Chapter 3 The Tragedy of Roxolana in the Court of Charles II

Judy A. Hayden

Women have grossly snar’d the wisest prince

That ever was before, or hath been since.^[240]

In his introduction to Fulke Greville’s Mustapha (1609), Geoffrey Bullough observes that for Greville, “Kings might be the Lord’s Anointed, but they must remember their responsibilities to both Divine and human law [...

Roxolana is a controversial historical figure, who “left an indelible mark on... the European imagination.”^[242] This mark was certainly made manifest in England through the Carolean plays in which she appears in a leading role, such as William Davenant’s revised, two-part The Siege of Rhodes (1663), Roger Boyle, Earl of Orrery’s Mustapha (1668), and Elkanah Settle’s Ibrahim the Illustrious Bassa (1677), as well as other dramatic texts which offer various references to her.

There has been considerable scholarship on the East-West dichotomy in the early modern and Enlightenment literary periods, whether, for example, to demonstrate the manner in which the West demonized Oriental rulers to denote their own ascendancy, or conversely, to use the Eastern ruler as a “a model for admiration and imitation, shaming or schooling the English into supremacy,” as Burton has argued. ^[243] Bridget Orr maintains that the playhouses helped to develop and disseminate “Orientalist views of Europe’s predecessors and rivals in empire,” and functioned as a contemporary mirror where issues such as succession and monarch-subject relations might be explored.^[244] Such studies of the East/West dichotomy have been seminal in developing an understanding of early modern and Enlightenment awareness of Self and “Other,” of the growth of nationalism, of political awareness, and of statecraft, as well as of the progress of empire.

In literary discourse, sexual politics and political power are intrinsically linked in constructions of the monarch, where unrestrained sexual desire brings about confusion to—or even the collapse of—masculine authority. As Pat Gill contends, “Sexual obsessions undermine potent leadership”;^[245] the political critique in response to such an “effeminate” leadership requires if not “depends on misogynous rhetoric.”^[246] Roxolana represents “boundless passion, whether in her ambition for political or sexual absolute power.”^[247] For Carolean playwrights troubled by Charles Il’s unrestrained promiscuity, the figure of Roxolana offered a distinctive opportunity to present their concerns and anxieties about the relationship between the King’s mistresses on the one hand, and court and state politics on the other. Roxolana embodied “ambition, sexuality, revenge, exoticism; in fact in the eighteenth century, she came to personify womanhood herself.”^[248] In their respective plays, Boyle and Settle carefully reconfigure the Roxolana character to demonstrate the potential danger of female sexual power to the state.

Early accounts of Roxolana often focus on her dominance over Suleiman. As Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq records in his Turkish Letters, Roxolana desired to put her own son on the throne, and to this end she employed the advice of her son-in-law, “Pasha Roostem” (Rustem Pasha).^[249] Busbecq’s version of the tragedy of Mustapha emphasizes that it was the “calaumnies of Roostem and the spells of Roxolana, who was in ill repute as a practiser of witchcraft,” that brought about the estrangement between Suleiman and his son, Mustapha, a prince much loved by the soldiers.^[250] Other accounts by Nicolas de Moffan, the translation and enlargement by Hugh Goughe, as well as William Painter’s own elaboration of Moffan, and Richard Knolles’s Generali Historie of the Turkes also point to Roxolana’s involvement in the execution of Mustapha.^[251] In these texts, the writers exaggerate the sinister qualities of Roxolana, observing that she “pretended” at religion, establishing charitable foundations, mosques, and hospitals, for example, as part of her plan to entice Suleiman to marry her; that she sent poisoned clothing to Mustapha to effect his murder; and that she relied on a Jewish enchantress for her sorcery.

Linda McJannet argues that Painter’s text “anticipates the tendency of later historians, such as Knolles, to narrativize their sources, setting events in a master narrative of East-West enmity and Ottoman decline.”^[253] Painter’s text does indeed reflect a condemnation of the Turks in general, implying an inherent Western superiority, but in dealing with gender, the two men’s treatment of Roxolana differs strongly. Goughe’s unshakable hostility toward the Sultana cannot be overlooked. Even so, in both of these texts, Roxolana is largely the active agent in the plot, whereas Rustan carries out her commands.

McJannet argues that “the public demonizing of Roxolana and Rustan was a conscious strategy (perhaps even Rustan’s own) to divert blame from Suleyman and to stabilize the political situation.”^[254] This demonizing, proffered to an audience eager to learn about the exotic “Other,” simply fed posthaste into an English culture of castigating women—a culture that had already demonstrated a keen appetite for such a practice. That Roxolana plotted Mustapha’s demise is certainly recorded in a number of early modern correspondences and prose tracts; but if this is true, Roxolana continued to live as the Sultan’s wife, apparently without harm, to the end of her natural life. As Ballaster notes, “The figure of the oriental woman in European narrative is, above all else, associated with the practice of plotting, whether for positive or negative ends.”^[255] If the Sultan believed in her guilt, if she was punished, no record has been left to us. Yet in the literature which followed after Mustapha’s death, Roxolana is typically implicated in the tragedy, along with her son-in-law Rustem, whom Suleiman removed from public office after Mustapha’s death.

Carolean playwrights developed a number of plots set in the Levant and may have been encouraged to do so owing to the number of tracts published in this period about the Ottoman empire, such as Henry Marsh’s.Vev Survey of the Turkish Empire (1663), Paul Rycaut’s The Present State of the Ottoman Empire (1668) (an expanded version of Richard Knolles’s Generali Historie of the Turkes, published numerous times during the Restoration), and Edward Spragge’s A True and Perfect Relation of the Happy Successe and Victory Obtained Against the Turks... in this Memorable Action (1671). The ongoing conflict in Europe over Ottoman incursions,^[257] particularly the Turkish desire to add Vienna to their vast territories, as well as the difficulties the English were experiencing with the Moors of Tangier and the Barbary pirates, may have served as well to further playwrights’ use of this often told Ottoman story.^[258]

English playwrights had little difficulty in associating Charles II with the Sultan and the harem, owing to the King’s own “sexual promiscuity and love of luxurious display”;^[259] nor could they have missed the manner in which descriptions of Suleiman and his court reflected the English one, that is, a magnificent monarch inordinately impassioned by a beautiful, fair-complexioned woman, who purportedly managed the Sultan. At least as early as 1660, Charles II had begun a long-term involvement with Barbara Palmer (nee Villiers), Countess of Castlemaine, an auburn-haired, fair-complexioned beauty, who also concerned herself in state affairs.

One of the early Restoration playwrights who developed the tragic story of Roxolana and Mustapha was Roger Boyle, the Earl of Orrery, whose Mustapha is perhaps based on Knolles’s Generali Historie of the Turkes.^[260] Clark points out that Boyle took some of the suggestion for his plot from Madeleine de Scudery’s Ibrahim, or the Illustrious Bassa ^[261]The play, considered one ofBoyle’s masterpieces, underwent numerous performances in the early Restoration and remained a stock piece for decades after its initial run.^[262] In Boyle’s play, Solyman’s (Suleiman’s) vizier, Rustan (Rustem), finds Roxolana his chief obstacle to gaining further power at court; she maintains her influence over the Sultan owing to her ability to continually inflame his ardor. Rustan gains Roxolana’s favor by heightening her fear for the safety of Zanger (Jihangir) should his half brother Mustapha come to power, for by Ottoman custom, the new Sultan must kill all his rivals, who are, of course, his brothers.^[263] In true heroic fashion, Zanger concludes a pact with Mustapha whereby the elder brother promises that when he succeeds to the throne, he will not follow tradition and murder Zanger. In return, Zanger promises that he will not outlive the day Mustapha dies. Unaware of the pact, Roxolana colludes with Rustan to bring about Mustapha’s downfall by making Solyman jealous of his son, which provides the impetus for the tragedy which follows.

Much of Boyle’s plot does not align with historical events and is simply a construct of heroic drama. The hunchbacked Jihangir (the Zanger of Boyle’s play) was never a serious contender for the throne.^[264] Busbecq records that he was “disfigured by a hump, [and] had no strength of mind or body to enable him to resist the shock [of the death of his brother, Mustapha].”^[265] The young man did not commit suicide, as in Boyle’s plot, but rather, Busbecq claims, the thought that he, too, must die when one of his brothers succeeded to the throne so terrified him that he died of an illness brought on by his fear.^[266]

Linda McJannet argues that Boyle’s Roxolana is not an malevolent, engineering woman; rather, she was encouraged in her design to divert the line of succession by the evil counselor, Rustem Pasha.^[267] Evil counselors are the topic of a number of plays in the first decade of the Restoration, as playwrights point to the political chaos engendered by corrupt ministers. These dramatic designs were perhaps meant to reflect on Edward Hyde, the First Earl of Clarendon, Charles Il’s Chancellor, who, like Rustem Pasha, was viewed as corrupt and self-serving and purportedly suffered from avarice.

Although Boyle’s plot may seem initially an uncomplicated redevelopment of so-called “historical events,” his characters are not particularly straightforward— and Roxolana above all. The playwright gives this Sultana an inflated sense of her own authority and an intense craving for power. When Rustan questions her command that her mutes strangle him, Roxolana answers imperiously:

I’le not dissemble as you Viziers do.

A Viziers power is but subordinate,

He’s but the chief dissembler of the State;

And oft for publick int’rests lies; but I

The partner of Supreme Authority,

Do ever mean the utmost that I say. (1.4.347-52)

Her comment on the integrity of court ministers and their place in the hierarchy may well be read as a reflection of Boyle’s own dislike of Clarendon, but what is of note here is that this observation is given by a woman, whose interests should be in the harem rather than in the court. The Sultana is deeply involved in politics and designates herself Solyman’s partner of Supreme Authority, claiming to have the power to invoke the death sentence for the Sultan’s viziers. When Achmet, Solyman’s “eunuch bassaw,” voices his relief that she has taken the safer road and simply sent Rustan away instead of executing him, Roxolana responds with haughty condemnation, “Can you your safety doubt whilst you are mine?” (1.4.373).

Because the Sultana does not hand over the infant Hungarian heir to Rustan, a subplot which I shall discuss shortly, Solyman must confront her himself, noting furiously that he has had to leave the siege of Buda to “beleaguer” her. Roxolana does not turn the child over to Rustan, she tells her husband, because, “I thought in gaining you, I gain’d the Field, / And therefore would not to your Subjects yield” (1.4.393-4). In the contest of love and politics at court, she is the victor and therefore has the ultimate word of authority, not only above all the subjects, including the ministers, but above Solyman himself. When Solyman will not back down from his demand for the child, Roxolana bursts into tears, and Solyman relents, assuring her, “You, Roxolana, are the conquerour. / What storm is not allay’d by such a showre?” (1.4.465-6).

Rustan observes the extent of Roxolana’s influence over Solyman, noting apprehensively, “She o’re his heart still more victorious grows / And faster Conquers him, than he his foes” (2.2.1-2). Literary texts in the Restoration resonate with sexual rhetoric intrinsically linked with political discourse in fashioning complaints about ambitious court ladies. As Rustan in Boyle’s play understands, winning the approval of the powerful mistress(es) at court was paramount to gaining the monarch’s ear. The Comte de Gramont, for example, points out that George Villiers, the Second Duke of Buckingham, endeavored to curry the affections of Frances Stuart that he might find further favor with the King.^[268] Henry Bennet, the Earl of Arlington, Gramont writes, was also “anxious to dominate the mistress (Frances Stuart), in order that he might obtain control of her master”; and the ambitious Earl of Bristol, George Digby, who “knew that love and pleasure controlled a master,” gave numerous parties for the court, to which he invited his two lovely relatives, Frances and Margaret Brooke, to display for the King.^[269]

Given Roxolana’s power over the Sultan, Boyle insinuates, Rustan had little choice but to collaborate to survive. Rustan, then, assists Roxolana in her plot against Mustapha to save Zanger, but when the progress they make moves more slowly than the Sultana would like, she hints at a quicker end to the problem, “The Sultan’s love gives me a power so high / That I to this could give a remedy” (4.1.125-6). The army has rallied around Mustapha, and Rustan, who has reason to fear for his life, experiences a change of heart, encouraging Roxolana to save herself and the “injured Mustapha'” (4.5.603). Rustan and Pyrrhus hint at the consequences of Roxolana’s involvement in the plot and urge her to ask Solyman for government posts in Egypt and Babylon, but she refuses, pointing out that they have failed in their task—Mustapha has not yet been removed from the succession. Roxolana, who knows how to get what she wants, assures the men of her power and observes that while they will certainly suffer for their part in the plot, “a few tears will wash my gilt away” (4.5.615). Roxolana persecutes the two viziers until they finally agree to fulfill their promise that Zanger will rule after Solyman.

There were many in the court of Charles II who were concerned about the King’s mistresses, who, they believed, were too ambitious, too often plotting, and too involved in state affairs, much like Roxolana. John Evelyn, for example, claims that “the boufoones and Ladys of Pl(e)asure” contributed to Clarendon’s downfall.^[270] Pepys records a conversation with William Coventry in which Coventry reports that Lady Castlemaine’s faction participated in the removal of the Chancellor.^[271] In the second decade of the Restoration, John Reresby observes that “the Duke of Buckingham fell again into the King’s ill opinion by the means of the Duchess of Portsmouth,” another of Charles Il’s mistresses,^[272] while Narcissus Luttrell claims, “His majestie hath been prevailed with by the dutchesse of Portsmouth to remove sir Job Charleton from... lord chief justice of Chester....”^[273]

Complaints about the political influence the mistresses, wielded through their sexual power, found their way into a multiplicity of literary texts. In his “Last Instructions to a Painter” (1667), Andrew Marvell exploits a sexualized rhetoric for his satire’s political resonances.^[274] In his poem, Frances Stuart, another mistress of the King, is represented as ruling the four seas, an observation which reflects the number of medals on which the King had her image struck: “But Fate does still accumulate our Woes, / And Richmond here commands, as Ruyter those” (763-4). While Frances rules the waves on which rides the ship of state, de Ruyter, commander of the Dutch fleet, is unassailable on the seas. In the anonymous “A Ballad Called the Haymarket Hectors,” the author draws a parallel between state affairs and sexual ones, for when the King proves ineffectual in his sexual prowess and leaves Nell Gwynn “dry-bobb’d,” he “Must lend her his lightening and thunder” in order “To repair the defects of his love” (22-3).^[275] One of the best-known, and certainly the most quoted, satires on the relationship of state and sexual politics is that attributed to John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, in which he remarks on Charles II, “His scepter and his p—k are of a length, / And she may sway the one who plays with t’other” (11-12).^[276]

Certainly a number of plays offer a picture of the political chaos ambitious women might provoke. One of the more interesting of the early plays is Robert Stapyton’s The Stepmother (1664), first performed in October 1663.^[277] In this play, the termagant queen, Pontia, has gained such mastery over her husband, Sylvanus, that “she governs his very Soul / He cannot live without her” (1.1). Pontia usurps her husband’s authority and plots the demise of his children, hoping to unite his kingdom of Verulum to her own lands over which she would rule.

Henry Cary, Viscount Falkland’s The Marriage Night (1664) is set in Castile and boldly portrays a sexually decadent court in which the manipulative Duchess Claudilla plots with her lover, the Duke, to kill the king, an act which will “lift [them] to their wishes” (3.1.27) by putting them both on the throne.^[278] Of the character of the Duchess, Sampayo explains:

She has no blood: From her first, an honest Trades-mans wife, who left her very rich and handsome: The Duke (as he still keeps a kennell for that purpose) had her presented to him for his Game: Remov’d her from the Cucko’os nest into another Sphere... [where she] at length becomes the Courts discourse and wonder. (3.1.32)

The audience must have wondered at these lines, since in the autumn of 1661, the King had bestowed on Roger Palmer the title Earl of Castlemaine. About the time the Earl’s wife, Barbara, gave birth to the King’s second child, the Earl discretely separated from her, and shortly thereafter Lady Castlemaine was given her own apartments within Whitehall.^[279] The Marriage Night ends with the Duchess murdered and the Duke arrested for treason. Ambition, the king in this play claims, is “the Grandame of all Sin” (5.1.52).

When Solyman suggests that Roxolana does not understand Mustapha’s own plotting, since “’tis far above a Woman’s art / To reach the height of an aspiring heart:” (3.2.213-4), Boyle’s audience must have enjoyed the irony. Even so, the Roxolana of Boyle’s play may be manipulative, she may be willful and arrogant, and even greedy for power, but she is not inherently evil. She realizes the situation in which she is caught; she must either condemn the innocent Mustapha so that he will be executed, or condemn her own son to a certain death when Mustapha inherits the throne. To turn Solyman against her son, she claims, is to turn him against Nature, yet she does so, she claims, for Nature’s sake (4.5.652-65).

After Mustapha is executed, Solyman learns from Zanger of the plot that had raged against his son. Although Zanger had not implicated his mother, Solyman is nevertheless aware of her complicity and vows that Roxolana is not safe from his revenge, “For they, without her int’rest in the deed, / [Rustan and Pyrrhus] Durst not at last have urg’d me to proceed” (5.6.417-8). Roxolana finds Zanger and Mustapha dead and in horror claims that it was his duty to friendship, to Mustapha, that brought about Zanger’s death (5.8.449).

When Solyman asks for her confession, Roxolana avoids acknowledging the plot in which she engaged and retells her rise to power, that is, that Solyman found her as a “Flow’r but newly sprung,” and from him she owes her growth (5.9.618). The contrition Roxolana offers is disingenuous, for she accuses as well the two viziers, Pyrrhus and Rustan, who have already been executed. Why should she shun truth and take the full blame, she asks. Her only crime was to save her son: “I have little through ambition done” (5.9.713). Even though her crime was so heinous that only by the forfeit of her life will justice be served, Solyman announces that “It is not fit our Priesthood or Divan / Should sit to judge the wife of Solyman” (5.9.652-3). Solyman alone sits in judgment. His words reflect powerfully on divine right and reify the notion that only God may judge a monarch, a manifest echo of Stuart ideology and one that reflects strongly on the trial of Charles I.

Tracey E. Tomlinson concurs with Susan Staves that Boyle may identify problems in the government of Charles II, but he offers no practical solutions.^[280] Certainly Boyle calls to attention a number problems within the government, as do many of his contemporary playwrights, but he does indeed offer a resolution, one couched within that very note of caution that Staves, and by her concurrence, Tomlinson, ask us to employ.

Few in Boyle’s audience could have missed the caution in Solyman’s pronouncement: “Thy progress, Love, was long, but it shall end. / By Beauty (which does even the wise delude) / The valiant ever soonest are subdu’d” (5.9.570-72). And in spite of his passion for the alluring Roxolana, the Sultan proclaims her banishment and sends her forth out of his sight forever: “I will to Beauty ever shut my eyes, / And be no more a Captive by surprize” (5.9.792-3). Boyle clearly argues here that love must be cast within reason, even by monarchs (or perhaps especially by monarchs); because women are not capable of moderating their passion, the monarch must assert his authority, even in love.

Boyle’s plot differs distinctly from Knolles’s Generali Historie in that Boyle’s Solyman divorces and banishes Roxolana from the court, a rather strong suggestion to put forward, particularly given that the King attended the premiere of this play. Boyle’s resolution to the contemporary “crisis” at court—that is, the mistresses—is forthright and clear: politically minded, ambitious women must be “far removed” so that love, “the Ornament of Pow’r” (5.9.795) does not threaten the state.

The subplot of Mustapha includes a further historical event—Suleiman’s taking of Buda. Historically, Isabella, the daughter of the Polish King Sigismund, became the wife of John Zapolya, the sovereign of Hungary, in 1539. The unmarried Zapolya, who, it seemed, would not have an heir, had signed a secret treaty with the Hapsburg Ferdinand I in 1538, which stated that upon Zapolya’s death, Ferdinand would receive Hungary. Zapolya married shortly thereafter, but died the following year after the birth of his son, John-Sigismund. Ferdinand immediately occupied Buda, refusing to acknowledge the child as the royal heir.^[281] Isabella sent to Suleiman for help, and the Sultan soon arrived in Buda with his troops. Suleiman commanded Isabella to send her son to him, which she did, accompanied by the infant’s nurse, two old women, and six of her counselors.^[282] Clot adds that Suleiman took possession of Buda, but promised that when John- Sigismund reached the age of majority, he would give up the throne for him to rule Hungary.^[283] Until that time, Isabella and her son were sent to Transylvania where he was to rule as a vassal of the Porte.^[284]

In Boyle’s play, however, Roxolana journeys with Solyman and his forces to Buda and is set up in her own pavilion in the camp. Buda is besieged by Solyman’s forces, and the Queen of Hungary has been sent a demand: surrender her infant son, the legitimate king, whom Solyman intends to put to death. The Queen sends the child instead to Roxolana, having been advised by her cardinal that “In gaining her you make the sultan sure” (1.2.123). Again, Boyle makes manifest that the route to the monarch is through his women. Roxolana accepts the infant, pledges him her protection, and firmly opposes Solyman’s command to execute the young king. This subplot functions in ironic contrast to the main plot, for in the subplot Roxolana risks her own life to save the infant heir to Hungary, whereas in the main plot she collaborates in the death of her stepson, Mustapha, heir to the Ottoman Empire.

Ballaster concludes that the “figure of the plotting Roxolana is usually countered by the presence of another female who stands for virtues explicitly associated with the Occident within the narrative: temperance, wifely devotion, the rational pursuit of virtue.”^[285] The counter-presence here is the Catholic Queen of Hungary, whose virtue is unquestionable. Roxolana’s, however, is debatable. She has not been remiss throughout the play to counsel and practice deceit. For example, she directs Rustan to “by fresh intelligence / Charge Mustapha with some new offence” (2.3.299-300), while, at the same time, she feigns support for Mustapha, telling Solyman that “You injure him whose virtues you conceal” (3.2.241).

Both Zanger and Mustapha have fallen in love with the Queen of Hungary, although Roxolana believes Zanger is the only lover. Well aware of the power of female sexuality, the Sultana angrily accuses the Queen of ingratitude, pointing out that she was “forc’d, when charg’d by the Divan, / To my last strength, the love of Solyman” to protect the Queen’s infant son (4.1.43-4). In return, the ungrateful Queen has inflamed the heart of Zanger: “You. have enslav’d my Son. / A Son, who never yet my will controul’d / Till he your fatal beauty did behold” (4.1.62-4).

The Queen’s love, however, is reserved for her deceased husband, and she had intended to flee the camp in order to dissuade Zanger’s passion. She counsels Roxolana to be patient with Mustapha for the friendship the two brothers share will prevent Mustapha from harming Zanger. Roxolana counters that the Queen hould simply feign affection to Mustapha: “The Great should in their Thrones mysterious be; / Dissembing is no worse than mystery” (4.1.155-6). The suggestion here is that Roxolana feigns love to Solyman, having learned to her advantage how to exercise her sexual power. But the Queen has been raised without such art and therefore suffers from “un-courtly-ill-bred innocence” (4.1.175); she must be taught by Roxolana how to feign love: “You must dissemble love to Mustapha, / And make him think by what you often say, / that you for Love can mourn and languish too” (4.1.177-9). Roxolana offers the Queen further counsel—that she should take counsel from no subject, for once a subject earns such favor as to give counsel: “perswasion does the Throne invade” (4.1.189). Again, Boyle offers insight on contemporary attitudes about Charles II, who was well known to be subject to persuasion, particularly through the wiles of women, for which he endured much criticism.

Although the Queen is discomforted by the Sultana’s command that she should feign love to Mustapha, her Cardinal suggests that she continue in this direction since her son is safe and protected by Roxolana, whose influence at court is clearly “growing” (4.1.267). But as Mustapha’s execution becomes imminent, and as the country ultimately begins to fall into chaos, Solyman gives the Queen of Hungary permission to return to Buda. In response to the tragic deaths of both Zanger and Mustapha, the noble, heroic Queen announces that she will fulfill her duty to her son to see him on the throne, and “Then in a shady Cloister I'le remain, / And, as a fatal Mourner, still complain / Of that which here both you [Roxolana] and I have lost” (5.7.517-9). While the Queen of Hungary may shut herself away from the world, Roxolana’s grief is fleeting. She informs her woman, Zarma, who has been sent by the Mufti, “I do not dying fear... / Lead me this way, for I would shun despair” (5.7.535-8).

Historically, Roxolana never met Isabella nor the infant king; even Suleiman himself did not see Isabella, since by Ottoman law the Sultan could not present himself to her.^[286] Furthermore, the incident at Buda happened in 1541, and Mustapha’s purported treason and subsequent execution occurred in 1553, a 12­year difference in these events. Boyle’s revision of historical events emphasizes the natural maternal disposition of women and thus the “monstrosity” of the act of killing one’s child (or step-child in this case). Roxolana’s complicity in the murder of Mustapha was outwardly a maternal desire to save the life of her own son; while her response was clearly wrong-minded, it is difficult to find her actions inherently evil. Even so, an historical event such as this offers the playwright an opportunity to intimate just what an ambitious woman might accomplish in satiating her greed for power.

Although in the first decade of the Restoration, Lady Castlemaine was Charles II’s foremost mistress, in the second decade he began a long relationship with Louise de Keroualle, whom he gave the title Duchess of Portsmouth. The public hated this new mistress intensely, in part because they believed she was sent over by Louis XIV to raise support for the French cause, but also because she was Catholic and, like Lady Castlemaine before her, greedy. Her reign was temporarily threatened in the winter of 1675 by the arrival of Hortense Mancini, the Duchess of Mazarin. A number of courtiers were pleased with the event, hoping Mazarin would diminish the French threat that Portsmouth represented. An anonymous satire entitled “Satire on Old Rowley,” in which Portsmouth is dubbed “Delilah,” notes that the King has abandoned his “French whore” for an Italian one.^[287] This does not mean that Mazarin was greeted with general public favor, for the anonymous “Rochester’s Farewell” observes that Mazarin was a woman of “well-travel’d lust” (124)—the “queen of lust” (129), who “having all her lewdness outran, / Takst up with the devil, having tired out man” (154-5).^[288]

By 1676, when Elkanah Settle’s Ibrahim the Illustrious Bassa came to the boards, the “King’s sexual habits continued to create a mixture of disgust and ribaldry and to sap confidence in the government in general.”^[289] Like Lady Castlemaine and a number of other women at court, Portsmouth and Mazarin,

the French and Italian “whores” (as they were soon labeled), engaged in court intrigues. The author of the satire “A Bill on the House of Commons’ Door (1679)” claims Portsmouth was behind the King’s proroguing Parliament, while the author of “Satyr Unmuzzled (1680)” claims she was directly involved in the political fall of Secretary Joseph Williamson and “commands the court, the Dev’l and all” (74). In the anonymous “Oceana and Britannia (1681),” the ladies form a cabal at court (156-9), and hence are force to be reckoned with.^[290] Given the contemporary public hostility to the mistresses and their political intrigues, it would be no surprise if Roxolana’s character as a plotter and manipulator acquired a new twist, and in this, Settle’s Ibrahim does not disappoint.^[291]

The source for Settle’s Ibrahim is probably de Scudery’s text of the same name, and, like that of the French text, the focus of his play is largely on the heroic Ibrahim rather than Roxolana. In his plot of unrequited love, Solyman (Suleiman) gives his daughter Asteria to Ibrahim, his Vizier Bassa, but Ibrahim, “the Champion-Friend of Christendom” (2.1.58), refuses her, preferring instead the captive Christian princess Isabella, sent to the court by Rustan (Rustem Pasha). Although Rustan is clearly an evil conspirator in Boyle’s play, he is only mentioned in Settle’s as the procurer of Isabella, whom he sent to the Ottoman court to save Ibrahim from suffering “Love, Despair and Grief’ (2.14).^[292] Ibrahim, who had previously encountered the virtuous Isabella, had long pined for the princess.

When Solyman is informed of Isabella’s arrival, he makes the princess, already of royal blood, his adopted daughter so that Ibrahim will be his son once they are married; but when she is brought before him, Solyman finds himself so deeply affected by her beauty that he sends Ibrahim off to war, intending to obtain Isabella for himself. Ulama, the heir of Persia, encourages the Sultan to focus on his honor: “Your sleeping Reason wake and re-enthrone / What nature made most worthy of a Crown: / Repair her [Roxolana’s] injuries, and your lost Fame.” (4.1.584-6). But neither Solyman nor his henchman, Morat, has counted on the influence of Roxolana, who consistently comes to the aid of the lovers and attempts to obtain their freedom. In spite of the danger to his kingdom, Solyman is so bent on his lustful intentions for Isabella that chaos must eventually ensue, and so it does: Roxolana poisons herself, Asteria is murdered in her attempt to save Ibrahim, and Ulama, utterly in love with Roxolana, commits suicide.

In the French romance, Roxolana’s intrigues against Mustapha are more developed and sinister. For example, she causes Rustan to have all the “ Sangiacks” of Amasia, the province in which Mustapha was Governor General, write letters praising the prince; Roxolana shows the letters to Suleiman to heighten the Sultan’s suspicion, while simultaneously reminding him of the coup his father had managed against his grandfather. Settle’s plot detailing the machinations Suleiman orchestrates to win Isabella is also taken from Scudery, although somewhat condensed and revised to fit the framework of the stage. In the French romance, Roxolana dies out of rage and madness, whereas in Settle’s play, she drinks poison. Although Settle’s play is a rhymed, heroic tragedy, which treats the love and honor of the main couple, Ibrahim and Isabella, the Sultana in his play is not only profoundly afflicted with a case of pride, as she is in Boyle’s play, but she is indeed a vengeful women, whose jealousy causes her to offer cruel advice and to make poorly reasoned decisions.

Settle’s Roxolana is credited by her ladies with having broken the system of the seraglio and she is praised as having confined her husband’s “wandering heart to one / And singly rule[d] the Conquer’d Solyman” (1. 2). Because the Sultan “forsook / The Rude delights [of his] wilde Fore-fathers” (3.38), Roxolana proudly assures her ladies that she has bound her “Royal Slave” to her; she rests assured that “the Siege I laid, an Age cannot remove. / His Constancy’s as great as is His Love” (1.2). To her ladies at court, she claims to have conquered Solyman, but to her husband, when he comes home from the wars, she fawns, “Welcome the Worlds great Conqueror & mine” (1.3). Solyman acknowledges her the conqueror and his captor—if not his goddess— in that he brings her tribute and pay vows (1.3-4). One of the prizes Solyman offers is the vanquished Ulama, the Sophy’s son and heir of Persia.

Once the beautiful Isabella is delivered to the Ottoman court, however, Solyman falls in love with her and, with the help of the evil Morat, plots to win her by murdering Ibrahim. However, having pledged earlier that Ibrahim would not die as long as Solyman lives, the Sultan calls for a Mufti to resolve the problem. The Mufti assures Solyman that “Sleep’s a short Death—Death an Eternal sleep; / If then whilst you are sleeping, he receives / The blow, he does not dye whilst Solyman lives” (4.51).

When Ibrahim refuses Asteria, the Sultan’s daughter, she seeks counsel from Roxolana, who instructs her to “abuse yourself no more; / Think of Revenge, and those fond tears give o’re” (2.22). Deeply in love, the honorable Asteria defends the “just and guiltless Ibrahim,” while Roxolana retorts that Ibrahim’s lack of honor is such that he owes her with his blood. Settle’s Roxolana is much like Boyle’s Sultana in that she has an inflated sense of her power, but where Boyle’s Sultana sought a means to circumvent the traditional measures of succession to save her son’s life, Settle’s Roxolana simply counsels hate and revenge.

In spite of her inflated sense of power, Roxolana must eventually acknowledge the inevitable—that Solyman has fallen for another woman—and in due course she does confront her husband, accusing him of killing her. Solyman is not one to dissemble long: “I’le give you the true Picture of my Heart: / I love that Princess” (3.37). In spite of Roxolana’s insistance that he “Vow’d an Eternity of Faith to Me / And call’d on Heav’n to witness that Decree” (3.37). He intends to remove the crown from Roxolana’s head and give it to Isabella. Although Isabella is loath to marry Solyman and reminds him repeatedly of his honor and his nuptial vows, he remains undeterred: “You shall in state be to a Temple led; / I’le take the Crown from Roxolana"s Head. / Thus, you shall meet my Love—” (4.45).

The faithful Ulama, too, tries to reason with Solyman, although his motive is hardly altruistic as he has fallen in love with Roxolana, in spite of her efforts to dissuade him. When he sings her praises, she asks arrogantly, “Is Roxolana’s power / Disputed, that it wants an Orator?” (3.24). When Ulama offers his sword on her behalf, Roxolana cries out:

Hold Angry Prince; your Zeal in my just Cause,

Whilst it was Innocent, had my applause.

Forbear then to pull down my hate; tho He

Has lost his Vertue, broke his Faith to Me;

I have not lost the Duty of a Wife:

Tho I abhor his Crimes, I prize his Life.

Who holds a Sword against his Breast, wounds me;

His Foe is Roxolana’s Enemy. (4.59)

The Sultana rages against any suggestion of regicide, defending her husband’s actions with her own life. But is Roxolana truly as valiant and honorable as she seems here?

Roxolana hopes for her husband’s change of heart and thus her own continuation in power. This is not to be for tragedy inevitably triumphs in the court. Asteria dies in an attempt to help her rival, Isabella, escape with Ibrahim, and Roxolana, certain that Ibrahim will be executed and Isabella crowned Sultana, drinks poison since “that’s a sight I must not live to see” (5.66). In heaven, “No prjur’d Kings, no ruin, no despair / Come near that place—pow’r is immortal there” (5.66). Roxolana assures Solyman that he cannot have two wives anymore than he can “make two Suns together shine / And her new Greatness, not diminish mine” (5.71).

Although Roxolana claims that her love for Solyman is behind her anger and she berates him for his inconstancy, she occasionally offers a glimpse at another emotion—pride. Her empire “did so lately spread so wide” that she was the envy and the pride of her sex (4.54). When Solyman tires of Roxolana’s arguments, he orders Morat to take her away, but Roxolana draws a dagger, telling him, “I’ve so much Pride for that which I have been, / No common hands shall touch the Worlds once Sacred Queen” (4.56).

But the ultimate display of her arrogance and pride comes when she tells Ulama:

When Empress of the World, I stood on hallow’d ground,

With all my pomp and greatness circl’d round;

Then what a train of Worshippers, what crowd

Of Vassals at my Feet all prostrate bow’d.

On humble Mortals I in state look’d down,

Who gaz’d on glorys sparkling from my Crown

Life waited on my Smiles, Death on my Frown. (4.58)

Roxolana poisons herself, not out of her love for Solyman, but as a method to flee from scorn and shame (5.66). With her dying breath she informs Solyman that it has been her “Honour to command / The Worlds great Lord!” (5.68). She will not live as a vassal to Solyman’s Christian wife and a pageant queen. Solyman repents just before Roxolana dies, and so she ends her life pleased that she has conquered him once more.

Settle’s Ibrahim has much in common with Boyle’s Mustapha, also a rhymed heroic play that reconstructs the Ottoman court of Suleiman. In his dedication of Juliana, or The Princess of Poland addressed to the Earl of Orrery, John Crowne wrote of Mustapha:

It is from your Lordship’s pen, that Soleyman may be truly titled Magnificent, and you have made him succeed to the civility and gallantry of the Greeks, as well as to their Empire; nor was Mustapha ever so much the hopes of his barbarous nation, as in his image and the generous character you have given him, he is the delight of England, who weep the fate, not of Mustapha, but of murder’d virtue.^[293]

In many regards, the virtue murdered in these plays is not Mustapha’s, but by implication, women’s in general. A number of texts, such as Busbecq’s and Goughe’s, implicated Roxolana in the execution of her stepson, Mustapha. That she may have feared for her sons’ lives is certainly understandable, but her complicity was always conjecture, based perchance on court rumor, and no doubt owing to the resentment many in the Sultan’s court may have felt towards a woman with power. Or, as Busbecq acknowledges, rumor of Roxolana’s involvement may have been a political move to thwart a revolt from the janissaries.

Women’s sexual power is at once both magnetic and alarming, just as it is multiple and absolute. Rosa (Roxolana), Goughe claimed, was able to corrupt Suleiman’s mind with “effeminate allurementes, and Flatteringes (as she knew the wayes, few lyke unto her).” The Roxolanas of Charles II’s court incited curiosity, fear, anxiety—and certainly hatred, yet they were eroticized within the same discourse that sought to vilify them. Whereas Roxolana gained power over Suleiman through sexual dexterity, Lady Castlemaine practiced sexual tricks learned from the pornographic texts of Aretin to maintain her influence over Charles II. Francis Stuart on the other hand was a “cunning slut,” who maintained her political persuasion by refusing to submit sexually to the King,^[294] and Nell Gwynn, the actress turned mistress, to whom the King lent his lightening and thunder, “crawled into the world without a maidenhead” (103).^[295] The “French butter’d bun” (26),^[296] that “Silly French Strumpet” (11),^[297] the Duchess of Portsmouth, sat “in state to guide and steer the helm” (78);^[298] and the Duchess of Mazarin, the Italian whore, whose “experience’d” lust had worn out all the men, was given place of rank in court, where all “homage pay, / Do all thy lecherous decrees obey” (127-8).^[299]

Whether the Ottoman literati wrote such lines as the English penned about their King’s mistresses is doubtful, but in spite of whatever they may have believed about Roxolana, Suleiman made clear his own deep affection for her, burying the Sultana near his own mausoleum. Although the Ottoman Empire did not recognize the western royal position of “queen,” Roxolana, by remaining in Istanbul during the reign of her powerful husband, came close to being such. Although historically she may have “prefigured the powerful women of the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,”^[300] in literary discourse she became a social and political paradigm, understood at once as erotic and exotic, a figure who demonstrated the danger and the power of feminine allure.