Hughes is documented by theatre historian John Downes as the first recorded representative of Desdemona in a King's Company cast list.
As a leading member of Thomas Killigrew's King's Company performing at the Theatre Royal, Margaret Hughes is recorded in historical cast documentation as the first recorded representative of Desdemona. This designation comes from John Downes, the prompter of the Duke's Company and author of Roscius Anglicanus (1708), one of the earliest and most valuable surviving records of Restoration theatre casting and repertoire.
While the exact performance date associated with this specific documentary record is placed around the early 1660s, it formalizes in written history what oral and theatrical tradition had already established: that Hughes was among the pioneering women to take on Shakespearean tragic roles in the newly reopened English theatres. Downes's meticulous—if occasionally imperfect—records remain an essential primary source for historians reconstructing the repertoire and personnel of the Restoration stage.
This documented status elevated Hughes beyond mere anecdote into the realm of verified theatrical history, distinguishing her from performers whose contributions went unrecorded. It is important to note, as the Dictionary of National Biography discusses, that scholarly consensus is divided on whether Hughes or her contemporary Mary Betterton (Anne Marshall) held true primacy as 'the first actress'; the DNB itself concludes the honor 'belongs to neither' definitively. Nonetheless, Hughes's specific credit as first recorded Desdemona remains a settled point of theatrical record.