Yesterday, I saw
the new film The Favourite, which
fantasizes about what personal and romantic entanglements might have led to the
rise and fall of governments and decisions of war and peace during the reign of
Queen Anne. Interestingly enough, the same characters show up in different
configurations, but still scheming for love and power, in the nineteenth-century
French comedy The Glass of Water by Eugène
Scribe.
Here's what we
know of history: Queen Anne became sovereign of both England and Scotland in
1702 after the death of her cousin William III. She presided over the Acts of
Union, which brought both countries into a United Kingdom in 1707, and reigned
until her death in 1714. She was the last of the Stuart monarchs in Britain. This
was despite going through 17 pregnancies by her husband, Prince George of
Denmark, which resulted in seven miscarriages, five stillbirths, and five
short-lived children, the heartiest of whom only made it to eleven years of
age, while others lived only a few minutes.
For many years, Anne
was quite close with Sarah Churchill, the Duchess of Marlborough. In The Favourite their relationship is
depicted as romantic and sexual, though in Scribe's play that is not the case
at all. What both versions of the story agree upon, is that the duchess used
her influence over the queen to prolong the War of Spanish Succession in order
to keep her husband, the Duke of Marlborough, as commander-in-chief of the
army. The duchess also had a cousin at court, Abigail, who ended up marrying Samuel
Masham (who is named Arthur for some reason in Scribe's play). Whatever the
truth about Abigail was, she has inspired quite a bit of literary speculation.
Scribe places
Abigail in the midst of a love triangle involving Masham and the queen. The
heart strings of all three are manipulated in the play by Viscount Bolingbroke,
a Tory politician who was out of favor for a while under Queen Anne. Historically,
Bolingbroke eventually replaced Robert Harley as the leader of his party, with
the assistance of Abigail, who (spoiler alert) had become the queen's favorite.
The Tories were attempting to end the disastrous war. Scribe portrays
Bolingbroke as the key figure in bringing about an end to war with France,
while the film The Favourite assigns
that role to Harley.
That's certainly
not the only difference in the two fictionalizations of history. While Scribe
shows Queen Anne infatuated with Masham, The
Favourite makes Abigail the object of her affection. Both versions portray
the Duchess of Marlborough as a bit of an unscrupulous schemer, though. In
addition to continually advocating for war in spite of a great loss of blood
and treasure, the duchess historically wrote very unflattering things about the
queen. Her spiteful gossip about Queen Anne even included hints that the
monarch might be carrying on a lesbian relationship with Abigail, a possibility
that The Favourite explores at
length.
Both A Glass of Water and The Favourite are great fun, though it's
anyone's guess what historically happened at court as various factions vied for
power. As Scribe remarked in his play:
Il ne faut pas
mépriser les petites choses, c'est par elles qu'on arrive aux grandes!
