A Vindication of the Rights of Men of the French Revolution and the debates that it provoked in Britain. In a lively and sometimes vicious pamphlet war, now referred to as the "Revolution Controversy", which lasted from 1789 until the end of 1795, British political commentators argued over the validity of monarchy. One scholar has called this debate "perhaps the last real discussion of the fundamentals of politics in [Britain]". The power of popular agitation in revolutionary France, demonstrated in events such as the Tennis Court Oath and the storming of the Bastille in 1789, reinvigorated the British reform movement, which had been largely moribund for a
Gibbon's Tennis Court use to be so thronged, now empty since the opera begun—and so will continue for a while I believe." To remain competitive, Killigrew decided to construct a purpose-built theatre more to modern tastes. On 7 May 1663, just two-and-a-half years after the theatre in Lisle's Tennis Court opened, the King's Company moved to the new Theatre Royal in Bridges Street. According to an 1811 Robert Wilkinson image, Gibbon's Tennis Court was destroyed by fire on 17 September 1809. In the 20th century, the Stoll Theatre and the Peacock Theatre would be built at the same site. Gibbon's Tennis Court Gibbon's