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John Honyman
John Honyman (1613 – April 1636), also Honeyman, Honiman, Honnyman, or other variants, was an English actor of the Caroline era. He was a member of the King's Men, the most prominent playing company of its era, best known as the company of William Shakespeare and Richard Burbage. Honyman belonged to the generation that followed Shakespeare and Burbage. He was christened on 7 February 1613, in the parish of St. Botolph's, Bishopsgate. An apprentice of John Shank, he started his career as a boy player filling female roles; in his teens he was playing leading female parts, Domitilla in '' The Roman Actor'' ( 1626) and Sophia in '' The Picture'' (1629), both plays by Philip Massinger, and Clarinda in Lodowick Carlell's ''The Deserving Favourite'' (also 1629). Some boy actors of Honyman's era made successful transitions from filling lead female roles as boys to lead male roles as young men; Stephen Hammerton and Richard Sharpe are two examples of this successful transitio ...
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Caroline Era
The Caroline era is the period in English and Scottish history named for the 24-year reign of Charles I (1625–1649). The term is derived from ''Carolus'', the Latin for Charles. The Caroline era followed the Jacobean era, the reign of Charles's father James I & VI (1603–1625), overlapped with the English Civil War (1642–1651), and was followed by the English Interregnum until The Restoration in 1660. It should not be confused with the Carolean era which refers to the reign of Charles I's son King Charles II. The Caroline era was dominated by growing religious, political, and social discord between the King and his supporters, termed the Royalist party, and the Parliamentarian opposition that evolved in response to particular aspects of Charles's rule. While the Thirty Years' War was raging in continental Europe, Britain had an uneasy peace, growing more restless as the civil conflict between the King and the supporters of Parliament worsened. Despite the friction betw ...
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Richard Sharpe (actor)
Richard Sharpe (c. 1602 – January 1632) was an actor with the King's Men, the leading theatre troupe of its time and the company of William Shakespeare and Richard Burbage. Sharpe began his career as a boy player acting female roles, then switched to male roles in his young adulthood. ''The Duchess of Malfi'' Sharpe's earliest known role was, arguably, both his most significant and his most controversial. The first edition of John Webster's ''The Duchess of Malfi'', printed in 1623, contains the earliest cast list in English Renaissance drama. The list states that Sharpe originated the title role of the Duchess. The 1623 cast list actually covers two separate productions, the premiere staging and a later revival. * The original starred Richard Burbage and is usually dated to c. 1614. It must have occurred prior to William Ostler's death in December 1614, since Ostler played the role of Antonio. * The revival production starred Burbage's replacement Joseph Taylor, and so ...
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Gerald Eades Bentley
Gerald Eades Bentley (September 15, 1901 – July 25, 1994) was an American academic and literary scholar, best remembered for his seven-volume work, ''The Jacobean and Caroline Stage,'' published by Oxford University Press between 1941 and 1968. That work, modeled on Edmund Kerchever Chambers' classic four-volume ''The Elizabethan Stage,'' has itself become a standard and essential reference work on English Renaissance theatre. Bentley was born in Brazil, Indiana, the son of a Methodist clergyman. Originally intending to be a creative writer, he changed his career to literary scholarship during his graduate studies. He earned his B.A. at DePauw University (1923), his M.A. in English at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign (1926), and his Ph.D. at the University of London (1929), studying under Allardyce Nicoll. Bentley taught at the University of Chicago from 1929 to 1945 before accepting a position as Murray Professor of English at Princeton University in 1945, where h ...
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Cripplegate
Cripplegate was a gate in the London Wall which once enclosed the City of London. The gate gave its name to the Cripplegate ward of the City which straddles the line of the former wall and gate, a line which continues to divide the ward into two parts: ''Cripplegate Within'' and ''Cripplegate Without'', with a beadle and a deputy (alderman) appointed for each part. Since the 1994 (City) and 2003 (ward) boundary changes, most of the ward is Without, with the ward of Bassishaw having expanded considerably into the Within area. Until World War II, the area approximating to ''Cripplegate Without'' was commonly known as simply ''Cripplegate''. The area was almost entirely destroyed in the Blitz of World War II, causing the term to fall out of colloquial speech. Cripplegate Without is the site of the Barbican Estate and Barbican Centre, with a small part of these lying in neighbouring Aldersgate Without. The gate The origins of the gate's name are unclear. One theory, bols ...
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Robert Benfield
Robert Benfield (died July 1649) was a seventeenth-century actor, noted for his longtime membership in the King's Men in the years and decades after William Shakespeare's retirement and death. Nothing is known of Benfield's early life. He was most likely with the Lady Elizabeth's Men in 1613, and acted in their productions of Fletcher's '' The Coxcomb'' and the Fletcher/ Massinger play '' The Honest Man's Fortune'' in that year. Benfield soon joined the King's Men, possibly to replace William Ostler, who died unexpectedly in December 1614. He acted in the company's production of John Webster's ''The Duchess of Malfi'' c. 1621. He was a shareholder in the company by 1619, when he is listed in the renewed patent for the King's Men issued in that year. Benfield also eventually became a sharer in both the Globe and Blackfriars theatres, but only after a conflict: in 1635 he was one of three King's Men (the others were Thomas Pollard and Eliard Swanston) who petitioned the Lord C ...
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John Thompson (actor)
John Thompson (died December 1634) was a noted boy player acting women's roles in English Renaissance theatre. He served in the King's Men, the acting troupe formerly of William Shakespeare and Richard Burbage. Thompson's career is notable for his length. Some boy actors, like John Honyman and Stephen Hammerton, filled female roles for only three to five years before switching to male roles; others, like Richard Sharpe, appear to have continued in women's roles for a decade. Thompson is known to have played women for at least ten years, if not more. Beginnings Thompson began as an apprentice of veteran comedian and teacher John Shank. In 1636, Shank claimed in legal testimony to have spent £40 to acquire Thompson as an apprentice. (Apprentices' contracts were sometimes purchased from their "masters," as with the case of Stephen Hammerton.) According to the cast list in the 1623 first edition of Webster's '' The Duchess of Malfi'', Thompson played Julia, the "Cardinals Mi ...
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Groom Of The Chamber
Groom of the Chamber was a position in the Household of the monarch in early modern England. Other ''Ancien Régime'' royal establishments in Europe had comparable officers, often with similar titles. In France, the Duchy of Burgundy, and in England while French was still the language of the court, the title was varlet or valet de chambre. In German, Danish and Russian the term was "Kammerjunker" and in Swedish the similar "Kammarjunkare". In England after the Restoration, appointments in the King's Household included Groom of the Great Chamber, Groom of the Privy Chamber and Groom of the Bedchamber. The first two positions were appointed by Lord Chamberlain's warrant; the third, of greater importance, was a Crown appointment. Medieval and early-modern England Traditionally, the English Court was organized into three branches or departments: # the Household, primarily concerned with fiscal more than domestic matters, the "royal purse;" # the Chamber, concerned with the ''Pres ...
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The Wild Goose Chase
''The Wild Goose Chase'' is a late Jacobean stage play, a comedy written by John Fletcher, first performed in 1621. It is often classed among Fletcher's most effective and best-constructed plays; Edmund Gosse called it "one of the brightest and most coherent of Fletcher's comedies, a play which it is impossible to read and not be in a good humour." The drama's wit, sparkle, and urbanity anticipated and influenced the Restoration comedy of the later decades of the seventeenth century. The term "wild-goose chase" is first documented when used by Shakespeare in the early 1590s, but appears as a term with which his audience would be familiar, as there is no attempt to define its meaning. History Firm data on the play's date of authorship and early performance history have not survived. "In the absence of evidence to the contrary, the year 1621 is a plausible date." "No one has ever questioned Fletcher's sole authorship of this play..."; his distinctive style is continuous through ...
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John Fletcher (playwright)
John Fletcher (1579–1625) was a Jacobean playwright. Following William Shakespeare as house playwright for the King's Men, he was among the most prolific and influential dramatists of his day; during his lifetime and in the early Restoration, his fame rivalled Shakespeare's. He collaborated on writing plays with Francis Beaumont, and also with Shakespeare on three plays. Though his reputation has declined since, Fletcher remains an important transitional figure between the Elizabethan popular tradition and the popular drama of the Restoration. Biography Early life Fletcher was born in December 1579 (baptised 20 December) in Rye, Sussex, and died of the plague in August 1625 (buried 29 August in St. Saviour's, Southwark). His father Richard Fletcher was an ambitious and successful cleric who was in turn Dean of Peterborough, Bishop of Bristol, Bishop of Worcester and Bishop of London (shortly before his death), as well as chaplain to Queen Elizabeth. As Dean of Pet ...
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1632 In Literature
Year 163 ( CLXIII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Laelianus and Pastor (or, less frequently, year 916 ''Ab urbe condita''). The denomination 163 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years. Events By place Roman Empire * Marcus Statius Priscus re-conquers Armenia; the capital city of Artaxata is ruined. Births * Cui Yan (or Jigui), Chinese official and politician (d. 216) * Sun Shao (or Changxu), Chinese chancellor (d. 225) * Tiberius Claudius Severus Proculus, Roman politician * Xun Yu, Chinese politician and adviser (d. 212) Deaths * Kong Zhou, father of Kong Rong (b. 103) * Marcus Annius Libo Marcus Annius Libo was a Roman Senator active in the early second century AD. Life Libo came from the upper ranks of the Roman aristocra ...
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1631 In Literature
This article is a summary of the literary events and publications of 1631. Events * January 9 – '' Love's Triumph Through Callipolis'', a masque written by Ben Jonson and designed by Inigo Jones, is staged at Whitehall Palace. *January 11 – The Master of the Revels in England refuses to license Philip Massinger's new play, '' Believe as You List'', because of its seditious content; it is first performed in a revised version on May 7. *February 5 – Puritan minister and theologian Roger Williams emigrates from England to Boston in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. *February 22 – ''Chloridia'', the year's second Jonson/Jones masque, is performed. *June 10 – The King's Men perform ''Pericles, Prince of Tyre'' (c.1607/8) at the Globe Theatre. *The young Blaise Pascal moves with his family to Paris. *Thomas Hobbes is employed as a tutor by the Cavendish family, to teach the future Earl of Devonshire. *Publication of the "Wicked Bible" by Robert Barker and Martin Lucas, the roya ...
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Believe As You List
''Believe as You List'' is a Caroline era tragedy by Philip Massinger, famous as a case of theatrical censorship. Censorship The play originally dealt with the legend that Sebastian of Portugal had survived the battle of Alcácer Quibir, and the efforts of Philip II of Spain to suppress the "false Sebastians." On 11 January 1631, Sir Henry Herbert, the Master of the Revels, noted in his records that he refused to license the play because "it did contain dangerous matter, as the deposing of Sebastian, king of Portugal, by Philip the Second, and there being a peace sworn between the kings of England and Spain." To avoid the censor, Massinger was obliged to move the setting of his play to the ancient world, substituting ancient Rome for Spain and a Seleucid King Antiochus for Sebastian. The revised play was licensed by the Master of the Revels on 6 May 1631, and was premiered the next day, 7 May, by the King's Men. (If the play was intended for the winter season, it was me ...
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