masculine decisiveness. Satire The fame of the play, the exceptional tangle of the plot, and especially the bombast of the speeches Almanzor makes, invited satire of The Conquest of Granada by other playwrights. One example is The Rehearsal, written by George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham. Henry Fielding, in Tragedy of Tragedies, or the Life and Death of Tom Thumb the Great (1730) also takes aim at the silliness of some of The Conquest of Granada. For example, the lofty aims expressed in the "Preface" to Fielding's play seem mismatched to the material. Performance The original 1670 production of The Conquest of Granada by the Spaniards was by the King's Company, and featured Edward Kynaston as "Mahomet Boabdelin, last King of Granada", Charles Hart as Almanzor, and Nell Gwyn as Almahide, Rebecca Marshall as Lyndaraxa, Elizabeth Boutell as Bezayda, and Edward Lydall as Prince Abdalla, William Beeston as Ozmyn, Richard Bell as the Duke of Arcos, and Michael Mohun as Abdemelech, Martin Powell as Gomel, Marmaduke Watson as Hamet, and William Cartwright as Abenamar, Elizabeth James as Isabella and William Wintershall as Selin. Nell Gwyn spoke the Prologue to Part 1 of The Conquest of Granada. A modern assessment "No one, not even Alexander Pope, is better than Dryden at driving narrative through rhyme, but the aural effect is like that of being pelted with a succession of pellets. When, as in The Conquest of Granada, the pelting continues for ten acts, the impact is deafening." See also Poetic diction Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage The Rehearsal (play) Restoration comedy for a discussion of the charges of scandal that spurred renewed seriousness Almahide (Opera) Il Conquisto di Granata References External links Cambridge Companion Discussion English Restoration plays 1670 plays Plays by John Dryden Tragedy plays West End plays Plays based on actual events Plays set in Spain Plays set in the 15th century