Part 10 (1/2)

CHAPTER XVI.

”HER FIRST APPEARANCE.”

From the south-western corner of Lincoln's Inn Fields a winding and confined court leads to Vere Street, Clare Market. Midway or so in the pa.s.sage there formerly existed Gibbon's Tennis Court--an establishment which after the Restoration, and for some three years, served as a playhouse; altogether distinct, be it remembered, from the far more famous Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre, situate close by in Portugal Street, at the back of the College of Surgeons. Nevertheless, the Vere Street Theatre, as it was called, can boast something of a history; at any rate, one event of singular dramatic importance renders it memorable. For on Sat.u.r.day, the 8th of December, 1660, as historians of the drama relate, it was the scene of the first appearance upon the English stage of the first English actress. The lady played Desdemona; and a certain Mr. Thomas Jordan, an actor and the author of various poetical pieces, provided for delivery upon the occasion a ”Prologue to introduce the first woman that came to act on the stage in the tragedy called 'The Moor of Venice.'”

So far the story is clear enough. But was this Desdemona really the first English actress? Had there not been earlier change in the old custom prescribing that the heroines of the British drama should be personated by boys? It is certain that French actresses had appeared here so far back as 1629. Prynne, in his ”Histriomastix,” published in 1633, writes: ”They have now their female players in Italy and other foreign parts, and Michaelmas, 1629, they had French women-actors in a play personated at Blackfriars, to which there was great resort.”

These ladies, however, it may be noted, met with a very unfavourable reception. Prynne's denunciation of them was a matter of course. He had undertaken to show that stage-plays of whatever kind were most ”pernicious corruptions,” and that the profession of ”play-poets” and stage-players, together with the penning, acting, and frequenting of stage-plays, was unlawful, infamous, and misbecoming Christians. He speaks of the ”women-actors” as ”monsters,” and applies most severe epithets to their histrionic efforts: ”impudent,” ”shameful,”

”unwomanish,” and such like. Another critic, one Thomas Brande, in a private letter discovered by Mr. Payne Collier in the library of Lambeth Palace, and probably addressed to Laud while Bishop of London, writes of the just offence to all virtuous and well-disposed persons in this town ”given by the vagrant French players who had been expelled from their own country,” and adds: ”Glad am I to say they were hissed, hooted, and pippin-pelted” (pippin-pelted is a good phrase) ”from the stage, so as I do not think they will soon be ready to try the same again.” Mr. Brande was further of opinion that the Master of the Revels should have been called to account for permitting such performances. Failing at Blackfriars, the French company subsequently appeared at the Fortune and Red Bull Theatres, but with a similar result, insomuch that the Master of the Revels, Sir Henry Herbert, who had duly sanctioned their performance, records in his accounts that, ”in respect of their ill luck,” he had returned some portion of the fees they had paid him for permission to play.

Whether these French ”women-actors” failed because of their s.e.x or because of their nationality, cannot now be shown. They were the first actresses that had ever been seen in this country. But then they were not of English origin, and they appeared, of course, in a foreign drama. Still, of English actresses antecedent to the Desdemona of the Vere Street Theatre, certain traces have been discovered. In Brome's comedy of ”The Court Beggar,” acted at the c.o.c.kpit Theatre, in 1632, one of the characters observed: ”If you have a short speech or two, the boy's a pretty actor, and his mother can play her part; women-actors now grow in request.” Was 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 ill.u.s.trated 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, p.r.o.nouncing 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 cla.s.sed 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 divertis.e.m.e.nt” 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 subst.i.tuted, 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 pa.s.sages 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 c.o.c.kpit 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 cla.s.s, ”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 ”Oth.e.l.lo,” 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 ”Oth.e.l.lo” 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 p.r.o.nounced 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, a.s.suming 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 Caesar,” 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 a.s.sumed by ”leading ladies;” it has occasionally devolved upon the _seconda donna_ of the company. And in a representation of ”Oth.e.l.lo”

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 Anglica.n.u.s,” that a Mrs. Hughes played the part of Desdemona to the Oth.e.l.lo of Burt, the Iago of Mohun, and the Ca.s.sio 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 t.i.tle of Mistress being applied alike to maidens and matrons at the time of the Restoration--and married her ill.u.s.trious husband about the year 1663.

She was one of four princ.i.p.al 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 a.s.sumption 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 t.i.tle 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 d.i.c.ky,” from his performance of the part of d.i.c.ky 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 ent.i.tled her to a.s.sume 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 sc.r.a.p 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 Mrs. Hughes, even Pepys is silent. It is known that in addition to the character of Desdemona, which she certainly sustained in February, 1669, at any rate, she also appeared as Panura, in Fletcher's ”Island Princess,”

and as Theodosia, in Dryden's comedy of ”An Evening's Love, or, The Mock Astrologer,” to the Jacyntha of Nell Gwynne; there is scarcely a record of her a.s.sumption of any other part, unless she be the same Mrs. Hughes who impersonated Mrs. Monylove, in a comedy called ”Tom Essence,” produced at the Dorset Garden Theatre in 1676. But it is believed that she quitted or was taken from her profession--was ”erept the stage,” to employ old Downes's phrase--at an earlier date. The famous Prince Rupert of the Rhine was her lover. He bought for her, at a cost of 20,000, the once magnificent seat of Sir Nicholas Crispe, near Hammersmith, which afterwards became the residence of the Margrave of Brandenburg; and at a later date the retreat of Queen Caroline, the wife of George IV. Ruperta, the daughter of Mrs. Hughes, was married to Lieutenant-General Howe, and, surviving her husband many years, died at Somerset House about 1740. In the ”Memoirs” of Count Grammont mention is found of Prince Rupert's pa.s.sion for the actress. She is stated to have ”brought down and greatly subdued his natural fierceness.” She is described as an impertinent gipsy, and accused of pride, in that she conducted herself, all things considered, unselfishly, and even with some dignity. The King is said to have been ”greatly pleased with this event”--he was probably amused at it; Charles II. was very willing at all times to be amused--”for which great rejoicings” (why rejoicings?) ”were made at Tunbridge; but n.o.body was bold enough to make it the subject of satire, though the same constraint was not observed with other ridiculous personages.”

Upon the Prince the effect of his love seems to have been marked enough. ”From this time adieu alembics, crucibles, furnaces, and all the black furniture of the forges; a complete farewell to all mathematical instruments and chemical speculations; sweet powder and essences were now the only ingredients that occupied any share of his attention.” Further of Mrs. Hughes there is nothing to relate, with the exception of the use made of her name by the unseemly and unsavoury Tom Brown in his ”Letters from the Dead to the Living.” Mrs.

Hughes and Nell Gwynne are supposed to address letters to each other, exchanging reproaches in regard to the impropriety of their manner of life. Nell Gwynne accuses her correspondent of squandering her money and of gaming. ”I am ashamed to think that a woman who had wit enough to tickle a Prince out of so fine an estate should at last prove such a fool as to be bubbled of it by a little spotted ivory and painted paper.” ”Peg Hughes,” as she is called, replies, congratulating herself upon her generosity, treating the loss of her estate as ”the only piece of carelessness I ever committed worth my boast,” and charging ”Madam Gwynne” with vulgar avarice and the love of ”lucre of base coin.” We can glean nothing more of the story of Mrs. Hughes.

It is uncertain indeed in what degree the advent of the first actress affected her audience; whether the novelty of the proceeding gratified or shocked them the more. It was really a startling innovation--a wonderful improvement as it seems to us; yet a.s.suredly there were numerous conservative playgoers who held fast to the old ways of the theatre, and approved ”boy-actresses”--not needing such aids to illusion as the personation of women by women, but rather objecting thereto, for the same reason that they deprecated the introduction of scenery, because of appeal and stimulus to the imagination of the audience becoming in such wise greatly and perilously reduced. Then of course there were staid and sober folk who judged the profession of the stage to be most ill-suited for women. And certainly this view of the matter was much confirmed by the conduct of our earlier actresses, which was indeed open to the gravest reproach. From Mr. Jordan's prologue may be gathered some notion of the situation of the spectators on the night, or rather the afternoon, of December 8th, 1660. The theatre was probably but a poor-looking structure, hastily put together in the Tennis-court to serve the purpose of the manager for a time merely. Seven years later, Tom Killigrew, talking to Mr.

Pepys, boasted that the stage had become ”by his pains a thousand times better and more glorious than ever before.” There had been improvement in the candles; the audience was more civilised; the orchestra had been increased; the rushes had been swept from the stage; everything that had been mean was now ”all otherwise.” The manager possibly had in his mind during this retrospect the condition of the Vere Street Theatre while under his management. The audience possessed an unruly element. 'Prentices and servants filled the gallery; there were citizens and tradesmen in the pit, with yet a contingent of spruce gallants and scented fops, who combed their wigs during the pauses in the performance, took snuff, ogled the ladies in the boxes, and bantered the orange-girls. The prologue begins:

I come, unknown to any of the rest, To tell the news: I saw the lady drest-- The woman plays to-day; mistake me not, No man in gown or page in petticoat.

'Tis possible a virtuous woman may Abhor all sorts of looseness and yet play; Play on the stage--where all eyes are upon her: Shall we count that a crime France counts an honour?

In other kingdoms husbands safely trust 'em.

The difference lies only in the custom.

The gentlemen sitting in that ”Star Chamber of the house, the pit,”