Professional Actors as Royal Drama Coaches, 1674–81

This article explores the history of several anecdotes relating to the theatrical coaching and training of members of the royal family, particularly Princess Anne, the future queen, by professional actors during the last decade of Charles II's reign. These anecdotes are not found in any contemporary archival or printed sources; rather, they were first published in the 1740s in a variety of memoirs and encyclopedic compendia relating to the history of the Restoration stage. The article compares and evaluates these anecdotes, investigating their veracity and seeking to uncover their pre-publication sources in the writings of a number of eighteenth-century antiquarians who annotated their personal copies of earlier printed accounts of the Restoration theatre and monarchy.