The Golden Rump
The Golden Rump is a farcical play of unknown authorship said to have been written in 1737. It acted as the chief trigger for the Theatrical Licensing Act of 1737. The play has never been performed on stage or published in print. No manuscript of the play survives, casting some doubt over whether it ever existed in full at all. The authorship of the play has often been ascribed to Henry Fielding, at that time a popular and prolific playwright who often turned his incisive satire against the monarch, George II, and particularly the "prime minister", Sir Robert Walpole. Modern literary historians, however, increasingly embrace the opinion that The Golden Rump may have been secretly commissioned by Walpole himself in a successful bid to get his Bill for theatrical licensing passed before the legislature.
Background
Plays, prints, pamphlets and journal articles attacking the King, Walpole and the extended Whig faction were not an uncommon feature of early 18th century London. Plays were subjected to the greatest displeasure from royal authority, and individual works like
An extract of this raucous piece is published in
The earliest published reference to the existence of a play called The Golden Rump appears in an anonymous essay in the 28 May 1737 edition of The Craftsman, recently attributed to Henry Fielding.[4] By the time of the publication of this essay the Bill for licensing the stage had already passed through the House of Commons at the Parliament and was presented before the Lords. The play, reports the article, was submitted unsolicited to Henry Griffard, then the manager of the playhouse at Lincoln's Inn Fields; who put it into rehearsal with his company but also submitted the manuscript – obnoxious beyond any other play on contemporary stage – for the attentions of Robert Walpole. A later reminiscence by Thomas Davies informs that Griffard received a mere amount of one hundred pounds as a compensation for providing the Prime Minister with his most effective weapon for placing a censor over the stage.[5] On reading the manuscript of The Golden Rump Walpole immediately put a stop to any attempt of the public performance of the play. The manuscript was also used as his chief argument before the king and the House of Commons for demanding an amendment of the original Theatrical Licensing Act of 1713.
Attribution to Henry Fielding
The anonymous authorship of The Golden Rump has often been attributed to
From 1735/6 to the closing of the theatres by the Licensing Act, Fielding had been the manager of the
In a Time therefore of profound Tranquillity, and when the Consequence, at the worst, can probably be no greater than the Change of a Ministry, I do not think a Writer, whose only Livelihood is his Pen, to deserve a very flagitious Character, if, when one Set of Men deny him Encouragement, he seeks it from another, at their Expense; nor will I rashly condemn such a Writer as the vilest of Men, (provided he keeps within the Rules of Decency) if he endeavours to make the best of his own Cause, and uses a little Art in blackening his Adversary. Why should a Liberty which is allowed to every other Advocate, be deny’d to this?[10]
Early in his career as a writer, Fielding had displayed obviously
The role of Sir Robert Walpole
The suspicion that Sir Robert Walpole had commissioned The Golden Rump to specifically aid his cause for the censorship of the stage has existed from the very beginning of the controversy. It was first suggested by Henry Fielding in the same Craftsman essay that announced the existence of the play to the world. Fielding's conjecture is supported by, among others, his theatrical contemporaries Theophilus Cibber (in his autobiography)[12] and Thomas Davies (in his Memoirs of the Life of David Garrick).[13] Modern critic Peter Thomson has written in an essay:
There is, in fact, no convincing evidence that such a play was ever written. Using nothing more than the cartoon 'The Festival of the Golden Rump', a resourceful hack could readily have composed enough scurrilous dialogue to provide Walpole with material for his Commons speech.[14]
It is certainly a matter of speculation, especially if The Golden Rump had gone into rehearsal as Fielding's earliest article proclaims, that not even a hack copy of the play has survived. In the absence of text and other evidence, the true story of The Golden Rump remains a mystery to this day.
In literature
- The novelette Slick Filth: A Story of Robert Walpole and Henry Giffard, to Which is Appended the Farce of the Golden Rump, ISBN 978-1734184624, by Erato contains a fictionalized account of the play's creation and a reimagined script.
Notes
- ^ Thomson 1993, pp. 123–124
- ^ Thomson 1993, pp. 125–126
- ^ Thomson 1993, p. 119 and p. 123
- ^ Battestin and Battestin 1989, p. 224
- ^ Battestin and Battestin 1989, p. 227
- ^ Battestin and Battestin 1989, p. 222
- ^ Battestin and Battestin 1989, p. 226
- ^ Battestin and Battestin 1989, p. 226
- ^ Battestin and Battestin 1989, p. 226
- ^ Battestin and Battestin 1989, p. 116
- ^ Battestin and Battestin 1989, p. 122
- ^ Thomson 1993, p. 130
- ^ Davies 1784, p. 217
- ^ Thomson 1993, p. 130
References
- Battestin, Martin, and Battestin, Ruthe. Henry Fielding: A Life. London: Routledge, 1989.
- Davies, Thomas. Memoirs of the Life of David Garrick, Esq. Volume 2. Kessinger, 2007.
- Thomson, Peter. 'Magna Farta: Walpole and the Golden Rump', Keith Cameron (ed), Humour and History. Oxford: Intellect, 1993.