Inscripting Rebellion: The Newdigate Manuscript Newsletters, Printed Newspapers and the Cultural Memory of the 1715 Rising^*

Abstract

In this essay, I bring a literary critic's perspective to the study of the continued use of manuscript newsletters in the 18th century. I suggest that by comparing and contrasting the treatment of political news in official manuscript newsletters and printed newspapers during a specific and limited time period in the early 18th century, the beginning of what became known as the 1715 Jacobite Rising, we can see in relief the different affordances of each medium, gain further information about what role scribal news played in conveying political information and understand why it eventually lost traction. Analysing the news coverage in the Newdigate manuscript newsletters and in five newspapers ranging across the political spectrum, I suggest that the 1715 Rising in fact presented an opportunity for newspapers to compete with manuscript newsletters’ established authority as they conveyed news that was occurring in the locations of conflict in a more timely and thorough manner. At the same time, the affordances of the newspaper form also amplified the impression of the 1715 Rising as a disjointed and uncontrollable series of events. The essay concludes by examining the information management that took place in the printed histories produced in the aftermath of the conflict as they wove the newspaper reports together into narratives that minimised the danger that the events of 1715 had actually posed.