The story of Nell Gwyn (14 page)

THE STORY OF NELI. GWYN

" If it be resolved, that all of ihem shall be called Fits-roys ; Then forasmuch as the Duke of Southampton, and Earle of Northumberland, and likewise the Duke of Grafton, are sayd to be the King's naturall sons by the sayd Dutchesse of Cleveland ; whether it will not be as proper to make mention on what particular woman his Matie begot the Dukes of Monmouth, Richmond, and E. of Plimouth?

"This being shewed to K. Charles the Second, by the Earl of Anglesey, then Ld Privye Scale, the king directed that these liis naturall children should be all of them called Fitz-Roys; but no mention to be made of the mothers of these three last-named; viz. Monmouth, Richmond, and Plymouth."—Hamper's Life of Dugdale, p. 494.

[Apparently the Duke of Monmouth, the Duke of Richmond, and the Earl of Plymouth did not avail themselves of the privilege of being called " Fitz Roy."]

CHAPTER VII.

Houses in which Nelly is said to have lived—Burford House, Windsor, one of the few genuine— Her losses at basset —Court paid to Nelly by the Duke of Monmouth, Lord Cavendish, etc.—Death of her mother—Printed elegy on her death—Nelly's household expenses—Bills for her chair and bed—Death of Mrs. Roberts—Foundation of Chelsea Hospital—Nelly connected with its origin-Books dedicated to Nelly—Death of her second son— The Earl of Burford created Duke of St.'Albans—Nelly's only letter—Ken and Nelly at Winchester—Nelly at Avington—Death of the King—Was the King poisoned ? —Nelly to have been created Countess of Greenwich if the King had lived.

There are more houses pointed out in which Nell Gwyn is said to have lived than sites of palaces belonging- to King John, hunting-lodges believed to have sheltered Queen Elizabeth, or mansions and pcsting-houses in which Oliver Cromwell resided or put up. She is said by some to have been born at Hereford ; by others at London ; and Oxford it is found has a fair claim to be considered as her birthplace. But the houses in which she is said to have lived far exceed

THE STORY OF NELL GWYN

in number the cities contending for the honour of her birth. She is beheved by some to have lived at Chelsea, by others at Bagnigge Wells, Highgate, and Walworth, and Filberts, near Windsor, are added to the list of reputed localities. A staring inscription in the Strand in London instructs the curious passenger that a house at the upper end of a narrow court was " formerly the dairy of Nell Gwyn." I have been willing to believe in one and all of these conjectural residences, but—after a long and careful inquiry, I am obliged to reject them all. Nell's early life was spent in Drury Lane and Lincoln's Inn Fields ; her latter life in Pall Mall, and in Burford House in the town of Windsor.^ The rate-books of the parish of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields record her residence in Pall Mall from 1670 to her death, and the site of her house in Windsor may be established, were other evidence wanting, by the large engraving after Knyft".^

1 At Windsor "the Prince of Wales is lodged in the Princess of Denmark's house, which was Mrs. Ellen Gwyn's." —Letter, Aug. 14, 1688, Ellis Correspondence, ii. 118. [In the Chamberlain of Windsor's accounts for 1689 is this entry relating to the then residence of Prince George of Denmark and the Princess Anne: "More for Mad"'-Gwynn's h.ouse in the possession of the Prince of Denmark, 15 years in anear at ■zs. per ann.;" the arrears were subsequently paid by the Duke of St. Albans. The warrant of Charles IL, dated 1681, assigning to Nell Gwyn Burford House, now the site of the King's .Mews, is printed in Hist. MSS. Cflmnt., a,th Report, part i. p. 303 a ; an account of the decorations is in Annals of Windsor, by Tighe and Davis, 1858, ii. 327, 441.]

•^ The eiis^rav^ing is in Nonveau Theatre de la Grande Bretagne (fol. 1724), vol. i., plate 14. —G. G.

THE STORY OF NELL GWYN

We have seen from Gibber that Nelly was fond of having concerts at her house, and that she never failed in urging the claims of those who played and sang to the favourable consideration of the King and the Duke of York. She had her basset-table, too, and in one night is said to have lost to the once beautiful Duchess of Mazarin as much as 1400 guineas, or ^5000 at least of our present money.i Basset, long the fashionable game, was, I believe, introduced into this country from France. Etherege and Lady Mary Wortley have sung its attractions and its snares, and D'Urfey has condemned it in one of the best of his plays. Nor will Evelyn's description of the basset-table which he saw on a Sunday night at Whitehall, only a few hours before the King was seized with his last illness, be effaced from the memory of those to whom his work is known.

Nelly possessed great interest with the King, and her house at Windsor, with its staircases painted expressly for her by the fashionable pencil of Verrio," was the rendezvous of all who wished

1 L,wc?Ls's Live^ 0/Games/ers, i2nio, 1714. Lord Cavendish lost a thousand pounds, in two nights, at Madame Mazarin's—Countess-Dowager of Sunderland to the Earl of Halifax, Aug. 5, i68o(Miss Berry's Lady /^acAaelI?usse/l,

P- 373)-

- Accounts of the Paymaster of His Majesty's Works and Buildings, preserved in the Audit Office. [In an account of moneys received by William Roberts and expended by him, 1675-78, is the entry, "To Mon'. Bodevine for repareing of Madame Gwin's house 50 o o ; " but this may very well refer to her house in Pall Mall. (Apiteinlix to gth Report of Historical MSS. Comm., p. 450/'.)]

THE STORY OF NELL GWYN

to stand well at the Castle. The Duke of Monmouth,—the handsome Sidney of De Grammont's Memoirs, afterwards Earl of Roraney,—and the patriot Lord Cavendish, afterwards Duke of Devonshire, were among Nelly's friends. Such constant court was paid to her for political purposes by the Duke of Monmouth and Lord Cavendish, that Lady Rachael Russell records the King's command that Nelly should refuse to see them.^ Monmouth was endeavouring to regain his situations, of which he had been properly deprived by his father, and Cavendish was urging the claims of the Protestants on behalf of the famous Bill for excluding the Duke of York from the succession to the Crown. Nelly, it will be remembered, had already identified herself with the Protestant interest, but the regard with which she was treated by King James is ample evidence that she had never abused her influence, in order to prejudice Charles IL against his brother. Indeed she would appear to have been among the first who foresaw the insane ambition of Monmouth. Nell is said to have called him " Prince Perkin " to his face, and when the Duke replied that she was " ill-bred,"— " Ill-bred !" retorted Nelly ; " was Mrs. Barlow better bred than I ?" 2

I have introduced the mother of Nelly by name to the reader, and I have now to record her death.

1 Lady Sunderland to Henry Sidney, Dec. 16, 1679. Jlomney's Diary, etc., \. 207.) Lady Rachael Russell to her husband, April 3, 1680. (Miss Berry's Lady Rachael Russell, pp. 210, 215, 367.)

2 Gentleman's Magazine for November 1851, p. 471.

THE STORY OF NELL G\VYN

" We hear," says the Domestic Iiitcllige7icer of the 5th of August, 1679, "that Madam Ellen Gwyn's mother, sitting lately by the water-side at her house by the Neat-Houses, near Chelsea, fell accidentally into the water and was drowned." Oldys had seen a quarto pamphlet of the time giving an account of her death. This I have never met with, but among the Luttrell Collection of ballads and broadsides sold in 1849 at the Stowe sale was an elegy "upon that never-to-be-forgotten Matron, Old Maddam 6^7£//;;«, who was unfortunately drown'd in her own Fish-pond on the 29th of July 1679." The verse is of the lowest possible character of Grub Street elegy, nor could I, after a careful perusal, glean from it any biographical matter other than that she was very fat and fond of brandy. She was buried in the church of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, and it is said with five ^ gilded scutcheons to the hearse ; but this could hardly be, if the ballad-monger's date of the 29th is correct, for the register of St. Martin's records her burial on the 30th, the next day."-^ That the old lady resided at

1 The correct reading in Rochester's lampoon is "Fine gilded "Scutcheons." Works, ed. 1709, p. 102.—G. G.

2 1679, 30 J Illy. Mrs. Ellinor Gwin, w. Burial Register of St. Alartiii s-iti-ihe-Fields. See also Geiitlema?is Maga-sitie for November 1851, p. 470. [There was a monument to her memory in the south aisle of the old church of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields with this inscription : " Here lyes interred the body of Helena Gwynn, born in this parish, who departed this life ye 20th of July MDCLXXix. in the Ivi yeare of her age." With the rebuilding of the church in 1721 the monument disappeared. (Notes and Queries, 2nd ser., v. 9.) Good views and a plan of the old church are in the Grace Collection, Brit. Mas., portfolio xviii., nos. 34-37.] '

THE STORY OF NELL GWYN

one time with her c]auj;hter, and in her house in Pall Mall, may, I think, be inferred from some curious bills for debts incurred by Nelly, accidentally discovered among the mutilated Exchequer papers: an apothecary's bill containing charges for cordial juleps with pearls for " Master Charles," and "plasters,'' "glysters," "cordials," for "old Mrs. Gwyn." From these bills, the originals of which have been kindly entrusted to me by Mr. Loddy and Mr. Robert Cole, some extracts may be made that will interest the reader. The bills are of a miscellaneous nature—a chance saving from a bundle of household and other expenses of the years 167^, 1675, and 1676. They include charges for a French coach, and for a great cipher from the chariot painter ; for a bedstead, with silver ornaments ; for side-boxes at the Duke's Theatre, to which she never went alone, but often with as many as four people, Nell paying for all; for great looking-glasses ; for cleansing and burnishing the warming-pan ; for the hire of sedan-chairs ; for dress, furniture, and table expenses ; for white satin petticoats, and white and red satin nightgowns ; for kilderkins of strong ale, ordinary ale, and "a barrel of eights" ; for alms to poor men and women ; for oats and beans, and " chaney" oranges at threepence each ; "for a fine landskip fan"; for scarlet satin shoes covered with silver lace, and a pair of satin shoes laced over with gold for " Master Charles." One or two of these documents have escaped entire. A bill for Nell's

sedan-chair runs thus : —

THE STORY OF TsELL GWYN

June 17, 1675.

The body ot the chaire .....

the best neats leather to cover the outside

600 inside nailes, coulered and burnishd

600 guilt with water gold at 5s. per cent.

1200 outside nailes, the same gold, at 8s. per cent,

300 studds, the same gold ....

2000 halfe roofe nailes, the same gold .

200 toppit nailes, same gold ....

5 sprigs for the top, rich guilt

a haspe for the doore, rich guilt

ftor change of 4 glasses .....

2 pound 5s. for one new glasse, ta be abated out

of that ffor a broken glasse 15s. ffor guilding windows and irons . Serge ffor the bottom ..... canuisse to put vnder the leather . all sorts of iron nailes ..... workmanshipe, the chaire inside and outside

34 II o Reict. dated 13 July, 1675, for " -^o^ in full discharge."

That Nell did not always employ her own sedan is evident from the following bill :— For careing you to Mrs. Knights and to Madam

Younges, and to Madam Churchfillds, and

wating four oures . . . . . .050

For careing you the next day, and wating seven oures 076 For careing you to Mrs. Knights, and to Mrs.

Cassells,' and to Mrs. Churchills, and to Mrs.

Knights 040

For careing one Lady Sanes to y<: play at White

Halle, and wayting . . . ' . .036 For careing you yesterday, and wayting eleven

oures o II 6

some IS

13 October, 75. Reed, them of Tho. Groundes in full of these Bills and all other demands from Madam Gwin,

by me

I H

1 \ £.^.-.-

William Calow.

1 Nell Gwyn's sister, then wife or widow of "Captain" John Cassells. She married again, and is mentioned in Nell's will as "Mrs. Rose Forster."

THE STORY OF NELL GWYN

Chairman Callow, with singular discreetness, omits, it will be seen, to name the places at which he waited longest. Eleven shillings and sixpence seems little for carrying and waiting eleven hours. But the most curious bill, and it is one with which I have been (1852) only recently supplied, is a silversmith's—in which the principal sum is a charge for making a bedstead for Nelly, with ornaments of silver, such as the King's head, slaves, eagles, crowns, and Cupids, and Jacob Hall dancing upon a rope of wirevvork. The document must be given entire :—

Work done for y" righte Hon'"'*. Madame Guinne. John Cooqus, siluersmyth his bill.

1674. Deliuered the head of ye bedstead weighing 885 onces 12 lb. and I haue received 636 onces 15 dvveight so that their is over and aboue of me owne siluer two hundred [and] forty eight onces 17 dweight at 7s. I id. par once (y« siluer being a d't worse par once according y= reste) wich £ s. d.

comes to 98 10 2

For ye making of ye 636 onces 15 d't at 25. iid. par once, comes to . . • 92 17 3

onces. dweight.

Deliuered ye kings head weighing 197 S

one figure weighing . . . 445 15 ye other figure with ye caracter

weighing .... 428 5 ye slaues and ye reste belonging

unto it 255

ye two Eagles weighing . . 1O9 10 one of the crowne[s] weighing . 94 5 ye second crown weighing . 97 10 ye third crowne weighing . 90 2

ye fowerd crowne weighing . 82 one of ye Cupids weighing . 121 8 128