ft* 
 
 
STOEY OF NELL GWTN. 
 
 
CHARLES II., NELL GWYN, AND EVELYN. 
 
 (Scene St. James's Park.) 
 From a painting by E. M. Ward, A.K.A. 
 
STORY OF NELJ 
 
 SAYING 
 
 BRADBURY 
 
THE 
 
 STORY OF NELL GWYN 
 
 SAYINGS OF CHARLES THE SECOND. 
 
 RELATED AND COLLECTED 
 
 BY PETER CUNNINGHAM, F.S.A. 
 
 Nell Gwyn's Son-the first Duke of St. Alban'?. 
 
 LONDON : 
 BRADBURY & EVANS, 11, BOUVERIE STREET. 
 
 MDCCCLII. 
 
PHEUN 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 THE following story was originally published in " The 
 Gentleman's Magazine," for the year 1851, and now appears as 
 a separate publication for the first time : corrected throughout 
 and enlarged with such new matter as my own diligence, 
 and the kindness of friends, has enabled me to bring together. 
 It must be read as a serious truth, not as a fiction as a 
 biography, not as a romance. It has no other foundation 
 than truth, and will be heard of hereafter only as it adheres 
 
 to history. 
 
 PETER CUNNINGHAM. 
 
 774175 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 F 
 
 Introduction Birth and birth-place Horoscope of her nativity Condition 
 in life of her father Her account of her early days Becomes an 
 . orange-girl at the theatre Effects of the Restoration Revival of 
 If the stage Two theatres allowed Scenery and dresses Principal 
 actors aud actresses Duties and importance of the orange-girls ... 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Pepys introduces us to Nelly Character of Pepys Nelly at the Duke's 
 Theatre Who was Duncan ? Nell's parts as Lady Wealthy, Enanthe, 
 and Florimel Charles Hart Nell's lodgings in Drury Lane Descrip- 
 tion of Drury Lane in the reign of Charles II. The May-pole in the 
 Strand Nell and Lord Buckhurst Position in society of actors and 
 actresses Character of Lord Buckhurst Nelly at Epsom ...... 22 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Epsom in the reign of Charles II. England in 1667 Nelly resumes her 
 engagement at the King's Theatre Inferior in Tragedy to Comedy- 
 Plays Mirida in " All Mistaken "Miss Davis of the Duke's Theatre- 
 Her song, " My lodging it is on the Cold Ground," parodied by Nell- 
 Influence of the Duke of Buckingham in controlling the predilections 
 of the King Charles II. at the Duke's Theatre Nelly has leading 
 parts in three of Dryden's new Plays Buckhurst is made a Gentleman 
 of the Bedchamber, promised a peerage, and sent on a sleeveless errand 
 into France Nell becomes the Mistress of the King Plays Almahide 
 in " The Conquest of Granada " The King more than ever enamoured 
 -Parallel case of Perdita Robinson and George IV ......... 48 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Pa R e 
 Personal Character of King Charles II 73 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 The Sayings of King Charles II 94 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Birth of the Duke of St. Alban's Arrival of Mademoiselle de Querouaille 
 Death of the Duchess of Orleans Nelly's house in Pall Mall Countess 
 of Castlemaine created Duchess of Cleveland Sir John Birkenhead, 
 Sir John Coventry, and the Actresses at the two Houses Insolence of ^ 
 Dramatists and Actors Evelyn overhears a conversation between ^ 
 Nelly and the King The Protestant and Popish Mistresses Story of 
 the Service of Plate Printed Dialogues illustrative of the rivalry of 
 Nelly and the Duchess of Portsmouth Madame Sevigne's account of it 
 Story of the Smock Nelly in mourning for the Cham of Tartary 
 Story of the two Fowls Portsmouth's opinion of Nelly Concert at 
 Nell's house The Queen and la Belle Stuart at a Fair disguised as 
 Country Girls Births, Marriages, and Creations Nelly's disappoint- 
 ment Her witty Remark to the King Her son created Earl of 
 Burford, and betrothed to the daughter and heiress of Vere, Earl of 
 Oxford . 112 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Houses in which Nelly is said to have lived Burford House, Windsor, one 
 of the few genuine Her losses at basset Court paid to Nelly by the 
 Duke of Monmouth, Lord Cavendish, &c. Death of her mother- 
 Printed elegy on her death Nelly's household expenses Bills for her 
 chair and bed Death of Mrs. Roberts Foundation of Chelsea Hospital 
 Nelly connected with its origin Books dedicated to Nelly Death of 
 her second son The Earl Burford created Duke of St. Alban's Nelly's 
 only letter Ken and Nelly at Winchester Nelly at Avington Death 
 of the King Was the King poisoned ? Nelly to have been created 
 Countess of Greenwich if the King had lived 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Page 
 
 Nelly in real mourning, and outlawed for debt Death of Otway, tutor to her 
 son James II. pays her debts The King's kindness occasions a 
 groundless rumour that she has gone to mass Her intimacy with 
 Dr. Tenison, then Vicar of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, and Dr. Lower 
 the celebrated physician She sends for Tenison in her last illness Her 
 death and contrite end Her will and last request of her son Her 
 funeral Tenison preaches her funeral sermon False account of the 
 sermon cried by hawkers in the streets The sermon used as an argu- 
 ment against Tenison's promotion to the see of Lincoln Queen Mary's 
 defence of him and of Nelly Her son the Duke of St. Alban's Eleanor 
 Gwyn and Harriet Mellon Various portraits of Nelly Further anec- 
 dotes Conclusion 159 
 
 Appendix A. On the Chronology of the English portion of De Grammont's 
 Memoirs ........................ 183 
 
 Appendix B. Some Account of Hamilton, his Brothers and Sisters 
 
THE 
 
 I 
 
 STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Introduction Birth and birth-place Horoscope of her nativity 
 Condition in life of her father Her account of her early 
 days Becomes an orange-girl at the theatre Effects of the 
 Restoration Revival of the stage Two theatres allowed 
 Scenery and dresses Principal actors and actresses Duties 
 and importance of the orange-girls. 
 
 DK. THOMAS TEXISON, afterwards Archbishop of 
 Canterbury, preached the funeral sermon of Nell 
 Gwyn. What so good a man did not think an unfit 
 subject for a sermon, will not be thought, I trust, 
 an unfit subject for a book; for the life that was 
 spent remissly may yet convey a moral, like that of 
 Jane Shore, which the wise and virtuous Sir Thomas 
 More has told so touchingly in his History of King 
 Kichard III. 
 
THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 The English people have always entertained 
 a peculiar liking for Nell Gwyn. There is a 
 sort of indulgence towards her not generally 
 conceded to any other woman of her class. 
 Thousands are attracted by her name, they know 
 not why, and do not stay to inquire. It is the 
 popular impression that, with all her failings, she 
 had a generous as well as a tender heart; that 
 when raised from poverty, she reserved her wealth 
 for others rather than herself; and that the 
 influence she possessed was often exercised for 
 good objects, and never abused. Contrasted with 
 others in a far superior rank in life, and tried 
 by fewer temptations, there is much that marks 
 and removes her from the common herd. The 
 many have no sympathy, nor should they have 
 any, for Barbara Palmer, Louise de Querouelle, 
 or Erengard de Schulenberg ; but for Nell Gwyn, 
 " pretty witty Nell," there is a tolerant and kindly 
 regard, which the following pages are designed to 
 illustrate rather than extend. 
 
 The Coal Yard in Drury Lane, a low alley, the 
 last on the east or city side of the lane, and still 
 known by that name, was, it is said, the place of 
 Nell Gwyn's birth. They show, however, in Pipe 
 Lane, in the parish of St. John, in the city of 
 
TIME AND PLACE OF BIRTH. 
 
 Hereford, a small house of brick and timber, now 
 little better than a hovel, in which, according to 
 local tradition, she was born. That the Coal 
 Yard was the place of her birth was stated in 
 print as early as 1721; and this was copied by 
 Oldys, a curious inquirer into literary and dramatic 
 matters, in the account of her life which he wrote 
 for CurlL* The Hereford story too is of some 
 standing; but there is little else I am afraid to 
 support it. The capital of the cider country, 
 however, does not want even Nell Gwyn to add 
 to its theatrical reputation ; in the same cathedral 
 city which claims to be the birth-place of the best 
 known English actress, was born, seventy years 
 later, David Garrick, the greatest and best known 
 actor we have yet had.t 
 
 The horoscope of the nativity of Eleanor Gwyn, 
 the work perhaps of Lilly, is still to be seen 
 among Ashmole's papers in the Museum at Oxford. 
 She was born, it states, on the 2nd of February, 
 1650. The horoscope, of which I have had a 
 
 * Curll's History of the English Stage, 8vo. 1741, p. 111. 
 f " When I went first to Oxford, Dr. John Ireland, an antiquary, assured me 
 that Nelly was born in Oxford. He named the parish, but I have forgot it. It 
 is certain that two of her son's titles Headington and Burford were taken from 
 Oxfordshire localities." MS. note by the late Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, the 
 antiquary and genealogist. Oddly enough, one of Nelly's grandsons died Bishop 
 of Hereford. 
 
 B2 
 
4 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 fac-simile made, shows what stars were supposed 
 to be in the ascendant at the time; and such 
 of my readers as do not disdain a study which 
 
 engaged the attention and ruled not unfrequently 
 the actions of vigorous-minded men, like Lord 
 Chancellor Shaftesbury and the poet Dryden, may 
 find more meaning in the state of the heavenly 
 bodies at her birth than I have as yet succeeded 
 in detecting. 
 
HER FATHER AND MOTHER. 
 
 Of the early history of Nell, and of the rank in 
 life of her parents, very little is known with certainty. 
 Her father, it is said, was Captain Thomas Gwyn, 
 of an ancient family in Wales.* The name cer- 
 tainly is of Welch extraction, and the descent 
 may be admitted without adopting the captaincy; 
 for by other hitherto received accounts her father 
 was a fruiterer in Covent Garden. She speaks 
 in her will of her " kinsman Cholmley," and 
 the satires of the time have pilloried a cousin, 
 raised by her influence to an ensigncy from the 
 menial office of one of the black guard employed 
 in carrying coals at Court. Her mother, who lived 
 to see her daughter a favourite of the King, and 
 the mother by him of at least two children, was 
 accidentally drowned in a pond near the Neat 
 Houses at Chelsea. Her Christian name was 
 Eleanor, but her maiden name is unknown. 
 
 Whatever the station in life to which her 
 pedigree might have entitled her, her bringing 
 up, by her own account, was humble enough. 
 " Mrs. Pierce tells me," says Pepys, " that the 
 two Marshalls at the King's House are Stephen 
 Marshall's, the great Presbyterian's daughters: 
 
 * MS. note by Van Bossen, made in 1688, and quoted at length in a subsequent 
 page. 
 
6 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 and that Nelly and Beck Marshall falling out the 
 other day, the latter called the other my Lord 
 Buckhurss mistress. Nell answered her, 'I was 
 but one man's mistress, though I was brought up 
 in a brothel to fill strong water* to the gentle- 
 men ; and you are a mistress to three or four, 
 though a Presbyter's praying daughter.'" This, 
 for a girl of any virtue or beauty, was indeed a 
 bad bringing-up. 
 
 The Coal Yard, infamous in later years as one of 
 the residences of Jonathan Wild, was the next 
 turning in the same street to the still more noto- 
 rious and fashionably inhabited Lewknor Lane, 
 where young creatures were inveigled to infamy, 
 and sent dressed as orange -girls to sell fruit and 
 attract attention in the adjoining theatres. 
 
 That this was Nelly's next calling we have the 
 testimony of the Duchess of Portsmouth and the 
 authority of a poem of the time, attributed to Lord 
 Rochester : 
 
 But first the basket her fair arm did suit, 
 Laden with pippins and Hesperian fruit ; 
 This first step raised, to the wondering pit she sold 
 The lovely fruit smiling with streaks of gold. 
 
 * Among Mr. Akerman's " Tradesmen's Tokens current in London, 1648 to 
 1672," is that of " a strong water man." 
 
THE RESTORATION. 
 
 Nell was now an orange-girl, holding her basket 
 of fruit covered with vine -leaves in the pit of the 
 King's Theatre, and taking her stand with her 
 fellow fruit-women in the front-row of the pit, 
 with her back to the stage.* The cry of the 
 fruit - women, which Shadwell has preserved, 
 " Oranges ! will you have any oranges ? " f must 
 have come clear and invitingly from the lips of 
 Nell Gwyn. 
 
 She was ten years of age at the restoration 
 of King Charles II., in 1660. She was old 
 enough, therefore, to have noticed the extraordi- 
 nary change which the return of royalty effected in 
 the manners, customs, feelings, and even conver- 
 sation of the bulk of the people. The strict 
 observance of the Sabbath was no longer rigidly 
 enforced. Sir Charles Sedley and the Duke of 
 Buckingham rode in their coaches on a Sunday, and 
 the barber and the shoe-black shaved beards and 
 cleaned boots on the same day, without the overseers 
 of the poor of the parish inflicting fines on them for 
 such (as they were then thought) unseemly breaches 
 of the Sabbath. Maypoles were once more erected 
 on spots endeared by old associations, and the 
 
 * T. Shadwell's Works, iii. 173. 
 t Davies's Dramatic Miscellanies, iii. 464. 
 
THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 people again danced their old dances around them. 
 The Cavalier restored the royal insignia on his 
 fire-place to its old position ; the King's Head, the 
 Duke's Head, and the Crown were once more 
 favourite signs by which taverns were distinguished ; 
 drinking of healths and deep potations, with all their 
 Low-Country honours and observances, were again 
 in vogue. Oughtred, the mathematician, died of 
 joy, and Urquhart, the translator of Eahelais, of 
 laughter, at hearing of the enthusiasm of the 
 English to "welcome home old Eowley." * The 
 King's health 
 
 Here's a health unto his Majesty, with a fa, la, la,*|- 
 
 was made a pretext for the worst excesses, and 
 irreligion and indecency were thought to secure 
 
 * " Welcome home, old Rowley," is the name of the well-known Scottish tune 
 called " Had away frae me, Donald." See Johnson's Scott's Musical Museum, 
 iv. 318. 
 
 t One of the seven " Choice New English Ayres " in Songs and Fancies in 
 three, four, five parts, both apt for the Voices and Viols, with a brief Introduction 
 to Musick, as taught in the Musick-School of Aberdeen, third Edition, enlarged, 
 Aberdeen by Jo. Forbes, 1682, is 
 
 " Here's a health unto his Majesty, with a fa, la, la. 
 Conversion to his enemies, with a fa, la, la. 
 And he that will not pledge his health, 
 I wish him neither wit nor wealth, 
 Nor yet a rope to hang himself. 
 
 With a fa, la, la, la, 
 With a fa, la," &c. 
 
 The music appears to have been the composition of "Mr. John Savile." 
 Shadwell refers to the song, Works, ii.268; iii. 52. 
 
REVIVAL OF THE STAGE. 
 
 conversation against a suspicion of disloyalty and 
 fanaticism. Even the common people took to gay- 
 coloured dresses as before ; and a freedom of spirits, 
 rendered familiar by early recollection, and only 
 half subdued by Presbyterian persecution, was 
 confirmed by a licence of tongue which the young 
 men about court had acquired while in exile with 
 their sovereign. 
 
 Not the least striking effect of the restoration 
 of the King was the revival of the English theatres. 
 They had been closed and the players silenced 
 for three-and-twenty years, and in that space 
 a new generation had arisen, to whom the 
 entertainments of the stage were known but by 
 name. The theatres were now re-opened, and 
 with every advantage which stage properties, new 
 and improved scenery, and the costliest dresses, 
 could lend to help them forward. But there 
 were other advantages equally new, and of still 
 greater importance, but for which the name of 
 Eleanor Gwyn would in all likelihood never have 
 reached us. 
 
 From the earliest epoch of the stage in England 
 till the theatres were silenced at the outbreak 
 of the Civil War, female characters had invariably 
 been played by men, and during the same brilliant 
 
10 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 period of our dramatic history there is but one 
 instance of a sovereign witnessing a performance 
 at a public theatre. Henrietta Maria, though so 
 great a favourer of theatrical exhibitions, was 
 present once, and once only, at the theatre in 
 the Blackfriars. The plays of Shakespeare and 
 Ben Jonson, 
 
 Which so did take Eliza and our James, 
 
 were invariably seen by those sovereigns, as after- 
 wards by Charles I., in the halls, banqueting 
 houses, and cockpits attached to their palaces. 
 With the Restoration came women on the stage, 
 and the King and Queen, the Dukes of York and 
 Buckingham, the chief courtiers, and the maids of 
 honour, were among the constant frequenters of the 
 public theatres. 
 
 Great interest was used at the Restoration for the 
 erection of new theatres in London, but the King, 
 acting it is thought on the advice of Clarendon, who 
 wished to stem at all points the flood of idle gaiety 
 and dissipation, would not allow of more than two 
 the King's Theatre, under the control of Thomas 
 Killigrew, and the Duke's Theatre (so called in 
 compliment to his brother, the Duke of York), under 
 the direction of Sir William Davenant. Better men 
 
KING'S THEATRE. 11 
 
 for the purpose could not have been chosen. 
 Killigrew was one of the grooms of the bed-chamber 
 to the King, a well-known wit at court and a drama- 
 tist himself; and Davenant, who filled the office of 
 Poet Laureate in the household of the King, as he 
 had done before to his father, King Charles I., 
 had been a successful writer for the stage, while 
 Ben Jonson and Massinger were still alive. The 
 royal brothers patronised both houses with equal 
 earnestness, and the patentees vied with each 
 other in catering successfully for the public amuse- 
 ment. 
 
 The King's Theatre, or " The Theatre," as it was 
 commonly called, stood in Drury Lane, on the site 
 of the present building, and was the first theatre, as 
 the present is the fourth, erected on the site. It 
 was small, with few pretensions to architectural 
 beauty, and was first opened on the 8th of April, 
 1663, when Nell was a girl of thirteen. The chief 
 entrance was in Little Eussell Street, not as now in 
 Brydges Street. The stage was lighted with wax 
 candles, on brass censers or cressets. The pit lay 
 open to the weather for the sake of light, but was 
 subsequently covered in with a glazed cupola, which 
 however only imperfectly protected the audience, 
 so that in stormy weather the house was thrown 
 
 CFT"E 
 
 [UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF 
 
12 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 into disorder, and the people in the pit were fain 
 to rise. 
 
 The Duke's Theatre, commonly called " The 
 Opera," from the nature of its performances, stood 
 at the back of what is now the Royal College of 
 Surgeons in Portugal Row, on the south side of 
 Lincoln's Inn Fields. It was originally a tennis- 
 court, and, like its rival, was run up hurriedly to 
 meet the wants of the age. The interior arrange- 
 ments and accommodation were much the same as 
 at Killigrew's house. 
 
 The company at the King's Theatre included, 
 among the actors, at the first opening of the house, 
 Theophilus Bird, Charles Hart, Michael Mohun, 
 John Lacy, Nicholas Burt, William Cartwright, 
 William WintershaU, Walter Clun, Robert Shat- 
 terell, and Edward Kynaston; and Mrs. Corey, 
 Mrs. Ann Marshall, Mrs. Rebecca Marshall, Mrs. 
 Eastland, Mrs. Weaver, Mrs. Uphill, Mrs. Knep, 
 and Mrs. Hughes, were among the female per- 
 formers. Joe Haines, the low comedian, and 
 Cardell Goodman, the lover of the Duchess 
 of Cleveland, were subsequent accessions to the 
 troop ; and so also were Mrs. Boutell and 
 " Mrs. Ellen Gwyn." 
 
 Bird belonged to the former race of actors, and 
 
ACTORS AT THE KING'S THEATRE. 13 
 
 did not long survive the ^Restoration. Hart and 
 Clun had been bred up as boys at the Blackfriars to 
 act women's parts. Hart, who had served as a 
 captain in the King's army, rose to the summit of 
 Ms profession, but Clun was unfortunately killed 
 while his reputation was still on the increase. 
 Mohun had played at the Cockpit before the 
 Civil Wars, and had served as a captain under 
 the King, and afterwards in the same capacity 
 in Flanders, where he received the pay of a major ; 
 he was famous in lago and Cassius. Lacy, a native 
 of Yorkshire, was the Irish Johnstone and Tyrone 
 Power of his time. Burt, who had been a boy 
 first under Shank at the Blackfriars, and then 
 under Beeston at the Cockpit, was famous before 
 the Civil Wars for the part of Clariana in Shirley's 
 play of Love's Cruelty, and after the Eestoration 
 equally famous as Othello. Cartwright and Win- 
 tershall had belonged to the private house in 
 Salisbury Court. Cartwright won great renown in 
 Falstaff, and as one of the two kings of Brentford 
 in the farce of The Eehearsal. Wintershall played 
 Master Slender, for which Dennis the critic com- 
 mends him highly, and was celebrated for his 
 Cokes in Ben Jonson's Bartholomew Fair. Shat- 
 terell had been quarter-master in Sir Kobert 
 
14 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 Dallison's regiment of horse, the same in which 
 Hart had heen a lieutenant and Burt a cornet. 
 Kynaston acquired especial favour in female parts, 
 for which, indeed, he continued celebrated long 
 after the introduction of women on the stage. Such 
 were the actors at the King's House when Nell 
 Gwyn joined the company. 
 
 Mrs. Corey (the name Miss had then an improper 
 meaning, and the women though single were called 
 Mistresses) * played Abigail, in the Scornful Lady of 
 Beaumont and Fletcher; Sempronia, in Jonson's 
 Catiline ; and was the original Widow Blackacre in 
 Wycherley's Plain Dealer; Pepys calls her Doll 
 Common. The two Marshalls, Ann and Rebecca 
 (to whom I have already had occasion to refer), were 
 the younger daughters of the well-known Stephen 
 Marshall, the Presbyterian divine, who preached the 
 sermon at the funeral of John Pym. Mrs. Uphill was 
 first the mistress and then the wife of Sir Robert 
 Howard, the poet. Mrs. Knep was the wife of a 
 Smithfield horsedealer, and the mistress of Pepys. 
 Mrs. Hughes, better known as Peg, was the mistress 
 of Prince Rupert, by whom she had a daughter ; 
 and Mrs. Boutell was famous for playing Statira to 
 
 * The first unmarried actress who had Miss before her name on a playbill was 
 Miss Cross, the original Miss Hoyden in Vanbrugh's Eelapse. 
 
ACTORS AT THE DUKE'S HOUSE. 15 
 
 Mrs. Barry's Koxana, in Lee's impressive tragedy 
 of Alexander the Great. Such were the actresses 
 when Nell came among them. 
 
 Among the actors at the Duke's were Thomas 
 Betterton, the rival of Burbage and Garrick in the 
 well-earned greatness of his reputation, and the last 
 survivor of the old school of actors ; Joseph Harris, 
 the friend of Pepys, originally a seal-cutter, and 
 famous for acting Eomeo, Wolsey, and Sir Andrew 
 Aguecheek; William Smith, a barrister of Gray's 
 Inn, celebrated as Zanga in Lord Orrery's Mustapha; 
 Samuel Sandford, called by King Charles II. the 
 best representative of a villain in the world, and 
 praised both by Langbaine and Steele for his excel- 
 lence in his art ; James Nokes, originally a toyman 
 in Cornhill, famous for playing Sir Nicholas Cully 
 in Etherege's Love in a Tub, for his bawling fops, 
 and for his " good company ; " Cave Underbill, 
 clever as Cutter in Cowley's comedy, and as the 
 grave-digger in Hamlet, called by Steele "honest 
 Cave Underbill ; " and Matthew Medbourne, a 
 useful actor in parts not requiring any great 
 excellence. The women were, Elizabeth Daven- 
 port, the first Eoxolana in the Siege of Rhodes, 
 snatched from the stage to become the mistress 
 of the twentieth and last Earl of Oxford of the 
 
16 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 noble family of Vere; Mary Saunderson, famous 
 as Queen Katharine and Juliet, afterwards the wife 
 of the great Betterton ; Mary or Moll Davis, excel- 
 lent in singing and dancing, afterwards the mistress 
 of Charles II. ; Mrs. Long, the mistress of the Duke 
 of Kichinond,* celebrated for the elegance of her 
 appearance in men's clothes; Mrs. Norris, the 
 mother of Jubilee Dicky ; Mrs. Holden, daughter of 
 a bookseller to whom Betterton had been bound 
 apprentice; and Mrs. Jennings and Mrs. Johnson, 
 both taken from the stage by gallants of the town, 
 the former but little known as an actress, the latter 
 celebrated as a dancer and for her Carolina in 
 Shadwell's comedy of Epsom Wells. 
 
 Such were the performers at the Duke's house. 
 Anthony Leigh and Mrs. Barry, both brought 
 out at the same theatre, were accessions after 
 Davenant's death, and, as I see reason to believe, 
 after Nell Gwyn had ceased to be connected with 
 the stage. 
 
 The dresses at both houses were magnificent and 
 costly, but little or no attention w T as paid to costume. 
 The King, the Queen, the Duke, and several of the 
 richer nobility, gave their coronation suits to the 
 actors, and on extraordinary occasions a play was 
 
 * MS. note by Isaac Reed, in his copy of Downes's Roscius Anglicanus. 
 
THE PLAYS AT THE TWO HOUSES. 17 
 
 equipped at the expense of the King. Old court 
 dresses were contributed by the gentry, and birth- 
 day suits continued to be presented as late as the 
 reign of George III The scenery at the Duke's 
 House was superior to the King's, for Davenant, who 
 introduced the opera among us, introduced us at the 
 same time to local and expensive scenery. Battles 
 were no longer represented 
 
 With four or five most vile and ragged foils, 
 
 or coronations by a crown taken from a deal table 
 by a single attendant. 
 
 The old stock plays were divided by the two 
 companies. Killigrew had Othello, Julius Caesar, 
 Henry the Fourth, The Merry Wives of Windsor, A 
 Midsummer Night's Dream ; four of Ben Jonson's 
 plays The Alchemist, The Fox, The Silent Woman, 
 and Catiline ; and the best of Beaumont and Fletcher's 
 A King and No King, The Humorous Lieutenant, 
 Rule a Wife and have a Wife, The Maid's Tragedy, 
 Hollo, The Elder Brother, Philaster, and The 
 Scornful Lady ; with Massinger's Virgin Martyr and 
 Shirley's Traitor. Davenant played Hamlet, Lear, 
 Macbeth, Borneo and Juliet, Henry the Eighth, 
 Twelfth Night, and The Tempest; Webster's 
 Duchess of Main and Mad Lover ; Middleton's 
 
18 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 Young Changeling; Fletcher's Loyal Suhject and 
 Mad Lover ; and Massinger's Bondman. 
 
 The new plays at the King's House were con- 
 tributed by Sir Kobert Howard, Sir Charles Sedley, 
 Major Porter, Killigrew himself, Dryden, and Nat 
 Lee : at the Duke's House by Davenant, Cowley, 
 Etherege, Lord Orrery, and others. The new 
 tragedies were principally in rhyme. At the first 
 performance of a new comedy ladies seldom attended, 
 or, if at all, in masks such was the studied in- 
 decency of the art of that period. 
 
 The wits of Charles found easier ways to fame, 
 Nor wished for Jonson's art or Shakspeare's flame ; 
 Themselves they studied as they felt they writ 
 Intrigue was plot, obscenity was wit. 
 
 The performances commenced at three.* It was 
 usual, therefore, to dine beforehand, and when the 
 play was over to adjourn to the Mulberry Garden, 
 to Vauxhall, or some other place of public enter- 
 tainment 
 
 Thither run, 
 Some to undo, and some to be undone. 
 
 The prices of admission were, boxes four shillings, 
 pit two-and-sixpence, middle gallery eighteen-pence, 
 upper gallery one shilling. The ladies in the pit 
 
 * Plays began at one in Shakspeare's time, at three in Dryden's, at four in 
 Congreve's. In 1696 the hour was four. 
 
ANECDOTES OF THE ORANGE-GIRLS. 19 
 
 wore vizards or masks. The middle gallery was 
 long the favourite resort of Mr. and Mrs Pepys. 
 
 The upper gallery, as at present, was attended by 
 the poorest and the noisiest. Servants in livery 
 were admitted as soon as the fifth act commenced. 
 
 With the orange-girls (who stood as we have seen 
 in the pit, with their back to the stage) the beaux 
 about town were accustomed to break their jests ; * 
 and that the language employed was not of the most 
 delicate description, we may gather from the dialogue 
 of Dorimant, in Etherege's comedy of Sir Fopling 
 Flutter. 
 
 The mistress or superior of the girls was fami- 
 liarly known as Orange Moll, and filled the same 
 sort of office in the theatre that the mother of 
 the maids occupied at court among the maids of 
 honour. Both Sir William Penn and Pepys would 
 occasionally have " a great deal of discourse " with 
 Orange Moll ; and Mrs. Knep, the actress, when in 
 want of Pepys, sent Moll to the Clerk of the Acts 
 with the welcome message. To higgle about the 
 price of the fruit was thought beneath the character 
 of a gentleman. " The next step," says the Young 
 Gallant's Academy, " is to give a turn to the China 
 orange wench, and give her her own rate for her 
 
 * Prologue to Lord Rochester's Valentinian. T. Shadwell's Works, i. 199. 
 
 C 2 
 
20 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 oranges, (for 'tis below a gentleman to stand haggling 
 like a citizen's wife,) and then to present the fairest 
 to the next vizard mask." * Pepys, when challenged 
 in the pit for the price of twelve oranges which the 
 orange-woman said he owed her, but which he says 
 was wholly untrue, was not content with denying 
 the debt, " but for quiet bought four shillings' worth 
 of oranges from her at sixpence a-piece." t This 
 was a high price, but the Clerk of the Acts was true 
 to the direction in the Gallant's Academy. 
 
 * The Young Gallant's Academy, or Directions how he should behave in all 
 places and company. By Sam. Overcome, 1674. 
 t Half-Crown my Play, Sixpence my Orange cost. 
 
 Prologue to Mrs. Behris Young King, 1698. 
 
 Nor furiously laid Orange- Wench a-board 
 For asking what in fruit and love you'd scor'd. 
 
 Butler, a Panegyric on Sir John Deriham. 
 
 When trading grows scant, they join all their forces together, and make up 
 one grand show, and admit the cut-purse and ballad-singer to trade under them, 
 as orange-women do at a Playhouse. 
 
 Butler, Character of a Jugler. 
 
 Mr. Vain. I can't imagine how I first came to be of this humour, unless 'twere 
 hearing the orange-wenches talk of ladies and their gallants. So I began to 
 think I had no way of being in the fashion, but bragging of mistresses. 
 
 Hon. James Howard, the English Monsieur, p. 4, 4fo>, 1674. 
 
 Mrs. Crafty. This life of mine can last no longer than my beauty, and though 
 'tis pleasant now, I want nothing whilst I am Mr. Welbred's mistress, yet, if 
 his mind should change, I might e'en sell oranges for my living, and he not buy 
 one of me to relieve me. Ibid. p. 10. 
 
 She outdoes a playhouse orange-woman for the politick management of a 
 bawdy intrigue. 
 
 Tunbridge Wells, a Comedy, 4to, 1678. 
 
 In former times, a play of humour, or with a good plot, could certainly please ; 
 but now a poet must find out a third way, and adapt his scenes and story to the 
 genius of the critic, if he'd have it pass ; he'll have nothing to do with your dull 
 Spanish plot, for whilst he's rallying with the orange-wench, the business of the 
 
PEPYS AND THE ORANGE-WOMAN. 21 
 
 act gets quite out of his head, and then 'tis '' Damme, what stuff's this ? " he sees 
 neither head nor tail to't. 
 
 If Urfey, Preface to the Banditti, 4to, 1686 
 
 The noble peer may to the play repair, 
 Court the pert damsel with her China-ware 
 Nay marry her if he please no one will care. 
 
 Z>' Urfey, Prologue to a Fools Preferment, ito, 1688. 
 
 The orange-miss that here cajoles the Duke 
 May sell her rotten ware without rebuke. 
 
 U Urfey, Prologue to Don Quixote, Part I., 4to, 1694. 
 
CHAPTEK II. 
 
 Pepys introduces us to Nelly Character of Pepys Nelly at the 
 Duke's Theatre Who was Duncan? Nell's parts as Lady 
 Wealthy, Enanthe, and Florimel Charles Hart Nell's 
 lodgings in Drury Lane Description of Drury Lane in the 
 reign of Charles II. The May-pole in the Strand Nell and 
 Lord Buckhurst Position in society of Actors and Actresses 
 Character of Lord Buckhurst Nelly at Epsom. 
 
 OUR earliest introduction to Nell Gwyn we owe to 
 Pepys. This precise and lively diarist (who makes 
 us live in his own circle of amusements, by the truth 
 and quaintness of his descriptions), was a constant 
 play-goer. To see and to be seen, when the work 
 of his office was over, were the leading objects of his 
 thoughts. Few novelties escaped him, for he never 
 allowed his love of money to interfere with the grati- 
 fication of his wishes. His situation, as Clerk of 
 the Acts, in the Navy-office, while the Duke of York 
 was Lord High Admiral, gave him a taste for the 
 entertainments which his master enjoyed. He loved 
 to be found wherever the King and his brother were. 
 
PEPYS AND MRS. KNEP. 23 
 
 He was fond of music, could prick down a few notes 
 for himself, and when his portrait was painted by 
 Hales, was drawn holding in his hand the music 
 which he had composed for a favourite passage in 
 the Siege of Rhodes.* He was known to many of 
 the players, and often asked them to dinner, now 
 and then not much to the satisfaction, as he tells us, 
 of his wife. Mrs. Knep, of the King's House, and 
 Joseph Harris of the Duke's (to both of whom I 
 have already introduced the reader) were two of his 
 especial favourites. The gossip and scandal of the 
 green-room of Drury Lane and Lincoln's-Inn-Fields 
 were in this way known to him, and what he failed 
 to obtain behind the scenes he would learn from the 
 orange-women at both houses. 
 
 Nell was in her sixteenth, and Mr. Pepys in his 
 thirty-fourth year, when, on Monday, the 3rd of 
 
 * This hitherto unengraved portrait was bought by me at the sale, in 1848, of 
 the pictures, &c., of the family of Pepys Cockerell. It was called by the 
 auctioneer " portrait of a Musician," but is unquestionably the picture referred 
 to by Pepys in the following passages of his Diary : 
 
 " 1666, March 17. To Hales's, and paid him 14 for the picture, and 1 5s. for 
 the frame. This day I began to sit, and he will make me, I think, a very fine 
 picture. He promises it shall be as good as my wife's, and I sit to have it full 
 of shadows, and do almost break my neck looking over my shoulder to make the 
 posture for him to work by. 
 
 " March 30. To Hales's, and there sat till almost quite dark upon working my 
 gowne, which I hired to be drawn in ; an Indian gowne. 
 
 "April 11. To Hales's, where there was nothing found to be done more to 
 my picture, but the musique, which now pleases me mightily, it being painted 
 true." 
 
 See also The Athenaeum for 1848. Lord Braybrooke (Pepys, vol. iii. p. 178) 
 doubts the likeness, but admits that the portrait answers the description. 
 
24 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 April, 1665, they would appear to have seen one 
 another for the first time. They met at the Duke's 
 Theatre in Lincoln's-Inn-Fields during the perform- 
 ance of Mustapha, a tragedy, by the Earl of Orrery, 
 in which Betterton played the part of Solyman, 
 Harris that of Mustapha, and Mrs. or Miss Davis 
 that of the Queen of Hungaria. Great care had 
 been taken to produce this now long-forgotten 
 tragedy with the utmost magnificence. All the 
 parts were newly clothed, and new scenes had been 
 painted expressly for it. Yet we are told by Pepys 
 that " all the pleasure of the play " was in the cir- 
 cumstance that the King and my Lady Castleniaine 
 were there, and that he sat next to " pretty witty 
 Nell at the King's House " and to the younger 
 Marshall, another actress at the same theatre a 
 circumstance, he adds, with his usual quaint honesty 
 of remark, " which pleased me mightily." Yet the 
 play was a good one in Pepys's eyes. Nine months 
 later he calls it " a most excellent play ; " and when 
 he saw it again, after an interval of more than two 
 years, he describes it as one he liked better the more 
 he saw it: "a most admirable poem and bravely 
 acted."* His after entries therefore more than 
 confirm the truth of his earlier impressions. The 
 
 * Pepys, Sept. 4 1667. 
 
26 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 real pleasure of the play, however, was that he sat 
 by the side of " pretty witty Nell," whose foot has 
 been described as the least of any woman's in 
 England,* and to Kebecca Marshall, whose handsome 
 hand he has carefully noted in another entry in his 
 Diary. The small feet peeping occasionally from 
 beneath a petticoat, and the handsome hands raised 
 now and then to check a vagrant curl, must have 
 held the Clerk of the Acts in a continual state of 
 torture. 
 
 There was a novelty that night which had 
 doubtless drawn Nell and old Stephen Marshall's 
 younger daughter to the pit of Lincoln's Inn Fields. 
 Mrs. Betterton was playing Koxolana in place of 
 the elder Davenport, and Moll Davis had begun to 
 attract the notice of some of the courtiers, and, as 
 it was whispered, of the King himself. The old 
 Koxolana had become the mistress of the twentieth 
 and last earl of the great race of Yere ; and Nell, 
 while she reflected on what she may have thought to 
 have been the good fortune of her fellow actress 
 might have had her envy appeased could she have 
 foreseen that she should give birth to a son (the 
 mother an orange-girl, the father the King of 
 England), destined to obtain a dukedom in her own 
 
 * Oldys, in Curll's History of the Stage, p. 111. 
 
NELLY AN ACTRESS. 27 
 
 lifetime, and afterwards to marry the heiress of the 
 very earl who had taken the old Eoxolana from 
 a rival stage first to deceive and afterwards to 
 desert her. 
 
 Nell was indebted, there is reason to helieve, for 
 her introduction to the stage, or at least to another 
 condition in life, to a person whose name is variously 
 written as Duncan and as Dungan. Oldys, who 
 calls him Duncan, had heard that he was a merchant, 
 and that he had taken a fancy to her from her smart 
 wit, fine shape, and the smallness of her feet. The 
 information of Oldys is confirmed hy the satire of 
 Etherege, who adds, much to the credit of Nelly, 
 that she remembered in after years the friend of her 
 youth, and that to her interest it was he owed his 
 appointment in the Guards. To sift and exhibit the 
 equal mixture of truth and error in these accounts 
 would not repay the reader for the trouble I should 
 occasion him. I have sifted them myself, and see 
 reason to believe that Oldys was wrong in calling 
 him a merchant ; while I suspect that the Duncan 
 commemorated by Etherege, in his satire upon 
 Nelly, was the Dongan described by De Grammont 
 as a gentleman of merit who succeeded Duras, after- 
 wards Earl of Feversham, in the post of Lieutenant 
 in the Duke's Life Guards. That there was a 
 
28 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 lieutenant of this name in the Duke's Life Guards 
 I have ascertained from official documents. He was 
 a cadet of the house of Limerick, and his Christian 
 name was Eobert. If there is truth in De Gram- 
 mont's account, he died in or before 1669. A Colonel 
 Dungan was Governor of New York in the reign of 
 James II.* 
 
 Such, then, is all that can be ascertained, after 
 full inquiry, of this Duncan or Dungan, by whom 
 Nelly is said to have been lifted from her very 
 humble condition in life. Such indeed is the whole 
 of the information I have been able to obtain about 
 " pretty witty Nell " from her birth to the winter of 
 1666, when we again hear of her through the inde- 
 fatigable Pepys. How her life was passed during 
 the fearful Plague season of 1665, or where she was 
 during the Great Fire of London in the following year, 
 it is now useless to conjecture. The transition from 
 the orange-girl to the actress may easily be imagined 
 without the intervention of any Mr. Dungan. The 
 pert vivacity and ready wit she exhibited in later 
 life, must have received early encouragement and 
 cultivation from the warmth of language the men of 
 sort and quality employed in speaking to all classes 
 
 * Secret Service Expenses of Charles II. and James II., p. 195. There is in 
 one of Etherege's MS. satires a very coarse allusion to Duugan and Nelly. 
 
HER FIRST APPEARANCE ON THE STAGE. 29 
 
 of females. This very readiness was her recom- 
 mendation to Killigrew, to say nothing of her beauty 
 or the merry laugh, which is said in after life to have 
 pervaded her face till her eyes were almost invisible.* 
 As we owe our first introduction to Nelly to the 
 Clerk of the Acts, so to him are we indebted for the 
 earliest notice yet discovered of her appearance on 
 the stage. Her part was that of the principal female 
 character in a comedy (The English Monsieur) by 
 the Hon. James Howard, a son of the Earl of Berk- 
 shire, the brother-in-law of Dryden, and brother of 
 Philip, an officer in the King's Guards, and of 
 Robert and Edward Howard, both also writers for 
 the stage. But these, as we shall see hereafter, were 
 not the only connexions with the stage of the Berk- 
 shire Howards. There is not much story in the 
 English Monsieur, much force of character, or any 
 particular vivacity in the dialogue. It is, how- 
 ever, very easy to see that the situations must have 
 told with the audience for whom they were intended, 
 and that the part of Lady Wealthy was one particu- 
 larly adapted to the genius of Nell Gwyn ; a part, 
 in all probability written expressly for her. Lady 
 Wealthy is a rich widow, with perfect knowledge of 
 the importance of wealth and beauty, a good heart, 
 
 * The London Chronicle, for Aug. 1518, 1778; Waldron's Downes,p.l9. 
 
30 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 and a fine full vein of humour, a woman, in short, 
 that teases, and at last reforms and marries, the 
 lover she is true to. The humour of the following 
 dialogue will allow the reader to imagine much of 
 the bye-play conducive to its success. 
 
 Lady Wealthy. When will I marry you ! When will I love ye, 
 you should ask first. 
 
 Welbred. Why 1 don't ye ? 
 
 Lady W. Why, do 1 1 Did you ever hear me say I did ? 
 
 Welbred. I never heard you say you did not. 
 
 Lady W. I'll say so now, then, if you long. 
 
 Welbred. By no means. Say not a thing in haste you may 
 repent at leisure. 
 
 Lady W. Come, leave your fooling, or I'll swear it. 
 
 Welbred. Don't, widow, for then you'll lie too. 
 
 Lady W. Indeed it seems 'tis for my money you would have me. 
 
 Welbred. For that, and something else you" have. 
 
 Lady W. Well, I'll lay a wager thou hast lost all thy money at 
 play, for then you're always in a marrying humour. But, d'ye hear, 
 gentleman, d'ye think to gain me with this careless way, or that I 
 will marry one I don't think is in love with me ] 
 
 Welbred. Why, I am. 
 
 Lady W. Then you would not be so merry. People in love are 
 sad, and many times weep. 
 
 Welbred. That will never do for thee, widow. 
 
 Lady W. And why ? 
 
 Welbred. 'Twould argue me a child ; and I am confident if thou 
 didst not verily believe I were a man, I should ne'er be thy husband. 
 .... Weep for thee ! ha ! ha ! ha ! if e'er I do ! 
 
 Lady W. Go, hang yourself. 
 
 Welbred. Thank you, for your advice. 
 
 Lady W. When, then, shall I see you again ? 
 
 Welbred. When I have a mind to it. Come, I'll lead you to 
 your coach for once. 
 
 W. And I'll let you for once. [Exeunt. 
 
PARTS PLAYED BY NELLY. 31 
 
 Pepys, who saw it on the 8th Dec., 1666, commends 
 it highly. " To the King's House, and there," his 
 entry runs, " did see a good part of the English 
 Monsieur, which is a mighty pretty play, very witty 
 and pleasant. And the women do very well ; but 
 above all, little Nelly ; that I am mightily pleased 
 with the play, and much with the house, the women 
 doing better than I expected; and very fair women." 
 Nor was his admiration abated when he saw it many 
 months afterwards, 7th April, 1668, at the same 
 house. 
 
 Nell's success on the stage was such that she was 
 soon called to represent prominent parts in the 
 stock plays of her company. What these parts were, 
 is, I believe, with very few exceptions, altogether 
 unknown. One part, however, has reached us that 
 of Enanthe, or Celia, in the Humourous Lieutenant 
 of Beaumont and Fletcher, a play that was long a 
 favourite with the public continuing to be frequently 
 acted, and always with applause, throughout the reign 
 of Charles II. The wit and fine poetry of the part of 
 Celia are known to the readers of our English drama, 
 nor is it difficult to conceive how effectively language 
 like the following must have come from the lips of 
 Nell Gwyn. She is in poor attire amid a mob, when 
 she sees the King's son : 
 
THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 Was it the prince they said 1 How my heart trembles ! 
 
 [Enter Demetrius, with a javelin in his hand. 
 'Tis he indeed : what a sweet noble fierceness 
 Dwells in his eyes ! Young Meleager-like, 
 
 When he returned from slaughter of the boar, 
 Crown'd with the loves and honours of the people, 
 With all the gallant youth of Greece, he looks now 
 Who could deny him love ? 
 
 On one occasion of its performance Pepys was 
 present, and though he calls it a silly play, his 
 reader smiles at his bad taste, while he is grateful 
 for the information that when the play was over he 
 had gone with his wife behind the scenes, through 
 the introduction of Mrs. Knep, who " brought to us 
 Nelly, a most pretty woman, who acted the great 
 part of Celia to-day very fine, and did it pretty well. 
 I kissed her, and so did my wife, and a mighty pretty 
 soul she is." Nor was his chronicle of the day con- 
 cluded without a fresh expression of pleasure at 
 what he had seen, summing up all as he does with 
 the satisfactory words " specially kissing of Nell." * 
 The remark of Walter Scott will occur to many, 
 " it is just as well that Mrs. Pepys was present on 
 this occasion." 
 
 Her skill increasing with her years, other poets 
 sought to obtain the recommendations of her wit 
 and beauty to the success of their writings. I have 
 
 * Pepys, Jan. 23, 1666-7. Mr. Augustus Egg, A.K A., has painted a clever 
 picture from this passage. 
 
TLAYS FLORIMEL IN DRYDEN'S NEW PLAY. 33 
 
 said that Dryden was one of the principal supporters 
 of the King's House, and ere long in one of his new 
 plays a principal character was set apart for the 
 popular comedian. The drama was a tragi-comedy 
 called " Secret Love, or, the Maiden Queen" and an 
 additional interest was attached to its production, 
 from the King having suggested the plot to its 
 author, and calling it "his play." The dramatis 
 personse consist, curiously enough, of eight female, 
 and only three male parts. Good acting was not 
 wanting to forward its success. Mohun, Hart, and 
 Burt, three of the best performers then on the stage, 
 filled the only male parts while Mrs. Marshall, 
 Mrs. Knep, " Mrs. Eleanor Gwyn," and Mrs. Corey, 
 sustained the principal female characters. The 
 tragic scenes have little to recommend them; but 
 the reputation of the piece was thought to have been 
 redeemed by the excellence of the alloy of comedy, 
 as Dryden calls it, in which it was generally agreed 
 he was seldom happier. Even here, however, his 
 dialogue wants that easy, brisk, pert character 
 which Congreve, Vanbrugh, and Farquhar afterwards 
 brought to such inimitable perfection, and of winch 
 Etherege alone affords a satisfactory example in the 
 reign of Charles II. 
 
 The first afternoon of the new play was the 
 
34 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 2nd of February, 1666-7. The King and the Duke 
 of York were both present : so too were both 
 Mr. and Mrs. Pepys, who had heard the play 
 mightily commended for the regularity of its story, 
 and what Mr. Pepys is pleased to call " the strain 
 and wit." The chief parts (its author tells us) were 
 performed to a height of great excellence, both 
 serious and comic ; and it was well received. The 
 King objected, indeed, to the management of the 
 last scene, where Celadon and Florimel (Hart and 
 Nelly) are treating too lightly of their marriage in 
 the presence of the Queen. But Pepys would not 
 appear to have seen any defect of this description. 
 " The truth is," he says, " there is a comical part 
 done by Nell, which is Florimel, that I never can 
 hope ever to see the like done again by man or 
 
 woman So great performance of a comical 
 
 part was never I believe in the world before as 
 Nell do this, both as a mad girl, then most and 
 best of all when she comes in like a young gallant, 
 and hath the motion and carriage of a spark the 
 most that ever I saw any man have. It makes 
 me, I confess, admire her." Nor did the worthy 
 critic change his opinion. He calls it, after his 
 second visit, an "excellent play, and so done by 
 Nell her merry part as cannot be better done in 
 
GOOD AS FLORIMEL. 35 
 
 nature."* Wliile after his third visit he observes 
 that it is impossible to have Florimel's part, which 
 is the most comical that ever was made for woman, 
 ever done better than it is by Nelly.f 
 
 The support of the performance rested, it must be 
 owned, on Hart's character of Celadon and on 
 Nelly's part of Florimel. Nell indeed had to sustain 
 the heavier burden of the piece. She is seldom off 
 the stage all the loose rattle of dialogue belongs to 
 her, nay more, she appears in the fifth act in male 
 attire, dances a jig in the same act, often of itself 
 sufficient to save a play, and ultimately speaks the 
 epilogue in defence of the author ; 
 
 I left my client yonder in a rant 
 
 Against the envious and the ignorant, 
 
 Who are he says his only enemies ; 
 
 But he contemns their malice, and defies 
 
 The sharpest of his censurers to say 
 
 Where there is one gross fault in all his play, 
 
 The language is so fitted to each part, 
 
 The plot according to the rules of art; 
 
 And twenty other things he bid me tell you, 
 
 But I cry'd " E'en go do't yourself, for Nelly ! " 
 
 There are incidents and allusions in the parts of 
 Celadon and Florimel which must have carried a 
 personal application to those who were, speaking 
 technically, behind the scenes. Nelly, if not actually 
 
 * Fepys, March 25, 1667. t Pepys, May 24, 1667. 
 
 D 2 
 
36 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 the mistress at this time of Charles Hart, was 
 certainly looked upon by many as very little less. 
 Their marriage in the play is more of a Fleet or 
 May Fair mockery than a religious ceremony, as 
 if, to use Florimel's own language, they were married 
 by the more agreeable names of mistress and gallant, 
 rather than those dull old-fashioned ones of husband 
 and wife. 
 
 Florimel, it appears to me, must have been Nelly's 
 chef d'oeuvre in her art. I can hear her exclaiming 
 with a prophetic feeling of its truth, " I am resolved 
 to grow fat and look young till forty, and then slip 
 out of the world with the first wrinkle and the 
 reputation of five -and- twenty ; " while I can picture 
 to myself, as my readers will easily do, Nelly in 
 boy's clothes, dressed to the admiration of Etherege 
 and Sedley, scanned from head to foot with much 
 surprise by Mr. Pepys and Sir William Penn, 
 viewed with other feelings by Lord Buckhurst on 
 one side of the house, and by the King himself on 
 the other, while to the admiration of the author, and 
 of the whole audience, she exclaims, with wonderful 
 bye-play, " Yonder they are, and this way they 
 must come. If clothes and a bonne mien will take 'm 
 I shall do't. Save you, Monsieur Florimel ! Faith, 
 methinks you are a very janty fellow, poudre et 
 
HER LODGING IN DRURY LANE. 37 
 
 ajuste as well as the best of 'em. I can manage 
 the little comb set my hat, shake my garniture, 
 toss about my empty noddle, walk with a courant 
 slur, and at every step peck down my head : if 
 I should be mistaken for some courtier, now, pray 
 where's the difference ? " This was what Beau 
 Hewit or Beau Fielding were enacting every day 
 in their lives, and Colley Gibber lived to" be the last 
 actor who either felt or could make others feel its 
 truth and application. 
 
 Nelly was living at this time in the fashionable 
 part of Drury Lane, the Strand or Covent Garden 
 end, for Drury Lane in the days of Charles II. was 
 inhabited by a very different class of people from 
 those who now occupy it or, indeed, who have 
 lived in it since the time Gay guarded us from 
 " Drury's mazy courts and dark abodes" since Pope 
 described it only too truly as peopled by drabs of 
 the lowest character, and by authors " lulled by soft 
 zephyrs," through the broken pane of a garret 
 window. The upper end, towards St. Giles's Pound 
 and Montague House, had its squalid quarters, like 
 Lewknor's Lane and the Coal Yard, in which, as we 
 have concluded, our Nelly was born ; but at the 
 Strand end lived the Earl of Anglesey, long Lord 
 Privy Seal, and the Earls of Clare and Craven, 
 
38 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 whose names are still perpetuated in Clare Market 
 and Craven Yard. Drury Lane, when Nelly was 
 living there, was a kind of Park Lane of the present 
 day, made up of noblemen's mansions, small houses, 
 inns and stable -yards. Nor need the similitude be 
 thus restricted; for the Piazza of Covent Garden 
 was then to Drury Lane what Grosvenor Square is 
 at present to Park Lane. Squalid quarters indeed 
 have always been near neighbours to lordly localities. 
 When Nelly lodged in Drury Lane, Covent Garden 
 had its Lewknor Lane, and Lincoln's Inn Fields 
 their Whetstone Park. Belgravia has now its Tothill 
 Street Portman Square has its contaminating 
 neighbourhood of Calmel Buildings and one of the 
 most infamous of alleys is within half a stone's throw 
 of St. James's Palace ! 
 
 Nelly's lodgings were near the lodgings of Lacy 
 the actor, at the top of Maypole Alley, 
 
 Where Drury Lane descends into the Strand, 
 
 and over against the gate of Craven House. The 
 look-out afforded a peep into a part of Wych Street, 
 and while standing at the doorway you could see the 
 far-famed Maypole in the Strand, at the bottom of 
 the alley to which it had lent its name. 
 
 This Maypole, long a conspicuous ornament to 
 
DRURY LANE. 
 
 the west- end of London, rose to a great height above 
 the surrounding houses, and was surmounted by a 
 
 Nell at her lodgings-door in Drury Lane. The Maypole 
 in the Strand restored. 
 
40 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 crown and vane, with the royal arms richly gilded. 
 It had been set up again immediately after the 
 Restoration. Great ceremonies attended its erection : 
 twelve picked seamen superintending the tackle, and 
 ancient people clapping their hands and exclaiming, 
 " Golden days begin to appear ! " Nelly must have 
 remembered the erection of the Maypole at the 
 bottom of the lane in which she was born ; but there 
 is little save some gable-ends and old timber-fronts 
 near her " lodgings -door" to assist in carrying the 
 mind back to the days of the Maypole and the 
 merry monarch whose recall it was designed to 
 commemorate. 
 
 Among the many little domestic incidents perpe- 
 tuated by Pepys, there are few to which I would 
 sooner have been a witness than the picture he has 
 left us of Nelly standing at her door watching the 
 milkmaids on May- day. The Clerk of the Acts on 
 his way from Seething Lane in the City, met, he 
 tells us, " many milkmaids with garlands upon their 
 pails, dancing with a fiddle before them," and saw 
 pretty Nelly standing at her lodgings -door in Drury 
 Lane in her smock sleeves and bodice looking upon 
 one. " She seemed," he adds, " a mighty pretty 
 creature." This was in 1667, while her recent 
 triumphs on the stage were still fresh at Court, and 
 
MISS DAVIS. 41 
 
 the obscurity of her hirth was a common topic of 
 talk and banter among the less fortunate inhabitants 
 of the lane she lived in. The scene so lightly 
 sketched by Pepys might furnish no unfitting subject 
 for the pencil of Leslie or Maclise a subject indeed 
 which would shine in their hands. That absence of 
 all false pride, that innate love of unaffected nature, 
 and that fondness for the simple sports of the people 
 which the incident exhibits, are characteristics of 
 Nelly from the first moment to the last following 
 her naturally, and sitting alike easily and gracefully 
 upon her, whether at her humble lodgings in Drury 
 Lane, at her handsome house in Pall Mall, or even 
 under the gorgeous cornices of Whitehall. 
 
 But I have no intention of finding a model 
 heroine in a coal-yard, or any wish either to palliate 
 or condemn too severely the frailties of the woman 
 whose story I have attempted to relate. It was 
 therefore within a very few months of the May- day 
 scene I have just described, that whispers asserted, 
 and the news was soon published in every coffee- 
 house in London, how little Miss Davis of the 
 Duke's House had become the mistress of the King, 
 and Nell Gwyn at the other theatre the mistress of 
 Lord Buckhurst. Whoever is at all conversant 
 with the manners and customs of London life in 
 
42 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 the reign of Charles II. will confirm me in the 
 statement that two such announcements, even at 
 the same time, would cause but little surprise, or 
 indeed any other feeling than that of envy at 
 their good luck. With the single exception of 
 Mrs. Betterton, there was not, I believe, an actress 
 at either theatre who had not been or was 
 not then the mistress of some person about the 
 Court. Actors were looked upon as little better 
 than shopmen or servants. When the Honourable 
 Edward Howard was struck by Lacy of the King's 
 House, a very general feeling prevailed that Howard 
 should have run his sword through the menial body 
 of the actor. Nor was this feeling altogether 
 extinguished till the period of the Kembles. It 
 was entirely owing to the exertions of the great 
 Lord Mansfield, that Arthur Murphy, less than 
 a century ago, was allowed to enter his name on the 
 books of Lincoln's Inn. He had been previously 
 refused by the Benchers of the Middle Temple, for 
 no other reason than that he had been an actor. 
 Nay, George Selwyn, it is well known, excluded 
 Brinsley Sheridan from Brooks' s on three occasions 
 because his father had been upon the stage. 
 
 Nor did actresses fare better than actors. If 
 anything, indeed, they were still worse treated. 
 
SOCIAL CONDITION OF PLAYERS. 43 
 
 They were looked upon as women of the worst 
 character, possessed of no inclination or induce- 
 ment to virtue. Few, indeed, were found to share 
 the sentiment expressed by one of ShadwelTs man- 
 liest characters, " I love the stage too well to keep 
 any of their women, to make 'em proud and insolent 
 and despise that calling to take up a worse." The 
 frailty of " playhouse flesh and blood " * afforded a 
 common topic for the poet in his prologue or his 
 epilogue, and other writers than Lee might be found 
 who complain of the practice of " keeping " as a 
 grievance to the stage.f Davenant, foreseeing their 
 fate from an absence of any control, boarded his 
 four principal actresses in his own house ; but, with 
 one exception (that of Mrs. Betterton before referred 
 to), the precaution was altogether without effect. 
 The King, Prince Eupert, the Duke of Eichmond, 
 the Earl of Oxford, Lord Buckhurst, Sir Charles 
 Sedley, Sir Philip Howard, his brother Sir Eobert 
 Howard, were all successful in the arts of seduction 
 or inducement. So bad indeed was the moral dis- 
 cipline of the times, that even Mrs. Knep, loose as 
 were her notions of virtue, could see the necessity of 
 parting with a pretty servant girl, as the tiring-room 
 
 * Dryden's Prologue to Marriage a la Mode, 
 f Epilogue to The Rival Queens. 
 
44 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 was no place for the preservation of her innocence.* 
 The virtuous life of Mrs. Bracegirdle, and her 
 spirited rebuke to the Earl of Burlington, stand out 
 in noble relief from the conduct of her fellow 
 actresses. The Earl had sent her a letter, and a 
 present of a handsome set of china. The charming 
 actress retained the letter and informed the servant 
 of the mistake. The letter, she said, was for her, 
 but the china was for Lady Burlington. When 
 the Earl returned home he found his Countess all 
 happiness at the unexpected present from her 
 husband.f 
 
 Times, however, changed after Nelly had gone, 
 and the Stuarts had ceased to reign, for ennobled 
 actresses are now common enough in the English 
 peerage. Other changes too took place. Mrs. Barry 
 walked home in her clogs, and Mrs. Bracegirdle in 
 her pattens; but Mrs. Oldfield went away in her 
 chair,! and Lavinia Fenton (the original Polly 
 Peachum) rolled westward in her coroneted carriage 
 as Duchess of Bolton. 
 
 It says little for the morality of London in the 
 
 * Pepys, April 7, 1668. 
 
 t Walpole to Mann, (Mann Letters,) Hi. 254. + Walpole, May 26, 1742. 
 
 % Mr. Murray, of Albemarle Street, possesses Hogarth's interesting picture of 
 the first representation of the Beggar's Opera, in its original frame. Here his 
 Grace of Bolton is gazing upon Polly from one stage-box while in the other, 
 Bolingbroke is seated by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. 
 
SACKVILLE, LORD BUCKHURST. 45 
 
 reign of Charles II., but something for the taste 
 of the humble orange -girl, that the lover who had 
 attracted her, and with whom she was now living 
 in the lovely neighbourhood of Epsom, was long 
 looked up to as the best bred man of his age : 
 
 None ever had so strange an art 
 
 His passion to convey 
 Into a list'ning virgin's heart, 
 
 And steal her soul away.* 
 
 But Buckhurst had other qualities to recommend 
 him than his youth (he was thirty at this time), 
 his rank, his good heart, and his good breeding. 
 He had already distinguished himself by his per- 
 sonal intrepidity in the war against the Dutch; 
 had written the best song of its kind in the 
 English language, and some of the severest and 
 most refined satires we possess ; was the friend of 
 all the poets of eminence in his time, as he w r as 
 afterwards the most munificent patron of men of 
 genius that this country has yet seen. The most 
 eminent masters in their several lines asked and 
 abided by his judgment, and afterwards dedicated 
 their works to him in grateful acknowledgment of 
 his taste and favours. Butler owed to him that 
 
 * Song by Sir C. S. [Sir Carr Scroope or Sir Charles Sedley] in Etherege's 
 Man of Mode, or Sir Fopling Flutter. 
 
46 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 the Court " tasted " his Hudibras ; Wycherley that 
 the town "liked" his Plain Dealer; and the Duke 
 of Buckingham deferred to publish his Rehearsal 
 till he was sure, as he expressed it, that my Lord 
 Buckhurst would not "rehearse" upon him again. 
 Nor was this all. His table was one of the last that 
 gave us an example of the old housekeeping of an 
 English nobleman. A freedom reigned about it 
 which made every one of the guests think himself 
 at home, and an abundance which showed that the 
 master's hospitality extended to many more than those 
 who had the honour to sit at table with himself.* 
 Nor has he been less happy after death. Pope wrote 
 his epitaph and Prior his panegyric while Walpole 
 and Macaulay (two men with so little apparently in 
 common) have drawn his character with a warmth 
 of approbation rather to have been expected from 
 those who had shared his bounty or enjoyed his 
 friendship, than from the colder judgments of his- 
 torians looking back calmly upon personages who had 
 long ceased to influence or affect society. 
 
 With such a man, and with Sedley's resistless 
 wit to add fresh vigour to the conversation, it is 
 easy to understand what Pepys had heard, that 
 
 * Prior's Dedication of his Poems to Lord Buckhurst's son, Lionel, first Duke 
 of Dorset. 
 
BUCKHURST AND SEDLEY. 47 
 
 Lord Buckhnrst and Nelly kept " merry house " at 
 Epsom, 
 
 All hearts fall a-leaping wherever she comes, 
 
 And beat night and day like my Lord Craven's drums. * 
 
 What this Epsom life was like shall be the subject 
 of another Chapter. 
 
 * Song by Lord Buckhurst. 
 
CHAPTEK III. 
 
 Epsom in the reign of Charles II. England in 1667 Nelly resumes 
 her Engagement at the King's Theatre Inferior in Tragedy to 
 Comedy Plays Mirida in "All Mistaken" Miss Davis of the 
 Duke's Theatre Her song, " My Lodging it is on the Cold 
 Ground," parodied by Nell Influence of the Duke of Bucking- 
 ham in controlling the predilections of the King Charles II. 
 at the Duke's Theatre Nelly has leading parts in three of 
 Dryden's new Plays Buckhurst is made a Gentleman of the 
 Bedchamber, promised a peerage and sent on a sleeveless errand 
 into France Nell becomes the Mistress of the King Plays 
 Almahide in " The Conquest of Granada " The King more 
 than ever enamoured Parallel case of Perdita Robinson and 
 George IV. 
 
 NELLY was now at Epsom, then and long after the 
 fashionable resort of the richer citizens of London. 
 " The foolish world is never to be mended," is 
 the remark of " a gentleman of wit and sense " in 
 Shadwell's comedy of The Virtuoso. "Your glass 
 coach," he says, "will to Hyde Park for air; the 
 suburb fools trudge to Lamb's Conduit or Totten- 
 ham ; your sprucer sort of citizens gallop to Epsom ; 
 your mechanic gross fellows, shewing much conjugal 
 affection, strut before their wifes, each with a child 
 in his arms, to Islington or Hogsden." The same 
 
NELLY AT EPSOM. 49 
 
 agreeable writer, whose plays supply truer and 
 happier illustrations of the manners and customs of 
 the time than any other contemporary dramatist, 
 has left us a comedy called " Epsom Wells," in 
 which, notwithstanding the sneer of Dryden about 
 his "hungry Epsom-prose," he has contrived to 
 interest us by peopling the place with the usual 
 frequenters out of term-time; men of wit and 
 pleasure ; young ladies of wit, beauty, and fortune ; 
 with a parson and a country justice; with two 
 cheating, sharking cowardly bullies ; with two rich 
 citizens of London and their wives, one a comfit- 
 maker, the other a haberdasher, and both cuckolds 
 (" Epsom water- drinking " with other ladies of 
 pleasure); with hectors from Covent Garden, a 
 constable, a Dogberry-like watch, and two country 
 fiddlers in short, by picturing "the freedom of 
 Epsom " as it existed in an age of easy virtue. 
 
 The Derby and the Oaks, the races which have 
 rendered Epsom so famous, and our not less cele- 
 brated Tattenham Corner, were then unknown ; but 
 the King's Head and the New Inn, Clay Hill and 
 Hawse's Garden, were favourite names, full of 
 attractions to London apprentices, sighing to see 
 their indentures at an end, and Epsom no longer 
 excluded from their places of resort. The waters 
 
50 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 were considered efficacious, and the citizens east of 
 Temple Bar were supposed to receive as much 
 benefit from their use, as the courtiers west of the 
 Bar were presumed to receive from the waters of 
 Tunbridge Wells. The alderman or his deputy, on 
 their way to this somewhat inaccessible suburb of 
 the reign of Charles II., were met at Tooting 
 by lodging-house keepers, tradesmen, and quack- 
 doctors, with so many clamorous importunities for 
 patronage, that the very expressive English word 
 touting derives its origin from the village where 
 this plying for trade was carried to so importunate 
 an extent. 
 
 There is now at Epsom, or was to be seen there 
 till very lately, a small inn with the sign of the 
 King's Head, lying somewhat out of the present 
 town, on the way to the wells. It was at " the next 
 house ' ' to this inn, or to an inn with the same name, 
 that Nelly and Lord Buckhurst put up, keeping 
 " merry house," with Sedley to assist them in laugh- 
 ing at the " Bow-bell suckers " who resorted to the 
 Epsom waters.* Nelly would contribute her share 
 to the merriment of the scene around them. The 
 citizens of London were hated by the players. They 
 had successfully opposed them in all their early 
 
 * Pepys, 14 July, 1667. 
 
LONDON IN 1667. 51 
 
 attempts in the reigns of Elizabeth and James I. 
 to erect a theatre within the jurisdiction of the city ; 
 and at no time had they ever encouraged the drama 
 by their presence. The poets and actors lived by the 
 King and court, while they repaid their opponents and 
 gratified the courtiers by holding up every citizen 
 as a cuckold and a fool. So long was this feeling 
 perpetuated on the stage (it still lives in our literature), 
 that Garrick, in his endeavour to supplant the usual 
 performance of the " London Cuckolds " on the 9th of 
 November (Lord Mayor's day), was reduced to play 
 first to a noisy and next to an empty house. 
 
 Whilst Buckhurst and Nelly kept "merry house" 
 at Epsom in the months of July and August, 1667, 
 it was not altogether merry in England elsewhere, 
 the plague of 1665 had been followed by the fire of 
 1666, and both plague and fire in 1667 by the 
 national shame of a Dutch fleet insulting us in 
 the Thames, burning some of our finest ships in the 
 Medway at Chatham, and by the undeserved disgrace 
 inflicted by the King and his imperious mistress, 
 Castlemaine, on the great Lord Clarendon. Wise 
 and good men, too, were departing from among 
 us. Cowley finished the life of an elegant and 
 amiable recluse at Chertsey in Surrey, and Jeremy 
 Taylor that of a saint at Lisnegarry, in Ireland. 
 
 E2 
 
52 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 England, too, in the same year, had lost the loyal 
 Marquess of Worcester and the virtuous Earl of 
 Southampton, neither of whom could she well spare 
 at such a period ; on the other hand, the country 
 was receiving a noble addition to her literature by 
 the publication of "Paradise Lost;" but this, few at 
 the time, cared to read, as the work of " that Milton 
 who wrote for the regicides," * " that Paradise Lost 
 of Milton's which some are pleased to call a poem," t 
 or chose to understand, from the seriousness of the 
 subject, or the grandeur of its treatment. 
 
 At the Court, where undisguised libertinism was 
 still triumphant, the burning of the city began 
 to be talked of as an old story, like that of the 
 burning of Troy, and the disgrace at Chatham as 
 something to be obliterated by the disgrace of the 
 Lord Chancellor. Indeed there was no feeling of 
 fear, or any sentiment of deserved dishonour, main- 
 tained at Court. On the very day on which the 
 Great Seal was taken from Clarendon, and his ruin 
 effected, the Countess of Castlemaine, one of the 
 leading instruments of his fall, was admiring the 
 rope -dancing of Jacob Hall, and laughing at the 
 drolls and odd animals exhibited to the citizens at 
 Bartholomew Fair! 
 
 * Evelyn's Diary, 2 June, 1686. 
 t Rymer's Letter to Fleetwood Sheppard, p. 143. 
 
THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
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54 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 Nelly, after a month's absence, returned to London 
 in August, 1667, and resumed some of her old parts 
 at the theatre in Drury Lane, playing Bellario in 
 Beaumont and Fletcher's " Philaster ; " Panthea, in 
 "A King and No King," of the same authors; 
 Cydaria, in " The Indian Emperor," of Dryden and 
 his brother-in-law ; Samira, in Sir Robert Howard's 
 " Surprisal ; " Flora, in " Flora's Vagaries," a comedy 
 attributed to Ehodes ; and Mirida, in " All Mistaken, 
 or the Mad Couple," of the Hon. James Howard. Of 
 her performance in some of these parts Pepys again 
 is our only informant. How graphic are his entries ! 
 
 "22 Aug. 1667. With my lord Brouncker and his mistress to 
 the King's playhouse, and there saw the ' Indian Emperor/ where I 
 found Nell come again, which I am glad of; but was most infinitely 
 displeased with her being put to act the Emperor's daughter, which 
 is a great and serious part, which she does most basely. The rest 
 of the play, though pretty good, was not well acted by most of 
 them, methought ; so that I took no great content in it. 
 
 "26 Aug. 1667. To the King's playhouse and saw 'The Sur- 
 prisal,' a very mean play I thought, or else it was because I was out 
 of humour, and but very little company in the house. Sir W. Pen 
 and I had a great deal of discourse with [Orange] Moll, who tells us 
 that Nell is already left by my Lord Buckhurst, and that he makes 
 sport of her, and swears she hath had all she could get of him ; and 
 Hart, her great admirer, now hates her ; and that she is very poor, 
 and hath lost my Lady Castlemaine, who was her great friend, also ; 
 but she is come to the house, but is neglected by them all. 
 
 "5 Oct. 1667. To the King's house, and there going in met 
 Knipp, and she took us up into the tiring rooms ; and to the 
 women's shift, where Nell was dressing herself [as Flora], and was 
 all unready, and is very pretty, prettier than I thought. And into 
 the scene-room, and there sat down, and she gave us fruit ; and here 
 
INDIFFERENT IN SERIOUS PARTS. 55 
 
 I read the questions to Knipp, while she answered me through all 
 the part of ' Flora's vagaries/ which was acted to-day. But, Lord ! 
 to see how they were both painted would make a man mad, and did 
 make me loath them ; and what base company of men comes 
 among them, and how lewdly they talk ! and how poor the men are 
 in clothes, and yet what a show they make on the stage by candle- 
 light, is very observable. But to see how Nell cursed for having so 
 few people in the pit was pretty ; the other house carrying away all 
 the people at the new play, and is said now-a-days to have generally 
 most company, as being better players. 
 
 " 26 Dec. 1667. With my wife to the King's playhouse, and there 
 saw ' The Surprisal,' which did not please me to-day, the actors not 
 pleasing me, and especially Nell's acting of a serious part, which 
 she spoils. 
 
 "28 Dec. 1667. To the King's House, and there saw < The Mad 
 Couple,' which is but an ordinary play ; but only Nell's and Hart's 
 mad parts are most excellent done, but especially hers, which 
 makes it a miracle to me to think how ill she do any serious part, 
 as, the other day, just like a fool or changeling ; and in a mad part 
 do beyond imitation almost." 
 
 That Nell hated "serious parts," in which, as 
 Pepys assures us, she was poor, we have her own 
 testimony, in an epilogue which she spoke a few 
 months later to the tragedy of the " Duke of 
 Lerma." 
 
 I know you in your hearts 
 
 Hate serious plays as I hate serious parts. 
 
 And again in the epilogue to " Tyrannick Love : " 
 
 I die 
 
 Out of my calling in a tragedy. 
 
 The truth is (as I see reason to believe), such parts 
 were thrust upon her by Hart, her old admirer, who 
 
56 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 hated her for preferring Lord Buckhurst to himself. 
 But this feeling was soon overcome, and Nell, as 
 Mirida in the comedy of " All Mistaken," added to 
 her well-earned reputation as an actress, obeying 
 the advice of Mrs. Barry, " Make yourself mistress 
 of your part, and leave the figure and action to 
 nature." * 
 
 " All Mistaken, or the Mad Couple," a play com- 
 mended hy some, says Langbaine, " as an excellent 
 comedy," has little merit of its own to recommend it 
 to the reader. The whole success of the performance 
 must have rested on Hart and Nelly. Philidor 
 (Hart) is a mad, or as we should now call him a 
 madcap, kinsman of an Italian duke, and Mirida 
 (Nelly) is a madcap young lady of the same eccentric 
 school. Philidor is troubled with clamorous impor- 
 tunities for marriage from six young ladies whom he 
 has betrayed, and for money from those nurses by 
 whom his children have been taken ; and Mirida is 
 persecuted with the importunate addresses, at the 
 same time, of a very lean and of a very fat lover. 
 Some of the pleasantries to which the madcap couple 
 resort are of a coarse and practical character. 
 Philidor tricks his besiegers, and Mirida replies to 
 her importunate lovers that she will marry the lean 
 
 * Cnrll's Stage, p. 62 
 
NELL AS MAD-CAP MIRIDA. 57 
 
 one when lie is fatter, and the fat one when he is 
 leaner. The arts which the suitors have recourse 
 to are somewhat tedious, and certainly not over 
 decent. Yet it is easy to see that the play would 
 tell with the audience to whom it was addressed, for 
 many of the situations are humorous in the extreme. 
 In one of the scenes Philidor and Mirida are bound 
 back to back by the six ladies, Philidor losing his 
 money and his hat, and Mirida consoling herself by 
 the entry of a fiddler. 
 
 [Enter Fiddler.] Mirida. A fiddle, nay then I am made again ; 
 I'd have a dance if I had nothing but my smock on. Fiddler, strike 
 up and play my jig, call'd "I care not a pin for any man." * 
 
 Fiddler. Indeed I can't stay. I am going to play to some 
 gentlemen. 
 
 Mirida. Nay, thou shalt stay but a little. 
 
 Fiddler. Give me half-a-crown then. 
 
 Mirida. I have no money about me ; but here, take my han- 
 kercher. [Dance and Exit. 
 
 In another part Mirida manages a sham funeral 
 for Philidor, to which the six young ladies are 
 invited, to hear the will of the deceased. 
 
 Mirida. Poor young man, he was killed yesterday by a duel. 
 " Item. I give to Mrs. Mary for a reason that she knows, 5001. 
 
 Item. 5001. to Mrs. Margaret for a reason she knows. Item. 5001. 
 
 to Mrs. Sarah for a reason she knows. Item 5001. to Mrs. Martha 
 
 Nell was famous for dancing jigs. The Duke of Buckingham, in his 
 Epilogue to " The Chances," laughs at poets who mistook the praise given to 
 Nelly's jig for the praise hestowed on their own performances. 
 
58 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 for a reason she knows. Item. 5001. to Mrs. Alice for a reason she 
 knows. Item. 5001. to Mrs. Elinor for a reason she knows, and so 
 to all the rest. Item. To my nurses I leave each of them 20J. a 
 year apiece for their lives, besides their arrears due to them for 
 nursing. These sums of money and legacies I leave to be raised 
 and paid out of my manor of Constantinople, in which the Great 
 Turk is now tenant for life." [Lauglis aside.'] If they should hear 
 how their legacies are to be paid, how they'd fall a-drumming on 
 his coffin ! 
 
 There is more of this ; but it is time to turn to that 
 incident from which the play derived its popularity, 
 its satire on a recent event at the Duke's Theatre. 
 
 " The Kivals," a play altered by Davenant from 
 " The Two Noble Kinsmen " of Beaumont and 
 Fletcher, or rather of Fletcher alone, was brought 
 upon the stage about 1664, but would not appear to 
 have met with any great success till 1667, when the 
 part of Celania was represented by little Miss Davis, 
 who danced a jig in the play and then sang a song 
 in it, both of which found their way direct to the 
 heart of the merry monarch. The jig was probably 
 some fresh French importation, or nothing more 
 than a rustic measure, with a few foreign innova- 
 tions. The song has reached us, and has much 
 ballad beauty to recommend it. 
 
 My lodging it is on the cold ground. 
 
 And very hard is my fare, 
 But that which troubles me most is 
 
 The unkindness of my dear. 
 
SONG SUNG BY MISS DAVTS. 59 
 
 Yet still I cry, turn love, 
 
 And I pr'ythee, love, turn to me, 
 For thou art the man that I long for, 
 
 And alack what remedy ! 
 
 I'll crown thee with a garland of straw, then, 
 
 And I'll marry thee with a rush ring, 
 My frozen hopes shall thaw then, 
 
 And merrily we will sing. 
 turn to me, my dear love, 
 
 And prythee, love, turn to me, 
 For thou art the man that alone canst 
 
 Procure my liberty. 
 
 But if thou wilt harden thy heart still, 
 
 And be deaf to my pitiful moan, 
 Then I must endure the smart still, 
 
 And tumble in straw alone. 
 Yet still, I cry, turn, love, 
 
 And I prythee, love, turn to me, 
 For thou art the man that alone art 
 
 The cause of my misery.* 
 
 The success of the song is related by the prompter 
 at the theatre in his curious little volume, called 
 "Roscius Anglicanus." "All the women's parts," 
 says Downes, " were admirably acted, but what 
 pleased most was the part of Celania, a shepherdess, 
 mad for love, and her song of ' My lodging is on the 
 cold ground,' which she performed," he adds, " so 
 charmingly that not long after it raised her from her 
 bed on the cold ground to a bed royal." f 
 
 I might be excused for referring, at this period 
 
 * The stage direction is" That done she lies down and falls asleep." 
 t " Roscius Anglicanus," p. 24. ed. 1708. 
 
60 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 of Nelly's life, to the ribald personalities common to 
 the stage in the reign of Charles II., but I am 
 unwilling to stop the stream of my narrative by 
 delaying to relate the personal reference made by 
 Nell, in the play of "All Mistaken," to the song 
 and the incident at the Duke's House, which raised 
 little Miss Davis to a " bed royal." The scene in 
 " All Mistaken " which doubtless gave the greatest 
 delight to the audience at Drury Lane, was that in 
 the last act, where Pinguisier, the fat lover, sobs his 
 complaints into the ear of the madcap Mirida. 
 
 Mirida. Dear love, come sit thee in my lap, and let me know 
 if I can enclose thy world of fat and love within these arms. See, 
 I cannot nigh compass my desires by a mile. 
 
 Pinguisier. How is my fat a rival to my joys ! sure I shall weep 
 it all away. [Cries. 
 
 Mirida. 
 
 Lie still, my babe, lie still and sleep, 
 It grieves me sore to see thee weep, 
 Wert thou but leaner I were glad ; 
 Thy fatness makes thy dear love sad. 
 
 What a lump of love have I in my arms ! 
 
 My lodging is on the cold boards, 
 
 And wonderful hard is my fare, 
 But that which troubles me most is 
 
 The fatness of my dear. 
 Yet still I cry, Oh melt, love, 
 
 And I prythee now melt apace, 
 For thou art the man I should long for 
 
 If 'twere not for thy grease. 
 zr. 
 
 Then prythee don't harden thy heart still, 
 
 And be deaf to my pitiful moan, 
 
NELL MIMICS MISS DAVIS. 61 
 
 Since I do endure the smart still, 
 
 And for my fat do groan. 
 Then prythee now turn, my dear love, 
 
 And I prythee now turn to me, 
 For, alas ! I am too fat still 
 
 To roll so far to thee. 
 
 The nearer the fat man rolls towards her, the 
 further she rolls away from him, till she at length 
 rises and laughs her hearty Mrs. Jordan-like mirth- 
 provoking laugh, first at the man and then towards 
 the audience, seizes a couple of swords from a cutler 
 passing by, disarms her fat lover, and makes him 
 the ridicule of the whole house. It is easy to see 
 that this would not take now, even with another 
 Nelly to represent it ; hut every age has its fashion 
 and its humour, and that of Charles II. had fashions 
 and humours of its own, quite as diverting as any of 
 the representations and incidents which still prove 
 attractive to a city or a west-end audience. 
 
 " Little Miss Davis " danced and sang divinely, 
 but was not particularly beautiful, though she had 
 fine eyes and a neat figure, both of which are 
 preserved in her portrait at Cashiobury, by Sir 
 Peter Lely.* The popular belief still lingering 
 among the cottages surrounding the old Jacobean 
 
 This is a half-length, seated, the same portrait, I suspect, which Mrs. Beale 
 iw in Bap. May's lodgic 
 er in after-life by Knell 
 feature that is attractive. 
 
 saw in Bap. May's lodgings at Whitehall. The curious full-length portrait of 
 her in after-life by Kneller, and now at Audley End, barely supplies a single 
 
62 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 mansion of the Howards at Charlton in Wiltshire, 
 that she was the daughter of a blacksmith, and was 
 at one time a milkmaid, can only in part be true. 
 Pepys was informed by Mrs. Pearse, wife of James 
 Pearse, surgeon to the Duke of York and surgeon of 
 the regiment commanded by the Duke, that she was 
 an illegitimate child of Colonel Howard, son of the 
 Earl of Berkshire, and brother of James Howard, 
 author of the play in which, as we have seen, she 
 was held up to ridicule through the inimitable acting 
 of Nell Gwyn. The King's affection for her was 
 shown in a marked and open manner. The ring of 
 rushes referred to in the song was exchanged for a 
 ring of the value of 7001., and her lodging about 
 Ludgate or Lincoln's Inn (the usual resorts of the 
 players at the Duke's Theatre) for a house in Suffolk 
 Street, Haymarket, furnished by the King expressly 
 for her use. The Queen, before she was worn into 
 complete indifference by the uncontrolled vices of 
 her husband, resented them at times with the spirit 
 of a woman. When Miss Davis was dancing one of 
 her favourite " jigs " in a play at Court, the Queen 
 rose and " would not stay to see it." Nor was the 
 imperious Countess of Castlemaine less incensed 
 than the Queen herself at the unwelcome intrusion 
 of little Miss Davis within the innermost chambers 
 
CHARLES II. IN LOVE WITH MISS DAVIS. 63 
 
 and withdrawing-rooms of Whitehall. Her revenge, 
 however, was peculiarly her own she ran into open 
 infidelities ; and, as the King had set her aside for 
 an actress at his brother's house, so to be " even " 
 with him (the expression is in Pepys), she extended 
 her favours to Charles Hart, the handsome and 
 celebrated actor, at his own house. 
 
 The Duke of Buckingham (the wit, and the second 
 and last Duke of the Villiers family) is thought to 
 have been the principal agent at this time in direct- 
 ing and confirming the predilections of the King. 
 The Duke and Lady Castlemaine had newly quar- 
 relled, fiercely and almost openly, and both were 
 devising means of revenge characteristic of their 
 natures. By the influence of the Countess the 
 Duke was removed from his seat at the council, and 
 the Duke in return " studied to take the King from 
 her by new amours," and thinking, truly enough, 
 that a "gaiety of humour," would take with his 
 Majesty more than beauty without humour, he en- 
 couraged his passion for little Miss Davis by all the 
 arts and insinuations he was master of. The King, 
 too, was readier than usual to adopt any new excess 
 of enjoyment which Buckingham could offer him. 
 La Belle Stuart, the only woman for whom he would 
 seem to have entertained any sincere affection, had 
 
64 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 left his court in secret a few months before, and 
 worse still had given herself in marriage to the 
 Duke of Kichmond, without his approbation, and 
 even without his knowledge. Castlemaine was 
 now past her zenith, though she retained much 
 beauty to the last, and found admirers in the great 
 Duke of Marlborough, when young, and in Beau 
 Fielding, long the handsomest man about town. 
 Yet Charles was not really unkind to her at any 
 time. The song which he caused Will Legge to 
 sing to her 
 
 Poor Alinda's growing old, 
 
 Those charms are now no more, * 
 
 must have caused her some temporary uneasiness 
 and a disdainful curl of her handsome and imperious 
 lip; but she knew her influence and managed to 
 retain it almost unimpaired to the very last, in spite 
 of many excesses, which Buckingham seldom failed 
 to discover and make known to the King. 
 
 Of the King, the Countess, and pretty Miss 
 Davis, at this period, Pepys affords us a sketch 
 in little but to the point : 
 
 "21 Dec. 1668. To the Duke's playhouse, and saw 'Macbeth.' 
 The King and court there ; and we sat just under them and my 
 
 * Lord Dartmouth's note in Burnet, i. 458, ed. 1823. Where are these verses 
 to be found? 
 
AMUSEMENTS AT THE THEATRE. 65 
 
 Lady Castlemaine, and close to a woman that comes into the pit, a 
 kind of loose gossip, that pretends to be like her, and is so, some- 
 thing. And my wife, by my troth, appeared I think as pretty as 
 any of them; I never thought so much before; and so did Talbot 
 and W. Hewer, as I heard they said to one another. The King and 
 the Duke of York minded me, and smiled upon me at the handsome 
 woman near me ; but it vexed me to see Moll Davis, in the box 
 over the King's and my Lady Castlemaine's, look down upon the 
 King, and he up to her ; and so did my Lady Castlemaine once, to 
 see who it was ; but when she saw Moll Davis she looked like fire, 
 which troubled me." 
 
 To complete the picture which Pepys has left us, 
 we have only to turn to " The True Widow," of 
 Shadwell, where, in the fourth act, the scene is laid 
 in " the Playhouse," and stage directions of this 
 character occur : "Enter women masked;" "Several 
 young coxcombs fool with the orange-women ; " " He 
 sits down and lolls in the orange -wench's lap ; " 
 "Raps people on the backs and twirls their hats, 
 and then looks demurely, as if he did not do it ; "- 
 such were daily occurrences at both theatres in the 
 reign of Charles II. 
 
 Such were our pleasures hi the days of yore, 
 When amorous Charles Britannia's sceptre bore ; 
 The mighty scene of joy the Park was made, 
 And Love in couples peopled every shade. 
 But since at Court the moral taste is lost, 
 What mighty sums have velvet couches cost ! * 
 
 We are now less barefaced in our immoralities, 
 
 * Gay to Pulteney. 
 
THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 but are we really better? Was Whitehall in the 
 reign of Charles II. worse than St. James's Palace in 
 the reign of George II., or Carlton House in the 
 regency of George IV. ? Were Mrs. Kobinson, 
 Mary Anne Clarke, or Dora Jordan, better women 
 than Eleanor Gwyn or Mary Davis ? Will future 
 historians prefer the old Duke of Queensbury and 
 the late Marquis of Hertford to the Duke of 
 Buckingham and the Earl of Eochester ? 
 
 A new play of this period, in which Nelly per- 
 formed the heroine, is the " Black Prince," written 
 by the Earl of Orrery, and acted for the first time at 
 the King's House, on the 19th October, 1667. 
 Nelly's part was Alizia or Alice Piers, the mistress 
 of Edward III. ; and the following lines must have 
 often in after life occurred to recollection, not from 
 their poetry, which is little enough, but from their 
 particular applicability to her own story. 
 
 You know, dear friend, when to this court I came, 
 My eyes did all our bravest youths inflame ; 
 And in that happy state I lived awhile, 
 When Fortune did betray me with a smile ; 
 Or rather Love against my peace did fight ; 
 And to revenge his power which I did slight, 
 Made Edward our victorious monarch be 
 One of those many who did sigh for me. 
 All other flame but his I did deride; 
 They rather made my trouble than my pride : 
 But this, when told me, made me quickly know, 
 Love is a god to which all hearts must bow. 
 
"1 
 
 GREEN-ROOM RUMOURS. 67 
 
 The King was present at the first performance, 
 when his own heart was acknowledging and his own 
 eyes betraying the sense he entertained of the beauty 
 and wit of the charming actress who played Alizia on 
 the stage, and who was hereafter to move in the 
 same sphere in which the original had moved with 
 greater honesty and much more affection. 
 
 While little Miss Davis was living in handsome 
 lodgings in Suffolk Street, and baring her hand in 
 public in the face of the Countess of Castlemaine, to 
 show the 70 01. ring which the King had given her, 
 a report arose that " the King had sent for Nelly." * 
 Nor was it long before this gossip of the town was 
 followed by other rumours about her, not likely, it 
 was thought, to be true, from her constant appear- 
 ance on the stage, speaking prologues in fantastic 
 hats and Amazonian habits,t playing as she did, too, 
 at this time Valeria in Dryden's last new tragedy of 
 " Tyrannick Love, or the Koyal Martyr," and Donna 
 Jacintha in Dryden's latest comedy, called " An 
 Evening's Love, or the Mock Astrologer." Other 
 rumours, relating to Lord Buckhurst, and since 
 found to be true, were current at the same time, 
 
 * Pepys, 11 January, 1667-8. 
 
 t Before the 1669 edition of Catiline is a prologue "to be merrily spoke by 
 Mrs. Nell in an Amazonian habit." Pepys and Evelyn both saw Catiline acted 
 on the 19th Dec., 1668. 
 
 P 2 
 
68 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 that he had been made a groom of the King's bed- 
 chamber, with a pension of a thousand pounds a-year, 
 commencing from Michaelmas, 1668 ; that he had 
 received the promise of a peerage at his grand- 
 father's death; and that he had been sent by the 
 King on a complimentary visit to a foreign power, 
 or, as Dry den is said to have called it, on a " sleeve- 
 less errand"* into France. In the meantime gossips 
 in both the theatres were utterly at a loss to reconcile 
 the stories repeated by the orange -women that 
 Nelly was often at Whitehall with her constant 
 attention to her theatrical engagements, and the 
 increasing skill she exhibited in the acquirements of 
 her art. Nor was it till the winter of 1669, or rather 
 the spring of 1670, that the fact of the postponement 
 of a new tragedy by Dryden, on account of Nelly's 
 being away, confirmed some of the previous rumours ; 
 and it was known even east of Temple Bar, and 
 among the Puritans in the Blackfriars, that Nelly 
 had become the mistress of the King. 
 
 When this important change in her condition 
 took place a change that removed her from many 
 temptations, and led to the exhibition of traits of 
 character and good feeling which more than account 
 for the fascination connected with her name she 
 
 * Note by Boyer in his translation of De Grammont, 8vo. 1714, p. 343. 
 
NELL AS ALMAHIDE. 
 
 was studying the part of Almahide in Dry den's new 
 tragedy, " The Conquest of Granada," Before, 
 however, the play could be produced Nelly was 
 near giving birth to the future Duke of St. Alban's, 
 and therefore unable to appear, so that Dryden was 
 obliged to postpone the production of his piece till 
 another season. The poet alludes to this postpone- 
 ment in his epilogue, 
 
 Think him not duller for the year's delay ; 
 
 He was prepared, the women were away ; 
 
 And men without their parts can hardly play. 
 
 If they through sickness seldom did appear, 
 
 Pity the virgins of each theatre ; 
 
 For at both houses 'twas a sickly year ! 
 
 And pity us, your servants, to whose cost 
 
 In one such sickness nine whole months were lost. 
 
 The allusion is to Miss Davis at the Duke's, and 
 to Nelly at the King's ; but the poet's meaning has 
 escaped his editors. 
 
 The " Conquest of Granada " was first performed 
 in the autumn of 1670, Hart playing Almanzor to 
 Nelly's Almahide. With what manliness and grace 
 of elocution must Hart have delivered the well- 
 known lines, 
 
 I am as free as Nature first made man, 
 Ere the base laws of servitude began, 
 When wild in woods the noble savage ran. 
 
 The attraction, however, of the play rested mainly 
 
70 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 upon Nelly, who spoke the prologue "in a broad- 
 brimmed hat and waist-belt," and apologised in the 
 following manner for her appearance, to the renewed 
 delight of the whole audience : 
 
 This jest was first of th' other House's making, 
 And, five times tried, has never failed of taking ; 
 For 'twere a shame a poet should be kill'd 
 Under the shelter of so broad a shield. 
 This is that hat whose very sight did win ye 
 To laugh and clap as though the devil were in ye. 
 As then for jSTokes, so now I hope you'll be 
 So dull to laugh once more for love of me. 
 
 The jest " of the other house's making " is said to 
 have occurred in May, 1670, while the Court was at 
 Dover, to receive the King's sister, the beautiful 
 Duchess of Orleans. The reception of her royal high- 
 ness was attended with much pomp and gaiety the 
 Duke's company of actors playing Shadwell's " Sullen 
 Lovers," and Caryl's " Sir Salomon, or the Cautious 
 Coxcomb," before the Duchess and her suite. One 
 of the characters in Caryl's comedy is that of Sir 
 Arthur Addle, a bawling fop, played by Nokes with 
 a reality of action and manner then unsurpassed 
 upon the stage. The dress of the French attending 
 the Duchess, and present at the performance of the 
 plays, included an excessively short laced scarlet or 
 blue coat, with a broad waist-belt, which Nokes took 
 care to laugh at, by wearing a still shorter coat of 
 
CHARLES II. IN LOVE WITH NELLY. 71 
 
 the same character, to which the Duke of Monmouth 
 added a sword and belt from his own side, so that 
 he looked, as old Downes the prompter assures us, 
 more like a dressed-up ape, or a quiz on the French, 
 than Sir Arthur Addle. The jest took at once, 
 King Charles and his whole Court falling into an 
 excess of laughter as soon as he appeared upon the 
 stage, and the French showing their chagrin at the 
 personality and folly of the imitation. The sword, 
 which the Duke had buckled on the actor with his 
 own hands, was kept by Nokes to his dying day. 
 
 It was in the character of Almahide in " The 
 Conquest of Granada," and while wearing her broad- 
 brimmed hat and waist-belt in the prologue to the 
 same play, that Charles became more than ever 
 enamoured of Nelly. A satirist of the time has 
 expressed the result of the performance in a couplet 
 not wholly destitute of force 
 
 There Hart's and Kowley's souls she did ensnare, 
 And made a King a rival to a player ; 
 
 while Granville, who enjoyed the friendship of 
 Waller, and lived to be the patron of Pope, has 
 told the result in his poem called " The Progress of 
 Beauty:" 
 
 Granada lost, behold her pomps restor'd, 
 And Almahide again by Kings adored. 
 
72 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 An effect from a stage performance which some still 
 live to remember, when it found a parallel in the 
 passion which George IV., when Prince of Wales, 
 evinced for Mrs. Robinson, while playing the part of 
 Perdita in " A Winter's Tale." What a true name 
 is Perdita indeed for such a fate, and what a lesson 
 may a young actress learn from the story of poor 
 Mrs. Robinson, when told, as I have heard it told, 
 by her grave in Old Windsor churchyard ! Nor is 
 Nelly's story without its moral and now that we 
 have got her from the purlieus of Drury Lane, and 
 the contaminations of the green-room, for the part 
 of Almahide was her last performance on the stage,* 
 we shall find her true to the King, and evincing 
 in her own way more good than we should have 
 expected to have found from so bad a bringing up. 
 
 * The Mrs. Gwyn or Quyn who appeared on the stage while Nelly was alive, 
 was a different person, though hitherto always confounded with her. I had come 
 to this conclusion, when I was pleased to find my conviction made good by a MS. 
 note by Isaac Reed, in his copy of the first edition of the Roscius Anglicanus, in 
 my possession. Downes distinguishes Nelly by calling her " Madam Gwin," or 
 " Mrs. Ellen Gwin ; "the other is always " Mrs. Gwin." 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 PERSONAL CHARACTER OF KING CHARLES IL 
 
 THE character of King Charles II. has been drawn 
 with care and skill by several writers of distinguished 
 reputation to whom he was known: by the great 
 Lord Clarendon; by the Marquess of Halifax; by 
 the Duke of Buckingham; by Evelyn and Sir 
 William Temple; by Burnet, Dryden, and Roger 
 North. Lord Clarendon had been acquainted with 
 him from his boyhood, and had been his principal 
 adviser for many years; Halifax had been his 
 minister; Buckingham had received distinguished 
 marks of favour at his hands; Evelyn not only 
 frequented his court, but had often conversed with 
 him on matters of moment, and was intimate with 
 many who knew him well; Temple had been his 
 ambassador; Burnet had spoken to him with a 
 freedom which nothing but his pastoral character 
 would have sanctioned; Drydeii was his Poet 
 
74 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 __ __ 
 
 Laureate ; and North added to his own his brother 
 the Lord Keeper's experience of the King's character. 
 From such writers as these, and with the aid of such 
 incidental illustrations as a lengthened interest in 
 the subject will supply, I propose to draw the 
 portraiture of the King, using, where such fidelity is 
 requisite, the very words of the authorities I employ. 
 
 His personal appearance was remarkable. He was 
 five feet ten inches in height and well-made, with an 
 expression of countenance somewhat fierce, and a 
 great voice.* He was, says Saville, an illustrious 
 exception to all the common rules of physiognomy ; 
 for, with a most saturnine, harsh countenance, he 
 was both of a merry and merciful disposition. His 
 eyes were large and fine ; and his face so swarthy, 
 that Monk, before the Eestoration, used to toast him 
 as "the black boy." t " Is this like me ? " he said to 
 Eiley, who had just completed his portrait; "then, 
 odd's fish ! (his favourite phrase), I am an ugly fellow." 
 Eiley, however, must have done him an injustice : 
 certainly, at all events, he is not an ugly fellow on 
 the canvas of Lely, in the miniatures of Cooper, the 
 sculpture of Gibbons, or the coins of Simon. 
 
 He lived a Deist, but did not care to think on the 
 subject of religion, though he died professedly a 
 
 Evelyn, ii. 207, ed. 1850. t Hinton's Memoirs, p. 29. 
 
CHARACTER OF CHARLES II. 75 
 
 Roman Catholic. His father had been severe with 
 him, and once, while at sermon at St. Mary's in 
 Oxford, had struck him on the head with his staff for 
 laughing at some of the ladies sitting opposite to 
 him.* Later in life the ill-bred familiarity of the 
 Scottish divines had given him a distaste for Pres- 
 byterian discipline, while the heats and animosities 
 between the members of the Established Church and 
 the Nonconformists with which his reign commenced 
 made him think indifferently of both. His religion 
 was that of a young prince in his warm blood, whose 
 inquiries were applied more to discover arguments 
 against belief than in its favour. The wits about 
 his Court, who found employment in laughing at 
 Scripture 
 
 All by the King's example liv'd and lov'd 
 
 delighted in turning to ridicule what the preachers 
 said in their sermons before him, and in this way 
 induced him to look upon the clergy as a body of 
 men who had compounded a religion for their own 
 advantage.! So strongly did this feeling take root in 
 him, that he at length resigned himself to sleep at 
 sermon time not even South or Barrow having the 
 art to keep him awake. In one of these half-hours 
 
 * Dr. Lake's Diary, p. 26. t Clarendon's Life, iii. 3, ed. 1826. 
 
76 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 of sleep when in chapel, he is known to have missed, 
 doubtless with regret, the gentle reproof of South to 
 Lauderdale during a general somnolency : " My 
 lord, my lord, you snore so loud you will wake the 
 King." 
 
 He loved ease and quiet; and it was said, not 
 untruly, that there was as much of laziness as of love 
 in all those hours he passed among his mistresses. 
 Few things, remarked Burnet,* ever went near 
 his heart. It was a trouble to him to think. 
 Unthinkingness, indeed, was said by Halifax to be 
 one of his characteristics 1 1 and 
 
 Unthinking Charles, ruled by unthinking thee, 
 
 is a line in Lord Rochester. Sauntering is an 
 epithet applied to him by Sheffield, Saville, and 
 Wilmot. He chose rather to be eclipsed than 
 to be troubled, to receive a pension from France 
 rather than ask his Parliament for subsidies. 
 
 His affection for his children was worthy of a 
 better man. He loved the Duke of Monmouth with 
 the fondness of a partial parent, and forgave him 
 more than once for injuries, almost amounting to 
 crimes of magnitude, personal and political. The 
 Duke of Grafton, one of his sons by the Duchess of 
 
 * Burnet, ii. 469, ed. 1823. t Halifax, p. 4. 
 
CHARACTER OF CHARLES II. 77 
 
 Cleveland, lie loved "on the score of the sea,"* and 
 for the frankness of his nature. His queen's manners 
 and society he never could have liked, though his 
 letter to Lord Clarendon, written from Portsmouth, 
 upon her first arrival, is ardent in passion, and might 
 have been held to promise the most constant affection 
 for her person.! He grew at last to believe that she 
 never could bring him an heir,t an opinion in which he 
 was confirmed by the people about him ; but, anxious 
 as he certainly was for another wife, he rejected with 
 scorn a proposition that was made to him to send her 
 away in disguise to a distant region. His steadiness 
 to his brother, though it may and indeed must in a 
 great measure be accounted for on selfish principles, 
 had at least, as Fox remarks, a strong resemblance 
 to virtue. Prince Rupert he looked upon, not 
 unjustly, as a madman. || If he was slow to reward 
 and willing to forgive, he was not prone to forget. 
 His secret service expenses record many payments, 
 and at all periods, to the several branches of the 
 Penderells, to whom he was indebted for his preser- 
 vation after the battle of Worcester.lT 
 
 * Pepys's Tangier Diary, ii. 36. 
 
 t See it among the Lansdowne MSS. (1236) in the British Museum. It is not 
 fit to print. I Clarendon's Life, iii. 60, ed. 1826. 
 
 % Fox's James II., p. 70. || Pepys's Tangier Diary, ii. 36. 
 
 f Printed for the Camden Society. Mr. Macaulay says, harshly enough 
 " Never was there a mind on which both services and injuries left such faint and 
 transitory impressions." 
 
78 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 He lived beloved, and died lamented, by a very 
 large portion of his people. What helped to endear 
 him has been happily expressed by Waller : 
 
 the first English born 
 
 That has the crown of these three kingdoms worn. 
 
 Then, the way in which he was seen in St. James's 
 Park feeding his ducks ; * or in the Mall playing a 
 manly game with great skill ; f or at the two theatres 
 encouraging English authors, and commending 
 English actors and actresses, added to his popularity. 
 He really mixed with his subjects ; and though a 
 standing army was first established in his reign, it 
 was needed more for his throne than for his person. 
 
 He did not study or care for the state which most 
 of his predecessors before him had assumed, and was 
 fond of dropping the formality of a sovereign for the 
 easy character of a companion. He had lived, when 
 in exile, upon a footing of equality with his banished 
 nobles, and had partaken freely and promiscuously in 
 the pleasures and frolics by which they had endea- 
 voured to sweeten adversity. He was led in this way 
 to let distinction and ceremony fall to the ground, as 
 useless and foppish, and could not even on premedi- 
 tation, it is said, act for a moment the part of a king 
 
 * Gibber's Apology, p. 26, 8vo., 1740. 
 t Waller's poem " On St. James's Park." 
 
CHARACTER OF CHARLES II. 79 
 
 either at parliament or council, either in words or 
 gesture. When he attended the House of Lords, he 
 would descend from the throne and stand by the fire, 
 drawing a crowd about him that broke up all the 
 regularity and order of the place. In a very little 
 time he would have gone round the House, and have 
 spoken to every man that he thought worth speaking 
 to.* He carried his dogs to the council table 
 
 His very dog at council board 
 Sits grave and wise as any lord,f 
 
 and allowed them to lie in his bed-chamber, where 
 he would often suffer them to pup and give suck, 
 much to the disgust of Evelyn, and of many who 
 resided at court. 1 His very speeches to his par- 
 liament contain traits of his personal character. 
 " The mention of my wife's arrival," he says, " puts 
 me in mind to desire you to put that compliment 
 upon her, that her entrance into the town may be 
 with more decency than the ways will now suffer it 
 to be, and for that purpose I pray you would quickly 
 pass such laws as are before you, in order to the 
 
 * Burnet, i. 472, 3, ed. 1823. In his speech in the House of Commons, March 1, 
 1661 , he says " In a word, I know most of your faces and names, and can never 
 hope to find better men in your places." 
 
 f Lord Rochester's Poem, 1697, p. 150. 
 
 Evelyn, vol. ii., p. 207, ed. 1850. Charles was fond of animals and natural 
 history. In the Works Accounts at Whitehall, for 1667-8, I observe a payment 
 for " the posts whereon the king's bees stand." 
 
80 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 amending those ways, and that she may not find 
 Whitehall surrounded by water." * Nothing but his 
 character, as Sir Kobert Walpole observed of Sir 
 William Yonge, could keep down his parts, and 
 nothing but his parts support his character. 
 
 His mistresses were as different in their humours 
 as in their looks. He did not care to choose for 
 himself, so that, as Halifax observes, it was resolved 
 generally by others whom he should have in his 
 arms as well as whom he should have in his councils. 
 Latterly he lived under the traditional influence of 
 his old engagements; and though he had skill 
 enough to suspect, he had wit enough not to care.t 
 His passion for Miss Stuart, as I have already said, 
 was a stronger feeling of attachment than he is 
 thought to have entertained for any body else. I 
 
 His understanding was quick and lively ; but he 
 had little reading, and that tending to his pleasures 
 more than to instruction. He had read men rather 
 than books. The Duke of Buckingham happily 
 characterised the two brothers in a conversation 
 with Burnet : " The King," he said, " could see 
 things if he would, and the Duke would see things if 
 he could." Nor was the observation of Tom 
 
 * Speech, March 1, 1661-2. See the allusion explained in my " Handbook for 
 London," art. Whitehall. j Halifax's Character, p. 21. 
 
 J Clarendon's Life, Hi. 61, ed. 1826. % Burnet, i. 288, ed. 1823. 
 
CHARACTER OF CHARLES II. 81 
 
 Killigrew, made to the King himself in Cowley's 
 hearing, without its point. This privileged wit, 
 after telling the King the ill state of his affairs, was 
 pleased to suggest a way to help all. " There is," 
 says he, "a good honest able man that I could name, 
 whom if your majesty would employ, and command 
 to see things well executed, all things would soon 
 be mended, and this is one Charles Stuart, who now 
 spends his time, in employing his lips about the 
 court, and hath no other employment; but if you 
 would give him this employment, he were the fittest 
 man in the world to perform it."* He had what 
 Sheffield called the foible of his family, to be easily 
 imposed upon ; for, as Clarendon truly remarks, it 
 was the unhappy fate of the Stuart family to trust 
 too much on all occasions to others.! To such an 
 extent did he carry unnecessary confidence, that he 
 would sign papers without inquiring what they were 
 about. 1 
 
 He drew well himself, was fond of mathematics, 
 fortification, and shipping; knew the secrets of 
 many empirical medicines, passed many hours in his 
 laboratory, and in the very month in which he died 
 was running a process for fixing mercury. || The 
 
 * Pepys, 8 Dec., 1666. t Clarendon's Life, iii. 63, ed. 1826. 
 
 t Burnet, i. 417, ed. 1823. Walpole's Anecdotes, by Wornum, p. 427. 
 
 || Burnet, ii. 254, ed. 1823. Among the satires attributed to Villiers, Duke of 
 Buckingham, is one on Charles II., called " The Cabin Boy." 
 
82 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 Observatory at Greenwich, and the Mathematical 
 School at Christ's Hospital, are enduring instances 
 of his regard for science. 
 
 He had all the hereditary love of the Stuarts for 
 poetry and poets, and in this respect was certainly 
 different from George II., who considered a poet in 
 the light of a mechanic.* He carried Hudibras 
 about in his pocket,! protected its publication by his 
 royal warrant, but allowed its author to starve. Nor 
 was this from want of admiration, but from indolence. 
 Patronage had been a trouble to him. The noble 
 song of Shirley 
 
 The glories of our blood and state, 
 
 was often sung to him by old Bowman, and, while 
 he enjoyed the poetry, he could have cared but little 
 for the moral grandeur which pervades it. He 
 suggested the Medal to Dry den as a subject for a 
 poem while walking in the Mall. " If I was a poet," 
 he said, " and I think I am poor enough to be one, 
 I would write a poem on such a subject in the 
 following manner." Dry den took the hint, carried 
 his poem to the King, and had a hundred broad 
 pieces for it. I A good new comedy, we are told by 
 
 * Lord Chesterfield's Works, by Lord Mahon, ii. 441. 
 
 t Dennis's Reflections on Pope's Essay on Criticism, p. 23. 
 
 J Spence's Anecdotes, p. 171. 
 
CHARACTER OF CHARLES II. 83 
 
 Dennis, took the next place in his list of likings 
 immediately after his last new mistress. In points 
 connected with the stage he was even more at home 
 than in matters of poetry, insomuch that the parti- 
 cular differences, pretensions, or complaints of the 
 actors were generally ended by the King's personal 
 command or decision.* This, however, he would at 
 times carry to excess, and it has been even said, 
 that "he would hear anybody against anybody." 
 One of his latest acts was to call the attention of the 
 poet Crowne to the Spanish play "No Puedeser; or, 
 It cannot be," and to command him to write a 
 comedy on a somewhat similar foundation. To this 
 suggestion it is that we owe the good old comedy of 
 " Sir Courtly Nice." t 
 
 He hated flattery,! was perfectly accessible, would 
 stop and talk with Hobbes, or walk through the park 
 with Evelyn, or any other favourite. Steele remem- 
 bered to have seen him more than once leaning on 
 D'Urfey's shoulder, and humming over a song with 
 him. Hume blames him for not preserving Otway 
 from his sad end ; but Otway died in the next reign, 
 more from accident than neglect. 
 
 His passion for music (lie preferred the violin to 
 
 * Gibber's Apology, p. 75, ed. 1740. 
 
 f Crowne's Preface to Sir Courtly Nice, 4to. 1685. 
 
 J Temple's Works, ii. 409, ed. 1770. 2, The Guardian. 
 
 G 2 
 
84 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 the viol) is not ill illustrated in the well-known 
 jingle 
 
 Four-and-twenty fiddlers all in a row, 
 
 And there was fiddle-fiddle, and twice fiddle-fiddle, &c. 
 
 written on his enlargement of his band of fiddlers to 
 four-and-twenty, his habit, while at his meals, of 
 having, according to the French mode, twenty-four 
 violins playing before him ; * or by his letters written 
 during his exile. "We pass our time as well as 
 people can do," he -observes, "that have no more 
 money, for we dance and play as if we had taken the 
 Plate fleet " ; t " Pray get me pricked down," he adds 
 in another, " as many new corrants and sarabands 
 and other little dances as you can, and bring them 
 with you, for I have got a small fiddler that does not 
 play ill." I 
 
 Like others of his race, like James I. and James V. 
 of Scotland, like his father and his grandfather, he 
 was occasionally a poet. A song of his composition 
 is certainly characteristic of his way of life : 
 
 I pass all my hours in a shady old grove, 
 But I live not the day when I see not my love ; 
 I survey every walk now my Phillis is gone, 
 And sigh when I think we were there all alone ; 
 
 then, 'tis then, that I think there's no hell 
 
 Like loving, like loving too well. 
 
 Antony A. Wood's Life, ed. Bliss, 8vo. p. 70. f Mis. Anlica, p. 117. 
 
 Ellis's Letters, 2nd series, vol. iii. p. 376, and Mis. Aul. p. 155. 
 
CHARACTER OF CHARLES II. 85 
 
 But each shade and each conscious bow'r when I find, 
 Where I once have been happy, and she has been kind ; 
 When I see the print left of her shape on the green, 
 And imagine the pleasure may yet come again ; 
 
 then 'tis I think that no joys are above 
 
 The pleasures of love. 
 
 While alone to myself I repeat all her charms, 
 She I love may be lock'd in another man's arms, 
 She may laugh at my cares, and so false she may be, 
 To say all the kind things she before said to me : 
 
 then, 'tis then, that I think there's no hell 
 
 Like loving too well. 
 
 But when I consider the truth of her heart, 
 Such an innocent passion, so kind without art ; 
 I fear I have wronged her, and hope she may be 
 So full of true love to be jealous of me : 
 
 And then 'tis I think that no joys are above 
 
 The pleasures of love.* 
 
 That he understood foreign affairs better than all 
 his councils and counsellors put together was the 
 repeated remark of the Lord Keeper Guildford. In 
 his exile he had acquired either a personal acquaint- 
 ance with most of the eminent statesmen in Europe, 
 or else from such as could instruct him he had 
 received their characters : and this knowledge, the 
 Lord Keeper would continue, he perpetually improved 
 by conversing with men of quality and ambassadors, 
 whom he would sift, and by what he obtained from 
 
 * From Choice Ayres, Songs, &c., 1676, folio ; see also Roger North's Memoirs 
 of Musick, 4to. 1846, p. 104 ; Hawkins's History of Music, v. 447 ; and Park's 
 ed. of Walpole's Royal and Noble Authors, i. 154. 
 
86 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 them ("possibly drunk as well as sober"), would 
 serve himself one way or other. " When they sought," 
 his lordship added, " to sift him who, to give him 
 his due, was but too open he failed not to make his 
 best of them." * 
 
 His love of wine was the common failing of his 
 age. The couplet which I shall have occasion here- 
 after to include among his happy replies 
 
 Good store of good claret supplies everything, 
 And the man that is drunk is as great as a king, 
 
 affords no ill notion of the feeling current at 
 Whitehall. When the Duke of York, after dinner, 
 asked Henry Saville if he intended to invite the 
 King to the business of the day, Saville wondered 
 what he meant, and incurred the displeasure of the 
 Duke by continuing the King in the belief that 
 hard-drinking was the business before them.t 
 
 His great anxiety was the care of his health, 
 thinking it, perhaps, more reconcileable with his 
 pleasures than he really found it. He rose early, 
 walked generally three or four hours a day by his 
 watch, and when he pulled it out skilful men, it is 
 said, would make haste with what they had to say to 
 him. He walked so rapidly with what Teonge calls 
 
 * North, ii. 102, ed. 1826. 
 t Lady R. Russell's Letters, by Miss Berry, p. 177. 
 
CHARACTER OF CHARLES II. 87 
 
 " his wonted large pace," * that it was a trouble, as 
 Burnet observes, for others to keep up with him. 
 This rapid walk gives a sting to the saying of 
 Shaftesbury, that " he would leisurely walk his 
 Majesty out of his dominions," f while it explains his 
 advice to his nephew Prince George of Denmark, 
 when he complained to Charles of growing fat since 
 his marriage, " Walk with me, hunt with my brother, 
 and do justice on my niece, and you will not be 
 fat." I 
 
 His ordinary conversation and much of his 
 time was passed in " discoursing," hovered too 
 frequently between profanity and indecency, and in 
 its familiarity was better adapted to his condition 
 before he was restored than afterwards. Yet it had 
 withal many fascinations of which the best talker 
 might be proud possessing a certain softness of 
 manner that placed his hearers at ease, and sent 
 them away enamoured with what he said.!| When 
 he thought fit to unbend entirely he exhibited great 
 quickness of conception, much pleasantness of wit, 
 with great variety of knowledge, more observation 
 and truer judgment of men than one would have 
 imagined by so careless and easy a manner as was 
 
 * Teonge's Diary, p. 232. f Sprat's Account of the Eye House Plot. 
 
 J Antony A. Wood's Life, ed. Bliss, p. 260. 
 I North's Lives, ed. 1826, ii. || Burnet, ii. 467, ed. 1823. 
 
83 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 natural to him in all lie said or did.* Such at least 
 is the written opinion of Sir William Temple. His 
 speech to La Belle Stuart, who resisted all his 
 importunities, that he hoped he should live to see 
 her " ugly and willing ; " t his letter to his sister on 
 hearing of her pregnancy,! and his speech to his 
 wife, " You lie : confess and be hanged," must be 
 looked upon in connexion with the outspoken 
 language of his age an age in which young women, 
 even of the higher classes, conversed without circum- 
 spection and modesty, and frequently met at taverns 
 and common eating-houses. || 
 
 " If writers be just to the memory of King 
 Charles II.," says Dryden, addressing Lord Halifax, 
 " they cannot deny him to have been an exact 
 knower of mankind, and a perfect distinguisher of 
 their talents." "It is true," he continues, "his 
 necessities often forced him to vary his counsellors 
 and counsels, and sometimes to employ such persons 
 in the management of his aifairs who were rather fit 
 for his present purpose than satisfactory to his 
 judgment; but where it was choice in him, not 
 compulsion, he was master of too much good sense 
 
 * Temple, ii. 408, ed. 1770. 
 
 t Lord Dartmouth's note in Burnet, i. 436, ed. 1823. 
 
 J Dalrymple's Memoirs, Appendix, p. 21, ed. 1773. 
 
 $ Pepys. || Clarendon's Life, i. 358, ed. 1826. 
 
CHARACTER OF CHARLES II. 89 
 
 to delight in heavy conversation ; and, whatever his 
 favourites of state might be, yet those of his affection 
 were men of wit." * 
 
 He was an admirable teller of a story, and loved 
 to talk over the incidents of his life to every new 
 face that came about him. His stay in Scotland, his 
 escape from Worcester, and the share he had in the 
 war of Paris, in carrying messages from the one side 
 to the other, were his common topics. He went 
 over these in a very graceful manner, but so often 
 and so copiously, says Burnet, that all those who 
 had been long accustomed to them were soon weary, 
 and usually withdrew, so that he often began them 
 in a full audience, and before he had done, there were 
 not above four or five left about him. But this 
 general unwillingness to listen is contradicted by 
 Sheffield, who observes that many of his ministers, 
 not out of flattery, but for the pleasure of hearing it, 
 affected an ignorance of what they had heard him 
 relate ten times before, treating a story of his^telling 
 as a good comedy that bears being seen often, if well 
 acted. This love of talking made him, it is said, 
 fond of strangers who hearkened to his stories and 
 went away as in a rapture at such uncommon con- 
 descension in a king ; while the sameness in telling 
 
 * Dryden Dedication of King Arthur, 4to. 1691. 
 
90 THE STOKY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 caused Lord Eochester to observe, that " he wondered 
 to see a man have so good a memory as to repeat the 
 same story without losing the least circumstance, 
 and yet not remember that he had told it to the same 
 persons the very day before." * 
 
 He was undisturbed by libels ; enjoying the seve- 
 rities of Wilmot, enduring and not resenting the 
 bitter personalities of Sheffield.! To have been 
 angry about such matters had been a trouble; he 
 therefore let them alone, banishing Wilmot only 
 for a time for a libel which he had given him on 
 himself, and rewarding Sheffield for a satire unsur- 
 passed for boldness in an age of lampoons. He was 
 compared to Nero, who sung while Eome was 
 burning, and pardoned the malice of the wit in the 
 satire of the comparison. He loved a laugh at court 
 as much as Nokes or Tony Leigh did upon the 
 stage. 
 
 Yet he would laugh, at his best friends, and be 
 Just as good company as Nokes or Leigh. J 
 
 Few indeed escaped his wit, and rather than not 
 laugh he would turn the laugh upon himself. 
 
 * Burnet, i. 458, ed. 1823. 
 
 t Lord Rochester to Saville relative to Mulgrave's Essay on Satire. (Malone's 
 Life of Dryden, p. 134.) See also Burnet, i. 433, ed. 1823. 
 
 J Mulgrave's " Essay on Satire." Mr. Bolton Corney in vol. iii. p. 162, of 
 Notes and Queries, has in a most unanswerable manner vindicated Mulgrave's 
 claim to the authorship of this satire. 
 
CHARACTER OF CHARLES II. 91 
 
 Words or promises went very easily from him,* 
 and his memory was only good in such matters as 
 affection or caprice might chance to determine. Had 
 he been less "unthinking," we should have had 
 an epic from the muse of Dryden, "but being 
 encouraged only with fair words from King 
 Charles II.," writes the great poet, " my little salary 
 ill paid, and no prospect of a future subsistence, 
 I was thus discouraged in the beginning of my 
 attempt." If we lost King Arthur, we gained 
 Absalom and Achitophel. Thus discouraged, Dryden 
 took to temporary subjects, nor let us regret the 
 chance that drove him from his heroic poem. 
 
 Among the most reprehensible of the minor frail- 
 ties of his life, for which he must be considered 
 personally responsible, was his squandering on his 
 mistresses the 70,OOOZ. voted by the House for a 
 monument to his father, and his thrusting the 
 Countess of Castlemaine into the place of a Lady of 
 the Bedchamber to his newly-married wife. The 
 excuse for the former fault, that his father's grave 
 was unknown, was silly in the extreme, and has 
 since been proved to be without foundation ; while 
 his letter in reply to the remonstrance of Lord 
 Clarendon, not to appoint his mistress to a place of 
 
 * Burnet, ii. 466. 
 
92 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 honour in the household of his wife, assigns no 
 reason for such a step, while it holds out a threat of 
 everlasting enmity should Clarendon continue to 
 oppose his will.* 
 
 One of his favourite amusements was fishing, and 
 the Thames at Datchet one of his places of resort. 
 Lord Rochester alludes to his passion for the sport 
 in one of his minor poems,f and among his house- 
 hold expenses is an allowance to his cormorant 
 keeper for his repairing yearly into the north parts of 
 England " to take haggard cormorants for the King's 
 disport in fishing." I His fancy for his ducks was 
 long perpetuated in the public accounts, as Berenger 
 observed, when a century after he was making his 
 inquiries at the Mews for his History of Horseman- 
 ship. Struck by the constant introduction of a 
 charge for hemp -seed, he was led at last to inquire 
 for what purpose the seed was wanted. That none 
 was used, was at once admitted, but the charge had 
 been regularly made since the reign of Charles II., 
 and that seemed sufficient reason for its continuance 
 
 * See it in Lister's Life of Clarendon, vol. iii. p. 202. 
 
 t State Poems, 8vo. 1697, p. 43. Reresby's Memoirs, 8vo. 1735, p. 100. Lord 
 Rochester's Poems in a MS. of the time, is headed "Flatfoot, the Gudgeon 
 Taker." (MS. in possession of R. M. Milnes, Esq., M.P., ii. 240.) " 1 July, 1679. 
 Little was done all day [at Windsor] but going a fishing. At night the Duchess 
 of Portsmouth came. In the morning I was with the King at Mrs. Nell's." 
 Henry Sidney Lord jRomney's Diary, i. 20. 
 
 J Audit Office Enrolments, (MSS.) vi. 326. 
 
CHARACTER OF CHARLES II. 
 
 in the Mews accounts.* Many an abuse has been 
 perpetuated on no better grounds. 
 Such was Charles II. ; 
 
 Great Pan who wont to chase the fair 
 And loved the spreading oak ; *f" 
 
 and such are the materials from which David Hume 
 and Sir Walter Scott, Mr. Fox and Mr. Macaulay, 
 have drawn in part their characters of the King. 
 But there are other materials for a true understanding 
 of the man, 
 
 A merry monarch, scandalous and poor, 
 
 and these are his sayings, which Walpole loved to 
 repeat, and of which I have made a collection in the 
 following chapter. 
 
 * Nichols's Tatler, 8vo, 1786, vol. iii. p. 361. 
 t Addison " To Sir Godfrey Kneller." 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE SAYINGS OF KING CHARLES II. 
 
 " I HAVE made a collection," said Walpole, " of 
 the witty sayings of Charles II., and a collection of 
 bon-mots by people who only said one witty thing in 
 the whole course of their lives." * Both these col- 
 lections are, it is believed, unfortunately lost. The 
 former deficiency I have however attempted to 
 supply (I fear imperfectly) in the following chapter ; 
 regarding remarkable sayings as among the very best 
 illustrations of individual character and manners. 
 
 The satirical epitaph written upon King Charles II. 
 at his own request,! by his witty favourite the Earl 
 of Rochester, is said to be not more severe than it 
 is just : 
 
 Here lies our sovereign lord the King, 
 
 Whose word no man relies on ; 
 Who never said a foolish thing, 
 
 And never did a wise one. 
 
 How witty was the reply. " The matter," he observed, 
 
 * Walpoliana, vol. i. p. 58. 
 
 t So Sir Walter Scott in Misc. Prose Works, vol. xxiv. p. 171 but upon what 
 authority? 
 
SAYINGS OF CHARLES II. 95 
 
 " was easily accounted for his discourse was his 
 own, his actions were his ministry's." * 
 
 A good story of the King and the Lord Mayor 
 of London at a Guildhall dinner has been preserved 
 to us in the Spectator. The King's easy manner, 
 and Sir Eobert Viner's due sense of city hospitality, 
 carried the dignitary of Guildhall into certain 
 familiarities not altogether graceful at any time, 
 and quite out of character at a public table. The 
 King, who understood very well how to extricate 
 himself from difficulties of this description, gave 
 a hint to the company to avoid ceremony, and stole 
 off to his coach, which stood ready for him in 
 Guildhall Yard. But the Mayor liked his Majesty's 
 company too well, and was grown so intimate that 
 he pursued the merry sovereign, and, catching him 
 fast by the hand, cried out with a vehement oath and 
 accent, "Sir, you shall stay and take t'other bottle." 
 " The airy monarch," continues the narrator of the 
 anecdote, " looked kindly at him over his shoulder, 
 and with a smile and graceful air (for I saw him at 
 the time and do now), repeated this line of the old 
 song: 
 
 He that's drunk is as great as a king,f 
 
 * Hume's History of England, viii. 212. 
 
 t In Tate's Cuckold's Haven, 4to. 1685, is the following couplet : 
 Good store of good claret supplies every thing, 
 And the man that is drunk is as great as a king. 
 
96 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 and immediately turned back and complied with his 
 landlord." H This famous anecdote is importantly 
 illustrated by a letter from the Countess Dowager of 
 Sunderland to her brother Henry Sidney, written 
 five years after the mayoralty of Sir Eobert Viner.f 
 The King had supped with the Lord Mayor ; and 
 the aldermen on the occasion drank the King's 
 health over and over upon their knees, wishing every 
 one hanged and damned that would not serve him 
 with their lives and fortunes. But this was not all. 
 As his guards were drunk, or said to be so, they 
 would not trust his Majesty with so insecure an 
 escort, but attended him themselves to Whitehall, 
 and, as the lady-writer observes, " all went merry 
 out of the King's cellar." So much was this acces- 
 sibility of manner in the King acceptable to his 
 people, that the Mayor and his brethren waited next 
 day at Whitehall to return thanks to the King and 
 Duke for the honour they had done them, and the 
 Mayor confirmed by this reception was changed from 
 an ill to a well affected subject. 
 
 It was an age of nicknames the King himself 
 was known as " Old Eowley," in allusion to an ill- 
 favoured but famous horse in the Eoyal Mews. Nor 
 
 * Spectator, No. 462. 
 t Letter of March 12 [1679-80], in Henry Sidney's Diary. &c. vol. i. p. 300. 
 
SAYINGS OF CHARLES II. 97 
 
 was the cognomen at all disagreeable to him. 
 Mrs. Holford, a young lady much admired by the 
 King, was in her apartments singing a satirical 
 ballad upon Old Rowley the King, when he 
 knocked at her door. Upon her asking who was 
 there, he, with his usual good humour, replied, 
 " Old Rowley himself, madam." * Hobbes he called 
 " the Bear." " Here comes the Bear to be baited," 
 was his remark, as soon as he saw the great philo- 
 sopher surrounded by the wits who rejoiced in his 
 conversation.! A favourite yacht received from him 
 the name of Fubbs in honour of the Duchess of 
 Portsmouth, who was become notably plump in her 
 person. I The queen he called " a bat," in allusion 
 to her short, broad figure, her swarthy complexion, 
 and the projection of her upper lip from a pro- 
 tuberant foretooth. 
 
 His politeness was remarkable, and he could 
 convey a rebuke in the style of a wit and a gentleman. 
 When Penn stood before him with his hat on the 
 King put off his. " Friend Charles," said Penn, 
 " why dost thou not keep on thy hat ? " " Tis the 
 custom of this place," replied the monarch, " that 
 
 * Granger's Biog. Hist. iv. 50, ed. 1775. 
 
 t Aubrey's Life of Hobbes. See also Tom Brown, i. 174, " King Charles II. 
 compared old Hobbes to a bear." 
 J Hawkins's History of Music, iv. 359, n. 
 Lord Dartmouth in Burnet, i. 299, ed. 1823. 
 
THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 only one person should be covered at a time." * The 
 well-known English schoolmaster, Busby, excused 
 himself to the King for wearing his hat in his 
 Majesty's presence in his own school at Westminster 
 "If I were seen without my hat, even in the 
 presence of your Majesty, the boys' respect for me 
 would certainly be lessened." The excuse, such is 
 the tradition at Westminster, was at once admitted, 
 and Busby wore his hat before the King as he still 
 is seen to wear it in his portrait in the Bodleian. 
 
 When reprimanded by one of his courtiers for 
 leading or interlarding his discourse with unneces- 
 sary oaths, he defended himself by saying, "Your 
 martyr swore twice more than ever I did." f And, 
 in allusion again to his father's character, he observed 
 to Lord Keeper Guildford, who was musing some- 
 what pensively on the woolsack, " My Lord, be of 
 good comfort, I will not forsake my friends as my 
 father did." I To Eeresby he remarked, " Do not 
 trouble yourself; I will stick by you and my old 
 friends, for if I do not I shall have nobody stick to 
 me ; " and on another occasion he said to the same 
 memorialist, " Let them do what they will, I will 
 never part with any officer at the request of either 
 
 * Grey's Hudibras, i. 376. 
 
 f Rev. Mr. Watson's Apology for his conduct on Jan. 30, 8vo. 1756, p. 34, and 
 Malone's Shakespeare, by Boswell, iii. 235. J North, i. 387. 
 
SAYINGS OF CHARLES II. 99 
 
 House ; my father lost his head by such compliance, 
 but as for me, I intend to die another way." * 
 
 While Prince, seeing a soldier of the parliament 
 one of Cromwell's officers, and one active against 
 the King led through the streets of Oxford as a 
 prisoner, he asked what they designed to do with 
 him. They said they were carrying him to the King, 
 his father ; " Carry him rather to the gallows and 
 hang him up," was the reply; "for if you carry him 
 to my father he'll surely pardon him." f This was 
 assuredly not cruelty in Charles but merely an odd 
 specimen of his ever playful temperament. 
 
 He was altogether in favour of extempore preach- 
 ing, and was unwilling to listen to the delivery of a 
 written sermon. Patrick excused himself from a 
 chaplaincy, " finding it very difficult to get a sermon 
 without book." I On one occasion the King asked 
 the famous Stillingfleet, " How it was that he always 
 read his sermons before him, when he was informed 
 that he always preached without book elsewhere ? " 
 Stillingfleet answered something about the awe of so 
 noble a congregation, the presence of so great and 
 wise a prince, with which the King himself was very 
 well contented. " But pray," continued Stillingfleet, 
 
 * Reresby's Memoirs, ed. 1735, pp. 103, 105. 
 
 t Dr. Lake's Diary in Camden Miscellany, vol. i. 
 
 J Patrick's Autobiography, p. 66. 
 
 H 2 
 
100 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 "will your Majesty give me leave to ask you a 
 question? Why do you read your speeches when 
 you can have none of the same reasons ? " " Why 
 truly, doctor," replied the King, "your question is 
 a very pertinent one, and so will he my answer. 
 I have asked the two Houses so often and for so 
 much money, that I am ashamed to look them in 
 the face." * This " slothful way of preaching," for 
 so the King called it, had arisen during the civil 
 wars; and Monmouth, when Chancellor of the 
 University of Cambridge, in compliance with the 
 order of the King, directed a letter to the University 
 that the practice of reading sermons should he wholly 
 laid aside.! 
 
 When Cosins, Bishop of Durham, reminded the 
 King that he had presumed to recommend Bancroft 
 and Sudhury as chaplains to his Majesty, the King 
 replied, "My Lord, recommend two more such 
 to me, and I will return you any four I have for 
 them." 1 
 
 One of his replies to Sir Christopher Wren is 
 characteristic hoth of the monarch and his architect. 
 The King was inspecting the new apartments 
 which Wren had huilt for him in his hunting- 
 
 * Pdchardsoniana, p. 89. t Wilkins's Concilia, iv. 594. 
 
 % Dr. Lake's Diary in Camden Miscellany, vol. i. 
 
SAYINGS OF CHARLES II. 101 
 
 palace at Newmarket, and observed that "he thought 
 the rooms too low." Sir Christopher, who was a 
 little man, walked round them, and looking up and 
 ahout him, said, "I think, and it please your 
 Majesty, they are high enough." Charles, squatting 
 down to his architect's height, and creeping about in 
 this whimsical posture, cried, " Aye, Sir Christopher, 
 I think they are high enough." * 
 
 The elder Richardson was fond of telling a charac- 
 teristic story of the King and kingly honour. A cut- 
 purse, or pickpocket, with as much effrontery of face 
 as dexterity of finger, had got into the drawing-room 
 on the King's birthday, dressed like a gentleman, and 
 was detected by the King himself taking a gold snuff- 
 box out of a certain Earl's pocket. The rogue, who 
 saw his sovereign's eye upon him, put his finger to 
 his nose, and made a sign to the King with a wink 
 to say nothing. Charles took the hint, and, watching 
 the Earl, enjoyed his feeling first in one pocket and 
 then in another for his missing box. The King 
 now called the nobleman to him: "You need not 
 give yourself," he said, " any more trouble about it, 
 my Lord, your box is gone ; I am myself an accom- 
 plice : I could not help it, I was made a confidant." t 
 
 Of his graver and deeper remarks Dryden has 
 
 * Richardsoniana, p. 187. f Richardsoniana, p. 103. 
 
102 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 preserved a specimen. " I remember a saying," 
 writes the poet, " of King Charles II. on Sir Matthew 
 Hale (who was, doubtless, an uncorrupted and upright 
 man), that his servants were sure to be cast on any 
 trial which was heard before him; not that he 
 thought the judge was possibly to be bribed, but 
 that his integrity might be too scrupulous ; and that 
 the causes of the Crown were always suspicious when 
 the privileges of subjects were concerned." * The 
 wisdom of the remark as respects Sir Matthew Hale, 
 is confirmed by Eoger North : " If one party was a 
 courtier," says North, " and well dressed, and the 
 other a sort of puritan, with a black cap and plain 
 clothes, Hale insensibly thought the justice of the 
 cause with the latter." t Nor has it passed without 
 the censure of Johnson : " A judge," said the great 
 Doctor, "maybe partial otherwise than to the Crown; 
 we have seen judges partial to the populace." 1 
 
 His easy, gentlemanlike way of expressing dis- 
 approbation is exemplified in a saying to which I 
 have already had occasion to refer : " Is that like 
 me ? " he asked Kiley the painter, to whom he had 
 sat for his portrait " then, odds fish ! I am an ugly 
 fellow." 
 
 * Dryden's Prose Works, by Malone, iv. 156 t North, i. 119. 
 
 $ Boswell, by Croker, p. 448, ed. 1848. % Walpole's Anecdotes. 
 
SAYINGS OF CHARLES II. 103 
 
 When told that the Emperor of Morocco had made 
 him a present of two lions and thirty ostriches, he 
 laughed and said, " He knew nothing more proper 
 to send by way of return than a flock of geese." * 
 
 Of Harrow Church, standing on a hill and visible 
 for many miles round, he is said to have remarked, 
 " that it was the only visible church he knew ;" t and 
 when taken to see a fellow climb up the outside of 
 a church to its very pinnacle and there stand on his 
 head, he offered him, on coming down, a patent to 
 prevent any one doing it but himself.! 
 
 " Pray," he said at the theatre, while observing 
 the grim looks of the murderers in Macbeth, " pray 
 what is the reason that we never see a rogue in a 
 play, but, odds fish! they always clap him on a 
 black perriwig, when it is well known one of the 
 greatest rogues in England always wears a fair one ? " 
 The allusion was, it is asserted, to Gates, but, as I 
 rather suspect, to Shaftesbury. The saying, how- 
 ever, was told by Betterton to Cibber. 
 
 He was troubled with intercessions for people 
 who were obnoxious to him, and once when Lord 
 Keeper Guilford was soliciting his favour on behalf 
 
 * Reresby's Memoirs, ed. 1735, p. 132. 
 
 t Remarks on Squire Ayre's Life of Pope. 12mo, 1745, p. 12. 
 
 j Horace Walpole, in Gent.'s Mag. for January 1848. 
 
 I Gibber's Apology, ed. 1740 p. 111. 
 
104 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 of one he did not like, he observed facetiously, " It 
 is very strange that every one of my friends should 
 keep a tame knave." * 
 
 One day while the King was being shaved, his 
 impudent barber observed to him that " he thought 
 none of his Majesty's officers had a greater trust 
 than he." " Oy," said the King," " how so, friend ? " 
 " Why," said the barber, "I could cut your Majesty's 
 throat when I would." The King started up and 
 said, " Odds fish ! that very thought is treason ; 
 thou shalt shave me no more." t The barber of 
 Dionysius, who had made the same remark, was 
 crucified for his garrulity ; but honest Eowley was 
 not cruel. His loquacious barber was only dismissed. 
 " Falsehood and cruelty," he said to Burnet, " he 
 looked on as the greatest crimes in the sight of 
 God." I 
 
 Of Woolley, afterwards Bishop of Clonfert, he 
 observed wittily and with great knowledge of cha- 
 racter, that " He was a very honest man, but a very 
 great blockhead that he had given him a living in 
 Suffolk, swarming with Nonconformists that he 
 had gone from house to house and brought them all 
 to Church that he had made him a Bishop for his 
 
 * North's Lives, ii. 247, ed. 1826. f Richardsoniana, p. 106. 
 
 J Burnet, ii. 169, ed. 1823. 
 
SAYINGS OF CHARLES II. 105 
 
 diligence ; but what he could have said to the Non- 
 conformists he could not imagine, except he believed 
 that his nonsense suited their nonsense." * 
 
 On one occasion when unable or unwilling to 
 sleep, he was so much pleased with a passage in a 
 sermon by South, that he laughed outright, and 
 turning to Laurence Hyde Lord Rochester, " Odds 
 fish ! Lory," said he, " your chaplain must be a 
 Bishop, therefore put me in mind of him next 
 vacancy." t Of Barrow, he said that " he was an 
 unfair preacher," | because, as it has been explained, 
 he exhausted every subject and left no room for others 
 to come after him ; but the King's allusion was 
 made somewhat slyly to the length as well as excel- 
 lence of Barrow's sermons." 
 
 He said often " He was not priest-ridden : he 
 would not venture a war nor travel again for any 
 party." || Such is Burnet's story, curiously confirmed 
 as it is by Sir Richard Bulstrode's conversation with 
 the King on his former exile and the then condition 
 of the country. " I," said the King, most prophe- 
 tically indeed, " am weary of travelling I am 
 resolved to go abroad no more ; but when I am dead 
 
 * Burnet, i. 449, ed. 1823. The story is spoilt in Walpoliana, i. 58. 
 t Biographia Britannica, art. " South." 
 
 % Life in Biographia Britannica. 
 % Biographia Britannica, art. " Barrow." || Burnet, i. 356, ed. 1823. 
 
106 THE STQRY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 and gone, I know not what my brother will do. I 
 am much afraid that when he comes to the crown he 
 will be obliged to travel again." * 
 
 He observed, in allusion to the amours of the 
 Duke of York and the plain looks of his mistresses, 
 that "he believed his brother had his favourites 
 given him by his priests for penance." f 
 
 After taking two or three turns one morning in 
 St. James's Park, the King, attended only by the 
 Duke of Leeds and Lord Cromarty, walked up 
 Constitution Hill into Hyde Park. Just as he was 
 crossing the road, where Apsley House now is, the 
 Duke of York, who had been hunting that morning 
 on Hounslow Heath, was seen returning in his coach, 
 escorted by a party of the Guards, who, as soon as 
 they perceived the King, suddenly halted, and stopped 
 the coach. The Duke being acquainted with the 
 occasion of the halt, immediately got out, and after 
 saluting the King, said 'he was greatly surprised to 
 find his Majesty in that place, with so small an 
 attendance, and that he thought his Majesty exposed 
 himself to some danger. " No kind of danger, 
 James," was the reply : " for I am sure no man in 
 England will take away my life to make you King." 
 
 Sir Richard Bulstrode's Memoirs, p. 424. 
 t Eurnet, i. 288, ed. 1823. 
 
SAYINGS OF CHARLES II. 107 
 
 The old Lord Cromarty often mentioned this anecdote 
 to his friends.* 
 
 " It is better to be envied than pitied," was his 
 observation to Lord Chancellor Clarendon.! 
 
 " He that takes one stone from the Church, takes 
 two from the Crown," was another of his sayings 
 preserved by Pepys.t 
 
 He said to Lauderdale, " To let Presbytery go, 
 for it was not a religion for gentlemen." 
 
 That " God would not damn a man for a little 
 irregular pleasure," he observed in one of his free 
 discourses with Burnet on points of religion. || 
 
 If his short characters of men were in common 
 at all like the one that has been preserved to us of 
 Godolphin, we have lost a good deal by the lack of 
 reporters. Of Godolphin, when only a page at court, 
 he said, "that he was never in the way, and never out 
 of the way ;"H and this was a character, says Lord 
 Dartmouth, which Godolphin maintained to his life's 
 end. 
 
 When told by Will. Legge, that the pardoning of 
 Lord Eussell would, among other things, lay an 
 eternal obligation upon a very great and numerous 
 
 * King's Anecdotes of his Own Times, p. 61. 
 
 t Clarendon's Own Life, i. 412, ed. 1827. J Pepys, 29 March, 1669. 
 
 g Burnet, i. 184, ed. 1823. || Burnet, ii. 23, ed. 1823. 
 
 ^ Lord Dartmouth in Burnet, ii. 240 ed. 1823. 
 
108 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 family, he replied, with reason on his side, " All 
 that is true ; but it is as true, that if I do not take 
 his life he will soon have mine." * 
 
 Eager for the marriage of the Princess Mary to 
 the Prince of Orange, on being reminded of his 
 promise to the Duke of York (to whom the match 
 was unwelcome), that he would not dispose of the 
 daughter, without the father's consent, he replied it 
 was true he had given his brother such a promise, 
 "but, odds fish! he must consent." t After the 
 marriage the King entered their room as soon as 
 they were in bed, and drawing the curtains, cried 
 out to the Prince it is the chaplain who tells the 
 story, an archdeacon and prebendary of Exeter, 
 whose words I would fain quote in full "Now, 
 Nephew. Hey ! St. George for England !" t 
 
 When Bancroft, dean of St. Paul's, was brought 
 to Whitehall by Will. Chiffinch, that Charles might 
 tell him in person of his appointment to the arch- 
 bishopric of Canterbury, the dean urged his unfitness 
 for that office, and requested his Majesty to bestow 
 it on some more worthy person. The King replied, 
 " that, whether he would accept the Primacy or not, 
 his deanery was already given to Dr. StiUingfleet." 
 
 * Lord Dartmouth's note in Burnet, ii. 370, ed. 1823. t Ibid. i. 118, ed. 1823. 
 J Dr. Lake's Diary in Camden Miscellany, vol. i. % Ibid. 
 
SAYINGS OF CHARLES II. 109 
 
 When Sir John Warner turned Papist he retired 
 to a convent, and his uncle, *Dr. Warner, who was 
 one of the King's physicians, upon apprehension 
 that Sir John might convert his property to popish 
 uses, pressed his Majesty to order the Attorney- 
 General to proceed at law for securing his estate to 
 himself, as next male heir; " Sir John at present," 
 said the King, " is one of God Almighty's fools, but 
 it will not be long before he returns to his estate, 
 and enjoys it himself."* 
 
 One of his last sayings related to his new palace 
 at Winchester. Impatient to have the works finished, 
 he remarked that, " a year was a great time in his 
 life."t 
 
 When he was on his death-bed the Queen sent 
 him a message that she was too unwell to resume 
 her post by the couch, and implored pardon for any 
 offence which she might mi willingly have given. 
 " She ask my pardon, poor woman !" cried Charles. 
 " I ask hers with all my heart." 
 
 In almost his last moments he apologised to those 
 who had stood round him all night for the trouble 
 he had caused. " He had been," he said, " a most 
 unconscionable time dying; but he hoped that 
 they would excuse it."* A similar feeling ruffled 
 
 Secret History of Whitehall. | North, ii. 105, ed. 1826. * Macaulay, i. 439. 
 
110 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 the last moments of the polite Earl of Chesterfield, 
 whose only expressed anxiety related to his friend 
 Dayrolles being in the room without a chair to sit 
 down upon. 
 
 If he was ready at a reply there were others about 
 him who were not less happy. When he called 
 Lord Chancellor Shaftesbury, in his own hearing, 
 " The greatest rogue in England," the reply was 
 " Of a subject, Sir, perhaps, I am."f Not less witty 
 was the sarcastic answer of the Lord Dorset, to 
 whom I have already introduced the reader, as a 
 lover of Nell Gwyn. The Earl had come to court 
 on Queen Elizabeth's birthday, long kept as a 
 holiday in London and elsewhere, and still, I believe, 
 observed by the benchers of Gray's Inn. The 
 King, forgetting the day, asked " What the bells 
 rung for ? " The answer given, the King asked 
 further, "How it came to pass that her birthday 
 was still kept, while those of his father and grand- 
 father were no more thought of than William the 
 Conqueror's ? " " Because," said the frank peer to 
 the frank King, " she being a woman chose men for 
 her counsellors, and men when they reign' usually 
 choose women." 1 Of the same stamp was the more 
 
 t Preserved by the witty Lord Chesterfield. Works by Lord Mahon, ii. 334. 
 t Richardsoniana. 
 
SAYINGS OF CHARLES II. Ill 
 
 than half-heard aside of the Duke of Buckingham, 
 to an appeal to the monarch " as the father of his 
 people." " Of a good many of them," whispered 
 the author of the Kehearsal. 
 
 I have referred in a former chapter to the King's 
 partiality for his dogs ; one species of which is still 
 celebrated among the fancy as King Charles's breed. 
 On the occasion of an entry into Salisbury, an honest 
 Cavalier pressed forward to see him, and came so 
 near the coach that his Majesty cautioned the poor 
 man not to cling too close to the door lest one of 
 the little black spaniels in the coach should chance 
 to bite him. The loyalist still persisting in being 
 near, a spaniel seized him by the finger, and the 
 sufferer cried with a loud voice, " God bless your 
 Majesty, but G d d n your dogs ! " * This story 
 has been preserved to us by the mercurial Duke of 
 Wharton as an illustration of the indulgence which 
 the King accorded to his subjects on all occasions, 
 as an instance of the popular, easy, and endearing 
 arts which ensure to a monarch the love and good- 
 will of his people. But his best saying was his last, 
 " Let not poor Nelly starve ! " and this, the parting 
 request of the Merry Monarch, reminds us, that it 
 is time once more to return to Nelly. 
 
 * Duke of Wharton's Works. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Birth of the Duke of St. Alban's Arrival of Mademoiselle de Que- 
 rouaille Death of the Duchess of Orleans Nelly's house in Pall 
 Mall Countess of Castlemaine created Duchess of Cleveland 
 Sir John Birkenhead, Sir John Coventry, and the Actresses at the 
 two Houses Insolence of Dramatists and Actors Evelyn over- 
 . hears a conversation between Nelly and the King The Pro- 
 testant and Popish Mistresses Story of the Service of Plate 
 Printed Dialogues illustrative of the rivalry of Nelly and the 
 Duchess of Portsmouth Madame Sevigne's account of it 
 Story of the Smock Nelly in mourning for the Cham of 
 Tartary Story of the two Fowls Portsmouth's opinion of 
 Nelly Concert at Nell's house The Queen and la Belle Stuart 
 at a Fair disguised as Country Girls Births, Marriages, and 
 Creations Nelly's disappointment Her witty Eemark to the 
 King Her son created Earl of Burford, and betrothed to the 
 daughter and heiress of Vere, Earl of Oxford. 
 
 ON the 8th of May, 1670, while the court was on its 
 way to Dover to receive and entertain the Duchess 
 of Orleans, Nell Gwyn was delivered of a son in her 
 apartments in Lincoln's Inn Fields. The father was 
 King Charles II. and the son was called Charles 
 Beauclerk. The boy grew in strength and beauty, 
 and became a favourite with his father. Where the 
 child was christened, or by whom he was brought 
 
DUCHESS OF PORTSMOUTH. 113 
 
 up, I have failed in discovering. There is reason to 
 believe that Sir Fleetwood Sheppard, the friend of 
 the witty Earl of Dorset, was his tutor, and that the 
 poet Otway was in some way connected with his 
 education.* To Sheppard one of the best of the 
 minor poems of Prior is addressed. 
 
 In the suite of followers attending the beautiful 
 Duchess of Orleans to Dover came Louise Eenee de 
 Penencourt de Querouaille, a girl of nineteen, of a 
 noble but impoverished family in Brittany. She 
 was one of the maids of honour to the Duchess, and 
 famous for her beauty, though of a childish, simple, 
 and somewhat baby face.t Charles, whose heart was 
 formed of tinder, grew at once enamoured of his 
 sister's pretty maid of honour. But Louise was 
 not to be caught without conditions affecting the 
 interests of England. "While the court stayed at 
 Dover was signed that celebrated treaty by which 
 England was secretly made subservient to a foreign 
 power, and her King the pensioner of Louis XIV. 
 When this was done, Clarendon was living in exile, 
 and the virtuous Southampton, and the all-powerful 
 
 * Then for that cub her son and heir, 
 Let him remain in Otway's care. 
 
 Satire on Nelly. Harl. MS. 7319, fol. 135. 
 
 t Such is Evelyn's description, confirmed by the various portraits of her 
 preserved at Hampton Court Palace, at Goodwood, the seat of the Duke of 
 Richmond, &c. 
 
114 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 Albemarle, were in their graves. I cannot conceal 
 my opinion that Nokes was not making the French 
 so ridiculous at Dover (the reader will remember the 
 incident related in a former chapter,) as the French 
 were making the English infamous, at the same time 
 and in the same place, by this very treaty. 
 
 The Duchess remained here for a fortnight, 
 and "Waller sung her leave-taking in some of his 
 courtly and felicitous couplets. It was indeed a 
 last farewell. In another month the royal lady by 
 whom the treaty was completed was no more. She 
 died at St. Cloud on the 30th of June, in her 
 twenty-sixth year, poisoned, it is supposed, by a 
 dose of sublimate given in a glass of succory-water.* 
 
 Louise de Querouaille abiding in England, became 
 the mistress of the King, Duchess of Portsmouth, 
 and the rival of Nell Gwyn. Her only child by the 
 King was recognised by the royal name of Lennox, 
 created Duke of Richmond, and was the lineal 
 ancestor of the present noble family of that name 
 and title. 
 
 On the return of the court to London, Nelly 
 removed from Lincoln's Inn Fields to a house on 
 the east end of the north side of Pall Mall, from 
 whence in the following year she removed to a house 
 
 * See Bossuet's account of her death in Gentleman's Magazine for August 1851. 
 
NELL'S HOUSE IN PALL MALL. 115 
 
 on the south side, with a garden towards St. James's 
 Park. Her neighbour on one side was Edward 
 Griffin, Esq., Treasurer of the Chamber, and ancestor 
 of the present Lord Braybrooke ; and, on the other, 
 the widow of Charles Weston, third Earl of Port- 
 land.* Nelly at first had only a lease of the house, 
 which, as soon as she discovered, she returned the 
 conveyance to the King, with a remark characteristic 
 of her wit and of the monarch to whom it was 
 addressed. The King enjoyed the joke, and perhaps 
 admitted its truth, so the house in Pall Mall was 
 conveyed free to Nell and her representatives for 
 ever. The truth of the story is confirmed by the 
 fact that the house which occupies the site of the 
 one iii which Nelly lived, now No. 79, and tenanted 
 by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel 
 in Foreign Parts, is the only freehold on the south 
 or Park side of Pall Mall, t 
 
 For some months preceding the retirement of 
 Nelly from the stage, the palace of Whitehall had 
 hardly been a place for either the wife or the mistress 
 the Queen or the Countess of Castlemaine. The 
 King, in November, 1669, when his intimacy with 
 " Madam Gwin," as she was now called, had begun 
 
 * Cunningham's Handbook for London, article " Pall Mall." 
 t It is right to add, as Mr. Fearnside has kindly informed me, that no entry of 
 the grant is to be found in the Land Revenue Record Office. 
 
 12 
 
116 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 to be talked about, had settled Somerset House, in 
 the Strand, on his Queen for her life ; and, in 
 August, 1670, when his liking for Nelly was still on 
 the increase, and his growing partiality for Louise 
 de Querouaille the theme of common conversation, 
 the imperious Countess of Castlemaine was appeased, 
 for a time, at least, by being created Duchess of 
 Cleveland. 
 
 There were people, however, and those too not of 
 the sourer kind, who were far from being pleased 
 with the present state of the morality at court, and 
 the nature and number of the King's^ amours. The 
 theatres had become, it was said, nests of prostitution. 
 In Parliament it was urged by the opponents of 
 the court that a tax should be levied on the play- 
 houses. This was of course opposed ; and by one 
 speaker on that side the bold argument was 
 advanced, "that the players were the King's ser- 
 vants, and a part of his pleasure." The speaker was 
 Sir John Birkenhead, a man of wit, though not 
 over lucky on this occasion. He was followed by 
 Sir John Coventry, who asked, with much gravity, 
 " whether did the King's pleasure lie among the 
 men that acted or the women?" The saying was 
 carried to the King, and Sir John Coventry was 
 waylaid on his road to his house in Suffolk Street, 
 
IMPUDENCE OF ACTORS AND ACTRESSES. 117 
 
 on a dark night in December, and his nose cut 
 to the bone that he might remember the offence 
 he had given to his sovereign. The allusion 
 chiefly applied to Moll Davis and Nell Gwyn, and 
 was made in the very year in which the latter gave 
 birth to the Duke of St. Alban's ; while the punish- 
 ment was inflicted in the very street in which Moll 
 Davis lived.* 
 
 The players and dramatic writers required looking 
 after. Shadwell brought Sir Robert Howard on the 
 stage in the character of Sir Positive Atall, and in 
 so marked a manner that the caricature was at once 
 apparent. Mrs. Corey, (of whom I have already 
 given some account) imitated the oddities of Lady 
 Harvey, f and was imprisoned for her skill and 
 impertinence. Lacy, while playing the Country 
 Gentleman in one of Ned Howard's unprinted plays, 
 abused the court with so much wit and insolence 
 for selling places, and doing every thing for money, 
 that it was found proper to silence the play, and 
 commit Lacy to the Porter's Lodge.! Kynaston 
 mimicked Sir Charles Sedley, and was severely 
 thrashed by Sedley for his pains. The Duke of 
 
 * Burnet, i. 468, ed. 1823. He was taken out of his coach (Reresby, p. 18, 
 ed. 1735). The well known Coventry Act against cutting and maiming had its 
 origin in this incident. t Pepys, 15 Jan. 1668-9. 
 
 | Ibid. iv. 18, 19. g Ibid. 1 Feb. 1668-9. 
 
118 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 Buckingham, while busy with " The Rehearsal," 
 threatened to bring Sir William Coventry (uncle of 
 Sir John) into a play at the King's House, but 
 Coventry's courage averted the attempt.* He 
 challenged the Duke for the intended insult, 
 and was committed to the Tower by the King 
 for sending a challenge to a person of the Duke's 
 distinction. 
 
 Charles's conduct was in no way changed by the 
 personality of the abuse employed against him in 
 the House of Commons. He still visited 
 
 His Clevelands, his Nells, and his Carwells. 
 
 Evelyn records a walk made on the 2nd March, 
 1671, in which he attended him through St. James's 
 Park, where he both saw and heard " a familiar 
 discourse between the King and Mrs. Nelly, as 
 they called an impudent comedian, she looking out 
 of her garden on a terrace at the top of the wall, 
 and the King standing on the green walk under it." 
 The garden was attached to her house in Pall Mall, 
 and the ground on which Nelly stood was a Mount 
 or raised terrace, of which a portion may still be 
 seen under the park wall of Marlborough House. 
 Of this scene, at which Evelyn tells us he was 
 
 * Pepys, 4 March, 1688-9. 
 
EVELYN AND NELLY. 119 
 
 " heartily sorry," my friend Mr. Ward has painted 
 a picture of surprising truthfulness and beauty.* 
 
 When this interview occurred the King was taking 
 his usual quick exercise in the park, on his way to 
 the Duchess of Cleveland, at Berkshire House 
 subsequently, and till within these few years, called 
 Cleveland House a detached mansion built by the 
 Berkshire branch of the Howard family, on the site 
 of the present Bridgewater House. Charles at this 
 time divided his attentions between Nelly and the 
 Duchess. Moll Davis had fallen out of favour, 
 though not forsaken or unpensioned : while many 
 open and almost avowed infidelities on the part of 
 the Duchess of Cleveland had lessened the kindly 
 feelings of the King towards her; though he 
 continued to supply ample means for the main- 
 tenance of the rank to which his partiality had 
 raised her. t Poor Alinda, however, was no longer 
 young, and the memory of old attractions could 
 make but little way with Charles against the wit 
 
 * See frontispiece to this book. In Ravenscroft's London Cuckolds <4to. 1683) 
 is the following stage direction " Dashwell and Jane upon a mount, looking over 
 a wall that parts the two gardens," p. 73. Among Mr. Robert Cole's Nell Gwyn 
 Papers (Bills sent to Nelly for payment) there is a charge for this very Mount. 
 
 i She had 600W. a year out of the excise, and 30001. a year from the same 
 quarter for each of her sons. (Harl. MS. 6013, temp. Chas. II.) Her pension 
 from the Post Office, of 4700Z. a year, was stopped for a time in William the 
 Third's reign ; but the amount then withheld was paid in George the First's reign 
 to her son the Duke of Grafton, sole executor and residuary legatee. (Audit 
 Office Enrolments.) 
 
120 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 and beauty of Nell Gwyn, and the engaging youth 
 and political influences of the new maid of honour, 
 Louise de Querouaille, or Mrs. Carwell as she 
 was called by the common people, to whom the 
 name offered many difficulties for its proper pro- 
 nunciation. 
 
 There is no reason to suspect that either Nelly 
 or Louise was ever unfaithful to the light-hearted 
 King, or that Charles did not appreciate the fidelity 
 of his mistresses. The people (it was an age of 
 confirmed immorality) rather rejoiced than otherwise 
 at their sovereign's loose and disorderly life. Nelly 
 became the idol of * the town,' and was known far and 
 near as the Protestant Mistress ; while Mrs. Carwell, 
 or the Duchess of Portsmouth as she had now 
 become, was hated by the people, and was known, 
 wherever Nelly was known, as the Popish Mistress. 
 It is this contrast of position which has given to Nell 
 Gwyn much of the odd and particular favour con- 
 nected with her name. Nelly was an English girl 
 of humble origin a favourite actress a beauty, 
 and a wit. The Duchess was a foreigner of 
 noble origin with beauty certainly, but without 
 wit ; and, worse still, sufficiently suspected to be 
 little better than a pensioner from France, sent to 
 enslave the English King and the English nation. 
 
NELLY'S SMART REPLY. 121 
 
 To such a height did this feeling run that Misson 
 was assured hawkers had been heard to cry a printed 
 sheet, advising the King to part with the Duchess 
 of Portsmouth, or to expect most dreadful conse- 
 quences.* While a still stronger illustration of 
 what the people thought of the Duchess is contained 
 in the reply of her brother-in-law, the Earl of 
 Pembroke, of whom the Duchess had threatened to 
 complain to the King. The Earl told her that if 
 she did he would set her upon her head at Charing 
 Cross, and show the nation its grievance.! 
 
 A feeling of antipathy between Protestants and 
 Roman Catholics was at this time exciting the 
 people to many ridiculous pageants and expressions 
 of ill-will to those about the Court suspected of 
 anti-Protestant principles. A True Blue Protestant 
 poet was a name of honour, and a Protestant sock 
 a favourite article of apparel. I When Nelly was 
 insulted in her coach at Oxford by the mob, who 
 mistook her for the Duchess of Portsmouth, she 
 looked out of the window and said, with her usual 
 good humour, " Pray, good people, be civil ; I am 
 the Protestant ." This laconic speech drew 
 
 * Misson's Memoirs, 8vo. 1719, p. 204. 
 t Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting, ed. Wornum, p. 464. 
 
 J Shadwell was called the True Blue Protestant poet ; for the Protestant sock, 
 see Scott's Dryden. 
 
122 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 upon her the favour of the populace, and she was 
 suffered to proceed without further molestation.* 
 
 An eminent goldsmith of the early part of the last 
 century was often heard to relate a striking instance 
 which he himself remembered of Nelly's popularity. 
 His master, when he was an apprentice, had made 
 a most expensive service of plate as a present from 
 the King to the Duchess of Portsmouth: great 
 numbers of people crowded the shop to see what the 
 plate was like ; some indulged in curses against the 
 Duchess, while all were unanimous in wishing the 
 present had been for the use of Mrs. Gwyn.f With 
 the London apprentices, long an influential body 
 both east and west of Temple Bar, Nell was always 
 a favourite. 
 
 She and the Duchess frequently met at White- 
 hall, often in good humour, but oftener not in the 
 best temper one with the other, for Nelly was a wit 
 and loved to laugh at her Grace. The nature of 
 these bickerings between them has been well but 
 coarsely described in a single half- sheet of contem- 
 porary verses printed in 1682 " A Dialogue between 
 the Duchess of Portsmouth and Madam Gwyn at 
 
 * The great Lord Peterborough, when mistaken for the Duke of Marlborough, 
 made a similar escape. " Gentlemen, I can convince you by two reasons that I 
 am not the Duke. In the first place, I have only five guineas in my pocket ; and 
 in the second they are heartily at your service." 
 
 f The London Chronicle Aug. 15, 18 1778. 
 
HER QUARREL WITH PORTSMOUTH. 123 
 
 parting." The Duchess was on her way to France, 
 I believe for the first time since she landed at 
 Dover, and the language employed hy the rival 
 ladies is at least characteristic. Nelly vindicates 
 her fidelity 
 
 Let Fame, that never yet spoke well of woman, 
 
 Give out I was a strolling and common ; 
 
 Yet have I been to him, since the first hour, 
 As constant as the needle to the flower. 
 
 The Duchess threatens her with the people's 
 " curse and hate," to which Nell replies : 
 
 The people's hate, much less their curse, I fear 
 I do them justice with less sums a-year. 
 I neither run in court nor city's score, 
 I pay my debts, distribute to the poor. 
 
 Another single sheet in folio, dated a year earlier, 
 records "A pleasant Battle hetween Tutty and 
 Snapshort, the two Lap -Dogs of the Utopian Court." 
 Tutty belonged to Nell Gwyn, and Snapshort to the 
 Duchess, and the dialogue is supposed to allude to 
 some real fray between the rival ladies. Tutty describes 
 the mistress of Snapshort as one of Pharaoh's lean 
 kine, and with a countenance so sharp as if she 
 would devour him as she had devoured the nation, 
 while Snapshort observes of Nelly that she hopes to 
 see her once more upon a dunghill, or in her old 
 calling of selling oranges and lemons. 
 
124 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 But a still livelier description has been left us by 
 one of the most charming of lady letter-writers : 
 "Mademoiselle amasses treasure," says Madame 
 Sevigne, " and makes herself feared and respected 
 by as many as she can; but she did not foresee 
 that she should find a young actress in her way, 
 whom the King dotes on, and she has it not in her 
 power to withdraw him from her. He divides his 
 care, his time, and his wealth between these two. 
 The actress is as haughty as Mademoiselle; she 
 insults her, she makes grimaces at her, she attacks 
 her, she frequently steals the King from her, and 
 boasts whenever he gives her the preference. She 
 is young, indiscreet, confident, wild, and of an 
 agreeable humour. She sings, she dances, acts her 
 part with a good grace ; has a son by the King, and 
 hopes to have him acknowledged. As to Made- 
 moiselle she reasons thus : * This lady,' says she, 
 ' pretends to be a person of quality ; she says 
 she is related to the best families in France : 
 whenever any person of distinction dies she puts 
 herself into mourning. If she be a lady of such 
 quality, why does she demean herself to be a 
 courtezan ? She ought to die with shame. As for 
 me it is my profession. I do not pretend to be 
 anything better. He has a son by me ; I contend 
 
HER RETORT ON PORTSMOUTH. 125 
 
 that he ought to acknowledge him, and I am assured 
 he will ; for he loves me as well as Mademoiselle.' ' 
 
 The good sense of this is obvious enough; but 
 the satire which it contains will be found to merit 
 illustration. 
 
 There is a very rare print of the Duchess of 
 Portsmouth reclining on a mossy bank, with very 
 little covering over her other than a laced chemise. 
 There is also an equally rare print of Nelly in nearly 
 the same posture, and equally unclad. The story 
 runs that Nell had contrived to filch the chemise 
 from the Duchess, and by wearing it herself at a 
 time when the Duchess should have worn it, to have 
 attracted the King, and tricked her rival.* 
 
 There is yet another story illustrative of Madame 
 Sevigne's letter. The news of the Cham of Tartary's 
 death reached England at the same time with the 
 news of the death of a prince of the blood in 
 France. The Duchess appeared at Court in 
 mourning so did Nelly. The latter was asked in 
 the hearing of the Duchess, for whom she appeared in 
 mourning. " Oh ! " said Nell, " have you not heard 
 of my loss in the death of the Chanl of Tartary." 
 " And what relation," replied her friend, " was the 
 
 * Morse's Catalogue of Prints, made by Dodd, the auctioneer, by whom they 
 were sold in 1816. 
 
126 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 Cham of Tartary to you ? " " Oh," answered Nelly, 
 
 " exactly the same relation that the Prince of 
 
 was to Mile. Querouaille." This was a saying after 
 the King's own heart. 
 
 Another of her retorts on the Duchess has heen 
 preserved in a small chap-book called " Jokes upon 
 Jokes," printed in London about the year 1721. Its 
 doggrel hobbles thus : 
 
 The Duchess of Portsmouth one time supped with the King's 
 
 Two chickens were at table, when the Duchess would make 
 
 'em three. 
 
 Nell Gwyn, being by, denied the same ; the Duchess speedily 
 Reply'd here's one, another two, and two and one makes three. 
 
 'Tis well said, lady, answered Nell : King, here's one for thee, 
 Another for myself, sweet Charles, 'cause you and I agree ; 
 The third she may take to herself, because she found the same : 
 The King himself laughed heartily, whilst Portsmouth blush'd 
 for shame. 
 
 It was on a somewhat similar occasion that Nell 
 called Charles the Second her Charles the third 
 meaning that her first lover was Charles Hart, her 
 second Charles Sackville, and her third Charles 
 Stuart. The King may have enjoyed the joke, for 
 he loved a laiigh, as I have before observed, even at 
 his own expense. 
 
 What the Duchess thought of such jokes, was no 
 secret to De Foe. " I remember," (he says,) " that 
 
THE KING AT NELLY'S CONCERT. 127 
 
 the late Duchess of Portsmouth in the time of 
 Charles II. gave a severe retort to one who was 
 praising Nell Gwyn, whom she hated. They were 
 talking of her wit and beauty, and how she always 
 diverted the King with her extraordinary repartees, 
 how she had a fine mien and appeared as much the 
 lady of quality as anybody. "Yes, madam," said 
 the Duchess, " but anybody may know she has been 
 an orange -wench by her swearing." * 
 
 Of her manner in diverting the King, Gibber has 
 preserved a story from the relation of Bowman the 
 actor, who lived to a green old age, and from whom 
 Oldys picked up some characteristic anecdotes. 
 Bowman, then a youth, and famed for his voice, was 
 appointed to take part in a concert at the private 
 lodgings of Mrs. Gwyn; at which were present 
 the King, the Duke of York, and one or two more 
 usually admitted to those detached parties of 
 pleasure. When the music was over, the King gave 
 it extraordinary commendations. " Then, sir," said 
 the lady, "to show that you do not speak like a 
 courtier, I hope you will make the performers a 
 handsome present." The King said he had no 
 money about him, and asked the Duke if he had 
 any. " I believe, sir," (answered the Duke,) " not 
 
 * De Foe's Review, viii. 247-8, as quoted in Wilson's Life of De Foe, i. 38. 
 
128 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 above a guinea or two." Merry Mrs. Nell, turning 
 to the people about her, and making bold with the 
 King's common expression, cried " Odds fish ! what 
 company am I got into ? " * 
 
 What the songs at Nell's concert were like we 
 may gather from Tom D'Urfey, a favourite author 
 for finding words to popular pieces of music. His 
 " Joy to great Caesar " was much in vogue : 
 
 Joy to great Caesar, 
 Long life, love, and pleasure ; 
 'Tis a health that divine is, 
 Fill the bowl high as mine is, 
 
 Let none fear a fever, 
 But take it off thus, boys ; 
 
 Let the King live for ever, 
 'Tis no matter for us, boys f 
 
 No less was the chorus of a song in his " Virtuous 
 Wife." 
 
 Let Caesar live long, let Caesar live long, 
 
 For ever be happy, and ever be young ; 
 
 And he that dares hope to change a King for a Pope, 
 
 Let him die, let him die, while Caesar lives long. 
 
 If these were sung, as I suspect they were, at 
 Nelly's house, it was somewhat hard that the King 
 had nothing to give, by way of reward, beyond empty 
 praise for so much loyalty in what was at least 
 meant for verse. 
 
 * Gibber's Apology, ed. 1740, p. 448. Bowman died 23 March, 1739, aged 88. 
 | D'Urfey's Pills, ii. 155. 
 
BIRTH OF HER SECOND SON. 129 
 
 There were occurring in England at this time 
 certain events of moment to find places either in 
 the page of history or biography ; but in many of 
 which " the chargeable ladies about the Court," as 
 Shaftesbury designated the King's mistresses, would 
 probably take very little interest. The deaths of 
 Fairfax or St. John, of Clarendon or Milton, of the 
 mother of Oliver Cromwell or of the loyal Marquess 
 of Winchester (all of which happened during the 
 time referred to in the present chapter), would 
 hardly create a moment's concern at Whitehall. 
 The news of a second Dutch war might excite 
 more, as it involved an expense likely to divert the 
 King's money from his mistresses. Greater interest, 
 we may be sure, was felt in the death of the Duchess 
 of York and the speculations on the subject of her 
 successor, in Blood's stealing the Crown, in the 
 opening of a new theatre in Dorset Gardens, in the 
 representation of " The Eehearsal," in the destruc- 
 tion by fire of the first Drury Lane, and in the 
 marriage of the King's eldest child by the Duchess 
 of Cleveland, to Thomas Lord Dacre afterwards 
 Earl of Sussex. 
 
 While " The Rehearsal " was drawing crowded 
 houses, indeed in the same month in which it first 
 appeared, Nell Gwyn was delivered (25 Dec. 1671) 
 

 130 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 of a second child by the King, called James, in 
 compliment to the Duke of York. The boy thrived, 
 
 and as he grew in strength became, as his brother 
 still continued, a favourite with his father. The 
 Queen, long used to the profligate courses of her 
 husband, had abandoned all hope of his reformation, 
 so that a fresh addition to the list of his natural 
 children caused no particular emotion. Her Majesty 
 moreover enjoyed herself after an innocent fashion 
 of her own, and at times in a way to occasion some 
 merriment in the court. One of her adventures in 
 the company of La Belle Stuart and the Duchess 
 
A FROLIC NEA.R AUDLEY END. 131 
 
 of Buckingham (the daughter of Sir Thomas 
 Fairfax) deserves to be related. The court was at 
 Audley End in the autumn of 1670, and the 
 temptation of a fair in the neighbourhood induced 
 the Queen and several of her attendants to visit 
 it in disguise. They therefore dressed themselves 
 like country girls, in red petticoats and waistcoats. 
 Sir Bernard Gascoign rode on a cart-jade before the 
 Queen, another gentleman in like fashion before 
 the Duchess of Richmond, and a Mr. Roper before 
 the Duchess of Buckingham. Their dresses, 
 however, were, it is said, so much overdone, that 
 they looked more like mountebanks than country 
 clowns, and they were consequently followed as soon 
 as they arrived at the fair by a crowd of curious 
 people. The Queen, stepping into a booth to buy 
 a pair of yellow stockings for her sweetheart, 
 and Sir Bernard asking for a pair of gloves, striped 
 with blue, for his sweetheart, they were at once 
 detected by their false dialect and gibberish. A 
 girl in the crowd remembered to have seen the 
 Queen at dinner, and at once made known her 
 discovery. The whole concourse of people were 
 soon collected in one spot to see the Queen. It 
 was high time therefore to get their horses and 
 return to Audley End. They were soon remounted 
 
 K2 
 
132 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 and out of the fair, but not out of their trouble, for 
 as many country-people as had horses followed with 
 their wives, children, sweethearts, or neighbours 
 behind them, and attended the Queen to the court 
 gate. " And thus," says the writer to whom we are 
 indebted for the relation of the adventure, " was a 
 merry frolic turned into a penance."* The readers 
 of Pepys and De Grammont will remember that 
 La Belle Jennings had a somewhat similar mishap 
 when, dressed as an orange girl and accompanied 
 by Miss Price, she endeavoured to visit the German 
 fortune-teller. 
 
 While the court was alternately annoyed and 
 amused with diversions of this description, and the 
 death of the Earl of Sandwich and the war with 
 the Dutch were still subjects of conversation, the 
 Duchess of Cleveland on the 16th of July, 1672, 
 was delivered of a daughter, and on the 29th of the 
 same month and year the fair Querouaille produced a 
 son. The King disowned the girl but acknowledged 
 the boy, and many idle conjectures were afloat both 
 in court and city on the subject. The father of the 
 Cleveland child was, it is said, Colonel Churchill, 
 afterwards the great Duke of Marlborough, then 
 
 * Mr. Henshaw to Sir Kobert Fasten, Oct. 13 1670. Ives's Select Papers, 4to. 
 1773, p. 39. 
 
MARRIAGES AND PEERAGES. 133 
 
 a young and handsome adventurer about Whitehall. 
 The girl was called Barbara, after her mother, 
 and became a nun. 
 
 These events were varied in the following month 
 by the marriage of the Duke of Grafton, the King's 
 son by the Duchess of Cleveland, to the only child 
 of the Earl and Countess of Arlington; by the 
 birth of a first child to the Duke and Duchess of 
 Monmouth ; and by the widowhood in December 
 of La Belle Stuart, the beautiful Duchess of 
 Richmond. In the following year other occurrences 
 took place in which Nelly was interested. On the 
 19th August, 1673, Mademoiselle de Querouaille 
 was created Duchess of Portsmouth, and in October 
 following, Moll Davis, her former rival in the royal 
 affections, was delivered of a daughter, called Mary 
 Tudor, and acknowledged by the King. Following 
 hard on these was the marriage of the Duke of York 
 to his future queen ; the introduction of the opera 
 into England ; the opening of the new theatre in Drury 
 Lane ; the marriage of the future Earl of Lichfield 
 to Charlotta, another natural daughter of the King 
 by the Duchess of Cleveland; the creation of 
 Charles Fitzroy to be Duke of Southampton ; the 
 marriage of the Duchess of Portsmouth's sister to 
 the Earl of Pembroke ; Lord Buckhurst's elevation 
 
134 
 
 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 to the earldom of Middlesex ; that of the King's son 
 by Katharine Pegg to be Earl of Plymouth ; and 
 that of the Duchess of Portsmouth's son to be Duke 
 of Richmond. 
 
 Some of these creations, both natal and heraldic, 
 were little to the liking of Nelly, who took her own 
 way of showing her dissatisfaction. " Come hither, 
 you little bastard," she cried to her son Charles in 
 the hearing of his father.* The King remonstrated, 
 and Nelly, with a snappish and yet good-natured 
 laugh, replied " I have no better name to call him 
 by." Never was a peerage sought in so witty and 
 abrupt a manner, and never was a plea for one so 
 immediately admitted, the King creating his eldest 
 son by Nell Gwyn, on the 27th December, 1676, 
 Baron of Headington and Earl of Burford. Nelly 
 had now another name to give to her child. But 
 this was not all that was done, and, as I see reason 
 to believe, at this time. The heiress of the Veres, 
 the daughter of the twentieth and last Earl of 
 Oxford of that illustrious family, was betrothed 
 by the King to the young Earl of Burford ; and, 
 though the lively orange -girl was not spared to 
 witness the marriage, yet she lived to see the future 
 wife of her son in the infancy of those charms which 
 
 * Granger, iii. 211, ed. 1779. 
 
KING CHARLES'S CHILDREN. 
 
 135 
 
 made her one of the most conspicuous of the Kneller 
 Beauties, still so attractive in the collection at 
 Hampton Court.* 
 
 * When Dugdale was busy with his "Baronage," he laid the following 
 statement of difficulties before the King. 
 
 " Whereas the second volume of an Historicall Worke, intituled the Baronage 
 of England (being extracted from publiq records, and other authorities) is now 
 in the presse ; and extending from the end of K. Henry the Third's reigne 
 containeth what is most memorable of the English Nobility throughout all times 
 since ; in w ch the preambles of most Creation Patents have been usefull. 
 Descending down to the reign of this king, the Author humbly concieveth, that 
 there is some deficiency in that of the Duke of Monmouth's Creation; no mention 
 at all being made that he is his Ma tiM naturall son, though in some patents, and 
 other instruments since, he hath been owned so to be. In that also of the 
 Countesseof Castlemaine, whereby she hath the title of Countesse of Southampton 
 and Dutchesse of Cleveland, conferred on her ; her eldest son (on whom those 
 honours are entailed) is denominated Charles Palmer, and George (her third son) 
 to whom, in case Charles die w th out issue male, the remaynder is limitted, is 
 sayd to be her second son, and likewise surnamed Palmer; but afterwards, upon 
 his being created Earle of Northumberland, called Fitz-roy, and sayd to be her 
 third son. Also in the Creation-Patent of the same Charles, to be Duke of 
 Southampton, the name of Fitz-roy is attributed to him. These things considered, 
 the Author most humbly craveth direction what to do herein ; whether to decline 
 the mention of all his Mat"** creations, rather than from the authentic of these 
 Patents to divulge such contradictions; though thereby he shall hazard the 
 displeasure of some, whom his Ma tie hath deservedly raysed to such degrees of 
 honour, since his happy restoration. 
 
 "If it be resolved, that all of them shall be called Fitz-roy s; Then forasmuch 
 as the Duke of Southampton, and Earle of Northumberland, and likewise the 
 Duke of Grafton, are sayd to be the King's naturall sons by the sayd Dutchesse of 
 Cleveland ; whether it will not be as proper to make mention on what particular 
 woman his Ma tie begot the Dukes of Monmouth, Richmond, and E. of Plimouth ? 
 
 " This being shewed to K. Charles the Second, by the Earl of Anglesey, then 
 L d Privye Seale, the king directed that these his naturall children should be all 
 of them called Fitz-Roys ; but no mention to be made of the mothers of these 
 three last-named ; viz. Monmouth, Richmond, and Plymouth." 
 
 Hamper's Life of Dugdale, p. 494. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Houses in which Nelly is said to have lived Burford House, Windsor, 
 one of the few genuine Her losses at basset Court paid to 
 Nelly by the Duke of Monmouth, Lord Cavendish, &c. Death 
 of her mother Printed elegy on her death 1 Nelly's household 
 expenses Bills for her chair and bed Death of Mrs. Roberts 
 Foundation of Chelsea Hospital Nelly connected with its 
 origin Books dedicated to Nelly Death of her second son 
 The Earl Burford created Duke of St. Alban's Nelly's only 
 letter Ken and Nelly at Winchester Nelly at Avington 
 Death of the King Was the King poisoned 1 Nelly to have 
 been created Countess of Greenwich if the King had lived. 
 
 THERE are more houses pointed out in which 
 Nell Gwyn is said to have lived than sites of palaces 
 belonging to King John, hunting-lodges believed to 
 have sheltered Queen Elizabeth, or mansions and 
 posting-houses in which Oliver Cromwell resided or 
 put up. She is said by some to have been born at 
 Hereford; by others at London; and Oxford it is 
 found has a fair claim to be considered as her birth- 
 place. But the houses in which she is said to have 
 lived far exceed in number the cities contending for 
 the honour of her birth. She is believed by some 
 
HOUSES IN WHICH SHE LIVED. 137 
 
 to have lived at Chelsea, by others at Bagnigge 
 Wells ; Highgate, and Walworth, and Filberts, near 
 Windsor, are added to the list of reputed localities. 
 A staring inscription in the Strand in London 
 instructs the curious passenger that a house at the 
 upper end of a narrow court was " formerly the 
 dairy of Nell Gwyn." I have been willing to believe 
 in one and all of these conjectural residences, but, 
 after a long and careful inquiry, I am obliged to 
 reject them all. Her early life was spent in Drury 
 -Lane and Lincoln's Inn Fields; her latter life 
 in Pall Mall, and in Burford House in the town 
 of Windsor.* The rate-books of the parish of 
 St. Martin's-in-the-Fields record her residence in 
 Pall Mall from 1670 to her death, and the site of her 
 house in Windsor may be established, were other 
 evidence wanting, by the large engraving after 
 Knyff. 
 
 We have seen from Gibber that Nelly was fond of 
 having concerts at her house, and that she never 
 failed in urging the claims of those who played and 
 sung to the favourable consideration of the King and 
 the Duke of York. She had her basset-table, too, 
 and in one night is said to have lost to the once 
 
 * " The Prince of Wales is lodged [at Windsor] in the Princess of Denmark's 
 house, which was Mrs. Ellen Gwyn's." Letter, Aug. 14, 1688, Ellis Cwresp. ii. 118. 
 
138 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 beautiful Duchess of Mazarine as much as 1400 
 guineas, or 50001. at least of our present money.* 
 Basset, long the fashionable game, was I believe 
 introduced into this country from France. Etherege 
 and Lady Mary Wortley have sung its attractions 
 and its snares, and D'Urfey has condemned it in 
 one of the best of his plays. Nor will Evelyn's 
 description of the basset-table which he saw on a 
 Sunday night at Whitehall, only a few hours before 
 the King was seized with his last illness, be effaced 
 from the memory of those to whom his work is 
 known. 
 
 Nelly possessed great interest with the King, and 
 her house at Windsor, with its staircases painted 
 expressly for her by the fashionable pencil of Verrio,t 
 was the rendezvous of all who wished to stand well 
 at the Castle. The Duke of Monmouth, the hand- 
 some Sydney of De Grammont's Memoirs, afterwards 
 Earl of Romney, and the patriot Lord Cavendish, 
 afterwards Duke of Devonshire, were among Nelly's 
 friends. Such constant court was paid to her for 
 political purposes by the Duke of Monmouth and 
 
 Lucas's Lives of Gamesters, 12mo. 1714. Lord Cavendish lost a thousand 
 pounds in two nights, at Madame Mazarine's. Countess Dowager of Sunderland, 
 to the Earl of Halifax, Aug. 5, 1680 :-(Miss Berry's Lady Racbael Russell, 
 p. 373.) 
 
 t Accounts of the Paymaster of His Majesty's Works and Buildings, preserved 
 in the Audit Office.' 
 
DEATH OF HER MOTHER. 139 
 
 Lord Cavendish, that Lady Rachael Russell records 
 the King's command that Nelly should refuse to see 
 them.* Monmouth was endeavouring to regain his 
 situations, of which he had been properly deprived 
 by his father, and Cavendish was urging the claims 
 of the Protestants on behalf of the famous Bill for 
 excluding the Duke of York from the succession to 
 the crown. Nelly, it will be remembered, had already 
 identified herself with the Protestant interest, but 
 the regard with which she was treated by King James 
 is ample evidence that she had never abused her 
 influence, in order to prejudice Charles II. against 
 his brother. Indeed she would appear to have 
 been among the first who foresaw the insane am- 
 bition of Monmouth. She is said to have called 
 him " Prince Perkin " to his face, and when the 
 Duke replied that she was " ill-bred," " Ill-bred," 
 retorted Nelly, "was Mrs. Barlow better bred 
 than I ? " t 
 
 I have introduced the mother of Nelly by name to 
 the reader, and I have now to record her death. 
 " We hear," says the ' Domestic Intelligencer ' of 
 the 5th of August, 1679, " that Madam Ellen Gwyn's 
 
 * Lady Sunderland to Henry Sydney, 16 Dec. 1679. (Romney's Diary, &c. i. 
 207.) Lady Rachael Eussell to her husband, 3 April, 1680. (Miss Berry's Lady 
 Rachael, pp. 210, 215, 367.) 
 
 t Gentleman's Magazine for November, 1851, p. 471. 
 
140 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 mother, sitting lately by the water- side at her house 
 by the Neat-Houses, near Chelsea, fell accidentally 
 into the water and was drowned." Oldys had seen 
 a quarto pamphlet of the time giving an account of 
 her death. This I have never met with, but among 
 the Luttrell Collection of ballads and broadsides sold 
 at the Stowe sale was an elegy " Upon that never-to- 
 be-forgotten matron Old Madam Gwyn, who died in 
 her own fishpond, 29 July, 1679." The verse is of 
 the lowest possible character of Grub Street elegy, 
 nor could I, after a careful perusal, glean from it any 
 biographical matter other than that she was very 
 fat and fond of brandy. She was buried in the 
 church of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, and it is said 
 with five gilded scutcheons to the hearse ; but this 
 could hardly be, if the ballad-monger's date of the 
 29th is correct, for the register of St. Martin's 
 records her burial on the 30th, the very next day.* 
 That the old lady resided at one time with her 
 daughter and in her house in Pall Mall, may, I 
 think, be inferred from some curious bills for debts 
 incurred by Nelly, accidentally discovered among 
 the mutilated Exchequer papers: an apothecary's 
 bill containing charges for cordial juleps with pearls 
 
 * 1679, 30 July. Mrs. Ellinor Gwin, w. Burial Pegister of St. HartirC s-in-the 
 Fields. See also Gentleman's Magazine for November, 1851, p. 470. 
 
HER EXPENSES. 141 
 
 for " Master Charles," and " plasters," " glysters," 
 " cordials" for " old Mrs. Gwyn." 
 
 From these bills, the originals of which have been 
 
 kindly entrusted to me by Mr. Loddy and Mr. Robert 
 
 Cole, some extracts may be made that will interest 
 
 the reader. The bills are of a very miscellaneous 
 
 nature a chance saving from a bundle of household 
 
 and other expenses of the years 1674, 1675, and 1676. 
 
 They include charges for a French coach, and for a 
 
 great cipher from the chariot painter ; for a bedstead, 
 
 with silver ornaments ; for side-boxes at the Duke's 
 
 Theatre, to which she never went alone, but often 
 
 with as many as four people, Nell paying for all ; for 
 
 great looking-glasses ; for cleansing and burnishing 
 
 the warming-pan ; for the hire of sedan-chairs ; for 
 
 dress, furniture, and table expenses ; for white satin 
 
 petticoats, and white and red satin nightgowns ; for 
 
 kilderkins of strong ale, ordinary ale, and " a barrel 
 
 of eights;" for alms to poor men and women; for 
 
 oats and beans, and "chaney" oranges at threepence 
 
 each; "for a fine landskip fan;" for scarlet satin 
 
 shoes covered with silver lace, and a pair of satin 
 
 shoes laced over with gold for "Master Charles." 
 
 One or two of these documents have escaped entire. 
 
 A bill for her sedan-chair runs as follows : 
 
142 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 June 17, 1675. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 ' The body of the chaire 
 
 3 10 
 
 the best neats leather to cover the outside . . . 
 
 3 10 
 
 600 inside nailes, coulered and burnishd . 
 
 11 
 
 600 guilt with water gold at 5s. per cent . . . 
 
 1 10 
 
 1200 outside nailes, the same gold, at 8s. per cent . 
 
 4 16 
 
 300 studds, the same gold 
 
 1 16 
 
 2000 halfe roofe nailes, the same gold . . . 
 
 1 14 
 
 200 toppit nailes, same gold 
 
 3 14 
 
 5 sprigs for the top, rich guilt 
 
 400 
 
 a haspe for the doore, rich guilt .... 
 
 1 10 
 
 ffor change of 4 glasses 
 
 200 
 
 2 pound 5s. for one new glasse, to be abated out of 
 
 
 that ffor a broken glasse 15s 
 
 1 10 
 
 ffor guilding windows and irons . . . . 
 
 150 
 
 
 020 
 
 canuisse to put vnder the leather . . . . 
 
 080 
 
 all sorts of iron nailes 
 
 050 
 
 worknianshipe, the chaire inside and outside . . 
 
 2 10 
 
 Reict. dated 13 July, 1675, for "30 in full discharge." 
 
 34 11 
 
 That she did not always employ her own sedan 
 
 is evident from the following bill : 
 
 
 For careing you to Mrs. Knights and to Madam 
 
 
 Younges, and to Madam Churchfillds, and wating 
 
 
 four cures 
 
 050 
 
 For careing you the next day, and wating seven 
 
 
 cures 
 
 076 
 
 For careing you to Mrs. Knights, and to Mrs. Cas- 
 
 
 sells, and to Mrs. Churchills, and to Mrs. Knights 
 
 040 
 
 For careing one Lady Sanes to y e play at White 
 
 
 Halle, and wayting 
 
 036 
 
 For careing you yesterday, and wayting eleven oures 
 
 11 6 
 
 Y e some is 
 
 1 11 6 
 
 13 October, 75. 
 
 
 Eecd. them of Tho. Groundes in full of these Bills | 2 _ _ 
 and all other demands from Madam Gwin, -> 
 
 by me William C alow. 
 
HER BEDSTEAD. 143 
 
 Chairman Callow, with singular discreetness, omits, 
 it will be seen, to name the places at which he 
 waited longest. Eleven shillings and sixpence seems 
 very little for carrying and waiting eleven hours. 
 But the most curious bill, and it is one with which 
 I have been only recently supplied, is a silversmith's 
 in which the principal sum is a charge for making 
 a bedstead for Nelly, with ornaments of silver, such 
 as the King's head, slaves, eagles, crowns, and 
 Cupids, and Jacob Hall dancing upon a rope of wire- 
 work. The document must be given entire : 
 
 Work done for y righte Hon b 'e. Madame Guinne. 
 John Cooqus, siluersmyth his bill. 
 
 1674. Deliuered the head of y e bedstead weighing 
 885 onces 12 Ib. and I haue received 636 
 onces 15 dweight so that their is over 
 and aboue of me owne siluer two hundred 
 [and] forty eight onces 17 dweight at 
 Is. lid. par once (y e siluer being a d't 
 worse par once according y e reste) wich 8. d. 
 
 comes to 98 10 2 
 
 For y e making of y e 636 onces 15 d't at 2s. lid. 
 
 par once, comes to 92 17 3 
 
 onces. dweight. 
 
 Deliuered y e kings head weighing 197 5 
 one figure weighing . . . 445 15 
 y e other figure with y e caracter 
 
 weighing , , , . 428 5 
 y e slaues and y e reste belonging 
 
 unto it 255 
 
 y e two Eagles weighing . . . 169 10 
 one of the crowne[s] weighing . 94 5 
 y e second crown weighing . . 97 10 
 
144 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 onces. dweight. Sf ^ 
 
 ye third crowne weighing . . 90 2 
 y e fowerd crowne weighing . .82 
 one of y e Cupids weighing . .121 8 
 ye second boye weighing . . 101 10 
 ye third boye weighing . . . 93 15 
 y e fowered boye weighing . . 88 17 
 
 Altogether two thousand two hundred sexty 
 
 fiue onces 2* wight of sterling siluer at 8s. 
 
 par once, comes to 906 010 
 
 Paid for ye Essayes of y e figures and other 
 
 things into y e Tower 050 
 
 Paid for iacob haalle [Jacob Hall] dansing 
 
 upon y e robbe [rope] of Weyer Worck* . 1100 
 For y e cleinsing and brunisching a sugar 
 
 box, a pepper box, a mustard pott and two 
 
 kruyzes 12 
 
 For mending y e greatte siluer andyrons . 10 
 Paid to y e cabbenet maker for y e greatte 
 
 bord for y e head of the bedstead and for 
 
 y e other bord that comes under it and 
 
 boorring the wholles into y e head 300 
 
 Paid to Mr. Consar for karuing ye said bord 100 
 For ye bettering ye sodure wich was in the 
 
 old bedstead 537 
 
 Paid to y e smid for ye 2 yorne hoops and 
 
 for ye 6 yorn baars krampes and nealles . 150 
 Paid for ye woodden pied de staall for one of 
 
 ye figures 046 
 
 Paid ye smith for a hoock to hang up a 
 
 branche candlestick 020 
 
 Paid to y e smith for ye baars kramps and 
 
 nealles to hold up y e slaues . . ..050 
 Given to me Journey man by order of Madame 
 
 Guinne 100 
 
 Paid to ye smyth for y e yorn worck to hold 
 
 up y e Eagles and for y e two hoocks to hold 
 
 the bedstead again the wall . . ..030 
 
 * In another bill I observe a charge " for y e cleensing of Jacobs halle 
 of weyer worck." 
 
DEATH OF MRS. ROBERTS. 145 
 
 Paid for y e pied de stalle of Ebony to hold s. d. 
 
 up the 2 georses 1 10 
 
 For y e mending of y e goold howerglasse . 026 
 Deliuered two siluer bottels weighing 37 
 
 onces 17 d't at 8s. par once, comes to . 15 2 9 
 Paid for ye other foot to hold up y e other 
 
 figure 046 
 
 For sodering y e wholles and for repairing 
 
 mending and cleinsing the two figures of 
 
 Mr. Traherne his making ... . 300 
 
 For ye making of a crowne upon one of ye 
 
 figures 100 
 
 Giuen to me iourney man by order of Madame 
 
 Guinne 100 
 
 Deliuered a handel of a kneif weighing 11 
 
 dweight more then y e old one wich comes 
 
 with ye making of it to . - . . 5 10 
 
 For y e cleinsing of eight pictures . . 0100 
 
 In all comes to 1135 3 1 * 
 
 And now, quitting Nelly's household and other 
 expenses, it is time to turn to matters of more 
 moment. 
 
 In the autumn of 1679 died Mrs. Eoberts, the 
 daughter of a clergyman, who had lived with the 
 King, though she is not known to have had any 
 children by him. t She had sent for Burnet when 
 dying, and expressed her sense of sorrow for her 
 
 * In the Works' Accounts of the Crown at Whitehall, in 1662-3, is a payment 
 (53 12.?. 2d.} to Paul Audley " for silvering a rayle to goe about the Duchess 
 of York's bed, with seven pedestals and 60 Ballisters." The bed, as was long 
 the custom, stood in an alcove off and yet in the bed-chamber. 
 
 t Unless, indeed, the " Carola Eoberts," of the Secret Service Expenses of 
 Charles II. is the daughter of this Mrs. Roberts by the King. 
 
146 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 past life in so sincere a manner, that lie desired her 
 to describe her contrition in a letter to the King, 
 At her request Burnet drew the draft of such a 
 letter, hut she never had strength enough to copy it 
 out. Burnet on this wrote in his own name to the 
 King, and sent a strong letter of remonstrance 
 through Will Chiffinch, the keeper of the backstairs. 
 Seldom, indeed, has a sovereign been addressed so 
 boldly as by Burnet in this letter.* The King read 
 it twice over, and then threw it in the fire ; expressing 
 himself not long after with great sharpness when 
 Burnet's name was mentioned to him. But Charles 
 had his own way, in this life at least, of atoning for 
 his misdeeds, and to one of his best actions he is 
 said to have been instigated by no less a person than 
 Nell Gwyn. 
 
 This was the erection of a Koyal Hospital at 
 Chelsea for aged and disabled soldiers, the first 
 stone of which was laid by the King himself in the 
 spring of 1682. The idea, it is said, originated with 
 Nelly, and I see no reason to doubt the tradition, 
 supported as it is by the known benevolence of her 
 character, her sympathy with the suffering, and the 
 fact that sixty years ago at least Nelly's share in its 
 foundation was recorded beneath her portrait serving 
 
 * Burnet, i. 457, ii. 287, and vi, 257, Ed. 1823 ; also Calamy's Life, ii. 83. 
 
ASSISTS IN FOUNDING CHELSEA HOSPITAL. 147 
 
 as the sign of a public -house adjoining the Hospital.* 
 The sign remains, but not the inscription. Yet 
 the tradition is still rife in Chelsea, and is not soon 
 likely to die out. Ormonds, and Granbys, and 
 Admiral Vernons disappear, but Nelly remains, and 
 long may she swing with her favourite lamb in the 
 row or street commemorated for ever in the Chelsea 
 Pensioners of Wilkie ! 
 
 There were thousands alive when the Hospital 
 was first thought of, who carried about them marks 
 of service in the recent struggle which distracted the 
 three kingdoms, in a way in which, let us hope, they 
 will never again be made to suffer. There were old 
 men who had fought at Edge Hill and Marston 
 Moor, and younger ones who could show that they 
 had bled at Naseby or at Worcester. The Restoration 
 had witnessed the establishment of a standing 
 army, and many of Cromwell's Ironsides filling the 
 ranks of the Coldstream Guards and Oxford Blues 
 were now unfit for active service, and younger 
 men were required to fill their places. What was to 
 become of the veterans when their pay was gone ? 
 Their trade had been war, and their pay never 
 sufficient for more than their immediate wants. 
 But for Chelsea Hospital they might have starved 
 
 * Lysons' Environs of London, vol. ii. p. 155. 
 
 L 2 
 
148 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 on the casual bounty of the people and the chance 
 assistance of their younger comrades. 
 
 In an age when new books were numerous and 
 few appeared without a dedication it is natural to 
 infer that Nelly would not escape. Three dedi- 
 cations to her are known. One in 1674, by Duffet, 
 before his play of " The Spanish Rogue ; " a second 
 in 1678, by Whitcombe, before a rare little volume 
 called " Janua Divorum : or the Lives and Histories 
 of the Heathen Gods;" and a third in 1679, by 
 Mrs. Behn, before her play of " The Feigned 
 Courtezans." All are adulatory. Duffet was un- 
 known to her, and he was not certain, he tells us, 
 that Nelly had ever seen his play. It was, however, 
 necessary, he observes, to have a dedication to his 
 book, and he selected "Madam Ellen Gwyn," 
 deeming that " under the protection of the most 
 perfect beauty and the greatest goodness in the 
 world " his play would be safe. " Nature," says 
 Duffet, " almost overcome by Art, has in yourself 
 rallied all her scattered forces, and on your charming 
 brow sits smiling at their slavish toils which yours 
 and her envious foes endure ; striving in vain with 
 the fading weak supplies of Art to rival your 
 beauties, which are ever the same and always incom- 
 parable." This is highflown enough ; but all is not 
 
DEDICATIONS TO NELLY. 149 
 
 like this ; and there is one passage which deserves to 
 be remembered. Nelly, he says, was so readily and 
 frequently doing good, "as if" he observes, "doing 
 good were not her nature, but her business." The 
 person who wrote thus happily had been a milliner 
 in the New Exchange before he took to literature as 
 a profession. 
 
 Whitcombe inscribes his book " To the illus- 
 trious Madam Ellen Gwyn ; " but Aphra Behn, 
 the Astrea of the stage, is still stronger ; " Your 
 permission has enlightened me, and I with shame 
 look back on my past ignorance which suffered me 
 not to pay an adoration long since where there was 
 so very much due ; yet even now, though secure in 
 my opinion, I make this sacrifice with infinite fear 
 and trembling, well knowing that so excellent and 
 perfect a creature as yourself differs only from the 
 divine powers in this the offerings made to you 
 ought to be worthy of you, whilst they accept the will 
 alone." Well might Johnson observe, that in the 
 meanness and servility of hyperbolical adulation, 
 Dryden had never been equalled, except by Aphra 
 Behn in an address to Eleanor Gwyn. But the 
 arrow of adulation is not yet drawn to the head, and 
 Mrs. Behn goes on to say, " Besides all the charms, 
 and attractions, and powers of your sex, you have 
 
150 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 beauties peculiar to yourself an eternal sweetness, 
 youth, and air which never dwelt in any face but 
 yours. You never appear but you glad the hearts of 
 all that have the happy fortune to see you, as if you 
 were made on purpose to put the whole world into 
 good humour." This however is not all, for the 
 strain turns to her children, and her own humility, 
 and is therefore nearer the truth. " Heaven has 
 bestowed on you," adds Aphra, " two noble branches, 
 whom you have permitted to wear those glorious 
 titles which you yourself generously neglected." 
 Two noble branches indeed they were, if the graver 
 of Blooteling, who wrought while Nelly was alive, 
 has not done more than justice to their looks. 
 
 Troubles were now surrounding Nelly. At Paris, 
 in September, 1680, died James Lord Beauclerk, 
 her second and youngest son. In the summer of 
 the succeeding year, Lacy, the actor was buried in 
 St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, whither she herself was 
 soon to follow. In 1683 died Charles Hart, her old 
 admirer; and in the following year died Major 
 Mohun. A garter and other honours awaited the 
 son of her old rival, the Duchess of Portsmouth. 
 Yet she was still cheerful, and sought even more 
 assiduously for other honours for her only child. 
 Nor was the King unwilling to hearken to the 
 
HER ONLY LETTER. 151 
 
 entreaties of Nelly in her boy's behalf. On the 
 10th of January, 1683-4, eight days after the death 
 of old Henry Jermyn, Earl of St. Alban's, the boy 
 Earl of Burford was created Duke of St. Alban's 
 and appointed to the then lucrative offices of Eegis- 
 trar of the High Court of Chancery and Master 
 Falconer of England. The latter office is still 
 enjoyed by the present Duke of St. Albans. 
 
 The only letter of Nelly's composition known to 
 exist relates to this period of her life. It is written 
 on a sheet of very thin gilt-edged paper, in a neat, 
 Italian hand, not her own, and is thus addressed : 
 
 " These for Madam Jennings over against the Tub 
 Tavern in Jermyn Street, London. 
 
 " Windsor, Burf&rd House, 
 April 14, 1684. 
 
 " MADAM. I have received y r Letter, and I desire y u would speake 
 to my Ladie Williams to send me the Gold Stufle, & a Note with it, 
 because I must sign it, then she shall have her money y e next Day 
 of Mr. Trant ; pray tell her Ladieship, that I will send her a Note 
 of what Quantity of Things lie have bought, if her Ladieship will 
 put herselfe to y e Trouble to buy them ; when they are bought I 
 will sign a Note for her to be payd. Pray Madam, let y e Man goe 
 on with my Sedan, and send Potvin and Mr. Coker down to me, for 
 I want them both. The Bill is very dear to boyle the Plate, but 
 necessity hath noe Law. I am afraid M m . you have forgott my 
 Mantle, which you were to line with Musk Colour Sattin, and all 
 my other Things, for you send me noe Patterns nor Answer. Mon- 
 sieur Lainey is going away. Pray send me word about your son 
 Griffin, for his Majestic is mighty well pleased that he will goe along 
 with my Lord Duke. I am afraid you are so much taken up with 
 
152 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 your owne House, that you forget my Business. My service to 
 dear Lord Kildare, and tell him I love him with all my heart. 
 Pray M m . see that Potvin brings now all my Things with him : My 
 Lord Duke's bed, &c. if he hath not made them all up, he may doe 
 that here, for if I doe not get my Things out of his Hands now, I 
 shall not have them until this time twelvemonth. The Duke brought 
 me down with him my Crochet of Diamonds ; and I love it the 
 better because he brought it. Mr. Lumley and everie body else 
 will tell you that it is the finest Thing that ever was seen. Good 
 M m . speake to Mr. Beaver to come down too, that I may bespeake a 
 Eing for the Duke of Grafton before he goes into France. 
 
 " I have continued extreme ill ever since you left me, and I am 
 soe still. I have sent to London for a Dr. I believe I shall die. 
 My service to the Duchess of Norfolk and tell her, I am as sick as 
 her Grace, but do not know what I ayle, although shee does .... 
 
 " Pray tell my Ladie Williams that the King's Mistresses are 
 accounted ill paymasters, but shee shall have her Money the next 
 Day after I have the stufie. 
 
 " Here is a sad slaughter at Windsor, the young mens taking 
 y r Leaves and going to France, and, although they are none of my 
 Lovers, yet I am loath to part with the men. Mrs. Jennings I love 
 you with all my Heart and soe good bye. 
 
 E. G." 
 
 " Let me have an Answer to this Letter." 
 
 This highly characteristic letter was found by 
 Cole, and transmitted to Walpole, who has expressed 
 the delight he felt at its perusal. Who Madam 
 Jennings was I am not aware ; nor have I succeeded 
 in discovering anything of moment about Lady 
 Williams. Potvin was an upholsterer.* The 
 Duchess of Norfolk was the daughter and sole 
 
 * Privy Purse Expenses of the Reigns of Charles II. and James II. printed by 
 the Camden Society, p. 186. " Tho. Otway " and " Jhon Poietevin" are witnesses 
 to a power of attorney of Nelly's, now in Mr. Robert Cole's possession. 
 
NELLY AT WINCHESTER. 153 
 
 heir of Henry Mor daunt Earl of Peterborough, 
 and Nelly would appear to have been on intimate 
 terms with her. When, on account of her Grace's 
 illicit intimacy with Sir John Germain, her divorce 
 from the Duke was before a court of law, Nelty's 
 evidence, imperfectly as it has reached us, was very 
 characteristic of her mode of reply even to an 
 ordinary question. Germain had sought, it appears, 
 to seduce her from the King, and Nell is said to 
 have replied, " she was no such sportsman as to 
 lay the dog where the deer should lie." Sir John 
 Germain, afterwards married to the Duchess, was a 
 Dutch adventurer, of mean extraction, grown rich by 
 gambling. The father of Secretary Craggs was 
 footman to the gallant Duchess. 
 
 When the Rye House Plot had given to Charles a 
 great distaste for Newmarket and Audley End, he 
 determined on building a palace at Winchester, and 
 Wren was required to design a structure worthy of 
 the site and the monarch. The works were com- 
 menced in earnest, and Charles was often at Win- 
 chester watching the progress of the building, and 
 enjoying the sports of the chase in the New Forest, 
 or his favourite relaxation of fishing in the waters of 
 the Itchin. Nelly accompanied him to Winchester, 
 and on one occasion the pious and learned Ken, 
 
154 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 then a chaplain to the King, and a prebendary of 
 Winchester, was required to surrender his prehendal 
 house as a lodging for Nelly.* Ken properly re- 
 monstrated, and, if it be indeed true that she had 
 taken possession of the assigned lodging, she speedily 
 removed from it.f Nor was the King displeased with 
 the firmness displayed by this exemplary man. He 
 knew that Ken was right ; appreciated his motives ; 
 and one of his last acts was to make the very person 
 by whom he was thus so properly admonished Bishop 
 of Bath and Wells, the see of which he chose to be 
 conscientiously deprived, as Sancroft from Canter- 
 bury, rather than forget the oath he had taken of 
 fealty to a former sovereign. 
 
 Unable to obtain or retain the use of the canonical 
 apartments of the pious Ken, Nelly found quarters in 
 a small attached room of brick at the end of the large 
 drawing-room in the Deanery, still from tradition 
 called "Nell Gwyn" I and afterwards at Avington, the 
 seat of the Countess of Shrewsbury, notorious for 
 the part she took in the duel in which her husband 
 was slain by the Duke of Buckingham. Avington 
 lies about three miles to the north-east of Winchester, 
 
 * Hawkins's Life of Ken. 
 
 t The tradition at Winchester was, that Nell refused to move, and did not move 
 till part of the roof was taken off. (Bowles's Life of Ken, vol. ii. p. 7.) 
 t Bowles's Life of Ken, vol. ii. p. 56. 
 
A SUNDAY AT WHITEHALL. 155 
 
 and before the death of the last Duke of Chandos 
 Nelly's dressing-room was still shown.* Another 
 attraction of the same house was a fine characteristic 
 portrait, by Lely, of the Countess of Shrewsbury 
 as Minerva, recently sold at the sale at Stowe, 
 whither it had been removed from Avington with 
 the rest of the Chandos property. 
 
 Ken's refusal occurred probably during the last 
 visit which Nelly was to make to Winchester. The 
 following winter was spent by the court at Whitehall, 
 amid gaieties common to that festive season ; and 
 what these gaieties were like we may learn from the 
 picture of a Sunday preserved by Evelyn. " I can 
 never forget," says the high-minded author of Sylva, 
 " the inexpressible luxury and profaneness, gaming, 
 and all dissoluteness, and, as it were, a total forget- 
 fulness of God (it being Sunday evening), which this 
 day se'nnight I was witness of; the King sitting and 
 toying with his concubines, Portsmouth, Cleveland, 
 Mazarine, &c., a French boy singing love songs in 
 that glorious gallery, whilst about twenty of the 
 great courtiers and other dissolute persons were at 
 basset round a large table, a bank of at least 2,000 
 in gold before them; upon which two gentlemen 
 who were with me made strange reflections. Six 
 
 * Forster's Stowe Catalogue 179. 
 
156 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 days after all was in the dust."* The fatal termina- 
 tion of this Sunday scene was even more sudden 
 than Evelyn has described. The revels extended 
 over Sunday night until the next morning. At eight 
 of that same morning the King swooned away in his 
 chair, and lay for nearly two hours in a state of 
 apoplexy, all his physicians despairing of his 
 recovery. He rallied for a time, regained possession 
 of his intellects, and died, on the following Friday, 
 sensible of his sins, and seeking forgiveness from his 
 Maker. His end was that of a man, never repining 
 that it was so sudden; and his good-nature was 
 exhibited on his death-bed in a thousand particulars. 
 He sought pardon from his queen, forgiveness from 
 his brother, and the excuses of those who stood 
 watching about his bed. What his last words were, 
 is I believe unknown ; but his dying requests made 
 to his brother and successor, concluded with " Let 
 not poor Nelly starve ; " t a recommendation, says 
 Fox, in his famous introductory chapter, that is 
 much to his honour. 
 
 That Charles II. was poisoned was the belief of 
 many at the time. It was the fashion in that as in 
 the preceding age, to attribute the sudden death of 
 
 * Evelyn, 4 Feb. 1684-5. 
 t Burnet, ii. 460, ed. 1823. Evelyn, 4 Feb. 1684-5. 
 
DEATH OF CHARLES II. 157 
 
 any great person to poison, and the rumour on this 
 occasion should, we suppose, form no exception to. 
 the rule of vulgar delusions. Yet in Charles's case 
 the suspicions are not without support from appa- 
 rently rather weighty authorities. " I am obliged 
 to observe," says Sheffield, Duke of Bucking- 
 ham, " that the most knowing and the most 
 deserving of all his physicians did not only believe 
 him poisoned, but thought himself so too, not long 
 after, for having declared his opinion a little too 
 boldly."* Bishop Patrick strengthens the suppo- 
 sition, from the testimony of Sir Thomas Mellington, 
 who sat with the King for three days, and never went 
 to bed for three nights.t The Chesterfield, who 
 lived among many who were likely to be well 
 informed, and was himself the grandson of the Earl 
 of Chesterfield who was with Charles at his death, 
 states positively that the King was poisoned.! The 
 Duchess of Portsmouth, when in England, in 1699, 
 is said to have told Lord Chancellor Cowper that 
 Charles II. was poisoned at her house by one of her 
 footmen in a dish of chocolate, and Fox had heard 
 a somewhat similar report from the family of his 
 
 * Buckingham's Works, ii. 82. 8vo. 1729. 
 
 t Bishop Patrick's Autobiography, p. 101. J Letters to his Son. 
 
 Dean Cowper in Spence's Anecdotes, ed. Singer, p. 367. 
 
158 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 mother, who was great-grand-daughter to the 
 Duchess.* The supposed parallel cases of the 
 deaths of Henry Prince of Wales and King James I. 
 are supported by no testimony so strong as that 
 advanced in the case of Charles II. 
 
 Had the King lived, Nelly was to have had a 
 peerage for herself, and the title chosen was that of 
 Countess of Greenwich.! This of course she was 
 not now likely to obtain if indeed she would have 
 cared so to do. Her own end was near. 
 
 * Fox, p. 67. 
 
 t This I give on the authority of the curious passage in a MS. hook by Van 
 Bossen, kindly placed at my disposal hy Mr. David Laing. The whole passage 
 is as follows : 
 
 " Charles the 2d. naturall sone of King Charles the 2d. borne of Hellenor or 
 Nelguine, dawghter to Thomas Guine, a capitane of ane antient family in Wales, 
 who showld bein advanced to be Countes of Greeniez, but hindered by the king's 
 death, and she lived not long after his Matie. Item, he was advanced to the 
 title of Duke Stablane and Earle of Berward. He is not married." (" The 
 Royall Cedar," by Frederick Van Bossen, MS. folio, 1688. p. 129.) 
 
 One of the last acts of the antiquarian life of that curious inquirer, Mr. Charles 
 Kirkpatrick Sharpe, was to note down some valuable memoranda for this story 
 of Nell Gwyn. Among other things, Mr. Sharpe directed Mr. Laing's attention 
 to the curious entry in the volume by Van Bossen, still in Mr. Laing's pos- 
 session. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Nelly in real mourning, and outlawed for debt Death of Otway, 
 tutor to her son James II. pays her debts The King's kind- 
 ness occasions a groundless rumour that she has gone to mass 
 Her intimacy with Dr. Tenison, then Vicar of St. Martin's- 
 in-the-Fields, and Dr. Lower the celebrated physician She 
 sends for Tenison in her last illness Her death and contrite 
 end Her will and last request of her son Her funeral 
 Tenison preaches her funeral sermon False account of the 
 sermon cried by hawkers in the streets The sermon used as 
 an argument against Tenison's promotion to the see of Lincoln 
 Queen Mary's defence of him and of Nelly Her son the 
 Duke of St. Alban's Eleanor Gwyn and Harriet Mellon 
 Various portraits of Nelly Further anecdotes Conclusion. 
 
 IT was no fictitious mourning, for the Cham of 
 Tartary or a Prince of France, which Nelly and the 
 Duchess of Portsmouth were both wearing in the 
 spring of 1685. Each had occasion, though on very 
 unequal grounds, to lament the monarch so suddenly 
 removed from his gorgeous chambers at Whitehall 
 to the cold damp vaults of Westminster Abbey. It 
 was at this period if not on other occasions, that 
 
160 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 Nelly must have called to mind Shirley's noble song, 
 which old Bowman used to sing to King Charles : 
 
 The glories of our blood and state 
 Are shadows, not substantial things ; 
 
 There is no armour against fate : 
 Death lays his icy hands on Kings. 
 
 Lely should have painted Nelly in her mourning ; 
 but the delicate hand which drew with so much grace 
 the Beauties of King Charles the Second's Court, 
 and Nelly with her lamb among them, was lying 
 torpid under the church in Covent Garden, and 
 the painters who succeeded him, Wissing, Kneller, 
 and Verelst, had little skill in transferring from life 
 to canvas those essential graces of expression which 
 Lely caught so inimitably in his La Belle Hamilton 
 and his Madame Gwyn. 
 
 While her grief was still fresh, Nelly had occasion 
 to remember the friend she had lost. The King's 
 mistresses, as Nelly herself informs us, were 
 accounted but ill paymasters, for the King himself 
 was often at a loss for money, and the ladies were, 
 we may safely suppose, generally in advance of the 
 allowances assigned them. The "gold stuff" was 
 indeed scarcer than ever with her in the spring of 
 the year in which the King died, and we know what 
 became of at least some of her plate only a year 
 
SHE IS OUTLAWED FOR DEBT. 161 
 
 before. " The bill is very dear," she says, " to boil 
 the plate ; but necessity hath no law." What was 
 to be done ? shopkeepers were pressing with their 
 bills, and the apprentices who would at once have 
 released " Protestant Nelly " from their own books 
 had no control over those of their masters ; so Nelly, 
 if not actually arrested for debt in the spring of 
 1685, was certainly outlawed for the non-payment 
 of certain bills, for which some of her trades- 
 people, since the death of the King, had become 
 perseveringly clamorous. 
 
 Nelly's resources at this period were slender enough. 
 In the King's lifetime, and after Prince Kupert's 
 death, she had paid to Peg Hughes the actress and 
 her daughter Euperta as much as 4520L, "for the 
 great pearl necklace" which she wears in so many 
 of her portraits.* This would now probably pass 
 to the neck of another mistress (such is the lottery 
 of life and jewels,) perhaps to that of Katherine 
 Sedley, Countess of Dorchester ; but Nelly would 
 not care much about this : it went more to her 
 heart to hear that during her own outlawry for debt 
 her old friend Otway, the tutor of her son the poet, 
 whose writings she must have loved had died of 
 starvation, without a sympathising Nelly near at 
 
 * Warburton's Prince Rupert, iii. 558. 
 
162 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 hand to relieve the wants in which she herself was 
 now participating.* 
 
 It was Nelly's good fortune, however, never to 
 be without a friend willing and able to assist her. 
 The new King had not forgotten the dying request 
 of his only brother, " Let not poor Nelly starve :" 
 above all he had not forgotten Nelly's conduct during 
 that hard period of his life when the Bill of Exclusion 
 was pushed in both houses with a warmth and 
 animosity which argued indifferently for his obtaining 
 the crown to which he was entitled. James, though 
 in trouble himself -Monmouth had landed at Lyme, 
 and the battle of Sedgemoor was not yet fought 
 found time in the midst of his anxieties to attend 
 to his brother's last request; the secret service 
 expenses of the King (only recently brought to 
 light) exhibiting a payment to Eichard Graham, 
 Esq., of 729Z. 2s. 3d. " to be by him paid over to 
 the several tradesmen, creditors of Mrs. Ellen Gwyn, 
 in satisfaction of their debts for which the said Ellen 
 stood outlawed."! 
 
 Nor was this the only way in which James 
 exhibited his regard for Nelly, and his remembrance 
 
 * Otway died 14 April, 1685. He dedicated his "Venice Preserved" to the 
 Duchess of Portsmouth. 
 
 t Secret Service Expenses of Charles II. and James II. (printed for the 
 Camden Society), p. 109. 
 
NELLY DOES NOT STARVE. 163 
 
 of a brother to whom he was sincerely attached. 
 In the same year in which he relieved Nelly from 
 her outlawry, two additional payments of 500Z. each 
 were made to her by way of royal bounty ; and two 
 years afterwards the same book of accounts records 
 a payment to Sir Stephen Fox of 125 61. Os. 2d. 
 for so much by him paid to Sir Kobert Clayton, 
 the alderman and great city merchant, in full of 
 3774Z. 2s. d. for redeeming the mortgages to Sir 
 John Musters, of Beskwood Park, for settling the 
 same for life upon Mrs. Ellen Gwyn, " and after her 
 death upon the Duke of St. Alban's, and his issue 
 male, with the reversion in the crown." * Beskwood 
 Park is in the county of Nottingham, on the borders 
 of merry Sherwood, and was long an appurtenance 
 to the Crown, eagerly sought for by royal favourites. 
 Whether it remains in the possession of the present 
 Duke of St. Alban's, as the descendant of Nelly, I 
 am not aware. 
 
 James's kindness to Nelly, and his known design 
 of reconciling the nation to the Church of Rome, 
 gave rise to a rumour, perpetuated by Evelyn in 
 his Memoirs, that she at this time " was said to 
 go to mass." He alludes to her conversion in the 
 same brief entry with that of Dryden : " such 
 
 * Secret Service Expenses, p. 167. 
 
 M 2 
 
164 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 proselytes," he adds, " were of no great loss to the 
 Church."* The rumour as to her, however, was 
 untrue. Nelly was firm to the Protestant religion so 
 firm indeed that her adherence to the faith of our 
 fathers is one of the marked characteristics of 
 her life. 
 
 Some strict disciplinarians of the Church will hear 
 perhaps with a smile that Nell Gwyn was troubled 
 at any time with a thought about religion. But 
 their incredulity is uncharitable. Nelly doubtless 
 had her moments of remorse; and, though her 
 warmth in the cause of Protestantism may in the 
 first instance have been strengthened by her hatred 
 to the Duchess of Portsmouth, yet the kindly 
 feeling avowed for her by Tenison, affords surely 
 a strong presumption that her faith was unshaken 
 and her repentance sincere. 
 
 It is much to be regretted that we know so little 
 of the life of Archbishop Tenison. He seems to 
 have risen into importance about the year 1680, 
 when he was recommended by Tillotson to the 
 vacant living of St. Martin's in the Fields, in 
 London, then an extensive parish, where, as Baxter 
 described it, "neighbours lived like Americans, with- 
 out hearing a sermon for many years." Tenison 
 
 * Evelyn, 19 January, 1685-6. 
 
HER LAST ILLNESS. 105 
 
 filled his cure at St. Martin's with so much courage, 
 toleration, and discretion in the worst days of the 
 Church, that few, except the extreme partisans of 
 popery, have been found to quarrel with his ministry.* 
 It was as Vicar of St. Martin's, in which parish 
 Pall Mall is situated, that he became acquainted 
 with Nell Gwyn, perhaps, as I suspect in the first 
 instance, through the instrumentality of Lower, then 
 the most celebrated physician in London, t Dr. 
 Lower was a sturdy Protestant, and one, as King 
 James was known to observe, " that did him more 
 mischief than a troop of horse." He was often 
 with Nelly, and, as Kennet had heard from Tenison's 
 own lips, " would pick out of her all the intrigues 
 of the Court of King Charles II." Nor was his 
 faith questionable, evincing as he did his regard 
 for the Eeformation by the bequest of a thousand 
 pounds to the French and Irish Protestants in or 
 near London, t 
 
 But the visits of Lower to Nelly were not for 
 gossip only. She was now far from well, and her 
 complaints were put into rhyme by the satirical 
 
 * Compare Burnet in his History with Lord Dartmouth's Notes, and Burnet's 
 own account of Tenison to King William in Komney's Diary, ii. 283. See also 
 Evelyn's Memoirs for a high character of Tenison. 
 
 t Burnet, ii. 284, ed. 1823. 
 
 I Rennet's note in Wood's Ath. Ox., ed. Bliss, iv. 299. 
 
166 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 pen of Sir George Etlierege. There is, however, 
 little wit in this instance, and just as little truth in 
 the malice of the author of " The Man of Mode." 
 One line, however, deserves to be recorded : 
 
 Send Dr. Burnet to me or I die. 
 
 It was time indeed for Nelly to send for some 
 one. Burnet had attended Eochester, and Mrs. 
 Eoberts, and the Whig " martyr, " William Lord 
 Eussell. Tenison had attended Thynne, Sir Thomas 
 Armstrong, and the unhappy Monmouth. Tenison 
 was sent for, and attended Nelly. 
 
 She now made her will, and to the following 
 effect : 
 
 In the name of God, Amen. I, Ellen Gwynne, of the parish of 
 St. Martin-in-the-fields, and county of Middlesex, spinster, this 9th 
 day of July, anno Domini 1687, do make this my last will and 
 testament, and do revoke all former wills. First, in hope of a joyful 
 resurrection, I do recommend myself whence I came, my soul into 
 the hands of Almighty God, and my body unto the earth, to be 
 decently buried, at the discretion of my executors, hereinafter named ; 
 and as for all such houses, lands, tenements, offices, places, pen- 
 sions, annuities, and hereditaments whatsoever, in England, Ireland, 
 or elsewhere, wherein I, or my heirs, or any to the use of, or in 
 trust for me or my heirs, hath, have, or may or ought to have, any 
 estate, right, claim or demand whatsoever, of fee-simple or freehold, 
 I give and devise the same all and wholly to my dear natural son, 
 his Grace the Duke of St. Alban's, and to the heirs of his body ; and 
 as for all and all manner of my jewels, plate, household stuff, 
 goods, chattels, credits, and other estate whatsoever, I give and be- 
 queath the same, and every part and parcel thereof, to my executors 
 
HER WILL. 167 
 
 hereafter named, in, upon, and by way of trust for my said dear 
 son, his executors, administrators, and assigns, and to and for his 
 and their own sole use and peculiar benefit and advantage, in such 
 manner as is hereafter expressed ; and I do hereby constitute the 
 Right Hon. Lawrence Earl of Rochester, the Right Hon. Thomas 
 Earl of Pembroke, the Hon. Sir Robert Sawyer, Knight, his 
 Majesty's Attorney General, and the Hon. Henry Sidney, Esq., to 
 be my executors of this my last will and testament, desiring them 
 to please to accept and undertake the execution hereof, in trust as 
 afore-mentioned ; and I do give and bequeath to the several persons 
 in the schedule hereunto annexed the several legacies and sums of 
 money therein expressed or mentioned ; and my further will and 
 mind, and anything above notwithstanding, is, that if my said dear 
 son happen to depart this natural life without issue then living, or 
 such issue die without issue, then and in such case, all and all 
 manner of my estate above devised to him, and hi case my said 
 natural son die before the age of one-and-twenty years, then also all 
 my personal estate devised to my said executors not before then by 
 my said dear son and his issue, and my said executors, and the 
 executors or administrators of the survivor of them, or by some of 
 them otherwise lawfully and firmly devised or disposed of, shall 
 remain, go, or be to my said executors, their heirs, executors, and 
 administrators respectively, in trust of and for answering, paying, and 
 satisfying all and every and all manners of my gifts, legacies, and 
 directions that at any time hereafter, during my life, shall be by me 
 anywise mentioned or given in or by any codicils or schedule to be 
 hereto annexed. And lastly, that my said executors shall have, all 
 and every of them, 100Z. a-piece, of lawful money, in consideration 
 of their care and trouble herein, and furthermore, all their several 
 and respective expenses and charges in and about the execution of 
 this my will. In witness of all which, I hereunto set my hand and 
 seal, the day and year first above written. E. G. 
 
 Signed, sealed, published and declared, in the presence of us, who at 
 the sarfie time subscribe our names, also in her presence. 
 
 LUCY HAMILTON SANDYS, 
 EDWARD WYBORNE, 
 JOHN WARNER, 
 WILLIAM SCARBOROUGH, 
 JAMES BOOTH. 
 
168 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 To this, three months later, was added a 
 codicil written on a separate sheet of paper, and 
 called : 
 
 The last request of Mrs. Ellen* Gwynn to his Grace the Duke of St. 
 Albaris, made October the 18th, 1687. 
 
 1. I desire I may be buried ia the church, of St. Martin's-in-the 
 fields. 
 
 2. That Dr. Tenison may preach my funeral sermon. 
 
 3. That there may be a decent pulpit-cloth and cushion given to 
 St. Martins'-in-the-fields. 
 
 4. That he [the Duke] would give one hundred pounds for the 
 use of the poor of the said St. Martin's and St. James's, West- 
 minster, to be given into the hands of the said Dr. Tenison, to be 
 disposed of at his discretion, for taking any poor debtors of the said 
 parish out of prison, and for cloaths this whiter, and other necessaries, 
 as he shall find most fit. 
 
 5. That for showing my charity to those who differ from me in 
 religion, I desire that fifty pounds may be put into the hands of 
 Dr. Tenison and Mr. Warner, who, taking to them any two persons 
 of the Roman Religion, may dispose of it for the use of the poor of 
 that religion inhabiting the parish of St. James's aforesaid. 
 
 6. That Mrs. Rose Forster may have two hundred pounds given 
 to her, any time within a year after my decease. 
 
 7. That Jo., my porter, may have ten pounds given him. 
 
 My request to his Grace is, further 
 
 8. That my present nurses may have ten pounds each, and 
 mourning, besides their wages due to them. 
 
 9. That my present servants may have mourning each, and a 
 year's wages, besides their wages due. 
 
 10. That the Lady Fairborne may have fifty pounds given to her 
 to buy a ring. 
 
 11. That my kinsman, Mr. Cholmley, may have one hundred 
 pounds given to him, within a year after this date. 
 
 12. That his Grace would please to lay out twenty pounds yearly 
 for the releasing of poor debtors out of prison, every Christmas- 
 day. 
 
HER DEATH. 
 
 13. That Mr. John Warner may have fifty pounds given him to 
 buy a ring. 
 
 14. That the Lady Hollyman may have the pension of ten shillings 
 per week continued to her during the said lady's life. 
 
 Oct. 18, -87. This request was attested and acknowledged, in the 
 presence of us, 
 
 JOHN HETHERINGTON, 
 HANNAH GRACE, 
 DANIEL DYER.* 
 
 She died of apoplexy in November, 1687,t in 
 her thirty-eighth year, but the exact day is 
 unknown. "Her repentance in her last hours, I 
 have been unquestionably informed," writes Gibber, 
 " appeared in all the contrite symptoms of a Christian 
 sincerity." " She is said to have died piously and 
 penitently," writes Wigmore to Sir George Etherege, 
 then Envoy at Katisbon, "and, as she dispensed 
 several charities in her lifetime, so she left several 
 such legacies at her death." J The bequest to the 
 poor prisoners may receive some illustration from 
 the satires of the time. Her father is said to have 
 died in a prison at Oxford and Nelly, it is added, 
 " gloried " in relieving the necessities of the poorer 
 prisoners. 
 
 * The will was proved, Dec. 7, at the Prerogative Will office in Doctors' 
 Commons, and the original on the 18th of February following delivered to Sir 
 Robert Sawyer, one of the executors. 
 
 t Letter of 22 March, 1687, in Ellis's Correspondence, i. 264 : " Mrs. Nelly is 
 dying of an apoplexy." 
 
 t Gibber's Apology, p. 451, ed. 1740. Letter of 18 Nov. 1687, in Seward's 
 Anecdotes. Her wealth in the letter is stated at a million! 
 
170 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 On the night of the 17th November, 1687, the 
 orange girl in the playhouse pit the pretty witty 
 Nelly of Pepys and the Almahide of Dryden's play 
 and King Charles's admiration, was buried, according 
 to her own request, in the church of St. Martin's-in- 
 the-Fields. There was no great ostentation on the 
 occasion, considering the style in which funerals 
 were then usually conducted; the expenses of her 
 interment, 375, were advanced by Sir Stephen Fox, 
 from the next quarter's allowance of ^1500 a year, 
 which King James had settled upon her.* Good 
 Dr. Tenison too complied with her request, and 
 preached her funeral sermon ; but what the Doctor 
 said except that he said " much to her praise " 
 no one has told us. The church was doubtless 
 crowded all the apprentices who could obtain 
 leave from their masters for such a lesson were 
 there, and perhaps many a wet eye was seen, for 
 Nelly was a good subject, and the then vicar of 
 St. Martin's was an impressive preacher. 
 
 It was bold in Tenison to preach such a sermon, 
 and on such a person; but he knew the worth of 
 Nelly and was not afraid. He escaped not, however, 
 without censure. Some mercenary people printed 
 and employed hawkers to cry in the streets a sham, 
 
 * Secret Service Expenses of Charles II., and James II., p. 177. 
 
HER FUNERAL SERMON. 171 
 
 or largely transmogrified discourse which the vicar 
 himself was obliged to denounce as a " forgery." * 
 Others went further ; and when in 1691 the see 
 of Lincoln was vacant, and Tenison was all but 
 appointed to it, Viscount Villiers, afterwards the 
 first Earl of Jersey, in his zeal for the rector of 
 the parish of St. Giles's-in-the-Fields, immediately 
 adjoining St. Martin's, made it a reason to Queen 
 Mary for the exclusion of the honest Doctor that he 
 had preached " a notable funeral sermon in praise 
 of Ellen Gwyn." But the daughter of King James, 
 and the wife of Xing William, who had her own 
 channels of information, was not to be led aside 
 from what she knew was right by so weak a com- 
 plaint, though advanced by a highly-favoured servant 
 of her own. " I have heard as much," said the good 
 Queen Mary to her Master of the Horse, " and this 
 is a sign that the poor unfortunate woman died 
 penitent ; for, if I have read a man's heart through 
 his looks, had she not made a truly pious end, the 
 Doctor could never have been induced to speak well 
 of her." t I need hardly add that Tenison obtained 
 
 * Advertisement. Whereas there has heen a paper cry'd hy some hawkers, as 
 a sermon preached hy D. T. at the funeral of M. E. Gwynn, this may certify, that 
 that paper is the forgery of some mercenary people. Mr. Pulton considered by 
 Tfio. Tenison, D.D. 4to. 1687. 
 
 t Life of Tenison, p. 20. Lord Jersey should have recollected that the father 
 of his own wife was no less a person than the infamous Will. Chimnch. 
 
172 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 the see, and that he lived to fill with honour to him- 
 self and service to the Church the more important 
 office of Archbishop of Canterbury. It may, however, 
 be new to some that in his own will he strictly 
 forbids either funeral sermon or oration at his 
 own interment. There is satire in this. To 
 have praised even Tenison might by some courtier 
 or another have been made a barrier to the pro- 
 motion of an able and perhaps better deserving 
 person. 
 
 The son acceded to the dying requests of his 
 mother by the following memorandum beneath the 
 codicil : 
 
 Dec. 5, 1687. I doe consent that this paper of request may be 
 made a codicil to Mrs. Gwinn's will. g^. ALBAN'S 
 
 King James continued the mother's pension to 
 the son, and in the same month in which his mother 
 died gave him the colonelcy of that regiment of 
 horse from which Lord Scarsdale ha$ been dis- 
 missed, for his opposition to the well-known designs 
 of King James.* 
 
 While still young he distinguished himself at the 
 siege of Belgrade, became in after-life a Knight of 
 the Garter, and died the father of eight sons by 
 
 * Letter from Atterbury, dated Covent Garden, Dec. 1. 1687. Nichols's 
 Atterbury, Vol. i. p. 1. 
 
HER DESCENDANTS. 173 
 
 his wife, the high-born and wealthy heiress, Lady 
 Diana de Yere, a heauty included as I have already 
 observed, in the Kneller collection at Hampton 
 Court. He died intestate in 1726. His widow 
 survived till 1742. The title still exists and has 
 been in our own time rather conspicuously before 
 the public from the enormous wealth of the late 
 Harriet, Duchess of St. Alban's, widow of Coutts 
 the banker, but originally known, and favourably 
 too, upon the comic boards. Not unlike in many 
 points were Eleanor Gwyn and Harriet Mellon. 
 The fathers of both were in the army, and both 
 never knew what it was to have a father. Both 
 rose by the stage, both had wealthy admirers 
 and both were charitable and generous. Here, 
 however, the parallel ceases. Harriet was no wit, 
 nor, with all respect for Mr. Coutts's taste, can 
 we well believe that she ever had been a beauty. 
 
 There are many portraits of Nell Gwyn few 
 heads of her time make a more profitable traffic 
 among dealers. Yet very few are genuine. She sat 
 to Lely, to Cooper, and to Gascar. An "unfinished" 
 portrait of her was sold at Sir Peter Lely's sale to 
 Hugh May, for 25* No. 306 of King James II.'s 
 
 * Accounts of Roger North, the executor of Lely. Addit. MS. in Brit. Mus. 
 16,174. 
 
174 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 pictures was " Madam Gwyn's picture, naked, with a 
 Cupid," done by Lely, and concealed by a " sliding 
 piece," a copy by Danckers of the Countess of 
 Dorset, by Van Dyck.* Among the pictures " of 
 Mr. Lely's doing " which Mrs. Beale, the painter, 
 saw at Bap. May's lodgings at Whitehall, in April 
 1677, was "Mrs. Gwyn, with a lamb, half-length." f 
 " Some years since," says Tom Davies, writing in 
 1784, " I saw at Mr. Berenger's house in tite Mews 
 a picture of Nell Gwyn, said to have been drawn 
 by Sir Peter Lely; she appeared to have been 
 extremely attractive." I 
 
 With the single exception of a too grave and 
 thoughtful picture in the Lely room at Hampton 
 Court, there is not a single picture of Nelly in any 
 of the royal collections. When Queen Charlotte 
 was asked whether she recollected a famous picture 
 of Nell Gwyn, known to have existed in the Windsor 
 gallery, and which Her Majesty herself was suspected 
 of having removed, she replied at once* " that most 
 assuredly since she had resided at Windsor there 
 had been no Nell Gwyn there." 
 
 * Harl. MS. 1890, compare Walpole's edit. Dallaway, iii. 58. There is a 
 unique print of this in the Burney Collection in the British Museum. 
 t Walpole by Dallaway, iii. 140. 
 J Davies's Dramatic Miscellanies, iii. 269. 
 g Mrs. Jameson's Preface to Beauties of the Court of King Charles II. 
 
HER PORTRAITS. 175 
 
 A full-length portrait of her, in a yellow and blue 
 dress, and black-brown hair, fetched at the Stowe 
 sale 100 guineas, and has been engraved. At 
 Goodwood is a full-length of her, neither clever nor 
 like. Other portraits of her are to be seen at 
 Elvaston, (Lord Harrington's); at Althorp, (Lord 
 Spencer's); at Welbeck, (the Duke of Portland's), 
 in water colours, with her two children ; at Sudbury, 
 (Lord Vernon's) ; and at Oakley Grove, Cirencester, 
 (Lord Bathurst's). That curious inquirer Sir 
 William Musgrave had seen portraits of her at 
 Smeton and at Lord Portmore's at Weybridge. 
 At the Garrick Club is a namby-pamby and pretty 
 small portrait called Nell Gwyn, but surely not 
 Nelly. Marshall Grosvenor had the fine portrait 
 with the lamb, once belonging to the St. Alban's 
 family, and since so finely engraved for Mrs. 
 Jameson's Beauties. " The turn of the neck," says 
 Mrs. Jameson, " and the air of the head, are full of 
 grace and character, and the whole picture, though 
 a little injured by time, is exquisitely painted." 
 A duplicate of this is at Goodrich Court one of 
 the acquisitions of Sir Samuel Meyrick the petti- 
 coat is of a pink or carmine colour. The portrait 
 at Drayton Manor, bought by the late Sir Eobert 
 Peel, is also the same as the Grosvenor picture, 
 
176 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 except that the lamb is omitted.* At Mr. Bernal's, 
 in Eaton Square, is a clever copy of the time, after 
 Lely; and among the miniatures of the Duke of 
 Buccleuch is her head by Cooper, for which it is 
 said the Exchequer papers record the price paid to 
 that painter. 
 
 Of the early engravings from her portraits, the 
 best are by Gerard Valck, the brother-in-law of 
 Blooteling. Valck was a contemporary of Nell 
 Gwyn, and fine impressions of his Lely engraving 
 realise high prices; but the print of her which 
 collectors are most curious about is that after Gascar, 
 evidently engraved abroad, it is thought by Masson, 
 in which she is represented covered by the famous 
 laced chemise, lying on a bed of roses, from which 
 her two children, as Cupids, are withdrawing the 
 curtains King Charles II. in the distance. She 
 wears as well the famous Eupert necklace of pearls. 
 The Stowe impression the last sold brought eight 
 guineas. The Burney copy, now in the British 
 Museum, cost Dr. Burney at Sir Egerton Brydges's 
 sale ^039 18s. In all her pictures we have what Ben 
 Jonson so much admires 
 
 Hair loosely flowing, robes as free. 
 
 * Mrs. Jameson's Private Picture Galleries, p. 375. 
 
RELICS OF NELLY. . 177 
 
 But few the Lely with the lamb excepted render 
 justice to those charms of face and figure which her 
 contemporaries loved to admire, and which Lely alone 
 had the skill to transfer even in part to canvas.* 
 
 Belies of Nelly are of rare occurrence. A 
 warming-pan said to have been in her possession 
 with, for motto, the slightly modified text, " Fear 
 God and serve the King," was in existence at 
 the close of the last century. A looking-glass 
 of great elegance of form, and with a handsomely 
 carved frame with figures, lately, if not still, in 
 the collection of Sir Page Dicks of Port Hall, is 
 said on good authority to have belonged to her. 
 The bills of her household and other expenses, 
 
 from which I have derived some particulars, are 
 characteristic memorials of her in another way. 
 
 Till the recent sale of the 
 
 mutilated Exchequer papers 
 
 her autograph was not known 
 
 to exist. She could not sign 
 
 her name, and was content 
 
 with an E. G. many with better opportunities 
 
 could do no more dotted at the commencement and 
 
 termination of each letter, as if she was at a loss 
 
 * For her bust or effigy at Bagnigge Wells see Waldron's ed.of Dowries, p.16, 
 and Gent. Mag. for June, 1835, p. 562. I do not believe in the straight-armed 
 portrait engraved by Van Bleeck and now in Mr. Bernal s possession. 
 
178 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 where to begin and how to leave off. Not more than 
 ten or twelve of her signatures are known, and these 
 when they have occurred for sale have sold at prices 
 varying from two guineas and a half to three guineas 
 each. 
 
 On looking back at what I have written of this 
 Story, I see little to omit or add unless I wander 
 into the satires of the time, and poison my pages 
 with the gross libels of an age of lampoons. Not 
 to have occasioned one satire or even more, would 
 have been to say little for the reputation (of any 
 kind) of a lady who lived within the atmosphere of 
 Whitehall. Like her 
 
 Who miss'd her name in a lampoon, 
 And sigh'd to find herself decay'd so soon 
 
 Nelly did not escape, and, though the subject of 
 some very gross satires, she had this consolation, if 
 she heeded them at all, that there were others who 
 fared still worse, and perhaps deserved better.* Yet 
 it would be wrong to close any sketch of her life 
 without mentioning the present of the large Bible 
 which she made to Oliver Cromwell's porter, when 
 a prisoner in Bedlam, often referred to by the 
 
 * Wycherley has " A Song : upon a vain foolish Coxcomb, who was banish'd 
 the Court, for owning a witty Libel written by another." Poems, 1704, p. 319. 
 
ANECDOTES. 179 
 
 writers of her age ; * her paying the debt of a worthy 
 clergyman whom, as she was going through the city, 
 she saw bailiffs hurrying to prison ; or her present 
 to Pat O'Bryan, so characteristically related in the 
 following quotation : 
 
 "Afterwards Pat O'Bryan, scorning to rob on foot, he would 
 become an absolute highway-man, by robbing on horseback. The 
 first prey he met was Nell Gwyn ; and stopping her coach on the 
 road to Winchester, quoth he, ' Madam, I am, by my salvashion, a 
 fery good shentleman, and near relation to his Majesty's Grash the 
 Duke of Ormond ; but being in want of money, and knowing you 
 
 to be a sharitable w , I hope you will give me shomething 
 
 after I've took all you have away.' Honest Nell, seeing the simplicity 
 of the fellow, and laughing heartily at his bull, gave him ten guineas, 
 with which Teague rid away, without doing any further damage." f 
 
 Anecdotes of this sort, though perhaps only 
 coloured with truth, are not to be made light of by 
 biographers. They show the general appreciation 
 at the time of the individuals to whom they 
 relate. There is not a story told of Nelly in the 
 commonest chap book or jest book, published 
 while her memory was yet fresh among the children 
 to whose fathers and mothers she was known, but 
 what evinces either harmless humour or a sympa- 
 thising heart. No wonder, then, that there is still 
 an odd fascination about her name, and that 
 
 * Granger, iv. 210 and 188. " Like Oliver's porter, but not so devout," is a 
 line in D'Urfey's Prologue to Sir Barnaby Whigg, 1681. 
 t Capt. Alexander Smith's Lives of Highwaymen, London, 1719, vol. i. p. 260. 
 
180 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 
 
 Granger's sentence " Whatever she did became 
 her" is at least as worthy of credit as Burnet's 
 in calling her " the indiscreetest and wildest 
 creature that ever was in a court." * 
 
 The true apology for this Story and for Nell Gwyn 
 is to be found in Gibber's defence of his own con- 
 duct, where, when speaking of Nelly, he observes: 
 " If the common fame of her may be believed, 
 which in my memory was not doubted, she had 
 less to be laid to her charge than any other of 
 those ladies who were in the same state of prefer- 
 ment. She never meddled in matters of any serious 
 moment, or was the tool of working politicians. 
 Never broke into those amorous infidelities w r hich 
 others are accused of; but was as visibly distin- 
 guished by her particular personal inclination for 
 the king as her rivals were by their titles and 
 grandeur."* 
 
 Another, if another is wanting, may be found 
 in a far graver author, Sir Thomas More. " I doubt 
 not," says that great and good man, " that some 
 shall think this woman (he is writing of Jane 
 Shore) too slight a thing to be written of and set 
 among the remembrances of great matters ; but 
 meseemeth" he adds, "the chance worthy to 
 
 * Burnet, i. 457, ed. 1823. j Cibber's Apology, p. 450, ed. 1740. 
 
CONCLUSION. 181 
 
 be remembered for, where the King took dis- 
 pleasure she would mitigate and appease his mind ; 
 where men were out of favour she would bring them 
 in his grace ; for many that had highly offended she 
 obtained pardon ; of great forfeitures she gat men 
 remission ; and finally, in many weighty suits she 
 stood more in great stead." Wise and virtuous 
 Thomas More, pious and manly Thomas Tenison, 
 pretty and witty and surely with much that 
 was good in her ELEANOR GWYN.* 
 
 Note. I have great pleasure in extracting the following defence 
 of Nelly from the preface to Douglas Jerrold's drama of " Nell 
 Gwyn, or the Prologue," a capitally constructed piece, and one true 
 throughout to its heroine and the manners of the age in which 
 Nelly lived : " Whilst we may safely reject as unfounded gossip 
 many of the stories associated with the name of Nell Gwyn, we 
 cannot refuse belief to the various proofs of kind-heartedness, 
 liberality, and taking into consideration her subsequent power to 
 do harm absolute goodness of a woman mingling (if we may 
 believe a passage in Pepys) from her earliest years in the most 
 depraved scenes of a most dissolute age. The life of Nell Gwyn, 
 from the time of her connexion with Charles II. to that of her 
 death, proved that error had been forced upon her by circumstances, 
 rather than indulged from choice. It was under this impression 
 that the present little comedy was undertaken : under this con- 
 viction an attempt has been made to show some glimpses of the 
 ' silver lining ' of a character, to whose influence over an unprin- 
 cipled voluptuary we owe a national asylum for veteran soldiers, 
 and whose brightness shines with the most amiable lustre in many 
 actions of her life, and in the last disposal of her worldly effects." 
 

APPENDIX. 
 
 ON THE CHEONOLOGY OF THE ENGLISH PORTION OF 
 DE GRAMMONT'S MEMOIRS. 
 
 " EVERY thing has its place," was Walpole's remark 
 to Pinkerton. " Lord Hailes, who is very accurate 
 himself, observed to me that the chronology of the 
 Memoirs de Grammont is not exact. What has that 
 book to do with chronology ? " * Mr. Hallam has 
 said something very similar to this, " The Memoirs 
 of Grammont, by Anthony Hamilton, scarcely chal- 
 lenge a place as historical. Every one is aware of 
 the peculiar felicity and fascinating gaiety which 
 they display."! 
 
 Differing (unwillingly) from Walpole and Hallam 
 in the value they would appear to attach to chrono- 
 
 * Walpoliana, vol. ii. p. 31. t Hallam, Hist, of Lit., vol. iv. p. 604. 
 
184 APPENDIX. 
 
 logical exactness, in works like De Grammont, and 
 deeming chronology certainly of some, though of 
 minor importance, let us see what can he done in 
 reducing the facts into an historical order of time. 
 I shall confine what I have to say to the English 
 portion of the work hy far the largest part of the 
 hook, and unquestionably the most important. The 
 author, it must he observed, sets out by informing 
 us that he has no intention of observing chrono- 
 logical exactness : 
 
 " I farther declare, that order of the time and disposition of 
 the facts, which give more trouble to the writer than pleasure to the 
 reader, shall not much embarrass me in these Memoirs. It being 
 my design to convey a just idea of my hero, those circumstances 
 which most tend to illustrate and distinguish his character, shall 
 find a place in these fragments just as they present themselves to 
 the imagination, without paying any particular attention to their 
 arrangement. For after all, what does it signify where the portrait 
 is begun, provided the assemblage of parts form a whole, which 
 expresses the original 1 " 
 
 This is all very excellent ; but readers like myself 
 have been long accustomed to invest these enter- 
 taining Memoirs with something of the character of 
 history; and if we can show, in spite of a few 
 chronological excesses, that the events in the book 
 may be brought within a very short compass of years 
 seven at the most that their accuracy may be 
 supported, if not by a " cloud of witnesses," by the 
 
DE GRAMMONT'S MEMOIRS. 185 
 
 unquestionable evidences of one or more admitted 
 authorities ; surely the book must rise in value, and 
 even in the interest which it gives the reader : for, 
 take it up in what sense we will, as an episode in 
 History, or as a book somewhat akin to Kenilworth 
 or Ivanhoe, the nearer it approaches to truth it 
 becomes invested with additional interest, and may 
 be made to take its place either on the shelf of 
 history or the shelf of fiction, as the fancy or the 
 inclination of the reader may choose to place it. 
 
 Sir William Musgrave, the great print-collector, 
 had paid considerable attention to the chronology of 
 the De Grammont Memoirs. " From many circum- 
 stances," he says, " the events mentioned in these 
 Memoirs appear to have happened between the years 
 1663 and 1665." But this is evidently too restricted ; 
 and I shall now endeavour to show that the several 
 events may, with very few exceptions, be confined to 
 the period of De Grammont's residence in England, 
 from May 1662 to October 1669. 
 
 The author has divided his work into eleven very 
 unequal chapters. The first five relate only Con- 
 tinental adventures ; and the last six, by far the 
 largest part of the work, are confined to the Count's 
 adventures and amours in the court of Charles II. 
 The author is very particular, it will be seen, in the 
 
186 APPENDIX. 
 
 period of the Count's arrival. " The Chevalier de 
 Grammont arrived about two years after the Kestora- 
 tion." . ..." It was in the height of the rejoicings 
 they were making for this new queen [Catherine of 
 Braganza] that the Chevalier de Grammont arrived, 
 to contribute to its magnificence and diversions." 
 Now Catherine landed at Portsmouth on the 14th 
 May, 1662, and on the 21st of the same month was 
 married at Portsmouth to King Charles II. On the 
 29th, the bridegroom and bride arrived at Hampton 
 Court ; and on the 2ncT June the lord-mayor and 
 aldermen made their addresses to the queen at 
 Whitehall, " and did present her with a gold cup, 
 ;1000 in gold therein." The court therefore arrived 
 in London about June or July, 1662. 
 
 The event of the Count's arrival is related in 
 Chapter VI., the earliest English chapter of the 
 book ; and the only other occurrence mentioned 
 in the same division, is the duel between young 
 Harry Jermyn and Giles Rawlins. This was in 
 August 1662, Pepys describing the duel under the 
 19th of that month and year. 
 
 Chapter VII., like Chapter VI., has only two events 
 to attract the chronological student the splendid 
 masquerade given by the queen, at which Lady 
 Muskerry appeared in the Babylonian dress; and 
 
DE GRAMMONT'S MEMOIRS. 187 
 
 the period " when the queen was given over by her 
 physicians." Editors hitherto have only helped us 
 to the latter of the two events ; but the former is 
 of far more importance. A masquerade at court 
 was too great an occurrence to escape either Evelyn 
 or Pepys. 
 
 " 2 Feb, 1664-5. I saw a masq perform'd at Court by 6 gentlemen 
 and 6 ladies, surprising his Ma 1 ?, it being Candlemas-day." 
 EVELYN. 
 
 " 3 Feb. 1664-5. Mrs. Pickering did at my Lady Sandwich's 
 command tell me the manner of a masquerade before the king and 
 court the other day. Where six women (my Lady Castlemaine and 
 Duchess of Monmouth being two of them), and six men (the Duke 
 of Monmouth, and Lord Avon, and Monsieur Blanfort, being three 
 of them) in vizards, but most rich and antique dresses, did dance 
 admirably and most gloriously." PEPYS. 
 
 The queen was given over by the physicians in 
 October 1663, when she was so ill that her head was 
 shaved, and pigeons put to her feet. 
 
 The events in Chapter VIII., to which in this 
 investigation it is necessary to allude, are, first, 
 the audience of the Muscovite ambassadors ; second, 
 the period when Lady Chesterfield was packed from 
 Whitehall to Bretby in Derbyshire ; third, the 
 period when Margaret Brook was married to Sir 
 John Denham. " The Earl of Chesterfield was 
 informed," says Hamilton, " that he was to attend 
 the Queen at an audience she gave to seven or eight 
 
188 APPENDIX. 
 
 Muscovite ambassadors." Now when was this ? 
 Let us see what Pepys and Evelyn can do for 
 us in this emergency : 
 
 " 29 Dec., 1662. Saw the audience of the Muscovite Ambass r 
 which was with extraordinary state, his retinue being numerous, 
 all clad in vests of several colours, with buskins after y e Eastern 
 manners : their caps of furr ; tunicks richly embrodred with gold 
 and pearls made a glorious show." EVELYN. 
 
 " 5 Jany. 1662-3. To the King's Chamber, whither by and by 
 the Eussian Ambassadors come." PEPYS. 
 
 The arrival of the Muscovite ambassadors, though 
 not the particular audience, thus satisfactorily settled, 
 the next event in the same chapter is the period 
 when the Countess of Chesterfield (the heroine of the 
 Memoirs) was sent into the country by her jealous - 
 pated husband, as the wits and gallants of the 
 court chose to call a courageous earl, unwilling to 
 wink at the dishonour of his wife. The cause of 
 the Countess of Chesterfield's retirement was her 
 open and very indiscreet conduct with the Duke of 
 York. 
 
 "3 Nov. 1662. He [Pierce] tells me how the Duke of York is 
 smitten in love with my Lady Chesterfield ; and so much that the 
 Duchess of York hath complained to the King and her father about 
 it, and my Lady Chesterfield is gone into the country for it." 
 PEPYS. 
 
 This was, perhaps, only a temporary banishment ; 
 for if Hamilton's narrative is correct, and there is no 
 
DE GRAMMONT'S MEMOIRS. 189 
 
 reason to doubt its accuracy in this matter, she was 
 certainly in town when the Muscovite ambassador 
 had his audience of the queen, nearly two months 
 after the period assigned by Pepys. But this was 
 too interesting an event to be concise upon. Pepys 
 has more to say : 
 
 "19 Jany. 1662-3. This day, by Dr. Clarke, I was told the occa- 
 sion of my Lord Chesterfield's going and taking his lady (my Lord 
 Ormond's daughter) from court. It seems he not only hath been 
 long jealous of the Duke of York, but did find them two talking 
 together, though there were others in the room, and the lady by 
 all opinions a most good virtuous woman. He the next day (of 
 which the Duke was warned by somebody that saw the passion my 
 Lord Chesterfield was in the night before) went and told the Duke 
 how much he did apprehend himself wronged, in his picking out his 
 lady of the whole court to be the subject of his dishonour ; which 
 the Duke did answer with great calmnesse, not seeming to under- 
 stand the reason of complaint, and that was all that passed ; but my 
 lord did presently pack his lady into the country in Derbyshire near 
 the Peake ; which is become a proverb at court, to send a man's wife 
 to the Peake when she vexes him." PEPYS. 
 
 It appears from the books of the Lord Steward's 
 office, to which I have had access, that Lord Chester- 
 field set out for the country on the 12th May, 1663; 
 and from his " Short Notes," referred to in the 
 Memoirs before his Correspondence, that he remained 
 at Bretby in Derbyshire with his wife throughout the 
 summer of that year. 
 
 None of the biographers of Sir John Denham 
 tell us when his second marriage took place. But 
 
190 APPENDIX. 
 
 we must not look to printed books for every kind of 
 information. We must extend our inquiries further, 
 and may sometimes do so with success. Denham's 
 marriage to Margaret Brook is recorded in the 
 register of Westminster Abbey, under the 25th of 
 May, 1665. Poor Miss Brook ! She was cold in 
 her grave, like Lady Chesterfield, before De Gram- 
 mont had married Miss Hamilton, or the period I 
 am seeking to assign to these Memoirs had well-nigh 
 closed. 
 
 The death of Lady Denham, mentioned in Chapter 
 IX., took place 6th January, 1666-7:* still within 
 the limit I have named. 
 
 * Hamilton accuses the poet of making away with his wife. " The precedent 
 of Lord Chesterfield was not," he says, " sufficiently bitter for the revenge he 
 meditated; besides, he had no country-house to which he could carry his 
 unfortunate wife. This being the case, the old villain made her travel a much 
 longer journey without stirring out of London." Pepys mentions her death : 
 
 " 7 Jany. 1666-7. Lord Brouncker tells me that my Lady Denham is at last 
 dead. Some suspect her poisoned, but it will be best known when her body is 
 opened to-day, she dying yesterday morning. The Duke of York is troubled for 
 her, but hath declared he will never have another public mistress again, which I 
 shall be glad of, and would the King would do the like." PEPYS. 
 
 The lampoons of the day, some of which are to be found in Andrew Marvell's 
 works, more than insinuated that she was deprived of life by a mixture infused 
 into some chocolate. She " was poisoned," says Aubrey, " by the hands of the 
 co. of Roc. with chocolatte."* I cannot imagine for a moment to w.hom Aubrey 
 alludes ; not the Countess of Rochester, surely, for there was no Countess of 
 Rochester at the time. A Key to Count Grammonfs Memoirs (8vo, 1715) says 
 that " the Duchess of York was strongly suspected of having poisoned her with 
 powder of diamonds." But the question is, was she poisoned ? Her body was 
 opened, and at her own desire, but no sign of poison found. This curious piece of 
 information, hitherto overlooked by all who have written on the subject, is 
 
 Letters, &c. vol. ii. p. 319. 
 
DE GRAMMONT'S MEMOIRS. 191 
 
 The same chapter contains Miss Hobart's cele- 
 brated sketch of the principal persons at court : 
 " to the best," she says, " of my knowledge, without 
 injury to any one, for I abominate the trade of 
 scandal." Of Aubrey de Vere, Earl of Oxford, 
 Miss Hobart observes she is addressing Miss 
 Temple : 
 
 f "The Earl of Oxford fell in love with a handsome, graceful 
 actress, belonging to the Duke's Theatre, who performed to perfec- 
 tion, particularly the part of Roxana, in a very fashionable new play, 
 insomuch that she ever after retained that name. This creature 
 being both very virtuous and very modest, or, if you please, wonder- 
 fully obstinate, proudly rejected the addresses and presents of the 
 Earl of Oxford. This resistance inflamed his passion; he had 
 recourse to invectives, and even to spells, but all in vain. This 
 disappointment had such effect upon him, that he could neither 
 eat nor drink ; this did not signify to him ; but his passion at 
 length became so violent, that he could not neither play nor smoke. 
 In this extremity, Love had recourse to Hymen. The Earl of Oxford, 
 one of the first peers of the realm, is, you know, a very handsome 
 man ; he is of the Order of the Garter, which greatly adds to an 
 air naturally noble. In short, from his outward appearance you 
 would suppose he was really possessed of some sense ; but as soon 
 as ever you hear him speak, you are perfectly convinced of the 
 contrary. This passionate lover presented her with a promise of 
 marriage, in due form, signed with his own hand ; she would not, 
 however, rely upon this, but the next day she thought there would 
 be no danger, when the earl himself came to her lodgings attended 
 by a clergyman, and another man for a witness. The marriage was 
 accordingly solemnised with all due ceremonies, in the presence 
 
 contained in a letter from Lord Orrery to the Duke of Ormond, dated Charleville, 
 January 25, 1666-7. His Lordship's words are, " My Lady Denham's body, at 
 her own desire, was opened, but no sign of poison found." * 
 
 Orrery State Papers, fol. 1742, p. 219. 
 
192 APPENDIX. 
 
 of one of her fellow-players, who attended as a witness on 
 her part. You will suppose, perhaps, that the new countess had 
 nothing to do but appear at court according to her rank, and to 
 display the earl's arms upon her carriage. This was far from being 
 the case. When examination was made concerning the marriage, it 
 was found to be a mere deception : it appeared that the pretended 
 priest was one of my lord's trumpeters, and the witness his kettle- 
 drummer. The parson and his companion never appeared after the 
 ceremony was over ; and as for the other witnesses, they endeavoured 
 to persuade her that the Sultana Koxana might have supposed, in 
 some part or other of a play, that she was really married. It was 
 all to no purpose that the poor creature claimed the protection of 
 the laws of God and man, both which were violated and abused, as 
 well as herself, by this infamous imposition. In vain did she throw 
 herself at the king's feet to demand justice : she had only to rise up 
 again without redress ; and happy might she think herself to receive 
 an annuity of 1000 crowns, and to resume the name of Roxana, 
 instead of Countess of Oxford." 
 
 Here is a good deal of confusion, to which further 
 confusion has been added by the annotators. Eoxana 
 is a character in Lee's Rival Queens ; but the Rival 
 Queens was brought out at the King's Theatre, not 
 the Duke's ; and the actress seduced by the Earl of 
 Oxford belonged, Hamilton tells us, to the Duke's 
 Theatre. We are assured by the annotators, that 
 the actress thus seduced was Mrs. Marshall, who 
 acted Eoxana in Lee's Rival Queens ; but Malone 
 had disposed of this belief in a note to one of 
 Dryden's Letters ; and it is very curious how Scott, 
 who had Malone's edition of Dryden pretty well by 
 heart, should have missed it when he was seeing his 
 
DE GRAMMONT'S MEMOIRS. 193 
 
 edition of De Grammont through the press. After 
 disposing of Mrs. Marshall's claim, Malone makes 
 a very near guess when he names Mrs. Frances 
 Davenport instead : 
 
 " The person seduced probably was Mrs. Frances Davenport, an 
 eminent actress in the Duke of York's company, who was celebrated 
 for her performance of Roxolana inDavenant's Siege of Rhodes, 1662, 
 and in another Roxolana in Lord Orrery's Mustapha in 1665. She 
 acted in Dryden's Maiden Queen in 1668, but her name is not found 
 in any of the plays performed by the Duke of York's servants after 
 they removed to Dorset Gardens in 1671 ; and Downes, the prompter 
 of that playhouse, mentions it in his quaint language, that she was 
 before that time ' by force of love crept from the stage.' " 
 
 The editor of the last English edition* has had 
 some idea glimmering in his mind that Roxolana, 
 and not Eoxana, was the lady seduced by the 
 founder of the regiment still distinguished from his 
 colonelcy as the Oxford Blues. He inserts, without 
 remark, the following extract from Evelyn : 
 
 " 9 Jan. 1661-2. I saw the third part of the Siege of Rhodes. In 
 this acted y e faire and famous comedian, called Roxolana, from y e 
 part she perform'd ; and I think it was the last, she being taken to 
 be the Earl of Oxford's misse, as at that time they began to call lewd 
 women." 
 
 To this I must add that Pepys, as usual, conies 
 in to support the accuracy of his friend and fellow 
 memorialist : 
 
 * That of Bohn in 1846. 
 
194 APPENDIX. 
 
 " 18 Feb. 1661-2. To the Opera and saw The Law against Lovers, 
 a good play and well performed, especially the little girls (whom I 
 never saw act before) dancing and singing ; and were it not for her, 
 the loss of Roxolana would spoil the house. 
 
 " 2 April, 1662. To the Opera and there saw The Bondman most 
 excellently acted . . . lanthe acting Cleron's part very well now 
 Roxolana is gone." 
 
 " 19 May, 1662. To the Opera, and there saw the second part 
 of the Siege of Rhodes, but it is not so well done as when 
 Roxolana was there, who, it is said, is now owned by my Lord 
 of Oxford." 
 
 " 27 Dec. 1662. With my wife to the Duke's Theatre, and saw 
 the second part of Rhodes done with the new Roxolana ; which do 
 it rather better in all respects for person, voice, and judgment, 
 than the first Roxolana." 
 
 The new Roxolana was Mrs. Betterton ; the old 
 Roxolana, " Lord Oxford's misse," either Frances or 
 Elizabeth Davenport ; for there were two sisters of 
 that name on the stage of the Duke's Theatre at 
 this time. I suspect, however, that the old Roxolana 
 was the younger sister, Betty. The elder was on 
 the stage in 1668 : 
 
 "7 April, 1668. The eldest Davenport is, it seems, gone to be 
 kept by somebody, which I am glad of, she being a very bad actor." 
 PEPYS. 
 
 Now it appears from Lilly's Nativities in the 
 Ashmolean Museum, that the Earl of Oxford's son 
 by Roxolana was born 17th April, 1664, and Roxo- 
 lana herself 3rd March, 1642. Whenever a new 
 edition of De Grammont is again required (and a 
 
DE GRAMMONT'S MEMOIRS. 195 
 
 new one is very much needed), I hope to see no more 
 confusion in tliis matter.* 
 
 Chapter X. of the Memoirs is equally true 
 to the chronology of history. Here we have the 
 story of Lord Kochester's residence as a German 
 doctor in Tower Street, and that famous adventure 
 of Miss Jennings and Miss Price disguised as orange- 
 girls. No one has told us when Rochester assumed 
 the part of Alexander Bendo, and issued his bill 
 detailing what he had done and what he could do ; 
 but there is reason to believe that it was before the 
 26th May, 1665, when he ran off with the heiress 
 he subsequently married. Rochester was at the 
 attack on Bergen on the 2nd August, 1665, at the 
 great fight at sea in 1666, and married to Elizabeth 
 Mallet, " the melancholy heiress," as Hamilton calls 
 her, before the 4th February, 1666-7, when Pepys 
 records his seeing them at court as man and wife. 
 Hamilton connects the two events, Rochester's 
 City residence, and Miss Jennings and Miss Price's 
 disguise as orange-girls. Pepys is silent about the 
 German doctor, but Miss Jennings' adventure did 
 not escape him : 
 
 * I may add, that the next editor will do well to refer to Malone's note about 
 the age of the Earl of Oxford, proving from indisputable evidence that Lord 
 Oxford was seventy-five instead of being, as the annotators inform us, upwards of 
 eighty at his death. 
 
 o 2 
 
196 APPENDIX. 
 
 " 21 Feb. 1664-5. My Lady Sandwich tells me what mad freaks 
 the mayds of honour at court have : that Mrs. Jennings, one of 
 the Duchesse's maids, the other day dressed herself like an orange 
 wench, and went up and down and cried oranges; till falling 
 down, or by some accident, her fine shoes were discerned, and 
 she put to a great deal of shame." 
 
 Hamilton's description is in keeping with the 
 narrative in Pepys : 
 
 " He [Brouncker] was, however, surprised to see them have much 
 better shoes and stockings than women of that rank generally wear, 
 and that the little orange-girl, in getting out of a very high coach, 
 showed one of the handsomest legs he had ever seen." 
 
 Miss Jennings was not very likely to have made a 
 second disguise of this description, so that we may 
 assume fairly enough that Pepys and Hamilton 
 record the same adventure. It deserves to be 
 remembered that this Miss Jennings was afterwards 
 the reduced Duchess of Tyrconnel, who sat at the 
 New Exchange and played the part of the " White 
 Milliner," an adventure still more notorious than her 
 trip to the German, Alexander Bendo. 
 
 The visit of the Court to Tunbridge Wells, also 
 described in Chapter X., must have taken place 
 before the 3rd June, 1665, because Lord Muskerry, 
 who was killed in the action of 3rd June, 1665, 
 attended the Court on that occasion with his wife, 
 the celebrated Babylonian Princess of the Memoirs. 
 
DE GRAMMONT'S MEMOIRS. 197 
 
 The Court was at Tunbridge in July, 1663, and 
 again in July, 1666. Hamilton has confounded, I 
 fancy, the two visits. Lord Muskerry and Nell 
 Gwyn, he says, were both present. Now Lord 
 Muskerry was dead before the second visit, and 
 Nell was unknown when the first took place. 
 Another historical event referred to in this chapter 
 was the visit of the Duke of York to the city whose 
 name he bore. This took place in August, 1665. 
 A third is the death of Edward Montagu before 
 Bergen, 2nd August, 1665 ; a fourth, the Duchess of 
 York's amour with Henry Sydney, discovered while 
 the Court was at York in August, 1665 ;* and a fifth, 
 the commencement of the Duke's partiality for 
 Arabella Churchill, another consequence of his 
 visit to the north. 
 
 In the same chapter we are told that Wilmot, 
 Earl of Eochester, made love (love, shall we call 
 it ?) to a niece of one of the Mothers of the Maids. 
 
 There cannot, I think, be any doubt of the intrigue of the Duchess of York 
 (Anne Hyde) with Harry Sidney, afterwards Earl of Romney, brother of 
 Algernon Sidney and of Waller's Sacharissa. See on what testimony it rests. 
 Hamilton more than hints at it; Burnet is very pointed about it in his History ; 
 Reresby just mentions and Pepys refers to it in three distinct entries and on 
 three different authorities. But the evidence is not yet at an end. " How could 
 the Duke of York make my mother a papist?" said the Princess Mary to 
 Dr. Burnet. " The Duke caught a man in bed with her," said the Doctor, " and 
 then had power to make her do anything." The Prince, who sat by the fire, said 
 " Pray, Madam, ask the Doctor a few more questions." Spence's Anecdotes, ed. 
 Singer, p. 329. 
 
198 APPENDIX. 
 
 Her name is not given : she is only called Miss 
 Sarah. She had some disposition, it is said, for 
 the stage ; and Hamilton tells us, that after Lord 
 Rochester " had entertained both the niece and 
 the aunt for some months in the country, he got her 
 entered in the king's company of comedians the 
 next winter ; and the public was obliged to him for 
 the prettiest, but at the same time the worst actress 
 in the kingdom." This, the annotators tell us, was 
 Mrs. Barry "famous Mrs. Barry," as she was 
 called; and we have a long, rambling, incorrect 
 history of the lady in consequence. Surely, how- 
 ever, the description is not at all applicable to 
 Mrs. Barry, who was so far from being the prettiest 
 and the worst actress, that she was the ugliest and 
 the best. Look at her portrait at Hampton Court 
 in Kneller's large picture of King William on 
 horseback ! She was anything but pretty. " And 
 yet this fine creature," says Tony Aston, " was not 
 handsome, her mouth opening most on the right 
 side, which she strove to draw in t'other way," 
 a very indifferent account of the " prettiest actress." 
 But let us come to dates. When was Mrs. Barry 
 born ? She departed this life, her monument at 
 Acton tells us, on the 7th of November, 1713, aged 
 fifty-five years. She was, consequently, born in 
 
DE GRAMMONT'S MEMOIRS. 199 
 
 1658, and was only eleven years old in 1669, the 
 date of the last event related in the De Grammont 
 Memoirs. Now Mrs. Barry came first upon the stage, 
 there is every reason to believe, in 1674;* and the 
 events in the De Grammont Memoirs may all be 
 said to have taken place (as I have shown) prior to 
 October, 1669. Mrs. Barry's name was Elizabeth, 
 not Sarah. " Miss Sarah " therefore was not 
 Mrs. Barry. Who, then, was she ? Unquestionably 
 Sarah Cooke, an actress at the King's House, who 
 spoke the prologue on the first night of Rochester's 
 Valentinian, and the new prologue on the second 
 night. She seems to have been but an indifferent 
 actress, and her parts were generally restricted to 
 prologues and epilogues. She is mentioned in the 
 State Poems ; t by Dryden in a letter to Tonson ; I 
 and by Sir George Etherege, not very decently, in a 
 MS. letter now before me. Count Hamilton is not 
 inexact in his chronology : it is his annotators who 
 are wrong. 
 
 The eleventh and last chapter preserves the same 
 historical consistency to the seven years over which 
 the events recorded in the Memoirs may safely be 
 confined ; the marriage of the Duke of Monmouth 
 
 * Genest's History of the Stage, i. 157. 
 
 t State Poems, 8vo. 1703, p. 136. J Malone, ii. p. 24. 
 
 g Addit. MSS. in British Museum, No. 11,513. 
 
200 APPENDIX. 
 
 (20th April, 1663); the visit of the Court to Bristolin 
 September, 1663; the birth of Henry Fitzroy, Earl 
 of Euston and Duke of Grafton (20th September, 
 1663); the return of the Court to London (2nd 
 October, 1663); the mention of the fitting out of 
 the Guinea fleet in August, 1664; the expedition 
 against Gigery in October, 1664 ; the marriage of 
 La Belle Stuart in March, 1667 ; the duel of the 
 Duke of Buckingham and the Earl of Shrewsbury 
 (16th January, 1667-8); Lord Buckhurst's carrying 
 off Nell Gwyn in July, 1667 ; the attack on Henry 
 Killigrew, 18th May, 1669; and the marriage of 
 Count Grammont to Elizabeth Hamilton in 1668. 
 Here the Memoirs end, De Grammont returning 
 to France with his wife and family in October, 1669. 
 I have thus reduced a book which, as Walpole 
 says, has really nothing to do with chronology, into 
 something like chronological exactness. A few 
 events, however, still remain unnoticed, such as 
 the creation of the Countess of Castlemaine to be 
 Duchess of Cleveland, somewhat antedated in the 
 Memoirs, for the creation did not take place till the 
 3rd August, 1670 ; the intrigue of the Duchess with 
 Colonel Churchill apparently placed some seven or 
 eight years beforehand; the letter to Lord Corn- 
 wallis about his father-in-law, Sir Stephen Fox, 
 
DE GRAMMONT'S MEMOIRS. 201 
 
 which could scarcely have been written before the 
 27th December, 1673, when Lord Cornwallis married 
 Sir Stephen Fox's daughter, and the reference in 
 the last page but one to the publication of Ovid's 
 Epistles, "translated into English verse by the 
 greatest wits at Court ; " when it is known that the 
 earliest printed edition of Ovid's Epistles in English 
 verse was published in 1680, sixteen years too late 
 to have suggested to Miss Jennings her parody on 
 the "Epistle of Ariadne to Theseus," addressed to 
 the perfidious Jermyn, and containing a description 
 of the perils and monsters that awaited him in 
 Guinea. Perhaps, after all, no reference whatever 
 was intended to a printed edition ; and that the 
 word published must be taken in its ordinary sense 
 of circulated, though now commonly applied to what 
 is printed : and this, I see every reason to think, 
 was the case. 
 
 The Count de Grammont, who died on the 30th 
 January, 1707, is said to have dictated these Memoirs 
 to his vivacious brother-in-law. " I only hold the 
 pen," says Hamilton, "while he directs it to the 
 most remarkable and secret passages of his life." 
 This is in Chapter I. ; in the eleventh and last 
 chapter he says, " We profess to insert nothing in 
 these Memoirs but what we have heard from the 
 
202 APPENDIX. 
 
 mouth of him whose actions and sayings we transmit 
 to posterity." And a little farther on the same 
 page he observes, " For my own part I should never 
 have thought that the attention of the Count de 
 Grammont, which is at present so sensible to 
 inconveniences and dangers, would have ever per- 
 mitted him to entertain amorous thoughts upon the 
 road, if he did not himself dictate to me what I am 
 now writing." No one has thought for a moment that 
 De Grammont was, in point of fact, the author of the 
 Memoirs which bear his name. His excellence as a 
 man of wit was entirely limited to conversation. He 
 is said, however, to have sold the MS. for 1500 
 livres ; and it is added that when the MS. was 
 brought to Fontenelle, then censor of the press, he 
 refused to license it on account of the scandalous 
 conduct imputed to the Court in a party at quinze, 
 described in the third chapter. 
 
 It is a somewhat singular omission on the part 
 of all the English editors and annotators of De 
 Grammont, that they do not tell us when the first 
 edition of the Memoirs appeared. If the book was 
 printed in De Grammont's lifetime, which the story 
 of the license granted by Fontenelle to the Count 
 himself certainly supposes, there must have been an 
 edition before 1707, the year in which the Count 
 
DE GRAMMONT'S MEMOIRS. 203 
 
 died ; whereas the earliest edition described by 
 Watt, and, what is more, the earliest edition pre- 
 served in the British Museum, is an edition in 
 12mo., printed at Cologne in 1713. I am inclined 
 to think that there is no edition of a prior date ; * 
 and for this reason, that, had the book been published 
 in the Count's lifetime, we should have had an 
 English translation of it before that of Boyer in 
 1714, unquestionably the earliest English translation 
 of the work. I was once willing to think that the 
 publication had been withheld to that year from 
 motives of delicacy towards many mentioned in the 
 work, who were still alive. For instance, the Earl of 
 Chesterfield, who makes so conspicuous a figure in 
 the work, and Progers, another person not very 
 delicately referred to, were both removed by death 
 in 1713, the year in which the first edition was 
 published. But this supposition is, I have since 
 found, of very little value, for when the first 
 English translation appeared, eight different persons 
 particularly referred to in the work were still alive : 
 Sir Stephen Fox and Sir Charles Lyttelton, both 
 of whom died in 1716; Lady Lyttelton (Miss 
 Temple that was), who died in 1718 ; the great 
 Duke of Marlborough, who died in 1722; Mrs. 
 
 * Mr. Bolton Corney is also of this opinion (Notes and Queries, vol. iv. p. 261). 
 
204 APPENDIX. 
 
 Godfrey (Arabella Churchill) and Mademoiselle 
 de la Garde, both of whom died in 1730 ; the 
 Duchess of Tyrconnel (Frances Jennings), who died 
 in 1731 ; and the Duchess of Buccleuch (the widow 
 of Monmouth and the Earl of Cornwallis), the last 
 survivor of Hamilton's heroes and heroines, who 
 died on the 6th of February, 1731-2, in the eighty- 
 first year of her age. To three ladies, Jennings, 
 Temple, and Arabella Churchill, the Memoirs of 
 de Grammont must have been a very unwelcome 
 publication ; and any delicacy that existed towards 
 Lord Chesterfield must have been felt in a much 
 stronger degree for the ladies who were still alive to 
 remember and regret the follies and frailties of their 
 youth. It is almost unnecessary to add, that the 
 work attracted a great deal of attention at the time, 
 so much attention, indeed, that a tract, price two- 
 pence, was published in 1715, called, A Key to Count 
 Grammont' 's Memoirs, and Boyer's bald translation 
 of the book was reprinted in 1719. If a " key " was 
 necessary then, still more necessary is it now, for 
 very few books stand so much in need of historical 
 illustration. 
 
THE HAMILTONS. 205 
 
 B. 
 
 SOME ACCOUNT OF HAMILTON, HIS BROTHERS 
 AND SISTERS. 
 
 " The beauties at Windsor," says Walpole, " are 
 the Court of Paphos, and ought to be engraved for 
 the Memoirs of its charming historiographer, Count 
 Hamilton." If the reader is of Walpole's way of 
 thinking, how much more necessary is it that some- 
 thing should be said about " the charming historio- 
 grapher " himself ! 
 
 Anthony Hamilton (who never appears himself in 
 any part of his work) was the third son of the 
 Honourable Sir George Hamilton, by Mary Butler, 
 third daughter of Walter, Viscount Thurles, eldest son 
 of Walter, eleventh Earl of Ormond. His father, who 
 died in 1667, leaving six sons and three daughters, 
 was the fourth son of James, first Earl of Abercorn. 
 His mother died in August, 1680, as appears from 
 an interesting and affecting letter of her brother, the 
 great Duke of Ormond, dated Carrick, August 25, 
 in that year. 
 
 Of the six sons of the Honourable Sir George 
 Hamilton, JAMES, the eldest, was groom of the bed- 
 chamber and colonel of a regiment of foot to Charles 
 II. I can find no earlier mention of him than the 
 
206 APPENDIX. 
 
 following passage in a letter from Edward Savage to 
 Bancroft, then Dean of St. Paul's, and afterwards 
 Archbishop of Canterbury. The letter is dated, 
 " From the Cockpit at Whitehall, 25 October, 1664," 
 and the passage is as follows : " Mr. O'Neale, of 
 Bedchamber, dyed yesterday, very rich, and left his 
 old lady all. Mr. James Hamilton, the Duke of 
 Ormond's nephew, shall have his groome of the 
 Bedchamber's place, and Sir William Blakestone his 
 Troop of Horse." * Savage was right in his intelli- 
 gence; Hamilton received the appointment. But 
 this was not the first time the king had shown a 
 friendly feeling towards him. He had previously 
 interested himself in obtaining for him the hand in 
 marriage of Elizabeth Colepepper, eldest daughter 
 of John, Lord Colepepper, of Thoresway, but it is 
 uncertain when the marriage took place, Wood, in 
 his edition of Douglas s Peerage, puts it under 1661, 
 a year, I think, at least, too late ; the parish register 
 of St. Margaret's, Westminster, recording the baptism 
 of George, their second son, on the 18th March, 
 1662-3. Nor did the king's regard for James 
 Hamilton cease with the Bedchamber appointment. 
 By a privy seal of the 29th November, 1671 (Harl. 
 MS. 7344) he made him ranger of Hyde Park, from 
 
 * Harl. MS. 1785. 
 
THE HAMILTONS. 207 
 
 which appointment Hamilton Place, Piccadilly, 
 derives its name. By letters patent of the loth 
 May, 1672, he granted him a pension of 850Z. per 
 annum ; but this he did not live very long to enjoj 7 . 
 In the engagement against the Dutch, 4th June, 
 1673, he had one of his legs taken off by a cannon- 
 ball, and dying on the 6th, was buried next day, as 
 the register records, in Westminster Abbey. 
 
 " 1673, Coll. Hamilton, rec d his death wound in ye engagem 1 
 a gst ye D u tch, was b d w thn y e north mon' door, June 7." 
 
 It deserves to be told, to the credit of the king, 
 that he was not forgetful of the widow and children 
 of James Hamilton. I have letters patent before 
 me, dated 20th July, 1673, granting a yearly pension 
 of 850L to Mrs. Hamilton, in trust for her three 
 sons, and a yearly pension of 500Z. for herself. 
 Mrs. Hamilton died in 1709, aged seventy-two. Of 
 her three sons, James, the eldest, was sixth Earl of 
 Abercorn ; George, the second, was killed at the 
 battle of Steinkirk, in 1692 ; and William, the 
 youngest, settled at Bocton Place, near Lenham, 
 in Kent, and acquired a large property there.* 
 And this is all I have been able to discover of the 
 
 * They would appear to have had another son, who probably died young : 
 4 Nov. 1664. John Hambleton, S. to James Hambleton, Esq., by Dame 
 Eliz. his wife. Baptismal Ecyister of St. Margaret 1 s, Westminster. 
 
208 APPENDIX. 
 
 elder brother, the handsome James Hamilton, the 
 hero of the celebrated adventure at Bretby, with, 
 or rather without, the Countess of Chesterfield. 
 His portrait was at the Marquis of Abercorn's, at 
 Stanmore, but, I suppose, was sold with the rest 
 of the Stanmore pictures, at Christie and Hanson's, 
 a few years back. 
 
 GEORGE, the second son of Sir George and Lady 
 Hamilton, married "the lovely Jennings ; " Frances 
 Jennings, elder daughter and coheir of Eichard 
 Jennings, of Sandridge, in Hertfordshire, and sister 
 of Sarah Jennings, the celebrated Duchess of 
 Marlborough. He had three daughters (his elder 
 brother had three sons), all nobly married : Elizabeth 
 to Eichard, Viscount Eoss ; * Frances to Henry, 
 Viscount Dillon; and Mary to Nicholas, Viscount 
 Kingsland. The king, by a warrant before me, 
 dated 20th April, 1666, granted him a pension of 
 500L a-year, " the better to enable him to support 
 himself and family." He is there called " George 
 Hamilton, Esq., Lieutenant of our troop of Guards." 
 He was in love with Miss Stewart, and a most 
 amusing account of the doings in her chamber is 
 put into his mouth by his brother Anthony. This 
 
 * 21 March, 1666-7, Eliz. Hambleton, d. to George, Esq., by Frances. Baptismal 
 Register of St. Margaret's, Westminster. 
 
THE HAMILTONS. 209 
 
 is the Hamilton who served in the French army 
 with distinction. I know not when he died. Evelyn, 
 however, is of some assistance in determining the 
 time. "12 November, 1675. There was in my 
 lady ambassadress's company my Lady Hamilton, 
 a sprightly young lady, much in the good graces of 
 the family, wife of that valiant and worthy gentle- 
 man, George Hamilton, not long after slaine in the 
 warrs. She had been a maid of honour to the 
 Dutchesse, and now turn'd Papist." His widow 
 married Tall Talbot, afterwards Earl and Duke of 
 Tyrconnell (d. 1691), the hero of the famous Lilli- 
 bullero ballad, and dying in Dublin, 6th March, 
 1731, was buried in St. Patrick's Cathedral. 
 
 ANTHONY, " the charming historiographer," was 
 the third son. He is said to have been born at Koscrea, 
 in the county of Tipperary, in 1646, in which year 
 Owen O'Neale took Eoscrea, and, as Carte says, 
 "put man, and woman, and child, to the sword, 
 except Sir George Hamilton's lady, sister to the 
 Marquis of Ormond, and some few gentlewomen 
 whom he kept prisoners." His father and mother 
 were Eoman Catholics; Anthony therefore was 
 bred in the religion to which he adhered conscien- 
 tiously through life. He was twenty-two years 
 old when his sister, La Belle Hamilton, married the 
 
210 APPENDIX. 
 
 Count de Grammont; about which time he went 
 abroad, and, unable as a Eoman Catholic to 
 find employment at home, entered the army of 
 Louis XIV. " He distinguished himself," it is 
 said, "in his profession, and was advanced to 
 considerable posts in the French service." When 
 James II. succeeded to the throne, and the door of 
 preferment was open to Roman Catholics, Anthony 
 Hamilton entered the Irish army, where we find 
 him, in 1686, a lieutenant-colonel in Sir Thomas 
 Newcomen's regiment. Other appointments were 
 in store for him, and he was subsequently constituted 
 governor of Limerick, colonel of a regiment, and a 
 privy councillor. Lord Clarendon, the son of the 
 chancellor, and then lord -lieutenant of Ireland, was 
 very kind to him at this time. He speaks of him 
 in several of his letters. " If Lieutenant-colonel 
 Anthony Hamilton may be believed, and I take him 
 to be the best of that sort." " If Lieutenant- 
 colonel Hamilton may be believed, who understands 
 the regiment better than the colonel, for he makes 
 it his business." And to his brother, Lord 
 Rochester, he writes, " He is a very worthy man, 
 and of great honour, and will retain a just sense 
 of any kindness you may do him. He has been in 
 very good employment and esteem when he served 
 
THE HAMILTONS. 211 
 
 abroad, and men of honour cannot always brook the 
 having little men put over their heads, who, in the 
 judgment of all the world, are not equal to their 
 stations."* 
 
 After the total overthrow of James's affairs in 
 Ireland, he retired to St. Germain, acquired the 
 confidence of the Duke and Duchess of Berwick 
 (the Duke was King James's son by Arabella 
 Churchill), cultivated his taste for poetry, wrote 
 one or two agreeable novels, translated Pope's 
 Essay on Criticism into French, carried on a 
 correspondence with Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, 
 in the name of his niece, the Countess of Stafford ; 
 and having sent his Memoires de Grammont to the 
 press, died at St. Germain, 21st April, 1720, aged 
 about seventy-four.t 
 
 THOMAS, the fourth son, was bred to the sea 
 service, became captain of a ship of war, and died 
 in New England. RICHAED, the fifth son, was a 
 brigadier- general in King James's army in Ireland, 
 and a lieutenant-general in the French service. He 
 led King James's cavalry at the Battle of the Boyne, 
 and died in France. JOHN, the sixth and youngest 
 
 * See Clarendon's Diary and Correspondence, by Singer, pp. 421, 423, 553. 
 t For the fate of Mr. Hamilton's Correspondence with Mr. Le Poer, see Preface 
 to " Hanmer Papers," p. vii. 
 
212 APPENDIX. 
 
 son, was a colonel in King James's army, and was 
 killed at the battle of Aghrim in Ireland, in 1691. 
 
 Of the six sons of Sir George and Lady Hamilton, 
 three were killed in action, one died in New England, 
 and two in France. Of the three daughters, 
 Elizabeth, the eldest, the only one of whom any- 
 thing is known, was married to the Count de 
 Grammont, by whom she also had three daughters. 
 She was Anthony's senior by five years, and was 
 twenty- seven years old when married. The Count 
 was forty-seven. One of their three daughters was 
 the Countess of Stafford, described by Lord Hervey 
 in his Memoirs, as " an old French lady, daughter 
 of the famous Count de Grammont, who had as 
 much wit, humour, and entertainment in her as 
 any man or woman I ever knew, with a great just- 
 ness in her way of thinking, and very little reserve 
 in her manner of giving her opinion of things and 
 people."* 
 
 * Lord Hervey's Memoirs ii. 116. 
 
 I'.HADllUKY AN1) EVANS, PKINTEKS, WIIITEKK1ARS. 
 
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