''The Non-Juror'' is a 1717

comedy play Comedy is a genre of dramatic performance having a light or humorous tone that depicts amusing incidents and in which the characters ultimately triumph over adversity. For ancient Greeks and Romans, a comedy was a stage-play with a happy ending ...

by the British writer

Colley Cibber Colley Cibber (6 November 1671 – 11 December 1757) was an English actor-manager, playwright and Poet Laureate. His colourful memoir ''Apology for the Life of Colley Cibber'' (1740) describes his life in a personal, anecdotal and even rambling ...

. It is inspired by

Molière Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (, ; 15 January 1622 (baptised) – 17 February 1673), known by his stage name Molière (, , ), was a French playwright, actor, and poet, widely regarded as one of the greatest writers in the French language and world ...

's 1664 work ''

Tartuffe ''Tartuffe, or The Impostor, or The Hypocrite'' (; french: Tartuffe, ou l'Imposteur, ), first performed in 1664, is a theatrical comedy by Molière. The characters of Tartuffe, Elmire, and Orgon are considered among the greatest classical thea ...

''. The original

Drury Lane Theatre The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, commonly known as Drury Lane, is a West End theatre and Grade I listed building in Covent Garden, London, England. The building faces Catherine Street (earlier named Bridges or Brydges Street) and backs onto Dru ...

cast featured

John Mills Sir John Mills (born Lewis Ernest Watts Mills; 22 February 190823 April 2005) was an English actor who appeared in more than 120 films in a career spanning seven decades. He excelled on camera as an appealing British everyman who often portray ...

as Sir John Woodvil,

Barton Booth Barton Booth (168210 May 1733) was one of the most famous dramatic actors of the first part of the 18th century. Early life Booth was the son of The Hon and Very Revd Dr Robert Booth, Dean of Bristol, by his first wife and distant cousin Ann ...

as Colonel Woodvil,

Robert Wilks Robert Wilks (''c.'' 1665 – 27 September 1732) was a British actor and theatrical manager who was one of the leading managers of Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in its heyday of the 1710s. He was, with Colley Cibber and Thomas Doggett, one of the ...

as Hearty, Cibber himself as Doctor Wolf, Thomas Walker as Charles, Mary Porter as Lady Woodvil and

Anne Oldfield Anne Oldfield (168323 October 1730) was an English actress and one of the highest paid actresses of her time. Early life and discovery She was born in London in 1683. Her father was a soldier, James Oldfield. Her mother was either Anne or Eli ...

as Maria. Produced three years after the

Hanoverian Succession The Act of Settlement is an Act of the Parliament of England that settled the succession to the English and Irish crowns to only Protestants, which passed in 1701. More specifically, anyone who became a Roman Catholic, or who married one, b ...

and two after the outbreak of the

1715 Rebellion The Jacobite rising of 1715 ( gd, Bliadhna Sheumais ; or 'the Fifteen') was the attempt by James Edward Stuart (the Old Pretender) to regain the thrones of England, Ireland and Scotland for the exiled Stuarts. At Braemar, Aberdeenshire, lo ...

, the play was sharply critical of Jacobites and their

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 ...

allies. It mockingly exaggerated the position of those who refused to swear allegiance to

George I George I or 1 may refer to: People * Patriarch George I of Alexandria ( fl. 621–631) * George I of Constantinople (d. 686) * George I of Antioch (d. 790) * George I of Abkhazia (ruled 872/3–878/9) * George I of Georgia (d. 1027) * Yuri Dolg ...

. Cibber himself played the title role of Doctor Wolf, a

nonjuring The Nonjuring schism refers to a split in the established churches of England, Scotland and Ireland, following the deposition and exile of James II and VII in the 1688 Glorious Revolution. As a condition of office, clergy were required to swea ...

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britai ...

clergyman who claims that "a Protestant Church can never be secure, till it has a Popish Prince to defend it". The play was a hit, and George I himself commended Cibber with a reward of two hundred pounds. The

anti-Catholic Anti-Catholicism is hostility towards Catholics or opposition to the Catholic Church, its clergy, and/or its adherents. At various points after the Reformation, some majority Protestant states, including England, Prussia, Scotland, and ...

tone of the work offended

Alexander Pope Alexander Pope (21 May 1688 O.S. – 30 May 1744) was an English poet, translator, and satirist of the Enlightenment era who is considered one of the most prominent English poets of the early 18th century. An exponent of Augustan literature, ...

, himself a nonjuring Catholic, who lamented "the great success of so damn'd a play". It contributed to the growing rivalry between the two writers. The

prologue A prologue or prolog (from Greek πρόλογος ''prólogos'', from πρό ''pró'', "before" and λόγος ''lógos'', "word") is an opening to a story that establishes the context and gives background details, often some earlier story that ...

by Nicholas Rowe contained jibes against Catholics currently buying up property in

Urbino Urbino ( ; ; Romagnol: ''Urbìn'') is a walled city in the Marche region of Italy, south-west of Pesaro, a World Heritage Site notable for a remarkable historical legacy of independent Renaissance culture, especially under the patronage of ...

, the Italian residence of the Jacobite pretender James III. When it was published in 1718, Cibber dedicated the play to King George. In 1768 a rewritten version ''

The Hypocrite ''The Hypocrite'' is a 1768 comic play by the Irish writer Isaac Bickerstaffe. It is a reworking of the 1717 play ''The Non-Juror'' by Colley Cibber, itself inspired by Molière's '' Tartuffe''. The original play had derived much of its humo ...

'' by

Isaac Bickerstaffe Isaac Bickerstaffe or Bickerstaff (26 September 1733 – after 1808) was an Irish playwright and Librettist. Early life Isaac John Bickerstaff was born in Dublin, on 26 September 1733, where his father John Bickerstaff held a government posi ...

appeared at Drury Lane.Nicoll p.115 This removed many of the political caricatures of Cibber's play which had by now lost their relevance in the changed context, and the principal character was changed to be a

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related Christian denomination, denominations of Protestantism, Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John W ...

References

Bibliography

* Nicoll, Allardyce. ''History of English Drama, 1660-1900, Volume 2''. Cambridge University Press, 2009. * Baines, Paul & Ferarro, Julian & Rogers, Pat. ''The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Eighteenth-Century Writers and Writing, 1660-1789''. Wiley-Blackwell, 2011. * Burling, William J. ''A Checklist of New Plays and Entertainments on the London Stage, 1700-1737''. Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press, 1992. * Koon, Helene. ''Colley Cibber: A Biography''. University Press of Kentucky, 2014. * Rosslyn, Felicity. ''Alexander Pope: A Literary Life''. Springer, 2016. * Streete, Adrian. ''Apocalypse and Anti-Catholicism in Seventeenth-Century English Drama''. Cambridge University Press, 2017. 1717 plays West End plays Plays by Colley Cibber Comedy plays Plays set in London Plays based on works by Molière Works based on Tartuffe {{play-stub