Nell Gwyn: Mistress
and Society Hostess
In my Women’s
Club, for the English Experience group, I attended a lecture given by Amanda
Bryett on Jan 26. She talked about and
told stories about Nell Gwyn who lived in the late 1600’s and became a mistress
of Charles II. A lot of her information
came from “The Darling Strumpet” by Gillian Bagwell which I haven’t read but am
most interested in getting it now as the stories were quite interesting.
These are
some of the things I learned from the lecture regarding Nell. She was probably born but definitely grew up
in the area of London that is now Covent Gardens. Back then it was Convent Garden and belonged
to Westminster. Henry VIII declared
himself the Pope of the Church of England when he broke away from Rome and he
took a lot of land in the 1530’s. He
gave the first Earl of Beauford (? Not sure
which Earl it was) the land around
Convent Gardens.
In the 1600’s,
Inigo Jones was hired by the fourth Earl who wanted the land redeveloped into
an Italian plaza. Inigo asked if Earl IV
wanted a church built in the square and the Earl replied that he’d rather have
a barn. So Inigo made him the most
beautiful barn of a church which became St. Paul’s. The market was established in 1649. The market was in the middle of the plaza
which led to its slumping into a less than desirable area.
Nell came
along on Feb 2, 1650 but again, not sure where but definitely was raised by her
mother, Eleanor Gwyn (nee Smith) along with her sister Rose and was brought up
in the Coal Yard Alley bawdy house of which her mother was the bawd or what we
would call a Madame these days. Gwyn is a
Welsh name but it is thought that her dad was probably a Welsh captain.
The year
1650 was still during turbulent times.
Charles I had been executed as he had abolished Parliament and thought
he was only answerable to God.
Parliament was run by Oliver Cromwell who wasn’t happy about being
abolished so he took over, got Charles I executed, and ran England like a
republic until 1660. Oliver took the
title of Lord Protectorate on England and banned music, dancing, singing, and
actresses. There were still actors but
no females could be on stage. Nell is
spending her formative years during this unsettled time in history and was
living close to Drury Lane which was seedy and dangerous. As she was being raised in a brothel or bawdy
house, she might have been a child prostitute.
By 1660,
Oliver Cromwell had died and the republic fell apart. Charles II was 30 years old and had been in
exile in France and The Hague in the Netherlands. He was invited to come back and take the
throne again. He did with a massive
parade down the Strand which Nell may or may not have seen and had some
influence upon her decisions. It is fun
to speculate what she might have done.
Charles II
was 6’2” tall. His dad, Charles I was
only 4’9” tall. Charles II was dark and
swarthy with dark hair and complexion and was often known as the Black Boy. There are even pubs today in England called
the Black Boy. So he returns to take the
throne and starts the Restoration which involved restoring the monarchy and
parliament. He became known as the Merry
Monarch because he now allowed singing, dancing, music, and actresses. Basically, he reversed all of Oliver Cromwell’s
old rules.
A new
theatre was built in Covent Gardens. A
new theatre is built in Drury Lane. Women
started becoming actresses as it was a bit of a step up from being a prostitute
and it might secure them a sponsor where they could become a mistress of
someone rich.
And since there had been 10 years without actresses when men
played all the female roles, women would have their portraits done with their breasts shown to prove that they
were female. There are several portraits
of Nell in this fashion.
By 1663,
Charles II had married Catherine of Braganza of Portugal. (Interesting side note, she was the last
Queen Catherine but there will be another with Kate when Will takes the
throne). Catherine never bore a live
child for Charles II. By this time he
had several mistresses and several illegitimate children so he just kept on in
this fashion.
By the time
she was 12, Nell had supposedly taken a lover, Duncan, who was a regular client
at her mother’s bawd house. Nell and
Rose and their friends would go to the theatre and stand in front of the stage
with their backs to the stage and sell fruit.
They call out “oranges” and people would come to buy the fruit and they
would get 1/6th of the sales.
In order to get more sales, Nell became somewhat saucy and witty and she
got noticed and got a nickname of “Orange
Girl”.
Rose, Nell’s
sister, was carrying on with Thomas Kelligrew who was the theatre manager’s son
(not sure I have spelled names correctly).
He thought that Nell would be a good actress so he became her
mentor. Nell is illiterate throughout
her life apparently but she could memorize lines and ad lib with the
audience. Thomas got Charles Hart – a 30
year old actor – to mentor Nell and teach her lines and he became her
lover. She called him Charles I. Nell wasn’t any good at drama so she moved
into comedy and there she shone.
In 1665
there is the Great Plague of London and about 1/5 of the population died. The theatres were closed and the King took
his court of Oxford. Thomas Killigrew
took his crew to Oxford as well and that included Nell. Then in 1666 there was the Great Fire of London
and much was burnt in 4 days but it did not reach Covent Gardens.
In November
1666, the theatres were reopened. By 1667,
Nell had become a mistress. Charles
Sackville, later Earl of Dorsett became Nell’s lover. She was still with Charles I but she called
Charles Sackville “Charles II”. Her
affair with Charles II didn’t last long and was over by summer’s end but now
she had a reputation. No more “Orange
Girl” but is now called “Pretty Witty Nell”.
Barbara
Palmer, age 27, and the Duchess of Cleveland, became a mistress of Charles II
(the King, not Charles Sackville).
Charles II looked after his mistresses and his illegitimate children and
usually made them all Dukes and Duchesses.
In total, he had 13 mistresses and 13 acknowledged illegitimate
children. Barbara was his chief mistress
in 1667. She was from the aristocracy
herself and the Duke of Buckingham was her cousin. She had 5 children by the king. This gave her a lot of power which the Duke
of Buckingham didn’t particularly like and Barbara herself wasn’t much liked by
other people at court. So Buckingham
decided that Nell would be a good mistress of the King but she declined. With some good political maneuvering,
Buckingham managed to get Moll Davis, Nell’s chief rival, to be the King’s
mistress.
At age 18,
in 1668, Nell was introduced to the King, invited to a supper, and then became
his mistress and she called him “Charles III”.
Two years later, in 1670, she had a son by the king and called him
Charles. Charles, her son, remained
without a surname for the first 6 years of his life. Usually Charles II, the king, would bestow a surname
on the child but for some reason, did not do so with Charles, Nell’s son. Often the surname might be Fitzroy because
Fitz meant illegitimate. It is said that
Nell despaired that her son didn’t get a surname so she took him to court one
day and said something like (to the entire court), “come in here you little
bastard, you might as well meet your dad”.
I suspect he got a surname shortly after that.
Nell went
back to the stage but by 1771 she had a 2nd son (James) by the king
and stopped acting. As she was not the
only mistress, she had to watch her back.
So she wasn’t too happy when Louise de Keroville became a mistress. Charles II’s sister was married to the King
of France. Louise was a spy for Charles
II in the court of the King of France but when his sister died, he lost his spy
as she had to come back to England. He
let Louise come to be a maid for his wife but she became his mistress. She was the same age as Nell. Witty Nell called her “Squintabella” because
she had squinty eyes and because no one could pronounce her last name, she
became Squintabella Cartwheel”
All
mistresses were trying to scheme and get property and titles for their children
by the king. Nell was given #79 Pall
Mall in London which is quite a rich area of town now. She got the leasehold but she asked for the
freehold and she got it for some reason.
It remained in her family until 1860.
So with this property, she became a society hostess. She had 14 servants eventually but did a lot
of the entertaining herself. She got a
sedan chair so she could be carried about town.
She would serve 9 or 10 course meals but they were more like
buffets. There were paparazzi camped
outside her house and she was quite popular because unlike Barbara Palmer, Nell
was one of the common people.
Squintabella
Cartwheel became the Duchess of Portsmith with her son (Charles II’s 9th). Poor Nell was never awarded a title, maybe
from her low birth or maybe because she was a bit too witty for her own good
and argued a bit too much.
Moll Davis,
Nell’s rival, had a daughter by the king and eventually then 2 sons as
well. Charles, Nell’s son, eventually
got a title, The Earl of Buford, but her younger son, James, died in Paris at
the age of 9.
Eleanor,
Nell’s mother – the bawd – who smoked a pipe and drank brandy, moved in with
Nell at 79 Pall Mall as did her sister Rose.
Nell got a pension of 100 pounds a year from a marriage to a high
ranking soldier so she used this to hire her mother as a nanny. Her mother was in her 40’s and an alcoholic
and an old hag and embarrassed the king so he moved her to Chelsea. When she died, she was buried at St. Martin’s
in the Field and almost had a state funeral but did have a big procession from
Coal Alley.
Nell gets
another house, Buford House which was inside the castle walls so she was
finally acknowledged in that manner. She
might have been one of Charles II’s mistresses who really loved him. They would fish together in the Thames
outside Windsor.
Charles II
dies in 1685 at the age of 55 probably from kidney failure. Pretty much certain he had syphilis as did
Nell and probably most of the mistresses.
This was a difficult time in English history too as he had no legitimate
heirs so the throne goes to his brother James, the Duke of York (New York named
after him). Both Charles II and James
had been raised as Protestants but James had Catholic leanings. Before Charles II died, he passed acts making
it illegal for Catholics to hold high office or to go to university.
Nell gets
pulled into political intrigue when Charles II’s eldest son (remember
illegitimate), the Duke of Monmouth, plotted to overthrow James and take the
throne. Nell gave him a room at 79 Pall
Mall. This was seen as a very bad move. Plus, James had persuaded Charles II, on his
death bed, to get the last rites by the Catholic Church. So overnight, the court changed to become
more sedate, no more mistresses, and Nell found herself in difficult
times. Supposed Charles II had said to
James, “Be kind of Cleveland (Barbara Palmer), be kind to Portsmouth
(Squintabella), and let not poor Nell starve.”
So at this point, Nell had a lot of debt and with the king’s passing,
people wanted it back. She lost her king,
and lost her place in society all overnight.
The year before he died, he did make her son the Duke of St. Albans so
she is higher up the society ladder at least.
She didn’t have much interest in anything now so retired to 79 Pall Mall
and James paid off her debts.
In 1687 she
had a stroke which paralyzed one side then later same year, had another stroke
and died at age 37. Her funeral was in
St. Martin’s in the Field but not sure where she is buried, nor where her mum
is actually buried. Her rival, Moll
Davis, don’t know where she died either but her daughter became famous and her
sons were executed. Barbara “curse of
the nation” Palmer was targeted by men who were after her money. Married one who left her penniless and she
died at 68. Louise (Squintabella) went
back to Paris and died at 85.
Nell’s son
was the first Duke of St. Albans, Charles Beauclerc. Even today, the Dukes of St. Albans are
called Beauclerc. They did have to sell
79 Pall Mall. But he lived in Buford
house and was made a Knight of the Garter and had 9 sons and one daughter. Today, the 14th Duck of At. Albans
is Muray Beauclerc but Buford house is gone.
Samantha Cameron (David Cameron’s wife) is the 8th
granddaughter.
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