Depiction of the country of Ixania clearly draws on the long-standing sub-genre of Ruritanian romance, derived from Ruritania in Anthony Hope's "The Prisoner of Zenda" and finding many followers and imitatators in the early decades of the Twentieth Century.
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German was by then in high demand to write music for plays, and his commissions included Henry Arthur Jones's The Tempter in 1893, Johnston Forbes-Robertson's Romeo and Juliet at the Lyceum in 1895, Herbert Beerbohm Tree's productions of As You Like It (1896) and Much Ado about Nothing (1898), and Anthony Hope's English Nell (later known as Nell Gwynn) in 1900, starring Marie Tempest.
The story is Burrough's version of the then popular Ruritanian romance exemplified by Anthony Hope's The Prisoner of Zenda and its sequel Rupert of Hentzau.