The Cruelty of the Spaniards in Peru

The Cruelty of the Spaniards in Peru was an innovative 1658 theatrical presentation, a hybrid entertainment or masque or "operatic show", written and produced by Sir William Davenant. The music was composed by Matthew Locke. The work was significant in the evolution of English opera and musical theatre, and also of English drama; Davenant brought into the public theatre the techniques of scenery and painted backdrops that had previously been employed only in the courtly masque. It was by presenting his work in a musical rather than a dramatic context that Davenant was able to circumvent the Puritan Commonwealth's prohibition on plays. Indeed, Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell encouraged the production of this work and Davenant's ensuing The History of Sir Francis Drake (1659) as anti-Spanish propaganda. (The English had been at war with Spain since 1655.) The show The Cruelty was presented at the Cockpit Theatre in the summer of 1658; it was on the stage by July. The work consists of six scenes or tableaux, called "Entries," each of which starts with a speech by the Chief Priest of Peru and proceeds to a song. The Chief Priest was dressed in a "Garment of Feathers" and a "bonnet" with an "ornament of Plumes." He carried "the Figure of the Sun on his Bonnet and Breast" because "the Peruvians were worshippers of the Sun." The first Entry shows the Peruvians in their state of innocence; the second displays the arrival of the Spaniards. The third is devoted to the quarrel and civil war between "the two Royall Brethren, sons of the last Inca." The fourth displays the Spanish conquest of the Incas, and the fifth, their oppression and torture. The sixth celebrates the arrival of English soldiers, their defeat of the Spanish and rescue of the Peruvians (which, Davenant acknowledged, was something that had not yet occurred in reality).