ABSTRACT
In Campbell’s Britannia, the villain’s sidekick reforms, providing plot twists and a bit of fun. Though melodramas often highlight families, all the principal characters in Andrew L. V. Campbell’s Rule Britanni; or, The Female Sacrifice share different blood connections. Rule Britannia weaves these pairs of characters into three main stories. The first tells of two siblings from a wealthy, titled family, and how the inheritance of older brother Gerald Pledger tempts his younger brother William to murder him. Next, though villainous William has seduced and abandoned Mabel, he now lusts after Selina, the true love of the fisherman James Heartwin. The third plot concerns the French Colonel de la Garde, commander of the prison fortress where shipwreck makes Selina’s long-lost brother Martin a prisoner of war. Ultimately, the title of Campbell’s Rule Britannia; Or, The Female Sacrifice underscores the play’s ironic and implicitly subversive message.
