© 2003 by Oxford University Press
The Character of a Non-Laudian Country Parson
1 University of Warwick
This article is based on a letter from Sir Robert Cooke to Sir Robert Harley in June 1641, concerning a problem with the printing of George Herbert's The Country Parson, in which it appears that Cooke is complaining of Laudian censorship. This heretofore unsuspected circumstance necessitates a rereading of Herbert's The Country Parson to determine what a censor might have found objectionable. The article suggests that Laudian readers were not sensitive to Herbert's choice of the ‘character’ genre for his prose work, and examines the mechanisms and rhetoric of The Country Parson for similarities with contemporary examples of that genre. It concludes with a discussion of the reasons for non-publication of The Country Parson in the immediate reaction to Laudianism of the Long Parliament, when other censored works were granted a licence. After reconstructing the political developments of 1640/1, and the roles taken by the people mentioned in Cooke's letter, the article concludes that June 1641 represented the end of the moderate Puritan consensus within which publication of The Country Parson could be envisaged, and speculates on the circumstances under which the work was finally published: by a Laudian, Barnabas Oley, in 1652.