Anne Marshall

Who is Anne Marshall?

Anne Marshall, also Mrs. Anne Quin, was a leading English actress of the Restoration era, one of the first generation of women performers to appear on the public stage in England.

John Downes, in his Roscius Anglicanus, reports that Anne Marshall among the initial group of actresses employed by manager Thomas Killigrew with his King's Company. She has been nominated as possibly the "first English actress," the Desdemona in the performance of Othello on 8 December 1660. [See: Margaret Hughes; Katherine Corey.] Marshall certainly played Desdemona in later performances.

Marshall is thought to have played Zempoalla in the Dryden/Howard collaboration The Indian Queen in 1664. She is known to have played the following roles with the King's Company:

Celia in Jonson's Volpone

the Lady in Beaumont and Fletcher's The Scornful Lady

Evadne in The Maid's Tragedy

Margarita in Fletcher's Rule a Wife and Have a Wife

Edith in Rollo Duke of Normandy

Celia in The Humorous Lieutenant

Almeria in Dryden's The Indian Emperour

Mrs. Double-Diligence in Wilson's The Cheats

Celestina in Sir William Killigrew's The Siege of Urbin.