1705+-+Stearn

December 1st, 1705

My Darling,

It has been six months since I last laid my eyes upon you. And while I have full confidence in the military prowess of the Nation’s leadership, specifically the generalship of the Duke of Marlborough, I am frightened every day. Frightened that you will never return to me here in London. Frightened that I have no real idea where you are, be it Venice or Gibraltar. I often feel like these letters are like little paper boats sent into the sea with no hope of reaching a friendly shore. Nonetheless, I write. I have little else to assuage the fear and dread that so grips my heart.

In today’s Daily Courant I read that at the nearby port in Weymouth, a ship from the French fleet was brought in filled with “400 Tons of Salt [that] was taken by this Privateer” of the Marlborough Gally. I cannot help but think that perhaps this is a ship you could have seen from the shores of Gibraltar gazing into the Alboran Sea. It was of course, a great victory that the partnership between our men and the Dutch led to Gibraltar’s capture last year, but I am starting to question, at what cost? When foreign struggles for land, thrones, and power rip apart good English families how important is our involvement? Do forgive this question if it seems too bold, I am only a wife struck by loneliness and fear so deep, I often fear for my sanity.

The Two Crowns held onto Gibraltar as long as they possibly could before our forces overwhelmed them last year. I often feel for the women and children of Gibraltar when I think of the siege and violence they have had to endure by no fault of their own. I think often of John Dennis’ production of Gibraltar, which you and I saw together before you left in service of country. Remember? We were even able to make it to the premier earlier this year in February at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane. Mr. Dennis made it seem like the purpose of war was to swoon over raven-haired Spanish Women and dress like ladies to carry out elaborate schemes. A //Comedy// about war with Spain and in light of the daily deadly battles we wives have to contend with from afar!

I see in today’s Courant, reported deaths in Venice from both sides of the conflict, how I pray that you are safe. I had such a different experience watching that play last winter. We laughed together at the premiere as the English Tars, Wilmot and Vincent, caromed about in ladies clothing, all in the name of love of their Spanish conquests, Leonora and Jacquelinda. We laughed together at the exaggerated “Englishness” of the Tars and the hilarious formalities of the Spaniards. We even had our hearts lit like embers in nationalistic pride with victory over the Two Crowns in Gibraltar, if even just on the Drury Lane stage. How the whole theatre cheered when Leonora, dressed in officers’ garb, declared her loyalty “to the English, and the house of Austria” (Act V, p 51).

A swift and relatively painless Grand Alliance victory seemed in the cards that night as we filed out of the theatre, arm-in-arm. The Prologue merrily declared how the author’s Muse “that sung your glorious Acts on Bleinheim’s Plain, now stoops to Trifle and to laugh in Spain”. While a decisive victory like that at Bleinheim seemed ideal at the time, I now know as a soldier's wife, there is no ideal battle. There are no “glorious Acts” on a battlefield. It is not a place of miracle and valor, the longer you are gone the more I believe there is nothing Divine in the world of war.

Little did I know of the future that awaited us. How naive I was. How easily stirred up into a patriotic frenzy I was. A comedy about war is a cruel joke as I now have the misfortune of knowing. I pray day and night for your safe return. I will write again in due haste.

Sincerely,

 Grace



[Gibraltar premiered at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane on February 16, 1705 and went through three performances that year. It is a lighthearted comedy about the escapades of two lovestruck British sailors in Spain during the siege of Gibraltar the year earlier in 1704. The play uses the backdrop of a neighborhood in Gibraltar to celebrate the cultural imperialism English mariners brought to the locales where they were at war. It is fascinating to note that while a war was continuing to rage on in Spain, Hungary, and Italy, a play focusing on the lighter side of war; the clashing of cultures, “exotic” romances, and the beginning on the spread of British cultural imperialism, was very popular back in London.

 A war play released less than a year after the decisive siege of Gibraltar undoubted bolstered public opinion of the Grand Alliance military operations and British nationalism. It would be interesting to compare the daily lives of those who actually took part in the deadly siege of Gibraltar by Anglo-Dutch forces on August 14, 1704, compared to the cheerful, scheming Tars, Wilmot and Vincent. One of the major outcomes of the War of Spanish Succession, was the framework laid for the domination of the British Empire and politically motivated expansion of British territory.

 This mindset can be seen explicitly in //Gibraltar, //in which mariners are characterized as the cultural missionaries of the British Empire, spreading what is intrinsically “English”. Critic GundaWindmüller, describes in her boo <span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;; font-size: 12pt;">k, __Rushing into Floods : Staging the Sea in Restoration and Early Eighteenth-Century English Drama__, that “mariners [in //Gibraltar//] emerge as bearers as well as propagators of English values, a portrayal that deems the characters as exemplary models for representing their nation within the contact zone of the sea” (182).

<span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;; font-size: 12pt;">While the more advertised goal of the War of Spanish Succession was the preemptive protection of the nation of England from the Two Crowns’ Catholic empire, plays like //Gibraltar//, reveal a secondary motivation of expansion of English values, cultural imperialism and empire building. England’s exceptional naval operation served as a major boon in the war and because of mariners’ exceptional mobility, they serve as both metaphorically effective and practically effective purveyors of British cultural imperialism.]



<span style="font-family: &#39;Lucida Calligraphy&#39;; font-size: 12pt;">Monday December 28, 1705

<span style="font-family: &#39;Lucida Calligraphy&#39;; font-size: 12pt;">My Beloved,

<span style="font-family: &#39;Lucida Calligraphy&#39;; font-size: 12pt;"> Two fortnights have passed since I last wrote you. I am beginning to think this a sadly futile exercise, and yet one I cling to like the drowning seize life preservers. This is the only means by which I can feel any connection to what we had, what we were. Merry Christmas, I hope the officers managed a decent meal and perhaps some musical entertainment for you all in the infantry.

<span style="font-family: &#39;Lucida Calligraphy&#39;; font-size: 12pt;"> Today’s Daily Courant announced, “an End of the 4th Year of a War, that is at once the most difficult the Allies have had to maintain, and the only Remedy they have left”. I was reminded once more of the masterful manipulation France tried to exert over the powers of Europe in its efforts to join crowns with Spain and create a Catholic empire. I quote the Courant when I agree, “by Means of a Sham-Peace France became Master of the Monarchy of Spain, ‘tis most evident they can hope for no Safety, but from redoubled Efforts favour’d by the Divine Protection”. And I so hope and pray that you and your unit are indeed under the watchful eye of that Divine Protection. Since the capitulation of Barcelona in mid October, there has been revived optimism here on the home front, and yet here we are spending a Christmas apart. I am not as optimistic as those blissfully unaffected by loved-ones entering the melee.

<span style="font-family: &#39;Lucida Calligraphy&#39;; font-size: 12pt;"> Last week on the 17th at the Queen’s Theatre in Haymarket, I went to see the Comedy, //The Way of the World//. I wish you could have been there; we have been talking excitedly about this production for the past couple of seasons. I have never seen a play so successful for 5 years running like this one. A humorous break from the monotony and fear that life has become in the recent months.

<span style="font-family: &#39;Lucida Calligraphy&#39;; font-size: 12pt;"> I was able to obtain a copy of Thomas Brown’s posthumous critique of Women characters, <span style="color: #333333; font-family: &#39;Lucida Calligraphy&#39;; font-size: 12pt;">“A Legacy for the Ladies; or, characters of the women of the age”, published earlier this year. It is very complete in its discussion of various female archetypes in plays - and by extrapolation perhaps in life itself. //The Way of the World// introduced the audience to the Lady Wishfort, a bitingly witty albeit insecure matriarch of Millament’s family. She must bless Mirabell’s love and desire to marry Millament, which proves to require as convoluted a scheme as you can imagine. I feel as though Lady Wishfort would fit clearly into Brown’s qualification of “The Witty Woman”. And yet I so strongly disagree with Brown’s dismissal that such women as “insupportably Vain and Arrogant” (31). He describes how with her wit, the witty women “strive to establish an Empire, they make Shipwreck of their Reputation, and sometimes of their Virtue” and goes as far as to say that “a Woman that pretends to Wit, is insufferable in society” (31).

<span style="color: #333333; font-family: &#39;Lucida Calligraphy&#39;; font-size: 12pt;">While Brown might have this attitude towards witty Women, I do not believe that neither Congreve nor myself share his caustic opinion. The theatre burst into laughter at the quips of Lady Wishfort and while a pathetic character in many ways, the audience had the pathos to see her plight and reactions in shades of grey. She was not “insufferable in society” but interested in continuing to live a comfortable life after the death of her husband and needed a strong voice and a sharp wit to achieve this. She was, of course, duped with a ridiculous scheme from Mirabell involving his servant disguised as the suitor Mr. Rowland, and her vanity and need for love proved her Achilles heel.

<span style="color: #333333; font-family: &#39;Lucida Calligraphy&#39;; font-size: 12pt;">And yet, I would argue that the audience is beginning to see that women must live within the confines of their situation and often a sharp tongue and a scheme are the only ways to so navigate.

<span style="color: #333333; font-family: &#39;Lucida Calligraphy&#39;; font-size: 12pt;"> Anyways, I digress. As the year closes my love, I seek that we will be reunited in safety in the coming year. Some say this conflict could burn on for a great many years, but I have a quiet confidence in the armies of England that, God-willing, this will be a short-lived suppression of Catholic crusade. Merry Christmas, once more.

<span style="color: #333333; font-family: &#39;Lucida Calligraphy&#39;; font-size: 12pt;">Sincerely,

<span style="color: #333333; font-family: &#39;Lucida Calligraphy&#39;; font-size: 12pt;">Grace

Works Cited <span style="color: #000000; font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;;">"Advertisement." The Daily Courant, no. 1134 - 1158, 1705. ProQuest, https://search.proquest.com/docview/5391155?accountid=14696.

<span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;;">Brown, Thomas. “A Legacy for the Ladies; or, characters of the women of the age.” //Eighteenth Century Journals//, 1705, http://www.18thcjournals.amdigital.co.uk.proxy-um.researchport.umd.edu/Documents/Details/Legacy for The Ladies or Characters of the Women of the Age. Accessed March 28, 2018.

<span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;;">Canfield, J. Douglas, and Maja-Lisa Von Sneidern. //The Broadview Anthology of Restoration & Early Eighteenth-Century English Drama//. Broadview Press, 2001.

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;;">"Cover." The Daily Courant, no. 1134 - 1158, 1705. ProQuest, https://search.proquest.com/docview/5377152?accountid=14696.

<span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;;">Dennis, John. //Gibraltar: or, The Spanish adventure, A comedy. As it was acted at the Theatre in Drury-Lane. By Mr. Dennis//. Printed for Wm. Turner, at the Angel at Lincolns Inn Back-Gate, and sold by J. Nutt, near Stationer's-Hall, MDCCV. [1705]. //Eighteenth Century Collections Online//, http://find.galegroup.com.proxy-um.researchport.umd.edu/ecco/infomark.do?&source=gale&docLevel=FASCIMILE&prodId=ECCO&userGroupName=umd_um&tabID=T001&docId=CB3327355941&type=multipage&contentSet=ECCOArticles&version=1.0. Accessed 28 Mar. 2018.

<span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;;">Elbert N. S. Thompson. “Tom Brown and Eighteenth-Century Satirists.” //Modern Language Notes//, vol. 32, no. 2, 1917, pp. 90–94. //JSTOR//, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2915749.

//<span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;;">The Spanish Succession. //<span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;;">2003, <span style="color: #000000; font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;;">[] <span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;;">. Accessed 28 Mar. 2018.

<span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;;">"War of the Spanish Succession." //Encyclopeadia Britanica//, 13 Dec. 2016, <span style="color: #000000; font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;;">[] <span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;;">.

<span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;;">Windmüller, Gunda. //Rushing into Floods : Staging the Sea in Restoration and Early Eighteenth-Century English Drama//. V & R Unipress, 2012.