Patrons in general were notoriously demanding, and depending on them was more often than not a humiliation. Joanna perhaps could give more detail on the price James put on any patronage for Donne. Some of Jonson's greatest poems have a streak of ass-licking in them.
Carrol --------------------------
Patrons were a mixed bag. Court patronage could be cushy and give access to wonderful orchestras. Bach was very happy working at Coethen(?) and the Brandenburgs were his thank you. Handel was pretty happy in England, though his influence did manage to quash a rich and interesting vein of English music. Mozart's Joseph II(?) paid him for composing court dances. Not quite enough to live on: "Too much for what I do, to little for what I could do," Wolfgang said. It all depended on the patron. If memory serves, Donatello was OK with most of his patrons.
But mainly, artists were regarded as servants. John Donne, an aspiring courtier/statesman, made the mistake of eloping with the niece of one of his first patrons, and could not get a job for the next twenty years. He spent the larger part of his desperately poor adult life watching his children die of what an income might have saved them from, ghostwriting theological treateses, and muddling about with minor legal work. He tried to get a post in Virginia; he tried to get an assignment in Ireland -- both these things being like volunteering to go to Siberia -- but James would not have it. He would only provide employment if Donne accepted a post in the Anglican church which, after the death of his wife, Donne did. There are some beauties in his sermons, but overall his life was destroyed because he had proved to be too uppity for his patrons. Ironically, though Donne was a bad fit for the personal god business, he rose to become the chief apologist (not quite the right word) for the Anglican church. What I mean is that his becoming Dean of St Paul's gave the whole business a certain amount of credibility and dignity.
Joanna