Introduction viii

Some of the implications of these editorial decisions may require justification. Firstly, it will be apparent to those who are familiar with this material that a significant number of the poems here have been printed elsewhere. A couple of printed sources—F.W. Fairholt’s edition of Poems and Songs Relating to George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, and Norman Farmer’s edition of “Poems from a Seventeenth-Century Manuscript”—have provided the basis for much of the existing scholarship on libels. Other sources include published news-diaries and commonplace books (e.g. Rous; Whiteway; Dr. Farmer Chetham Manuscript; First and Second Dalhousie Manuscripts). But since some of these sources are not easy to access, and none aims for comprehensive coverage, a certain amount of duplication is necessary. Secondly, since libels were written by such a broad range of authors, a number have been published in editions of the works of major seventeenth-century poets. While our versions, which are unmodernized and taken from single manuscript sources, may lack the appearance of reliability and coherence projected by a scholarly edition, to have given such poems special treatment here would not only have been inconsistent, but would unduly have privileged the canonical over the anonymous and non-canonical. Therefore, while modern editions are cited where appropriate as alternative sources, it is important here that a modern reader, like his or her early Stuart counterpart, should encounter the occasional work of a well-known author in a miscellaneous context.

The edition’s borderlines are inevitably shadowy in places, largely due to the subject-matter of the poetry. The modern category of “politics” did not exist in early Stuart England; far from being an independent sphere, the political was inextricably intertwined with matters of religion and morality. Nonetheless, most cases are obvious enough. Libels proliferated especially around key figures in the business of state, such as Robert Cecil and the Duke of Buckingham, and around court controversies and scandals, such as that surrounding the divorce of Frances Howard and her subsequent involvement in the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury. Many more, especially in the 1620s, isolated issues of concern in parliament, such as monopolies and foreign affairs, or represented tensions between the parliament and the court. But others are more problematic. Firstly, editorial decisions have been made about poems concerned with religion, to determine whether individual pieces have any content that might reasonably be described as political. This has meant the inclusion, for example, of some pieces that specifically aim to politicize the stigmatized identity of the Puritan, but the omission of others concerned more with perceived ecclesiastical or theological aberrations. Secondly, in determining “political” content, it was determined that the edition should focus principally on a national context, as opposed to international or local contexts. Consequently, poems on the Thirty Years’ War are included only if they focus particularly on the debates concerning English involvement, while numerous elegies from the early 1630s on the Swedish military hero Gustavus Adolphus are omitted on similar grounds. While it might fairly be argued that such poems are concerned to reflect upon English politics, they lack the qualities of outspokenness and satire that characterize libel. Thirdly, although libels on local political matters inevitably reflect upon wider debates, this edition privileges poems that were principally concerned with national figures and issues, and that circulated beyond local contexts. Poems from the provinces that survive in records of Star Chamber libel actions typically did not also circulate in verse miscellanies, and as a result this edition excludes texts from these sources (cf. Fox 299-334; McRae, “Verse Libel”).