Tyrannick Love, or The Royal Martyr is a tragedy

Tragedy

Tragedy is a form of art based on human suffering that offers its audience pleasure. While most cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, tragedy refers to a specific tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of...

 by John Dryden

John 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...

 in rhymed couplets, first acted in June 1669

1669 in literature

The year 1669 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:* Samuel Pepys stops keeping his diary on May 31.* The final section of Parthenissa, the prose romance by Roger Boyle, 1st Earl of Orrery, is published...

, and published in 1670

1670 in literature

The year 1670 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:* The philosophical arguments of John Locke inspire the formation of the Board of Trade in London ....

. It is a retelling of the story of Saint Catherine of Alexandria

Catherine of Alexandria

Saint Catherine of Alexandria, also known as Saint Catherine of the Wheel and The Great Martyr Saint Catherine is, according to tradition, a Christian saint and virgin, who was martyred in the early 4th century at the hands of the pagan emperor Maxentius...

 and her martyrdom by the Roman Emperor Maximinus

Maximinus

Maximinus II , also known as Maximinus Daia or Maximinus Daza, was Roman Emperor from 308 to 313. He was born of Dacian peasant stock to the half sister of the emperor Galerius near their family lands around Felix Romuliana; a rural area then in the Danubian region of Moesia, now Eastern Serbia.He...

, the "tyrant" of the title, who is enraged at Catherine's refusal to submit to his violent sexual passion. Dryden reportedly wrote the play in only seven weeks.

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 the tyrant's daughter Valeria, and spoke "what must be the most amusing epilogue ever written" (in the words of Maximillian E. Novak, Dryden's modern editor). When two stagehands came onstage to carry off Valeria's corpse at the play's end, Gwyn jumped up and assumed her genuine identity, though still in costume, to deliver the Epilogue.

In addition to Gwyn, the original 1669 production 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:...

 featured Margaret Hughes

Margaret Hughes

Margaret Hughes , also Peg Hughes or Margaret Hewes, is often credited as the first professional actress on the English stage...

 as St. Catherine, Michael Mohun

Michael Mohun

Michael Mohun was a leading British actor both before and after the 1642—60 closing of the theatres.Mohun began his stage career as a boy player filling female roles; he was part of Christopher Beeston's theatrical establishment at the Cockpit Theatre, "eventually becoming a key member of Queen...

 as Maximus, Charles Hart

Charles Hart (17th-century actor)

Charles Hart was a prominent British Restoration actor.A Charles Hart was christened on 11 December 1625, in the parish of St. Giles Cripplegate, in London. It is not absolutely certain that this was the actor, though the name was not common at the time...

 as Porphyrius, Rebecca Marshall

Rebecca Marshall

Rebecca Marshall was a noted English actress of the Restoration era, one of the first generation of women performers on the public stage in Britain...

 as Berenice, William Cartwright

William Cartwright (actor)

William Cartwright was an English actor of the seventeenth century, whose career spanned the Caroline era to the Restoration. He is sometimes known as William Cartwright, Junior or William Cartwright the younger to distinguish him from his father, another William Cartwright William Cartwright...

 as Apollonius, and Edward Kynaston

Edward Kynaston

Edward Kynaston was an English actor, one of the last Restoration "boy players," young male actors who played women's roles.-Career:...

 as Placidius. Mary Knep

Mary Knep

Mary Knep , also Knepp, Nepp, Knip, or Knipp, was an English actress, one of the first generation of female performers to appear on the public stage during the Restoration era....

doubled the roles of Nakar and Felicia.

The play was a major success, and was acted for 14 days straight. The work was revived in 1677, 1686, 1694, and 1702.