{"product_id":"2940013773134","title":"In Good King Charles's Golden Days","description":"A much commoner theatrical product is the historical romance,\u003cbr\u003emostly fiction with historical names attached to the stock\u003cbr\u003echaracters of the stage.  Many of these plays have introduced their\u003cbr\u003eheroines as Nell Gwynn, and Nell's principal lover as Charles II.\u003cbr\u003eAs Nell was a lively and lovable actress, it was easy to reproduce\u003cbr\u003eher by casting a lively and lovable actress for the part; but the\u003cbr\u003estage Charles, though his costume and wig were always unmistakeable,\u003cbr\u003enever had any other resemblance to the real Charles, nor to anything\u003cbr\u003eelse on earth except what he was not: a stage walking gentleman with\u003cbr\u003enothing particular to say for himself.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNow the facts of Charles's reign have been chronicled so often by\u003cbr\u003emodern historians of all parties, from the Whig Macaulay to the\u003cbr\u003eJacobite Hilaire Belloc, that there is no novelty left for the\u003cbr\u003echronicler to put on the stage.  As to the romance, it is\u003cbr\u003eintolerably stale: the spectacle of a Charles sitting with his arm\u003cbr\u003eround Nell Gwynn's waist, or with Moll Davis seated on his knee,\u003cbr\u003ewith the voluptuous termagant Castlemaine raging in the background,\u003cbr\u003ehas no interest for me, if it ever had for any grown-up person.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut when we turn from the sordid facts of Charles's reign, and from\u003cbr\u003ehis Solomonic polygamy, to what might have happened to him but did\u003cbr\u003enot, the situation becomes interesting and fresh.  For instance,\u003cbr\u003eCharles might have met that human prodigy Isaac Newton.  And Newton\u003cbr\u003emight have met that prodigy of another sort, George Fox, the\u003cbr\u003efounder of the morally mighty Society of Friends, vulgarly called\u003cbr\u003ethe Quakers.  Better again, all three might have met.  Now anyone\u003cbr\u003ewho considers a hundred and fiftieth edition of Sweet Nell of Old\u003cbr\u003eDrury more attractive than Isaac Newton had better avoid my plays:\u003cbr\u003ethey are not meant for such.  And anyone who is more interested in\u003cbr\u003eLady Castlemaine's hips than in Fox's foundation of the great Cult\u003cbr\u003eof Friendship should keep away from theatres and frequent worse\u003cbr\u003eplaces.  Still, though the interest of my play lies mainly in the\u003cbr\u003eclash of Charles, George, and Isaac, there is some fun in the clash\u003cbr\u003ebetween all three and Nelly, Castlemaine, and the Frenchwoman\u003cbr\u003eLouise de Kéroualle, whom we called Madame Carwell.  So I bring the\u003cbr\u003ethree on the stage to relieve the intellectual tension.","brand":"WDS Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47070250762480,"sku":"2940013773134","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013773134_p0.jpg?v=1763590078","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013773134","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}