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Program Title
Credits Executive Producer: Rebecca Eaton, Jonathan Powell Producer: Hilary Heath Director: Ferdinand Fairfax Intro FRENCHMAN'S CREEK/Intro by Russell Baker Tonight we have romance. A gallant pirate, a sneering villain, a beautiful woman who is bored with her husband, a great country house full of menace, and swashbuckling galore. In short, we have Daphne DuMaurier. "Frenchman's Creek" is set in her favorite literary habitat, the coast of Cornwall, "wild and storm-tossed," as it is always called. First, however, we start in London. The time is the 1680s. A strange kind of war is in progress. Englishmen allied with Frenchmen are fighting Englishmen led by a Dutchman. Later the British will call it "the Glorious Revolution of 1688." For now all we need know is that religion is at the root of it. The English king James the Second, is a devout Catholic, and he is trying to restore Catholic power in Protestant England. This has set off a political and religious crisis that threatens to become a very bloody civil war. King James is supported by the French King Louis the Fourteenth, who is Catholic. The result is a war without much fighting between France and the Protestant forces in England. I know that this sounds terribly complicated, and that's because it really was terribly complicated. Our story, however, is not. It's important to know only that our heroine is Catholic. This means that in a landscape where the Protestant forces are in control, she is a woman in constant danger. Frenchman's Creek. Extro FRENCHMAN'S CREEK/Extro by Russell Baker Not only did Lady Dona lose her lover, she also ended up on the losing side of the Revolution of 1688. The Catholic King, James the Second, was driven from power and supplanted by the Protestants William and Mary. Mary was King James's daughter and next in line of succession to the throne. Her husband, William of Orange, was Dutch -- a good soldier, a shrewd statesman, a longtime ally in England's wars with France and, most importantly, a Protestant. England had suffered the nastiest kind of religious warfare for a century and more, ever since Henry the Eighth broke with the Catholic Church. Few Englishmen wanted to have it break out again, and this was what King James's policies threatened. His efforts to stop the uprising were weak, misguided and confused. He had alienated too many English statesmen and scared too many Protestants. As a result, he was never able to put together an effective army in England, and was forced to retreat to Ireland. There, a force of loyal Irish Catholics clashed with William's forces on the river Boyne, and lost. That was in 1688. Three hundred years later, Ireland still remembers. Descendants of William's Protestants still taunt Irish Catholics on the anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne by marching the streets under the Orange colors. Incidentally, here's something for old-movie buffs to chew on: King James, on whose behalf Lady Dona turned briefly to piracy, was the same king whose cruel policies drove Errol Flynn to a life of piracy -- as "Captain Blood." Errol was pardoned in the nick of time by Good King William. Let's hope the good king was just as kind to Lady Dona. For Mobil Masterpiece Theatre, I'm Russell Baker. Goodnight.
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