Patronage and the public writer in Whig literary culture

Introduction: English Diplomatic Relations and Literary Cultures in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries

“…94 Diplomatic news was consumed by ever wider political publics within the post-1660 landscape of coffee house debate, party-political literary magazines and clubs, and the newspapers that had by then evolved from diplomatic newsletters. 95 Foreign news gained an even greater profile as a means to comment on domestic politics, before the relaxation of censorship in 1695. 96 William III's concerted, militaristic, and interventionist foreign policy created high demand among interested citizens for the circulation of diplomatic writing, 97 and foreign affairs became a central concern of domestic literature.…”