Cromwellian England: A Propaganda State?

Abstract

This article explores the attitude to the press on the part of Oliver Cromwell and his chief ministers in terms of press control and propaganda and in terms of the theory and the practice of government policy. It examines whether the regime sought and whether it was able to achieve strict press control through pre-publication censorship and swift and severe punishment of malefactors as well as effective and pervasive propaganda, which was centrally organized, controlled, funded, and distributed. It argues that between 1653 and 1659 profound changes were implemented regarding intelligence-gathering, press censorship and propaganda in the deployment of resources and bureaucratic efficiency, not least by centralizing power in the hands of the secretary of state, even if the regime sought to exert its power in only some areas of print culture rather than to achieve a complete press monopoly.

Greasing the wheels of policy reversal: Discursive engineering and public opinion management during the relaxation of China's family planning policy

“…The failure of the Soviet regime to adjust its propaganda discourses to the series of policy changes that began with the New Economic Policy (1921-28) precipitated citizens' eventual distrust of the socialist economic regime (Boettke, 1995). In Cromwellian England, the rapid centraliza tion and rigidification of the propaganda state preluded the eventual political disintegration of the Protectorate (Peacey, 2006). During the Great Terror under Stalin, the unexplained purge of previously lauded revolutionary figures led directly to citizens' loss of faith in the Soviet ideology (Brandenberger, 2012).…”

From Tyrant to Unfit Monarch: MarchamontNedham's Representation ofCharlesStuart andRoyalists during the Interregnum

“…Thurloe mailed copies of Politicus to diplomatic agents on the continent and instructed them to distribute the paper further. Even royalists were regular readers of Politicus . Writing to the Marquis of Ormonde, Sir Edward Nicholas, a prominent exiled royalist in The Hague, included with his letter an ‘extract out of Mercurius Politicus sent me from Paris’.…”

Cromwell's Edinburgh Press and the Development of Print Culture in Scotland

“…Jason Peacey's argument -that interregnum governments used print to 'control the flow of information and opinion which reached both domestic and continental audiences' -is equally applicable to Scotland. 70 Cromwell's conviction that Scotland could be convinced rather coerced rested on a generally held belief among his puritan counterparts, that most Scots were, as Arthur Williamson put it, 'latterday saints and a godly people'. 71 They shared a common faith, a common destiny and a similar place in history, all of which bestowed upon Scots a critical role in building God's new kingdom on earth.…”