A Critical Study Of The Influence Of The Classical And Christian Traditions Upon The Character Of The Hero As Revealed Through The Concepts Of 'Love' And 'Honor' In Three Restoration Heroic Tragedies

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Content This dissertation has bean
microfilmed exactly as received 67-6491
BIDDLE, Evelyn Quick, 1914-
A CRITICAL STUDY OF THE INFLUENCE OF THE
CLASSICAL AND CHRISTIAN TRADITIONS UPON
THE CHARACTER OF THE HERO AS REVEALED
THROUGH THE CONCEPTS OF "LOVE" AND
"HONOR" IN THREE RESTORATION HEROIC
TRAGEDIES.
University of Southern California, Ph.D„ 1967
Speech-Tneater
University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan
©
Copyright by
EVELYN QUICK BIDDLE
1967
A CRITICAL STUDY OF THE INFLUENCE OF THE CLASSICAL
AND CHRISTIAN TRADITIONS UPON THE CHARACTER OF THE
HERO AS REVEALED THROUGH THE CONCEPTS OF
"LOVE" AND "HONOR" IN THREE RESTORATION
HEROIC TRAGEDIES
by
Evelyn Quick Biddle
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
in Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(Communication-Drama)
February 1967
UNIVERSITY O F SO U TH ER N CALIFORNIA
TH E GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY PARK
LOS ANGELES. CALIFORNIA 9 0 0 0 7
This dissertation, written by
.....................JEy.elyja.Quick.Bijddle.....................
under the direction of hfiH....Dissertation Com
mittee, and approved by all its members, has
been presented to and accepted by the Graduate
School, in partial fulfillment of requirements
for the degree of
D O C T O R OF P H I L O S O P H Y
......
Dean
Date.... February,...!.9 .6 .7 .
ERTATION COMMITTEE
Grateful acknowledgment is made to
Sybil Rosenfeld and the University of London for
permission to quote from Dr. Rosenfeld's thesis.
ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter
I. THE PROBLEM ....................................
Origin of the Problem
Statement of the Problem
Limitations of the Study
Definitions of Terms
Restoration period
Heroic tragedy
Classical tradition
Christian tradition
Love
Honor
Review of the Literature
Summary of Remaining Chapters
II . HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF THE ENGLISH
RESTORATION PERIOD ...........................
Government and Politics
Religion
Science
Philosophy
The Theatres
III. ENGLISH RESTORATION HEROIC TRAGEDY...........
Definition
The Origin and Development of Heroic Tragedy
Types of Restoration Heroic Tragedy
IV. CONCEPTS OF HONOR IN THE SEVENTEENTH
CENTURY ......................................
Page
1
27
90
108
iii
Chapter Page
V. THE RESTORATION PERIOD CONCEPT OF HEROIC
LOVE.............................................144
The Court of Love
Platonic Influence
A Knight's Service to His Chosen Lady
Maryolity or "Mary-worship"
VI. THE CHARACTER OF HENRY V AS REVEALED BY
ORRERY'S USE OF THE TERMS "LOVE" AND
"HONOR"......................................184
The Plot
Honor
Love
VII. THE CHARACTER OF ALMANSOR, THE HERO OF
THE CONQUEST OF GRANADA. AS REVEALED BY
DRYDEN'S USE OF THE TERMS "LOVE" AND
"HONOR"....................................... 205
The Fable
Honor
Love
The Court of Love
The writings of Plato and the Renaissance
writers' interpretation of those
writings
The knight's service to a chosen lady
Maryolity
VIII. THE CHARACTER OF MULY HAMET, THE HERO OF
THE EMPRESS OF MOROCCO. AS REVEALED BY
SETTLE'S USE OF THE TERMS "LOVE" AND
"HONOR"........................................ 242
The Plot
Honor
Love
iv
Chapter Page
IX. SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS FOR
FURTHER S T U D Y ...................................268
Summary
Conclusion
Suggestions for Further Study
BIBLIOGRAPHY.............................................. 282
v
CHAPTER I
THE PROBLEM
The theme of English Restoration Heroic Tragedy was
based on the concepts of "Love" and "Honor." "Love" and
"Honor" are defined by the culture of a particular place and
time and it is possible for them to mean different things to
different groups within a given culture. This is what
happened during the English Restoration period; the rising
middle-class held to a code of honor Christian in character
while the nobles, in an attempt to further separate them
selves from the "rebels," subscribed to a code of honor
rooted in classicism.
When the Civil War was over, the experiment of the
Commonwealth had failed, King Charles II was called back to
his throne. But there was a remarkable lack of unity in
the thinking of the English people. And if the Puritan
attempts to govern England had failed, it did not mean that
all the people were willing to follow the King's lead in
1
2
cultural pursuits. To many, the theatres were wicked places
and they stayed away.
The greater part of the audience of the two patent
theatres was composed of royalists and nobles. But, even
though the audience represented only a small percentage of
the population, it was an important segment of that popula
tion. It was for this audience that the plays were written
and for a period of approximately twenty years this audience
cheered Heroic Tragedies.
Since drama is an art form whose success is measured
by the degree to which it is accepted by its contemporary
audience, the playwright must communicate with that audi
ence. Ideals are implicit in all art and, if comedy laughs
at the distance between reality and the ideal, tragedy in
spires and encourages the elimination of that distance. It
would necessarily follow that if we are to understand why a
play was successful at a particular time we must understand
the ideals of its audience. Consequently, in order to de
termine why the English Restoration audience applauded
Heroic Tragedies, it is necessary to find the concepts of
"Love" and "Honor" held by that audience.
Origin of the Problem
The Restoration theatre, and particularly Heroic
Tragedies, have been, until recent years, neglected by
theatre historians. Most of the scholars interested in the
period have studied the comedies and shrugged off the Heroic
Tragedy as "one of the silliest creations of the human
mind . . ."^
Not all scholars, however, have dismissed Restora
tion Heroic Tragedies as unimportant.
. . . Heroic verse in drama is really of very little
account, historically or otherwise: the heroic play,
although in its pure form ephemeral, is one of the
most interesting and influential productions of our
theatre.^
That John Dryden was the author of the best of this
type of play is conceded by all critics and, perhaps for
this reason, what study has been done, has been almost
totally confined to the plays of Dryden.
Today, drama is viewed as an evolving art form, in
fluenced by the periods preceding, and, in turn, influencing
that period which follows. The understanding of each period
^"Norman N. Holland, The First Modern Comedies. The
Significance of Ethereqe. Wycherley and Congreve (Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1959), p. 13.
2
Allardyce Nicoll, A History of Restoration Drama—
1660-1700 (Cambridge: At the University Press,1923),pp.91-92.
is necessary to the understanding of the entire history.
Consequently, one cannot ignore any period in theatre his
tory, or any form as popular as the Heroic Tragedy, even
though that form held the stage for a comparatively short
period of time.
In spite of the concession that all critics make
that the drama reflects the views and problems of its con
temporary audience, there has been little attempt to iden
tify the character of the hero of the English Restoration
Heroic Tragedies with the ideals of the members of the
theatre audience. That there were two major cultural in
fluences at work in this period is not to be denied— one
meets this same idea expressed by scholars of philosophy,
religion, economic history and education.
. . . Antiquity for the seventeenth century scholar
meant two great traditions, the classical, in which
he had been intellectually trained, and the Christian,
in which he had been spiritually moulded. Great
reverence was felt for both traditions . . .^
Heroic Tragedy was an aristocratic drama; it was not
written for the people as Shakespeare's plays had been but
for an audience of the highly educated people of the Court.
3
Basil Willey, The Seventeenth Century Background
(Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1934),
pp. 236-237.
5
England was a Christian nation but gentlemen received an
education in the classics. (Within this minority group
there were atheists and pagans but they knew the classics
and they knew something of the Bible.) Both traditions
influenced the playwright (who was often a member of the
audience and not a professional writer) in his creation of
the hero. Both traditions were present also in the "Love"
and "Honor" theme.
Statement of the Problem
The problem of this study was to determine the in
fluence of the classical and the Christian traditions upon
the character of the hero of three Restoration Heroic
Tragedies as revealed through the concepts of the key terms,
"Love" and "Honor." Each of the plays chosen represents one
of the three types of Heroic Tragedy. The plays are:
1. Henry V by Roger Boyle, the Earl of Orrery,
chosen as a representative play of the history
play category. This play was the first of its
type to be written and staged after the
Restoration.
2. The Conquest of Granada by John Dryden, chosen
because it is impossible to omit it in any study
of Restoration Heroic Tragedy. Not only is it
the best of this type of play but the hero,
Almansor, is the most nearly classical epic
hero. (1670)
3. The Empress of Morocco by Elkanah Settle, chosen
because it represents the type of Heroic Tragedy
more closely related to the Court Masque of the
Jacobean and Carolinian eras. Its appeal was
primarily through spectacle. This play is im
portant, also, because its tremendous success
aroused the jealousy of Settle's contemporary
playwrights, including Dryden, and caused Dryden
to alter his style in the Heroic Tragedies.
(1673)
Specifically, an attempt was made to answer the
following questions:
I. How did the classical and Christian traditions
affect the meaning of the key terms of Heroic
Tragedy?
A. Honor
1. What was the classical code of honor?
2. What was the Christian code of honor?
3. What was the code of honor of the hero of
each of the three selected plays?
a. In what ways did they differ?
b. in what ways were they alike?
4. What relationship existed between each hero's
code of honor and his character?
a. Did he experience any psychological con
flicts from circumstances and his code
of honor?
b. If so, did he resolve those conflicts
in consonance with his code of honor?
5. Was the concept of honor found in the three
selected plays in agreement with the concept
held by the majority of Englishmen?
a. Was it possible for the average English
man to empathize with the hero or even
to admire him?
B. Love
1. What forms of love were present in the three
selected plays?
2. What form of love was idealized in each of
the plays?
3. How was the love problem solved in each of
the three plays?
a. If a conflict arose between the hero's
code of honor and the solution of his
love problem, how did he resolve the con
flict?
b. Was the solution of the love problem
presented in these three plays influenced
primarily by Christian or classical
thinking?
4. What was the significance of the love theme
in Heroic Tragedy?
Limitations of the Study
In addition to the limitations imposed on this study
through the selection of three plays and the specific ques
tions listed above, the following limitations were observed:
1. Only plays performed before an audience were
considered in this study.
2. The primary source material was the plays.
Definitions of Terms Used
Six terms are of extreme importance to this study:
Restoration Period, Heroic Tragedy, Classical Tradition,
9
Christian Tradition, "Love" and "Honor."
Restoration Period.— The Restoration Period was a
time in English history marked by the restoration of Charles
II to the throne in 1660 following the failure of the
Commonwealth.
"The Restoration" is the term generally assigned by
literary and political historians to the years between
1660 and 1688 in England . . . Like most periods when
literature is truly vital, the Restoration is a transi
tion from what preceded it to what was to follow; un
like most periods, however, the dates of its beginning
and end can be clearly marked. Call it a tone, an
attitude, a vision: something did begin in 1660 that
came to an end in 1688.^
For purposes of this study, the termination date of
1700 was chosen to correspond to the date of the death of
John Dryden.
Heroic Tragedy.— An Heroic Tragedy was a verse drama
in five acts whose theme was "Love" and "Honor." Many, but
not all, were written in heroic couplets.
The characters of Heroic Tragedy were of exalted
rank and most of them were of noble birth. Often based on
history, the plays were set in distant, exotic places. Most
4
Alan S. Downer and Arthur C. Kirsch, Restoration
(New York: Dell Publishing Co., Inc., 1965), Introd., p. 8.
10
of them, if not all, included songs and dances.
Roger Boyle, Earl of Orrery, was one of the first
writers of Heroic Tragedy after the Restoration. His play,
5
Henry V . first performed at the Duke's playhouse in 1664,
was the first Heroic history play to be presented in England
after the Restoration. The best of the Heroic Tragedies,
John Dryden's The Conquest of Granada, was first staged at
the King's playhouse in 1670. The success of the Empress of
Morocco, written by Elkanah Settle, given at the Duke's
playhouse in 1673, caused Dryden to alter the form of his
heroic plays. By 1677 it was clear that the playwrights
were seeking another form to replace Heroic Tragedy. In
that year two plays were produced on the Antony and Cleopat
ra story: John Dryden's All for Love at the King's play
house and Charles Sedley's Antony and Cleopatra at the
Duke's playhouse. Both were tragedies; neither was written
in heroic couplets.
Heroic Tragedies were most popular from 1664 to
1677. Although they were still acted (and still written by
lesser playwrights) they declined in popularity from 1677
5
Dates of first performance, and theatres of first
performance for this study were taken from Alfred Harbage,
Annals of English Drama 975-1700 (Philadelphia: University
of Pennsylvania Press, 1940).
11
until the death of Charles II in 1685. Probably the last
attempt at Heroic Tragedy was Joseph Addison's Cato, which
was first performed in 1703, but the demise of the genre can
be dated at 1700 to correspond to the date of Dryden1s
death.
From English Heroic Tragedy sprang two diverse
theatrical forms: English opera (including light opera) and
the eighteenth century melodrama. But the greatest contri
bution of Heroic Tragedy to English drama was its attempt to
create a dramatic form uniquely English which conformed to
classical standards.
Classical Tradition.— The classical tradition refers
to the Greco-Roman heritage of western civilization. Be
tween 1400 and 1600 western Europe rediscovered the highly
developed culture of ancient Greece and Rome, "eagerly
assimilated them, and partly by imitating them, partly by
adapting them to other media, partly by creating new art and
thought under the powerful stimulus they produced, founded
6
modern civilization."
The modern stage came about as a result of the
g
Gilbert Highet, The Classical Tradition (New York
and London: Oxford University Press, 1953), p. 2.
12
Renaissance attempt to recreate the drama of the ancients.
Not only the physical theatre with the proscenium stage but
the form of the drama itself came as a result of the impact
of the Greco-Roman discoveries upon Renaissance life.
It is true that during the last half of the seven
teenth century, there was a too rigid interpretation of the
"rules" of the ancients.
. . . A rationalism arose, owing partly to the new
scientific movement and partly to overemphasis upon
the element of rationality in Greek philosophy, which
prompted men to distrust the imagination and suppress
the emotions. . . . Form, order and reason were empha
sized to the exclusion of beauty, feeling and imagina
tive truth.^
Christian Tradition.— The Christian tradition is the
system of religious beliefs and customs which has dominated
western civilization for the past two thousand years. The
Christian religion is based on the teachings of Jesus Christ,
a Jew, whose intent was to reform the Jewish faith. The
Christian gospel was carried into the civilized world of
Greece and Rome by the Apostles, one of whom was Paul, a Jew
who had been educated in Greece. The Christianity which was
a great civilizing and unifying force in the history of
7Richard F. Jones, "Classicism," Encyclopedia of the
Social Sciences (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1937), III,
542.
13
Europe was greatly influenced by Greek and Roman thought.
Ideas which may be said to be uniquely Christian are: (1)
/
a man must live his life based on the law of love of God and
man; (2) a man must love not only his friends, but also his
enemies; (3)to a man who takes his cloak he must give also
his coat; (4) if a man is struck on one cheek he must turn
the other cheek; (5) a man must return good for evil; (6)
work is a duty— a man must earn his bread; (7) a man must not
work to enrich himself— it is hard for a rich man to enter
the kingdom of heaven; (8) a man must keep only what he needs
for himself and give the rest to the poor; (9) a man shall
be rewarded for his good deeds in the next life; (10) all
men are brothers having the same heavenly Father. Paul
added some ideas of his own, particularly in the area of
sex. He preached against the homosexual practices of the
Greeks; he thought it better to remain unmarried, regarding
marriage as the confession of weakness, and he did not think
too highly of women. Undoubtedly it was Paul's teaching
which led to the Christian Church's concern with the
"wickedness" of sex, our present laws regarding homosexuali
ty, and the horror of witchcraft which grew up and flour
ished in the Middle Ages and was still around during the
early history of our own country.
14
Love.— Love was the force used by the writers of
Heroic Tragedy to elicit pity, if not terror, from the audi
ence. The writers were attempting to follow the dictates of
Horace and Aristotle: drama must appeal both to the intel
lect and to the emotions. The pity and terror of Greek
drama could not be used within a Christian framework and the
powerful emotion of sexual love was substituted.
Obstacles to the attainment of the love object,
which would have been unsurmountable to anyone except the
hero, were always present. Usually there was a contrast
within the play between sacred and profane love, with the
hero rejecting love from any source other than the "pure"
beloved. His love was a pure love which made him a better
person for having loved, and the beloved was always a woman
of great beauty, high position and great virtue. Further
more, this high-blown emotion, which came dangerously close
to winning out over Reason, never did and, in the hero, was
always ruled by Reason.
Honor.— The concept of honor of Heroic Tragedies
was that of the nobility. The Puritans had their definition
of the term "honor* but they did not attend the theatre dur
ing the Restoration period and the plays were not written
15
for them.
. . . Honor is an open acknowledgment of external
demand but an acknowledgment which through pride has
become enthroned in the very citadel of the self. It
combines thus the urgency that etiquette carries for
the cultured with the exaction which conscience
carries for all— combines them in a self-respect which
bridges the moral dualism between the external and
internal sanctions. In this way honor represents the
goal of character formation and an instrument of
social control; . . .8
How, then, does honor differ from duty?
Both reflect the light of conscience. Both operate
through an inner determination of the will to do
what reason judges to be right in the particular
case. . . . Duty usually involves obligations to
others, but a man's sense of honor may lead him to
act in a certain way though the good of no other is
involved. To maintain his self-respect he must
respect a standard of conduct which he has set for
himself. . . . The sense of honor and the sense of
duty differ in still another respect. Duty presup
poses law. . . . A sense of duty, therefore, leads
a man to do what is expected of him, but not of him
alone, for he is no different from others in relation
to what the law commands. In contrast, a sense of
honor presupposes self-consciousness of virtue in the
individual. . . . In the great tragic poems, the hero
who dishonors himself in his own eyes dies spiritually
with the loss of his self-respect. To live on in the
flesh thereafter would be almost a worse fate than
the physical demise which usually symbolizes the
tragic ending. . . .9
g
T. V. Smith, "Honor," Encyclopedia of the Social
Sciences, VII, 456.
9
Robert Maynard Hutchins (ed. in chief), Great Books
of the Western World, The Syntopicon, "Honor" (Chicago:
Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 1952), I, 729.
16
Duty, or the good of the community, was the key to
the code of honor of the Christian. But the heroes of the
Heroic Tragedies were concerned primarily with their own
personal code of honor and not with the good of the communi
ty.
The Christian hero, . . . seeks not his own glory,
but the glory of God, and in contrast to the pagan
hero, he is great, not in pride, but in humility.
. . . the heroes of the Iliad, the Odyssey, and the
Aeneid are men of overweening pride. They are re
lentlessly jealous of their honor. They strive not
so much for victory as for the due meed of honor
which is its fruit. Nothing grieves them so much as
tb have their deeds go unrequited by abundant praise.
The heroes of Heroic Tragedies were grandsons of
these heroes. Their code of honor was more meaningful to
the audience than the code of Christian duty.
Review of the Literature
The plays were the primary source material for this
study. The Huntington Library in San Marino and the Clark
Library in Los Angeles held first editions of practically
all of these plays. The first reading revealed that the
Heroic Tragedies divided into three types: the history
play, the masque-type play (which was primarily spectacle)
and the classical-type play of Dryden. One play from each
10Ibid.. I, 734.
17
of the three types was selected for study.
For a better understanding of the period it was
necessary to read from many different sources: history,
philosophy, education and literary history. There are sev
eral good secondary sources in the general history of the
time: Ogg's England in the Reign of Charles II;^ Sir
Winston Churchill's A History of the English-Speaking
12
Peoples; Volumes II, The New World, and III, The Age of
13
Revolution; Burnet's History of His Own Time; and The
14
Court and Society from Elizabeth to Anne.
Two excellent secondary sources for a general back
ground of the era are Willey's The Seventeenth Century
Background^ and Bredvold's The Intellectual Milieu of
11David Ogg, England in the Reign of Charles II (2
vols.; Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1934).
12
Winston S. Churchill, A History of the English-
Speaking Peoples. Vol. II: The New World. Vol. Ill: The
Age of Revolution (London: Cassell & Company, Ltd., 1956,
1957).
13
Gilbert Burnet, History of His Own Time (London:
Reeves and Turner, 196, Strand, 1883).
14
The Duke of Manchester (ed.), Court and Society
from Elizabeth to Anne (2 vols.; London: Hurst and
Blackett, Publishers, Successors to Henry Colburn, 13 Great
Marlborough Street, 1864).
15
Willey, op. cit.
16
John Dryden.
The two most influential philosophers of the period
were Rene Descartes and Thomas Hobbes. It was necessary to
read the most important work of these two authors: Hobbes'
17 18
Leviathan and Descartes' Selections to understand some
of the thinking of the time.
The reading of all courtesy books published in
England during the seventeenth century, and presently in the
Huntington Library, gave a fairly clear idea of the changing
concept of honor of that century as well as showing the con
cepts held by the court and the people. Two excellent books
on honor are Barber1s The Idea of Honour in the English
Drama. 1591-1700. and Watson1s Shakespeare and the Renais-
20
sance Concept of Honor.
16
Louis Ignatius Bredvold, The Intellectual Milieu
of John Dryden (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press,
1934) .
17
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan. Abridged, edited, and
with an Introduction by Francis B. Randall (New York:
Washington Square Press, Inc., 1964).
18
Ralph M. Eaton (ed.), Descartes Selections (New
York: Charles Scribner's sons, 1927).
19
C. L. Barber, The Idea of Honour in the English
Drama. 1591-1700 (Gflteborg: Elanders Boktryckeri Aktiebolag,
1957) .
20
Curtis Brown Watson, Shakespeare and the Renais
sance Concept of Honor (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton
University Press, 1960).
19
Barber's book is a study of seventeenth-century
English concepts of honor as revealed in the drama. The
purpose of his study was to illuminate some of the cultural
changes that took place by showing the changes in the usage
of the word "honor" in the drama during the century. Barber
found that the tendency of the gentry, at least the courtly
gentry who attended the theatre, to repudiate middle-class
morality, grew steadily during the century, and reached its
greatest peak during the Restoration period, when the town
a r
aristocrats openly rejected traditional morality and sought
their ideal of character and conduct in a code of honor.
Watson's book is divided into two parts. In the
first chapter of Part I, he deals briefly with the varying
attitudes toward honor from the fifth century in Athens to
the early seventeenth century in England; the remainder of
Part I is devoted to the examination of the Elizabethan and
Jacobean attitudes toward honor, part II deals with the use
Shakespeare made of the concepts of honor considered in Part
I .
Ideas about love between the sexes have changed
during the centuries, too. To understand what the English
aristocrats regarded as "ideal love" it was necessary to
read the court drama of Charles I's reign including a number
20
of plays by Sir William Davenant. Hunt's The Natural His-
21
tory of Love provided a good background for the under
standing of the changing concepts of love and the influence
of Christian thinking on sexual love.
Most of the secondary material on the Restoration
Heroic Tragedy is between twenty and sixty years old. These
books are primarily concerned with the dramaturgy and do not
deal with any analysis of the character of the hero. One of
the most definitive books on Heroic Tragedy is Chase's The
22
English Heroic Play, but Chase does not define honor nor
analyze love. As a matter of fact one gathers that he never
quite made up his mind about the "love and honor" theme:
23
"honor is only speciously an important feature ..."
And later:
. . . Love and honor were the only themes, and by
honor was meant all that was not love, and no matter
under what name this went, whether war, ambition,
reason, or friendship, it was considered as a form
of honor; . . .
What did he think about the love theme?
21
Morton M. Hunt, The Natural History of Love (New
York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1959) .
22
Lewis Nathaniel Chase, The English Heroic play
(New York: The Columbia University Press, Macmillan Co.,
Agents, 1903).
23Ibid.. p. 121. 24Ibid., p. 148.
21
Honor is not an ever present note in the heroic drama,
but when it occurs it is usually placed in opposition
to love, and almost invariably to its own disadvan
tage.25
Again:
. . . Heroic love is not a high and ennobling passion,
but one which has the great and distinctive peculiari
ty that it sanctions a violation of all moral laws
wherever they are opposed to its free sweep and range,
although, when not conflicting with love, they are
recognized as laws to which man owes allegiance, and
ideals of conduct toward which he should work. . . .
Yet love in this drama is still dignified and serious,
with the physical element cast in the background, and
constancy extolled.26
Most of the authors refuse to commit themselves to
this extent. For example, Elwin, in The Playgoer1s Handbook
27
to Restoration Drama. while conceding that "heroic tragedy
played a big part in the theatre; it provided, in fact, the
most popular entertainment during the greater part of
28
Charles' reign ..." condemned Almansor (the hero of
The Conquest of Granada) as "rather more of an ass than most
29
heroic heroes ..." And Elwin considered The Conquest of
Granada the best of the rhymed heroic tragedies!
Other authors are concerned with different problems
^ Ibid. . p. 125. ^ Ibid. . p. 192.
27
Malcolm Elwin, The Playgoer's Handbook to Restora
tion Drama (London: Jonathan Cape, 1928).
OQ OQ
Ibid.. p. 110. Ibid., p. 89.
22
in Restoration drama and often give little time and space to
Heroic Tragedy. Nettleton30 and Pendlebury31 were primarily
32
concerned with the sources of the genre and Nicoll gave
little space to this form while admitting that it was an im
portant influence on later dramatic forms.
More recently, there have been several articles on
Heroic Tragedy in learned journals. It is important that
the writers of these articles, for the most part, have
chosen to write on either "love" or "honor." This would in
dicate a tendency to separate the two, an idea consonant
with this study.
James W. Tupper traced the Heroic Tragedies to the
33
Romances of Beaumont and Fletcher. Kathleen Lynch wrote
convincingly of the relationship of the Heroic Tragedies to
the Platonic Love Cult and the court plays on this theme
3°George Henry Nettleton, English Drama of the
Restoration and Eighteenth Century (New York: The Macmillan
Company, 1914).
31
B. J. Pendlebury, Dryden1s Heroic Plays (London:
Selwyn & Blount, Ltd., 1923).
32
Nicoll, op. cit.
33
James W. Tupper, "The Relation of the Heroic Play
to the Romances of Beaumont and Fletcher," PMLA, XX (Septem
ber, 1905), 584-621.
23
34
written during Charles I's reign. The thesis of an
35
article by Scott C. Osborn is that Dryden was only exem
plifying, in his plays, the cures for love which appeared
in the "scientific" Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton.
36
Thomas H. Fujimura found the Heroic Tragedies of Dryden
naturalistic and the love theme "a romantic revolt against
37
Christian humanism; . . ."
Fujimura has a word about honor, too.
. . . the term honor is of sufficient complexity that
it cannot be summarily dismissed as it is by critics
like Chase. . . . it is evident that Dryden's heroic
plays glorify the passion of honor quite as much as
the passion of love: and honor, identified with pride,
anger, self-aggrandizement, and glory, is a naturalis
tic notion.38
39
Jean Gagen takes exception to Fujimura's thesis:
. . . The view of love and honor as primarily
naturalistic passions devoid of ethical consideration
34
Kathleen Lynch, "Conventions of Platonic Drama in
the Heroic Plays of Orrery and Dryden," PMLA. XLIV (June,
1929), 456-471.
35
Scott C. Osborn, "Heroical Love in Dryden's Heroic
Drama," PMLA. LXXIII (December, 1958), 480-490.
36
Thomas H. Fujimura, "The Appeal of Dryden's Heroic
Plays," PMLA. LXXV (March, 1960), 37-45.
37 38
Ibid., p. 45. Ibid., p. 43.
39
Jean Gagen, "Love and Honor in Dryden's Heroic
Plays," PMLA. LXXVII (June, 1962), 208-220.
24
is characteristic of only the most deeply-dyed villains
in Dryden's heroic plays. . . . To say, . . . that
reason and honor are brushed contemptuously aside in
Dryden's heroic plays and that love in these plays is
not a high and ennobling passion is only partially true
and certainly misleading . . . 40
In a recent unpublished doctoral dissertation, Selma
Assir Zebouni writes:
. . . When a "heroic" hero in Dryden's plays does the
right thing, it is never because of an inner prompting,
the fulfillment of the inner self, but rather because
it is what is held to be right by the social structure
which surrounds him. In the "heroic" hero, in final
analysis we find the submission of the individual to
the dicta of the tribe. Not once does the hero ever
really question any of the duties imposed on him.^l
The question here, of course, is what Mrs. Zebouni
means by the "right thing." In reading Dryden's plays one
cannot escape the feeling that the heroes are men who make
their own rules.
Eugene Waith included three of Dryden's heroes in
42
his study of Herculean heroes: Almansor, Aureng-Zebe, and
Antony. It would seem more appropriate to call Dryden's
play on the Antony and Cleopatra story The Death of Antony.
40Ibid., pp. 219-220.
41
Selma Assir Zebouni, "The Hero in Dryden's Heroic
Tragedy: A Revaluation" (unpublished Doctoral dissertation,
Louisiana State University, 1963), p. 91.
42
Eugene M. Waith, The Herculean Hero (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1962).
25
Antony was introduced at the lowest ebb in his career; he
was unable to rouse himself to the point where he could give
up his illicit love and fight for a place of honor. In
spite of some of the words Dryden gave Cleopatra, her
actions bespoke her as being anything but virtuous. The
love of Antony and Cleopatra was an adulterous love, and
consequently, outside the "pure" love of Heroic Tragedy.
Furthermore, there was nothing in the actions of Antony
during the play to cause one to think of him as Herculean.
Otherwise, the Waith study is very helpful to anyone inter
ested in Heroic Tragedy.
Summary of Remaining Chapters
Chapter II contains an historical background of the
Restoration Period.
Chapter III includes the development and description
of Heroic Tragedy.
Chapter IV deals with the changing meaning of honor
during the seventeenth century.
Chapter V traces the evolution of romantic love from
the Platonic Love Cult in the Court of Charles I to the con
cept of romantic love in the Heroic Tragedy.
Chapter VI contains an analysis of the character of
26
the hero of Henry V as it is revealed through Orrery's use
of the concepts of "Love" and "Honor."
Chapter VII contains an analysis of the character of
the hero of The Conquest of Granada as it is revealed
through Dryden's use of the concepts of "Love" and "Honor."
Chapter VIII contains an analysis of the character
of the hero of The Empress of Morocco as it is revealed
through Settle's use of the concepts of "Love" and "Honor."
Chapter IX gives the summary of the findings of the
study and the conclusions.
CHAPTER II
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF THE ENGLISH
RESTORATION PERIOD
The seventeenth century was a time of upheaval and
marked the transition from medieval to modern thought. Men
were leaving the Age of Belief and entering the Age of
Reason. in England this revolution was achieved in contra
distinction to the progress of history on the European con
tinent; "elsewhere during the seventeenth century despotism
grew more dictatorial and monarchy more potent. . . .
However, from the English struggle there emerged "a measure
of religious toleration and of freedom of speech . . . that
2
were to become part of the national tradition."
In matters of politics, philosophy, religion, and
science there were many views, some of which were
^J. D. Morpurgo (ed.), Life Under the Stuarts
(London: Falcon Educational Books, Ltd., 1950), pp. 12-13.
2Ibid.
27
28
diametrically opposed.
. . . Many different worlds or countries of the mind
then lay close together— the world of scholastic
learning, the world of scientific experiment, the
worlds of classical mythology and of Biblical history,
of fable and of fact, of theology and demonology, of
sacred and profane love, of pagan and Christian morals,
of activity and contemplation; and a cultivated man
had the freedom of them all. They were divided and
distinguished, perhaps, but not, as later, by such
high barriers tha a man was shut up for life in one
or the other of them. The distinctions were only
beginning to be made which for later ages shut off
poetry from science, metaphor from fact, fancy from
judgment. The point about these different worlds was
not that they were divided, but that they were simul
taneously available. The major interests of life had
not as yet been mechanically apportioned to special
ists, so that one must dedicate oneself wholly to
fact, or wholly to value.3
Government and Politics
Twice during the seventeenth century Stuart monarchs
were driven from the throne of England— first, in 1649,
when the ill-fated Charles I was beheaded outside Whitehall,
and again, in 1688, when James II was dethroned by the
"Bloodless Revolution." The intervening period was marked
by civil war and conflict.
The outbreak of the Civil War stands as a
watershed between the old order and the new. The
old order, with its mystique of monarchy and its
3
Willey, The Seventeenth Century Background, p. 50.
29
divinely-sanctioned hierarchies in Church and State
and Society so richly exemplified under Elizabeth,
was shaken under James and shattered under Charles.
The death-blow was struck on the scaffold outside
Whitehall Palace on January 30, 1649, . . . ^
King Charles I ruled England for eleven years with
out a parliament; for another eleven years, from 1640 to
1660, England was governed without a king. Neither system
succeeded. With the collapse of the Commonwealth, after
the death of Oliver Cromwell, England recalled the exiled
Charles II to the throne.
May 29, 1660. This day his Majestie Charles the
Second came to London after a sad and long exile and
calamitous suffering both of the King and Church,
being 17 yeares. This was also his birth-day, and
with a triumph of above 20,000 horse and foote,
brandishing their swords and shouting with inexpres
sible joy; the wayes strew'd with flowers, the bells
ringing, the streetes hung with tapissry, fountaines
running with wine; . . . trumpets, music, and myriads
of people flocking, even so far as from Rochester,
so as they were seven houres in passing the citty,
even from 2 in ye afternoone till 9 at night . . .
it was ye Lord's doing, for such a restauration was
never mention'd in any history ancient or modern, since
the returne of the Jews from the Babylonish captivity;
nor so joyfull a day and so bright ever seene in this
nation, this hapning when to expect or effect it was
past all human policy.5 -
^George DeF. Lord (ed.), Poems on Affairs of State:
Augustan Satirical Verse. 1660-1714. Vol. I: 1660-1678 (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1963), p. xxviii.
^John Evelyn, Diary of John Evelyn, Edited from the
original MSS by William Bray, F.S.A., with a life of the
author by Henry B. Wheatley, F.S.A. (London: Bickers and
Son, 1, Leicester Square, 1879), Vol. II.
30
The rebellion against Church and State which result
ed in the Commonwealth made a break with the past. In at
least three ways the republican interlude was of permanent
importance to English history: (1) it put a definite end
to absolute monarchy; (2) it left a distaste for dictator
ship, military rule, standing armies, and a regimentation of
private life; (3) it encouraged political thought and dis
cussion as never before in spite of the unsuccessful consti-
g
tutional experimentation.
Charles II was restored to the throne but with a
great loss of power, for,more than a restoration of a mon-
7
archy, it was the restoration of Parliament. The English
people wanted government by King, Lords, and Commons and the
safeguards of personal liberty in the common law. They
wanted a Protestant, but not a Puritan, Church establishment.
They wanted a strong navy and the subordination of the mili
tary to the civil authority. Most of all, they wanted to
safeguard the right of the individual to enjoy himself in
6
R. B. Mowat and Preston Slosson, History of the
English-Speaking Peoples (New York and London: Oxford
University Press, 1943), pp. 134-135.
7
Churchill, A History of the English-Speaking
Peoples. Vol. II: The New World (London: Cassell & Company
1956), p. 261.
31
g
his own way. And, the first Parliament of the new reign
did not hesitate to affirm its rights.
This eighteen-year Parliament, originally enthusias
tically Royalist, kept the King conscious of its power by
keeping him short of money, impeaching two of his ministers
and insisting that money, voted in the House of Commons,
be spent on the purposes for which the vote was given.
Furthermore, in spite of the King's policy of toleration,
Parliament insisted on limiting the political and personal
9
rights of Nonconformists and Roman Catholics.
Through this policy of punishing dissenters from
the Anglican Church, Parliament hoped to achieve the seven
teenth-century Englishman's ideal: an England united reli
giously and politically under a monarch who was head of both
Church and State. Religious toleration was not in their
thinking any more than was the separation of Church and
State. During the Restoration period, opposing views in
the vital areas of government and religion met head on.
Politically, the opposing views formed into two
parties: the Cavaliers (or Royalists or Torries) and the
g
Mowat and Slosson, loc. cit.
9
Maurice Ashley, "Constitutional History and Politi
cal Ideas," in Morpurgo, op. cit., p. 35.
32
Roundheads or Whigs. The Royalists held to the old belief
in the divine right of kings. . .He was the source
of life in the State, for every legitimate enterprise had
ultimately its origin and sanction in him . . . h1® He was
the "fountain of honour."11 The Whigs felt that the King's
power was limited by certain inalienable rights of his sub
jects. "... When Englishmen found that they could pull
down kings and set them up again, the myth of Divine Right
12
became a polite fiction." This trend became stronger and,
in the first part of the eighteenth century, Englishmen
limited once and for all the power of the monarch.
It was Charles II's ability as a ruler that kept
him on the throne and helped him to win some of his quarrels
with Parliament. One of those quarrels (which grew into a
fight) was to insure the right of succession for his brother
James II. But James II lacked his brother's ability to re
tain control of such a delicately-balanced system and, in
1688, he was dethroned and the Protestant William III was
brought from Holland to replace him.
10
LIbid.
i
Ogg, England in the Reign of Charles II. I, 139.
11.
^Lord, op. cit. , p. xxix.
33
In 1688 the mothers of England were singing the old
lullaby:
Hush-a-bye baby on the tree-top,
When the wind13 blows the cradle will rock,
When the bough breaks the cradle will fall.
Down will come baby,1^ and cradle and all.13
By the time George I came to the throne in 1714, the
Tory Party was shattered and "the wrath and venom of contro-
16
versy were replaced by an apathetic tolerance." England
settled down under the long rule of Whiggism. There was no
longer any pretense that English kings ruled by Divine
Right; they were on the throne through the approval of
Parliament. As a result of the humanizing of the monarchy
the position lost much of its lustre and was no longer the
center of beauty, rank and fashion. ". . .A certain dowdi
ness creeps into the ceremonial and the persons of the
courtiers.1,17
13
This wind was the Protestant wind which was to
blow in William, the Protestant successor.
14
This baby was the young Stuart who lived to be the
Old Pretender.
15
Ralph Edwards and L. G. G. Ramsey, The Connoisseur
Period Guides. Vol. II: The Stuart Period 1603-1714 (New
York: Reynal & Company, n.d.), p. 7.
16Churchill, A History of the English-Speaking
Peoples. Vol. Ill: The Age of Revolution, p. 89.
34
There was no dowdiness at the court of Charles II,
for it was the center of beauty, rank and fashion, and it
remained so in spite of the Dutch Wars, the Popish Plot,
French interference in British politics and the intrigues
within England itself. And the Merry Monarch was the right
man to head the witty, pleasure-loving, extravagant court.
Religion
Oliver Cromwell had fought the Good Old Cause with a
sword in one hand and the Bible in the other. True, he used
the precepts of the Old Testament in overcoming his enemy
and invoked the heavenly assistance of a god of vengeance
rather than following the example of the Prince of Peace of
the New Testament. The Civil War was the result, in part
at least, of the failure to win the allegiance of all
Englishmen to the Church of England. Cromwell's sword
achieved an uncertain unity for a limited time.
Since the time of Elizabeth, there had been sincere
and strenuous effort exerted toward the establishment of a
Protestant national church in England, one product of these
efforts was the Authorized Version of the English Bible
which appeared early in the seventeenth century and which
proved to be a powerful force in the lives of Englishmen,
35
for not only did it enjoy wide circulation among the common
people, but it served as the basis of their education as
well as a foundation for much of the literature of the time,
the writings of John Milton being a notable example. A
second, though less important, product, was the Anglican
18
Book of Common Prayer. These two publications, while
failing to establish a national church, strengthened
Protestantism.
Charles I underestimated the Protestant strength.
The combination of Henrietta Maria's Catholic faith and
Charles I's weakness as King, provided the catalyst which
precipitated the bloody war between Christians. Henrietta
Maria's marriage treaty provided for a chapel and chaplain
in every English royal palace, for a bishop and twenty-eight
priests to accompany her to England, for all of her domestic
attendants to be French Catholics and for all children which
she would bear to be left in her charge until they reached
the age of thirteen years, which practically insured a
19
Catholic king on the throne of England.
18
Norman Sykes, "Religion," in Morpurgo, op. cit. .
pp. 46-47.
19
Carola Oman, Henrietta Maria (London: Hodder and
Stoughton, Ltd., 1936), p. 25.
36
The Puritans disliked their French-born Queen for
many reasons: her fondness of theatricals, her extrava
gance in these theatricals, the moral looseness at Court
which they attributed to her Platonic Love Cult, and, most
of all, they disliked her Catholicness. Many Anglicans
joined the Puritans in their distrust of their "Protestant
Prince" who permitted Catholics to attend Mass publicly.
The English hate for anything smacking of "popery" drove
moderate Anglicans to the support of the Puritans.
Even the Church of England came under Puritan fire
for its formal services and the wearing of vestments by its
ministers: Puritans attributed these practices to two in
fluences— the stage and the Catholic Church.
The corruptions and disorders Superstitions
and Idolatries of the Church of England, have lately
growne to that height and power, that if God in mercy,
had not looked upon it, and stirred up the heart of
our gracious King to give way to a Reformation: And
the heroicall spirits of the great Councell of the
Kingdome, this renowned Parliament, had not been
miraculously resolute, and resolved to goe on coura-
giously, to overcome all difficulties, and prosecute
prudently that excellent worke of Reforming the Church,
we had lost our Religion; . . . the Church of Christ
being overwhelmed, with popish Superstition, and
Idolatry, Ignorance and Atheisme. ®
Earlier, Peter Smart had written definite charges
20
Peter Smart, Canterburies Crueltie (London: n.n.,
1643), [p. i].
37
against Doctor Cosin, one of the innovators of the dramatic
services in the Anglican Church.
Again, are they not absurd Ideots, or rather
incarnate devils, who in the time of Divine Service,
will take poore men standing quietly in the Church,
and thrust them out by their heads and shoulders,
calling them Pagans; Why stand you here you Pagans,
if you will not observe the Ceremonies of our Church
get you out of the Church.
Who will say to others, even Gentlewomen of the
best rank, sitting in their pues; Can ye not stand
you la^ie sows? taking them by their armes, and
tearing their sleeves to raise them up, when the
Nicene Creed is sung; thus Doct. Cosin did.
Who going up to the Altar in a Cope, will say in
his pride and contempt of poore people, stand out of
my way ye dirty whores, dishonouring the Image of
God in them, and immediately make a low leg, downe
to the ground, before his Idol the Altar, honouring
it, being a stock or a stone, having unchristianly,
and uncivilly, disgraced, and abused his Christian
brethren and sisters at the same time.2^
The "Image of God" in man held by the Puritans was
based on their interpretation of Scripture but they had
omitted certain passages of Scripture such as that of
Proverbs 17:22— "A merry heart doeth good like a medicine"—
in that picture of God's image. They believed in plain
clothes, plain speech and the suppression of vice. Betting,
gambling, drunkenness and swearing were forbidden. In 1650
21
Peter Smart, A Short Treatise of Altars. Altar-
furniture. Altar-cringing, and Musick of all the Quire.
Singing-men and Choristers (London: n.n., 1629), p. 14.
38
a law was passed making adultery punishable by death, "a
ferocity mitigated by the fact that nothing would convince
22
the juries of the guilt of the accused." The feast days
of the Church which Englishmen had enjoyed for centuries
were replaced by a monthly fast day, because, said the
Puritans, those feast days were pagan in origin. Christmas
was particularly frowned upon: soldiers were sent around
London on Christmas Day to enter private houses without
warrants and seize any and all meat found roasting in
kitchens. Maypoles were cut down since dancing around them
might lead to immorality or levity. The Sabbath was partic
ularly holy for Puritans, the stress being on "Thou shalt
not." For example, walking abroad on the Sabbath was pun
ishable and it was proposed that people be fined for sitting
at their doors or leaning against them on the Sabbath. A
man could be fined for going to a neighboring parish to hear
a sermon.
. . . Bearbating and cockfighting were effectually
ended by shooting the bears and wringing the necks of
the cocks. All forms of athletic sports, horse racing,
and wrestling were banned, and sumptuary laws sought
to remove all ornaments from male and female a t t i r e . 23
22
Churchill, The New World, p. 248.
39
The Puritan regime was a rigid one and the Restora
tion period was a reaction— the moral pendulum swung as far
in the opposite direction as the lively imagination of the
Court wits could send it. Drinking, swearing and adultery
were openly flaunted before the shocked Puritans and the
Restoration wits openly accused the clergy and the religious
fanatics of hypocrisy. But, for the most part, it was not
a good idea to repudiate religion, specifically the Chris
tian religion, which was the only religion of any conse
quence in England during that time. There were, however,
three competing forms of Christianity at the time of, and
during, the Restoration period: the Establishment, the
dissenters and Catholicism.
Roughly speaking these three forms may be broken
down as follows; after the Restoration of Charles II in
1660 the Anglican Establishment included the aristocracy and
most of the nation; the dissenters, which made up several
sects that had split off from the Establishment, included
the commercial classes of London and a portion of the nation
at large; and Roman Catholics which made up a tiny minority
of the population. The dissenters claimed that their doc
trines were based exclusively on the Bible; the Catholics
exclusively on the tradition of ecclesiastical
40
interpretation, and the Anglicans on a combination of text
and tradition. Politically, the Anglicans favored a strong
monarch; the dissenters were pro-Parliament and anti-monarch.
Both groups suspected the Catholics of plotting to bring
24
England under French rule.
Science
The modern world was created on the foundations of
the scientific achievements of the seventeenth century. But
not all men of that century were ready to accept the impli
cations and the world-view which science revealed: all but
a small minority of seventeenth-century Europeans conceived
of nature as a battleground of malevolent and benevolent
supernatural beings, inhabiting human bodies as souls, or
dwelling in trees, woods, rivers and winds as animating
spirits. None of these spirits were subject to inviolable
or calculable law: man and his physical world were at the
25
mercy of the whims of supernatural powers.
The Greek philosophers saw the earth as the center
24
William Frost (ed.), Selected Works of John Dryden
(New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1953), Introd.,
pp. xi-xii.
25 .
Will and Ariel Durant, The Age of Louis XIV (New
York: Simon and Schuster, 1963), p. 481.
41
of the universe and the Judeo-Christian beliefs reenforced
the Greek world-view. Medieval man lived by the deep
assurance that his hopes and ideals were the important, even
26
controlling, fact in the universe.
But, in 1543, the observations of Nicolaus Coperni
cus were published in his work, On the Revolutions of the
Heavenly Orbs, and triggered the war between faith and
reason.
. . . And now, at one blow from an infatuated star
gazer, the world, which had stood so fast on its
foundations for six thousand years, began to twirl
giddily on its axis and spin like a fretful midge
around a candle. Though the implications of the new
science were not worked out immediately, it began even
from the first to be suspected that, if the theories
advanced were true, man had lost his birthright as
the creature for whose sake all else existed, and had
been reduced to the position of a puny and local
spectator of infinite forces unresponsive to his
wishes and unmindful of his purposes. . . .^
Man was reluctant to give up his egocentric place in
the scheme of things and the Christian Church used her great
power to silence the astronomers, some of whom she impris
oned and some of whom she burned at the stake. And, in
26
Edwin Arthur Burtt, The Metaphysical Foundations
of Modern Physical Science (New York: Harcourt, Brace and
Company, 1932), p. 4.
27
Preserved Smith, A History of Modern Culture (New
York: Henry Holt and Company, 1930), I, 39.
42
spite of the fact that the Copernican system continued to
gain ground in Europe, it was not until the publication of
Isaac Newton's Philosophae Naturalis Principia Mathematica
in 1687 that the last shadow of doubt was banished in the
minds of the educated classes as well as in the minds of
the masses. Harvey, who discovered the ciruclation of the
blood, rejected the Copernican hypothesis in 1628 and re-
28
ferred to it as unsatisfactory in 1649.
The Church and the Universities, at that time the
citadels of knowledge, rejected the new interest, but the
public accepted it and private academies took it up. The
first of these academies were founded in Italy: the
Academia Secretorum Naturae at Naples (1560), the Accademia
dei Lincei at Rome (1601), the Accademia del Cimento at
Florence (1657). This last institute was dedicated "to the
29
investigation of truth by experiment alone."
The interest in science spread north of the Alps:
in Germany the Collegium Naturae Curiosorum was founded at
Schweinfurt in 1652, similar institutes were founded at
Altdorf (1672) and Berlin (1700); in Russia a scientific
28
Ibid.. I, 57.
29
Henry Hallam, Literature of Europe (London: John
Murray, Albemarle Street, 1854), III, 575.
43
academy was founded at St. Petersburg (1724) by Peter the
, 30
Great.
In France the Academie des Sciences developed from
weekly meetings (1631-38) of scientists at the home of
Etienne Pascal, the father of Blaise Pascal.
. . . The work of the united savants was to be the
study of astronomy, geography, chemistry, anatomy,
and medicine, the invention of new machines and in
struments, the rewarding of inventors, and the en
couragement of exploration. . . .31
In their pursuit of truth the scientists, at their
meetings, were not to discuss "religion, nor affairs of
state, and only when necessary metaphysics, ethics, history,
32
and grammar."
In 1666 Louis XIV granted the Academy a Royal
Charter, gave them a room in the Royal Library for their
meetings, gave each of the twenty-one appointed members a
yearly salary of 1,500 livres and a fund for expenses. In
33
effect the Academy was a department of government.
By contrast, England's scientific academies were
private foundations only incidentally indebted to the
30
Preserved Smith, op. cit.. II, 128; I, 166.
31Ibid.. I, 169. 32ibid.
33Ibid.. I, 170.
44
government. One of the earliest members, Dr. John Wallis,
recorded that "about the year 1645, . . . several worthy
persons residing in London, who were inquisitive into natu
ral, and the new and experimental philosophy, agreed to meet
weekly on a certain day, to discourse upon such subjects .
34
. . " Their business was to discuss philosophical sub
jects and whatever was related to them, such as "physic,
anatomy, geometry, astronomy, navigation, statics, magne
tism, chemistry, mechanics, and natural experiments, with
the state of these studies, as then cultivated at home or
35
abroad." They were not to discuss affairs of state or
theology.
The association divided into two sections when Dr.
Wallis went to Oxford to teach Mathematics; one section met
in the lodgings of Robert Boyle at the University, the other
section met in Gresham's College, London. The Civil War
disrupted the London meetings which were not entirely re
sumed until the Restoration, at which time "their meetings
were revived, and attended with a larger concourse of
34
Thomas Birch, The History of The Royal Society of
London (London: Printed for L. Davis and C. Reymers, over
against Gray's inn, Holborn, Printers to the Royal
Society, 1760), I, 1.
35
Ibid., I, 2.
45
36
persons, eminent for their characters and learning, ..."
On July 15, 1662, Charles II conferred an official charter
upon the "Royal Society of London, for improving of natural
37
Knowledge. ..." The ninety-six original "Fellows" in
cluded not only scientists like Boyle and Hooke, but poets
like Dryden and Waller, Wren the architect, Evelyn, fourteen
peers, and several bishops. Under the auspices of the Royal
Society Evelyn improved English husbandry, Sir William Petty
established the science of statistics, English science and
medicine advanced beyond anything known in contemporary
France or Germany, Boyle almost founded chemistry, and Ray
revolutionized botany, Woodward geology, and Newton astron
omy. When Leibniz was admitted to membership in 1673, he
declared the Royal Society the most respected intellectual
38
authority m Europe.
It is not within the scope of this study to explain
the scientific discoveries of the seventeenth century for
any one of its various branches requires long years of
36 .
Ibid.. p. 3.
37
Thomas Sprat, The History of the Royal Society of
London (London: printed for J. Knapton, J. Walthoe, D.
Midwinter, J. Tonson, A. Bettesworth and C. Hitch, R. Robin
son, F. Clay, B. Motte, A. Ward, D. Brown, and T. Longman,
1734), p. 134.
38
Durant, op. cit.. p. 497.
46
arduous study in order to be understood. However, some men
tion must be made of the tremendous strides which were made
during the seventeenth century because of its revolutionary
effect upon all aspects of life for that century as well
as subsequent centuries.
By far the most outstanding successes were in the
areas of mathematics, astronomy and physics. The beginning
of modern mathematics may be traced to the Renaissance when,
along with other Greek works, the writings of Euclid were
translated into Latin (1505). Mathematics tended to divide
into two primary divisions: arithmetic, which was needed
for the rising commercial interests and the various forms of
calculus which only a few seventeenth-century Europeans
understood, even as very few twentieth-century minds are
capable of understanding Einstein's theories.
. . . The miraculous powers of modern calculation
depend chiefly upon three inventions, the algorism,
decimals, and logarithms. The algorism, or Arabic
notation, when introduced into Europe during the
later Middle Ages, for the first time allowed the
four fundamental processes of reckoning to be con
veniently performed; but as these processes were
still laborious for large quantities, and as the
spread of education, the growth of commerce, and
above all the advance of science necessitated even
larger computations, much thought was applied to
the invention of methods for rendering multiplication,
division, involution, and evolution easier. . . .
47
William Oughtred, an English clergyman, about 1622
invented the slide rule, which still has its uses.
Pascal, at the early age of twenty-two, invented, in
1645, the first adding machine, and actually
patented it.-*9
But the most important labor-saving inventions were
decimals, invented by Simon Stevin (1585), and logarithms,
invented by John Napier (1614).
The establishment of statistics as almost a science
was among the achievements of the seventeenth century. As a
hobby, John Graunt, a haberdasher, collected and studied
the burial records of London parishes, and published his
findings in 1662 in Natural and political Observations . . .
upon the Bills of Mortality, which became the basis for Sir
William Petty's work on political statistics as well as the
40
basis for modern statistics.
One of the quests of seventeenth-century philos
ophers and scientists was that of finding a perfectly uni
versal method of thinking. Rene Descartes, a Frenchman,
looked for a way to classify all questions concerning quan
tity into a single, all-embracing science. Toward this end
he married algebra and geometry and formed analytical
39
Smith, op. cit.. I, 91-92.
40
Durant, op. cit.. p. 501.
V
48
geometry. His Discourse on Method (1637) presented the
means whereby "all problems of geometry can be given an
algebraic interpretation, and every problem of algebra a
41
geometric interpretation."
The greatest mathematical genius of the seventeenth
century was an Englishman, Isaac Newton, born December 25,
,1642, the year in which Galileo died. "... His fame has
42
two foci— calculus and gravitation."
Newton's theory of gravitation was set forth in a
treatise, Propositions de Motu (February, 1685), which he
presented to the Royal Society. Later, Newton enlarged
upon this work and presented it to the Royal Society as
Book I of Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematics.
April 28, 1686 — Dr. Vincent presented to the
Society a manuscript treatise intitled, Philosophae
Naturalis principia mathematics, and dedicated to
the Society by Mr. Isaac Newton, wherein he gives
a mathematical demonstration of the Copernican
hypothesis as proposed by Kepler, and makes out all
the phenomena of the celestial motions by the only
supposition of a gravitation towards the center of
the sun decreasing as the squares of the distances
theieErom reciprocally.
It was ordered, that a letter of thanks be
written to Mr. Newton; and that the printing of
this book be referred to the consideration of the
41
Smith, op. cit.. I, 111.
42
Durant, op. cit., p. 532.
49
council; and that in the meantime the book be put into
the hands of Mr. Hailey, to make a report thereof to
the council.^3
Two months later, under the June 30, 1686 entry, it
was noted "that the president be desired to license Mr.
Newton's book intitled Philosophae naturalis principia
44
mathematica. and dedicated to the Society: ..." in
September, 1687 the entire work was published under the im
print of the Royal Society and its current president,
Samuel Pepys. Since the Society was short of funds, Edmund
Hailey (predictor of Hailey's comet) paid for the publica
tion out of his own funds, though he was far from being a
45
wealthy man.
. . . So at last, after twenty years of preparation,
appeared the most important book of seventeenth-
century science, rivaled, in the magnitude of its
effects upon the mind of literate Europe, only by
the De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (1543) of
Copernicus and The Origin of Species (1850) of
Darwin. These three books are the basic events in
the history of modern Europe.46
The seventeenth century dealt a death blow to
alchemy and gave rise to the science of chemistry. The
43
Birch, op. cit., IV, 479-480.
44
Ibid.. IV, 491.
45
Durant, op. cit., p. 539.
46Ibid.. pp. 539-540.
50
greatest blow to alchemy was the publication of Robert
Boyle's Sceptical Chymist (1661), in which he questioned
the traditional division of matter into the four elements
of air, fire, water and earth. Boyle contended that these
were compounds and not elements. He anticipated the dis
covery of oxygen by noting that various burning substances
ceased to burn in a vacuum, and through a series of experi
ments, he established all that is yet known about the glow
ing of phosphorus.
Progress in the life sciences lagged behind the
physical sciences but experiments were conducted and a new
and fascinating world was opened. Robert Hooke identified
the part of the air used up in combustion with the part used
up in plant and animal respiration, and described this part
as nitrous in character (1665). He discovered the cellular
structure of living tissue, and invented the term "cell" for
its organic constituents. He studied the histology of in
sects and plants and presented drawings of them in the
Microqraphia.
John Ray, a member of the Royal Society, issued a
Catalogus Plantarum Angliae. which became the frame of
English botany. In a mammoth three-volume work, Historia
Generalis Plantarum (1682-1704), Ray described 18, 625
51
species of plants which he had divided into dicotyledons
and monocotyledons according to their having two seed leaves
or only one. Ray edited Willughby's manuscripts on ichthy
ology and ornithology, and added a Synopsis Methodica
Anaimalium Quadrupedum (1603), which was zoology's first
47
scientific classification of animals.
In 1682 Nehemiah Grew, of the Royal Society,
affirmed the sexuality of plants. And in 1668 Francisco
Redi of Arezzo published the results of his experiments to
disprove the spontaneous generation of living organisms from
non-living matter. Anton van Leeuwenhoek, a Dutchman who
reported his discoveries through the Royal Society, saw new
worlds through his 247 microscopes; in 1675, while studying
a drop of rainwater, he discovered protozoa and in 1683 he
discovered even tinier organisms— bacteria.
Many important discoveries relating to the human
body were made during the seventeenth century, the most im
portant of which was William Harvey's charting of the circu
lation of the blood.
The influence of science was far-reaching. It sup
plied industry with physics and chemistry for new ventures
47Ibid.. pp. 518-519.
52
in technology, in education it demanded a lessening of
emphasis on literature, history and philosophy— the develop
ment of industry, commerce and navigation required practical
knowledge and minds. Literature felt the influence of
science, both indirectly and directly for the Royal Society
early declared itself in favor of plain speech.
. . . there is nothing more, about which the Society
has been most solicitous; and that is, the manner of
their Discourse; which, unless they had been very
watchful to keep in due Temper, the whole Spirit and
Vigour of their Design had been soon eaten out, by
the Luxury and Redundance of Speech. . . . Eloquence
ought to be banished out of all civil Societies, as
a thing fatal to Peace and good Manners. . . . ' They
have therefore been more rigorous in putting in
Execution the only Remedy, that can be found for
this Extravagance; and that has been a constant Res
olution, to reject all the Amplifications, Digres
sions, and Swellings of Style; to return back to the
primitive Purity and Shortness, when Men deliver'd
so many Things, almost in an equal Number of Words.
They have exacted from all their Members, a close,
naked, natural way of Speaking; positive Expressions,
clear Senses; a native Easiness; bringing all Things
as near the mathematical Plainness as they can; and
preferring the Language of Artizans, Countrymen, and
Merchants, before that of Wits, or Scholars.^®
In other words, the Royal Society declared war on
the poets. They also declared war on witchcraft. For
witchcraft lived side by side with science in the incredible
seventeenth century. Not only did the common people believe
48
Sprat, op. cit.. pp. 111-113.
53
in witches and spirits, many educated people did too.
Joseph Glanville, an Anglican clergyman and chaplain to
Charles II wrote in 1666 that "Men, otherwise witty and in
genious, are fall'n into the conceit that there's no such
49
thing as a Witch or Apparition, ..." and said that such
doubt was the first step toward atheism.
. . . when men are arrived to this degree of diffidence
and infidelity, we are beholden to them if they believe
either Angel or Spirit, Resurrection of the Body, or
Immortality of Souls. These things hang together in
a chain of connexion, at least in these men's Hypoth
esis; and 'tis but an happy chance if he that hath
lost one link hold a n o t h e r . 50
Ralph Cudworth, another minister, in The True
Intellectual System of the Universe, presented a long and
documented argument in support of divination. He also gave
his theory of disease.
. . . and at this very day, Evil Spirits or Demons,
do sometimes really Act upon the Bodies of men, and
either Inflict or Augment bodily Distempers and
Diseases, . . .51
49
Joseph Glanville, Some Philosophical Considera
tions Touching the Being of Witches and Witchcraft (London:
Printed by E. C. for James Collins at the Kings-head in
Westminster-Hall, 1667), p. 2.
50 .
Ibid., p. 4.
51
Ralph Cudworth, The True Intellectual System of
the Universe (London: Printed for Richard Royston, Book
seller to his most sacred Majesty, 1678), p. 704.
54
Furthermore, Cudworth felt that the purpose of
Christ's coming into the world was to oppose the evil
spirits and "to rescue mankind from Thraldom and Bondage
thereof. . . . "52
. . . Real Existence of Spirits and that they are
not meer phancies, and Imaginary Inhabitants of mens
Brains only, but Real Inhabitants of the World. As
also, that among those Spirits there are some Foul,
Unclean and Wicked Ones, . . . which is some confirma
tion of the Truth of Christianity, the Scripture in
sisting so much upon these Evil Demons or Devils,
and declaring it to be one design of our Savior
Christ's coming into the World, to oppose these Con
federate Powers of the Kingdom of Darkness, and to
rescue mankind from Thraldom and Bondage thereof.
53
It was an interesting century.
Philosophy
Western philosophy is based on Greek philosophy:
not only did the Greeks ask all the great questions; they
suggested most of the possible answers. After the Christian
era began the philosophers' primary problem was the recon
ciliation of Christian beliefs with Greek reason. St. Paul
was the first to relate Greek philosophy to the Christian
tenets in approximately 40 A.D., and attempts to reconcile
52
Ibid., p. 702.
55
the two continued through the Middle Ages. The Renaissance
and the Reformation brought in a wave of reaction against
all things medieval, particularly against Aristotle and
54
scholasticism.
But the really new element in philosophy was
furnished by the scientists. The discoveries of Copernicus
and his followers led to the conception of a materialistic
and mechanistic universe governed by natural law, and the
philosophers began to wrestle with the problem of recon
ciling the Renaissance revelation of the enormity and uni
formity of the universe with the old beliefs. The concept
of nature as a great machine could not be ignored even by
those to whom such a world-view was repugnant.
The seventeenth century laid the foundations for
modern thought in philosophy as well as in science. The era
which began with the discoveries of Copernicus and Galileo
continued along those same lines until the discoveries of
radioactivity, relativity and the quantum theory; the ques
tions raised by Descartes (1595-1650) occupied philosophers
until "William James inaugurated a new period with his
54
Anne Fremantle, The Age of Belief (New York:
The New American Library of World Literature, 1954),
pp. 14-15.
56
55
essay 'Does Consciousness Exist?' in 1904 ..."
Many men of genius tackled the problems raised by
the new science during the seventeenth century; only those
whose ideas and writings most affected the literature of the
Restoration period, particularly dramatic literature, have
been considered here: Rene Descartes (1596-1650), a French
man; Thomas Hobbes (1558-1679) and John Locke (1632-1704),
Englishmen.
Rene Descartes was born at La Haye in Touraine, on
March 31, 1596. In 1604, at the age of eight, he was sent
to the Jesuit School at La Fleche, in Anjou, where he re
mained until 1612. Not much is known of his activities
from 1612 until 1617 but it is assumed that he spent much
of his time from 1613 until 1616 at the university of
Poitiers since he was graduated by that university in law
in November, 1616.
He left France in 1618 to serve as a gentleman vol
unteer in the army of Prince Maurice of Nassau, at Breda,
Holland. While his military career probably did not take
him into the front lines of battle, it did take him over a
great part of southern Europe. But, in the autumn of 1628,
he returned to Holland where he might enjoy the freedom of
55
Smith, op. cit.. I, 186-187.
57
expression of his scientific and philosophic views. He
lived in Holland for twenty-one years, from 1628 until 1649,
returning to his native France for visits in 1644, 1647 and
1648.
He went to Sweden in 1649 upon the invitation of the
Queen to instruct her in his philosophy. The severe winters
proved too much for his frail health and he died there in
February, 1650, less than five months after his arrival.
Mathematics was the genius of Descartes and it was
mathematics, he felt, that held the answer to the right
method for obtaining real knowledge by the light of natural
reason. He was dissatisfied with the scholastic method of
solving problems, which consisted more in citing authorities
than in dealing with the problem. He thought that the in
vestigation of any problem should not be dominated by what
others have thought, but by what we ourselves can see clear
ly or infer with certainty.
Eventually Descartes came to the conclusion that
the mathematical method could be applied to the sciences.
The method of mathematics consists in beginning with the
simplest notions and then proceeding to deduce inferences
from them. Scientific investigation should begin with the
simplest and surest notions and advance logically to more
58
complex truths, that is, by deduction. But Descartes was
a little less than scientific when he said that first prin
ciples are given by intuition alone.
In 1637 Descartes published anonymously his Philo
sophical Essays, the first of which was the Discourse of
the Method of rightly guiding the Reason and of discovering
Truth in the Sciences. The other three essays, on
Dioptrics. Meteors. and Geometry. were intended to serve as
specimens of the application of this method.
In the Discourse on Method Descartes began with the
primary axiom that the only sure thing is doubt but doubt is
thought from which came his famous "I think, therefore, I
am. " His first deduction from this axiom was that man is a
being whose nature it is to think, and the second, that
those things conceived by the mind clearly and distinctly
and, as it were, intuitively, are always true. One of the
clearest ideas in the mind is that of perfection, which can
not be derived from anything corporeal, nor from the pro
cesses of one's own imperfect mind. All our own ideas we
might imagine to be creations of our own thinking. But the
idea of a perfect being, said Descartes, could have origi
nated only from a being which itself possessed perfection.
According to Descartes there were two kinds of
59
knowledge about matter; one clear and true and another un
clear and deceptive. Extension in three dimensions, and mo
tion are the only features of material bodies that are clear
and distinct to thought; consequently, they are the real
essential features of material things. The sense-qualities
of things, such as colour, smell, taste and feel, are not
clearly and distinctly thinkable, but are the subjective ex
perience of the percipient.
Descartes thought that matter consisted of three
kinds: the ordinary kind composing terrestrial bodies; a
second kind consisting of extremely small particles, round
or nearly round, and very subtle, occupying the interstices
of terrestrial matter and also composing the sky; and a
third kind incomparably more subtle, with still smaller
parts moving extremely fast and with no fixed form but tak
ing the shape of the interstices left between the other
kinds of matter. Between the subtle matter and ordinary
matter there is no essential difference except in the size
and shape of the particles; in fact, the subtle matter has
probably been produced by the attrition of the larger
bodies, as sand is produced by the grinding of stones.
Matter is in continual motion in a vast aggregate of
whirlpools, or vortices varying in size from extremely small
60
ones to others so large that one of them carries the
planets around the sun.
Descartes regarded animals, except men, as automata.
He thought that Man occupies a unique position as the one
point of contact between two otherwise incompatible worlds
of body and mind. Men's bodies are machines created by God
and with a rational spirit. Descartes put the seat of the
mind in the pineal gland. Energy and direction are trans
mitted, he explained, from the pineal gland to other parts
of the body by the animal spirits which flow along the
nerves.
In a Treatise on the Passions, published in 1640,
Descartes listed six principal passions: wonder, love, hate,
desire, joy, and sadness. Wonder, he considered an intel
lectual passion; all the others he thought forms of desire.
The function of a passion is to excite the soul to will the
things for which the passion prepares the body. But, in
spite of the fact that the passions directly move the will,
they should remain under its control. Dryden expressed the
same opinion in his dramas, as did Corneille.
Descartes' place in the history of thought and cul
ture is very great. He gave the world analytical geometry
as his greatest contribution. But almost as great a
61
contribution was the idea that a man should admit only to
what he can understand. Descartes' ideas and philosophy
were anti-religion; his world-view a materialistic one.
Thomas Hobbes was born April 5, 1588, "which that
yeare was Good Fryday. His mother fell in labour with him
5 6
upon the fright of the Invasion of the Spaniards." His
father was a minister in a small town near Malmesbury but
he was not, according to Aubrey, an educated man. ". . .He
was one of the Clergie of Queen Elizabeth's time— a little
Learning went a great way with him and many other ignorant
Sir Johns in those days; could only read the prayers of the
Church and the homilies; and disesteemed Learning as not
57
knowing the Sweetness of it." After a fight at the church
door with another parson, Hobbes' father was forced to leave
58
"and died in obscurity beyound London ..."
Fortunately for the future philosopher, his father
had an elder brother who was a wealthy man, and "having no
child he . . . maintained his Nephew Thomas at Magdalen-hall
in Oxon; . . .
5 6
Oliver Lawson Dick (ed.), Aubrey's Brief Lives
(Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan press, 1957),
p. 147.
57 5ft 5Q
Ibid. Ibid., p. 148. Ibid.
62
Upon graduation, at the age of twenty, he was em
ployed as tutor to William Cavendish who became the second
Earl of Devonshire, and toured the Continent with him.
After his return he served for a while as secretary to
60
Francis Bacon, who "loved to converse with him." But he
soon returned to the Cavendish family; he retained a rela
tionship with that family for three generations; "and prob
ably from these generous and well-entrenched patrons he
adopted the royalist and High Church views that won pardon
for his materialistic metaphysics, and kept him from
v , • - . 6 1
burning."
At the age of forty he discovered Euclid and fell
in love with geometry.^
. . . Being in a Gentleman's Library, Euclid's
Elements lay open, and 'twas the 47 Element libri I.
He read the Proposition. By G , sayd he . . .
this is impossible.' So he reads the Demonstration
of it, which referred him back to such a Proposition;
which proposition he read. That referred him back to
another, which he also read. . . . at last he was
demonstratively convinced of that trueth. This made
him in love with geometry.63
His interest in mathematics was interrupted when the
conflict between Parliament and Charles I progressed and
6°Ibid.. p. 149. 61Durant, op. cit.. p. 548.
62 63
Dick, op. cit.. p. 150. Ibid.
63
Hobbes "began to reflect on the Interest of the King of
England as touching his affaires between Him and Parliament,
64
. . ." He wrote an essay in which he defended the ab
solute authority of the King as indispensable to social order
and national unity. "... this Treatise, though not
printed, many Gentlemen had copies, which occasioned much
talke of the Author; and had not his Majestie dissolved the
65
Parliament, it had brought him in danger of his life."
Hobbes considered it wise to withdraw and, he went
to Paris where he lived for some time. When Civil War came
to England, Royalist emigrees formed a colony in Paris and
Hobbes was in close contact with them. From 1646 to 1648
he was tutor in mathematics to the future Charles II. Dur
ing the period of his French exile, Hobbes rewrote his orig
inal treatise into a book, De Cive, which eventually grew
into the Leviathan. his most important work.
In 1650 or 1651 he returned to England, where he
lived much in London. Approximately two weeks after Charles
II was restored to the throne while his Majesty sat for his
portrait at "Mr. S. Cowper's, . . . he was diverted by Mr.
Hobbes' pleasant discourse. . . . and order was given that
64Ibid., p. 151.
64
he should have free access to his Majesty, who was always
66
much delighted in his witt and smart repartees."
He left London in 1675 and spent the remainder of
his days in Derbyshire with the Earl of Devonshire. He
died, after a brief illness, in 1679.
The Leviathan is one of the classics of literature
and Hobbes' influence upon Restoration period thought and
literature, particularly dramatic literature, was very
great. Aubrey said: "Mr. John Dreyden, Poet Laureate, is
his great admirer, and oftentimes makes use of his Doctrine
67
in his Playes— from Mr. Dreyden himself."
The Leviathan was a masterpei ce of political theory.
Its subjects were man, power and the state. In the area
of government and politics, Hobbes favored a strong govern
ment with a concentration and monopoly of power in one
clearly defined source with freedom of thought for the
philosopher and peace for the subjects.
Hobbes excluded the soul from his analysis of human
nature. "Man's nature is the sum of his natural faculties
and powers, as the faculties of nutrition, motion, genera
tion, sense, reason, etc. These powers we do unanimously
66Ibid.. p. 152. 67Ibid.. p. 157.
65
call natural, and are contained in the definition of man,
68
under these words, animal and rational." He felt that
man's happiness lay in his satisfying his appetites, both
69
physical and intellectual.
He considered reason fallible, and except in mathe
matics, unable to give us certainty.
. . . And for the knowledge of Consequence, which I
have said before is called Science, it is not Absolute,
but Conditionall. No man can know by Discourse, that
this, or that, is, has been, or will be; which is to
know absolutely; but onely, that if This be, That is;
if This has been, That has been; it This shall be,
That shall be: which is to know conditionally; and
that not the consequence of one thing to another; but
of one name of a thing, to another name of the same
thing.70
Hobbes said that all knowledge is based upon expe
rience. "... There is no conception in a mans mind, which
hath not at first, totally, or by parts, been begotten upon
71
the organs of Sense." Hobbes' psychology was a material
istic one: nothing exists, outside us or within us, except
68
Thomas Hobbes, The English Works of Thomas Hobbes,
ed. Sir William Molesworth (London: John Bohn, Henrietta
Street, Covent Garden, 1840), IV, chap. i, Item 4, p. 2.
69
Ibid., IV, chap. vii, Item 8, p. 34.
70
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan. Abridged, edited and
with an Introduction by Francis B. Randall (New York:
Washington Square Press, Inc., 1964), p. 40.
7^Ibid., p. 1.
66
matter and motion.
. . . All which qualities called Sensible, are in the
object that causeth them, but so many several motions
of the matter, by which it presseth our organs diverse
ly. Neither in us that are pressed, are they any thing
else, but divers motions; (for motion, produceth
nothing but motion.)?2
Ideas are imaginations produced by sensation or memory.
There was no place in Hobbes' psychology for free
will. The will, according to Hobbes, was the last desire or
aversion in the process of deliberation, which was an alter
nation of desires or aversions, ending when one impulse
lasted long enough to flow into action. ". . .In Delibera
tion, the last Appetite, or Aversion, immediately adhaering
to the action, or to the omission thereof, is that wee call
73
the Will; the Act, (not the faculty,) of Willing. ..."
Hobbes, as Descartes, thought the passions the
sources of all human actions. Behind the passions are
pleasure and pain: appetite he considered the beginning of
a motion toward something that promised pleasure; love, he
thought, was such an appetite directed toward one person.
He considered the basic aversion fear, the basic appetite,
power. ". . . in the first place, I put for a generall
inclination of all mankind, a perpetuall and restlesse
72
Ibid.. p. 2. 73Ibid., p. 37.
67
desire of power after power, that ceaseth onely in Death.
74
. . . " Men want riches and knowledge as a means to power,
75
and honors as evidence of power.
Hobbes considered government the most complex and
difficult of human tasks, but necessary, not because man is
naturally bad— for "the Desires, and other passions of man,
7 6
are in themselves no Sin" — but because man is by nature
more individualistic than social. He believed social orga
nization, and law, necessary to check the natural aggression
and competition of man against man. In order to protect
himself against the natural instincts of his own kind, man
had entered into a contract whereby he was protected by sub
mission to a common power. But, Hobbes held, the ruler must
have absolute power to ensure public peace and individual
security. "... For what is it to divide the Power of a
Commonwealth, but to Dissolve it; for Powers divided mutual-
77
ly destroy each other."
Not only should the monarch have complete authority
over all political matters, including individual liberty,
property and conscience,he should control the religion of
74
Ibid., p. 64.
75
Ibid.. pp. 63-65.
76
Ibid., p. 85.
77
Ibid.. p. 233.
68
his people. Hobbes himself had very little regard for
religion: in four things "consisteth the Natural seed of
Religion: opinion of Ghosts, Ignorance of second causes,
Devotion towards what men fear, and Taking of things Casual
78
for Prognostiques ..." He felt, however, that religion
should be made an instrument of government, and he agreed
with the Pope that only one religion should be tolerated in
79
a state.
The Leviathan was published in England in 1651 while
Hobbes was still in Paris. Slowly, as his book circulated,
he was besieged by critics. Clergymen came to the defense
of Christianity. Attacks against Hobbes continued until his
death, in 1666 the House of Commons ordered one of its
committees "to receive information touching such books as
tend to atheism, blasphemy, and profaneness, or against the
essence and attributes of God, and in particular . . . the
80
book of Hobbes called The Leviathan."
Charles II came to his rescue, and the Restoration
Court, which inclined to religious skepticism, and which
favored absolute monarchy, found many congenial elements in
78 7Q
Ibid.. pp. 73-74. ibid.. p. 264.
80
"Thomas Hobbes," Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1954
ed., XI, 613a.
69
Hobbes' philosophy. But there was a group* rapidly growing
in power and prestige* that believed in a more democratic
form of government. John Locke was the most articulate
spokesman for the political beliefs which led to the blood
less English revolution and, ultimately, to the bloody
American and French revolutions.
John Locke (1632-1704) was born at Wrington,
Somersetshire, August 29, 1632. His father, a small land
owner and attorney, was a strict Puritan and fought on the
Parliamentary side in the English Civil War.
John entered Westminster school in 1646; and in
1652, after some delay caused by the turmoil of the Civil
War, he entered Christ Church, Oxford. "For some years
after he entered, Oxford was under the rule of Independents,
who were among the first in England to advocate religious
81
toleration." His years at Oxford gave him an aversion
to Scholastic philosophy and education which were taught
there and led him away from his father's religion because
of the Presbyterian intolerance and the Independent fanati
cism which were prevalent at the time. He became a tutor in
Christ Church in 1660, lecturing in Greek, rhetoric and
81
"John Locke," Encyclopaedia Britannica. 1954 ed.,
XIV, 271a.
70
philosophy. He kept the Oxford address as his legal resi
dence until 1683.
He was attracted to theology but, since the Anglican
Church, after the Restoration, had no place for free in-
82
quiry, he decided on medicine. He became interested in
chemistry and helped Robert Boyle in laboratory experiments,
83
thus acquiring an admiration for the scientific method.
In 1667 he became physician and confidential secretary to
Lord Ashley, afterwards first Earl of Shaftesbury, a member
of the Cabal ministry under Charles II. A lasting friend
ship grew between Shaftesbury and Locke based on their
mutual sympathy for civil, religious and philosophical
liberty.
When Shaftesbury fell from power in 1675, Locke
moved to France, spending part of the time in Paris, where'
he met many scientists. In 1679 he resumed his old rela
tionship with Shaftesbury at Thanet House in Aldersgate,
London. Eventually, Shaftesbury was forced to fly to
Holland, where he died in January, 1683.
Because of his close relationship with Shaftesbury,
Locke was suspect and spied upon but managed to escape
83
Durant, op. cit.. p. 576.
71
punishment. Locke went to Holland, at that time an asylum
for exiles in search of liberty of thought, where he lived
under an assumed name. During the five years he spent in
Holland he was deprived of his tutorship at Oxford by order
of the king and he became acquainted with William, prince
of Orange, who subsequently became king of England. Locke
returned to England in February, 1689, on the same ship that
. „ . 84
carried Princess Mary.
Locke's political career flourished under William
III— he held many influential posts but the settlement of
the Revolution fell far short of his ideal of toleration of
civil liberties, and in 1691 he went to live at Oates Manor
in Essex, the country seat of Sir Francis Masham, where he
lived for the remainder of his life. Locke died October
28, 1704.
It was not until his return to England that Locke
achieved European fame. He had published only some minor
works during his residence in Holland and he was fifty-four
years old before he published anything. In 1689 his first
work was published— the first Letter on Toleration— in
Holland. In the next year he published his most famous and
84
Encyclopaedia Britannica, XIV, 271b.
72
most influential works: the Essay Concerning Human Under
standing and the Two Treatises of Government, the corner
stone of modern democratic theory in England and America.
His purpose in the latter was to justify the Glorious
Revolution and he so stated in the preface to the first
treatise.
. . . to establish the Throne of our Great Restorer,
Our present King William; to make good his Title, in
the Consent of the People, . . . And to justify to the
World, the People of England, whose love of their
Just and Natural Rights, with their Resolution to
preserve them, saved the Nation when it was on the
brink of Slavery and Ruine. . . .
Thus did Locke, while defending a monarch, establish
the foundation for representative government and "ended, in
86
English political philosophy, the ascendancy of Hobbes."
. . . Locke's influence on political thought remained
supreme till Karl Marx. His philosophy of the state
was so well suited to the Whig ascendancy and the
English character that for a century its faults were
ignored as trivial blemishes in a magnificent Magna
Carta of the bourgeoisie. It provided a halo not
only to 1689 but, by remarkable anticipation, to 1776
and 1789— i.e., to the three stages in the revolt of
business against birth, of money against land.87
Locke had some ideas about religion, too. He be
lieved in a national establishment provided it was
85
John Locke, Two Treatises on Government, ed. Peter
Laslett (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1960), p. 155.
86 87
Durant, op. cit.. p. 580. Ibid., p. 582.
73
comprehensive and organized to promote goodness and not to
83
further the metaphysical subtleties of any particular sect.
Locke's toleration did not include atheists because an
atheist would have no fear of breaking his word, or of tell
ing an untruth, which would be dangerous to any social
structure. Furthermore, he did not believe in full tolera
tion for Catholics since they were bound in allegiance to a
foreign power. Aside from these, Locke believed in full re
ligious tolerance.
Locke had tremendous influence in psychology as well
as in political theory. His Essay Concerning Human Under
standing was published after twenty years of writing and
rewriting. In it he refuted the "innate ideas" of Descartes
and the contention of the Scholastic philosophers that we
derive our ideas of God and morality from introspection and
that these ideas are part of our mental equipment at birth,
even though unconscious. Locke maintained that all knowl
edge, including our knowledge of God and morality, comes
from our experience. He felt that concepts of right and
wrong varied from time to time and from place to place; and
sometimes were contradictory. What was the source of ideas,
88
Encyclopaedia Britannica. XIV, 272b.
74
according to Locke?
. . . Let us then suppose the mind to be, as we say,
white paper, void of all characters, without any
ideas; how comes it to be furnished? . . . Whence has
it all the materials of reason and knowledge? To this
I answer, in one word, From experience: in that all
our knowledge is founded, and from that it ultimately
derives itself.89
Furthermore, Locke believed that all knowledge, in
cluding knowledge about God and morality, should be subject
to criticism. And, in spite of the fact that Locke was a
religious man, his plea for a rationalistic empiricism led
to the discard of the soul, and eventually God, as a need-
90
less hypothesis.
And it was these three bachelors, two English and
one French, who set the tone of thought for not only the
seventeenth century, but for all time since.
The Theatres
The English Restoration theatre marked the transi
tion from the Elizabethan theatre to the modern English and
American theatres. When the medieval drama passed from the
89
A. J. Ayer and Raymond Winch (eds.), British
Empirical Philosophers, Locke, "An Essay Concerning Human
Understanding" (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, Ltd.,
1952), p. 43.
90
Durant, op. cit., p. 588.
75
hands of the clergy into the hands of the people the per
formance of plays passed from the church into the churchyard
91
and from there to the marketplace. Inn-yards were used
for the presentation of plays and the first theatres built
in London at the end of the sixteenth century showed this
influence: they were open to the air, unlighted and unheat
ed. Fifteen theatres were needed to serve the theatre-
loving Elizabethans; only two patents were granted for
theatres in Restoration London.
Oliver Cromwell's government and the Puritan reli
gion had virtually destroyed the theatre: the Puritan boy
cott of the theatre as a sinful place greatly reduced the
size of the audience; the banning of theatrical perfor
mances, the closing of the theatres and actual destruction
of some of the physical plants almost put the finishing
touch to dramatic productions. Consequently, at the Resto
ration and the reopening of the theatres, it was necessary
to adapt existing structures, and then, to build the plants
for the new drama. Four were built or adapted in rather
rapid succession:
1. The Duke's House in Lincoln's Inn Fields (1661)
91
Phyllis Hartnoll (ed.), The Oxford Companion to
the Theatre (London: Oxford University Press,1951), p. 222.
76
2. The Theatre Royal in Bridges Street (1663)
3. The Duke's House in Dorset Garden (1671)
4. The Theatre Royal in Drury Lane (1674)
There were many changes in these new theatres: they
were brought indoors, scenery was added, and artificial
lighting was introduced. On the stage women acted women's
parts.
Sir William Davenant, one of the patentees, took
over Lisle's Tennis Court, built in 1656, at the south side
of Lincoln's Inn Fields for his first theatre.
. . . It stood in Portugal Street, and was about
seventy-five feet in length and thirty feet wide.
It was the first theatre to have a proscenium arch and
to employ scenery which was "set" and "struck." The
stage projected in apron form beyond the proscenium
into the auditorium. There was a large scene room,
and next door were Davenant's own lodgings, where his
principal actresses, including Mrs. Davenport and
Mrs. Saunderson also boarded.^2
The theatre opened with the first part of The Siege
of Rhodes, followed by the second part the next day. The
two parts were acted alternately for two weeks. Hartnoll
93
gives the opening date as June 28, 1661. Two months later
Pepys saw Hamlet at the Duke's House "done with scenes very
well, but above all, Betterton did the prince's part beyond
92
Ibid.. p. 477.
77
imagination. ..."
Apparently, Davenant had turned the tennis court
into a masquing house or "something basically not unlike a
95
masquing house. . . ." Undoubtedly the scenery contribut
ed to the popularity of Davenant's house, the success of
which led to some basic changes in the rival house.
Davenant and the Duke's Men remained at the tennis court un
til their new theatre was completed in 1671.
Sir Thomas Killigrew turned Gibbon's old tennis court
into the first Theatre Royal, where he and the King's Compa
ny, a group composed of the "old" actors, or actors who had
been playing before the Civil War, worked for three years
while Killigrew was building a theatre in Bridges Street
near Drury Lane. The first Theatre Royal
had a level pit with rows of backless benches,
galleries running around three sides, and a platform
stage hung with rusty tapestries. There were no
scenes and very few machines. The wooden seats were
far from friendly. The light, especially on a dark
day, was poor, even with the help of candles in
sconces about the walls and in chandeliers over the
stage; and, of course, there was no heat. The spec
tators sat with their cloaks wrapped tightly about
94
Samuel Pepys, The Diary of Samuel Pepys, ,ed. Henry
B. Wheatley (London: George Bell & Sons, 1902), August 24,
1661.
95
Richard Southern, The Seven Ages of the Theatre
(New York: Hill and Wang, 1961), p. 237.
78
them until the animal warmth of the noisy, restless
audience tempered the chill a trifle. At the same
time the animal effluvia, overlaid with the odors of
musky foreign perfumes (handy substitutes for soap
and water), produced an atmosphere thick enough to
shovel. There was no toilet facilities, no bars, and
no refreshments except the China oranges and seasonal
fruits sold by the orange girls, who stood in the pit
with backs to the stage and cried their wares between
the acts.96
Killigrew's second Theatre Royal, which opened May
7, 1663, was a disused riding school. It was located "in
Bridges Street, just off Drury Lane in the Covent Garden
neighborhood— a district of slums, alehouses, bawdyhouses,
shops, and noblemen's mansions, lying cheek by jowl togeth-
97
er." This second Theatre Royal had a scenic stage. The
ubiquitous Pepys attended.
. . . took my wife and Ashwell to the Theatre Royall,
being the second day of its being opened. The house
is made with extraordinary good contrivance, and yet
hath some faults, as the narrowness of the passages
in and out of the pitt, and the distance from the stage
to the boxes, which I am confident cannot hear; but
for all other things is well, only, above all, the
musique being below, and most of it sounding under
the very stage, there is no hearing of the bases at
all, nor very well of the trebles, which sure must be
mended. The play was "The Humerous Lieutenant," a
play that hath little good in it, nor much in the very
part which, by the King's command, Lacy now acts,
instead of Clun.^®
96
John Harold Wilson, All the King's Ladies (Chica
go: The University of Chicago Press, 1958), p. 2.
97 98
Ibid.. p. 22. Pepys, op. cit.. May 8, 1663.
79
Killigrew's theatre cost twenty-four hundred pounds
to build and the dimensions of the completed theatre were
almost the same as those of the stage of the present
99
theatre. The auditorium was divided into boxes, pit,
middle gallery and upper gallery. Price of admission to the
boxes was four shillings, to the pit, two shillings, six
farthings, to the middle gallery, one shilling, six far
things, to the upper gallery, one shilling.
The pit benches were covered with green cloth and
the floor was steeply raked so that the people at the back
of the pit could converse with the occupants of the boxes
behind. When Pepys went to see Love in a Maze at the
Theatre Royal he "sat at the upperbench next the boxes; and
I find it do pretty well, and have the advantage of seeing
and hearing the great people . . . "^00
There were six proscenium doors and an apron stage.
Lighting was by chandeliers,a glazed cupola over the pit,and
windows^^ Besides letting in light, the cupola let in rain.
". . . Before the play was done, it fell such a storm of
99
Hartnoll, op. cit., p. 201.
^^Pepys, op. cit. . May 1, 1667.
^^Hartnoll, loc. cit.
80
hayle, that we in the middle of the pit were fain to rise;
102
and all the house in a disorder, ..."
The theatres were closed from June 5, 1665 to
November, 1666 because of the plague and during that time
Killigrew made some alterations in his theatre and Pepys
inspected the machines.
. . . after dinner we walked to the King's play-house,
all in dirt, they being altering of the stage to make
it wider. But God knows when they will begin to act
again; but my business here was to see the inside of
the stage and all the tiring-rooms and machines; and,
indeed, it was a sight worthy seeing. . . . The 1 3
machines are fine, and the paintings very pretty.
Killigrew and the King1s Company continued in this
theatre until it burned in 1672, when they moved to the
abandoned Duke's Theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields.
The Dorset Garden Theatre was the second Duke's
House and the first newly constructed theatre in England
since before the Civil War. Designed by Christopher Wren,
it was built at a cost of nine thousand pounds, the money
being provided by backers. It was the most magnificent
theatre ever seen in London and the stage had a proscenium
arch. Davenant died (April 7, 1668) before the theatre
102
Pepys, op. cit., June 1, 1664.
103Ibid.. March 19, 1666.
81
was completed but he had worked with Wren on the plans. The
building had a river frontage, with steps for those who came
by boat. Betterton, the chief actor and co-director of the
104
company, lived m apartments over the theatre. The
Theatre Dorset Garden was the home of the Duke's Men until
the two companies united in 1682 at Drury Lane.
The theatre, which later became famous for opera,
opened on November 9, 1671 with Sir Martin Mar-All, a tried
favorite. Under Betterton's skillful direction the theatre
flourished for a time, but eventually things grew bad for
both houses and the two companies combined in 1682, with
Betterton as their leading man and the Drury Lane their
headquarters.
After the Theatre Royal burned, Killigrew engaged
Wren as his architect to rebuild a much larger theatre than
the former one. The second Theatre Royal, built at a cost
of forty-two hundred pounds, opened March 26, 1674 with the
King and Queen in the Royal Box. It was an improvement over
the first in many ways.
The stage now projected in a semi-oval right up
to the front row of the pit, there were side wings
instead of stage boxes, and the whole action of the
104
Hartnoll, op. cit.. p. 192.
82
play took place beyond the proscenium pillars. The
orchestra played above instead of below the stage.
Dissension among the actors and bad management
forced the theatre to close for a while in 1681, and in
April, 1682, Drury Lane had to close.
Three main factors contributed to the final form of
the Restoration playhouse: (a) scenery of the Court
masques, (b) the long-oblong shape of the converted tennis
courts and (c) the doors, balconies and stage of the
Elizabethan open theatre.
The auditorium of the Restoration playhouse was un
doubtedly patterned after that of the converted tennis
court, since both Davenant and Killigrew made temporary use
of these buildings before their theatres were built. The
main parts of the Restoration theatre were the pit, the
boxes and the gallery.
The pit was the floor of the house, usually sunk be
low ground level. It was filled with backless benches
which were covered with green cloth. ", . . The pit was
entered by doors in the side walls near the stage, where
the head-room under the boxes was greatest because of the
slope, and the doors communicated with passages running
^ 5Ibid. , p. 201.
beside the pit to the front of the house. . .
106
The boxes were on the level with the stage at the
brink of the pit, and probably ran continuously around all
three sides of the pit.
. . . Dorset Garden is said to have had seven of
these boxes, each holding twenty people; this uneven
number of boxes does not allow of equal division into
two sides, and so suggests they ran all around the
pit, perhaps two on either side and three at the end
facing the stage.10?
A seat in the box normally sold for four shillings
and was the most expensive in the house.
Hartnoll contends that the "side boxes . . . were
combined in one architectural facade on either side of the
pit, related in design with the proscenium, and usually
108
marked by heavy columnular treatment. ..."
The galleries were the tiers above the boxes.
According to Hartnoll, the second tier contained boxes at
the sides with the middle gallery comprising the part of the
tier facing the stage. This section of the auditorium was
called the Eighteenpenny Places, the Middle Gallery or the
109
First Gallery and was a popular part of the house. The
upper gallery was above the middle gallery but occupied only
106
Ibid., p. 40.
107
Ibid.
108
Ibid., p. 41.
109
Ibid.
84
the end of the house; it was not continued along the sides.
This section was also referred to as the Twelvepenny Places
and was occupied by common people.
The orchestra of the Restoration theatre was
situated in a "box-gallery projecting from above the top of
the proscenium opening. Killigrew's attempt to place
the orchestra under the front of the stage in the Bridges
Street Theatre was not successful and he was forced to re
turn to the customary placing of the musicians above the
stage.
There were many carry-overs from the Elizabethan
stage in the new theatre of the Restoration: the semicircu
lar apron which extended seventeen feet into the pit, the
players' doors of entrance, the inner stage, and the bal
conies. But the Restoration theatre was also a scenic
theatre and because of the scenery "the doors and balconies
were brought forward and set in front of the side scenes
and the scenic area.The doors were incorporated into
the structure designed to conceal the off-stage spaces to
left and right and to frame the stage scenery— a structure
which eventually became our proscenium.
li:LIbid. . p. 237.
85
Most of the acting in the Restoration theatre took
place before the proscenium on the apron. This had the ad
vantage of giving the actors an intimacy with the audience
but it had the disadvantage of giving members of the audi
ence a better opportunity to heckle the actors. Frequently
the heckling was deliberate, at other times it appeared as
lack of attention to what was happening on stage, but many
times it came as a result of a gallant's pursuing other
interests.
The gallants or beaux were the most important
part of the audience in those days . . . they prin
cipally occupied the pit which was the chief seating
accommodation in the play-house. . . . He derived his
entertainment least of all from the piece, partially
from the women in the theatre, most of all from his
own behavior.
It was the practice of the time for playwrights to
circulate their play among the nobility and their friends
so that by the time the play was presented on the stage
most of the audience knew how they intended to receive it.
There was no need to pay close attention to the acted play.
. . . No matter how good the play, if it was of the
opposing faction, they determined to hiss, to disturb
112
Sybil Rosenfeld, "Prologues and Epilogues of the
Restoration Period 1660-1700: Considered in Relation to the
Audience, Theatrical Conditions and the Dramatic Productiv
ity of the Age" (unpublished thesis, University of London,
1925), p. 142.
86
the acting as much as possible, and certainly utterly
ignore any merit it might possess.*-^
All of which makes one marvel at the courage and
stamina of the actors.
The elements of the Restoration theatre which came
from the Court masque were scenery and machinery. The audi
ence apparently demanded them as a part of their theatre ex
perience .
It is morally impossible for any Poet, or Master
of a Play-House,to be too expensive in the Beauty or
Grandeur of their Scenes and Machines: The more just
and surprizing they appear, the sooner will the Spec
tator be led insensibly into imagining every thing
real, and, of consequence, prove the easier perswaded
of the Instruction intended: Besides, they are ab
solutely necessary in all Parts of a Play, where the
Plot requires the Intervention of some supernatural
Power, in order to conquer Difficulties, and solve
Misteries: For, what is a God, or a Devil, or a
Conjurer,— without Moving Clouds, Blazing Chariots,
Flying Dragons, and Enchanted Castles?— Airy Sprites,
Terrestrial Hob-goblins, and infernal Demons, must,
at a Word, descend, rise, and vanish. These things,
justly introduc'd, strike an Awe upon the Audience;
and, while they are amaz'd and delighted, they are
instructed. . . .114
Apparently Mr. primcock enjoyed the spectacle.
Another writer of the time, Richard Flecknoe, felt that the
113tT.,
Ibid., p. 146.
114
James Ralph [A. Primcock], The Taste of the Town;
or, A Guide to All Public Diversions (London: Printed, and
sold by the Booksellers of London and Westminster, 1731),
p. 80.
87
old plays and days were better. He compared Restoration
staging to that of "former times" in A Short Discourse of the
English Stage (1664).
Now, for the difference betwixt our Theaters and
those of former times, they were but plain and simple,
with no other Scenes, nor Decorations of the Stage,
but onely old Tapestry, and the Stage strew'd with
Rushes, (with their Habits accordingly) whereas ours
now for cost and ornament are arriv'd to the height of
Magnificence’ but that which makes our Stage the
better, makes our Playes the worse perhaps, they
striving now to make them more for sight than hearing;
115
t « •
Flecknoe recognized the debt the Restoration theatre
owed to the Court masque.
For Scenes and Machines they are no new invention,
our Masks and some of our playes in former times (though
not so ordinary) having had as good or rather better
than any we have now.
But scenes and machines were new to the public
theatre. It was Flecknoe's opinion that the English had not
gone beyond the "Schollare" and "Lerner" stage in the art of
scene painting. He considered the Italians "the greatest
masters," and the French "good proficients," but the English
had not acquired the necessary skill "especially not knowing
115
Richard Flecknoe, "A Short Discourse of the
English Stage," Addition to Love1s Kingdom (London: Printed
by R. Wood for the author, 1664).
116T,
Ibid.
88
yet how to place our Lights, for the more advantage and
117
illuminating of the Scenes."
The Restoration theatre was lighted by general
theatre lighting, by stage chandeliers and "by controlled
stage lighting provided apparently by floats and wing-
118
ladders." The use of the unconcealed candle light must
have been very trying to the eyes, for Pepys, after a visit
to the Duke of York's Playhouse recorded "and there, in the
side balcony, over against the musick, did hear, but not
see, a new play, . . . but the trouble of my eyes with the
119
light of the candles did almost kill me. . . ."
Scenery in the Restoration theatre was not intended
to be naturalistic; it was a decoration to the play. It
consisted of two parts, a painted back cloth and the side
scenes. The side scenes were formed by wings which framed
the back vista. The flats which provided the side scenes
moved in grooves which had to be built so that the flats
faced the audience directly because the rake of the stage
would not permit any other arrangement. Operated manually
by a rope system, the flats were changed in full view of the
117 118
Ibid. Hartnoll, op. cit.. p. 465.
119
Pepys, op. cit.. May 12, 1669.
audience.
It was the proscenium with its doors and balconies
which were the real and concrete aids to the dramatic ac-
120
tion. The proscenium of the Restoration theatre flanked
the forestage, the principal acting area. The stage itself
was a scenic area behind. It was the proscenium which pro
vided the acting accessories which had been so essential to
the Elizabethan theatre— entrances to the stage and the
121
means of interplaying on different levels. There were
as many as six proscenium doors, three in a row on either
side of the forestage. The doors had knockers and bells
and could be locked if needed. They were the usual means
of entrance for an actor to the stage. Also, an actor might
leave by one door, thus leaving one room and enter the
neighboring door, on the same stage, which then represented
another room.
Such then was the theatre which Wren fashioned for
the Restoration period— a blend of the Elizabethan open-air
theatre and the Court-masque spectacle, housed in a building
which took its shape from a tennis court— and, which, with
modifications, is our theatre today.
120 121
Hartnoll, op. cit., p. 635. Ibid.
CHAPTER III
ENGLISH RESTORATION HEROIC TRAGEDY
Definition
The term, Heroic Tragedy, has been applied to many
plays which differ from each other in form or in sentiment.
But, in spite of the fact that heroic plays defy all efforts
to place them within the bounds of a rigid definition, they
approximate a certain recognizable type. Consequently, in
order to determine the origin and trace the development of
the heroic play, it is necessary to form an accurate concep
tion of this type of play rather than to try to confine all
heroic plays within the limits of a rigid definition.
One area of disagreement among scholars is whether
or not rhyme is a distinguishing feature of heroic plays.
Cecil Deane contends that the heroic couplet and heroic
sentiment are tied together very closely.
. . . we may note that the closeness of the affinity
which existed between the heroic couplet and heroic
sentiment is shown by the fact that though during
90
91
the whole period there were many heroic plays in blank
verse, there were very few serious plays in rhyme
which were non-heroic.^
Lewis Chase agrees with Deane. ". . . The presence
of the heroic couplet has always been deemed, from Dryden's
notes to the most recent authorities, the sine qua non of an
heroic play"^
But, B. J. Pendlebury, citing Chase, said:
"The Rhymed Tragedy of the Restoration" is a
convenient and tempting definition, but is too narrow,
since it would exclude Dryden's "Cleomenes" and
"Don Sebastian" e.g., while at the same time it is
inadequate as a description of the heroic play, since
it fails to suggest its essentially epic quality and
the tone of its sentiment.3
Bonamy Dobree (". . . it is all "heroic" whether written in
4
rhymed couplets or not") and Allardyce Nicoll (". . . rimed
5
couplets do not mark out plays as being heroic . . .")
agree that rhymed couplets are not a distinguishing mark of
Heroic Tragedy.
^Cecil V. Deane, Dramatic Theory and the Rhymed
Heroic Play (London: Oxford University Press, 1931),
p. 181.
2
Chase, The English Heroic Play, pp. 2-3.
3Pendlebury, Dryden's Heroic Plays, pp. 1-2.
4
Bonamy Dobree, Restoration Tragedy 1660-1720
(Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1929), p. 13.
5
Nicoll, A History of Restoration Drama 1660-1700,
p. 90.
92
The terra "tragedy" was often applied to these heroic
plays, even by the authors; but most of the heroic plays
were not tragic in either the Aristotelian sense or in the
modern sense. While many of the plays imitated a great and
serious action, and many persons were slain, the ending was
often happy, the virtuous hero having gained his reward here
and now. Even in the plays which end unhappily the hero
was intended to excite admiration for his virtues rather
than awe and pity for his fate. Greek tragedy was written
for a people who believed that the gods had human failings
and that all men were subject to the whims of the gods and
brooding Fate. The seventeenth-century playwright was faced
with the problem of imposing Aristotle's rules on a Chris
tian drama, a virtually impossible task, as Saint-Evremond
pointed out.
The spirit of our religion is directly opposite
to that of tragedy. The humility and patience of our
saints carry too direct an opposition to those heroical
virtues that are so necessary for the theatre. . . .
in our heroes to choose the principal actions which
we may believe possible as human, and which may cause
admiration in us, as being rare and of an elevated
character. In a word, we should have nothing but what
is great, yet still let it be human.6
g
Charles Saint-Evremond, "Of Ancient and Modern Tragedy"
(1672), in Barret H. Clark, European Theories of the Drama
(New York: Crown Publishers, Inc., 1947), pp. 164-165.
93
But, if the Christian religion was opposed to the
spirit of Greek tragedy with its anthropomorphic gods, it
had offered some new concepts to a world of vengeance and
personal justice: love, mercy, and service. Mercy and
service were the basis of the medieval knight's creed but
these were not characteristics to excite admiration in the
Restoration theatre audience. However, romantic love, an
outgrowth of the system of knighthood, was of great interest
to that audience and provided the necessary emotion of
Restoration Heroic Tragedy.
We were obliged to mingle somewhat of love in
the new tragedy, the better to remove those black ideas
which the ancient tragedy caused in us by superstition
and terror. And in truth there is no passion that more
excites us to everything that is noble and generous than
a virtuous love. . . ^
There was never any question about the importance
of love in the "new tragedy"; the solution to the hero's
love problem was the predominant problem of all heroic plays.
John Dryden wrote the best of the Heroic Tragedies and he
wrote them according to a theory; a theory which evolved
from that of Davenant, and from his study of the classics.
He stated his theory in the essays prefixed to his plays, and
his plays are evidence that he wrote them according to that
7
Ibid., p. 166.
94
theory. In his essay, "Of Heroick Plays," which was pre
fixed to The Conquest of Granada, he gave the definition
of an heroic play: . .an Heroick Play ought to be an
imitation in little of an Heroick Poem; and consequently,
g
that Love and Valour ought to be the subject of it."
In his definition, Dryden gave, not only the essen
tial qualities of heroic plays, but also, their relation to
other forms of literature. In going to the epic poem for
the character of his hero, Dryden avoided many of the com
plications of applying the rules of Greek tragedy to his
heroic plays. He created a hero to be admired— an epic
hero.
. . . in a Tragedy or an Epique Poem, the Hero of
the Piece must be advanc'd foremost to the view of
the Reader or Spectator; He must out-shine the rest
of all the Characters; He must appear the Prince
of them, like the Sun in the Copernican System,
encompass'd with the less noble Planets. Because
the Hero is the Centre of the main Action; all the
Lines from the Circumference tends to him alone:
He is the chief object of Pity in the Drama and of
Admiration in the Epique Poem.9
g
John Dryden, "Of Heroick Plays, An Essay," preface
to The Conquest of Granada (London: Printed by T. N. for
Henry Herringman, and are to be sold at the Anchor in the
Lower Walk of the New Exchage [sic], 1673).
9
John Dryden, "A Parallel betwixt Painting and
Poetry," a preface to Charles A. DuFresnoy, The Art of
Painting (London; printed by J. Heptinstall for W. Rogers,
at the Sun against St. Dunstan's Church in Fleetstreet,
1695), p. xli.
95
Thus did Dryden distinguish between the purpose of
tragedy and of the epic poem. When one accepts the fact
that the heroic play was "an imitation of an Heroick Poem
. . ." one can more easily understand why the plot appears
so complicated. The playwright did not consider the plot
the unifying force of the play; rather, he considered the
hero the unifying force and each of the various actions were
construed to demonstrate an admirable quality of the hero.
In the dedicatory letter to the Duke of York of The Conquest
of Granada. Dryden stated that the purpose of the hero of
the heroic play was to excite admiration.
Heroic poesy has always been sacred to Princes,
and to Heroes. . . . The feign'd Heroe inflames the
true: and the dead Vertue animates the living. Since,
therefore, the World is govern'd by precept and
Example; and both these can onely have influence from
those persons who are above us, that kind of Poesie,
which excites to Vertue, the greatest Men, is of the
greatest use to humane kind.^O
There were difficulties in transposing the epic into
dramatic form. In the first place, the epic hero's victo
ries over monsters, sirens and the elements were often
allegorical, representing moral victories. The hero of
Heroic Tragedy was forced to prove himself on the human
^John Dryden, "Dedication Letter to the Duke of
York," The Conquest of Granada.
96
level with the result that his victories were those of
physical courage, proven in wars and duels. Secondly, the
epic hero1s trials were conducted over a long period of
time, sometimes a lifetime, and took him on journeys over
land and sea. The hero of Heroic Tragedy was subject to
the laws of the drama: his exploits, while seldom conform
ing rigidly to the rules of time and place, were confined to
a shorter period of time and many fewer places than were
the exploits of the epic hero.
The hero of Restoration Heroic Tragedy was not a
god or semi-god, but a man, subject to human trials, or such
a hero as Sir William Davenant had created in his heroic
poem, "Gondibert." Abraham Cowley wrote the following
lines regarding Davenant's poem:
Methinks Heroick Poesie, till now
Like some fantastick Fariy land did show;
God, Devils, Nymphs, Witches, & Giants race,
And all but man in man's best work had place.
Thou like some worthy Knight, with sacred Arms
Does drive the Monsters thence, and end the Charms;
Instead of those does Men and manners plant,
The things which that rich soil did chiefly want.
But even thy Mortals do their Gods excell. ^
Taught by thy Muse to Fight and Love so well.
Abraham Cowley, "To Sir William D'Avenant," from
Discourse Upon Gondibert (A Paris: Chez Matthieu Guillemot,
rue Saint Jaques au coin de la reu de la Parcheminerie, a
l'Enseigne de la Bibliotheque, 1650).
97
Consequently, the hero of Restoration Heroic
Tragedy, created in the image of the epic hero, fought and
loved his way through five acts, more or less governed by
the classical rules of unity of time and place. While the
character of this highborn hero was in tune with the classi
cal tradition, the love for which he fought and bled was
born in the Christian tradition and was a direct descendent
of the Platonic Love Cult plays of the Court of Charles I.
The heroic play, then, was a special form of trage
dy, more closely related to the epic poem than to tragedy
in its usual sense. Its theme was love and honor; the hero
was the unifying force of the play; the character of the
hero was predominantly classical rather than Christian; the
hero was a nobly-born human being, and not a god or semi
god; the love theme was based on the Platonic Love Cult
plays of Charles I's court and showed a great deal of Chris
tian influence. Furthermore, the Heroic Tragedies were
court drama and propaganda plays; they were written to exalt
kingship and to glorify the rightness of the restoration.
How well did the Heroic Tragedies succeed with the
audience of their time? For a period of approximately
twenty years they were highly successful. But, by 1689
Dryden wrote:
98
. . . that Love and Honour (the mistaken Topicks of
Tragedy) were quite worn out. . . . and I am still
condemn'd to dig in those exhausted M i n e s . 12
Saint-Evremond criticized the playwrights' mishand
ling of the love theme as early as 1672.
. . . But to confess the truth, our authors have made
as ill use of this noble passion as the Ancients did
of their fear and pity; for if we except eight or ten
plays where its impulses have been managed to great
advantage, we have no tragedies in which both lovers
and love are not equally injured.13
By the turn of the century the middle-class merchants
had gained both economic and political strength and were
attending the theatre in greater numbers and the drama began
to reflect middle-class virtues, which were predominantly
Christian. Romantic love was a very important part of these
plays but it assumed a middle-class character. The great
change was in the character of the hero, whose honor was
more in tune with the good Christian; the qualities of mercy
and service came into prominence.
The Origin and Development of Heroic Tragedy
According to Dryden, Sir William Davenant was the
John Dryden, "Preface" Don Sebastian (1st ed.;
London: Printed for Fo. Hindmarsh, at the Golden Ball in
Cornhill, 1690) .
Saint-Evremond, loc. cit.
99
first English writer of heroic plays.
For Heroick Plays . . . the first light we had
of them on the English Theatre was from the late Sir
William D'Avenant: . . .^
Poet laureate under both Charles I and Charles II, Davenant
was the most important link between the drama of both
courts. He had written Platonic Love Cult plays on command
of Henrietta Maria; he had worked with Inigo Jones, famous
stage designer for Court Masques and Court Drama and with
Jones' pupil and successor, John Webb. Charles I granted
Davenant a patent in 1639 to erect "a Theatre or Playhouse,
with necessary tiring and retiring rooms, and other places
convenient, . . . wherein plays, musical entertainments,
scenes, or other like presentments may be presented."
Davenant claimed his patent at the Restoration of Charles
II.
During the Commonwealth he worked toward the reopen
ing of the theatres by presenting entertainment which would
be acceptable to both the audience and the Puritan rulers.
. . . it being forbidden him in the Rebellious times
to act Tragedies and Comedies, because they contain'd
some matter of Scandal to those good people, who could
more easily dispossess their lawful Sovereign, than
endure a wanton jest; he was forc'd to turn his
thoughts another way: and to introduce the examples of
14
Dryden, "Of Heroick Plays, An Essay."
100
Moral Vertue, writ in verse, and perform'd in
Recitative Musique. The Original of this Musick,
and of the Scenes which adorn'd his work, he had
from the Italian Opera's: but he heighten'd his
Characters (as I may probably imagine) from the
examples of Corneille and some French Poets. In this
condition did this part of Poetry remain at His
Majesties return.15
Someway, Davenant managed to obtain governmental
approval for "operas" and "moral representations." On
Friday, May 23, 1656, Davenant presented The First Days
Entertainment at Rutland House in a theater built in his
own home.
. . . This entertainment was patterned after the
entertainments by which the royal family was wont
to be entertained at the houses of the nobility and
in the royal palaces until the popularity of the more
luxurious masque had caused it gradually to be super
seded. This particular entertainment consisted of a
prologue, two "declamations" in the nature of debates,
and an epilogue, with music duly interspersed
throughout.
The same year, Davenant, with the aid of John Webb
as scenic designer, presented The Siege of Rhodes.
. . . The origin of the English heroic play and of
the English opera was simultaneous. The "Seige of
Rhodes" has been called, and with good reason, the
first heroic play; and with reason, also, it has
been called the first English opera. That is not
16
Lily B. Campbell, Scenes and Machines on the En
glish Stage During the Renaissance. A Classical Revival
(New York: Barnes and Noble, Inc., 1960), p. 219.
101
to say that it is completely one or the other; but
toward both it stands. . . .^
From Dryden to modern times, scholars have agreed
with Chase that Davenant was the originator of heroic plays,
and that the first of this type of opera-play was The Seige
of Rhodes. While Davenant's heroic play was new to the
English stage, its component parts could be traced directly
to the Court drama of Charles I. The love and honor theme
could be traced to the Platonic Love Cult plays; the staging
was borrowed from the court masques: . . the stage lay
18
entirely back of the proscenium by which it was framed."
Other innovations borrowed from the court masques were the
use of a curtain and movable scenery. Furthermore,
Davenant has been credited with bringing the first woman to
the English stage in The Seige of Rhodes, but even this was
not new, for aristocratic women had taken part in the court
masques as early as the time of James I.
As the Commonwealth government became more disinte
grated Davenant grew more confident, and, in 1658, he pre
sented, in the Cockpit Theatre in Drury Lane, The Cruelty of
the Spaniards in Peru: exprest by Instrumental! and Vocall
17
Chase, op. cit.. pp. 7-8.
18
Campbell, op. cit.. p. 223.
102
Musick. and by the Art of perspective in Scenes, etc. For
his fourth opera Davenant chose another theme which he hoped
would appeal to both Puritan and Cavalier, The History of
Sir Francis Drake: exprest by Instrumental!, and Vocall
Music, and by the Art of Perspective in Scenes. John Evelyn
recognized the operas of Davenant as having been modelled
after the Italian opera.
May 5, 1659— I went to visite my Brother in London,
and next day to see a new opera, after ye Italian way,
in recitative music and sceanes, much inferior to ye
Italian composure and magnificence; but it was prodi
gious that in a time of such publiq consternation such
a vanity should be kept up or permitted.^
In his opera Davenant made use of all the devices
he had learned through his experience as the writer of court
drama under Charles I: they were masque-like in the use of
scenery and machinery; their theme was love and honor. The
concept of honor used could be traced back to the classical
tradition but the concept of love grew from Medieval and
Renaissance concepts of love and was immediately related to
the romantic Platonic Love plays of the court of Charles I,
written on the command of his Queen, Henrietta Maria.
French-born Henrietta Maria was fond of the theatre
and liked to take part in the masques. She said the
19
Evelyn, Diary of John Evelyn. Vol. II.
103
participation helped to improve her English. She also
wanted her son, Prince Charles, to take part in them.
. . . A masque called The King and Queen1s Entertain
ment at Richmond, after their departure from Oxford,
was represented before their Majesties in 1634. The
occasion of this masque was the Queen's desire to see
Prince Charles dance in it.20
Thus, Charles II, at a very early age, was intro
duced to the type of dramatic entertainment which reached
its highest level during his reign in the form of Heroic
Tragedy.
Types of Restoration Heroic Tragedy
Restoration Heroic Tragedy falls into three main
divisions: the history plays such as those of Roger Boyle,
Earl of Orrery; the masque-like blood and thunder plays
exemplified by the plays of Elkanah Settle; and the
rantanesque, classical plays written by Dryden.
Roger Boyle, Earl of Orrery (1621-1679), was one of
the first writers of Heroic Tragedy. His first performed
play, Henry V (1664), used the romantic love versus friend
ship theme. Two friends, Henry and Owen Tudor, were in love
with the same French princess and each remained loyal to
20
John K. Chapman (ed.), History of Royal Dramatic
Entertainments (London: Published by John Mitchell, Old
Bond Street, n.d.), p. 24.
104
the other. Additional plays be Orrery include The General
which followed Henry V by approximately six weeks; Mustapha,
his most successful play, and Tryphon. his last play.
Sir Robert Howard, brother-in-law of John Dryden,
wrote five plays, of which two were comedies and three were
tragedies. In collaboration with Dryden, he wrote one of
the most successful Heroic Tragedies, The Indian Queen.
His next play, The Vestal virgin, was a love and honor play
but was unusual in that it had two last acts, one of which
closed the play in an excess of blood and horror. The Great
Favourite. produced in 1668, was written "to reproach our
21
King with his mistresses." Howard wrote it partly in
blank verse and partly in heroic couplets.
Other successful Heroic Tragedies were written by
Tom Porter, The Villain; Sir Robert Stapylton, The Slighted
Maid and The Stepmother; and Sir William Killigrew, brother
of the Drury Lane manager, Selindra.
One of the most prolific writers of the period was
Elkanah Settle (1648-1724) . The Empress of Morocco (1673)
was his most successful play and aroused the jealousy of
his contemporary playwrights, including Dryden who launched
21
Pepys, op. cit.. February 20, 1668.
105
a bitter attack on Settle. In spite of Dryden's bitter
criticism, The Empress of Morocco set the example for an
22
increased use of the spectacular in Heroic Tragedies.
Settle wrote twenty-one plays; one was not produced
and there is a question as to whether one other one was
produced. Most of those produced were Heroic Tragedies
closely related to the Masques in the use of machinery,
song and dance. One of Settle's plays, The Female Prelate,
written during the national fever of the Popish Plot, was a
masterpiece of tastelessness: the story of an immoral
woman who masqueraded as a priest and eventually became the
Pope.
John Dryden was the most famous author of Heroic
Tragedies. Although his claim to fame does not rest on his
plays alone, he did write some of the best plays of this
type. Don Sebastian (1690) and Cleomenes (1692), written
out of financial necessity after he had lost his place as
poet laureate, were noteworthy as examples of a changing
view of the conduct and character of royalty. They were
about as democratic in character as it was possible for
Dryden to be. (Dryden might change his religious views but
F. C. Brown, Elkanah Settle: His Life and Works
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1910), p. 13.
106
his political view remained royalist.) Both plays were
tragedies.
It was Dryden who perfected the heroic couplet and
raised Heroic Tragedy to its highest level. His best
Heroic Tragedy, written in rhyme, was The Conquest of
Granada (1670).
But by 1675 when he wrote Aurenq-Zebe. Dryden was
tired of the heroic couplet.
Our author . . . to confess a truth, (though out of
time)
Grows weary of his long-lov'd Mistris, Rhyme.
Passion's too fierce to be in Fetters bound,
And Nature flies him like Enchanted Ground.
What Verse can do, he has perform'd in this,
Which he presumes the most correct of his:
But spite of all his pride a secret shame,
Invades his breast at Shakespeare's sacred name:
Aw'd when he hears his God-like Romans rage,
He, in a just despair, would quit the Stage.
And to an Age less polish'd, more unskill'd,
Does, with disdain the foremost Honours yield.
As with the greater Dead he dares not strive,
He wou'd not match his Verse with those who live:
Let him retire, betwixt two Ages cast,
The first of this, and hindmost of the last.
In his next tragedy, All for Love (1677), Dryden
deserted the heroic couplet for blank verse. He also
deserted Heroic Tragedy in All for Love. Eugene M. Waith,
23
John Dryden, Aurenq-Zebe. "The Prologue" (1st ed.;
London: Printed by T. N. for Henry Herringman, at the
Anchor in the Lower Walk of the New Exchange, 1676) .
107
in his very fine study, The Herculean Hero, classified
Anthony as a Herculean hero.
. . . In three important plays of Dryden1s,however,
the Herculean hero is presented fully and brilliantly
. . . The Conquest of Granada. Aurenq-Zebe, and All
for Love. . . . The protagonists of these plays are
prime examples of the Herculean hero's self-reliance
and the determination to guard his own integrity at
whatever cost.24
All for Love was the story of the death of Anthony.
His career as a conquering general was behind him at the
opening of the play; there were no military victories for
Anthony during the play. Furthermore, his love for Cleo
patra was not a pure love which made him a better person
for having loved, but was an adulterous love which led to
his disgrace and death
Each of the three plays chosen for this study repre
sents one of the three types of Heroic Tragedy: Henry V .
the first of its type of Heroic Tragedy written and staged
after the Restoration, represents the history play; The Em
press of Morocco, presented almost ten years after Henry V .
represents the masque-like type of Heroic Tragedy; The Con
quest of Granada represents the best of the Heroic Trage
dies. They were written in heroic couplets.
24
Waith, The Herculean Hero, pp. 151-152.
CHAPTER IV
CONCEPTS OF HONOR IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
This Rare thing Honor, . . . is so excellent,
and worthy the pursuite of all men; that the Ancients
held it unvaluable, and not within the compasse of
any rate or price; and that it was to be acquired and
sought of all men; and once attained, to be preferred
before all earthly things how accomplisht soever: for
it is the reward of vertue, the witnesse of mans ex
cel lencie, and the only friend and companion, that
walketh hand in hand with honestie.^
There is no question that the seventeenth-century
Englishman considered honor an "excellent" pursuit. One
finds references to honor and how it might be achieved in
the character and courtesy books, in the drama and even in
the sermons of that time. Thomas Hobbes devoted an entire
section of the Leviathan to defining honor. The literature
of the period reveals that there were two codes of honor:
one based on Christian concepts and one based on the teach
ings of the "Ancients."
Francis Markham, The Booke of Honor (London:
printed by Augustine Matthewes, and John Norton, 1625),
p. 1.
108
109
This literature, consisting of plays, poems, letters
and romances, was written by a coterie of upper class
authors. If they were not of the upper class themselves,
at least they wrote for this group. The views of the rising
middle class are contained, for the most part, in the ser
mons and pamphlets where criticisms of aristocratic morals
and concepts of honor are found. It is not surprising that
this criticism reached its height just prior to the Civil
War.
A more positive statement of middle class morals and
the Christian code of honor may be found in the conduct and
character books of the seventeenth century. They reveal
a steadily growing Christian influence on the meaning of
the term "honor" from the first part of the century to the
last part. They were written for "gentlemen" of the wealthy
land-owning gentry before the Civil War but, after the
Restoration, included some of the wealthy city-living mer
chants. (The Puritan movement found strong support in this
group of frugal businessmen.)
The code of honor used in the drama remained fairly
consistent, at least through the reign of Charles II.
"Honor" was the key term in Restoration Heroic Tragedy. The
hero's code of honor gave him his character, indicated his
110
social status and revealed his motivations for action.
Since the only theatres in London during the Restoration
Period were under royal patronage the code of honor used in
the tragedies produced in these theatres was that of the
nobility and the upperclass. The playwright's task was to
reinstate the code of honor of the restored monarchy.
The Restoration was a social, as well as a political,
reaction. It restored the old social order, returning lords
and gentry, lawyers and clergy to their pre-war positions.
Attempts were made to establish a clear and permanent divi-
2
sion between classes "such as prevailed in France." The
court writer1s duty was to uphold the rightness of the
restoration, the triumph of right over wrong. The heroic
poet was obligated "to celebrate the glorious virtues of his
sovereign and his court, and to anathematize the cursed
brood of hypocrites and rebels. . . . Heroic virtue has not
3
longer to be defined but exhibited."
The Heroic Tragedy was one of the most important
literary forms for the exhibition of heroic virtue during
2
H. D. Traill and J. S. Mann, Social England (1st
ed.; London: Cassell and Company, Ltd., 1895; ill. ed.,
1903), IV, 648.
3
Ruth Nevo, The Dial of Virtue (Princeton, N. J.:
Princeton University Press, 1963), p. 146.
Ill
the English Restoration period. Its purpose was to exalt
an aristocratic form of government and its social ideals and
since it was an outgrowth of court drama— whether influenced
primarily by the English court drama or the French is not
the question here— it was aristocratic drama.
During the Middle Ages drama had been directed pri
marily to all the people in order to help them understand a
Bible they could not read. Christian drama began in the
church with the liturgical drama, developed into the mystery
and morality plays and grew out of the church to be performed
on pageant wagons and open platform stages.
The most important aspect of the drama of the
Italian Renaissance period was that it was aristocratic. it
was born in the palaces and the academies of princes and
dukes and they built theatres to house it. Not since clas
sical times had there been a large stage designed to repre
sent a single unified place. Furthermore, the Renaissance
theatre was a theatre of illusion and spectacle. For the
first time in the European theatre the scene was designed
to create a complete illusion. The principle of perspective,
used by fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Italian painters,
became the fundamental principle of the Renaissance court
stage. Machines were devised to add to the visual
112
4
delights. Other additions included artificial lighting,
the use of a front curtain, and the proscenium arch.
Italian Renaissance drama was most often used as
part of an elaborate celebration of an important event, such
as a wedding, birth of a child, betrothal or the accession
of a prince. The spectators of the Italian Renaissance
drama were aristocrats, seated, for the major social event,
according to rank. The highest ranking member of the audi
ence was the prince. His unique importance in the court
gave him the seat at the point from which the perspective
design was focused and his seat became the center around
5
which both the audience and the performance were planned.
The political and social life of the realm also centered in
the prince or duke and this aristocratic way of life was
reflected in the drama.
Pagan-humanist theory likewise held that the
monarch deserved the highest esteem since monarchy
and aristocracy were the two forms of government
which received the fullest approval of the pagan
philosophers. According to the ideal theory of
pagan-humanist philosophy, the prince excelled in
virtue and valor to the same extent as he was pre
eminent in social rank. . . . Hence he should be
4
George R. Kernodle, "General Introduction," The
Renaissance Stage, ed. Barnard Hewitt (Coral Gables,
Florida: University of Miami Press, 1958), pp. 9-13.
5
Ibid., p. 3.
113
the first to be admitted to that select circle of
heroes and demigods who surmount all men in virtue.
The classical and Christian traditions were in close
agreement regarding the place of the prince or the king in
the social, political and religious order. The Christian
theory held that the king was God's representative on earth.
But the two theories differed sharply on the part the people
played in their own government. The Christian belief as ex
emplified by the English Puritan, held to a more democratic
form of government while the classical position considered
democracy the worst form of government outside of tyranny.
Neither Plato nor Aristotle believed the masses capable of
self-government.
Restoration Heroic Tragedy reflected the classical
point of view. In fact, some of the plays were pure royal
ist propaganda. Dryden expressed contempt for the common
people in almost all of his plays. In The Conquest of
Granada he referred to the dullness of the crowd in the
words which Almansor used to disperse the crowd: ". . .
7
Hence, you unthinking crowd." This line was immediately
g
Watson, Shakespeare and the Renaissance Concept of
Honor. p. 84.
7
The Conquest of Granada. Part I.I.1.285.
114
followed by a stage direction, "The Common People go off on
both parties." Almansor continued:
Empire, thou poor and despicable thing, g
When such as these make or unmake a King.
Later in the play Almansor spoke of "the dull crowd, which
9
every King does lead, ..." and Abenamar damned the common
people: "... blind opinion does their reason sway . .
10
. " In one scene Dryden stated his royalist views through
the characters of Boabdelin, Zulema and Abenamar:
Boabdelin:
See what the many-headed Beast demands.—
Curst is that King, whose Honour's in their hands.
In Senates, either they too slowly grant,
Or saucily refuse to aid my want:
And when their thrift has ruin'd me in War,
They call their insolence my want of Care.
Abenamar:
Curst be their Leaders, who that Rage foment;
And vail, with publick good, their discontent:
They keep the People's Purses in their hands,
And Hector Kings to grant their wild demands,
But to each Lure a Court throws out, descend;
And prey on those they promis'd to defend.
Zulema:
Those Kings who to their wild demands consent,
Teach others the same way to discontent.
Freedom in subjects is not; nor can be,
Q
Ibid.. Part I, I.i.286-287.
9
Ibid.. Part I, IV.ii.1661.
10Ibid.. Part II, I.ii.222.
115
But still to please 'em, we must call 'em free.
Propriety which they their Idol make,
Or Law, or Law's Interpreters can shake.
Abenamar:
The name of Common-wealth is popular;
But their the People their own Tyrants are.
Boabdelin:
But Kings who rule with limited Command
Have Players Sceptres put into their hand.
Power has no balance, one side still weighs down;
And either hoists the Common-wealth or crown.
And those "Who think to set the Skale more right,
By various turnings but disturb the weight.
Abenamar:
While People tug for Freedom, Kings for Pow'r,
Both sink beneath some foreign Conqueror:
Then Subjects find too late they were unjust, ^
And want that pow'r of Kings they durst not trust.
Dryden managed to pack the arguments for the clas
sical concept of government into the short scene— the wisdom
of unlimited power for the king and the folly of the dull
crowd's tugging for more say in their own government.
Dryden stated his royalist views explicitly but the same
point of view was implicit in all Restoration plays.
Furthermore, it was rare for a lower class person
to appear as a character in an Heroic Tragedy, and, when one
did, he was placed in a menial position, or was treated as
an object of scorn or ridicule. Only high-born persons were
i:LIbid. . Part II, I. ii. 181-210.
116
considered seriously. The hero of Restoration Heroic
Tragedy was a nobly born leader whose deeds of valor and
whose battle to bring the powerful emotion, love, under the
control of reason, dominated the play. He was a descendant
of the ideal man as set forth by Aristotle and Plato whose
emotions were controlled by reason. His code of honor was
rooted in the classical tradition, too.
The confident^ all-conquering, nobly born hero was
not an innovation in English Restoration Heroic Tragedy.
Christopher Marlowe, late in the sixteenth century, had
created such a hero in Tamburlaine. But the most immediate
link to the past was the love and honor plays of Davenant.
Davenant succeeded Jonson as poet laureate under Charles I
and, after the Restoration, served Charles II in the same
capacity. As a court writer, he wrote platonic love plays
on command of Henrietta Maria, Charles I's consort, as well
as the popular Masques in which the King, Queen and members
of the Court took part.
The Masques, popular in the courts of James I and
Charles I, were modeled after the Italian court drama. They
were state affairs, given once for some special occasion or
to entertain and impress foreign diplomats. The English
Masque was the architect's delight with its machines and
117
lavish scenery. These elaborate, expensive spectacles were
based on classical subjects and glorified royalty, not only
through the spoken word, but in the songs and dances. The
Heroic Tragedies were similar in their use of spectacle,
song and dance, and emphasis on classical subjects.
Royalty and the aristocrats who sponsored these
Masques were following the classical code of honor when they
strove for the ultimate in "magnificence." The people who
had to pay for these expensive displays denounced the ex
travagance, quietly at first but eventually from the pulpit
and then in pamphlets and books. Both groups were following
a code of honor.
Honor inspired men to "an earnest desire of ex-
cellencie" whether it was Christian or classical honor. The
difference between the two codes of honor lay in the way
each defined "excellencie."
. . . The men of the sixteenth century had available
to them two integrated systems of ethics, two separate
ideologies, which, as it turned out, were maintained
almost on equal footing. If it was a sacred duty to
fulfill one's religious obligations, it was also a
sacred duty to fulfill the ethical obligations which
stemmed from the code of honor. . . .12 jn the Renais
sance, honor, basically a pagan idea, has become
almost a religion. . . .13
12
Watson, op. cit.. p. 3.
13 „
Ibid.. p. 4.
118
The courtesy and character books of the seventeenth
century reveal the awareness of both traditions, also.
Toward the end of the century the emphasis was increasingly
on Christian virtues but this emphasis was apparent in the
drama later than in the courtesy books. Serious drama was
slower to yield to the Christian influence than comedy and
the Restoration Heroic Tragedy clung to the classical con
cept of honor.
C. L. Barber in tracing the use of the word "honor"
in the plays of the seventeenth century defended his use of
the drama for the purpose of "illuminating some of the
14
cultural changes that took place during the century . .
. . . the drama was an important medium, and therefore
attracted writers who can reasonably claim to speak
for the culture of their age, or at any rate for an
important section of it. . . . It is clear that, how
ever sectional the drama may have become during the
century, its attitudes cannot simply be dismissed as
not having been held by anybody of importance.15
Barber examined 127 plays from the first half of the
century (1591-1640) and 79 from the last half (1661-1700).
In the 127 plays from the first half of the century he
found "honor" used 2584 times; the 79 plays of the last half
14
Barber, The Idea of Honour in the English Drama.
p. 11.
15 ...
Ibid., p. 15.
119
of the century contained 2263 instances of the use of the
word. He used the definitions of honor pertinent to the
seventeenth century found in James Murray's A New English
16
Dictionary and gave each definition a symbol and provided
tables to show the number of examples he found in the come
dies and tragedies for each decade. Following are the
definitions with the symbol he used for each:
C = chastity
D = distinction, eminence
E = esteem, veneration
K = the code of honour (considered as a set of laws)
L = legal meaning "a seigniory of several manors
held under one baron or lord paramount"
M = something conferred or done as a mark or token
of respect or distinction (including the special
usages "praise" and a "bow, obeisance, curtesey")
H = honourableness of character, honourable behavior
0 = use in oaths and asserverations
P = high position, rank, high birth
R = reputation
Rc = reputation for chastity
RcC= equivocal RH
S - a source or cause of honour, something or some
body that does honour (to)
T = title of rank
U = unclassified
W = word of honour, statement or promise made on one's
honour
Y = respectful form of address or reference "your
honour"
Barber reduced K, the code of honor, into the
16
James A. H. Murray (ed.), A New English Diction
ary on Historical Principles (Oxford; At the Clarendon
Press, 1901).
120
following laws:
1. Sensitivity to injury and insult. Honour demands
that a gentleman shall revenge wrongs and insults
to himself or his family. This often means
challenging and fighting the wronger, though some
times circumstances dictate secret revenge, e.g.,
by murder.
2. Not tolerating a rival in love. Especially in the
Restoration period, the very fact of being a rival
is sometimes considered sufficient grounds for a
challenge and the dearest friends will fight one
another when they find that thqrlove the same
woman.
3. Observing the rules of duelling.
4. Not being outwitted, jilted, or in other ways made
to lose face.
5. insisting on one's rights. Honour is not meek.
6. High rank. The holding of high rank or office
in itself brings R and H can include ambition for
such rank.
7. Ostentation.
8. Not having one's authority flouted.
9. Making good marriages. R is gained by making
socially advantageous marriages for oneself or one's
relatives and is lost by marrying below one's
station.
10. Not performing menial tasks.
11. Reflected R. A gentleman can lose R through the
behavior of others, especially his relatives,
although he himself is in no way to blame.1?
This was the code of honor accepted by the English
upper class for whom the plays were written during the
17
Barber, op. cit., pp. 140-141.
121
seventeenth century. As Barber pointed out "there were two
codes of conduct, the general moral code and the gentleman's
18
code of honour."
The universally accepted moral code in seventeenth-
century England was a Christian one, for the Christian reli
gion with its scale of values and way of life, even in such
a philosophical century, was the dominant force.
Barber found the seventeenth-century concept of
Christian virtue (V) to consist of the following
"excellencies":
1. Telling the truth.
2. Keeping promises and oaths. Oath-breaking and
promise-breaking are forbidden by honour.
3. Not withdrawing from a marriage contract.
4. Obedience to civil governors. Honour forbids
treason and rebellion.
5. Filial piety. Honour demands obedience to
parents.
6. Not committing suicide.
7. Honesty. A gentleman should not steal or cheat,
or indulge in sharp financial practices. He
should pay his debts.
8. Not conniving at or encouraging unchastity.
9. Sexual continence.
10. Not being envious.
11. Not being ungrateful, especially to benefactors.
18Ibid., p. 137.
122
12. Piety.
13. Justice. Not indulging in or conniving at bribery
and corruption, not perverting justice.
14. Occasionally, the gentler Christian virtues are
represented as demanded by honour or as bringing
honour: mercy and forgiveness, peacemaking,
selflessness, humility.
The gentleman's code of honor and the Christian de
mands of virtue were, in some areas, diametrically opposed.
The code of Christian virtue (V) carried an inference of
responsibility and consideration for others, i.e., "obedi
ence to parents," "not being ungrateful," "not perverting
justice" and "obedience to civil governors" as well as "not
withdrawing from a marriage contract." These obligations
touched on all areas of a man's life: obligations to par
ents, to betrothed, to his government and to his neighbor.
The gentleman's code of honor, on the other hand, was de
signed for the individual— as though the gentleman were the
sun and all other persons revolved around him as the plan
ets. In Dryden's words: ". . .He must out-shine the rest
of all the Characters; He must appear the prince of them,
like the Sun in the Copernican System, encompass'd with the
20
less noble Planets. ..."
19Ibid.. pp. 143-144.
20
Dryden, "A Parallel betwixt Painting and poetry,"
p. xli.
123
Barber's study revealed what was happening in the
drama of seventeenth-century England with regard to the code
of honor. In contrast to the drama, the character and con
duct books of the seventeenth century reveal an increasing
tendency to stress the importance of the Englishman's being
of service to his fellowman along with other Christian
ideals.
In his study of "Changing Ideals in Seventeenth-
Century England," W. Lee Ustick traced the impact of
Christianity upon the classical-oriented concept of the
gentleman. Renaissance writers went to Plato, Aristotle
and Cicero in order to ascertain man's place in society.
They went to Aristotle, Cicero, Seneca, Plutarch and
Quintilian to determine the ideals for man's character and
his education. As Ustick pointed out, the two most impor
tant influences, from the Renaissance to the Scientific
Age, on education and the development of character, were
the tradition of the Magnanimous Man as characterized by
Aristotle and the Stoic tradition which came down through
21
Epictetus and Seneca.
21
W. Lee Ustick, "Changing Ideals in Seventeenth-
Century England," Modern Philology, XXX (November, 1932),
147-148.
124
Aristotle's Magnanimous Man possessed the following
characteristics:
1. Courage 6. Magnificence
2. Temperance 7. Gentleness
3. Liberality 8. Prudence
4. Justice 9. W i s d o m 2 2
5. Magnanimity
Plato, in The Republic, set forth the cardinal
virtues of a city-state and an individual as: wisdom,
temperance, courage and justice. While Plato was primarily
interested in having the inhabitants of a city-state fit
into a proper place in order to keep the machinery of gov
ernment running smoothly, there was implicit in his defini
tion of justice an idea of education of the individual. He
defined justice for the city-state as:
. . . necessary conduct in everything from beginning
to end. . . . each one must practise that one thing,
of all in the city, for which his nature was best
fitted.23
Plato's definition of justice for the individual corresponds
to the present-day definition of an integrated personality.
. . . He must not have allowed any part of himself
to do the business of other parts, nor the parts in
22
Aristotle, Rhetoric, trans. W. Rhys Roberts (New
York: Random House, The Modern Library, 1954), p. 57.
23
Plato, The Republic, trans. J. C. B. Rouse (New
York:New American Library of World Literature,1956),p. 232.
125
his soul to meddle in many businesses with each other;
but he must have managed his own well, and himself
have ruled himself, and set all in order, and become
a friend to himself. He must have put all three parts
in tune within him, . . . he must have bound all these
together and made himself completely one out of many,
temperate and concordant; . . .24
Aristotle defined justice as "the virtue through
which everybody enjoys his own possessions in accordance
with the law; its opposite is injustice, through which men
25
enjoy the possessions of others in defiance of the law. "
By prudence Aristotle meant getting the better of a
bargain; the Greeks were not above sharp and unscrupulous
business dealings. Consequently a prudent Greek did not
concern himself with this aspect of justice, for he could
devise ways to circumvent the law.
From Aristotle's Magnanimous Man came the notion
that nobles and gentlemen were made from finer clay than the
rest of mankind. Sixteenth-century writers enlarged upon
this and included the consciousness of one's rights and
privileges.
Courtesy and character books of the sixteenth and
early seventeenth centuries were written for noblemen as
guides in two areas of his development and training:
24Ibid., p. 244.
25
Aristotle. loc. cit.
126
(1) the development of his character and (2) his accomplish
ments. His training included instruction in dancing, swim
ming, wrestling, riding the great horse and social graces,
particularly the proper conduct toward women of his social
rank. All of these books stressed the importance of the
nobleman's excelling in "feates of armes." He was not
trained for any vocation; he was an amateur who did all
things moderately well and his education stressed personal
development.
Character books first appeared in Italy in the late
fifteenth century. The first of these books to be translat
ed into English was Castiglione's The Courtier. in 1588.
Aristotle's influence is readily apparent.
. . . I will have this our Courtier therefore to be
a gentleman borne and of a good house. . . . besides
noblenesse of birth, I will have him to bee fortunate
in this behalfe, and by nature to have not onely a wit,
and a comely shape of person and countenance, but also
a certaine grace, and (. . .) a hewe, that shall make
him at the first sight acceptable and loving unto who
so beholdeth him. . . . But to come to some particu-
laritie, I judge the principal and true profession
of a Courtier ought to bee in feates of armes, . . .
The first English character book, The Compleat
Gentleman written by Henry Peacham, stressed the importance
26
Castiglrone, The Courtier, trans. Thomas Hobby
(London: printed by John Wolfe, 1588), [p. 5].
127
of high birth and insisted upon certain privileges for the
nobleman.
. . . More particularly, and in the genuine sense,
Nobility is the honour of blood in Race or Lineage,
conferred formerly upon some one or more of that
Family, either by the Prince, the Laws, Customs of
that Land or place, whereby either out of knowledge,
culture of the mind, or by some glorious Action
performed, they have been useful and beneficial to
the Commonwealths and places where they lived. For
since all Virtue consists in Action, . . . hardly are
they to be admitted for Noble, who (though of never
so excellent parts) consume their light, as in a dark
Lanthorn, in contemplation, and a Stoical retiredness.^
Among the privileges spelled out by Peacham were
those of preferment in employment: "... Noble or Gentle
men ought to be preferred in Fees, Honors, Offices, and
other dignities of- command and government, before the common
n ,,28
people. "
Although Peacham felt that the nobleman should have
the best food and clothing of the land— "they may eate the
best and daintiest meat that the place affords; wear at
their pleasure Gold, Jewels, the best Apparel, and of what
29
fashion they please, & . . . " — he mentioned the word
27
Henry Peacham, The Compleat Gentleman: Fashioning
Him absolute in the most Necessary and Commendable Quali
ties. concerning Mind, or Body, that may be required in a
Person of Honor (London: Printed by E. Tyler, for Richard
Thrale, at the signe of the Cross-Keyes at S. Pauls Gate,
1661), p. 2.
OQ OQ
Ibid.. p. 14. Ibid.. p. 15.
128
"employment" in connection with the nobleman.
Richard Brathwait in The English Gentleman main
tained that a gentleman should devote his life to serving
his fellowman.
Vocation is a peculiar calling allotted to every
one according to his degree. Wherein wee are to con
sider; First, a Necessity of Vocation; Secondly, no
Exemption from that vocation: . . . But when Adam had
transgressed, this command was forthwith directed to
him and his sin-stained posterity: in the sweat of
his face should he eat bread. Then, then, and not
till then began Adam to delve, Eve to spin; inferring
that the Sweat of their browes should earne them a
Living.30
Besides the revolutionary idea that the gentleman
was not exempt from following a vocation, Braithwait ex
pressed the opinion that a man's character was more impor
tant than his social position: ". . . Vertue the greatest
Signall and Symboll of Gentry, is rather expressed by good-
31
nesse of Person, then greatnesse of Place. ..." These
concepts were Christian and discordant to the classical con
cept of the gentleman as a man born to a superior position
and educated to enjoy life. In preparation for the life of
30
Richard Brathwait, Times Treasury; or. Academy
for Gentry, the English Gentleman (London: printed for
Nath. Brooke, at the Angel in Cornhill, 1652), p. 59.
^ Ibid.. "The Dedicatory Letter."
129
the skilled amateur, the classical gentleman was exposed to
a wide variety of experiences ranging from wrestling to con
versing with ladies. The Christian concept of the gentleman
gathered momentum as the seventeenth century rolled on.
In 1668 Clement Ellis damned idleness:
. . . Thus he that thinkes it so much below him, to
be reckon'd amongst the Labourers in Gods House or
Vineyard; and disdaines to receive his Penny, with
those he should call his brethren, either as a Reward
or a Gratuitie; but seems rather to expect it as a
Debt, or Portion due by Inheritance: Yet is he content
to sit all day long in Sathan's Shop, one of his Slavish
Prentices or Journy men, who feeds him with course and
Emptie Husks here, and will reward him with an Hellful
of torments for his labour hereafter.
He is all but a Proud and Glistering Masse of
swaggering idlenesse: and he makes it his chiefe
Study to Demonstrate to the world, how many severall
wayes Idlenesse has found out to be busie.
Later writers took up the same theme:
. . . nothing being more pernitious to the Soul than
Idleness. 'Tis one of the seven deadly Sins, odious
to God, and all good Men; . . . And yet idleness is
become the badge, as it were, or distinguishing mark
of Gentility, to be one of no Calling, not to Labour;
for that's derogatory to their Birth; they make Vaca
tion their Vocation. To be mere Spectators, Drones,
to have no necessary employment in their Generation,
to spend their dayes in Hawking, Hunting, Drinking,
Ranting, &. which are the sole exercises almost of
many of our Gentry, in which they are too immoderate.
32
Clement Ellis, The Gentile Sinner, or England's
Brave Gentleman (As he is, and as he should be) (Oxford:
Printed by Henry Hall, for Edward and John Forrest, 1668),
pp. 20-21.
130
. . . Every Man hath some Calling, and 'tis not
unbecoming a Gentleman.33
. . . no man cometh into this World either to be
idle, or follow and enjoy onely his own pleasure and
humour; but to be serviceable to his Maker: . . .
There is no exception even of the greatest Prince
from that general burden laid upon us by God himself:
. . . Every man is to have some laborious employment
either of body or mind, which is to be his calling,
and of which he is to render a strict and severe
account.34
Toward the end of the century, John Locke suggested
that a gentleman should learn at least one manual trade.
I have one Thing more to add, which as soon as I
mention, I shall run the danger to be suspected to
have forgot what I am about, and what I have above
written concerning Education, which has all tended
towards a Gentleman's Calling, with which a Trade
seems wholly to be inconsistent. And yet, I cannot
forbear to say, I would have him learn a Trade, a
Manual Trade; nay, two or three, but one more
particularly.35
As the middle class Puritans rose in wealth and
political power their ideals of virtue continued to be
33
William Ramesay, The Gentlemans Companion: Or. A
Character of True Nobility, and Gentility (London: Printed
by E. Okes, for Rowland Reynolds, at the Sun and Bible in
the Poultrey, 1672), pp. 121-122.
34
Obadiah Walker, Of Education Especially of Young
Gentlemen (Oxon.: At the Theater Ann., 1673), p. 30.
35
John Locke, Some Thoughts Concerning Education
(1st ed.; London: Printed for A. and J. Churchill, at the
Black Swan in Pater-noster-row, 1693), p. 241.
131
expressed in the conduct and character books and the gentle
man was increasingly defined in terms of Christian virtue
and the virtuous person was the "good Christian." During
the last half of the seventeenth century the Aristotelian
concept of noble birth and wealth as the basis for gentility
steadily lost ground.
. . . the Gentleman is not ashamed to be call'd a
Religious man; . . . He ownes a God, and he Worships
him, and makes that Honour which he observes others
to render unto God, the ground of his respect to
them.36
The true Gentleman, is one that is God's
servant, the Worlds Master, and his own man.^
When Edward Waterhous included businessmen as men
of honor, because he felt that "the present Greatness and
Wealth of England owes much to Vocational Improvements, and
38
the purchases of them, ..." he paved the way for the
middle-class merchant-hero of the eighteenth century drama.
The ideal of the English gentleman's concept of
honor became more in accord with Christian precepts as the
seventeenth century came to a close, but the Restoration
36 37
Ellis, op. cit.. p. 172. Ibid., p. 178.
38
Edward Waterhous, The Gentlemans Monitor; Or. a
Sober Inspection Into the Vertues. Vices, and Ordinary
Means, of the Rise and Decay of Men and Families (London:
Printed by T.R. for R. Royston, Bookseller to his most
Sacred Majesty, 1665), pp. 70-71.
132
gallant or man-about-town shunned Christian virtues as a
39
plague. His religion was "pretendedly Hobbian ..."
(atheistic) and his code of honor was derived from the clas
sical concept.
One of the areas of disagreement in the Christian
and the classical codes of honor was in the practice of
duelling. The Christian preached forgiveness of one's
enemies; the aristocrat defended his honor at the drop of an
insult, or supposed insult. As a result of this aristocrat
ic sensitivity there were fights, brawls and duels, and a
sword was a part of the costume for the well-dressed
gallant.
However, duels were fought only between social
equals; when the offender was socially inferior he was
beaten by persons hired by the offended. John Dryden was
beaten by hired thugs in 1679 after a manuscript titled
"An Essay on Satire," which contained attacks on the Earl
of Rochester and two of the King's mistresses, and which
had been written by his friend, the Earl of Mulgrave, was
circulated anonymously. Laws were enacted against duelling
39
The Character of a Town-Gallant (London:
Printed for Rowland Reynolds in the Strand, 1680) , p. 4.
133
but duelling continued as a means of personal revenge. Much
was said, orally and in writing, on both sides of the con
troversial practice.
Hobbes, in 1651, defined honor as power and glory
and upheld duelling as a means of protecting one's honor.
. . . And at this day, in this part of the world,
private Duels are, and alwayes will be Honourable,
though unlawfull, till such time as there shall be
Honour ordained for them that refuse, and Ignominy
for them that make the Challenge.40
Of the many instances of duels recorded by Restora
tion diarists, perhaps the most notorious one was fought
by the Duke of Buckingham and Lord Shrewsbury over Lady
Shrewsbury. Pepys commented on the tragic incident:
. . . to White Hall to attend the Council there, . . .
from the whole house the discourse of the duell
yesterday between the Duke of Buckingham, Holmes
(Sir Robert Holmes) and one Jenkins (Captain William
Jenkins) on one side, and my Lord of Shrewsbury, Sir
John Talbot, and one Bernard Howard, on the other
side: and all about my Lady Shrewsbury, who is a
whore, and is at this time, and hath for a great
while been, a whore to the Duke of Buckingham. And
so her husband challenged him, and they met yesterday
in a close near Barne-Elmes, and there fought: and
my Lord Shrewsbury is run through the body, from the
right breast through the shoulder: and Sir John
Talbot all along up one of his armes; and Jenkins
killed upon the place, and the rest all, in a little
measure, wounded. This will make the world think
that the King hath good councillors about him, when
40
Hobbes, Leviathan. pp. 60-61.
134
the Duke of Buckingham, the greatest man about him,
is a fellow of no more sobriety than to fight about
a whore.41
William Connor Sydney reported that Lady Shrewsbury,
disguised as a page, held Buckingham's horse in an adjoining
thicket in order to aid his escape in the event of her hus
band's being slain. Then, to add insult to injury, "the
infamous creature heightened her guilt by passing that very
night with him in the shirt that was stained with the blood
42
both of himself and of her unfortunate husband."
Charles II later pardoned, by proclamation, all the
43
parties concerned in the duel.
Laws against duelling were ignored and
the streets of London rang night after night with the
clashes of swords, and the riots and outrages of
drunken men of fashion, who in that age were consid
ered as men of honour.44
The Christian man of honor condemned the barbarous
practice of duelling from the pulpit, and Christian pens
deplored a custom which added to one man's honor through
another man's murder.
41
Pepys, The Diary of Samuel Pepys.January 17,1668.
42
William Connor Sydney, Social Life in England from
the Restoration to the Revolution. 1660-1690 (New York:
Macmillan and Company, 1892), p. 292.
44
Ibid., p. 297.
135
. . . He thinks that Honour too deare which must be
bought with a Murther; and a Name which is never to
be worne, but by his Monument, none of the cheapest,
when purchased with his life. He has much hones ter
thoughts of his Mistresse, then to think her such a
Proserpine, that either he or his Rivall must be sent
to Hell, before either can enjoy her.^
The same idea was expressed in the writings of
46 47
Nicholas Breton, Remond des Cours and Humphrey Brooke,
who went so far in his condemnation of killing as to include
the popular sports of cock-fighting, hunting, hawking,
48 49
fowling and fishing. Richard Allestree and William
50
Ramesay wrote of the folly of duelling, adding the thought
that it was more honourable to make peace.
. . . 'Twill be the true Honour, and Reputation
45
Ellis, op. cit.. p. 146.
46
Nicholas Breton, The Court and Country (London:
Printed by G. Eld for John Wright, and are to be Sold at his
Shoppe at the Signe of the Bible without Newgate, 1618),
[p. 5].
47
Remond des Cours (Translated out of French),
The True Conduct of Persons of Quality (London: Printed for
Walter Kettilby, at the Bishop's Head in St. Paul's Church
yard, 1694), p. 63.
48
Humphrey Brooke, The Durable Legacy (London:
Printed by M. White, 1681), p. 18.
49
Richard Allestree, The Gentlemans Calling (London:
Printed for T. Garthwait at the Little North-doore of S.
Pauls, 1660), pp. 138-157.
50
Ramesay, op. cit.. pp. 79-84.
136
everlasting of a Gentleman, to endeavour the extirpa
tion of this idle, wicked, and damnable custome; which
renders a Christian Irreligious, and even a Moral Man
a Fool.51
The gentleman's practice of duelling as a means of
personal justice and the Christian's condemnation of duelling
sprang from opposing concepts of inner honor, or character,
but the outer trappings of honor were a source of conflict
also. The aristocrat stressed "Privilege of place ..."
and "Privilege of Ornaments, both of State and Person . .
52
. " Ornament included the symbols of position: crowns,
gloves and spurs, and gowns and hoods, but the aristocrat
set himself further above the common man by magnificent ap
parel, in keeping with his rank of honor.
Knighthood was the key position since "all degrees
of Honour whatsoever . . . rest themselves upon the same .
53
. ." even that of the king or prince who was the apex of
the aristocratic social pyramid. Below the knights were the
esquires followed by gentlemen.
Knights were ranged in five degrees, the highest
being the Order of the Garter founded by Edward III in 1350.
Next came the Banerets, followed by Baronets, Knights of the
51 52
Ibid.. p. 81. Markham, op. cit.. p. 34.
53
Ibid., p. 65.
137
Bath, and in fifth place, were the Knights of the Golden
Spurre or Knights Bachelors.
There was, in addition, an underbranch of knight
hood, called Dunghill or Truck-Knights, which was not consid
ered honorable because these knights had purchased their
54
position. The practice of selling knighthood began with
James I and increased under Charles I, whose dire financial
straits forced him to obtain money where he could find it.
The king was the fountain of honor and only he could
create a knight but Englishmen objected to the bestowing of
the honor on unworthy subjects. The Duchess of Newcastle
stated that such misplacing of honor "causeth Rebellion."
Outward Honor should be the mark of inward,
worthy a reward; for action proceeding from valour,
and wisdom in conducting and governing, maintaining
and keeping, assisting and obeying their King and
Country. But if Honour be placed by favour, and not
for merit: it brings envy to those which are
honoured, and hatred to the Prince, for honouring
such persons; which envy and hate bring murmur,
discontent brings war and ruin to the kingdom. 5
It was in the area of magnificence, pomp and cere
mony that the seventeenth-century English Puritan clashed
^Ibid., pp. 61-119.
55
Margaret Newcastle, The Worlds Olio (London:
Printed for F. Martin and F. Allestrye at the Bell in St.
Pauls Church-Yard, 1655), p. 50.
138
with the aristocrats. Watson pointed out that the conflict
over display and extravagance led finally to the Civil
56
War. "... the taste of the aristocratic class was
shaped largely by the central Aristotelian concept of mag
nificence; sumptuousness and pomp were integral to the whole
57
concept of honor."
Whether the disparity between the classical concept
of magnificence and the Christian stress on frugality and
simplicity were great enough to precipitate the Civil War,
as Watson maintained, is difficult to ascertain but it was
an area of conflict. That it precipitated a great deal of
argument and criticism is certain.
From the time of James I the cry against magnifi
cence in dress grew stronger, reaching its greatest strength
during Charles I's reign. His Queen, Henrietta Maria, was
denounced for her extravagance in theatrical performances
but she was not criticized for the money she spent on ap
parel. People were supposed to dress in accordance with
their social position but, in emulating their betters, they
found it easier to put on the outer trappings of honor. The
finer points of inner honor often escaped them.
56 57
Watson, op. cit.. p. 150. Ibid.
139
. . . So wee maie collect that the doubling of your
cloakes, the fashion of your cloathes, the Jingling
of your spurres, your swaggering, your swearing, and
your refined oathes, horrible protestations, your
odde humors, and your drinking of Tobacco with a
whiffe, make not a Noble or a Gentleman: . . . ^8
Richard Brathwait was less restrained in his con
demnation of the well-dressed gentleman.
. . . thou perfumed Gallant, whose sense chiefly
consists in sent; and observe how much thou derogat'st
from thy owne worth, in covering a shell of corruption
with such bravery. All gorgeous Attire is the attire
of sinne; it declines from the use for which is was
ordained, to wit, Necessity, and dilates it selfe pur
posely to accomplish the desire of vanity.59
Ellis spoke of a gentleman as "a Gentile thing, made
60
to weare fine cloathes, and throw away much money; . . ."
and Francis Hawkins regretted that "we live in an Age of
Pomp, and Ostentation, . . . where the Vertues of the Times
61
consist but in Excess, and Extravagance."
Waterhous spoke of the breakdown of the divisions of
58
James Cleland, The Institution of a Young Noble
Man (At Oxford: Printed by Joseph Barnes, 1607), p. 5.
59
Brathwait , op. cit., p. 9.
60
Ellis, op. cit., p. 85.
61
Youths Behaviour or Decency m Conversation
Amongst Men, trans. Francis Hawkins (London: Printed for
W. Lee, and are to be sold at the Turks-head in Fleetstreet
over against Fetter-Lane, 1663), p. 56.
140
the various degrees of society.
. . . For whereas there was . . . a settled way of
Garb, Equipage, Dyet, Householdstuff, Clothes,
Education of Children, and Men of prudence held them
selves concerned in Discretion and Thrift, not to
exceed the bounds of their Degree in any of the fore
mentioned things, but lived, bred, maintained, married,
and provided for their Children, according to the per
mission of that understanding and decency, which by
mutuality of Intelligence and accord, Intercurred
between degrees of all sorts: Now the mode and rate
of them is so altered and exceeded, that it is hard
to find so much as a stump of that ancient pale,
unstocked up, but Nobles and Gentry, Gentry and
Mechaniques, Entercommon, as it were, . . .
Sir Matthew Hale, Lord Chief Justice in the reign
of Charles II, in A Letter of Advice To His Grand-Children
warned them against the excesses and extravagances of the
age and spoke at length on the subject of dress.
. . . for the condition of apparel, as it is now
used in this kingdom, is such, that there is very
little distinction to be made of the quality of
people by their clothes. If you go never so fine,
and gay, and glorious in your apparel, yet you shall
be sure to be equalled, if not exceeded therein, by
persons of lower rank and condition than yourselves.
. . . have your clothes made of the proper manufac
tures of this kingdom: for the winter, let your
clothes be made of English broad cloth, and for the
summer of stuffs made in England, as Norwich stuffe,
Devonshire kerseys, serges, and the like. I will
not have you wear silks, or satins, or gold and
silver lace. . . . Do not affect to go in light-
coloured clothes, as red, blue, green, or the like;
. . . but rather let your clothes be sad coloured.
62
Waterhous, op. cit.. pp. 261-262.
141
Black is the most decent, but always seasonable, .
. . sad medley cloth is a convenient wear for a young
man.^3
Hale undoubtedly was objecting to the extravagances
of the town gallant, "a kind of Walking Mercers shop, that
shews one Stuff to day, and another tomorrow, and is valu-
64
able just according to the price of his Suit, ..."
... He thinks it the rankest Heresie in the World,
to believe any Man can be Wise or Noble, that is in
plain Cloaths. And therefore looks down with Con
tempt on every body, whose Wigg is not right Flaxon;
And calls the whole Tribe of Levy dull Fellows, be
cause they go in Black, and wonders any People should
think they can ever speak Sence, When they wear
neither Lac'd Crevats, nor Pantaloons.^
There were other areas of disagreement between the
behavior of nobles and gentlemen whose code of honor was
based on the Classical tradition and the behavior of Chris
tian gentlemen. Swearing, drinking and wenching were con
demned by the Christian and were a part of the gentleman's
code of honor but the points of difference which caused the
most violent disagreement were vocation, the practice of
duelling, and extravagance, particularly in dress.
63 .
Sir Matthew Hale, A Letter of Advice to His Grand
children (3rd ed.; London: Printed for Houlston and Son,
65, Paternoster-Row; and At Wellington, Salop, 1834),
pp. 162-166.
64
The Character of a Town-Gallant, p. 1.
6^Ibid., p. 2.
142
During the Restoration period gallants and aristo
crats made up the greater part of the theatre audience and
it was for this part of the audience that the playwrights
glorified the classical concept of honor, in the Dedica
tory Letter of The Conquest of Granada Dryden wrote:
Heroic Poesy has always been sacred to Princes
and to Heroes. . . . I have form'd a Heroe, I confess,
not absolutely perfect, but of an excessive and over-
boyling courage; but Homer and Tasso are my precedents.
Both the Greek and the Italiam Poet had well consid
er'd that a tame Heroe who never transgresses the bounds
of moral vertue, would shine but dimly in an Epick
poem; . . . But a character of an ecentrique vertue is
the more exact Image of humane life, because he is not
wholy exempted from its frailties, such a person is
Almanzor: whom I present, with all humility, to the
Patronage of your Royal Highness. I design'd in him
a roughness of character, impatient of injuries; and a
confidence of himself, almost approaching to an arro
gance. But these errors are incident only to great
spirits; they are moles and dimples which hinder not a
face from being beautiful; though that beauty be not
regular; they are of the number of those amiable
imperfections which we see in Mistresses: and which
we pass over, without a strict examination, when they
are accompanied with greater Graces.^6
Dryden presented a hero with classical characteris
tics to the Duke of York ("impatient of injuries; and a con
fidence of himself, almost approaching to an arrogance. .
. .") "with all humility." Humility is a Christian virtue,
and was in direct contrast to the character of the hero,
66
Dryden, "Dedication Letter to the Duke of York,"
The Conquest of Granada.
143
Almansor. Apparently* the classical code of honor belonged
only to the nobility and did not include writers who were
not of the nobility.
Dryden, and the lesser writers of Heroic Tragedies,
were attempting to set forth as an admirable example the
ideal man of Plato's Republic. The ingredients of Heroic
Tragedy were valor, love and reason which corresponded to
the three parts of the mind as defined by Plato. Robert
Ashley cited Plato in his treatise Of Honour written some
time between 1596 and 1603.
. . . And seeing (as Plato will have yt) the powre
of the mind ys of three partes, whereof one ys named
reason, another termed anger, and a third called
desire: the mocion or agitacion of the mind ys said
to be proper to the first, the swelling of yt and
the heat of Courage to the second, and all light
motions of desire are attributed to the third:
Honour seemeth to have his root and beginning of
the second, for with the desire of honour there ys
joyned a certayne comely elacion of mind which ys
kindled unto vertue by beholding the brightness
thereof, and the same, as Plato saieth, cometh out
of the angry part of the mind, in that a man beinge
moved with an earnest desire of excellencie . . .
Plato's ideal man brought anger and desire under the
control of reason— so did the heroes of Heroic Tragedies.
67
Robert Ashley, Of Honour. Edited with Introduction
and Commentary by Virgil B. Heltzel (San Marino, Calif.:
The Huntington Library, 1947), p. 40.
CHAPTER V
THE RESTORATION PERIOD CONCEPT OF HEROIC LOVE
Yet martial glory is only half of the true hero1s
distinction: it is love which must give a finishing
touch to the brilliant salience of his character,
through the labours it imposes, the temerity of its
undertakings, and the eventual lustre of success. We
derive examples from the history of the most famous
paladins and the most celebrated conquerors, as well
as from the fictitious pages of romance.^
There were at least three reasons why the play
wrights of the Restoration period used love as the principal
emotion of Heroic Tragedy: (1) women were attending the
theatre in increasing numbers and they demanded the love
interest; (2) the Christian religion, with its other-world
orientation, had made the emotions of awe and pity (the
emotions elicited by the Greek tragedies) impossible; and
(3) the evolution of the Restoration Heroic Tragedy from the
court drama of the early Stuarts, particularly Charles I.
"^Anthony Hamilton, Memoirs of the Comte de Gramont.
trans. Peter Quennell (New York: E. P. Dutton and Company,
1930), p. 43.
144
145
The purpose of this chapter is: (1) to trace the origins
of the Platonic Love Cult which was introduced at the court
of Charles I by his consort, Henrietta Maria; (2) to show
Puritan disapproval of the Cult and (3) to demonstrate the
effect of Puritan disapproval of the Platonic Love Cult
upon the concept of romantic love in Restoration Heroic
Tragedy.
One of the earliest references to the Platonic Love
Cult in the court of Charles I appeared in a letter, dated
June 3, 1634, written by James Howell from Westminster to a
friend in Paris.
The Court affords little news at present, but
that there is a Love call'd Platonic Love, which
much sways there of late: it is a love abstracted
from all corporeall gross impressions and sensual
appetit, but consists in contemplations and Ideas
of the mind, not in any carnall Fruition: This Love
sets the wits of the Town on work, and they say
there will be a Mask shortly of it, whereof Her
Majesty and her Maids of Honour will be part.^
The Platonic Love Cult, referred to by Howell, was
introduced and fostered by Henrietta Maria in an attempt to
refine the crudities and coarseness she had found in the
English court. The methods she used were those used in
James Howell, Epistolae Ho-Elianae (London: Printed
for Humphrey Moseley; and are to be sold at his shop at the
Prince's Arms in S. Pauls church-yard,1645), Sec. 6, p. 29.
146
France to refine a court similar in crudities of speech and
conduct to the English court. She had been a little girl of
six in 1615 when the Marquise de Rambouillet established a
salon directed toward the purification of the language and
of the relations between the sexes. The code book of the
Marquise's reform was the novel of Honore D'Urfe, L'Astree.
It is not unreasonable to believe that the English Court to
which Charles I brought Henrietta Maria could use some re
finement, for the court Charles I inherited from his father,
James I, while not as licentious as that of Charles II, was
far grosser. James despised women and insulted them on
3
every possible occasion. Charles I was of a different
temperament: he held a romantic passion for women in gener
al, especially his wife, which caused his enemies to accuse
4
him of being "woman-led."
At any rate, Henrietta Maria was able to establish
her Platonic Love Cult at court and thereby incurred the
wrath of the Puritan fathers. The concept of Platonic Love
which Henrietta Maria was attempting to teach the English
3 f
J. B. Fletcher, "Precieuses at the Court of
Charles I," Journal of Comparative Literature. I (1903),
120-123.
^Ibid., p. 124.
147
court had taken a little more than five centuries to evolve.
It was a scramble of ideas from many and varied sources,
some of which had become so fused as to defy any attempt to
separate them. The most important influences were: (1) the
Medieval Court of Love; (2) the writings of Plato, specif
ically the Symposium and the Phaedrus; (3) the knight's
service to a chosen lady and (4) Maryolity or "Mary-
worship."
The Court of Love
The court of love had its beginning in the pagan
festivals consecrated to Venus, in celebration of spring.
Young girls who had fled the supervision of their mothers,
and young wives who had escaped, for the moment, from the
authority of their husbands, ran to the meadows, "joined
hands in the dance, and sang of liberty and wantonness,
railing against the yoke to which they were compelled to
submit."^ The girls sang songs in praise of joy, youth,
spring and the glorification of love. At the same time mar-
riage was abused and husbands vilified.
5
Lewis Freeman Mott, The System of Courtly Love
(New York: G. E. Stechert and Company, 1896; Reprint,
1924), p. 2.
6Ibid.
148
These same songs, and their subject matter, were
taken over by the troubadours. There were some important
changes made in the transition since the troubadours were
men and the original singers of the songs were women.
" . . . One of the most notable and far-reaching of these is
in the relations of the lovers."7
The troubadours sang their love songs, for the most
part, to married ladies of high rank, extolling their
beauty, professing a passionate love and devotion and por
traying the anguish caused by neglect and delay. The frank
ly immoral poetry of the troubadours owed its growth and
0
popularity to a corrupt condition of society. The idea
that marriage and love were incompatible was strongly held
by the upper classes, where marriage was a matter of poli
tics or business. The physical side of love was emphasized
by the troubadours in the beginning but this was gradually
replaced by more elevated thoughts and ideals and eventually
this mode of love developed a code, or set of principles,
which every courtly lover learned and practiced.
In The Natural History of Love. Morton Hunt attrib
uted the beginning of the concept of courtly love to
7Ibid.
0
Ibid.. p. 4.
149
William IX, Duke of Aquitaine and Count of Poitou who was
born in 1071. William was the first of the troubadours.
. . . When one puts aside all speculations about the
origins of courtly love, there remains the concrete
fact that the first of the new-style love lyrics,
and manners to match, were the creation of William,
and seemingly from that single point of origin set
a fashion which swept through Provence where he
maintained his court, and went on later to conquer
Europe.^
Although William was reputed not to have practiced
what he preached, he paid lip service to the fidelity and
spirituality which became part of the body of conventions
of courtly love. By the time William began writing his love
lyrics, the expressions of women had died out of the form:
women had now become an object of love.
But it was Eleanor (1122-1204), the granddaughter
of William, who brought the system of courtly love to the
royal courts of France and England. Her father, the son of
William IX, died when Eleanor was fifteen, whereupon Eleanor
became Duchess of Aquitaine and Countess of Poitou and the
major marriage prize of all Western Europe. Consequently,
her feudal overlord, Louis VI (the Fat), King of France,
sent his seventeen-year-old son, Louis Capet, southwards to
wed her. Eleanor understood two things clearly: it was
9
Hunt, The Natural History of Love, p. 150.
150
the King's legal right to dispose of her in marriage and
marriage was an instrument of political policy, with no con
sideration given love.^
Louis the Fat died two weeks after his son's mar
riage and Eleanor became Queen of France. When her husband
decided to join the Second Crusade in 1147, Eleanor accom
panied him.
. . . In Byzantium, where they remained for a while,
she was overcome by admiration for the sensuous,
indulgent way of life the Eastern Christians prac
ticed, and chroniclers alleged later that during the
crusade she began the first of many amours . . . H
In 1152, after fifteen years of marriage, two
daughters and no sons, Louis VII divorced her under an
agreement which returned to Eleanor her lands and titles.
Two months later she married Henry Plantagenet, Duke of
Normandy, Louis' most dangerous political rival in northern
France. Henry left Eleanor in charge of his castle at
Angers, in Anjou, while he went to England to press his
claims to that throne. This gave Eleanor the opportunity
she had long desired to create an elegant court and, to that
end, she gathered knights, ladies and poets around her.
But in 1154 Henry became Henry II, King of England,
10Ibid., p. 152. 1:LIbid., p. 153.
151
and Eleanor went to England, to become for the second time
in her short life, a Queen. During her fifteen years in
England she bore eight children to Henry II, but by 1169 or
1170, Henry divided the succession of his lands among his
sons and allowed Eleanor to retire to her own county of
Poitou, in control of her former French domains. Their
second son, Richard, who went with her, was guaranteed the
eventual inheritance of Aquitaine and Poitou.
It was here that Eleanor, with her daughter, Marie,
the Countess of Champagne, established her new court. They
surrounded themselves with knights, ladies, poets, philos
ophers who came to learn the ways of wit, courtesy and
graciousness.
. . . Music and games, chivalry and knight-errantry,
dialectic and love-making, table manners and courtesy,
literature and philosophy, were all part of the way
of life demonstrated by Eleanor and Marie to a
culture-thirsty retinue of young lords and ladies who
came here from northern France, England, and even
from the farthest of Eleanor's own southern domains.^
One of the methods Eleanor and Marie used to teach
the concepts of courtly love was a "formal piece of play
acting known as the 'Court of Love.' In mock-legal pro
ceedings, an anonymous lover or his lady— speaking through
12Ibid., pp. 154-155.
152
representatives— could present a complaint or defense in a
13
disputed question of love's behavior."
Marie continued the court of love in her own court
at Troyes, county seat of Champagne, after the court at
Poitiers was broken up. Marie did something more— she pat
ronized writers to explain the system of courtly love and
spread it to the rest of the civilized world.
. . . Marie also caused the code of courtly love to
be embodied in a work of romance that had immense
influence and became the very master pattern after
which all future stories of knights in courtly vas
salage to ladies were modeled. . . The author
of the romance was the most important poet of medi
eval France, but almost nothing is known of him ex
cept his first name, Chretien, to which he added the
further identification "de Troyes" to show that he
was Marie's resident versifier. His work, Le
Chevalier de la Charrette (the Knight of the Wagon)
was a story of Lancelot and Guinever, and one of
the first long romances in French to use the newly
popular Arthurian legendary background.^
Perhaps the most valuable contributions of courtly
love to the relationship between men and women was the
tenderness and gentleness it brought to an otherwise crude
relationship. Furthermore, even though it operated within
a framework of adultery, it stressed the fidelity of one
man to one woman. It introduced the revolutionary notion
that love must be a mutual relationship involving respect
13Ibid., p. 155. 14Ibid.. p. 163.
153
and admiration.
Platonic Influence
The influence of Plato's writings upon the Platonic
Love Cult in the court of Charles I came from two sources:
16
(1) two dialogues of Plato, the Symposium and the
17
Phaedrus and (2) the Renaissance humanists' interpretation
of these two dialogues. In the Symposium Plato said that
the beginning of love was the love of beautiful bodies and
that this love should occur in youth and should be confined
to the love of one beautiful body. Step two was the reali
zation that beauty in souls was more precious than beauty
in bodies. Step three took the young man to see the beauty
in knowledge and step four, from the beauty in knowledge to
18
the contemplation of beauty itself.
In the Phaedrus Plato said that the birth of love in
^ Ibid. . p. 171.
16
Plato, "Symposium," Great Dialogues of Plato, ed.
Eric H. Warmington and Philip Rouse, trans. W. H. D. Rouse
(New York: The New American Library of World Literature,
Inc., 1956), pp. 69-117.
17
Plato, "Phaedrus," The Works of Plato, ed. Irwin
Edman, trans. Benjamin Jowett (New York: Random House,
1956), pp. 263-329.
18
Plato, "Symposium," op. cit.. pp. 105-106.
154
the soul causes the soul to grow wings.
. . . But he . . . who has been the spectator of many
glories in the other world, is amazed when he sees
any one having a godlike face or form, which is the
expression of divine beauty; and at first a shudder
runs through him, and again the old awe steals over
him; then looking upon the face of his beloved as of
a god he reverences him, and if he were not afraid of
being thought a downright madman, he would sacrifice
to his beloved as to the image of a god; then while
he gazes on him there is a sort of reaction, and the
shudder passes into an unusual heat and perspiration;
for, as he receives the effluence of beauty through
the eyes, the wing moistens and he warms. . . .^
In this complicated sentence one sees several ideas
which were important in the concept of Platonic Love in the
time of Charles I: (1) the worship of beauty in the be
loved; (2) the association of beauty and virtue; (3) the
idea that love enters the soul through the eyes and (4) the
description of some of the symptoms of love, i.e., the
shudder runs through him and "the old awe steals over him."
All of these ideas were intact in the Restoration period
concept of Heroic love. There was one basic fact which was
ignored, or apparently ignored: Plato held homosexual love
as the ideal. The Platonic Love Cult converted these ideas
to apply to love between the sexes, which, of course, led
to the worship of beauty in women. The Renaissance humanist
19
Plato, "Phaedrus," op. cit.. p. 292.
155
writers were probably responsible for this transfer. To
quote from one of them:
. . . Beautie humane is in women, in farre greater
excellencie observed, then in men, which was thus
dispensed with great providence by the cheefe
creator. For having granted women unto man for a
companion, he endowed her with excellent beautie for
production of Man, and to enflame in him a desire to
generate that fayre and beautiful. . . . Beauty
in women doth alwaies generate love, . . . 20
Castiglione, another Renaissance writer, admonished
the young noble:
. . . His love toward women, not to be sensuall or
fleshly, but honest and godly, and more ruled with
reason, than appetite: and to love better the
beautie of the minde, than of the b o d i e . ^ l
Reason was an additional element in the Platonic
Love concept and reason had an even stronger appeal to the
Restoration-period Englishman than it had had to the
Englishman in 1649. Run-away passions had led Englishmen
into a Civil War and regicide and the Restoration England
looked to reason to control passion.
A Knight1s Service to His Chosen Lady
One of the moral obligations of the medieval knight
20
Count Haniball Romei, The Courtiers Academie,
trans. I. K. ([n.p.]: Printed by Valentine Sims, [n.d.]),
pp. 17-18.
21
Castiglione, op. cit.. [p. 25],
156
was that of gallantry, which meant "he must take a lady as
the object of his platonic affection, to serve, honour and
22
obey." Marriage with his chosen lady was out of the ques
tion; she was usually married to someone else, or, if not
married, she was socially far above her knight. Then, too,
the knight was often married and, in many cases, the father
of a large brood of children. He rendered his services and
performed noble deeds out of pure, rapturous love and, in
the doing, cleansed his soul.
One of the rewards granted the knight by his lady
was to be allowed to lie at her side and touch her unclad
body with his own naked body. Of course there were cases
of adultery reported from this practice but that was break
ing the rules of the game.
Gallantry was not the only moral obligation of the
knight. In addition he was required to be of gentle birth,
to be truthful, to be a brother to the poor, to be cour
teous, to be liberal and generous and to be the living copy
of Christ. For this strange way of life, known as Chivalry,
was Christian in background. Chivalry began to dawn toward
the end of the tenth century and achieved great strength
22
Walter Clifford Meller, A Knight's Life in the
Days of Chivalry (London: T. Werner Laurie, Ltd., 1924),
p. 55.
157
during the Crusades. But "its most brilliant period,
though its decline set in rapidly from that period, was
23
during the wars between France and England."
It is not at all difficult to understand how the
ideal of medieval gallantry could deteriorate to the
Restoration-comedy concept of gallantry.
Maryolity or "Mary-worship"
Maryolity or "Mary-worship" was one of the chief
points of disagreement between the Puritans of the time of
Charles I and the Catholics. The veneration of the Virgin
Mary by the early church was closely allied to knighthood
and the idea of service to a virtuous lady. (The veneration
of Mary is still with us— one very good example is the nurs
ing order of St. Mary's with hospitals in several countries.)
Many works of art, including poems, music and
paintings and sculpture, over the past two thousand years,
have been dedicated to the Mother of Jesus. One of the
earliest pictures, found in the catacombs of Rome, dates
back to 170 A.D.
The image of the Madonna with her child in the
catacombs must be considered as one of the first,
if not the first of all holy images, the prototype
23
Ibid., p. 286.
158
of so many icons, figures and paintings representing
Our Lady and the saints and martyrs of the Church.
But up until the fourth century, Mary held only a
small place in the devotional life of Christians, with her
25
memory kept on no more than one or two feasts. By the
middle of the fourth century the devotion to Mary had become
stronger and after the fifth century Marian devotion went
26
forward in great strides. Part of the veneration paid to
Mary was based on the belief that she had been appointed to
win the victory over sin which Eve had brought into the
world.
There is in Holy Writ another character who appears
to be strangely linked to Mary, not in the sense that
she prefigures her but rather that she is her opposite,
one whose existence made necessary the coming of Mary
just as night must be followed by day: this is Eve,
the woman who sinned and caused the fall of man. . . .
Mary is the new Eve, destined by her purity to blot
out the sin of the first mother of mankind, and by
her obedience destined to ransom the children of
the disobedient first parents of humanity.^
Mary was the Mother before whom all men were chil
dren; she was the intermediary between men and God. Men
24
Zsolt Aradi, Shrines to Our Lady Around the World
(New York: Farrar, Straus and Young, 1954), p. 16.
25
Henri Damel-Rops, The Book of Mary, trans.
Alastair Guinan (New York; Hawthorn Books, Inc., 1960),
pp. 82-83.
26Ibid.. pp. 91-93. 27Ibid., p. 89.
159
believed in the virgin; they prayed to the Virgin; they
built monuments, from great cathedrals to small roadside
shrines to the Virgin; and they instituted their knightly
orders to the Virgin.
In 1022 the Order of the Starre (an order of
Knights) was instituted at Paris by King Robert the Devout
in honor of the Virgin Mary.
France was a leader in at least two areas; the
founding of knightly orders and in the veneration of the
Virgin Mary. As their national flower the French took the
fleur-de-lis, the Biblical symbol for the Virgin Mary.
Andrew Favine, in The Theater of Honour and Knight-Hood,
said some interesting things about flower symbols, royalty
and love.
. . . God commanded Moises to place Lillies and
pomegranets in his Temple, but not Beasts. . . .
Those Spanish Historians, might (I say) much more
properly, have derived the excellencie of their
Catholique Kings, from the Pomegranate which in the
Holy Scripture, is the noate and Symbole of Love, and
of royaltie: . . . They say that the Mantle Royall
of the Kings of Israel and Juda, was of Cloath of
Gold, damasked with Apples of Granada; Apples which
likewise were apted by order and Symmetrie, beneath
the Ornament of the Jews high Priest. This fruite
28
Andrew Favine, The Theater of Honour and Knight
Hood (London: printed by William Jaggard, dwelling in
Barbican, and are there to be sold, 1623), Booke II,
p. 321.
160
is the Symbole of Royaltie, because it weareth a
Crowne on the top.
And of Love, because that among the same Hebrews
and Egyptians; Love was crowned, to shew the force
and perfection thereof. Because the passion of Love
is so mighty and powerfull, that it tameth and over-
maistreth all other in men: and Love being so con
tenting in itselfe, deserveth to be truely crowned,
and observed by the same noate of the Pomegranate. .
. . The Pomegranate, as we have already said, is the
Symbole of Royaltie; And the Lillie, the Floure of
Floures, is of the Divinitie, of whitenesse and
puritie; Of a Love most compleate in all perfection,
Charitie and Benediction. And this was the reason
why God commanded, that this Floure chosen and
elected among all Floures, should namely be represent
ed in his holy Temple, as it is written in Exodus.
. . . The Lillie is the Symbole of Puritie and
Chastitie, and in the holy Scripture, the blessed
Virgin is represented by the Lillie.^9
The veneration of Mary was closely allied to knight
hood and added its influence to the concept of Platonic Love
which Henrietta Maria tried to plant in the hearts of
Englishmen. But while the French and the English had been
intermingling for centuries and each influencing the other
to a certain extent, there were points on which the two
nations could not agree. For example, the French held that
the rose, which became the English national flower, was the
symbol of sensuality and lewdness.
In matters of ceremony the English evidently held
the French their superior for
29
Ibid.. Booke II, pp. 188-191.
161
Successours to William the Conquerour, . . . brought
into England, the fashion of Royall Garments and
ornaments, the Ceremonies observed and used, as well
at the Sacring of the most Christian Kings of France;
as also the forme of creating of Knights usually in
France.
Most of the English Orders of Knights were borrowed
from the French. There was one or two English Orders which
originated in England, the oldest and most esteemed being
the Order of the Blew Garter. Favine related the history of
the founding of this order, by King Edward III in the year
1347.
. . . That this Order had S. George for the Governour
or Patron; Love for the Subject, and the Device
French. Forasmuch as King Edward being wounded with
love of fair Alix, the Countesse of Salisbury, one
day as hee was devising with her, the left Garter (of
Blew Silke) of this Lady, hung loosely down upon her
shooe. King Edward, ready at the Ladies Service, and
to take up the Garter; by little and little lifted
her cloathes so high that the Courtiers had some sight
of her white Smock, & couldn't refraine from smiling.
The Lady reprehended the King for this publike fault
before his own people (who carried good lookes, but
bad thoughts, and pleased their owne opinion so much,
that they made an Idoll of their vaine conceits:)
King Edward therefore, to cover his own honour, stopt
all their mouthes with these few French words: Honny
Soit Qui Maly Pense: (Honny signifieth in the old
French Language To Reproach, to Speake ill, and to
Dishonour) and made instantly a like of the same vow,
as that was of the Duke of Bourgongne Philip the
Second noted heretofore: That such was the mockery
of this Garter, as it should be held a great Honor
to weare the like.
30
Ibid., Booke V, p. 64.
162
That effects might follow wordes, hereon arose
the Knights of the Order of the Blew Garter, which
hee composed of Five and Twenty Knights, and no
more.31
There may be a clue here in the failure of the
English to comprehend Henrietta Maria's Platonic Love
concept: The French Robert had founded the Order of the
Starre in 1022 in honor of the Virgin Mary but one of the
oldest and most honored of the English Orders was founded
on an incident of a Countess losing her garter]
One of the forms through which Henrietta Maria
tried to educate the court in the ways of Platonic Love
was the drama. The aging Jonson struggled with the concept
but was never successful in capturing the spirit of Platonic
32
Love. One of his plays, The New Inne (1629) , was based
on the court of love founded by Eleanor and Marie. The
greater part of The New Inne consisted of the mock-trial
scene where Lovel, the lover, and his beloved are brought
before a judge to define love and to abide by the decision
of the judge, a decision based upon the better argument.
31
Ibid., Booke V, p. 68.
32
Ben Jonson, The New Inne (London: Printed by
Thomas Harper, for Thomas Alchorne, and are to be sold at
his shop in Pauls Church-yeard, at the signe of the greene
Dragon, 1631).
163
Jonson went to Plato for a part of his definition.
Lovell:
. . . For, what else
is Love, but the most noble, pure affection
Of what is truly beautiful and faire?
Desire of union with the thing beloved?
Beatrice:
Then I have read somewhere, that man and woman
Were, in the first creation, both one piece,
And being cleft asunder, ever since,
Love was an appetite to be rejoyn'd
Lovell:
It is a fable of Plato's, in his Banquet,
And utter'd there, by Aristophanes. 3
jonson had pretty well succeeded in defining Platon
ic Love but The New Inne was a dramatic failure. Many
courtiers took a hand in trying to dramatize the nebulous
concept. One of the longest and dreariest of these attempts
34
was Sir Walter Mountague's The Shepheard's Paradise (1629),
in which the Queen took part in order to improve her En
glish. One of the most delightful plays written on the
Platonic Love theme was Richard Brome's The Love-Sick Court
35 , ,
(1639). Brome was one of Jonson's proteges and, at the
33
Ibid., III.li.684-697.
34
Walter Mountague, The Shepheard's Paradise (Lon
don: Printed for Thomas Dring at the George in Fleet-street
nere St. Dunstans Church, 1629).
35
Richard Brome, The Love-Sick Court (London:
Printed by J. T. for A. C. and are to be sold by Henry
Broom, at the Gun in Ivie-Lane, 1658).
164
time, wrote for the Prince Charles' Players in the Red Bull.
In The Love-Sick Court Brome directed his satiric talent
towards "the silly distortions of human motive and conduct
36
becoming conventionalized in the new courtier drama."
The Love-Sick Court was written on the love versus
friendship theme. Philargus and Philocles, supposedly
twins, were both in love with the King's daughter, Eudina.
She vacillated between them, loving whichever one had just
made the more eloquent speech on the subject of giving her
up and leaving the country in order that the other might
marry her. Finally, the King ordered her to make up her
mind. Philocles was poisoned and Eudina was left with
Philargus. But information was brought to light which made
Philargus the son of the King and consequently, the brother
of Eudina. Miraculously, Philocles recovered from the
sleep, and, of course, married Eudina. The problem of true
love and friendship was solved. Brome very wisely included
two sub-plots, one of which concerned the love interests of
Doris, a waiting-woman, and Tersulas, servant to Philargus
and Varillus, servant to Philocles. The other sub-plot in
volved the marriage of the sister of Philocles to Philargus.
R. J. Kaufmann, Richard Brome (New York and Lon
don: Columbia University Press, 1961), p. 109.
165
One of the key speeches from The Love-Sick Court, as far as
this study is concerned, was made by Eudina in Act I.
Love, and ambition (I have heard men say)
Admit no fellowship: It holds not here.
These will have neither wife nor crown alone.
They each desire my love; but neither can
Enjoy't unless he were the other man.
My love is doubly tane, yet must gain neither,
Unless I could enjoy them both together. 0, ye Gods!
Why made ye them two persons, and assign'd
To both but one inseparable mind?
Or, why was I mark'd out to be that one,
That loves and must embrace, or two, or none;
07 9 9 9
0 my perplexity. '
But it fell to sir William Davenant, appointed
poet laureate in 1637, the greater part of the work of
articulating the conventions of Platonic Love. He confessed,
in at least one play, that he was writing on a subject about
which he understood very little. In the Prologue to The
38
Platonick Lovers (1635) he said:
'Tis worth my smiles, to think what inforc'd ways,
And shifts each Poet hath to help his Plays.
Ours now believes, the Title needs must cause
From the indulgent Court, a kind applause,
Since there he learnt it first, and had command
T'interpret what he scarce doth understand.
37
Brome, op. cit.. I.ii.488-499.
38
Sir William Davenant, "The Platonick Lovers,"
The Works of Sir William Davenant (London: Printed by
T. N. for Henry Herringman, at the Sign of the Blew
Anchor in the Lower Walk of the New Exchange, 1673).
166
In the first act one of the characters speaks of the
new love:
Right, Sir, the first are Lovers of a pure
Coelestial kind, such as some stile Platonical:
(A new Court Epithete scarce understood). But all
they woo, Sir, is the Spirit, Face, and Heart,
therefore their conversation is more safe to Fame;
the other still affect for natural ends.*^
In the second act Buonateste said Plato was wronged
in being held responsible for the new cult.
My Lord, I still beseech you not to wrong my good
old Friend, Plato, with this Court calumny; they
father on him a fantastick love he never knew, poor
Gentleman, upon my knowledge, Sir, about two
thousand years ago, in the high street yonder at
Athens, just by the corner as you pass to Diana's
Conduit, (a Haberdashers house) it was (I think)
he kept a w e n c h . 40
One of the conventions of the Platonic Love Cult
was that the lover be a man other than the lady's husband:
marriage was believed to hamper "pure love." Davenant
brought this out in the following scene:
Castraganio:
My Sister, Signior, is inquisitive, guilty of my
offence, she ask'd me e're you came, why you endeavour'd
thus to have the Lady married to another, whom you
meant to love?
Fredeline:
That's the Platonick way; for so the Balls, the
Banquets, Chariot Canopy, and quilted Couch, which
39 . . .
Ibid., I.i.
40
Ibid., II.i.
167
are the places where this new wise Sect do meditate,
are kept, not at the Lovers but the Husbands charge,
and it is fit; for marriage makes him none, though
she be still of the Society.
Amadine:
And may besides her husband, have a sad Platonical
servant to help her meditate.
Fredeline:
41
All modern best Court Authors do allow't.
The physical side of love was frowned upon, at least
in theory.
Theander:
My Sister you shall marry, Phylomont.
Phylomont:
I thank you Sir, most heartily: You, if you please,
shall marry mine, and then do with her what you
list; for I'll make bold with yours.
Fredeline:
42
This Duke is one of Plato's Hereticks.
Apparently, Davenant was not in sympathy with the
idea of verbal love. In the last act of The Platonick
Lovers he expressed this view.
Phylomont:
I'm weary of this dull Platonick life: d'you think
that I'll sit sighing thus under a Poplar Tree, or
whining by a River side? either consent to marry,
or I will straight take Horse, ride to my Province
and seek some down-right Virgin out, that knows
Natures plain Laws, though not the Art of Love.
4lIbid.. Ill.i.
42
Ibid., IV.l.
168
Men that are satisfy'd with wind and air, may
keep Camelions company: I'm of another diet; I, my
learned new acquaintance here, laughs to conceive what
Hercules aid's fifth Mistresses would have thought
of a Platonick Lover.
Buonateste:
43
He would have beaten's brains out with his Club.
Davenant was the important link between the court
drama of Charles I and that of Charles II. He served as
poet laureate under both kings and Dryden acknowledged
him as the founder of Heroic Tragedy. There are similarities
between the Platonic Love plays of the court of Charles I
and the Restoration Heroic Tragedies. Also, there are many
differences. At least part of the differences may be at
tributed to the opposition of the Puritans to the Platonic
Love plays introduced by Henrietta Maria.
It is difficult to determine what the Puritans dis
liked most about Henrietta Maria— her Frenchness, her
Catholicism or the artificiality of the love cult which she
sponsored. Her marriage contract had "ensured her chapels,
oratories and chaplains in every English royal palace; a
bishop and twenty-eight priests were to accompany her and
44
all her domestic attendants were to be French Catholics."
Henrietta Maria added to English distrust. First, she
43
Ibid., V.i.
44
Oman, Henrietta Maria, p. 25.
169
couldn't speak English and, for several years, she didn't
try. She took no pains to try to understand the English,
let alone endear herself to them. A few incidents from her
early years in England show how English mistrust grew into
suspicion and from there to downright hate.
. . . At Tichfield there had been a shouting-match
at the dinner-table one day between a Protestant
chaplain and her majesty's confessor, both determined
to say the grace before meat. On another morning the
queen and her ladies, whilst a Protestant service
was being held in the hall of the house, had twice
promenaded ostentatiously through the assemblage of
worshippers, loudly laughing and talking. . . . Early
in the New Year she went 'in her embroidered carosse'
to the Tower, where a banquet was given to her and
ordnance was shot off. Londoners, watching the pro
cession return by torchlight, noted furiously that
the coach of their queen's confessor preceded that of
their queen.^
But, as far as the English people were concerned,
the unforgivable sin was her not appearing for the corona
tion ceremony with her husband.
. . . Since his wife could not receive her crown
from the hands of a clergyman of her own religion,
and would not attend a heretic service, she would
never be crowned. She was the first queen consort
of England to dissociate herself from her husband's
coronation, and his Protestant subjects, noticing
that even the latticed chamber set ready for her in
the abbey, so that she could be present unofficially,
remained unoccupied throughout the ceremony, hence
forward regarded her as a declared enemy. °
45
Ibid., p. 41.
46
Ibid., p. 42.
170
The Puritans were convinced that the Queen intended
to bring'the Pope to England and to establish Popery there.
Furthermore, they felt that the court was a den of iniquity
and that Henrietta Maria, through her Platonic Love Cult,
had done a great deal toward establishing that condition.
So, they attacked her, sniping at first but finally opening
their big guns and demanding that she be sent back to France,
and her Catholic friends with her.
In reading the sermons and pamphlets of the time,
one gains the impression that the Puritans confused Cathol
icism and the Platonic Love Cult. They knew that the love
cult encouraged adultery, fornication and incest and some
of these charges they directed to the Catholic church. They
knew that the gospel of the love cult was preached through
the drama and on the stage and they were alarmed at the in
creasing amount of theatrics used in the Anglican Church.
Their intention was to purify the Anglican Church from the
Catholic theatrical influence and to purify the court from
the theatrical influence which taught Roman ideals of de
bauchery. Equally confusing to them was the "Mary-worship"
of the Catholics, which they confused with the worship of
beauty in women in the love cult. So, they fired away
broadside, and sometimes they scored two hits at the same
171
47
time as Prynne did in his Histrio-Mastix. He attacked the
Church and he attacked the stage. Unfortunately the book
was published a short time before the Queen appeared on the
stage in a Masque. Prynne attacked all aspects of the
theatre and particularly denounced "Female-Actors." In
speaking against "lascivious mixt, effeminate Dancing on
48
the Stage ..." as an adjunct of plays, prynne refers
to the women as "Whores or persons more infamous (for such
are all those females in Saint Chrysostomes judgement, who
49
dare dance publikely on a Theater) ..."
For his outspoken book Prynne was fined, his ears
cut off, and under the dateline February 6, 1633 "Mr. Prynne
50
was committed to the Tower on Friday last."
According to Oman, Henrietta Maria tried to save
Prynne from losing his ears in the pillory but "he had
attacked the Church as well as the court and Laud was
47
William Prynne, Histrio-Mastix (London: Printed
by E. A. and W. I. for Michael Sparke, and are to be sold at
the Blue Bible, in Greene Arbour, in little Old Bayly,
1633).
48 49
Ibid., p. 220. Ibid.
50
Thomas Birch (ed.), The Court and Times of
Charles the First. Vol. II (London: Henry Colburn,
Publisher, 1848), p. 226.
172
51
implacable. "
52
In "Platonic Love and the Puritan Rebellion,"
G. F. Sensabaugh placed part of the blame for the Civil War
on the Queen's cult of love. Evidence from sermons and
pamphlets of the era support this view. The Puritans
attacked actors, plays, all forms of drama, and particularly
the court drama which best reflected Platonic Love beliefs.
53 54 55
Joseph Hall, William Jones, Thomas Drant, and M.
Thomas Gataker^ were authors of sermons, preached and later
published, denouncing actors, play-houses and play-bookes.
Herbert Palmer, in a sermon preached to the House of Commons
_ — —
Oman, op. cit.. p. 87.
52
G. F. Sensabaugh, "Platonic Love and the Puritan
Rebellion," studies in Philology. XXXVII (July, 1940),
457-481.
53
Joseph Hall, The Hypocrite (London: Printed by
William Stansby for Nathaniel Butter, 1630); and The Remedy
of Prophanenesse (London: Printed by Thomas Harper, for
Nathanael Butter, and are to be sold at his shop at the
signe of the pyde-Bull, at S. Austins Gate, 1637).
54
William Jones, The True Inquisition (London;
Printed by William Jones dwelling in Red-crosse-streete,
1636) .
55
Thomas Drant, The Royal1 Guest (London: Printed
by G. M. for Walter Hammond, and are to be sold by Michael
Sparke in Greene-Arbour, 1637).
Thomas Gataker, Noah. His Obedience, with The
Ground of It: His Faith. Feare. and Care (London: Printed
by Anne Griffin for Edward Brewster, 1637) .
173
in 1643, scourged the play-house as "against all the Com-
57
mandments, ..." and called for the "suppression alto
gether (not onely for this time of our calamity) that trade
58
of nothing but infection, Players."
It was true that the Queen's cult encouraged adul
tery, fornication and incest and made light of marriage. In
a letter written during the period "from one friend to
another" the author reported some current gossip: . .1
hear that F. B. is gotten with^Child either by Fra. C. or by
her brother, George Brooke, which is rather thought. .
59
. ." The Puritans blamed this moral looseness, together
with the worship of beauty in women, which they confused
with Maryolity, on the Catholics. They cited the Catholic
60
priests as examples of libertines.
57
Herbert Palmer, The Necessity and Encouragement.
of Utmost Venturing For the Churches Help (London: Printed
for Sam. Gellibrand at the Brazen Serpent in Pauls Church
yard, 1643), p. 39.
58
Ibid., p. 54.
59
Sir Tobie Mathews Kt., A Collection of Letters
(London: Printed for Henry Herringman, and are to be sold
at his Shop, at the sign of the Anchor in the Lower Walk in
the New Exchange, 1660), p. 287.
60
John Bastwick, The Letanv of John Bastwick
([n.p.] [n.n.], 1637), p. 23; Richard Cooke, A White Sheete
(London: Printed by John Dawson, for Henry Overton, and
are to be sold at the entrance into Popes-head-Alley, out of
174
The Puritans were bent on cleansing the Anglican
Church of its impurities. They charged that the Church of
England was coming too much under the influence of Rome and
cited as examples of Catholic influence the formal service,
which they likened to stage-plays, and the wearing of vest
ments by the clergy, which they compared to the costuming
of actors. To the Puritans, the bending of the knee at the
name of Jesus was idolatry and they spoke out on all of
these charges. Many of the sermons and pamphlets carried
the same ideas which ran along the following lines:
. . . it [Communion] is turned rather into a
theatricall Stage-play, where mens eares are filled
with pleasant tunes of musical1 instruments, and
voyces of not communicating singers, and their eyes
fed with pompous spectacles of glittering pictures,
and histrionicall gestures of men arrayed in massing
and pibald, not decent robes.^
Lumbard-streete, 1629), pp. 27-28; William Sclater, Papisto-
Mastix (London: Printed by Ric. Hodgkinsonne for Daniel
Frere, and are to be sold this shop at the signe of the red-
bull in little Britaine, 1642), p. 11 and p. 47; Richard
Sibbes, The Spirituall-Mans Aime (London: printed by E. G.
for John Rothwell and are to be sold at the Sunne in Pauls
Church-yard, 1637), pp. 27-28; John Taylor, A Common Whore
(London: Printed for Henry Glosson, and are to be sould
in Pannier-Alley, 1622).
61
Peter Smart, A Short Treatise of Altars. Altar-
furniture. Altar-cringing, and Musick of All the Quire.
Singing-men and Choristers, p. 17.
175
Many sermons were preached against idolatry, or
Jesu-worship. The Puritans were dead-set against it, but
there were some Protestants who felt that the Puritans made
62 63
too much of it. Henry Burton and William Prynne spoke
against it in the darkest terms:
. . . Yea, the Papists have a Holy-day dedicated to
the Name of Jesu; and Jesu worshippers have even
thrust it into our Kallenders, but in black letters,
mourning that it is not in Scarlet, as their hope is
it will shortly be, if it can finde worshippers
enough.64
There were those who spoke with less emotion and in
a conservative spirit. William Page said: ". . .We con-
demne not the Papists the use of bowing, but the abuse of
65
it." Christopher Dow said: ". . .in derision to terme
it Jesu-worship, or to brand those that use it, as men
destitute of the true feare of God, I say (...) Lord lay
66
not this sinne to their charge."
6 2
Henry Burton, Jesu-Worship Confuted ([n.p.]
[n.n.], 1640).
63
William Prynne, Lame Giles His Haultings ([n.p.]
[n.n.], 1630).
64
Burton.op. ext.. p. 8.
65
William Page, A Further Justification of Bowing at
the Name of Jesus (Oxford: printed by John Lichfield
Printer to the Famous University, 1631), p. 142.
66
Christopher Dow, innovations Unjustly charged upon
the Present Church and State (London: Printed by M. F. for
John Clark, and are to be sold at his Shop under S. Peters
Church in Cornhill, 1637), p. 116.
176
The charges and counter-charges made during the
period prior to the Civil War, when the Puritans were rising
in power, were for the most part negative. As was pointed
out, the Puritans were trying to "purify" the Church of
England and the court. There was at least one positive
result of all the arguing and talk: all concerned were
driven to articulating the qualities of a virtuous woman.
Probably never before in the history of the Christian reli
gion had women been the subject of so many sermons and so
much discussion. In a letter written August 22, 1633 the
writer reported on a sermon he had heard.
. . . Dr. Dee, in his last sermon before the king,
upon the text, 'Blessed is the womb that bare thee,
and the paps that gave thee suck,' did so extol
womankind as if he had been to marry a daughter, and
had no portion for her; and in case she would not off
without money, then she might apply the latter part
of his sermon, which was the glory of virginity. He
spake so much in commendation of virginity, as I do
verily believe all those women that heard him, that
have wicked husbands, or are aged, wish themselves
virgins and young again.67
The Puritans believed in marriage and they believed
that a woman's place was in the home, and their definition
of a virtuous woman was within the framework of woman as a
homemaker or a potential homemaker. John Featly wrote in
67
Birch (ed.), The Court and Times of Charles the
First. II, 230.
177
The Honor of Chastity:
A vertuous Woman is like the Jewell in the field,
mentioned in the Gospell: Or as the Sunne in the
Heavens, dazeling the eyes of the weake spectators:
and giving lustre to the rest of her sexe, the smallest
Starres. Yea, a Woman in honour (invested with the
Ermins of Religion) is all white, and goodnesse of her
selfe: . . .68
But immediately he added: . . though not without some
69
blacke spots of malice and corruption."
In The Female Glory Anthony Stafford compared the
virtues of Mary, Mother of Jesus, to the absence of those
virtues in most women, but it was written as a guide to
women. Virtues which the young women were to cultivate were
"the greatest Christian Vertues: Faith, Obedience, Humil-
70
lty." Other feminine virtues included charity, "motherly
71
care and conjugall Faith." Furthermore, the ideal woman
kept her tongue under control. "... This vertue of an
68
John Featly, The Honor of Chastity (London:
Printed by G. P. for Nicholas Bourne, and are to be sold at
his shop, at the South entrance of the Royall Exchange,
1632) , p. 31.
69Ibid.
70
Anthony Stafford, The Female Glory (London:
Printed by Thomas Harper, for John Waterson, and are to be
sold at his Shop in Pauls Church-yard, at the signe of the
Crowne, 1635), p. 58.
71Ibid.. p. 173.
178
opportune silence few women obtain, if they do, it comes to
72
them the last of all other . . ."
The ideal woman pictured here is a far cry from the
ideal woman pictured in the Platonic Love Cult, where physi
cal beauty was the primary requisite and wit a close second.
Nothing was said of obedience and, as for "conjugall Faith"
no one of the Queen's cult thought that a virtue. And it
was the Christian concept of the virtuous woman that pre
vailed in Restoration Heroic Tragedy.
Attraction between the sexes, and even love between
the sexes, is as old as time and is not confined to aristo
cratic groups. The idea of romantic love between the sexes
as it was exemplified by courtly love and Platonic Love
appealed to persons outside the rank of aristocrats. As
Hunt pointed out:
. . . The slowly growing middle classes had long
been envious of the romantic love conduct of the
nobility, but since the average bourgeois and his
wife could afford neither the time nor money for
extramarital courtly love affairs, they had tradi
tionally frowned upon it and used Christian morals
as the justification of their views. But romantic
ideals blended with marriage were something the
middle class not only could accept, but secretly
hungered for. The prosaic domestic-conduct books
of the middle class therefore began to reveal
^Ibid., pp. 53-54.
179
73
signs of a change from the mid-sixteenth century on.
Young people began to insist upon having more to say
about the choice of a life-mate. Love was a subject of much
discussion and, even in the Age of Reason, when men believed
that reason should govern the emotions, love refused to come
under the rein of the intellect and this age was
obsessed with love, or rather with that special
variant of it called "gallantry"— a socially required,
intricate, ritualistic routine of flirtation, seduc
tion, and a d u l t e r y .74
The love theme of Restoration drama contained all of
the elements of the Platonic Love Cult of Henrietta Maria's
age with this difference: those elements not compatible
with Christian ideals were dealt with in the comedies or
were confined to the love interests of villains, both male
and female. The heroes of Restoration Heroic tragedies were
Christian; the heroines were humble, obedient and true to
their marriage vows. Only in the comedies was the heroine
allowed to be talkative and witty.
The idealized Christian virtues probably made for
good domestic relations but they did not contribute much to
the making of good drama. Dryden was one of the writers who
73
Hunt, op. cit.. pp. 207-208.
74Ibid., p. 256.
180
75
realized this, in Tyrannick Love (1669) , Dryden went to
the Greek tragedies for his model and created a pagan domi
nant character, Maximin, who was one of the best drawn char
acters of all his plays. The sentiments of the play were
anti-religious. At one point, Placidius, one of Maximin's
trusted generals said:
T'infected zeal you must no mercy show
For, from Religion, all Rebellions grow.
In the last act Maximin defied the gods:
What had the Gods to do with me or mine?
Did I molest your Heav'n?—
Why should you then make Maximin your Foe,
Who paid you Tribute, which he need not do?
Your Altars I with smoke of Gums did crown:
For which you lean'd your hungry nostrils down.
And daily gaping for my incense there,
More than your Sun could draw you in a year.
And you for this these Plagues on me have sent;
But by the Gods (by Maximin I meant)
Henceforth I and my World
Hostility with you and yours declare,
Look to it, Gods; for you th'Agressors are.
Keep you your Rain and Sun-shine in your Skies,
And I'le keep back my flame and Sacrifice.
Your Trade of Heav’n shall soon be at a stand,
And all your Goods lie dead upon your hand.^
Dryden was sharply criticized for creating a pagan
75
Dryden, Tyrannick Love (1st ed.; London: Printed
for H. Herringman, at the Sign of the Blew Anchor in the
Lower Walk of the New Exchange, 1670).
76Ibid., ii.i.484-485.
77Ibid.. V.i.2099-115.
181
hero who dared defy the heavenly powers. Being an astute
man, he went to great lengths, in the preface to the reader
of the printed play, to explain that Maximin was not a true
king, but a villain who had taken the throne by force.
Since no sane person would consider emulating a villain,
Dryden felt himself justified in painting Maximin as he did.
But never again did he present a totally un-Christian hero.
None of the lines concerning a woman's relationship
to her husband or pursuing lover offered an affront to the
Christian views of women. For example, Berenice, the wife
of Maximin said:
I hate this Tyrant, and his bed I loath;
But, once submitting, I am ty'd to both:
Ty'd to that Honour, which all Women owe.
Though not their Husbands person, yet their vow.
Something so sacred in that bond there is,
That none should think there could be ought amiss:
And if there be, we should in silence hide
Those faults, which blame our choice when they are
spy'd.78
This theme ran through several of the Heroic
Tragedies and it was a theme in harmony with the Christian
ideals— conjugal fidelity, obedience and chastity. When the
heroine fell in love with another man, and she often did,
rather than glorify the love she felt, she harped on the
70
Ibid.. Ill.i.937-944.
182
theme of keeping her marriage vows. The Heroic Tragedies
did not eliminate adultery but they took it out of the love
of hero and heroine, and a hero's love led to marriage (or
death) but never to adultery.
If one can accept the social-climbing Samuel Pepys
as being typical of the upper middle class of the Restora
tion period one can understand the respect and homage paid
to the Christian virutes by this growing class while they
emulated their more paganly wanton superiors. Entry after
entry in his diary exposed Pepys' love affairs to the world
and the fact that he tried so hard to keep them secret from
his wife. Pepys exerted every effort to make himself accept
able to the aristocrats— studied music, read plays, kept up
with the gossip, bought stylish clothes and went to the
theatre, all of which delighted him. Pepys also went to
church and, judging from some of his entries, he had a
middle-class Christian conscience, for periodically, he made
a vow to the Lord not to attend the theatre, not to lie to
his wife and to be less extravagant.
But Pepys "made good," politically, socially and
financially, and in that he was typical of many middle-class
persons of the later seventeenth century and the eighteenth
183
century. Perhaps Pepys' Diary is as good a key as there is
to the understanding, not only the love and honor of the
Restoration plays, but the love and honor of the merchant-
1 /
hero plays of the eighteenth century.
CHAPTER VI
THE CHARACTER OF HENRY V AS REVEALED BY ORRERY'S
USE OF THE TERMS "LOVE" AND "HONOR"
The History of Henry V opened August 11, 1664 at
the Duke's Playhouse with Betterton in the role of Owen
Tudor. Although it was not the first play written by Roger
Boyle, the Earl of Orrery, after the Restoration, it was
the first heroic play written after the Restoration to be
performed. Boyle wrote his first play for the King's play
ers as he indicated in a letter, dated January 23, 1661, to
the Duke of Ormonde.
When I had the honour and happiness the last time to
kiss his majesty's hand, he commanded me to write a
play for him. I did not scruple therein to evidence
my great weakness, since thereby I did evidence the
greater obedience; and therefore, some months after,
I presumed to lay at his majesty's feet a tragi
comedy, all in ten feet verse and rhyme. I writ it
in that manner upon two accounts; first, because I
thought it was not fit a command so extraordinary
should have been obeyed in a way that was common;
secondly, because I found his majesty relished rather
the Frehch fashion of plays, than the English. I had
just grounds to believe, at least fear, that my play
184
185
would have been thought fitter for the fire than the
theatre; but his majesty's mercy having condemned it
only to the latter, and then giving it to be acted by
Mr. Killegrew's company, my old friend, Will.
D'Avenant, appeared so displeased his company missed
it, that nothing could reconcile me to him, but to
write another purposely for him. Therefore the last
and this week, having gotten some few hours to myself
from my public duties, I dedicated those to please my
particular friend, and wrote this unpolished draught
of two acts. . . .1
In a letter dated February 26, 1662, King Charles II
expressed his approval of Boyle's "first play."
. . . I have read your first play, which I like very
well, and do intend to bring it upon the stage, as
soon as my company have their new stage in order, that
the scenes may be worthy the words they are to set
forth. . . .2
Orrery answered the King's letter sometime before
March 15, 1662.
That my first play has the great honour to be
liked by your majesty is the highest and only end I
could ambition in writing of it. The second play,
which my lord lieutenant has acquainted your majesty
with, I flatter myself, will not be less unworthy of
your majesty's pardon, than the former, the plot,
humours and discourses in it being more proportionate
to the genius of those, who frequent the theatre,
than the other. . . .2
A Collection of the State Letters of the Right
Honourable Roger Boyle. The first Earl of Orrery. Lord
President of Munster in Ireland (Dublin: Printed by and for
George Faulkner, in Essex-street, opposite to the Bridge,
1743), I, 76.
2Ibid., I, 127. 3Ibid.. I, 129.
186
It was not until 1667 that a play of Orrery's,
The Black Prince. was presented at the King's Playhouse.
This was after the King's Men had moved from their original
playhouse in Gibbon's Tennis Court to the disused riding
school in Bridges Street (1663), but was considerably before
the Killigrew Company was in the Wren-designed Drury Lane
Theatre (1674). Perhaps the King was referring to the
riding-school theatre as the "new stage."
Prior to 1667, three of Orrery's plays had been
staged: The General in Dublin (1662); Henry V (1664) and
Mustapha (1665) at the Duke's Playhouse with Davenant's
company. The publisher's preface to The Dramatic Works of
Roger Boyle carried the statement that '"The Black prince'
was the first Play which my Lord of Orrery brought upon the
4
Stage; ..." It is possible that Orrery, thinking this
would be the first play of his to be staged, included this
information in the original manuscript, and the statement
was never corrected.
At any rate, Roger Boyle was one of the earliest
writers of Heroic Tragedy after the Restoration, having
Roger Boyle, The Dramatic Works of Roger Boyle
(London: Printed for R. Dodsley, at Tully's-Head in Pall-
mall, 1739) , I, v.
187
completed one play, "a tragi-comedy, all in ten feet verse
and rhyme," and two acts of a second play before January
23, 1661.
Henry V . apparently Boyle's second play,was present
ed at the Duke's Playhouse in August of 1664, following the
Dryden-Robert Howard Heroic Tragedy, The Indian Queen, first
presented in January of that year at the King's Playhouse.
Considering the fact that most authors circulated their
plays in manuscript among friends prior to their stage pre
sentation, and adding the evidence from Boyle's letters,
most scholars, including Nicoll and Chase, agree that Henry
V was written before The Indian Queen. Henry V was the
first of the heroic history plays.
The Plot
Henry V was the story of the English King's fight
with France for the lands which had originally belonged to
Eleanor, divorced wife of two kings— Louis VII of France,
and later Henry II of England. When Henry II divorced
Eleanor he gave her back her lands, as had Louis VII, of
Anjou and Aquitaine. According to Salique Law, a fifth
century code of laws, preference was shown to men over women
in the inheritance of lands. The French interpretation of
188
the Salique Law stated that lands could not be inherited
through women; consequently, Eleanor's lands would revert
to France and could not be legally inherited by any of her
descendents. Henry V believed otherwise, and went, at the
head of the English army, to claim what he believed to be
his rightful inheritance.
The love story between Henry and princess Katharine
of France was complicated by the fact that Owen Tudor,
Henry's best friend, also loved Katharine. Tudor, loyally
carried out Henry's request to tell Katharine of his love;
when Henry discovered that Tudor was also in love with her
he promised to speak to the lady on Tudor's behalf, which
he, in fact, did. There was less conflict in the situation
than might be supposed, for Katharine knew which one she
loved without a moment's hesitation: she loved Henry, and
the last act of the play brought Henry the victory over the
French and his marriage to Katharine.
In spite of the fact that Henry was the hero of the
play, most of the scenes were given to the story of the
French intrigue: the Queen ruled in place of the King who
was unable to rule; the Dauphin, whom the Queen did not
trust as being capable of ruling, was plotting to take the
throne for himself; the Duke of Burgundy was using the
189
complex situation to gain the throne for himself. All of the
intricacies of intrigue were in the French sub-plot, which
was finally resolved by the Queen's successfully bringing
about the death of the treacherous Burgundy, and by Henry's
successfully protecting the Queen against the Dauphin.
Henry's marriage to Katharine united France under his lead
ership.
Only about four and one-half percent of the lines
of Henry V were concerned with the subject of honor; approx
imately seventeen percent of the lines dealt with love; the
remainder, or more than three-fourths, of the lines were de
voted to exposition and the background not only of Henry's
quarrel with France but of the quarrels among the French.
Practically all of the action was narrated*, the
closest to action any character ever came in the play was in
the scene between Henry and the Dauphin. Henry had gone in
disguise to see Katharine, and the Dauphin, discovering
that an ambassador of Henry's was to visit Katharine, hid
v
himself in her apartment. There was a threat of a duel,
between Henry and the Dauphin, which never developed.
The play was closely related to the epic; Practi
cally all of the action was narrated, even the exploits of
the hero.
190
Honor
What was Henry V's code of honor? Orrery devoted
only one hundred and five lines in Henry v to the subject of
honor. Honor, in order to shine more brightly, needs the
dramatic contrast of its opposite, dishonor; and Orrery
gave more lines to French intrigue than he gave to honor.
Only the French were guilty of any dishonor; all of the
English were honorable. The only conflict between English
characters came as a result of Tudor's love for Katharine,
whom Henry planned to make his Queen. However, the con
flict became a personal one for Tudor since the lady did
not return Tudor's love. At least one member of the seven
teenth-century audience offered a criticism of Henry V
which is immediately apparent to a present-day reader.
. . . to the new play, at the Duke's house, of
"Henry the Fifth;" a most noble play, writ by my
Lord Orrery; wherein Betterton, Harris, and Ianthe's
parts are most incomparably wrote and done, and the
whole play the most full of height and raptures
of wit and sense that ever I heard; having but one
incongruity, that King Harry promises to plead for
Tudor to their Mistresse, Princess Katharine of
France, more than when it comes to it, he seems to
do; and Tudor refused by her with some kind of indig
nity, not with a difficulty and honour that it ought
to have been done in to him.^
Henry, in true classical tradition, made war on the
5
Pepys, The Diary of Samuel Pepys. August 13, 1664.
191
French to right the wrong which the French had done the
English in not recognizing the English claim to French lands
of Eleanor, Henry Il's Queen. In his first speech in the
play, Henry v made his position clear— the English were
fighting a just war and victory was sure to be on the side
of the right, an opinion consonant with medieval justice
which maintained that heavenly forces insured victory to
the "right" side.
This is the day in which our Valour must
Prove to the French, our claim to France is just;
Since 'twill no other way be understood,
It must be writ in Characters of blood. .
6
Henry V held the highest place in English society
and politics and was everything the ideal prince should be—
brave, confident (without arrogance, however), a natural
leader and accomplished in the art of arms. Furthermore,
he had brought his emotions under the control of his reason,
which was in accord with the classical concept of the good
prince, and which would have endeared him to seventeenth-
century English gentlemen.
g
Roger Boyle, Earl of Orrery, The History of Henry
the Fifth (London: Printed for H. Herringman at the
Sign of the Blew Anchor in the Lower-Walk of the New-
Exchange, 1669), l.i.1-4.
192
Burgundy:
Whilst his prodigious Father was alive,
Some youthful signs of wildness he did give;
But when he early on his Throne was plac'd,
A Kingly Soul his Royal Title grac'd;
And then what ever mis-becoming thing
Liv'd in the Prince, was buri'd in the King;
Nought should in us low thoughts of him perswade,
Who does himself subdue, and France invade.?
By contrast the French Dauphin had been undone by
revenge and pride.
Revenge and Pride my reason have betray'd; g
And both have rul'd, what both should have obey'd.
There was no question about Henry's military abil
ity: the French reported to their Queen:
Blamount:
Those who did proudly think the Foe would yield,
Saw him draw up with order in the Field;
And by a King advanc'd, whose hand and head,
All the defects supply'd of those he lead.
For it is equally strange to say,
That they durst fight, as that they won the day:
But fame can want no Theme when she does sing
Of English Swords led by an English King;
Nor was he onely in the Battel known
By his bright Armour, which like Lightning shone;
But did with nobler marks his Valour grace,
Still being seen where foremost danger was.
Alanson, who observed this wondrous King,
Courage to his, and fear to ours did bring:
Made fighting single with him his high aim,
And in a Battel to a Duel came.9
Blamount's description of Henry's armour showed that
7I.i.43-50. ®V.i.2119-120. 9I.i.181-184;192-202.
193
Henry met the classical code of honor in its demand for
ostentation, or magnificence. Orrery's royalist views were
expressed in the remainder of Blamount's speech, when, in
reporting the results of the duel, Blamount stated that
kings, as God's representatives on earth, are guarded by
angels.
But though Alanson did stupendous things,
A Subjects Sword could not resist a Kings^
Angels are Guardians of that Sacred Name.
Henry V followed the laws of the seventeenth-century
gentleman's code of honor in most respects. (There were a
few of the code's laws which were not brought into ques
tion.) There was one law of the code which he did not fol
low— that of not tolerating a rival in love. When Tudor
confessed his love for Katharine, Henry, instead of
challenging Tudor to a duel, according to the seventeenth-
century code of honor, offered to speak for his friend and
rival.
Henry V was patterned after the classical concept of
the hero but he also had at least two traits required by
the Christian gentleman's code of virtue: he was merciful
and trusting. Concerning his mercy, Burgundy said: ". . .
10I.i.209-211.
194
his Valour sheds, his Mercy spares, our blood.Henry
spoke of the virtue of trust which was implied in the
Christian code of virtue under promise-keeping and oath-
keeping. When the French nobleman, Chareloys, left the
service of the French to join forces with Henry, Henry
accepted him in full trust.
Chareloys:
My reason, not my passion makes me flye
From false Friend to a brave Enemy.
Henry:
And since you are so generous and just,
That, without Treaty, you my honour trust,
You shall, Sir, on a King's unblemish'd word,
Enjoy my Friendship, and engage my Sword.
Trust is the strongest Bond upon the Soul:
That sacred Tye has Virtue oft begot; ^
It binds where 'tis, and makes it where 'twas not.
What relationship existed between Henry's code of
honor and his character? Did he experience any psychological
conflicts from circumstances and his code of honor? If so,
did he resolve those conflicts in consonance with his code
of honor?
If Henry v ever experienced any psychological con
flicts resulting from a clash between his code of honor and
^Il.i^S. 12V.i.1796-797; 1808-811; 1836-838.
195
circumstances such a conflict existed when he was the heir
to the throne and not after he became king. The main story
of the play dealt with a short, though significant, segment
of his life— his war with the French. Apparently there was
no conflict regarding his decision to invade France; he knew
what he wanted and went after it in a manner consonant with
his code of honor, which was based on the classical concept.
The only incident in the play which might have pre
sented a conflict was the fact that Tudor loved Katharine.
If Henry experienced any conflict it was not apparent from
his words: he offered to speak for his friend and rival and
did so, but, as Pepys said, his pleas on Tudor's behalf were
less than eloquent.
Was the concept of honor in Henry V in agreement
with the concept held by a majority of Englishmen? Was it
possible for the average Englishman to empathize with Henry
V or admire him?
Henry V was an English king who was upholding
English rights against the French and in an honorable way.
Any Englishman would thrill to having such a national hero
defeat his old enemy, for it was almost an instinct with the
English to hate the French. Henry was a hero with whom
any Englishman could empathize: the aristocrats recognized
196
his classical code of honor and the Christian gentleman
recognized the Christian virtues of mercy and trust.
Orrery showed good judgment in choosing an English king as
the hero of his heroic play.
Love
What form of love was present in Henry V? The con
cept of love presented by Orrery in Henry V was fairly
simple, particularly when compared to the love theme of
other heroic plays: the only love story was that of
Katharine and Henry. If Orrery intended to present a love
versus friendship theme in the play he was not successful
because of the fact that Katharine had no difficulty what
soever in choosing between the two friends. Brome had
satirized the love versus friendship theme in The Love-Sick
Court. where it seemed the only possible solution to the
love problem was for the heroine to marry both lovers. But
Henry and Katharine were not such vacillating characters as
were the lovers in Brome1s play.
There were elements in the love theme taken from the
Platonic Love Cult plays: there were also facets of the love
story which showed Christian influence. Henry v included
the inevitable definitions of love which was an important
197
part of the Court of Love, the worship of beauty which re
vealed the influence of Plato's writings, and the idea of
the knight's service to his chosen lady, although Orrery
added a new twist. The Christian influence appeared in at
least two important aspects of the romantic love relation
ship: the culmination of the love of Henry and Katharine
was marriage, and Henry refused to marry Katharine for any
reason except their mutual love. In other words, Henry
regarded Katharine as a person in spite of the fact that she
was a woman. Henry was not interested in making a marriage
treaty through Katharine's mother, or in using marriage as a
means for securing peace with France. Contrary to the
aristocratic practice of arranging marriages for political
and social advantage, the marriage of Henry V and Katharine
was to be one of love. (Although it was convenient that
Henry should fall in love with the French Princess.) But it
was such a story as would have appeal today, that of the boy
and girl choosing each other for marriage on the basis of
love.
There was the loyalty to the beloved, which was
idealized in the Platonic Love Cult, without the clandestine,
adulterous element. The love of Henry and Katharine was as
pure as the Platonic Love Cult demanded but it culminated in
198
marriage as the Christian religion demanded.
As the powerful force in the Heroic Tragedies, and
in keeping with the Court of Love tradition, love had to be
defined. Henry defined love as a fire.
'Tis Love's fierce Fire which does my heart devour;
Less to be quench'd than heats of Fame or Power.
Katharine defined love as a fire and a power.
Love is a flame which nothing can controul;
As souls to bodies are, Love's to the soul:
A pow'r which does all other powers o'rturn,
And cannot be conceal'd when it does burn. , .
14
Katharine's friend, Princess Anne, observed that
love follows different paths.
Love to his height oft by degrees does rise,
Sometimes it storms a bosom by surprize;
Love moves not even in one constant road,
Oft, like a Child, he acts, then like a God;
And, by your easie ruling him, you may ^
Mistake his power, for what is but his play.
Tudor, torn between loyalty to his king and friend and love
for Katharine, spoke of the jealousy which accompanied such
a love.
. . . Fate, thou art unjust in making me
To quit the love yet keep the jealousie:
Which is of Love's fair tree the foulest fruit;
A Branch whose nourishment offends the root.
13II.i.517-518. 14I.i.379-382. 15I.i.389-392.
199
Shall jealousie a pow'r o'er judgment gain,
Though it does onely in the fancy reign?
With knowledge thou are inconsistent still;
The mind's soul Monster whom fair truth does kill.
Thy tyranny subverts even Nature's Laws;
For oft thou hast effects without a cause.
And, which thy strength or weakness does detect,
Thou often hast a cause without effect.
In all thou doest, thou ever dost amiss,
Seest what is not, or seest not that which is.
Whilst thou dost live sickness does thee pursue:
And he who cures thee needs must kill thee too.
Katharine's mother stated that lovers do not behave according
to rules; in other words, love is not rational.
He that by Rules can judge a Lover's heart,
Has brought into the world an unknown Art. ^
Through the characters in his play, Orrery, then,
defined love as a fire which may come slowly or very quickly
to the heart, causing lovers to behave in an irrational way.
The worship of beauty in women, very important in
the Platonic Love Cult plays, was apparent also in both
Henry's and Tudor's love for Katharine. Henry said she
ruled France through her beauty.
My Laurels might a safe refreshment prove
To any other heat but that of Love;
Their sacred force 'gainst Thunder only lies,
Not against lightning shot from conqu'ring eyes;
Whose pow'r, like that of lightning, I have felt;
My breast they wound not, yet my heart they melt.
16IV.i.1482-497. 17III.i.961-962.
200
Such adoration Fancy cannot raise,
As to this beauty sight and reason pays;
For he whose heart Love can to ashes turn,
Must feel her Eyes alone have right to burn:
Loves Rebels by her eyes are kept in awe, ^g
She Reigns in France spight of the Salique Law.
When Tudor went to Katharine, as Henry requested, to
tell her of Henry's love for her, he told her that her
beauty had subdued his own heart as well as the king's.
I then presumed to tell you of a Fire
Your Eyes did in a Subjects heart inspire;
But, Madam, now th' assurance which I bring,
Is that your Beauties have subdu'd a King; ^
Another facet of the Platonic Love Cult which ap
peared in Henry V was the medieval knight's service to his
chosen lady. The knight added to his glory by performing
wonderful deeds in the name of his lady: Henry went to con
quer France in order to make Katharine Queen of her own
country, rather a new twist on the knight's service to his
lady concept.
And this bright beauty offer'd for my Bride,
But with her, as her Dowry, France deni'd;
I shun'd the match, knowing her Beauties were
No price for Peace, but the reward of War;
My vows and passion she might justly scorn,
18II.i.513-518; 527-530; 533-534. 19I.i.714-717.
201
Did I not Crown her Queen where she was born;
And raise her boundless beauties to su
What a rude Law does to her Sex deny.^
Contrary to the aristocratic practice of arranging
marriages between social equals for political or economic
advantage, Henry refused such an arrangement. He wanted
Katharine to choose to marry him because she loved him; in
other words, Henry regarded Katharine as a person whose
wishes should be considered, and not as a political pawn.
The consideration of women as personalities whose wishes
were to be respected was Christian in origin.
She justly, Tudor, might my passion hate,
If Love's high int'rest I should mix with state.
If I this great concern by Treaty move,
'Twill be below her Beauty and my Love.
That blessing must in nobler wayes be sought:
Though Heav'n may be bestow'd, 'tis never bought.
When Tudor reported upon his visit to Katharine in
Henry's behalf, he said that Katharine must be sought
through her mother, an idea which Henry rejected.
That obligation, Tudor I'll decline,
She shall be all her own that must be mine.
'Tis for her glory she her self should give
The greatest gift that I can e're receive.
If from her will I differ, can she hate
My being for her int'rest obstinate?
20 21 22
II.i.540-547. II.i.588-593. Ill.i.836-841.
202
There may have been some relationship between
Henry's respect for Katharine as a person and the Maryolity
of the Platonic Love Cult but it did not carry the reverence
for, or the worship of, women, as did Maryolity; it was
rather reverence for women modified by reason.
Virtue was always a requisite for the heroine of an
Heroic play. Virtue was mentioned in Henry V but not
harped upon as it was in many of the Heroic plays. Of
course, Katharine was as virtuous as she was beautiful.
After Henry disguised himself to pay a visit to Katharine,
he said upon leaving her:
Madam, I go: but go so charm'd from hence,
Both by your eyes, and vertues influence,
That 'tis impossible for me to know
To which I most of Adoration owe. 23
Henry's statement is one of the most restrained
statements in all of the Heroic Tragedies on the subject of
virtue.
The play ended with the marriage of Henry, the vic
torious conqueror, to the fair and virtuous Katharine; such
an ending would satisfy both aristocrats and middle-class
Christian gentlemen. The wicked French had been subdued by
23III.i.1147-150.
203
the brave and peerless English and the romantic love story
ended happily in marriage.
What form of love was idealized in Henry V? There
was only one love story in Henry V— that of Henry and
Katharine. Romantic love, culminating in marriage, was the
ideal love in Henry V.
How was the love problem solved in Henry V? The
only love problem presented in the play wasn't really a
problem: Tudor, Henry's best friend, loved Katharine, but
since Katharine didn't show any interest in Tudor, there
was no conflict. Tudor loved Henry and did experience some
conflict in his attempt to be loyal to him and express his
love for Katharine.
If a conflict arose between Henry's code of honor
and the solution of the love problem, how did he resolve
the conflict? Katharine's father had offered her to Henry
in marriage to prevent Henry's invading France, an offer
which Henry refused.
This was the cause when Charles, her Father, sent
Embassadors, my Conquest to prevent;
And this bright beauty offer'd for my Bride,
But with her, as her Dowry, France deni'd;
I shun'd the match, knowing her beauties were
No price for Peace, but the reward of War;24
24II.i.539-544.
204
There is no evidence of a conflict, however, between
Henry's love for Katharine and his code of honor. Also,
there is not conclusive evidence that Henry based his de
cision to fight the French over the contested lands solely
on his desire to win Katharine's love and there is no evi
dence that his decision to invade France caused him any
psychological conflict. Neither did the knowledge that
Tudor loved Katharine cause Henry any expressed internal
conflict: he merely offered to state Tudor's case for him,
a promise he half-heartedly kept. To sum up, there is no
evidence of any psychological conflict so far as Henry is
concerned, between love and honor; there are only the two
incidents which could be construed as being cause for such
conflict. In this respect, Henry V differed from most
of the Heroic Tragedies: for Henry, love and honor seemed
to go together.
Was the solution of the love problem in Henry V
influenced primarily by Christian or classical influence?
While there was evidence of the influence of the Platonic
Love Cult concepts in Henry V . the solution of the love of
Henry and Katharine was marriage, a solution compatible
with Christian concepts.
CHAPTER VII
THE CHARACTER OF AIMANSOR, THE HERO OF
THE CONQUEST OF GRANADA. AS REVEALED BY DRYDEN'S
USE OF THE TERMS "LOVE" AND "HONOR"
One of the best of the Restoration period Heroic
Tragedies was John Dryden's The Conquest of Granada, a ten-
act play, written in two parts of five acts each. Presented
at the King's Playhouse, Part I opened in December, 1670,
and Part II followed two months later.
Although it was popular with the audience, the play
had weaknesses which provided the material for Rochester's
satiric comedy, The Rehearsal. Rochester derided the hero's
super-human exploits and taunted "Bayes" for the lack of
unified action in the play. While his devastating criti
cism did not alienate the affection of the audience from
heroic plays, it did cause Dryden to alter certain aspects
of that form. In his subsequent heroic plays he broke away
from the rigid couplet; his heroes were a little more human;
205
206
and he made the action, rather than the character of the
hero, the unifying force of the play.
Rochester's criticism of the complicated plot was a
valid one. Dryden's purpose was to present a hero worthy
of admiration and toward this end he created a series of
tableaux, each of which exhibited a facet of the hero's
character. He limited the exhibited characteristics of
the hero to the areas of physical bravery and romantic love
to conform to his definition of a heroic play which he gave
in the essay, "Of Heroic plays," printed with the first
edition of the play: ". . .an Heroick Play ought to be
an imitation, in little of an Heroick Poem: and consequent
ly, that Love and Valour ought to be the subject of it. .
Unquestionably, love and valor were the subject of
The Conquest of Granada— approximately one-half of the
spoken lines dealt with the subject of love and fifteen per
cent of the lines dealt with the subject of honor. In addi
tion to the spoken lines there were three love songs— two
solos and one duet.
^"Dryden, "Of Heroick Plays, An Essay."
207
The Fable
The Conquest of Granada was an Heroic play written
2
"by the rules of an heroic poem, ..." and consequently,
the hero was the unifying force of the play. The hero,
Almansor, underwent twelve trials in each of the two parts
of the play— trials designed to reveal his bravery and
skill in arms and his unswerving loyalty to the beloved.
Homer had used the same number of trials to reveal more
facets of his hero's character in the Odyssey. It is char
acteristic of the epic poem to present the deeds and trials
of the hero in narrated form and Dryden retained this char
acteristic in The Conquest of Granada; with the exception
of two duels fought on stage, the trials concerning
Almansor's physical bravery were narrated.
The great difference between The Conquest of Granada
and the Odyssey was in the treatment of romantic love.
Homer used love between man and woman as an example of ani
mal appetite which, when not controlled, reduced man to the
level of beasts. Dryden used the Lyndaraxa-Abdalla-
Abdelmelech triangle to show the destructive use of sexual
attraction but his emphasis was on pure romantic love, an
2Ibid.
208
emphasis which revealed the Christian influence, particular
ly the ethics of courtly love which had evolved from Chris
tian concepts.
Honor
What was Almansor's code of honor? What was the re
lationship between his code of honor and his character?
Dryden created Almansor in the image of Achilles:
. The first Image I had of him, was from the Achilles
of Homer, the next from Tasso's Rinaldo, (who was a copy
of the former:) and the third from the Artaban of Monsieur
3
Calpranede: . . ." Almansor's courage was patterned after
that of Achilles "who in strength and courage surpass'd the
4
rest of the Grecian Army: ..." and Dryden stressed this
aspect of honor in the character. Every trial, in both
parts of the play, that did not deal with love, was a test
of the hero's valor.
Almansor had all the confidence, courage, and mili
tary ability required of a classical hero. He recognized
no laws but his own.
Almansor:
Obey'd as Soveraign by thy Subjects be,
4
Ibid.
209
But know, that I alone am King of me.
My Laws are made but only for my sake^
The same idea was expressed by Abdalla, brother of
King Boabdelin, who summoned Almansor from Africa to help
Boabdelin against the Spaniards, and who gave the best de
scription of the hero.
Abdalla:
Vast is his Courage; boundless is his mind,
Rough as a Storm, and humorous as Wind;
Honour's the onely Idol of his Eyes:
The charms of Beauty like a Pest he flies:
And, rais'd by Valour, from a birth unknown,
Acknowledges no pow'r above his own.^
The classical hero acknowledged no power above his
own— he was a semi-god.
Almansor was sensitive to insult and injury, another
characteristic in accord with the code of honor based on the
classical tradition, which was revealed in his speech to
Abdalla after Abdalla had refused to release Almahide as
Almansor requested, instead he had given her to Zulema, who
had brought ten thousand troops to Abdalla's aid, and
threatened to withdraw them if Abdalla failed to honor his
5
Dryden, The Conquest of Granada. Part I, l.i.204-
205; 213.
6Part I, I.i.252-257.
210
request. Almansor met Zulema's threat with a counter
threat:
What are ten thousand Subjects such as they;
If I am scorn'd— I'le take myself away.?
Abdalla rebuked him for his insolence and told him
his full reward was to live. Almansor answered:
To live.'
If I would kill thee now, thy fate's so low
That I must stoop e're I can give the blow.®
Almansor returned to Boabdelin and offered his ser
vices. Both Boabdelin and his adviser, Abenamar, were
suspicious of Almansor, thinking that he came as a spy from
Abdalla. But, proving Aristotle's point that young men love
honor, but they love victory more and "they love both more
9
than they love money ..." Almansor answered their
doubts:
Were I like thee, in cheats of State grown old,
(Those publick Markets, where for forreign Gold;
The poorer Prince is to the richer sold;)
Then, thou might'st think me fit for that low part:
But I am yet to learn the Stateman's Art.
My Kindness and my Hate, unmask'd I wear;
For Friends to trust, and Enemies to fear.
7 8
Part I, III.i.1106-107. Part I, III.i.1116-120.
9
Aristotle, "Rhetoric," op. cit.. p. 122.
10Part I, IV.i.1178-184.
211
High rank and noble birth were basic requirements of
a classical hero. Almansor met both requirements: he had
achieved distinction as a military hero and he was of noble
birth although Dryden chose to reveal his identity in the
last scene of the last act of Part II of the play, when the
ghostly voice of his mother stopped Almansor from killing his
father, the Duke of Arcos.
Dryden compared Almansor to Achilles in the second
part of the play. Boabdelin was forced to recall Almansor
to satisfy the people. To add to the humiliation of asking
aid from a rival, Boabdelin was forced to make the request
through Almahide, since love was the only force strong
enough to draw Almansor back. Abenamar, who went after
Almansor, reported to the King:
I found him like Achilles on the shore,
Pensive, complaining much, but threatening more.
And, like that injur'd Greek, he heard our woes:
Which, while I told, a gloomy smile arose
From his bent brows; . . . H
Almansor returned from exile to support Boabdelin
in the spirit of the medieval knight who performed difficult
tasks for his lady, a decision based on the Christian tradi
tion. Another Christian influence was shown in Almansor's
X1Part II, II.iii.720-724.
212
decision to use his military abilities in the cause of his
rival in love, Boabdelin. As Barber pointed out, the seven
teenth-century gentleman's code of honor would not permit
his tolerating a rival in love. Almansor not only tolerated
Boabdelin but helped him hold his crown.
Duelling was dear to the hearts of seventeenth-
century English gentlemen and was a part of their code of
honor. Almansor fought two duels on the stage— the first one
in Part I where he killed Gomel in an attempt to unify
Boabdelin's warring factions; the second one in Part II when
he and Ozmyn publicly defended Almahide's honor against
Hamet and Zulema, who had accused her of adultery. Almahide
was declared innocent when Ozmyn and Almansor killed their
opponents. Before he died Zulema confessed his guilt and
asked Almahide's forgiveness. Until Zulema's confession
Almansor believed her guilty and fought the duel for his
honor's sake.
Yet her protection I must undertake;
Not now for Love; but for my Honours sake.
That mov'd me first, and must oblige me still,
My cause is good, however hers be ill;
The custom of proving innocence by public duelling
12
Part II, V.1.2068-71.
213
originated in the feudal period when a knight defended his
lady's honor against her accuser or against one whom she
had accused of making an attempt on her honor. The victory
was thought to come through the intervention of heavenly
forces which were naturally on the side of the right. While
this custom originated in the framework of the Christian
institution of knighthood, the practice of duelling was con
demned by seventeenth-century Christians as barbaric and
sinful.
One of the laws of the classical code of honor re
quired that the follower not lose face by being outwitted,
jilted or in any other manner. Almansor lost face three
times during the play: (1) when Boabdelin refused to re
lease the Duke of Arcos whom Almansor had taken prisoner;
(2) when Abdalla refused to free Almahide, a prisoner; and
(3) when Almahide asked him to return her scarf. Almansor's
reaction to the first insult was to desert Boabdelin and
join Abdalla, and subsequently free the Duke; his reaction
to the second insult was to desert Abdalla and return to
Boabdelin, defeat Abdalla and free Almahide. The third loss
of face concerned his love for Almahide and he reacted by
cursing the scarf, saying it would be torn from Boabdelin
and worn by a coward. Almansor was true to the classical
214
code of honor in this law— there was no turning of the other
cheek.
Another law of the classical code of honor to which
Almansor adhered was in not having his authority flouted.
After he had promised the Duke of Arcos his freedom he would
not tolerate having that promise rescinded by the King.
When he ordered the warring factions to unite under Boab
delin he defied any one to question the authority by which
he gave the command. He used his sword and the threat of
his sword to enforce his order.
Almansor was true to the classical code in insisting
on his rights. Perhaps he was even more true to the clas
sical concept in his deciding what his rights were, for
what he considered his rights did not take into considera
tion the rights of others. For example, politically, the
King had every right to refuse the release of his most
dangerous enemy. As a conqueror, Abdalla had the right to
dispose of a female prisoner of war as he chose. Later,
after Almansor had returned the crown to Boabdelin, who
offered him any price for his services, he asked for the
hand of Boabdelin*s betrothed, Almahide. This was a highly
irregular request from the standpoint of everyone concerned
except Almansor who thought that his love for Almahide gave
215
him such an outlandish right.
Some of the laws of the classical code of honor were
relatively unimportant as far as the character of Almansor
was concerned. Ostentation was implied— the military genius
brought from Africa, his background unknown, was able to
walk and talk with kings, who represented the ultimate of
magnificence in dress, speech and culture. There were no
inarticulate dowdies in The Conquest of Granada. All of
Almansor's acts were on a high level, so there was never
any question about his not performing menial tasks; even
such mundane acts as his eating and drinking were not men
tioned .
The misconduct of a relative tarnished the honor
of the seventeenth-century gentleman even as the noble be
havior of a kinsman added to his honor's lustre. The con
duct of Almansor's parents, his only relatives introduced
in the play, did not dim the bright glow of his honor;
rather, their conduct enhanced his honor. His father, the
noble Duke of Arcos, deserved the praises of Almansor him
self; the ghost of his mother intervened on two different
occasions to prevent Almansor from: (1) a crime against
love and (2) killing the Duke of Arcos, his father.
The final law of the code of honor, that of making
216
a good marriage, gave the least trouble to the classical
hero, since marriage was primarily a political matter, but
was Almansor's greatest problem. On this point Dryden
was influenced by the Christian tradition: romantic love
culminated in marriage. Almahide was a paragon of virtue,
by any standards, and her social position was equal to that
of Almansor. Dryden very adroitly herded his hero and
heroine into the Christian fold before the end of the play:
Almahide converted to the Christian religion during her
trial; Almansor discovered his Christian birth when the
ghost of his mother revealed his parentage.
The two sub-plots in the play dealt with other
facets of honor. One sub-plot concerned the love story
of Ozmyn, the brother of Almahide, and Benzayda, whose
fathers were leaders in opposing factions of Boabdelin's
kingdom, and consequently, enemies. The question of loyal
ty to parent and beloved was solved when both fathers were
won by the bravery, loyalty and virtue of both young people.
This was in accord with the Christian code of virtue which
demanded obedience to parents.
The second sub-plot was the story of Abdalla's
betrayal of his brother, Boabdelin, for the sake of his
fickle love, Lyndaraxa, who, in turn, betrayed him. This
217
story served two purposes: it dealt with the psychological
conflict of honor versus ambition and it pointed up
Almansor's unquestioning dedication to his code of honor in
much the same way that the anti-masque had been used to
dramatize the beauty of the masque.
Did Almansor experience any psychological conflicts
from circumstances and his code of honor? If so, did he
resolve those conflicts in consonance with his code of
honor?
The identity of the hero has been the theme of many
of the world's great dramas, epic poems, myths, and later,
novels. Sometimes the idea has been expressed in fairly
simple terms, i.e., the hero's being separated from his
parents at birth or shortly thereafter with the major prob
lem being the reuniting of the hero and his parents. Some
times the problem involves the hero's self-knowledge. Often
the quest for self-knowledge has been in the form of an
allegory, with the hero's gaining knowledge of himself
through a series of trials. Tests are provided by nature,
in the form of storms, treacherous water passages, difficult
terrain, or animals, usually monsters; or tests might be
made by other persons tempting the hero in various ways, in
218
the heroic poems the hero was victorious— Odysseus "came
home" or came to self-knowledge, after twelve trials in which
he was the victor. In some cases the discovery of self has
led to tragedy: Oedipus found his identity so painful that
he blinded himself and lived out his days in self-imposed
exile. Man tends to emulate the conquering hero but finds
himself identified with limping Oedipus, whose self-discov
ery revealed a monster too horrible for sight.
Almansor was patterned after the epic hero, vic
torious in all of his trials. Those trials concerned with
his love for Almahide presented the only evident psycholog
ical struggles. The play ended with his identity estab
lished and his betrothal to Almahide announced.
Although Dryden did not choose to present Almansor's
psychological conflicts through the spoken word he gave many
clues indicating that Almansor had made some rather diffi
cult choices. First, Almansor was a "loner." He had come
from an unknown background, had helped to establish the
Moroccan king on the throne and had come to a strange coun
try to help a man he did not know secure his kingship. He
had earned his right to military leadership through his
proven ability; he was not leading an army because he was a
king's son and an accident of birth had placed him in the
219
position.
Almansor was true to himself. He did not waste time
debating with himself whether his duty to a friend came
before his own desires. When such a duty conflicted with
his own desire, the friend came second.
Almansor was not an opportunist. There were many
instances of his making a choice that to a lesser man would
have meant disaster. His first meeting with Boabdelin
came when Boabdelin was trying to unite the warring factions
within his kingdom. Almansor made a quick decision, join
ing with the faction facing certain defeat.
I cannot stay to ask which Cause is best;
But this is so to me, because opprest.13
Later, when the Duke of Arcos offered to save
Almansor before beseiging the Moorish stronghold, Almansor
refused, fighting with the Moors against the superior
Spanish forces. Another time when Boabdelin refused to
release the Duke of Arcos after Almansor had promised him
his freedom, Almansor abandoned Boabdelin and went to fight
with the weaker forces of Abdalla against Boabdelin.
Almansor's defending the oppressed was in accord with the
vow taken by knights to defend the oppressed, a decision
13Part I, I.i.128-129.
220
more in harmony with the Christian tradition than with the
classical. One other instance of Almansor's not being
opportunistic was in his refusal to accept Lyndaraxa's
offered love. Almansor preferred the loneliness that ac
companied his loyalty to his love for Almahide.
Probably the best example of Almansor's not being
opportunistic was represented by what he did not do during
his exile. A crafty opportunist might have made the most of
the banishment by joining forces with the Spaniards, helping
to defeat Boabdelin and taking Almahide as the victory prize.
Almansor did not make such a choice but spent the time of
exile alone and brooding. Dryden did not choose to expose
Almansor's thoughts during his exile; he had Abenamar re
port that he found Almansor "pensive" and "gloomy."
Many characteristics may be inferred from Almansor's
actions. He was straightforward in all his dealings; he
never plotted and schemed to ruin an enemy but met and de
feated him in battle. He admired the Duke of Arcos and want
ed him for a friend but he used his military genius against
the Duke. He loved the King's betrothed and asked for her
hand in marriage and this asking must have caused a psycho
logical conflict since he said:
221
Born, as I am still to Command, not sue,
Yet you shall see that I can beg for you.^
Almansor's greatest psychological problems were the
result of his love for Almahide. This was his first experi
ence with love and his frustration in loving one who was
pledged to another led him to the only conflict with his
honor that Dryden chose to present, in the hope of winning
Almahide1s approval of their clandestine physical expression
of love, Almansor bribed her maid, Esperanza, to admit him
to Almahide's apartment while she was on her way to chapel.
As he stood waiting to pounce on the unsuspecting Almahide,
the ghost of his mother appeared to him and warned him
against committing a crime against love. His mother's
interference, however, did not prevent his trying to persuade
Almahide to "Live but to-night; and trust to-morrow's
mind:Only when Almahide threatened to take her own life
did Almansor cease his pleas. He indicated the psycholog
ical conflict by describing the physical symptoms of that
mental conflict:
. . . a cold shivering seizes me all o'er.
My Teeth, too, chatter, with a suddein fright:
14 15
Part I, IV.ii.1655-656. Part II, lV.ni.1871.
222
These are the raptures of too fierce delight!
The combats of the tyrants, Hope and Fear;
Which Hearts, for want of Field-room, cannot bear.
The conflict lingered even after his decision to
abide by Almahide's wishes:
All I resolve, I with one look, forget,
And, like a Lyon, whom no Arts can tame; ^
Shall tear, ev'n those, who would my rage reclaim.
Immediately following Almansor's meeting with
Almahide, treacherous Lyndaraxa and her brothers accused
Almahide of adultery with Abdelmelech. Strangely enough,
Almansor believed the charge, and, in his only soliloquy,
exposed his judgment of Almahide and his reason for defend
ing her.
I Have out-fac'd myself and justify'd
What I knew false to all the World, beside,
She was as faithless as her Sex could be:
And now I am alone, she's so to me.
Yet her protection I must undertake;
Not now for Love, but for my Honour's sake,
That mov'd me first, and must oblige me still
Because he had been drawn into the quarrel, Almansor
found himself in a position of defending a person he
16Part II, IV.iii.1712-716.
17
Part II, IV.xii.1922-924.
18
Part II, V.i.2059-69.
223
believed guilty of the charges made against her, a position
not in accord with his code of honor. When he was dying,
Zulema confessed his guilt and declared Almahide innocent of
the charges made against her, restoring Almansor's faith and
justifying his position in the duel. But Almansor accepted
the challenge and fought the duel to preserve his own honor
and not because he believed in Almahide.
In Almansor, Dryden created a hero of such a well-
integrated personality that he did not question any action
he must take except in the new experience of love. As a
military genius, Almansor was a man of action and the re
fining process of love, through the frustration of delay im
posed by Almahide's virtue, did create psychological ten
sions. Almahide's virtue and strong will, plus the inter
cession of his mother's ghost, helped Almansor to overcome
his temptations and to maintain his honor.
The two sub-plots also contained psychological con
flicts regarding the honor of the characters. Duty to
parents versus their love for each other provided the honor
conflict for Benzayda and Ozmyn. The most complex study of
a psychological conflict regarding honor was that of
Abdalla, who attempted to usurp his brother's throne in
order to gain the love of Lyndaraxa. He debated his
224
actions, gaining support from the ambitious Zulema,
brother of Lyndaraxa, who wanted to see his sister Queen.
He justified his actions to honest Abdelmelech, who also was
a suitor of Lyndaraxa's but who knew her treachery. Through
the character of Abdalla, Dryden gave the best study of a
man in conflict with himself over a choice between ambition
and honor.
Was the concept of honor held by Almansor in agree
ment with that held by the majority of Englishmen? Was it
possible for the average Englishman to empathize with
Almansor, or even to admire him?
Almansor's code of honor was based, for the most
part, on the classical tradition, but the majority of seven
teenth-century Englishmen followed the Christian code of
virtue. The rising middle-class undoubtedly found Almansor
arrogant, prodigal of his talents, unforgiving, disloyal
and lustful.
But Dryden did not write plays for the majority of
Englishmen. He wrote for the aristocratic minority who
attended the theatre and who followed the code of honor
based on the classical tradition. Not all of the cultured
aristocratic audience admired Almansor: Rochester, who
225
wielded great power at court and commanded a large follow
ing, made Almansor and Dryden the butt of his laughter in
The Rehearsal. The Conquest of Granada, in spite of
Rochester's criticism, was popular with Restoration audi
ences and was performed many times through the first half of
the eighteenth century. But, the average Englishman of the
Restoration period did not find Almansor an admirable char
acter, much less one with whom they could empathize.
Love
What forms of love were present in The Conquest of
Granada?
Love was the principle subject of The Conquest of
Granada. Dryden went to classical literature for the char
acter of the hero in the area of honor but he went to the
Platonic Love plays of Charles I's court for the concept of
romantic love which he used in the play. It was Platonic
Love purged by the Christian forge and hammered on the
Puritan anvil but all of the four important component parts
of the Platonic Love Cult of Henrietta Maria were included
in The Conquest of Granada.
The Court of Love
The Court of Love was very much present in
226
The Conquest of Granada but was not obvious, as it was, for
example, in Jonson's The New Inne. The Spanish Queen
Isabel described her kingdom as the sanctuary of lovers.
The Courts of Kings,
To all distress'd shou'd Sanctuaries be:
But most to Lovers in Adversity.
Castile and Arragon
(Which, long against each other, War did move,)
My plighted Lord and I have joyn'd by Love:
And, if to add this Conquest Heav'n thinks good,
I would not have it stain'd with Lovers blood^
...............................................19
Each of the three pairs of lovers was judged before
Queen Isabel. While she didn't pass judgment on Lyndaraxa
and one of her lovers, the sentence was passed before her
eyes and in her court when Abdelmelech stabbed Lyndaraxa
and then himself. When Benzayda and Ozmyn were brought
before King Ferdinand the Queen requested permission to
pass sentence on them.
Permit me, Sir, these Lovers doom to give:
My Sentence is, they shall together live.^O
Later she commanded Almahide to marry Almansor
after Almahide's period of mourning, adding:
21
May you in him; and he in you be blestJ
19 20
Part II, I.i.128-135. Part II, I.i.126-127.
21
Part II, V.ii.2547.
227
Fear not your Love should find so sad success;
While I have pow'r to be your patroness.
I am her Parent, now, and may command
So much of duty as to give her hand. ^
The defining of love was a convention of the Court
of Love. It was usually presented in the form of debate
between the lovers, often before a judge. Dryden chose to
sprinkle the various definitions through the play, and by
placing them in the dialogue, avoided stilted love-debate
scenes. Each of the lovers in The Conquest of Granada de
fined love in terms of his, or her, character, and managed
to condense that definition into fewer lines than did the
lovers of earlier Platonic Love plays.
Queen Isabel defined love as an heroic passion.
Love's an Heroique Passion which can find
No room in any base degenerate mind.
It kindles all the Soul with Honours Fire,
To make the Lover worthy his desire.
Against such Heroes I success should fear,
Had we not too an Hoast of Lovers here.23
Almahide defined love as a hurricane.
When all I knew of Love, was to obey!
'Twas Life becalm'd; without a gentle breath;
Though not so cold, yet motionless as death.
A heavy quiet State, but Love all strife,
All Rapid; is the Hurrican of Life.
22 23
Part II, V.ii.2567-570. Part II, I.i.144-149.
24Part I, V.ii.2032-36.
228
Boabdelin, the jealous husband, defined love as a
magic.
Love is a Magick which the Lover ties; 25
But charms still end, when the Magician dies.
Zulema, more guilty of lust than love, expressed
the feeling that love was like a fire.
'Twas like a fire within a Furnace pent:
I smother'd it, and kept it long from vent.
But (fed with looks; and blown with sighs, so fast)
It broke a passage through my Lips, at last.^6
Abdalla, who betrayed his brother for love, defined
love as a lethargy and as the chemistry that changes men
into dogs and swine.
Love like a Lethargy has seiz'd my Will.
I'm not my self, since from her sight I went;
I lean my Trunck that way, and there stand bent.
As one, who in some frightful Dream would shun
His pressing Foe, labours in vain to run;
And his own slowness in his sleep bemoans,
With thick short Sighs, weak Cries, and tender Groans,
......................................................27
. . . This enchanted place,
Like Circe's Isle, is peopled with a Race
Of Dogs and Swine yet, though their Fate I know,
I look with pleasure and am turning too.^8
29
I'le love; be blind, be cousen'd till I dye.
Part I, V.ii.2001-2. part II, IV.iii.1675-678.
27 28
Part I, III.i.721-727. Part I, III.i.739-742.
29
Part I, III.i.747.
229
Lyndaraxa, who loved position and power, used
Abdalla's and Abdelmelech1s love to further her own inter
ests. She tried to use Almansor, too, but was unsuccessful.
Lyndaraxa spoke of the different faces of love.
Love is a tender Amity, refin'd:
Grafted on friendship it exalts the kind.
But when the Graff no longer does remain
The dull Stock lives; but never bears again.
You a sad, sullen, froward Love did see;
I'll show him kind, and full of gayety.
In short, Almansor, it shall be my care 31
To show you Love; for you but saw Despair.
Almansor compared love to a fire that purifies and
re fines.
There's something Noble, lab'ring in my Brest:
This raging fire which through the Mass does move,
Shall purge my Dross, and shall refine my Love.32
Judging from two of Almansor's speeches on love, the first
one made in Part I when he was first overcome with love of
Almahide, and the second in Part II, made after several
trials of his love, his love was a refining process.
Forgive that Fury which my Soul does move
'Tis the Essay of an untaught first love.
Yet rude, unfashion'd truth it does express:
'Tis Love just peeping in an hasty d r e s s . 33
3°Part II, II.ii.626-629.
31
Part II, III.ixi.1340-343.
32 33
Part I, III.i.1031-33. Part I, III.i.1026-29.
230
So Venus moves when to the Thunderer
In Smiles and Tears she would some sute prefer.
When with her Cestos girt—
And drawn by Doves, she cuts the yielding Skies,
And kindles gentle fires wheree'er she flies:
To every Eye a Goddess is confest:
By all the Heav'nly Nation she is blest, ^4
And each with secret joy admits her to his brest.
The writings of Plato and the
Renaissance writers* interpretation
of thosewritings
The influence of the writings of Plato upon the love
interest in The Conquest of Granada was apparent in at least
four ways: (1) the worship of beauty in women; (2) the idea
that the lover was made a better person through love; (3)
the control of passion, including love, by reason; and (4)
in the rather long, tedious definitions of love and the de
scriptions of the feelings of the various characters.
The worship of beauty in women as a part of the
Platonic Love Cult came about as a result of Renaissance
writers' interpretation of the writings of Plato, who said
that the love of beautiful bodies was the first step in the
ascent to the love of Supreme Beauty. As mentioned in
Chapter V, Plato meant male beauty, but Renaissance writers
distorted his meaning to the worship of beauty in women as
34
Part II, II.iii.747-754.
231
the main contributing factor in a man's love for a woman.
All of the men in The Conquest of Granada attributed their
love to the beauty of the beloved. Zulema said his love
was "fed with looks, ..." Ozmyn said of Benzayda:
All wounds from you are welcome to my Brest:
Think onely, when your hand this act had done,
It has but finish'd what your Eies begun.35
Abdalla was willing to be cheated by Lyndaraxa be
cause of her beauty.
Yet all are willing to believe the Fair;
And, though 'tis Beauties known and obvious Cheat,
Yet Man's self-love still favours the deceit.3^
Your Beauty, as it moves no common fire,
So it no common courage can inspire.
As he fought well, so had he prosper'd too.
If, Madam, he like me, had fought for you.3'
Abdelmelech loved the false Lyndaraxa's beauty.
Since Lyndaraxa's Beauty I adore.39
Then, for your Beauty I your Soldiers spare:3g
For, though I do not love you, you are fair.
No; you shall stay; and see a Sacrifice;
Not offer'd by my Sword but by your Eies.
From those he first Ambitions poyson drew;
And swell'd to Empire for the love of you.
Accursed fair!
3^Part I, IV.ii.1433-435. 36part II, II.i.517-519.
37 38
Part II, II.iii.688-691. Part I, II.i.385.
39Part II, II.ii.614-615.
232
The Comet-blaze portends a princes fate; 4Q
And suff'ring Subjects groan beneath thy weight.
Almansor fell a victim to Almahide's beauty.
A suppliant Beauty cannot be deny'd;
Ev'n while I frown, her charms the Furrows seize;
And I'm corrupted with the pow'r to please.
So, having seen you once so killing fair,
A second sight were but to move despair.
I take my Eies from what too much would please,
As Men in Feavors famish their disease.^
Plato's theory, that love made the lover a better
person, became a part of the medieval knight's code where
the love relationship was converted from the Greek homo
sexual love to love between the sexes. Plato gave an
example of his theory at work in the case of a lover-war-
rior's not committing any act of cowardice which would be
little him before the beloved, an idea readily suited to
the knight's code which included the accomplishment of
dangerous missions for his lady. Almansor's struggle to
become a better person through the experience of love was
more closely related to another of Plato's theories— that of
reason ruling emotion.
40
Part II, IV.11.1580-586.
41Part I, III.i.974-976.
42
Part II, II.iii.768-771.
233
Plato taught, and seventeenth-century Englishmen
firmly believed, that the ideal man had strong emotions and
he kept those emotions under the control of his reason.
Almansor conformed to Plato's ideal but the means by which
he brought his emotion under control of his reason was more
in harmony with Christian, rather than classical, teachings.
The Abdalla-Abdelmelech-Lyndaraxa triangle pointed up the
tragedy of letting passion rule reason. All three met
violent deaths: Abdalla was killed in battle by Abdelme
lech; Lyndaraxa was stabbed to death by Abdelmelech who then
took his own life.
Plato's influence was at work in the form of ex
pression of love and the descriptions of the lovers' feel
ings. While the speeches defining love and describing the
feelings of the characters were not as long as similar
speeches in Henrietta Maria's Platonic Love Cult plays, they
did tend to follow Plato's example of ferreting out and de
scribing all details in order to arrive at a definition.
Plato's method employed the seminar where several outstand
ing persons of varying disciplines defined love, an emotion
which varied in the intellectual description of that emotion
to conform to the personality of each member of the seminar.
The same idea was used in the Court of Love, discussed
234
earlier in this chapter.
The knight's service to a
chosen lady
The medieval knight went on dangerous missions for
his lady who was always his social superior and therefore
unattainable. In fact, in most cases, she was already
married. The knight might hope to kiss her hand as his re
ward, but there were cases where the lady proved apprecia
tive even to adultery. While the Platonic Love Cultists
stressed loyalty to the beloved as an ideal, even in the
framework of adultery, the Puritans of Charles I's reign
saw only the adultery.
Almansor was a hero cut from the same cloth as the
Platonic Love Cult hero: he performed great deeds for
Almahide. He saved her from Zulema; he fought a duel to
prove her innocent of the charge of adultery; he defended
her lord's throne and he remained loyal to his love for her
in the face of Lyndaraxa's temptation. But, unlike the
medieval knight and the Platonic lover, Almansor wanted to
marry Almahide. He committed the social sin of asking
Boabdelin for her as a reward for his aid in restoring
Boabdelin's throne. The idea of marriage as a goal of
romantic love was evidence of Christian influence and
235
indicated Dryden's awareness of Puritan criticism of certain
aspects of the Platonic Love Cult.
A minor point of similarity between Almansor and
the medieval knight was in the wearing of some personal
article, such as a scarf or glove, of his chosen lady as
an ensign. Almansor cherished the scarf given him by
Almahide but returned it to her upon her request, a request
made to appease the jealous Boabdelin.
Both love stories of the sub-plots included the
lover's serving his lady theme: Abdalla and Abdelmelech
were willing slaves to Lyndaraxa's ambition; the virtuous
Ozmyn served Benzayda in a more noble manner.
Maryolity
Catholic reverence for the Virgin Mary, which drew
Puritan charges of "Mary-worship" (Maryolity), was basic to
the system of knighthood and was an integral part of the
Platonic Love Cult. The Virgin Mother of Jesus gained
prominence in the Catholic Church through the dual role
assigned her by her devotees: the comforting mother who
intercedes for guilty man and the virtuous woman sent to
counteract the sins of Race-Mother, Eve.
In The Conquest of Granada Almansor's mother
236
prevented him from sin in illicit love and from killing his
father. Closer resemblance to the Virgin Mother lay in
Almansor's mother's appearance as a spirit. But Mary was
more than the Virgin Mother; she was the paragon of virtue
sent to save man from the sin into which Eve, the first
woman, had cast him. Love for an evil woman was the ruin
of a man while love for a virtuous woman brought him all of
life's blessings. Almahide was virtuous to the point of
instructing heaven.
Almansor:
Listen sweet Heav'n; and all ye blest above,
Take rules of Vertue from a Mortal love.
You've rais'd my Soul; and if it mount more high,
'Tis as the Wren did on the Eagle fly.43
Lyndaraxa, on the other hand, was the Eve whose love led men
to their death, a dramatic contrast to the love of Almahide,
whose virtue purified Almansor's love.
What form of love was idealized in The Conquest of
Granada? The idealized love in The Conquest of Granada was
love between a man and woman which culminated in marriage.
An ideal romantic love made the lover a better person, over
came all obstacles to the marriage of the lovers and was
controlled by reason. Two love affairs were idealized in
43
Part II, V.ii.2357-360.
237
The Conquest of Granada: that of Ozmyn and Benzayda and that
of Almansor and Almahide. Ozmyn and Benzayda overcame the
objections of their parents, who were enemies, to their
marriage. Almansor was subjected to a refining process of
love through the virtue of his beloved, Almahide.
Almahide's faithfulness to her marriage vows— a
marriage arranged by her father— and Benzayda's and Ozmyn1s
filial piety were both a part of the Christian code of
virtue. The Christian believed that marriages were made in
heaven and that "whom God had joined together, no man
should put asunder." Furthermore, the Christian condemned
adultery as a sin, so the only avenue remaining for the
Christian to solve the problem of personal choice in love
partners was that of marriage.
Since the fifteenth century the idea had been grow
ing that young people should choose their own mates, a
luxury which the middle and lower classes could better
afford than could the upper, or aristocratic, class since
marriages in the upper echelons of society were made pri
marily for social or political reasons. In The Conquest of
Granada Dryden expressed his sympathy for the ideal of
romantic love culminating in marriage. While the marriages
of Almahide and Almansor and Ozmyn and Benzayda did not
238
occur in the play, the obstacles to marriage were overcome
and the audience was left with the promise of near-future
marriages. The unfortunate lovers, Abdalla and Abdelmelech,
and the scheming Lyndaraxa, were killed— only the virtuous
were rewarded with the prospect of living happily ever
after— married, of course.
How was the love problem solved in The Conquest of
Granada? If a conflict arose between Almansor's code of
honor and the solution of his love problem, how did he re
solve the conflict? Was the solution of the love problem
presented in The Conquest of Granada influenced primarily
by Christian or classical thinking?
Three facets of romantic love, in the form of three
love affairs, were presented in The Conquest of Granada.
The Ozmyn-Benzayda story and the Almansor-Almahide story
culminated in marriage; the Abdalla-Abdelmelech-Lyndaraxa
story ended in the death of all three. The solution of all
three love problems was in consonance with Christian beliefs.
Ozmyn and Benzayda, through their virtue, loyalty and devo
tion, overcame the objections of both their fathers and
obtained parental blessing on their marriage. Almansor,
through the virtue of Almahide, brought his love under the
239
control of reason. The death of Boabdelin made it possible
for Almansor and Almahide to marry. The wicked were
punished with death: Abdalla, betrayer of his brother, was
killed in battle; the evil Lyndaraxa was murdered by one of
her lovers, Abdelmelech, who then took his own life.
Almansor's code of honor was primarily classical
in origin: he recognized no laws above his own and his
philosophy was to take what he wanted. In his love for
Almahide, he departed from the classical tradtion: he re
spected Almahide as a person and wanted his love returned.
Had he followed the classical tradition in love, he would
have regarded Almahide as an object, to be won perhaps by
force of arms, not as a person whose wishes in the matter
were to be regarded. When he gained admission to Almahide's
privacy in order to persuade her to enter into an illicit
love act with him, he was behaving more in keeping with the
classical tradition code of honor. However, he was prevent
ed from lawless love by the ghost of his Christian mother
and the virtue of Almahide.
It may be concluded that Almansor, the hero of
The Conquest of Granada followed a code of honor based on
the classical tradition, but followed a pattern of behavior
in consonance with the Christian tradition in his love for
Almahide.
What was the significance of the love theme in
The Conquest of Granada? Love was the primary subject of
The Conquest of Granada, in addition to the three love
stories, Dryden included three love songs: the first song
appeared in Part I, Act III and the subject was physical
love, dreamed of by the shepherd; the second song, the sub
ject of which was the suffering of the shepherd through his
love for Phyllis and his wish to continue such suffering,
came in Part I, Act IV, immediately following a speech by
the fickle Lyndaraxa; the third song was a duet, in which
the shepherd again lamented his suffering and Phyllis
answered that she was just as miserable but that they would
be united after death, and came in Part II, Act IV, prior
to Almansor's entering Almahide's apartment.
In some of the earlier Platonic Love Cult plays,
the lovers had sought the simple shepherd's life in an
attempt to solve a love problem. Dryden managed to include
even this sometimes-convention in The Conquest of Granada.
The love theme of The Conquest of Granada was born from the
Platonic Love Cult plays of Charles I's court, but was modi
fied to conform to Christian standards established through
241
the criticism of Puritans in the time of Charles I and dur
ing the Commonwealth period. The pattern of romantic love
exemplified in The Conquest of Granada became the model for
the middle-class drama of the eighteenth, nineteenth and
even the twentieth centuries.
CHAPTER VIII
THE CHARACTER OF MULY HAMET, THE HERO OF
THE EMPRESS OF MOROCCO. AS REVEALED BY SETTLE'S
USE OF THE TERMS "LOVE" AND "HONOR"
Elkanah Settle's most successful play, The Empress
of Morocco, opened at the Duke's Theatre July 3, 1673, fol
lowing two presentations at Court, where the lords and
ladies of the bedchamber performed in it. Settle commented
on the off-season opening in the "Prologue."
For this days Treatment you have pai'd too deare.
Your best belov'd diversion is not here,
All you're not like to have is a dull Play.
The Wells have stoln the Vizar Masks away.
Now punk in penitential Drink begins,
To purge the surfeit of her London Sins.
The success of the play aroused the jealousy of con
temporary playwrights, among whom were Dryden, Crowne and
Elkanah Settle, "Prologue," The Empress of Morocco
(London: Printed for William Cademan at the Popes-head in
the Lower Walk of the New Exchange in the Strand, 1673).
242
243
Shadwell. Their attacks on Settle served only to increase
the popularity of the young poet, however, and his play "was
2
quoted familiarly in the City and at the universities."
. . . Settle's cause being warmly espoused by the
Duke of Buckingham and Lord Rochester, who in their
answers handled Dryden very roughly, the play stood
its ground, and its opponents appeared to have the
worst of the argument.3
Thomas Duffet wrote The Empress of Morocco: A Farce
in an attempt to turn public opinion against Settle and,
although Settle answered his other critics, he apparently
took no notice of Duffet's parody of his play.
Soon after the success of The Empress of Morocco,
the gay and fickle court deserted Settle for another favo
rite, and though Settle staged other plays, his fortunes
steadily decreased until, in his later years, he was finally
reduced to attending a booth in Bartholomew Fair "kept by
Mrs. Mynns and her daughter, Mrs. Lee, and received a sal
ary from them for writing drolls, which generally were
2
Brown, Elkanah Settle. His Life and works,
pp. 14-15.
3
David Erskine Baker (compiler to 1764), Biographia
Dramatica (London: Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme
and Brown, T. Payne, G. & W. Nicol, Nichols and Son,
Scatcherd and Letterman, J. Barker, W. Miller, R. H. Evans,
J. Harding, J. Faulder, and Gale and Curtis, 1812), II, 194.
244
4
approved of." According to the Biographia Dramatica. he
was forced to take the part of the dragon in a farce called
St. George for England, "enclosed in a case of green leather,
5
of his own invention." He died in the Charterhouse, a
bitter end for a poet who, for a time, surpassed Dryden in
popularity.
Fortunately for students of the drama, the printer
saw fit to include "sculptures" in the printed version of
The Empress of Morocco which give the most exact informa
tion of the Restoration Theatre in existence. The printer's
more immediate reason for the added splendor, however, was
probably a mercenary one— he raised the price from the usual
one shilling to two.
Betterton was in charge of the staging of the play
and he had just returned from Paris, where the King had sent
him to observe how the English theatre might be improved in
g
the matter of scenery and decoration. (Betterton acted the
part of Crimalhaz in the play.) Since spectacle was demand
ed by the Restoration audience Settle gave it to them:
there was a Moorish dance during which an artificial palm
Biographia Dramatica. I, 640-641.
5 6
Ibid.. I, 641. Brown, op. cit.. p. 14.
245
tree was brought on stage; there was a scene with the
Moorish fleet in the harbor; there was a "discovery" with
the bodies of the villains hanging on the death spikes; and,
to climax the spectacular, there was a Masque within the
play.
The Plot
In spite of his weaknesses as a playwright, Elkanah
Settle possessed a talent that none of his contemporary
playwrights possessed (at least to Settle's degree): the
ability to portray the evil woman. He seemed to understand
the potential for evil in women and to present her wicked
ness in a believable characterization. (With the exception
of Pope Joan.) The Empress of Morocco was such an evil
woman: she controlled the destiny of many of the virtuous
characters whose very virtue kept them from even suspecting
her evil intentions, let alone her evil deeds.
Because The Empress of Morocco was an Heroic Play,
homage had to be paid to love and honor— and it was. The
Empress, mother of Muly Labas and Mariamne, was in love with
Crimalhaz, her gallant, and plotted to put him on her hus
band's throne. Her plot included poisoning her husband,
putting her son on the throne, disposing of his right-hand
246
man, Muly Hamet, the general, and then arranging for her
daughter-in-law to be the unwitting murderer of Muly Labas.
Soon after Crimalhaz attained the throne, his affections
turned away from the Empress to her virtuous daughter-in-
law, which brought an end to the Empress's plotting. When
the Empress and Morena, her daughter-in-law, stood before
Crimalhaz, the Empress urged Crimalhaz to get on with
Morena's death sentence, but he suddenly ordered the
guards to seize the Empress for the murders of her husband
and son; whereupon the Empress killed Morena and then
herself.
Amidst all this confusion, Muly Hamet suddenly
emerged from his exile as the victorious conqueror to claim
Morocco and Mariamne, who had been imprisoned and condemned
to death by Crimalhaz. The play ended with the honorable
Muly Hamet and the virtuous Mariamne united in love and
in the rule of Morocco; the villains were disposed of—
another victory for love and honor.
Settle devoted approximately seventeen percent of
the lines of the play to the subject of honor and about
twenty-five percent of the lines to the subject of love.
But he gave an equal number of lines to honor's opposite
in the words spoken by the Empress— and her arguments were
247
not weak.
In addition to the love stories and the moral argu
ments, Settle included a masque which was important not only
for the spectacular effect, but also because he very wisely
used the masque to extend the plot. The Empress planned
the masque, told Morena she must kill Crimalhaz, who, she
said, was planning to murder Muly Labas. But Morena's hus
band, the King, was wearing the costume that the Empress
said would be worn by Crimalhaz, so poor misguided Morena
stabbed her own beloved husband; whereupon the Empress had
her imprisoned and charged with the murder of her husband.
There was much more action in Settle's play than in
either of the other two chosen for this study. The mili
tary victories of the hero, Muly Hamet, were narrated in
good epic fashion and the Empress's poisoning of her husband
was narrated. But there was a fight between Muly Hamet and
the hired assassins of the Empress on stage and some of the
characters were dispatched before the eyes of the audience.
Settle, not of the aristocracy, and perhaps for that reason
not as much influenced by the refinements of the court drama
of Charles I's court, apparently understood the English love
for action on the stage. The Empress of Morocco bears a
closer resemblance to Elizabethan drama than do the other
248
two plays of this study.
Honor
What was Muly Hamet's code of honor?
Muly Hamet possessed some of the traits of the
classical hero. First, he was of high rank: he was the
commander of the King of Morocco's forces, and according
to the cast of characters, "A Prince of Royal Blood." His
magnificence was attested to by Hametalhaz, whose descrip
tion of Muly Hamet's homecoming calls to mind Enobarbus's
description of Cleopatra.
Great Sir, Your Royal Fathers General
Prince Muly Hamet's Fleet does homewards sail,
And in a solemn and triumphant Pride
Their Course up the great River Tensist guide,
Whose guided Currents do new Glories take
From the Reflection his bright Streamers make:
The Waves a Masque of Martial Pageants yield,
A flying Army on a floating Field.
Order and Harmony in each appear,
Their lofty Bulks the foaming Billows bear.
In state they move, and on the Waves rebound,
As if they danc'd to their own Trumpets sound:
By Winds inspired, with lively Grace they roul
As if that Breath and motion lent a Soul.
And with that Soul, they seem taught Duty too,
Their Topsails low'rd, their Heads with Reverence bow:
As if they would their Generals Worth enhance,
From him, by instinct, taught Allegiance.
Whilst the loud Cannons echo to the shore,
Their flaming Breaths salute You Emperour.
From their deep Mouths he does your Glory sing:
With Thunder, and with Light'ning, greets his King.
249
Thus to express his Joys, in a loud Quire
And Consort of wing'd Messengers of fire
He has his Tribute sent, and Homage given,
As men in Incense send up Vows to Heaven.7
The King welcomed Muly Hamet with a testimony to
his valor, which was characteristic of the classical hero.
Welcome true owner of that Fame you bring,
A Conquerour is a Guardian to a King.
Conquest and Monarchy consistent are; Q
'Tis Victory secures those Crown we wear.
The young Queen, Morena, praised his bravery, too.
Valour and Fate such just success allow
As firmly place the Laurel on your Brow,
Whose very Looks so much your Foes surprise, ^
That You, like Beauty, conquer with your Eies.
The code of honor based on the classical tradition
demanded that a gentleman revenge wrongs or insults to him
self or to his family. Muly Hamet vowed to avenge the mur
der of Muly Labas, the brother of Mariamne, his beloved.
His Blood, dear Prince, shall pay for shedding thine.
No Cause so just, no Rage so fierce as mine;
Where Loyalty and Love the fuel bring,
A Ravish't Mistress and a Murd'red King.
Muly Hamet also possessed traits important to
Christian virtue. He spoke of doing his duty, a Christian
virtue.
7
Settle, The Empress of Morocco. II.i.233-258.
8II.i.259-262. 9II.i.305-308. 10V.i.1905-908.
250
In all that Sword you lent me has subdu'd,
I only, Sir, my Duty have pursu'd:
And acts of Duty merit no applause,
I owe my Lawrels to my Royal Cause.
My Actions all are on your Name enroll'd, ^
Since 'tis from you my Conqu'ring Pow'r I hold.
When he reentered Morocco to defy Crimalhaz, he
spoke of conquering because his cause was just. In other
words, he recognized the ability of other people to support
or deny his cause. The idea of his cause being just, rather
than his semi-godlike power overcoming all obstacles, re
vealed Christian influence.
My Cause subdues more than my Sword, the Town
Does at my Feet their prostrate Armes lay down.
Conquest sounds best and Glory brightest shines,
Where Loyalty, not Force, the Lawrel wins.
In spite of the fact that Muly Hamet was a Moslem,
his speeches sometimes sounded very Christian.
I must obey you, and embrace my Doom
With the same patience Saints do Martyrdom.
Only their Suffering's a Reward receive;
They Die to meet that Happiness I leave:
They Die, that in their deaths they Heaven may find:
But in my Princess, I leave Mine behind.
And my hard Exile does this Horrour bring,
I lose the power to serve so good a King:
There was nothing of the arrogant classical hero
11n.i. 263-268. 12V. i. 1897-900 .
13III.ii.957-964.
251
here— the acceptance of his exile, comparing it to the suf
fering of the Saints, was Christian in nature. In addition,
Muly Hamet had expressed his gratefulness to his benefactor,
which was another Christian trait.
Other Christian traits which Muly Hamet apparently
possessed were: keeping promises, telling the truth and
being honest. His enemy, Crimalhaz, based his gamble of
trading Mariamne's life for Muly Hamet's support on Muly
Hamet's Christian virtues.
I know your Passion has a tye so great,
That for her sake you'le quit th'Imperial Seat.
I know your Vertue is so strong, that if
You swear you will protect my Throne and Life,
You'le keep your Vow: Swear then by all those Powers
Which the Religious World fears and Adores,
To quit your Claim to Empire; . . .14
Muly Hamet's code of honor was in accord with the
Christian concept of virtue, also, in not obstructing
justice. When Mariamne visited him in prison, gave him his
sword and offered him his freedom, Muly Hamet refused both.
The reason he gave for remaining in prison was that leaving
would also banish him from getting a glimpse of Mariamne.
However, any hero willing to quit his prison might have
reasoned that his freedom would give him better
14V.i.1962-968.
252
opportunities for seeing Mariamne than would his imprison
ment. The fact remains that he refused to escape and re
mained a prisoner of the King, waiting for his sentence.
Muly Hamet's reaction to having his authority chal
lenged did not conform to the classical code of honor. in
The Conquest of Granada, when the King ordered Almansor's
imprisonment, Almansor made an attempt on the life of, not
only the guard, but the King himself. Muly Hamet accepted
his imprisonment graciously, his primary concern being for
the welfare of the King who had trusted false persons.
To sum up, Muly Hamet's character, judged from his
code of honor, was predominantly Christian. Christian in
fluence was much more evident in his character than in that
of either of the heroes of the other two plays of this
study. Outside the requirements of birth, rank and military
ability, Muly Hamet's characteristics were Christian.
Filial piety, one of the laws of Christian virtue,
was expressed through Muly Labas, son of the Empress, who
had been imprisoned and condemned to death by his father.
I freely at his feet my Life will throw;
Life is a debt we to our Parents ow.
15I.i.67-68.
253
Strangely enough, Settle gave the most powerful
speeches on honor to Mariamne. When crimalhaz threatened
to run his sword through Mariamne's heart if Muly Hamet re
fused to protect Crimalhaz1s crown, Mariamne defied the
tyrant.
11le bind my Vow by the same pow'rs you swore.
I'le to a Thousand Deaths my Life expose,
Before I will one Inch of Empire lose.
'Tis not, bold Slave, my threaten'd death can make
My female fears my Right t 'a Throne forsake.
Heir to a Crown, though you so fierce have been,
Mariamne scorns to die less than a Queen.^
To Muly Hamet she said:
'Tis Honour and not Crowns that I esteem.
And should I basely yield my Throne to him;
My Name and Story would but poorly sound,
Who rais'd a Murd'rer, and a Rebel Crown'd.
No, if at worse I by this Traytour Dye:
Adore my Name, and love my Memory.^
What relationship existed between Muly Hamet's code
of honor and his character? Did he experience any psycho
logical conflicts from circumstances and his code of honor?
Did he resolve those conflicts in consonance with his code
of honor?
There were two situations when Muly Hamet experi
enced psychological conflict before reaching a decision.
The first was when he found Crimalhaz and the Empress asleep
16V.i.2006-12. 17V.i.2028-33.
254
on the couch in her apartment; the second was when
Crimalhaz threatened Mariamne's life unless Muly Hamet
promised to support Crimalhaz's claim to the throne.
In the first situation, Muly Hamet was tempted to
murder Crimalhaz in his sleep, but decided to take the
offender's sword and settle the crime against the Queen
privately between himself and Crimalhaz.
. . . No, He shall Wake, and Know
The Justice and the Hand that gives the Blow:
Shall I descend to a Revenge so base,
His Death unarm'd my Glory would deface:
I will restore the Traytors Sword; for still
I have been taught to conquer those I kill.
Well, as a Witness of his Crime, his Sword
I'le take, which when we meet shall be restor'd.
Then secretly, but honourably too,
My Hand shall Act what to his Guilt is due.
For, lest I should my Queens Disgrace proclaime,
I'le right her Wrongs, but I'le conceal her Shame.
When Muly Labas met him and asked him to whom the
sword belonged Muly Hamet requested that the King not press
him for an answer which his honor would conceal.
0 do not your Demands pursue.
Urge me no more nor force me to reveal
10
The only thing my Honour would conceal.
The King recognized the sword as belonging to
Crimalhaz and suspected his mother, the Empress, of unvir-
tuous conduct, since he knew that Muly Hamet had just come
18III.i.415-426. 19III.i.443-445.
255
from her well-guarded apartment. When the King confronted
the Empress, she lied and accused Muly Hamet of coming to
her apartment to ravish her, praising Crimalhaz for saving
her. Believing his mother, the King ordered Muly Hamet
to prison. Muly Hamet cried out against Heaven, but
accepted the sentence of the King graciously.
Can the Eternal pow'rs such Treachery
Permit? You the great Rulers of the Sky,
Sitting thus patient at so tame a rate,
in Heav'ns soft ease are grown effeminate.
If such loud Crimes your armless Pow'r out-face, 2Q
Your pointless Vengeance will your Heav'n disgrace.
Settle managed to inject the Royalist viewpoint
into the speech of Muly Hamet1s which he made to the King.
I for my former state
My Homage to your Royal Father paid,
And Monarchs may destroy what Monarchs made:
For Subjects Glories are but borrow'd things,
Rais'd by the favourable Smiles of Kings:
And at their Authors Pleasures should retire,
And when their Breath renounces 'em expire.
Should I the Sentence of my Sovereign blame,
I should be guiltier than They say I am.
But though your Frowns declare my Fetters just,
Look to what dang'rous Hand your Pow'r you trust.
Monarchs do nothing ill, unless when they
By their own Acts of Grace their Lives betray.
When Favours they too gen'rously afford,
And in a treacherous Hand misplace their Sword,
Their Bounties in their Ruine are employ'd:
Kings only by their Vertues are destroy'd.21
Later, when the King banished him from the kingdom,
20
III.i.638-643. 21III.i.714-730.
256
Muly Hamet expressed regret that he had lost the privilege
of serving the King. In an age when the word of the King
could mean success or failure for a playwright, the precau
tion of expressing a Royalist point of view became a neces
sity.
And my hard Exile does this Horrour bring,
I lose the power to serve so good a King:
So Good, that 'twould as great a Bliss confer
To Die for You, as 'tis to Live for Her.
Since in your Kingdoms limits I'm deni'de
A seat, may your great Empire spread so wide,
Till its vast largeness does Reverse my doom;
And for my Banishment the World wants room.22
Muly Hamet accepted his unjust sentence and his
banishment in keeping with Christian humility and in accor
dance with the Christian code of virtue which stressed obe
dience to civil governors and forbade treason and rebellion.
The second psychological conflict resulting from
Muly Hamet's code of honor and circumstances came near the
end of the play, after he had entered Morocco to avenge the
murder of Muly Labas and the imprisonment of Mariamne.
Lead to the Palace, through the Guards I'le break,
And to th'Usurper I'le in Thunder speak.
To the infernal Shades I'le send a Ghost,
Stain'd with more Sins than all their Hell can boast.
22
III.ii.953-960.
257
His Blood, dear prince, shall pay for shedding thine.
No Cause so just, no Rage so fierce as mine;
Where Loyalty and Love the fuel bring, ^3
A Ravish't Mistress and a Murd'red King.
But Crimalhaz drove a hard bargain.
. . . Swear then . . .
To quit your Claim to Empire; Swear You'le make
Me Monarch in that Throne which you'le forsake,
And with your Blood you'le guard that Crown you give;
If so, your Mistress shall have leave to Live.
If not, prepare to see her amourous Breast,
Give entertainment to this Iron Guest.
24
Muly Hamet promised to do as Crimalhaz requested
but Mariamne defied the tyrant; whereupon Crimalhaz ordered
the castle burned and stated that he and Mariamne would burn
with it. The day and Mariamne were saved when Hametalhaz,
Crimalhaz's right-hand man, deserted Crimalhaz and delivered
Mariamne to Muly Hamet.
But, at the moment of truth, Muly Hamet had put
Mariamne's life ahead of the empire he had won and all of
those honors which accompany the exalted position of monarch.
His putting a human life ahead of position was honorable,
but the fact that he had promised to support a tyrant was
against his code of honor. The turn-coat, Hametalhaz,
by his last-minute conversion, saved Muly Hamet from the
23V.i.1901-908. 24V.i.1966-974.
258
necessity of living up to his promise. In spite of the fact
that Mariamne's and Hametalhaz's decisions helped to dispose
of Crimalhaz and to leave Muly Hamet free to marry Mariamne
and rule Morocco, the decision he made when confronted with
Crimalhaz's choice, was not in accord with his code of
honor.
Was the concept of honor found in The Empress of
Morocco in agreement with the concept held by the majority
of Englishmen? Was it possible for the average Englishman
to empathize with Muly Hamet or to admire him?
A good play involves the emotions of the audience
and there was plenty of material for emotional involvement
in The Empress of Morocco. The evil Empress elicited the
necessary hate and the virtuous Muly Hamet and Mariamne
provided the power for overcoming the evil, or the cathar
sis. Any Englishman from the King down to the lowliest
yeoman could agree with the concept of honor in The Empress
of Morocco, and, just as important, hate the evil. The
average Englishman, whose code of honor was based on the
Christian concept of virtue, could empathize with Muly
Hamet; certainly he would admire him.
Love
What forms of love were present in The Empress of
Morocco? There were three romantic love stories in The
Empress of Morocco: that of Muly Labas and Morena; that of
Crimalhaz and the Empress; and that of Muly Hamet and
Mariamne. The love of Crimalhaz and the Empress was an
adulterous love; the Muly Labas-Morena and the Muly Hamet-
Mariamne were virtuous loves.
The love theme in The Empress of Morocco revealed
a strong Christian influence— the pure loves of Muly Labas
and Morena, Muly Hamet and Mariamne, culminated in marriage
the adulterous love of the Empress and Crimalhaz brought
death to both. But, while Settle complied with the form
of Heroic Tragedy, he drew his concept of love from differ
ent sources in English drama. He borrowed from the court
masque, the Elizabethan revenge plays, from Shakespeare,
and from the Platonic Love Cult plays. But, while he
catered to the current taste for extravagantly pure love,
he knew how unrealistic such love was.
How many has our Rhimer kill'd today?
What need of Siege and Conquest in a Play,
When Love can do the work as well as they?
Yet 'tis such Love as you've scarce met before:
260
Such Love I'm sure as English ground ne're bore.
.....................................................25
The definition of love was a very important part of
the Platonic Love Cult plays. Settle kept it to a minimum
by allowing only one character, Muly Labas, the privilege
of defining love.
The antient World did but too modest prove,
In giving a Divinity to Love.
Love the great Pow'r oth'higher world controuls.
Heaven but creates, but Love refines our Souls. ®
Perhaps the villain, Crimalhaz, best expressed
Settle's sentiments: "Love needs but little art to be ex
plain'd.
Settle cast a new light on one facet of the Platonic
Love Cult: that of the knight's service to his chosen lady.
When Crimalhaz offered to avenge the death of Muly Labas in
return for Morena's love, she indignantly refused his
"service." Crimalhaz reminded her "But not to love your
28
Champion is unjust."
25
Settle, "Epilogue," Ibrahim. The Illustrious
Bassa (London: Printed by T. M. for W. Cademan, at the
Popes-Head in the Lower Walk of the New Exchange in the
Strand, 1677).
26
Settle, The Empress of Morocco. I.i.101-104.
27 28
IV.iii.1575. IV.iii.1578.
261
Apparently Settle took a few of the elements of the
Platonic Love Cult seriously: the worship of beauty in
women; the association of beauty and virtue; and the idea
that love enters the soul through the eyes. His use of
these ideas was more restrained than that of the writers of
the Platonic Love Cult plays of Charles I's Court, or even
of Dryden or Orrery.
Through the character of Muly Hamet, Settle present
ed beauty as a life-sustaining force of the lover.
When to your ears some gentle breath shall bring
The last Remains of a lost wretched thing,
That lived as long as he could gaze on You;
And shined, till that inspiring Light withdrew.
Beauty was a gift of heaven and, as such, should be
guarded. Again it was Muly Hamet praising the beauty of
Mariamne.
She is a Beauty, and that Name's her guard.
Good fates as due should be to Beauty given:
Beauty which decks our Earth, and props his Heav'n.
When Heav'n to Beauty is propitious,
It payes those Favours it but lends to Us.
The most important testimonial to the power of
beauty to inspire love came from Hametalhaz, the turn-coat,
or convert.
29 30
III.ii.970-973. IV.ii.1181-185.
262
Oh do not at this mystery admire:
Nothing is strange which Beauty does inspire.
To punish Treason and preserve a Throne,
Are due to Mariamnes Eyes alone.
When to his hand I gave that beauteous prize,
Design'd for his ambitions Sacrifice:
When her hard fate, and her bright Charmes I saw,
These did my homage, that my pity draw.
Something so kind I to that face did pay,
That to Serve her I could my trust betray.
Had I been born a Prince, and, in that name
Like You, Erected Trophys to her fame:
In all things then I had your Rival prov'd,
And confidently told her that I Lov'd.
But wanting worth I wanted words, and chose
This way my speechless Passion to disclose.
I would defend what I could ne're injoy,
And break all bars that did her Peace destroy.
I perish at her feet whom I adore, ^
The greatest Wracks are nearest to the shore.
The Platonic Love Cult stressed fidelity to the
beloved often within the framework of adultery. Settle
borrowed the idea: the Empress was faithful to Crimalhaz
and most of the play was centered around their adulterous
love. However, in keeping with Christian, particularly
Puritan, ideals, the adulterers came to an inglorious end.
The Empress disposed of her husband, son, and
daughter-in-law to put Crimalhaz on the throne, from which
position he denounced the Empress and expressed love for
Morena. When he ordered the guards to seize the Empress
31V.i.2075-110.
263
and imprison her for the deaths of her husband and son, she
berated him for his ingratitude.
Is this your Thanks for all her Love has done!
Who staked her Soul, to raise Thee to a Throne.
Durst you Perfidious Villain, with one Breath,
Pronounce her Coronation and my Death?32
She scorned to ask for her life, but she paused to
express remorse for her "sins."
Hold Sir— I ask not Life; such acts of Grace
Your Bounty may on little Sinners pass.
My Sins are but too Capital,— My Son,
And Poyson'd Husband— What have I not don?
So many Treasons and such bloody Rage,
Would sink an Empire and defame an Age.
No sound but Deaths harsh Name, my Soul could Daunt:
Now all my Sins my frighted Conscience Haunt.
Guilt onely thus to guilty Minds appears:
As Syrens do to drowning Mariners:
Seen onely by their Eyes whose Deaths are Nigh.
We rarely see our Crimes before we Die.
And now they're seen, I'm with such Horrour strook;
They seem so large, I dare not upwards look.
Where's all my Confidence, and Courage driven?
Guilt ne're grows bashful till it thinks of Heaven.
Though I want Pow'r to ask for Mercy there,
I will look down, and beg my Pardon here.-*3
And, despite the above speech, she proceeded to
murder Morena before taking her own life.
In contrast to the fickle and destructive love of
the Empress and Crimalhaz, Settle painted the love of Muly
Labas and Morena as eternal. In his dying speech, after
32V.i.1815-818. 33V.i.1764-781.
264
Morena had stabbed him according to the Empress's instruc
tions, he spoke of the enduring quality of his love for
Morena.
Have I for this a too fair Saint admir'd?
And with a more than common Love inspir'd,
Rais'd my bold Thoughts so high t'engross your Charms;
And bounded my Ambition in your Arms?
And must I die as depos'd Angels fell;
'Cause they aspir'd, and lov'd their Heav'n too well?
My death Morena a less pain will be,
Than 'tis to think I owe my death to Thee.
Have I less kindness from your Hands than Eyes,
For they have given me gentler wounds than these?
Your hand, 'tis true, has your Adorer Kil'd.
'T has reacht his Heart, but not the Love it held.
Your Image cannot from my Soul retire; ^4
My Lov's Immortal though my Life expire.
It was Morena who expressed conjugal fidelity in a
manner that any Puritan would approve. When Crimalhaz
offered to make her his Queen in return for punishing her
husband's murderer she rejected the proposal, pleading
loyalty to her dead love.
Thy Seat Usurpt before thy Blood is cold?
This was thy Right, and though thy Death I gave,
Who lov'd the Martyr will the Reliques save.
My Heart by none but thee was ever won. 35
I'le guard the Trophy, though the Conqu'rour's gon.
After further consideration, Morena decided to pre
tend to accept Crimalhaz's proposal but to kill herself just
34IV.iii.1418-431. 35IV.iii.1591-595.
265
after Muly Labas's murder was avenged. By following such a
plan she would be reunited to Muly Labas.
Then with a gentle gale of dying sighs,
I'le breath my flying Soul into the Skies.
Wing'd by my Love I will my passage steer,
Nor can I miss my way when You shine there.
Although not directly related to the Christian idea
of romantic love, the idea of joining loved ones after
death in a heavenly home, was Christian.
What form of love was idealized in The Empress of
Morocco? Pure and virtuous love was idealized in Settle's
play; Muly Hamet overcame the obstacle of exile, overthrew
the tyrant, rescued Mariamne (with the aid of Hametalhaz)
and the play ended with their marriage imminent. The pure
love of Muly Labas and Morena stressed the eternal quality
of love and conjugal fidelity, illicit love was punished
with death.
How was the love problem solved in The Empress of
Morocco? Settle was commenting on married love in three
respects: the achievement of marriage by the ideally suited
couple who overcame various obstacles to their legal union;
the eternal quality of true love, which comes but once in
36IV.iii.1656-659.
266
a lifetime; and the folly of adultery.
If a conflict arose between Muly Hamet's code of
honor and the solution of his love problem, how did he re
solve the conflict?
The principal conflict between Muly Hamet's love and
his code of honor was, of course, the confrontation of
Crimalhaz and the exchange of Mariamne's life for Muly
Hamet's support of Crimalhaz. Even though it was against
Muly Hamet's code of honor to defend a tyrant, he pledged
to do so in order to save Mariamne.
My Lawrels, Crowns, and Empires are all yours.
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • a *
I swear by the Eternal Powers,
For her Lives ransome I this off'ring make:
Morocco and your Crown I'le give you back.
To my last blood I will your life defend, ^7
In Wars your champion, and in Peace your friend.
Fortunately, he was saved from having to live by
his decision by Hametalhaz's unexpected change of heart.
Was the solution of the love problem presented in
The Empress of Morocco influenced primarily by Christian or
classical thinking?
Christian influence was more apparent in The Empress
of Morocco in the solution of the love problems than was
37V.i.1995-2001.
267
classical influence. The love of Muly Hamet and Mariamne
culminated in marriage and conjugal fidelity was stressed
in the marriage of Muly Labas and Morena. Adultery, instead
of being glorified as it had been in the Platonic Love Cult
plays, was punished with the death of both parties. How
ever, there was no crossing of class lines in marriage; both
young couples conveniently chose partners of an equal social
status.
What was the importance of the love theme in
The Empress of Morocco?
The ideal of love in marriage was the love theme of
The Empress of Morocco. Settle used approximately one-
fourth of the lines of the play in an attempt to drive home
his message. The same ideal became the middle-class dream
for personal happiness for the next three centuries.
CHAPTER IX
SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS
FOR FURTHER STUDY
Summary
This study began with the conviction that the
Heroic Tragedies of the Restoration period were an important
link between the English drama of the pre-Commonwealth
period, particularly the Platonic Love Cult plays of Charles
I's Court and the modern drama. Their most immediate in
fluence was on the sentimental drama of the eighteenth
century.
The intrinsic worth of the Restoration Heroic
Tragedies is in the light they shed on the late seventeenth-
century English personal and political ideals. In this
study it was assumed that the ideals of character and con
duct of the upper-class Englishman were to be found in his
code of honor, and that this same upper-class code of honor
would be reflected in the character of the hero of Heroic
268
269
Tragedy. The code of honor was the key, not only to the
aristocrat's self-image, but to his relations with other
persons. The aristocrat's place in the social structure
was dependent upon a monarchial form of government and this
political view was either expressed or implied in all Heroic
Tragedies of the Restoration period.
Since drama reflects its contemporary society, it
was necessary to include one chapter in this study which
would give the reader some insight into the political scene
and the significant, religion-shaking new science and
philosophy whose discoveries and concepts were to influence
western civilization for the next three centuries. Heroic
Tragedy did not, by any means, reflect the views of the
majority of late seventeenth-century Englishmen: actually,
the ideals expressed in this type of play were those of a
small, though significant, group.
The physical plant in which the drama was performed
and seen was another limiting factor in Restoration Heroic
Tragedy, and the brief description of the physical plant,
for purposes of this study, logically fell in Chapter II.
Heroic Tragedy was a dramatic form which grew stale
in a few years but, for a period of time, was extremely
popular. Most of the leading playwrights of the Restoration
270
period attempted at least one Heroic Tragedy. However,
it was a type of play which defied definition where form and
content were concerned. Chapter III included a brief his
tory of Heroic Tragedy and a discussion of the chief char
acteristics of such plays.
Above all, this study attempted to assess the impor
tance of the influence of the classical tradition and that
of the Christian religion on the meaning of the two concepts
vital to Restoration Heroic Tragedy, "Love" and "Honor,"
and to show how these two major forces were at work in
shaping the character of the hero of three of those trag
edies .
Toward such an end, Chapter IV included the laws of
the seventeenth-century Englishman's code of honor, which
was based on the classical tradition, and the rules for ex
cellent character which were based on Christian virtue. The
classical code of honor and the Christian code of virtue were
both important in the seventeenth-century but the Christian
code of virtue gained ground steadily during the century so
that, by the beginning of the eighteenth century, the Chris
tian code was dominant. Restoration Heroic Tragedy was a
literary attempt to reinstate the aristocratic world view
with its classical code of honor.
- 271
Romantic love was a subject of increasing literary
importance since the medieval Court of Love sought to
civilize the relationship between the sexes. The results
of the efforts to teach love manners were both positive and
negative: the negative ranged all the way from the practice
of adultery and incest to long-winded conceits and defini
tions of love, and a demand for virtue in women that would
strain the most angelic of the sex; on the positive side it
may be said in all fairness that the attention given to this
very personal relationship at least gave a new dignity to
women and helped to establish a more courteous and satis
factory relationship between men and women. The attitude
of the hero of Restoration Heroic Tragedy toward his beloved
provided a clue, not only to his character, but to hers.
Because of the importance of romantic love in
Restoration Heroic Tragedies, and to this particular study,
it was necessary to trace some of the aspects of the Platon
ic Love Cult plays of Charles I's Court to their beginnings
and this was done in Chapter V. Only three plays, each a
representative of one of the types of Restoration Heroic
Tragedy, were used in this study, but the evidence from
these plays indicates that a link did exist between Restora
tion Heroic Tragedy and the Platonic Love Cult plays of
272
Charles i's Court.
Another aspect of the romantic love theme, of suffi
cient importance for further study, may be found in the
Puritan literature of disapproval of the Platonic Love Cult
practices and dramas. This was dealt with briefly in Chap
ter V because the writers of Restoration Heroic Tragedy
never forgot that Puritan disapproval, and the love theme in
their plays reveals the impact of that Puritan disapproval.
Considering the importance of both love and honor,
this study attempted to separate the two as much as pos
sible and trace the development of both, showing, in a small
way, the influence of both the classical tradition and the
Christian religion on each. The hero was chosen as the
principal exponent of the concepts, but other characters
were analyzed when they had been used as a foil for the hero
in either "love" or "honor."
An analysis of the character of Henry V, the hero of
the history-type Restoration Heroic Tragedy, was made in
Chapter VI, on the basis of his code of honor as revealed
through speeches made by him and about him; and his love
experience, judged again from his speeches about his love,
and the speeches of other characters about Henry's love.
Chapter VII was devoted to the analysis of the
273
character of Almansor, the hero of Dryden's The Conquest of
Granada, a play unique partly because of the fact that it
was written in ten acts, and partly because of the close
resemblance to the classical epic poem and the hero’s close
resemblance to the epic hero. The same method of analysis
was used: analyzing the character of the hero through his
speeches and the speeches made about him in the areas of
"love" and "honor."
Settle's The Empress of Morocco was the third play
chosen for this study and was a representative of the
masque-like Heroic Tragedy. Muly Labas, the hero, was sub
jected to the same type of character analysis as were the
heroes of the other two plays.
Conclusion
Restoration Heroic Tragedy was a short-lived dramat
ic form whose nature was more closely related to that of
the epic poem than of classical drama. While Heroic Tragedy
was born of the Restoration period, it did not spring full-
grown upon the stage, but rather, grew quite logically from
the Platonic Love Cult plays of Charles I's Court. Sir
William Davenant, poet laureate under Charles I and Charles
II, was the connecting link between the Platonic Love Cult
274
plays and Heroic Tragedy; he wrote the former type on
command of Henrietta Maria, and The Seige of Rhodes, the
father of Heroic Tragedy and English opera, to get around
Puritan censure.
It is almost impossible to read any literature on
the English Restoration Heroic Tragedy without encountering
the idea of French influence, and it is just as impossible to
deny that such influence did, in fact, exist. But, the
primary French influence was Henrietta Maria's introduction
of the Platonic Love Cult plays into Charles I's Court.
And just as important was the English reaction to
that drama, particularly the Puritan reaction. It is dif
ficult to determine which the Puritans hated most: the
theatres and the Platonic Love Cult plays or the use of
ritual, which they termed dramatics, within the Church of
England. They attacked both with vehemence. But even
Puritan disapproval could not destroy the concept of roman
tic love and, when Davenant found it necessary to cope with
Puritan government control when he sought to reopen the
theatres, he first had to make love and honor acceptable
to Puritan standards.
While it is impossible to date any movement from
any particular historical event, it may be said that
275
absolute monarchy in England died with the beheading of
Charles I. The subsequent experiment with a more democrat
ic form of English government ended in failure with the
death of Oliver Cromwell for at least two reasons: (1) the
English people were not ready for democracy and (2) the
Cromwell government, in many ways, offered less freedom
than the monarchy under which the English people had lived.
But the seed of democratic government had been planted in
good soil, and the storms of military dictatorship were not
strong enough to kill it. Consequently, when Charles II
was recalled to the throne, his power was limited by a
Parliament which had learned that kings are mortal.
This growing strength of a democratic government
must be kept in mind when analyzing the concept of honor,
which, with love, was the theme of Restoration Heroic
Tragedy. A man's code of honor defined his place in the
social structure. A government of absolute monarchy was
based on a structured society in which each stratum was
carefully defined and there was no crossing of class lines
as to duties, obligations, behavior, or even dress. An
aristocrat's education consisted in his learning the rites
of his tribe and his code of honor was based on classical
concepts. The Restoration playwrights attempted to
276
reinstate and strengthen the theory of absolute monarchy
with its attendant classical code of honor.
But, if the Puritans had failed to retain the con
trol of government, they had succeeded as merchants and,
whether economics played the more important part in
strengthening their middle-class position or whether their
concepts of personal dignity appealed to the English, the
fact remains that the recalling of the King did not destroy
either English Puritanism or its influence. Even in the
most ardently Royalist of the Heroic Tragedies, of which
The Conquest of Granada is a prime example, there is evi
dence of Christian influence on the hero's code of honor.
Romantic love became a very effective battering ram
against the wall of class consciousness. While it is true
that this did not happen in Restoration Heroic Tragedy, yet
the romantic love concepts presented in those plays paved
the way for the crossing of class lines im marriage in the
drama of the centuries that followed.
The classical code of honor and the Christian code
of virtue, both prominent in Restoration times, dealt with
the behavior of the lover toward the beloved. Both codes
dictated ideal behavior covering a much wider scope; love
was the emotion that could overpower the lover's reason,
in which case he went down in utter defeat.
During the Restoration period, many aristocratic
members of the theatre audience wrote plays for amusement
but the best of the aristocratic efforts was in the field of
comedy. One of the plays chosen for this study was written
by an aristocrat, although the reason for the choice was
that it represented one type of Heroic Tragedy, the history
play. Interestingly, the author, Roger Boyle, Earl of
Orrery, had less to say about honor than either of the other
non-aristocratic playwrights. One gathers from reading
Henry V that the hero's code of honor was as much a part of
him as the color of his hair or eyes; there were no psycho
logical conflicts about the question of whether a course
of action was honorable or dishonorable. In other words,
Henry V wore his code of honor less self-consciously than
did the heroes of the other two plays of this study.
Dryden was not an aristocrat and his hero, Almansor,
was a self-conscious titan. One feels that Dryden was
straining to paint a semi-god in keeping with the classical
concept of the hero— a hero not real to him even in his
imagination. One very significant factor in The Conquest of
Granada was Dryden's herding his hero and heroine into the
Christian fold before the end of the play so there can be no
278
question about the Christian influence at work there.
If Settle had written at any other time in history
except during the Restoration period he might have developed
into a very good playwright. But he was restricted by the
peculiar demands of that time. As it was, he always pre
sented those aspects of the Platonic Love Cult which he
thought would meet the demands of the audience. He saw
to it that virtuous love was rewarded but he gave more time
and space to adultery and illicit love. He owed his short
success, perhaps, as much to his adulterous lovers as he
did to the spectacle of his plays. The Empress of Morocco
was an example of the masque-type Heroic Tragedy and one
of Settle's best adulterous love stories. The Christian
influence was in evidence in Settle's play, too. While
the characters were supposedly Moslem, their religious
references were Christian, and most assuredly, the ideal
love in Settle's play showed strong Christian influence.
The conclusion reached from the study of these three
examples— one of each of the three types of Restoration
Heroic Tragedy— was that the Christian influence had grown
so strong by 1660 that it was impossible toipresent a hero
of a tragedy whose code of honor was consonant with the
classical concept. Not only was absolute monarchy dead;
279
so was the Aristotelian world-view with its earth-centered
macrocosm and its prince-centered microcosm. By the time
of the Restoration period the Christian religion had de
stroyed the classical concept of the hero: in spite of the
fact that the heroes of English Restoration Heroic Tragedy
were patterned after the classical hero, the Christian in
fluence neutralized the classical element. (science had a
hand in changing man's world- and social-view, too; for,
when man learned that the earth was not the center of the
universe, he began to doubt that he was the center of
Creation.)
Suggestions for Further Study
During the course of this study, it became evident
that there were many forces at work during the Restoration
period which affected, both directly and indirectly, the
dramatic literature, particularly Heroic Tragedy. Some of
the forces at work were religion, science and economics, and
some suggestions for further study are: (1) the Platonic
Love Cult plays of the Court of Charles I, Puritan disap
proval, and the resultant concept of romantic love in dra
matic literature, both tragedy and comedy; (2) the effect
of the rising economic power of the Puritans during the
seventeenth century upon the dramatic literature; and
(3) the effect of science on the themes and characters
dramatic literature.
B I B L I O G R A P H Y
281
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Asset Metadata

Creator Biddle, Evelyn Quick (author)

Core Title A Critical Study Of The Influence Of The Classical And Christian Traditions Upon The Character Of The Hero As Revealed Through The Concepts Of 'Love' And 'Honor' In Three Restoration Heroic Tragedies

Contributor Digitized by ProQuest (provenance)

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Communication (Drama)

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag OAI-PMH Harvest,Theater

Language English

Advisor Butler, James H. (committee chair), Lecky, Eleazer (committee member), Stahl, Herbert M. (committee member)

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c18-121234

Unique identifier UC11359918

Identifier 6706491.pdf (filename),usctheses-c18-121234 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier 6706491.pdf

Dmrecord 121234

Document Type Dissertation

Rights Biddle, Evelyn Quick

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the au...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus, Los Angeles, California 90089, USA

Linked assets

University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses