Although I have met with no native contemporary production representing the execution, other than the rude woodcuts before mentioned, there is in the British Museum a collection of broadsides relating to the period of the Civil War, one of which has a large and well-executed copperplate engraving representing the execution of Charles I. It was published at Frankfort, and the descriptive text is in German. The view of Whitehall is correctly given, and the engraving looks like a genuine representation of the event.
[1] There is an Admiral Batten often mentioned by Pepys. If this is the same man who was an active commander under the Parliament he must have trimmed his sails well to hold a place in the Navy office under Charles II.
[2] _Old and New London._ By Edward Walford.
Decrease of Newspapers after the Civil War--_Mercurius Democritus_--_The Faithful Post_--_The Politique Post_--Broadsides for the People--The Hollow Tree at Hampstead--Prodigious Monster taken in Spain--The Restoration--Trial of the Regicides--Execution of the Regicides--Licenser of the Press appointed--Popular Taste for the Supernatural--Apparition in the Air in Holland--Revival of _Mercurius Civicus_--Murder of Archbishop Sharpe--_The Loyal Protestant_--Frost Fair on the Thames--Monmouth's Rebellion--The Bloody Assizes--Funeral of Queen Mary, Consort of William III.--Increase of Newspapers after the Revolution.
When the Civil War was over the newspapers it had called into existence disappeared. The printing-press was, of course, not idle during the rule of Cromwell, but its productions were narrowly watched, and there is reason to suppose the newspapers were to a great extent under the influence of the party in power. Examples of illustrated journalism during this period are rare. We have '_A terrible and bloudy Fight at Sea_' between Blake and Van Tromp, and '_A great and wonderful Victory_' obtained by the English in the West Indies, each illustrated with a woodcut that had done duty in the pamphlets of the Civil War. A rough representation of an owl seated at a table writing in a book heads a tract ridiculing Lilly, the astrologer; while '_Black Monday, or a full and exact description of the great and terrible Eclipse of the Sun_,' is adorned with a representation of 'the true Figure of the Eclipse.' The grim and unsocial character of the times is set forth in '_The Vindication of Christmas_,' a pamphlet illustrated with a woodcut representing Old Christmas welcomed on one hand and forbidden on the other. After a pitiful lament for the misery of the times, Christmas sets out on a pilgrimage to London, where he enters a fair house that had once been an Alderman's, but is now inhabited by a sour-tempered miser. Here he meets with such a cold reception that he is fain to take himself off, 'and wandering into the country up and down from house to house, found small comfort in any.'