Mind-Munitions

106 Propaganda in the Age of Gunpowder and Printing
punishment, yet they mutter together secretly’. Some sources testify
to a distinct chill among the people as they witnessed the king’s
marriage, even though the ceremony had been designed to legitimize
his action. A Little Treatise against the muttering of some
papists in corners was printed as a sort of handbook for priests to
tackle the problem via the pulpit. But many priests themselves
remained disaffected. In 1536, therefore, one of Cromwell’s chief
writers, Richard Morison, advocated a more intensive anti-papal
propaganda drive. In his A Persuasion to the King that the laws of
the realm should be in Latin, Morison advocated an annual triumph
with bonfires, feasts, and processions to serve as a permanent
reminder to the common people of their deliverance by the king
from the bondage of Rome. Morison’s view was ‘into the common
people things sooner enter by the eyes than by the ears’, which was
why he placed so much emphasis upon spectacle – such as plays
and processions – as a means of countering the sermons of the
hostile clergy.
Despite Morison’s programme, Cromwell continued to place
his faith in printed propaganda. Stephen Gardiner’s De Vera
Obedientia, printed by Berthelet in 1535, achieved considerable
fame since it was written by a man who had at first opposed the
king’s action but who had now ‘seen the light’. Official sermons
were published at crown expense and distributed to the clergy. Yet
when popular discontent erupted in open rebellion in the north
after 1536, it was essential to print works linking domestic treason
with the threat of foreign invasion – a classic propaganda device
designed to pinpoint the enemy within. Papists now became part
of a conspiracy to overthrow the crown engineered from abroad,
especially when Cardinal Pole threatened invasion at the end of the
decade. Morison wrote An Exhortation to stir all Englishmen to
the defence of their country in which he urged the need to support
the king in his efforts to defeat external and internal enemies.
Printed statutes, distributed throughout the country for public
display, were perhaps less effective than the instructions issued to
the clergy but even here there was too great a risk that old views
would surface. Accordingly, Cromwell appointed ‘official’ preachers
who worked hard to replace opponents of the government in the
pulpits and attempted to enforce popular support by the swearing
of oaths. It was Thomas More’s refusal of the oath of succession
‘without the jeopardizing of my soul to external damnation’ that