The English Mercurie hoax

Newspapers are such a staple of out everyday life that it is difficult to imagine a time when you had a source of news at your fingertips, whether reliable or not is, of course, a matter of debate, and access to trenchant and thought-provoking commentaries on the current state of affairs. But there was a time when we existed without newspapers and, indeed, before the advent of the printing press, they would have been an impossibility.

These days it is generally accepted that the Mercurius Gallobelgicus, which was produced in Cologne from 1594, written in Latin and consequently widely distributed around Europe, was the first newspaper in the world, as we would understand the term. But the eminent Scottish antiquarian, George Chalmers, thought he had a scoop when he revealed to his readers in his Life of Thomas Ruddiman, published in 1794, that the German rag was a Johnny-come-lately, pipped to the post by the English Mercurie. In a burst of patriotic pride, perhaps unusual in a Scotsman, he wrote, “it may gratify our national pride to be told, that mankind are indebted to the wisdom of Elizabeth, and the prudence of Burleigh, for the first newspaper”.       

It is not clear how Chalmers got wind of it, although a manuscript copy and some printed versions had been bequeathed to the British Museum in 1766 by a Dr Birch along with other documents, more on whom anon. And what a marvellous organ it was. It wasn’t full of the daily trivia, minor crimes, scandals, political debates, that we associate with newspapers today. No, it had bigger fish to fry.

With a dateline of Whitehall, July 23, 1588 complete with gothic nameplate, faded typeface and spellings from the era of early modern English, and consisting of four pages, it contained three reports concerning the failed Spanish armada. It started off with the spotting of the Spanish fleet off Plymouth and then the actions of Sir Francis Drake and Sir Martin Frobisher, crucially misspelt as Forbisher. It numbered the Spanish fleet at 150 and detailed the ships which had been captured by English action. A further report, from Ostend dated July 27, told of the serried ranks of Spanish soldiers, some 30,000 foot soldiers and 1,800 cavalry in all, massed on the coast ready to follow up the successful Spanish fleet.  It ended with a report dated July 23 of an audience held by good Queen Bess with dignitaries of the City of London.

For forty-five years Chalmers’s patriotic claim that this was the first newspaper was the accepted truth. But Thomas Watt was not convinced. Finding the original manuscript in the bowels of the British Museum in 1839 he examined it with interest. He noticed that the writing was identical to that in letters penned to Dr Birch by Philip Yorke, the second Earl of Hardwicke. The manuscript had been corrected in the hand of Dr Birch. There were other inconsistencies, particularly in relation to typeface used and spellings. Watt concluded it was a hoax perpetrated by Yorke and Birch and others.

It is not known why they went to the trouble of perpetrating an elaborate hoax, perhaps it was a literary challenge or just a bit of harmless fun. Even though it was debunked as a fake, even today some authorities unwittingly quote from it . A recent example was Channel 4 in their Elizabeth’s Pirates series. Students of hoaxes, perhaps they should be called hoaxperts, will know that there is nothing more dangerous than a group of English aristocrats in the eighteenth century with time on their hands.         

If you enjoyed this, try Fifty Scams and Hoaxes by Martin Fone, finalist in the Non Fiction: Business/Sales/Economics category of the Independent Author Network Book of the Year awards 2019.

https://www.troubador.co.uk/bookshop/business/fifty-scams-and-hoaxes/