Margaret Hughes (29 May 1630 – 1 October 1719), also Peg Hughes or Margaret Hewes, was an English actress who is often credited as the first professional actress on the English stage, as a result of her appearance on 8 December 1660.
Hughes was the mistress of the Royalist English Civil War general Prince Rupert of the Rhine.
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Women in Restoration drama
Hughes became an actress during a period of great change in English drama, which had suffered greatly during the English Civil War and the Interregnum, being banned by the Puritan Long Parliament in 1642. This ban was finally lifted upon the Restoration of King Charles II. Charles was a keen theatre-goer, and promptly gave two royal patents to Sir Thomas Killigrew and Sir William Davenant. During the Renaissance women did not appear as actresses on the English stage; instead, male actors played female roles. There were also concerns over this practice encouraging "unnatural vice", i.e., homosexuality, which reinforced Charles in his decision in 1662 to issue a royal warrant declaring that all female roles should be played only by actresses. Killigrew and Davenant began casting women almost immediately following the Restoration and, once women began appearing professionally on the stage in the early 1660s, they won quick acceptance. Killigrew staged an all-female-cast production of his own play The Parson's Wedding in 1664 and again in 1672.