1706

 13 March 1706 To my dearest brother Joseph, It has not been long since I have arrived here in London, and I already feel so immersed in the city’s way of life. Though I do miss you, mother and father at home in the country, I truly believe that after moving here and seeing everything that this magical city has to offer, I have decided that this is the right move for a young woman such as myself. The excitement of the move, however, does not distract me from the harsh reality of the everlasting War of Spanish Succession. To think that so many young men such as yourself are being enlisted to defend our country in such a way is devastating to me, but I understand the necessity. I read the London Gazzette weekly to stay informed about the current affairs that we are facing as a country. I must admit that some of it scares me. I read recently in an advertisement in the Gazette that any able-bodied man who is willing to serve the Queen and her country in the Train of Artillery should report to Captain Silver, the master-gunner of England. The advertisement offered the men seven shillings as a reward for enlisting in the war. I suppose that this is how they get many of their recruits, by offering them money. It is sad that some men are so poor they must put their lives on the line in order to make a living, but if it is done with the intention of defending our country then I suppose it is honorable. Please promise me that you will not enlist only for the money. I would rather you come live with me in the city and find safe work than put your life at risk for the money. Please write back to me soon, as I miss hearing from you all terribly. I am lonely here, but I have noticed that many people like to gather together to discuss the performances that are currently being shown in the theater, so I hope to make some acquaintances that way soon. I hope I will be able to keep up with these city folk! Warmly, your sister, Elizabeth 15 April 1706 My beloved Joseph, I was most delighted that you, mother and father all took the time to write back to me regarding your lives back at home. Your detailed accounts made me feel as if I was almost there with you! How I do often miss the quiet, simple ways of living that the country offered me. I could not have asked for anything more in my upbringing. But Joseph, I must tell you, although the city can at times be fast-paced and intimidating, (and I do appreciate your worrying for my safety here), it has introduced me to my new love, the theater! I last wrote to you about how I have seen people often returning from the theater day in and day out, discussing the plays with one another and enjoying each other’s company. Well, I decided that if I am going to live in London, I must do things the London way, so I decided to start attending the performances, and my how I love it! The plays are often funny, and are relevant to the goings on of the day and city life. Why, just a few weeks ago I saw a wonderful play by the playwright George Farquhar called “The Recruiting Officer,” which dealt just with the issues of the war I was telling you about in my last letter regarding the War of Spanish Succession. As it turns out, this playwright, Farquhar, was a recruiting officer at one time himself! I apologize if you are not aware of this profession, being from such a small town with relatively few men to recruit, so allow me to enlighten you. England needs many men to fight the French in this war – more men than are willing to volunteer to fight. Though we are a patriotic nation and we do love Queen Anne, there simply are not enough men volunteering to fight. For this reason, recruiting officers are sent to towns to encourage and persuade young, able-bodied men to enlist in the war to aid us in our fight. While when I first learned of this profession it made me fear a recruiting officer going back home and recruiting you, Farquhar eased my discomfort by making his play both funny and romantic! I wish to tell you all about the play, but for brevity’s sake I will give you a condensed synopsis. I saw the play on its opening night on the eighth of April at the playhouse Drury Lane. Many of the playhouses here are modeled after improvised tennis court spaces, being divided in half where the net would be. You might think from how popular I have made the theater sound that I would have difficulty gaining attendance to any of the performances, but you are wrong, my brother. In fact, Not only did I see the play, I was practically a part of it! The stage sits so closely to the audience that it was as if I stood on stage with the actors. I saw every bead of sweat on the actors’ faces, I heard every aside that they whispered in secrecy to us, and some of the actors even winked and included some of the audience members in their performances. It was just wonderful! The play opened just after Marlborough’s great victory at Blenheim, which was so significant I would be shocked if you had not heard of it back home. The main character, Captain Plume, and his sergeant, named Kite, are sent to the town of Shrewsbury to recruit men to join the army. It turns out the Farquhar himself was once a recruiting officer in Shrewsbury, and used his experience as the basis for his play. I thought it was just marvelous how he took a subject that was so relevant to our time and made a performance out of it. Plume and Kite do not try to recruit men by reinforcing the patriotism within them, but are rather somewhat deceitful in their recruitment tactics. They make the army sound ideal to the men, telling them that they will be spending their time with other likeminded men, singing and laughing, and they will be living away from the restrictions of the rural life. They also offer the men money to enlist, which sounds exactly like what I had told you I read about in the London Gazette in my previous letter. Much of the play in fact centers around money, as it serves as the main motivating factor for men and women in the play to get married. When Sylvia, Plume’s love interest, learns that she will be inheriting the fortune of her wealthy and powerful father, Justice Balance, after the death of her brother, Owen, her father decides that Plume, who does not have as much money as Sylvia will have when she inherits his fortune, is not a worthy candidate to be his daughter’s husband. Another character, Worthy, is interested in making a woman, Melinda, his mistress. But when Melinda gets 20,000 pounds, she instantly becomes out of Worthy’s reach. I find it silly that the character’s name is Worthy, even though Melinda’s falling upon a large sum of money made him not worthy to be her husband. I wish to tell you more of the play now, but I must be going off to the theater once again. There are performances nearly every day and I do not wish to fall behind on my viewing of them. Until we correspond again, Your loving sister, Elizabeth 25 July 1706 Dear brother Joseph, You would not believe the excitement that has come in the past days here in London. As you may or may not have heard, her majesty Queen Anne and his Royal Highness arrived here from Windsor on the 22nd of July. The visit and the Queen’s remarks are all recorded in the most recent edition of The London Gazette, if you are able to get your hands on a copy of it. However, if you are not, I will detail the visit for you briefly here. As you may or may not have heard yet, since I have forgotten how long it takes for news to travel to our part of the country, we have recently signed in to the Treaty of Union. We are now the great Kingdom of Great Britain! The treaty is a political union between the Kingdom of England, which as you know includes Wales, and the Kingdom of Scotland. The Queen said she offered many thanks for the great pains that her Lords had taken in the treaty, and that she believes that under her reign the Kingdom will accomplish great security and advantage. I cannot even begin to explain my excitement over seeing our great Queen to you. Never did I think that growing up in the open country I would be so lucky to see her majesty speak firsthand. It is such an exciting time to be here, especially since according to the London Gazette, treaty was signed just last night. It was especially exciting to see the Queen introduced by the Lord Keeper and the Lord Chancellor of Scotland introduce the Queen. Times are certainly changing quickly here, I am happy to have witnessed it all myself! If I remember correctly, I was not finished telling you about the theater in my last letter. “The Recruiting Officer” has been a hit, and it is one of the plays that is most frequently performed. It is not only performed at Drury Lane, where it made its debut, but also the Queen’s theater. Not the Queen that I have been telling you all about in this letter, Queen’s is just the name of the theater. The theater this season has been altered by an agreement between John Vangrugh and Owen Swiny, which permitted Swiny to manage the Queen’s theater, with the consent of Rich, who is the manager of the theater at Drury Lane. Some of Rich’s principal actors, who include Cibber, Wilkes, Johnson, Mills, and many others who I find equally as delightful as the next, were permitted to move to the Queen’s theater, which drastically changed the way theater was performed at Drury Lane. According to Cibber, Rich let all of his actor’s move to the Queen’s theater because Rich himself is more interested in singing, dancing, and “Exotick Entertainments” than he is in actors. Because of these new arrangements, the Queen’s opened under a new policy of presenting plays without entr’acte entertainments. This means that there is no pause between acts of the play,so the plays just run from beginning to end without an intermission. As the story went in “The Recruiting Officer,” Sylvia had to disguise herself as a man and attempt to be recruited by Plume to get his attention. She disguised herself as Jack Willful, who Plume, though a straight male, for some reason found himself attracted to. This made for some very funny moments in the play. All of the characters had to be so dishonest and deceitful to one another, it reminded me of another play I had seen called “The Country Wife.” In that play, a character named Horner acts as if he is impotent in order to lay with as many women as he is able to in the city. He even lies with other men’s wives, while their husbands are just standing in the other room! I think that this is a theme in the plays that are written during this period of restoration to the throne. At one point during “The Recruiting Officer,” Kite even disguises himself as a fortuneteller in order to recruit more people into the army. He would pretend that he could see people’s futures and trick them into joining the army by telling them that they would have great futures if they did so. This may not be far from reality, though, as I have seen while reading the London Gazette that most recruits in the army are forced into joining and will take any chance they can to “desert” as most of them did not want to do the service in the first place and many already were or have become to old to participate in the war or to “bear the fatigues” any longer. I hope that you have been interested in my letters; I do enjoy writing them to you. I have concluded that the theater is a very important part of London’s society, though I previously just thought of it as senseless entertainment. The plays are written about the society that we live in, and many of the characters, such as the fops like Justice Balance, are modeled off of the way people really conduct themselves and are meant to satirize society and to instruct. These are called comedies of manners because they make fun of the manners that the people of our society present themselves with. Playwrights very effectively highlight and discuss the important events that are going on in society and comment on them very artistically, I hope one day you will be able to come to London and enjoy them with me. Your sister, Elizabeth Works Cited Farquhart, George. "The Recruiting Officer." N.p., n.d. Web. // The London Gazette. February 1706 – September 1706. // // The London Stage, 1660-1800, Part 2,1700-1729: // ‪//A Calendar of Plays, Entertainment and// // Afterpieces Together with Casts, Box-Reciepts and Contemporary Comment //. Ed. Emmet L. Watkiss, Sophie. "The Recruiting Officer." //Donmar// (2012): n. pag. Donmar. 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