THE RIGHTS OF BEESTON AND D’AVENANT IN ELIZABETHAN PLAYS
By Allardyce Nicoll
On the re-opening of the theatres in 1660, several dramatic companies sprang into existence, eager to recapture some of the glories of the Caroline stage cruelly shattered by Cromwell and his satellites. As is well known, these companies, within a few years, were reduced to two, the King’s men under Killigrew, playing at Vere Street and at Bridges Street, and the servants of the King’s brother, the Duke of York, under D’Avenant, playing at Salisbury Court and at Lincoln’s Inn Fields. The theatrical history of the first few years of the Restoration period is exceedingly confused, but it is evident that Killigrew’s actors, some of whom were relics of the old King’s men of the pre-Commonwealth period, regarded themselves as the direct heirs of that company which, since the time of Shakespeare, had dominated the dramatic activities of London. D’Avenant, on the other hand, seems to have regarded his men as the descendants of that “young company of players” of which he had been created governor in the year 1640. This young company, however, had, immediately before 1640, been under the direction of William Beeston. It was William Beeston who in 1660 was the proprietor of the playhouse in Salisbury Court, and from him, accordingly, D’Avenant leased the theatre when he started acting there.
The relations between the two later and the two earlier companies become of vital importance when we pause to consider the repertoires of each. On August 10, 1639, Lord Pembroke issued an order to the masters of all theatres other than the Cockpit, in which Beeston’s young company was performing, commanding them on no account to act any of the plays belonging to that band of players, an order, it has been suggested, called forth by the fact that Beaumont and Fletcher’s Monsieur Thomas (or Fathers owne Sonne) seems to have
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