The Angel Inn the Anglo-Irish actress Dorothea Jordan (1761–1816), who became the mistress and companion of the future King William IV. Thornton was "a man with flair but with no eye for detail [and] little patience with learning lines, a habit which spread to members of his company." James Winston, in his "The Theatric Tourist" (1805), relates how, just before one performance at Andover, Thornton noticed someone in the audience holding a copy of that evening's play. Winston writes: "With such a potent evidence of their incorrectness, it was impossible to proceed..." Thornton announced that the performance was cancelled, owing to the troupe's
Dorothea Jordan the stage she wrote the popular song The Bluebells of Scotland, published under her name around 1800. She had an affair with her first manager, Richard Daly, the manager of the Theatre Royal, Cork, who was married, and had an illegitimate child with him: In England, she had a short-lived affair with an army lieutenant, Charles Doyne, who proposed marriage. But she turned him down and went to work for the theatre company operated by Tate Wilkinson. It was at this point she adopted the name "Mrs. Jordan" – a reference to her escape across the Irish Sea, likened to