Published in Windlesora 16 (1998)
© WLHG
The subject of the front cover painting by E M Ward is Nell Gwyn (1650-1687) with King Charles II
Nell Gwyn was born Eleanor Gwyn in 1650, and according to historians and confirmed by a memorial tablet in Hereford Cathedral her place of birth was Hereford. She was of Welsh extraction and had spent her early years working in the London establishment of her mother, old Madam Gwyn, which, if not precisely a ‘bawdy house’ was something close to it. However, the story of Nell Gwyn is dogged by so much spicy fiction that true facts are hard to nail down. Even her name is not stable. She is referred to as Mrs Hellen Gwyn or Mrs Ellen Gwyn and on playbills as Madam Ellen. As she was illiterate the only clue to what she called herself was the childish handwriting of her initials EG which she inscribed on letters written for her.
The two facts that are indisputable are that she was a popular and accomplished actress who became the most famous of the many mistresses of King Charles II.
Her association with Windsor began sometime in the 1670s when she joined the King and became, rather surprisingly, one of the ladies of Her Majesty the Queen’s Privy Chamber. There are several references in the archives to the presence of Nell Gwyn in Windsor and in the company of both the King and Queen.
Most people know that she started her career in the theatre as a seller of oranges. However, the satirist Rochester says that it was herrings she was selling in the Theatre Royal. Nell was quite capable of upping her status from fish to oranges and it is generally accepted that she began in the theatre in a lowly position and her theatrical career grew steadily once she took her place on the stage of the King’s Players in 1664. She was a mature fourteen-year-old playing the part of Cydaria in Dryden’s Indian Emperor. Charles Hart was her first lover and gave her assistance by teaching her to act. Before she became the mistress to the King she took another lover called Charles Buckthorst so the King became her “Charles III”, a title which seemed to have amused him.
By the time she attracted the King’s attention she was an established actress, especially in comedy roles. Pepys adored her and there are many references to her in his diaries. It is in Pepys that we find the famous description of her as “pretty, witty Nell” [3rd April 1665] and yet another reference to “pretty Nelly standing at her lodgings in Drury Lane, in her smock sleeves and bodice” watching the Mayday revels [1st May 1667]. Not only did the King and her audiences love her, her playwrights also admired her and wrote parts especially for her. These included the woman playwright, Mrs. Aphra Behn, who dedicated several plays to her and refers to Nell’s “eternal sweetness”.
She played the leading female role in plays written by Dryden, Howard, Pordage, Beaumont and Fletcher, Otway and Rhodes. She also enjoyed showing off her legs in certain male roles and wearing male costumes. Much of her popularity came from her interpretations of daring prologues and epitaphs. Most memorable was the prologue she spoke on the revival of the Beaumont and Fletcher’s Knight of the Burning Pestle.
Nell Gwyn was tiny but perfectly proportioned with dainty feet. It is said that the King first saw the diminutive Nell on the stage wearing a huge cartwheel of a hat and that the sight was so droll he took her back in his coach and made her his mistress. But she had probably become his mistress in 1667, before this incident. Her association with the King led to her leaving the theatre although another actress called Ann Quin who also played at the Kings House has been confused with her. Her theatrical career had lasted barely six years and another life with its accompanying Royal favour and fame had begun.
It was the period of the satirical pamphlet, and Nell Gwyn was a gift to the pamphleteer. She was so witty and her coarse humour caused as much amusementto the Court as it did to Charles. One story delighted her public and the enemies of her rival, the Duchess of Portsmouth. According to Waldron, editor of the Roscius Anglicanus, an eminent goldsmith was commissioned by the King to make a costly service of gold plate as a present for the Catholic Duchess. Enraged by such extravagance the people mobbed the carriage of the Royal mistress at Oxford. However, it was Nell Gwyn who was in the carriage. She put her head out of the window and said:
“Pray, good people, be civil; I am the Protestant whore.”
During the time she was the King’s mistress she became the mother of two of his illegitimate sons, the elder of which Nell called “you little bastard” in the presence of the King. When he remonstrated with her she replied, “Why, I have nothing else to call him”. Soon afterwards the boy became the first Duke of St Albans. Nell had always longed for a country house of her own and it was in 1681that the King assigned by Royal Warrant, Burford House, a redbrick house in Windsor, in trust for their son Charles Beauclerk, Earl of Burford. This is situated adjacent to the Queen’s Mews, and separated from St John’s Parish Church by St Albans Street. Burford House is still in existence although the exterior was changed during the reign of George IV. The gardens were renowned and Nell entertained there in great style. Charles II had the house decorated by Antonio Verrio who had previously been employed to decorate parts of the Castle. It is described in the Annals of Windsor thus:
“Verrio’s pencil was employed by the king’s orders to paint the staircases in the house at Windsor in which Nell Gwyn resided, then or soon after, called Burford House, from being the residence of her son, the young Earl of Burford, afterwards created Duke of St. Albans. This house is the subject of Knyff’s well-known large engraving.”
Nell Gwyn’s descendants lived in this house until it was purchased in 1777 for some of George III’s daughters. A tradition that Nell occupied a house in Church Street is based on slender evidence, although she must have lived somewhere near the Castle before she took possession of Burford House. Behind the facade of “Nell Gwyn’s Parlour” there may be an earlier structure which could have been a dwelling house. However the story that a tunnel leads to Windsor Castle which Charles used to visit his mistress is but one of many doubtful tunnel stories associated with the Castle. The tunnel in question is so narrow that anyone inside it would have to drag themselves along on their elbows. As it was a drainage channel they would also get very wet and dirty! The only letter known to have been composed by Nell is headed “Windsor,Burford House, April 14, 1684.
To the end of his life the King retained his great affection for her and his dying request to his brother, “Let not poor Nellie starve” has come down to us in history. It was his intention to create her Countess of Greenwich, but he died before this could be accomplished. Nell Gwyn died of a stroke on 13th November 1687 aged 37, and was buried in the church of St Martin-in-the-Fields in the tomb of her mother. Her story has become part of folklore for she was a folk heroine in her day and her reputationas a cheeky, saucy wit dances down the centuries. Her image adorns many places including restaurants and public houses; an appropriate memorial to a woman beloved by the people and by her King.
Sheila Rooney
Sources
- FRASER A King Charles II 1979 The Dictionary of National Biography Actress 1868
- TIGHE and DAVIS Annals of Windsor
- MACGREGOR-HASTIE R Nell Gwyn
- The Diary of Samuel Pepys
- CUNNINGHAM Story of Nell Gwyn
- HART WH Memorial of Nell Gwyn
- Windsor and Eton Society Reports
- Berkshire Archaeology Journal
- DEWAR House of Nell Gwyn
Windsor Local History Group 