Killegrew had the former, Sir William Davenant the latter. Killegrew occupied, first the "Red Bull," in St. John's Street; afterwards Gibbon's tennis-court, Vere Street, Clare-Market, and finally removed to the new Theatre Royal built for them in Drury Lane. Davenant, about March, 1662, established his company in a new theatre in Portugal Row, near Lincoln's Inn Fields; and it was under his management that Betterton, who had already a good reputation, gave evidence of his extraordinary powers. The first piece he reproduced here was his "Siege of Rhodes," and this play appears to have been the one in which the female parts were first performed by women; another important innovation some time before made in France and Italy, but for the adoption of which the stage in this country is indebted to the theatrical efforts of Davenant. In the patent granted to Davenant this year, the practice received the royal sanction, as the reader will perceive by the subjoined extract:
"And for as much as many plays, formerly acted, do contain several profane, obscene and scurrilous passages; and the women's parts therein have been acted by men in the habits of women, at which some have taken offence; for the preventing these abuses for the future, we do hereby strictly command and enjoin, that from henceforth no new play shall be acted by either of the said companies, containing any passages offensive to piety and good manners, nor any old or revived play, containing any such offensive passages as aforesaid, until the same shall be corrected and purged, by the said masters or governors of the said companies, from all such offensive and scandalous passages as aforesaid. And we do likewise permit and give leave that all the women's parts to be acted in either of the said two companies, for the time to come, may be performed by women, as long as these recreations
