Texts

On this section of the website you will find a curated selection of sample texts from the Stuart Successions database, manuscript texts not featured in the database. These texts have been selected to convey the diversity of literary responses to moments of royal succession. More texts are included in the forthcoming anthology of succession literature, edited by Andrew McRae and John West.

Texts have been modernized in several ways. Spelling has been standardized and modernized across all the texts. The seventeenth-century convention of capitalizing and italicizing nouns has not been preserved, except in cases where the author is obviously personifying a concept (‘Envy’ etc.). Each text is prefixed by a short introduction explaining the immediate context and directing readers to further pages where they can read about specific persons and events in more detail

Contents:

 
Thomas Dekker, Extract from 1603: The Wonderful Year (1603).

Robert Fletcher, ‘Our Late Sorrow, and Our Present Joy’ (1603).

John Webster, The Progeny of the Most Renowned Prince James, King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland (1625).

Abraham Holland, Extract from An Elegy: or, Some Posthume Tears upon the Royal Hearse of Our Late Sovereign King James (1626).

Anon., England’s Pleasant May-Flower: or, Charles the Second Came Home the Twenty Ninth of May (1660).

George Wither, ‘To the King’s Majesty’ in Speculum Speculativum: or, A Considering Glasse (London, 1660).

John Denham, The Prologue to His Majesty at the First Play Presented at the Cock-Pit in Whitehall; Being Part of that Noble Entertainment Which Their Majesties Received Novemb. 19. From His Grace the Duke of Albemarle (London, 1660).

John Dryden, Extract from Albion and Albanius: An Opera (London, 1685).

Arthur Maynwaring, Tarquin and Tullia (London, 1689).

Aphra Behn, A Congratulatory Poem to Her Sacred Majesty, Queen Mary Upon Her Arrival in England (London, 1689).

Bevil Higgons, The Mourners (1702).

Anon., Extract from The Restoration: or, A Change for the Better (London, 1702).