"'Tis pity that when laws are faulty they should not be mended or abolisht": Authority, legitimations, and honor in Aphra Behn's The Widdow Ranter

21-This description is historically accurate. See Bacon's relevant points in his Manifesto (279) and in "A Precis of the June Laws," which declared the prohibition of "all trade with the Indians" except for the friendly ones (274).

22Zwicker here is referring to Dryden's treatment of this notion in Absalom and Achitophel.

23The dissolution of government and the reverting of power to the people who, being the origin of power, have a right to rebellion was by no means a unanimously accepted Whig principle. In fact, few extreme Whigs, such as Sidney, Locke, and Shaftesbury, supported the total dissolution of government and rebellion. See Tyrrell's recurrent argument for self-preservation and defense (25,43,104,107,109-10), which does not nonetheless suggest rebellion: "For God gave man a Right to preserve .. himself Therefore since the first Law of Nature is Self-preservation, it is lawful for a man to use all means conducing to this end, that does not prejudice another mans Right in his particular life or happiness" (114-15). On the same issue, see also J. G. A. Pocock, "Negative and Positive Aspects" (John Locke und/and Immanuel Kant: Historical Reception and Contemporary Relevance. Ed. Martyn P. Thompson. Berlin: Duncker and Humblot, 1991. 45-61) 50-54; and Ashcraft, Revolutionary Politics 307-08, 587-88.

241 have borrowed the concept of person-in-authority in the context of Locke's political theory from A. W. Sparkes, "Trust and Teleology: Locke's Politics and his Doctrine of Creation" in Ashcraft's Critical Assessments 2: 122-24; for the legalistic language of the political debate from the civil war onward see Sharpe and Zwicker 8.

251-lis tremendous popular appeal accords with the account of the historical Bacon given by the commissioners. See Batten 15, 16 (note 1 above). In "Berkeley's `Declaration and Remonstrance,' May 29, 1676" Berkeley underscores Bacon's populist relationship to his followers as seduction of "Ignorant and wel affected... the lowest of the people" (271).

26The convergence of individualist exceptionalism and populism with an essentially aristocratic model of political legitimacy is not unprecedented; see, for example, Absalom and Achitophel, where the "rabble" figures as the most flimsy and dangerous basis of power for Monmouth, the charismatic leader.

27See Todd, The Works 455 notes to 11. 5 and 8.

28A good example of this is when the "Rabble," having seized Wellman, threaten to hang him-"Let's Barbicu this Fat Rogue"-Bacon's response is to order them to let him go: "Begone, and know your distance to the Council" (II.iv.130).

29For the signification of vows and oaths in the literature of the period, and in Behn in particular, see chapter 4 of Susan Staves's Players' Scepters: Fictions of Authority in the Restoration (Lincoln: Nebraska UP, 1979).

30For his glamorous leadership, reminiscent of the late Stuarts, his concern with his reputation, resembling that of Monmouth's, and his theatric death see Todd, Gender 52-53.

WORKS CITED