Early Modern England

Donne writes in the present, which for him is early modern England under the reign of King James I, who succeeded Elizabeth I in 1603. England at the time had a particularly fraught history with Roman Catholicism. Once Henry VIII split with the Roman Catholic church in 1534, England began its conversion to Protestantism. Donne was born into a Catholic family in 1572, a time when anti-Catholic sentiment was widespread in England. He was therefore very familiar with Catholic practices and traditions, and they show up frequently in his work. Donne converted to Protestantism under James and was eventually ordained as the Dean of St. Paul's cathedral. "The Relic" is skeptical of a future Catholic society, headed by the king, which could suggest James I's sympathies for Catholics in England in the early seventeenth century. James was Protestant, like Elizabeth I, but was the son of the Catholic Mary...