Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 31.djvu/361

Kynaston time, Sir Charles Sedley, whose dress and demeanour he imitated as closely as possible. Sedley, to show his resentment of what he considered a gross insult, hired a bravo to chastise the actor in St. James's Park in the spring of 1668, under the pretext that he mistook him for the baronet. Some time later Sedley, for the further instruction of Kynaston, introduced the incident into his play, ‘The Mulberry Garden,’ acted on 18 May 1668. The actor, however, was so far from taking the hint that he proceeded to impersonate Sedley on the stage, with the result that on the night of 31 Jan. 1668–9 ‘he was exceedingly beaten with sticks by two or three men who saluted him, so that he is mightily bruised and forced to keep his bed’ (, v. 103). ‘They say,’ continues Pepys, ‘that the king is very angry with Sir Charles Sedley for his being beaten, but he do deny it.’ In spite of this severe treatment Kynaston was able to appear on 9 Feb., when Pepys saw him in the ‘Island Princess.’

On 14 Oct. 1681 a memorandum was signed by Hart and Kynaston of the king's company, with Davenant, Betterton, and Smith of the Duke's Theatre, by which the two former, for a consideration of 5s. each for every day on which there should be a play at Dorset Garden, undertook to do everything in their power to break up the king's company. The object of the intrigue was to counteract the declining support from which both the patent theatres were at the time suffering. In the result a union between the two houses was formed on 16 Nov. 1682, when at the Theatre Royal Kynaston played the King of France to Betterton's Duke in Dryden's ‘Duke of Guise.’ Between this date and 1695, when he followed Betterton to Lincoln's Inn Fields, his most important parts were Sir Philip Luckless in the ‘Northern Lass,’ and Mark Anthony in ‘Julius Cæsar,’ with Betterton, Mountfort, Jevon, Underhill, and Leigh in the cast, 1684; Lord Bellgard in Crowne's ‘Sir Courtly Nice,’ 1685; Belmour in ‘Lucky Chance,’ and King of Tidore in Tate's ‘Island Princess,’ 1690; Sir Thomas Delamore in ‘Edward III,’ and Duke of Guise in D'Urfey's ‘Bussy d'Ambois,’ 1691. In 1693 he was prevented by illness from playing Lord Touchwood in Congreve's ‘Double Dealer’ before Queen Mary, and was replaced by Colley Cibber [q. v.] (, Queens, vii. 405).

At fifty Kynaston's powers were in no way impaired, and he was, says Genest, ‘remarkable for a piercing eye and a quick impetuous vivacity in his voice, which painted the Tyrant truly terrible, particularly in Morat and Muley Moloch in “Don Sebastian,” while in “Henry IV,” when he whispered to Hotspur, “Send us your prisoners, or you'll hear of it,” he conveyed a more terrible menace than the loudest intemperance of voice could swell to.’ After 1695 he took less important parts, but ‘even at past sixty,’ says Cibber, ‘his teeth were all sound, white, and even as one could wish to see in a reigning toast of twenty.’ His chief fault as an actor seems to have been his strident voice, concerning which an anecdote more pertinent than pleasing is given by Davies, and repeated by Genest (ii. 174). That characteristic, as well as his stately step, has been attributed to his early experience in female parts. Cibber praises him highly, and when he took Syphax in ‘Cato,’ played it ‘as he thought Kynaston would have done.’

Kynaston appears to have retired in 1699, and to have died in January 1705–6. He was buried on 18 Jan. in St. Paul's, Covent Garden (Parish Reg. 1703–39, p. 199). Another Edward Kynaston, of St. Giles's-in-the-Fields, was buried in the same church 30 July 1712 (ib.) The actor had made a considerable sum of money, with the help of which he set up his son of the same name as a mercer. The latter had a large shop in Bedford Street, Strand, where Kynaston spent the last years of his life. Davies, in his ‘Miscellanies,’ states that he met Kynaston's grandson, who was a clergyman, but he was not disposed to be communicative about his ancestry, though he mentioned his kinship with the Kynastons of Oteley.

 KYNASTON or KINASTON, FRANCIS (1587–1642), poet and scholar, born in 1587 at Oteley, Shropshire, was eldest son of Sir Edward Kinaston, by Isabel, daughter of Sir Nicholas Bagenall. His father, whose family originally came to Oteley from Stoke, near Ellesmere, was sheriff of Shropshire in 1599. On 11 Dec. 1601 Francis matriculated at Oriel College, Oxford, and graduated B.A. from St. Mary Hall on 14 June 1604. According to Wood he was more addicted ‘to the superficial parts of learning, poetry and oratory (wherein he excelled), than to logic and philosophy’ (, Athenæ Oxon. ed. Bliss, iii. 38). Kinaston removed to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated M.A. in 1609, but was incorporated