Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    His Majesties Declaration Defended
    His Majesties Declaration Defended
    His Majesties Declaration Defended
    Ebook71 pages1 hour

    His Majesties Declaration Defended

    By Godfrey Davies and John Dryden

    ()

    Read preview
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateNov 27, 2013
    His Majesties Declaration Defended

    Related to His Majesties Declaration Defended

    Related ebooks

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Letters

      Nov 24, 2022

      In November’s Letters, Jenny Martin requested a feature on Queen Margaret of Scotland (c1045–93). However, the Saxon Princess Margaret of Wessex – as she was also known – is not all she seems. Rightly revered as a saint, her legacy was, though, not a

      4 min read

    • Article

      CHARLES II's CURSED REIGN

      Apr 20, 2023

      CHARLES II's CURSED REIGN
      11 min read

    • Article

      The People’s Republic Of Britain

      Mar 17, 2022

      On 5 March 1650, early in the life of the new Commonwealth of England, a state funeral was held. There was a stellar turn-out for Roland Wilson, army officer and politician. Almost the whole of the new political establishment was there: the head of t

      6 min read

    • Article

      Q&A

      Feb 17, 2022

      Q&A
      3 min read

    • Article

      TOASTING THE ‘LATE’ KING JAMES: Contesting Power In Post-revolution Scotland

      Oct 7, 2023

      In the final hours of 14 October 1691, a periwigmaker named Peter Chrystie meandered along to Dundee’s mercat cross from a nearby inn to ‘drink the health’ of the recently ousted King James VII, whose birthday it was. Climbing onto the cross, Chrysti

      10 min read

    • Article

      Q&A

      Mar 16, 2023

      Q&A
      2 min read

    • Article

      Affairs Of Honour

      Nov 27, 2023

      Affairs Of Honour
      5 min read

    • Article

      “England Was Seen As A Pariah State, Ruled By Regicidal Rebels Who’d Publicly Executed Their King”

      Sep 30, 2021

      ON THE HistoryExtra PODCAST Devil-Land: England Under Siege 1588-1688 by Clare Jackson (Allen Lane, 688 pages, £35) Ellie CawtHorne: Devil-Land looks at England from 1588 to 1688. Why do you think this is such a fascinating 100-year period of English

      9 min read

    • Article

      The Popish Plot

      Aug 4, 2022

      The Popish Plot
      9 min read

    • Article

      The Last Kingdom

      Jul 12, 2022

      The Last Kingdom
      6 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Mar 17, 2022

      Your article on the 12 greatest British monarchs (February) prompted me to consider who were the worst monarchs! I can think of six. In chronological order (but not degree of “badness”) I would suggest: Stephen, John, Charles I, James II, George IV a

      3 min read

    • Article

      Catholic Hysteria

      Apr 25, 2019

      Catholic Hysteria
      8 min read

    • Article

      The Monmouth Rebellion

      May 12, 2022

      The Monmouth Rebellion
      6 min read

    • Article

      Book Reviews

      Feb 28, 2024

      reviews@historyscotland.com Explore a selection of digital history guides in the History Scotland store: https://scot.sh/hsdownload Law, Lordship and Tenure: The Fall of the Black Douglases Alan R. Borthwick & Hector L. MacQueen The Strathmartine

      13 min read

    • Article

      The DECLARATION of ARBROATH

      Feb 21, 2020

      The DECLARATION of ARBROATH
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Highl And War, Part 1

      Dec 10, 2022

      The Highl And War, Part 1
      13 min read

    • Article

      Q&A YOU ASK, WE ANSWER

      Jun 10, 2022

      Q&A YOU ASK, WE ANSWER
      8 min read

    • Article

      The First Tabloid Hack

      Aug 24, 2022

      August 22nd marked the 380th anniversary of the day King Charles I declared war on Parliament in 1642. He raised his standard at Nottingham Castle. It blew down overnight. The English Civil War – which I like to think of as Brexit with swords – was t

      3 min read

    • Article

      Q&A YOU ASK, WE ANSWER

      Jun 10, 2022

      Q&A YOU ASK, WE ANSWER
      8 min read

    • Article

      Books & co

      Aug 12, 2022

      by Lindsey Fitzharris Many of us have heard of Gillies, the innovative doctor who – beavering away in the secluded grounds of Queen Mary’s Hospital, Sidcup, Kent – revolutionised the surgery undertaken to restore the faces of servicemen horrifically

      5 min read

    Reviews for His Majesties Declaration Defended

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      His Majesties Declaration Defended - Godfrey Davies

      Project Gutenberg's His Majesties Declaration Defended, by John Dryden

      This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

      Title: His Majesties Declaration Defended

      Author: John Dryden

      Release Date: February 15, 2005 [EBook #15074]

      Language: English

      *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HIS MAJESTIES DECLARATION DEFENDED ***

      Produced by David Starner, J. David Pearce and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.

      The Augustan Reprint Society

      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. The second was political and assumed that Catholicism was the natural support of absolutism. As Shaftesbury, the leader of the opposition, stated, popery and slavery went hand in hand. Such fears were deepened as the general purport of the Treaty of Dover became known.

      Into this atmosphere charged with suspicion was interjected the Popish Plot, said by Titus Oates and his fellow perjurers to be designed to murder Charles II and place James on the throne. From September 1678, when Oates began his series of revelations until the end of March 1681, when the King dissolved at Oxford the third Parliament elected under the Protestant furore excited by the Plot, Shaftesbury and his followers had the upper hand. The King was obliged to propose concessions to the popular will and to offer to agree to limitations

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1