Newsletters of Richard Bulstrode, 1667-1689
From the Harry Ransom Humanities Center at the University of Texas, Austin

Introduction taken from the catalogue of sale of the Carl H Pforzheimer Library

NEWSLETTERS addressed to Sir Richard Bulstrode, and others, 25 October 1667 - 3 June 1689.

DESCRIPTION: This collection consists of nearly 1,500 newsletters1 laid in five half-roan cases numbered VII, VIII, IX, XI and XII. The cases appear to be of early nineteenth century workmanship. 2

PROVENANCE: Alfred Morrison sale (IV, 1919, Lot 2757). 3

The newsletter was made possible in the seventeenth century by the establishment of a regular postal service both within England and to the continent. But newsletters would probably not then have flourished had it not been for the control of the press, which the partisanship of the newspapers appeared to make necessary. For a fee, usually five pounds per annum, a subscriber to a newsletter received a semi-weekly letter which told so much of the news of court and town or of foreign intelligence as was not in the newspapers of the time. Sometimes, it is possible that the news sent was edited or coloured to suit the views of the subscriber (see Lady Newdigate Newdegate Cavalier and Puritan 1901, ppvii-xvii) but it is unlikely that there was much of that, if only because of the difficulty of composition. Probably what most subscribers received was merely a clerk’s copy of a master letter, which was preserved by the letter-office in case any question should arise as to the news dispersed.

One of the largest of the newsletter offices of the Restoration was that organised by Sir Joseph Williamson, Secretary of State, with the assistance of Robert Yard and others. 4    Williamson's office had a large list of subscribers and a constant effort was made to enlarge that list, not, however, solely that the profit would be the greater, for the clerks received the main financial benefit from their activity. Their master, Secretary Williamson, employed his office of Secretary of State and master of the letter-office, i.e. post-office, to organize a large correspondence, particularly with persons residing abroad, in order to provide material for the London Gazette of which he was also the publisher, as well as to keep himself informed for official reasons. The subscribers merely received the newsletters for which they paid but to the correspondents were sent, at least once a week and sometimes more often, not only the latest London Gazette but also a newsletter giving court and London news not printed in the semi-weekly Gazette. In return, the correspondents were expected to send printed newspapers of the countries where they lived as well as such unprinted news as had come to their ears. Williamson was able to do this at no great expense, other than for clerical help, because, through his secretaryship, he had a franking privilege, which covered letters both ways.

Williamson's newsletters are written on quarto paper and, for the most part, with the heading Whitehall. When the court was absent from Westminster his letters are sometimes headed Windsor or Newmarket. Apparently he also supplied, when Parliament was in session, a daily letter covering the debates in both Houses. These parliamentary letters are usually, but not always, on foolscap. His clerks employed several different seals5, mostly armorial.

Another newsletter office was conducted by Edward Coleman. He is not known, apparently, to those who have written on the newsletters of this period. However, Coleman was not only a very accomplished news agent who wrote detailed letters in the manner of Henry Muddiman but he was also the same Edward Coleman, secretary to the Duchess of York, who was caught (see State Papers Dom., Charles II 1678) the 28 September 1678, i.e. two days after his latest letter here preserved, transmitting money to plotters against the life of Charles II and executed for treason 3rd December. The evidence by which this letter-writer may be identified with the traitor occurs in a note written at the end of his newsletter (in English) to Bulstrode, 3 September 1676; “Ayez la bonte Monsr pour l’avenir d’addresser vos letters A Monsieur Colman secretr de S.A.R. Madame la Duchesse D’yorc A’Londres pour le service de S.A.R.” 6

Coleman's letters are written apparently by a clerk, at least all references to Coleman are in the third person, on foolscap paper, with marginal notes as to day of week and month. They are unsigned, but when the address leaf is preserved have an unidentified seal in black wax: on a chevron, between three cherub heads winged, a crescent for difference; crest, a demi-dragon rampant.

The newsletters in this collection before 1675 (244 letters), which are all from Sir Joseph Williamson's letter-office, are addressed to a ‘Mr. Walgrave’ (25 October 1667 - 18 December 1668, 54 letters), to a ‘Mr. Mansfield’ (23 letters), to a ‘Mr. Curtis’ (1 letter), to a ‘Mr. Richardson’ (2 letters, 1 being shared with Bulstrode) and to ‘Mr. [Richard] Bulstrode’ (25 letters) -- the rest being without any addressee though after 1673 probably all were written to Bulstrode. Certainly, from 1674 on, all the letters in this collection were intended for him though few are so addressed. From 9 April 1675 to 26 September 1678 there are 235 letters written from Edward Coleman’s office to Bulstrode. From 24 April 1676 to 11 March 1677, concurrently with the Coleman letters, there are 77 letters from Williamson’s letter-office. From 1 January 1679 until the end of the series in 1689, the letters are all from Williamson’s office. Thus for more than twenty years, at least one letter a week, and sometimes (e.g. January 1677, when both the Coleman and Williamson letters are preserved) as many as twenty-two in one month are here preserved except for the following gaps: April 1669, August 1670, August 1671, October-November 1672, April 1673-March 1674, June-August 1674, January-March 1676, October-December 1678, January-December 1684, May-August 16857, and January-March 1688.

Sir Richard Bulstrode, to whom most of these letters are addressed, was stationed at Brussels, first as English ‘agent’, then, after being knighted in 1676, as ‘Resident’, and finally, after the accession of James II, as ‘Envoy’. He appears to have been merely a subscriber to Coleman’s newsletter, but he was a valued correspondent of Williamson's office. Throughout the letters from that office occur many postscripts of thanks for newspapers from Brussels, and even from Vienna and Venice, as well as thanks for Bulstrode's letters of which the value may be judged from the example here preserved a (MS.2a) 8.  At Brussels, no doubt, Bulstrode could pick up many a piece of news of the plans of the Allies in the Thirty Years War, which, apparently, he enjoyed retailing. Almost as numerous as the expressions of thanks, however, are the complaints that no letter had been received from Bulstrode the last post. On one occasion, 26 April 1680, Yard was much aggrieved and wrote: ‘I cannot sr but take notice that I have of late seen the news letter you send to me printed verbatim in one of the Intelligences [query The Currant Intelligence: or an impartial account of transactions both foreign and domestick], as the enclosed will give you the proof of, which you will best be able to judge from whence they have it, and whether it be by yr order’. The following year, 29 July 1681, Yard wrote: ‘The letters you send us are printed word for word in one of the weekly pamphlets that come out…’ , and again, 3 September 1683, he complains that Bulstrode sent to some of the Clerks of the Post Office ‘news which they publish prejudicial to the Gazette….’

The complaints were not all on one side, however, for several times it would seem that Bulstrode was fearful that some misinformation printed in the Gazette over a Brussels date-line would be attributed to him. James Vernon reassured him, 30 December 1687: “I am sorry ther was any thing printed here which gave offence but I am satisfied that ther was nothing att that time or any other time published but what might be justified by the Letters sent hither…” . Again, 8 August 1687, Vernon sought to forestall a complaint as follows: “Our french Translator is this day quite beside the Cushion as you will see by comparing one with th’other. Yor letters came in late indeed on Sonday after we had finished Our Gazett & he took no notice of the alteration wee had forced to make [i.e. on account of information in Bulstrodes letters] wherin I dont excuse him (for it is very Idly done) but onley to give you notice of the failure…” . Evidently, also, Bulstrode made the same complaint that had been made to him that he supplied identical news to other parties for, 23 December 1687, Vernon wrote: “I have received yor reproof both by yor owne letter & Mr Lynche and I have been & shall be as carefull as I can to send you what news I hear. I am sorry it looses its name by being communicated to the Gazetier to whom Mr Yard would have it sent in Exchange for his Gazetts…” . There are also frequent requests that these letters should be considered as private information, e.g. 7 September 1688, Yard wrote: “I againe Entreat you not to lett these papers goe out of yr owne hands, but when you have read them to commit them to ye fire.”

When visiting England in August 1685, Bulstrode requested Yard that the newsletters sent to Brussels should be written in French, presumably to save Bulstrode the trouble of translating them himself before turning them over to some other party, possibly a Brussels intelligencer. Evidently Bulstrode's own letters were of sufficient usefulness to the London Gazette that even such drudgery as this request entailed was not too much to be endured for Yard thereafter supplied very nearly all the letters in French. He did, however, have some qualms for, 25 September 1685, Yard wrote: “I have collected all the news I possibly can, and have putt it in the Language you desire, but one thing I pray, that you will not send my paper to anybody, for my hand may be knowne, and that you will never name me…” .

It has been said9: ‘To all intents and purposes, there are no State Papers for the reign of James II. The newsletters for that reign, therefore, ought to be printed almost in their entirety’. In this collection there are some 368 letters of that period apparently as large a number as are known in any other series.

References

1 The only comparable series of which we can find record are the Henry Muddiman newsletters, 1667-1689, the property of the Marquess of Bath, and the Williamson newsletters, 1667-1691, calendared in Hist. MSS. Com. 12 R. App. Pt.VII, formerly belonging to S.H.Le Fleming and now in the Bodleian. A rough count of these last gives slightly over a thousand letters.

2 The contents, provenance and present location of cases I-VI and X are not known.

3 Alfred Morrison privately reprinted about one fifth of these letters, from 25 October 1667 to 10 December 1675, in a volume entitled Bulstrode Papers, Vol. I, 1897. Mr. Morrison’s death in 1897 prevented the completion of the publication.

4 Yard becomes Under-Secretary of State in 1699. Among the others may be mentioned James Vernon who took Yard’s place in charge of the London Gazette and the newsletter office, from June 1687 to April 1688, when Yard went to Portugal as secretary to the Duke of Grafton; Henry Ball who evidently for years, 1673-1683 at least, was a trusted clerk and whose name is signed to several letters; O. Wynne, J. Tucker, and Jo. Wendon, not otherwise known, but who signed at least one each; and William Bridgeman, who was made Under-Secretary in 1682 and who signed a letter in 1683. Yard, however, was Secretary Williamson’s chief assistant and, with Ball, the editor of the London Gazette.

5  On 18 October 1680, Yard wrote: “Suspecting that my letters are opened, I desire if you observe it, you will give me notice, and that you may the better doe it I send you the seale Jule.”  [All quotations here given are from letters in this collection.]

6  Coleman had been in trouble in 1676, in connection with the same scandal concerning unauthorized publication of Privy Council business for which Muddiman was also examined, see J.G. Muddiman The Kings Journalist pp.205-7. Samuel Pepys had come upon a statement in a coffee house newsletter announcing the resolution of the Council to set out an expedition against the Algiers pirates. He complained to the King who instructed Secretary Williamson to look into the matter. Apparently Williamson was aware that his own assistant, Robert Yard, had sent out the same information in the newsletters he issued from the letter-office at Whitehall. Indeed, Yard’s newsletter to Bulstrode of 2 October 1676 gives the passage verbatim as quoted, State-Papers Domestic 1676-7 p.353, from a newsletter said to be ‘in the hand of Coleman, an attorney in Chancery Lane’.  Nevertheless, Williamson sought to put the blame on his rival letter-writers, especially Muddiman and Coleman. He had them examined by the Privy Council but finally had to acknowledge that his own servant, Yard, was the real offender and that he should be punished (op.cit. 13 October 1676, p.368). However, Williamson did not want to let the matter end thus for he believed that Coleman, at least, had written the same news, as indeed he had in his letter to Bulstrode of 2 October 1676, though less circumstantially than Yard. A warrant was therefore issued 17th October ‘to search for and take into custody - - Coleman and bring him to answer what is objected against him concerning the dispersing of false newsletters and other dangerous practices.’ Coleman in his letter to Bulstrode of 20 October 1676, under that date says: “we have had two counsells this day at Whitehall, at ye first there was a letter produc’d which was found at a Coffee house, in wch it was writ for news, yt ye King had resolud to sett out a fleet and yt ye D: of Monmouth was to goe as a private capt: which it seemes is either not formally resolv’d upon, or else, not fit to be imparted to Coffee houses, upon which ye General Intelligences were call’d upon, to find whose it was but I cannot heare that the authour is discouerd.”

   Evidently this did not end the matter, at least in the minds of gossips, for in a letter from Coleman’s office of 29 December 1676, there is a note ‘My Mr went out of Towne on Wednesday last [27th] & will not return till ye middle of ye next month’. Another, 15 January 1677 reads: ‘My Mr is just come home from his journey’; while on the 19th: ‘Mr. Colman, of whom there has been several discourses of late, as if he were fled, he having been 15 or 16 days out of towne about his owne occasions, is said to be returned againe to his owne houses and appears as formerly without any great sense of feare or guilt’. During the early part of 1678 there are numerous references to Coleman’s ill health, but, of course, none to his plotting.

7  Bulstrode was, from the evidence of a note by Robert Yard, 31 August 1685, in England at this time. Doubtless, many of the gaps represent holidays and other interruptions.

8  In a letter of Secretary Jenkins to the Earl of Conway (State Papers Dom. 1682, p.113) occurs this ambiguous encomium:        “I have nothing to trouble you with to-night but Sir Richard Bulstrode’s letter, which I enclose, … though I know you never miss Sir Richard’s letter.”

9  J. G. Muddiman The King’s Journalist 1923, p.vii.

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