Brought together in one volume, these sermons reveal the considerable extended network of patrons and friends established and maintained by Donne from the time of his involvement with German and Dutch embassy of 1619 until the late 1620s and his funeral sermon for George Herberts mother, Magdalen Danvers. The volume features all but one of the six sermons listed as preached to the nobility in Fifty Sermons (1649) - the exception being the court sermon Donne preached over the body of James in April 1626 (reassigned to Vol. II, Jacobean Court Sermons) - and adds to it four of the five sermons connected with Donnes association with James Hay, Viscount Doncaster and later Earl of Carlisle.