There were three members of Killigrew's, or the King's Company, who were admirable representatives of female characters before the Civil Wars. These were Hart, Burt, and Clun--all pupils of luckless Robinson, slain in fight, who was himself an accomplished "actress." Of the three, Hart rose to the greatest eminence. His Duchess, in Shirley's "Cardinal," was the most successful of his youthful parts. After the Restoration, he laid down Cassio to take Othello, from Burt, by the King's command, and was as great in the Moor as Betterton, at the other house, was in Hamlet. His Alexander, which he _created_, always filled the theatre; and his dignity therein was said to convey a lesson even to kings. His Brutus was scarcely inferior, while his Catiline was so unapproachable, that when he died, Jonson's tragedy died with him.[20] Rymer styles him and Mohun the Æsopus and Roscius of their time. When they acted together (Amintor and Melantius) in the "Maid's Tragedy," the town asked no greater treat. Hart was one of Pepys's prime favourites. He was a man whose presence delighted the eye, before his accents enchanted the ear. The humblest character intrusted to him was distinguished by his careful study. On the stage he acknowledged no audience; their warmest applause could never draw him into a moment's forgetfulness of his assumed character. In Manly, "The Plain Dealer," as in Catiline, he never found a successor who could equal him. His salary was, at the most, three pounds a week, but he is said to have realised £1000 yearly after he became a shareholder in the theatre. He finally retired in 1682, on a pension amounting to half his salary, which he enjoyed, however, scarcely a year. He died of a painful inward complaint in 1683, and was buried at Stanmore Magna. There is a tradition that Hart, Mohun, and Betterton fought on the King's side at Edgehill, in 1642. The last-named was then a child, and some things are attributed to Charles Hart which belonged to his father. If Charles was but eighteen when his namesake, the King, returned in 1660, it must have been his father who was at Edgehill with Mohun, and who, perhaps, played female characters in his early days.