Restoration England’s laureate lost the post for refusing oaths
John Dryden (1631–1700), England’s first Poet Laureate (1668), so dominated Restoration letters that critics still say Age of Dryden. Scott dubbed him Glorious John—until the Glorious Revolution cost him the laurel for refusing William and Mary’s oaths.
Eldest of fourteen at Aldwincle, Northamptonshire, and a distant cousin of Jonathan Swift, he went from Titchmarsh to Westminster under Richard Busby, learning rhetoric that later shaped his dialectic prose. A 1649 elegy for schoolmate Lord Hastings already glanced at Charles I’s nearby execution. Trinity College Cambridge BA in 1654 topped that year’s list; scant paternal land sent him to London under the Protectorate.
He walked in Cromwell’s 1658 funeral with Milton and Marvell, published Heroic Stanzas, then flipped to Astraea Redux for Charles II’s return. Theatre reopenings made plays his income—Marriage à la Mode, All for Love—while Annus Mirabilis (1667) on Dutch war and the 1666 fire helped win laureateship and historiographer royal. Of Dramatick Poesie (1668) staged critical debate as dialogue. Rose Alley thugs beat him in 1679 after satire aimed at Rochester; no one claimed his £50 reward.
Satire peaked in Mac Flecknoe against Shadwell, Absalom and Achitophel, and The Medal. Religio Laici and later The Hind and the Panther charted his Anglican-to-Catholic turn. After 1688 he lost offices to Shadwell and lived by translation: Virgil’s Works (1697) paid about £1,400 by subscription; Fables Ancient and Modern closed the career. Buried first in Soho, he was moved to Westminster Abbey ten days later.
He wrote for a reading public more than for aristocratic patrons, and for the nation as occasional poet. The same flexibility that rode regime change twice finally stranded him when oaths mattered more than couplets.
Source: John Dryden
