Hundreds of poems banned in the 17th century for discussing such salacious matters as "stincking" farts in parliament have been published together for the first time.
The poems and lyrics provide a running commentary on the political and royal scandals of the day, outing the homosexual affairs of kings and exposing political assassins. They were banned under the tough censorship laws in the run-up to the civil war in 1640.
Some 350 examples of libellous rhymes, previously tucked away on old manuscripts in the British Library or the Bodleian in Oxford, have been collected by Professor Andrew McRae, of the University of Exeter, and Professor Alastair Bellany, of Rutgers University, and published on a website.
"They are written in a time when political speech was very strictly controlled. People were finding other ways of expressing their views of republicanism at a time when to discuss that was absolutely illegal. A lot of the poems don't say that but insinuate the ideas. There's a strand of radicalism and debate through them," said Prof McRae.
The Censure of the Parliament Fart (1607) was written as an ode to a fart emitted during a parliamentary debate. "It's clearly prompted by a bloke who farted in parliament in 1607. Obviously it's a lot more about parliament as an institution and how it functions. It was hugely popular, and people were reading it for 50 years after it was written.
"This is a time when people were arguing what parliament can do and how it stands up to the king. The author was arguing that parliament had the right to argue what it wants. In that context you could argue that the fart becomes an illicit form of political debate."
The poems deal with many of the political scandals of the period, such as the accession of King James VI of Scotland to the English throne and the unpopularity of his preferment of Scottish nobles. One verse on the King's coronation reads: "And at the erse of them marched the Scotish peeres / With lowzie shirts, and mangie wrists, went pricking-up their eares."
King James's homosexual affairs are documented graphically in Heaven Blesses King James our Joy. "Young Compton might have had/ Wives by the dozen/ And yet the foole was madd/ For George his cosen," it reads.
Many of the poems were directed at individuals. The death of Robert Cecil in 1612, lord treasurer to James, provoked a voluminous outpouring of libellous epitaphs that were countered by a smaller number of defences or anti-libels. Writers focused on Cecil's fiscal oppression of the realm, his physical deformities (very short stature and crooked back) and his alleged sexual corruption, potently symbolised for the libellers by the bodily decay and stench supposedly caused by a fatal dose of syphilis.
The Censure of the Parliament Fart (1607)
Never was bestowed such an art
Upon the tuning of a fart.
Downe came grave auntient Sir John Cooke
And redd his message in his booke.
Fearie well, Quoth Sir William Morris, Soe:
But Henry Ludlowes Tayle cry'd Noe.
Up starts one fuller of devotion
The Eloquence; and said a very ill motion
Not soe neither quoth Sir Henry Jenkin
The Motion was good; but for the stincking
Well quoth Sir Henry Poole it was a bold tricke
To Fart in the nose of the bodie pollitique
Indeed I confesse quoth Sir Edward Grevill
The matter of it selfe was somewhat uncivill
Thanke God quoth Sir Edward Hungerford
That this Fart proved not a Turdd