Did you think Robert Burns was just a romantic scribbler of love songs?
Today I want to tell you about his links to radicalism and the man I ve described
as Scotland s greatest hero... and where did it come to a head...
but in the oldest theatre in Scotland. If you re interested in the people,
places and events in Scottish history then click the subscribe button at the
bottom right of the screen and hit the notification bell
to be informed when I release new videos. In the meantime, let me tell you a story.
I m going to introduce you to dangerous radicals, seditionists, French revolutionaries
and a whole heap of trouble for Robert Burns...
starting with the building of the delightful Georgian, Theatre Royal in Dumfries.
Robert Burns had moved to Dumfries and Galloway in 1788.
As well as farming he started work as an Exciseman in 1789
Of course, he went to theatrical performances at the Assembly rooms here in Dumfries.
A year later a campaign was started by thespian husband and wife team
Mr & Mrs Sutherland to build a theatre. Robert Burns provided stalwart
support and celebrity endorsement. He knew in late 18th century Britain
That the prologue he wrote for a fund-raising event
was a politically dangerous appeal to Scottish patriotism.
It spoke of Bruce, Wallace and Good Sir James Douglas...
but there was more searing political hot water to come.
The campaign was a success and thirty subscribers contributed
100 guineas each to fund the building.
Each subscriber was given a silver token that entitled them to free entry to the theatre.
You can still see four of those tokens in the theatre that have survived
from the 1790s to this day. Isn t that brilliant.
The Foundation stone was laid in March 1790 and the doors were opened to a
six hundred seat auditorium, on Saturday 29th September 1792.
Imagine the buzz of excitement of those early days.
That s how long this place has been here. Just to give you a bit of context,
let s think about what else was going on as this place was being funded and built?
There were still people alive who d fought at Culloden over who was the rightful king.
More recently there had been that rebellion in America,
with their crazy ideas of getting rid of Monarchs all together.
Over in France... oh it d make your
blood curdle what they were up to. That scared the bejesus out of the authorities.
Just when they d got rid of the Jacobites, along come Jacobins...
and these ridiculous ideas were spreading across the Channel and arriving from the Americas.
At the very time that funds were being raised to build this theatre
societies were cropping up across Scotland in support of the principles of the revolution.
After publishing his seditious book, The Rights of Man,
Thomas Paine had fled from England to France. People were agitating.
A new organisation The Society of the Friends of the People advocated Parliamentary reform:
airy fairy communist stuff like the people voting for representatives and running government.
By the time the theatre opened in 1792 things had reached fever pitch and one of
the key Scottish players, Thomas Muir, was about to be charged with sedition.
I told you about this guy in my video Scotland s Greatest Hero.
If you re interested in his incredible life, there s a link up there to come back to.
In this maelstrom Robert Burns wrote to
the president of the Edinburgh Society of the Friends of the People with effusive praise
and asked to be included as a subscriber to their newspaper
The Edinburgh Gazeteer... and him an excise officer as well.
Anyway September 1792 saw this place launched with a gala opening.
Now the star of this show on that night, and for some time after,
was a tiny, pretty little lady called Miss Louisa Fontanelle.
She was a comic actress who had performed in London and Edinburgh,
and now arrived in Dumfries, before later emigrating to America.
I ll be honest, I think burns fancied her. He wrote to her in the most gushing of terms
and he wrote her a prologue for her to perform on this stage at a benefit in her honour
two months after opening. What I find crazy is that,
not only am I standing on that same stage now, but I ll do it again on 8th September
for my own Scottish history stand-up comedy show, Stories of Scotland.
If you live in Dumfries and Galloway then come along and
get some Scottish history with a laugh. There s a link for tickets top right.
As always, in the description below, there s a link to my website
for details, dates, locations and tickets for all the shows on the tour.
Anyway many of you will have heard at least some of the prologue that Burns gave Miss Fontanelle.
I know I ve heard them quoted at many a Burns supper when somebody s toasting the lassies,
and trying to make the point that Burns respected women.
The piece is called The Rights of Women... but remember the context.
Thomas Paine had just fled England after publishing The Rights of Man.
It was the most in demand under the counter, seditious book in the country.
It was a topic on everybody s lips...
and the words that Burns put on Miss Fontanelle s lips were...
While Europe s eye is fix d on mighty things The fate of Empires and the fall of Kings
While quacks of State must each produce his plan And even children lisp the Rights of Man
Amid this mighty fuss just let me mention, The rights of women merit some attention
If that sounds innocent enough, then I m sure it was supposed to...
but it also ended... But truce with kings,
and truce with constitutions, With bloody armaments and revolutions;
Let Majesty your first attention summon, Ah! Ca ira! The Majesty of Woman
Ca Ira was the song of the French Revolution...
Writing to radicals, subscribing to their papers,
including hints at dangerous revolutionary ideas for speeches on stage?
If that seems politically charged things were about to get worse.
Burns was a regular attender at the spanking new Dumfries Theatre.
He would always sit just behind the musicians, at the front,
on the backless wooden benches in the area known as the Pit.
These were cheap seats for bawdy types. You can still see some of those benches,
sat on by Burns, in the theatre to this day. Well in between the opening gala
and Miss Fontanelle s benefit, the theatre put on Shakespeare s As You Like it,
with Miss, Fontanelle playing the role of Rosalind
I don t know either Obviously the audience did,
It was put on for the benefit of some toffs who were in town.
The Caledonian and the Dumfries and Galloway hunt,
a distinguished audience among whom was the even more distinguished
Marquis of Queensberry and guests... on much better seats than Burns.
At the finale somebody called for singing of the English nationalist song, God Save the King,
that had become very popular after the Jacobite uprisings.
You ve probably heard it sung more recently as God Save the Queen.
These days you ll often hear it sung in two-part choral harmony with The fields of Arthenry.
On the night in question it prompted the spontaneous singing of a different song
When the toffs started God Save the King, the rowdies down in the Pit struck up with Ca Ira,
that song of the French Revolution.
Now theatre audiences in 1792 were not theatre audiences as they are today.
This was closer to the antagonistic chanting at a Celtic v Rangers game...
just in case somebody needed the Fields of Arthenry joke explained.
Anyway they re going... God save our gracious king...
Oh ho the fields... Come
and have a go if you think you re hard enough,
Cherio, cherio, cherio, You re no singing any more
You get the idea A scuffle broke out.
There s pushing, there s shoving there s fists flying.
A left, a right, a hook, an uppercut. The Marquis of Queensberry
is watching and thinks I could make a name for myself here...
As it was, it was Robert Burns who drew the attention.
In various letters of accusation, claim and counter claim
Burns said he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Others accused him of joining with the mob, or not taking his hat off
for God Save the King.... A courageous act... or a professional scandal?
He had to answer for his actions in writing and apparently in person at The
Midsteeple Town House. As an excise man he was a government official
and only just held on to the job by the skin of his teeth...
That, given his other political indiscretions was a surprising result.
...only achieved with a level of loquacious grovelling
few others would have been capable of... but it certainly lost him the promotion
that he had been hoping for. Chanting with your mates and facing
the bosses in the town house are two very different things.
I had been thinking about how to end this video...
with some pithy observation on cancel culture, or high moral tone about democracy and the
rights of man, free speech and
the courage to speak truth to power. Truth is I m not sure how I would have fared
with employer censorship and mouths to feed at home.
More than anything about this video I just find it incredible to think how those social upheavals,
and the struggle of the great ideas of the time, played out in the room in which I have
the pleasure to stand right now. We re insignificant grains of sand
falling in an hourglass that so many have passed through before.
It s only when we act in combination with many that things change.
When I stand on this stage next time, as the gathered throng call out my name
and clamour for encore, I can t help but think
that if I d put the show on a bit earlier, Robert Burns would have been sitting there.
I m not sure if you want a video about the poet Robert Burns or the radical Thomas Muir next,
but one of them will come up on screen now. The easiest way to support the channel
is to give me a thumbs up, but if you have the means then please
become a Patreon member by clicking top right, or buy me a coffee in the description below.
I ll see you here in September. Tha mi an dochas...