Classical, Medieval and Renaissance Studies, University of Saskatchewan
Abstract
These two manuscript elegies on the death of the Duke of Richmond and Lenox partake in the widespread convention of the 1620s and 1630s of using an individual's death as an opportunity to comment on the current political situation. The Duke's death, coinciding as it did with the planned opening of the 1624 Parliament, offered an exceptional opportunity for such poetic comment. That Parliament, whose central concern was the turn against Spain following the collapsed Spanish Match, was focussed in particular on the testimony and leadership of England's "other Duke," the better known royal favourite, Buckingham
