Dangerous Talk: Scandalous, Seditious, and Treasonable Speech in Pre-Modern England (review)

Sir Thomas Smith’s ‘fourth sorte who do not rule’ – the vast majority of the population in early modern England – have left relatively few traces in the historical records. Many historians have acknowledged their existence cursorily, working into their studies a few examples of lower-order insubordinate speech. There have, however, been fewer suggestions of how representative such instances of speech were or what, if any, penalty followed. In this study, Professor Cressy explores these issues as part of his wider project, tracing the gradual emergence of what we now call ‘freedom of speech’, a phrase of very different meaning in the sixteenth century, as he investigates transgressive statements, and, where possible, their repercussions, across five centuries, with a particular focus on the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries.

David Cressy has made many significant contributions to understanding the culture of ‘pre-modern England’, and this study is an important addition to his work. Religious admonitions against ‘evil speaking, lying and slandering’ are familiar enough, but as Cressy reiterates, the most dangerous words were always those against magistrates and monarchs, in part because commoners had no right to discuss affairs of state. Of course, they often did pass comments on their betters and rulers, and with the increased reach of printed broadsheets, the practice increased further. Cressy’s interest in disruptive words goes beyond that focus to include scolding and quarrels across the social spectrum from villagers to academics and gentry, in developing his argument that ‘unruly tongues’ were a social threat at all levels. This study offers striking examples of abusive exchanges and also illustrates graphically the complex interactions of the categories of seditious words and treasonous speech.

Treasonable remarks were always at the most dangerous end of the spectrum of spoken words, and shifting attitudes to whether words alone constituted treason is a major theme of this work. The usual penalties for treason were the most gruesome form that rulers could devise, and it is when Cressy turns to this topic that the more serious implications of the study emerge. For many different reasons, seditious utterances were often reported to magistrates and other authorities, but there are fewer details of what punishment, if any, followed. Presumably local patronage was one reason for intermittent penalties. More significantly, from his extensive work in the records, Cressy provides persuasive evidence of how informed many of those whose place was ‘to be ruled’ were about royal and political matters, particularly from the sixteenth century. This may have owed more to the religious changes successive Tudor monarchs introduced than Cressy acknowledges, the result of which was a heightened consciousness of monarchs and their significance, particularly at the parish church level.

In 1534, during the reign of Henry VIII, as Cressy remarks, treason law was extended to encompass words as well as deeds, but there was always some unease about that. Seventeenth-century lawyers much preferred to rely on deeds rather than words to prove treasonable intent. There was some (entirely predictable) seditious muttering against the accession of a foreign king from 1603, and against subsequent Stuart monarchs. Cressy also addresses Catholic dissent in the seventeenth century; he had previously paid curiously little attention to the Elizabethan Catholics who suffered the full rigour of a traitor’s death, despite, for many, their attempts not to challenge the queen’s authority. In the next reign, the trials of the lawyer Edward Floyd, who rejoiced in the Protestant defeat at White Mountain and sneered at the fortunes of the Stuart family embroiled in the disaster, led to a debate in the Commons which offered a superb demonstration of just how inchoate, but brutal, remained the official stance on scandalous talk.

In the reign of Charles I, the case of Hugh Pyne in 1627 provides an impressive example of a significant clarification of the law. Pyne undoubtedly spoke critically of the new king but after lengthy proceedings the judges ruled that...