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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 July 2009
On November 17, 1677, Sir Popular Wisdom, or the Politician was performed at Dorset Gardens by the Duke of York's Company. All we know of the play comes from a letter of Andrew Marvel: “Today is acted the first time Sir Popular Wisdom, or the Politician where my Lord Shaftsbury and all his gang are sufficiently personated. I conceive the King will be there.” Though we are offered little else, the fact that Shaftsbury and his gang are ridiculed is, I think, enough to situate the play fairly with other royally endorsed parodies of the Whig party that found a ready marketplace in the King's Theatre in the years of fervent, 1677–1683. Plays such as John Crowne's The Ambitious Statesman (1679) and City Politiques (1682), Thomas D'Urfey's Sir Barnaby Whig (1681) and The Royalist (1682), and Thomas Otway's Venice Preserv'd (1681) all were having no end of sport lampooning the Whig platform, with scarcely the benefit of a rebuttal.
1. Historical Manuscript Commission, 14th Report, Appendix, Part 2, 1894, Portland MSS, iii, 357.
2. The Pope Burnt to Ashes; or, Defiance to Rome (1676).
3. Williams, Sheila, “The Pope-Burning Processions of 1679, 1680 and 1681,” Journal of Warburg and Courtald Institute; 21, 1958, 104–118CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Furley, F.O., “The Pope-Burning Processions of the Late Seventeenth Century,” History 44, 1959, 16–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Harris, Tim, London Crowds in the Reign of Charles II (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987)Google Scholar and Miller, John, Popery and Politics in England 1660–1688 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The latter two offer chapters on Whig propaganda strategies.
4. The terms, of course, are loosely applied. As Nancy Klein Maguire has recently summarized it: “if pushed to a succession choice, ‘Whigs’ would choose Protestantism, ‘Tories’ legitimacy.” “Factionary Politics: John Crowne's Henry VI,” in Culture and Society in the Stuart Restoration, Maclean, Gerald, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 71CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
5. Maguire, Nancy Klein, in her Regicide and Restoration: English Tragicomedy, 1660–1671 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 16–21Google Scholar , offers a brief overview of the royalist connections of Killigrew, Davenant, and several of their leading actors, connections that date back to Charles I.
6. For Charles's collaborative strategies, see The Letters of John Dryden, Ward, Charles, ed. (Durham: University of North Carolina Press, 1942), 11–12Google Scholar.
7. Maguire, Regicide and Restoration, 13–42.
8. “The Great Eclipse,” Signs Taken for Wonders (London: NLB, 1983), 42Google Scholar.
9. Shadwell, Thomas, Tory Poets (London: n.p., 1682), 2Google Scholar.
10. Loftis, John, “Political and Social Thought,” London Theatre World, Hume, Robert D., ed. (Carbondale, Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press, 1980), 254–255Google Scholar.
11. Public Records Office of the Chamberlain, Lord, 5/144, cited in Lucius Junius Brutus (Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska, 1967), Loftis, John, ed., 28Google Scholar.
12. Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series (hereafter CSPD), 1680, 86–7.
13. Foxcroft, H.C., Character of a Trimmer, being a short life of the First Marquis of Halifax (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1946), 73Google Scholar.
14. For College's cartoons, see Rahn, B. J., “A Ra-ree Show-A Rare Cartoon: Revolution Propaganda in the Treason Trial of Stephen College,” Studies in Change and Revolution, Korshin, Paul J., ed. (Mentson: Scholar Press, 1972)Google Scholar.
15. Cressy's, DavidBonfires and Bells: National Memory and the Protestant Calendar in Elizabethan and Stuart England (New York: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1989)Google Scholar has an excellent summary of early history of Gunpowder and ‘Crownation’ Day celebrations, 50–67, 141–155. For November 17th, see Strong's, Roy “The Popular Celebration of the Accession Day of Queen Elizabeth I,” Journal of Warburg and Courtald Institute, 1959, xxi, 86–103Google Scholar.
16. The Burning of the Whore of Babylon (London: n.p., 1673)Google Scholar ; see also The Correspondence of the Family of Hatton, Thompson, Edward M., ed. (Westminster: Camden Society, 1878), 1:119Google Scholar.
17. The Burning of the Whore of Babylon, 3–4.
18. The Correspondence of the Family of Hatton, 1:119; CSPD (1673–1675), 40, 44.
19. The Diary of Robert Hooke, 1672–1680, Robinson, Henry, ed. (London: Taylor and Francis, 1935), 192Google Scholar.
20. See Jones, J.R., “The Green Ribbon Club,” The Durham Journal, 49, New Series 18 (1956), 17–20Google Scholar.
21. The Pope Burnt to Ashes: or Defiance to Rome, 3.
22. Bonfires and Bells, 53.
23. Examen; or, an Enquiry into the Credit and Veracity of a Pretended Complete History (London: n.p., 1740), 575Google Scholar.
24. Debates in the House of Commons, Grey, Anchitell, ed. (London: n.p., 1763), 7:432Google Scholar.
25. The 1679 pageant was described in London's Defiance to Rome and a copper plate engraving “The Solemn Mock Procession of the Pope…” was issued. There are two broadsides, both in copper plate, for the 1680 pageant, “The Solemn Mock Procession of the Pope…,” published for Langley Curtis, and “The Solemn Mock Procession…,” published for Nathaniel Ponder. The description of the 1681 pageant is preserved in The Procession; or, the Burning of the Pope in Effigy.
26. Prologue to The Loyal Brother, in Rare Prologues and Epilogues 1642–1700, Wiley, Autrey Nell, ed. (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1940), 71Google Scholar.
27. From Pope's Harbinger (1680), 159.
28. Harris, London Crowds…, 106.
29. Ibid., 159.
30. Settle's Female Prelate, or Pope Joan (1680) was arguably the most radical play allowed production during the Exclusion Crisis. It was boycotted on the third day: “The Duchess of Portsmouth to disoblige Mr. Settle the poet carryed all the Court with her to the Duke's house to see Macbeth.” Wilson, John Harold, “Theatre Notes from the Newdigate Newsletters,” Theatre Notebook XV:3 (1960), 80Google Scholar.
31. London's Defiance to Rome, 3.
32. The “text” is from The Pope's Lamentation (1679?/1680?), 1–4; see also, A Poem on the Burning of the Pope…this instant November the 17th, 1679 (Settle ?). Domestick Intelligence #39 describes the Pope's last minutes: “offering his pardons and benedictions to the people;” Mercurius Anglicus #1 describes “a person being there appointed to make a speech on the present occasion.” John Joyne's journal entry for Wednesday, November 26, 1679: “discourse about the burning of the Pope and the Pope's speech when he was burned,” in Diaries of the Popish Plot, Greene, Douglas, ed. (New York: Scholar's Facsimiles and Reprints, 1977)Google Scholar.
33. The Solemn Mock Procession of the Pope… (1680), 1.
34. Grey's Debates in the House of Commons, 7:396.
35. Pope's Lamentation (1679), 4. See also The Coronation of Queen Elizabeth (1680), a play acted at Bartholomew and Southwark fairs.
36. North's Examen, 575–576.
37. Grey's, Ford LordHistorical Review of Phanatical Plot (1685), 1–18, 32–36Google Scholar; “Remarks upon Lord Russel's Tryal,” in Collection of Tryals (London: 1719) 3:638, 642Google Scholar ; State Trials 3 (n.d.), 140, 145; CSPD (1682), 539; CSPD (1683–84), 373.
38. Burnet, Bishop, History of His Own Times (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1823), 2:352Google Scholar . See also An Account of the Tryals of Lord Russel, William Hone, John Rouse, and William Blake for High Treason (London: n.p., 1683) 2, 13, 45Google Scholar.
39. These numbers are extrapolated from the copperplate engraving and description of the event, The Solemn Mock-Procession of the Pope… The attendance number is from Settle's London's Defiance to Rome.
40. Kenyon, John, The Popish Plot (London: Heinemann, 1972) 188–189Google Scholar.
41. The first trial was held in London where College was acquitted when the jury, selected by Whig sheriffs, returned a verdict of Ignoramus. For the second trial, College was moved to Oxford, a Tory stronghold. The results there were not so fortunate.
42. State Trials (London, 1719), iiGoogle Scholar.
43. Ambassador Preston noted in 1683 the exiles in Bremen “style Waller, by way of Commendation, a second Cromwell” (Historical Manuscript Commission, 7th Report, 296); see also 311, 347, 386.
44. Smith, William, Contrivances of the Fanatical Conspirators (Place: n.p., 1685), 28, 30Google Scholar.
45. CSPD (1683), 350.
46. One affidavit of William Lewis testifies to his engineering efforts in the Fitzharris case: “John Harrington persuaded me to suborn Mrs. Fitzharris to retract her evidence and procured me money on bond to effect it and employed me to persuade Mrs. Peacock to retract her evidence and to suborn her to accuse some at Court for putting her on to accuse Lord Howard.” CSPD (1681), 499. See also CSPD (1681), 432.
47. CSPD (1677–78), 14–15, 233; HMC 7th Report, 469–470. CSPD (1681), 499; Harris, London Crowds…, 181–182.
48. Luttrell, Narcissus, Brief Relations of State Affairs (Oxford: Gregg International Pub. Ltd., 1969), 1:188Google Scholar ; London Mercury, #23.
49. Grey, Lord mentions his arrival in Secret History of the Rye House Plot (London: n.p., 1685), 121Google Scholar.
50. CSPD (1683), 2:428.
51. CSPD (1682), 143; CSPD (1683), 2:106.
52. Luttrell, Brief Relations…, 1:33. For prosecuting the rioters, the mayor was knighted by the King.
53. Ibid., 38.
54. The best account of the Calf's Head Club is Ward's, EdwardSecret History of the Calve's Head Club (London: n.p., 1707)Google Scholar.
55. Even the regicides tried in 1660 were indicted for “compassing the death of the king [Charles I],” and the judges resolved “that the actual murder of the king “should be made use of as one of the overt acts to prove the compassing of his death.” Sir Holdsworth, William, A History of English Law (London: Methuen, 1925), 7:309Google Scholar . For a discussion of the statute itself, see 309–318.
56. State Trials, ii, 785.
57. “Notes on Stephen College” (London: n.p., 1681), 4Google Scholar.
58. Wiley, Rare Prologues, 71.
59. Remarks Upon E. Settle's Narrative, 3.
60. Roger L'Estrange writes that College “has been cautioned hundreds of times to keep his tongue in's head, or if he did not he would talk himself at last to the Gallows.” “Notes on Stephen College,” 25. In Hone's trial it was revealed he had consulted with an informant about “taking off the King and the Duke at once” during a Lord Mayor's Show. The Tryals of Thomas Walcott, William Hone, William Russel for High Treason (London: n.p., 1683), 27Google Scholar.
61. Examen, 578.
62. Kenyon, The Popish Plot, 188–189.
63. CSPD (1680), 86–87.
64. The First Whig (Scarborough: Private press, 1894), 105–106Google Scholar.
