Event Comment: The Duke's Company. This play is assigned to this period because it was licensed on 16 Oct. 1663 and advertised in The Intelligencer, 23 Nov. 1663. There is no specific evidence that it was acted in the autumn of 1663. See 20 and 21 March 1666@7 for a later production

Event Comment: Pepys, Diary: Calling at Wotton's...he tells me...that Harris is come to the Duke's house again; and of a rare play to be acted this week of Sir William Davenant's; the story of Henry the Eighth with all his wives

Event Comment: Edition of 1664: A Comedy. As it was Acted in the Christmas Holidays by several Apprentices. With great Applause. With License

Event Comment: The King's Company. It is difficult to determine the run of the play, as all the known performances fall on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, but, except for 30 January, a Fast Day, it may well have been performed daily. L. C. 5@138, f. 15: A Warrant to the Master of the Great Wardrobe to prouide and deliuer to Thomas Killigrew Esq. to the value of forty pounds in silkes for to cloath the Musick for the play called the Indian Queen to be acted before their Maties Jan. 25th 1663 (Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 354)

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. Pepys, Diary: My wife and I by coach to The Duke's house, where we say The Unfortunate Lovers; but I know not whether I am grown more curious than I was or no, but I was not much pleased with it, though I know not where to lay the fault, unless it was that the house was very empty, by reason of a new play at the other house. Yet here was my Lady Castlemaine in a box. In An Elegy on the Death of Edward Angel, 1673, two lines suggest that Angel acted Friskin: @Adieu, dear Friskin: Unfort'nate Lover weep,@Your mirth is fled, and now i' th' Grave must sleep.

Event Comment: Charles II to Madame, 14 July 1664: I am just now come from seeing a new ill play and it is almost midnight (C. H. Hartman, Charles II and Madame [1934], p. 108). W. J. Lawrence, in a review of Boswell, The Restoration Court Stage, in Modern Language Review, XXVIII (1933), 103, stated his belief that this play was acted at court this day

Event Comment: The King's Company, presumably. For a version of this play, see R. G. Howarth, "A Manuscript of James Shirley's Court Secret," Review of English Studies, VII (1931), 302-13. The manuscript is in the Worcester College Library (Plays 9. 21). Pepys, Diary: My wife going to-day to dine with Mrs Pierce, and thence with her and Mrs Clerke to see a new play, The Court Secret. [The play had not been acted before the Restoration.

Event Comment: Pepys, Diary: Luellin...tells me what a bawdy loose play this Parson's Wedding is, that is acted by nothing but women at the King's house, and I am glad of it

Event Comment: On Herbert's list (Dramatic Records, p. 138) appears at the end Eluira [Elvira] which is characterised as "the last" of the sequence which begins with Floras Figarys on 3 Nov. 1663. As Henry V, The Generall, Parsons Wedding, and Macbeth were acted after that date-Macbeth on 5 Nov. 1664--it is possible that Elvira; or, The Worst Not Always True may have appeared in late November. Langbaine (English Dramatick Poets, p. 530) attributes it to Lord Digby

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. Downes' comments (Roscius Anglicanus, p. 33) probably refer to a later production. This play is also on Herbert's list, Dramatic Records, p. 138. Pepys, Diary: With my wife to tne Duke's house to a play, Macbeth, a pretty good play, but admirably acted

Event Comment: John Lacy's The Old Troop; or, Monsieur Raggou was probably acted by this time. Not published until 1672, it was, however, referred to in the Epilogue to The Vestal Virgin (which was entered in the Stationers' Register, 7 March 1664@5): @If nothing pleases but Variety,@I'll turn Ragou into a Tragedy.@When Lacy, like a whining Lover dies.

Event Comment: An unnamed play was acted by the King's Company at the Cockpit at Court. See L. C. 5@138, p. 156, in Boswell, Restoration Court Stage, p. 281

Event Comment: The Vestal-Virgin; or, The Roman Ladies (by Sir Robert Howard) was probably acted by February 1664@5. It was entered in the Stationers' Register on 7 March 1664@5 and published in 1665 in Four New plays. Downes (Roscius Anglicanus p. 15) lists it by title only. The King's Company

Event Comment: H. B. Wilson, The History of the Merchant-Taylors' School (London, 1814), 1, 344n: 15 March 1664@5. There was this day presented to the court, the bill of charges in erecting the Stage and Seates and other necessaries in the hall, when the Schollers of the companies schoole, at St Laurence Pounctneys, London, acted the play called Love's Pilgrimage, amounting unto seventeen Poundes, Tenn-shillings, and nine-pence

Event Comment: [Pepys, Diary: After dinner we walked to the King's play-house, all in dirt, they being altering of the stage to make it wider. But God knows when they will begin to act again; but my business here was to see the inside of the stage and all the tiring-rooms and machines; and, indeed, it was a sight worthy seeing. But to see their clothes, and the various sorts, and what a mixture of things there was; here a wooden-leg, there a ruff, here a hobby-horse, there a crown, would make a man split himself to see with laughing; and particularly Lacy's wardrobe, and Shotrell's. But then again, to think how fine they show on the stage by candlelight, and how poor things they are to look now too near hand, is not pleasant at all. The machines are fine, and the paintings very pretty

Event Comment: Roger Boyle, Earl of Orrery, to Edward, Viscount Conway, 17 July 1666: If we meet at London you will see a Play Acted, wh I writt by ye King s Command; I call it, Edward ye Black Prince; And if ever I writt anythinge fit for ye Theatre this Play is it (Calendar of State Papers, Ireland, 1666-1669, p. 158; in The Dramatic Works of Roger Boyle, 1, 43)

Event Comment: Rugge's Diurnal, BM Add. Mss. 10117, folio 179: Acted at Whitehall atcourt a play witt wt'out mony before King and nobility. Pepys, Diary, 15 Oct.: But she [Lady Carteret] cries out of the vices of the Court, and how they are going to set up plays already; and how, the next day after the late great fast, the Duchesse of York did give the King and Queene a play. Nay, she told me that they nave heretofore had plays at court the very nights before the fast for the death of the late King [i.e., on the night preceding 30 Jan.]

Event Comment: Pepys, Diary: [Mrs Knipp] told us they begin at both houses to act on Monday [29] next. But I fear, after all this sorrow, their pains will be but little. Mrs Williams says, the Duke's house will now be much the better of the two, because of their women; which I am glad to hear

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. Boswell (Restoration Court Stage, p. 282) thinks that this play given on the L. C. lists--see Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 346--between 29 Oct. and 6 Nov., may have been acted on this day. See also an order for supplies for the comedians acting at court in Alwin Thaler, Shakespear to Sheridan, p. 290. Pepys, Diary: I to White Hall, where I staid walking up and down till night, and then got almost into the playhouse, having much mind to go and see the play at Court this night; but fearing how I should get nome, because of the bonefires and the lateness of the night to get a coach, I did not stay

Event Comment: Pepys, Diary: To church, it being thanksgiving-day for the cessation of the plague; but, Lord! how the towne do say that it is hastened before the plague is quite over, there dying some people still, but only to get ground for plays to be publickly acted, which the bishops would not suffer till the plague was over; and one would thinke so, by the suddenness of the notice given of the day, which was last Sunday, and the little ceremony

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. Pepys, Diary: After dinner I put the women into a coach, and they to the Duke's house, to a play which was acted, "The [....]." It was indifferently done, but was not pleased with the song, Gosnell not singing, but a new wench, that sings naughtily

Event Comment: The King's Company. Pepys, Diary: Here my Lord Bruncker would have made me promise to go with him to a play this afternoon, where Knipp acts Mrs Weaver's great part in The Indian Emperour, and he says she is coming on to be a great actor. But I am so fell to my business, that I, though against my inclination, will not go

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. It seems likely that this play was acted about this time. Pepys, Diary, 20 Feb.: I heard discourse how Harris of [Duke's] play-house is sick, and everybody commends him, and, above all things, for acting the Cardinall

Event Comment: Pepys, Diary: With my wife to the King's house, but there found the bill torn down and no play acted.... Here [at lif; see below] met with Mr Rolt, who tells me the reason of no play to-day at the King's house. That Lacy had been committed to the porter's lodge for his acting his part in the late new play [see 15 April], and that being thence released he come to the King's house, there met with Ned Howard, the poet of the play, who congratulated his release; upon which Lacy cursed him as that it was the fault of his nonsensical play that was the cause of his ill usage. Mr Howard did give him some reply, to which Lacy [answered] him, that he was more a fool than a poet; upon which Howard did give him a blow on the face with his glove; on which Lacy, having a cane in his hand, did give him a blow over the pate. Here Rolt and others that discoursed of it in the pit this afternoon did wonder that Howard did not run him through, he being too mean a fellow to fight with. But Howard did not do any thing but complain to the King of it; so the whole house is silenced, and the gentry seem to rejoice much at it, the house being become too insolent

Event Comment: Newsletter: Lacy, the famous comedian, is at length, by great intercession, released from his durance under the groom porter, where he stood committed by His Majesty's order for having 'on his own head' added several indecent expressions in the part he acted in a late play called The Change of Crowns, written by Mr Edward Howard (HMC, Fleming MSS, 12th Report, Part VII [1890], p. 47)