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His Majesties Declaration Defended By: John Dryden (1631-1700) |
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John Dryden
His Majesties Declaration Defended
(1681)
With an Introduction by
Godfrey Davies
Publication Number 23
(Series IV, No. 4)
Los Angeles
William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
University of California
1950
GENERAL EDITORS
H. Richard Archer, Clark Memorial Library
Richard C. Boys, University Of Michigan
Edward Niles Hooker, University Of California, Los Angeles
H.T. Swedenberg, Jr., University Of California, Los Angeles ASSISTANT EDITORS
W. Earl Britton, University of Michigan
John Loftis, University of California, Los Angeles ADVISORY EDITORS
Emmett L. Avery, State College of Washington
Benjamin Boyce, University of Nebraska
Louis I. Bredvold, University of Michigan
Cleanth Brooks, Yale University
James L. Clifford, Columbia University
Arthur Friedman, University of Chicago
Samuel H. Monk, University of Minnesota
Ernest Mossner, University of Texas
James Sutherland, Queen Mary College, London
INTRODUCTION
Wherever English literature is studied, John Dryden is recognized as the
author of some of the greatest political satires in the language. Until
recently the fact has been overlooked that before he wrote the first of
these satires, Absalom and Achitophel , he had entered the political
arena with the prose tract here reproduced. The proof that the
Historiographer Royal contributed to the anti Whig propaganda of the
spring of 1681 depends partly on contemporary or near contemporary
statements but principally on internal evidence. An article by Professor
Roswell G. Ham ( The Review of English Studies , XI (1935), 284 98; Hugh
Macdonald, John Dryden, A Bibliography , p. 167) demonstrated Dryden's
authorship so satisfactorily that it is unnecessary to set forth here
the arguments that established this thesis. The time when Dryden was
composing his defence of the royal Declaration is approximately fixed
from the reference to it on June 22, 1681, in The Observator , which
had noted the Whig pamphlet Dryden was answering under the date of May
26. The bitter controversy into which Dryden thrust himself was the
culmination of eleven years' political strife. In 1670, by the secret
Treaty of Dover, Charles II and Louis XIV agreed that the English king
should declare himself a Roman Catholic, and receive from his brother of
France the equivalent of 80,000 pounds sterling and, in case of a
Protestant rebellion, 6000 French soldiers. In addition, the two kings
were pledged to undertake a war for the partition of the United
Provinces. In the words of the late Lord Acton this treaty is "the solid
substance of the phantom which is called the Popish Plot." ( Lectures on
Modern History (1930), p. 211) The attempt to carry out the second part
of the treaty was made in 1672, when England and France attacked the
United Provinces which made a successful defence, aided by a coalition
including the Emperor, Elector of Brandenburg, and King of Spain. The
unpopularity of the war compelled Charles II to make peace in 1674.
Meanwhile the King had taken a step to put into operation the first part
of the Treaty of Dover by issuing a Declaration of Indulgence relieving
Catholics and Dissenters alike from the penal laws. He was forced,
however, to withdraw it and to give his assent to the Test Act which
excluded from all public offices those unwilling to take the sacraments
according to the rites of the Church of England. Henceforth Charles II
abandoned all hope of restoring Catholicism, though his brother and
heir, James, Duke of York, already a convert, remained resolute to
secure at least toleration for his co religionists. But many Englishmen
continued to suspect the royal policy. Roman Catholicism was feared and hated by many Englishmen for two
distinct reasons. The first was based on bigotry, nourished by memories
of the Marian persecution, the papal bull dethroning Elizabeth, Guy
Fawkes' Plot, and by apprehensions that a Catholic could not be a loyal
subject so long as he recognized the temporal power of the Pope... Continue reading book >>
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