Lodowick Carlell enjoyed considerable success as a dramatist and courtier during the reigns of James I and Charles I. A favorite throughout his life of Queen Henrietta Maria, and probably an accomplished outdoorsman, he held many court posts, most of which were connected with the hunt. His plays, performed by the King's and Queen's Companies, were romances about love and honor, whose heroes were princes and courtiers, idealized figures endowed with superhuman moral capabilities.

Carlell (also spelled Carlisle, Carliell, Carlile) was born in 1602 at Brydekirk in Dumfriesshire, Scotland. His family was impoverished, but old and well connected, tracing its descent from Sir Ade (or Adam) Karleolo, an Annandale landowner of the twelfth century and a vassal of William de Bruce. (The family also claimed as an ancestor King Duncan, who was murdered by Macbeth and others in 1039; a famous modern descendant was Thomas Carlyle.) Carlell's mother was Margaret...