“The impudence of both sexes was now become so greate and so universal, persons of all ranks keeping their courtesans publicly, that the King had lately directed a letter to the Bishops to order their Cleargy to preach against that sin, swearing, &c. and to put the Ecclesiastical Laws in execution without any indulgence.”
Mary, on July 9, 1691, wrote to the justices of the peace directing that they execute all laws against the profanation of the Sabbath, and even went so far as to have constables stationed on street corners to capture pies and puddings that were being taken to the bakers to be cooked on that day. In 1697 and 1698 King William issued two orders concerning the acting of anything contrary to good morals or manners. Queen Anne, who never went to the public theatre, made frequent proclamations against immoral plays, masked women, and the admittance of spectators behind the scenes, and in 1703 she issued a proclamation against vice in general.
Altogether, the forces of the court and of the government were acting in accord to suppress the abuses which their predecessors had countenanced both by favor and by participation.
But however potent may have been the influence of the court, the real movement for social reform came from the people, whose will the court was really carrying out. The movement on the part of the people was forwarded by the rise of various societies which were established for moral, philanthropic, and religious purposes.[60]
The Society for the Reformation of Manners, inaugurated by a small number of gentlemen in 1692, was probably the most influential and best known of these organizations. It was organized primarily for the purpose of informing on evildoers, and that there might be no criticism concerning their sincerity, the fines were paid over to charity. In addition to carrying on this work of informing, the society established quarterly lectures on moral subjects, secured the preaching of sermons on its objects, and in 1699 it claimed to have secured thousands of convictions.[61] The church was brought into the movement by Archbishop Tenison’s circular to the clergy encouraging them to cooperate with the laity in the movement. This movement went farther than the prosecution of overt acts against morality, for in 1701–2 the players at Lincoln’s Inn Fields were prosecuted for uttering impious, lewd, and immoral expressions.[62]
Collier’s attack on the stage, published in 1698, was no doubt a potent influence in crystallizing public opinion in regard to the drama, but it does not stand alone; it is merely a sign of a movement which the stage had begun to notice and profit by several years previously. During the year 1698 not less than sixteen books and pamphlets were published in the controversy. Collier’s book had great influence in furthering the work of reformation; but, low as was the tone of the drama at the time, one must confess that in some particulars Collier is radical and far-fetched in his arguments and conclusions.
Cibber, though he had two years previously written a play with a distinct reformatory and moral purpose, did not much relish Collier’s attack or agree with it. In the prologue to Xerxes he intimates that Collier might prove a good index for those who desired to read immoral literature:
“Thus ev’n sage Collier too might be accus’d,
If what h’as writ, thro’ ignorance, abus’d: