In this chapter I consider only work which responded to the Civil War itself. Those 'Cavalier poets', 'the Mob of Gentlemen who wrote with Ease' (and published) in the 1630s before armed conflict arose, are excluded, as are minor figures, such as Rowland Watkyns, whose poems had a local manuscript circulation but were not published until 1662, by which time they had merely sycophantic point. A more significant omission is Alexander Brome, whose love lyrics and drinking songs circulated in the 1640s but were not collected into a book until after the Restoration. Each of the five poets who are considered participated or suffered in the conflict. Robert Herrick lost his living as a clergyman; John Cleveland was a notable figure in the Royalist camp as the war began; Richard Lovelace lost his fortune in the Royalist cause and was twice imprisoned; Abraham Cowley was a Royalist agent of some importance; Henry Vaughan fought in the war and was part of a conspicuously Royalist circle in his native Breconshire.