ABSTRACT
Ten years after Prince Charles's journey to Spain to negotiate marriage with the Spanish Infanta, his eventual wife, the French princess Henrietta Maria, staged a pastoral play at Somerset House entitled The Shepherds' Paradise. After the rupture of the Spanish match and the increasing possibility that Charles would take a French bride, a narrative was required to explain away this former attachment. Although it is difficult to date the poems, they were evidently written after Charles's accession and after the solemnisation of the royal marriage, for their titles identify Charles as 'his Majesty' and address Henrietta Maria as Queen. Through classical allusion, and the comparison of Charles with such luminaries as Aeneas, Jason and Theseus, the Prince is presented as brave and beneficent, a man whose courage is 'Godlike' and whose bounty amazes the Spaniards.
