The Thomason Tracts and Presbyterian Mobilization

Abstract

This chapter uses the Thomason Tracts as a collection, as well as the partisan attitudes of Thomason himself, to assess the use of print in the bitter conflicts that divided parliamentarians in the 1640s. It compares the stress on division revealed in printed accounts of two particularly fraught episodes in 1646 - the March petition from zealous Presbyterians against lay commissioners, and the controversies over the City Remonstrance in May - to the more ambiguous account in the manuscript journal of the Independent leaning Thomas Juxon. It seeks to complicate simple dichotomies between print, manuscript and oral communication in revolutionary London.

Keywords

• thomason tracts
• george thomason