Chapter 6 focuses on another important aspect of women’s war drama, namely the peacemaking and restoration process that is inevitable at the end of any war. The post-Civil War period was no exception; Philips’ two plays were produced at a time when the Restoration Settlement was being tested almost to breaking point. Philips’ life and drama embodied the principles of negotiation and reconciliation of opposites.
Chapter 7 concentrates on Aphra Behn’s The Roundheads and The City Heiress. These plays were written at a time of political instability when it seemed that another civil war could break out. Behn, like Philips, was keen to retain the Stuart Monarchy and to preserve the status quo. In these two plays, the Whigs are portrayed as avaricious money grabbers and the Royalists are shown to have courage and high moral values. The Roundheads is set in the last days of the Rump Parliament, and a sense of moral and political degeneracy pervades the atmosphere. Behn discloses a pre-Restoration world in which the country is ruled by ruthless and ambitious men who are leading it to certain doom. She wanted to remind the audience of the corruption and sleaze that marked the collapse of the Commonwealth and she suggests that the King has to be reinstated in order to restore peace and harmony.
The City Heiress or Sir Timothy Treat-all was staged between 1681 and 1682. In this play, Tom Wilding (a young penniless Tory) uses his wits to outsmart his seditious uncle, Sir Timothy Treat-all. It is thought that Behn was making a caricature of Lord Shaftsbury in her portrayal of Sir Timothy. The most important point is that, by the end of the play, Sir Timothy has been taught a lesson––he gives an assurance that he will stop meddling and making mischief.
Behn’s two plays extend the dilemmas of the post-conflict situation into a later decade, and her work portrays the volatility and uncertainty of life under the restored regime. Her plays are a social register for the sort of faction fighting and sedition that sparked off the Civil War.