The Noble Spanish Soldier | Page 3

sales could be expected
to compensate for possible plagiarism, or else relative unpopularity in
which case publication was a last attempt to generate some financial
return before the play was discarded. In this instance, the later
circumstance is likely to obtain, especially in view of the gap between
writing and publication dates.
ACTION OF THE PLAY
The sub-title given to the text in the Quarto edition is 'A contract
Broken, Justly Revenged'. Although this title is likely to have been
added by the printers, it does succinctly sum up one aspect the play, the
theme of revenge which is reminiscent of Elizabethan revenge plays
such as Thomas Kidd's 'The Spanish Tragedy'. Revenge plays however,
are generally patterned around a revenger and what may be termed a
'revengee', while the action of NSS revolves around a power struggle
between two factions both of whom are concerned with violent intent.
In reality, the play reflects the seventeenth century fashion for mixing
elements of tragedy and comedy in a style first identified by Sir Philip
Sydney in 1579 as being 'mongrel tragicomedy'<4>; thus while death
intrudes on the final act, it only strikes unsympathetic characters. There
is also regular light relief provided by two comic characters, Cornego
and Cockadillio, as well the cameo appearances of Signor No and
Medina as a French Doctor.
The two groups of characters at the centre of the play are on one hand,
the ruling cabal, that is the King, his Italian Queen and their supporters,
including the Italian Malateste and on the other a number of
disenchanted Spanish noblemen who are in sympathy with the King's
former betrothed lover, Onaelia. This later faction, led by the Duke of
Medina, eventually includes the key figure of the patriotic soldier
Balthazar, a man who has earned respect for his martial exploits and
whose 'nobility', as celebrated in the title to the play, is a tribute earned
by action rather than by birth or inheritance. He is thus differentiated
from the King, whose nobility of birth is cancelled out by the
dishonesty of his character.
Nevertheless, Balthazar is something of a problematic figure and in

many ways an unconvincing hero for a play with ostensibly, a strong
moral theme. His basic character is presented as that of an honest
uncomplicated soldier; in his first appearance(2.1), he has already been
slighted by the Dons, and presents an unkempt appearance and rails
against the 'pied-winged butterflies' of the effete court who put
appearance before patriotic duty. Nevertheless, subterfuge seems to
come too readily to him as we see in 2.2 when he makes a false offer to
assassinate the King to test Onaelia, again in 3.3 when he pretends to
agree to murder Sebastian and Onaelia in order to placate the Queen
and finally in 5.1 when he tells the King that the murder has been
carried out. Scene 3.3 shows a further unedifying side of Balthazar
when he bursts in on the King and stabs a servant and refuses to
express remorse as the servant is a mere groom. On a different note, the
character is also used to comic effect, especially in 4.2 when he acts out
bawdy dialogue with Cornego. His last significant act is to dissuade the
faction from attempting to assassinate the King, before being reduced
to a minor role in the closing scene where he only has five short
speeches and plays no significant part in the denouement. The character
then, is something of a patchwork affair, playing different roles as the
play progresses before being effectively jettisoned at the conclusion.
The King by contrast maintains a degree of consistency,

notwithstanding his formulaic deathbed renunciation of evil. As we
have seen, his Queen is Italian, but he may be associated with Italy by
more reasons than his marriage. In Act 5 Scene 2, Daenia says that
'There's in his breast / Both fox and lion, and both those beasts can bite'
This is an direct reference to the works of the Italian courtier Niccol˜
Machiavelli who wrote in his work on statecraft 'The Prince': 'A Prince
must know how to make good use of the beasts; he should choose from
among the beasts the fox and the lion; for the lion cannot defend itself
from traps and the fox cannot protect itself from wolves.' <5>.
Although the book from which this extract was taken, 'The Prince', had
yet to be published in English, the ideas it contained (or at least a
caricature of them) had been in circulation for many years following its
initial publication in Italy in 1531. These were often treated with
profound suspicion by the English who saw the advocacy of the use of
manipulation and deception in order to maintain power as being the

idea of a disreputable foreign country. Indeed, Machiavelli was seen as