Richard Steere, an early American poet, was born at Chertsey, Surrey, England, where he seems to have spent his childhood and attended the local grammar school. On 6 January 1658, he was apprenticed to Master Henry Browne, cordwainer and citizen of London. Eight years later, Steere had completed his apprenticeship and was admitted to the Cordwainer Corporation. While in London, he was evidently attracted to the Whig cause and began to write in its behalf. His major work, The History of the Babylonish Cabals ... (1682), a heroic, anti-Catholic poem, is an answer to Absalom and Achitophel (1681), John Dryden's satiric attack on the Earl of Shaftesbury (Achitophel) for his efforts to persuade Charles II's illegitimate son, the Duke of Monmouth (Absalom), to rebel against his father. In the same year, Steere also produced two satiric broadsides, A Message from Tory-land to the Whig Makers ... (published on 11 July 1682) and Rome's Thunderbolt, or Antichrist...