Duke's Company

The Duke's Company was a theatre company chartered by King Charles II at the start of the Restoration era, 1660. Sir William Davenant was manager of the company under Prince James, Duke of York's patronage. During this period, theatres began to flourish again after being closed due to restrictions throughout the Interregnum and English Civil War.

The Duke's Company was one of the two theatre companies (the other being the King's Company) that were chartered by King Charles II at the start of the English Restoration era, when the London theatres re-opened after their eighteen-year closure (1642–60) during the English Civil War and the Interregnum.

The Duke's Company had the patronage of the King's younger brother Prince James, Duke of York and of Albany (later King James II & VII). It was managed by Sir William Davenant. The company started at the old Salisbury Court Theatre, and occasionally used the Cockpit in Drury Lane. After a year, the actors moved to a new theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields, a building on Portugal Street that had previously been Lisle's Tennis Court (it opened on 18 June 1661). There they were joined by Thomas Betterton, who quickly became their star. In December 1660, the King granted the Duke's Company the exclusive rights to ten of Shakespeare's plays: Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, Romeo and Juliet, The Tempest, Twelfth Night, Much Ado About Nothing, Measure for Measure, Henry VIII, and Pericles, Prince of Tyre. In 1661, their first year at Lincoln's Inn Fields, the company revived Hamlet, in a production that employed the innovation of stage scenery. Samuel Pepys saw their production on 24 August; he described it as "done with scenes very well, but above all, Betterton did the Prince's part beyond imagination".