Event Comment: The King's Company. Downes (Roscius Anglicanus, p. 16) refers to Hart's acting Don John. Wilson (All the King's Ladies, p. 170) lists Rebecca Marshall as possibly play1ng First Constantia. The Works of Beaumont and Fletcher (1711), p. ix: Mr Hart played the Part of Don John to the highest Satisfaction of the Audience, the Play had a great run, and ever since has been follow'd as one of the best Entertainments of the Stage. Pepys, Diary: And took them [Mrs Pepys and Betty Michell] against my vowes, but I will make good my forfeit, to the King's house, to show them a play, The Chances. A good play I find it, and the actors most good in it; and pretty to hear Knipp sing in the play very properly, All night I weepe; and sung it admirably. The whole play pleases me well; and most of all, the sight of many fine ladies--among others, my Lady Castlemayne and Mrs Middleton

Event Comment: The King's Company. Pepys, Diary: After dinner, with my wife, to the King's house to see The Mayden Queene, a new play of Dryden's, mightily commended for the regularity of it, and the strain and wit; and, the truth is, there is a comical part done by Nell, which is Florimell, that I never can hope ever to see the like done again, by man or woman. The King and Duke of York were at the play. But so great performance of a comical part was never, I believe, in the world before as Nell do this, both as a mad girle, then most and best of all when she comes in like a young gallant; and hath the motions and carriage of a spark the most that ever I saw any man have. It makes me, I confess, admire her

Event Comment: The King's Company. Pepys, Diary: In haste to carry my wife to see the new play I saw yesterday, she not knowing it. But there, contrary to expectation, find The Silent Woman. However in; and there Knipp come into the pit...[and] tells me the King was so angry at the liberty taken by Lacy's part to abuse him to his face, that he commanded they should act no more, till Moone [Mohun] went and got leave for them to act again, but not this play. The King mighty angry; and it was better indeed, but very true and witty. I never was more taken with a play than I am with this "Silent Woman," as old as it is, and as often as I have seen it. There is more wit in it than goes to ten new plays. Nathaniel Wanby, Coventry, 1667: We have known in our time that the Silent Woman hath had the loud applause of a whole theatre (BM Harleian MS. 6430, p.23)

Event Comment: The King's Company. Pepys, Diary: My wife and Mercer and I away to the King's play-house, to see the Scornfull Lady; but it being now three o'clock there was not one soul in the pit; whereupon, for shame, we would not go in....[After attending lif] to the King's house, upon a wager of mine with my wife, that there would be no acting there to-day, there being no company: so I went in and found a pretty good company there, and saw their dance at the end of the play

Event Comment: The King's Company. Pepys, Diary: To the King's playhouse, my eyes being so bad since last night's straining of them, that I am hardly able to see, besides the pain which I have in them. The play was a new play; and infinitely full: the King and all the Court almost there. It is The Storme, a play of Fletcher's; which is but so-so, methinks; only there is a most admirable dance at the end, of the ladies, in a military manner, which indeed did please me mightily....And there comes my wife home from the Duke of York's playhouse. Two songs, printed somewhat later in Choice Songs and Ayres, The First Book, 1673, may have been prepared for this revival: Hark the storm grows, set by Robert Smith; and Cheer up my mates, set by Pelham Humphrey

Event Comment: The King's Company. This performance is on the L. C. lists, 5@139, p. 129, and 5@12, p. 17. See also Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 344. Pepys, Diary: Thence Bruncker and I to be the King's House, thinking to have gone into a box above, for fear of being seen, the King being there, but the play being 3 acts done we would not give 4s., and so away

Event Comment: The King's Company. Pepys, Diary: With Sir Philip Carteret to the King's playhouse, there to see Love's Cruelty, an old play, but which I have not seen before and in the first act Orange Moll come to me, with one of the porters by my house, to tell me that Mrs Pierce and Knepp did dine at my house to-day, and that I was desired to come home. So I went out presently, and by coach home, and they were just gone away; so, after a very little stay with my wife, I took coach again, and to the King's playhouse again, and come in the fourth act; and it proves to me a very silly play, and to everybody else, as far as I could judge. But the jest is, that here telling Moll how I had lost my journey, she told me that Mrs Knepp was in the house, and so shews me to her, and I went to her, and sat out the play.... I could not but observe that Sir Philip Carteret would fain have given me my going into a play; but yet, when he come to the door, he had no money to pay for himself, I having refused to accept of it for myself, but was fain; and I perceive he is known there, and do run upon the score for plays, which is a shame.... In the pit I met with Sir Ch. North

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: Knepp's maid comes to me, to tell me that the women's day at the playhouse is to-day, and that therefore I must be there, to encrease their profit....I by coach toward the King's playhouse, and meeting W. Howe took him with me, and there saw The City Match; not acted these thirty years, and but a silly play: the King and Court there; the house, for the women's sake, mighty full

Event Comment: The King's Company. This performance is on the L. C. list, 5@12, p. 17: King here. See also Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 344. See Noyes, Ben Jonson on the English Stage, p. 307, for a letter to Lady Sunderland on this performance, and, p. 308, for an anecdote from The Life of the Late Famous Comedian, Jo. Haynes, concerning Haynes and Hart in a scene. For another allusion to the action, see Henri Ferneron, Louise de Keroualle, Duchess of Portsmouth (London, 1807), p. 179n. Pepys, Diary: 15 Jan. 1668@9: It is about my Lady Harvy's being offended at Doll Common's [Mrs Corey's] acting of Sempronia, 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. Mrs John Evelyn to Mr Terryll, 10 Feb. 1668@9: There has not been any new lately revived and reformed, as Catiline, well set out with clothes and scenes (Diary and Correspondence of John Evelyn, ed. William Bray, IV, 14). See also 7 and 11 Dec. 1667

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 house, and there saw The General revived--a good play, that pleases me well. The Travels of Cosmo the Third [4 May 1669 NS; 24 April 1699 OS]: [On 4 May and the two subsequent days His Highness received callers] and many of them remained to dine with his highness, who continued on each of these days his visits to the ladies, appearing at Hyde Park, at the comedies, sometimes at the king's theatre, sometimes at that of the duke's theatre (p. 195)

Event Comment: The King's Company. It is difficult to assign a date to this burlesque, but it is obviously a satiric thrust at Elkanah Settle's The Empress of Morocco, which had been acted on 3 July 1673, and on Macbeth, which had been most recently acted (probably) on 9 Aug. 1673. As the title page of Duffett's burlesque does not name a theatre, it is not known whether it was acted before the King's Company left Lincoln's Inn Fields for the new theatre in Drury Lane. But the fact that Settle's Empress of Morocco was acted again at Dorset Garden on 6 Dec. 1673 makes December 1673 a likely month (or the King's Company to play its burlesque, although it may have been given in the late summer or early autumn, as many lesser actors are in the cast

Event Comment: The United Company. Newdigate newsletters, 20 Jan. 1682@3: Yesterday was acted at the Theatre Royall the first of a new play Entituled the City Politiques the novelty of wch drew a Confluence of Spectators under both Qualifications of Whigg and Tory to hear and behold a Ld Mayor Sheriffs & some Aldermen with their wives in yr usuall formalityes buffoond & Reviled a great Lawyer with his young Lady Jeared and Intreagued Dr Oates pfectly represented berogued & beslaved the papist plott Egregiously Rediculed the Irish Testemonyes Contradictiorily disproved & befoold the Whiggs totally vanquished & undon Law & property men oreruld & there wanted nothing of Artifice in behaviour and discourse to render all those obnoxious & dispised in fine such a medly of occurences intervened that twas a question whether more of Loyalty designe or Rhetorique prvailed but there were mighty clappings among the poeple of both partyes in Expressing either their sattisfaction or displeasure (Wilson, Theatre Notes from the Newdigate Newsletters, p. 81). The Prologue and Epilogue, separately Printed, have 20 Jan. 1682@3 as Luttrell's date of acquisition (Huntington Library) and are reprinted in Wiley's Rare Prologues and Epilogues, pp. 166-69. John Dennis, To Mr --- In which are some Passages of the Life of Mr John Crown, Author of Sir Courtly Nice, June 23, 1719: About that time he writ The City Politicks, on purpose to Satyrize and expose the Whigs; a Comedy so agreeable, that it deserv'd to be writ in a much better Cause: But after he had writ he met with very great Difficulties in the getting it acted. Bennet Lord Arlington, who was then Lord Chamberlain of the King's Houshold, and who had secretly espous'd the Whigs, who were at that time powerful in Parliament, in order to support himself against the Favour and Power of the Lord Treasurer Danby, who was his declared Enemy, us'd all his Authority to suppress it. One While it was prohibited on the account of its being Dangerous, another while it was laid aside on the pretence of its being Falt and Insipid; till Mr Crown at last was forc'd to have Recourse to the king himself, and to engage him to give his absolute Command to the Lord Chamberlain for the acting of it; which Command the King was Pleas'd to give in his own Person (I, 49-50). Morrice Entry Book, Vol.1 1682@3: Mr Crowne [was cudgled on Wednesday last in St Martin's Lane and] hee that beat him said hee did it at the suite of the Earle of Rochester some time since deceased who greatly abused in the play for his penetency &c. (p. 353. I owe this note to the courtesy of Professor David M. Vieth of the University of Kansas and Professor G. H. Jones of Kansas State University)

Event Comment: The United Company. A somewhat puzzling entry in the Reverend Robert Kirk's description of London in 1689 implies a performance of The Committee undertaken but not completed: At a play in Whitehall King Charles, his trage-comedy, when the actors were come to that part of seducing King Charles II, some Williamites in the pit below hissed at it (as if the play had meant the like of King James in Ireland). At this there sprang such huzzas and holloes above applauding that part of the play, that it was in a confusion, and they durst pursue it no further, lest the two parties made violence one upon another. Two or three noblemen were remarked to be forward in the acclamations of joy, and therefore are looked on as Jacobites. The Play's name is The Committee, November 28, 1689 (Transactions of the London and Middlesex Archeological Society, New Series, VI, 655)

Event Comment: Luttrell, A Brief Relation, IV, 518-79: This day being the anniversary of the kings birth...there was also a fine ball at St. James to conclude the solemnity, where the king was present: their royal highnesses the prince and princesse dined with his majestie at Kensington, who all the while were diverted with a fine consort of musick; and Mr Tate, the poet laureat, presented the king with a curious ode

Event Comment: At the particular Desire of several Ladies of Quality. Containing the Distresses and Death of King Henry the Sixth , the Murther of young King Eduard the Fifth and his Brother in the Tower, with the Landing of the Earl of Richmond , and the Memorable and Decisive Battle in Bosworth Field

Event Comment: Mainpiece: Written by George, Duke of Buckingham

Event Comment: Written by George Duke of Buckingham. Never perform'd there before. Tis hop'd no Gentleman will take it ill if they are not admitted behind the Scenes, it being impossible to go through the Performance, if the Passages are not kept clear. Tickets at 4s., 2s. 6d., 1s. 6d. [prices repeated for the run of this play]