A Book of the Play / Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character

by Dutton Cook

this an allusion merely to the French actresses that had been seen in London some few years before, or were English actresses referred to? Had these really appeared, if not at the public theatres, why, then, at more private dramatic entertainments? Upon such points doubt must still prevail. It seems certain, however, that a Mrs. Coleman had presented herself upon the stage in 1656, playing a part in Sir William Davenant's tragedy of "The Siege of Rhodes"—a work produced somehow in evasion of the Puritanical ordinance of 1647, which closed the theatres and forbade dramatic exhibitions of every kind; for "The Siege of Rhodes," although it consisted in a great measure of songs with recitative, explained or illustrated by painted scenery, did not differ much from an ordinary play. Ianthe, the heroine, was personated by Mrs. Coleman, whose share in the performance was confined to the delivery of recitative. Ten years later the lady was entertained at his house by Mr. Pepys, who speaks in high terms both of her musical abilities and of herself, pronouncing her voice "decayed as to strength, but mighty sweet, though soft, and a pleasant jolly woman, and in mighty good humour."

If this Mrs. Coleman may be classed rather as a singer than an actress, and if we may view Davenant's "Siege of Rhodes" more as a musical entertainment than as a regular play, then no doubt the claim of the Desdemona of Clare Market to be, as Mr. Thomas Jordan described her, "the first woman that came to act on the stage," is much improved. And here we may say something more relative to the Vere Street Theatre. It was first opened in the month of November, 1660; Thomas Killigrew, its manager, and one of the grooms of the king's bedchamber, having received his patent in the previous August, when a similar favour was accorded to Sir William Davenant, who, during Charles I.'s reign, had been possessed of letters patent. King Charles II., taking it into his "princely consideration" that it was not necessary to suppress the use of theatres, but that if the evil and scandal in the plays then acted were taken away, they might serve "as innocent and harmless divertisement" for many of his subjects, and having experience of the art and skill of his trusty and well-beloved Thomas Killigrew and William Davenant, granted them full power to elect two companies of players, and to purchase, build and erect, or hire,

two houses or theatres, with all convenient rooms and other necessaries thereunto appertaining, for the representation of tragedies, comedies, plays, operas, and all other entertainments of that nature. The managers were also authorised to fix such rates of admission as were customary or reasonable "in regard of the great expenses of scenes, music, and such new decorations as have not been formerly used:" with full power "to make such allowances out of that which they shall so receive to the actors and other persons employed in the same representations, in both houses respectively, as they shall think fit." For these patents other grants were afterwards substituted, Davenant receiving his new letters on January 15th, and Killigrew his on April 25th, 1662. The new grants did not differ much from the old ones, except that the powers vested in the patentees were more fully declared. No other companies but those of the two patentees were to be permitted to perform within the cities of London and Westminster; all others were to be silenced and suppressed. Killigrew's actors were styled the "Company of his Majesty and his Royal Consort;" Davenant's the "Servants of his Majesty's dearly-beloved brother, James, Duke of York." The better to preserve "amity and correspondence" between the two theatres, no actor was to be allowed to quit one company for the other without the consent of his manager being first obtained. And forasmuch as many plays formerly acted contained objectionable matter, and the women's parts therein being acted by men in the habits of women, gave offence to some, the managers were further enjoined to act no plays "containing any passages offensive to piety and good manners, until they had first corrected and purged the same;" and permission was given that all the women's parts to be acted by either of the companies for the time to come might be performed by women, so that recreations which, by reason of the abuses aforesaid, were scandalous and offensive, might by such reformation be esteemed not only harmless delights, but useful and instructive representations of human life to such of "our good subjects" as should resort to see the same.

These patents proved a cause of numberless dissensions in future years. Practically they reduced the London theatres to two. Before the Civil War there had been six: the Blackfriars and the Globe, belonging to the same company, called the

King's Servants; the Cockpit or Phoenix, in Drury Lane, the actors of which were called the Queen's Servants; a theatre in Salisbury Court, Fleet Street, occupied by the Prince's Servants; and the Fortune, in Golden Lane, and the Red Bull in St. John Street, Clerkenwell—establishments for the lower class, "mostly frequented by citizens and the meaner sort of people." Earlier Elizabethan theatres, the Swan, the Rose, and the Hope, seem to have closed their career some time in the reign of James I.

The introduction of actresses upon the English stage has usually been credited to Sir William Davenant, whose theatre, however, did not open until more than six months after the performance of "Othello," with an actress in the part of Desdemona, at Killigrew's establishment in Vere Street. "Went to Sir William Davenant's opera," records Pepys, on July 2nd, 1661, "this being the fourth day it had begun, and the first that I have seen it." Although regular tragedies and comedies were acted there, Pepys constantly speaks of Davenant's theatre as the opera, the manager having produced various musical pieces before the Restoration. Of the memorable performance of "Othello" in Vere Street, on December 10th, 1660, Pepys makes no mention. He duly chronicles, however, a visit to Killigrew's theatre on the following 3rd January, when he saw the comedy of "The Beggar's Bush" performed; "it being very well done, and was the first time that ever I saw women come upon the stage." He had seen the same play in the previous November, when it was represented by male performers only. But even after the introduction of actresses the heroines of the stage were still occasionally impersonated by men. Thus in January, 1661, Pepys saw Kynaston appear in "The Silent Woman," and pronounced the young actor "the prettiest woman in the whole house." As Cibber states, the stage "could not be so suddenly supplied with women but that there was still a necessity to put the handsomest young men into petticoats."

Strange to say, the name of the actress who played Desdemona under Killigrew's management in 1660 has not been discovered. Who, then, was the first English actress, assuming that she was the Desdemona of the Vere Street Theatre? She must be looked for in Killigrew's company. His "leading lady" was Mrs. Ann Marshall, of whom Pepys makes

frequent mention, who is known to have obtained distinction alike in tragedy and in comedy, and to have personated such characters as the heroine of Beaumont and Fletcher's "Scornful Lady," Roxana in "Alexander the Great," Calphurnia in "Julius Cæsar," Evadne in "The Maid's Tragedy," and so on; there is no record, however, of her having appeared in the part of Desdemona. Indeed, this part is not invariably assumed by "leading ladies;" it has occasionally devolved upon the seconda donna of the company. And in a representation of "Othello" on February 6th, 1669, at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane (to which establishment Killigrew and his troop had removed from Vere Street in April, 1663), it is certain, on the evidence of Downes's "Roscius Anglicanus," that a Mrs. Hughes played the part of Desdemona to the Othello of Burt, the Iago of Mohun, and the Cassio of Hart. Now, was this Mrs. Hughes, who had been a member of Killigrew's company from the first, the Desdemona on whose behalf, nine years before, Mr. Thomas Jordan wrote his apologetic prologue? It seems not unlikely. At the same time it must be stated that there are other claimants to the distinction. Tradition long pointed to Mrs. Betterton, the wife of the famous tragedian, as the first woman who ever appeared on the English stage. She was originally known as Mrs. Saunderson—the title of Mistress being applied alike to maidens and matrons at the time of the Restoration—and married her illustrious husband about the year 1663. She was one of four principal actresses whom Sir William Davenant lodged at his own house, and she appeared with great success as Ianthe upon the opening of his theatre with "The Siege of Rhodes." Pepys, indeed, repeatedly refers to her by her dramatic name of Ianthe. Has the belief that she was the first actress arisen from confusing her assumption of Ianthe with the performance of the same part by Mrs. Coleman in 1656, a fact of which mention has already been made? Otherwise it is hardly creditable that she, one of Davenant's actresses, had been previously attached to Killigrew's company, and had in such wise chanced to play Desdemona in Vere Street. There is no evidence of this whatever, nor can it be discovered that she appeared as Desdemona at any period of her career. The Vere Street Desdemona, we repeat, must be looked for in Killigrew's company, which commenced operations more than half a year

before the rival theatre. It is true that some time before the opening of this theatre Davenant had been the responsible manager in regard to certain performances at the Blackfriars Theatre and elsewhere; but there is no reason to suppose that actresses took part in these entertainments; it is known, indeed, that the feminine characters in the plays exhibited were sustained by the young actors of the company—Kynaston, James Nokes, Angel, and William Betterton. Altogether, Mrs. Betterton's title to honour as the first English actress seems defective; and as much may be said of the pretensions of another actress, Mrs. Norris, although she has met with support from Tom Davies in his "Dramatic Miscellanies," and from Curl in his "History of the Stage," a very unworthy production. Mrs. Norris was an actress of small note attached to Davenant's company; she was the mother of Henry Norris, a popular comedian, surnamed "Jubilee Dicky," from his performance of the part of Dicky in Farquhar's "Constant Couple." Chetwood correctly describes her as "ONE of the first women that came on the stage as an actress." To her, as to Mrs. Betterton, the objection applies that she was a member of Davenant's company—not of Killigrew's—and therefore could not have appeared in Vere Street. Moreover, she never attained such a position in her profession as would have entitled her to assume a part of the importance of Desdemona.

On the whole, the case of Mrs. Hughes seems to have the support of more probabilities than any other. But even if it is to be accepted as a fact that she was in truth the first actress, there the matter remains. Very little is known of the lady. She lived in a world which kept scarcely any count of its proceedings—which left no record behind to be used as evidence, either for or against it. She was in her time the subject of talk enough, very likely; was admired for her beauty, possibly for her talents too; but hardly a written scrap concerning her has come down to us. The ordinary historian of the time, impressed with a sense of the dignity of his task, did not concern himself with the players, and rated as insignificant and unworthy of his notice such matters as the pursuits, pastimes, tastes, manners, and customs of the people. We know more of the manner of life in Charles II.'s time from the diarist Pepys than from all the writers of history put together. Unfortunately, concerning