0:00:04 > 0:00:10On 29th May, 1660, King Charles II returned from exile
0:00:10 > 0:00:13to reclaim his throne.
0:00:13 > 0:00:17Everyone believed the Stuart dynasty had lost power forever.
0:00:17 > 0:00:20His father, Charles I, had been publicly executed
0:00:20 > 0:00:25only 10 years previously and England had been firmly in the grip
0:00:25 > 0:00:28of Oliver Cromwell's Commonwealth,
0:00:28 > 0:00:31but now the monarchy was back in business.
0:00:33 > 0:00:36The Restoration was a turning point in British history.
0:00:36 > 0:00:40It marked the end of the Medieval and the beginning of the modern age.
0:00:40 > 0:00:44It affected the life of every single person in the country.
0:00:45 > 0:00:49In this series I'm looking at the lives of women
0:00:49 > 0:00:50in the late-17th century.
0:00:50 > 0:00:53This is a really exciting time to be a woman.
0:00:53 > 0:00:58For centuries they've been lurking about in the footnotes of history
0:00:58 > 0:01:00but now they come to prominence.
0:01:00 > 0:01:03Some of them have such modern attitudes and ambitions
0:01:03 > 0:01:05and we see them coming up against a world
0:01:05 > 0:01:08that was still pretty male and misogynistic.
0:01:10 > 0:01:12'Over three programmes,
0:01:12 > 0:01:15'I've been exploring their lives at the newly liberated Royal Court...'
0:01:15 > 0:01:19The King without a doubt would have been completely delighted.
0:01:19 > 0:01:22- If all my clothes had suddenly fallen off?- Yes, I'm sure he would.
0:01:22 > 0:01:25'..at home behind closed doors...'
0:01:25 > 0:01:26Oh!
0:01:26 > 0:01:30'..and now in public, at work and play.'
0:01:30 > 0:01:34She dominated the theatre. She had more plays put on than anybody.
0:01:34 > 0:01:36Not any woman, any man.
0:01:36 > 0:01:40You might have thought that Britain was swinging in the 1960s,
0:01:40 > 0:01:44but it was the 1660s that really shook things up.
0:01:52 > 0:01:55APPLAUSE
0:01:55 > 0:01:58In this final programme I'll meet a band of female pioneers,
0:01:58 > 0:02:01mavericks who made names for themselves
0:02:01 > 0:02:04in new and unprecedented ways.
0:02:06 > 0:02:10Now, the one Restoration woman you'll have heard of was Nell Gwynn.
0:02:10 > 0:02:13Famously she was an orange seller, and an actress
0:02:13 > 0:02:15and then the mistress of Charles II,
0:02:15 > 0:02:17but she wasn't alone,
0:02:17 > 0:02:20there were other extraordinary women in her age.
0:02:21 > 0:02:24There were explorers and scientists
0:02:24 > 0:02:29and business women and writers, and even female spies.
0:02:29 > 0:02:33All of them were defying convention at a time when most women
0:02:33 > 0:02:35were expected to be spinsters, wives, widows,
0:02:35 > 0:02:38or, if they were unlucky, a prostitute.
0:02:38 > 0:02:42Now, my question is, was this just a group of
0:02:42 > 0:02:45extraordinary, exceptional individuals
0:02:45 > 0:02:49or was there something about the new world of Restoration England
0:02:49 > 0:02:53that allowed these women to take centre stage?
0:03:02 > 0:03:06In the summer of 1698, travellers up and down the country
0:03:06 > 0:03:10might have encountered a most unusual figure on the road.
0:03:11 > 0:03:13This was Celia Fiennes,
0:03:13 > 0:03:15a remarkable noble woman
0:03:15 > 0:03:17who travelled the length and breadth of England
0:03:17 > 0:03:21from Penzance in the south to Newcastle in the north,
0:03:21 > 0:03:22virtually alone.
0:03:24 > 0:03:29Celia's account of her travels is an amazingly detailed survey
0:03:29 > 0:03:32of a nation on the brink of modernity.
0:03:33 > 0:03:37Celia's always been a heroine of mine because of her independence.
0:03:37 > 0:03:41She stayed single, really unusual for a Restoration woman,
0:03:41 > 0:03:43and this gave her control of her own fortune.
0:03:43 > 0:03:46She used it to go travelling.
0:03:46 > 0:03:49She travelled 3,000 miles over her life time.
0:03:49 > 0:03:53This was extraordinary, even for a contemporary man.
0:03:56 > 0:03:58Celia toured the country
0:03:58 > 0:04:02well before travel had become a fashionable pastime.
0:04:02 > 0:04:05In fact, she's the first woman recorded to have visited
0:04:05 > 0:04:08every different county in the kingdom.
0:04:08 > 0:04:12She travelled on roads largely unaltered since Roman times,
0:04:12 > 0:04:15but the country she surveyed was changing fast
0:04:15 > 0:04:19and Celia was fascinated by every last detail of its transformation.
0:04:20 > 0:04:26No portraits of Celia survive but here at the Fiennes' family seat,
0:04:26 > 0:04:28Broughton Castle in Oxfordshire,
0:04:28 > 0:04:32they've still got her original journal.
0:04:32 > 0:04:33There's her signature.
0:04:33 > 0:04:37- She's signed it.- A beautiful hand, that's clearly Celia's own hand.
0:04:37 > 0:04:40- Yeah.- She was inquisitive. She wanted to know practical things,
0:04:40 > 0:04:44she wanted to know the price of fish and where you got coal from
0:04:44 > 0:04:49and why they built dams over rivers, and so on.
0:04:49 > 0:04:52She says that both ladies and gentlemen
0:04:52 > 0:04:55should make observations of the pleasant prospects, good buildings,
0:04:55 > 0:04:59- different produces and manufactures of each place.- Yes.
0:04:59 > 0:05:02So that's saying, they should go like industrial spies really,
0:05:02 > 0:05:04recording all the products of the nation.
0:05:04 > 0:05:08One feels about her, she very much didn't lie on the beach, did she?
0:05:08 > 0:05:11She does go on and on and on, very long sentences.
0:05:11 > 0:05:15- I don't know what sort of education she'd had.- Well, obviously not bad.
0:05:15 > 0:05:18- Hmm.- Although I have to tell you, she doesn't really get punctuation.
0:05:18 > 0:05:24Perhaps Celia's urge to explore lay in her Fiennes' family genes.
0:05:24 > 0:05:28After all, the polar adventurer and conqueror of Mount Everest,
0:05:28 > 0:05:30Sir Ranulph Fiennes is her descendent.
0:05:30 > 0:05:32She must have been very courageous, I think,
0:05:32 > 0:05:34because it's an equivalent, if you like,
0:05:34 > 0:05:37to somebody going to the North Pole or something now,
0:05:37 > 0:05:39it was a great adventure.
0:05:39 > 0:05:42So in her own way she really is a pioneer, isn't she?
0:05:42 > 0:05:45Yes, I wonder if they'd peered her from the villages and said,
0:05:45 > 0:05:47"What's that woman doing on a horse?"
0:05:47 > 0:05:49Yes, it must have been unusual, I think.
0:05:53 > 0:05:57Celia was a first-hand witness to the country's evolution
0:05:57 > 0:06:01from an overwhelmingly rural society
0:06:01 > 0:06:02to a far more urban one,
0:06:02 > 0:06:08built on the profits of flourishing trade and manufacturing.
0:06:08 > 0:06:11She sets off from London, and as she's travelling
0:06:11 > 0:06:13she is interested in seeing great houses
0:06:13 > 0:06:16and touristy things like natural wonders,
0:06:16 > 0:06:17but what really interests her
0:06:17 > 0:06:20are the economically important parts of Britain,
0:06:20 > 0:06:23places where they're making money.
0:06:23 > 0:06:25She goes up to Liverpool.
0:06:26 > 0:06:31Liverpool, records Celia, "was just a few fisherman's houses
0:06:31 > 0:06:36"and is now grown to a large fine town, there be 24 streets in it."
0:06:36 > 0:06:39Now she comes over to Newcastle.
0:06:39 > 0:06:43"Newcastle, upon a high hill, two miles from the city,
0:06:43 > 0:06:47"I could see all about the country which was full of coal-pits,
0:06:47 > 0:06:49"the sulphur of it taints the air."
0:06:49 > 0:06:51She comes through Bristol,
0:06:51 > 0:06:53a very important port in the late-17th century.
0:06:53 > 0:06:58"Bristol, a very great trading city. I saw the harbour was full of ships
0:06:58 > 0:07:02"carrying coals and all sorts of commodities."
0:07:02 > 0:07:05She was the first traveller since William Harrison
0:07:05 > 0:07:08over a 100 years before to make such a complete tour
0:07:08 > 0:07:12and this means she was the first traveller really to tour
0:07:12 > 0:07:14the earlier stage of industrial Britain.
0:07:17 > 0:07:20Nowhere was the country's modernisation more dramatic
0:07:20 > 0:07:21than in the capital.
0:07:23 > 0:07:28The benchmark by which Celia measured every other town.
0:07:32 > 0:07:35Charles II's Restoration caused a real boom in London.
0:07:35 > 0:07:38When it was finished, the new cathedral of St Paul's
0:07:38 > 0:07:41would tower over a really thriving city, full of opportunities
0:07:41 > 0:07:46for people to work and play, and there is a population explosion.
0:07:46 > 0:07:49Nearly 600,000 people now living in London,
0:07:49 > 0:07:53making it bigger than Paris and well on its way
0:07:53 > 0:07:57to overtaking the biggest city in the world, which was Constantinople.
0:08:00 > 0:08:04With the city growing so fast, it soon burst out of its boundaries
0:08:04 > 0:08:08and it flowed beyond the old city walls to the open fields westwards.
0:08:08 > 0:08:11Here sprang up stately new squares
0:08:11 > 0:08:14and avenues and public parks to create the West End.
0:08:16 > 0:08:19Covent Garden, built 30 years earlier,
0:08:19 > 0:08:23became the home of London's reopened theatres.
0:08:23 > 0:08:27Nearby, St James's Park was reinvented by Charles II
0:08:27 > 0:08:30as an elegant new public space devoted to leisure.
0:08:30 > 0:08:34The graceful squares and wide streets of the new West End
0:08:34 > 0:08:37became the most desirable places to live.
0:08:37 > 0:08:40It was here that the greatest transformations took place
0:08:40 > 0:08:43in the lives of our Restoration women.
0:08:43 > 0:08:46Whether they were actresses, servants, shopkeepers
0:08:46 > 0:08:49or even street walkers.
0:08:49 > 0:08:53In the park and on the streets of the West End,
0:08:53 > 0:08:58women were more visible than ever before.
0:08:58 > 0:09:01By 1700, they outnumbered the capital's men
0:09:01 > 0:09:04by a pretty staggering 25%.
0:09:05 > 0:09:09London was now becoming a city of women.
0:09:09 > 0:09:12- We're going to see a lot of women, aren't we, wandering around?- Yes.
0:09:12 > 0:09:14This is a great new era for single women.
0:09:14 > 0:09:16It's a great era for women's work.
0:09:16 > 0:09:18What jobs did they come for?
0:09:18 > 0:09:21Most of them were coming in to come into domestic service.
0:09:21 > 0:09:24They're not going to be servants their whole lives.
0:09:24 > 0:09:27We're still in a period when service is something
0:09:27 > 0:09:28that you do for that interim period
0:09:28 > 0:09:30between your late teens and your mid-twenties.
0:09:30 > 0:09:33People marry, most people marry very late,
0:09:33 > 0:09:35so you've got a time in which you need to earn some money,
0:09:35 > 0:09:38set yourself up as ready to have a household of your own.
0:09:38 > 0:09:41So this crowd of young women in particular coming into London,
0:09:41 > 0:09:44it has such an effect, by the end of the 17th century,
0:09:44 > 0:09:48you've got four women for three men.
0:09:48 > 0:09:50There's a lot more women now than men in fact.
0:09:50 > 0:09:52- Yeah. The sex ratio has completely warped.- Changed.
0:09:52 > 0:09:56I guess that the park is just one of the new sort of public spaces
0:09:56 > 0:09:58for women to be, you know,
0:09:58 > 0:10:00they weren't at home all the time any more.
0:10:00 > 0:10:03- They can go to...the theatre. - The theatres.
0:10:03 > 0:10:06- They can go shopping.- Covent Garden. - Covent Garden.
0:10:06 > 0:10:10They can go to all the city squares that are appearing.
0:10:12 > 0:10:16Visitors to England frequently comment that, um...
0:10:16 > 0:10:18- English women have a peculiar freedom.- Hmm.
0:10:18 > 0:10:21In some ways, they have more constraints than anywhere else
0:10:21 > 0:10:24and, in other ways, like their activities outside the home,
0:10:24 > 0:10:25they seem to have more freedom.
0:10:27 > 0:10:30'These new freedoms were tightly linked
0:10:30 > 0:10:34'to the country's growing prosperity,
0:10:34 > 0:10:38'as women became ever more important players in the national economy.'
0:10:40 > 0:10:42By the time of the Restoration,
0:10:42 > 0:10:46England had established itself as a great trading nation,
0:10:46 > 0:10:49and exotic new imports, from coffee to calicos,
0:10:49 > 0:10:51flooded into the capital.
0:10:51 > 0:10:55When the traveller Celia Fiennes' tour of the country
0:10:55 > 0:10:58brought her to Greenwich, she was suitably impressed.
0:10:58 > 0:11:01She describes coming here to Greenwich one day
0:11:01 > 0:11:05and standing here and looking out to the Thames
0:11:05 > 0:11:09twisting and turning itself up and down and covered with ships.
0:11:09 > 0:11:11She said that, "of a morning,
0:11:11 > 0:11:14"you could see 100 sails of ships passing by
0:11:14 > 0:11:17"and that is one of the finest sights that is."
0:11:19 > 0:11:21The goods they were unloading were new and exotic.
0:11:21 > 0:11:25They were bringing tobacco and sugar from the West Indies,
0:11:25 > 0:11:28and silk and spices from the Middle East.
0:11:28 > 0:11:31From India, it was calico and black pepper.
0:11:31 > 0:11:35And from China, it was tea and porcelain.
0:11:35 > 0:11:36By the end of the 17th century,
0:11:36 > 0:11:39there were £10 million worth of goods
0:11:39 > 0:11:41coming through London every year.
0:11:41 > 0:11:44It seemed like there were more and more luxuries than ever before,
0:11:44 > 0:11:47and the city was getting richer than ever before.
0:11:58 > 0:12:03'Many of these new imports were targeted specifically at women.
0:12:03 > 0:12:08'And Restoration London's elegantly appointed new arcades
0:12:08 > 0:12:12'were designed to appeal directly to this new female market.'
0:12:14 > 0:12:16You're looking at the wrong gloves. These are the ones.
0:12:16 > 0:12:19'This was the moment the shopping mall came of age.'
0:12:19 > 0:12:20I quite fancy these.
0:12:20 > 0:12:23- Such choice, amazing.- And I like this. This is the capitalist glove.
0:12:23 > 0:12:25- Yeah.- With the fur around the bottom.
0:12:25 > 0:12:27And the slightly punk glove here.
0:12:27 > 0:12:30- That's horrible, that one is. - I'm not sure about that.
0:12:30 > 0:12:34So, Helen, we're spending the afternoon with a lot of other people
0:12:34 > 0:12:36wandering up and down and looking in shop windows.
0:12:36 > 0:12:39Is this a new Restoration form of behaviour?
0:12:39 > 0:12:41Yes, it is, and I think
0:12:41 > 0:12:43it would have been a much more pleasurable experience
0:12:43 > 0:12:45than in previous generations,
0:12:45 > 0:12:47where you went into dark pokey shops
0:12:47 > 0:12:49that had window shutters made of wood.
0:12:49 > 0:12:52For the first time, you've got window displays in the shop window
0:12:52 > 0:12:55and you have glass so that you can see in,
0:12:55 > 0:12:56and see the goods that are on offer.
0:12:56 > 0:12:59And it becomes a kind of leisure activity in its own right.
0:12:59 > 0:13:03The owners and managers of these arcades could actually specify
0:13:03 > 0:13:04what goods were sold there
0:13:04 > 0:13:07so that you weren't going and buying your lovely lace in one booth
0:13:07 > 0:13:10and next door there was a butcher doing horrible things.
0:13:10 > 0:13:13It was all supposed to be very polite and clean and genteel.
0:13:13 > 0:13:16That's still the case here in the arcade. No potatoes on sale here.
0:13:16 > 0:13:20- Absolutely no potatoes, just pearls. - Just pearls.
0:13:20 > 0:13:23A few tiaras thrown in for good measure.
0:13:23 > 0:13:26The women who flocked to these smart boutiques
0:13:26 > 0:13:28soon made a name for themselves.
0:13:28 > 0:13:30They were called "the silk worms."
0:13:30 > 0:13:33Addison in the Spectator talks about these women
0:13:33 > 0:13:35who go from shop to shop in their carriages
0:13:35 > 0:13:37and they drive the haberdashers mad
0:13:37 > 0:13:38because they just go into the shops
0:13:38 > 0:13:41and they're unravelling lengths and lengths of silk
0:13:41 > 0:13:43but they're not actually buying anything.
0:13:43 > 0:13:46They're just there to gossip with their friends.
0:13:46 > 0:13:48And that's the one I fancy.
0:13:48 > 0:13:51- This, gems on it.- Beautiful.
0:13:51 > 0:13:53Ooh, it's £19,500.
0:13:53 > 0:13:55Have you brought your credit card?
0:13:55 > 0:13:58'The Restoration shop keepers were quick to spot this new market
0:13:58 > 0:14:02'and went out of their way to win women over
0:14:02 > 0:14:05'with surprisingly modern marketing techniques.'
0:14:05 > 0:14:09One trick which the Spectator talks about is employing handsome young men
0:14:09 > 0:14:12- to entice women in and to flirt with them.- Like gigolos.
0:14:12 > 0:14:16Kind of, and er, yes, they flirt with them and they draw them in.
0:14:16 > 0:14:19'Well before the invention of the joint bank account,
0:14:19 > 0:14:22'some of these ladies even found cunning new ways
0:14:22 > 0:14:26'to exploit an old-fashioned legal system.'
0:14:26 > 0:14:28Tremendous advantage in a patriarchal society,
0:14:28 > 0:14:32where married women who have no legal personality of their own,
0:14:32 > 0:14:35- is that they're not liable for the debts that they run up. - Oh, I like it!
0:14:35 > 0:14:38So they can go around saying to the shopkeeper,
0:14:38 > 0:14:41"Well, go on and give me those goods and my husband will pay you later,"
0:14:41 > 0:14:44and, um, of course, he's obliged to do it.
0:14:44 > 0:14:47And this really goes too far in some cases.
0:14:47 > 0:14:51And what we find actually is some intriguing newspaper advertisements
0:14:51 > 0:14:54where a shopkeeper will have handed over a lot of goods
0:14:54 > 0:14:55and the husband's been appalled
0:14:55 > 0:14:57and he actually puts an advertisement saying,
0:14:57 > 0:15:00"Mrs Worsley, my wife, is a petite blonde woman,
0:15:00 > 0:15:04"please don't give her any more credit because I won't pay her bills."
0:15:05 > 0:15:08I love the idea of these ladies having a high old time in the shops.
0:15:08 > 0:15:10Absolutely, and it can go to court,
0:15:10 > 0:15:12you know, the husband ends up in the dock
0:15:12 > 0:15:15because women and children have no actual responsibility
0:15:15 > 0:15:18for debts that they accrue.
0:15:18 > 0:15:21Give them an inch and they'll take a mile.
0:15:24 > 0:15:28'But, of course, some women's credit rating was unimpeachable.'
0:15:28 > 0:15:31Now, right at the top of the fashion food chain,
0:15:31 > 0:15:33we've got the Queen, Mary II.
0:15:33 > 0:15:36She was quite a shopper.
0:15:36 > 0:15:40This bill was for just six months in 1694
0:15:40 > 0:15:42and it's full of lovely clothes.
0:15:42 > 0:15:45She's getting a nightgown with green flowers.
0:15:45 > 0:15:48And another one with white and gold flowers.
0:15:48 > 0:15:50She's buying buttons,
0:15:50 > 0:15:53gold flowered wadded nightgown
0:15:53 > 0:15:57and a silver chain, silk wadding, underwear,
0:15:57 > 0:16:01a pair of gold tissue stays, stitched with silver.
0:16:01 > 0:16:02They sound splendid.
0:16:02 > 0:16:05Now, an important thing about a lot of this fabric
0:16:05 > 0:16:07is that it's the new, exotic, imported stuff.
0:16:07 > 0:16:10Look, it's from India. It comes from the East.
0:16:10 > 0:16:12Right down at the bottom we've got,
0:16:12 > 0:16:14"For lining a morning gown quite through
0:16:14 > 0:16:17"with white Indian damasque."
0:16:17 > 0:16:20This is going to be the start of a new trend.
0:16:20 > 0:16:22Everybody's going to want something like that.
0:16:24 > 0:16:27'And for the fashion-conscious shopper without a royal budget,
0:16:27 > 0:16:29'a new industry was born,
0:16:29 > 0:16:32'producing cheap English imitations
0:16:32 > 0:16:35'of these luxurious fabrics from India and China.'
0:16:37 > 0:16:41- Isn't that lovely?- It's just glorious. It hasn't faded at all.
0:16:41 > 0:16:43The colours are so fresh and bright.
0:16:43 > 0:16:46This isn't an actual proper Indian fabric, is that right?
0:16:46 > 0:16:48No, that's right. This was made in England.
0:16:48 > 0:16:50It's much cheaper than buying,
0:16:50 > 0:16:52with the fabrics that are coming in from India.
0:16:52 > 0:16:55- Crazy colours, aren't they?- Yes, and they're often a lot brighter
0:16:55 > 0:16:57than we might associate with,
0:16:57 > 0:16:58you know, historical clothing.
0:16:58 > 0:17:01They're really vibrant and luminous.
0:17:01 > 0:17:07After the sober shades and restrained styles of the Commonwealth period,
0:17:07 > 0:17:09no wonder the Restoration saw a steep rise
0:17:09 > 0:17:12in dedicated followers of fashion.
0:17:12 > 0:17:15Look at this lovely conical shape that's really, um,
0:17:15 > 0:17:19typical of the late-17th century.
0:17:19 > 0:17:21So the jumps is the informal,
0:17:21 > 0:17:23comfortable, soft version
0:17:23 > 0:17:24- of the stays?- Yeah.
0:17:24 > 0:17:28It sucks you in a little bit, but it's like wearing your track suit.
0:17:29 > 0:17:32From top to toe, a host of new accessories
0:17:32 > 0:17:35left no extremity unadorned.
0:17:35 > 0:17:40'Towering head-dresses made the most of expensive continental lace.'
0:17:40 > 0:17:44- Fabulous!- You can only make about an inch and a half of this per day.
0:17:44 > 0:17:46'Wielding a fan showed off
0:17:46 > 0:17:49'your lovely white forearms.'
0:17:49 > 0:17:51What I really want is this pair of shoes.
0:17:51 > 0:17:53'And ingenious slap-soled shoes
0:17:53 > 0:17:56'got you along muddy streets in style.'
0:17:56 > 0:18:00- It's like a wedgie. - It's a wedgie, exactly.
0:18:00 > 0:18:03'And now, you could get hold of up-to-the-minute fashion prints.'
0:18:03 > 0:18:05So this lovely fontage style
0:18:05 > 0:18:07that was all the rage in the French courts...
0:18:07 > 0:18:10'These allowed women outside the world of the court
0:18:10 > 0:18:13'to copy what the beautiful people were wearing.
0:18:13 > 0:18:16'They were the 17th century's answer to Vogue.'
0:18:16 > 0:18:18It's a way into high-end fashion, I suppose,
0:18:18 > 0:18:20for the normal folk at home.
0:18:20 > 0:18:23Absolutely and, in a sense, it's almost the trade in the luxury goods
0:18:23 > 0:18:26that allows a wider proportion of people to use it
0:18:26 > 0:18:28because it's the wives of the people
0:18:28 > 0:18:30making their fortunes from importing these things.
0:18:30 > 0:18:32I mean, how better to get it
0:18:32 > 0:18:35than to be married to someone who imports it? Easy.
0:18:35 > 0:18:36SHE LAUGHS
0:18:36 > 0:18:37You get it at cost-price.
0:18:37 > 0:18:39- So the merchant classes start to grow.- Yeah.
0:18:39 > 0:18:41And the wives of the merchant classes
0:18:41 > 0:18:43are, are wearing more ostentatious clothing
0:18:43 > 0:18:47and, um, creating a huge demand. They've got the money.
0:18:47 > 0:18:50With the birth of these modern consumers fashion
0:18:50 > 0:18:53became a serious business.
0:18:55 > 0:18:58For a long time, there'd been criticism, particularly of women,
0:18:58 > 0:19:01for having too many and too fancy clothes,
0:19:01 > 0:19:03but now, people began to realise
0:19:03 > 0:19:05it was an important part of the economy.
0:19:05 > 0:19:09A 17th-century statistician called Gregory King calculated
0:19:09 > 0:19:12that, in the single year of 1688,
0:19:12 > 0:19:17the English people purchased 79 million separate garments.
0:19:17 > 0:19:20They were spending a quarter of their income on clothing.
0:19:20 > 0:19:23One commentator, called Nicholas Barbon, says,
0:19:23 > 0:19:26"Ladies, fashion is good!
0:19:26 > 0:19:28"It occasions the expense of new clothes
0:19:28 > 0:19:31"before the old ones are worn out.
0:19:31 > 0:19:34"It is the spirit and life of trade."
0:19:34 > 0:19:37For a growing number of women,
0:19:37 > 0:19:40it wasn't just a case of looking the part.
0:19:40 > 0:19:42They had to act it too.
0:19:42 > 0:19:45For all the new freedoms that women enjoyed,
0:19:45 > 0:19:48their behaviour was still very tightly prescribed.
0:19:48 > 0:19:52The 17th century saw a rash of conduct books
0:19:52 > 0:19:54aimed at female readers.
0:19:54 > 0:19:57These set out the distinctly old-fashioned codes
0:19:57 > 0:19:59of meek and modest behaviour
0:19:59 > 0:20:03still demanded of any respectable woman.
0:20:03 > 0:20:06If you did venture out into St James's Park as a lady,
0:20:06 > 0:20:10it was very important to follow the rules for female behaviour,
0:20:10 > 0:20:14set out by Hannah Woolley in her book of 1675,
0:20:14 > 0:20:16called A Guide To The Female Sex.
0:20:16 > 0:20:21Hannah was Restoration England's favourite agony aunt.
0:20:21 > 0:20:25Her work was part cook-book, part indispensable guide to everything,
0:20:25 > 0:20:32from courtship to managing servants and, above all, to female etiquette.
0:20:32 > 0:20:35First of all, she says, don't talk to any gentlemen
0:20:35 > 0:20:38cos they might take the opportunity to tell you a smutty story.
0:20:38 > 0:20:41She says that you should stick to sucking up to people
0:20:41 > 0:20:42who are better than you,
0:20:42 > 0:20:45don't speak to anyone who's inferior to you.
0:20:45 > 0:20:47Your walk is very important.
0:20:47 > 0:20:51She said that a light carriage shows that you've got a light mind.
0:20:51 > 0:20:55And I guess that means you've got to walk very sedately and soberly.
0:20:55 > 0:20:58And finally, take care what you do with your eyes.
0:20:58 > 0:21:00Don't send forth any tempting glances.
0:21:00 > 0:21:03This will reveal that you have a light character.
0:21:03 > 0:21:06Instead, you should just send your eyes up to heaven.
0:21:11 > 0:21:13'Women out and about in London didn't only run the risk
0:21:13 > 0:21:16'of a social faux pas.
0:21:16 > 0:21:20'The West End streets and squares may have looked elegant and refined,
0:21:20 > 0:21:25'but many of the people you encountered on them definitely weren't.
0:21:25 > 0:21:27'By night, the area attracted
0:21:27 > 0:21:31'both cheeky thieves and committed criminals.'
0:21:31 > 0:21:34This is way before the invention of street-lighting
0:21:34 > 0:21:36and if you wanted to get home, you'd hire a link-boy,
0:21:36 > 0:21:40who'd run in front of you with a flaming torch to show the way,
0:21:40 > 0:21:41if you were lucky.
0:21:41 > 0:21:44If you were unlucky, he'd lead you up a blind alley
0:21:44 > 0:21:47and all of his friends would jump on you and rob you.
0:21:47 > 0:21:50This is 150 years before the invention of the police
0:21:50 > 0:21:54and it's said that a gentleman walking home alone at night
0:21:54 > 0:22:00needed to arm himself to the teeth with a sword and a blunderbuss.
0:22:00 > 0:22:06'If it was dangerous for men, imagine what it was like for women.'
0:22:06 > 0:22:09Women out at night probably felt particularly vulnerable
0:22:09 > 0:22:13because of their clothes, which were surprisingly accessible.
0:22:13 > 0:22:15They had this low bodices,
0:22:15 > 0:22:16a groping hand
0:22:16 > 0:22:18could make its way down there
0:22:18 > 0:22:20and, although I look well protected,
0:22:20 > 0:22:22actually, these layers just lift up.
0:22:22 > 0:22:25And here's my outer skirt,
0:22:25 > 0:22:28here's my under skirt.
0:22:28 > 0:22:33Underneath that, I've got my linen smock or shift.
0:22:33 > 0:22:35Then, here are my stockings,
0:22:35 > 0:22:37but they stop just above the knee
0:22:37 > 0:22:39and that's it.
0:22:39 > 0:22:42Women's knickers haven't been invented yet.
0:22:42 > 0:22:47Women's vulnerability was often exploited,
0:22:47 > 0:22:50even by apparently civilised gentlemen,
0:22:50 > 0:22:52like the diarist Samuel Pepys,
0:22:52 > 0:22:55whose behaviour now seems pretty shocking.
0:22:57 > 0:23:00Samuel Pepys' diaries often mention him
0:23:00 > 0:23:02following pretty women down the street
0:23:02 > 0:23:05and literally having a squeeze, seeing what he could get away with.
0:23:05 > 0:23:08On one occasion, he even had a go at a lady in church,
0:23:08 > 0:23:10but he bit off more than he could chew,
0:23:10 > 0:23:12because she opened up her pocket.
0:23:12 > 0:23:14Now, it was a tie-on pocket,
0:23:14 > 0:23:17of the kind that Lucy Locket lost and Kitty Fisher found,
0:23:17 > 0:23:21and out she got a huge, great pin
0:23:21 > 0:23:23and she threatened to prick him with it
0:23:23 > 0:23:25and, after that, he left her alone.
0:23:28 > 0:23:31Pepys' victim was well able to look after herself
0:23:31 > 0:23:35but many of the women who came to the capital in search of work
0:23:35 > 0:23:38found it a cruel and unforgiving place.
0:23:40 > 0:23:43'Far from home, they could end up penniless,
0:23:43 > 0:23:46'without support and very alone.'
0:23:49 > 0:23:52This is not very secure employment, is it?
0:23:52 > 0:23:56They might find themselves out of a job, on the streets.
0:23:56 > 0:23:58If it went wrong, they had a problem, they had a problem
0:23:58 > 0:24:01because they didn't have many family and friends about,
0:24:01 > 0:24:03so they could quickly fall on very hard times.
0:24:03 > 0:24:06They would probably, they would not be settled in London
0:24:06 > 0:24:09so they wouldn't get parish relief, so they could quickly turn
0:24:09 > 0:24:11to any source of income that they could find.
0:24:11 > 0:24:13'For those desperate enough,
0:24:13 > 0:24:17'the West End provided one final job opportunity -
0:24:17 > 0:24:20'the world's oldest profession.'
0:24:20 > 0:24:24And then, they were coming to Covent Garden, weren't they?
0:24:24 > 0:24:26This was the centre of the vice business.
0:24:26 > 0:24:30Yes, it was. It, it was conveniently located between the City of London
0:24:30 > 0:24:34and the more wealthier parishes, er, west of here.
0:24:34 > 0:24:36Is it at all possible to estimate
0:24:36 > 0:24:39just how many brothels there were on the streets round here
0:24:39 > 0:24:42and how many women were working as prostitutes?
0:24:42 > 0:24:44Well, you can only really make an estimate, but we would,
0:24:44 > 0:24:47I would estimate that there were certainly dozens of brothels,
0:24:47 > 0:24:51maybe more, and thousands of, of women, er, walking the streets.
0:24:51 > 0:24:53How could you spot a prostitute?
0:24:53 > 0:24:55Did she come and give you a little poke with her fan?
0:24:55 > 0:24:56I don't think it was difficult.
0:24:56 > 0:24:59They were quite aggressive in terms of propositioning men.
0:24:59 > 0:25:01It's pretty clear at the lower end of the trade,
0:25:01 > 0:25:03at the higher end of the trade,
0:25:03 > 0:25:06probably the transaction would have been a little more subtle.
0:25:06 > 0:25:10The West End teemed with thousands of prostitutes
0:25:10 > 0:25:12openly plying their trade.
0:25:12 > 0:25:17By night, the area was regarded as a sink of sin.
0:25:20 > 0:25:22'Even those parts owned by the Crown
0:25:22 > 0:25:24'gained a reputation for debauchery.'
0:25:26 > 0:25:29The park at night was a very different place.
0:25:29 > 0:25:32It wasn't flirtation and ogling going on in there,
0:25:32 > 0:25:36it was assignations of prostitutes and muggings too.
0:25:36 > 0:25:38You might wonder how this could be,
0:25:38 > 0:25:41cos the gates were locked at ten o'clock every night.
0:25:41 > 0:25:43The answer was - authorised key holders.
0:25:43 > 0:25:466,500 of them.
0:25:46 > 0:25:49And who knows how many illegal, unauthorised keys
0:25:49 > 0:25:51were floating around London too.
0:25:54 > 0:25:57'When Charles II handed out the keys to his new park,
0:25:57 > 0:26:00'he must have known exactly what his favourite courtiers
0:26:00 > 0:26:02'would be getting up to in it.
0:26:02 > 0:26:06'Their behaviour seemed to get the royal nod.'
0:26:06 > 0:26:11The Earl of Rochester wrote one of his typically salacious poems about the park.
0:26:11 > 0:26:13He called it A Ramble In St James's.
0:26:13 > 0:26:16He described the park at night
0:26:16 > 0:26:18being teeming with men and women of all ranks,
0:26:18 > 0:26:21all of them up to no good.
0:26:21 > 0:26:24He said that nightly, beneath the trees' shades,
0:26:24 > 0:26:28buggeries, rapes and incests are made.
0:26:28 > 0:26:31The location of the park, handy for the court
0:26:31 > 0:26:34and the West End, was really convenient.
0:26:34 > 0:26:36No wonder they all came here for their liaisons.
0:26:40 > 0:26:44'The quarter century of Charles II's reign had seen an explosion
0:26:44 > 0:26:49'in prostitution and public lewdness and licentiousness.'
0:26:49 > 0:26:51To the Puritans, who'd been the guardians
0:26:51 > 0:26:54of the nation's morality under Cromwell,
0:26:54 > 0:26:59it seemed the country was sliding into debauchery.
0:26:59 > 0:27:03They believed that the numerous disasters which had beset the nation
0:27:03 > 0:27:06were the expressions of God's anger.
0:27:06 > 0:27:09Plague, Dutch attacks on the fleet,
0:27:09 > 0:27:12and the Great Fire of London
0:27:12 > 0:27:17were the consequences of this immoral age.
0:27:17 > 0:27:22'But in 1688, a much less merry monarch came to the throne.
0:27:22 > 0:27:25'The Puritans were to gain a powerful ally
0:27:25 > 0:27:29'in the staunchly protestant new King, William III.'
0:27:29 > 0:27:33So in the 1660s and '70s, you've got lots of vice.
0:27:33 > 0:27:37Everybody enjoying themselves. But it all changes in 1688.
0:27:37 > 0:27:40Yes, with the arrival of William III,
0:27:40 > 0:27:42they decide that they're going to justify this new regime
0:27:42 > 0:27:45by creating a godly monarchy which is going to lead
0:27:45 > 0:27:48a kind of second protestant reformation.
0:27:48 > 0:27:54The scale and fervour of this anti-vice crusade were astonishing.
0:27:54 > 0:27:58An organisation called the Society For The Reformation Of Manners
0:27:58 > 0:28:01was founded to halt the country's moral decline.
0:28:01 > 0:28:03Its volunteers patrolled the city's streets,
0:28:03 > 0:28:08zealously pursuing women suspected of prostitution.
0:28:08 > 0:28:12How did the Society For The Reformation Of Manners actually work?
0:28:12 > 0:28:14It had to rely on informers,
0:28:14 > 0:28:16so informers were people who were religiously motivated
0:28:16 > 0:28:18or perhaps financially motivated, er,
0:28:18 > 0:28:22to go out and arrest, er, prostitutes in particular.
0:28:22 > 0:28:23It's not fair, is it?
0:28:23 > 0:28:25Well, no, it isn't fair.
0:28:25 > 0:28:28And I don't think that many of the prosecutions that the Reformers instigated
0:28:28 > 0:28:32would, would match any kind of standards of evidence that we would expect.
0:28:32 > 0:28:34They used to do naming and shaming, didn't they?
0:28:34 > 0:28:40Yes, we have here a Black Roll which the, er, the Society's published,
0:28:40 > 0:28:42which is basically a published list of all the offenders
0:28:42 > 0:28:45that they've prosecuted in the past year.
0:28:45 > 0:28:46So, after what you've said,
0:28:46 > 0:28:48we can't really be sure
0:28:48 > 0:28:50that all of these women were guilty.
0:28:50 > 0:28:54Some of them could have been, you know, walking in a street where prostitutes were known to work.
0:28:54 > 0:28:56They could have been tarred by association.
0:28:56 > 0:28:58I think that's quite possible.
0:28:58 > 0:29:02Er, there was a great distrust of young, unmarried women at the time
0:29:02 > 0:29:05and I think anyone who was acting at all suspiciously
0:29:05 > 0:29:07was quite, er, likely to be arrested.
0:29:07 > 0:29:11'This backlash wasn't directed at prostitutes alone.
0:29:11 > 0:29:14'Almost any ordinary woman
0:29:14 > 0:29:17'might find herself a victim of the morality police.'
0:29:18 > 0:29:22'Sometimes, just being in the wrong place at the wrong time was enough.'
0:29:22 > 0:29:26The impact of the Society's campaign was considerable.
0:29:26 > 0:29:30Every week, 40 or 50 so-called "night walkers" were packed off
0:29:30 > 0:29:36to the infamous Bridewell Prison, many on decidedly dodgy evidence.
0:29:36 > 0:29:40Once in jail, the women were set to hard labour, beating hemp.
0:29:40 > 0:29:44Members of the public could even come in and watch them,
0:29:44 > 0:29:48stripped to the waist and whipped in a positively medieval punishment.
0:29:48 > 0:29:52This was still a deeply misogynistic society,
0:29:52 > 0:29:54profoundly suspicious of women,
0:29:54 > 0:29:59what they wore, where they went, how they behaved.
0:29:59 > 0:30:00At the same time, though,
0:30:00 > 0:30:05the Restoration did offer incredible opportunities for women.
0:30:05 > 0:30:08None greater and yet more provocative than in the theatre.
0:30:12 > 0:30:16It was here that women were to experience
0:30:16 > 0:30:18a whole new level of freedom.
0:30:18 > 0:30:22Theatres had been outlawed under the Commonwealth.
0:30:22 > 0:30:26Charles II re-opens them on his Restoration in 1660
0:30:26 > 0:30:29and they were to become the symbol of his age.
0:30:40 > 0:30:43'There's one surviving theatre in the country,
0:30:43 > 0:30:45'the small but perfectly formed, Theatre Royal
0:30:45 > 0:30:47'in Richmond, North Yorkshire,
0:30:47 > 0:30:49'which provides our best guide
0:30:49 > 0:30:51'to the world of the Restoration playhouse.'
0:30:51 > 0:30:55Ooh, this is pretty good up here. What's this part of it?
0:30:55 > 0:30:58'After 18 years of closure under the Puritan regime,
0:30:58 > 0:31:01'theatres weren't simply re-opened in 1660,
0:31:01 > 0:31:05'they were totally reinvented.'
0:31:05 > 0:31:07This is a completely new thing of the 1660s, isn't it,
0:31:07 > 0:31:10- having the curtain between the back and the front?- Yes.
0:31:10 > 0:31:13- Shakespeare wouldn't have known what we were doing here?- No.
0:31:13 > 0:31:16Da-dah! Ooh, it's great down here on the stage, isn't it?
0:31:16 > 0:31:19Tell me how this scenery works. This was new.
0:31:19 > 0:31:20You have four sets of flats here.
0:31:20 > 0:31:22They're angled in a "V" shape
0:31:22 > 0:31:24to give you perspective up towards the back.
0:31:24 > 0:31:27Whoa!
0:31:29 > 0:31:32Arrg! Arrg!
0:31:33 > 0:31:37'With the newly introduced footlights blazing,
0:31:37 > 0:31:40'and occasionally burning down the theatre,
0:31:40 > 0:31:42'a visit to the playhouse in the 1660s
0:31:42 > 0:31:44'would have been a thrilling experience.'
0:31:46 > 0:31:48For women in particular,
0:31:48 > 0:31:51the theatre offered more than mere entertainment.
0:31:51 > 0:31:53This was a new space,
0:31:53 > 0:31:56in which they were welcome on equal terms with men.
0:31:59 > 0:32:02Is the opening up of the theatre going to be really important
0:32:02 > 0:32:06for letting women come to the fore in society?
0:32:06 > 0:32:07I think it is
0:32:07 > 0:32:10and I think what...you know, Restoration society
0:32:10 > 0:32:12is a very much more open society.
0:32:12 > 0:32:15If we think about one of the other new inventions,
0:32:15 > 0:32:18social inventions at the time, the coffee house,
0:32:18 > 0:32:22where men go to drink coffee and to talk about politics,
0:32:22 > 0:32:25women are not allowed in coffee houses
0:32:25 > 0:32:28so the theatre is the other great sort of public space
0:32:28 > 0:32:32where culture can be discussed, political arguments can be voiced,
0:32:32 > 0:32:36so theatre opens up a whole set of opportunities
0:32:36 > 0:32:39for women connecting with that broader public.
0:32:39 > 0:32:43In Shakespeare's time, the upper crust stayed away
0:32:43 > 0:32:46from the rough and tumble of London's playhouses.
0:32:46 > 0:32:49But now, encouraged by the King's patronage,
0:32:49 > 0:32:51they flock to the theatre.
0:32:53 > 0:32:56The auditorium is divided up on class lines,
0:32:56 > 0:32:59so you get higher, lower people sitting in different areas.
0:32:59 > 0:33:01Down here in the pit,
0:33:01 > 0:33:04this is perhaps the most lively and exciting area,
0:33:04 > 0:33:07this is where all the young, single men and gallants would want to come
0:33:07 > 0:33:09so they could be really up close to the actresses.
0:33:09 > 0:33:11Sitting amongst them you might find the odd female,
0:33:11 > 0:33:14she was likely to be a high-class prostitute.
0:33:14 > 0:33:18You could spot her by her black masque or vizard.
0:33:20 > 0:33:23These are the boxes, the most expensive seats,
0:33:23 > 0:33:26and here you would have got respectable gentlemen
0:33:26 > 0:33:28bringing their respectable wives,
0:33:28 > 0:33:30even to see some fairly unrespectable plays,
0:33:30 > 0:33:35cos this is where the fashionable world would sit to see and to be seen.
0:33:35 > 0:33:38And if there were any Royal visitors in the house,
0:33:38 > 0:33:39this is where they would have sat.
0:33:39 > 0:33:42So these are the cheapest seats up here, in the gallery.
0:33:42 > 0:33:44This is where you'd have got all the booing and the cat-calling
0:33:44 > 0:33:47and the drumming of the feet on the floor.
0:33:47 > 0:33:49Up here, it was pretty cheap and cheerful.
0:33:49 > 0:33:51You're a long way from the stage, but the big advantage is
0:33:51 > 0:33:56you can drop your orange peel down onto the heads of the people below.
0:34:01 > 0:34:04Charles hadn't just reinstated the theatres in 1660,
0:34:04 > 0:34:10he'd also ordered that the female roles must now be taken by women.
0:34:10 > 0:34:14Previously the girls had always been played by boys.
0:34:14 > 0:34:17The first generation of women
0:34:17 > 0:34:19to take to the public stage became stars
0:34:19 > 0:34:24and invented an entirely new profession - that of the actress.
0:34:26 > 0:34:29These women were real pioneers in lots of senses, weren't they?
0:34:29 > 0:34:32They're very much pioneers and they're real risk takers as well,
0:34:32 > 0:34:33because, when you think about it,
0:34:33 > 0:34:35this is an incredibly dangerous thing to do.
0:34:35 > 0:34:38There had been no professional actresses before this in England.
0:34:38 > 0:34:40How did they know it was going to work,
0:34:40 > 0:34:42that they were going to make a living?
0:34:42 > 0:34:44Well, I'm here on the stage, just here,
0:34:44 > 0:34:45and you're in the auditorium,
0:34:45 > 0:34:48but we're in the same space effectively, aren't we?
0:34:48 > 0:34:51There's none between us and there is accounts which suggest
0:34:51 > 0:34:54that in fact this, what we're doing now, happened during shows.
0:34:54 > 0:34:56What, how did that happen then?
0:34:56 > 0:34:58For example, if something happened they didn't like,
0:34:58 > 0:35:01the audience would boo and shout, and the actors might kind of adlib
0:35:01 > 0:35:03and extemporise and kind of change it.
0:35:03 > 0:35:06- It's all very fast and loose. - Oh, yes.- They're making it up as they're going along.
0:35:06 > 0:35:08So the actresses will have to pretend
0:35:08 > 0:35:10that they're somebody they're not,
0:35:10 > 0:35:13but also they had to be really good at crowd control, don't they?
0:35:13 > 0:35:15The skills of an actress in the Restoration
0:35:15 > 0:35:18are akin to the skills of, for example, a stand-up comic now.
0:35:18 > 0:35:20You know, you've got to be able to deal with hecklers,
0:35:20 > 0:35:23you've got to be prepared to extemporise and make things up
0:35:23 > 0:35:25to go with the flow of it.
0:35:25 > 0:35:27In the Restoration,
0:35:27 > 0:35:29it was a much more dramatic, riskier thing to be doing.
0:35:29 > 0:35:33You know, plays could completely collapse. They could fall to bits,
0:35:33 > 0:35:36because you just didn't know how the audience were going to react.
0:35:36 > 0:35:40In the most daring innovation of the Restoration theatre,
0:35:40 > 0:35:42'the so-called breeches role,
0:35:42 > 0:35:46'women were now literally wearing the trousers.'
0:35:46 > 0:35:49Now, today you'd only see a woman in this kind of get up
0:35:49 > 0:35:54on the stage in a pantomime, but it was really common in the 1660s
0:35:54 > 0:35:57and these breeches roles were...
0:35:57 > 0:35:58Yes, OK, they were about looking
0:35:58 > 0:36:01at a lady's lovely legs and titillation.
0:36:01 > 0:36:05But also, it's a real sense that when women put on the men's clothes,
0:36:05 > 0:36:06they were somehow released.
0:36:06 > 0:36:09They could say and do all sorts of new things,
0:36:09 > 0:36:13which even included a little bit of masculine violence and fighting.
0:36:13 > 0:36:17The real importance of the breeches role
0:36:17 > 0:36:19was the opportunity it gave the actresses
0:36:19 > 0:36:24to launch a devastating critique of Restoration men.
0:36:24 > 0:36:27You know, a very masculine society in some ways, Restoration, hmm,
0:36:27 > 0:36:29culture, Restoration theatre,
0:36:29 > 0:36:32Restoration theatre's full of these really rather unpleasant men
0:36:32 > 0:36:34- who just go round seducing hundreds of women.- Hmm.
0:36:34 > 0:36:36You know, and that's very funny.
0:36:36 > 0:36:37Er, so there's something
0:36:37 > 0:36:40about having women on stage wearing trousers,
0:36:40 > 0:36:43parodying men, parodying the way men behave when they're in courtship,
0:36:43 > 0:36:45the way men behave when they're all being mates together.
0:36:45 > 0:36:48Making fun of men when they all get their swords out
0:36:48 > 0:36:49and start hitting each other.
0:36:49 > 0:36:51There's something, I mean, there is a kind of extend
0:36:51 > 0:36:54to which it does give a space or allows a space for women
0:36:54 > 0:36:58to resist aspects of Restoration culture, I think.
0:36:58 > 0:37:02MUSIC AND APPLAUSE
0:37:02 > 0:37:06But the women taking these outrageous liberties on the public stage
0:37:06 > 0:37:08wouldn't always get away with it.
0:37:08 > 0:37:13The theatre was at the very heart of Restoration's society's ferocious culture wars.
0:37:13 > 0:37:16To outraged Puritans, actresses treading the boards
0:37:16 > 0:37:20were just as bad as prostitutes walking the streets.
0:37:22 > 0:37:26And what did those old Puritans really have against women actors?
0:37:26 > 0:37:29Why did they get so offended by them?
0:37:29 > 0:37:33In general, er, Puritans don't tend to like women very much at all.
0:37:33 > 0:37:37They, they're the origins of most sin in human society, hmm,
0:37:37 > 0:37:40so Puritans are very anxious about sexuality,
0:37:40 > 0:37:44they're very anxious about the discipline of the godly family
0:37:44 > 0:37:49and women on the stage represent just about everything that would be wrong.
0:37:49 > 0:37:51You can almost hear the sort of
0:37:51 > 0:37:5317th-century Mary Whitehouse's saying, you know,
0:37:53 > 0:37:56"This is just unacceptable. Turn it off!"
0:37:56 > 0:37:59They called them notorious strumpets and objectionable whores
0:37:59 > 0:38:01and all that sort of thing.
0:38:01 > 0:38:03Some fine language, the most peculiar, I think,
0:38:03 > 0:38:04is, er... "buttered buns."
0:38:04 > 0:38:07- They're buttered buns? - Buttered buns.
0:38:07 > 0:38:09Buttered buns, er, er, whores on the stage who've,
0:38:09 > 0:38:12who've been over used, shall we say?
0:38:15 > 0:38:17Despite the Puritans' best efforts,
0:38:17 > 0:38:19within 30 years of the Restoration,
0:38:19 > 0:38:22there were almost 100 professional actresses
0:38:22 > 0:38:24and it was in the theatre
0:38:24 > 0:38:28that arguably the most famous person of the century
0:38:28 > 0:38:29was to make her name.
0:38:31 > 0:38:34This is Nell Gwynn.
0:38:34 > 0:38:37She wasn't the first female to appear on a London stage
0:38:37 > 0:38:39but she is the most celebrated.
0:38:39 > 0:38:43From the top, you could think she was a court lady
0:38:43 > 0:38:45with the languid eyes and the pink cheeks
0:38:45 > 0:38:48and all of these very expensive looking pearls,
0:38:48 > 0:38:50but lower down, you can sense
0:38:50 > 0:38:53that Nell is treading that fine line
0:38:53 > 0:38:57between respectability and raunchiness.
0:38:57 > 0:38:59Her clothes are only just clinging onto her.
0:38:59 > 0:39:02In fact, we do have a hint of nipple.
0:39:04 > 0:39:07Witty, independent,
0:39:07 > 0:39:10unafraid to express her desires and speak her mind.
0:39:10 > 0:39:12Nell embodied a new breed of woman,
0:39:12 > 0:39:15both in real life and on the stage.
0:39:15 > 0:39:18In his play Secret Love,
0:39:18 > 0:39:21John Dryden created a character especially for Nell.
0:39:21 > 0:39:25Florimel was a wild mistress who only accepted marriage
0:39:25 > 0:39:29when guaranteed freedom within it.
0:39:29 > 0:39:33The part was to make Nell a bone fide star. Pepys was bowled over.
0:39:33 > 0:39:36He declared it impossible to have Florimel's part
0:39:36 > 0:39:39"ever done better than it is by Nellie."
0:39:39 > 0:39:44Nell was custom-made for the bawdy, vigorous world of the theatre
0:39:44 > 0:39:47and, in many ways, she's the complete Restoration woman,
0:39:47 > 0:39:51who really couldn't have existed at any moment before the 1660s.
0:39:53 > 0:39:58Nell is a very, very fine actress and she's stunningly beautiful
0:39:58 > 0:40:03and Dryden comments that she's really designed for the stage.
0:40:03 > 0:40:05- She's so beautiful. She's only good at comedies though.- Yeah.
0:40:05 > 0:40:08And that's one of the things, she's not very good at the tragedies.
0:40:08 > 0:40:10And, and a lot of the playwrights
0:40:10 > 0:40:15actually make prologues for women like Nell
0:40:15 > 0:40:17to sort of address the audience directly
0:40:17 > 0:40:20and, and you can think of those prologues as er, as Nell saying,
0:40:20 > 0:40:22"Look at me, you know, I'm pretty good,
0:40:22 > 0:40:25"if you're impressed by me, come and have a chat afterwards, you know,
0:40:25 > 0:40:28"if you want to give me some money or land, that would be excellent."
0:40:28 > 0:40:31It's, he wants his testimony to her brilliance and the only,
0:40:31 > 0:40:34the brilliance of the other women hmm, but they are so popular
0:40:34 > 0:40:39that the theatrical companies know they can make money out of them being there.
0:40:41 > 0:40:44On the back of her stage career, Nell became rich,
0:40:44 > 0:40:48famous and ultimately the mother of the King's children.
0:40:48 > 0:40:52She triumphed in the face of her numerous Puritan critics.
0:40:52 > 0:40:57Do you think it's going too far for us to imagine Charles II
0:40:57 > 0:40:59and Nell Gwyn having a bit of a laugh
0:40:59 > 0:41:01at the expense of the Puritans,
0:41:01 > 0:41:02teasing them, if you like?
0:41:02 > 0:41:05It's difficult for us to really recapture
0:41:05 > 0:41:06quite how horrified they were...
0:41:06 > 0:41:08SHE CHUCKLES
0:41:08 > 0:41:11..if, if the King was encouraging this sort of degeneracy
0:41:11 > 0:41:13and was clearly part of it.
0:41:13 > 0:41:17Er, I think if, if we think especially about some of the plays
0:41:17 > 0:41:19that they might have performed in the comedies,
0:41:19 > 0:41:24the figure of the rather dry, boring, hypocritical Puritan
0:41:24 > 0:41:27is one that both Charles and Nell
0:41:27 > 0:41:30would have had a jolly good chortle about.
0:41:30 > 0:41:32By sheer force of personality,
0:41:32 > 0:41:37Nell made her way to the very pinnacle of the Restoration world.
0:41:37 > 0:41:41'But it wasn't just on stage that women were taking men's roles.'
0:41:46 > 0:41:49By the end of the century, a small but growing band
0:41:49 > 0:41:54of fiercely independent women had made their mark.
0:41:54 > 0:41:59Some of them in the most masculine profession of all.
0:41:59 > 0:42:04'And Restoration's society now seemed just about ready to recognise
0:42:04 > 0:42:07'and even to celebrate their achievements.'
0:42:10 > 0:42:15The Royal Hospital in Chelsea was founded by Charles II in 1681,
0:42:15 > 0:42:18to care for old and infirm soldiers
0:42:18 > 0:42:20and its archives reveal the story
0:42:20 > 0:42:23of one of the most remarkable of these women.
0:42:26 > 0:42:29This is a list of old soldiers entitled to a pension
0:42:29 > 0:42:32as administered by the Royal Hospital at Chelsea here.
0:42:32 > 0:42:36As well as their names, you get their physical characteristics.
0:42:36 > 0:42:39For example here, we have John Woods,
0:42:39 > 0:42:41who is "a black man, shot by the left eye."
0:42:41 > 0:42:45You get the descriptions of the wounds, so you don't give the money to the wrong guy.
0:42:45 > 0:42:48Underneath John Woods, we have Christian Welsh.
0:42:48 > 0:42:49Now, here's a surprise.
0:42:49 > 0:42:51Christian Welsh is in fact
0:42:51 > 0:42:55"a fat, jolly woman who has received several wounds in the service."
0:42:55 > 0:42:58And here's the amazing part - "in the habit of a man."
0:42:58 > 0:43:05In 1691, the 26-year-old Christian was running a pub in Dublin.
0:43:05 > 0:43:07One day, her husband Richard disappeared.
0:43:07 > 0:43:10When she discovered that he'd joined the army,
0:43:10 > 0:43:13'she decided to track him down by enlisting herself.'
0:43:13 > 0:43:17Now, what I'm dying to know is how on Earth
0:43:17 > 0:43:20did she get away with it for 12 years, living as a man?
0:43:20 > 0:43:22Christian Welsh says in her memoir very simply
0:43:22 > 0:43:23that she just put on
0:43:23 > 0:43:25her husband's clothes
0:43:25 > 0:43:27and, luckily, they were the same size.
0:43:27 > 0:43:29She says that her breasts were quite small
0:43:29 > 0:43:32so they didn't need to be bound and she also wore a quilted waistcoat.
0:43:32 > 0:43:35The other thing she did was that she had what she called
0:43:35 > 0:43:38"a silver painted urinary instrument."
0:43:38 > 0:43:40- A urinary instrument? - A urinary instrument.
0:43:40 > 0:43:43- So I'm thinking that's so that she can wee...wee standing up?- Pee.
0:43:43 > 0:43:44- Yes, yes.- Golly.
0:43:44 > 0:43:48Christian fought her way across the mud of Flanders
0:43:48 > 0:43:53with the Duke of Marlborough's troops as they took on the French.
0:43:53 > 0:43:57She was captured and exchanged and wounded several times.
0:43:57 > 0:44:02She fought and won a duel and looted and pillaged with the best of them.
0:44:02 > 0:44:07But after 12 years living as a man, the game was up.
0:44:07 > 0:44:10How did she finally get found out
0:44:10 > 0:44:13because she is discovered to be a woman in the end, isn't she?
0:44:13 > 0:44:15Yeah, well, she's on the battlefield.
0:44:15 > 0:44:17She's wounded and I think she says that there's a bullet
0:44:17 > 0:44:22- that goes into her groin so er, there's no disguising that.- Yeah.
0:44:22 > 0:44:24The urinary instrument isn't going to...
0:44:24 > 0:44:26isn't going to cut the mustard there.
0:44:26 > 0:44:30So she's taken off to a hospital and er, her disguise is, is,
0:44:30 > 0:44:32I mean, her identity is found out.
0:44:32 > 0:44:37But this wasn't the end of Christian's story.
0:44:37 > 0:44:41The tale of the female soldier disguised as a man,
0:44:41 > 0:44:43captured the public imagination.
0:44:43 > 0:44:48Far from being condemned for her deception, she was celebrated.
0:44:48 > 0:44:53When her memoirs were published, they became an instant hit.
0:44:53 > 0:44:57"A Corporal belonging to Brigadier Panton's regiment
0:44:57 > 0:44:59"attempted to steal my booty;
0:44:59 > 0:45:03"he drew and I had the sinew of my little finger cut in two,
0:45:03 > 0:45:09"so with the butt end of my pistol, I struck out one of his eyes."
0:45:09 > 0:45:12Do you think that the reason that her book is so popular
0:45:12 > 0:45:15is that it's wish fulfilment for these stuck-at-home women thinking,
0:45:15 > 0:45:18"Wow, Christian! I want to be like you."
0:45:18 > 0:45:19I certainly think they did.
0:45:19 > 0:45:22I mean, I could imagine women reading that
0:45:22 > 0:45:26and actually being inspired themselves to go off and do what she did or, in other ways,
0:45:26 > 0:45:29to feel that they could break gender boundaries of the period.
0:45:29 > 0:45:32I think all of that kind of adds to this idea
0:45:32 > 0:45:34that there might be something else I could do
0:45:34 > 0:45:38and I think that she probably was very inspirational for women.
0:45:40 > 0:45:43Christian didn't just win public acclaim.
0:45:43 > 0:45:46She also received the ultimate royal seal of approval.
0:45:46 > 0:45:49Queen Anne personally granted her a military pension
0:45:49 > 0:45:54and she ended her days at the Royal Hospital.
0:45:54 > 0:46:01Christian broke boundaries, refusing to allow her sex to hold her back.
0:46:01 > 0:46:04'But other women went even further.
0:46:04 > 0:46:07'Taking on men with brains as well as brawn.'
0:46:09 > 0:46:12In 1666, at the height of his war with the Dutch,
0:46:12 > 0:46:15King Charles II needed a trusted agent
0:46:15 > 0:46:19to report back on enemies plotting against him in Holland.
0:46:19 > 0:46:23'The choice of spy was a surprising one.
0:46:23 > 0:46:26'A young woman from a relatively humble background'
0:46:26 > 0:46:30at the margins of court society was dispatched to Antwerp
0:46:30 > 0:46:33to gather vital intelligence.
0:46:33 > 0:46:36She had code names for this.
0:46:36 > 0:46:40Sometimes she was called Agent 160, other times Astrea.
0:46:40 > 0:46:44She'd run up expenses and the government hadn't paid her back,
0:46:44 > 0:46:46so she wrote to a friend saying,
0:46:46 > 0:46:48"Please lend me money or I'm going to jail tomorrow."
0:46:48 > 0:46:52Just a couple of years later, though, she'd really turned things around.
0:46:52 > 0:46:55She'd started writing plays for the London stage
0:46:55 > 0:46:57and she was earning good money.
0:46:57 > 0:47:01She wrote some of her plays under her spy name of Astrea
0:47:01 > 0:47:05but her real name was Aphra Behn.
0:47:05 > 0:47:08Through her talent and tenacity,
0:47:08 > 0:47:10Aphra forced her way
0:47:10 > 0:47:13into the utterly male-dominated literary world.
0:47:13 > 0:47:16She became the first woman in English history
0:47:16 > 0:47:19to make her living from writing.
0:47:22 > 0:47:27'And she was fearless in demanding equality with her male peers.'
0:47:31 > 0:47:35'She's buried here at Westminster Abbey,
0:47:35 > 0:47:38'though not quite where you might expect.
0:47:38 > 0:47:41'Poets Corner is the literary holy of holies
0:47:41 > 0:47:45'with memorials to Chaucer and Shakespeare,
0:47:45 > 0:47:48'to contemporaries of Aphra's like Dryden and Milton,
0:47:48 > 0:47:52'and to other female authors like George Eliot and Jane Austen.'
0:47:53 > 0:47:56'But there's no sign of Aphra here.
0:47:56 > 0:48:00'The obscurity of her grave mirrors the sad neglect of her work.
0:48:00 > 0:48:04'For over 200 years, she was simply way ahead of her time
0:48:04 > 0:48:07'and it wasn't until the 20th century
0:48:07 > 0:48:11'that her reputation was finally resurrected.'
0:48:11 > 0:48:17This is the grave of Mrs Aphra Behn, died 1689
0:48:17 > 0:48:21and Virginia Woolf said that every woman ought to come and lay flowers
0:48:21 > 0:48:23on the grave of Aphra Behn
0:48:23 > 0:48:27because she gave them the right to speak their minds.
0:48:27 > 0:48:29And she did, but I think she also gave them
0:48:29 > 0:48:31the right to speak their bodies.
0:48:31 > 0:48:33- To talk about their bodies?- Yes.
0:48:33 > 0:48:35And this was new. It hadn't happened before?
0:48:35 > 0:48:38It's very new and it wouldn't happen for a long time again.
0:48:38 > 0:48:41So she is really something.
0:48:41 > 0:48:43She dominated the theatre.
0:48:43 > 0:48:46She had more plays put on than anybody. Not any woman, any man.
0:48:46 > 0:48:48- Any man as well?- Yes.
0:48:48 > 0:48:50She had a lot of successes, um,
0:48:50 > 0:48:53and when the theatres seemed to fail, she turned to fiction.
0:48:53 > 0:48:55She wrote some of the best fiction of the period.
0:48:55 > 0:48:58She wrote poetry, she was a court poet.
0:48:58 > 0:49:00She was a woman of great distinction.
0:49:00 > 0:49:03She's the first woman who makes her whole living like this.
0:49:03 > 0:49:06But, but then she's one of the first people,
0:49:06 > 0:49:08- you don't have to gender it.- Right.
0:49:08 > 0:49:10I mean, this is the first generation
0:49:10 > 0:49:13in which people made a living solely out of writing.
0:49:13 > 0:49:17For a woman as enterprising as Aphra,
0:49:17 > 0:49:22the recently re-opened theatres presented a real opportunity.
0:49:22 > 0:49:25The time is right for a professional writer
0:49:25 > 0:49:28and the time is certainly right for a professional woman writer
0:49:28 > 0:49:31because women at that stage would not know
0:49:31 > 0:49:34that they were supposed to write differently from men.
0:49:34 > 0:49:36Later they were told they had to, and they did.
0:49:39 > 0:49:45Unconstrained, Aphra told the truth above love and marriage and sex.
0:49:45 > 0:49:50Even today, her most notorious poem still retains its power to shock.
0:49:53 > 0:49:56I'm dying to ask you about the poem called The Disappointment.
0:49:56 > 0:49:58- Oh, yes.- What's that one about?
0:49:58 > 0:50:00Ah, well, now, that is naughty.
0:50:00 > 0:50:03That is all set in a little pastoral theme of shepherds and shepherdesses.
0:50:03 > 0:50:05The shepherdess is dying for it,
0:50:05 > 0:50:08she's there, all ready for the sexual act
0:50:08 > 0:50:10and she gets herself ready
0:50:10 > 0:50:12and lays herself out for...precisely for that.
0:50:12 > 0:50:15The man comes and it's going to be a hot erotic moment
0:50:15 > 0:50:21but, at the very climax, he finds he has premature ejaculation.
0:50:21 > 0:50:24- It's a disappointment. - It is a disappointment to her and she runs away
0:50:24 > 0:50:26and he is left cursing his fate.
0:50:26 > 0:50:29It's hilarious. Who would have thought it?
0:50:29 > 0:50:31It's hilarious and nobody, no woman
0:50:31 > 0:50:34in the 18th or 19th century could have written like that.
0:50:34 > 0:50:38The Restoration provided the perfect conditions
0:50:38 > 0:50:42for Aphra's openness and brutal honesty to flourish,
0:50:42 > 0:50:47but she was a fierce critic of the inequalities of the age.
0:50:52 > 0:50:54Hellena says in The Rover,
0:50:54 > 0:50:56"What would I get from sex before marriage?
0:50:56 > 0:50:59"Well, a cradle full of noise and mischief."
0:50:59 > 0:51:02- A baby and that's not going to do you any good at all.- A baby, yes.
0:51:02 > 0:51:05This is the, the double standard is absolute.
0:51:05 > 0:51:09Aphra was acutely conscious of her position as a pioneer
0:51:09 > 0:51:13and made a remarkably modern sounding call for equality.
0:51:16 > 0:51:20In the introduction to one of her plays, Aphra Behn says
0:51:20 > 0:51:22she's not doing it for the money.
0:51:22 > 0:51:27She says, "I am not content to write for a third day only,"
0:51:27 > 0:51:30by this she means the third day of the performance,
0:51:30 > 0:51:33when the playwright gets to take home the profits of the theatre.
0:51:33 > 0:51:34"This is not enough.
0:51:34 > 0:51:36"I value fame," she says,
0:51:36 > 0:51:39"as much as if I had been born a hero."
0:51:39 > 0:51:40Not a heroine.
0:51:40 > 0:51:43This sounds like someone in the 20th century, doesn't it?
0:51:43 > 0:51:46Saying I'm a woman, I want the same recognition as a man.
0:51:46 > 0:51:50And I believe there must have been something special
0:51:50 > 0:51:53about the Restoration to allow women to start saying these things,
0:51:53 > 0:51:56because Aphra Behn isn't the only one.
0:51:58 > 0:52:02'These remarkable women took advantage of a nation in flux,
0:52:02 > 0:52:05'a new King, a new city and a new culture,
0:52:05 > 0:52:08'to stake their claim to equality.'
0:52:10 > 0:52:12'Buried not far from Aphra, in the Abbey,
0:52:12 > 0:52:15'is a woman who demanded her part
0:52:15 > 0:52:19'in the most ground-breaking and the most defiantly masculine development
0:52:19 > 0:52:22'of the Restoration - the scientific revolution.'
0:52:24 > 0:52:27This is the tomb of my heroine, Margaret Cavendish,
0:52:27 > 0:52:29the Duchess of Newcastle.
0:52:29 > 0:52:32At first sight, she looks like a proper 17th-century wife,
0:52:32 > 0:52:36lying demurely next to her husband, and it says down here
0:52:36 > 0:52:39that she was "virtuous and loving"
0:52:39 > 0:52:42but, actually, she could be here in her own right,
0:52:42 > 0:52:45and the clue to why is the book that's in her hand.
0:52:49 > 0:52:51Margaret was a prolific writer.
0:52:51 > 0:52:55Her material was always challenging and often subversive.
0:52:55 > 0:52:58It covered everything from romance to philosophy
0:52:58 > 0:53:02and, most radically of all, she was the first woman in the country
0:53:02 > 0:53:04to publish scientific works.
0:53:05 > 0:53:09She came into confrontation with some of the leading thinkers of the day
0:53:09 > 0:53:13and she made statements that you can only describe as feminist
0:53:13 > 0:53:19and that's where I think she's the most controversial woman of the whole Restoration period.
0:53:19 > 0:53:23As a woman, Margaret was denied a university education,
0:53:23 > 0:53:26but that didn't hold her back.
0:53:26 > 0:53:28She learnt her science at home.
0:53:28 > 0:53:31She published six books on the subject
0:53:31 > 0:53:34and took on her male peers in many of the current debates.
0:53:34 > 0:53:40On everything from matter and motion to the nature of magnetism.
0:53:40 > 0:53:44Her reputation was so great that, in May 1667,
0:53:44 > 0:53:47she secured an invitation
0:53:47 > 0:53:50to the ultimate bastion of scientific endeavour,
0:53:50 > 0:53:52the newly founded Royal Society.
0:53:54 > 0:53:56Was it quite unusual that they allowed a woman
0:53:56 > 0:53:57to come into their meeting?
0:53:57 > 0:53:59Yes, unprecedented.
0:53:59 > 0:54:01She was the first woman to visit the Royal Society.
0:54:01 > 0:54:04These were...a society of gentlemen,
0:54:04 > 0:54:07"gentlemen free and unconfined," they called themselves.
0:54:07 > 0:54:10So Margaret was very special in that respect.
0:54:10 > 0:54:15Well, we know that she saw the air being weighed in Boyle's pump,
0:54:15 > 0:54:17she saw a piece of roast mutton being turned into blood,
0:54:17 > 0:54:20- we don't know how they did that, do we?- No, I don't.
0:54:20 > 0:54:25And we also know that she saw a louse down Hooke's microscope.
0:54:25 > 0:54:28And here is a huge louse.
0:54:28 > 0:54:29Look at that.
0:54:29 > 0:54:33- That's holding a human hair.- Isn't that wonderful?- Ughh.
0:54:33 > 0:54:35It's in Hooke's book, called Micrographia.
0:54:35 > 0:54:37Yes, recently published.
0:54:37 > 0:54:39Which is all about the use of the microscope
0:54:39 > 0:54:41- and what you can see, isn't it? - Indeed, yeah.
0:54:41 > 0:54:44And what you can see, and also what you understood about what you saw.
0:54:46 > 0:54:50'Robert Hooke's best seller, Micrographia,
0:54:50 > 0:54:54'had publicised and popularised the Royal Society's work.
0:54:54 > 0:54:57'Pepys declared it the most ingenious book ever,
0:54:57 > 0:55:01'but Margaret begged to differ.'
0:55:01 > 0:55:04This is her own book and she's saying, "Well, you know,
0:55:04 > 0:55:07"microscopes are all very well, but what's really the point of them?"
0:55:07 > 0:55:12"A louse by the help of a magnifying glass appears like a lobster."
0:55:12 > 0:55:14That's not really what it looks like.
0:55:14 > 0:55:17- It's deceptive, in some way.- Well, yeah.- It's distorting it.- Yeah.
0:55:17 > 0:55:20- She's, she's questioning the value, I suppose.- That's true.
0:55:20 > 0:55:24And Margaret says that very clearly - by investigating nature
0:55:24 > 0:55:27through these artificial instruments, you're distorting the truth.
0:55:27 > 0:55:30How can you possibly say that you're getting closer to the truth
0:55:30 > 0:55:34by using an instrument that you know is illusory?
0:55:34 > 0:55:36The instrument is deceptive,
0:55:36 > 0:55:39so how can you possibly believe what it's telling you in other respects.
0:55:39 > 0:55:43So the point that she makes there is in many ways a valid one.
0:55:43 > 0:55:49Though it wasn't a point the Royal Society were keen to hear.
0:55:49 > 0:55:53Her views were largely ignored and she was branded "mad Madge".
0:55:53 > 0:55:59'But Margaret wasn't prepared just to watch from the sidelines.
0:55:59 > 0:56:02'She found a brilliantly original way to question the work
0:56:02 > 0:56:05'of these male scientists and make a bold statement
0:56:05 > 0:56:08'of her own radically different view of the world.'
0:56:10 > 0:56:15She published one of the very first works of science fiction.
0:56:15 > 0:56:19In parts, this was a description of an incredible parallel universe
0:56:19 > 0:56:22with futuristic technology like submarines
0:56:22 > 0:56:24and ships powered by wind cannons.
0:56:28 > 0:56:31But this is more than mere fantasy.
0:56:31 > 0:56:34It was also a satire on the established world of science.
0:56:34 > 0:56:40In Margaret's utopia, her own scientific theories carried the day.
0:56:40 > 0:56:44'Women had the upper hand and men were their intellectual inferiors.'
0:56:48 > 0:56:52So this book of Margaret's, called The Blazing World,
0:56:52 > 0:56:56is really the first science fiction novel
0:56:56 > 0:56:59and the new world that she imagines is a very feminine place.
0:56:59 > 0:57:01It's ruled over by an Empress,
0:57:01 > 0:57:04and Margaret herself appears in the story
0:57:04 > 0:57:06and she really stakes her claim.
0:57:06 > 0:57:08This is what she says,
0:57:08 > 0:57:12"Though I cannot be Henry V or Charles II,
0:57:12 > 0:57:16"yet I endeavour to be Margaret I
0:57:16 > 0:57:19"and, although I have neither power,
0:57:19 > 0:57:22"time nor occasion to conquer the world,
0:57:22 > 0:57:26"I have made a world of my own."
0:57:26 > 0:57:31For a 17th-century woman, that's an extraordinary statement.
0:57:31 > 0:57:35350 years after the Restoration,
0:57:35 > 0:57:36Margaret is now regarded
0:57:36 > 0:57:39as one of the most original thinkers of the age
0:57:39 > 0:57:45and Aphra's plays are celebrated as some of the 17th century's finest.
0:57:47 > 0:57:49And, as for Nell Gwyn,
0:57:49 > 0:57:54she was and has always been the ultimate Restoration woman.
0:57:58 > 0:58:01Nell and Margaret and Aphra were extraordinary women.
0:58:01 > 0:58:03No-one can deny their brilliance,
0:58:03 > 0:58:06but they did live in an extraordinary age.
0:58:06 > 0:58:09It was the liberated atmosphere of the Restoration
0:58:09 > 0:58:13that allowed them to sound so much like modern women.
0:58:13 > 0:58:16We have to admit that the Restoration was a blip.
0:58:16 > 0:58:20As the status quo returned and things settled down again
0:58:20 > 0:58:22after the wars and the revolution,
0:58:22 > 0:58:24doors did begin to close
0:58:24 > 0:58:28but that's what makes our Restoration women so admirable,
0:58:28 > 0:58:32so inspirational and so utterly memorable.
0:58:52 > 0:58:56Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd