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The Concealed Fansyes: A Play by Lady Jane Cavendish and Lady Elizabeth Brackley

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Nathan Comfort Starr
Nathan Comfort Starr*
Affiliation:
St. John's College, Annapolis
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Extract

The text of The Concealed Fansyes, which has hitherto remained unprinted, is preserved in the Bodleian library in Rawlinson MS. Poet. 16, which bears the following title: “Poems, songs, and a pastorall, by the Rt honble the Lady Jane Cavendish and Lady Elizabeth Brackley.” Though the play was listed by Halliwell-Phillipps, students of the drama have displayed very little curiosity in regard to it. Indeed, aside from a few communications which appeared many years ago in Notes and Queries, I have not found the slightest discussion of this play.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 46 , Issue 3 , September 1931 , pp. 802 - 838
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1931

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References

1 Summary Cat. of Western MSS. in the Bodleian, ed. F. Madan, Oxford, 1895, iii, 286 (No. 14509). These copies were probably made for the Duke of Newcastle, as the initials W. N. appear on the binding. A transcript of The Concealed Fansyes, made from the MS. in the Bodleian about 1860 and bearing the Stainforth bookplate, is in my possession. Save for minor differences of spelling, and the fact that the later copy omits both the prologues and the epilogue of the original, the Bodleian and Stainforth texts agree.

2 A Dictionary of Old English Plays, etc. Lond., 1860.

3 2nd Series, x, 127—Merely a question by “Iota” as to the identity of the authors of the Play in the Bodleian. 2nd Series, xii, 110—Question by “R.I.” as to The Concealed Fansyes (among others); whether or not it was for private performance, and asking for a dramatis personae. 2nd Series, xii, 179—Note by W. D. Macray in answer to “R.I.'”s query, giving list of characters. (This list has not been carefully done.) 3rd Series, iv, 506 —Note by C. H., and Thompson Cooper, in answer to “Iota.” Discusses Lady Jane Cheney. Omits Lady Elizabeth. Dates play as before 1654.

4 Seats of the Duke of Newcastle; the former in Nottinghamshire, the latter in Derbyshire.

5 Granger (Biog. Hist. of Eng., Lond. 1824, ii, 290–291) is the authority for the statement that Elizabeth Cavendish married at the age of 19.

6 Calendar of State Papers, (Domestic) 1644, 404–405.

7 Bygone Derbyshire, ed. W. Andrews, Derby, 1892, pp. 140–41.

8 Memorials of the Civil War (Fairfax Papers) Ed. R. Bell, Lond. 1849, i, 194–5.

9 Firth, Highways and Byways in Nottinghamshire, Lond. 1916, p. 246.

10 State Papers, 1645–47, 228.

11 State Papers, 1648–49, 272.

12 Chauncy, Hist. Antiq. of Hertfordshire, Lond. 1826, ii, 484.

13 Granger, Biog. Hist., iii, 308–9.

14 Granger (iv, 261–3) believes that the whole family was together at Antwerp, on one occasion, when Diepenbeck did his famous family portrait, which appears in Newcastle's volume on Horsemanship. But there is no record in the State Papers of permissions granted to either of the ladies to leave England.

15 Although it seems likely, because of the carelessness of its construction, and the long list of actors required, that The Concealed Fansyes was not intended to be acted, yet it is quite possible that if the two authors were sojourning at Ashridge, they found the house and grounds so interestingly arranged that they could not resist putting on a play. Notice the description of Ashridge given in Thomas Baskerville's account of a journey from Bayworth to St. Albans, in 1682. (Hist. Mss. Comm., 13th report, Appendix, Pt. ii Welbeck Abbey, Vol. ii, 306.) “Here I may not omit to make mention of a place called Ashridge where the present Earl of Bridgewater hath a great house, formerly some monastery. … As to the fabric or form of the house within the gate houses, for it hath one fair gate house which gives entrance through a large court on the northern side of the house to the hall to which they ascend by steps on a terrace. … It is a square containing in it a small quadrangle, and in that a little pond of water. … Here doth also enclose this pool and quadrangle a fine cloister, remarkable for this, because my lord will not have it blurred out, for having in paint upon the walls some scripture and monkish stories.” The fact that Ashridge had formerly been a religious house, and that Lucenay and Tattiney in The Concealed Fansyes for a time take the veil makes it very likely that the play was written at the Earl of Bridgewater's seat.

16 It is interesting to remember that Viscount Brackley and his brother played the brothers in the first production of Comus.

17 Concealed Fansyes, Act v.

18 Concealed Fansyes, Act v.

19 Concealed Fansyes, Act iii