Edward Forsett

Edward Forset (or Forsett) (1553–1630) was an English official, politician and writer, known for political works and as a playwright.[1]

Life

He was the fourth son of Richard Forsett, a barrister and Member of Parliament, and his wife Margaret Vaughan. Educated at Christ's College, Cambridge and Trinity College, Cambridge, he graduated B.A. in 1572, and was a Fellow of Trinity from 1574 to 1581.[1]

In the service of Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury, and a justice of the peace, Forset was involved on the prosecution side of the 1605 Gunpowder Plot.[1][2] In 1606 he became Member of Parliament for Wells.[1]

Works

Forset wrote:

• Pedantius (1581) (online text), a Latin comedy. It made fun of Gabriel Harvey.[3]
• A Comparative Discourse of the Bodies Natural and Politique (1606), contributing to the traditional monarchist theory of the king's two bodies: the body politic and the body natural.[4] This is considered one important source for later divine right and royalist ideas, as well as spinning out the bodily metaphor (the King as the heart).
• A Defence of the Right of Kings. Wherein the power of the papacie over princes, is refuted; and the Oath of Allegeance justified (1624), a belated reply to writings of Robert Parsons, belonged to the allegiance oath controversy.[5]

Notes

1. "Forsett, Edward (c.1554-1630), of Marylebone, Mdx. and Charing Cross House, Westminster, History of Parliament Online". Retrieved 6 January 2016.
2. [1]: Report in state papers of James I mentioning him (March 1606).
3. [2]: the play was set in Cambridge.
4. Wormuth, Francis D. (1949). The Origins of Modern Constitutionalism. Harper & Bros. Without a sovereign, said Edward Forsett, "no people can ever as subjects range themselves into the order, and community of human society, howsoever, as men, or rather as wild savages, they may perhaps breathe a while upon the earth."
5. J. F. Merritt (3 September 2005). The Social World of Early Modern Westminster: Abbey, Court and Community, 1525-1640. Manchester University Press. p. 334 note 127. ISBN 978-0-7190-4896-8.