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"Let not poor Nelly starve" - King Charles II, on his deathbed, to his brother James, Duke of York. Nell Gwynn (born 2 February, 1650) had just turned 35.
Nell Gwyn, Country Dance (1925)
She was also affectionately known as "Cinder Nell", "the darling strumpet of the crowd" , and was said to be the most popular of the King's mistresses. "Pray, good people, be civil; I am the Protestant whore", she reportedly called out when mistaken for Louise de Keroualle. "Capricious blossom of the London gutters", a Time magazine article called her.
In a book review in the TLS (11.2.2011) Lisa Hulton writes: "Nell Gwyn might have been reduced to the "gutter tactics"...of lacing a rival's supper with laxatives, but at least she got to be the ancestress of five of Britain's current twenty-six dukes".
King Charles II died on 6 February 1685. He came to a better end than his father, Charles Ist.
"Pretty, witty Nell"
Charles II:
Children of Charles I:
Nell Gywnn was buried within the Vicar's Vault at St. Martin-in-the-Fields.
Her bones were moved, unceremoniously cleared out. Now nothing marks the spot.
"If I were the Duke of St. Albans
What would I think of Nell Gwynn?
I'd wonder how she won me the title
And whether it involved any sin."
"Ancestor-actress,
Royal mistress,
People's goddess:
Bravo, Encore!
We can't replay your greatest scenes;
But I think I recognise the genes."
(1st January, 2000)
Kitty Shannon, illustrations:
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