But was this Desdemona really the first English actress?
Had there not been earlier change in the old custom prescribing that the heroines of the British drama should be personated by boys?
It is certain that French actresses had appeared here so far back as 1629.

Prynne, in his "Histriomastix," published in 1633, writes: "They have now their female players in Italy and other foreign parts, and Michaelmas, 1629, they had French women-actors in a play personated at Blackfriars, to which there was great resort." These ladies, however, it may be noted, met with a very unfavourable reception.

Prynne's denunciation of them was a matter of course.

He had undertaken to show that stage-plays of whatever kind were most "pernicious corruptions," and that the profession of "play-poets" and stage-players, together with the penning, acting, and frequenting of stage-plays, was unlawful, infamous, and misbecoming Christians.

He speaks of the "women-actors" as "monsters," and applies most severe epithets to their histrionic efforts: "impudent," "shameful," "unwomanish," and such like.