"Mr. Beeston was commanded to make a company of boyes, and began to play at the Cockpitt with them the same day. "I disposed of Perkins, Sumner, Sherlock and Turner, to Salisbury Court, and joynd them with the best of that company. "Received of Mr. Lowens for my paines about Messinger's play called The King and the Subject, 2 June, 1638, 17. 0. 0. "The name of The King and the Subject is altered, and I allowed the play to bee acted, the reformations most strictly observed, and not otherwise, the 5th of June, 1638. "At Greenwich the 4 of June, Mr. W. Murray, gave mee power from the king to allowe of the play, and tould me that hee would warrant it. 66 Monys? Wee'le rayse supplies what ways we please, "We'le mulct you as wee shall thinke fitt. The Cæsars “But what their swords did ratifye, the wives "And daughters of the senators bowinge to 66 Their wills, as deities," &c. "This is a peece taken out of Phillip Messingers play, called The King and the Subject, and entered here for ever to bee remembered by my son and those that cast their eyes on it, in honour of Kinge Charles, my master, who, readinge over the play at Newmarket, set his marke upon the place with his owne hande, and in thes words: 66 • This is too insolent, and to bee changed.' Note, that the poett makes it the speech of a king, Don Pedro king of Spayne, and spoken to his subjects. "On thursday the 9 of Aprill, 1640, my Lord Chamberlen bestow'd a play on the Kinge and Queene, call'd Cleodora, Queene of Arragon, made by my cozen Abington. It was performd by my lords servants out of his own family, and his charge in the cloathes and sceanes, which were very riche and curious. In the hall at Whitehall. "The king and queene commended the generall entertaynment, as very well acted, and well set out. "It was acted the second tyme in the same place before the king and queene. "At Easter 1640, the Princes company went to the Fortune, and the Fortune company to the Red Bull. "On Monday the 4 May, 1640, William Beeston was taken by a messenger, and committed to the Marshalsey, by my Lord Chamberlens warant, for playinge a playe without license. The same day the company at the Cockpitt was commanded by my Lord Chamberlens warant to forbeare playinge, for playinge when they were forbidden by mee, and for other disobedience, and laye still monday, tusday, and wensday. On thursday at my Lord Chamberlen's entreaty I gave them their liberty, and upon their petition of submission subscribed by the players, I restored them to their liberty on thursday. "The play I cald for, and, forbiddinge the playinge of it, keepe the booke, because it had relation to the passages of the K.s journey into the Northe, and was complaynd of by his M.ye to mee, with commande to punishe the offenders. "On Twelfe Night, 1641, the prince had a play called The Scornful Lady, at the Cockpitt, but the kinge and queene were not there; and it was the only play acted at courte in the whole Christmas. [1642. June.] Received of Mr. Kirke, for a new play which I burnte for the ribaldry and offense that was in it, 27. 0. 0. 66 Received of Mr. Kirke for another new play VOL. III. R called The Irishe Rebellion, the 8 June, 1642, 21. 0. 0. "Here ended my allowance of plaies, for the war began in Aug. 1642." Sir William D'Avenant, about sixteen months after the death of Ben Jonson, obtained from his Majesty (Dec. 13, 1638,) a grant of an annuity of one hundred pounds per ann. which he enjoyed as poet laureat till his death. In the following year (March 26, 1640,) a patent passed the great seal authorizing him to erect a playhouse, which was then intended to have been built behind The Three Kings Ordinary in Fleet-street: but this scheme was not carried into execution. I find from a Manuscript in the Lord Chamberlain's Office, that after the death of Christopher Beeston, Sir W. D'Avenant was appointed by the Lord Chamberlain, (June 27, 1639,)" Governor of the King and Queens company acting at the Cockpit in Drury Lane, during the lease which Mrs. Elizabeth Beeston, alias Hutcheson, hath or doth hold in the said house:" and I suppose he appointed her son Mr. William Beeston his deputy, for from Sir Henry Herbert's office-book, he appears for a short time to have had the management of that theatre. In In the latter end of the year 1659, some months before the restoration of K. Charles II. the theatres, which had been suppressed during the usurpation, began to revive, and several plays were performed at the Red Bull in St. John's Street, in that and the following year, before the return of the king. June, 1660, three companies seem to have been formed; that already mentioned; one under Mr. William Beeston in Salisbury Court, and one at the Cockpit in Drury Lane under Mr. Rhodes, who had been wardrobe-keeper at the theatre in Blackfriars before the breaking out of the Civil Wars. Sir Henry Herbert, who still retained his office of Master of the Revels, endeavoured to obtain from these companies the same emoluments which he had formerly derived from the exhibition of plays; but after a long struggle, and after having brought several actions at law against Sir William D'Avenant, Mr. Betterton, Mr. Mohun, and others, he was obliged to relinquish his claims, and his office ceased to be attended with either authority or profit. It received its death wound from a grant from King Charles II. under the privy signet, August 21, 1660, authorizing Mr. Thomas Killigrew, one of the grooms of his majesty's bedchamber, and Sir William D'Avenant, to erect two new playhouses and two new companies, of which they were to have the regulation; and prohibiting any other theatrical representation in London, Westminster, or the suburbs, but those exhibited by the said two companies. Among the papers of Sir Henry Herbert several are preserved relative to his disputed claim, some of which I shall here insert in their order, as containing some curious and hitherto unknown particulars relative to the stage at this time, and also as illustrative of its history at a precedent period. I. "For Mr. William Beeston, "Whereas the allowance of plays, the ordering of players and playmakers, and the permission for erecting of playhouses, hath, time out of minde whereof the memory of man is not to the contrary, belonged to the Master of his Ma.ties office of the Revells; And whereas Mr. William Beeston hath desired authority and lycence from mee to continue the house called Salisbury Court playhouse in a playhouse, which was formerly built and erected into a playhouse by the permission and lycence of the Master of the Revells. These are therefore by virtue of a grant under the great seal of England, and of the constant practhereof, to continue and constitute the said house called Salisbury Court playhouse into a playhouse, and to authorize and lycence the said Mr. Beeston to sett, lett, or use it for a playhouse, wherein comedies, tragedies, tragicomedies, pastoralls, and interludes, may be acted. Provided that noe persons be admitted to act in the said playhouse but such as shall be allowed by the Master of his Ma.ties office of the Revells. Given under my hand and seale of the office of the Revells, this [This paper appears to be only a copy, and is not dated nor signed: ending as above. I believe, it was written in June, 1660.] II. "To the kings most excellent Majesty. "The humble Petition of John Rogers, "Most humbly sheweth, "That your petitioner at the beginning of the late calamitys lost thereby his whole estate, and during the warr susteyned much detriment and imprisonment, and lost his limbs or the use thereof; who served his Excellency the now Lord General, both in England and Scotland, and performed good and faithfull service; in consideration whereof and by being so much decrcapitt as not to act any more in the wars, his Excellency was favourably pleased, for your petitioners future subsistance without being further burthensome to this kingdom, or to your Majesty for a pension, to grant him a tolleration to erect a playhouse or to have a share out of them already tolle |