ABSTRACT
This chapter identifies Sir John Denham as an early and committed cavalier respondent to the parliamentary political culture that emerged in the early 1640s. His early writing gives clear expression to the prevailing themes of royalist messaging that issued in the crucial years after the personal rule and before the outbreak of civil wars. He pays special attention to one particular element of Charles's emerging political platform: a deep suspicion of political rhetoric. Preoccupation at Westminster with rhetorical concerns came to provoke in popular writing a much broader discussion among those who sought to assess the reliability of discourse, whether it occurred in Parliament or in public, as a driving force within the English political sphere. A unique case study in political tumult, that assembly doubtless confirmed in Charles both his deep dislike for political disorder and his 'suspicion of novelty'.
