DAVENANT or D'AVENANT, SIR WILLIAM (1606 668), English poet and dramatist, was baptized on March 3, I 6o6 ; he was born at the Crown Inn, Oxford, of which his father, a wealthy vintner, was proprietor. It was stated that Shakespeare always stopped at this house in passing through the city of Oxford. and out of his known or rumoured admiration of the hostess, a very fine woman, there sprang a story which attributed Davenant's paternity to Shakespeare, a legend which there is reason to believe Davenant himself encouraged. After a brief stay at Lincoln college, Oxford, Davenant became a page to the duchess of Rich mond, and then entered the household of Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke. After Brooke's death he turned to the stage, his first play, Albovine, King of the Lombards, being produced in 1629. Other plays and masques followed, the most important of which was The Wits, licensed in 1633 and published in 1636. Davenant was high in favour at court, and succeeded Ben Jonson as poet laureate. Throughout the civil war Davenant supported the king. He joined Henrietta Maria in France, and was sent by her on more than one mission to England. He fought at the siege of Gloucester (1643), after which he was knighted, and returned to Paris after the battle of Naseby. He was captured by the Parlia mentarians more than once. In 165o he was at the head of a colonizing expedition to Virginia which was intercepted in the Channel. He was interned at Cowes until 1651 and was sent to the Tower to await trial for high treason. He solaced his imprison ment by the composition of his epic poem, Gondibert, and was released, it is said, on the personal intercession of Milton, for whom he interceded in his turn after the Restoration.
Davenant had been manager of the Drury Lane theatre when the Puritan regime put an end to dramatic performances. In 1656 he contrived to evade the law by giving semi-private representa tions in private houses. The first of these productions was The First Day's Entertainment at Rutland House (May 21, 1656), speeches for and against the drama with declamation and music. The famous Siege of Rhodes (Aug. 1656) followed. This was not, as sometimes stated, the first occasion in which changes of scenery were employed and women appeared on the stage, but it does mark the beginning of the change from the ancient simplicity of the English stage. To this performance was given the name "opera." In 1658 Davenant was permitted to open the Cockpit theatre in Drury Lane for historical drama, though not without some protest from Puritan sources. In 1659 he was imprisoned for complicity in the rising of Sir George Booth. At the Restoration Davenant and Killigrew received a patent to set up two companies of players, and Davenant's company became known as the duke of York's players, housed at first in Lincoln's Inn Fields. There were per formed many "musical plays," and the theatre became known as the "opera." The duke of York's players produced some of Davenant's pre Commonwealth plays in a revised form, notably Love and Honour (1649), The Wits and The Platonic Lovers (1636), but many plays of Shakespeare, Jonson and Fletcher were "adapted," with con siderable freedom, by Davenant for the Restoration stage. He also produced versions of various French plays.
Davenant died on April 7, 1668, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.
His works were collected in folio in 1672. See the edition of his Dramatic Works, with prefatory memoir and notes, by J. Maidment and Logan (1872-74).