Davenant and Shakespeare

Arthur Acheson believed Shakespeare’s dark lady was Mistress Jane Davenant, keeper of the St George inn near Oxford, ardently visited by Shakespeare during his trudges between Stratford and London (Sohmer 55). Shakespeare was variously claimed as natural father or godfather to Jane’s son, William, born in 1606 (Sohmer 71). William Davenant himself liked to say he was Shakespeare’s godson and illegitimate son (Edmondson). In the 1669 preface of an adaptation of The Tempest, Dryden thanks Davenant for directing him to “admire” the “Poet for whom he Davenant had particularly a high veneration”: Shakespeare, Davenant’s supposed godfather. Dryden finishes the preface by saying: “I am satisfi’d I could never have receiv’d so much honour in being thought the Author of any Poem how excellent soever, as I shall from the joining my imperfections with the merit and name of Shakespear and Sir William Davenant.” The preface painstakingly bridges the gap between Shakespeare and Davenant, therein honoring the recently deceased Davenant, who died in 1668 (Rivier 26).

One of Charles II's first actions when he regained his throne in May 1660 was to establish just two public teheatre companies in London. Sir William Davenant was given the patent for the company under the patronage of the Duke of York, the king's brother. By making the theatres subject to his direct authority, the king changed the way in which public theatres had been organised before their closure in 1642. In July the king instructed the Attorney General to issue orders under the Great Seal for Davenant and Killigrew to be the only theatre managers. The warrant was granted in August 1660 and included the suppression of any other company. The company is not recorded as being sworn to serve the Duke of York until 24 September 1662, but it is thought that Davenant began to present plays around the same date as Killigrew, at Salisbury Court Playhouse, although there us no record of a production until 29 January 1661 when Pepys mentions going there for the first time (Lewcock 112). Davenant’s acquisition of the rights to Hamlet and the choice to stage it early in the Restoration speaks to the desire of late-seventeenth-century playwrights and managers to create literary authority through the use of older plays. Hamlet was one of the few already established and popular plays obtained by Davenant’s company, and that popularity helped in part secure the success of the Duke’s Company over Killigrew’s company. This popularity, combined with the legend of Shakespeare’s legacy, constructed a particular identity for Davenant’s company (McHugh 90-91).