''The City-Heiress'', ''or, Sir Timothy Treat-all'' is a play by

Aphra Behn Aphra Behn (; bapt. 14 December 1640 – 16 April 1689) was an English playwright, poet, prose writer and translator from the Restoration era. As one of the first English women to earn her living by her writing, she broke cultural barrie ...

first performed in 1682. The play, a Restoration comedy, reflects Behn's own highly

Royalist A royalist supports a particular monarch as head of state for a particular kingdom, or of a particular dynastic claim. In the abstract, this position is royalism. It is distinct from monarchism, which advocates a monarchical system of gov ...

political point of view. The character of Sir Timothy Treat-all is a caricature of the first Earl of Shaftesbury, a founder of the Whig party who had been arrested for

high treason Treason is the crime of attacking a state authority to which one owes allegiance. This typically includes acts such as participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military, its diplo ...

in 1681. It was staged at the

Dorset Garden Theatre The Dorset Garden Theatre in London, built in 1671, was in its early years also known as the Duke of York's Theatre, or the Duke's Theatre. In 1685, King Charles II died and his brother, the Duke of York, was crowned as James II. When the Du ...

by the

Duke's Company The Duke's Company was a theatre company chartered by King Charles II at the start of the Restoration era, 1660. Sir William Davenant was manager of the company under the patronage of Prince James, Duke of York. During hats period, theatres b ...

. The original cast included

James Nokes James Nokes (Noke, Noak, Noakes) (died c.1692) was an English actor An actor or actress is a person who portrays a character in a performance. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media suc ...

as Sir Timothy Treatall,

Thomas Betterton Thomas Patrick Betterton (August 1635 – 28 April 1710), the leading male actor and theatre manager during Restoration England, son of an under-cook to King Charles I, was born in London. Apprentice and actor Betterton was born in August 16 ...

as Tom Wilding,

Anthony Leigh Anthony Leigh (died 1692) was a celebrated English comic actor. Life He was from a Northamptonshire family, and was not closely related to the actor John Leigh (c.1689–1726?). He joined the Duke of York's company about 1672, and appeared in ...

as Sir Anthony Meriwill, Joseph Williams as Sir Charles Meriwill, John Bowman as Dreswell,

Thomas Jevon Thomas Jevon (1652–1688) was an English playwright, and one of the first English Harlequins. He began his career as a dancing master, but worked his way onto the stage, and played leading low-comedy parts in London between 1673 and 1688. His br ...

as Fopington, Elizabeth Barry as Lady Galliard,

Charlotte Butler Charlotte Butler was an English stage actress and singer of the seventeenth century. She may have joined the Duke's Company in the 1670s, but her first definite recorded performance was in Aphra Behn's '' The Revenge'' (1680) The anonymous ''A Sat ...

as Charlotte,

Elizabeth Currer Elizabeth Currer was an Irish stage actress of the Restoration Era. She was a member of the Duke's Company during the 1670s and subsequently part of the merged United Company from 1682. Although she was likely acting in London several years earli ...

as Diana and

Elinor Leigh Elinor Leigh was a British stage actor of the seventeenth century. Born Elinor Dixon, she was billed as Mrs Leigh or Mrs Lee after she married the actor Anthony Leigh in 1671. This has led to some difficulty distinguishing on playbills between he ...

as Mrs Closet.Van Lennep, W. ''The London Stage, 1660-1800: Volume One, 1660-1700''. Southern Illinois University Press, 1960. p.308

Plot

The play concerns the "seditious knight" Sir Timothy Treat-all and his rakish

Tory A Tory () is a person who holds a political philosophy known as Toryism, based on a British version of traditionalism and conservatism, which upholds the supremacy of social order as it has evolved in the English culture throughout history. The ...

nephew Tom Wilding. Both vie for the affections of Charlot, the eponymous city (

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

) heiress. Treat-all keeps an open house for all of those who oppose the king, and he has disinherited Wilding. Wilding launches a complex scheme to triumph over Treat-all. First, he introduces Diana (his mistress) to Treat-all as Charlot, allowing Treat-all to woo her. This allows him to court the real Charlot himself. Diana cares for Wilding, but after seeing him pursue both Charlot and Lady Galliard, she decides to make an advantageous marriage with the wealthy Treat-all. During a staged entertainment, Wilding assumes a disguise and pretends to be a Polish nobleman. He offers Treat-all the throne of Poland, which the greedy Treat-all accepts. Wilding then arranges for a burglary, where he and Treat-all both end up bound, and the burglars take all of Treat-all's papers. The burglars are Wilding's confidantes, and the papers contain evidence of Treat-all's treason. Wilding ends up marrying Charlot, and Treat-all marries Diana. However, Treat-all is forced by blackmail to treat Wilding well and to leave him his estates. ((( In a sub-plot, Wilding successfully seduces the rich widow Lady Galliard. Shortly afterwards, one of her drunken former suitors (Sir Charles) breaks into her chamber and begins to undress. In order to get rid of him (and thinking that he will not remember their conversation), she agrees to marry him. She is then shocked to discover that two other people have overheard her make a legally binding promise of marriage.

Reception

Contemporaries singled out ''The City Heiress'' as one of Behn's "good" and lucrative comedies, although few modern critics have discussed it at length. ''The City Heiress'' was one of Behn's plays singled out by satirists for scorn. Referring to the

epilogue An epilogue or epilog (from Greek ἐπίλογος ''epílogos'', "conclusion" from ἐπί ''epi'', "in addition" and λόγος ''logos'', "word") is a piece of writing at the end of a work of literature, usually used to bring closure to the ...

Robert Gould Robert Gould (1660? – 1708/1709) was a significant voice in Restoration poetry in England. He was born in the lower classes and orphaned when he was thirteen. It is possible that he had a sister, but her name and fate are unknown. Gou ...

sarcastically asked, :"The City Heiress, by chast

Sappho Sappho (; el, Σαπφώ ''Sapphō'' ; Aeolic Greek ''Psápphō''; c. 630 – c. 570 BC) was an Archaic Greek poet from Eresos or Mytilene on the island of Lesbos. Sappho is known for her Greek lyric, lyric poetry, written to be sung while ...

Writ: :Where the Lewd Widow comes, with brazen Face, :Just reeking from a Stallion's rank Embrace :T'acquaint the Audience with her Filthy Case. :Where can you find a Scene for juster Praise, :In Shakespear,

Johnson Johnson is a surname of Anglo-Norman origin meaning "Son of John". It is the second most common in the United States and 154th most common in the world. As a common family name in Scotland, Johnson is occasionally a variation of ''Johnston'', a ...

, or in Fletcher's Plays?" -- ''The Play-House, a Satyr'' Behn's play has been called "a comedy of

libertine A libertine is a person devoid of most moral principles, a sense of responsibility, or sexual restraints, which they see as unnecessary or undesirable, and is especially someone who ignores or even spurns accepted morals and forms of behaviour o ...

complicity: her characters act as though they believed in order, authority, true love, and marriage even though they celebrate for the better part of five acts their license to disbelieve". Other Restoration comedies were as frank with their sexuality, and others had women choosing their lovers on the basis of their wit (while wits choose theirs on the basis of money), but Behn's characters do not moderate their desires in their comedic solutions. Further, Treat-all's punishment is poverty and subjugation, rather than being hanged; and Wilding's goal is luxury, rather than moral justice. The distinctions are subtle, but it was not merely Behn's sex that made the play offensive to moralizing poets of the 1690s and the first decade of the 18th century.

References

External links

Mary O'Donnell's solid online Behn bibliography
- an annotated contemporary bibliography
The University of Virginia's online edition
- a text of the play {{DEFAULTSORT:City Heiress, The 1682 plays Restoration comedy Plays by Aphra Behn Plays set in the 17th century