Red slashed doublet. Fair hair. A bracelet on his arm. His hand rests on a dog’s head.
BORN 1611, DIED 1683.
By Vandyck.
HE was the younger son of Sir Robert Killigrew of Hanworth, County Middlesex, by Mary, daughter of Sir Henry Wodehouse, who married, secondly, Sir Thomas Stafford. Thomas, or as he was usually called, Tom Killigrew, was early initiated into the mysteries of Court life, being appointed Page of Honour to King Charles the First, to whom he remained faithful, and followed Charles the Second and his mother in their exile. About the year 1651 the King sent him in a diplomatic capacity to Venice, where Killigrew seems to have disported himself to his heart’s content, and it was evidently here that he imbibed that passion for music and the drama, which never forsook him, but which converted him into a dramatist and a theatrical entrepreneur, rather, we should say, confirmed him in these tastes which were already developed in his boyhood; for we have an anecdote of his school days, how he would go to the Red Bull Tavern, not far from the theatre, during the performance, and how, more than once, the waiter came in crying, ‘Who will go and be a devil on the stage, and he shall see the play for nothing?’ an offer with which young Tom gladly closed. Thus began his career; for was not he a merry devil the chief part of his life?
Venice, as we have seen, suited his humour well, and Thomas was evidently one of those foreigners who go on the principle of howling with the wolves, and doing at Rome more than the Romans do. In fact, he was so carried away by the vivacity of the Venetians, the maskings, flirtings, and what not, which he encountered in the fair city of the sea, that Thomas began to out-Herod Herod, and lived his life at such a rate as to scandalise the Venetian authorities, who directed their ambassador at Paris to wait on the English King, and urge the recall of his envoy. Charles complied, but it was not likely that the peccadilloes of which ‘Tommaso’ had been guilty should appear unpardonable in the eyes of the merry monarch, and he received the delinquent into especial favour, and on the Restoration Tom became Groom of the Bedchamber, and the King’s inseparable companion. Pepys, in his diary of 1660, about the time of Charles’s return to his dominions, records his meeting with Tom, when being on my Lord Sandwich’s ship, he met, ‘with other fine company, Tom Killigrew, a merry droll, but a gentleman, full of wit and humour, a general favourite, especially with the King. And I walked with him for some time on the deck, and he told most amusing stories.’
Killigrew had not been long in England before he put a darling scheme into execution, namely, to bring over an Italian troop of actors from Venice to perform in singing and recitative. He had by this time set up as a dramatic author, and was instrumental in introducing into England the fashion of female performers, for, until the Restoration, actresses had not appeared on the stage, although in Italy, Spain, and elsewhere, the female characters were always represented by women. It may easily be believed that this innovation fell in with the royal taste, and there was great amusement afforded by a representation of the Parson’s Wedding, a comedy of Master Killigrew’s own writing, entirely performed by females. In another portion of his diary Pepys relates how he met Tom at my Lord Brouncker’s one night in company with a certain musician, one Signor Baptista, and Killigrew told us how they proposed to give an opera entirely in the Italian language, and he goes on to say that Baptista was singer, poet, and all in one, and that he sang them one of the acts, and that from the words alone, without any music prickt, which seemed to astonish good Master Samuel, who makes some of his accustomed sapient remarks on the occasion: ‘I did not understand the words, and so do not know if they are fitted, but I perceive there is a proper accent in every country’s discourse, but I am not as much smitten by it as if I were acquainted with the language.’
Good Master Pepys had made a discovery in those early times, which we recommend to the notice of many who pass in these days for proficients in the vocal line. The newly-born Italian opera now became the rage, very often, indeed, to the detriment of the English theatrical companies, so much so that sometimes Killigrew’s own dramatic productions were played to empty benches. Besides Signor Baptista there was another eminent musician, Francesco Corbetta, who not only sang in opera, but gave lessons in singing and the guitar, an instrument hitherto almost unknown in this country.
‘Famossissimo maestro, di ghitarra,
Qual Orfeo in suonar, ognun il narra!’