ABSTRACT
Margaret Cavendish was deeply critical of the changed customs and laws of post-Civil War England, “where Women become Pleaders, Atturneys, Petitioners and the like, running about with their severall Causes, complaining of their severall grievances, exclaiming against their severall enemies, bragging of their severall favours they receive from the powerful.” In fact Cavendish’s performance as a country lady, its exemplification of the ways in which aristocratic ceremony upheld the dignity of country and crown, was intimately related to her intermittent, and much more dramatic, performances in London. Cavendish saw her plays as appropriately political texts for many reasons, not least of which was the fact that the Cavendish name was associated with drama and with its political uses. The action of the play focuses on three women who have lost their own economic mobility and power – their portions – because of their brothers’ wartime loyalty and subsequent loss of estate.
