John Vanbrugh's farce The Country House

By Dr Annette Rubery

When people think of John Vanbrugh the playwright, they tend to recall his original works: The Relapse and The Provok’d Wife. However, the bulk of his stage career was actually spent translating and adapting French comedies for the London stage. 

The Country House was an early translation of Vanbrugh’s, from a farce by the French dramatist Florent Carton (aka Dancourt). The plot is simple. Mr Barnard has bought a country house, but finds himself swamped by visitors, all of whom expect to be given lodgings and dinner. This has become expensive (‘Since I bought this damned country house, I spend more in a summer than would maintain me seven year’). In Mr Barnard’s opinion, the main culprit is his sociable wife, who keeps inviting all her friends over for card parties. What can be done? Mr Barnard’s brother thinks the best remedy is to set fire to the building, but – as Barnard points out – ‘That’s doing myself an injury, not them’. 

In addition to the marital disharmony main plot (a common feature of Vanbrugh’s comedies) there’s a flimsy subplot concerning Mr Barnard’s daughter, Mariane, and her lover, Erast, whose relationship is kept secret from her miserly father. 

Eventually, Mr Barnard hits upon a solution: he’ll transform his abode into an inn called the Sword Royal. He and his brother duly attire themselves like innkeepers, much to the horror of Barnard’spretentious son, Dorant. However, there’s a sudden plot twist: one of the Sword Royal’s guests happens to be the ranger of the king’s forests and – because a royal stag has been killed on Barnard’s landearlier in the plot (a capital offence at the time) – he faces ruin. Cue the entrance of Erast, who saves the day by offering to buy the house and marry his daughter. 

The date of The Country House’s premiere is not recorded, although The London Stage has evidence of a performance in January 1698 which may have been its first. Unusually, Vanbrugh set his adaptation in Normandy instead of moving it to England and largely kept the French names. This lack of ‘Englishing’ may have been a deliberate attempt to avoid satirising the Earl of Carlisle, who was considering hiring the playwright to design his country house in Yorkshire. 

Although a domestic form of architecture, English country houses were enjoying a dramatic makeover in the late 17th century, largely due to the architect William Talman, who had set a trend with Chatsworth in Derbyshire. In fact, Lord Carlisle had initially considered Talman to design Castle Howard, but, due to the latter’s rudeness and demands for money, had shifted his attention to Vanbrugh and his associate, Nicholas Hawksmoor. 

We know from Vanbrugh’s letter to Lord Manchester, written in December 1699, that shortly after the appearance of The Country House, the playwright was touring the properties of the north andshowing ‘my Ld Carlisle’s designs’ to the owner of Chatsworth. According to Kerry Downes, Carlisle officially hired Hawksmoor in May 1700 – by which time Vanbrugh was presumably onboard and Talman had been supplanted. 

Vanbrugh did not write any other plays about houses, and it can be no coincidence that this one came at a time when he was turning to architecture. While it’s true that it would have general appeal, Vanbrugh always wrote for aristocratic audiences and used his plays to win friends and influence people. One of the biggest mysteries is how Vanbrugh made the transition from playwright to fully-fledged architect, and, although The Country House does not answer this question, it gives us a clue about his methods of persuasion.