Event Comment: The Duke's Company. The date of the first performance is not known. As the play was entered in the Term Catalogues, May 1681, it was probably first acted not later than March 1681. The title page states: Revis'd with Alterations

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. This performance is on the L. C. list, 5@145, p. 120. See also Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 020. The date of the first performance is not known, but it may well have been about this time, as the Prologue refers to Michaelmas Term and the reopening of the playhouses ("Theatres are up"). The play was entered in the Term Catalogues in February 1681@2

Event Comment: The King's Company. The date of the first performance is not known, but the fact that the play was entered in the Term Catalogues in February 1681@2 and advertised in The Loyal Protestant, 7 March 1681@2, suggests a premiere in December 1681. A certain performance on 14 Jan. 1681@2 may indicate, however, that the play did not have its first performance until that month. A song for this play, Retired from mortal's sight, set by Henry Purcell, is in Choice Ayres and Songs, 1683

Event Comment: The King's Company. The date of the premiere is not certain. This performance is known from an entry in the Newdigate newsletters, which also states that Rollo was to be acted on the following Monday. If this statement is accurate, the performance of The Loyal Brother on 4 Feb. 1681@2 may be the third night rather than the opening performance. Newdigate newsletters, 4 Feb. 1681@2: On Monday morn [the Moorish Ambassador] & ye Comers meet to conclude ye treaty and in ye afternoon goes to see Rollo D. of Normandy at ye Ks playhouse wre ye K was this afternoon to see ye new play calld ye Loyall brothr (Wilson, More Theater Notes from the Newdigate Newsletters, p. 59). The Prologue and Epilogue were printed separately and have been reprinted in Wiley, Rare Prologues and Epilogues, pp. 70-72. Luttrell acquired his copies (Huntington Library) on 7 Feb. 1681@2. In The Life of John Dryden (Chapel Hill, 1961), Charles E. Ward believes (pp. 166, 355) that The Loyal Brother was first acted in the autumn of 1681; but the entry in the Newdigate newsletters seems to make February 1682 the more probable time

Event Comment: The King's Company. There is no indication as to when the first performance occurred, but as the play was entered in the Term Catalogues, May 1682, its first appearance was probably not later than March 1682. A copy in the Library of Congress has a MS date of 7 July, probably a date of acquisition. A song The larks awake the drowsy morn, with music by Pack, is not in the printed play but is in A New Collection of Songs and Poems by D'Urfey, 1683

Event Comment: On this date the officers of the Duke's Company and the King's Company entered into agreements to merge the two companies. For details, see Hotson, Commonwealth and Restoration Stage, p. 271; Fitzgerald, A New History, I, 154-58; and Nicoll, Restoration Drama, pp. 296-97. See also Langhans, New Restoration Theatre Accounts, p. 122, for evidence that the union had been effectively made by 13 May 1682. See page 123 for evidence that the company probably acted continuously to 7 August 1682, then closed until early October. But see 10 August 1682

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. True Protestant Mercury, 17-20 May 1682: On Thursday the Ambassador from the King of Bantam was entertained with a play called the Libertine Destroyed at the Duke's Theatre. [See also Luttrell, A Brief Relation, I, 187, and Wilson, More Theatre Notes from the Newdigate Newsletters, p. 59

Event Comment: A poem--To the Duke on His Return. Written by Nat. Lee--was separately printed in 1682, and Luttrell's copy (Huntington Library) is dated 29 May 1682. A note on the Folger Shakespeare Library copy states that the lines were spoken at the King's Theatre, but the date on which it was recited is uncertain. The poem has been reprinted in Wiley, Rare Prologues and Epilogues, pp. 113-15

Event Comment: The United Company. This performance is on the L. C. list, 5@145, p. 120: with Ye Q: & a box for ye Maides of honor. See also Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 349. This play was reprinted in 1682, but without actors' names. Langbaine (English Dramatick Poets, 1691, p. 207) may refer to a performance around this period: Being acted with extraordinary applause at the Theatre in Dorset-Garden, and printed with the Alterations London. 40 1682

Event Comment: Charles II had begun negotiations for bringing Italian players to England again. See the correspondence in HMC, 7th Report, Appendix, pp. 285, 286, 331; and L. C. 5@144, p. 407, in Boswell, Restoration Court Stage, p. 61. See also HMC, 7th Report, p. 288 (1 May 168O) and Boswell, Restoration Court Stage, p. 125

Event Comment: The United Company. This play may have been revived during this month or earlier. A song, Come Jug my honey let's to bed, the music by Thomas Farmer, sung by Reading and Mrs Norris, was printed in Choice New Songs never before Printed [by Thomas D'Urfey, 1684]. Luttrell purchased a copy of this collection on 8 Jan. 1684@5 (Bindley Collection, William Andrews Clark@Jr@Library)

Event Comment: The United Company. Peregrine Bertie to the Countess of Rutland. 6 Feb. 1685@6: Thursday was acted Mithridates? for the Queen and Goodman played (HMC, 12th Report, Appendix, Rutland MSS., Part V, Vol. II, p. 104). [In L. C. 5@147, is a warrant to pay Mrs Barry for two plays-Valentinian and Mithridates-acted before the King and Queen, #40. The date of the warrant is 8 May 1686. If this warrant represents payment for this performance of Mithridates, probably Valentinian was acted in 1686.

Event Comment: The United Company. This performance is on the L. C. list, 5@147, p. 125: The King & Queene & a Box for ye Maydes of honor. See also Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 351. General Patrick Gordon, 6 May 1686: I saw the Scots Batallion exercized in the Hide Park before the King and Queen, and saw the comedy, Rehearsal, acted (Passages from the Diary of General Patrick Gordon of Auckleuchbies [Aberdeen, 1859], p. 133)

Event Comment: On this date William Hemmings' The Eunuch was licensed. The play was published in 1687, but there is no certainty that it was acted. The problem is made more complicated by the production of Sedley's Bellamira--see 12 May 1687-which was derived from Terence's The Eunuch. See the introductory note for the 1676-77 season for the possibility that The Eunuch was acted then

Event Comment: On this day the news of the death of the Duchess of Modena was brought to Windsor, and newsletters stated that the Court was to go into mourning the following Sunday. Acting at the theatres may have been curtailed during the late summer

Event Comment: The data in Langhans, New Restoration Theatre Accounts, pp. 128-29, suggest that acting may have resumed by this day and continued to 9 June 1688. Because of the 1688 revolution, the circumstances of summer acting in 1688 are not clear

Event Comment: In L. C. 5@148, p. 64 (see Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 356) is a warrant for a payment of #20 to John Crowne for Sir Courtly Nice. This may represent a recent performance or be simply a gift

Event Comment: If the sequence of performances outlined here is correct, this is the third day. See Downes, Roscius Anglicanus, p. 41) for the receipts, and Peregrine Bertie's comments on 12 May 1688

Event Comment: The United Company--Peregrine Bertie to the Countess of Rutland, 12 May 1688: We have had since my last another new play, a comedy writ by Shadwell, called the Esquire of Alsatia. It has been acted nine days successively, and on the third day the poet got 16l. more than any other poet ever did. When all this is granted, there is nothing in it extraordinary--except it is a Latin song--but the thing reason why it takes soe well is, because it brings severall of the cant words upon the stage which some in town have invented, and turns them into ridicule (HMC, 12th Report, Appendix, Rutland MSS., Part V, Vol. II, p. 119)

Event Comment: The United Company. BM Sloane MS 3929, newsletter: 19 May 1688: On Munday last the King prince and princess were to see a play called the Squire of Alsatia. [I owe this quotation to Professor John Harold Wilson.

Event Comment: The United Company. The date of the first production is not known. The play was entered in the Term Catalogues, June 1689, and announced in the London Gazette, 24-27 June 1689. In the extreme scarcity of information concerning the theatres during the disturbed winter of 1688-89, it is difficult to know when this play may have been first presented. It was probably acted not later than April, possibly in March

Event Comment: The United Company. This performance is on the L. C. list, 5@149, p. 368: The Queene a Box, and a Box for the Maids of Honor at the Spanish Fryer. See also Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 352. A warrant, dated 8 June 1689, L. C. 5@149, p. 154 (see Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 356), calls for a payment of #25 to Mrs Barry and presumably represents payment for this performance. Daniel Finch, ca. June 1689: The only day Her Majesty gave herself the diversion of a play, and that on which she designed to see another, has furnished the town with discourse for a month. The choice of the play was the Spanish Fryar, the only play forbid by the late K@@. Some unhappy expressions, among which those that follow, put her in some disorder, and forc'd her to hold up her fan, and often look behind her and call for her palatine and hood, and any thing she could next think of, while those who were said. (Sir John Dalrymple, Memoirs of Great Britain [London, 1771-88], in the pit before her, whenever their fancy led them to make any application of what was Volume II, Appendix, Part II, pp. 78-80.) Henry Purcell's new setting for whilst I with grief did on you look may have been made by this date. It is in Deliciae Musicae, 1695