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John DrydenHis 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
Wherever English literature is studied, John Dryden is recognized as theauthor of some of the greatest political satires in the language. Untilrecently the fact has been overlooked that before he wrote the first ofthese satires, Absalom and Achitophel, he had entered the politicalarena with the prose tract here reproduced. The proof that theHistoriographer Royal contributed to the anti-Whig propaganda of thespring of 1681 depends partly on contemporary or near-contemporarystatements but principally on internal evidence. An article by ProfessorRoswell G. Ham (The Review of English Studies, XI (1935), 284-98; HughMacdonald, John Dryden, A Bibliography, p. 167) demonstrated Dryden'sauthorship so satisfactorily that it is unnecessary to set forth herethe arguments that established this thesis. The time when Dryden wascomposing his defence of the royal Declaration is approximately fixedfrom the reference to it on June 22, 1681, in The Observator, whichhad noted the Whig pamphlet Dryden was answering under the date of May26.
The bitter controversy into which Dryden thrust himself was theculmination of eleven years' political strife. In 1670, by the secretTreaty of Dover, Charles II and Louis XIV agreed that the English kingshould declare himself a Roman Catholic, and receive from his brother ofFrance the equivalent of 80,000 pounds sterling and, in case of aProtestant rebellion, 6000 French soldiers. In addition, the two kingswere pledged to undertake a war for the partition of the UnitedProvinces. In the words of the late Lord Acton this treaty is "the solidsubstance of the phantom which is called the Popish Plot." (Lectures onModern History (1930), p. 211) The attempt to carry out the second partof the treaty was made in 1672, when England and France attacked theUnited Provinces which made a successful defence, aided by a coalitionincluding the Emperor, Elector of Brandenburg, and King of Spain. Theunpopularity of the war compelled Charles II to make peace in 1674.Meanwhile the King had taken a step to put into operation the first partof the Treaty of Dover by issuing a Declaration of Indulgence relievingCatholics and Dissenters