Text and Context in ABs The Fair Jilt

'REALITY, AND MATTER OF FACT': TEXT AND CONTEXT IN APHRA BEHN'S "THE FAIR
JILT"
Author(s): J. P. VANDER MOTTEN and RENÉ VERMEIR
Source: The Review of English Studies, New Series, Vol. 66, No. 274 (APRIL 2015), pp. 280-
299
Published by: Oxford University Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/24541233
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'REALITY, AND MATTER OF FACT': TEXT AND CONTEXT IN
APHRA BEHN'S THE FAIR JILT
BY J. P. VANDER MOTTEN AND RENE VERMEIR
The background and historical context of Aphra Behn's The Fair Jilt (1688), a
narrative set in Antwerp, has occasioned a fair amount of critical interest. Janet
Todd in her 1996 biography of Behn was the first to establish the author's indebt
edness to a sensational criminal case involving one François Louis Tarquini, his wife
Maria Theresia Van Mechelen, and her sister Anna Louisa. Assembling and inter
preting a number of unexplored legal documents preserved in the Antwerp City
Archives and the State Archives in Brussels, we aim to provide a much fuller and
more accurate account of the events which inspired the composition of The Fair Jilt.
Behn may have derived some of this information from two printed sources which
have so far escaped scholarly notice: the Flollandsche Mercurius, a Dutch yearbook
which reported on the Tarquini court case, and an extensive, apologetic pamphlet
authored or commissioned by Maria Theresia van Mechelen, and published in 1663.
While primarily focused on the background and contexts, this article also seeks to
explain Behn's major adaptations of the historical facts, including her treatment of
the protagonist Prince Tarquin, whom she appears to have fashioned in accordance
with her beliefs in the spiritual and moral superiority of the Stuart line.
Given the unreliability of the early Life and Memoirs and the scarcity of autobio
graphical documents, scholars reconstructing key phases in Aphra Behn's life and
literary career have necessarily fallen back on what Mary O'Donnell has termed
the author/narrator's 'self-reflexive assertions' in some of her short fictions.1
Oroonoko is the most obvious case but The Fair Jilt (1688), a tale set in
Antwerp where Behn had been sent on a spying mission in 1666, has also been
used as a testing ground for her reliability as an observer of the contemporary
scene.2 Janet Todd first sketched in the historical background of this tale, estab
lishing that Behn hardly exaggerated when in the dedication of her work to Henry
Neville Payne she claimed to have lpursue[d] the matter of fact' in a story known
to 'many hundreds' of people.3 Derived from a handful of archival sources and
1 M. A. O'Donnell, 'Aphra Behn: the documentary record', in D. Hughes and J. Todd

(eds), The Cambridge Companion to Aphra Behn (Cambridge, 2004), 7. On the problematic
nature of the 1696 and 1698 biographies, see Claudine van Hensbergen, '"Why I Write
Them, I Can Give No Account": Aphra Behn and "Love-Letters to a Gentleman'",
Eighteenth-Century Life, 35 (2011), 65-82.
2 Charles C. Mish, 'English Short Fiction in the Seventeenth Century: II. Fiction in the
Period 1660-1700', Studies in Short Fiction, 6 (1969), 300, 303-5; Maureen Duffy, The
Passionate Shepherdess. Aphra Behn 1640-1689 (London, 1977), 72-3; Angeline Goreau,
Reconstructing Aphra. A Social Biography of Aphra Behn (Oxford, 1980), 281-2.
3 Janet Todd, The Secret Life of Aphra Behn (London, 1996), 111-13 (hereafter Todd).
The Review of English Studies, New Series, Vol. 66, No. 274
©5 The
The Author
Author 2014.
2014.: Published by Oxford University Press 2014; all rights reserved
doi:10.1093/res/hgu082 Advance Access published on 26 September 2014
TEXT AND CONTEXT IN APHRA BEHN's THE FAIR JILT 281
incomplete, Todd's brief summary of this lurid chronicle of greed, attempted

murder, and a bungled execution—featuring Maria Theresia Van Mechelen, her
sister Anna Louisa and Maria's husband François Louis Tarquini—does not do
full justice to the complexity of the criminal case(s) that raised such a commotion
in mid-seventeenth-century Antwerp. A thorough search in the Antwerp City
Archives and the records of the central government of the Southern (or
Habsburg) Netherlands preserved in the State Archives in Brussels has enabled
us to assemble and reconstitute in greater detail the facts which inspired the
composition of The Fair Jilt. This reconstruction has allowed us to assess what
Katharine Rogers in connection with Oroonoko has termed 'Behn's actual artistic
achievement: imaginative creation building on a foundation of fact', which was
itself based on her 'personal experience' of real-life events.4 It is with this 'foun
dation of fact' rather than a new critical reading that we will be primarily con
cerned. The emphasis will be on historical backgrounds and (con)texts, both those
broadly hinted at in the narrative and those left unmentioned, but wherever pos
sible we have tried to elucidate Behn's motives for adapting the facts as she did.5
Any attempt to arrive at a fuller appreciation of Behn's debt must necessarily begin
with an account of the incidents and the dramatis personae.
I. Love, greed and murder

Maria Theresia and Anna Louisa, baptized in Antwerp Cathedral on 26 December
1619 and 17 March 1623 respectively, were the nobly-born daughters of Jan Van
Mechelen and Helena Lambrechts.6 Orphaned by the untimely death of their
parents, they were entrusted to the care of their uncle Gaspar Oosterlincx, an
unmarried and well-to-do merchant, who lived in a spacious house under the sign
of'den Grooten Witten Arent' ('the Great White Eagle') located on Reyndersstraat,
in the immediate vicinity of the cathedral.7 On 10 November 1656, Maria Theresia
married François Louis Tarquini; Anna Louisa remained unmarried.8 Tarquini
was professedly descended from an illustrious but impoverished noble family from
Emilia Romagna, which traced its origins to Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, the last
King of Rome (535-495 BC).9 Like many other Italian military men, his father
Bartolomeo had probably entered the service of the Spanish or Austrian
4 Katharine M. Rogers, 'Fact and Fiction in Aphra Behn's Oroonoko\ Studies in the Novel,
20 (1988), 1.
5 All in-text references to The Fair Jilt will be, by page number, to Janet Todd (ed.), The
Works of Aphra Behn, vol. 3 (London, 1995), 1-48.
6 Gty Archives Antwerp (hereafter CAA), PR 33, baptismal registers of the parish of Onze
Lieve-Vrouw Antwerpen Noord, 1615-1650, f. 26v. and f. 46r.
7 Augustin Thys, Historiek der Straten en Openbare Plaatsen van Antwerpen (Antwerpen,
1879), 635-7 (hereafter Thys).
8 CAA, PR 198, marriage registers of the parish of Onze-Lieve-Vrouw Antwerpen Zuid,
1647-1679, f. 70r.
9 Todd mistakenly believes Tarquini's claim 'came to Behn because of his name' (457).
282 J. P. VANDER MOTTEN AND RENÉ VERMEIR
Habsburgs before finding his way into the Southern Netherlands. In the early
seventeenth century, his uncle Tarquinio Tarquini served as an officer in the
armies of the Holy Roman Emperor.10 And around 1660-1665, while residing in
Antwerp, he was himself actively involved in the financial administration of the
imperial forces under the command of Count Raimondo Montecuccoli
(1609-1680).11 Tarquini was a member of the Order of Christ, a knightly order
which could be conferred both by the Pope and the Portuguese King. His letter of
appointment, issued by the Pope, establishes that he was of noble birth (this being
the condition of membership), although this papal appointment did not confirm
him as belonging to the titled nobility or allow him to style himself a 'Prince'. But
this is how he wished to be addressed, despite the fact that serious doubts were
cast on the legitimacy of the title; his sister-in-law Anna Louisa labelled it an
'imagined quality' and a 'usurped princely authority'.12 Tarquini fell out with
the heralds at arms—who supervised the use of noble privileges in the Spanish
Netherlands—over this issue, and legal proceedings were started.13 The outcome
remains unclear, except that his tide was never recognized in the countries of the
Spanish-Habsburg empire. In no official document, whether relating to his trial or
not, was he ever mentioned in his capacity as a nobleman.
Oosterlincx, Anna Louisa Van Mechelen, and the Tarquinis, together with their
infants Johannes Maria Antonius and Petrus Franciscus, lived under the same roof
without any apparent problems until Oosterlincx's death late in 1659.14 In his will
he bequeathed all his possessions to his nieces, under the express condition that
they enjoy together the usufruct of the house and his other real estate, which upon
their demise were to pass into the hands of the Tarquini children.15 But Maria
Theresia and her husband paid no heed to the uncle's wish and soon assumed the
full management and use of the estate. Within months Anna Louisa, penniless and
still unaware of the exact content of the legacy, was turned out of doors by her
sister and brother-in-law. In despair she addressed a petition to the magistrate or
municipal executive, composed of the aldermen and two burgomasters of
Antwerp. She requested an inventory to be drawn up of all the worldly goods
left by Oosterlincx, hoping thus to safeguard her interests and prevent Tarquini
and his wife from rapidly squandering the inheritance. The latter, she testified,
10 François Louis Tarquini to an unidentified recipient, 30 May 1666. Wiltshire and

Swindon Record Office: Savenake Estate, Personal and Family Correspondence, misc.
ref. 9/35/283.
11 This appears from statements made by Maria Theresia during the second trial on 18
January 1664. CAA, Vierschaar (hereafter V) 157, f. 84v.- 85r.
12 CAA, V 157, f. 103v.-105v.
13 Anna Louisa Van Mechelen's requests addressed to the Antwerp magistrate, 4 June and
4 December 1660. CAA, Privilégiékamer (hereafter PK) 757, f. 54 and f. 179.
14 Johannes was baptized on 24 September 1657; Petrus on 24 April 1659. CAA, baptismal
registers of parish of Onze-Lieve-Vrouw Antwerpen Zuid, PR 16, 1647-1657, f. 175v.; and
PR 17, 1658-1670, f. 45r.
15 Gaspar Oosterlincx's will has been preserved. CAA, Ν 3829, notary J. Van der Donck,
1646-1660.
TEXT AND CONTEXT IN APHRA BEHN'S THE FAIR JILT 283
wasted 'the said means by keeping coaches, horses and superfluous servants, as
well as very costly furniture and silverware, all against the will and intentions of
the aforesaid testator.'16
The inheritance had obviously provided Tarquini with the long-awaited oppor
tunity to adopt the lifestyle of the high nobility, including the use of horses,
coaches and liveried servants.17 Anna Louisa requested the magistrate to coerce
Tarquini to grant her a provisional allowance sufficient to cover the legal costs of
the seven lawsuits which she had brought against him and her sister.18 These
actions, in which some of Oosterlincx's former servants were called as witnesses, in
addition to further petitions addressed to the magistrate, were Anna Louisa's
means of exerting pressure on the opposite party, evidently with a measure of
success.19 By the middle of 1662 she was close to winning her case and being
granted part of the usufruct of Oosterlincx's inheritance. Tarquini and his wife
anxiously looked for a way to prevent justice taking its course: only the elimination
of Anna Louisa would serve their purpose. Attempts to poison her (initially un
detected) having proved unsuccessful, Maria Theresia eventually persuaded her
coachman Engelbrecht Huybrechts to shoot Anna Louisa.20 On 11 August 1662
Huybrechts took up a position outside the Church of the Discalced Carmelites and
fired two shots at Anna Louisa when she left the church around 11.30 a.m.21 He
missed, the bullets only perforated her clothes, and he managed to make his
escape. Maria Theresia was soon identified as the instigator of the crime, arrested,
charged with attempted murder, and locked up in the 'Steen' prison in Antwerp.
To the great amazement of many, no charges were brought against her husband
who was apprehended but released in the absence of any incriminating evidence
against him, even though the victim detailed the prominent part he had played in
the inheritance issue.
On 27 September 1662 legal proceedings against Maria Theresia were started by

the Vierschaar, the local tribunal consisting of the margrave (schout), who repre
sented the sovereign and acted as the prosecutor, and a number of city aldermen.
This tribunal was empowered to judge all offences against the civil law and to pass
the death penalty; no further appeal against its verdicts in criminal cases was possible.
16 Anna Louisa Van Mechelen's request dated 4 June 1660. CAA, PK 757, f. 54. In
October 1660, 'Don Francisco de Tarquiny' and his wife had an inventory drawn up of
their furnishings, including a painting of François's father. See Erik Duverger, Antmerpse
Kunstinventarissen uit de Zeventiende eeuw. Vol. 8: 1658-1666 (Brussels, 1995), 159-61.
17 Anna Louisa Van Mechelen's second request, 30 June 1660. CAA, PK 757, f. 75.
18 Anna Louisa Van Mechelen's third request, 4 December 1660. CAA, PK 757, f. 179.
19 Anna Louisa Van Mechelen's fourth and fifth requests, 24 December 1660 and 18
January 1662. CAA, PK 757, f. 192 and PK 758, f. 140v.
20 Counsel of Conseil Privé to Castel Rodrigo, 22 March 1666. Brussels, Archives Générales
du Royaume (hereafter AGR), Conseil Privé, reg. 322, f. 162. Francisco de Moura y Corte
Real (early seventeenth century-1675), Marquis of Castel Rodrigo, was appointed
Governor-General of the Habsburg Netherlands in March 1664.
21 The Church and Monastery of the Discalced Carmelites, located on present-day
Meistraat, were torn down around 1900.
In no doubt as to Maria Theresia's guilt of the attempt of 11 August as well as earlier

attempts to poison Anna Louisa, the margrave demanded the death penalty. But the
defendant refused to put in a voluntary plea of guilty; even under torture she refused
to confess. As no capital punishment could be imposed without incontrovertible
evidence or a confession, the tribunal on 26 February 1663 sentenced Maria
Theresia to banishment from the Duchy of Brabant and imposed a stigmatizing
punishment to be carried out the next day. In front of the city hall she was to
kneel on the scaffold and have the hangman's rope put around her neck. In this
position she was to ask the sovereign for forgiveness for her heinous crimes.22 In
early 1663 Tarquini vainly attempted to persuade the Council of Brabant, the
duchy's supreme authority, to discontinue the lengthy proceedings against his
wife so as to avert the dreaded punishment on the scaffold and the 'great dishonour,
infamy and entire ruin of his family' that this would entail.23
Causing an extraordinary commotion in and around Antwerp, the news about
the murder attempt, the trial, and the exemplary punishment found its way into
the Hollandsche Mercurius ('Holland Mercury'), a yearbook first published at
Haarlem in 1651, which listed and commented on the previous year's main
events in and outside the Republic. Both the attempt on Anna Louisa's life
and the conviction and punishment of Maria Theresia, 'in full view of many
thousands of people', were reported in the 1662 and 1663 issues.23 Perpetually
banished from the Duchy of Brabant, she settled down on the left bank of the
Scheldt, across the river from Antwerp but on the territory of the County of
Flanders, where she doggedly went on to try and recover her reputation.
In an 8,000-word, anonymous pamphlet entitled Waarachtig verhaal van de
Tragedische Gevangenisse en Wreede Pynigingen Gepleegt aan de onnoosele en
22 The case against Maria Theresia Van Mechelen, 27 September 1662-26 February 1663.
CAA, V 157, f. 72r.-78v.
23 The Southern Netherlands was a composite state consisting of different 'provinces', such
as the Duchy of Brabant (including the cities of Antwerp and Brussels), the County of
Flanders (including Ghent and Bruges), and the county of Hainault, whose capital was the
city of Mons. Each province had its own Council, which was the highest administrative and
judicial authority. The Governor-General, the Conseil Privé, the Conseil des Finances, and
the Conseil d'Etat exerted their authority across the entire territory of the Southern
Netherlands. Letter of Antwerp magistrate to the Council of Brabant, 7 February 1663.
CAA, PK 242, Verzameling Van Valckenisse (hereafter VW), D, f. 196.
24 Garrelt Verhoeven en Sytze van der Veen, De Hollandse Mercurius. Een Haarlems
jaarboek uit de zeventiende eeuw (Haarlem, 2011), 5.
25 Hollandtsche Mercurius, Behelzende de aldergedenckwaerdigste Voorvallen in Europa, en de
gantsche Weerelt: In 't Jaer 1662. Dertiende Deel (Haarlem, 1663), August 1662, 133;
Veertiende Deel (1664), February 1663, 20-1 (hereafter Hollandsche Mercurius).
26 Maria Theresia found lodgings in the easternmost corner of the county, an area known as
Het Vlaams Hoofd ('The Flemish Head'), which gave easy access to Antwerp. On 3 March
1666 she and her husband, then in prison awaiting his trial, acknowledged a debt of 1,300
guilders for room and board to the widow Catlyne de Hooye. Equalling about five times the
annual wages of an unskilled labourer, this amount suggests that Maria Theresia had
continued to live the good life during her banishment. CAA, Ν 1433, notary S.
Engelberts, f. 66 (3 March 1666).
Ontschuldige Mevroume De Tarquino ('The veritable story of the tragic imprison

ment and cruel torture of the gullible and guiltless Mrs de Tarquino'), she exten
sively argued her innocence, pointing to her former coachman and his relatives as
the true culprits.27 Banishment from the Duchy evidently greatly burdened Maria
Theresia for within months of her conviction Tarquini submitted a petition to the
Conseil Privé, the most important council in the Habsburg Netherlands, requesting
that the ban be lifted. This was rejected on the grounds that the conviction was of
too recent a date but also for fear of 'the scandal that a return of his wife aforesaid
would cause in Antwerp'.28 Flouting her conviction, Maria Theresia took the ill
considered step of trespassing upon Brabant soil. She was arrested and charged
with having broken her ban and with having disseminated a seditious and libellous
work, namely the pamphlet mentioned above. Having been brought before the
Antwerp tribunal she was sentenced on 17 March 1664 to stand in the pillory and
to be publicly humiliated and whipped; she was also ordered to pay the legal costs.
All copies of the pamphlet seized by the margrave were to be burnt by the hang
man on the scaffold during the execution of the sentence.29 Once again Tarquini
came to his wife's rescue. On 6 May 1664 the Governor-General Caracena in
formed the Antwerp magistrate that he had rescinded the public humiliation and
the flogging; the other parts of the penalty were to be maintained.30 One year later
the Tarquinis proved less successful when a renewed petition for a lifting of the
ban was turned down by the Council of Brabant.31
The verdict did not diminish the Tarquinis' feelings of hatred for Anna Louisa,
and early in 1666 they contrived another assault to be carried out by Tarquini
himself. On the morning of 21 February, armed with a pistol, he lay in wait near
the Church of the Calced Carmelites, on Huidevettersstraat, where his sister-in-law
was saying her prayers.32 As a perfect re-enactment of the previous attempt,
27 University Library Ghent, Bib. Meul. 003971 (hereafter Waarachtig verhaal). According
to the title page, the pamphlet was published at Antwerp in 1663 by Hermanus Botbergen.
As there was no printer-publisher of that name in the Habsburg Netherlands, the attribu
tion is probably spurious. The Hollandsche Mercurius states that 'this libellous pamphlet was
allegedly published in Holland' (December 1663, 170)—possibly by Botbergius, a printer at
Breda, who was active around 1660. It has been suggested that Tarquini himself was the
pamphlet's author. See Pierre Génard, Anvers à travers les ages. Tome Deuxième (Bruxelles,
1930), 291.
28 Counsel of Conseil Privé to Caracena, about the request for a rappel de ban, 18 August
1663. AGR, Conseil Privé, reg. 319, f. 170. Luis de Benavides y Carrillo de Toledo, Marquis
of Caracena (1608-1668), was Governor-General of the Habsburg Netherlands from
1659-1664.
29 CAA, V 157, f. 84v - 85r. (18 January 1664), f. 86 (25 January 1664), and f. 88r.
(17 March 1664).
30 As mentioned in CAA, V 157, f. 89r.
31 The Antwerp magistrate to the Council of Brabant, 14 August 1665. CAA, PK 242,
VW, D, f. 217.
32 For further details about the Convent of the Calced Carmelites, see Godelieve Storms,
De schilderijen uit de verdwenen kerk der Geschoeide Karmelieten, Ghent (Ghent University;
unpublished master's thesis, 1987). Todd, 112, wrongly dates the attempt 21 February
1665.
including the outcome, this one also failed when the bullets narrowly missed their
target and only tore holes in Anna Louisa's clothes. Tarquini tried to make his
escape but was apprehended and handed over to the authorities. A few days later
he appeared before the judges, who were in no doubt as to his guilt: he had been
caught in the act and there was an undeniable link, the margrave argued, with the
attempt devised by his wife. Tarquini's claim that he had only tried to frighten his
sister-in-law was brushed aside by both the Antwerp tribunal and the Conseil
Privé, which were all too aware of the antecedents in this case and therefore, on
22 March 1666, turned down his request to discontinue the criminal trial.33 On 20
May 1666 he was sentenced to decapitation with the sword rather than the axe, a
privilege of the nobility.34 The execution was to take place the following day, on a
scaffold erected in the market place. This scaffold not only allowed space for the
decapitation, but it also had a garrotte to which the executioner could turn if the
condemned person offered any resistance and made the execution with the sword
impossible. And things did go wrong, though not because of resistance on
Tarquini's part. The decapitation miscarried when the fatal blow landed on the
knot of the kerchief used to blindfold Tarquini and only left an open wound in his
neck. Determined to finish off their job, the flabbergasted hangman and his as
sistant dragged poor Tarquini to the garrotte, despite the loud protests of the
spectators, who sympathized with the convict and clamoured that he had served
his penalty, even though he had escaped with his life. Trying with a final effort to
elude the stranglehold, Tarquini fell off the scaffold. In fear of the agitated crowd,
the margrave and the aldermen attending the execution called the hangman to
order. On the night of 21 May, Tarquini was transported again from the city hall
to his prison by some certified 'chirurgeons'—i.e. wound-dressers rather than true
surgeons—working under the supervision of a doctor of medicine. Their sustained
treatment of his serious injuries, described in one document as 'glandular injuries
and contagions', saved his life and it appears that by July or August 1666 he had
fully recovered.35
After the failed execution, a unanimous decision was reached to submit a pro
posal to the higher authorities to spare the convict's life and commute the death
sentence to a lifelong banishment from all Spanish-Habsburg territories. Two
reasons were advanced. On the one hand both the margrave and the members
of the magistrate considered that the convict had truly faced death and in effect
suffered capital punishment; on the other they were afraid that the public would
33 Tarquini's lawsuit, 19 April- 20 May 1666. CAA, V 157, f. 103v.-105v.

34 Counsel of Conseil Privé to Castel Rodrigo, 22 March 1666. AGR, Conseil Privé, reg. 322,
f. 162. Todd, 113, erroneously dates the execution 11 June 1665.
35 On 19 October 1666 Peter Marchant, 'having recently cured Tarquini of the wounds
well known to you', asked the city treasurer for payment of the 30 guilders' fee already paid
to his colleagues. His request was granted on 5 November. CAA, PK 762, Requestboek 1666
1667, f. 6. A similar request was made by Peter Vanden Bogaert as late as 17 May 1667 and
granted on 7 July. CAA, PK 762, Requestboek 1666-1667, f. 150. Given the traditional
arrears, Marchant had probably submitted his bill in August 1666.
not countenance a second execution and that the city might break out in riots. It
was, as a matter of fact, in order to soothe tempers that they decided to have the
scaffold dismantled immediately after the botched execution. To the city magis
trate, eager to settle the matter peacefully, lifelong banishment seemed the proper
solution—a solution in which Anna Louisa was likely to acquiesce.36 Encouraged
by the decision of the local authorities, Tarquini himself addressed a petition for
clemency to the Governor-General and the Conseil Privé, observing that it was
'against all human law to accumulate two death sentences for one and the same
cause'. The Conseil Privé complied and suggested that in this particular case the
Governor-General should display 'compassion and clemency' and commute the
death sentence as requested.37 Castel Rodrigo agreed and on 3 June 1666, the
pardon was signified to all parties involved.38
Joined in perpetual banishment, the Tarquinis settled down at Bergen-op
Zoom, just across the border on State-Brabant soil, where François Louis in the
course of time again fell out with the city magistrate. Another notorious lawsuit
ensued, in which even the States-General felt it necessary to intervene.39 The
archival record relating to these years is relatively sparse but it does show that,
after having sold their erstwhile house in January 1689, the Tarquinis were back in
Antwerp by 1690, where they took up a new permanent residence, which implies
that by then their bans had been lifted.40 On 24 November 1696, about a month
after her husband's death, Maria Theresia, 'sound in heart and memory', revoked
an earlier will jointly made by both spouses and drew up a new one, in which she
appointed her relative Jacob Van Mechelen esq., captain of the Antwerp militia, as
her sole heir and executor.4' Shortly before his death, Tarquini had expressed the
wish to be buried in a predetermined corner in the Cathedral of Our Lady. Jacob
Van Mechelen, who was in charge of the funeral arrangements, found to his
dismay that the high-handed gravedigger had decided, for convenience's sake,
to inter Tarquini's body in the crypt of the Delia Faille family, one of the most
prominent of Antwerp political dynasties. At the insistence of the former burgo
master Jean-Baptiste Delia Faille, the error was rectified and Tarquini's remains,
36 The Antwerp magistrate to the Council of Brabant, 21 and 27 May 1666. CAA, PK 242,
VW, D, f. 278r. and 280.
37 Counsel of Conseil Privé on Tarquini's request, 27 May 1666. AGR, Conseil Privé, reg.
322, f. 206-7.
38 Copy of letter in CAA, V 157, f. 106r.
39 National Archives The Hague, Archives of States-General, nr. 12551.171 (1682).
40 On 6 February 1683 the Tarquinis petitioned the Antwerp magistrate in connection with
their sons' inheritance but this does not necessarily imply that they resided in the city.
CAA, PK 773, Requestboek 1682-1684, f. 104. On 5 January 1690, however, Tarquini was
involved in a business dispute, according to a document signed before notary E.
Cornelissen. CAA, Ν 619, 1689-1692, f. 1. See also Thys, 637.
41 CAA, Ν 3661, notary C. Van Den Broeck, 1694-1701, no folio (first document). The
implication may be that her two sons, residing in Venice, had passed away.
which had momentarily shared the company of local nobility, were returned to the
designated spot.42
II. Ά story so well known to yourself, and many hundreds more'

While there is general critical agreement that the female narrator of The Fair Jilt
cannot be identified with the author, both lay claim to the status of privileged
observers of the events related in the narrative.43 Whether this tells us anything
about the historicity of 'The Story of Prince Henrick' is not clear. Partly related
by Cornelia and thus at a certain remove from the narrator's own experience, it
may be a fiction altogether, even though Henrick is introduced as a historical
individual who, at the time of writing, 'is yet living in Antwerp' (42). A pre
amble to the Tarquini episodes, the plot involving Henrick and Miranda serves
the purpose of thematic symmetry, both stories emphasizing the latter's destruc
tive greed and lust for power. 'The Amours of Prince Tarquin and Miranda'
only begins halfway through Behn's tale, yet it is the focus of her attention in
the dedication to Payne and the opening paragraphs. Praising Payne as a paragon
of 'fortitude and virtue' (5) fit for the great Tarquini to emulate, Behn empha
sizes that 'this is Reality, and Matter of Fact' (4). And if Tarquini proves the
unfortunate victim of his own foolish infatuation, we are reminded that this is no
'feign'd Story, or any thing piec'd together with Romantick Accidents, but every
Circumstance, to a Tittle, is Truth' (9). Not only has the narrator obtained part
of her information 'from the Mouth of this unhappy great Man' himself, she has
also been 'an Eye-Witness' (4) to most of the events. The rest 'she was con
firm'd of by Actors in the Intrigue, holy Men of the Order of St. Francis' (9).
Criticism of The Fair Jilt has insufficiently recognized that the truthfulness of
'circumstance' insisted on here applies to the setting as much as to the dramatic
action itself.44
Towards the end of July 1666, in the context of the Second Anglo-Dutch War
(1665-1667), Behn was sent to the Southern Netherlands by the English govern
ment, having been charged with the task of gathering intelligence about English
opponents of Charles II residing in the Dutch Republic. After a short stay in
Bruges, she travelled on to Antwerp in early August, and found accommodation
within walking distance of the market place.45 Presumably the sensational Tarquini
42 CAA, Ν 3661, notary C. Van Den Broeck, 1694-1701, second and third documents.
43 James Fitzmaurice, 'The Narrator in Aphra Behn's The Faxrjilt\ Zeitschrift fiirAnglistik
und Amerikanistik, 42 (1994), 131-8.
44 Mish notes that Behn 'probably' knew Antwerp 'at first-hand' (303); even Todd,
describing Antwerp as 'this city of baroque Catholicism' (111), fails to call attention to
the thematic significance of such features as the beguinage, the playhouse, and the local
jurisdiction, discussed below.
45 Todd, 90-1.
story had first caught her attention through a news item reported from The Hague
in the London Gazette for 28-31 May 1666:
The Prince Torquino [sir] being condemned at Antwerp to be beheaded, for endeav[our]ing
the death of his Sister in Law: Being on the Scaffold, the Executioner tied an Handkercheif
about his Head, and by great accident his blow lighted upon the knot, giving him onely a
slight wound. Upon which, the people being in a tumult, he was carried back to the Town
house, and is in hopes both of his pardon and his recovery.46
The newsletter's next issue, reporting from Middelburg, recorded that the con
vict 'that so accidentally escaped execution, has since obtained his pardon from his
excellency the Marquess de Castel Rodrigo\47 As the Prince's fortunes, then, did not
go unnoticed even outside the Southern Netherlands, Behn's interest in the case
may have been awakened before she even set foot on Flemish soil. But she arrived in
Antwerp too late to have witnessed Maria's humiliation on the scaffold, or the
spectacle of Tarquini's near-decapitation, let alone the widely publicized internecine
strife culminating in these events. Nor is it probable that Behn met the Prince in
person, since the reprieve granted him in early June 1666 entailed a lifelong ban
ishment from the Habsburg Netherlands. Recovered from his injuries, Tarquini had
probably left the city by August, rendering it highly unlikely that Behn had any of
her information 'from the Mouth of this unhappy great Man' (4).
But the accuracy of detail in The Fair Jilt and the consistency with the historical
events is such that the author, in the course of her 5 or 6 months' stay in the city,
must have equipped herself with accurate documentation.48 No matter how much
enhanced for emotional effect, the paragraphs devoted to Tarquini's sentencing,
leave-taking, and progress to the scaffold—as well as the graphic description of the
execution resulting in a near-outburst of riots—contain such a wealth of local
detail that they could not have been inspired only by the news item(s) in the
London Gazette. Behn probably relied on hearsay, spoke to acquaintances of the
Tarquinis or members of their household, and obtained first-hand information
from city officials or other individuals who had attended the hearings of the
Vierschaar, which were open to the public.49 The 19 surviving autograph letters
dating from this period tell us nothing about any contacts who were unrelated to
her spying mission that Behn may have had.50 But in Antwerp's close-knit com
munity—still abuzz with talk about the Tarquini case and harbouring a substantial
English colony of merchants, soldiers, and religious people, many of them
46 The London Gazette, no. 57, From Monday, 28 May to Thursday, 31 May 1666. See
Duffy, 72-3.
47 The London Gazette, no. 58, From Thursday, 31 May to Monday, 4 June 1666.
48 Behn's last letter from Flanders is dated 26 December 1666 but she did not return to
England until April 1667. See Todd, 114.
49 Charles Laenens, De Geschiedenis van het Antwerps Gerecht (Antwerpen, 1953), 62.
The narrator gives her 'fair Jilt a feign'd Name' in consideration of 'some of her
Relations' (9).
50 W. J. Cameron, New Light on Aphra Behn (Auckland, 1961), 18-33.
potential intermediaries—she would have had little trouble familiarizing herself

with the facts.51 Given the long interval between her stay in the city and her
composition of the story, Behn must have kept a careful record of the information
she gathered, even after leaving Antwerp, as part of her 'Journal Observations'
(36). And nowhere better than in The Fair Jilt is her role both as a recorder of
stories and a 'fiction-maker' illustrated.52
Barring the discovery of new evidence we may never be able to identify the
variety of sources, oral and written, on which she drew, but they would almost
certainly have included the Dutch-language publications mentioned above.53 The
Hollandsche Mercurius had reported at some length on the events of March 1663 in
the wake of Maria Theresia's banishment:
Escaping with her life, she did not stay long in the city but moved to the 'Flemish Head',
where she immediately found diversion by the waters and according to her custom went to
church followed by a servant carrying a cushion for her to sit on. One day in church, she
told an honest young lady to get up because the seat she occupied did not belong to her.
The lady answered that it became her much better [than Maria Theresia], whose appro
priate place was the scaffold, with a noose around her neck. This caused great squabbling
and unrest in the county.54
The journal's issue relating to the previous month had already carried the news
of Maria Theresia's punishment, detailing how the executioner had put a rope
around her neck, one end of which was tied to the gallows.53 Both this circum
stance and that of the cushion-carrying servant found their way into the Van
Brune episode, lending another touch of drama and authenticity to The Fair
Jilt. The substantial account of the execution published in the Mercurius for
June 1666, however, contained virtually all the dramatic ingredients required by
an author plotting a gripping finale to her story:
The next morning he went to the scaffold, mounted on the market place in front of the city
hall, which also had a stake and a small block to sit or kneel on, and not far away a pile of
sand. It was around midday that he came forth with his servant, the executioner and two
[Dominican] friars. The margrave's officers and halberdiers were ranged around the scaf
fold. The margrave, with the rod [of office, looked on] from the window of the city hall.
51 Calling 1666 'the year of wonders', Andries Van Valckenisse (1630-1701), the city clerk,
recorded the events of 21 May in his chronicle history of Antwerp. See J. Rylant, 'De
Kronijk van Antwerpen door Andries Van Valckenisse (1665-1698)', Bijdragen tot de
Geschtedenis, 27 (1936), 93-136 (98-9); 234-79.
52 Ros Ballaster, Seductive Forms. Women's Amatory Fiction from 1684 to 1740 (Oxford,
1992), 93-6.
53 Although it remains a moot point whether Behn had any knowledge of Dutch, this type
of publication was circulated, read (out) and commented on in Antwerp. See Duffy, 82.
54 Flollantze Mercurius. Veertiende Deel (1664), March 1663, 27-8.
55 Flollantze Mercurius. Veertiende Deel, February 1663, 20-1. This kind of symbolical
punishment was not unusual: it had been meted out to two seamen suspected of involve
ment in the 1659 riots. See Birgit Houben, 'Violence and Political Culture in Brabant. The
Antwerp craft guilds' opposition against central authorities in 1659', in Hugo de Schepper
en René Vermeir (eds), Hoge rechtspraak in de oude Nederlanden (Maastricht, 2006), 45-6.
Acting the criminal devotee, the Prince prepared for his execution by speaking a few words
with the said friars, then drank a cup of Spanish wine. The executioner blindfolded him
with a kerchief tied behind his head. He knelt down, his hair was cut off, and his shirt rolled
down to his shoulders. When the executioner struck, his sword hit the knot of the kerchief
so that the blow gave him a cut only two fingers deep. Everyone was dumbfounded but the
executioner and his helper raised him and placed him on the block by the stake in order to
garrotte him, causing the mob to shout Murder, Murder. Undismayed, the Prince thereupon
slid the kerchief from his eyes and said: This is not my Justice. When the executioner turned
him around to garrotte him, he swung himself from the block and thrashing about fell off
the scaffold, occasioning a great tumult. The Prince was returned to the scaffold, where the
surgeons soon stemmed the flow of blood, and he remained there on a bed until midnight.
The next morning he was taken back to the dungeon in the Steen prison, where he went on
to recover. Through the intercession of Castel Rodrigo, the people of Antwerp were led to
believe that having suffered enough for his punishment, he was now pardoned.56
Although far more revealing than the news items in The London Gazette, even
the entries in the Mercurius only told part of the story. In all likelihood one of
Behn's primary sources of information was the libellous pamphlet Waarachtig
verhaal, containing as it did the major features of the case until 1663: the identity
of the protagonists; Gaspar Oosterlincx's inheritance as the bone of contention; the
institution of legal proceedings; the circumstances and date of Huybrechts' at
tempt on Anna Louisa's life; the idea of murder by poison; Maria Theresia's
drawn-out examination by the Vierschaar as of 27 September 1662 and her ban
ishment in early 1663; the confiscation of the Tarquinis' possessions;57 the assail
ant's apparent desire to be thought of as a 'devout person'.58 Behn appears to have
stored these features for future elaboration in her narrative. Waarachtig verhaal is
of course an elaborate exercise in self-exoneration, emphasizing the excruciating
pains Maria Theresia suffered under torture.59 Not only does it shift the blame for
these tragic occurrences but it also (imprudently) accused by name those wielding
power—the burgomaster, margrave, aldermen, and lawyers—of having conspired
to concoct the evidence through the use of extensive bribery. To an inquisitive
outsider like Behn, the highly biased exposition of this web of corruption—
implicating the rapacious judges no less than Huybrechts' lover Helene Outers
and his relatives, all eager to hog the Tarquinis' goods—would have conveyed the
strength of the emotions unlocked by the affair. It would also, usefully, have
granted her a fair measure of insight into the workings of the Antwerp judicial
system.60 In addition, the literary form of her printed source, an exemplum of sorts,
56 Hollandtze Mercurius. Seventhiende Deel (1667), June 1666, 96.

57 The Fair Jilt, 41. The confiscation of convicts' goods as well as the fines imposed on
them made the sheriffs office a particularly lucrative one. See Laenens, 146-50.
58 Waarachtig verhaal, 22.
59 In The Fair Jilt this is merely alluded to in Miranda's resolve that, in the event of a post
factum examination, 'Racks and Tortures shou'd never get the Secret [i.e. her part in the
attempt on Alcidiana's life] from her Breast.' (38).
60 Only someone familiar with local jurisdiction would have used the term 'Margrave' (33)
to denote the sheriff.
may have furnished the idea for the narrative frame of The Fair Jilt, which opens
with some philosophical reflections on the civilizing power of love.61
Foregrounding the 'Fop in fashion' as a character primarily guided by 'Self
Love' (7), an innocuous préfiguration of Miranda, Behn goes on to advertise
The Fair Jilt as a case-study in the deleterious 'Effects of Love in some unguarded
and ungovern'd Hearts' (9). Maria Theresia's sorry plight in Waarachtig verhaal is
similarly conceived, albeit as an illustration of the universal ingratitude of servants
to their masters and, worse, of relatives to their kin. Alexander the Great's poi
soning by his manservant; Pompey the Great's assassination by Ptolemy; Julius
Caesar's elimination by Brutus and Cassius; and the execution of Mary, Queen of
Scots, at Elizabeth's behest and of Johan van Oldenbarnevelt at Prince Maurice's
are examples from ancient and modern history adduced to drive home this point.
The 'spoliation' of King Charles' life on the scaffold in 1649, blamed on his
'subjects' disloyalty', concludes this enumeration of unfortunate rulers.62
More than Queen Mary's or Oldenbarnevelt's, Charles' case struck a sympathetic
chord with Behn: she would have found a hint here for the linkage, in the
dedication to Payne, of Tarquini's Roman ancestry with 'Stuart legitimacy' as
well as for the fate of her major character.63 But she was evidently not taken in
by the anonymous author's outrageous attempt to accord Maria Theresia the status
of martyrdom, to the point of shamelessly equating her sufferings with those of
Christ. That Behn did not simply dramatize this mendacious, role-reversing
version of the events, in which Anna Louisa features as the insatiable
instigator of her sister's misfortunes, strongly suggests that she had access to
the official evidence as contained in the court records, including those dated
after 1663.
In addition to the court case which inspired it, The Fair Jilt owes part of its
credibility to a distinct Roman Catholic ambience, including the realities of life in a
beguinage, that most typically South Netherlandish of religious institutions, which
evidently fascinated the author.64 Behn was especially well-informed about this
community of women to which Miranda, unlike her real-life counterpart, belongs.
Several features of Behn's fictional beguinage are faithfully transcribed from daily
61 For a detailed reading of The Fair Jilt as a fiction imitating the 'scandal chronicle [...] in
conjunction with narrative elements that typify aristocratic romance', see Christopher Flint,
Family Fictions: Narrative and Domestic Relations in Britain, 1688-1798 (Stanford, CA,
1998), chapter 2.
62 Waarachtig verhaal, 3-4, 23. 63 Flint, 94.
64 The 'Church belonging to the Cordeliers' (12), or Franciscan friars, where Miranda first
sets eyes on Henrick, probably refers to the Convent and Church of the Annunciades, built
between 1615 and 1620 and located on Lange Winkelstraat. Erected with the financial
support of the Archdukes Albert and Isabella and sponsored by local merchants, the con
vent attracted many young women, both rich and poor. See Bert Timmermans, Patronen
van Patronage in het zeventiende-eeume Antwerpen (Amsterdam, 2008), 119-21. Waarachtig
verhaal states that when Anna claimed she had miraculously escaped an attempt on her life,
the 'Discalced Fathers' asked her to donate a silver lamp as an object of veneration as the
miracle had taken place near their church, a plausible detail suggesting that 'holy men' had
been 'actors' of sorts in the Tarquini 'intrigue'.
practice in the Flemish beguinages: allowing well-to-do beguines to retain control

of their worldly possessions; the management of beguines under 'a Governante'
(9); the young entry age of some of them; the absence of binding vows, except that
of obedience; the particular habits worn by beguines going out into the world and
the custom of doing so in pairs (Cornelia is Miranda's companion); the priest
assigned to them as a confessor; and the obligation to attend mass daily.65
Admittedly, Behn used the term 'order' somewhat loosely, as the beguines were
never a religious order as such. She also exaggerated the nature and size of
beguinages in styling them 'Palaces that will hold about fifteen hundred or two
thousand of these Fille Devotes1 (9), although the figure was not far off the mark
where the Groot Begijnhof in nearby Mechlin, a court beguinage consisting of 95
convents in 1555, was concerned.66 It is the story of Prince Henrick that most
aptly demonstrates Behn's understanding and clever use of the problematic nature
of beguinages as 'open-ended' religious communities, 'alternating between the
contemplative and the active life'.67 The beguines' freedom of movement and
their cultural and educational role within medieval and early modern society
become the occasion for a variety of worldly temptations, for 'they receive Visits
from all the Men of the best Quality [...] Presents, Balls, Serinades and Billets [...
T]here is no sort of Female Arts they are not practis'd in, no Intrigues they are
ignorant of, and no Management of which they are not capable' (10).68 In the
fictional world of The Fair Jilt, life at the beguinage, with all the attractions it
offers a young woman as accomplished as Miranda, the 'Co-heiress to so great a
Fortune' (11), becomes the breeding-ground for the vices—deviousness, greed,
vanity, and vindictiveness—of which she will show herself to be the mistress.
Clearly, as in The History of the Nun; or, The Fair Vow-Breaker, Behn's other
South Netherlandish story, the moral fibre of the heroine must be tested in her
capacity as a member of a religious community, be it a beguinage or a convent.69
The story of Miranda and Prince Henrick, its climactic scene of attempted rape in
the confessional neatly reversing the literary stereotypes, subtly capitalizes on the
65 Walter Simons, 'The Beguine Movement in the Southern Low Countries: A

Reassessment', Bulletin de L'Institut Historique Belge de Rome, 59 (1989), 63-105.
66 Behn was probably thinking of Antwerp's Mount Sion Beguinage, founded in 1240,
which by the mid-sixteenth century occupied the whole length of Rodestraat and had its
own church, St Catharine's.
67 Walter Simons, Cities of Ladies. Beguine Communities in the Medieval Low Countries,
1200-1565 (Philadelphia, 2001), 59, 119, 311-13.
68 Monika Triest, Het hesloten hof. Begijnen in de Zuidelijke Nederlanden (Leuven, 1998),
chapter 4; and Philippe Guignet, 'Etat béguinal, demi-clôture et "vie mêlée" des filles
dévotes de la Réforme Catholique dans les Pays-Bas méridionaux à l'époque moderne',
Histoire, économie et société, 24 (2005), 373-85.
69 In spite of her impeccable reputation, the heroine Isabella breaks her religious vows as
well as those of marriage and widowhood. The setting of this tale, the town of Ypres before
it was conquered by the armies of Louis XIV in May 1678, lacks the local colour of the
Antwerp one in The Fair Jilt and is of no integral significance to the tale.
allegations of hypocrisy and looseness that had been levelled at beguines since their
communities' earliest beginnings. In so doing Behn inconspicuously plugged into a
long-standing tradition of anticlerical literature aimed at exposing the true nature
of beguines and their 'uninclos'T world (10). English readers in 1688, the year of
the Glorious Revolution, would have been alert to these anti-Catholic overtones.
The narrator's depiction of beguinages, then, reflects a lived experience which
goes a long way towards recreating the story's continental context. Like Miranda,
Behn's other protagonists, while drawn from life, are by and large made subser
vient to the requirements of the plot.
As already noted, Prince Tarquini was a nobleman of Italian descent, who unlike
his wife and sister-in-law is allowed to 'retain' his real name, 'it being too illus
trious to be conceal'd' (9).70 Apart from his name, the adventurer emerging from
the historical records has only the faintest resemblance to the hero in The Fair Jilt.
Behn was no doubt aware that his royal descent and title were severely contested
and that he was indeed no more than an 'Imposture' (27) with an eye to the main
chance. But her narrator prefers to ascribe all misgivings about his 'Revenue' and
'Grandure' (27) to popular sentiment, a narrative device that occasionally relieves
Behn of the obligation to take sides or judge situations and characters. The idea,
for instance, that Tarquini is only a merchant's son is initially ascribed to the
nobility, who despise him as a devious social climber, but more or less confirmed at
the end of the story. The magnificence Tarquini displays upon his first appearance
in Antwerp makes 'the young Roman Monarch' (28) an easy prey for Miranda,
who conquers him despite the warnings of his friends and 'several Men of Quality
in Orders' (29). Unless the historical Tarquini lived on borrowed money, prior to
his marriage he did not have the means to keep up the brilliant life-style Behn
attributes to him. Writing from his Antwerp prison on 30 May 1666, Tarquini
admitted that his father Bartolomeo had lived an obscure but honourable life and
that his grandfather Antonio, after quarrelling with the Pope's nephews, had lost
all his lands in Romagna.71 The footmen, pages, splendid clothes, and coaches he
flaunts in The Fair Jilt became a distinguishing feature of his train de vie once he
came into his wife's inheritance.
In accordance with the moral aim of a tale exemplifying the destructive power of
love, the fictional Tarquini, '[b]rave and Inoffensive' (27) but infatuated beyond
remedy, is both Miranda's plaything and her immovable prop. In the first murder
attempt on Alcidiana, far from being an accomplice, he remains unaware of his
wife's machinations. When bystanders arrest him as the 'intended Murtherer', they
soon feel sorry for having had 'any Hand in the Ruin of so gallant a Man' (40).
70 18 years old in 1659, at the time 'when our King Charles [...] was in Bruxels, in the last
Year of his Banishment' (27), he supposedly did not establish himself in Antwerp until 6
years later. In reality Tarquini was some 20 years older and, when he married Maria
Theresia in 1656, he had been living in the city for a long time.
71 See note 10.
Even Alcidiana herself, recognizing that Tarquini has acted at her sister's instiga
tion, is 'extreamly afflicted for having been the Prosecutor of this great Man' (47).
As with Oroonoko, that other aristocratic protagonist dying a heroic death,
Tarquini's royal descent and inborn nobility are the defining features of his char
acter and they shine through in all circumstances.72 On the scaffold, with his
thoughts going out to his wife, friends, servants, and the hangman, he is elevated
to the status of a martyr saint, the crowd 'scrambling' for relics in the shape of 'the
bloody Saw-dust, to keep for his Memory' (45). Rather than spotting the irony in
the treatment and fate of the hero that some modern critics have emphasized,
contemporary readers may have been reminded of Charles I's reported claim on
the scaffold to be the 'Martyr of the People'.73 Nor could they have failed to pick
up the verbal echoes inviting comparison with the spectacle acted out at Whitehall
4 decades earlier, including the ominous presence of a 'black Velvet Coffin' (44). If
the historical Tarquini was a character of 'less Fortitude and Vertue' (5) than
Behn's dedicatee, himself a 'representative Stuart figure', in The Fair Jilt his
patient sufferance in the religion of love and his close brush with eternity ultim
ately assimilate him with the figure of the martyr king.74
Although less fictionalized than Tarquini, the other characters and the predica
ments in which they find themselves are also treated with a fair degree of poetic
licence. As in real life, Miranda's refusal to share the inheritance with Alcidiana
leads to a devilish conspiracy when the underage Alcidiana requests permission
from her sister and brother-in-law to contract a marriage with a young count. As
this would entail settling their sister's share of the inheritance, the ostentatious
couple refuse to comply. Archival evidence of any marriage plans on Anna
Louisa's part is lacking but she was 36 when her uncle died in 1659 and would
have hardly stood in need of a guardian (Oosterlincx's will stipulated that if Anna
Louisa were to get married, she was to receive a dowry in the amount of 6,000
guilders).75 Instead of fleeing her uncle's house and 'putting her self into the
Hands of a wealthy Merchant' (31) Anna Louisa, after being turned out of
doors, requested the assistance of the city aldermen and found temporary shelter
with the widow of a Mr De Ridder, one of the city's receivers.76 By
leaving Alcidiana at the mercy of her ruthless sibling, Behn manipulates the
reader's sympathy into the desired response: that of moral condemnation of the
amorous elder sister, whose adoration of the 'glorious and dazling' (27)
72 Aphra Behn, Oroonoko: An Authoritative Text. Historical Backgrounds. Criticism, ed.

Joanna Lipking (New York, 1997), 64-5.
73 King Charles His Speech Made upon the Scaffold at Whitehall Gate, Immediately before his
Execution, On Tuesday the 30. of Jan. 1648 (London, 1649), 6, 8.
74 Flint, 93-4, notes that 'Tarquin [...] may symbolize Stuart destinies'. Jacqueline Pearson
also points to Tarquini's identification with Charles I but calls him 'an uneasy model of the
Stuart monarch': see 'The short fiction (excluding Oroonoko)\ in Hughes and Todd, 190.
75 See note 16. 76 CAA, PK 2951.
Tarquini is as destructive as her fascination for prince Henrick, another 'Man of

Quality' (12).77
When Alcidiana takes the inheritance dispute to court, Miranda hatches 'a Deed
of Darkness' (31), to be perpetrated by her servant Van Brune, a character mod
elled on Maria's coachman Engelbrecht Huybrechts. As the legal documents show,
Huybrechts' weapon in his murder attempt on Anna Louisa was a pistol. In The
Fair Jilt, the obliging coachman's use of a "Devilish Potion" (32) that will horribly
deface Alcidiana is a way of enhancing dramatic plausibility, allowing Behn to
avoid the apparent improbability of Anna Louisa's escaping, in near-identical
circumstances, two successive attempts to shoot her, a remarkable instance of
fiction falling short of reality. As opposed to Huybrechts, who eluded capture
and subsequent execution, Van Brune pays the highest price for his services to
Miranda: while he is hanged, his mistress is merely put to shame in a mock
execution. Behn must have known that Maria had stood in the pillory with a
copy of the 1663 pamphlet tied around her neck. But she merely hinted at this
pitiful spectacle by having Miranda branded with 'an Inscription in large
Characters upon her Back and Breast, of the Cause why' (35)—her body thus
allusively 'inscribed' with the text of Behn's unnamed printed source. Neither the
public burning of the pamphlet nor Maria's expulsion from the Duchy of Brabant
are at this point part of Miranda's ordeal. Not until later, when brought to trial
together with her husband, is Miranda condemned 'to be banish'd her Country'
(42). In the Van Brune scenes, Behn fails to indicate why, 'as an Author of all this
Mischief (34), Miranda is not sentenced to death (Maria Theresia was spared the
death penalty because she never confessed to complicity to murder, even under
torture). However, such discontinuity, not untypical of Behn's narrative style,
helps to confirm Miranda in the part of the shrewd villainess who invariably
manages to avoid the worst fate.
Miranda's 'jrjeleasment' (36) allows the narrator to capitalize on the Tarquinis'
plans for a second attempt on Alcidiana's life. Blinded by his boundless love for
'this fair Enchantress', Tarquini decides personally to 'dispatch' (38) his sister
in-law. In order to cover her tracks, Miranda arranges for letters containing death
threats addressed to Alcidiana to be sent from the Holy Roman Empire
('Germany').78 Supposedly written by vengeful relatives of the executed Van
Brune, the letters are designed to hoodwink the Antwerp magistrate by diverting
suspicion from the Tarquinis. Miranda's manipulation of her husband's emotions,
animated by flights of passionate direct speech, and her sly precautions are no
more than fictional embroideries serving to exculpate Tarquini while accentuating
his wife's scheming nature. This resourceful creation of atmosphere, however, is
77 Jacqueline Pearson has argued that in The Fair Jilt 'the narrator's voice questions and
subverts this facile moral framework [i.e. 'Miranda as a monster of iniquity and Tarquin as a
preux chevalier'] and creates a world more complex and disturbing in its ambiguities': see
'Gender and Narrative in the Fiction of Aphra Behn', RES, 42 (1991), 40-56 (53); 180-90.
78 The reference to 'Germany' is not an arbitrary one: the Prince-Bishopric of Liège, where
Huybrechts had settled down, was a political part of the Holy Roman Empire.
made to co-exist with a local setting which, like the beguinage, is both invented
and true. Unlike what happened in Antwerp in February 1666, in The Fair Jilt the
attempted murder does not take place near the Church of the Calced Carmelites or
in broad daylight. Instead, armed with a pistol Tarquini for several nights on end
lies in wait near Alcidiana's house-in vain, it turns out, for either she does not go
out or returns home attended by her fiancé. The attempt on her life is thus
relocated to the site of the Antwerp theatre, which Alcidiana is said to visit
every Sunday. Waiting 'at the Corner of the Statt-house' (38), Tarquini fires at
her when she enters the playhouse but 'missed her Body, and shot through her
Cloaths, between her Arm, and her Body' (39), an almost exact echo of the official
records.79 Interestingly, this setting perfectly corresponds with the geography of
Antwerp and the state of the contemporary theatre world as it has been recently
reconstructed. Alcidiana's playhouse could only have been the Almoners' Theatre,
or Theatrum Musicale, 'the first permanent, commercial theatre of Antwerp',
located near the city hall on the market place.80 Opened as recently as 8
January 1661, it occupied the ground floor of the 'House of Spain'. When Behn
arrived in Antwerp in the Summer of 1666, a few years before starting her career
as a playwright, her curiosity may have been aroused by this theatre, which had a
repertoire of Dutch-language tragedies and comedies performed by local actors
and travelling companies.81 Coupling professional interest with emblematic mean
ing, Behn obviously thought of the playhouse as the appropriate locale for one of
the 'four highly climactic scenes' of her story, 'all of which are dramatically con
structed with direct discourse, theatrical gesticulation, and a practical -architectural
representation of background.'82
In The Fair Jilt the trial against Tarquini is a long time coming (6 months
versus 3 in reality), mainly because of various attempts to discontinue the proceed
ings. These, however, were initiated by Tarquini himself rather than his friends or
admirers. Yet Behn's insistence that the clergy and the nobility clashed over the
question of Tarquini's guilt and his status, far from being her invention, reflected
the public's divided loyalties. In his 1663 request addressed to the Conseil Privé,
Tarquini argued that his wife had been unlawfully detained for 7 or 8 months by
the Antwerp magistrate, 'entre lesquels il y a plusieurs ennemys jurés du
79 After the ensuing scuffle, in which Tarquini acts more bravely than his real-life coun
terpart, the prince is taken to prison by his 'pursuers' (40) and examined the next day. This
accords with contemporary custom: in the absence of a standing police force, anyone
catching a criminal offender in the act could hand him/her over to the authorities. The
'magistrate' before whom Tarquini appears had to bring charges within 3 days of the
accused person's arrest. See Laenens, 95-6.
80 Timothy De Paepe, 'How new technologies can contribute to our understanding of
seventeenth- and eighteenth-century drama: an Antwerp study case', Journal of Dutch
Literature, 1 (2010), 5-7.
81 That the attempt on Alcidiana's life should take place in the semidarkness is not incon
sistent with the day-to-day practice of the Almoners' theatre, which was housed in an
enclosed building and used artificial lighting for all performances.
82 K. P. Aercke, 'Theatrical Background in English Novels of the Seventeenth Century',
Journal of Narrative Technique, 18 (1988), 120-36 (127).
remonstrant et de sa famille'.83 Certainly, the capital punishment was just as

spectacularly bungled in reality as it is in The Fair Jilt, except in its conclusion:
it was not the spectators who 'bore the prince on their Heads' (45) to the Jesuit
buildings adjoining the Carolus Borromeus Church.84 Fearing popular displeas
ure, the margrave and the aldermen decided to halt the execution and have
Tarquini carried to prison for medical treatment. While such minor adaptation
of the facts is consistent with the crowd's feelings of sympathy for Tarquini
emphasized in The Fair Jilt, the care given him by 'the most skilful Surgeons'
for 'his very great Wound' in the 'Shoulder-bone' and his gradual 'Amendment'
(46) have the ring of reported truth.85 Most importantly, the 'miraculous' pres
ervation of the 'Body of the Prince' (45), a fate denied King Charles, was an
outcome that perfectly served Behn's turn, her execution scene being both a
memento and an amendment of the events of January 1649.
If the real Tarquini, by all accounts, was not the glamorized, altruistic nobleman
we come across in The Fair Jilt, the fanciful conclusion suggests that Behn had lost
track of him by the time she came to compose her narrative. Leaving Flanders of his
own volition, her hero is now revealed to be the only son of a wealthy father and
settles down to a comfortable existence in Holland; he is reunited with his wife, and
to recoup his 'Credit' (47) embarks on a successful career in the French army before
retiring to a tranquil life in the country. The last we hear is that he dies some 9
months before the author/narrator put pen to paper, both a piece of misinformation
and a convenient way of bringing the hero's story full circle. Whichever memories of
Tarquini may have lingered in Behn's mind, this moralizing conclusion emphasizing
Miranda's 'penitence' (48) is a tribute to the reclaiming power of love rather than a
reflection of the vicissitudes of fortune in the historical characters' lives.
III. Conclusion
The narrator in Oroonoko (1688) closely echoed the dedication to The Fair Jilt when
giving her readers to understand that she had been 'an Eye-Witness to a great part' of
this story, 'and what I cou'd not be Witness of, I receiv'd from the Mouth of the chief
Actor in this History, the Hero himself.86 This type of near-formulaic announcement,
Behn's so-called 'see and tell' claim, has sometimes been considered no more than a
rhetorical ploy or 'authenticating strategy'.87 Admittedly, from the evidence pieced
together here, little of the author's testimony about the conduits through which the
83 '[AJmong whom there are several sworn enemies of the defendant and his family'. CAA,
PK 2951.
84 Behn accurately locates them 'about a hundred Yards from the Scaffold' (45). See Piet
Lombaerde, 'De architectuur van de jezuïetenkerk te Antwerpen', in Herman Van Goethem
(ed.), Antwerpen en de Jezuïeten, 1562-2002 (Antwerpen, 2002), 23.
85 Why Behn did not include the astonishing detail of the knotted handkerchief, mentioned
in her printed sources, is not clear.
86 Oroonoko, 8.
87 Ballaster, 93, quoting Michael McKeon, 105-14.
facts reached her can be substantiated; some of it, however, can quite confidendy be
discredited. Despite the narrator's one-off claim that she had 'seen [Tarquini] pass the
Streets with twelve Footmen, and four Pages' (27), the possibility that Behn had been
an eye-witness 'to a great part of the Main' (9) must be ruled out altogether. She was
in Surinam from mid-1663 until the end of 1664, when most of the dramatic events
were being acted out, and did not arrive in Antwerp until the end of July 1666.88
Behn's true role as an eye-witness was that of an astute observer of Antwerp's social
scene, its streets and squares, churches and beguinage(s), prisons and law-court,
playhouse and rituals, all of which were worked into the framework of her narrative.
It is equally unlikely that she had some of the story from Tarquini himself, unless she
went to see him in his place of exile on Dutch territory, a move about which, as her
intelligence dated 27 August 1666 indicates, she was rather apprehensive for reasons
of security.89 Far harder to assess is the part played by other 'Actors in the Intrigue,
holy Men, of the Order of St Francis1 (9) as the narrator's purveyors of information.
While there is no evidence militating against this, the archival records offer no clues in
this respect. Having provided spiritual aid to Tarquini, a member of the Order of
Christ, Behn's Franciscans may have been as instructive as any of the other oral
sources from which she derived her rather intimate knowledge of the Tarquinis' trials
and tribulations. Left unmentioned in The Fair Jilt, however, are two printed sources,
which may confidently be looked upon as having contributed to the genesis of the
narrative: the Hollandsche Mercurius and, more importantly, Waarachtig Verhaal,
the pamphlet written or commissioned by Maria Van Mechelen. Behn's protests to
the contrary notwithstanding, 'hear/read and tell' must stand as the more appropriate
phrase to describe her modus operandi in The Fair Jilt.
One of the most attractive features of the story that Behn hit upon was the
opportunity it provided her, in the princely person of François Louis Tarquini, of
insinuating her belief in the continuous moral supremacy of the Stuart lineage.
The 'greatness' of soul, 'fearlessness' of heart, and 'illustriousness' of spirit (4)
which she ascribes to her dedicatee and to Tarquini's Roman ancestors are the
distinctive qualities of her central character, whose chequered progress, mainly
determined by selfless love, culminates in a scene of martyrdom strongly remin
iscent of King Charles' own demise. While the archival evidence shows that the
Tarquinis, husband and wife, were equally guilty of the criminal charges brought
against them, in The Fair Jilt the Prince's integrity is largely achieved in coun
terpoint to Miranda's unattractive role as the evil sister. Imbalanced as it may
seem, Behn's treatment of her characters testifies above all to her imaginative
ability to shape the disparate pieces of information generated by the Tarquini
court case into an exciting narrative with decidedly partisan overtones.
Ghent University
88 Todd, 35-66.
89 She wrote: 'in to Holl[an]d I dare as well be hanged as go'. See Cameron, 41.

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'REALITY, AND MATTER OF FACT': TEXT AND CONTEXT IN APHRA BEHN'S "THE FAIR

BY J. P. VANDER MOTTEN AND RENE VERMEIR

1 M. A. O'Donnell, 'Aphra Behn: the documentary record', in D. Hughes and J. Todd

incomplete, Todd's brief summary of this lurid chronicle of greed, attempted

I. Love, greed and murder

10 François Louis Tarquini to an unidentified recipient, 30 May 1666. Wiltshire and

On 27 September 1662 legal proceedings against Maria Theresia were started by

In no doubt as to Maria Theresia's guilt of the attempt of 11 August as well as earlier

Ontschuldige Mevroume De Tarquino ('The veritable story of the tragic imprison

33 Tarquini's lawsuit, 19 April- 20 May 1666. CAA, V 157, f. 103v.-105v.

II. Ά story so well known to yourself, and many hundreds more'

potential intermediaries—she would have had little trouble familiarizing herself

56 Hollandtze Mercurius. Seventhiende Deel (1667), June 1666, 96.

practice in the Flemish beguinages: allowing well-to-do beguines to retain control

65 Walter Simons, 'The Beguine Movement in the Southern Low Countries: A

72 Aphra Behn, Oroonoko: An Authoritative Text. Historical Backgrounds. Criticism, ed.

Tarquini is as destructive as her fascination for prince Henrick, another 'Man of

remonstrant et de sa famille'.83 Certainly, the capital punishment was just as

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