During the Brexit campaign, both those who opted for Britain leaving the EU and those who wanted to remain in the structures of the Union referred to William Shakespeare to support the rightness of their preference. The question of how Shakespeare would have voted was raised by numerous journalists, writers and politicians who either tried to present Shakespeare as a national bard promoting British isolationism or a staunch adherent of England being an integral part of the European continent. The paper scrutinizes some aspects of Shakespeare’s plays which indicate the writer’s attitude towards the relations between England and Europe.

The article presents the medal of Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury. It was coined in 1681 on the occasion of Shaftesbury’s acquittal and release from prison after he had been accused of high treason. The present work illustrates the political background behind the coinage of the medal offering an insight into the intricacies of the English exclusion crisis at the time of the Stuarts’ rule. Moreover, the article points out the representation of the medal in John Dryden’s poem and pays a particular attention to the adjective Polish, which the poet chose to ascribe to the discussed medal. The article is an attempt to explain the relation between Shaftesbury’s medal and its reference to Poland suggested in the poem.