ENGLAND in the

17th Century

The Early 17th Century:1603-1660

Absolutism, Civil Wars and Interregnum

Penshurst Place, Kent

The Stuarts

                                         

James VI of ScotlandJames I of England

1603-1612

Lord Darnley and Mary

The Stuarts

Mary, Queenof Scotland

James I by Paul van Somer (c.1576-1621/2)The Royal Collection © 2001, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

James I1603-25

Profound cultural shift from Elizabethan style James I styled himself as absolute monarch and God’s appointed deputy Roman style– “new Augustus” Rising religious conflict

Church of England vs. Puritans

• Doctrine: free will• Worship: Book of

Common Prayer

• Structure: Episcopalian bishops and priests

• Sabbath: folk customs and games

• Rituals: “high church”: liturgy, ceremony, art works, robes

• Doctrine: predestination• Worship: emphasis on

preaching and simple rituals• Structure: Presbyterian

synods and ministers• Sabbath: strict observance

of “holy day”• Rituals: “reformed” or “low

church”: Puritans saw liturgy, altars, religious icons as idolatrous

Frontispiece to the Authorized Version of the Bible (the King James version) (1611).

Jacobean Religious Prose

• 1611: King James Version of the Bible• Graceful, highly influential

rendering• Translation supported ceremony

and hierarchy• Meant to be understood and read by

commoners, so the style was simple and direct: “the common reader”

• Sermons: varied styles from highly rhetorical to plain spoken

• Guides to devotion and meditation• Tracts: “cases of conscience”

Jacobean Secular Prose• Essays

• Invented by French writer Montaigne

• First English essays by Francis Bacon

• Scientific treatises• Speculative and imaginative literature

• Robert Burton: Anatomy of Melancholy

• Izaak Walton: The Compleat Angler• Francis Bacon: The New Atlantis

(scientific utopia)• Lady Mary Wroth: Urania (prose

romance)

Izaak Walton

Francis Bacon

Robert Burton

Lady Mary Wroth

Jacobean Poetic Modes

• Classical Modes• Epigram: short witty poem that compresses wit and insight• Ode: lyric poem addressed to a person, natural force or

abstraction – written in elevated style – often a poem of praise• Satire: Complaint on the ills of society• Love Elegy: Meditation on trials of erotic desire written in

couplets (aabbcc, etc)• Country House Poem: compliment to a wealthy patron or friend

through a description of his country house• Verse Epistle: Letter written in poetic verse• Meditative Religious Lyric• Occasional Poem: poem written to commemorate a particular

occasion or event.

Aemilia Lanyer1569-1645

First Englishwoman to publish a book of poetry: Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum, 1611• Feminist bent --“Eve’s

Apology in Defense of Women”

• First published country house poem – “The Description of Cookham”

Ben Jonson1572-1637

• Poet and Playwright

• England’s first Poet Laureate (King’s pension)

• 1616: Works

• Classicist: influenced byRoman genres and ideals• Epigrams

• Odes

• Satire

• “Tribe of Ben” – younger poets who emulated Jonson and are often classified as Cavalier poets – Robert Herrick, Thomas Carew, Edmund Waller, Sir John Suckling

Ben Jonson by Abraham Blyenberch, ca 1617

John Donne1572-1631

• Poet and Preacher• Startling images that range

from the exquisite to the grotesque

• Wit and allusion• Satires• Elegies• Occasional poems• Songs and Sonnets• Holy Sonnets• Critics describe Donne as

the foremost Metaphysicalpoet influencing Herbert, Vaughan, Crashaw, Marvell, Traherne and Crowley

Jack Donne“the Rake”

Dr. DonneDean of St. Paul’s

Lady Mary Wroth

1587-1651?• Niece of Sir Philip Sidney and Countess

Mary Sidney Herbert• Lived and educated at Penshurst• 1621 published:

• The Countess of Montgomery’s Urania – prose romance with poems

• Pamphilia and Amphilanthus: poem sequence with 103 sonnets and songs –female voice and perspective

• Love’s Victory: pastoral drama• Patroness to poets, including Ben

Jonson

Charles I in three positions - multiple portrait by Sir Anthony Van Dyck (1599-1641)

The Royal Collection © 2001, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

Charles I1625-49

Insisted on his absolute prerogatives as a monarch and governed without Parliament for eleven years.Married to French Catholic sister of Louis XIV Patron of the Arts:invited Van Dyck and Rubens to work in England and bought a great collection of paintings by Raphael and Titian Expenditures on his court and his art collection greatly increased the crown's debts.

Portrait of King Charles I, Queen Henrietta Maria , Charles and JamesThe Royal Collection © 2001, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

Civil Wars• 1637: Revolt in Edinburgh over

imposition of High Church liturgy and prayer book throughout Scotland

• 1640: Short Parliament refused to grant Charles’ request for funds to make war against the Scots

• 1640: Long Parliament• Impeached Charles’ main

advisors• Abolished the King’s Council

(Star Chamber)• The King agreed that

Parliament could not be dissolved without its own consent and that no more than three years could elapse between Parliaments.

• 1641: Irish uprising resulted in a Militia Bill allowing troops to be raised only by Parliament’s approval

• 1642: Charles raised the Royal Standard calling for loyal subjects to support him and set up court and an alternative government in Oxford

• 1643: Parliament entered an armed alliance with the predominant Scottish Presbyterian group under the Solemn League and Covenant of 1643

• 1646-47: Charles negotiated with Scotland and Parliament while in captivity at Hampton Court and the Isle of Wight

• 1648: Second Civil War ended with Oliver Cromwell’s victory at Preston

The New Model Army• The first mass, democratic army: to fight the king, Parliament needed

its own army • A break in tradition of linking the English crown with the army.• Men who fought not for money but for service and belief: "We were

not a mercenary Army, hired to serve any Arbitrary power of a state, but called forth and conjured by the several Declarations of Parliament, to the defense of our own land and the people's just rights and liberties."

• Divided on the question of what form of government England should have. • Cromwell and the officers: government for the people but not by

the people• The common soldiers: manhood suffrage, equal electoral divisions,

biennial Parliaments, and freedom of religion and equality before the law

Regicide• The Army, concluding that

permanent peace was impossible while Charles lived, decided that the King must be put on trial and executed.

• 1649: A purged Rump Parliament (no Royalists or Presbyterians)established a High Court of Justice. Charles was charged with high treason 'against the realm of England. '

• Charles refused to plead, saying that he did not recognize the legality of the High Court

From John Nalson, A True Copy of the Journal of the High Court of Justice for the Tryal of K. Charles I (London, 1684).

Regicide • The King was sentenced to death on 27 January. Three days later, Charles was beheaded on a scaffold outside the Banqueting House in Whitehall, London.

• His last words, printed and sold on that very day, were: "I have delivered my conscience; I pray God you do take those courses that are best for the good of the kingdom and your own salvation."

• To avoid the automatic succession of Charles I's son Prince Charles, an Act was passed on 30 January forbidding the proclaiming of another monarch. On 7 February 1649, the office of King was formally abolished.

Charles I walking to his execution

RegicideFrom a contemporary Dutch

print by F.van Beusekom.

Regicide

John Milton defended the regicide in The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates (February 1649)

• A Commonwealth "without King or House of Lords"

• He set forth a radical contract theory of government: sovereignty always resides in the people, who merely delegate power to, and can always revoke it from, any ruler or any government system.

Thomas Hobbes condemned the regicide in Leviathan (1651)

• He advocated a theory of absolutism based on irreversible compact: the people give over all their power and right to a sovereign, whether a king or some other ruling entity, who incorporates and acts for them all.

Interregnum1649-1660

• 1649-53 Republic/Commonwealth

• 1653: Parliament dissolved

• 1653-58 Protectorate under Oliver Cromwell

• 1658-60 Protectorate under Richard Cromwell (resigned)

Cromwell at Dunbar, Andrew Carrick Gow.

When the Scots and Irish proclaimed Prince Charles as king – Cromwell suppressed rebellions in Scotland and Ireland

John Milton1608-1674

• Radical political and philosophical thinker--advocated and supported:• Companionate marriage

and defended divorce• The new science and

astronomy• Freedom of the press:

Areopagitica• Religious liberty and

toleration• Republicanism

• Puritan apologist and defender• The Tenure of Kings and

Magistrates• Latin Secretary to

Cromwell

John Milton1608-1674

• Poet• “On the Morning of

Christ’s Nativity”• “L’Allegro” and “Il

Penseroso” – celebrations of Mirth and Melancholy

• Comus -- mythological masque

• “Lycidas” – pastoral elegy• Sonnets• Paradise Lost• Paradise Regained• Samson Agonistes

Culture WarsPuritans

• 1642: closed the theatres• 1643: Toleration

Controversy• Rump Parliament

proclaimed “a republic without king or house of lords”

• Disagreement over suffrage

• Emphasis on “inner light” as truth

• Flourishing debates in journals and tracts: freedom of the press

Royalists• Loyal to king and Anglican

Church• Fled into exile• Disruption of manuscript

circulation led to printed volumes of poetry

• Valued pleasure as the social cement uniting all elements of society: carpe diem theme

• Cultivated ease of expression and self-deprecation

• 1660: Re-opened the theatres

Metaphysical PoetryMetaphysics: the branch of philosophy that systematically investigates the

nature of first principles and the problems of ultimate reality:

• Startling rhythm and diction • Variety of tone • Poets speak in their own persona or create dramatically different

characters: self-dramatization more than self-expression, internal dramatic conflict

• Meter and stanzas are used to enact emotion -- emphasis on action, tension, conflict

• Use of argumentation, logic, dialectical expression • Original and startling metaphors and similes, often extended into

metaphysical conceits • Content is often religious • Sensuousness, directness, immediacy

Metaphysical Poets from Luminarium

Vanitas by Antonio de Pereda

Cavalier PoetryCavalier : courtly, off-hand, loyal to the

monarchy

• Graceful, melodious, polished diction and meter • Elegant display of Latin classical influences• Themes of love and honor, loyalty and friendship • Carpe diem a frequent theme • Sometimes licentious and cynical • Often epigrammatic and witty  • Persona often in guise of military swashbuckler or aristocratic

courtier • Poems are often occasional -- i.e. written for a particular occasion

Cavalier Poets from Luminarium

Antony van Dyck

The Restoration• 1660: Elections held for “a full

and free Parliament”• Recalled Prince Charles from

exile and proclaimed him King on May 8, 1660

• Parliament retained legislative supremacy, control over taxation and some control over court appointments

• Open press flourished• Development of modern political

parties

Charles IIr. 1660-1685

Charles II in Coronation robes by Wright© Royal Collection

House ofHanover

“Bonnie PrinceCharlie”