Event Comment: The King's Company. Pepys, Diary: To the King's playhouse, and there saw The English Monsieur; sitting for privacy sake in an upper box: the play hath much mirth in it as to that particular humour. After the play done, I down to Knipp, and did stay her undressing herself; and there saw the several players, men and women go by; and pretty to see how strange they are all, one to another, after the play is done. Here I saw a wonderful pretty maid of her own, that come to undress her, and one so pretty that she says she intends not to keep her, for fear of her being undone in her service, by coming to the playhouse. Here I hear Sir W. Davenant is just now dead; and so who will succeed him in the mastership of the house is not yet known. The eldest Davenport is, it seems, gone from this house to be kept by somebody; which I am glad of, she being a very bad actor.... [Mrs Knepp] tells me mighty news, that my Lady Castlemayne is mightily in love with Hart of their house; and he is much with her in private, and she goes to him, and do give him many Presents; and that the thing is most certain, and Becke Marshall only privy to it, and the means of bringing them together, which is a very odd thing; and by this means she is even with the King's love to Mrs Davis

Event Comment: The King's Company. Pepys, Diary: [Sir W. Pen] and I into the King's house, and there The Mayd's Tragedy, a good play, but Knepp not there

Event Comment: The King's Company. Pepys, Diary: To the King's playhouse, and there saw Philaster; where it is pretty to see how I could remember almost all along, ever since I was a boy, Arethusa, the part which I was to have acted at Sir Robert Cooke's; and it was very pleasant to me, but more to think what a ridiculous thing it would have been for me to have acted a beautiful woman

Event Comment: The King's Company. Pepys, Diary: To the King's playhouse, and there, the pit being full, sat in a box above, and saw Catiline's Conspiracy, yesterday being the first day: a play of much good sense and words to read, but that do appear the worst upon the stage, I mean, the least diverting, that ever I saw any, though most fine in clothes; and a fine scene of the Senate, and of a fight, that ever I saw in my life. But the play is only to be read, and therefore home, with no pleasure at all, but only in sitting next to Betty Hall, that did belong to this house, and was Sir Philip Howard's mistress, a mighty pretty wench. Evelyn, Diary: I went to see the old play Cataline acted, having ben now forgotten 40 years almost

Event Comment: The King's Company. This play is on the L. C. list, 5@12, p. 17: Cattalines Conspiracie King here. See also Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 344. Although the L. C. list and Pepys disagree as to the play performed, Pepys' uncertainty suggests that he may have put down the wrong title and that the L. C. list is correct. Pepys, Diary: To the King's playhouse, and there saw, I think, The Maiden Queene. Pepys, Diary, 15 Jan.: [Sir W. Coventry] told me of the great factions at court at this day, even to the sober engaging of great persons, and differences, and making the King cheap and ridiculous. It is about my Lady Harvy's being offended at Doll Common's acting of Sempronia [see 18 Dec. 1668], to imitate her; for which she got my Lord Chamberlain, her kinsman, to imprison Doll: when my Lady Castlemayne made the King to release her, and to order her to act it again, worse than ever, the other day, where the King himself was: and since it was acted again, and my Lady Harvy provided people to hiss her and fling oranges at her: but it seems the heat is come to a great height, and real troubles at court about it

Event Comment: Pepys, Diary: To the King's playhouse, thinking to have seen The Heyress, first acted on Saturday [Friday (?)] last; but when we come thither, we find no play there; Kinaston, that did act a part therein, in abuse to Sir Charles Sedley, being last night exceedingly beaten with sticks, by two or three that assaulted him, so as he is mightily bruised, and forced to keep his bed

Event Comment: The King's Company. Pepys, Diary: To the King's playhouse, where The Heyress, notwithstanding Kinaston's being beaten, is acted: and they say the King is very angry with Sir Charles Sedley for his being beaten, but he do deny it. But his part is done by Beeston, who is fain to read it out of a book all the while, and thereby spoils the part, and almost the play, it being one of the best parts in it; and though the design is, in the first conception of it, pretty good, yet it is but an indifferent play, wrote, they say, by my Lord Newcastle, But it was pleasant to see Beeston come in with others, supposing it to be dark, and yet he is forced to read his part by the light of the candles. and this I observing to a gentleman that sat by me, he was mightily pleased therewith, and spread it up and down. But that, that pleased me most in the play is, the first song that Knepp sings, she singing three or four; and, indeed, it was very finely sung, so as to make the whole house clap her.... My wife being in mighty ill humour all night, and in the morning I found it to be from her observing Knepp to wink and smile on me, and she says I smiled on her; and, poor wretch! I did perceive that she did, and do on all such occasions, mind my eyes. I did, with much difficulty, pacify her, and were friends, she desiring that hereafter, at that house, we might always sit either above in a box, or, if there be [no] room, close up to the lower boxes

Event Comment: The King's Company. Pepys, Diary: To the King's playhouse, and there saw The Island Princesse, which I like mighty well, as an excellent play; and here we find Kinaston to be well enough to act again, which he do very well, after his beating by Sir Charles Sedley's appointment

Event Comment: Add. Mss. 36916, folio 128, 2 March 1668@9: The occasion of this [a challenge of the Duke of Buckingham to a duel by Lord Halifax or another friend of Sir William Coventry] there was a new play to be acted on Saturday last called the Country Gentleman, said to be made by the Duke & Sr Robt Howard, wherein tis said that the Earle of Clarendon, Sr Wm Coventry and some other Courtiers are plainly personated, but especially Sr William in the midst of his table of Writings; this he (or some of his relations) would not brooke, but whether he or the Ld Halifax was to fight the Duke is not knowne, but the King hath prevented all; and the play is not acted. [See also Pepys, 4 and 6 March]

Event Comment: [The King's Company. The date of the first performance is not known, but a letter--see 2 Jan. 1670@1--indicates that the first part had been acted before that date and that Part II was to be shortly staged. The point of the Prologue spoken by Ellen Gwyn seems to have derived from an incident at Dover (see Downes, Roscius Anglicanus, p. 20) in May 1670, when James Nokes attired himself in a ridiculous fashion, including "Broad wast Belts." The speakers of the Epilogue and the Prologue to the Second Part are mentioned in Sir William Haward's MS (Bodl. MS Don. b., pp. 248-49); see The Poems of John Dryden, ed. James Kinsley (Oxford, 1958), IV, 1848-49. In Part I a song Beneath a myrtle shade, with music by John Bannister, is in Choice Songs and Ayres, First Book, 1673. Another, Wherever I am, with music by Alphonso Marsh, is in the same collection, as is also How unhappy a lover am I, the music by Nicholas Staggins. Mrs John Evelyn to Mr Bohun, ca. Jan. 1670@1: Since my last to you I have seen The Siege of Grenada, a play so full of ideas that the most refined romance I ever read is not to compare with it; love is made so pure, and valour so nice, that one would image it designed for an Utopia rather than our stage. I do not quarrel with the poet, but admire one born in the decline of morality should be able to feign such exact virtue; and as poetic fiction has been instructive in former ages, I wish this the same event in ours. As to the strict law of comedy I dare not pretend to judge: some think the division of the story is not so well if it could all have been comprehended in the day's actions (The Diary and Correspondence of John Evelyn, ed. William Bray, IV, 25). According to John Evelyn--see 9 Feb. 1670@1--Robert Streeter did some of the scenes for this play. In the Preface to The Fatal Discovery, ca. February 1697@8, George Powell, in discussing revivals of Dryden's plays, stated: In relation to our reviving his Almanzor...very hard crutching up what Hart and Mohun could not prop

Event Comment: William Cartwright's The Lady Errant was licensed by Sir Henry Herbert to the Duke's Company on this date. See Bentley, Jacobean and Caroline Stage, III, 128-32

Event Comment: A troupe of foreign comedians under Tiberio Fiorelli had arrived by this date, for on this day the Customs Commissioners were ordered to admit their clothes, scenes, and other equipment. See CSP, Treasury Books, 1672-1675, p. 119 (in Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 119; Boswell, Restoration Court Stage, p. 118). E. Cholmeley to Lady Harley, April 1673: Pray tell Sir Edward that I now want him to go to the new play 'for the Italian comedian Scarramouch is come, which are things I know hee delights in not a little' (HMC, 14th Report, Appendix, Part II [1894], p. 337)

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. The Diary of Robert Hooke (p. 108): To Hoskins with Sir Ch. Wren. By water with him to the Playhouse. Saw Tempest. Paid 3sh

Event Comment: John Verney to Sir Ralph Verney, 25 April 1675: The King on Saturday night sent for the keys from the Earl of Clarendon--'tis said the reason is, that last Thursday a play was acted at court, and after orders given that no more should be let in, his lordship came to the door, which the guard refused to open, tho' he told them who he was, on which he broke it open and struck a yeoman of the guard. Some say a chamberlain was never before turned out for beating a yeoman of the guard (HMC, 7th Report, Appendix, [1879], p. 464)

Event Comment: The Bulstrode Papers (I, 324) 3 Dec. 1675: The Earle of Pembroke had another rencounter yesterday at a play house at which he wounded one Davenant, Sir William's son, and got a hurt himself

Event Comment: The King's Company. This performance is on the L. C. list, 5@141, p. 359. See also Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 346. There is no certainty that this performance is the premiere, but as the play was licensed for printing on 9 Jan. 1676@7, this performance may well be the first one. Downes (Roscius Anglicanus, pp.9-10) lists the same cast except for the ommission of Letice. It is not certain which Mrs Knight played Letice. Possibly it was Frances Maria Knight (see Wilson, All the King's Ladies, where she is tentatively listed for that role), but the presence of Mrs Ursula Knight on an undated L. C. list, 3@24, with the date of her swearing into the company given as 12 March 1676@7, it is quite likely that she played this role. (I owe this reference to Ursula Knight to Professor John Harold Wilson.) John Dennis: And when upon the first representations of the Plain Dealer, the Town, as The Authour has often told me, appeard Doubtful what Judgment to Form of it; the foremention'd gentlemen [The Duke of Buckingham, Earl of Rochester, Earl of Dorset, Earl of Mulgrave, Savil, Buckly, Sir John Denham, Waller] by their loud aprobation of it, gave it both a sudden and a lasting reputation (Defense and Defects of Dramatick Poetry, 1725, in The Works of John Dennis, ed. Hooker, II, 277)