Cover; Half-title; Title; Copyright; Contents; List of Illustrations; Acknowledgments; Introduction; Part One: Representations of the King; 1. Restoration and Escape: The Incognito King and Providential History; 2. The Monarch's Sacred Body: The King's Evil and the Politics of Royal Healing; 3. The Monarch's Profane Body: ""His scepter and his prick are of a length""; Part Two: The Language of Censorship; 4. ""The feminine part of every rebellion"": The Public, Royal Power, and the Mysteries of Printing; 5. ""The very Oracles of the Vulgar"": Stephen College and the Author on Trial
Summary
The calculated use of media by those in power is a phenomenon dating back at least to the seventeenth century, as Harold Weber demonstrates in this illuminating study of the relation of print culture to kingship under England's Charles II. Seventeenth-century London witnessed an enormous expansion of the print trade, and with this expansion came a revolutionary change in the relation between political authority -- especially the monarchy -- and the printed word. Weber argues that Charles' reign was characterized by a particularly fluid relationship between print and power. The press helped brin