Burnell, Henry

by Helen Andrews

Burnell, Henry (fl. 1639–55), playwright, was born in Ireland into an Old English catholic family belonging to the gentry of the Pale, grandson of Henry Burnell (qv) and son and heir of Christopher Burnell of Castleknock, Co. Dublin. Nothing is known of his mother or his early life.

According to Burnell, his first play met with ‘too much spite’; his second and only surviving play, ‘Landgartha’, a tragi-comedy in verse, was performed with the permission of the master of revels at Ireland's first theatre (opened c.1635) at St Werburgh St., Dublin, on St Patrick's day ‘1639’ (NS 1640), ‘with good applause’. Based on an incident in Danish history and set in Scandinavia, it has the distinction of being the only Irish play known to have been performed at Werburgh St. and the first play written by an Irishman to introduce Irish local colour: in the third act Marsisa, a humorous gentlewoman, appears on stage dressed in ‘an Irish gowne tuck'd up to mid-legge, with . . . broags on her feet’ and later dances an Irish jig. Burnell, who wrote the piece in less than two months and disclaimed any particular poetic virtue or monetary incentive, warns his audience in the prologue that his intention is to invade their wills for their own profit. Interpreted as a political allegory, though the political sensitivities of the time precluded too close an identification of its characters, it reflects the disturbed state of contemporary Ireland – ‘A semi-maske: for now ‘t can be no more,/ for want of fitting actors here at court;/ the warre and want of money, is the cause on ‘t’ (act III) – and expresses the sense of betrayal felt by the catholic gentry, represented by Landgartha, a female warrior of Norway (i.e. Ireland), who fights alongside, marries, and is betrayed by Reyner, king of Denmark (representing the English king Charles I and the protestant interest). An underlying theme is that a king who is just and virtuous will always command the love and loyalty of his subjects and ensure peace in the land. The play's ending, which is inconclusive (Landgartha agrees to remain as Reyner's wife, since he promises to be faithful, though unwilling to consummate the marriage), apparently displeased the audience, for Burnell added a postscript when the play was printed (1641), pointing out to his critics that ‘a tragie-comedy sho'd neither end comically or tragically, but betwixt both . . . To the rest of the bablers, I despise any answer’.

It was possibly the last new play staged there before the theatre was closed owing to the rising of 1641. Burnell left for Kilkenny and became a member of the general assembly of the catholic confederation of Kilkenny (1642), signing the confederation's oath of association. His lands were confiscated under Oliver Cromwell (qv) and in 1655 he pleaded that his transplantation to Connacht should be delayed until the following year due to ‘his long and languishing illness . . . by which time he might recover his strength and travel on foot to Connaught’ (Prendergast, 41). The Burnells never recovered their Castleknock lands. His date of death is not known. He married Frances Dillon (d. 1640), daughter of Sir James Dillon (d. 1642), earl of Roscommon; of their children, four sons and five daughters survived childhood.