The guards attending the theatre, and all others whom it might
concern, were charged to see that this order was obeyed, and to return
to the Lord Chamberlain the names of such persons as offered "any
violence contrary to this our pleasure."
Apparently the royal decree was not very implicitly obeyed by the
playgoers. At any rate we find, under date January 7th, 1668, the
following entry in Mr. Pepys's "Diary" bearing upon the matter: "To
the Nursery, but the house did not act to-day; and so I to the other
two playhouses, into the pit to gaze up and down, and there did by
this means for nothing see an act in the 'School of Compliments,' at
the Duke of York's house, and 'Henry IV.' at the King's House; but not
liking either of the plays, I took my coach again and home." At the
trial of Lord Mohun, in 1692, for the murder of Mountford, the actor,
John Rogers, one of the doorkeepers of the theatre, deposes that he
applied to his lordship and to Captain Hill, his companion, "for the
overplus of money for coming in, because they came out of the pit upon
the stage. They would not give it.
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