Ladies Who Did More Than Just Lunch – Nell Gwynn

Nell Gwynn, a perfect example of the type of subject that I am seeking to highlight in this series of blogs about women who fought their way up the social ladder often from very poor and deprived origins. So often referred to in music-hall type terms, Nell Gwynn was certainly a lot more than the comic figure that she is perceived to be, all oranges and busty figure.

'Pretty, witty Nell' was perhaps the best known and remembered mistress of King Charles II. She was one of many (there were 13 in all during his lifetime), but she was the least 'greedy' of them all. When the King lay dying he begged his heir, the Duke of York, "not to let poor Nellie starve".

Whereas we are pretty certain that Nell grew up in unsavoury surroundings, there are a considerable number of “maybes” “possiblys” and “unlikelys” about all aspects of her birth and early life. It is thought that her mother's name was Ellen (or similar), and Nell is variously described as being born about 1650 in either Oxford, Hereford and London, the latter perhaps being the favourite as this is where Ellen raised her children.

There is no suggestion of a father being present at any time in her life, and it is thought that Nell's mother kept a brothel in order to make ends meet.

When King Charles II was restored to the throne in 1660 after the protectorate rule of the Cromwells, he quickly reinstated the theatre. One of his early acts as king was to license the formation of two acting companies and to legalize acting as a profession for women. Mary Meggs, a former prostitute nicknamed "Orange Moll" and a friend of Nell's mother, had been granted the licence to "vend, utter and sell oranges, lemons, fruit, sweetmeats and all manner of fruiterers and confectioners wares" within the theatre and hired Nell and her older sister Rose as scantily clad "orange-girls", selling the small, sweet "china" oranges to the audience inside the theatre.

It was here that Nell made her first tentative steps on the stage, although as she appears to have been illiterate all her life, she must have had great difficulty in learning her lines. Theatres were closed during the Great Plaque during 1665-6 and Nell and her mother followed the King's Court.

It is likely that Nell appeared in front of the King as part of the King's Company playing parts that were especially written for her to exploit her talents as a comic actress.

She became the mistress of Charles Hart, a fellow thespian, and called him Charles the First. She was then passed to Charles Sackville, Lord Buckhurst, whom she dubbed Charles the Second, and later the King, calling him her Charles the Third. Lady Castlemaine (Barbara Palmer) had been King Charles' mistress for many years when he became enamoured of Nell.

The rivalry between Nell, Lady Castlemaine, Frances Stuart, Louise de Keroualle, Lucy Walters, Moll Davis and sundry others made the King's life difficult at times. Nell was not greedy and grasping like her rivals, but did receive a house near Pall Mall and when she first knew the King, she asked for just £500 a year, although he gave her a pension of £4000 a year from rents in Ireland and later another £5000 a year out of the Secret Service Fund.

As 1669 drew to a close, Nell withdrew from the stage because she was pregnant. The child was a boy: however her other son, born two years later, died, aged nine. Although Nell herself took no title, she ensured that her eldest son was granted a title, being known as the Earl of Burford later the Duke of St. Albans.

Despite being a royal mistress and the mother of the King's child, Nell briefly returned to the stage in the latter part of 1670, although it was a short lived episode and in February 1671 she moved into the house in Pall Mall, initially as a tenant, and eventually after much complaining as the owner. The second son was born in the same year, and after being sent to Paris at the age of six, appears to have sadly died in 1681.

Nell had other residences in London including Burford House on the edge of Windsor Great Park and a summer residence in Kings Cross Road where she continued to entertain the King.

Upon the death of King Charles in 1685, his brother,James II paid off some of her many debts as well as giving her a pension of £1500 per annum. Nell survived for only another two years after the King and died at the early age of 37. Although still in considerable debt she left a legacy to the Newgate prisoners in London.

As with so many women who fought their way up the social ladder from impecunious beginnings, Nell never forgot her roots. On one memorable occasion her coachman was fighting with another man who had called her a whore. She broke up the fight, saying, "I am a whore. Find something else to fight about."