By Shannon Cowgill
Who’s Who: how the play’s main characters relate to each other at the start of the narrative.
Agnes de Castro is a tragic tale penned by Catharine Trotter, first performed at the Theatre Royal in 1696.
In a Nutshell…
Agnes is a play about one woman’s (Elvira’s) beef with her ex boyfriend the Prince, which she takes out on his new crush, Agnes. She tries to ruin Agnes’ friendship with her best friend, the Princess, by snitching on the Prince’s love for Agnes and forging a letter which makes it seem like the two are having an affair. Elvira then kills the Princess by mistake, thinking she’s Agnes and of course frames Agnes for the murder. This is where it all gets a bit messy: the Princess’s ghost haunts Elvira and she begins to lose the plot and accidentally confesses to the murder. Agnes gets off scot-free but then gets killed by Elvira’s brother who also has the hots for Agnes while he’s fighting his rival, the Prince.
Oh, and since it’s a Restoration play, everyone is in love with the wrong person.
Act 1, Scene 1
“This was a lucky accident, Bianca;
It will be noble Mischief.”
The play opens with the bitter Elvira and her minion Bianca plotting to get revenge on Elvira’s ex-beau, the Prince. The exact details of this dastardly plot are revealed gradually, for now all we know is that Elvira has found a letter from the Prince declaring that he’s got the hots for Agnes.
Act 1, Scene 2
“Too sure, alas, the Prince does Love thee, Agnes;
And I’m so vain to think that only thou,
Cou’d gain a Heart, to which I laid a claim”
Cut to Princess Constantia and her best friend Agnes. Constantia is worried that the Prince fancies somebody else (with good reason) and has sent her servant Bianca to stalk him and gather intel. Bianca returns and presents the Princess with the incriminating letter which confirms her suspicions: the prince is in love with her best friend! Constantia declares that she still loves Agnes and so it doesn’t much matter anyway. The Prince enters and is promptly scolded for his emotional infidelity. The Prince begs his wife for punishment, but Constantia instead proceeds down the ‘kill them with kindness’ route and declares her intense love for the Prince, as well as her adoration for Agnes, seemingly deciding that the best approach to take to this slight hiccup in her marriage is out of sight, out of mind.
Act 2
“Such Joys I find in others’ misery,
If all were Damn’d, Hell would be Heav’n to me”
The king wants Agnes to marry Alvaro, but she reckons that she would rather flee the country. Enter Elvira and Bianca. Elvira devises another plan to turn Constantia against Agnes: this time by writing a note to Agnes from ‘the Prince’ begging her to get Constantia’s permission to run away by pretending she wants to give him the cold shoulder.
Act 3, Scene 1
“I’ll give it her th’unwary Princess said.
And took it with an Air so unconcern’d,
As plainly shew’d she fear’d not what she found”
Bianca recounts to Elvira that she carried the false letter to the palace gardens and saw the Princess and Agnes cuddled up together like old pals. When the Prince rocked up, Agnes asked to leave. Princess Constantia then asks what Bianca is holding and she tells her it’s a letter dropped by Agnes. The Princess doesn’t seem fazed and reads it, then calmly announces that she’s going to her room and nobody is allowed in. Elvira orders Bianca to prepare horses and disguises so that they can flee Coimbra if any suspicion falls on them before the next phase of her plan.
Act 3, Scene 2
“Wicked Elvira, thy mistaking hand
Has done a Deed too good for thy Design”
Agnes is depressed because she is not allowed to see Constantia. She is visited by Alvaro who once again harasses her to go out with him but unsurprisingly our little Sandra Dee rejects him.
Meanwhile, the Princess walks alone in the palace gardens trying to decide if her friend would really stab her in the back like that. Elvira enters and literally stabs Constantia in the back, mistaking Constantia for Agnes. Realising her cock-up, Elvira stabs herself in the arm to make it look like there was a struggle. Agnes enters and the dying Princess forgives her. Overcome by grief, Agnes grabs the dagger with the intention of killing herself but faints before she can do it. The king arrives to see Agnes holding the murder weapon kneeling next to the body, so of course Elvira tells him that she saw the whole thing and that Agnes killed Constantia and stabbed Elvira in her attempt to stop her.
The king decides that Agnes must be tortured and burned alive, Alvaro asks his pal Diego to bring Agnes to him from Lorenzo.
Act 4
“Since I believe her wrongfully condemn’d,
Unless I aid her, I’m her murderer”
Agnes tries to explain that she was lying by the body because she was about to commit suicide, and that Elvira killed Agnes in a classic case of mistaken identity. Lorenzo eventually believes her and decides that he loves justice more than Elvira. Meanwhile the ghost of Constantia appears to Elvira and tells her that she’s going to give the game away herself and Elvira goes a bit mad.
Act 5
“I’ll stop her mouth; this present was for Agnes,
But you shall have it if you keep my secret”
Elvira’s having a nap after her manic episode. Agnes enters, begging the king to see her innocence. Meanwhile, Elvira wakes up raving about the murder and claiming that she’ll get away with it because nobody saw. Bianca tries to cover for her but is stabbed by Elvira.
Bianca spills the beans on the whole plot and Elvira is arrested. Agnes then decides she does actually fancy the Prince but can’t let on for the sake of her dead friend. Alvaro hears this and tries to kill the Prince, but stabs Agnes instead by accident. The prince kills Alvaro and Agnes dies from her wound after finally telling the Prince that she loves him.