A Triple-Faced Janus: Tom Jones as Bastard, Pretender, and Cowan

The main aim of this research is to carry out a three-level analysis of The History of Tom Jones; a Foundling (1749) by Henry Fielding, following and explaining its peculiar layering of various narrative lines. Firstly, the plot is largely centred on both the theme of Tom’s legitimacy as heir to Allworthy’s estate and his much needed prudence to enter into possession of it, by means of his final marriage. Secondly, these issues widely reflect the historical background in which the novel took shape, that is, the rebellion of 1745. Indeed, Tom’s image is based on Charles Edward Stuart, the so-called Young Pretender; his wife-to-be Sophia is mistaken for Jenny Cameron, the Pretender’s Scottish lover; Tom’s travels have much in common with the wanderings of the notorious claimant to the British throne. Thirdly, a symbolic level encompasses the preceding ones: contemporary rumours had it that Charles Edward Stuart was the universal leader of Freemasonry, probably the “hidden Grand-Master” (Marsha Keith Schuchard). From this perspective, Tom’s wanderings after being turned out from Paradise Hall, his adventures in the 'country section' under the falling rain, his imprisonment in London and gradual inner rebirth leading to his marriage to Sophia Western, describe a sort of ritual initiation following a typically masonic punishment for cowans, this latter being the name for a mason who has not been regularly bred, an intruder overhearing the secrets of a lodge, and therefore “placed under the eaves of the house in rainy weather, till the water runs in at his shoulders and out at his heels” (Albert Mackey). Therefore, my aim is to underscore the aspects which link the bastard, the individual improperly introduced into a household, to the figure of the pretender, the improper claimant to the throne, and to the cowan, the irregularly trained mason. Only following this line of thought, Tom’s progress can eventually be interpreted as a successful attempt to restore order amid various forms of illegitimacy. Moreover, such state of things portrays a rather different mid-eighteenth-century Britain, where the Stuarts regain their power and the Hanoverian monarchy is called into question.