Event Comment: This play was seen by Jacques Thierry and Will Schellinks (Seaton, Literary Relationships, pp. 334, 336), but no theatre is named. The most recent dated performance was given by the Duke's Company, 5 Dec. 1661

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. Pepys, Diary: After dinner by water to the Royall Theatre [Bridges St]; but that was so full they told us we could have no room. And so to the Duke's House; and there saw Hamlett done, giving us fresh reason never to think enough of Betterton. Who should come upon the stage but Gosnell, my wife's maid? but neither spoke, danced, nor sung; which I was sorry for. But she becomes the stage very well

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. Pepys, Diary: To the Royall Theatre [Bridges St], but they not acting today, then to the Duke's house, and there saw The Slighted Mayde, wherein Gosnell acted Pyramena, a great part, and did it very well, and I believe will do it better and better, and prove a good actor. The play is not very excellent, but is well acted, and in general the actors, in all particulars, are better than at the other house

Event Comment: Nethercot (Davenant,pp. 337-78) believes that this play was brought out in the late summer of 1663. The Epilogue refers to the Long Vacation, presumably the summer of 1663, as the play is referred to in Stapylton's The Stepmother, which was licensed 26 Dec. 1663. In Act V is a farce relating to Pompey; as Langbaine (English Dramatick Poets, p. 405) states: Pompey, a Tragedy, which I have seen acted with great Applause, at the Duke's Theatre, and at the End was acted that Farce printed in the fifth Act of The Play-house to be Let. [See also June 1663.

Event Comment: On this date a band of French comedians received a permit authorizing them to bring their scenes and stage decoration to England. See W. J. Lawrence, "Early French Players in England," The Elizabethan Playhouse and Other Studies, p. 140; Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 252; and Madame M. Horn-Monval, "French Troupes in England during the Restoration," Theatre Notebook, VII (1953), 82

Event Comment: This play was presumably acted by the Duke's Company. In the preface to Heraclius, Emperour of the East, published in 1664, the author, Lodowick Carlell, complains that he had submitted his translation of Corneille, only to have it returned the very day that this version appeared on the stage. See also the letter by Katherine Philips, under Pompey the Great, Jan. 1663@4. Pepys, Diary: We made no long stay at dinner; for Heraclius being acted, which my wife and I have a mighty mind to see, we do resolve, though not exactly agreeing with the letter of my vowe, yet altogether with the sense, to see another this month, by coming hither instead of that at court, there having ueen none conveniently since I made my vowe for us to see there, nor like to be this Lent, and besides we did walk home on purpose to make this going as cheap as that would have been, to have seen one at Court, and my conscience knows that it is only the saving of money and the time also that I intend by my oaths....The play hath one very good passage well managed in it, about two persons pretending, and yet denying themselves, to be son to the tyrant Phocas, and yet heire of Mauricius to the crowne. The garments like Romans very well. The little girle is come to act very prettily, and spoke the epilogue most admirably. But at the beginning, at the drawing up of the curtaine, there was the finest scene of the Emperor and his people about him, standing in their fixed and different postures in their Roman habitts, above all that ever I yet saw at any of the theatres

Event Comment: A facsimile of a bill announcing A Trial of Skill at this playhouse, 30 May 1664, is in Rariora, ed. John Eliot Hodgkin (London, n.d.), III, 53-54. See also William VanLennep, The Death of the Red Bull, Theatre Notebook, XVI (1962), 133-34

Event Comment: Mrs Pepys attended a play, but the theatre and the play are not named by Pepys

Event Comment: The play was entered in the Stationers' Register on 26 May 1665. In addition, the Prologue alludes to The Indian Queen (25 Jan. 1663@4): @The Scenes are old, the Habits are the same,@We wore last year, before the Spaniards came.@ Printed with The Indian Emperour was The Connexion of the Indian Emperour to the Indian Queen, which may have been distributed at the theatre, for Bayes, in The Rehearsal, remarks: Besides, Sir, I have printed above a hundred sheets of paper to insinuate the Plot into the Boxes

Event Comment: W. S. Clark (Works of Orrery, 1, 40-41) believes that this is Thomas Middleton's play, not one by Orrery. Henry Savile to George Savile: I am come newly from my Lord of Orrery's new play called The Widow, whose character you will receive from better hands. I will only say that one part of it is the humour of a man that has great need to go to the close stool, where there are such indecent postures as would never be suffered upon any stage but ours, which has quite turn'd the stomach of so squeamish a man as I am, that am used to see nothing upon a theatre that might not appear in the ruelle of a fine lady (Savile Correspondence, ed. W. D. Cooper, Camden Society, LXXI [1858], 4)

Event Comment: Pepys, Diary: And took up my wife, and to Polichinelli at Charing Crosse, which is prettier and prettier, and so full of variety that it is extraordinary good entertainment. (See also George Speaight, The History of the English Puppet Theatre [London, 1955], p. 75.

Event Comment: On 22 July 1667 Pepys implies that the theatres had been closed in June and early July, possibly because of the naval encounters with the Dutch. On 6 June, however, he records in his Diary: After dinner my father and wife to a play [Pepys, Diary]

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. Pepys, Diary: With Sir W. Pen, my wife, and Mary Batelier to the Duke of York's house, and there saw Heraclius, which is a good play; but they did so spoil it with their laughing, and being all of them out, and with the noise they made within the theatre, that I was ashamed of it, and resolve not to come thither again a good while, believing that this negligence, which I never observed before, proceeds only from their want of company in the pit, that they have no care how they act

Event Comment: Pepys, Diary: [After looking in at lif], to Charing Cross, there to see Polichinelli. [It being begun, Pepys did not stay. See Speaight, English Puppet Theatre, p. 75.

Event Comment: Mrs Pepys attended a play, but the theatre and the title of the play are not known

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. This performance is on the L. C. list at Harvard. See William VanLennep, "Plays on the English Stage", p. 13. The edition of 1668 states: As it was Acted (with great Applause) by the Servants of His Royal Highness the Duke of York, at the Theatre in Lincolns-Inn Fields

Event Comment: The Travels of Cosmo the Third [Tuesday 30 April 1669 NS; Tuesday 20 April 1669 OS]: This day, his highness went to the comedy at the Duke of York's theatre, where the music and dancing, after the English manner, were less pleasing than the operas performed by the comedians; because, being in the English language, the only pleasure which we who heard them, can derive from the latter, is that of observing their action, which it cannot be denied, was supereminently excellent (London, 1821, p. 194)

Event Comment: The Travels of Cosmo the Third [Monday 20 May 1669 NS, Monday 10 May 1669 OS]: After this excursion through the city, his highness went to the comedy at the Duke's theatre (p. 304)

Event Comment: The news of the death of Henrietta-Maria, the Queen Mother, reached London ca. 3 Sept. 1669. There may well have been an order forbidding playing, although it is not extant; but an order, L. C. 5@12, p. 251 (in Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 322) directs the two companies to act again on Monday, 18 Oct. 1669. Probably the theatres were closed for approximately six weeks

Event Comment: The Duke's Theatre. This performance is on the L. C. lists at Harvard. See VanLennep, "Plays on the English Stage", pp. 12, 16

Event Comment: On this day Jeffreys Boys gave Punchinello 1s. See I. K. Fletcher, "Italian Comedians in England in the Seventeenth Century," Theatre Notebook, VIII (1954), 87, for Anthony Devoto, presumably the puppet player whom Boys saw

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. The date of the first performance is not known, but the Preface suggests that it was given first in the summer; the fact that part of the Duke's Company was at Oxford in July makes June a probable time. Preface: It had the misfortune to be brought into the world in a time, when the Dog-star was near his Reign, and my Judges sat in a hot Bath, rather than a Theatre, and were doubly persecuted by the heat of the weather, and the Impertinence of the Poet; and which was the worst mishap, when the most candid, as well as the most Illustrious Judges (I mean the Court) were absent. A song, Lo behold a sea of tears, with music by John Bannister, for this play, is Choice Ayres and Songs, The First Book, 1673

Event Comment: This play was reprinted in 1672, being entered in the Term Catalogues, 20 Nov. 1671. It probably was acted in the late summer of 1671. The title page states that it was acted at the Theatre Royal, Bridges Street

Event Comment: The Kings's Company. This is another in the series of plays acted by the women of the theatre. The Prologue and Epilogue are in Covent Garden Drollery, 1672

Event Comment: L. C. 5@140, p. 263: It is his Mates pleasure that there shall not bee acted any playes at the Theatre in Lincolnes Inn ffeilds after Midsummer day next ensuring untill further order (see Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 322). The cause of this order is not known