Restoration, the

The restoration of the monarchy in 1660 in the form of Charles II ushered in a regime as extreme in its licentiousness as the puritanism it replaced. Charles had thirteen known mistresses and many illegitimate children, one authority on genealogy noting: “Of twenty-six dukes in England today, five are direct descendants on the wrong side of the blanket of Charles II” (Delderfield 1986, 90). The king surrounded himself with like-minded nobles, including the brilliant wit, accomplished rake and notorious poet of obscenity, the Earl of Rochester, who complimented the king’s endowments thus: “Nor are his high desires above his strength, / His sceptre and his prick are of a length.” According to Samuel Pepys’s account of a particularly scandalous episode in 1663, Sir Charles Sedley, one of the king’s boon companions, “coming in open day into the balcony [of Covent Garden] and showed his nakedness—acting all the postures of lust and buggery that could be imagined and abusing of scripture…. And that being done, he took a glass of wine and washed his prick in it and then drank it off; and then took another and drank the King’s health” (July 1, 1663). For this and other outrageous behavior Sedley was fined £500 (Craig 1962, 23).

The theaters, closed by the Puritans in 1642, were reopened and enjoyed royal patronage. Charles II once even lent his coronation suit to the actor Thomas Betterton for a part in one of William Davenant’s plays (Bruce 1974, 17). Although highly fashionable among the elite (Samuel Pepys once went to “the play” twice in one day), the theater ceased to be the truly popular form it had previously been. It now offered alluringly decadent fare in the form of risqué sexual intrigue, outrageous compromising situations, adultery, fashionable swearing, knowing innuendo, outright ribaldry, and seductive actresses. These became a new and upwardly nubile class, of whom the most famous was Nell Gwyn, who rose from being an orange vendor to become a royal mistress, and “retired from the stage at the age of nineteen to pursue a more lucrative career among her erstwhile audience” (Thompson and Salgado 1985, 223). The king’s best-known deathbed sentiments, “Let not poor Nelly starve,” are recorded by Bishop Gilbert Burnet ( History of My Own Time , Vol. I, Book II, chapter 17). Nell Gwyn’s linguistic abilities are further covered in swearing in women.

The great tragedies of passion of the Elizabethan Age died out and were replaced by a new form, the comedy of manners, written by the elite for the elite, of which the hallmarks were artificiality, triviality, and contrived wit. The terrible suffering at the end of King Lear (1605) as the King agonizes over the death of Cordelia can be juxtaposed with these flippant lines from one of the most brilliant exponents of the new form, William Congreve (1670–1729):

What, dead at last, quite, quite for ever dead!
( The Mourning Bride V xi)

Contrived artificiality is well expressed in these sentiments: “There’s nothing more unbecoming a man of quality than to laugh; Jesu, ’tis such a vulgar expression of the passion!” (Congreve’s The Double Dealer IV). George Farquhar (1678–1707) makes comedy out of the inarticulate expression of passion: “Grant me some wild expressions, Heavens, or I shall burst … Words, words or I shall burst” ( The Constant Couple V iii). William Wycherley (1640–1716) alludes to the less reputable expression of emotion:

Quaint:   With sharp invectives-

Widow:   Alias, Billingsgate

( The Plain Dealer , III)

The Concordance to Congreve’s plays (five in all) reveals the thematic and verbal emphases. The most common exclamation is devil! (72), followed by pox! (51), and there are plenty of references to cuckold (18), wittol (9), pimp (10), and whore (15). (A wittol is a conniving cuckold.)

While there were oaths in profusion, in general they were either minced or secular. Thomas Killigrew’s The Parson’s Wedding (1663) has Faith!, by this hand!, Cud’s body , and God’s nigs , the direct form Jesus, as well as such unusual exclamations as Thou son of a thousand fathers! and Son of a batchelour! both meaning bastard . Serious oaths are explained away. The character of Daredevil in Thomas Otway’s The Atheist (1684) casually dismisses his use of Dam’me : “Mere words of course. We use a hundred of ’em in conversation, which are indeed but in the nature of Expletives, and signifie nothing.” (II ii). It is Farquhar, however, who gives the clearest exposé of the demotion of oaths to the status of mere words of fashion in a scene from Love in a Bottle (1698). A character suitably called Mockmore, a “rake” or decadent upper-class idler, newly arrived in London from Oxford, asks his “tutor” Rigadoon:

            Pray what are the most fashionable Oaths in Town? Zoons , I take it, is a very becoming one.

Rigadoon:   Zoons is only used by the disbanded [fired] Officers and Bullies [prostitute’s “protectors”]; but Zauns is the Beaux’ pronunciation.

Mockmore:   Zauns—

Rigadoon:   Yes, Sir, we swear as we Dance: smooth, and with a Cadence. Zauns! ‘Tis harmonious, and pleases the Ladies, because ’tis soft—Zauns madam—is the only Compliment our great Beaux pass on a Lady.

Farquhar is certainly being ironic, commenting on a sophisticated, superficial society in which sacred names are used freely, now so emptied of meaning that their pronunciation is merely a point of fashion. ( Zounds has, of course, a horrific origin in "God’s wounds" alluding to the Crucifixion, but is trivialized, since the old pronunciation has become déclassé and the new nonsensical form zauns is now “in.”) The final irony is that “Zauns madam” is now regarded as a “compliment.”

The excesses and absurdities of the Restoration theater provoked a significant reaction in the form of Jeremy Collier ‘s broadside A Short View of the Profaneness and Immorality of the English Stage (1698, the same year as Farquhar’s play). As the relevant entry shows, the controversy involved several major authors and led to the genre becoming unfashionable.