John Starkey and Ideological Networks in Late Seventeenth-Century England *

The shop of bookseller John Starkey, near the Middle Temple gate on Fleet Street, offered an ideal forum for a late seventeenth-century news network. In a memorandum of 1675 Charles II's chief minister, the Earl of Danby, noted that it was one of two shops ‘that poyson both the City and country with false newes’. Every afternoon, it was alleged, Starkey received material ‘so penned as to make for the disadvantage of the King and his affairs’. The documents circulating there included ‘all resolutions of parliament that are either voted or a preparing for vote in either House, perfect true or artificially corrupted or penned by halves on purpose as may make most for the Faction’. The shop accordingly attracted ‘young lawyers of both Temples and other Inns of court, who here generally receive their tincture and corruption, ill-affected citizens of all sorts, ill-affected gentry’ [ ¹ ]. It is therefore no surprise to find that Starkey's shop was, by 1679, a meeting point for the members of the Green Ribbon Club, the membership of which included many such young lawyers and news-hawks [ ² ]. Danby also noted that Starkey's shop produced newsletters that were sent all over the kingdom. This can be verified, since a set of newsletters from Starkey to Sir Willoughby Aston, in Cheshire, survive in the British Library [ ³ ]. The letters cover 1667–1672 and included news unavailable in print [ ⁴ ]. Often this related to parliamentary affairs and Starkey was evidently close to Anchitell Grey, MP for Derby, who is mentioned by name in the newsletters and whose own notes on debates were later published [ ⁵ ]. Given his pivotal role in this news network, John Starkey was almost certainly the ‘Mr Starky’ who was taken into custody for selling ‘certain votes of the last sessions of parliament without licence or authority’ [ ⁶ ]. Starkey also reported the passage of legislation relating to dissenters, giving advance notice in early 1668 about the comprehension bill that would be ‘offered to the parliament’, and he even included as part of his news service the heads of bills for comprehension and indulgence [ ⁷ ]. He was, then, regarded by the government as a seditious newsmonger whose premises became associated with a radical club. Clearly Starkey was at the centre of an important network of those critical of Charles II's court and its policies, and those who sought a wider church settlement.