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Absalom and Achitophel
The cast of characters
for a good text, with notes, go to
http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/rp/poems/dryden1.html 

'Thence walked to Mr Pierce’s, and there dined: very good company and good discourse, they being able to tell me all the businesses of the Court: the amours and the mad doings that are there: how for certain Mrs Stewart is become the King’s mistress; and that the King hath many bastard children that are known and owned, besides the Duke of Monmouth. "
--Samuel Pepys

"And God forgive me! though I admire them [the members of the royal family] with all the duty possible, yet the more a man considers and observes them, the less he finds of difference between them and other men, though (blessed be God!) they are both princes of great nobleness and spirits The Duke of Monmouth is the most skittish leaping gallant that ever I saw, always in action, vaulting or leaping, or clambering "
--Samuel Pepys

In pious times, ere priestcraft did begin
Before polygamy was made a sin;
When man on many multiplied his kind,
Ere one to one was cursedly confin'd
When nature prompted, and no law denied
Promiscuous use of concubine and bride;
Then Israel's monarch after heaven's own heart,
His vigorous warmth did variously impart
To wives and slaves; and wide as his command,
Scatter'd his Maker's image thro' the land

Absalom

Duke of Monmouth

Of all this numerous progeny was none
So beautiful, so brave, as Absolon ....
Early in foreign fields he won renown
With kings and states allied to Israel's crown:
In peace the thoughts of war he could remove,
And seem'd as he were only born for love.

Achitophel

Earl of Shaftsbury

Of these the false Achitophel was first;
A name to all succeeding ages curst:
For close designs and crooked counsels fit,
Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit,
Restless, unfix'd in principles and place,
In pow'r unpleas'd, impatient of disgrace;
A fiery soul, which, working out its way
Fretted the pigmy body to decay.

Zimri

George Villiers, Second Duke of Buckingham

In the first rank of these did Zimri stand:
A man so various, that he seem'd to be
Not one, but all mankind's epitome.
Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong;
Was every thing by starts, and nothing long:
But in the course of one revolving Moon,
Was chymist, fidler, statesman, and buffoon . . . .
In squandering wealth was his peculiar art;
Nothing went unrewarded, but desert.

Corah

Titus Oates