Sir William Davenant, the Court Masque, and the English Seventeen ...

He undoubtedly made use of the slight connection all his life, and he did not dispute the rumour that he was his natural son, as Aubrey suggests, but that is seen as unlikely.¹⁵ All this may have been his inspiration to try to make his name through writing plays.

His early plays show their author’s lack of maturity in both the theatre and in life. They are exuberant and lively but have no real depth of emotion or characterisation. They display a young man’s tendency to shock with outrageous language and situation. Certainly, the Jacobean drama he uses as patterns are full of murder and bloodshed, homosexual lust, and incest but they usually have an underlying theme of political, philosophical, or moral significance. Albovine has a complicated plot with echoes of Othello and of The White Devil but with none of their subtlety, but it does include vivid stage directions. One character chews a woman’s lips to bleeding; three others are discovered dead in chairs behind “the arras”.¹⁶

In his first performed play, The Cruel Brother, licensed on 12 January 1626 and presented by the King’s Men at the Blackfriars Theatre, there are prompt copy directions in the play which indicate a platform stage performance rather than a revision for one with shutters. “Chair out” in act 2, and “A chair at the arras” opens act 5, ready for Forreste to tie up his raped sister while he slits her wrists. She dies on stage to recorders played “sadly”. Later, “The Duke (on his bed) is drawn forth”.¹⁷ Already, Davenant has an eye towards presentation and for strong visual effects.

The play was not very well liked except by his friends, and it is not thought to have had many, if any, more performances. Nevertheless, at not quite twenty-one, Davenant was able to follow the process of mounting a play, to begin to gain an experience of professional theatre, and to see what was needed to make a play successful with the audience. He was certainly not discouraged, and it was not long before he had two more plays licensed. The Colonel on 22 July 1629 and The Just Italian on 2 October. It is not known what happened to the first play, although it has been suggested variously that it reappeared as The Seige or as Love and Honour.¹⁸ The Just Italian was presented by the King’s Men but again was not successful.