Sacrilege and the Economics of Empire in Dryden’s Annus Mirabilis

This article identifies a biblical allusion in John Dryden’s Annus Mirabilis not previously noted. It argues that Dryden describes the looting undertaken by Sir Robert Holmes’s sailors in their raid on the Vlie estuary in terms that associate them with Hophni and Phinehas, the sacrilegious sons of the high priest Eli, called “sons of Belial” in 1 Samuel. This allusion subverts the propaganda function of the poem by calling into question the morality of England’s economic and imperial expansion, and lends credence to the suggestion of Dutch writers that the Great Fire of London represents divine retribution for “Holmes’s Bonfire.”