SOURCE: Levin, Carole. “‘Lust being Lord, there is no trust in kings’: Passion, King John, and the Responsibilities of Kingship.” In Sexuality and Politics in Renaissance Drama, pp. 255-78. Lewiston, Penn.: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1991.

In the following essay, Levin considers how The Downfall of Robert, Earl of Huntington and The Death of Robert, Earl of Huntington “explicate the ideology of uncontrolled sexuality as a metaphor for all manner of ill-rule.”

One consistent political concern in late sixteenth-and early seventeenth-century England was what attributes a ruler needed to govern well. While the monarchy could represent a hope for stability, at a time not only of political disruption but frightening social/cultural changes in the family and personal relationships, fear of instability through ill-rule was intense. In a number of works in late sixteenth-and early seventeenth-century England, a monarch demonstrated unfitness for rule by the inability to control lust...