Both plays complement the work of the Cavendish sisters and extend the idea of female community being one of the “unacknowledged fruits of war”. Behn’s The Rover evokes nostalgia for the Cavaliers who were dedicated to the King and suggests that the sacrifices made by these loyal men should not be forgotten. By evoking a carnival atmosphere and a vivacious band of women who woo the Cavaliers, Behn suggests that “love and mirth” are the order of the day. In The Feigned Courtesans she comments indirectly on contemporary politics and once again suggests the primacy of good relationships between London and Rome, and that all the talk of plots and conspiracies was leading to rabble-rousing and sedition.
Chapter 4 examines the representation of warrior women in Margaret Cavendish’s plays Loves Adventures and Bell in Campo. In the preceding two chapters, women’s community as a response to war was considered. In this chapter, it is demonstrated that women’s response to war is not a homogenous wish to be passive bystanders; even in this early period, women toyed with the idea of military engagement. In the first of these dramas, Loves Adventures, Cavendish presents a feisty Lady Orphant, who assumes male attire in order to fight in the war. Her military prowess is acknowledged by Lord Singularity. Cavendish’s presentation of a military heroine was probably influenced by the time she spent at court as Queen Henrietta’s maid. There she would have seen the masques in which the Queen performed various roles.36 In addition to this, Cavendish would have been aware of the Queen’s military endeavours during the Civil War.
In Bell in Campo, Cavendish presents an even more ambitious project, where Lady Victoria actually recruits and trains an Amazonian army which outperforms the male army. In this play, the two opposing armies, the Kingdom of Reformation and the Kingdom of Faction, evoke the two opposing sides in the Civil War. Lady Victoria encourages her female combatants to become copartners in ruling the world. To this end, she trains her female soldiers in the skills and discipline of war. As Oddvar Holmesland argues, Lady Victoria’s army brings a unity and a discipline that is missing in the male army: