It is affirmed that the ex-monarch Dionysius died of excess of joy at receiving intelligence that a tragedy of his own had been awarded a poetical prize at a public competition. Whatever the truth of this story, there can be no doubt that, even in its primitive form, the monarch, like his subjects, interested himself in the production and performance of the drama. At an early period in our own history the courts of our kings and the castles of the great earls and barons “were crowded with the performers of the secular places, where they were well received and handsomely rewarded.”[133] Thus Eleanora of Aquitaine, queen of Henry II., patronised representations nearly allied to the regular drama, and we find Peter of Blois congratulating his brother William on his tragedy of Flaura and Marcus played before the Queen. Richard III., when Duke of Gloucester, entertained a company of players, and in the reign of Henry VII. dramatic performances seem to have been frequent throughout England. When Margaret, the King’s eldest daughter, was sent to Scotland on her marriage with James IV., John English was the principal{335} member of a company of players forming part of the retinue of the Princess. Sometime after the birth of Prince Arthur in 1486, there was a company of actors under the name of “The Prince’s Players” who were required to contribute to the amusement of the Court. In the household books of Henry, extending from 1492 to 1509, we find numerous items relating to the theatrical amusements at this period.
During the first four years of his reign, Henry VIII. kept up the theatrical establishment of his father, but in 1514 he added a new company of actors to his domestic retinue, and henceforth we find payments to the “King’s players” and to the “King’s old players.” And associated with the year 1516 we find an enumeration of the players’ dresses under the title of “Garments for Players,”[134] which is of considerable value and interest as throwing light on the nature of the theatrical amusements of the period. It appears that the nobility continued to patronise plays, and, following the example of the King, most of them kept theatrical retainers of their own. According to Collier,[135] one of the earliest indications of anything like a classical taste in matters connected with the English stage is to be found in 1520, when, for the entertainment of four French hostages who had been left in this country for the execution of the treaty relating to the surrender of Tournay, Henry caused his great chamber at Greenwich to be staged when, among{336} the performances, “there was a goodly comedy of Plautus played.”
Princess Mary’s connection with the drama dated from childhood, for before she had completed her sixth year we read of dramatic representations held in her presence and for her entertainment; and by an account in the Chapter House, Westminster, of the household expenses of the natural son of Henry VIII., who had been created Duke of Somerset and Richmond in June 1525, it appears[136] that “he had been several times entertained by the performances of players,” and that the council appointed for his care and custody had paid ￡3, 18s. 8d. for rewards to actors and minstrels. Mary ascended the throne in 1553, and a play was ordered on the occasion, but a month had barely transpired when she issued a proclamation, one object of which was to prevent the performance of plays calculated to advance the principles and doctrines of the Reformation. Mary kept up the theatrical and musical establishments of her father at an expense of between two and three thousand pounds a year in salaries only, independently of board, liveries, and incidental charges. The same establishment under Elizabeth, in the fourth year of her reign, was on a much more economical scale. But during her reign the stage found every encouragement, for her Majesty caused a stage to be erected at Windsor Castle for the regular performance of the drama, “with a wardrobe for the actors, painted scenes, and an orchestra consisting{337} of trumpeters, luterers, harpers, ringers, minstrels,” &c.
On the 18th January 1561, an English tragedy in five acts, entitled “Ferrex and Porrex, or Gorbaduc,” was performed before Queen Elizabeth, being the joint composition of her cousins, Sir Thomas Sackville and Thomas Norton. In her progress in 1564, Elizabeth was entertained at King’s College, Cambridge, with a play entitled “Ezechias,” and two years afterwards she witnessed a performance in Christ Church Hall, Oxford, of Edwards’s “Palamon and Arcyte.” At this period plays were occasionally exhibited on a Sunday in spite of the denunciations of the Puritans. Elizabeth herself visited a theatrical exhibition on Sunday, and in after years James I. allowed plays to be acted at Court on the same day. It appears that in 1586 a correspondence took place between the Court and the city of London regarding the fitness or unfitness of certain theatrical representations, especially on Sundays.
Among the Harleian MSS. is an interesting account of the entertainments given before Elizabeth and her Court in 1568, wherein we find a payment of ￡634, 9s. 5d. to Sir Thomas Benger, for materials and work “within the Office of the Revels,” between the 14th July 1567 and the 3rd March 1568, during which interval it appears “seven plays” and “one tragedy” were represented before her Majesty.[137] And, it may be added,{338} that it was apparently part of the duty of the Master of the Revels to have the plays rehearsed to him before they were presented at Court.
In 1574 the grant of the first “Royal Patent” was conceded in this country to performers of plays, whereby the persons named in it were empowered, during the Queen’s pleasure, to use, exercise, and occupy the art and faculty of playing comedies, tragedies, interludes, and stage plays, as well for the recreation of the Queen’s subjects as for her own solace and pleasure, within the City of London and its liberties, and within any cities, towns, and boroughs throughout England. Associated with the theatrical amusements were the masks and shows, which were conducted on a very expensive and imposing scale, an account of which we have given elsewhere. And, as it has been often pointed out, many of these were specially provided to gratify the vanity of the Queen, to whom some marked and delicate compliment was generally made. In the summer of 1601, the Queen was at an entertainment given by the Lord Keeper, and on her way to the mansion she was entertained by a dialogue “betweene the Bayly and the Dary-mayd,” in which the following was supposed to be spoken by the bailiff of the Lord Keeper: “The Mistress of this fayre companie, though she knowe the way to all men’s hearts, yet she knowes the way to few men’s houses, except she love them very well.”
James I., some years before he succeeded to the English throne, evinced a strong disposition to{339} favour theatrical amusements. In the Society of Antiquaries is preserved a manuscript which shows the extent and amount of his dramatic establishment, and from it we find that the annual fee of the Master of the Revels had been raised to ￡100, besides diet in Court, although each of the players was only allowed—as they had been from the time of Henry VIII.—￡3, 6s. 8d. per annum.
Prince Henry had a company of players, and after his death, and on the marriage of the Elector Palatine of the Rhine to the Princess Elizabeth, the players transferred their services to the Prince Palatine, and “it is a new feature in theatrical history,” writes Collier,[138] “that on this occasion they produced a patent under the Great Seal very similar to that which James I. had granted about ten years before to Laurence Fletcher, William Shakespeare, and the other servants of the Lord Chamberlain.”
But it seems that the plays acted at Court did not always give satisfaction, for in one of John Chamberlain’s letters to Sir Dudley Carlton occurs this paragraph: “They have plays at Court every night, both holidays and working days, wherein they show great patience, being for the most part such poor stuff that, instead of delight, they send the auditory away with discontent.” And he adds, “Indeed our poets’ brains and inventions are grown very dry, insomuch that of five new plays there is not one that pleases; and therefore they{340} are driven to furbish over their old, which stand them in best stead, and bring them most profit.”
The fondness of James for theatricals is further evidenced by the fact that in 1617, during his journey to the north, he was attended by a regular company of players, and a warrant issued for their payment is thus recorded in the registers of the Privy Council: “11th July 1617.—A warrant to the L. Stanhope, Treasurer of his Majestie’s Chambers, to cause payment to be made to certain players for three Stage Playes, that were acted before his Majestie, in his journey to Scotland, such summes of money as is usual in the like kinde.”
Prince Charles retained a company of musicians in his pay, besides his dramatic performers; and after his accession to the throne we find entries of payment for plays performed at Court at Christmas, and Twelfth-tide. It would seem that, at a very early date, players who called themselves the servants of any particular nobleman, usually wore his badge or livery. Accordingly in 1629 we find the King’s players allowed, every second year, four yards of bastard scarlet for a cloak, and a quarter yard of crimson velvet for a cape to it.
Charles II., again, was passionately fond of theatrical entertainments. On one occasion, when Sir William Davenant’s play of “Love and Honour” was first acted, his Majesty presented Betterton, the actor, with his coronation suit, in which the player performed the character of Prince Alonzo. The Duke of York followed his Majesty’s example by{341} giving the suit which he had worn on the same occasion to Hains, who acted the part of Prince Prospero.
Previous to the Restoration of Charles II., it may be remembered, no woman was allowed on the stage, in connection with which Colley Cibber gives this anecdote: The King coming to the house rather before his usual time, found the dramatis person? not ready to appear, whereupon he sent one of his attendants to ascertain the cause of the delay. The manager at once went to the royal box, and informed the merry monarch that “the queen was not yet shaved.” Charles good-humouredly accepted the explanation, and laughed heartily, until the male queen was effeminated and the curtain drew up.
At the time of James II. playhouses, and players, were constantly anathematised by the clergy, and the Duchess of York had a strong moral objection to the coarse comedies of the era. But she liked a good play, and was wont to remark that “there was no sin, she believed, in going to theatres, provided the pieces selected for representation were not of an objectionable character; but that the stage might and ought to be rendered a medium of conveying moral instruction to the people, instead of flattering and inculcating vice.”
Mary II. was a patron of the drama, and, in 1689, she expressed a wish to see Dryden’s “Spanish Friar” performed, which had been forbidden by James II. because its licentious comic scenes held up the Romish Church to ridicule. But{342} her Majesty was disappointed, for, to quote the words of her friend Nottingham, “the only time she gave herself the diversion of a play has furnished the town with discourse for a month. Some unlucky expressions confused her, and forced her to hold up her fan, often look behind her, and call for her palatine or hood, or anything she could contrive to speak of to her woman. Every speech in that play seemed to come home to her, as there was a strong report about town that her father, James II., was dead in Ireland; and when anything applicable was said, every one in the pit turned their heads over their shoulders, and directed their looks most pointedly at her.” “Nor,” as Miss Strickland writes, “could this be wondered at; for a daughter sitting to see a play acted, which was too free for the morals of that age, at the moment when reports were prevalent that her own father was dead, was indeed a sight to be gazed upon with consternation.”
George I. was fond of seeing the play of “Henry VIII.,” and on one occasion when it was being acted at Hampton Court, he paid particular attention to that part of the play where Henry VIII. commands his minister, Wolsey, to write circular letters of indemnity to every county where the payment of certain heavy taxes had been disputed—
“Let there be letters writ to every shire
Of the King’s grace and pardon. The grieved commons
Hardly conceive of me. Let it be noised
That through our intercession, this revokement
And pardon comes. I shall, anon, advise you
Further in the proceeding.”
{343}
The story goes that on one occasion when the above lines were spoken, the King said to the Prince of Wales, who had not yet been expelled from Court, “You see, George, what you have one day to expect.”
George II. has been censured for encouraging the representation of immoral dramas, “a perverted taste,” which, it is said, “was strong upon him from the first.”[139] When Prince of Wales he witnessed the acting of Otway’s “Venice Preserved,” but, on discovering afterwards that certain scenes had been omitted, he commanded them to be restored. In the later part of his life, George II. took advantage of his position to make loud remarks on the performances at which he was present, a recorded instance of which occurred at Drury Lane, when his Majesty commanded Farquhar’s “Beaux Stratagem” and Fielding’s “Intriguing Chambermaid” to be performed. But the representation does not appear to have given satisfaction, for Walpole, writing to Mann, says: “A certain king that, whatever airs you may give yourself, you are not at all like, was last week at the play. The intriguing chambermaid in the farce says to the old gentleman, ‘You are villainously old, you are sixty-six; you cannot have the impudence to think of living above two years.’ The old gentleman on the stage here turned about in a passion and said, ‘This is d—d stuff!’ and the royal critic was energetically right.”
One of the greatest honours ever rendered to a{344} dramatist by royalty was conferred by Queen Caroline, wife of George II., on Mottley, an obscene playwright. But when his benefit night was announced “as to take place soon after the Queen’s drawing-room had been held, the Queen herself, in that very drawing-room, sold Mottley’s tickets, delivering them with her own royal hand to the purchasers, and condescending to receive gold for them in return.”[140]
Frederick Prince of Wales, father of George III., was fond of private theatricals, and endeavoured to instil his taste for dramatic performances into his children.
More than once we find the little princes and princesses “fretting their hour upon the stage,” their instructor being the celebrated actor, James Quin, who was also the stage manager. In after years the old actor took a pride in speaking of the days when he was a Court favourite, and when the first speech of George III., delivered from the throne, was much commended for the graceful manner in which it was spoken; “Ay!” said Quin, “it was I who taught the boy to speak.”
The first of these juvenile dramatic performances took place on 4th January 1749—the piece selected for representation being Addison’s “Cato”—and the last occasion of these juvenile theatricals at Leicester House appears to have been on 11th January 1750, on which day Bubb Dodington mentions in his diary that he was invited to witness{345} the representation of Rowe’s tragedy of “Lady Jane Grey” by the royal children.
In after days George III.’s early acquired taste for the drama seems to have kept pace with his life, for so frequent were his visits to the theatre that the people of London are said to have been as well acquainted with his features as with those of their next-door neighbour. His glee during the performance of a broad farce, or a droll hit in a pantomime, may at times have been too exuberantly manifested, but his subjects did not love him the less because he was completely at home in the midst of them. Neither did his sense of the ridiculous prevent his enjoying the higher beauties of the drama. Frequen............