Event Comment: As it was Alter'd by the late Duke of Buckingham

Event Comment: Mainpiece: As it was alter'd by the late Duke of Buckingham

Event Comment: As alter'd by the late Duke of Buckingham

Event Comment: For the Entertainment of the Lords Spiritual & Temporal, And the Honourable House of Commons. Undertaken by $Cavendish Weedon, Esq.

Event Comment: Benefit for Matthews and James. Rec'd Cash #44 9s., plus #116 12s. from tickets. Total #161 1s. Paid Mr Barsanti for music by order of Garrick #1 11s. 6d. Paid Mr Williams 1!2 year's rent K: passage #11 15s. (Treasurer's Book). Mr Mills bury'd at St Marks [Cross). Receipts: #160 (Cross); charges, #63 (Treasurer's Book)

Event Comment: The date of the first performance is not certainly known, but Pepys, on 2 July, saw Part II, stating that 2 July was the premiere of Part I and the opening of the Duke's Company's new theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields. Downes (Roscius Anglicanus, pp. 20-21): His [Davenant's] Company Rehears'd the First and Second Part of the Siege of Rhodes...at Pothecaries-Hall: And in Spring 1662 [1661], Open'd his House with the said Plays, having new Scenes and Decorations, being the first that e're were Introduc'd in England....All Parts being Justly and Excellently Perform'd; it continu'd Acting 12 Days without Interruption with great Applause. Downes, p. 34: I must not forget my self, being Listed for an Acotr in Sir William Davenant's Company in Lincolns-Inn-Fields: The very first Day of opening the House there, with the Siege of Rhodes, being to Act Haly; (The King, Duke of York, and all the Nobility in the House, and the first time the King was in a Publick Theatre). The sight of that August presence, spoil'd me for an Actor too. HMC, 10th Report, Appendix, Part IV, p. 21: @For the Siege of Rhodes all say@It is an everlasting play@Though they wonder now Roxalana is gon@What shift it makes to hold out so long@For when the second part took, butt for Bully@The first did not satisfie so fully.@ [Presumably this verse was written after Mrs Davenport left the stage, in 1662(?).

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. This apparently was not the first performance, but the time of premiere is not known. Pepys, Diary: My wife and I and Mercer to the Duke's house, and there saw The Rivalls, which is no excellent play, but good acting in it; especially Gosnell comes and sings and dances finely, but, for all that, fell out of the key, so that the musique could not play to her afterwards, and so did Harris also go out of the tune to agree with her. Downes (p. 23): The Rivals, A Play, Wrote by Sir William Davenant; having a very Fine Interlude in it, of Vocal and Instrumental Musick, mixt with very Diverting Dances: M Price introducing the Dancing, by a short Comical Prologue, gain'd him an Universal Applause of the Town....And all the Womens Parts admirably Acted; chiefly Celia, a Shepherdess being Mad for Love; especially in Singing several Wild and Mad Songs

Event Comment: The United Company. Writing on 3 Jan. 1692@3, Anthony Wood states: A new comedie composed by Mr Tate, poet laureat, was acted before their majesties, M. 2 Jan. (Andrew Clark, The Life and Times of Anthony Wood [Oxford, 1894], III, 413). Since no new play by Tate is known to have been acted at this time, and since A Duke and No Duke was reprinted in 1693 (Term Catalogues, May 1693), and acted several times (Gentleman's Journal, January 1692@2, issued in March):A Duke and no Duke being often acted now, and scarce, is reprinted, with the addition of a curious Preface, by our Laureat, concerning Farce. [Possibly Wood was mistaken in thinking that A Duke and no Duke was a new play. It seems the one most likely to fit the circumstances of this period.

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. Pepys, Diary: To the Opera, which begins again to-day with The Witts, never acted yet with scenes; and the King and Duke and Duchess were there...and indeed it is a most excellent play, and admirable scenes. Downes (p. 21): All the other Parts being exactly Perform'd; it continu'd 8 Days Acting Successively

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. Pepys, Diary: My wife and I by coach to The Duke's house, where we say The Unfortunate Lovers; but I know not whether I am grown more curious than I was or no, but I was not much pleased with it, though I know not where to lay the fault, unless it was that the house was very empty, by reason of a new play at the other house. Yet here was my Lady Castlemaine in a box. In An Elegy on the Death of Edward Angel, 1673, two lines suggest that Angel acted Friskin: @Adieu, dear Friskin: Unfort'nate Lover weep,@Your mirth is fled, and now i' th' Grave must sleep.

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. Pepys, Diary: With my wife and Mercer to the Duke's house, and there saw The Rivalls, which I had seen before; but the play not good, nor anything but the good acting of Betterton and his wife and Harris

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. Pepys, Diary: With my wife to the Duke of York's house, and there saw The Wits, a play I formerly loved, and is now corrected and enlarged: but, though I like the acting, yet I like not much in the play now

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. Pepys, Diary: To the Duke of York's house, and there saw The Witts again, which likes me better than it did the other day, having much wit in it.... Here were many fine ladies this afternoon at this house as I have at any time seen.... Resolving by the grace of God to see no more plays till Whitsuntide, I having now seen a play every day this week

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. This performance is on L. C. list, 5@139, p. 125. See also Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 346. Pepys, Diary: But, Lord! how it went against my heart to go away from the very door of the Duke's play-house, and my Lady Castlemayne's coach, and many great coaches there, to see The Siege of Rhodes. I was very near making a forfait, but I did command myself

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. Pepys, Diary: I by coach to the Duke of York's playhouse, and there saw part of The Ungratefull Lovers; and sat by Beck Marshall, who is very handsome near hand

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. Downes (p. 30): This Comedy in general was very well Perform'd. Pepys, Diary: I alone to the Duke of York's house, to see the new play, called The Man is the Master, where the house was, it being not above one o'clock, very full. But my wife and Deb. being there before, with Mrs Pierce and Corbet and Betty Turner, whom my Wife carried with her, they made me room; and there I sat, it costing me 8s. upon them in oranges, at 6d. apiece. By and by the King come; and we sat just under him, so that I durst not turn my back all the play. The play is a translation out of French, and the plot Spanish, but not anything extraordinary at all in it, though translated by Sir W. Davenant, and so I found the King and his company did think meanly of it, though there was here and there something Pretty: but the most of the mirth was sorry, poor stuffe, of eating of sack posset and slabbering themselves, and mirth fit for clownes; the prologue but poor, and the epilogue little in it but the extraordinariness of it, it being sung by Harris and another in the form of a ballet

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. Pepys, Diary: My Lord Brouncker and I to the Duke of the York's playhouse, and there saw the latter part of The Master and the Man

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. See Pepys, Diary:, 9 April, for an account of Davenant's funeral on 9 April. Pepys, Diary: With Lord Brouncker to the Duke of York's playhouse, where we saw The Unfortunate Lovers, no extraordinary play, methinks

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. Pepys, Diary: I carried [Mercer and Mrs Turner] to the Duke of York's house, and there saw The Man's the Master, which proves, upon my seeing it again, a very good play

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. Pepys, Diary: With my wife, to the Duke of York's playhouse, and saw The Unfortunate Lovers; a mean play, I think, but some parts very good, and excellently acted. We sat under the boxes, and saw the fine ladies; among others, my Lady Kerneguy, who is most devilishly painted

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. Pepys, Diary: We three and my wife to the Duke of York's playhouse, and there saw The Witts, a medley of things, but some smiles mighty good, though ill mixed