Early Modern Drama · Character Archetypes

KING

in The Rebellion — Rawlins, Thomas

Metadata

PlayThe Rebellion
AuthorRawlins, Thomas
Year (catalogued)1640
First performance1638
Decade1640s
GenreTragedy
Play typeAdult Professional
CompanyKing's Revels Company
Speech prefix(es)King.
Words711
Characters3876
Typicality0.34 (cosine to cluster centroid)
TCP idA10495
BritDrama no.2413
ClusterCluster 2 — Allegory, Nature & pageant voices

Important excerpts

No keyword-matching excerpt could be extracted (the cluster label doesn't share vocabulary with this character's speech).

Full speech

Believe me Tailor you have outstripped the Court, For such perfections lives not every where, Nature was vexed as she's a very shrew, She made all others in and angry mood; These only she can boast for Masterpieces: The rest want something or in mind or form, These are precisely made: a Critic Jury, Of cavilling Arts cannot condemn a scruple. Can you say so? Friend, what are those beauty's called? aside. Are they Oracle, or is the knowledge fatal? But that I know thy faith, this denial Would conjure a suspicion in my breast; Use thy prerogative, it's thy own house In which you are a King; and I your guest. Come ladies. Exeunt. This habit will do well, and less suspected; Rapt i'this cover lives a Kingdoms plague, They kill with licence; Machviles proud dame It's famed is sick, upon my soul, how ere Her health may be the Aguesh commons cry; She's a disease they groan for: this disguise Shall sift her Ebon soul, and if she be Infectious, Like a Meagrome, or rot limb The sword of Justice must divide the joint That holds her to the States endangered body. She comes. FOr this discovery be still Antonio, The frowning Law, may with a furrowed face Hereafter look upon; but never shall touch They condemned body. Here from a Kings hand, Take thy Aurelia ; our command shall smooth The rising billows of her Father's rage, And charm it to a calm: let one be sent To certify our pleasure, we wo'd see him. Thy loyal love, makes thy King poor. You sent the poison, did you? Did not he question what you used it for? What Sabastiano, to be still a King Of Universal Spain, without a Rival? Yes, it does please me, and you ministers Of my still growing greatness, shall ever long Find I am pleased with you, the boldly durst Pluck from the fixed arm of sleeping Justice Her long sheathed sword; and whet the rusty blade Upon the bones of Machville, and his Confederate Rebels. What say the Colonels will they assist me? Come then, lets go guarded, with such as you 'Twere sin to fear, were all the world untrue. Exeunt. Knows she we are here? Philip Traitor, why not King? I am so. Villain, must our disgrace mount thee? Accursed villain, thou hast murdered him That holds not one small drop of loyal blood: But what is worth thy life. So falls and exhalation from the sky, And's never missed because unnatural; A birth begotten by incorporate ill: Whose usher to the gazing World is wonder. Alas good man, thou'rt come unto a sighed Will try thy temper, whither joy or grief Shall Conquer most within thee; joy lies here Scattered in many heaps: these when they lived, Threatened to tear this balsome from our brow, And rob our Majesty of this Elyxar: points to his Crown. I'st not my right? was not I heir to Spain? But now look here, it's plain grief has a hand Harder than joy; it presseth out such tears. Nay rise. That's long since pardoned. Antonio was thy son, I sent for thee For to confirm it, but he is dead: Be merciful, and do not curse the hand That gave it him, though it deserve it. Alas poor Lady; rise, thy Father's here. But he is Sebastiano and your son; Late by our hand made happy by enjoying The fair Evadne dead Antonio's sister: For whose sake he became a Tailor, And so long lived in that mean disguise. Blessed Virgin, thy desires I will perform. She's to all virgins a true mirror; They that wo'd behold true love, reflect on her: There it's ingrossed. Thou art all truth: rise. The Colonels kneel. Take up Antonio's body, and let the rest Find Christian burial: mercy befits a King, Come trusty Tailor, And to all Countries let swift Fame report, King Philip made a Tailors house his Court. We can't enough pay thy alone deserts, Kings may be poor, when Subject's are Like thee, So fruitful in all loyal virtuous deeds: March with the Body we'll perform all Rights, Of sable Ceremony: that done, We'll to our Court, since all our own is wone.

Plot summary

Plot — The Rebellion
Machvile envies Antonio his popularity and also covets the crown. When the French, under Raymond the Moor, lay siege to Seville, Machvile engineers Antonio’s downfall at a council of war: he speaks for a military strategy, Antonio responds with a proposal to make peace, and the city’s Governor accuses Antonio of treason and cowardice; this provokes Antonio into killing the Governor. Antonio flees to his home, where he is appalled to find his sister Evadne kissing the tailor Giovanno. Before he can do more than protest, he is arrested by Machvile, who has succeeded to the governorship; but Giovanno and other tailors rescue him and he goes into hiding among them. Despite Giovanno’s help, Antonio is unable to sanction his love for Evadne, being bound by a deathbed promise to his father only to allow her to marry a nobleman. Machvile’s aggressive strategy is put into effect: the Spanish break out of their besieged city and defeat the French; Giovanno captures Raymond, but Machvile takes charge of the prisoner and banishes the heroic tailor. Planning to seize the Spanish throne, he proposes an alliance with Raymond to divide the country between them, planning all the while to kill the Moor once his object is achieved. Meanwhile the captive Raymond looks for a way to communicate with France and ask for additional troops. Antonio is told in a dream to flee, but is found, arrested, and sentenced to be ground to death in a mill. Aurelia, daughter of the captain of the mill, falls in love with him at first sight, asks for the privilege of execution herself, and helps him to escape in disguise. Evadne is banished, but Giovanno meets her and rescues her from rape at the hands of bandits. Antonio finds them together, but Aurelia, fleeing with him, identifies Giovanno as her brother Sebastiano: he has adopted the guise of a tailor in order to woo Evadne. The King comes to Seville incognito and stays with an old tailor, Giovanno’s employer, who has overheard Machvile’s plotting. Antonio and Sebastiano get confirmation in disguise, Antonio as a physician attending Machvile’s wife and Sebastiano as a French cobbler whom Raymond engages as a messenger to the court of France, giving him his ring for authentication (which Sebastiano uses to dismiss the remaining French troops). The grateful King pardons Antonio and agrees to his marrying Aurelia. The plan is to give Machvile enough rope to hang himself. The King witnesses, in hiding, a meeting at which the army colonels,…