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Robert Herrick and the Creation of the British Caesar

That Robert Herrick was a great admirer of classical writers and philosophers is easily established through a reading of Hesperides. And important critical works such as Robert H. Deming’s Ceremony and Art, Roger B. Rollin’s Robert Herrick, and Syrithe Pugh’s Herrick, Fanshawe and the Politics of Intertextuality have enhanced our understanding of how the classical period can be found to impact the meaning and outlook of Hesperides. While the volume of poetry shows a unique syncretization of the Greco-Roman and British worlds, this unification of the ancient with Herrick’s contemporary world does not end with borrowed poetic images and ideas, but also reveals in it Herrick’s attempt to recreate Britain in the model of Rome. As Rome was an empire with a Caesar as emperor, so too must Britain have its Caesar in the person of the king. As one reads through Hesperides, it becomes apparent that Robert Herrick has attempted to give the British people a British Roman Emperor, Caesar Charles, and in so doing, Herrick also declares him worthy of the religious devotion that the Roman citizenry bestowed upon the Caesar through the giving of offerings to his genius. In the “garden” of Hesperides that Herrick creates for his readers, the role of the British monarchy becomes a reimaging of the ancient Roman Caesars. The poetic garden that exists within this volume is one in which Herrick attempts to unite the Britain he lives in with the classical world he admires, and part of this unification and syncretization is an attempt to create a British Caesar worthy of the worship bestowed upon the ancient Roman Emperors. While the courts of James I and Charles I had continued to emphasize the divine right of kings, Herrick can be seen extending this concept to a loftier realm and ultimately giving the monarchy the semidivine status enjoyed by the Caesars. The classical Roman model that is the foundation for Herrick’s construction is one which required the citizenry to worship at the genius of Caesar and to burn offerings in his honor, and while this was one of the major points of contention between the Roman State and the early Christian church, Herrick shows no signs of concern in his attempt to Christianize the practice of royal worship when applying it to seventeenth-century Britain. And in his Christianized Caesar, the religious roles that Charles and his family attain are those representative of the Christian Holy Family, complete with God the Father, God the Son, and Mother Mary. The connection between Charles I and the Caesars is one that Herrick explicitly makes several times in Hesperides, and through considering the instances in which the term is used, it becomes apparent that it is more than simply a hyperbolic image, but a poetic role that Herrick wants to establish for the king. The poem that is most representative of this creation of Charles I as Caesar is “To the King, Upon his welcome to Hampton–Court.” In this poem all of the elements of the