Welcoming the King

The seventeenth century was the great age of English panegyric, and no events stimulated writers of this genre more than royal successions. This chapter considers panegyric as a dynamic form of political expression: poems, at their best, engaged with contemporary debates about the authority of the monarchy and relations between subjects and their rulers. The chapter focuses on panegyrics produced for the three Stuart reigns that began with monarchs arriving in England from elsewhere: those of James I in 1603, Charles II in 1660, and William III and Mary II in 1688–9. The chapter argues that the century’s manifold political changes placed intense strains on panegyric, and concludes by considering two poets who, under conditions of intense personal pressure, openly rejected it. Despite their different politics, George Wither and Aphra Behn both reflect valuably upon the limitations of this vital genre of political literature.