Manchester University Press
15 ‘The Name of King will light upon a Tarquin’
Abstract
After Titus Oates’s ‘popish forgeries’, which prompted a crisis in the succession, the production of Nathaniel Lee’s Lucius Junius Brutus was undoubtedly provocative. The play ostensibly celebrates the birth of a republic. This essay questions the conventional Whig reading of the play as one of republican heroism. As was the case with many anti-monarchical writings of the 1640s and 1650s, the play pivots on the distinction between ‘king’ and ‘tyrant’. But, in fact, Brutus expels the ‘name’ and retains the ‘thing’, the substance of kingship, investing his consulship with the power which was once Tarquin’s. Eventually he is seen as ‘more Tyrannical than any Tarquin’ (5.1.114). Nevertheless, the representation of Brutus apparently proved too subtle (or maybe too cryptic) an interpretation for contemporaries and the play was (safely) consigned to censure, lest it stir the bugbear of a new ‘Commonwealth without a king’.
Abstract
After Titus Oates’s ‘popish forgeries’, which prompted a crisis in the succession, the production of Nathaniel Lee’s Lucius Junius Brutus was undoubtedly provocative. The play ostensibly celebrates the birth of a republic. This essay questions the conventional Whig reading of the play as one of republican heroism. As was the case with many anti-monarchical writings of the 1640s and 1650s, the play pivots on the distinction between ‘king’ and ‘tyrant’. But, in fact, Brutus expels the ‘name’ and retains the ‘thing’, the substance of kingship, investing his consulship with the power which was once Tarquin’s. Eventually he is seen as ‘more Tyrannical than any Tarquin’ (5.1.114). Nevertheless, the representation of Brutus apparently proved too subtle (or maybe too cryptic) an interpretation for contemporaries and the play was (safely) consigned to censure, lest it stir the bugbear of a new ‘Commonwealth without a king’.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Front matter i
- Contents v
- List of figures vii
- List of tables ix
- List of contributors x
- Acknowledgements xv
- Introduction 1
- 1 1660: restoration and revolution 23
- 2 Monarchy and commonwealth 53
- 3 Couplets, commonplaces and the creation of history in The Famous Tragedie of King Charles I (1649) and Cromwell’s Conspiracy (1660) 69
- 4 ‘Plots’ and dissent 85
- 5 Visions of monarchy and magistracy in women’s political writing, 1640– 80 102
- 6 The battle of the books 124
- 7 Acts of oblivion 147
- 8 ‘Far off the public stage’ 168
- 9 Projecting the Experiment 185
- 10 The view from the devil’s mountain 206
- 11 ‘The Sport of Bishop-Hunting’ 226
- 12 Choosing a captain back for Egypt 245
- 13 The French connection 267
- 14 Restoration opera and the failure of patronage 289
- 15 ‘The Name of King will light upon a Tarquin’ 309
- 16 ‘A Child of Heathen Hobbs’ 326
- Bibliography 343
- Index 375
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Front matter i
- Contents v
- List of figures vii
- List of tables ix
- List of contributors x
- Acknowledgements xv
- Introduction 1
- 1 1660: restoration and revolution 23
- 2 Monarchy and commonwealth 53
- 3 Couplets, commonplaces and the creation of history in The Famous Tragedie of King Charles I (1649) and Cromwell’s Conspiracy (1660) 69
- 4 ‘Plots’ and dissent 85
- 5 Visions of monarchy and magistracy in women’s political writing, 1640– 80 102
- 6 The battle of the books 124
- 7 Acts of oblivion 147
- 8 ‘Far off the public stage’ 168
- 9 Projecting the Experiment 185
- 10 The view from the devil’s mountain 206
- 11 ‘The Sport of Bishop-Hunting’ 226
- 12 Choosing a captain back for Egypt 245
- 13 The French connection 267
- 14 Restoration opera and the failure of patronage 289
- 15 ‘The Name of King will light upon a Tarquin’ 309
- 16 ‘A Child of Heathen Hobbs’ 326
- Bibliography 343
- Index 375
