To the book the actor, Beeston, contributed
preliminary verses addressed to the author, his "good friend and
fellow, Thomas Heywood." There Beeston briefly vindicated the
recreation which the playhouse offered the public. Much else in
Christopher Beeston's professional career is known, but it is
sufficient to mention here that he died in 1637, while he was filling
the post that he had long held, of manager to the King and Queen's
Company of Players at the Cockpit Theatre in Drury Lane. It was the
chief playhouse of the time, and his wife was lessee of it.
Christopher's son, William Beeston the second, was his father's
coadjutor at Drury Lane, and succeeded him in his high managerial
office there. The son encountered difficulties with the Government
through an alleged insult to the King in one of the pieces that he
produced, and he had to retire from the Cockpit to a smaller theatre
in Salisbury Court. Until his death he retained the respect of the
play-going and the literature-loving public, and his son George, whom
he brought up to the stage, carried on the family repute to a later
generation.
William Beeston had no liking for dissolute society, and the open vice
of Charles the Second's Court pained him.
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