ScholarWorks > Arts & Sciences > English > COMPDR > Vol. 24 (1990) > Iss. 3
'Hay for the Daughters!' Gender and Patriarchy in The Miseries of Civil War and Henry VI
Abstract
In lieu of an abstract, the first paragraph of the essay follows:
A riot broke out at the Dorset Garden Theater during the opening run of John Croune's The Miseries of Civil War in February 1679. In the words of The True News, or, Mercurius Anglicus, "some Gentlemen in their Cupps entring into the Pitt, flinging links at the Actors, and using severall reproachfull speeches against the Dutchess of P. and other Persons of Honour" caused King Charles II to close the playhouse until further notice. Referring to this or to another similar disruption of playing, the Dowager Countess of Sunderland wrote to her friend Henry Sidney that he "must needs hear of the abominable disorders amongst us, calling all the women whores and the men rogues in the playhouses-throwing candles and linkscalling ... the Duke of York [a] rascal; and all ended in 'God bless his Highness the Duke of Monmouth. We will be for him against the world'."1 Some identification is in order. That "Dutchess of P." whose identity the True News reporter was so reluctant to reveal was probably the Duchess of Portsmouth, the king's well-born French Catholic mistress. The Duke of York was the king's brother, James, who had formally converted to Catholicism a:s early as 1672. The Duke of Monmouth was the king's eldest son, born out of wedlock to him and Lucy Walter in 1649, still unlegitimated but the Londoners' darling.
Recommended Citation
MacDonald, Joyce Green
(1990)
"'Hay for the Daughters!' Gender and Patriarchy in The Miseries of Civil War and Henry VI,"
Comparative Drama: Vol. 24:
Iss.
3, Article 1.
Available at:
https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/compdr/vol24/iss3/1