William Strode (poet)

[1] He was born in Devon and baptised on 11 January 1602/3 (probably at the age of one) at Shaugh Prior,[2] about 4 miles north of Newnham, the ancient seat of the Strode family.

When Corbett was translated from Oxford to the see of Norwich in 1632, they continued friends; Strode preached at an episcopal visitation in Norfolk the following year, and produced a Latin version of the bishop's epitaph on his mother for use on her monument.

When in 1635 Charles I visited Woodstock Palace, near Oxford, Strode in his capacity of orator made a speech in the king's honour; as a result he was promised the next Christ Church canonry not linked to a specific chair that should fall vacant.

The vitriolic tone of the attack was unusual for Strode, who was not only a tolerant and fair-minded man, but also in regular contact with his strongly Puritan family in Devon (his namesake the Parliamentarian was one of his cousins).

However, 'The Townes new Teacher', written about this time, shows his new hostility to a movement whose narrow-minded intolerance he was finding increasingly disturbing: the poem has been called the best example of anti-Puritan satire.

By this time the political situation had become difficult; Laud had been arrested and impeached, and Strode was called to account before a Parliamentary Committee for the adulatory expressions he had applied to the Archbishop, though he was dismissed without any penalty.

While his cousins – or their husbands – were on the battlefield, Strode remained in Oxford carrying out his normal duties, though when the King made the city his headquarters and Christ Church his residence, life must have become difficult.

Strode's love poetry and elegies are typical of their age, but he also wrote comical and satirical verse; there is evidence that his ballads set to popular tunes were actually sung.