The Journalists
Richard Verstegan
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Verstigan wrote books and pamphlets defending the English
Catholics and attacking their persecution. 'Persecutions contre
les Catholiques, par les protestans Machiauellistes en Angleterre',
Richard Verstegan, Theatre des Cruautez des Heretiques, (1607).
By permission of the British LibraryRichard Verstegan,
born in London probably between 1548 and 1550, was the grandson
of a Dutchman from Gelderland. He was educated at Oxford then
seems to have become a goldsmith in London, before becoming
involved in writing and publishing books from the 1570s onwards.
In 1576 he published The Post of the World, the first English
guidebook to the continent, then in 1581 he organised the
secret publication of an account of the execution of the Catholic
priest Edmund Campion and had to flee the country. From then
on, he remained on the continent, publicising the plight of
the English Catholics.
His most famous work was the Theatrum crudelitatum haereticorum
nostri temporis (A display of the cruelties of the heretics
of our time). First published in 1587 it became popular across
Catholic Europe and was translated into French and reprinted
several times. The book detailed famous atrocities carried
out by Protestants in several countries in Europe, especially
in England, and helped to form Catholic opinion on England.
It is said that he designed the famous plates in the book
himself.
Based in Antwerp after 1587, Verstegan acted as an important
link between the Jesuit priests in England and their leaders,
especially William Allen and Robert Persons. He arranged for
the printing of Catholic books in English and for them to
be smuggled back into England. He continued to write books
and pamphlets attacking the persecution of the English Catholics
and justifying their behaviour.
Richard Verstegan received a pension from the King of Spain
and worked as a spy picking up information in the Protestant
Netherlands between 1615 and 1617 - passing it on to the head
of Spanish secret intelligence in the Low Countries. By then
he was also providing regular reports to the Flemish newspaper,
Nieuwe Tijdinghen. He died in 1640, and was buried in Antwerp.
Francis Herring
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Francis Herring, The Quintessence of Cruelty, (1640). By permission
of the British LibraryFrancis Herring came from Nottinghamshire
and trained as a doctor at Cambridge University. He was also
an author and his first published work, Anatomyes of the True
Physition and Counterfeit Mounte-Banke (1602), was a translation
of a book in Latin by a German physician, which was supposed
to explain how patients could distinguish a proper doctor
from a quack.
In 1603 he published Certaine rules, directions or advertisements
for this time of pestilentiall contagion. This was a fairly
sensible description of practical measures people could take
to limit outbreaks of the Plague. It suggested keeping the
streets clean, burying the dead away from towns, and keeping
people away from public places. It dismissed arsenic amulets
(bracelets) - a common folk remedy - as useless against the
Plague.
Herring also wrote books and pamphlets attacking the Catholic
Church and its agents. Soon after the discovery of the plot
he wrote and published an account of it in Latin verse, Pietas
Pontifica. This was translated into English in 1610 as Popish
Pietie, and in 1617 and 1641 as Mischeefe's Mysterie. The
1617 version was illustrated with woodcuts, as were many cheap
pamphlets and broadsides
of the time. Herring died in 1628.
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