The Politician, along with another Shirley play, The Gentleman of Venice, was published by the bookseller Humphrey Moseley in 1655 in alternative quarto and octavo formats.
[2] The title page of the first edition states that the play was acted by Queen Henrietta's Men at the Salisbury Court Theatre, the venue that the company occupied in the 1637–42 period.
According to 17th-century commentator Gerard Langbaine, Shirley's source for his plot was the tale of the King of Romania, the prince Antissus, and his mother-in-law, from the Urania of the Countess of Montgomery (1621).
The King offers to abdicate in penance for his faults, but Turgesius supports the restoration of his father, and announces his plan to marry Albina, Gotharus's virtuous widow.
"[4] Felix Schelling, however, complained that the "wicked characters" die while the virtuous survive, resulting in "only half a tragedy" in which "moral struggle has been replaced by intrigue and counter-intrigue.