John Doran - Their Majesties' Servants. Annals of the English Stage (Volume 3 of 3)

On our side of the Channel, royal personages have been more amusingly rude than the inferior folk. A good instance of this presents itself to my memory, in the person of the young King of Denmark, who married the sister of George III., and who frequently visited the theatres in London, in 1768. At the play of the "Provoked Husband," it was observed that he applauded every passage in which matrimony was derided; which was commented on as an uncivil proceeding, as his wife was an English princess.

This wayward lad offended audience and actors on another occasion, in quite a different way. In October, he commanded the edifying tragedy of "Jane Shore," during the performance of which he fell fast asleep, and remained so to the amusement of the audience and the annoyance of Mrs. Bellamy, who played Alicia. That haughty and hapless beauty was not likely to let the wearied King sleep on; and accordingly, having to pronounce the words, "O thou false lord!" she approached the royal box, and uttered them expressly in such a piercing tone, that the King awoke in sudden amazement, but with perception enough to enable him to protest that he would not be married to a woman with such a voice though she had the whole world for a dowry. Two nights later 5 5 Probably a misprint for "Ten nights later," October 1 and October 11 being the dates in question. he went to see "Zara," Garrick being the Lusignan; and it is to his credit that he sat through that soporific sadness without winking.

The greatest excitement prevailed among the audience when the King went to see Garrick act Ranger, in the "Suspicious Husband." The pit was so crowded and so hot, that every man (and there were few or no women there) took off his coat and sat in his shirt or waistcoat sleeves, in presence of the King. The various hues formed a queer sight; but many of the men fainted. At the thunder of the cheers which greeted his coming, Denmark looked frightened, but bowed repeatedly; and when at Garrick's appearance, the roar of applause was renewed, his majesty appropriated it to himself, and again bowed to all sides of the house, while Ranger waited to congratulate himself on "having got safe to the Temple."

There was little indecorum in Mrs. Bellamy's act of rousing the sleepy King of Denmark with a scream, but greater, and what would now seem gross and unpardonable liberties, were taken by the actors, with their patron George III. For instance, in the "Siege of Calais," there is a scene between two carpenters who erect the scaffold for the execution of the patriots. Parsons played chief carpenter, in which character it was put down for him to say, "So, the King is coming! an the King like not my scaffold, I am no true man." George III. and family were present, one night, at the Haymarket, when this piece was played by command, and Parsons gave this unseemly turn to the set phrase. Advancing close to the royal box, he exclaimed: "An the King were here and did not admire my scaffold, I would say, D – n him! he has no taste!" At this sally the King laughed louder and longer than even the hilarious audience!

Sir Robert Walpole was readier to take offence than King George. He could smile at the inuendoes of the "Beggar's Opera;" but when he was deeply interested in the success of his Excise Bill, and an actor sneeringly alluded to it, in his presence, the minister went behind the scenes, and asked if the words uttered were in the part. It was confessed that they were not; and thereupon Sir Robert raised his cane, and gave the offending player a sound thrashing.

In Parsons' case, monarch and audience alike, knew that no offence was intended, in detection of which loyalty rendered the audience over acute; as in the case when Jack Bannister got into disgrace with the house. "God Save the King" was being sung, and Jack, dressed for Lenitive in the "Prize," stood among an undistinguished group of choristers at the back of the stage. Gentlemen in the boxes called upon him vociferously to come into the front rank, and sing so as to be heard. There was great disapprobation, in which the press joined, and poor Jack, as loyal a Briton as any in those days, had to explain, that being dressed in an extravagant costume, he had kept in the background, out of respect, as his caricatured garb seemed to him to be out of keeping with the words of the national anthem, which, to his thinking, were as something sacred.

Indeed, the loyalty of the actors to "King and Country" could not be doubted. When the Emperor of the French was collecting a host for the invasion of this country, the actors were among the first to enrol themselves as volunteers; and it was not an unusual thing to find the theatre closed, on account of the unavoidable absence of the principal performers, summoned to drill, or other military service then rigidly enforced.

On the other hand, there were what was then called disloyal factions among the audiences, and these drove "Venice Preserved" from the stage for a time by the furious applause which they gave to passages in favour of Liberty, and which applause was supposed to indicate hostility to the British Constitution!

Yet many of these factious people, who did not dislike the King because they loved liberty, were delighted to mark the unrestrained enjoyment of the royal family at the theatre. If George III. roared at the oft-repeated tricks of the clown, little Queen Charlotte shook with silent laughter at the intelligible action of the great comic performers. Once, when Foote, caricaturing an over-dressed lady, with a head-tire a yard in height, and nearly that in breadth, accidentally let fall the whole scaffolding of finery, and stood bare-polled upon the stage, the Queen's laughter was then audible through the house. Perhaps it was all the higher as she herself wore a modest and becoming adornment for the head. Indeed, she was proud only of her beautiful arms, and these the plain-featured lady contrived to display to the lieges assembled, with a dexterity worthy of the most finished coquette.

There was great homeliness, so to speak, in this intercourse between royal and lay folk, in those days, and much familiarity. The young Princes were often behind the scenes. On one of these occasions, the "sailor-prince," the Duke of Clarence, saw Bannister approach, dressed for Ben, in "Love for Love." The actor wore a coloured kerchief round his neck. "That will never do for a man-of-war's man," said the Prince; who, forthwith, ordered a black kerchief to be sent for, which, putting round the pseudo-sailor's neck, he tied the ends into the nautical slip-knot, and pronounced the thing complete.

The royal patronage and presence did not always give rise to hilarity. Tragedy sometimes attended it. I can remember nothing more painful in its way than a scene, at the Haymarket, on the third of February 1794. The King and Queen had commanded three pieces, by Prince Hoare – "My Grandmother," "No Song, No Supper," and the "Prize." Fifteen lives were lost that night in the precipitate plunge down the old pit-stairs, as the little green doors were opened to the loyal and eager crowd. Whether those who rushed over the fallen bodies were conscious of the extent of the catastrophe, cannot be determined; but the royal family were kept in ignorance of it, from their arrival till the moment they were about to depart. While they had been laughing to the utmost, many a tear had been flowing for the dead, many a groan uttered by the wounded who had struggled so frightfully to share in the joyousness of that evening, and the King's own two heralds, York and Somerset, were lying crushed to death among the slain.

On another occasion, tragic enough in the character of a chief incident, the conduct of the simple-minded King rose to the dignity of heroism. I allude to the night of the 11th of May 6 6 Should be 15th May. 1800, at Drury Lane, when George III. had commanded Cibber's comedy, "She Would and She Would Not." He had preceded the other members of the royal family, and was standing alone at the front of the box, when Hatfield fired a pistol at him from below. The excitement, the dragging of the assassin over the orchestra, the shouts of the audience, the fear that other would-be regicides might be there, moved everybody but the King, who calmly kept his position, and, as usual, looked round the house through his monocular opera-glass. The Marquis of Salisbury, very much disconcerted and alarmed, if not for himself, at least for the King, urged the latter to withdraw. "Sir," said George III., "you discompose me as well as yourself; I shall not stir one step." He was a right brave man in this act and observation; and while the comedy was got through confusedly, the avenues to the stage crowded by people eager to see the assailant, the audience breaking spasmodically into cries in behalf of the King, and the Queen and Princesses in tears throughout the evening, George III. alone was calm, cheerful, self-possessed, and bravely undemonstrative.