ABSTRACT
The religious and political convictions of a man had much to do with his prominence in public life and in literary circles in the last sixty years of the seventeenth century. John Crowne's father early cast his lot with Parliament in the Civil War period, and during the rule of Oliver Cromwell as Lord High Protector he rose to a position of considerable prominence in Shropshire, and even in London where he sat as a member of Parliament in 1654. The final satirical utterance of the playwright is associated with the year 1692. At that time he made his only extensive efforts in non-dramatic verse in two comic poems, both of which contain religious satire. The events of King James II's reign led Crowne to see the error of supporting the Stuart succession at all hazards; and when the Catholic king was forced to flee in 1688, the playwright welcomed the change and revised his political views.
