Event Comment: This day is one of several on which, according to William Morley, treasurer of the King's Company, the receipts fell below #10, to #3 14s. 6d. See Hotson, Commonwealth and Restoration Stage, p. 267

Event Comment: In an inquiry concerning how many days the King's Company had been unable to act in the spring, William Cartwright on this day stated that he had been ill and absent and had not been among the players more than four or five times since 1 Feb. 1680@1. See Hotson, Commonwealth and Restoration Stage, p. 267

Event Comment: In the Bindley Collection, William Andrews Clark@Jr@Library, is a broadside: A Lenten Prologue Refus'd by the Players. Luttrell's date of acquisition is 11 April 1683

Event Comment: On this day Luttrell purchased a copy (Bindley Collection, William Andrew Clark@Jr@Library) of The Beggars Delight As it was Sung at the Theatre Royal, published in 1684 by J. Dean

Event Comment: The United Company. The date of the first performance is not certain, but Luttrell dated his copy of the separately-printed Prologue and Epilogue 4 June 1684 (Bindley Collection, William Andrews Clark@Jr@Library). Ordinarily the broadside prologues and epilogues appear to have been available shortly after the premier; hence, it is likely that this play appeared in the first week of June 1684. The Prologue and Epilogue are reprinted in Wiley, Rare Prologues and Epilogues, pp. 211-14

Event Comment: London Gazette, 25-29 Nov. 1686: Whereas Mr Thomas Otway some time before his death made Four Acts of a Play, whoever can give Notice in whose Hands the Copy lies, either to Mr Thomas Betterton, or Mr William Smith, at the Theatre Royal, shall be well Rewarded for his pains

Event Comment: On this date William Hemmings' The Eunuch was licensed. The play was published in 1687, but there is no certainty that it was acted. The problem is made more complicated by the production of Sedley's Bellamira--see 12 May 1687-which was derived from Terence's The Eunuch. See the introductory note for the 1676-77 season for the possibility that The Eunuch was acted then

Event Comment: On this day occurred the Coronation of William and Mary

Event Comment: The data in Langhans, New Restoration Theatre Accounts, pp. 130-31, leave the acting days uncertain. Between 13 May 1689 and 7 Dec. 1689 the company acted on 91 days. It then played regularly through 8 Feb. 1689@90, and acted on 83 days (out of a possible 84) between 10 Feb. and 7 June, on 8 days from 13 June through 4 July 1690. In Poems on Affairs of State= (Fifth Edition, 1703), I, ii, 238, is A Prologue spoken by Mr Mountfort, after he came from the Army, and Acted on the Stage (see also A. S. Borgman, The Life and Death of William Mountfort [Cambridge, Mass., 1935], p. 55). The date at which Mountfort spoke this Prologue is not certain, but he was certainly in London ca. Tuesday 15 Oct. 1689 when he was involved in a disagreement within the United Company. See L. C. 5@192, in Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 334n

Event Comment: The United Company. This performance is on the L. C. list, 5@141, p. 369. See also Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 352. In L. C. 5@150, p. 156, is an order to prepare the stage for the play, and, in L. C. 5@150, p. 164, is another order for new equipment. Luttrell, A Brief Relation, II, 125: The 4th, being his majesties birth day...and at night was a consort of musick, and a play afterwards. Matthew Prior wrote A Pindarique Ode which was sung before Their Majesties at court on this day. See The Literary Works of Matthew Prior, ed. H. B. Wright and M. K. Spears (Oxford, 1959), I, 96-98; II, 858. Cibber, Apology, I, 128: The agreeable was so natural to [Mountfort], that even in that dissolute Character of the Rover he seem'd to wash off the Guilt from Vice, and gave it Charms and Merit. For tho' it may be a Reproach to the Poet to draw such Characters not only unpunish'd but rewarded, the Actor may still be allow'd his due Praise in his excellent Performance. And this is a Distinction which, when this Comedy was acted at Whitehall, King William's Queen Mary was pleas'd to make in favour of Monfort, notwithstanding her Disapprobation of the Play

Event Comment: A warrant, L. C. 5@150, p. 306, in Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 357, dated this day calls for a payment of L10 to William Mountfort for King Edward the Third, acted on an unspecified date before the Queen

Event Comment: The United Company. This performance is known from testimony in the trial of Charles Lord Mohun for the attack on William Mountfort on 9 Dec. 1692. The evidence given by Brereton at the trial stated: I had not seen my Lord Mohun for two or three days before this Fact was committed;...but the Friday before, the Play of Alexander the Great was Acted, and my Lord Mohun and I were talking of the Play, and he said it was a good Play, and he commended Mr Mountford's Acting extreamly (The Tryal of Charles Lord Mohun [London, 1693], p. 26)

Event Comment: The Lord Mayor's Show. By Elkanah Settle. See Celia Fennes, Through England on a Side Saddle in the Time of William and Mary (1888), pp. 242 ff, for an account of a Lord Mayor's show in the late seventeenth century

Event Comment: Flying Post, 26-28 Dec. 1695: Mr William Smith, a Gentleman, belonging to the Theatre Royal, who had acquired a considerable Estate, and thereupon desisted from Acting, was prevailed upon by the New Play house to remount the Stage; but upon shifting his cloathes in the last New Play, took cold and died thereof this week. [See Cyrus the Great, 15 December.

Event Comment: Rich's Company. This performance is known by a playbill in the Folger Shakespeare Library: At the New Theatre, in Little Lincolns-Inn Fields, this present Wensday the 27th of October, will be presented, A Comedy call'd, The Committee, or The Faithful Irishman. No Persons to Stand on the Stage. Nor any Money to be after Return'd [sic] the Curtain is Drawn up. By his Majesties Servants. Vivat Rex. [The playbill is reproduced, opposite page 230, in William VanLennep, Some Early English Playbills, Harvard Library Bulletin, VIII (1954).

Event Comment: Post Boy, 20-23 Aug. 1698: Jephtha's Rash Vow: Will be play'd again this Bartholomew Fair at Blakes and Penkethman's Booth, over against Hosier Lane. [See also William King, 25 Aug. 1698.

Event Comment: Flying Post, 23-25 Aug. 1698: At Mr Barns's and Mr Appleby's Booth, over against the Cross-Daggers in Smithfield, is to be seen the most famous Rope-Dancers of Europe, who have brought over the Morocco Woman, the two German Maidens, and the Danish Woman and her Company, which out-does all Men and Women that ever danced yet on the Ropes, the German Maiden outdoing all Men and Women, that ever Danc'd before her, both for high leaping and fine Dancing, and whatever has been done by any person on the Ground, as side, upright, cross or back Capers, is performed by her on the Dancing Rope, and rises to that prodigious height, as will startle all that see her. William King, A Journey to London in the Year 1698 (2d edition, corrected, 1699), pp. 27-28: I was at Bartholomew Fair....I went to the Dancing on the Ropes, which was admirable. Coming out I met a man that would have took off my Hat, but I secur'd it, and was going to draw my Sword, Crying out, Begar! Damn'd Rogue! Morblew, &c. when on a sudden I had a hundred People about me, Crying here, Monsieur, see Jephtha's Rash Vow, here, Monsieur, see the Tall Dutch Woman, see the Tyger, says another; see the Horse and no Horse, whose Tayl stands where his Head should do; see the German Artist, Monsieur; see the Siege of Namur, Monsieur: So that betwixt Rudeness and Civility, I was forc'd to get into a Fiacre, and with an air of Hast, and a full Trot, got home to my Lodgings

Event Comment: Flying Post, 7 March 1698@9: A Consort of all new Vocal and Instrumental Music; for the Benefit of Mr William Hall, who formerly had the Consort of Musick at his House in Norfolk-street

Event Comment: According to the London Post, 24-27 Nov. 1699, William Joye, a strong man showing dexterities of strength, performed before The King at Kensington

Event Comment: London Post, 24-27 Nov. 1699: [William Joy] being oblig'd to leave Town in order to pursue some other Method, can shew but twice, which will be God-willing on Wednesday and Friday next at the Theatre in Dorset Garden, beginning Precisely at 11 a Clock, being resolved to shew no more before he leaves the Town