Suppressed Polemic in Thomas Stanley’s Cambridge Manuscript

Abstract

Thomas Stanley is unusual among mid-seventeenth century royalist poets for his lack of participation in contemporary polemic. Nigel Smith, Nicholas McDowell, and others have noted that while Stanley was committed to Charles I and the monarchist cause, his poetry avoids ‘personal engagement’.1 Indeed, while Stanley may have been one of the founders of the pro-Caroline Order of the Black Riband, he largely avoids partisanship in his printed work; even after he versified Eikon Basilike in Psalterium Carolinum (1657), Stanley’s name did not appear on the work.2 Yet one unpublished poem in Stanley’s Cambridge poetic manuscript indicates that Stanley was not altogether removed from polemical verse.3 The contents of the untitled elegy on f. 83r indicate that it may have been written for Henry, Lord Hastings, after his death in 1649, one of many pieces of evidence dating the manuscript later than scholars have claimed. This attribution suggests Stanley’s participation in, and subsequent suppression of civil war polemic, showcasing the consciousness of the poet’s absence from public controversy.