ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the ways that Philip Massinger's representation of the Tunisian court in The Renegado and of the Marseilles court in The Unnatural Combat intervene in the intense and complex political debates that surrounded the marriage of Charles Stuart, Prince of Wales. The most important plot-line in The Renegado is the union of Donusa and Vitelli, a relationship that is only sanctioned by the other Christians – particularly Francisco – because of Donusa's conversion at the end of the play. Public interest in the marriage proposed for Charles was fierce, fuelled by the flood of pamphlets, ballads, sermons, broadsheets and newsletters of various kinds, which debated the merits of the match and its implications. One of the key questions The Renegado poses is how positively an audience should view the miscegenation between Vitelli and Donusa at the end of the play.
