ABSTRACT
To have been cast as a gentleman of great esteem with the King' at the court of Charles II has not done Killigrew's reputation any favours. Samuel Pepys first encountered Thomas Killigrew among other persons of Honour' on the deck of the Naseby (hastily renamed the Royal Charles), which was bringing Charles II back to England at the end of his long exile. In his diary Pepys described Killigrew as a merry droll, but a gentleman of great esteem with the King'. As an illustration of the sometimes vicious character of Restoration politics, it is an instructive episode that has been exhaustively examined by several distinguished historians. The most controversial of the literary collaborations between Howard and Buckingham was The Country Gentleman, which ridiculed Coventry as Sir Cautious Trouble-all, and apparently was intended for production at the Theatre Royal in February 1669.
