Women’s War Drama in England in the Seventeenth Century By Bre ...

As war is a catalyst for change, the women’s lives and outlooks are radically affected. Using the space created by the absence of the men who had gone off to fight for Charles I, Luceny and Tattiney engage in witty dialogue with potential suitors who need to be taught a lesson. The clever exchanges and the verbal dexterity of the women are empowering for other female writers and potential spectators. Their outspoken frankness contradicts a culture which was predicated on “chastity, silence and obedience”.³⁴

Union among women as the result of war is also the theme of Margaret Cavendish’s The Sociable Companions, published in 1668. The action takes place in a postwar setting and the drama provides a valuable insight into the issues facing communities after the fighting is over and the army has returned home. At no stage does Cavendish suggest that the cashiered soldiers are in any way culpable for their circumstances. Peg, one of the sisters, comments, “It was not through their Folly, but through their Loyalty that they entered into the action of War” (SC 16). However, there is no doubt that the war has caused a sea change in attitudes. The postwar world is characterised by greed and cynicism. In the tavern the Captain offers to drink a toast to the deadly sins, rather than to virtue (SC 27). How are the impoverished soldiers going to be supported in the new society? Cavendish shows that the brothers’ impoverishment impacts on their sisters and stresses that it is the women’s collective action that restores their brothers’ financial security.

Both plays confirm that women were forging female communities and building networks which enabled them to negotiate the dangers and uncertainties of war. The siege situation that prevailed in Welbeck Abbey, the home of the Cavendish sisters, created a volatile and dangerous situation for the women; simultaneously it created an opportunity for their creativity, and out of this domestic war zone a play was produced which reflected the contingencies of battle. On a slightly more mundane level, Margaret Cavendish’s play, The Sociable Companions, reflects on the realities of postwar events when the cashiered soldiers returned home disgruntled, displaced, and disillusioned. The play comments on the anxieties a postwar situation evokes.