Introduction v

In the course of the early Stuart period, it is also evident that the libel assumed its own loose set of generic expectations. Though perforce an anonymous mode, writers consistently turn their anonymity into a fundamental, and in many respects empowering characteristic. In numerous poems, especially from the latter half of our period, the speaker is positioned as a representative of the people, and looks critically at the actions and motivations of those in positions of great power. One, for example, begins by invoking the poet’s muse to “Goe to the Court let those above us knowe / they have theire faults as well as we belowe” (“Bridewell I come be valient muse and strip”). In others, accounts of the sufferings of a politicized “we” assume a tone of menace, embracing suggestions of popular revolt (Norbrook 50-57). Formally, libels lack the consistency of satire, which was generally written in iambic pentameter couplets. By comparison, libels inhabit a range of forms, from the epigram to the ballad, and often deploy a rough-hewn populism to underscore a political point. In their stances towards politics, the poems range from confrontational assault to ironic commentary. Yet all participate in a distinctive poetics of engagement, and this edition attempts to represent the breadth of this phenomenon by also including examples of the period’s anti-libels: poems concerned to rebut the claims of libellers, written not only by court poets but also by James I himself.

Much scholarship, particularly in the field of political history, has tended to diminish the significance of libels because of their recurrent prioritization of morality over ideology. Libellers are undeniably drawn to instances of sexual depravity and corporeal corruption; to take the most notable example, poems on the death of Robert Cecil in 1612 seem to be fuelled almost as much by a fascination at his grotesque process of bodily decay, as by any concerted opposition to his policies and achievements (Croft, “Reputation”). But this objection to libels runs the risk of imposing upon the early Stuart period anachronistic perceptions of politics. For contemporary commentators, corporeal corruption was inextricably connected with moral corruption, while discourses of politics were effectively inseparable from those of morality. Consequently, representations of courtly immorality were at once a powerful form of political critique, and also created a forum within which a writer might think his or her way towards more abstract ideas of politics. For instance, suggestions of sodomy at court swerve from mere titillation, through moral outrage, to intimations of a discourse of opposition (P. Hammond 128-150; Knowles; Perry). One of the most important libels of the 1620s, “The Five Senses” (“From such a face whose Excellence”), focuses on the relationship between King James and his powerful court favourite, George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham. The poem is striking in its suggestions of regal fallibility, as it suggests that the “whoreish breath” of “a Ganimede” has the “power to lead / His excellence which way it list”. It concludes with a menacing prayer that God should give the king himself “a Taste.../ Of what his Subjects undergoe”, and “a Feelinge of there woes”. Only then might he truly appreciate the problems of his realm.