Destiny His Choice: The Loyalism of Andrew Marvell

Destiny his Choice is a literary and historical study of Marvell's political poems and prose. The author explains the meaning of Marvell's work by setting it in its immediate historical and political context. Professor Wallace treats Marvell as a member of that central group of moderate men who were neither wholly royalist nor wholly puritan; who were willing to justify a change of allegiance from King to Commonwealth after the execution of Charles I and back to the monarchy at the Restoration. In his important historical introduction the author provides a great deal of information about the extent of this group as well as Marvell's place within it. The usual claim that Marvell was merely a turncoat is shown to rest on a misunderstanding of the religious and political assumptions of the time.