Mrs Rousby in 'Twixt Axe and Crown'

A carte-de-visite portrait of the actress Mrs Rousby (1848-1879), one of the most successful and beautiful actresses of the 1870s. She is seen here as Princess Elizabeth in 'Twixt Axe and Crown by Tom Taylor, an 'historical play' in five acts presented at the Queen's Theatre in 1870.

'It is not the least merit of Mr Tom Taylor's new historical play in five acts, produced at this theatre on Saturday night, that it makes the public better acquainted with the capabilities of an actress whose name is yet hardly familiar to metropolitan playgoers. Mrs Rousby, who made her début a few weeks since as Fiordelisa in "The Fool's Revenge," becomes a much more important personage in the piece which to her probably owes its introduction to these boards. Hitherto known only as a graceful and intelligent actress, endowed with rare personal gifts, Mrs Rousby now claims attention as the possessor of attainments which, at any period of theatrical history, would have enabled her to secure a prominent position.

'The play [...] presents her as the Princess Elizabeth in that stage of her career when the future monarch of these realms was as liable to be sent to the block as called to the throne. [...] The strong situation of the play is reached in the fourth act, where Elizabeth, imprisoned in the Tower, has her imagination excited by a remembrance of the fate attending those who had previously occupied the same room. The horror of the position, as image after image of a beheaded queen is conjured up - and the grim array of spectres including her mother, "youngest, fairest of them all" - is powerfully depicted by Mrs Rousby, whose acting throughout the previous scenes had charmed the audience by the delicacy and intelligence with which it was imbued. [...] In the spontaneity of the applause which greeted Mrs Rousby throughout the evening, there was the fullest assurance of a genuine success' (Daily Telegraph & Courier, 24 January 1870, paragraphs added).

Photographed by the London Stereoscopic and Photographic Company.