That the change in the feminine character was not simply due to the unsettled state of society from the Civil War, which undoubtedly did affect the standard of the times, but was attributable more largely to the imported French manners with which Charles made the nation familiar, is beyond doubt. Peter Heylin, who had travelled in France and published an account of his observations, and who was led to pass severe strictures upon the conduct of the French women, modified his gratulatory expressions with regard to English women as follows: "Our English women, at that time, were of a more retired behaviour than they have been since, which made the confident carriage of the French damsels seem more strange to me; whereas of late the garb of our women is so altered, and they have in them so much of the mode of France, as easily might take off those misapprehensions with which I was possessed at my first coming thither."
It was not until after the death of the king, which occurred on February 6, 1685, that the nation recovered from the spell of debauchery through which it had passed, and assumed its wonted sobriety. Seven days prior, Evelyn wrote in his Diary: "I saw this evening such a scene of profuse gaming, and the king in the midst of his three concubines, as I had never before seen, luxurious dallying and profaneness." After the death of Charles and the proclamation of James II., he reverted again to that scene and said: "I can never forget the inexpressible luxury and profaneness, gaming and all dissoluteness, and, as it were, total forgetfulness of God (it being Sunday evening) which this day se'nnight I was witness to, the king sitting and toying with his concubines—Portsmouth, Cleveland, Mazarine, etc.—a French boy singing love songs in that glorious gallery, whilst about twenty of the great courtiers and other dissolute persons were at basset round a large table, a bank of at least 2000 pounds in gold before them, upon which two gentlemen who were with me made reflexions with astonishment. Six days after was all in the dust!"
Although the monarch who made England merry with all sorts of frivolities had passed away, the influences of his life did not quickly cease. One of the social changes which came about in his reign was destined to become very widely extended and to have an important bearing upon the structure of English society. This was the introduction of women upon the stage. In discussing the amusements of the English people in the several periods, we have as yet said nothing with regard to the theatre, because it did not relate to woman in an especial manner. The old mediæval mystery and morality plays were given under the auspices of the Church, and formed a part of the religious instruction of a people who neither knew how nor had the facilities to read. With the rise of the modern drama and of such masterly interpreters of human passion as the dramatists of the Elizabethan era, the stage was secularized and the range of subjects and appeal was very much widened.
In 1660, for the first time, women were engaged to perform female characters. Before that time, they had been prohibited from appearing on the stage; largely because the female parts were usually—and especially in the beginning of the popularity of the theatre—so vulgar and obscene that it not only would have been highly disgraceful for a woman to appear in such characters, but the vulgarity was too great even for the countenance of females in the audience without resorting to the expedient of wearing masks. This practice led to shameful intrigues and discreditable escapades which added to living the zest which was craved by the women of the court who, thus disguised, were habituées of the theatre. If it was thought that by allowing women to take female parts in the plays the tone of such characters might be improved, the ordinances which permitted the practice certainly failed of effect. D'Israeli, taking the æsthetic view of this innovation of the time of Charles II., says: "To us there appears something so repulsive in the exhibition of boys or men personating female characters, that one cannot conceive how they could ever have been tolerated as a substitute for the spontaneous grace, the melting voice, and the soothing looks of a female."
The absurdity which he suggests was aptly expressed by a poet of the reign of Charles II., in a prologue which was written as an introduction to the play in which appeared the first actress:
"Our women are defective, and so sized,
You'd think they were some of the guard disguised
For to speak truth, men act, that are between
Forty and fifty, wenches of fifteen;
With brows so large and nerve so uncompliant,