The Court Beggar
Encyclopedia
The Court Beggar is a Caroline era stage play written by Richard Brome
. It was first performed by the acting company known as Beeston's Boys
at the Cockpit Theatre
. It has sometimes been identified as the seditious play, performed at the Cockpit in May 1640, which the Master of the Revels moved to have suppressed. However, the play's most recent editor, Marion O'Connor, dates it to "no earlier than the end of November 1640, and perhaps in the first months of 1641".
, in the 1653
Brome collection Five New Plays, issued by the stationers Humphrey Moseley
, Richard Marriot
, and Thomas Dring
. The title page provides the incorrect date of 1632 for the play's first performance — perhaps an error, or perhaps a deliberate misdirection regarding a still-controversial subject. The title page also specifies that the play was "Acted at the Cock-pit, by his Majesties Servants," that is by The King and Queen's Young Company, colloquially known as Beeston's Boys after their founder Christopher Beeston
. Beeston's Boys did not exist until 1637.
The Court Beggar also mocks King Charles for failing to deal effectively with the Scottish Presbyterians, which only added to the official ire against the play.
The play is set against the speculative financial mania of the time. Britain was then enjoying, or enduring, a vigorous, perhaps an overheated financial expansion: the success of the British East India Company
and the foundation of colonies in North America fed a fad for ever-wilder projects — a craze that Brome would mock in another play from the same era, The Antipodes
. (As is sometimes the case in such expansions, the rich got richer while the poor got poorer — a subject Brome would address in his A Jovial Crew
of 1641
.) The Court fed this speculative craze by the granting of "monopolies" to various parties, for substantial fees.
The second aspect of the satire involves Queen Henrietta's circle. Sir John Suckling is readily recognizable in The Court Beggar in the character of the mad Sir Ferdinando, who shares Suckling's passion for cribbage
and his compulsive gambling and womanizing. The play alludes to an incident in which Suckling accepted a beating rather than fight a duel; contemporary audiences could have had little doubt as to the target of the satire. Brome also targets Davenant as the courtly hanger-on Court-Wit. At the time, Davenant was promoting the project of an enormous new theatre near Fleet Street
, a plan that would only have added to the competition faced by a struggling dramatist like Brome. In the alignment of theatrical rivalries of the day, Davenant and Brome were on opposite sides; when William Beeston lost control of his theatres and acting companies as a result of the Brome's play, control of those resources was given to Davenant by a royal warrant (June 27, 1640).
Brome's play was one element in the so-called "Second War of the Theatres," a literary conflict between professional playwrights, most notably Ben Jonson
, and courtly amateurs and dilettantes like Suckling. Suckling had ridiculed Jonson in his 1638 comedy The Goblins
, though Jonson had died the previous year. Brome was a longstanding admirer of Jonson and a member of the so-called Sons of Ben
; he was also the most politically assertive and skeptical of the professionals of his generation.
News arrives, however, that Sir Ferdinando has gone mad — that is to say, "more mad than all the rest" of the courtiers — apparently as a result of having his romantic suit scorned by Lady Strangelove, a "humorous widow." Sir Andrew is beset by three "projectors," who assail him with absurd get-rich-quick schemes, like a monopoly on peruke wigs, nuisance taxes on new fashions and female children, and a floating theatre to be built on the River Thames
.
Act II introduces subsidiary characters in the satire. Swain-wit is a "blunt country gentleman;" Cit-wit is "a citizen's son who supposes himself a wit," while Court-wit is a "complementer," a devoted player of the game of fashion. Lady Strangelove likes to be courted, by figures like Sir Ferdinando or the talkative old Sir Raphael, who "would be thought wise." Add a Doctor and a pickpocket, and much of the middle portion of the play is dedicated to verbal interplay among the assembled forces.
Meanwhile, Frederick, disguised as a doctor, confronts the supposedly mad Sir Ferdinando. Rather than fight a duel, the courtier admits that he is feigning madness in a scheme to seduce Charissa while maintaining his pursuit of Lady Strangelove. Ferdinando additionally offers hush money that enables Frederick to marry Charissa. Since it is a comedy, the play ends happily: the final scene delivers a masque and a dance, in which the projectors are revealed to be clothed in rags under their robes. Lady Strangelove agrees to marry the newly sane Sir Ferdinando, and Sir Andrew gives up his quest for Courtly and speculative success.
Richard Brome
Richard Brome was an English dramatist of the Caroline era.-Life:Virtually nothing is known about Brome's private life. Repeated allusions in contemporary works, like Ben Jonson's Bartholomew Fair, indicate that Brome started out as a servant of Jonson, in some capacity...
. It was first performed by the acting company known as Beeston's Boys
Beeston's Boys
Beeston's Boys was the popular and colloquial name of The King and Queen's Young Company, a troupe of boy actors of the Caroline period, active mainly in the years 1637–1642.-Origin:...
at the Cockpit Theatre
Cockpit Theatre
The Cockpit was a theatre in London, operating from 1616 to around 1665. It was the first theatre to be located near Drury Lane. After damage in 1617, it was christened The Phoenix....
. It has sometimes been identified as the seditious play, performed at the Cockpit in May 1640, which the Master of the Revels moved to have suppressed. However, the play's most recent editor, Marion O'Connor, dates it to "no earlier than the end of November 1640, and perhaps in the first months of 1641".
Publication and performance
The play was first published during the InterregnumEnglish Interregnum
The English Interregnum was the period of parliamentary and military rule by the Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell under the Commonwealth of England after the English Civil War...
, in the 1653
1653 in literature
The year 1653 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:* James Shirley's masque Cupid and Death is performed on March 26.* Pierre Corneille retires from the theatre for six years.* John Evelyn buys Sayes Court, Deptford....
Brome collection Five New Plays, issued by the stationers Humphrey Moseley
Humphrey Moseley
Humphrey Moseley was a prominent London publisher and bookseller in the middle seventeenth century.Possibly a son of publisher Samuel Moseley, Humphrey Moseley became a "freeman" of the Stationers Company, the guild of London booksellers, on 7 May 1627; he was selected a Warden of the Company on...
, Richard Marriot
John and Richard Marriot
John Marriot and his son Richard Marriot were prominent London publishers and booksellers in the seventeenth century. For a portion of their careers, the 1645–57 period, they were partners in a family business....
, and Thomas Dring
Thomas Dring
Thomas Dring was a London publisher and bookseller of the middle seventeenth century. He was in business from 1649 on; his shop was located "at the sign of the George in Fleet Street, near St...
. The title page provides the incorrect date of 1632 for the play's first performance — perhaps an error, or perhaps a deliberate misdirection regarding a still-controversial subject. The title page also specifies that the play was "Acted at the Cock-pit, by his Majesties Servants," that is by The King and Queen's Young Company, colloquially known as Beeston's Boys after their founder Christopher Beeston
Christopher Beeston
Christopher Beeston was a successful actor and a powerful theatrical impresario in early 17th century London. He was associated with a number of playwrights, particularly Thomas Heywood.-Early life:...
. Beeston's Boys did not exist until 1637.
Satire
Brome's satire was directed at two primary targets, two aspects of Court affairs in the late 1630s:- The first was the increasingly desperate and rapacious financial manipulations employed by Charles's administration, against growing opposition in the years leading up to the English Civil WarEnglish Civil WarThe English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists...
; - The second was the circle of favorites that clustered around Queen Henrietta MariaHenrietta Maria of FranceHenrietta Maria of France ; was the Queen consort of England, Scotland and Ireland as the wife of King Charles I...
, especially Sir John SucklingJohn Suckling (poet)Sir John Suckling was an English poet and one prominent figure among those renowned for careless gaiety, wit, and all the accomplishments of a Cavalier poet; and also the inventor of the card game Cribbage...
and Sir William DavenantWilliam DavenantSir William Davenant , also spelled D'Avenant, was an English poet and playwright. Along with Thomas Killigrew, Davenant was one of the rare figures in English Renaissance theatre whose career spanned both the Caroline and Restoration eras and who was active both before and after the English Civil...
.
The Court Beggar also mocks King Charles for failing to deal effectively with the Scottish Presbyterians, which only added to the official ire against the play.
The play is set against the speculative financial mania of the time. Britain was then enjoying, or enduring, a vigorous, perhaps an overheated financial expansion: the success of the British East India Company
British East India Company
The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...
and the foundation of colonies in North America fed a fad for ever-wilder projects — a craze that Brome would mock in another play from the same era, The Antipodes
The Antipodes
The Antipodes is a Caroline era stage play, a comedy written by Richard Brome c. 1640. Many critics have ranked The Antipodes as "his best play...Brome's masterpiece," and one of the best Caroline comedies — "gay, imaginative, and spirited...;" "the most sophisticated and ingenious of Brome's...
. (As is sometimes the case in such expansions, the rich got richer while the poor got poorer — a subject Brome would address in his A Jovial Crew
A Jovial Crew
A Jovial Crew, or the Merry Beggars is a Caroline era stage play, a comedy written by Richard Brome. First staged in 1641 or 1642 and first published in 1652, it is generally ranked as one of Brome's best plays, and one of the best comedies of the Caroline period; in one critic's view, Brome's The...
of 1641
1641 in literature
The year 1641 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:*Pierre Corneille marries Marie de Lampérière.*Sir William Davenant is convicted of high treason.*Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon becomes an advisor to King Charles I of England....
.) The Court fed this speculative craze by the granting of "monopolies" to various parties, for substantial fees.
The second aspect of the satire involves Queen Henrietta's circle. Sir John Suckling is readily recognizable in The Court Beggar in the character of the mad Sir Ferdinando, who shares Suckling's passion for cribbage
Cribbage
Cribbage, or crib, is a card game traditionally for two players, but commonly played with three, four or more, that involves playing and grouping cards in combinations which gain points...
and his compulsive gambling and womanizing. The play alludes to an incident in which Suckling accepted a beating rather than fight a duel; contemporary audiences could have had little doubt as to the target of the satire. Brome also targets Davenant as the courtly hanger-on Court-Wit. At the time, Davenant was promoting the project of an enormous new theatre near Fleet Street
Fleet Street
Fleet Street is a street in central London, United Kingdom, named after the River Fleet, a stream that now flows underground. It was the home of the British press until the 1980s...
, a plan that would only have added to the competition faced by a struggling dramatist like Brome. In the alignment of theatrical rivalries of the day, Davenant and Brome were on opposite sides; when William Beeston lost control of his theatres and acting companies as a result of the Brome's play, control of those resources was given to Davenant by a royal warrant (June 27, 1640).
Brome's play was one element in the so-called "Second War of the Theatres," a literary conflict between professional playwrights, most notably Ben Jonson
Ben Jonson
Benjamin Jonson was an English Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor. A contemporary of William Shakespeare, he is best known for his satirical plays, particularly Volpone, The Alchemist, and Bartholomew Fair, which are considered his best, and his lyric poems...
, and courtly amateurs and dilettantes like Suckling. Suckling had ridiculed Jonson in his 1638 comedy The Goblins
The Goblins
The Goblins is a Caroline era stage play, a comedy written by Sir John Suckling. It was premiered on the stage in 1638 and first published in 1646.-Performance and publication:...
, though Jonson had died the previous year. Brome was a longstanding admirer of Jonson and a member of the so-called Sons of Ben
Sons of Ben
The phrase Sons of Ben is a mildly problematic term applied to followers of Ben Jonson in English poetry and drama in the first half of the seventeenth century....
; he was also the most politically assertive and skeptical of the professionals of his generation.
Synopsis
The play's opening scene introduces Sir Andrew Mendicant and his daughter Charissa. Sir Andrew is a country gentleman who has come to London, neglecting his estates in the pursuit of wealth and preferment at Court. So far, however, his attempts have proved futile, and he is reduced to a last-gasp strategy of marrying his daughter to the prominent courtier Sir Ferdinando. Charissa wants no part of Sir Ferdinando; she is in love with Frederick, a young man of "valor, wit, and honour" — but no estate, which earns the scorn of Sir Andrew.News arrives, however, that Sir Ferdinando has gone mad — that is to say, "more mad than all the rest" of the courtiers — apparently as a result of having his romantic suit scorned by Lady Strangelove, a "humorous widow." Sir Andrew is beset by three "projectors," who assail him with absurd get-rich-quick schemes, like a monopoly on peruke wigs, nuisance taxes on new fashions and female children, and a floating theatre to be built on the River Thames
River Thames
The River Thames flows through southern England. It is the longest river entirely in England and the second longest in the United Kingdom. While it is best known because its lower reaches flow through central London, the river flows alongside several other towns and cities, including Oxford,...
.
Act II introduces subsidiary characters in the satire. Swain-wit is a "blunt country gentleman;" Cit-wit is "a citizen's son who supposes himself a wit," while Court-wit is a "complementer," a devoted player of the game of fashion. Lady Strangelove likes to be courted, by figures like Sir Ferdinando or the talkative old Sir Raphael, who "would be thought wise." Add a Doctor and a pickpocket, and much of the middle portion of the play is dedicated to verbal interplay among the assembled forces.
Meanwhile, Frederick, disguised as a doctor, confronts the supposedly mad Sir Ferdinando. Rather than fight a duel, the courtier admits that he is feigning madness in a scheme to seduce Charissa while maintaining his pursuit of Lady Strangelove. Ferdinando additionally offers hush money that enables Frederick to marry Charissa. Since it is a comedy, the play ends happily: the final scene delivers a masque and a dance, in which the projectors are revealed to be clothed in rags under their robes. Lady Strangelove agrees to marry the newly sane Sir Ferdinando, and Sir Andrew gives up his quest for Courtly and speculative success.
External links
- Richard Brome Online http://www.hrionline.ac.uk/brome/ contains a scholarly edition of this play, including textual and critical introductions.