ABSTRACT
Understanding the ‘dynamic’ of propaganda consists not just in appreciating the tactics with which print was deployed and the uses to which it was put. Another avenue for analysis relates to examination of the relationships between propagandists and politicians. This can be explored both statically and dynamically, by investigating the various types of relationship which can be detected, as well as the ways in which those relationships developed over time. Such analysis is vital for understanding particular works, individual authors, and the nature of early modern propaganda in general. In part, this relates to the proximity of authors to their patrons, and the depth of their attachment, as well as the extent to which authors were selling their services, and the degree to which they were expressing personal beliefs. It involves questions of the exclusivity of literary service, and the degree of personal commitment to the interests which authors were willing to represent in print, not to mention the possibility that authors had other roles, purposes and goals – whether in terms of their careers or their financial needs – and the potential difficulties they faced in having to compromise personal ideals and beliefs in order to fulfil the requirements placed upon them by their patrons. Moreover, assessing author-grandee relations requires gaining an appreciation of the role and influence of money, and reaching conclusions relating to the extent to which the desire to acquire, or not to lose, a particular source of income affected authors’ decisions, as well as the extent to which political principles existed in balance with financial necessity, both at particular moments and over the course of time, as personal and political circumstances changed. Indeed, given the nature of the conclusions in preceding chapters, it is impossible to avoid meditating upon the impact of the gradual professionalisation of propaganda. Understanding the dynamic of author-patron relations also requires exploration, however, of the circumstances in which authors became, and ceased to be, propagandists, and the cases of authors shifting their allegiance between patrons and even political sides, as well as those cases where authors found themselves in hot water with their patrons and employers as a result of their literary activity. In large part, therefore, an appreciation of author-patron relations rests upon an examination of the ‘loyalty’ and ‘reliability’ of authors. There are many opportunities to explore instances where authors, printers and licensers were accused by contemporaries, or subsequent scholars, of having been unreliable, in terms of
mark of acceptability, or of having changed sides in an opportunistic and selfserving manner.
