View source for William Wycherley

{{Short description|English playwright (1641–1716)}}
{{Tone|talk=Tone problems|date=February 2024}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2015}}
{{Use British English|date=December 2015}}
{{Infobox writer <!-- for more information see [[:Template:Infobox writer/doc]] -->
| name = William Wycherley
| image = William Wycherley by Sir Peter Lely.jpg
| image_size = 220
| caption = {{circa|1668}} portrait of Wycherley by [[Peter Lely|Sir Peter Lely]]
| birth_date = 1641 <!--{{birth date|df=yes|1631|8|9}}-->
| birth_place = [[Clive, Shropshire]]
| death_date = {{death date|df=yes|1716|01|01}} (aged 74)
| death_place = [[London]], England
| occupation = poet; playwright
| alma_mater = 
| movement = [[Classicism]]
| notableworks = ''[[The Country Wife]]''; ''[[The Plain Dealer (play)|The Plain Dealer]]''
}}

'''William Wycherley''' ({{IPAc-en|w|ɪ|tʃ|ɚ|ˈ|l|iː}} {{respell|witch|ər|LEE}}; April 1641{{snd}}1 January 1716) was an English playwright best known for writing the plays ''[[The Country Wife]]'' and ''[[The Plain Dealer (play)|The Plain Dealer]]''.

==Early life==
Wycherley was born at [[Clive, Shropshire|Clive]] near [[Shrewsbury]], Shropshire,<ref name="ODNB">{{cite ODNB|first=Kate|last=Bennett|title=Wycherley, William (bap. 1641, d. 1716)|year=2004|edition=Online|url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/30120|access-date=2015-08-04|doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/30120}}</ref> at a house called Clive Hall,<ref name=dickins>{{cite book|last=Dickins|first=Gordon|title=An Illustrated Literary Guide to Shropshire|year=1987|publisher=Shropshire Libraries, Shrewsbury|pages=42,117|isbn=0-903802-37-6}}</ref> although his birthplace has also been said (by [[Lionel Cust]]) to be Trench Farm to the north near [[Wem]], later the birthplace of another writer, [[John Ireland (writer)|John Ireland]], who was said to have been adopted by Wycherley's widow following the death of Ireland's parents.<ref name=Cust>{{cite DNB|first=Lionel Henry|last=Cust|wstitle=Ireland, John (d.1808)|volume=29}} Article on John Ireland the writer. {{PD-notice}}</ref> He was baptised on 8 April 1641, at [[Whitchurch, Hampshire]]. He was the son of Daniel Wycherley (1617–1697) and his wife Bethia, daughter of William Shrimpton. His family was settled on a moderate estate of about £600 a year, and his father was in the business service of the [[Marquess of Winchester]].<ref name="ODNB"/> Wycherley lived during much of his childhood at Trench Farm, one of his paternal family's Shropshire properties,<ref name=Cust/><ref name=dickins/> and also probably in his earliest years at Whitchurch Farm, which his father leased until 1649, in Hampshire.<ref name="ODNB"/>

After being educated at home,<ref name="ODNB"/> he spent three years of his adolescence in [[France]], where he was sent to be educated at the age of fifteen.<ref name="EB">{{Cite EB1911 |wstitle= Wycherley, William |volume= 28 | last= Watts-Dunton |first= Theodore |author-link= Theodore Watts-Dunton |pages=863-866 |short=1}}</ref><ref name=":12">{{Cite book |last=Corman |first=Brian |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6KEiAgAAQBAJ&q=charente&pg=PR5 |title=The Broad View anthology of restoration and eighteenth century comedy : edited by Brian Corman |date=2013 |publisher=Broadview Press |isbn=9781460402719}}</ref> While in France, Wycherley converted to [[Roman Catholicism]]. He returned to England shortly before the restoration of [[Charles II of England|King Charles II]] and lived at [[The Queen's College, Oxford]], where [[Thomas Barlow (bishop)|Thomas Barlow]] was provost.<ref name=":12"/> Under Barlow's influence, Wycherley returned to the [[Church of England]].<ref name="ODNB"/> Wycherley left Oxford and took up residence at the [[Inner Temple]], which he initially entered in October 1659, but he gave little attention to studying law and ceased to live there after 1670.<ref name="EB" /> He served in [[Ireland]] in 1662 as a soldier with the Earl of Ancram's Regiment of Guards. During 1664–65 he was attached on a diplomatic mission by [[Sir Richard Fanshawe, 1st Baronet|Sir Richard Fanshawe]] in [[Madrid]], and he claimed to have fought in the [[Second Anglo-Dutch War]] in 1665.<ref name="ODNB"/>

==First two plays and Third Anglo-Dutch War==

Wycherley's play, ''[[Love in a Wood (play)|Love in a Wood]]'', was produced in early 1671 at the [[Theatre Royal, Drury Lane|Theatre Royal]], [[Drury Lane]]. It was published the following year. Wycherley claimed to have written the play at the age of nineteen (in 1660 or 1661) before going to Oxford, but [[Thomas Macaulay]] points to the allusions in the play to gentlemen's [[periwig]]s, to [[Guinea (coin)|guineas]], to the vests that King Charles II ordered to be worn at court, to the [[Great Fire of London]], etc. as showing that the comedy could not have been written the year before Wycherley went to Oxford.<ref name="EB" />

Wycherley was commissioned on 19 June 1672 during the [[Third Anglo-Dutch War]] as a [[captain lieutenant]] in a company of the [[English Army]]'s [[Buffs (Royal East Kent Regiment)|4th (The Holland) Regiment]] raised by the [[George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham|Duke of Buckingham]]. He was sent on an expedition that ended with his company being stationed on the [[Isle of Wight]] to counter potential Dutch landings there in July 1673. Wycherley was promoted to the rank of captain on 26 February 1674, but resigned his commission on 6 March and returned home. His time in the Army was plagued by difficulties obtaining pay and supplies for his troops, some of whom after his departure complained of "ill-usage" at Wycherley's hands.<ref name="ODNB"/>

==Last two plays==
''The Country Wife'' was produced in 1672 or 1673 and published in 1675.<ref name="EB" /> The play reflects an [[Aristocracy|aristocratic]] and anti-[[Puritan]] ideology and was controversial for its sexual explicitness. The title itself contains a lewd pun on the first syllable of "country".{{Clarify|date=May 2024}} The play is based on several plays by [[Molière]], with additions to suit the tastes of 1670s London audiences: colloquial prose dialogue in place of Molière's verse, a complicated, fast-paced plot tangle, and many sex jokes. It uses two plot devices: a [[Rake (character)|rake]]'s trick of pretending [[impotence]] to avoid suspicion while having clandestine affairs with married women, and the arrival in London of an inexperienced young "country wife", with her discovery of the joys of town life, especially London men.

''The Plain Dealer'', based on Molière's ''[[Le Misanthrope]]'', was highly praised by [[John Dryden]] and [[John Dennis (dramatist)|John Dennis]], though it was also condemned for its obscenity by many.{{who|date=May 2024}} The title character is Captain Manly, a sailor who doubts the motives of everyone he meets except for his sweetheart, Olivia, and his friend, Vernish. When Olivia jilts him and marries Vernish, Captain Manly attempts to gain revenge by sending a pageboy (who, unknown to him, is a girl in disguise and is in love with him) to seduce Olivia. When the truth of the page's identity is discovered, Manly marries her instead.

Wycherley had no title or wealth, but by 1675 he had been admitted to the inner court circle, sharing the conversation and sometimes the [[Mistress (lover)|mistresses]] of King Charles II, who "was extremely fond of him upon account of his wit".<ref>Richardson Pack, ''Memoirs of Mr. Wycherley's Life'' (1728), 8; quoted by Ogden, 4.</ref> In 1679, Charles engaged Wycherley as tutor for his bastard son, the [[Charles Lennox, 1st Duke of Richmond|Duke of Richmond]], born in 1672.<ref name="EB" />

==First marriage==
In the spring of 1678, while in a bookshop at [[Tunbridge Wells]], Wycherley heard ''The Plain Dealer'' asked for by the Countess of Drogheda (Letitia Isabella Robartes, eldest daughter of the [[John Robartes, 1st Earl of Radnor|1st Earl of Radnor]] and widow of the 2nd [[Earl of Drogheda]]). They married on 29 September 1679,<ref name="ODNB"/> in secret because Wycherley feared losing his income from the King's patronage.<ref name="EB" /> The King was displeased when he learned of Wycherley's secret marriage and ended his tutorship of the Duke of Richmond.

The Countess died by July 1685,<ref name="ODNB"/> leaving Wycherley her fortune. However, the title to her property was disputed and the costs of the litigation were so heavy that Wycherley's father was either unable or unwilling to financially aid him. He was imprisoned in [[Fleet Prison]] as a debtor until he was released by King James II, who paid off Wycherley's execution creditor and provided Wycherley a pension of £200 a year.<ref name=":03">{{Cite book |last=Shaw |first=Thomas B. |title=A Complete Manual of English Literature |publisher=Sheldon & Company |year=1867 |location=New York}}</ref> In 1689, Wycherley fled back to Shropshire after the accession of [[William III of Great Britain|King William III]] displaced James II. He feuded with his father over his debts but eventually achieved a settlement to pay off £1,000 of them, enabling him to return to London.<ref>''An Illustrated Literary Guide to Shropshire'', p.85.</ref>

==Later life==
{{Confusing section|date=May 2024}}
Wycherley still had other debts, and they were not paid off even after he succeeded to a life estate in the family property at [[Clive, Shropshire|Clive]] after his father's death in 1697.<ref name="EB" /> He took a mortgage of £1000 from lands there to pay further debts and continued to live in London, only calling on the estate to collect rents.<ref name="ODNB"/>

At the age of 74, in poor health, and by [[Marriage license|special licence]] dated 20 December 1715, he married young Elizabeth Jackson, who was the mistress of Wycherley's cousin, Thomas Shrimpton, who had collusively and somewhat coercively introduced her to Wycherley.<ref name="ODNB"/> Wycherley was said to have married in order to spite his nephew, the next in succession, knowing that he would shortly die and that the [[jointure]] would impoverish the estate.<ref name="EB" /> After receiving last rites as an acknowledged Roman Catholic, (which he professed to be in letter to the young [[Alexander Pope]]) Wycherley died at his lodging house in [[Bow Street]], London, in the early hours of 1 January 1716, and was buried in the vault of [[St Paul's, Covent Garden|St. Paul's, Covent Garden]], on 5 January.<ref name="ODNB"/>

There was a lawsuit by Wycherley's nephew to overturn the validity of the marriage, but the marriage was upheld on the grounds that Wycherley was sane at the time. Three months after Wycherley's death, Elizabeth Jackson married Thomas Shrimpton.<ref name="ODNB"/>

==Legacy==
The language and content of Wycherley's plays led to the restriction of their publication and performance for nearly two centuries, and over most of that time the original versions were replaced with [[Thomas Bowdler|bowdlerised]] versions, such as an adaptation of ''The Plain Dealer'' by [[Isaac Bickerstaffe]] and a version of ''The Country Girl'' by [[David Garrick]].{{citation needed|date=November 2020}}

The ''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]'' cites Wycherley as the first user of the phrase "happy-go-lucky", in 1672.

[[Voltaire]] was a great admirer of Wycherley's plays and once said of them, "{{lang|fr|Il semble que les Anglais prennent trop de liberté et que les Françaises n'en prennent pas assez}}" (It seems that the Englishmen take too much liberty and the Frenchwomen don't take enough).<ref name="EB" />

In 1952, composer [[Malcolm Arnold]] and librettist Joe Mandoza turned ''The Gentleman Dancing Master'' into a one-act opera called ''[[The Dancing Master (opera)|The Dancing Master]]''. It was originally intended as a television opera, but was rejected as "too racy" and had its first fully staged performance in 2015.<ref>[https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/8813781--malcolm-arnold-the-dancing-master Arnold, Malcolm. ''The Dancing Master'', op 34. Resonus CD 10269 (2020)]</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Seymour |first1=Claire |title=Double bill at Guildhall |url=https://www.operatoday.com/content/2015/03/double_bill_at_.php |website=Opera Today |access-date=6 May 2024 |date=6 March 2015}}</ref>

==Notes==
{{reflist}}

==References==
*{{EB1911|wstitle = Wycherley, William|volume=28|pages=863–866}}
*{{cite DNB|wstitle = Wycherley, William|volume=63|first=George Atherton|last= Aitken|authorlink=George Atherton Aitken}}
*{{cite ODNB|first=Kate |last=Bennett|title=Wycherley, William (bap. 1641, d. 1716)|id=30120}}
*{{cite book |editor1-last=Ward |editor1-first=W C |title=William Wycherley |date=n.d. |publisher=Fisher Unwin |location=London}}<!--''William Wycherley'' Edited with an Introduction and Notes by W C Ward, part of ''[[Mermaid Series]]'' Includes biography of Wycherley, together with the following written in play format ''Love in a Wood or St James's Park'', ''The Gentleman Dancing Master'', ''The Country Wife'' and the ''Plain Dealer''.<ref>Detail from a copy of the book published by Fisher Unwin [[London]] with no date (c.&nbsp;1950) with no ISBN</ref>-->

==External links==
{{wikisource|works=or}}
{{Commons category}}
* {{StandardEbooks|Standard Ebooks URL=https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/william-wycherley}}
*{{Librivox author |id=13789}}

{{Restoration comedy}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wycherley, William}}
[[Category:1641 births]]
[[Category:1716 deaths]]
[[Category:Converts to Roman Catholicism]]
[[Category:17th-century English dramatists and playwrights]]
[[Category:Alumni of the Queen's College, Oxford]]
[[Category:People imprisoned for debt]]
[[Category:English male dramatists and playwrights]]