Event Comment: The King's Company. See Herbert, Dramatic Records, p. 118. Pepys, Diary: And so home to Sir W. Pen, who with his children and my wife has been at a play to-day and saw D'Ambois, which I never saw

Event Comment: The King's Company. Pepys, Diary: Seeing that the Spanish Curate was acted to-day, I...home again and sent to young Mr Pen and his sister to go anon with my wife and I to the Theatre...we went by coach to the play, and there saw it well acted, and a good play it is, only Diego the Sexton did overdo his part too much. [Sir Edward Browne seems to connect this play with the Duke's Company. See Introdutcion to 1661-1662.

Event Comment: [The edition of 1662 suggests that this was a ballet, the text offering description or synopses of the entries. Edition of 1662: Being part of that Magnificent Entertainment by the Noble Prince, DelaGrange, Lord Lieutenant of Lincolns Inn. Presented to the High and Mighty Charles II, Monarch of Great Britain, France and Ireland. On Friday 3 of January 1662. Evelyn, Diary: After Prayers I went to Lond: invited to the solemn foolerie of the Prince de la Grange at Lincolne Inn: where came also the King, Duke, &c.: beginning with a grand Masquev and a formal Pleading before the mock-princes (Grandes), Nobles & Knights of the Sunn: He had his L. Chancelor, Chamberlaine, Treasurer, & other royal officers gloriously clad & attended, which ended in a magnificent Banquet: one Mr John? Lort, being the young spark, who maintained the Pageantrie. Pepys, Diary: While I was there, comes by the King's life-guard, he being gone to Lincoln's Inn this afternoon to see the Revells there; there being, according to an old custom, a prince and all his nobles and other matters of sport and charge. John Ward (notebooks, 6 Jan.): I saw a Leopard and the same day as strange a sight which was the mock prince of Lincolnes' Inne his Nobels his Knights of the Garter and his other officers (Shakespeare Quarterly, XI [1960], 494)

Event Comment: The King's Company. See Herbert, Dramatic Records, p. 118. This was a new play, but it is not clear that this day was the premiere. BM Add. Mss. 34217, in Hotson, Commonwealth and Restoration Stage, p. 246: @For the surprizall it was a good proofe@By its getting them mony it took well enough@Without which Divell take the Play@Be it never so good the Actors say@But they may thanke God with all their hart@That Lacy plaid Brankadoros part.

Event Comment: On this day Jacques Thierry and Will Schellinks saw fencing on the stage at this theatre (Seaton, Literary Relationships, pp. 334, 336)

Event Comment: Pepys, Diary: After it [Wit in a Constable] was done, my wife and I went to the puppet play in Covent Garden, which I saw the other day, and indeed it is very pleasant

Event Comment: If Downes is correct that this play was given ten days successively, the run lasted from Saturday 18 through Tuesday 28 (including one performance at court)

Event Comment: The Duke's Company, the receipts for #20 being signed by Richard Baddeley (A Calendar of the Middle Temple Records, ed. Hopwood, p. 170). W. J. Lawrence (Review of English Studies, IX (1933), 221) suggests The Adventures of Five Hours as a possibility. Pepys, Diary: I met Madam Turner...she and her daughter having been at the play to-day at the Temple, it being a revelling time with them

Event Comment: The King's Company. See 5 Feb. Pepys, Diary: [The Slighted Maid] being done, we took coach and to court, and there got good places, and saw The Wilde Gallant, performed by the King's house, but it was ill acted, and the play so poor a thing as I never saw in my life almost, and so little answering the name, that from beginning to end, I could not, nor can at this time, tell certainly which was the Wild Gallant. The King did not seem pleased at all, all the whole play, nor any body else, though Mr Clerke whome we met here did commend it to us....Now as my mind was but very ill satisfied with these two plays themselves, so was I in the midst of them sad to think of the spending so much money and venturing upon the breach of my vow, which I found myself sorry for, I bless God, though my nature would well be contented to follow the pleasure still. But I did make payment of my forfeiture presently, though I hope to save it back again by forbearing two plays at court for this one at the Theatre, or else to forbear that to the Theatre which I am to have at Easter. But it being my birthday and my day of liberty regained to me, and lastly, the last play that is likely to be acted at Court before Easter, because of the Lent coming in, I was the easier content to fling away so much money

Event Comment: Pepys, Diary: And there took up my wife and Ashwell to the Theatre Royall, being the second day of its being opened. The house is made with extraordinary good contrivance, and yet hath some faults, as the narrowness of the passages in and out of the pitt, and the distance from the stage to the boxes, which I am confident cannot hear; but for all other things it is well, only, above all, the musique being below, and most of it sounding under the very stage, there is no hearing of the bases at all, nor very well of the trebles, which sure must be mended. The play was The Humerous Lieutenant, a play that hath little good in it, nor much in the very part which, by the King's command, Lacy now acts instead of Clun. In the dance, the tall devil's actions was very pretty....I am resolved to deny myself the liberty of two plays at court, which are in arreare to me for the months of March and April, which will more than countervail this excess, so that this month of May is the first that I must claim a liberty of going to a Court play according to my oath

Event Comment: Pepys, Diary: To the New Theatre [Vere St], which, since the King's players are gone to the Royal one [Bridges St], is this day begun to be employed by the fencers to play prizes at

Event Comment: By the King's Company. The fee paid the players was the customary #20. See A Calendar of the Inner Temple Records, ed. Inderwick, III, 16: To Drake, the upholsterer, for a serge Curtain and for hire of a screen on All Hallows day, #1

Event Comment: The King's Company. There is no indication as to whether this is the first performance of the play. Pepys, Diary: I took my wife out, for I do find that I am not able to conquer myself as to going to plays till I come to some new vowe concerning it, and that I am now come, that is to say, that I will not see above one in a month at any of the publique theatres till the sum of 50s. be spent, and then none before New Year's day next, unless that I do become worth #1,000 sooner than then, and then am free fo come to some other terms.... to the King's house, and there met Mr Nicholson, my old colleague, and saw The Usurper, which is no good play, though better than what I saw yesterday. However, we rose unsatisfied

Event Comment: The King's Company. It is difficult to determine the run of the play, as all the known performances fall on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, but, except for 30 January, a Fast Day, it may well have been performed daily. L. C. 5@138, f. 15: A Warrant to the Master of the Great Wardrobe to prouide and deliuer to Thomas Killigrew Esq. to the value of forty pounds in silkes for to cloath the Musick for the play called the Indian Queen to be acted before their Maties Jan. 25th 1663 (Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 354)

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: Charles II to Madame, 14 July 1664: I am just now come from seeing a new ill play and it is almost midnight (C. H. Hartman, Charles II and Madame [1934], p. 108). W. J. Lawrence, in a review of Boswell, The Restoration Court Stage, in Modern Language Review, XXVIII (1933), 103, stated his belief that this play was acted at court this day

Event Comment: Pepys, Diary: So anon abroad with Creed walked to Bartholomew Fayre, this being the last day, and there saw the best dancing on the ropes that I think I ever saw in my life, and so all say

Event Comment: Pepys, Diary: Thence after dinner to a play, to see The Generall; which is so dull and so ill-acted, that I think it is the worst I ever saw or heard in all my days. I happened to sit near to Sir Charles Sidly; who I find a very witty man, and he did at every line take notice of the dullness of the poet and badness of the action, that most pertinently; which I was mightily taken with; and among others where by Altemire's command Clarimont, the Generall, is commanded to rescue his Rivall, whom she loved, Lucidor, he, after a great deal of demurre, broke out, "Well, I'le save my Rivall and make her confess, that I deserve, while he do but possesse." "Why, what, pox," says Sir Charles Sydly, "would he have him have more, or what is there more to be had of a woman than the possessing her?" Thence...vexed at my losing my time and above 20s. in money, and neglecting my business to see so bad a play

Event Comment: The Kings' Company. The play was probably acted through 11 Oct. Pepys, Diary, 4 Oct.: To-morrow they told us should be acted, or the day after, a new play, called The Parson's Dreame, acted all by women

Event Comment: Pepys, Diary: My wife not being come home from my Lady Jemimah, with whom she had been at a play and at court to-day

Event Comment: John Evelyn, writing to Viscount Cornbury this day, protested the frequency of theatrical performances during the Lenten "Indiction" after hearing that there was to be "no Lent indicted this year." He wondered if Fridays and Saturdays could not be spared from the licentiousness of plays. (See Diary and Correspondence, ed. Bray III, 150-52.

Event Comment: H. B. Wilson, The History of the Merchant-Taylors' School (London, 1814), 1, 344n: 15 March 1664@5. There was this day presented to the court, the bill of charges in erecting the Stage and Seates and other necessaries in the hall, when the Schollers of the companies schoole, at St Laurence Pounctneys, London, acted the play called Love's Pilgrimage, amounting unto seventeen Poundes, Tenn-shillings, and nine-pence

Event Comment: Although 3 April may not be the first performance of this play, the fact that Pepys saw it on 3 April and Evelyn attended it on 6 April suggests that it was given on this day also

Event Comment: On this day Pepys heard a report about the reopening of the play-houses which probably was an erroneous rumor: And found Sir W. Pen talking to Orange Moll [Mary Meggs] of the King's house, who, to our great comfort, told us that they begun to act on the 18th of this month

Event Comment: Rugge's Diurnal, BM Add. Mss. 10117, folio 179: Acted at Whitehall atcourt a play witt wt'out mony before King and nobility. Pepys, Diary, 15 Oct.: But she [Lady Carteret] cries out of the vices of the Court, and how they are going to set up plays already; and how, the next day after the late great fast, the Duchesse of York did give the King and Queene a play. Nay, she told me that they nave heretofore had plays at court the very nights before the fast for the death of the late King [i.e., on the night preceding 30 Jan.]