The Great Favourite
Encyclopedia
The Great Favourite, or the Duke of Lerma is a stage play written by Sir Robert Howard
, a historical drama based on the life of Francisco Goméz de Sandoval y Rojas, Duke of Lerma
, the favourite of King Philip III of Spain
. The play has often been considered Howard's best dramatic work, as well as a step in the development of the heroic drama
of the Restoration
era.
, acted by the King's Company
at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
. Nell Gwyn
played Lerma's daughter Maria. Samuel Pepys
saw the play in the company of King Charles II
and his court at the premier performance, as he recorded in his Diary. (Pepys interpreted the play as a veiled criticism of Charles's conduct with his mistress, and wrote that he had expected the King to interrupt the performance — though this did not occur.)
The play was published in a quarto
edition that same year by Henry Herringman
, and printed again in a folio
collection of Howard's works in 1692
.
has argued that this old play was a lost work by John Ford
, based on resemblances between The Great Favourite and Ford's distinctive drama. Other scholars have suggested that the old play reworked by Howard was The Spanish Duke of Lerma, a lost drama by Henry Shirley that was entered into the Stationers' Register
on September 9, 1653, but never published.
The Great Favourite is written in a mixture of blank verse and rhymed verse. Rhyme was coming to be the dominant fashion in the heroic drama of the Restoration, while the earlier Caroline drama of Ford and Shirley and their contemporaries had favoured blank verse. The two contrasting styles within The Great Favourite may yield some insight into the extent of Howard's rewrite versus the surviving portions of the original text.
composed the play's verse Prologue, spoken in the theatre. Though Howard and Dryden were colleagues and occasional collaborators (on The Indian Queen of 1664
), they also had a brief controversy about the use of rhyme and the role of public taste in drama. Their dispute was played out in their writings of the later 1660s, especially Dryden's Essay of Dramatick Poesie
and the Preface to The Great Favourite.
moves to restrain Lerma and even banishes him; but then the old king dies, and Lerma ascends in power with the new reign of Philip III. In time, Lerma appears to go too far; the virtuous members of the court, including the Duke of Alva and Lerma's brother the Duke of Medina, re-assert themselves, and it seems that Lerma will endure the conventional fall from grace of his character type. Yet Lerma escapes this expected fall in the final act, by purchasing a cardinal's office from a corrupt Papacy.
, formerly Charles's Lord Chancellor
and close confidante. Howard was associated with the "country party" that was then evolving in opposition to Court interests in the English political scene of the day. (Since Clarendon had, by 1668, already fallen from favour — he had been impeached by the House of Commons and fled to France the previous year — Howard's perceived criticism was far less risky than it would have been a few years earlier.)
Robert Howard (playwright)
Sir Robert Howard was an English playwright and politician, born to Thomas Howard, 1st Earl of Berkshire and his wife Elizabeth.-Life:...
, a historical drama based on the life of Francisco Goméz de Sandoval y Rojas, Duke of Lerma
Francisco Goméz de Sandoval y Rojas, Duke of Lerma
Don Francisco Gómez de Sandoval, 1st Duke of Lerma , a favourite of Philip III of Spain, was the first of the validos through whom the later Habsburg monarchs ruled. He was succeeded by Don Gaspar de Guzmán, Count-Duke of Olivares.-Biography:The family of Sandoval was ancient and powerful...
, the favourite of King Philip III of Spain
Philip III of Spain
Philip III , also known as Philip the Pious, was the King of Spain and King of Portugal and the Algarves, where he ruled as Philip II , from 1598 until his death...
. The play has often been considered Howard's best dramatic work, as well as a step in the development of the heroic drama
Heroic drama
Heroic drama is a type of play popular during the Restoration era in England, distinguished by both its verse structure and its subject matter. The sub-genre of heroic drama evolved through several works of the middle to later 1660s; John Dryden's The Indian Emperour and Roger Boyle's The Black...
of the Restoration
English Restoration
The Restoration of the English monarchy began in 1660 when the English, Scottish and Irish monarchies were all restored under Charles II after the Interregnum that followed the Wars of the Three Kingdoms...
era.
Performance and publication
The play was premiered onstage on 20 February 16681668 in literature
The year 1668 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:*Izaak Walton's Compleat Angler goes into its fourth edition.*John Dryden signs a contract to produce three plays a year for the King’s Company.-New books:...
, acted by the King's Company
King's Company
The King's Company was one of two enterprises granted the rights to mount theatrical productions in London at the start of the English Restoration. It existed from 1660 to 1682.-History:...
at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane is a West End theatre in Covent Garden, in the City of Westminster, a borough of London. The building faces Catherine Street and backs onto Drury Lane. The building standing today is the most recent in a line of four theatres at the same location dating back to 1663,...
. Nell Gwyn
Nell Gwyn
Eleanor "Nell" Gwyn was a long-time mistress of King Charles II of England. Called "pretty, witty Nell" by Samuel Pepys, she has been regarded as a living embodiment of the spirit of Restoration England and has come to be considered a folk heroine, with a story echoing the rags-to-royalty tale of...
played Lerma's daughter Maria. Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys FRS, MP, JP, was an English naval administrator and Member of Parliament who is now most famous for the diary he kept for a decade while still a relatively young man...
saw the play in the company of King Charles II
Charles II of England
Charles II was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland.Charles II's father, King Charles I, was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War...
and his court at the premier performance, as he recorded in his Diary. (Pepys interpreted the play as a veiled criticism of Charles's conduct with his mistress, and wrote that he had expected the King to interrupt the performance — though this did not occur.)
The play was published in a quarto
Book size
The size of a book is generally measured by the height against the width of a leaf, or sometimes the height and width of its cover. A series of terms is commonly used by libraries and publishers for the general sizes of modern books, ranging from "folio" , to "quarto" and "octavo"...
edition that same year by Henry Herringman
Henry Herringman
Henry Herringman was a prominent London bookseller and publisher in the second half of the 17th century. He is especially noted for his publications in English Renaissance drama and English Restoration drama; he was the first publisher of the works of John Dryden...
, and printed again in a folio
Book size
The size of a book is generally measured by the height against the width of a leaf, or sometimes the height and width of its cover. A series of terms is commonly used by libraries and publishers for the general sizes of modern books, ranging from "folio" , to "quarto" and "octavo"...
collection of Howard's works in 1692
1692 in literature
The year 1692 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:*Nahum Tate becomes Poet Laureate.*Thomas Rymer is made Historiographer Royal, and mounts a major effort to preserve and publish historical documents....
.
Authorship
In his Preface to the 1668 edition, Howard states that the King's Company had possessed an old play on the subject of the Duke of Lerma — an "unfit" thing that was yet "written with higher Style and Thoughts than I could attain to." Howard reworked the old play, "altering the most part of the Characters, and the whole Design...." Alfred HarbageAlfred Harbage
Alfred Bennett Harbage was an influential Shakespeare scholar of the mid-20th century. He was born in Philadelphia and received his undergraduate degree and doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania. He lectured on Shakespeare both there and at Columbia before becoming a professor at Harvard...
has argued that this old play was a lost work by John Ford
John Ford (dramatist)
John Ford was an English Jacobean and Caroline playwright and poet born in Ilsington in Devon in 1586.-Life and work:...
, based on resemblances between The Great Favourite and Ford's distinctive drama. Other scholars have suggested that the old play reworked by Howard was The Spanish Duke of Lerma, a lost drama by Henry Shirley that was entered into the Stationers' Register
Stationers' Register
The Stationers' Register was a record book maintained by the Stationers' Company of London. The company is a trade guild given a royal charter in 1557 to regulate the various professions associated with the publishing industry, including printers, bookbinders, booksellers, and publishers in England...
on September 9, 1653, but never published.
The Great Favourite is written in a mixture of blank verse and rhymed verse. Rhyme was coming to be the dominant fashion in the heroic drama of the Restoration, while the earlier Caroline drama of Ford and Shirley and their contemporaries had favoured blank verse. The two contrasting styles within The Great Favourite may yield some insight into the extent of Howard's rewrite versus the surviving portions of the original text.
Dryden
Howard's brother-in-law John DrydenJohn Dryden
John Dryden was an influential English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who dominated the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the period came to be known in literary circles as the Age of Dryden.Walter Scott called him "Glorious John." He was made Poet...
composed the play's verse Prologue, spoken in the theatre. Though Howard and Dryden were colleagues and occasional collaborators (on The Indian Queen of 1664
1664 in literature
The year 1664 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:* Sir William Davenant's "dramatic opera" Macbeth, adapted from Shakespeare's play, premiers on November 5....
), they also had a brief controversy about the use of rhyme and the role of public taste in drama. Their dispute was played out in their writings of the later 1660s, especially Dryden's Essay of Dramatick Poesie
Essay of Dramatick Poesie
Essay of Dramatic Poesy by John Dryden was published in 1668. It was probably written during the plague year of 1666. Dryden takes up the subject that Philip Sidney had set forth in his Defence of Poesie and attempts to justify drama as a legitimate form of "poetry" comparable to the epic, as...
and the Preface to The Great Favourite.
The plot
Howard depicts Lerma as "a Renaissance Overreacher, a Grand Machiavel characterized by enormous ambition, unscrupulousness, and magniloquence." The Duke is a cynical and blasphemous manipulator who promotes his own followers and opposes the established nobility; he is willing to prostitute his daughter Maria to gain influence over the young prince Philip; he even plots the murder of the Queen Mother. The ageing King Philip IIPhilip II of Spain
Philip II was King of Spain, Portugal, Naples, Sicily, and, while married to Mary I, King of England and Ireland. He was lord of the Seventeen Provinces from 1556 until 1581, holding various titles for the individual territories such as duke or count....
moves to restrain Lerma and even banishes him; but then the old king dies, and Lerma ascends in power with the new reign of Philip III. In time, Lerma appears to go too far; the virtuous members of the court, including the Duke of Alva and Lerma's brother the Duke of Medina, re-assert themselves, and it seems that Lerma will endure the conventional fall from grace of his character type. Yet Lerma escapes this expected fall in the final act, by purchasing a cardinal's office from a corrupt Papacy.
Interpretation
Seventeenth-century readers and audiences were adept at drawing socio-political implications from works of literature and drama (as with the example of Pepys, cited above). Howard's portrayal of the Duke of Lerma was seen by contemporaries as a critique of the Earl of ClarendonEdward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon
Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon was an English historian and statesman, and grandfather of two English monarchs, Mary II and Queen Anne.-Early life:...
, formerly Charles's Lord Chancellor
Lord Chancellor
The Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, or Lord Chancellor, is a senior and important functionary in the government of the United Kingdom. He is the second highest ranking of the Great Officers of State, ranking only after the Lord High Steward. The Lord Chancellor is appointed by the Sovereign...
and close confidante. Howard was associated with the "country party" that was then evolving in opposition to Court interests in the English political scene of the day. (Since Clarendon had, by 1668, already fallen from favour — he had been impeached by the House of Commons and fled to France the previous year — Howard's perceived criticism was far less risky than it would have been a few years earlier.)