His Majesties Declaration Defended — Text and Context

The Rhetoric of Ridicule

Dryden's primary weapon is scorn. He repeatedly mocks his opponent's phrasing, calling out "false Grammars" and "Barbarisms" in every period. His satire extends to the Whig author's intellectual capacity: he suggests that the writer's pension of "four hundred pounds per annum" might be better transferred to someone who will not "notoriously betray their cause by dullness and insufficiency." The tone is deliberately theatrical, as when Dryden compares his adversary to an ape hugging its young to death—a vivid image for the author's obsessive repetition of the same exclusionist arguments. This rhetorical strategy aims to discredit not just the ideas but the person advancing them, a common tactic in Restoration pamphlet wars.

The Logic of Exclusion

Dryden systematically attacks the Whig expedient of excluding the Duke of York. He argues that banishment of the Duke and all Catholics, combined with removal of the King's guards, would leave England defenseless and vulnerable to "Sectaries and Commonwealths-men." The tract highlights a tension between legal right and political expediency: Dryden insists that excluding a rightful successor would establish "an unnatural War of Expediency, against an avowed Right and Title." He also warns that even a Protestant successor would be declared "no Protestant" by the prevailing party if not wholly governed by them. This line of reasoning reveals Dryden's concern with the slippery slope from exclusion to republicanism.

Historical Context and Authorship

The introduction by Godfrey Davies situates the tract within the political crisis following the secret Treaty of Dover (1670) and the Popish Plot. Davies notes that Dryden's authorship was established by Professor Roswell G. Ham in 1935 through internal evidence, including stylistic parallels with Dryden's known works. The tract was likely composed between May and June 1681, as The Observator referenced the Whig pamphlet on May 26 and Dryden's reply by June 22. This timeline places the work at the peak of the Exclusion Crisis, when Charles II was dissolving Parliament to prevent passage of the Exclusion Bill. The text thus serves as a primary document of royalist propaganda during a pivotal moment in English constitutional history.

Readers approaching this tract should attend to Dryden's use of irony and legal reasoning as tools of political persuasion. The text rewards close reading for its layered allusions and its place in the development of Dryden's satirical voice. Comparing it with his later Absalom and Achitophel reveals how his prose style anticipates the verse satire's blend of personal attack and political argument.

The rain kept drumming on the window while I sat with Dryden’s sharp-edged defense, his fury at the Whigs somehow warming the grey afternoon. That same partisan crackle reminded me of L’Estrange’s later, nastier pamphleteering — quieter in tone, but just as relentless. I pulled up Selections from the Observator (1681-1687) — Text and Context and lost the next hour entirely, tracing the same anger in a different voice.