Robert Walpole is at the height power…
1737 CE
Robert Walpole is at the height power as First Lord of the Treasury (or, as some term him in a slightly derogatory manner, the "prime minister") during1736 and 1737, and Walpole is under incessant attack by the Tory satirists and the radical Whig theorists alike.
John Gay's Beggar's Opera (1728) had linked Walpole with the notorious mobster Jonathan Wild, and Walpole had used his influence to have the sequel Polly banned before performance by the Lord Chamberlain (the Duke of Grafton).
Henry Fielding's Tom Thumb (1730), Covent Garden Tragedy (1732), and Pasquin (1736) had taken more specific aim at Walpole.
Further, political plays with the theme of "liberty" are often coded attacks on domination by great men.
The great man in question is often Walpole as the king.
Henry Carey's Chrononhotonthologos (1734) had seemingly attacked Robert Walpole and linked him with an intrigue with the Queen, and his The Dragon of Wantley had revived a seventeenth century ballad to protest the extension of Walpole's powers and oppression of the countryside.
Walpole has a personally antagonistic relationship with some of the dramatists (such as the late John Gay), and he responds to literary attacks with official power.
Few British ministers will be as adversarial with wits and authors, and his censoring of plays critical of him leads to ever-more aggressive satires.
Thus, the urbane satire of The Beggar's Opera had been replaced by the much more mocking satire of Tom Thumb, the salaciousness of Chrononhotonthologos, and the bitterness of The Dragon of Wantley.
The Theatrical Licensing Act of June 21, 1737 (10 Geo. II c. 28) is a landmark act of censorship of the British stage and one of the determining factors in the development of Augustan drama.
The terms of the Act are that from this point forward, the Lord Chamberlain has the power to approve any play before it is staged.
Although many plays and playwrights (including Henry Fielding) have been suggested as the cause of the act, debates on the Act mention the play A Vision of the Golden Rump, a raucous attack on the current Parliament whose author is unknown.
In the year of the Act, Henry Fielding's Pasquin had again attacked Walpole, although its attack was, by that time, a continuation of complaints.
However, A Vision of the Golden Rump was a continuation of this war of words and an upping of the stakes, and Walpole's Whig Party response had been to cite that play and its scatology as a rationale for shutting down all plays that might be possibly read as critical of the crown or Parliament.
The Act closes all non-patent theaters and requires all plays to be passed before performance.
The "legitimate drama" becomes limited to the theaters at Drury Lane, Covent Garden, and the Haymarket.
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