Politicians and Pamphleteers

Propaganda During the English Civil Wars and Interregnum

Jason Peacey

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9780754606840
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351910309
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

The English civil wars radically altered many aspects of mid-seventeenth century life, simultaneously creating a period of intense uncertainty and unheralded opportunity. Nowhere was this more apparent than in the printing and publishing industry, which between 1640 and 1660 produced a vast number of tracts and pamphlets on a bewildering variety of subjects. Many of these where of a highly political nature, the publication of which would have been unthinkable just a few years before. Whilst scholars have long recognised the importance of these publications, and have studied in depth what was written in them, much less work has been done on why they were produced. In this book Dr Peacey first highlights the different dynamics at work in the conception, publication and distribution of polemical works, and then pulls the strands together to study them against the wider political context. In so doing he provides a more complete understanding of the relationship between political events and literary and intellectual prose in an era of unrest and upheaval. By incorporating into the political history of the period some of the approaches utilized by scholars of book history, this study reveals the heightened importance of print in both the lives of members of the political nation and the minds of the political elite in the civil wars and Interregnum. Furthermore, it demonstrates both the existence and prevalence of print propaganda with which politicians became associated, and traces the processes by which it came to be produced, the means of detecting its existence, the ways in which politicians involved themselves in its production, the uses to which it was put, and the relationships between politicians and propagandists.

PART ONE
THE MOTOR OF PROPAGANDA

CHAPTER 1

Politicians and the Propaganda Impulse

Writing during the death throes of the Interregnum, the royalist grandee Sir Edward Nicholas provided a revealing insight into the rationale which underpinned his enthusiasm for the exploitation of print propaganda, by telling the Marquess of Ormond that ‘reputation is the interest of princes’. Over thirty years earlier, before the print explosion which this study seeks to explore, John Holles offered a more cynical observation, when he opined to the Bishop of Lincoln that ‘princes love to befoole the people’ through the printed word.¹ Such comments demonstrate that understanding early modern propaganda, which must begin with analysis of the factors which motivated political grandees to engage in the production of print in order to talk to the people, involves confronting highly charged rhetoric. This chapter seeks to demonstrate that politicians turned to political propaganda for reasons which were partly personal, partly factional, and partly governmental, and that print was understood to be a means of boosting individual reputations and creating more or less formal and distinct political groupings, and also a way of undermining rival grandees and rival claimants to political power. In order to do so, it explores the reality as well as the rhetoric of propaganda – the practice as well as the principles – and develops a methodology for assessing the seriousness with which politicians took the task of engaging with the public through the medium of print. The major focus of attention at this stage will be official statements – declarations and proclamations – in terms of the methods by which they were produced, and the ways in which they were printed and distributed. By examining such works, it will be possible both to compare the practices and attitudes of royalists and parliamentarians, and to explore the strengths and weaknesses of official propaganda, as well as the conceptual and practical problems with such works, which prompted political grandees of all persuasions to turn to outsiders for help in the polemical process, and to invent more subtle forms for publicising their ideas and opinions.

Propaganda in the early modern period was generally produced by, or on behalf of, the monarch, by leading churchmen and prominent ministers of state, as well as by members of clerical and aristocratic households. Indeed, ‘regime propaganda’ existed long before the arrival of print.² Early modern monarchs and statesmen evidently recognised the need to ‘talk to the people’. This reflected the growing importance of public opinion, the fact that the public was taking greater interest in politics and parliamentary affairs, and the reality that information regarding national politics was circulating increasingly widely.³ Such trends encouraged a desire to influence public attitudes, not least because of concern regarding public disorder, resistance and rebellion.⁴ Early modern monarchs used declarations in order to explain and justify policy decisions, not least foreign wars, and it became common to issue explanations of parliamentary dissolutions.⁵ Nevertheless, the extent to which particular regimes sought to engage with the people through the medium of print remains a matter of debate. Reluctance to use the press was a persistent feature of the period, and was overcome to differing degrees by individual monarchs and ministers. The efficiency with which the press was exploited in the century preceding the civil war depended heavily upon the dynamism of individual ministers, as well as the willingness of particular monarchs to overcome reticence about engaging in, and fostering, public debate. While the potential of the press had been understood since the early sixteenth century, it was not always a power harnessed willingly.

There was no steady march towards the development of a sophisticated machinery of state propaganda. Nevertheless, intensive print campaigns may have been intrinsic to the Henrician ‘revolution’ in government and the break with Rome, as well as to the Edwardian reformation.⁶ Nevertheless, the Marian regime arguably failed to exploit the potential of the press, although in this respect it appears to have been something of an exception in the sixteenth century.⁷ Under Elizabeth, successive ministers developed sophisticated methods for producing propaganda in order to project a favourable public image of the queen, and to defend official policies and actions, expose plotters, counteract false reports and rumours, as well as to stir up public sympathy.⁸ Reluctantly, men such as John Whitgift recognised the need to engage with critics, even though they risked fanning the flames of public debate.⁹ Indeed, the difficulties of enforcing censorship may have encouraged the use of propaganda as the best means of countering opponents’ influence.¹⁰ The early Stuarts, however, have sometimes been portrayed as being more reticent about using print for fear of fostering public discussion. James I certainly encouraged authors to refute key texts by religious enemies, but scholarly disputation may have been one of the few areas in which he was prepared to encourage such activity.¹¹ More problematic is Charles I, whose apparent failure to exploit the press has been connected with a wider attempt to distance himself from his subjects. However, this picture of ‘contemptuous indifference to public opinion’ has been challenged by those who argue that the king and his ministers were sometimes adept at using the pulpits, press and stage for disseminating the royal line, and that Charles’ reign demonstrates that ‘concern for public relations had become standard operating procedure’.¹² However, if this is the case, Charles may have altered his view in the late 1620s, as he increasingly ‘found the simplicity of James's old rigid defence of the arcana imperii irresistible’.¹³ Indeed, such reticence on the part of Charles to communicate with his subjects may represent an important stage in the souring of political relations in the 1630s, and may have proved harmful to the king.¹⁴

Engagement with the public was not merely a concern for monarchs and their ministers, however, and print had always been exploited by individual grandees to produce ‘personal’ propaganda; for self-promotion and self-defence, and for furthering personal goals and fighting personal battles. Aristocratic grandees had long employed the services of men with literary and scholarly talents, with ‘think tanks’ of advisers engaged in ‘knowledge transactions’ and ‘scholarly services’. This did not necessarily involve the production of propaganda, but rather the employment of researchers, advisers and ‘privados’, but their tasks could be political, and they were certainly ideally placed to write and publish when their employers and patrons felt the need to bolster their personal standing and reputation, and to advance personal causes in a public arena.¹⁵ For political malcontents, seeking ‘popularity’ provided an alternative to both futile rebellion and quietism.¹⁶ However, it is not simply the case that members of the gentry and aristocracy were concerned with ‘lobbying’ or self-promotion.¹⁷ The use of print also reflected political and religious agendas, and ‘personal’ propaganda could extend to policies and personalities with which individual grandees were associated. Some revealed a concern for ‘good works’, not least the provision of printed sermons as a form of ‘sound and spiritual food’.¹⁸ Print was also used in association with the corporate interests with which grandees were involved, such as the Virginia Company.¹⁹ Moreover, it was employed to advance political and religious interests during periods of domestic strife, when ‘public’ life revolved not merely around governments, but around rival claima...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Part One The Motor of Propaganda
• Part Two The Mechanics of Propaganda
• Part Three The Dynamics of Propaganda
• Epilogue Propaganda, the State, and the Public Sphere
• Bibliography
• Index