king against both par against parliament. Both men saw parliament as the only way in which the king could be informed about the real estate of his kingdom and the genuine grievances of his subjects. The main difference is that in these letters, these points were made for the most part through quotations of statements made by James and Buckingham, who sound at times like Thomas Cook, Scott's most enthusiastic readers.

I think this is in part because of not on the on the one hand, I think this is in because of certain moments, the king and those around him, desperate as they were, to have a successful parliament in order to present a picture of national unity and scope of the fallen powers, but deliberately using the rhetoric of the critics of the court to create the impression of unity. But I also think that James and Buckingham were engaged in in a hastily spent forized propaganda campaign designed to prevent the search for the guilty men responsible for the most offensive monopolies, reaching even to buck Buckingham and his brothers. Now it also has to be admitted that Mead provided a very enthusiastic even credulous audience for such sentiments, desperate as he was for the parliament to work, the crown and parliament king and subject to come together. But just below the surface of Mead's apparent optimism may lay a maelstrom of skepticism and anxiety. But even when he was at his most upbeat, highly apparent amnesty between crown and parliament, he also has doubts.

Doubts, again, taken as it were straight from the writings of Thomas Scott. These involve the abiding influence of Godfrey, the king's aversion to war in Spain, an addiction to the Spanish matters of cure rules for all these ills both at home and abroad, the impunity being granted to English Catholics, the crackdown on dissenting period opinion, and the desperate state of the Protestant cause, all of which as we've seen haunted, these newsletters. There was a sense of distrust and anxiety here which expressed itself after parliament had been broken in and through the stories told being told about the imprisoned parliament men, about the renewed imminence the Spanish match, about about the consequent repression of anti Spanish and anti Polish sentiment, and about the systematic laxity, if not positive encouragement, showed to showed to all Spanish and Catholic activity at court and on the streets. About that also about the continuing sinister influence of Grandma and the and the the continuing propensity of the court corruption. Based on the experience of what Andrew Slusher's memory of return, the curse of the rule of James the first, and the pressing existence to the current conjuncture, but at home and abroad, to the mouth of to the mouth of which the king was tough and not now rising.

These anxieties and the envision of an arbitrary, even absolutist style of rule upon which they were based, looked towards the personal rule of Charles the first. And last got me could not and almost certainly did not want to express himself directly in clearly critical and or prescriptive in the monetary terms. Rather, his opinions have to be reconst constituted and through in through the anecdotes he chose to tell, the news he chose to forward, in particular, in the combinations and juxtapositions in through which he conveyed his sense of what was happening now to Stupel and what it all meant. The the aim here then is not therefore to re describe Mead as some sort of radical or to recruit him as a member of some sort of pure opposition. Such a thought would have appalled him if that is he had been even been able to understand the meaning of the phrase.

Rather Mead was a loyal perfect person subject to the king struggling to make sense of the contemporary political scene, but the poet of law, what he took to be the climactic point of the Protestant cause. And he was using the conceptual materials, the assumption of platitudes, and not to mention the news, rumors, and anecdotes with which his upbringing together with his con with contemporary common discourse have provided him. To put it in another way, Mead and Stupfer were the ideal target audience for the Scott's pamphlets, which were designed to give coherent shape, polemical edge, and immediate political relevance to encode attitudes and assumptions, hard articulated hopes and fears of assault that's refused and indeed shaped Meade's newsletters to Studebel. Thus, this this is what makes to put the case at its weakest, the very classic similarities and affinities between needs entirely private account events to student bill and Scott's part of the public pamphlets. So striking.

After all, it was the early revisionist. We wanted to dismiss Scott's pamphlets as mere propaganda, the sort of inflated nonsense, a certain sort of radical Puritan produced in printed pamphlets while claiming that what was really happening and what people really thought about it could only be found in manuscript sources produced at the same time as the events they were describing, then we should also have to admit that that was precisely what me newsletters were. Since they provided, if not with the day to day, then certainly with a week by week account or a certain sort of contemporary thought was happening in England and the wider world. And thus selecting, framing, and juxtaposing his letters to still will, the messages he was receiving from a variety of sources, Mead allows us to access what was clearly a central strand of contemporary opinion and concern, while most definitely not limited to the supposed radicals like Thomas Scott. And And here it is worth remembering that it was Mead, the Cambridge dong hardly at leftist college, not Scott appeared in pamphleteer forced into exile, who over the winter of 16 21 to 2, presented a picture of England as threatened by political breakdown, the prospect of a mode of arbitrary rule with violence on the streets of London, leading peers in Poland, men imprisoned, the political council split down the middle, and the Protestants calls on the brink of disaster with the limp prospects of a Spanish invasion or and or of a Spanish match bringing toleration to Catholics and partly even a change of religion in their wake.

But James the first and his and his son Charles forced men like Mead, let alone Scott, into the anxieties and paranoias. He unspoken on only half articulated hopes and disappointments on display news in the newsletters, has I think a great to these will tell us about the nature of the crisis in the 16 twenties. And over the longer term, that's even the longer the long term causes of the English Civil War. K. Well done.

That's that's that's really, really fascinating. I mean, the, the notion of this sort of moment in the around the 21 parliament when things I mean, with that quote you had at the beginning about what was it? These outside this sphere of our experience. I mean, what what does that have to refer to? It could be No.

I mean, it it means that our political staff. I mean, you mean, we're Right. Everything he's talking about. Yeah. And so it's it's a get up.

It's like, you know, these are high matters and they're and and they're out. So and and so he says, you know, if I'm if I say something else, you know, something I quote says something that's sort of a bit much, he wrote the kids because we don't we just don't know what we're talking about. And and and it it's clearly, you know, I mean, it it sort of means it. It's also clearly just an excuse. I mean, you know, it it it if he were really worried about these things being outside his experience, and and that's so high, he shouldn't comment on.

I mean, he wouldn't write any of these letters. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, how far do you think, Mead is basically, channeling the gossip that's going around in some Paul's walk amongst the the sort of London London I think I think I think I think I think I think it's it's curved. It's curved in cold.

I don't think he has the London very much. No. I know. He's getting these medicines neatly Yeah. Letters.

But he's getting all the all these people coming from London. I mean, I Yeah. Yeah. Stressed there. The blog turned up.

He told me this. Yeah. The news is in London. This is they stay in London. That's exactly what he's getting here.

And it's it's easy to get it. You know, his country's near and up to London. The university's got the university has enough links for the call. I mean, I didn't quite hear the answers King said, so and so has been to Royston and heard that. You know, some university person's come back from London.

So that's exactly what he's doing. He's soaking up, you know, all reports, which it you know, written newsletters, galantos, and and and and other letters that people are showing him, people of of of of of of of another showing him. And he's he's he's mushing them together into these, you know, accounts of of what's happening. And in some ways, he's just recapping what he's hearing, but he's not just recapping what he's hearing. I mean, he's obviously choosing the the the the the he's editing it, and and he's combining in certain in certain ways, which what which is why I think you'll know he's very sparing with his own tools.

I mean, I quoted things where you use he's tinting, but he's very seldom says, oh, this. This this is what was this is what's wrong. This is what should happen. This is is not doing that, but I think you can see what he's doing with that material. But but as I say, your radio is you know, you know, I'm he's always talking radio.

He's a very he's a very sensitive radio receiver taking all these messages. And Elvis is in a privileged position. I mean, he's in Cambridge. He's close to London. He's got a lot he's got a a wide range of acquaintance, you know, lots of people he knows, come to Cambridge Post and tell him stuff.

But he's not. He's not. You know, he's not the center of events. He's not in London. Yeah.

But it's also clearly showing the newsletters to other people. Yeah. Yeah. So because there's at one point, he says, yeah. Don't show this one to anybody.

Please get get burn this one. But he but he's saying that because he knows he is, in fact, showing the and and sometimes he's a bit worried that, you know, it's it's going out of this the circle where where where where where where, you know, where the impact of what he says can be concurrent. So that I think that's what he's doing. Yeah. I mean, I I and, you know, there's another paper to be written about how, you know, the different sorts of information, where it comes to, and how he combines it.

I was trying to show some of that in a way, both this and quantity is. Well, why it's been on so long. But, you know, the the one could actually take that as a discreet subject. You can come out with other people who've done that, but anyone can do it would want to do something quite interesting with that. Yeah.

So what you're getting is a sense of sort of, well, I mean, public opinion if we could call it that. I mean, it's certainly replicated. It it reduces cyber diary, which is really interesting, which covers the sense of. And then in Michael Michael in I think in Michael Michael Michael, but sometimes, you know, he he claims that I'm again, I've I've read them again, but I'm gonna play systematically since I've done this work, that you can see there's a capital version of the same room. Yeah.

So the same staff is being spun and told by capital mutualist writers. You know, so there are different moments of there are different moments of public opinion. There's no human to public opinion. But there are people using the same sorts of information or the same sorts of sources to make different cases and put the, you know, a different spin on from what is right. Right?

It'd be the same, you know, Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Just to say, we'll take questions from the room first. Okay.

And then, if you if you're online and you want to ask you a question, the best thing is to do is to indicate in the chat box that you wanna ask your question or or put the question into the into the chat box, and, Noah will read it out. And I think you've got your question now. Yeah. Go ahead. I mean, this this I was looking through some of my notes from these newsletters that I read maybe 15 years ago, and they're fascinating, material.

I mean, there's a connection between dues that this material probably just dues and suitable that they call up in. It's often between dues and suitable that new features in. Why I picked up on what I was reading Mead is that Mead is joking constantly about this stuff. He's not avoiding it like, oh, this is desperately horrible. What are we gonna do?

He'll then, you know, sort of tell him real quick about that. And Scott isn't joking with the nukes. He's, like, presenting it as early students. I read the Scott pamphlets. They're, like, you know, all this litany of horrible things that have gone off with England, and it's all Oh, yeah.

But that he is I'm still But that that that's because that that that's because he's not writing. He's not trying to he's not writing pamphlets. He's not making a case. He's not addressing it to a public audience. I'll I'll bet Scott tells jokes in private.

Absolutely. You know, I mean, there might be something more bitter jokes than this, but most of the jokes he's telling are not not neutral jokes. They're jokes about I'm I'm not saying that he's not believing this. I'm saying, what is that telling us how to strip emotions question? The path to, the path to life of being in this, you know, being in this position, You're watching all this stuff collapse, and yours would tell him, Black, you arbitrate.

So it's there's there's that one's reactions to tell Joseph out there. Well, I mean, there there would be, I mean, I think I think he does think. Well, it's interesting. Mead never at this the the the bit at the end that I didn't give read out. It was a bit of a natural, you know, a boss still on it.

With my my my point that Mead never applies his reading the apocalypse to the news to make to say, oh, this is the significance of this event. And I think he doesn't do that because he thinks that the events he's describing are often, he looks not quite sure what's happened. So it's certainly not quite clear what their significance is, and it would cheapen the the the the the the the the value of his scholarly work to attach it to the news. So so so so I think that the end of news is that it's commenting on news is a is a second order activity compared to the the scriptural stuff. But there's no question that the scriptural stuff informs this because it this is the the central assumption around which nearly all this is organized is the anti Christian like nature of potpourri and the reality of Spanish and papal pretensions to universal monarchy.

And in that sense, I think he thinks this is perhaps the climactic point the person calls. And in that sense, I mean, I I I wanna make a terrible, you know, awful comparison to the firm. It's not climate change. If you think about that seriously all the time, you go mad. So what do you do?

You go with something else, or you like jokes? And so I think in some sense, you know, it's that. And and and he often makes he he the a lot of the jokes are bad things which are not quite sure what's happening. So, yeah, he write a joke there. But I on the whole, this is you know, I mean, I think he's taking the stuff really quite seriously.

But the other thing is, these are it's quite clear. This is the these these letters are evidence of an enormously serious engagement with events and what they mean. But they're also part of a social relationship. I mean, you know, the the this is part of a social relationship with him. You know, it's it's a social interaction.

It's grease on the wheels of sociability. It's mixed up with gossip about college, about this and that. You know, stuff, you know, when am I gonna be going to down down? I mean, as as the cheese arrived, I like those parts you're white, maybe. It's mixed up with the white stuff.

So in that sense, you know, that's the other thing about this. I mean, so the other thing I mean, I wanna write you know, I mean, I wanna try and write this stuff, you know, in a I wanna write a chapter or a section about the letters as as it were social interactions and use as as something that greases the real of sociability. And and and and so, of course, and so, you know, so the so at the end, you'll break up and say, oh, I found this book in Cambridge. Do you wanna buy it? It'll cost you 5, yeah, 5, yeah, 5 shillings.

You know, so there's it's all that stuff. And what you know, you rent them. I mean, it it so it's all that's all mixed in. And, of course, in that sense, doing what I've just done in this paper does fortify the letters because, you know, it's as though the letters are all about this. And they are all about this, but they're not just about this.

And and so if you put the other stuff in, then it's a it's a it's a different tone. But, you know, and where Tom Tom Scott, that's just it's terrible act. You know? It it it's like a public case. There's no room for jokes.

Well, except there is I mean, there's a Thomas, there is a sense in which the the humor in Scott's pamphlets comes from the lampooning of Donovan. That's supposed to be funny and and true. But I think that's that's not without that's that's not without humor. But it just to add the last thing on me, I think I think if you looked at the my my memory I mean, I haven't looked them in years, but my memory is that the bits that are on your phone, Dennis Yes. Are more, strict Yeah.

Commentary. And then I wonder if if the disintegration of the of the source and Mead's tone will also give you a sense of of not just Mead as a receptor, but also what what where's Medicine's position? The thing that that's again, that's the difference. Right? Mattis, it seems to me, is actually Rajeet for more more as a formal newsletter.

I mean, it's clearly a social element of that too, but it's a formal newsletter. These are not formal newsletters. They're that that they're a composite account renewed, tightened from formal news because it's taken from Kerantos, but it's part of the social interaction. What? What did you say they are not?

They're they're not formal news. They're not they're not just about the news. They're they're composed of stuff and formal news. It's a stuff and moral stuff, but they're they're they're they're part of this social, you know, interactions correspondence. And it's it's clearly, you know, it's goods and services.

They write, they visit. Sugar wants his kid to go to university, He gets in it. You know, the the it's all serious. You know, good good service, his favors. And it's a and and clearly a friendship.

I think you can see the labs to get more friendly and more relaxed in the course of the correspondence. He visit. He visit. He visits all the time. Call the club.

I I I think it's absurd to say that we could respond to it to be used. Lots of people have used it all all the time and people have worked on it. But it seems to me they tended to work on it as a as a useless as a source of information or as a way to think about information circulates. And that that's all pertinent to it. I'm not saying you shouldn't do that.

But then, if you read them just for what they tell you about Italy, there's a huge amount of stuff about about Mead and life and and and, you know, the university in relation between the university and the outside world, all that in there. And so the idea, if I ever get finished doing this, is to try and bring one up at the same time. I think so then I think yeah. No. I think I mean, I think the right now should actually make more of the other humor.

I mean, I mean, the the the the the the thing I didn't read out is is is is is is is is is is is is a is a plot of Jews. You know, visions in the sky, you know, that. And that's full of junk. He says, oh, I didn't mention this. I didn't talk totally as my last look in case you thought I got I I got barmy.

I I, you know, I didn't mention this before because, you know, you you might think I believe everything I hear. But there's there's there's also one of those processes, right, where he he thinks that it's probably common assets. But he also spends a huge amount of time trying to work out that's all what exactly they're predicting because there's always the chance that they're not. That's right. And and that that's exactly what he does with these with these things.

And and it's very interesting because it's it's only when the the the the account of these things come in from more than one place, and there are people he knows through Christ. So they're sensible chaps. That's why it's not just just anybody. It's not just it's not just rumor. It's it's sensible men.

And at the end, he he's got this great thing where he says well, it's and also, it's all happened in Germany. He said, well, it's, you know, that may be it can't be an accident. If you happen in Germany here and how do I know it happened in Germany? Well, I know because I read it in Gallobelicus, and the god who edits Gallobelicus is a really good mathematician. So I think we can believe him.

Well, I accept that. No that there's a sense in which yes. It it it it it it it's it's all bullshit. I I I don't want to look prejudiced, but it might be true or it appears to be true. But then but then the interesting thing is even when he sort of more or less said it seems to be true, he doesn't ever say this is what it means.

It's really interesting. I I I think he I think there, he does want to look at a man's judgment, not what, you know, as that work. A crazy man. Okay. Let's have some more questions, Jason.

Yeah. And and, I there are there are there are there are there are there are there are there are there are there are there are there are there are there are there are there are there are there are there are there are there are there are there are there are there are there are there are there are there are there are there are there are there are there are there are there are there are there are there are there are there are there are there are there and then you can write it in the legalistic way, the code, you know, code of quality is way. And on certain readings, that's legal version, that legalistic version comes more around after the the end of the 21 parliament in relation to freedom, yeah, claims of freedom inspection. So so the question is, is that is there any that some of this obviously is about freedom speech. It's not they're looking at these people.

In fact, they're not saying it's about freedom speech. That's all basically what it's about. But it's quite interesting. It's weird. It's really quite frustrating because one of these letters to 16/24 is alright.

Let's dig up in 25 and and and go go to 28 and like that. And as you get into 26 and 28, the policy and cool stops. I mean, it's still there, but it's nowhere near as central, and it's all about domestic politics. And and there's one account of the debate. I think it's I can't remember what it is.

So I I this is this is in the the notes I didn't review to write this thing, so my memory is is is not. Besides, I think it might be 26 or might be 28. I can't remember. It might be 28. But, anyway, he he actually says, yeah, there's a debate between the friends of the Duke and the friends of liberty.

He said liberty. As far as I think he has moved from this to that because of the nature of events. And the focus is not is no longer the policy because it's on what's happening in parliament, what's at stake. And so to me, it that's really interesting. And but but, see, the other thing is that the matching thing I mean is radicalized.

Yeah. Yeah. But it is not that radicalized because, you know, in in 28, he's terrified they're gonna elect lots of lung reviews us, and that'll make green with the king more difficult. So you you can watch him, you know, move according to events and position himself. And so I think you could qualify that does the 2 views you mentioned in him at different times.

Right. Now are we done? So so one question. Yeah. We've got a question from Malcolm.

We could just he probably wants to read it. So, Malcolm, you wanna do an automated Malcolm? If I read through it now. Can you hear me? Yes.

We can hear you. Yeah. Okay. Peter, I've I've heard most of what you almost everything you said convincing, but I wanna press you a little bit on court versus country. I remember Thomas Scott saying somewhere in Vox Oculi that he was worried that even parliament was being corrupted because the voters were voting the way their landlords were telling them to vote rather than following their conscience.

It seems to me the basic dichotomy in Scott is not court country. It's virtue, religion versus corruption. And that basic dichotomy in Scott and Mead and others is being mapped on all sorts of other dichotomies. It can be court versus country, and you can find examples of that. But it can also be economist views of people like James and Buckingham, good privy councilors versus corrupt privy councilors, patriot lords versus corrupt lords, Spain versus the Netherlands, maybe even liberty versus absolutism.

And it strikes me that this this mapping of once of of a basic dichotomy onto other dichotomies is complex. It's fluid. And that is a large part of the story of how political discourse is developing in the reign of James the first, especially in the 16 twenties, because it is so fluid. And because events like Buckingham's coming back from Spain and repudiating the Spanish match, because suddenly reshuffle the deck and make you you rethink how the dichotomies are lining up. And I wonder if if you'd agree with that, if you'd respond to that.

Yeah. Yeah. I think I think that's true, except I think it was Scott, certainly. In fact, I think I think the call country thing is actually much more obvious in Scott than it is in in me, probably. Although there is this implicit sentence.

It's only parliament that can that can sort this out, and and and the really interesting part is the way in which James and Buckingham are quantified the same, you know, I saw the light because of parliament. I think there is no set there's no question that they think people think that corruption can can seep into the in into the countryside if you say if Englishmen.