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: [No notice of production exists. See William VanLennep, "Thomas Killigrew Prepares His Plays for Production," Joseph Quincy Adams; Memorial Studies, p. 805

Event Comment: Pepys, Diary: [Mrs Knipp] told us they begin at both houses to act on Monday [29] next. But I fear, after all this sorrow, their pains will be but little. Mrs Williams says, the Duke's house will now be much the better of the two, because of their women; which I am glad to hear

Event Comment: Killigrew contemplated a revival of Cicilia and Clarinda in 1667, a memorandum of 14 Feb. 1666@7 ordering the parts to be written out. See William VanLennep, Thomas Killigrew Prepares his Plays, p. 805

Event Comment: The King's Company. Pepys, Diary: So she [Mrs Pepys] and I to the King's playhouse, and there sat to avoid seeing Knepp in box above where Mrs Williams happened to be, and there saw The Usurper; a pretty good play, in all but what is designed to resemble Cromwell and Hugh Peters, which is mighty silly

Event Comment: The King's Company. This performance is on the L. C. list, 5@12, p. 17: King here. See also Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 344. See Noyes, Ben Jonson on the English Stage, p. 307, for a letter to Lady Sunderland on this performance, and, p. 308, for an anecdote from The Life of the Late Famous Comedian, Jo. Haynes, concerning Haynes and Hart in a scene. For another allusion to the action, see Henri Ferneron, Louise de Keroualle, Duchess of Portsmouth (London, 1807), p. 179n. Pepys, Diary: 15 Jan. 1668@9: It is about my Lady Harvy's being offended at Doll Common's [Mrs Corey's] acting of Sempronia, to imitate her; for which she got my Lord Chamberlain, her kinsman, to imprison Doll: when my Lady Castlemayne made the King to release her. Mrs John Evelyn to Mr Terryll, 10 Feb. 1668@9: There has not been any new lately revived and reformed, as Catiline, well set out with clothes and scenes (Diary and Correspondence of John Evelyn, ed. William Bray, IV, 14). See also 7 and 11 Dec. 1667

Event Comment: The King's Company. This play is on the L. C. list, 5@12, p. 17: The King here. See also Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 344. Mrs John Evelyn to Mr Terryll, 10 Feb. 1668@9: Horace, with a farce and dances between every act, composed by Lacy and played by him and Nell, which takes (John Evelyn, Diary and Correspondence, ed. William Bray, IV, 14). See 19 Jan. 1668@9

Event Comment: Downes (Roscius Anglicanus, p. 8) gives a cast for Julius Caesar [by William Shakespeare] which includes Richard Bell, who died in the Drury Lane fire at the end of this month. It is not known when a performance of this play occurred, but a Prologue to Julius Caesar is in Covent Garden Drollery, 1672. Downes lists: Julius Caesar-$Bell; Cassius-$Major Mohun; Brutus-$Hart; Anthony-$Kynaston; Calphurnia-$Mrs Marshal. [Downes adds Portia-$Mrs Corbet, but this probably refers to a later performance.

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. It is uncertain whether this performance and those for 13 and 28 March belong to 1670@1 or 1671@2. They are on the L. C. list, 5@141, p. 2 (see also Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 347), but VanLennep's discovery of an L. C. list for the Duke's Company covering March 1670@1 but not including these plays led him to believe that they Pertain to March 1671@2. See VanLennep, Plays on the English Stage, p. 19. On 9 March 1670@1 or 1671@2 Henry Herbert qranted permission to the Duke's Company to act The Lady Errant. See The Plays and Poems of William Cartwright, ed. G. Blakemore Evans (Madison, Wisc., 1951), p. 85

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. This play is on the L. C. list, 5@141, p. 216, the original at Harvard. See also Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 348; William S. Clark, Pordage's Herod and Mariamne, RES, V (1929), 61-64

Event Comment: [The Duke's Company. Nell Gwyn attended this performance. See VanLennep, Nell Gwyn's Playgoing, p. 407. There is no certainty that this performance is the premiere, btt an additional known performance on 15 June suggests that early June probably saw the initial run. The music for two songs, Thou joy of all hearts and When you dispense your influence, both set by Dr William Turner, is in Choice Ayres and Songs, Second Book, 1679. Preface, Edition of 1676: I have no reason to complain of the success of this Play, since it pleased those, whom, of all the World, I would please most: Nor was the Town unkind to it....[There] being no Act in it, which cost me above Five days writing: and the last Two (the Play-house having great occasion for a Play) were both written in Four Days. Downes (Roscius Anglicanus, p. 37): The Libertine and Virtuoso: Both Wrote by Mr Shadwell; they were both very well Acted, and got the Company great Reputation. The Libertine perform'd by Mr Betterton Crown'd the Play

Event Comment: Andrew Marvell to William Popple, 24 July. Scaramuccio acting dayly in the Hall at Whitehall, and all Sorts of People flocking thither, and paying their Money as at a common Playhouse; nay even a twelve-penny Gallery is builded for the convenience of his Majesty's poorer Subjects (Marvell's Works, ed. H. M. Margoliouth, [Oxford, 1927], II, 320). For a warrant to Nicholas Staggins for writing "a chaccon" for "Scaramoucha" see Boswell, Restoration Court Stage, p. 122

Event Comment: According to L. C. 7@1-see Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p.325n--a disagreement within the King's Company resulted in the Lord Chamberlain's directing Michaell Mohun, Charles Hart, Edward Kynnaston, and William Cartwright to manage the company under his supervision

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: The United Company. Newdigate newsletters, 2 June 1683: The same day [31 May] their Royall highnesses... in ye afternoone Countenanced a new play with their presences (Wilson, More Theatre Notes from the Newdigate Newsletters, p. 59). Wilson proposes that this play is Dame Dobson, as the separately Printed Prologue bears Luttrell's acquisition date of 1 June 1683 (Bindley Collection, William Andrews Clark@Jr@Library). The separately printed Prologue and Epilogue are reprinted in Wiley, Rare Prologues and Epilogues, pp. 176-78

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. This play may have been revived during this month or earlier. A song, Come Jug my honey let's to bed, the music by Thomas Farmer, sung by Reading and Mrs Norris, was printed in Choice New Songs never before Printed [by Thomas D'Urfey, 1684]. Luttrell purchased a copy of this collection on 8 Jan. 1684@5 (Bindley Collection, William Andrews Clark@Jr@Library)

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