SOURCE: MacDonald, Joyce Green. “‘Hay for the Daughters!’: Gender and Patriarchy in The Miseries of Civil War and Henry VI.” Comparative Drama 24, no. 3 (fall 1990): 193-216.

In the following essay, MacDonald compares the political and sexual themes of The Miseries of Civil War with those of the play on which it was modeled, Shakespeare's Henry VI.

A riot broke out at the Dorset Garden Theater during the opening run of John Croune's The Miseries of Civil War in February 1679. In the words of The True News, or, Mercurius Anglicus, “some Gentlemen in their Cupps entring into the Pitt, flinging links at the Actors, and using severall reproachfull speeches against the Dutchess of P. and other Persons of Honour” caused King Charles II to close the playhouse until further notice. Referring to this or to another similar disruption of playing, the Dowager Countess of Sunderland wrote to her friend Henry...