John Cleveland (16 June 1613 – 29 April 1658) was an Englishpoet who supported theRoyalist cause in the English Civil War. He was best known for political satire.

Cleveland was born inLoughborough, the son of Thomas Cleveland, Vicar ofHinckley (1620–1652), and educated atHinckley Grammar School. Admitted toChrist's College, Cambridge, he graduated BA in 1632 and became a fellow ofSt John's College in 1634,^[1][2] where he became a college tutor and lecturer inrhetoric.^[1]

A staunch Royalist, Cleveland opposed the election ofOliver Cromwell as member for Cambridge in theLong Parliament and lost his college post as a result in 1645. He then joinedCharles I, by whom he was welcomed, and appointed to the office ofjudge advocate atNewark-on-Trent.^[1]

In 1646, however, he lost his judge advocacy and wandered about the country dependent on the bounty of other Royalists. In 1655 he was imprisoned atGreat Yarmouth, but released by Cromwell, to whom he appealed, and went to London, where he spent the rest of his life.^[1] For his letter to Cromwell, seeMay it please yr Highnesse (1657) orCleaveland's petition to His Highnesse the Lord Protector [sic].

Cleveland's poems first appeared inThe Character of a London Diurnal (1647) and thereafter in some 20 other collections.^[3] His achievement lay in political, satirical verses written mainly in heroic couplets.^[3] He has been called "both a detached, intellectual, 'metaphysical' poet" and "a committed satirist".^[4]

Cleveland also wrote Royalist news books such asMercurius Pragmaticus for King Charles II, which appeared after theexecution of Charles I. He was particularly interested in the 14th-century Wat Tyler rebellion against Richard II.^[5]

His own volume ofPoems was published in 1654.^[1]

• "Cleveland, John (CLVT627J)".A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
• Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (18 November 2011)."John Cleveland" .Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
• Kastan, David Scott (2006).The Oxford Encyclopedia of British Literature. Oxford University Press. p. 22.ISBN 978-0-19-516921-8.{{cite encyclopedia}}:Missing or empty|title= (help)

Attribution:

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Cousin, John William (1910). "Cleveland, John".A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature. London: J. M. Dent & Sons – viaWikisource.

Wikiquote has quotations related toJohn Cleveland.

Texts on Wikisource:

• "Cleveland, John".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 6 (11th ed.). 1911. p. 501.
• "Cleveland, John".Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 11. 1887. pp. 50–53.

• 1613 births
• 1658 deaths
• 17th-century English poets
• 17th-century English male writers
• 17th-century English writers
• English male poets
• Anglican poets
• People from Loughborough
• Alumni of Christ's College, Cambridge
• Fellows of St John's College, Cambridge

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