Edmund Waller 1606-1687

Edmund WALLER 1606-87

Biographical Note

Born at Stocks Place, Coleshill, Hertfordshire and later of Hall Barn, Beaconsfield, the eldest son of Robert Waller, (1560-1616), barrister, and Anne (1581-1653), daughter of Griffith Hampden. Educated at King’s College Cambridge 1621 and Lincoln’s Inn 1622, though he did not graduate or proceed to the bar. MP for Ilchester, Somerset, 1624 and Amersham 1628, 1640. In 1643 he was involved in a royalist conspiracy known as ‘Waller’s Plot’; he was expelled from Parliament and exiled in France and Switzerland until 1651 when he was pardoned by the Rump parliament. He returned to Parliament after the Restoration, serving as MP for Hastings in 1661 and Saltash in 1685. Waller is well-known as a poet, particularly for his 'Panegyricks', which he wrote in support of both Cromwell and succeeding monarchs. A collection of his poetry was published during his exile in 1645, titled Poems.

Books

Waller's library remained with his family descendants after his death, at Hall Barn, Beaconsfield; the collection was sold in 1832. Part of the library of Major General W. N. Waller, “collected by Edmund Waller the poet and his descendants”, was sold at Sothebys, 12.12.1900.

Sources

• Chernaik, Warren. "Waller, Edmund (1606–1687), poet and politician." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography..
• Maggs, catalogues of the London booksellers Maggs Bros: 1121 (1990)/18, 60.
• Edmund Waller, Catalogue of English literary manuscripts 1450-1700.