ABSTRACT
When the second part of William Davenant's The Siege of Rhodes appeared in 1663 it was accompanied by an epistle dedication to the Earl of Clarendon. On the face of it, the dedication was an opportune attempt to secure the patronage of a powerful statesman in the ascendancy. The Siege of Rhodes: The Second Part opens with an image of the Rhodians 'beleaguer'd at Sea and Land by the Fleet and Army of Solyman'. In practice, once Parliament and the king had formally reconciled, the tolerationist gestures of the Declaration of Breda would not translate into anything like the religious reforms hoped for by either Presbyterian or Independent interests. In many ways, the Mediterranean setting and Ottoman protagonists of Davenant's play were enough on their own to suggest associations with the tolerationist controversies which had dominated political and religious debate throughout the century.
