Boyle, Roger, Earl of Orrery

Manuscript fair copy of a play in five acts taking as its tragic subject the execution of Prince Mustafa, son of Suleiman the Magnificent, at the instigation of Roxalana (Hasaki Hürrem Sultan), marginal stage directions, in a single italic hand, folio (300x 205 mm), 109 pages, plus blanks, late seventeenth-century; occasional slight staining. Contemporary dark brown panelled morocco gilt with floral cornerpieces; rubbed, hinges splitting.

"Elyzebeth Walsingham her book 1680" (ownership inscription on first page) — Sir William Bennet, Second Baronet, of Grubett (d.1729, armorial bookplate dated 1707) — Christie's London, 22 June 1988, lot 96. acquisition: Purchased at the foregoing sale through Bernard Quaritch

CELM OrR 34

Roger Boyle was a scion of one of the most remarkable dynasties of seventeenth-century Britain and Ireland: his father was Richard Boyle, the son of Kentish gentry, who rose to become one of the greatest landowners in Ireland and Earl of Cork; his brother was the natural philosopher Robert Boyle. Orrery's life was as turbulent as his times. He fought in the ferocious wars in Ireland of the 1640s, held office under the Cromwellian regime and thereby broke with his family, and found (somewhat muted) favour under Charles II; he also found time to be a prolific author. The themes of Mustapha — brutal power struggles and family betrayals — were very familiar to its author, despite the play's setting in the Ottoman Empire. The play was performed by the Duke of York's Company in London in 1665; it was a commercial success (although Pepys judged it "not good") and was performed before the King at Whitehall in 1666. Mustapha was printed in 1668 but also survives in a some ten scribal copies.