The Royal Master

The Royal Master is a Caroline era stage play, a comedy written by James Shirley, and first published in 1638. The play is "ranked by many critics as Shirley's ablest work in romantic comedy...It is a play notable for well-knit plot, effective scenes, pleasing characterization, clever dialogue, and poetic atmosphere."

The Royal Master was part of the Irish phase of Shirley's career (1637–40); it premiered on 1 January 1638 at the Werburgh Street Theatre in Dublin, and was likely the first of Shirley's plays produced there (according to the dedication of the first edition). It also was given in a special performance at Dublin Castle. The play was published in quarto later that year, also in Dublin, by the booksellers Edmund Crooke and Thomas Allot. (Crooke was a relation of Andrew Crooke, the London stationer who issued a series of Shirley's plays in the later 1630s.) The 1638 text is dedicated by Shirley to George Fitzgerald, 16th Earl of Kildare, and is prefaced by dedicatory poems, including one by John Ogilby, the founder of the Werburgh Street Theatre. The Epilogue extols both King Charles I and Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford, the Lord Deputy of Ireland and Shirley's patron.

The Royal Master was entered into the Register of the Stationers Company of London on 13 March 1638 and also licensed for London performance by Sir Henry Herbert, the Master of the Revels, on 23 April the same year.

The play is set in the Kingdom of Naples. Montalto, the King's favourite, wants to secure his influence by marrying Theodosia, the sister of the King — which means that he must frustrate the proposed marriage of Theodosia to the Duke of Florence, the brother of the King's late queen. Montalto arranges a hunting party for the King and Duke, which pauses, by plan, at the country house of the noble widow Simphorosa. Montalto's plan is that the Duke will fall in love with Domitilla, the charming, fifteen-year-old daughter of the house. And to that extent his plan succeeds — the Floretine Duke is much taken with the young woman. Also, Montalto quietly informs the Duke that Theodosia is already privately committed to another — that being himself, Montalto.

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