Political Dialogue, Exchange, and Propaganda: Or, How Yorkist and Early Tudor Governments Managed Public Opinion, c. 1461–1537

Abstract

A political dialogue had been long established between the crown and the people when serious rebellions such as that of Jack Cade in 1450, or periods of civil war in 1459–61, 1469–71, and 1485–87 took place. However, historians of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries have often emphasised the crown’s obsession with political control and ‘propaganda’ in those contexts, especially while analysing the critical reforms of Henry VIII and Cromwell in the 1530s. In this chapter, I will argue that the governments of this period were already keen on engaging in political dialogue and exchanging political tropes because they needed to court the people for approval, legitimacy, taxation, and loyalty. To paint a better picture of this interaction between rulers and subjects, we must see it as both dialogical and dialectic, which can contribute to the current historiography by recognising the government as both scared of and responsive to public demands and speech.