Politics has always been the patriarch of arts. Power of the pen to form, affect and sway opinions has been recognised and used effectively by politicians from time immemorial. Most writers transcended political reigns, for example Shakespeare wrote under Queen Elizabeth I and continued well into the reign of James I. Each monarch influences literature in his or her own way, which writers imbibe or reject, thus producing a change in their writing styles. Therefore political boundaries are very useful to consider literary writings. In this essay I will provide an overview of literary writing within the contexts of reigns of James I and Charles I.
             Scottish printing of The essayes of a prentise in the divine art of Poesie in 1584 and His Majesties poeticall exercise at vacant houres in 1591 had ensured that James I was known for his own writing skill. Accession of this 'Poet King' in 1603 propagated diverse genres of literary writing. The king was of the opinion that the best poetry was the kind that could be rewritten as prose without losing its beauty, so on one hand was his simplistic views on poetry and on the other hand he was the patron of flamboyant genre of Masques an satirical comedies.
             Politics and religion fed off each other in the Stuart reign as James Doleman correctly points out that religious verse was 'public and political activity' under James I. Influenced by a monarch who was a theologian himself, many poets like John Done, who wrote love poetry before, attempted at gaining royal favour by 'converting' to religious poetry. Donne perhaps wrote his Holy Sonnets in the early half of the seventeenth century. Sonnet 1 discusses how divine grace can uplift man from the despair of death, combat temptation and absolve him of sin. God is like a magnet attracting the poet's 'iron heart', here the sonnet resonates Calvinist humility as the poet may turn to god only if b...