Newes from the Oxford Jaylor:. The propaganda around William Smith
19th Mar 2026
In my last post I wrote about Marshall William Smith, jailor at Oxford Castle during the early years of the English Civil War, and the pamphlet that was published against him by Parliament titled ‘The Inhumanity of the King’s Prison Keeper at Oxford’. It accused him of grossly mistreating and abusing his prisoners. We explored the background that led to such awful conditions and discussed to what extent William Smith could be held accountable for them. However, to truly understand this remarkable document, it is also necessary to discuss the atmosphere of furious propaganda in which it was produced.
Through the 1640s there was an explosion of printed media aimed at communicating with a literate and politically engaged population.[1] Both Royalists and Parliamentarians used pamphlets to make the case for their cause, in the process inflaming the war. It was effective too, according to one Parliamentarian, the Royalist newspaper Mercurius Aulicus did “more hurt than 2,000 of the King’s soldiers”.[2]
‘The Inhumanity of the King’s Prison Keeper at Oxford’ was not produced quietly. It was neither a private letter of complaint nor an internal document. It was published by orders of Parliament and made public [3], a piece of propaganda aimed at weakening the Royalist cause by highlighting their inhumanity. The William Smith it presents therefore was more than just a villain, but a caricature of everything that Parliament opposed. The way Smith was treated by Parliamentarian propaganda was not unique.
Accusations of mistreating prisoners were not limited to Oxford, there were many such cases. For example, in 1643 Lord Fairfax accused the Royalist general, the Earl of Newcastle, of mistreating those known as the Seacroft prisoners. Of these prisoners, Fairfax said: “They have been detained in such durance and under such tyranny, as there is about an 100 of them dead” and that the intention was “in time to destroy them all.”[4]
In response, the Earl of Newcastle published his own pamphlet, claiming that there are no legal grounds for the prisoners to complain since they are rebels and not proper soldiers, but also that the prisoners had been well treated. He claimed ‘the wounded Souldiers were dressed and cured by our Surgeons, at our charges:
The sick Prisoners were visited by the Queenes Phisitians, and medicines given them at our charges; these were no signes of any intention to destroy them.’[5] It then goes on to give excuses about how hard it is to keep disease out of camps and so it can’t be held against them that some prisoners died, it was really Fairfax’s fault for inciting them to rebel in the first place, and that any continued suffering was also his fault for not accepting certain prisoner swaps.[6]
The overall impression is a rather confused argument, both claiming that the accusations are untrue but, if they were, it was both Fairfax’s fault and deserved. The need to publish this response though speaks to the importance of the accusation.
This case bears a striking resemblance to that of Oxford Castle, where filth and disease lead to large number of deaths and this was presented as intentional villainy and corruption as opposed to incompetence and underfunding. The condition of these prisoners was therefore publicly exposed in order to make a political point. Justified perhaps considering complaints against William Smith did lead to his removal by 1644, but still propaganda in essence.
The characterization of Smith as an almost cartoonish villain was clearly remembered even after he had been dismissed from his post. In 1645, a satirical pamphlet was produced in London from an unknown author detailing the imaginary punishment of John Berkenhead, Oxford scholar and writer of the Royalist sponsored newspaper, Mercurius Aulicus.[7]
He was deeply hated among the Parliamentarians. His rival newspaper the Mercurius Britanicus wrote of him that he was a “juggling, lying piece of paper.”[8] In this piece, Berkenhead is accused of having mislead the Royalists by claiming greatly deflated casualty numbers and is now in trouble with the wives of those men who he pretended had not been killed.[9] The punishment for this, as imagined by the author, was for Berkenhead to be first pilloried by the ears, much like Oxford Castle’s own Roland Jenks. Then he was to be given to 13 women for a year, who would do as they liked to him and that he was to have his brains taken out, washed in white wine and put back in again.[10]
The piece is framed as a conversation between a curious gentleman and none other than our William Smith, who is revealing the fate of the Royalist pamphleteer. Smith is presented as comically evil. He talks of the Roundhead prisoners in his custody, claiming ‘they never leave bawling at me for bread and water, or to have a peeping hole, whereby to have the benefit of our Oxford aire yet Heaven knowes I have been so much used to it, as I have stopped my eares with a little hard hearednesse.’ Totally ignoring their cries for relief he says instead ‘let them call til their Soules fly to another World: I thinke I do them a better deed then to releeve them with some small pittance to keep them alive til they have gained their own Liberty.’[11]
The implication, better for them to be left to die, than to be allowed to gain their freedom and live as traitors. He also complains at all the curses he gets from widows before moving on to talk about Mercurius Aulicus.
The characterisation of Smith in this piece of satire is consistent with that seen in the far more serious document ‘The Inhumanity of the King’s Prison Keeper at Oxford’. The evils spouted here from his own mouth are but a fraction of what he is said to have done. In a world of pamphlets and propaganda, the truth of William Smith was likely not a concern. More important, was how his image could be used against the Royalists.
There must be a real William Smith behind the propaganda. What we are left with though is a caricature. A villain, without humanity. The treatment of prisoners was one piece in a toolbox of options to slander the enemy. The way he appears in ‘Newes from Smith the Oxford jaylor’ is the result of this propaganda and its continuation.
Anon (1645) ‘Newes from Smith the Oxford jaylor. With the arraignment of Mercurius Aulicus, who is sentenced to stand in the pillory three market dayes, for his notorious libelling against state and kingdome’, in p.
Cooper, A. (2022). The Story after the Battle Before: The Wounded Prisoners of Seacroft Moor. Available at: https://www.civilwarpetitions.ac.uk/blog/the-story-after-the-battle-before-the-wounded-prisoners-of-seacroft-moor/ [Accessed 4 Mar. 2026].
Great Britain. Journals of the House of Commons. Vols. II-III. London: s.n.].
Newcastle, W. C. (1643) The answer of His Excellency the Earle of Newcastle, to a late declaration of the Lord Fairefax dated the 8. of June, 1643. Printed at York: by Stephen Bulkley.
Peacey, J. (2017) Politicians and pamphleteers: propaganda during the English civil wars and interregnum. [Online]. London: Routledge.
References
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