“Newes from Scotland” in England, 1559–1602

Abstract

While news from abroad has attracted increasing attention from scholars studying the print market in England, little attention has been paid thus far to the presence of Scottish texts in England—with the notable exception of James VI’s marketing campaign. This essay shows that the availability of Scottish news mirrored the acceptability of events in Scotland to the Elizabethan regime. At times, therefore, it was Scotland’s very proximity that caused coverage of its news to be limited in the London press—in the same manner as domestic news. A study of the Scottish presence in the English print market also has ramifications for our understanding of the Edinburgh trade, and this essay identifies a number of items with a likely Scottish provenance that appeared in England, but for which there is no Scottish edition extant.