Reprobates: The Cavaliers of the English Civil War

568 Pages·2011·20.58 MB·English

by  John Stubbs

JOHN STUBBS
author of John Donne: The Reformed Soul
The Cavaliers
OF THE
English Civil War
ISBN 978-0-393-06880-1 USA $39.95
From disastrous foreign forays to syphilitic
poets, from political intrigues to ambitious
young playwrights keen to curry favor
with the king, John Stubbs brings alive the
vibrant cast of characters that was at the
Icenter of the English Civil War.
n Reprobates, the acclaimed biographer John
Stubbs finds his new subject in England’s
turbulent decades of the mid-seventeenth
century. With conflict between the monarchy
and Parliament threatening to explode, a group
of courtiers and army officers known as the
Cavaliers emerged to defend the king. They
were jeeringly labeled “Cavaliers”—then a term
for a gallant or a rogue—by their opponents on
the streets of London. Their movement was
soon memorialized by poets such as Robert
Herrick, whose poem “To the Virgins, to Make
Much of Time”—which begins, “Gather ye rose¬
buds while ye may”—later became a carpe diem
anthem for their lost cause. Often imagined as
elegant gentlemen, chivalrous and dandified, the
Cavaliers were also originally to be found in the
form of the gambler and poet Sir John Suckling
or his syphilitic friend William Davenant.
Stubbs sheds new light on this ground¬
breaking group of men, on their world and their
journeys through it, in peace and war, from the
Blackfriars Playhouse to the battlefields of King
Charles’s kingdoms.

Reprobates
By the same author
Donne: The Reformed Soul
Reprobates
The Cavaliers of the English Civil War
JOHN STUBBS
W. W. Norton and Company
New York • London
Copyright © 2011 by John Stubbs
First American Edition 2011
First published in Great Britain by Viking,
a publishing division of Penguin Books Ltd.
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
For information about permission to reproduce
selections from this book, write to Permissions,
W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.,
500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110
For information about special discounts for bulk
purchases, please contact W. W. Norton Special Sales at
[email protected] or 800-233-4830
Manufacturing by Courier Westford
Production manager: Anna Oler
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Stubbs, John, 1977-
Reprobates : the cavaliers of the English Civil War /
John Stubbs. — 1st American ed. 2011.
p. cm.
Includes bibbographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-393-06880-1 (hardcover)
1. Great Britain—History—Civil War, 1642—1649.
2. Great Britain—Courts and courtiers—History—17th century.
3. Great Britain—Intellectual life—17th century.
4. Great Britain—Civilization—17th century. I. Title.
DA415.S78 2011
942.o6’2—dc22
2011013849
W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
500 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10110
www.wwnorton.com
W. W. Norton & Company Ltd.
Castle House, 75/76 Wells Street, London WiT 3QT
1234567890
For Katja, Lana and Martin
f