Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 31.djvu/118

 page to Charles I, he remained constant to the fortunes of that monarch and his successor. He married, 29 June 1636, Cecilia or Cicely, daughter of Sir John Crofts of Saxham, Suffolk, by whom he had a son Henry. A dispute on jealousy between Killigrew and Miss Crofts supplied Thomas Carew [q. v.] with the subject of a duet, which, with full acknowledgment of indebtedness, is printed by Killigrew at the close of part ii. of his ‘Cicilia and Clorinda,’ whence it was transferred to the 1671 edition of Carew's poems. Carew also wrote a poem ‘On the Mariage of T. K. and C. C. The morning stormie,’ which appears in his ‘Poems,’ ed. 1640, and an anonymous epithalamium was among Sir Thomas Phillipps's MSS. 4001. The lady died 1 Jan. 1637–8, and in 1640 Quarles issued his ‘Sighes at the contemporary deaths’ of ‘Mistress Cicely Killegrve’ and her sister the Countess of Cleveland.

Killigrew was in France in 1635, and while there wrote a letter concerning the ‘Possessing and Dispossessing of several Nuns in the Nunnery at Tours in France,’ three sheets folio, dated Orleans, 7 Dec. 1635. Manuscripts of this are in the Bodleian (Ashmolean MS. 800, art. iii. ff. 21–7) and in the library of Magdalene College, Cambridge (Pepys Coll. No. 8383). It is reprinted in the ‘European Magazine,’ 1803, xliii. 102–106. This was followed by the ‘Prisoners’ and ‘Claracilla,’ two tragi-comedies, 12mo, 1641. In the 1664 collection of Killigrew's works the former, the scene of which is Sardinia, is dedicated to his ‘Dear Niece, the Lady Crompton,’ and is the only play in the collection which is said to have been written in London; the second piece, ‘Claracilla,’ which is dedicated to his ‘Dear Sister, the Lady Shannon,’ and has its scene in Sicily, was written while he was in Rome. Both were produced at the Phœnix, otherwise the Cockpit, in Drury Lane. Mr. Fleay puts the date of both performances before 1636, and dates the representation of a third play by Killigrew, the ‘Parson's Wedding,’ his best-known comedy, between 1637 and 1642. This piece, written at ‘Basil in Switzerland,’ seems to have first seen the light in the folio of 1664.

Killigrew was in London on 3 Sept. 1642, when he was committed by a warrant from the parliament to the custody of Sir John Lenthall, on a charge of taking up arms for the king. On 16 May 1643 he successfully petitioned the House of Lords from the King's Bench prison to make void all suits begun against him since he was in confinement. After his release he went to Oxford in 1644, and seems to have subsequently continued his travels; in 1647 he joined Prince Charles in his exile in Paris. A brilliant conversationist, and a man little disturbed by moral scruples, Killigrew warmly commended himself to Charles II, by whom, in spite of some remonstrances, he was appointed resident at Venice in 1651. His proceedings there, the manner in which, with royal connivance, he borrowed money for his master and for his own subsistence, and his general debauchery led in June 1652 to his compulsory withdrawal and a complaint to Charles from the Venetian ambassador in Paris. Killigrew's vindication is among the Clarendon MSS. (Cal. Clarendon Papers, ii. 143). His recall from Venice was the subject of some waggishness on the part of the English poets. Denham's lines concerning him are well known: Our resident Tom From Venice is come, And has left all the statesman behind him; Talks at the same pitch, Is as wise, is as rich, And just where you left him you find him.

But who says he is not A man of much plot May repent of his false accusation, Having plotted and penned Six plays to attend The Farce of his negotiation. His travels during this, his second continental tour, included Italy and Spain, and he spent some time in Florence, Turin, and Madrid, as well as in Paris and Venice. He occupied part of his time in writing a new series of plays. Besides his plays Killigrew brought back with him, on returning to London at the Restoration, a second wife, Charlotte, born 16 July 1629, daughter of John de Hesse, whom he married at the Hague 28 Jan. 1654–5. She was appointed keeper of the sweet coffer for the queen in May 1662, and first lady of the queen's privy chamber 4 June 1662 (Brit. Mus. Addit. MS. 20032, f. 44).

Immediately after his return home Killigrew was appointed in 1660 groom of the bedchamber to Charles II, and subsequently chamberlain to the queen. The greatest proof of royal favour consisted, however, in the grant by Charles II, in August 1660, to Killigrew and Sir William D'Avenant [q. v.] of patents to erect two new playhouses in London, Westminster, or the suburbs thereof, to raise two new companies of players, and to have the sole regulation thereof. Leave was also given to the two managers to license their own plays. This interference with the privileges of Sir Henry Herbert,