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Charlotte Butler

English actress and singer (1674-1693)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 19, 2026
Entity authorityQ18875484
Source-derived summary

Charlotte Butler was an English stage actress and singer of the seventeenth century. She may have joined the Duke's Company in the 1670s, but her first definite recorded performance was in Aphra Behn's The Revenge (1680) The anonymous A Satyr on The Players (c. 1682) describes her,

Selected roles

Marinda in The Revenge by Aphra Behn (1680)

Charlotte in The City-Heiress by Aphra Behn (1682)

Philidel in King Arthur by John Dryden (1682)

Mrs Cleremont in Dame Dobson by Edward Ravenscroft (1683)

Sophia in The Fortune Hunters by James Carlile (1689)

Charles in Bury Fair by Thomas Shadwell (1689)

Night in Amphitryon by John Dryden (1690)

Floriante in Sir Anthony Love by Thomas Southerne (1690)

Statilia in The Treacherous Brothers by George Powell (1690)

Astella in The Mistakes by Joseph Harris (1690)

Airy in The English Frier by John Crowne (1690)

Betty Jiltall in Love for Money by Thomas d'Urfey (1691)

La Pupsey in The Marriage-Hater Matched by Thomas d'Urfey (1692)

References

Bibliography

Highfill, Philip H., Burnim, Kalman A. & Langhans, Edward A. A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers and Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660–1800: Cabanel to Cory. Southern Illinois University Press, 1975. ISBN 9780809306923

Van Lennep, W. The London Stage, 1660–1800: Volume One, 1660–1700. Southern Illinois University Press, 1960.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Charlotte Butler” is english actress and singer (1674-1693). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Charlotte, Butler and English, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1680, 1682, 1683, 1689—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Charlotte, Butler and English is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “english actress and singer (1674-1693)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q18875484. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1680, 1682, 1683 and 1689.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Charlotte Butler”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Charlotte Butler primary sources, Charlotte Butler archive and Charlotte research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Charlotte Butler”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Charlotte Butler” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.