AustLit

Comic opera.

'The plot commences after the defeat of Charles II at the battle of Worcester, whence the King and Rochester escape under the assumed names of Jacob Tompkins and Peregrine Samson. The first act exhibited their "Merry Freaks" at the seat of Sir Henry Milford in which they are assisted by that indispensable hero of Comic Opera, a mischievous page who becomes instrumental in the King's safe escape to the continent. The second act takes the narrative several years hence, opening with Charles' small court of exiled Royalists in Holland. An under-current of that "course of true love which never does run smooth," flows in sinuous windings through the piece which, in its denouement, terminates at Milord Hall, whither the King and his faithful adherents return previous to the Restoration' (Australian Journal 29 May 1843, p2).

The opera is also said to have humorously portrayed and contrasted the characteristics of the Cavaliers and Puritans of that age.