But to some extent, the idea had taken root, and during the ten years before the closing of the theatres, in 1642, women occasionally replaced the boys and men who passed for heroines. In _The Court Beggar_, a play enacted in London in 1632, one of the characters, Lady Strangelove, says: “The boy’s a pretty actor, and his mother can play her part. The women now are in great request.” These early actresses were, however, not regularly employed, their names have not come down to us, and it is correct to say that professional English actresses appear for the first time, when, in 1660, the theatres were reopened, after their eighteen years’ suppression by the Puritans.[224] There were two companies, Killigrew’s and D’Avenant’s. Each had its regularly enrolled actresses, whose names are recorded. Among them were Mrs. Corey, Mrs. Hughes, Mrs. Knipp, the Marshall sisters, Mrs. Davenport, Mrs. Saunderson, and, a little later, Nell Gwynn. No one, however, took the trouble to make certain for posterity the name of the first of them to appear. We know that she played Desdemona, in an adaptation of _Othello_, called _The Moor of Venice_; that she was of Killigrew’s company; that the date was December 8, 1660, and the place the Red Bull; and that Thomas Jordan wrote for the occasion “A Prologue, to introduce the first woman that came to act on our stage.” But who the actress was is not known. Two names are the likeliest: Margaret Hughes, and Anne Marshall. Mrs. Hughes was “more remarkable for her beauty than for her great ability.” “A mighty pretty woman,” says Pepys of her, “and seems, but is not, modest.” She was married later to Prince Rupert, and brought him to the verge of bankruptcy. Anne Marshall, the other chief claimant, was a competent actress of the day, remarkable chiefly for being the daughter of a prominent Presbyterian clergyman. At first the old practice of giving the women’s parts to boys threatened to survive, alongside the new custom of employing women. For a few years both played the heroines, but the race of actors who could portray women was fast dying out and, owing to a changed public opinion, was not replenished.[225] When, in 1663, the King granted patents to Killigrew and D’Avenant, those managers were virtually instructed to employ none but women to represent female characters: “Whereas”--the royal patents read,--“the women’s parts in plays have hitherto been acted by men in the habits of women, at which some have taken offense, we do give leave that for the time to come all women’s parts be acted by women.” In a year or so the “boy-actresses” had virtually disappeared from the stage.