The Merry Monarch; or, England under Charles II. Its art, literature, and society

Front matter

THE MERRY MONARCH; OR, ENGLAND UNDER CHARLES THE MERRY MONARCH; OR, ENGLAND UNDER CHARLES II. ITS ART, LITERATURE, AND SOCIETY. BY W. H. DAVENPORT ADAMS. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. II. LONDON : REMINGTON & CO., PUBLISHERS, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN. 1885. [All Rights Reserved.] CONTENTS. Chapter I. — The Actors of the Restoeation. Chaptee II. — The Actresses. Chapter III. — The Poets. Chapter IV. — A Couple of Courtiers. Chapter V. — The Prose Writers. THE ACTOES OF THE RESTORATION. The Civil Wae. Suppression op the Theatres. Davenant's Musical Enteetainment. General Monk. The Restoeation. Revival op the Stage. The King's Company. The Duke's Company. Description of the Theatre of the Restoeation. Anecdotes. The Actoes. Charles Haet. Burt. James Nokes. John Lacy. William Caetweight Majoe Mohun. " Scum " Goodman. Haeeis. SctJDAMOEE. Anthony Leigh. Sandfoed. Smith. Cademan. Cave TJndeehill. Joseph Haeeis. Kynaston. Betteeton.

Chapter I. The Actors Of The Restoration

The Civil War — Suppression op the Theatres — Davenant's Musical Entertainment — General Monk — The Restoration — Revival of the Stage — The King's Company — The Duke's Company — Description of the Theatre of the Restoration — Anecdotes — The Actors — Charles Hart — Burt — James Nokes — John Lacy — William Cartwright — Major Mohun — " Scum " Goodman — Harris — Scud amore — Anthony L eigh — Sandford — Smith — Cademan — Cave Underhill — Joseph Harris — Kynaston — Betterton. As everybody knows, plays, at least the public performance of them, and players, so far as the law could touch them, were suppressed by the Long Parliament in 1647.* Many efforts were made to propitiate the authorities, but all in vain ; and during the Commonwealth period, sock and buskin found their occupation gone. Some private representations were given at rare intervals — for instance, * The ordinance of suppression described " those proud parroting players" as "a sort of superbious ruffians; and because sometimes the asses are clothed in lions' skins, the dolts imagine themselves somebody, and walk in as great state as Cæsar."

Some of the actors betook them selves to the wars, mostly on the King's side. Kobinson, a player of merit, was fated to encounter the fanatical Harrison, who, when he asked quarter, ran his sword through the hapless actor's body, crying, " Cursed be he who doeth the work of the Lord negligently ! " . B VOL. ; Cowley's Comedy of "The Guardian" was played at Cambridge ; but to the general public the theatre door was religiously kept shut.* A bold attempt was made to re-open tbe Cockpit in 1648, but on the fourth day a troop of soldiers entered it, drove out the audience, destroyed the stage (in a frenzy of iconoclastic enthusiasm), and arrested the players, who were marched through the streets in their theatre costume, and imprisoned for awhile in the Compter and the Gatehouse. This severe example was accepted as a warning by the members of the despised profession, and to meet the exigencies of the situation Richard Cox invented a new kind of dramatic exhibition, at the Red Bull playhouse, in which ropedancing was put forward as the piece de resistance, to deceive the authorities, while the taste of the audience was gratified by the performance of what were called " Humours," or " Drolleries " — that is, a combination of the richest comic scenes from Shakespeare, Marston, Shirley, and others, into one piece, disguised under a new title.

Thus : " The Equal Match " was concocted from Beaumont and Fletcher's " Rule a Wife and Have a Wife ; " " The Bouncing Knight ; or, the Robbers Robbed," was an adaptation of the Falstaff scenes from the second part of " Henry IV." These Drolleries were collected by Marsh in 1662, and reprinted by Kirkman in 1672, who, in his preface, says : — " As meanly as you may now think of these Drolls, they were then acted by the best comedians; and I may say, by some that then exceeded all now living ; the in- * A fine of os. was inflicted on any person attending illegal performances ; money taken at the doors was to be confiscated and given to the poor of the parish ; and any player caught in the act was, the first time, publicly whipped ; and afterwards, if he offended, to be treated as " an incorrigible rogue." comparable Robert Cox, who was not only the principal actor, but also the contriver and author of most of these farces.

How have I heard him cried up for his John Swabber and Simpleton the Smith ; in which he being to appear with a large piece of bread and butter, I have frequently known several of the female spectators and auditors to long for it ; and once that well-known natural Jack Adams of Clerkenwell, seeing him with bread and butter on the stage, and knowing him, cried out, ' Cuz ! Cuz ! give me some ! ' to the great pleasure of the audience. And so naturally did he act the Smith's part, that being at a fair in a country town, and that farce being presented, the only master-smith of the town came to him, saying, ' Well, although your father speaks so ill of you, yet when the fair is done, if you will come and work with me, I will give you twelve-pence a week more than I give any other journeyman.' Thus was he taken for a smith bred, that was, indeed, as much of any trade."

The fall of the Long Parliament, by which they had been so cruelly persecuted, was grateful enough to the players, and we may fairly assume that Alexander Brome spoke their feelings in the verses which, in 1653, he pre fixed to the collected edition of Richard Brome's Plays. The players, he exclaims, have survived the Parliament: — " See the strange twirl of times I -when such poor things Outlive the dates of parliaments or kings I This revolution makes exploded wit Now see the fall of those that ruined it ; And the condemned stage hath now obtained To see her executioners arraigned. There's nothing permanent ; those high great men That rose from dust, to dust may fall again ; And fate so orders things, that the same hour Sees the same man both in contempt and power ; For the multitude, in whom the power doth lie, Do in one breath cry Bail ! and Crucify !

" The Government could suppress the public theatres, but they could not suppress the taste for dramatic repre sentations, and clandestine performances became of fre quent occurrence during the Protectorate. In Lord Hatton, of Scotland Yard, the poor actors found a kindly patron ; and not less generous was the Countess of Holland, who erected a private stage at her mansion, Holland House, Kensington. It was necessary that these performances should take place with the greatest precau tions, and we are told that William Goffe, " the woman actor," was employed as " the jackal " to give notice of the different "fixtures," and communicate between actors and audience. At the close of the play a collection was made for the benefit of the actors, whose share was care fully proportioned to their respective merits.

To increase their funds the players resorted to the practice of publishing the plays, which had hitherto been jealously kept in manuscript, and in one year no fewer than fifty were thus given to the public. Many of these have undoubtedly perished, for though the titles are re corded, the plays themselves are not known. And, in 1653, John Cotgrave issued a remarkable collection " of the most and best of our English Dramatic Poems" under the title of "The English Treasury of Wit and Language." In his preface he complains that "the Dramatic Poem had been too much slighted ; " and he adds that some, not wanting in wit themselves, had, through this unfortunate neglect, "lost the benefit of many rich and useful observations ; not duly considering, or believing, that the framers of them were the most fluent and redundant wits that this age, or I think any other, ever knew."

But with the overthrow of " the Rumps," and the en trance into London of prudent George Monk and his regiments, brighter days dawned for the poor players. Bustling old Rhodes, who had been prompter at the Blackfriars Theatre, and afterwards sold books and pamphlets in a shop at Charing Cross, hastened to the camp in Hyde Park, and wheedled out of the General permission to revive the drama at the Cockpit, in Drury Lane (June, 1660). A similar license was granted to Beeston, who about the same time opened the Salisbury Court Theatre. That Monk's tastes were theatrical we opine from the fact that, when he and the Council of State were entertained by the London Guilds, dramatic representations were always included in the programme, with " dancing and singing, many shapes and ghosts, and the like; and all to please his Excellency the Lord General."

At first the revival of the drama was attended with a good deal of irregular competition ; but in 1662 the King took the matter in hand, and settled all disputes by issuing patents for two theatres only — one to Thomas Killigrew, who opened in Drury Lane at the head of the King's Company ; and the other to Sir William Davenant and the Duke of York's Company, in Salisbury Court, Fleet Street. The latter afterwards removed to the old Tennis Court in Portugal Row, on the south side of Lincoln's Inn Fields. In 1671, after the death of Dave nant, the Duke's comedians betook themselves to the new theatre in Dorset Gardens, built by Sir Christopher Wren, and decorated by Grinling Gibbons. Meanwhile, the King's Company, burnt out of Drury Lane in 1672, found shelter in Lincoln's Inn Fields until Wren provided ; them with a new house in 1674.

Eight years later, on Killigrew's death, the two companies united, and started at the New Drury Lane Theatre, also built by Wren, on the 16th of November, 1682. Before we put together a few biographical and critical notes respecting the Actors and Actresses of the Restora tion, we must say a word or two in description of the theatres in which, and of the audience before which, they donned the sock and buskin. The usual hour of per formance, at least in Charles II.'s early years, was three in the afternoon. The house was lighted, partly by the light of heaven, which the open roof — for the pit was not covered over* — freely admitted, and partly by flaring candles, which were trimmed by regular " snuffers." Two rows of boxes f accommodated the King and his courtiers, the nobles, and the wealthier gentry ; but the com pany in the pit was frequently among the best, and thither resorted the wit and the critic, on whose fiat the fate of play and players depended.

Thither, too, went the gay gallants of the period, dividing their attention between the fair actresses on the stage and the beauties in the boxes, with a ready glance for a pretty face among the orange girls, who pushed the sale of their costly fruit. When, in February, 1668, Sir George Etherege's comedy, " She Would if She Could," was produced at the Duke's House, the pit was crowded with a brilliant company, in cluding Buckingham, and Dorset, and Sedley, which in continently condemned the play, much to the dissatisfac tion of its author. Our wonder that ladies could attend * Pepys records, on one occasion, the inconvenience caused by a storm of hail. + The prices of admission to the boxes seem to have ranged from 4s. to 18d. On the first night of a new piece the prices were sometimes doubled (See Pepys, Dec. 16th, 1661.) the performance of so indecent a drama is not much lessened by the fact that they could, if they chose, appear in masks ; * but from the comments of Pepys on the charming faces he saw, and so loved to see, we infer that the number who made even this slight concession to de corum must have been very small.

The patronage of the Court was extended to the Stage during Charles's reign on a more liberal scale than ever before or since. The saturnine King, so falsely called "The Merry Monarch," went to the theatre, almost every night, to escape for awhile from the ennui which con sumed him, and of course was followed by everybody who breathed the atmosphere of the Court. I think the "auditorium" must often have presented a more interest ing, and certainly a more entertaining spectacle than the stage. As, for example, on the 20th of April, 1661, when Mr. Pepys at the Cockpit saw the King, and the Duke of York and his recently-wedded Duchess. The play was Fletcher's " Humorous Lieutenant," not very well acted ; but Mr. Pepys found great pleasure in seeing " so many great beauties, especially Mrs. Palmer (in due time to be known as Lady Castlemaine and Duchess of Cleveland), with whom the King did discover a great deal of fami liarity."

Again, on October 2nd, 1662, when Catherine of Braganza made her first public appearance : — " I did go thither," says Pepys, " and by very great fortune did follow four or five gentlemen who were carried to a little private door in the wall, and so crept through a narrow * " I remember," says Colley Cibber, " the ladies were then observed to be decently afraid of venturing bare-faced to a new comedy, till they had been assured they might do it without insult to their modesty ; or if their curiosity were too strong for their patience, they took care at least to save appear ances, and rarely came in the first days of acting, but^ in masks, which custom, however, had so many ill consequences attending it, that it hasbeen abolished these many years." ; place, and come into one of the boxes next the King's, but so as I could not see the King or Queen, but many of" the fine ladies, who yet are really not so handsome gener ally as I used to take them to be, but that they are finely dressed.

There we saw ' The Cardinal ' [by James Shir ley], a tragedy I had never seen before, nor is there any great matter in it. The company that come with me into the box were all Frenchmen, that could speak no English ; but Lord ! what sport they made to ask a pretty lady that they got among them, that understood both French and English, to make her tell them what the actors said." On the 21st of November Mr. Pepys took his wife to the Cockpit, and they had excellent places, and saw the King, and Queen, and the boy-Duke of Monmouth, and my Lady Castlemaine, and all the fine ladies. He was there again on the 1st of December — he was always making vows not to go to the theatre for a certain period, and always breaking these vows — and saw acted a translation of Corneille's "Cid" — " a play," he says, "I have read with great delight, but is a most dull thing acted, which I never understood before, there being no pleasure in it, though done by Betterton, and by Ianthe [Mrs. Betterton], and by another fine wench [Mrs. Norton] that is now in the room of Roxalana [Mrs. Davenport] ; nor did the King or Queen once smile all the whole play, nor any of the whole company seem to take any pleasure, but what was in the greatness and gallantry of the com pany."

We fear our dear friend Pepys had a touch of snobbish ness or flunkeyism in his character, for when he went to the Duke's Theatre, on December 27th, to see the " Siege of Rhodes," he expresses himself as not pleased with the audience : the house was " full of citizens — there hardly being a gallant man or woman present ! " And it was so on New Year's Day, 1663 : " the house was full of citizens, and so the less pleasant." But on this occasion, to make some amends, Mrs. Davenport, the actress, was there, in the chief box, radiant in a velvet gown, which was then " the fashion." At the Cockpit, on the 5th, the Duke and Duchess of York were present, and before all the audience " did show some impertinent, and methought, unnatural dalliances, such as kissing of hands, and leaning upon one another."

But these great people seldom manifested much respect for the audience — or for themselves. What a scene is that which Pepys sketches for us as having occurred at the King's Theatre one day in January, 1664: — "How the King, coming the other day to his Theatre to see ' The Indian Queen,' my Lady Castlemaine was in the next box before he came ; and leaning over other ladies awhile to whisper with the King, she rose out of the box and went into the King's, and set herself on the King's right hand, between the King and the Duke of York ; which put the King himself, as well as everybody else, out of countenance " — this impertinent feat being intended to prove to the world that she had not, as was supposed, lost the royal favour. On the 4th of October Pepys went to see a foolish play called " The General," and happened to sit near to Sir Charles Sedley, who " at every line did take notice of the dulness of the part and badness of the action, and that most pertinently."

Another time he sees among the company Cromwell's daughter, Mary, with her husband, Viscount Falconbridge, and is much pleased by her gracious looks and modest dress, and by the timidity with which she shrinks from the gaze of curious spectators, putting on her vizard, and keeping it on all the play. But he is more gratified, we fancy, by the sight of laughing Nell Gwynn, who, with her fair locks and bright eyes, shines conspicuous in the front of the house, sometimes filling the soul of Pepys with exultation by condescending to chat with him, and sometimes moving his admiration by the sharp repartees she fearlessly exchanges with the most celebrated wits of the time. On the 5th of June, 1665, he attends the performance at the Duke's Theatre of Lord Orrery's play of " Mus tapha;" but " all the pleasure of the play was " that the King and Lady Castlemaine were present, " and pretty witty Nell Gwynn and the younger Marshall sat next us; which pleased me mightily."

There is a curious entry in the Diary for December 21st, 1668. The King and his Court went to see " Macbeth " at the Duke's Theatre, and Pepys sat just under them and Lady Castlemaine, and " close to a woman that comes into the pit, a kind of a loose gossip that pretends to be like her, and is so, something. The King and Duke of York minded me, and smiled upon me, at the handsome woman near me, but it vexed me to see Moll Davies, in a box over the King's and my Lady Castlemaine's, look down upon the King, and he up to her ; and so did my Lady Castlemaine once, to see who it was ; but when she saw Moll Davies, she looked like fire, which troubled me." We have remarked that, on the restoration of the Theatres, their performances began at three in the afternoon ; but later hours came afterwards to be the fashion.

Pepys notes, on one occasion, that the play was not over until eleven, and that he walked home by moonlight. And in Evelyn's correspondence, when complaining of the frequency of " our theatrical pastimes during the season of Lent," when, he says, there are more wicked and obscene plays permitted in London than in all the world besides, he remarks "that the ladies and the gallants come recking from the play late on Saturday night to their Sunday devotions ; and the ideas of the farce possess their fancies to the infinite prejudice of devotion, besides the advantages it gives to our reproachful blas phemers." Strange and exciting was the scene, on the evening of February 2nd, 1679, at the Duke's Theatre, where, blazing with diamonds, and conspicuous by her painted doll-like beauty, sat Louise de Queronaille, Duchess of Ports mouth.

Some roisterers, informed of her presence, were seized with a frenzy of morality, and with drawn swords and naming torches made their way into the pit, shouting curses upon the Duchess of Portsmouth and other per sons of honour. A general melee ensued, in which the in truders hurled their firebrands among the affrighted actors on the stage, while they pricked and slashed the limbs and bodies of the audience, until they were overpowered and driven out. Instead of punishing the rioters, Charles punished the unoffending actors, and closed the house during the royal pleasure. Here is another curious incident, recorded by Pepys in 1667 — " how a gentleman of good habit, sitting just before us, cutting of some fruit in the midst of the play, did drop down as dead ; but with much ado, Orange Moll did thrust her finger adown his throat, and brought him to life again."

It was at the Duke's Theatre in Dorset Gardens, on an April evening in 1682, that Charles, the son of Sir Edward Dering, quarrelled with a choleric young Welshman, named Vaughan, and not having room in the pit to fight it out, climbed on the stage, and exchanged thrust and pass before the excited audience. Dering got the worst of it, and was carried home, bleeding with a wound in the side ; and Vaughan was detained a prisoner until the authorities were satisfied that the other offender's hurt was not mortal. The fine gentlemen of the period would have found time hang heavy on their hands but for the hours passed in the Theatre. When weary of displaying themselves in the pit, or lounging in the boxes by the side of their lady-loves, they resorted to the tiring-rooms of the pretty actresses, and made merry with the paraphernalia of the toilette.

One Saturday, in February, 1667, a certain Sir Hugh Myddelton commented with such rude freedom on the dressing processes of the nymphs of Drury Lane Theatre, that Rebecca Marshall sharply advised him to reserve his company for the ladies of the Duke's House since those who served the King did not meet with his approbation. In reply Sir Hugh, an ill-conditioned fellow, threatened he would kick, or that his footman should kick her. On the following Monday Mistress Marshall com plained of this insult to the King, who, however, did not at once take notice of it. As she left the theatre on Tuesday evening, after the play, Sir Hugh hung about her, and at last whispered something to a ruffianly re tainer, who thereupon followed her closely, and pressed against her with such violence that, alarmed lest he should rob or stab her, she screamed for help.

The wretch for a minute or two was abashed ; then, picking up some mud and refuse from the gutter, he daubed it about the actress's face and hair, and took to flight. The next day she lodged a second complaint with the King, who, some few days afterwards, issued a decree, pro hibiting gentlemen from entering the tiring-rooms of the ladies of the King's Theatre. The prohibition, however, was as unwelcome to the actresses as to the beaux, and in a short time was, by mutual consent, ignored. Of the audiences of the Restoration, that is, of those audiences so far as they were composed of fine ladies and fine gentlemen, Monsieur Henri Taine furnishes an elaborate picture. " They were rich," he says, " they had tried to deck themselves with the polish of Frenchmen ; they added to the stage moveable decorations, music, lights, probability, comfort, every external aid; but they wanted heart.

Imagine these foppish and half-intoxicated men, who saw in love nothing beyond desire, and in man nothing beyond sensuality ; Rochester in the place of Mercutio. What part of his soul could comprehend poesy and fancy ? The comedy of romance was altogether beyond his reach; he could only seize the actual world, and of this world but the palpable and gross externals. Give him an exact picture of ordinary life, commonplace and probable occurrences, literal imitations of what he himself was and did ; lay the scene in London, in the current year; copy his coarse words, his brutal jokes, his conversation with the orange-girls, his rendez vous in the Park, his attempts at French dissertation. Let him recognize himself, let him find again the people ; and the manners he had just left behind him in the tavern or the ante-chamber; let the theatre and the street reproduce one another.

Comedy will give him the same entertainment as real life ; he will wallow equally well there in vulgarity and lewdness ; to be present there will demand neither imagination nor wit; eyes and memory are the only requisites. This exact imitation will amuse him and instruct him at the same time. . . . The author, too, will take care to amuse him by his plot, which generally has the deceiving of a husband or a father for its subject. The fine gentlemen agree with the author in siding with the gallant ; they follow his for tunes with interest, and fancy that they themselves have the same success with the fair. Add to this, women debauched, and willing to be debauched; and it is mani fest how these provocations, these manners of prosti tutes, that interchange of exchanges and surprises, that carnival of rendezvous and suppers, the impudence of the scenes only stopping short of physical demonstration, these songs with their double meaning, that coarse slang shouted loudly and replied to amidst the tableaux vivants, all that stage imitation of orgie, must have stirred up the innermost feelings of the habitual practisers of intrigue."

From the audiences we return to the actors. When Killigrew opened the King's Theatre his com pany included Bateman, Baxter, Theophilus Bird, Blag den, Burt, Cartwright, Clem, Duke, Hancock, Charles Hart, Kynaston, Lacy, Mohun, Robert and William Shot terel, and Wintersel. He afterwards added Beeston, Bell, Charleton, Goodman, Griffin, Haines, Harris, Hughes, Liddell, Reeves, and Shirley. The ladies were Mrs. Corey, Eastland, Hughes, Knipp, Anne and Rebecca Marshall, Rutter, Uphill, and Weaver ; while at different dates engagements were made with Mrs. Boutell, Nell Gwynn, James, Reeves, and Verjuice. The members of the King's Company were formally sworn in at the Lord Chamberlain's office as His Majesty's servants, and the ten leading actors were not only entered on the establish ment of the Royal Household, but supplied with a hand some uniform of scarlet cloth and silver lace.

To the Duke's Theatre belonged Betterton, Dixon, Lillieston, Lovell, James and Robert Nokes ; and, after wards, Blagden, Harris, Medbourne, Norris, Price, Rich ards, and Young. The ladies were Mrs. Betterton, Davenport, Davies, Gibbs, Holden, Jennings, and Long. Some degree of reputation attaches to Charles Hart, the grandson of Shakespeare's sister — not to be con founded with that other Hart who served as a major in Prince Rupert's cavalry. He began his professional career by playing women's parts, but after the Restora tion asserted his histrionic capacity by his Alexander the Great (in Lee's play), his Cataline (in Ben Jonson's tragedy), and his Othello. He was not less successful as Manly in Wycherley's " Plain Dealer." Rymer refers to him and Mohun as the Æsopus and Roscius of their time.

His handsome presence made him a great favourite with the ladies, and we know that he was Nell Gwynn's " Charles the First." In the scandalous chronicles his name is also associated with that of the Duchess of Cleve land. Says Pepys (April 7th, 1668) :— "Mrs. Knipp tells me that my Lady Castlemaine is mightily in love with Hart of their house ; and he is much with her in private, and she goes to him and do give him many presents ; and that the thing is most certain, and Beck Marshall only VOL. II. C ; privy to it, and the means of bringing them together : which is a very odd thing, and by this means she is even with the King's love to Mrs. Davis." The salary of this famous actor was only £3 a week ; but after he became a shareholder in the theatre, his share of the profits brought his annual income up to £1,000.

He quitted the stage in 1682, and retired to hi3 country house at Great Stanmore, where he died in the following year, and was buried in the old churchyard. To Hart's Cataline, in Ben Jonson's tragedy, Burt played Cicero. He was a good actor of solid parts, but did not succeed in characters of much force and passion. James Nokes, the son of a vendor of toys, played women's parts at the opening of his brilliant career, and even in his later life was famous as " the Nurse " in Otway's perversion of "Romeo and Juliet," and Payne's " Fatal Jealousy." As a comedian few of his contemporaries equalled, none surpassed him : in the unctuous ness of his subtle humour he seems to have resembled Munden. He studied character with a keenly observant eye, and reproduced every detail with wonderful truth to nature.