Edmund Waller, FRS (3 March 1606– 21 October 1687) was an English poet and politician who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1624 and 1679. He was educated at Eton and King’s College, Cambridge. He entered Parliament early and was at first an active member of the opposition. In 1631 he married a London heiress who died in 1634. Later he became a Royalist, and in 1643 was leader in a plot to seize London for Charles I. For this he was imprisoned, fined, and banished. He made his peace with *Cromwell in 1651, returned to England, and was restored to favour at the Restoration. After the death of his first wife he unsuccessfully courted Lady Dorothy Sidney, the 'Sacharissa’ of his poems; he married Mary Bracey as his second wife in 1644. Waller was a precocious poet; he wrote, probably as early as 1625, a complimentary piece on His Majesty’s Escape at St Andere (Prince Charles’s escape from shipwreck at Santander) in heroic couplets, one of the first examples of a form that prevailed in English poetry for some two centuries. His verse, much of it occupied with praise of Sacharissa, Lady Carlisle, and others, is of a polished simplicity; *Dryden repeatedly praised his 'sweetness’, describing him as 'the father of our English numbers’, and linking his name with Denham’s as poets who brought in the *Augustan age. His early poems include 'On a Girdle’ and 'Go, lovely rose’; his later Instructions to a Painter (1666, on the battle of Sole Bay) and 'Of the Last Verses in the Book’, containing the famous lines, 'The Soul’s dark cottage, battered and decayed, I Lets in new light through chinks that time hath made.' His Poems first appeared in 1645, Divine Poems in 1685, and Poems,.

As a member of Parliament during the political turmoil of the 1640s, he was arrested for his part in a plot to establish London as a stronghold of the king; by betraying his colleagues and by lavish bribes, he avoided death. He later wrote poetic tributes to both Oliver Cromwell (1655) and Charles II (1660). Rejecting the dense intellectual verse of Metaphysical poetry, he adopted generalizing statement, easy associative development, and urbane social comment. With his emphasis on definitive phrasing through inversion and balance, he prepared the way for the emergence of the heroic couplet. By the end of the 17th century the heroic couplet was the dominant form of English poetry. Waller’s lyrics include the well-known “Go, lovely Rose!”.

Early life

Edmund Waller was the eldest son of Robert Waller (1560-1616) of Coleshill, Herts, by Anne, daughter of Griffith Hampden, his wife; thus he was first cousin to The Patriot, John Hampden. Robert Waller was son of Edmund Waller (1536-1603, aka Edmund Waller I), son of Robert Waller (1517–53), a scion of the Waller family of Groombridge Place, Kent. (A branch of this family was seated later at Newport Pagnell, Buckingham, from whence they removed in the 17th century to Virginia, where they became prominent in early Virginia affairs. See Benjamin Waller, Littleton Waller Tazewell and Edwin Waller).

Waller was baptised in the parish church of Amersham, but early in his childhood his father moved the family from Coleshill to Beaconsfield. Of Waller’s early education all we know is his own account that he “was bred under several ill, dull and ignorant schoolmasters, until he went to Mr Dobson at Wycombe, who was a good schoolmaster and had been an Eton scholar”. Robert Waller died in 1616, and Anne, a lady of rare force of character, sent him to Eton and to the University of Cambridge. He was admitted a fellow-commoner of King’s College, Cambridge on 22 March 1620, he left without a degree, before completing his education at Lincoln’s Inn in 1622. On reaching his majority in 1627 he inherited an estate estimated to be worth up to £3,500 a year.

Colonel Adrian Scrope (1601-1660), the Regicide, became his brother-in-law having married his sister Mary in 1624.

Early parliamentary career

Waller claimed that he entered parliament for Amersham (UK Parliament constituency) in 1621, but this is unlikely as the constituency was not re-enfranchised until May 1624 by which time he was already the sitting Member of Parliament for Ilchester after one of the members chose another seat. In 1626 he was elected MP for Chipping Wycombe. He was elected MP for Amersham in 1628 and sat until 1629 when King Charles decided to rule without parliament for eleven years.

Marriage

Waller’s first notable action was his surreptitious marriage with a wealthy ward of the Court of Aldermen, in 1631. He was brought before the Star Chamber for this offence, and heavily fined. But his own fortune was large, and all his life Waller was a wealthy man. After bearing him a son and a daughter at Beaconsfield, Mrs Waller died in 1634. It was about this time that the poet was elected into the “Club” of Lucius Cary, 2nd Viscount Falkland.

In about 1635 he met Lady Dorothy Sidney, eldest daughter of Robert Sidney, 2nd Earl of Leicester, who was then eighteen years of age. He formed a romantic passion for this girl, whom he celebrated under the name of Sacharissa. She rejected him, and married Henry Spencer, 1st Earl of Sunderland in 1639. Disappointment is said to have made Waller temporarily insane. However, he wrote a long, graceful and eminently sober letter to the bride’s sister on the occasion of the wedding.

Speeches

In April 1640 Waller was again elected MP for Amersham, in the Short Parliament and made certain speeches which attracted wide attention. He was then elected MP for St Ives in the Long Parliament. Waller had hitherto supported the party of John Pym, but he now left him for the group of Falkland and Hyde. His speeches were much admired, and were separately printed; they are academic exercises very carefully prepared. Clarendon says that Waller spoke “upon all occasions with great sharpness and freedom”.

“Waller’s Plot”

An extraordinary and obscure conspiracy against Parliament, in favour of the King, which is known as “Waller’s Plot”, occupied the spring of 1643, but on 30 May he and his friends were arrested. In the terror of discovery, Waller confessed “whatever he had said heard, thought or seen, and all that he knew... or suspected of others”, and he certainly cut a poor figure compared to his fellow conspirators were unwilling to betray their principles. Waller was called before the bar of the House in July, and made an abject speech of recantation. His life was spared and he was committed to the Tower of London, but, on paying a fine of £10,000, he was released and banished from the realm in November 1643. His fellow conspirators were less fortunate, Richard Challoner and Waller’s brother in law, Nathaniel Tomkins, were executed on 5 July 1643.

Banishment

In 1645 the Poems of Waller were first published in London, in three different editions; there has been much discussion of the order and respective authority of these issues, but nothing is decidedly known. Many of the lyrics were already set to music by Henry Lawes. In 1646 Waller travelled with John Evelyn in Switzerland and Italy. During the worst period of his exile Waller managed to “keep a table” for the Royalists in Paris, although in order to do so he was obliged to sell his wife’s jewels.

Children

His first wife Anne Banks died in childbirth leaving a surviving daughter Elizabeth or Anne (1634-), wife to William Dormer, Dormer the splendid, (died 1683), son of Sir Robert Dormer, Kt. (d.1649), of Ascot Park, Ascott, Stadhampton, Oxfordshire.

He married secondly in 1644 Mary Bracey (d.1677), (or Bressy, Bresse or Breaux), of Thame or possibly of somewhere in France, and went over to Calais, afterwards taking up his residence at Rouen. By Mary Breux he had several children. His descendant Rachel Waller, daughter of Edmund Waller VI or VII, considering the Breux family’s connections with Barbadoes wrote in 1939 that: this probably gave rise to the assumption that she was not of pure European blood. In support of this theory, we may compare the portrait of the poet with those of his descendants. In these latter, the long face and aquiline lineaments of the poet have given way to round blunt features and curly black hair. The children included:

Benjamin, somewhat lacking in his father’s wit, he was sent to Jersey, a colony in the West Indies;

Edmund II or III (1652-dsp Bristol1699/1700), MP for Amersham 1689-98, educ. Christ Church, Oxford, Middle Temple bencher 1696. Became a Quaker. Married (1686) Abigail (d. 1689), daughter of Francis Tylney of Rotherwick, Hants, sister of Frederick Tylney (?1653-1725), MP;

William, a merchant of London;

Dr. Stephen Waller (1654-1706), of Hall Barn, a doctor of law, a famous civilian, and Commissioner for the Union. His widow, Judith, daughter of Sir Thomas Vernon, MP, Kt., of Farnham, married, as his second wife, John Aislabie, MP, DL (1670-1742).

Harry Waller (1701-dsp1772), MP for Chipping Wycombe 1726-47. Deputy master of St. Katherine’s Hospital 1747-1772. Married (1744) Elizabeth, daughter of Sir John Stapylton, 3rd Baronet, M.P.;

Edmund Waller III or IV, (1699-1771), MP for Great Marlow 1722-1741, and Chipping Wycombe 1741-1754, Cofferer of the Household December 1744- December 1746. Married before 1720, his step-sister, Mary, daughter of John Aislabie, of Studley Royal, Ripon. Succeeded his uncle Edmund Waller, c. 1700, and bought Gloucestershire estates c.1720s (Farmington, Turkdean & Hazleton, and parts of Bourton-on-the-Water, and Clapton), and his father in 1707. A step-brother of William Aislabie, MP;

Edmund Waller IV or V (?1725-88), 'took to the bottle’, MP for Chipping Wycombe 1747-1754 and late 1757-1761. Master, St. Katherine’s Hospital 1747-88, educated St. Mary Hall, Oxford, and Lincoln’s Inn. Married (1755) Martha (d. 8.8.1788), daughter of Rowland Philipps of Orlandon, Pembroke;

Anne, married (1738), Sir Miles Stapylton, 4th Bart., MP for Yorkshire, 1734-1750, of Myton, (d.1752), their daughter Anne, d.s.p.

Rev. Harry Waller (1760-1824), succeeded his brother Edmund in 1810, retired to Boulogne in 1821 (to avoid debt). Married (15.5.1797) Mary/Maria, sister of Rev. John Dolphin (c1775-11.3.1831), curate at Farmington, c1799;

Harry Edmund Waller, JP, DL (13.4.1804-69), sold Hall Barn 1832, inherited Kirkby Fleetham, North Yorkshire and Clint, south of Ripon, from his second-cousin-once-removed Miss Sophia Elizabeth Lawrence (1761–1845) of Studley Royal, in 1845 (she left the bulk of these Aislabie derived estates to her third cousins, the Robinson family). This Waller is said to have won the Ascot Gold Cup of 1852. Married (15.6.1826) Caroline-Elizabeth (d. 1.12.1840) daughter of John Larking, of Clare Hall, Lewisham, Kent. He was nominated High Sheriff of Gloucestershire, November 1833;

Edmund Waller VI or VII (1828-98), JP, DL, High Sheriff Gloucestershire 1876, once of Little Hall Barn, and of Farmington, near Northleach and Kirby Fleetham (the unentailed later sold 1889). Married (1858) Lucy (died 1878), daughter of Henry Elwes of Colesbourne, a grandfather of Henry John Elwes.

Rachel Waller (1868-1954), only child, married (1889) Cecil Fane De Salis (1857-1948) of Dawley Court, Middlesex;

Major-General William-Noel Waller, Royal Artillery, (25.12.1831-1909). Married Mary Elizabeth Heygate, and secondly Charlotte Lycester Templer.

Harry Noel Waller, (India, 19.8.1859-17.1.1944, 306 West End Avenue, New York, aged 84).

Robert Waller (c1732-dsp1814), MP for Chipping Wycombe 1761-90, educated Oriel College, Oxford, Groom of the bedchamber 1784-1801;

Margaret, the eldest, born Rouen;

Mary who married Dr. Peter Birch, Doctor of Divinity, Prebendary and Sub Dean of Westminster Abbey. Died 2 July 1710 aged 65 years;

Dorothy, a dwarf, sent to the North; Dorothy lived in Morley, near Leeds. She died in 1771 and left her house to the Reverend Timothy Alred, of St Mary’s In The Wood. She had a romantic attachment to him. She is buried in the churchyard there. She is reputed to have been carried from her home on Banks Hill to St Mary’s in a sedan chair. Her former home is said to be the oldest house in Morley, and has a plaque above the door indicating her residency and her date of passing.

Eliza, with her brother Edmund, an executor of her father.

Return to England

At the close of 1651 the Rump Parliament revoked Waller’s sentence of banishment, and he was allowed to return to Beaconsfield, where he lived very quietly until the Restoration. In 1655 he published A Panegyric to my Lord Protector, and was made a Commissioner for Trade a month or two later. He followed this, in 1660, with a poem To the King, upon his Majesty’s Happy Return. Being challenged by Charles II to explain why this latter piece was inferior to the eulogy of Cromwell, the poet smartly replied, “Sir, we poets never succeed so well in writing truth as in fiction”.

Waller entered the House of Commons again in 1661, as MP for Hastings, and Burnet has recorded that for the next quarter of a century “it was no House if Waller was not there”. His sympathies were tolerant and kindly, and he constantly defended the Nonconformists. One famous speech of Waller’s was: “Let us look to our Government, fleet and trade, ’tis the best advice the oldest Parliament man among you can give you, and so God bless you”.

Later life

After the death of his second wife, in 1677, Waller retired to Hall Barn, the house he had designed and owned in Beaconsfield, and though he returned to London, he became more and more attached to the retirement of his woods, “where,” he said, “he found the trees as bare and withered as himself.” In 1661 he had published his poem, St James’ Park; in 1664 he had collected his poetical works; in 1666 appeared his Instructions to a Painter; and in 1685 his Divine Poems. The final collection of his works is dated 1686, but there were further posthumous additions made in 1690.

Waller bought a cottage at Coleshill, where he was born, meaning to die there; “a stag,” he said, “when he is hunted, and near spent, always returns home.” He actually died, however, at Hall Barn, with his children and his grandchildren about him, on 21 October 1687, and was buried in woollen (in spite of his expressed wish), in a grade II* listed tomb in the churchyard of St Mary and All Saints Church, Beaconsfield.

Verse

In the opinion of Edmund Gosse, who wrote Waller’s biography in the Encyclopaedia Britannica Eleventh Edition (1911), Waller’s lyrics were at one time admired to excess, but with the exception of “Song” (Go, lovely Rose) and one or two others, they have lost their popularity. He lacked imaginative invention, but resolutely placed himself in the forefront of reaction against the violence and “conceit” into which the baser kind of English poetry was descending.

Waller was regarded by some as the pioneer in introducing the classical couplet into English verse. It is, of course, obvious that Waller could not “introduce” what had been invented, and admirably exemplified, by Geoffrey Chaucer. But those who have pointed to smooth distichs employed by poets earlier than Waller have not given sufficient attention to the fact (exaggerated, doubtless, by critics arguing in the opposite camp) that it was he who earliest made writing in the serried couplet the habit and the fashion. Waller was writing in the regular heroic measure, (the classical school of poetry) afterwards carried to so high a perfection by John Dryden and Alexander Pope as early as 1623 (if not, as has been supposed even in 1621).

Waller, along with his contemporary John Denham (poet), in their poetical legacy achieved the label of “Sons of British Poetry”.

Waller is briefly mentioned in Harold Bloom’s landmark book on literary criticism The Anxiety of Influence. In it, Bloom refers to Hume’s judgement of Waller being “saved only because Horace was so distant,” as an underestimation because “Waller is dead. Horace is alive.”

Works

George Giffillan, (ed, 1857), Poetical Works of Edmund Waller & Sir John Denham.
G. Thorn-Drury (ed, 1893) Poetical Works A critical edition with a careful biography.

Memorials

Edmund Waller Primary School is in New Cross, South East London.

References

Wikipedia—https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Waller