Piers Mucklejohn

London

Journalist at Freelance

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Articles

Should We Pay More Attention to Shakespeare’s Contemporaries?

2 weeks ago | earlymodernscribbling.com | Piers Mucklejohn

2023 marked 400 years since a small group of actors and publishers produced Shakespeare’s “First Folio”, a collection of 36 plays. Without it, 18 may have been lost forever. Every collection which holds a copy jumped at the opportunity to exhibit it, academic conferences were called, and the BBC (not to be outdone) announced “Shakespeare Season” — including a three-part series about the “Rise of a Genius”, featuring a star-studded cast of actors and academics.
England’s First Printed News Report Was About Its Triumph Over the Scottish at the Battle of Flodden

3 weeks ago | earlymodernscribbling.com | Piers Mucklejohn

In late 1513, a small book was put up for sale in a bookshop next to St. Paul’s Cathedral. It was a type of literature which is commonplace today, but Tudor readers had never seen before: a printed news report. News was not an unfamiliar concept by any means. It spread locally through word of mouth, across countries in written correspondence, and internationally via manuscript newsletter networks.
Three Tales of the Supernatural in Early Modern England, From a Ghostly Lawyer to a Flying Devil

3 weeks ago | earlymodernscribbling.com | Piers Mucklejohn

By the 1590s, London’s population was very familiar with witches. The accusation, conviction, and execution of a witch brought with it all of the feverish local gossip and rumour that one might expect — which quickly spread across the country — but Londoners could read all about it in print, too.
What goes on inside London’s mysterious green huts only select few can enter

1 month ago | mylondon.news | Veronique Hawksworth |Matt Spivey |Piers Mucklejohn

London is well-known for its iconic red pillarboxes - but you may have also spotted a green hut in some parts of central London and wondered what it was for. Many Londoners may not realise that these green huts have offered London's cab drivers a respite and a quick bite since Victorian times. The huts are officially protected buildings after the last remaining shelter in St John's Wood joined the list in April 2024.
Why the Pickaxe Murder of a Wealthy Miller Sparked a Media Frenzy in 1614

Jan 4, 2025 | earlymodernscribbling.com | Piers Mucklejohn

Late in the evening of 21 April 1614, Edward Hall was murdered. The weapon of choice was a pickaxe, the method multiple blows to the sleeping man’s head, and the perpetrators three servants in his employ. The crime lay undiscovered for a week, until two of the culprits confessed their involvement to a local Justice of the Peace and were imprisoned, awaiting an undoubtedly swift trial for which the punishment would be no less than death.
Shop Signs in Early Modern England Were Much More Interesting Than You’d Think

Dec 9, 2024 | earlymodernscribbling.com | Piers Mucklejohn

Dragons, lions, and bears were a familiar sight on the streets of Tudor and Stuart England. That these beasts were formed of paint (not flesh) and were imprisoned within the confines of wooden signboards probably extinguishes much of the interest this fact may have piqued in a reader — but the signs which adorned taverns, alehouses, and tradesmen’s shops were very important indeed. Not all signs were so intriguingly illustrated, many bearing a simple star, bell, or deer.
Why the Ghosts of Henry VIII and Cardinal Wolsey Haunted England’s Civil War

Oct 24, 2024 | earlymodernscribbling.com | Piers Mucklejohn

The English Civil War is famous as a time of bloody battling between Royalists and Parliamentarians during which the country underwent significant political and religious upheaval, accompanied by ideas about the role of monarchy and order of society which could be so radical that some historians speak of an “English Revolution” between 1639 and 1651. As if life during this tumultuous period wasn’t interesting enough, ghosts allegedly roamed the streets at night.
Anthony Nixon: 17th Century Writer, Journalist, and Plagiarist

Oct 15, 2024 | earlymodernscribbling.com | Piers Mucklejohn

There emerged, some time around the final two decades of Queen Elizabeth I’s reign, a new type of author in England — the professional.
Handguns in Early Modern England: Crime, Class, and Social Order

Oct 15, 2024 | earlymodernscribbling.com | Piers Mucklejohn

In his deeply critical review of Channel 5’s Anne Boleyn (2021), the Daily Mail‘s Christopher Stevens took issue with a variety of things—among them, was the historical accuracy of the show regarding firearms. In one scene, Anne Boleyn (played by Jodie Turner-Smith) is so bothered by peacocks’ squawking that she requests them to be shot. Stevens was not having any of it: ‘With what — cannon?’, he rhetorically asks.
Early Modern Domestic Abuse in a 17th Century Ballad and its Woodcut

Oct 15, 2024 | earlymodernscribbling.com | Piers Mucklejohn

The woodcut above, a crude depiction of a family from the 1630s, looks wholesome enough at first glance. We see a family gathered around the table, probably about to eat. There appears to be food of some sort on offer, perhaps cheese. The two adults are engaging in conversation. The father happily puffs away at his pipe; the mother tends to the couple’s three young children.