The New Atalantis

As a political satire on the behaviour of prominent members of the Whig party, it won the approval of the Tory literary faction, among them Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Richard Steele and Jonathan Swift.

There was also Thomas Heyrick's long verse satire, The New Atlantis (1687), attacking the defence of Catholicism as espoused by the Tory Party during the Stuart succession crisis of a previous reign.

But the work also played its part in the attack on the current political favourite of the Whigs, John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, whose wife Sarah was an influential attendant on Queen Anne.

Tuberoses set in pretty gilt and china pots were placed advantageously upon stands; the curtains of the bed drawn back to the canopy, made of yellow velvet, embroidered with white bugles the panels of the chamber looking-glass.

A feminist critic observes that one aspect of the satire addresses the invisibility of women in the masculine world of politics and their consequent ability to influence situations through the power of gossip.