Performed During the Civil War
COWLEY, Abraham.
The Guardian; a Comedie. Acted before Prince Charls his Highness at Trinity-Colledg in Cambridge, upon the twelfth of March, 1641. London, [Thomas Newcombe] for John Holden, 1650.
Small 4to, pp. [48]; headpieces to A2ʳ and A3ʳ; rather toned, a few spots and stains to title-page and elsewhere, old repair to margin of D2 with loss of a few letters; cut close, first word of title and first line of A2ᵛ shaved, as are most headlines and some direction lines, but the text otherwise intact; in nineteenth-century speckled calf with a gilt fillet border, spine and joints rubbed.
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The Guardian; a Comedie. Acted before Prince Charls his Highness at Trinity-Colledg in Cambridge, upon the twelfth of March, 1641.
First edition, second issue, of this royalist Civil War play, written for the future Charles II by one of the leading poets of the day.
Cowley was a Minor Fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge in 1642 when it was announced that the prince would stop in the town on his way to York. With just one week’s notice, Cowley – who had gained a reputation through his university plays – was asked to put on a performance. The Guardian, a drama of marriage, inheritance, and imposture with anti-Puritan undertones, was the result.
Though Cowley was unhappy with the work, it was performed (in his words) ‘several times after privately during the troubles, as I am told, with good approbation’, in defiance of Parliament’s ban on theatre. Meanwhile Cowley had been ejected from Cambridge and left for France in the queen’s service. There he was charged with conducting ciphered correspondence between royalists, including between the queen and Charles I. It was during his absence that the play was first published, in the present, unauthorized edition.
At the Restoration Cowley reworked the play as Cutter of Coleman-Street, changing the setting to 1658 and inserting many references to the Civil War and Interregnum. His intentions, however, were misconstrued: ‘on the opening night it met a hostile reception from part of the audience, who affected to see a satire upon the cavaliers at large in the characters of Colonel Cutter and Captain Worm, who are in fact mere raffish hangers-on disgracing the cause. Nevertheless the play enjoyed a successful run of a full week, and was revived several times after Cowley’s death, the last occasion being in 1723’ (ODNB).
In this second issue, the title-leaf is a cancel adding the dramatis personae on the verso.
ESTC R16344; Greg 693(a.II); Perkin A18a; Pforzheimer 225; Wing C 6673; Woodward & McManaway 259.