In November 1682 the ailing King's Company merged with the more adven-
turously and expertly managed Duke's, and for the next thirteen years the
London stage became a monopoly. The absence of commercial rivalry in-
duced an unenterprising reliance upon stock plays, and new plays for a while
became scarce and unadventurous. Most comedies, for example, are farcical
or lightweight, and in the period up to the end of the 1688 season only four
plays ( Lee The Princess of Cleve, Otway The Atheist, Behn The Lucky
Chance, and Sedley Bellamira) provide a serious and exploratory treatment
of human sexuality. The Tory triumph turned hitherto ambivalent dramatists
into partisans and thereby assisted the decline of tragedy. With The Duke of
Guise ( November 1682) and Constantine the Great ( November 1683) Dryden and Lee make their last, and least distinguished, contributions to Exclusion
Crisis drama; Rochester's adaptation of Fletcher Valentinian received a
posthumous premiere by February 1684; but thereafter there is nothing until
Mountfort The Injur'd Lovers ( February 1688) and Crowne Darius King of
Persia ( April 1688).

The Dryden- Lee Duke of Guise had been prepared for performance
the previous July, but had been banned, probably because its attack on
Monmouth offended his much tried but still protective father. Despite
Dryden's disingenuous assertions to the contrary in his defence of the play, ¹ the play develops a clear (and intellectually barren) parallel between the sedi-
tion of the Catholic League against Henri III and that of the Whigs against
Charles: Blois, where the sedition is crushed, corresponds to Oxford; Guise,
who is murdered, to Monmouth; and Henri of Navarre (Henri IV) to James,
though Navarre never actually appears. ² Whereas Navarre is associated with

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