warmongers, french, royal propagandists, patriotic, champions, enemies of the state, political objectives
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97
amore,/ Sed semper socios federe suos meos” (“Never have I abandoned those whom I embrace in love, my allies rather forever by their own consent”, ll.10-11).
Carmeliano, who like André considered himself Henry’s laureate, argues similarly that the French are warmongers and greedy for power.
172
They are duplicitous and not to be trusted, and his poem (‘Petri Carmeliani scribe Angli Carmen Responsum’: ‘The Poem in Response of Pietro Carmeliano the English Writer’) is a call to arms justified by the argument that the only way to bring about peace with such people is to defeat them first: “Angle, petis pacem frustra; nil amplius instes:/ Bella geras! pacem Gallia victa dabit” (“Englishman, in vain do you seek peace: ask after it no longer. Wage war! France will yield peace only when conquered”, ll.21-2).
173
In this flyting the role that patronage plays in the respondents’ motivation is not straightforward due to their foreign nationality and humanist profession. Carlson describes this flyting as being among
the court literature that [emerged] in concert with a court at the centre of English politics late in the fifteenth century [that] had as its main purpose not entertainment or even edification so much as promotion of the political goals of the Tudor state.174
As Carlson goes some way towards suggesting, such flytings were political and utilitarian gestures, designed to curry favour with patrons, to rally support for royal policy and to make a show of solidarity against enemies of the state. This early example of international flyting anticipates a lineage of answer-poets throughout the Tudor period who fashioned themselves as royal propagandists and patriotic champions, and who purported to advance the political objectives of their respective governments. Flyting, however, also strikes a balance between its
172 Nelson (1964), p.40 (n.2).
173 André was unable to obtain a copy of this poem but it has been recovered by Carlson (1988), pp.299-300. See Cat. C 86.
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