| Chapter 1: | Royalist Dramatist |
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His employment by the duchess, and later by Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke, would have introduced him to many men of influence, both at court and in the literary field. He became one of the literary circle around Greville, where it was a usual pastime to experiment with various genre and styles and to criticise each other’s writing. It is possible he knew some of those who met in the Apollo Room of the Devil Tavern in Fleet Street, where Ben Jonson’s Tribe of Ben gathered in the 1620s.2 He certainly came to know both Hobbes and Cavendish, who were believed to be members of the Tribe. Whether by accident or design, he had joined a group of gentlemen closely linked to the court who wrote not so much for money as for patronage.
Years later, Davenant confessed, writing to Thomas Hobbes in the preface to Gondibert, published in 1651,
Although it is clear that he was impecunious, ambitious, and working to use these acquaintances to his own advantage, he seems to have kept their affection, and many, such as Endymion Porter and Henry Jermyn, became his lifelong friends as well as his patrons. Jermyn was already a favourite with the queen and was made her vice chamberlain in 1628. Davenant now had friends at court.
By the time of Greville’s murder in 1628, Davenant had already written several poems and two verse plays, The Cruel Brother: A Tragedy and The Tragedy of Albovine, King of the Lombards.4
Published in 1629 before The Cruel Brother in 1630, The Tragedy of Albovine was not produced, but Davenant had it published with a dedication to the Earl of Somerset, whom he said had “read this Tragedie, and smil’d upon’t”, together with eight poems of commendation from various gentlemen poets.5 This was the way of the gentleman amateur looking for an influential patron to advance his career, unlike the professional dramatists who depended on their pens for their living and sold their works to the theatre managements, and who, as Ira Clark points out, dedicated their works to their fellow professionals.6