ABSTRACT
Officially the theatres of London had been closed from the autumn of 1642 until after the Restoration of Charles II. Actually, there were, in Cromwell’s time, dramatic performances in the houses of noblemen and even privately among cultivated Puritans. The lower classes, too, still delighted in “mummings,” ropedances, acrobatic acts, and drolls-which last were farcical fragments of plays.3
