Cavalier Poets

Our next friend is another one of our good ol’ Cavalier buddies. Sir John Denham was born in Dublin in 1615 and lived to 1669, a lawyer and the son of the Lord Chief Justice of the King’s Bench in Ireland. That sounds like an impressive title, and when his father died Sir John did inherit a great deal of property. During the English Civil War he was sheriff of Surrey and made a brief attempt to defend Farnham Castle against Parliamentary forces; after the war his estates were confiscated and he lived abroad with Charles II, though Cromwell did give him permission to live in Suffolk in 1658.

Today in the United States, we’re celebrating Thanksgiving, commemorating that well-known story of Native Americans helping out a bunch of proto-Yankee Puritans… Well, that was nice of them, I must give credit for that, but if the Natives had seen the future they may have followed the example of the friend we’re meeting today and done something far more laudable: not feeding Puritans, but fighting them.

James Graham, Marquis of Montrose, is one of my favourite of the Cavalier poets. Part of the reason, of course, is his poetry; I especially like “My Dear and Only Love,” which is a good romantic poem in its own right, and the specific imagery he uses to describe a loyal relationship between husband and wife, monarchy, is apt but today has the added satisfaction of political incorrectness. He also, of course, supported the Royalist cause in the English Civil War. Interestingly, though, he was a Covenanter, and as such opposed King Charles I insofar as the King attempted to impose Anglican forms of worship on Scotland. However, he insisted throughout his life that he was both a Covenanter and loyal to the monarchy, and in 1644, with the Civil War underway, he was appointed lieutenant-general and won several victories in Scotland. Unfortunately, the Royalists lost, Charles I was martyred, and so Montrose fled to the Continent, but returned to Scotland in 1650 with a force of about 1,200 men. That invasion failed and he was ultimately captured and hanged.

Whenever I think of English poetry, the first style to come to mind is something like the Cavalier poets. For me, their work is the good stuff; no multi-page bouts of navel-gazing in free verse here. Nope, this is good old-fashioned metrical writing with regular rhyme schemes, and what does a good Cavalier write about? Put simply, the good life - the love of beautiful women, a comfortable home in the country, close friends, duty, and at times, the loss of those things.