Nell Gwyn

1650-1687. Nell [Eleanor] Gywn, also spelt Gwynn or Gwynne. Restoration actress and mistress of Charles II.

“Pretty, witty Nell” as Samuel Pepys called her, was probably born near Drury-Lane, London, in 1650. Only little is known about Nell Gwyn’s family background. Her father is said to have died in a debtors’ prison at Oxford during Nell’s infancy. Her mother might have kept a bawdy house in the Covent Garden district and died in 1679.

In 1664 Nell began to work as an orange-seller at the Drury Lane Theatre. There she attracted attention to herself and through the influence of the theatre’s leading actor Charles Hart, whose mistress she became; she began her career as an actress. Her first appearance on stage was probably in December 1665. Being especially good in comic roles, Nell Gywn had many plays written for her. From 1666 to 1669 she continuously played in the King’s Company and created such popular roles as Florimel in John Dryden’s Secret Love, Miridia in James Howard’s All Mistaken and Jacinta in Dyrden’s Evening’s Love. Her last stage appearance was with Hart in Dryden’s The Conquest of Granada (1670).

By that time she already was one of the 13 royal mistresses of Charles II. As such she had a public position and at the same time was the most beloved mistress by the public. Her popularity is partly due to the disgust inspired by her rival, Louise de Querouaille, duchess of Portsmouth, and the fact that, while the Frenchwoman was a Catholic, Gwyn was a Protestant. As Charles’ mistress Nell had been set up in a house near Windsor Castle and was paid a pension out from the Secret Service budget. She bore him two children. Her first son, born in 1670, was created 1st Baron Heddington and Earl Burford, and subsequently duke of St Albans. The younger, James (born in 1671), Lord Beauclerk, died when he was nine.

Nell remained Charles’s mistress until his death in 1685. At that time Nell was deeply in debts. But the king’s death-bed request to his brother James, “Let poor Nelly not starve”, avoided the worst. James paid off her debts and granted her another pension, again from the Secret Service fund. She died in 1687 and was buried in the Church of St Martin-in-the-Fields. Her funeral was a public event with the funeral sermon being preached by the vicar, Thomas Tension, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury.

Sources:

“Nell Gywn”. BBC, 15 Feb 2008, http://www.bbc.co.uk/herefordandworcester/content/articles/2008/02/15/nell_gwynne_feature.shtml, last accessed 17 Jul 2009.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. "Nell Gwyn." Encyclopædia Britannica, first published online 20 Jul 1998, http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/250188/Nell-Gwyn, last accessed 17 Jul 2009.