1667

=Snapshot of 1667: The World Stage and the Theatrical Stage = //The London Gazette// was a paper published twice weekly that focused mainly on the political endeavors of England, both at home and abroad. The format of the paper consists of dispatches from various important foreign cities such as Paris, Hamburg, and Vienna, as well as places such as Whitehall, Newcastle, and Plymouth. Due to the distance and conditions of travel, the chronology of reports is often jarring, with missives being published immediately upon arrival under their authoring date.

In a few instances, however, the dates of occurrences align, as in a series of reports from coastal English cities in mid-July, tracking the movements of Dutch squadrons:

//Alborough, July 11.// There continues riding in this Bay a Vice Admiral of the Dutch, with five other Men of War; Yesterday in the afternoon they put up a white Flag, but their meaning by it we as yet know not. //Harwich, July 11//. The Dutch have divided their Fleet into several Squadrons. Yesterday off Alborough were seen a Squadron of 14 Sail; this morning they appeared in the Sledway, standing Eastward. //Margate, July 12.// The last evening we discovered about 40 sail of the Dutch ships sailing from the way of Dover, they are still in sight, but with what intentions we know not; they have not of late attempted any thing. //Harwich, July 13.// The last night we discovered about sixty sail of Dutch about Bardsey Sand, and the Sledway, where we also see them this morning; We hear not of any late attempts they have made. (Issue 173)

Such speculative dispatches and intense tracking of the Dutch were warranted, considering the Second Anglo-Dutch War had been waging since March of 1665 and the Dutch had just achieved a major victory over the English the month before in their [|Raid on the Medway]. The 1666-1667 theatre season was disrupted by these events: “On 22 July 1667 [Samuel] Pepys implies that the theatres had been closed in June and early July, possibly because of the naval encounters with the Dutch” (//London Stage// 111). The Raid on the Medway was a bold move by the Dutch to end the war decisively, for they suspected Charles II had begun secret negotiations with Louis XIV to form an alliance (which he had). The good relations between France and England extended beyond politics, showing up on the English stage in the form of English adaptations of popular French plays, specifically those written by famous French playwright Molière. One such play, //Sir Martin Mar-All, or, The Feign'd Innocence// by John Dryden was a retelling of //L'Étourdi// (The Blunderer). It opened on August 15, 1667, and was performed by Sir William Davenant’s Duke’s Company at the Lincoln’s Inn Fields Theatre. Interestingly, Dryden typically wrote for rival company, The King’s Men; his tragicomedy, //Secret Love, or The Maiden Queen// had opened at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane on March 2, 1667.



//The Maiden Queen// had explicit connections to the Swedish [|Queen Christina], best known for her refusal to marry and her abdication of the Swedish throne in 1654 when she converted to Catholicism. //The London Gazette// references Queen Christina's ill-fated celebration of Pope Clement IX’s accession in 1667, which was met with hostility and violence in the Protestant country of Germany, where she was residing:

//Hambourgh, July 20: //The late unhappy tumult and fray happening, and occasioned by the drunken rude people upon the day of rejoycing for the Election of the Pope, has much troubled the Queen //Christina//, who nevertheless has taken care for a recompence to be made to the Widdows of those two or three persons that were killed in it, and promising to pay for the Cure of those others that were wounded. (Issue 178)

While penning //Sir Martin Mar-All//, Dryden was in the process of collaborating with Davenant on an adaptation of Shakespeare’s //The Tempest//, which was performed by the Duke’s Company at Lincoln’s Inn Fields, opening November 7, 1667. Another revived Shakespearean play, //The Merry Wives of Windsor//, was performed by the King’s Company on the night of //Sir Martin Mar-All//’s debut, which [|Samuel Pepys] attended instead, due to his tardiness, noting in his diary, “The King and Court there: the house full, and an act begun. And so went to the King’s” (qtd. in London Stage 111). Pepys was not impressed by his second choice, “which did not please me at all, in no part of it” (111). He was, however, able to make it to //Sir Martin Mar-All// the following evening: After dinner my wife and I to the Duke’s playhouse, where we saw the new play acted yesterday, “The Feign Innocence, or Sir Martin Marr-all”; a play made by my Lord Duke of New-castle, but, as every body says, corrected by Dryden. It is the most entire piece of mirth, a complete farce from one end to the other, that certainly was ever writ. I never laughed so in all my life. I laughed till my head [ached] all the evening and night with the laughing; and at very good wit therein, not fooling. The house full, and in all things of mighty content to me. (111)

Pepys would go on to see //Sir Martin Mar-All// another six recorded times, continuously praising it in his diary as “the most comical play that ever I saw in my life,” “a very ingenious play,” and declaring himself “pleased with the humour of the play, almost above all that ever I saw” (112, 120). After his sixth full viewing, Pepys wrote, “[T]he more I see, the more I like,” and upon his seventh viewing remarked, “[S]aw Sir Martin Marr-all, where the house is full; and though I have seen it, I think, ten times, yet the pleasure I have is yet as great as ever, and is undoubtedly the best comedy ever was wrote” (134, 137).

=//<span style="color: #008080; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;">Sir Martin Mar-All, or, The Feign'd Innocence //= <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Dryden received a translation of Molière's //L'Étourdi// by the Duke of Newcastle and wrote the play specifically for the Duke’s Theatre, "Adapt[ing] the Part purposely for the Mouth of Mr [James] Nokes,” who played the titular role (Downes 28). [|Colley Cibber] described Nokes’ portrayal of the foppish Sir Martin in glowing terms:

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">[W]hen he had brought himself to a dilemma in his affairs by vainly proceeding upon his own head, and was afterwards afraid to look his governing servant and counsellor in the face, what a copious and distressful harangue have I seen him make with his looks (while the house has been in one continued roar for several minutes) before he could prevail with his courage to speak a word to him! …What tragedy ever shew’d us such a tumult of passions rising at once in one bosom! or what buskin’d heroe standing under the load of them could have more effectually mov’d his spectators by the most pathetik speech than poor miserable Nokes did by this silent eloquence and piteous plight of his features? (203-4)

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">In his pursuit of his beloved Millicent, Sir Martin only serves to foil any and all plans contrived by his cunning servant, Warner, who attempts to outwit both Millicent’s father, Master Moody, and current suitor, Sir John Swallow, on behalf of his master. Not completely altruistic, Warner stands to gain monetarily from the union, as promised by Sir Martin in his enthusiasm for the fair Millicent. He exerts much effort for his reward, however, for no matter how brilliant or elaborately crafted Warner’s ploys might be, they are no match for the sheer foolishness of Sir Martin, who systematically ruins each one. Warner finds allies in Millicent’s maidservant, Rose, and Sir Martin’s kinswoman, Lady Dupe, who graciously opens her home to Master Moody and his lovely daughter in order to establish their proximity to Sir Martin. However, Lady Dupe is distracted from Sir Martin’s plight when she discovers that her daughter, Mistress Christian, is pregnant by the married Lord Dartmouth. This is a situation that Warner works to his advantage, striking a deal with Lord Dartmouth for payment in exchange for settling Mistress Christian with a husband before her condition is found out. When Lord Dartmouth suggests Sir Martin as a candidate, Warner rejoins, “To confess the truth, I am resolv’d to bestow my Master upon that other Lady (as difficultly as your Lordship thinks it) for the honour of my wit is ingag’d in it” (4.1.209-211).

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Warner’s wit proves to be no match for the precocious Millicent, who eventually realizes the doltishness of her suitor Sir Martin and begins to fall for Warner instead. When Warner is finally able to contrive a clandestine wedding for Sir Martin and Millicent, with plans to marry Rose himself, Millicent and her maid trade places, surprising both men at their unveiling. The jilted Sir John turns his attention to the Mistress Christian, who artfully feigns a child-like innocence with the aid of Lady Dupe and Warner, and Master Moody expresses relief in his daughter escaping the foppery of Sir Martin.

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">The play’s comical fiascos of Warner’s Machiavellian schemes continually ruined by the obtuse, albeit likable Sir Martin both elevate and exasperate the wit of the savvy Warner, much to the delight of the audience. Dryden’s empowering of female figures also subverts conventions. Christian, perceiving her rather dire situation, deliberately casts herself as a stereotype in order to appeal to Sir John’s vanity; Millicent, though mislead at first, determines the true wit of the play and cleverly tricks the trickster into becoming her own.

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Reflecting the solid relations of the French and English at the time, the popularity of comedies such as //Sir Martin Mar-All// could perhaps be explained best by leafing through the contents of //The London Gazette//; with so much social uncertainty and political unrest in late seventeenth-century England, even intelligent businessmen like Samuel Pepys could not resist the urge to escape into //Sir Martin//’s comedic reprieve again and again. <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Compiled by Charity Hancock

Works Cited: Cibber, Colley. //An Apology for the Life of Mr. Colley Cibber, Comedian//. Ed. Robert W. Lowe. Vol. 1. London: J. C. Nimmo, AMS, 1889. Downes, John. //Roscius Anglicanus; or, An Historical Review of the Stage from 1660-// // 1706. // Ed. Montague Summers. London: n.p., 1928. Dryden, John. "//Sir Martin Mar-All//." //John Dryden: Four Comedies//. Ed. L. A. Beaurlineand Fredson Bowers. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1967. 101-78. // The London Stage, 1660-1800: A Calendar of Plays, Entertainments & Afterpieces, Together With Casts, Box-receipts and Contemporary // // Comment //// : Part 1, 1660-1700. // [1st ed.]. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1960. Muddiman, Henry, ed. //The London Gazette// 1667, 118-222. //17th and 18th Century// // Burney Collection Newspapers //. Web. 20 July 2012.