as IS THE case with many other members of the Cavendish clan, the cultural output associated with William Cavendish is astonishing both in its quantity and its variety. This chapter focuses on just one subset of those cultural outputs: dramatic writing, a field in which Cavendish participated both as patron and as author. Cavendish is perhaps best known as a patron of Restoration commercial drama, and secondarily for the family drama associated with his circle, performed outside London, generally by amateurs, and with the involvement of family members, including Jane Cavendish and Elizabeth Brackley. And yet before the Civil War, Cavendish had already built for himself an extraordinary position within English commercial drama. During the period up to 1642, he acted as patron, one way or another, to almost all the leading Caroline professional playwrights, as well as himself being involved in the writing of at least three comedies, two of which clearly achieved a measure of commercial success. This chapter asks: what was Cavendish attempting to do in this continuing early engagement with professional drama? And how did it connect with his wider political and cultural aspirations?

Discussion of Cavendish's early plays has always had to engage with author-centred problems to do with their collaborative or collective authorship and the extent to which they are imitative, or indeed derivative, of previous drama. However, these problems can partially be sidestepped by adopting a perspective centred more upon the audience. This chapter considers Cavendish's amateur imitation of professional drama within the frame of audience expectations and argues that if one were able to take a snapshot of the state of English theatre before it was devastated by the closure of 1642, Cavendish would appear as a patron/ playwright likely to be pivotal in the future of the commercial stage.