Editing John Vanbrugh (section)

==Political activism and the Bastille==
[[File:Bastille Exterior 1790 or 1791.jpg|thumb|upright=1.1|Sketch of the infamous French state prison the [[Bastille]] in Paris, where Vanbrugh was incarcerated]]

From 1686, Vanbrugh was working undercover, playing a role in bringing about the armed invasion by [[William III of England|William of Orange]], the deposition of [[James II of England|James II]], and the [[Glorious Revolution]] of 1688. He thus demonstrates an intense early identification with the Whig cause of [[parliamentary democracy]], with which he was to remain affiliated all his life. Returning from bringing William messages at [[The Hague]], Vanbrugh was arrested at [[Calais]] on a charge of espionage (which Downes concludes was trumped-up)<ref>pages 63–64, Sir John Vanbrugh A Biography, Kerry Downes, 1987, Sidgwick and Jackson, {{ISBN|0-283-99497-5}}</ref> in September 1688,<ref name="Beard-13">Beard, p. 13.</ref> two months before William invaded England. Vanbrugh remained in prison in France for four and a half years,<ref name="Beard-70">Beard, p. 70.</ref> albeit in reasonable comfort.<ref>Bryson p. 152</ref> In 1691 he requested to be moved from Calais to [[Vincennes]], at his own expense, where his treatment deteriorated enough to suffice his writing to [[Louis XIV]], leading to his eventual transfer to the [[Bastille]] in February 1692. This raised the profile of his case once more, finally prompting his release in November of the same year, in an exchange of political prisoners.<ref name="Downes"/><ref name="Beard-13" />

His life is sharply bisected by this prison experience, which he entered at age 24 and emerged from at 29, after having spent, as Downes puts it,<ref>page 76, Sir John Vanbrugh A Biography, Kerry Downes, 1987, Sidgwick and Jackson, {{ISBN|0-283-99497-5}}</ref> half his adult life in captivity. It seems to have left him with a lasting distaste for the French political system but also with a taste for the comic dramatists and the architecture of France.

The often-repeated claim that Vanbrugh wrote part of his comedy ''The Provoked Wife'' in the Bastille is based on allusions in a couple of much later memoirs and is regarded with some doubt by modern scholars (see McCormick).<ref>page 16, Sir John Vanbrugh The Playwright as Architect, Frank McCormick, 1991, Pennsylvania State University, {{ISBN|0-271-00723-0}}</ref> After being released from the Bastille, he had to spend three months in Paris, free to move around but unable to leave the country, and with every opportunity to see an architecture "unparalleled in England for scale, ostentation, richness, taste and sophistication".<ref>Downes, p. 75.</ref> He was allowed to return to England in April 1693;<ref name="Beard-70"/> once he returned to England he joined the Navy and took part in an unsuccessful naval attack against the French at [[Brest, France|Brest]].<ref name="Beard-15">Beard, p. 15.</ref> At some point in the mid-1690s, it is not known exactly when, he exchanged army life for London and the London stage.<ref name="Beard-15" />