Dramatic satire of the Exclusion Crisis: 1680-1683

During the period of the Popish Plot and the Exclusion Crisis, Whig and Tory dramatists waged a rhetorical war. Scarcely a play was produced that did not offer topical comment or political bias. Plays produced early in the period, after the revelation of the Popish plot but before the tide began to turn against the Whigs, were broad political satires: their plots either comic treatment of "the Plot" or tragedies treating the fate of regicides. The drama began to change late in 1681, as the satire focused less upon the events themselves and more on the personalities involved in those events. The enormous success of Dryden' s satiric poem Absalom and Achitophel in November of that year marked a discernible shift. In that poem, Dryden produced detailed portraits of the leading personalities of the Exclusion crisis. These explicit caricatures were to exert strong influence on the dramatic fare of the age. This study summarizes the relevant historical and political issues and then treats those issues as they were dramatized in the context of this trend from broad treatment of events to personal caricature. This examination of the works of eight Restoration playwrights will provide a better understanding of the arguments and structures of the plays themselves and will demonstrate the deep political involvement of the playwrights: Elkanah Settle's The Female Prelate, Thomas Shadwell's The Lancashire Witches, and John Dryden's The Spanish Fryar, Thomas D'Urfey's Sir Barnaby Whigg, Aphra Behn's The Roundheads and The City Heiress, Thomas Otway's Venice Preserv'd, Dryden and Lee's The Duke of Guise, and John Crowne's The City Politiques.