Event Comment: The King's Company. This play has generally been assigned to June 1669, partly on the basis of a suit--see
Hotson,
Commonwealth and Restoration Stage, pp. 252-53, 348-55-over a scene for it which
Isaac Fuller, the scene designer, states was finished by 23 June 1669. The suit also states that the play ran for fourteen days, but it is not certain that the theatres played on consecutive days in the summer. The play has been assigned to 24 June 1669 on the basis of a letter from
Charles II to
Princess Henriette-Anne, dated 24 June [1669]: I am just now going to a new play that I heare very much commended (
Cyril Hughes Hartmann,
Charles II and Madame [
London, 1934], p. 259).
Elizabeth Cottington to
Herbert Aston, ca. May 1669: Wee ar in expectation still of
Mr Draidens play. Ther is a bowld woman [
Aphra Behn (?)] hath oferd one: my cosen
Aston can give you a better account of her then I can. Some verses I have seen which ar not ill; that is commentation enouf: she will think so too, I believe, when it comes upon the ptage. I shall tremble for the poor woman exposed among the critticks (
Arthur Clifford, Tixall Letters [London, 1815], II, 60)
Performances
Mainpiece Title: Tyrannic Love; Or, The Royal Martyr