SOURCE: Lucow, Ben. “‘Seeds of Honour’: The Lady of Pleasure and The Cardinal.” In James Shirley, pp. 123-36. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1981.

In the following excerpt, Lucow downplays topical analyses of The Cardinal and instead emphasizes its debt to the revenge-tragedy tradition. Lucow contends that although Shirley considered The Cardinal his best play, it fails to rise to the quality of his best comedies.

Some of the scholarly interest in The Cardinal arises from its supposed historical and biographical parallels. Shirley's cryptic Prologue does suggest (“keep your fancy active,” “Think what you please”) and almost simultaneously disowns (“'tis nothing so,” “I will say nothing positive”) a parallel between the characters of the play and contemporary public figures. The “shorthaird men” about whom the Duchess Rosaura warns the Cardinal (II.iii), in an attempt to get him to change his high-handed ways, may very well be Spanish counterparts of the...