8 - Charles I and Georg Weckherlin

Summary

‘More sad or Heavie Tydings hath not in this Age been brought since Prince Harries Death to the True Hearts of England.’

It was Charles’s misfortune to succeed James in place of an older brother whose early death and loss as a putative champion of Protestantism were deeply mourned, and to inherit through his sister a seemingly intractable, and humiliating, international situation for the Stuart dynasty. Through most of his reign Charles pursued a range of unsuccessful diplomatic, naval and military approaches to secure the restoration of the Palatinate, while on Continent an increasingly stark contrast with Charles was provided by the example of Gustavus Adolphus, the Swedish hero of the Protestant cause. Historians now debate Charles failure to explain himself, to create a successful image or to defend himself against the arguments of others, asking to what extent this failure may have contributed to the wars within his kingdoms.

Charles management of communications can be observed through his handling of Parliaments, fundraising and the recruitment of forces to support foreign policy, and through his experiments with news licensing arrangements in bids to influence reporting on European events and Britain’s role in them. From his wars with Spain and France, through the Peace of Prague, to the negotiation of a Franco-British alliance in 1636/7, changes in press relationships can be related shifts in foreign allegiances. For much of the period Georg Rudolf Weckherlin, a crown official serving a succession of secretaries of state, acted as the news licenser, and he established a productive working relationship with the publishers that survived many changes and challenges. With the introduction of a royal patent for the foreign news service at the end of 1638, Weckherlin was succeeded by Robert Reade, Secretary Windebank’s nephew.

Charles came to the throne committed to a French marriage and faced with funding war with Spain in a period of economic depression with ineffective financial machinery. Of the money voted in 1625, £360,000 went to Denmark and £100,000 to troops in the Low Countries. Some £240,000 had gone to recruiting and equipping an army of 12,000 pressed men who had been transported under the command of Mansfeld from Dover to Vlissingen in January 1625.