Inter-Confessional Negotiations in Thomas Dekker and Philip Massinger’s The Virgin Martyr: Truce as Disputation

Abstract

The Virgin Martyr reflects the various debates linked to the field of diplomacy that took place during the Renaissance. The period has often been regarded as a time during which the status of diplomacy evolved and diplomatic figures, such as resident ambassadors, emerged. Concepts such as that of truce were theorized and redefined in the numerous treatises that were published during the period. In his 1625 treatise entitled On the Law of War and Peace, Hugo Grotius defines the truce as follows: ‘an agreement by which warlike acts are for a time abstained from, though the state of war continues’ before adding that ‘a truce is a period of rest in war, not a peace’. Therefore, I will regard the truce as an episode in which physical violence or the use of force stop and are replaced by an agonistic dialogue between the two parties. The Virgin Martyr, published a few years before Grotius’s treatise and just after the end of the Twelve Years’ Truce (1609-1621) between Spain and the United Provinces, is very much concerned with the methods used to reach an agreement, the temporality of the truce and its aim. It perfectly illustrates what Timothy Hampton notices: ‘Literary texts provide a unique and privileged terrain for studying the languages of diplomacy. In turn diplomatic culture plays a dynamic role in literary history, in the invention of new literary forms, conventions and genres’. And, in The Virgin Martyr, the scenes of truce, during which inter‑confessional negotiations are conducted, impact the pace of the dramatic action, thus exemplifying the link between diplomacy and the creation of new literary and dramatic codes.