‘Was Ever Treason so Unnatural?’: Phallic Mothers and Propaganda in Two Plays by William Hatchett

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By examining William Hatchett's The Chinese Orphan alongside The Fall of Mortimer, in this article Jina Moon aims to expand our critical awareness of Hatchett's oeuvre and to deepen our understanding of the shifting contours of misogyny as an integral component of eighteenth-century political discourse. The Fall of Mortimer differs from other sources of anti-Walpole propaganda, offering pointedly acrimonious treatment not only of Walpole, but of Queen Caroline. The Chinese Orphan was published in February 1741, two months before the election of that year dealt the final blow to Walpole's career. The play reflects shifting attitudes towards women in power and the contemporary tendency to contrast the ambitious and political Caroline with submissive and domestic Princess Augusta. To examine Hatchett's work is to gain new insight into the ways in which authors adapted both to the restrictions of the Licensing Act and to the shifting political climate of the 1740s. Jina Moon received her Ph.D. in English from the University of Tulsa (2015). Her study of Domestic Violence in Victorian and Edwardian Fiction appeared from Cambridge Scholars Publishing in 2016.