Many of the shrillest critics of opera in the Italian manner in its first years in London were Whigs. Writers have never tired of quoting the satire, squibs, and jeremiads against opera by Richard Steele, John Dennis, and Joseph Addison. But these writings do not fairly represent either English or Whig response to opera. As shown in this and later chapters, many (if not most) Whigs accepted and encouraged opera in one form or another. As early as spring 1703, Vanbrugh had been soliciting subscriptions for building a theatre in the Haymarket intended for plays and opera. The majority of the subscribers to the theatre were Whigs (table 4.1), including thirteen or fourteen members of the predominantly Whig political-social-literary Kit-Cat Club. To contemporaries, the number of Kit-Cats among the subscribers marked the Haymarket as a Whig project. Whig participation in encouraging opera is also revealed by their number among the dedicatees of the operas produced during Anne’s reign (table 5.1). Their support for the Haymarket theatre and opera can be seen as an expression of a broad Whig cultural programme that also advanced their political interests (see below).

Despite the modern disparagement of Thomas Clayton’s Arsinoe and his music for Rosamond, Whigs supported Clayton as a composer, as seen in the efforts of the Whigs on his behalf. On 28 January 1708, the often financially distressed Clayton was committed to the Fleet Prison as an insolvent debtor (for reasons not yet determined). Members of the Marlborough family contributed 53 guineas in 1, 2, or 5 guinea amounts to his relief. Since the list of subscribers (table 5.2) is now among the Blenheim Papers, the Duchess of Marlborough (probably with the assistance of her secretary and confidant Arthur Maynwaring) likely organised the subscription.

When the Junto Whig Lord Thomas Wharton went to Dublin in April 1709 as Lord Lieutenant, he took Joseph Addison, then Undersecretary to Sunderland, as his secretary and invited the Whig poet John Hughes, who though declined. As befitting his status as vice-regent, Wharton travelled with great equipage and finery, at expense to the treasury of £3,000. At Dublin Castle, he maintained an active court and social life that attracted people of quality, even from England.