Event Comment: The United Company. The date of the first performance is not precisely known, but a broadside copy of the Epilogue, in the Bodleian Library, has a licensing date of 20 Aug. 1685, a MS date of 24 Aug. 1685. The play was licensed on 11 Sept. 1685. These dates suggest a premiere in mid-to late-August 1685. For Anne Bracegirdle as Clita and speaker of the Epilogue, see Lucyle Hook, Anne Bracegirdle's First Appearance, Theatre Notebook, XIII (1959), 135. The Prologue and Epilogue, separately printed, are reprinted in Wiley, Rare Prologues and Epilogues, pp. 239-41. The broadside Prologue has a more detailed heading than that in the edition of 1686: Prologue To A Commonwealth of Women, Spoke by Mr Haynes, Habited like a Whig, Captain of the Scyth-men in the West, a Scythe in his Hand. Two songs, set by Samuel Ackroyde, are in The Theater of Musick, The Third Book, 1686

Event Comment: The United Company. This performance is on the L. C. list, 5@147, p. 68: The Queene & a Box for ye Maydes of Honor. See also Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 350

Event Comment: The United Company. This performance, which is out of the chronological order, is on L. C. list, 5@147, p. 68; the list does not indicate which Part of this play was given. See also Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 350, and page 380, for an order (L. C. 5@147, p. 1) for rehabilitation of the seats in the theatre

Event Comment: The United Company. The players received the customary fee of #20. See A Calendar of the Inner Temple Records, ed. Inderwick, III, 230

Event Comment: The United Company. This performance is on the L. C. list, 5@147, p. 68. See also Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 350

Event Comment: The United Company. This performance is on the L. C. list, 5@147, p. 68. See also Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 350

Event Comment: The United Company. This Performance is on the L. C. list, 5@147, p. 68. See also Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 350. When this play was revived at Lincoln's Inn Fields on 14 Aug. 1705, the bill bore the heading: Not Acted these Twenty Years

Event Comment: The United Company. This performance is on the L. C. list, 5@147, p. 69: ye Moore of Venice at Whitehall. See also Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 350. See also an L. C. notice, 5@147, p. 24 (in Boswell, Restoration Court Stage, p. 85) concerning Preparations for plays to be acted at court every week

Event Comment: The United Company. This performance ison the L. C. list, 5@147, p. 68: Sr Phoplyn. See also Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 350. The Earl of Middleton to Sir George Etherege, 7 Dec. 1685: Every week there are plays at court. The last time Sir Fopling appeared with the usual applause, and the King was pleased to tell me that he expected you should put on your socks (Letterbook of Sir George Etherege, ed. Rosenfeld, p. 345)

Event Comment: The United Company. This performance is on the L. C. list, 5@147, p. 68. See also Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 350. This play was also reprinted in 1686. Memoirs of the Life of William Wycherley, Esq; With a Character of his Writings [by George, Lord Lansdowne, but part possibly by Charles Gildon (1718)], pp. 7-8: [After the death of Wycherley's wife, he was committed to Newgate for debt.] From hence he remov'd himself by a Habeas Corpus to the Fleet, where he continued seven Years in a close Imprisonment, almost forgot by his old Friends, till in the Reign of King James the Second, some of them bespeaking the Plain-Dealer, got the King to the Play, who declaring his Approbation of the Poet's Performance, they improv'd his liking so far as to get him to deliver him from his long Confinement. But here the Modesty of the Man did him a considerable Prejudice, for instead of giving in a full List of his Debts, he only mention'd those, the discharge of which wou'd set him at Liberty, which was done with this additional Bounty, that the same King allow'd him Two hundred Pounds a Years as long as he Reign'd; and this was the reason that made Mr Wycherley always a Jacobite

Event Comment: The United Company. An order (L. C. 5@147, p. 52, in Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 356), dated 19 Dec. 1685, calls for a payment of #20 for the King and Queen at Alexander, but the order does not indicate whether the performance occurred on this date

Event Comment: The United Company. This performance is on the L. C. list, 5@147, p. 125. See also Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 350. Peregrine Bertie to the Countess of Rutland, 31 Dec. 1685: Yesterday was acted The Committee. The King and Queen were there and all the whole Court went to see it, but coming a little after it was begun [I] could not get any roome (HMC, 12th Report, Appendix, Rutland MSS., Part V, Vol. II, p. 100). Bridget Noel to the Countess of Rutland, ca. 6 Jan. 1685@6: [Last Wednesday] my Lady Exeter engaged us to goe to a play with her...which was a Commity. The King and Queen was at it, and the house as full as ever I saw it (ibid.)

Event Comment: The United Company. The date of the first performance is not known, but the fact that the play was licensed on 1 March 1685@6, suggests a performance in January, possibly as late as February 1686. Langbaine (English Dramatick Poets, 1691, p. 179): This Play was affronted in the Acting, by some who thought themselves Criticks, and others with Cat--calls, endeavour'd at once to stifle the Author's Profit, and Fame. Three songs, From drinking of sack by the bottle, Look down fair nymph and see, and There is one black and solemn hour, all with music composed by Samuel? Ackroyde, are in The Theater of Music, The Third Book, 1686

Event Comment: The United Company. This performance is on the L. C. list, 5@147, p. 125. See also Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 350

Event Comment: The United Company. This performance is on the L. C. list, 5@147, p. 125. See also Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 350

Event Comment: The United Company. Peregrine Bertie to the Countess of Rutland, 23 Jan. 1685@6: Today will be acted King and noe King, by the King's command; everybody is sending to keep places; next week begins the French opera (HMC, 12th Report, Appendix, Rutland MSS., Part V, Vol. II, p. 102)

Event Comment: The United Company. This performance is on the L. C. list, 5@147, p. 125. See also Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 350. Peregrine Bertie to the Countess of Rutland, 28 Jan. 1685@6: Last night was acted, the Chances at Whitehall, and to-night should have been a musicke meeting at Yorke Buildings, which I am jest now told is to bee put of till next weeke. The French Opera will begin the weeke after the next (HMC, 12th Report, Appendix, Rutland MSS., Part V, Vol. II, p. 102)

Event Comment: The United Company. The players received the customary fee of #20. See A Calendar of Inner Temple Records, III, 238

Event Comment: The United Company. This performance is on the L. C. list, 5@147, p. 125. See also Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 350. On this date the Stationers' Register has a reference to a play called Love's Martyr; or, Witt Above Crownes, apparently by Mrs Anne Wharton, forbidding anyone from entering this play in the Stationers' Register

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. Peregrine Bertie to the Countess of Rutland, 6 Feb. 1685@6: Today is Othello (HMC, 12th Report, Appendix, Rutland MSS., Part V, Vol. II., p. 104)

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. 350. A reprint of this play in 1687 has the cast of the 1674 edition

Event Comment: The United Company. This performance is on the L. C. list, 5@147, p. 125. See also Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 350

Event Comment: The United Company. The date of this Performance is stated as 16 Feb. (L. C. records) or 17 Feb. (Peregrine Bertie), but as Lent began on Wednesday 17 Feb., the performance probably occurred on Shrove Tuesday. This performance is on the L. C. list, 5@147, P. 125. See also Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 350. Peregrine Bertie to the Countess of Rutland, 17 Feb. 1685@6: To night will be the last play at court, they tell mee 'tis the Mocke Astrologer (HMC, 12th Report, Appendix, Rutland MSS., Part V, p. 105). John Povey to Sir Robert Southwell, 18 Feb. 1685@6: Sir, the enclosed had been sent last post, had it not been detained late by a play at Court which ended our Carnival. The night before the King and Queen were entertained by the Lord President at a ball or masque in Lady Portsmouth's lodgings. The Masquers were twelve couples whose habits were of several nations' and prescribed by a picture sent to each of them from the Queen, and the least habit cost !bove a hundred Pounds, and some above three hundred pounds, besides jewels of which Mrs Fox and some others had above thirty thousand pounds value each (Savile-Finch Correspondence, Add. Mss. 28,569; I owe this quotation to Professor John Harold Wilson)

Event Comment: The United Company. Newdigate newsletters, 4 March 1685@6: This day a new play called The Devil of a Wife was Acted with great Applause at that formerly called the Ds Playhouse (Wilson, Theatre Notes from the Newdigate Newsletters, p. 82). See also 6 March 1685@6