Son of a wealthy lawyer with extensive estates in Buckinghamshire, Waller first entered Parliament in 1624, although he played little part in the political struggles of the period prior to the First English Civil War in 1642.

Best remembered now for his poem "Song (Go, lovely rose)", Waller's earliest writing dates to the late 1630s, commemorating events that occurred in the 1620s, including a piece on Charles's escape from a shipwreck at Santander in 1625.

[6] In 1644, he re-married, this time to Mary Bracey (died 1677) and they had numerous children; since their eldest son, Benjamin, was mentally disabled, he was succeeded by Edmund Waller (1652–1700), MP for Amersham from 1689 to 1698.

[8] On his death, his estate was valued at the then considerable sum of £40,000 (equivalent to £8,766,000 in 2023); he left legacies to his children Margaret (1648–1690), who acted as his secretary and Benjamin's guardian, Mary, Elizabeth, Anne, Cicely, Octavia, Dorothy and William.

[9] Nineteenth-century biographers dated his earliest work to the 1620s, largely because they commemorate events occurring in that period, but modern scholars suggest they were actually written in the mid to late 1630s in an attempt to build a career at court.

[12] John Pym, who headed the Parliamentary opposition to Charles, gave Waller responsibility for the impeachment of Sir Francis Crawley, one of the Ship Money judges, but he confirmed his Royalist sympathies by voting against the execution of Strafford in April 1641, and the removal of bishops from the House of Lords.

[5] Unlike Hyde and Falkland who joined the king when the First English Civil War began in August 1642, Waller remained in London, apparently with Charles' permission, where he continued to support moderates like Denzil Holles who wanted a negotiated peace.

In May 1643 a plot was uncovered, allegedly organised by Waller along with his brother-in-law Nathaniel Tomkins, and wealthy merchant Richard Chaloner; what apparently began as a plan to force Parliament into negotiations by withholding taxes turned into an armed conspiracy intended to allow the Royalist army to take control of London.

[9] After Waller was arrested, he made a full confession, implicating a number of his co-conspirators; he escaped the death penalty, allegedly by paying bribes, while Chaloner and Tomkins were executed on 5 July 1643.

After spending 18 months in prison without trial, Waller was fined £10,000 and permitted to go into exile in November 1644, accompanied by his new wife Mary; however, the affair caused lasting damage to his reputation.

[16] Waller was admired by contemporaries including John Dryden and Gerard Langbaine, although his extravagant praise for members of the court and Royal family was later parodied by Andrew Marvell in "Last Instructions to a Painter".

[17] Edmund Gosse, author of his biography in the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, wrote: 'Waller's lyrics were at one time admired to excess, but with the exception of "Go, lovely Rose" and one or two others, they have greatly lost their charm'.

[b] His longest and most ambitious work of this type portrayed the inconclusive 1665 Battle of Lowestoft;[c] presenting it as an heroic victory and heaping praise on James, it was widely ridiculed.