UJoinicU llniucri5ity ICibrata FROM THE BENNO LOEWY LIBRARY COLLECTED BY BENNO LOEWY 1854-1919 BEQUEATHED TO CORNELL UNIVERSITY u^ i 6 1346 JUN 81949 * 'MM 8 1 mi ^vms, |Jjf3|^*««9&* > Cornell University Library DA 447.G99C97 1852 Story of Nell Gwvn: 3 1924 027 989 940 Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924027989940 THE STOEY OF NELL GWYN. CIIAllLES IT., ^^ELL GWYN, AND EVELYN. (Scene— St. James's Park.) From a painting by E. M. Ward, A.R.A. THE STOKV OV iNKLL GWYN: AND THE SAYINGS OF CHARLES TITE SECOND. RELATED AXD COTJ.F.rTED By peter CUNNTN(^HAM, J\S.A. / I 5i y \- "\ Nell Gwvn's Son— the first Duke of St. Alhan's. LONDON : BEADBURY & EVANS, 11, BOL^YEPJK STREET. ]\rDCCrLTT. ~ I 1 1- !; A \V\ ADVEETISEMENT. — ♦ — The following story was originally published iu " The Gentleman's Magazine/' for the year 1851, and now appears as a separate publication for the first time : corrected throughout and enlarged with such new matter as my own diligence, and the kindness of friends, has enabled me to biing together. It must be read as a serious truth, not as a fiction — as a biography, not as a romance. It has no other foundation than truth, and will be heard of hereafter only as it adheres to history. Peter Cunningham. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. Introduction — Birth and birth-place— Horoscope of her nativity — Condition in life of her father — Her account of her early days — Becomes an orange-girl at the theatre — Effects of the Restoration — Revival of the stage — Two theatres allowed — Scenery and dresses — Principal actors and actresses — Duties and importance of the orange-girls . . . CHAPTER n. Pepys introduces us to Nelly— Character of Pepys— Nelly at the Duke's Tlieatre— TVTio was Duncan ?— Nell's parts as Lady Wealthy, Enanthe, and Florimel— Charles Hart— Nell's lodgings in Drury Lane— Descrip- tion of Drury Lane in the reign of Charles II. — The May-pole in the Strand — Nell and Lord Buckhurst^Position in society of actors and actresses— Character of Lord Buckhurst— Nelly at Epsom 22 CHAPTER III. Epsom in the reign of Charles II. — England in 1667 — Nelly resumes her engagement at the King's Theatre— Inferior in Tragedy to Comedy — Plays Mirida in " All Mistaken " — Miss Davis of the Duke's Theatre — Her song, " My lodging it is on the Cold Ground," parodied by Nell — Influence of the Duke of Buckingham in controlling the predilections of the King— Charles II. at the Duke's Theatre— Nelly has leading parts in three of Dryden's new Plays — Buckhurst is made a Gentleman of the Bedchamber, promised a peerage, and sent on a sleeveless errand into France — Nell becomes the Mistress of the King — Plays Almahide in "The Conquest of Granada" — The King more than ever enamoured —Parallel case of Perdita Robinson and George IV 48 CONTENTS. CHAPTER IV. Pape Personal Character of King Charles II 73 CHAPTER V. The Sayings of King Charles TI 94 CHAPTER VI. Birth of the Duke of St. Alban's— Arrival of Mademoiselle de Querouaille — Death of the Duchess of Orleans— Nelly's house in Pall Mall — Countess of Castlemaine created Duchess of Cleveland — Sir John Birkenhead, Sir John Coventry, and the Actresses at the two Houses — Insolence of Dramatists and Actors — Evelyn overhears a conversation between Nelly and the King — The Protestant and Popish Mistresses — Story of the Service of Plate— Printed, Dialogues illustrative of the rivalry of Nelly and the Duchess of Portsmouth — Madame Sevign6's account of it — Story of the Smock — Nelly in mourning for the Cham of Tartary — Story of the two Fowls — Portsmouth's opinion of Nelly — Concert at Nell's house — The Queen and la Belle Stuart at a Fair disguised as Country Girls — Births, Marriages, and Creations — Nelly's disappoint- ment — Her witty Remark to the King — Her son created Earl of Burford, and betrothed to the daughter and heiress of Vere, Earl of Oxford 112 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, &c. — 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 Burford created Duke of St. Alban's — 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 136 CONTENTS. xi CHAPTER VIII. Page Nelly in real mourning, and outlawed for debt — Death of Otway, tutor to her son — James II. pays her debts — The King's kindness occasions a groundless rumour that she has gone to mass — Her intimacy with Dr. Tenison, then Vicar of St. Martin' s-in-the-Fields, and Dr. Lower the celebrated physician — She sends for Tenison in her last illness — Her / death and contrite end — Her will and last request of her son — Her funeral — Tenison preaches her fimeral sermon— False account of the sermon cried by hawkers in the streets — The sennon used as an argu- ment against Tenison's promotion to the see of Lincoln — Queen Mary's defence of him and of Nelly — Her son the Duke of St. Alhan's — Eleanor Gwyn and Harriet Mellon — Various portraits of NeUy — Further anec- dotes — Conclusion 159 Appendix A. On the Chronology of the English portion of De Grammont's Memoirs 183 Appendix B. Some Account of Hamilton, his Brothers and Sisters . . . 205 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN T CHAPTEE I. Introduction — Birth and birth-place— Horoscope of her nativity— Condition in life of her father — Her account of her early days — Becomes an orange-girl at the theatre — EflPects of the Restoration — Revival of the stage — Two theatres allowed — Scenery and dresses — Principal actors and actresses — Duties and importance of the orange-girls. Dr. Thomas Tenison, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, preached the funeral sermon of Nell Gwyn. What so good a man did not think an unfit subject for a sermon, will not be thought, I trust, an unfit subject for a book; for the Hfe that was spent remissly may yet convey a moral, like that of Jane Shore, which the wise and virtuous Sir Thomas More has told so touchingly in his History of King Eichard III. THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. The English people have always entertained a j)eculiar liking for Nell Gwyn. There is a soii; of indulgence towards her not generally conceded to any other woman of her class. Thousands are attracted by her name, they know not why, and do not stay to inqmre. It is the popular impression that, with all her failings, she had a generous as well as a tender heart; that when raised fi^om poverty, she reserved her wealth for others rather than herself; and that the influence she possessed was often exercised for good objects, and never abused. Contrasted with others in a far superior rank in life, and tried by fewer temptations, there is much that marks and removes her from the common herd. The many have no sjonpathy, nor should they have any, for Barbara Palmer, Louise de Querouelle, or Erengard de Schulenberg ; but for Nell Gwyn, "pretty witty Nell," there is a tolerant and kindly regard, which the following pages are designed to illustrate rather than extend. The Coal Yard m Drmy Lane, a low alley, the last on the east or city side of the lane, and still kno^vn by that name, was, it is said, the place of Nell G^\^n's birth. They show, however, in Pipe Lane, in the parish of St. John, in the city of TIME AND PLACE OF BIRTH. Hereford, a small house of brick and timber, now little better than a hovel, in which, according to local tradition, she was born. That the Coal Yard was the place of her birth was stated in. print as early as 1721 ; and this was copied by Oldys, a curious inquirer into literary and dramatic matters, in the account of her life wliich he wrote for CurU * The Hereford story too is of some standing ; but there is little else I am afraid to su^Dport it. The capital of tlie cider country, however, does not want even Nell Gwyn to add to its theatrical reputation ; in the same cathedral citj^ which claims to be the birth-place of the best known English actress, was born, seventy years later, David Garrick, the greatest and best known actor we have yet had.t The horoscope of the nativity of Eleanor Gwyn, the work perhaps of Lilly, is still to be seen among Aslnnole's papers in the Museum at Oxford. She was bom, it states, on the 2nd of February, 1650. The horoscope, of which I have had a * Curll's History of the English Stage, 8vo. 1741, p. 111. t " When I went first to Oxford, Dr. John Ireland, an antiquaiy, assured me that Nelly was bora in Oxford. He named the parish, but I have forgot it. It is certain that two of her son's titles— Headington and Burford— were taken from Oxfordshire localities."— MS. note by the late Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, the antiquary and genealogist. Oddly enough, one of Nelly's grandsons died Bishop of Hereford. b2 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. fac-simile made, shows what stars were supposed to be in the ascendant at the time; and such of my readers as do not disdain a study which engaged the attention and ruled not unfrequently the actions of vigorous-minded men, like Lord Chancellor Shaftesbury and tlie j)oet Dryden, may find more meaning in the state of the heavenly bodies at her birth than I have as yet succeeded in detecting. HER FATHER AND MOTHER. Of the early history of Nell, and of the rank in life of her parents, very little is known with certainty. Her father, it is said, was Captain Thomas Gwyn, of an ancient family in Wales.* The name cer- tainly is of Welch extraction, and the descent may be admitted without adopting the captaincy; for by other hitherto received accounts her father was a fruiterer in Covent Garden. She speaks in her will of her '' kinsman Cholmley," and the satires of the time have pilloried a cousin, raised by her influence to an ensigncy from the menial office of one of the bla(5k gniard employed in carrying coals at Court. Her mother, who lived to see her daughter a favourite of the King, and the mother by him of at least two children, was accidentally drowned in a pond near the Neat Houses at Chelsea. Her Christian name was Eleanor, but her maiden name is unknown. Whatever the station in life to which her pedigree might have entitled her, her bringing up, by her own account, was humble enough. "Mrs. Pierce tells me," says Pepys, "that the two Marshalls at the King's House are Stephen Marshall's, the great Presbyterian's daughters: * MS. note by Van Bossen, made in 1688, and quoted at length in a subsequent page. and that Nelly and Beck Marshall falling out the other day, the latter called the other my Lord Buckhurst's mistress. Nell answered her, 'I was but one man's mistress, though I was brought up in a brothel to fill strong water* tlace to its old position ; the King's Head, the Duke's Head, and the Crown were once more favourite signs by which taverns were distinguished ; di^inldng of healths and deep potations, with all their Low-Country honours and observances, were again in vogue. Oughtred, the mathematician, died of joy, and Urquhart, the translator of Rabelais, of laughter, at hearing of the enthusiasm of the EngHsh to "welcome home old Rowley."* The King's health — Here's a health unto his Majesty, with a fa, la, la,t was made a pretext for the worst excesses, and irrehgion and indecency were thought to secure * " Welcome home, old Rowley," is the name of the well-known Scottish tune called " Had away frae me, Donald." See Johnson's Scott's Musical Museum, iv. 318. t One of the seven "Choice New English Ayi'es" in Songs and Fancies in three, four, five parts, both apt for the Voices and Viols, with a brief Introduction to Musick, as taught in the Musick-School of Aberdeen, third Edition, enlarged, Aberdeen by Jo. Forbes, 1682, is — " Here's a health unto his Majesty, with a fa, la, la. Conversion to his enemies, with a fa, la, la. And he that will not pledge his health, I wish him neither wit nor wealth, Nor yet a rope to hang himself. With a fa, la, la, la, With a fa, la," &c. The music appears to have been the composition of " Mr. John Savile." Shadwell refers to the song, Works, ii.268; iii. 52. REVIVAL OF THE STAGE. 9 conversation against a suspicion of disloyalty and fanaticism. Even the common people took to gay- coloured dresses as before ; and a freedom of spiiits, rendered familiar by early recollection, and only haK subdued by Presbyterian persecution, was confirmed by a licence of tongue which the yoimg men about court had acquired while in exile with their sovereign. Not the least striking effect of the restoration of the King was the revival of the English theatres. They had been closed and the players silenced for three -and- twenty years, and in that space a new generation had arisen, to whom the entertainments of the stage were known but by name. The theatres were now re-opened, and with every advantage wliich stage properties, new and improved scenery, and the costliest dresses, could lend to help them forward. But there were other advantages equally new, and of still greater importance, but for wliich the name of Eleanor Gwyn would in all likelihood never have reached us. From the earliest epoch of the stage in England till the theatres were silenced at the outbreak of the Civil War, female characters had invariably been played by men, and during the same brilliant 10 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. period of our dramatic history there is but one instance of a sovereign witnessing a performance at a pubHc theatre. Henrietta Maria, though so great a favourer of theatrical exhibitions, was present once, and once only, at the theatre in the Blackfriars. The plays of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, . "Which so did take Eliza and our James, were invariably seen by those sovereigns, as after- wards by Charles I., in the halls, banqueting houses, and cockpits attached to their palaces. With the Eestoration came women on the stage, and the Eiiig and Queen, the Dukes of York and Buckingham, the chief courtiers, and the maids of honour, were among the constant frequenters of the public theatres. Great interest was used at the Restoration for the erection of new theatres in London, but the King, acting it is thought on the advice of Clarendon, who wished to stem at all points the flood of idle gaiety and dissipation, would not allow of more than two — the King's Theatre, under the control of Thomas Killigrew, and the Duke's Theatre (so called in compliment to his brother, the Duke of York), under the direction of Sir William Davenant. Better men KING'S THEATRE. 11 for tlie purpose could not have been chosen. Killigrew was one of the grooms of the bed-chamber to the King, a well-known wit at comi; and a drama- tist himself; and Davenant, who filled the office of Poet Laureate in the household of the King, as he had done before to his father, Kjing Charles I., had been a successful wiiter for the stage, while Ben Jonson and Massinger were still alive. The royal brothers patronised both houses with equal earnestness, and the patentees vied with each other in catering successfully for the public amuse- ment. The King's Theatre, or " The Theatre," as it was commonly called, stood in Drury Lane, on the site of the present building, and was the first theatre, as the present is the fourth, erected on the site. It was small, with few pretensions to architectural beauty, and was first opened on the 8th of April, 1663, when Nell was a girl of tliirteen. The cliief entrance was in Little Eussell Street, not as now in Brydges Street. The stage was Ughted with wax candles, on brass censers or cressets. The pit lay open to the weather for the sake of light, but was subsequently covered in with a glazed cupola, which however only imperfectly protected the audience, so that in stormy weather the house was thrown 12 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. into disorder, and the peoi^le in the pit were faia to rise. The Dnke's Theatre, commonly called " The Opera," from tlie nature of its performances, stood at the back of what is now the Eoyal College of Surgeons in Portugal Eow, on the south side of Lincoln's Inn Fields. It was originally a tennis- court, and, like its rival, was run up hurriedly to meet the wants of the age. The interior arrange- ments and accommodation were much the same as at Killigi^ew's house. The company at the King's Theatre included, among the actors, at the first o^^ening of the house, Theophilus Bird, Charles Hart, Michael Mohun, John Lacy, Nicholas Burt, William Cartwright, William Wintershall, Walter Clun, Eobert Shat- terell, and Edward Kynaston; and Mrs. Corey, Mrs. Ann Marshall, Mrs. Eebecca Marshall, Mrs. Eastland, Mrs. Weaver, Mrs. Uphill, Mrs. Eiiep, and Mrs. Hughes, were among the female per- formers. Joe Haines, the low comedian, and Cardell Goodman, the lover of the Duchess of Cleveland, were subsequent accessions to the troop ; and so also were Mrs. Boutell and " Mrs. Ellen Gwyn." Bird belonged to the former race of actors, and ACTORS AT THE KING'S THEATRE. 13 did not long survive the Eestoration. Hart and Clun had been bred up as boys at the Blackfriars to act women's parts. Hart, who had served as a captain in the King's army, rose to the summit of his profession, but Clun was unfortunately killed while his reputation was still on the increase. Mohun had played at the Cockpit before the Civil Wars, and had served as a captain imder the King, and afterwards in the same capacity in Flanders, where he received the pay of a major ; he was famous in lago and Cassius. Lacy, a native of Yorkshire, was the Irish Johnstone and Tyrone Power of his time. Burt, who had been a boy first under Shank at the Blackfriars, and then under Beeston at the Cockpit, was famous before the Civil Wars for the part of Clariana in Slnrley's play of Love's Cruelty, and after the Eestoration equally famous as Othello. Cartwright and Win- tershall had belonged to the private house in Salisbury Court. Cartwright won great renown in Falstaff, and as one of the two kings of Brentford in the farce of The Eehearsal. Wintershall played Master Slender, for which Dennis the critic com- mends him highly, and was celebrated for his Cokes in Ben Jonson's Bartholomew Fair. Shat- terell had been quarter-master in Sir Eobert 14 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. Dallison's regiment of horse, — the same in which Hart had been a heutenant and Burt a cornet. K3rQaston acquired especial favour in female parts, for which, indeed, he continued celebrated long after the introduction of women on the stage. Such were the actors at the King's House when Nell Gwyn jomed the company. Mrs. Corey (the name Miss had then an improper meanhig, and the women though single were called Mistresses) * played Abigail, in the Scornful Lady of Beaumont and Fletcher; Sempronia, in Jonson's CatiUne ; and was the original Widow Blackacre in Wycherley's Plain Dealer ; — Pepys calls her Doll Common. The two Marshalls, Ann and Eebecca (to whom I have aheady had occasion to refer), were the younger daughters of the well-known Stephen Marshall, the Presbyterian diwie, who preached the sermon at the funeral of John Pym. Mrs. Uphill was first tlie mistress and then the wife of Sir Robert Howard, the poet. Mrs. Knep was the wife of a Smithfield horsedealer, and the mistress of Pepys. Mrs. Hughes, better known as Peg, was the mistress of Prince Eupert, by whom she had a daughter; and Mrs. Boutell was famous for playing Statira to * The first unmamed actress Tvho had Miss before her name on a playbill was Miss Cross, the original Miss Hoyden in Vanbrugh's Relapse. ACTORS AT THE DUKE'S HOUSE. 15 Mrs. Barry's Roxana, in Lee's impressive tragedy of Alexander the Great. Such were the actresses when Nell came among them. Among the actors at the Duke's were Thomas Betterton, the rival of Burbage and Garrick in the well-earned greatness of his reputation, and the last survivor of the old school of actors ; Joseph Harris, the friend of Pepys, origmally a seal-cutter, and famous for acting Romeo, Wolsey, and Sir Andrew Agmecheek; William Smith, a barrister of Gray's Inn, celebrated as Zanga in Lord Orrery's Mustapha; Samuel Sandford, called by King Charles 11. the best representative of a villain in the world, and praised both by Langbaine and Steele for his excel- lence in his art ; James Nokes, originally a toyman in Cornhill, famous for playing Sir Nicholas Cully in Etherege's Love in a Tub, for his bawling fops, and for his *'good company;" Cave Underhill, clever as Cutter in Cowley's comedy, and as the grave-digger in Hamlet, called by Steele "honest Cave Underhill ; " and Matthew Medbourne, a useful actor in parts not requiring any great excellence. The women were, EUzabeth Daven- port, the first Roxolana in the Siege of Rhodes, snatched from the stage to become the mistress of the twentieth and last Earl of Oxford of the 16 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. noble family of Vere; Mary Saunderson, famous as Queen Katharine and JuHet, afterwards the wife of the great Betterton; Mary or Moll Davis, excel- lent in singing and dancing, — afterwards the mistress of Charles II. ; Mrs. Long, the mistress of the Duke of Eichmond,* celebrated for the elegance of her appearance in men's clothes; Mrs. Norris, the mother of Jubilee Dicky ; Mrs. Holden, daughter of a bookseller to whom Betterton had been bound apprentice; and Mrs. Jennings and Mrs. Johnson, both taken from the stage by gaUants of the town, — the former but Uttle known as an actress, the latter celebrated as a dancer and for her Carolina in Shadwell's comedy of Epsom Wells. Such were the performers at the Duke's house. Anthony Leigh and Mrs. Barry, both brought out at the same theatre, were accessions after Davenant's death, and, as I see reason to beUeve, after NeU Gwyn had ceased to be connected with the stage. The dresses at both houses were magnificent and costly, but Httle or no attention was paid to costume. The King, the Queen, the Duke, and several of the richer nobihty, gave their coronation suits to the actors, and on extraordinary occasions a play was * MS. note by Isaac Keed, in his copy of Downes's Eoscius Anglicanus. THE PLAYS AT THE TWO HOUSES. 17 equipped at the expense of the King. Old court dresses were contributed by the gentry, and birth- day suits continued to be presented as late as the reign of George II. The scenery at the Duke's House was superior to the King's, for Davenant, who introduced the opera among us, introduced us at the same time to local and expensive scenery. Battles were no longer represented With four or five most vile and ragged foils, or coronations by a crown taken from a deal table by a single attendant. The old stock plays were divided by the two companies. KiUigrew had Othello, Julius Csesar, Henry the Fourth, The Merry Wives of Windsor, A Midsummer Night's Dream ; four of Ben Jonson's plays — The Alchemist, Tfhe Fox, The Silent Woman, and Catiline ; and the best of Beaumont and Fletcher's — A King and No Kmg, The Humorous Lieutenant, Rule a Wife and have a Wife, The Maid's Tragedy, Eollo, The Elder Brother, Philaster, and The ' Scornful Lady ; with Massinger's Vii'gui Martyr and Shirley's Traitor. Davenant played Hamlet, Lear, Macbeth, Eomeo and Juliet, Henry the Eighth, Twelfth Night, and The Tempest; Webster's Duchess of Malfi and Mad Lover; Middleton's Youiig Changeling; Fletcher's Loyal Subject and Mad Lover ; and Massinger's Bondman. The new plays at the Kmg's House were con- tributed by Sk Eobert Howard, Sir Charles Sedley, Major Porter, IGlligrew himself. Dry den, and Nat Lee : at the Duke's House by Davenant, Cowley, Etherege, Lord Orrery, and others. The new tragedies were principally in rh}ane. At the &st performance of a new comedy ladies seldom attended, or, if at all, in masks — such was the studied in- decency of the art of that period. The wits of Charles found easier ways to fame, Nor wished for Jonson's art or Shakspeare's flame ; Themselves they studied — as they felt they writ — Intrigue was plot, obscenity was wit. The performances commenced at three.* It was usual, therefore, to dine beforehand, and when the play was over to adjom^n to the Mulberry Garden, to Vauxhall, or some other place of public enter- tainment — Thither run, Some to undo, and some to be undone. The prices of admission were, boxes four shillings, pit two-and-sixpence, middle gallery eighteen-pence, upper gallery one shilling. The ladies in the pit • Plays began at one in Shakspeare's time, at three in Dryden's, at four in Congreve's. In 1696 the hour was four. ANECDOTES OF THE ORANGE-GIRLS. 19 wore vizards or masks. The middle gallery was long the favourite resort of Mr. and Mrs Pepys. The upper gallery, as at present, was attended by the j)oorest and the noisiest. Servants in livery were admitted as soon as the fifth act commenced. "With the orange -girls (who stood as we have seen in the pit, with their back to the stage) the beaux about town were accustomed to break their jests;* and that the language employed was not of the most delicate description, we may gather from the dialogue of Dorimant, in Etherege's comedy of Sir FopHng Flutter. The mistress or superior of the girls was fami- liarly known as Orange Moll, and filled the same sort of ojB&ce in the theatre that the mother of the maids occupied at court among the maids of honour. Both Sir William Penn and Pepys would occasionally have " a gTeat deal of discom-se " with Orange Moll ; and Mrs. Knep, the actress, when in want of Pepys, sent Moll to the Clerk of the Acts with the welcome message. To higgle about the price of the fruit was thought beneath the character of a gentleman. " The next step,'' says the Young Gallant's Academy, " is to give a turn to the China orange wench, and give her her own rate for her • Proloinie to Lord Rochester's Valentinian. T. Shadwell's Works, i. 199. 2 20 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. oranges, (for 'tis below a gentleman to stand haggling like a citizen's wife,) and then to present the fairest to the next vizard mask." * Pepys, when challenged in the pit for the price of twelve oranges which the orange -woman said he owed her, but which he says was wholly untrue, was not content with denying the debt, " but for quiet bought four shillings' worth of oranges from her at sixpence a-piece." t This was a high price, but the Clerk of the Acts was true to the direction in the Gallant's Academy. * The Young Gallant's Academy, or Directions how he should behave in all places and company. By Sam. Overcome, 1674. t Half-Crown my Play, Sixpence my Orange cost Prologue to Mrs. Behn's Young King, 1698. Nor furiously laid Orange- Wench a-board For asking what in fruit and love you'd scor'd. Butler, a Panegyric on Sir John Denham. When trading grows scant, they join all their forces together, and make up one grand shoAv, and admit the cut-purse and ballad-singer to trade under them, as orange-women do at a Playhouse. Butler, CMracter of a Jugler. Mr. Vain.~I can't imagine how I first came to be of this humour, unless 'twere hearing the orange-wenches talk of ladies and their gallants. So I began to think I had no way of being in the fashion, but bragging of mistresses. Hon. James Howard, the English Monsieur, p. 4, 4fo, 1674. Mrs. Crafty.— This life of mine can last no longer than my beauty, and though 'tis pleasant now, I want nothing whilst I am Mr. Welbred's mistress,— yet, if his mind should change, I might e'en sell oranges for my living, and he not buy one of me to relieve me. Ibid. p. 10. She outdoes a playhouse orange-woman for the politick management of a bawdy intrigue. Tunhridge Wells, a Comedy, Ato, 1678. In former times, a play of humour, or with a good plot, could certainly please ; but now a poet must find out a third way, and adapt his scenes and story to the genius of the critic, if he'd have it pass ; he'll have nothing to do vnth. your dull Spanish plot, for whilst he's rallying with the orange-wench, the business of the PEPYS AND THE ORANGE-WOMAN. 21 act gets quite out of his head, and then 'tis " Damme, what stuff's this?" he sees neither head nor tail to't. n Urfey, Preface to the Banditti^ Ato, 1686 The noble peer may to the play repair, Court the pert damsel with her China-ware — Nay marry her — if he please — no one will care. Z>' U)-/ey, Prologue to a FooVs Preferrrmd, Ato, 1688. The orange-miss that here cajoles the Duke May sell her rotten ware without rebuke. jy Urfey, Prologue to Don Quixote, Part I., Uo, 1694. CHAPTEE II. Pepys introduces us to Nelly — Character of Pepys — Nelly at the Duke's Theatre— Who was Duncan? — Nell's parts as Lady Wealthy, Enanthe, and Florimel — Charles Hart — Nell's lodgings in Drury Lane — Description of Drury Lane in the reign of Charles II.— The May-pole in the Strand — Nell and Lord Buckhurst — Position in society of Actors and Actresses — Character of Lord Buckhurst — Nelly at Epsom. Our earliest introduction to NeU Gwyn we owe to Pepys. Tliis precise and lively diarist (who makes us live in his own circle of amusements, by the truth and quaintness of his descriptions), was a constant play-goer. To see and to be seen, when the work of liis office was over, were the leading objects of his thoughts. Few novelties escaped him, for he never allowed his love of money to interfere with the grati- fication of his wishes. His situation, as Clerk of the Acts, in the Navy-office, while the Duke of York was Lord High Admiral, gave him a taste for the entertainments which his master enjoyed. He loved to be found wherever the King and his brother were. PE?YS AND MRS. KNEP. 23 He was fond of music, could prick down a few notes for himself, and when liis portrait was pamted by Hales, w^as drawn holding in his hand the music which he had composed for a favourite passage in the Siege of Rhodes.* He was known to many of the players, and often asked them to dinner, — now and then not much to the satisfaction, as he tells us, of his wife. Mrs. Knep, of the King's House, and Joseph Harris of the Duke's (to both of whom I have already introduced the reader) were two of his especial favourites. The gossip and scandal of the green-room of Drury Lane and Lmcoln's-Inn-Fields w^ere in this way known to him, and what he failed to obtain behind the scenes he would learn from the orange-women at both houses. Nell was in her sixteenth, and Mr. Pepys in his thirty-foui'th year, when, on Monday, the 3rd of • This hitherto unengraved portrait was bought by me at the sale, in 1848, of the pictures, &c., of the family of Pepys Cockerell. It was called by the auctioneer " portrait of a Musician," but is unquestionably the picture referred to by Pepys in the following passages of his Diary :— " 1666, March 17. To Hales's, and paid him £14 for the picture, and £1 5s. for the frame. This day I began to sit, and he will make me, I think, a very fine picture. He promises it shall be as good as my wife's, and I sit to have it full of shadows, and do almost break my neck looking over my shoulder to make the posture for him to work by. '* March 30. To Hales's, and there sat till almost quite dark upon working my gowne, which I hired to be drawn in ; an Indian gowne. "April 11. To Hales's, where there was nothing found to be done more to my picture, but the musique, which now pleases me mightily, it being painted trae." See also The Athenaeum for 1848. Lord Braybrooke (Pepys, vol. iii. p. 178) doubts the likeness, but admits that the portrait answers the description. 24 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. Apiil, 1665, they would appear to have seen one another for the first time. They met at the Duke*s Theatre m Lincohi's-Inn-Fields during the perform- ance of IMustapha, a tragedy, by the Earl of Orrery, in which Betterton played the part of Solyman, Harris that of Mustapha, and Mrs. or Miss Davis that of the Queen of Hungaria. Great care had been taken to produce this now long-forgotten tragedy with the utmost magnificence. All the parts were newly clothed, and new scenes had been painted expressly for it. Yet we are told by Pepys that " all the pleasure of the play " was in the cir- cumstance that the King and my Lady Castlemaine were there, and that he sat next to " pretty witty Nell at the King's House " and to the younger Marshall, another actress at the same theatre — a circumstance, he adds, with his usual quaint honesty of remark, " which pleased me mightily." Yet the play was a good one in Pepys's eyes. Nine months later he calls it '' a most excellent play ; " and when he saw it agam, after an interval of more than two years, he describes it as one he liked better the more he saw it : — " a most- admirable poem and bravely acted."* His after entries therefore more than confirm the truth of his earlier impressions. The • Pepys, Sept. 4, 1667. 26 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. real pleasure of the play, however, was that he sat by the side of "pretty witty Nell," whose foot has been described as the least of any woman's in England,* and to Eebecca Marshall, whose handsome hand he has carefully noted in another entry in his Diaiy. The small feet peeping occasionally from beneath a petticoat, and the handsome hands raised now and then to check a vagrant curl, must have held the Clerk of the Acts in a continual state of torture. There was a novelty that night which had doubtless drawn Nell and old Stephen Marshall's younger daughter to the pit of Lincoln's Inn Fields. Mrs. Betterton was plajdng Roxolana in place of the elder Davenport, and Moll Davis had begun to attract the notice of some of the courtiers, and, as it was whispered, of the King himself. The old Roxolana had become the mistress of the twentieth and last earl of the great race of Vere ; and Nell, while she reflected on what she may have thought to have been the good foiiune of her fellow actress — might have had her envy appeased could she have foreseen that she should give birth to a son (the mother an orange-gui, the father the King of England), destined to obtain a dukedom in her own * Oldys, in Curll's Histoiy of the Stage, p. 111. NELLY AN ACTRESS. 27 lifetime, and afterwards to marry the heiress of the very earl who had taken the old Roxolana from a rival stage — first to deceive and afterwards to desert her. Nell was indebted, there is reason to believe, for her introduction to the stage, or at least to another condition in life, to a person whose name is variously written as Dimcan and as Dungan. Oldys, who calls him Duncan, had heard that he was a merchant, and that he had taken a fancy to her from her smart wit, fine shape, and the smallness of her feet. The information of Oldys is confirmed by the satire of Etherege, who adds, much to the credit of Nelly, that she remembered in after years the friend of her youth, and that to her interest it w^as he owed his appointment in the Guards. To sift and exhibit the equal mixture of truth and error in these accoimts would not repay the reader for the trouble I should occasion him. I have sifted them myself, and see reason to believe that Oldys was wrong in calling liim a merchant ; while I suspect that the Duncan commemorated by Etherege, in his satire upon Nelly, was the Dongan described by De Grammont as a gentleman of merit who succeeded Duras, after- wards Earl of Feversham, in the post of Lieutenant in the Duke's Life Guards. That tliere was a lieutenant of this name in the Duke's Life Guards I have ascertained from official documents. He was a cadet of the house of Limerick, and his Christian name was Robert. If there is truth in De Gram- mont's account, he died in or before 1669. A Colonel Dungan was Governor of New York in the reign of James IL* Such, then, is all that can be ascertained, after full inquiry, of this Duncan or Dmigan, by whom Nelly is said to have been lifted from her very humble condition in life. Such indeed is the whole of the information I have been able to obtain about " pretty witty Nell " from her birth to the winter of 1666, when we again hear of her through the inde- fatigable Pepys. How her life was passed during the fearful Plague season of 1665, or where she was during the Great Fire of London in the following year, it is now useless to conjecture. The transition from the orange-gM to the actress may easily be imagined without the intervention of any Mr. Dungan. The pert vivacity and ready wit she exhibited in later life, must have received eaiiy encom^agement and cultivation from the warmth of language the men of sort and quality employed in speaking to all classes • Secret Service Expenses of Charles II. and James II., p. 195. There is in one of Etherege's MS. satires a very coarse allusion to Dungan and Nelly. HER FIRST APPEARANCE ON THE STAGE. 29 of females. This very readiness was her recom- mendation to Killigrew, to say nothing of her beauty or the merry laugh, which is said in after life to have perv^aded her face till her e3'es were almost indivisible.* As we owe our first introduction to Nelly to the Clerk of the Acts, so to him are we indebted for the earliest notice yet discovered of her appearance on the stage. Her j)art was that of the principal female character in a comedy (The English Monsieur) by the Hon. James Howard, a son of the Earl of Berk- shire, the brother-in-law of Dryden, and brother of Philip, an officer in the King's Guards, and of Robert and Edward Howard, both also writers for the stage. But these, as we shall see hereafter, were not the only connexions with the stage of the Berk- shire Howards. There is not much story in the English Monsieur, much force of character, or any particular vivacity in the dialogue. It is, how- ever, very easy to see that the situations must have told with the audience for whom they were intended, and that the part of Lady Wealthy was one particu- larly adapted to the genius of Nell Gw^ru ; a part, in all probability written expressly for her. Lady Wealthy is a rich widow, with perfect knowledge of the importance of wealth and beauty, a good heart, * The London Chronicle, for Aug. 15—18, 1778; Waldron's Downes,p.l9. 4 ii 30 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. and a fine full vein of hmnour, a woman, in slioii;, that teases, and at last reforms and marries, the lover she is true to. The humour of the following dialogue will allow the reader to imagine much of the bye-play conducive to its success. Lady Wealthy. — When will I many you ! When will I love ye, you should ask first. Welhred.—Whj \ don t ye ] Lady W. — Why, do I ] Did you ever hear me say I did ? Welhred. — I never heard you say you did not. Lady W. — I'll say so now, then, if you long. Welhred. — By no means. Say not a thing in haste you may repent at leisure. Lady W. — Come, leave your fooling, or I'll swear it. Welhred. — Don't, widow, for then you'll lie too. Lady W. — Indeed it seems 'tis for my money you would have me. Welhred. — For that, and something else you have. Lady IF.^Well, I'll lay a wager thou hast lost all thy money at play, for then you're always in a marrying humour. But, d'ye hear, gentleman, d'ye think to gain me with this careless way, or that I will marry one I don't think is in love with me 1 Welhred. — Why, I am. Lady W. — Then you would not be so merry. People in love are sad, and many times weep. Welhred. — That will never do for thee, widow. Lady W. — And why 1 Welhred. — 'Twould argue me a child ; and I am confident if thou didst not verily beUeve I were a man, I should ne'er be thy husband. .... Weep for thee ! — ha ! ha ! ha ! — if e'er I do ! Lady W. — Go, hang yourself. Welhred. — Thank you, for your advice. Lady W. — When, then, shall I see you again ? Welhred. — When I have a mind to it. Come, I'll lead you to your coach for once. Lady W.— And I'll let you for once. [Exeunt. PARTS PLAYED BY NELLY. 31 Pepys, who saw it on the 8th Dec, 1666, commends it highly. " To the King's House, and there," liis entry runs, " did see a good part of the EngUsh Monsieur, wliich is a mighty pretty play, very witty and pleasant. And the women do very well ; but above all, Httle NeUy ; that I am mightily pleased with the play, and much with the house, the women doing better than I expected; and very fair women." Nor was his admiration abated when he saw it many months afterwards, 7th April, 1668, at the same house. Nell's success on the stage was such that she was soon called to represent prominent parts in the stock plays of her comjmny. What these parts were, is, I believe, with very few exceptions, altogether miknown. One j)art, however, has reached us — that of Enanthe, or Celia, in the Hmnom-ous Lieutenant of Beaumont and Fletcher, a play that was long a favourite with the pubhc — continuing to be frequentl}'^ acted, and always with applause, throughout the reign of Chai'les II. The wit and fine poetry of the part of Celia are kno\\ai to the readers of our English drama, nor is it difficult to conceive how effectively language like the following must have come from the hps of Nell Gwyn. She is in poor attire amid a mob, when she sees the Bang's son : — Was it the prince they said 1 How my heart trembles ! [Enter Demetriiis, with a Javelin in his hand. 'Tis he indeed : what a sweet noble fierceness Dwells in his eyes ! Young Meleager-like, When he returned from slaughter of the boar, Crown'd with the loves and honours of the people, With all the gallant youth of Greece, he looks now— Who could deny him love ? On one occasion of its performance Pep^^s was present, and though he calls it a silly play, his reader smiles at liis bad taste, while he is grateful for the information that when the play was over he had gone with his wife behind the scenes, through tlie introduction of Mrs. Knep, who "brought to us Nelly, a most pretty woman, who .acted the great part of Celia to-day very jBne, and did it pretty well. I kissed her, and so did my wife, and a mighty pretty soul she is." Nor was his cln'onicle of the day con- cluded without a fi^esh expression of pleasure at what he had seen, summing up all as he does with the satisfactory words " specially kissing of Nell." * The remark of Walter Scott will occur to many, " it is just as well that Mrs. Pepys was present on this occasion." Her skill increasing with her years, other poets sought to obtain the recommendations of her wit and beauty to the success of their writings. I have * Pepys, Jan. 23, 1666-7. Mr. Augustus Egg, A.RA., has painted a clever picture from this passage. PLAYS FLORIMEL IK DRYDEN'S NEW PLAY. 33 said that Dryden was one of the principal supporters of the King's House, and ere long in one of his new plays a principal character was set apart for the popular comedian. The drama was a tragi-comedy called " Secret Love, or, the Maiden Queen" and an additional interest was attached to its production, from the King having suggested the plot to its author, and calling it "his play." The dramatis personse consist, cmiously enough, of eight female, and only three male parts. Good acting was not wanting to forward its success. Mohun, Hart, and Burt, three of the best performers then on the stage, filled the only male parts — while Mrs. Marshall, Mrs. Knep, " Mrs. Eleanor Gwyn," and M^s. Corey, sustained the principal female characters. The tragic scenes have little to recommend them ; but the reputation of the piece was thought to have been redeemed by the excellence of the alloy of comedy, as Dryden calls it, in which it was generally agreed he was seldom happier. Even here, however, liis dialogue wants that easy, brisk, pert character which Congreve, Vanbrugh, and Farquhar afterwards brought to such inimitable perfection,, and of wliich Etherege alone affords a satisfactory example in the reign of Charles II. The first afternoon of the new play was the 34 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. 2nd of February, 1666-7. The Kiiig and the Duke of York were both present : — so too were both Mr. and Mrs. Pepys, who had heard the play mightily commended for the regularity of its story, and what Mr. Pepys is pleased to call " the strain and wit." The chief parts (its author teUs us) were performed to a height of great excellence, both serious and comic ; and it was well received. The King objected, indeed, to the management of the last scene, where Celadon and Florimel (Hart and Nelly) are treating too lightly of their marriage in the presence of the Queen. But Pepys would not appear to have seen any defect of this description. " The truth is," he says, " there is a comical part done by Nell, which is Florimel, that I never can hope ever to see the like done again by man or woman So great performance of a comical part was never I believe in the world before as Nell do this, both as a mad girl, then most and best of all when she comes in like a young gallant, and hath the motion and carriage of a spark the most that ever I saw any man have. It makes me, I confess, admire her," Nor did the worthy critic change his opinion. He caUs it, after his second visit, an ''excellent play, and so done by Nell her merry part as cannot be better done in nature."* While after his third visit he observes that it is impossible to have Florimers part, which is the most comical that ever was made for woman, ever done better than it is by NeUy.f The support of the performance rested, it must be owned, on Hart's character of Celadon and on Nelly's part of Florimel. Nell indeed had to sustain the heavier burden of the piece. She is seldom off the stage — all the loose rattle of dialogue belongs to her, nay more, she appears in the fifth act in male attire, dances a jig in the same act, often of itself sufficient to save a plaj'', and ultimately speaks the eiDilogue in defence of the author ; I left my client yonder in a rant Against the envious and the ignorant, Who are he says his only enemies ; But he contemns their malice, and defies The sharpest of his censurers to say Where there is one gross fault in all his play, The language is so fitted to each part, The plot according to the rules of art; And twenty other things he bid me tell you. But I cry'd " E'en go do't yourself, for Nelly ! " There are incidents and allusions in the parts of Celadon and Florimel which must have carried a personal application to those who were, speaking technically, behind the scenes. Nelly, if not actually » Pepys, March 25, 1667. t Pepys, May 24, 1667. D 2 36 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN, the mistress at this time of Charles Hart, was certainly looked upon by many as very little less. Their marriage m the play is more of a Fleet or May Fair mockery than a religious ceremony, — as if, to use Florimel's own language, they were married by the more agreeable names of mistress and gallant, rather than those dull old-fashioned ones of husband and w^ife. Florimel, it appears to me, must have been Nelly's chef d'ceiivre in her art. I can hear her exclaiming with a prophetic feeling of its truth, " I am resolved to grow fat and look young till forty, and then slip out of the world with the first wrinkle and the reputation of five-and-twenty ; " while I can picture to myself, as my readers will easily do, Nelly in boy's clothes, dressed to the admiration of Etherege and Sedley, scanned from head to foot with much surprise by Mr. Pepys and Sir William Perm, viewed with other feelings by Lord Buckhurst on one side of the house, and by the King himself on the other, while to the admiration of the author, and of the whole audience, she exclaims, with wonderful bye-play, " Yonder they are, and this way they must come. If clothes and a honne mien T^dll take 'm I shall do't. — Save you, Monsieur Florimel ! Faith, methinks you are a very janty fellow, poudre et ajusU as well as the best of 'em. I can manage the little comb — set my hat, shake my garniture, toss about my empty noddle, walk with a courant slur, and at every step peck down my head : — if I should be mistaken for some courtier, now, pray where's the difference ? " This was what Beau Hewit or Beau Fielding were enacting every day in their lives, and Colley Gibber Hved to be the last actor who either felt or could make others feel its truth and application. Nelly was living at this time in the fashionable part of Drury Lane, the Strand or Covent Garden end, for Drury Lane in the days of Charles 11. was inhabited by a very different class of people from those who now occupy it — or, indeed, who have lived in it since the time Gay guarded us from '' Drury's mazy courts and dark abodes" — since Pope described it only too truly as peopled by drabs of the lowest character, and by authors " lulled by soft 2eph3n:s," through the broken pane of a garret window. The upper end, towards St. Giles's Pound and Montague House, had its squaUd quarters, like Lewknor's Lane and the Coal Yard, in which, as we have concluded, our Nelly was born ; but at the Strand end lived the Earl of Anglesey, long Lord Privy Seal, and the Earls of Clare and Craven, 38 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. whose names are still perpetuated in Clare Market and Craven Yard. Drury Lane, when Nelly was living there, was a kind of Park Lane of the present day, made up of noblemen's mansions, small houses, inns and stable -yards. Nor need the similitude be thus restricted; for the Piazza of Covent Garden was then to Druiy Lane what Grosvenor Square is at present to Park Lane. SquaUd quarters indeed have always been near neighbours to lordly localities. When Nelly lodged in Drury Lane, Covent Garden had its Lewknor Lane, and Lincoln's Inn Fields their Whetstone Park. BelgTavia has now its Tothill Street — Portman Square has its contaminating neighbom^hood of Calmel Buildings — and one of the most infamous of alleys is within half a stone's throw of St. James's Palace ! Nelly's lodgings were near the lodgings of Lacy the actor, at the tojD of Maypole Alley, • Where Druiy Lane descends into the Strand, and over against the gate of Craven House. The look-out afforded a peep into a part of Wych Street, and while standmg at the doorway you could see the far-famed Maypole in the Strand, at the bottom of the alley to which it had lent its name. This Maypole, long a conspicuous ornament to DRURY LANE. 39 the west-end of London, rose to a great height above the surrounding; houses, and was surmounted by a 4\ I. Nell at her lodAin^s-door in Drury Lane. The Maypole in the Strand restored. 40 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. crown and vane, with the royal arms riclily gilded. It had been set up again immediately after the Restoration. Great ceremonies attended its erection : twelve picked seamen superintending the tackle, and ancient people clapping their hands and exclaiming, " Golden days begin to appear ! '* Nelly must have remembered the erection of the Maypole at the bottom of the lane in which she was born ; but there is Uttle save some gable-ends and old timber-fronts near her *' lodgings -door" to assist in carrying the mind back to the days of the Maypole and the merry monarch whose recall it was designed to commemorate. Among the many little domestic incidents perpe- tuated by Pepys, there are few to which I would sooner have been a witness than the picture he has left us of Nelly standmg at her door watchmg the milkmaids on May-day. The Clerk of the Acts on his way from Seetliing Lane in the City, met, he tells us, " many milkmaids with garlands upon tlieir pails, dancing with a fiddle before them," and saw pretty Nelly standing at her lodgings -door in Drury Lane in her smock sleeves and bodice looking upon one. " She seemed," he adds, " a mighty pretty creature." This was in 1667, wliile her recent triumphs on the stage were still fresh at Court, and MISS DAVIS. 41 the obscuritj^ of her birth was a common topic of talk and banter among the less fortunate inhabitants of the lane she lived in. The scene so lightly sketched by Pepys might fm-nish no unfitting subject for the pencil of Leslie or Maclise — a subject indeed which would shine in their hands. That absence of all false pride, that innate love of unaffected nature, and that fondness for the simple sports of the people which the incident exhibits, are characteristics of Nelly from the first moment to the last — ^following her naturally, and sitting alike easily and gTacefully upon her, whether at her humble lodgings in Drury Lane, at her handsome house in Pall Mall, or even under the gorgeous cornices of Whitehall. But I have no intention of finding a model heroine in a coal-yard, or any wish either to palliate or condemn too severely the frailties of the woman whose story I have attempted to relate. It was therefore within a very few months of the May -day scene I have just described, that whispers asserted, and the news was soon published in every coffee- house in London, how little Miss Davis of the Duke's House had become the mistress of the King, and Nell Gwyn at the other theatre the mistress of Lord Buckhurst. Whoever is at aU conversant with the manners and customs of London life in the reign of Charles II. will confirm me in the statement that two such annomicements, even at the same time, would cause but little surprise, or indeed any other feeling than that of envy at their good luck. With the single exception of Mrs. Betteiion, there was not, I believe, an actress at either theatre who had not been or was not then the mistress of some person about the Court. Actors were looked upon as little better than shopmen or servants. When the Honourable Edward Howard was struck by Lacy of the King's House, a very general feeling prevailed that Howard should have run his sword through the menial body of the actor. Nor was this feeling altogether extinguished till the period .of the Kembles. It was entirely owing to the exertions of the gTeat Lord Mansfield, that Arthur Mm3)hy, less than a century ago, was allowed to enter his name on the books of Lmcoln's Inn. He had been previously refused by the Benchers of the Middle Temple, for no other reason than that he had been an actor. Nay, George Selwyn, it is well known, excluded Brinsley Sheridan from Brooks's on three occasions because his father had been upon the stage. Nor did actresses fare better than actors. If anything, indeed, they were still worse treated. SOCIAL CONDITION OF PLAYERS. 43 They were looked upon as women of the worst character, possessed of no inclination or induce- ment to virtue. Few, indeed, were found to share the sentiment expressed by one of Shadwell's man- liest characters, " I love the stage too well to keep any of their women, to make 'em proud and insolent and despise that caUing to take up a worse." The frailty of "playhouse flesh and blood "* aiforded a common topic for the poet in his prologue or his epilogue, and other writers than Lee might be found who complain of the practice of " keepmg " as a grievance to the stage. t Davenant, foreseeing their fate from an absence of any control, boarded his four principal actresses in his own house ; but, with one exception (that of Mrs. Betterton before referred to), the precaution was altogether without effect. The King, Prince Rupert, the Duke of Richmond, the Eaii of Oxford, Lord Buckhurst, Sir Charles Sedley, Sir Philip Howard, liis brother Sir Robert Howard, were all successful in the arts of seduction or inducement. So bad indeed was the moral dis- cipline of the times, that even Mrs. Knep, loose as were her notions of virtue, could see the necessity of parting with a pretty servant girl, as tlie tiring-room * Dryden's Prologue to Marriage a la Mode, t Epilogue to The Kival Queens. 4t THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. was no place for the preservation of her innocence.*' The virtuous life of Mrs. Bracegiixlle, and her spirited rebuke to the Earl of Burlington, stand out in noble relief from the conduct of her fellow actresses. The Earl had sent her a letter, and a present of a handsome set of china. The charming actress retained the letter and informed the servant of the mistake. The letter, she said, was for her, but the cliina was for Lady Burlington. When the Earl returned home he found his Countess all happiness at the miexpected present from her husband.t Times, however, changed after Nelly had gone, and the Stuarts had ceased to reign, for ennobled actresses are now common enough in the Enghsh peerage. Other changes too took place. Mrs. Barry walked home in her clogs, and Mrs. Bracegirdle in her pattens; but Mrs. Oldfield went away in her chair, t and Lavinia Fenton (the original Polly Peachum) rolled westward in her coroneted carriage as Duchess of Bolton. § It says little for the morality of London in the * Pepys, April 7, 1668. t Walpole to Mann, (Mann Letters,) iii. 254. X Walpole, May 26, 1742. g Mr. Murray, of Albemarle Street, possesses Hogarth's interesting picture of the first representation of the Beggar's Opera, in its original frame. Here his Grace of Bolton is gazing upon Polly from one stage-box — while in the other, Bolingbroke is seated by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. SACKVILLE, LORD BUCKHURST. 45 reign of Charles II., but something for the taste of the humble orange-girl, that the lover who had attracted her, and with whom she was now Hving in the lovely neighbom^hood of Epsom, was long looked up to as the best bred man of his age : None ever had so strange an art His passion to convey Into a list'ning virgin's heart. And steal her soul away.* But Buckhui'st had other qualities to recommend him than liis youth (he was thirty at this time), his rank, his good heart, and his good breeding. He had already distinguished himself by his per- sonal intrepidity in the war against the Dutch; had written the best song of its kind in the Enghsh language, and some of the severest and most refined satires we possess ; was the friend of all the poets of eminence in his time, as he was afterwards the most munificent patron of men of genius that this country has jet seen. The most eminent masters in their several lines asked and abided by his judgment, and afterwards dedicated their works to him in grateful acknowledgment of his taste and favours. Butler owed to laim that * Song by Sir C. S. [Sir Carr Scroope or Sir Charles Sedley] in Etherege's Man of Mode, or Sir FopHng Flutter. 46 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. the Court " tasted " his Hudibras ; Wycherley that the town "lilced ' his Plain Dealer; and the Duke of Buckingham deferred to pubhsh his Rehearsal till he was sure, as he expressed it, that my Lord Buckluu-st would not "rehearse" upon liim again. Nor was this all. His table was one of the last that gave us an example of the old housekeeping of an Enghsh nobleman. A freedom reigned about it which made every one of the guests thmk himself at home, and an abundance wliich showed that the master's hospitahty extended to many more than those who had the honour to sit at table with himself.* Nor has he been less happy after death. Po^^e wrote his epitaph and Prior his panegyric — while Walpole and Macaulay (two men with so little apparently in common) have drawn his character with a warmth of approbation rather to have been expected from those who had shared his bounty or enjoyed his friendship, than from the colder judgments of his- torians looking back calmly upon personages who had long ceased to influence or affect society. With such a man, and with Sedley's resistless wit to add fresh vigour to the conversation, it is easy to understand what Pepys had heard, that * Prior's Dedication of his Poems to Lord BQckliurst's son, Lionel, first Duke of Dorset. BXJCKHURST AND SEDLEY. 47 Lord Buckhurst and Nelly kept '' merry house " at Epsom, — All hearts fall a-leaping wherever she comes, And beat night and day Hke my Lord Craven's drums.* What this Epsom life was like shall be the subject of another Chapter. • Song by Lord Buckhurst. CHAPTEE III. Epsom in the reign of Charles II. — England in 1667 — Nelly resumes her Engagement at the King's Theatre — Inferior in Tragedy to Comedy — Plays Mirida in "All Mistaken" — Miss Davis of the Duke's Theatre — Her song, " My Lodging it is on the Cold Ground," parodied by Nell — Influence of the Duke of Bucking- ham in controlling the predilections of the King — Charles II. at the Duke's Theatre — Nelly has leading parts in three of Dryden's new Plays — Buckhurst is made a Gentleman of the Bedchamber, promised a peerage and sent on a sleeveless errand into France — Nell becomes the Mistress of the King — Plays Almahide in "The Conquest of Granada" — The King more than ever enamoured — Parallel case of Perdita Robinson and George IV. Nelly was now at Epsom, then and long after the fashionable resort of the richer citizens of London. " The fooUsh world is never to be mended," is the remark of " a gentleman of wit and sense " in Shadwell's comedy of The Virtuoso. "Your glass coach," he says, '* will to Hyde Park for air; the suburb fools trudge to Lamb's Conduit or Totten- ham ; your sprucer sort of citizens gallop to Epsom ; your mechanic gross fellows, shewing much conjugal affection, strut before their wifes, each with a child in his arms, to Islington or Hogsden." The same NELLY AT EPSOM. 49 agreeable writer, whose plays supply truer and happier illustrations of the manners and customs of the time than any other contemporary dramatist, has left us a comedy called " Epsom Wells," in which, notwithstanding the sneer of Dry den about his "hungry Epsom-prose," he has contrived to interest us by peopling the place with the usual frequenters out of term-time ; men of wit and pleasure ; j^oung ladies of wit, beauty, and fortune ; with a parson and a country justice; with two cheating, sharking cowardly buUies ; with two rich citizens of London and their wives, one a comfit- maker, the other a haberdasher, and both cuckolds (" Epsom water- diinking " with other ladies of pleasure); with hectors from Covent Garden, a constable, a Dogberry-lilie watch, and two country fiddlers — m short, by picturing "the freedom of Epsom " as it existed in an age of easy virtue. The Derby and the Oaks, the races which have rendered Epsom so famous, and our not less cele- brated Tattenham Corner, were then unknown ; but tlie King's Head and the New Inn, Clay Hill and Mawse's Garden, were favourite names, full of attractions to London apprentices, sighing to see their indentures at an end, and Epsom no longer excluded from their places of resort. The waters K 60 ' THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. were considered efficacious, and the citizens east of Temple Bar were supposed to receive as much benefit from their use, as the courtiers west of the Bar were presumed to receive from the waters of Tunbridge Wells. The alderman or liis deputj^, on their way to this somewhat inaccessible suburb of the reign of Charles II., were met at Tooting by lodging-house keepers, tradesmen, and quack- doctors, with so many clamorous importunities for j)atronage, that the very expressive English word touting derives its origin from the village where this plying for trade was carried to so importunate an extent. There is now at Epsom, or was to be seen there till very lately, a small inn with the sign of the King's Head, lying somewhat out of the j)resent town, on the way to the wells. It was at ** the next house ' ' to this inn, or to an inn with the same name, that Nelly and Lord Buckhurst put up, keeping " merry house," with Sedley to assist them in laugh- ing at the " Bow-beU suckers " who resorted to the Epsom waters.* Nelly would contribute her share to the merriment of the scene around them. The citizens of London were hated by the players. They had successfully opposed them in aU their early * Pepys, 14 July, 1667. LONDON IN 1667. 61 attempts in the reigns of Elizabeth and James I. to erect a theatre within the jurisdiction of the city ; and at no time had they ever encouraged the drama by their presence. The poets and actors lived by the King and court, while they repaid their opponents and gratified the courtiers by holding up every citizen as a cuckold and a fool. So long was this feeling perpetuated on the stage (it still lives in our literature), that Garrick, in his endeavour to supplant the usual performance of the " London Cuckolds " on the 9th of November (Lord Mayor's day), was reduced to play first to a noisy and next to an empty house. Whilst Buckhurst and Nelly kept *' merry house" at Epsom in the months of July and August, 1667, it was not altogether merry in England elsewhere, the plague of 1665 had been followed by the fire of 1666, and both plague and fire in 1667 by the national shame of a Dutch fleet insulting us in the Thames, burning some of our fijiest ships in the Medway at Chatham, and by the undeserved disgrace inflicted by the King and his imperious mistress, Castlemaine, on the great Lord Clarendon. Wise and good men, too, were departing from among us. Cowley finished the life of an elegant and amiable recluse at Chertsey in Surrey, and Jeremy Taylor that of a saint at Lisnegarry, in Ireland. e2 England, too, in the same year, had lost the lo3^al Marquess of Worcester and the virtuous Earl of Southampton, neither of whom could she well spare at such a period ; on the other hand, the country was receiving a noble addition to her literature by the publication of '* Paradise Lost;" but this, few at the time, cared to read, as the work of *' that Milton who wrote for the regicides," * — " that Paradise Lost of Milton's which some are pleased to call a poem," t or chose to understand, from the seriousness of the subject, or the grandeur of its treatment. At the Court, where undisguised libertinism was still triumphant, the burning of the city began to be talked of as an old story, like that of the burning of Troy, and the disgrace at Chatham as something to be obliterated by the disgTace of the Lord Chancellor. Indeed there was no feeling of fear, or any sentiment of deserved dishonom*, main- tained at Court. On the very day on which the Great Seal was taken from Clarendon, and his ruin effected, the Countess of Castlemaine, one of the leading instruments of his fall, was admiring the rope-dancing of Jacob Hall, and laughing at the drolls and odd animals exhibited to the citizens at Bartholomew Fair! • Evelyn's Diary, 2 June, 1686. t Rymer's Letter to Fleetwood Sheppard, p. 143. THE vSTORY OF NELL GAVYN. 53 n c 3 c^ rt o B o' p si hi" B _e» -3 5' CO p B c c o: rt O B GO o <1 CD d Q P- 0) d CD i-j- p CO CO CO CD O o d 54 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. Nelly, after a month's absence, returned to London in August, 1667, and resumed some of her old parts at the theatre in Drury Lane, playing Bellario in Beaumont and Fletchers "Philaster;" Panthea, in " A King and No King," of the same authors ; Cydaria, in " The Indian Emperor," of Dryden and his brother-in-law ; Samira, in Sir Kobert Howard's '' Suri)risal ; " Flora, in " Flora's Vagaiies," a comedy attributed to Ehodes ; and Mirida, in " All Mistaken, or the Mad Couple," of the Hon. James Howard. Of her performance in some of these parts Pepys again is our only informant. How graphic are his entries ! "22 Aug. 1667. With my lord Broun cker and his mistress to the King's playhouse, and there saw the ' Indian Emperor/ where I found Nell come again, which I am glad of; but was most infinitely displeased with her being put to act the Emperor's daughter, which is a great and serious part, which she does most basely. The rest of the play, though pretty good, was not well acted by most of them, methought ; so that I took no great content in it. "26 Aug. 1667. To the King's playhouse and saw 'The Sur- prisal,' a very mean play I thought, or else it was because I was out of humour, and but very little company in the house. Sir W, Pen and I had a gi-eat deal of discourse with [Orange] Moll, who tells us that Nell is already left by my Lord Buckhurst, and that he makes sport of her, and swears she hath had all she could get of him ; and Hart, her great admirer, now hates her ; and that she is very poor, and hath lost my Lady Castlemaine, who was her great friend, also; but she is come to the house, but is neglected by tliem all. " 5 Oct. 1667. To the King's house, and there going in met Knipp, and she took us up into the tiring rooms ; and to the women's shift, where Nell was dressing herself [as Flora], and was all unready, and is very pretty, prettier than I thought. And into the scene-room, and there sat down, and she gave us fruit ; and here INDIFFERENT IN SERIOUS PARTS. 55 I read the questions to Knipp, while she answered me through all the part of ' Flora's vagaries/ which was acted to-day. But, Lord ! to see how they were both painted would make a man mad, and did make me loath them ; and what base company of men comes among them, and how lewdly they talk ! and how poor the men are in clothes, and yet what a show they make on the stage by candle- light, is very observable. But to see how Nell cursed for having so few people in the pit was pretty ; the other house carrying away all the people at the new play, and is said now-a-days to have generally most company, as being better players. " 26 Dec. 1667. With my wife to the Kuig's playhouse, and there saw ' The Surprisal,' which did not please me to-day, the actors not pleasing me, and especially Nells acting of a serious part, which she spoils. "28 Dec. 1667. To the King's House, and there saw ' The Mad Couple,' which is but an ordinary play ; but only Nell's and Hart's mad parts are most excellent done, but especially hers, which makes it a miracle to me to think how ill she do any serious part, as, the other day, just like a fool or changeling ; and in a mad part do beyond imitation almost.'' That Nell hated "serious parts," in which, as Pepys assures us, she was poor, we have her own testimony, in an epilogue which she spoke a few months later to the tragedy of the '' Duke of Lerma." I know you in your hearts Hate serious plays — as I hate serious parts. And again in the epilogue to " Tyrannick Love : " Idie . Out of my calling in a tragedy. The truth is (as I see reason to believe), such parts were thrust upon her by Hart, her old admirer, who 56 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. hated her for preferring Lord Buckhurst to hhnseK. But tliis feeling was soon overcome, and Nell, as Mirida in the comedy of " All Mistaken," added to her well-earned reputation as an actress, obeying the advice of Mrs. Barry, ''Make yourself mistress of your part, and leave the figin-e and action to natm^e." * " All Mistaken, or the Mad Couple," a play com- mended by some, says Langbaine, " as an excellent comedy," has little merit of its own to recommend it to the reader. The whole success of the performance must have rested on Hart and Nelly. Philidor (Hart) is a mad, or as we should now call him a madcap, kinsman of an Italian duke, and Mirida (Nelly) is a madcap young lady of the same eccentric school. Pliilidor is troubled with clamorous impor- tunities for marriage from six young ladies whom he has betrayed, and for money from those nurses by whom his children have been taken ; and Mirida is persecuted with the importunate addresses, at the same time, of a very lean and of a very fat lover. Some of the pleasantries to which the madcap Qouple resort are of a coarse and practical character. Phihdor tricks his besiegers, and Mirida replies to her importunate lovers that she will marry the lean * CurIVs Stage, p. 62 NELL AS MAD-CAP MIRIDA. 57 one when lie is fatter, and the fat one when he is leaner. The arts which the suitors have recourse to are somewhat tedious, and. certainly not over decent. Yet it is easy to see that the play would tell with the audience to whom it was addressed, for many of the situations are humorous in the extreme. In one of the scenes Philidor and Mirida are bound back to back by the six ladies, Philidor losing his money and his hat, and Mirida consoling herself by the entry of a fiddler. [Enter Fiddler,] Mvrida. — A fiddle, nay then I am made again ; I'd have a dance if I had nothing but my smock on. Fiddler, strike up and play my jig, call'd " I care not a pin for any man." * Fiddler. — Indeed I can't stay. I am going to play to some gentlemen. Minda. — Nay, thou shalt stay but a little. Fiddler. — Give me half-a-crown then. Minda. — I have no money about me ; but here, take my han- kercher. {^Dance and Exit. In another j)art Miiida manages a sham funeral for Philidor, to wloich the six young ladies are invited, to hear the will of the deceased. Mirida. — Poor young man, he was killed yesterday by a duel. " Item.- I give to Mrs. Mary for a reason that she knows, 5007. Item. 5007. to Mrs. Margaret for a reason she knows. Item. 6007. to Mrs. Sarah for a reason she knows. Item 5007. to Mrs. Martha • Nell was famous for dancing jigs. The Duke of Buckingham, in his Epilogue to " The Chances," laughs at poets who mistook the praise given to Nelly's jig for the praise bestowed on their own performances. 58 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. for a reason she knows. Item. 5001. to Mrs. Alice for a reason she knows. Item. 500^. to Mrs. Elinor for a reason she knows, and^so to all the rest. Item. To my nurses I leave each of them 201. a year apiece for their lives, besides their arrears due to them for nursing. These sums of money and legacies I leave to be raised and paid out of my manor of Constantinople, in which the Great Turk is now tenant for life." [Lauglts aside.] If they should hear how their legacies are to be paid, how they'd fall a-drumming on his cofi&n ! There is more of this ; but it is time to turn to that incident from which the ])\sij derived its popularity, its satire on a recent event at the Duke's Theatre. " The Rivals," a play altered by Davenant from ^' The Two Noble Ejjismen " of Beaumont and Fletcher, or rather of Fletcher alone, was brought U]3on the stage about 1664, but would not appear to have met with any great success till 1667, when the part of Celania was represented by little Miss Davis, who danced a jig in the play and then sang a song in it, both of which found their way direct to the heart of the merry monarch. The jig was probably some fresh French importation, or nothing more than a rustic measure, with a few foreign innova- tions. The song has reached us, and has much ballad beauty to recommend it. My lodging it is on the cold ground. And very hard is my fare, But that which troubles me most is The unkindness of my dear. SONG SUNG BY MISS DAVTS. 59 Yet still I cry, turn love, And I pr'ythee, love, turn to me, For thou art the man that I long for, And alack what remedy ! I'll crown thee with a garland of straw, then, And I'll marry thee with a rush ring, My frozen hopes shall thaw then. And merrily we will sing. turn to me, my dear love, And prythee, love, turn to me, For thou art the man that alone canst Procure my libei*ty. But if thou wilt harden thy heart still. And be deaf to my pitiful moan. Then I must endure the smart still, And tumble in straw alone. Yet still, I cry, turn, love, And I prythee, love, turn to me, For thou art the man that alone art The cause of my misery.* The success of the song is related by the prompter at the theatre in his curious httle vokime, called "Roscius Anglicanus." "All the women's parts," says Downes, " were admirably acted, but what pleased most was the part of Celania, a shepherdess, mad for love, and her song of ' My lodging is on the cold ground,' which she performed," he adds, " so charmingly that not long after it raised her from her bed on the cold ground to a bed royal." t I might be excused for referring, at this period * The stage direction is—" That done she lies down and falls asleep." t " Rosoius Anglicanus," p. 24. ed. 1708. 60 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. of Nelly's life, to the ribald personalities common to the stage in the reign of Charles II., but I am unwilling to stop the stream of my narrative by delating to relate the personal reference made by Nell, in the play of ''AH Mistaken," to the song and the incident at the Duke's House, which raised little Miss Davis to a " bed royal." The scene in '' All ]\Iistaken " which doubtless gave the greatest delight to the audience at Drury Lane, was that in the last act, where Pmguisier, the fat lover, sobs his complaints into the ear of the madcaj) Muida. Mirida. — Dear love, come sit thee in my lap, and let me know if I can enclose thy world of fat and love within these aims. See, I cannot nigh compass my desires by a mile. Pinguider. — How is my fat a rival to my joys ! sm:e I shall weep it all away. {Cries. MiHda. — Lie still, my babe, lie still and sleep. It grieves me sore to see thee weep, Wert thou but leaner I were glad ; Thy fatness makes thy dear love sad. What a lump of love have I in my arms ! My lodging is on the cold boards, And wonderful hard is my fare, But that which troubles me most is The fatness of my dear. Yet still I cry, Oh melt, love, And I piythee now melt apace. For thou art the man I should long fur If 'twere not for thy grease. Pinguisier. — Then prythee don't harden thy heart still. And be deaf to my pitiful moan, NELL MIMICS MISS DAVIS. 61 Since I do endure the smart still, And for my fat do groan. Then prythee now turn, my dear love, And I prythee now turn to me, For, alas ! I am too fat still To roll so far to thee. The nearer the fat man rolls towards her, the further she rolls away from him, till she at length rises and laughs her hearty Mrs. Jordan-like mii^th- provoking laugh, first at the man and then towards the audience, seizes a couple of swords from a cutler passing by, disarms her fat lover, and makes him the ridicule of the whole house. It is easy to see that this would not take now, even with another Nelly to represent it ; but every age has its fashion and its humour, and that of Charles II. had fashions and humours of its own, quite as diverting as any of the representations and incidents wliich still prove attractive to a city or a west- end audience. " Little Miss Davis " danced and sang divinely, but was not particularly beautiful, though she had fine eyes and a neat figure, both of which are preserved in her portrait at Cashiobury, by Sir Peter Lely.* The popular belief . stiU lingering among the cottages surrounding the old Jacobean • This is a half-length, seated,— the same portrait, I suspect, which Mrs. Beale saw in Bap, May's lodgings at Whitehall. The curious full-length portrait of her in after-life hy Kneller, and now at Audley End, barely supplies a single feature that is attractive. 62 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. mansion of the Howards at Cliaiiton in Wiltshire, that she was the daughter of a blacksmith, and was at one time a milkmaid, can only in part be true. Pepys was informed by Mrs. Pearse, wife of James Pearse, surgeon to the Duke of York and surgeon of the regiment commanded by the Duke, that she was an illegitimate child of Colonel Howard, son of the Earl of Berksliire, and brother of James Howard, author of the play in which, as we have seen, she was held up to ridicule through the inimitable acting of Nell Gwyn. The King's affection for her was shown in a marked and open manner. The ring of rushes referred to in the song was exchanged for a ring of the value of 7001., and her lodging about Ludgate or Lincoln's Inn (the usual resorts of the players at the Duke's Theatre) for a house in Suffoll^ Street, Haymarket, furnished by the King expressly for her use. The Queen, before she was worn into complete indifference by the uncontrolled vices of her husband, resented them at times with the spiiit of a woman. "When Miss Davis was dancing one of her favourite "jigs " in a play at Comi;, the Queen rose and ^' would not stay to see it." Nor was the imperious Countess of Castlemaine less incensed than the Queen herself at the unwelcome intrusion of little Miss Davis within the innermost chambers CHARLES II. IN LOVE WITH MISS DAVIS. 63 and withdrawing-rooms of Whitehall. Her revenge, however, was pecuUarly her own — she ran into open infidehties ; and, as the King had set her aside for an actress at liis brother's house, so to be " even " with him (the expression is in Pepys), she extended her favours to Charles Hart, the handsome and celebrated actor, at his own house. The Duke of Buckingham (the wit, and the second and last Duke of the Villiers family) is thought to have been the principal agent at this time in direct- ing and confirming the predilections of the King. The Duke and Lady Castlemaine had newly quar- relled, fiercely and almost openly, and both were devising means of revenge characteristic of their natures. By the influence of the Countess the Duke was removed from his seat at the council, and the Duke in return *' studied to take the King from her by new amours," and thinking, truly enough, that a " gaiety of humour," would take with liis Majesty more than beauty without humour, he en- couraged his passion for little Miss Davis by all the arts and insinuations he was master of. The King, too, was readier than usual to adopt any new excess of enjoyment which Buckingham could offer him. La Belle Stuart, the only woman for whom he would seem to have entertained any sincere affection, had 64 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. left his court in secret a few months before, and worse still had given herself in marriage to the Duke of Richmond, without liis approbation, and even without his knowledge. Castlemaine was now past her zenith, though she retained much beauty to the last, and found admii^ers in the gTeat Duke of Marlborough, when young, and in Beau Fielding, long the handsomest man about town. Yet Charles was not really unkind to her at any time. The song which he caused Will Legge to sing to her — Poor Alinda's growing old. — Those charms are now no more, — * must have caused her some temporary uneasiness and a disdainful curl of her handsome and imj)erious lip ; but she loiew her influence and managed to retain it almost ununpaired to the very last, in spite of many excesses, which Buckingham seldom failed to discover and make loiown to the Iving. Of the King, the Countess, and pretty Miss Davis, at this period, Pepys ajffords us a sketch in little — but to the point : — "21 Dec. 1668. To the Duke's playhouse, and saw 'Macbeth.' The King and court there ; and we sat just under them and my * Lord Dartmouth's note in Burnet, i. 458, ed. 1823. Where are these verses to be found ? AMUSEMENTS AT THE THEATRE. 66 Lady Castlemaine, and close to a woman that comes into the pit, a kind of loose gossip, that pretends to be like her, and is so, some- thing. And my wife, by my troth, appeared I think as pretty as any of them; I never thought so much before; and so did Talbot and W. Hewer, as I heard they said to one another. The King and the Duke of York minded me, and smiled upon me at the handsome woman near me ; but it vexed me to see Moll Davis, in the box over the King's and my Lady Castlemaine's, look down upon the King, and he up to her ; and so did my Lady Castlemaine once, to see who it was ; but when she saw Moll Davis she looked like fire, which troubled me." To complete the picture which Pepj^s has left us, we have only to turn to " The True Widow," of Shadwell, where, in the fourth act, the scene is laid in " the Playhouse," and stage directions of this character occur: "Enter women masked;" "Several young coxcombs fool with the orange-women ; " " He sits down and lolls in the orange-wench's lap ; " "Kaps people on the backs and twirls their hats, and then looks demurely, as if he did not do it ; " — such were daily occurrences at both theatres in the reign of Charles II. Such were our pleasures in the days of yore, When amorous Charles Britannia's sceptre bore ; The mighty scene of joy the Park was made. And Love in couples peopled every shade. But since at Court the moral taste is lost. What mighty sums have velvet couches cost ! * I We are now less barefaced in our immoralities, • Gay to Pulteney. P but are we really better? Was Whitehall in the reign of Charles II. worse than St. James's Palace in the reign of George II., or Carlton House in the regency of George IV. ? Were Mrs. Kobinson, Mary Anne Clarke, or Dora Jordan, better women than Eleanor Gwyn or Mary Davis ? WiU future historians prefer the old Duke of Queensbuiy and the late Marquis of Hertford to the Duke of Buckingham and the Earl of Eochester ? A new play of this period, in which Nelly per- formed the heroine, is the " Black Prince," written by the Earl of Orrery, and acted for the first time at the King's House, on the 19th October, 1667. Nelly's part was Alizia or Alice Piers, the mistress of Edward III. ; and the following lines must have often in after life occurred to recollection, not from their poetry, which is little enough, but from their particular applicability to her own story. Yoii know, dear friend, when to this court I came, My eyes did aU our bravest youths inflame ; And in that happy state I lived awhile, When Fortune did betray me with a smile ; Or rather Love against my peace did fight ; And to revenge his power which I did slight, Made Edward our victorious monarch be One of those many who did sigh for me. All other flame but his I did deride ; They rather made my trouble than my pride : But this, when told me, made me quickly know. Love is a god to which all hearts must bow. GREEN-ROOM RUMOURS. 67 The King was present at the first performance, when his own heart was acknowledging and his own eyes betrajdng the sense he entertained of tlie beauty and wit of the charming actress who played Alizia on the stage, and who was hereafter to move in the same sphere in which the origuial had moved — with greater honesty and much more affection. While little Miss Davis was livmg in handsome lodgings in Suffolk Street, and baring her hand in public in the face of the Countess of Castlemaine, to show the TOOL ring which the King had given her, a report arose that " the King had sent for Nelly." ^ Nor was it long before this gossip of the town was followed by other rumours about her, not likely, it was thought, to be true, from her constant appear- ance on the stage, speaking prologues in fantastic hats and Amazonian habits,t playing as she did, too, at this time Valeria in Dryden's last new tragedy of " Tyrannick Love, or the Eoyal Martyr," and Donna Jacintha in Dryden's latest comedy, called " An Evening's Love, or the Mock Astrologer." Other rumours, relating to Lord Buckhurst, and since found to be true, were current at the same time, — * Pepys, 11 January, 1667-8. t Before the 1669 edition of Catiline is a prologue "to be merrily spoke by Mrs. Nell in an Amazonian habit." Pepys and Evelyn both saw Catiline acted on the 19th Dec, 1668- F 2 that he had been made a groom of the Kong's bed- chamber, with a pension of a thousand pounds a-year, commencing from Michaelmas, 1668; that he had received the promise of a peerage at his grand- father's death; and that he had been sent by the King on a complimentary visit to a foreign power, or, as Dryden is said to have called it, on a " sleeve- less errand"* into France. In the meantime gossips in both the theatres were utterly at a loss to reconcile the stories repeated by the orange -women that Nelly was often at Whitehall with her constant attention to her theatrical engagements, and the increasing skill she exhibited in the acquirements of her art. Nor was it till the winter of 1669, or rather the spring of 1670, that the fact of the postponement of a new tragedy by Dr^^den, on account of Nelly's being away, confirmed some of the previous rumours; and it was known even east of Tem^^le Bar, and among the Puritans in the Blackfriars, that Nelly had become the mistress of the King. When this important change in her condition took place — a change that removed her from many temptations, and led to the exhibition of traits of character and good feeling which more than account ■ for the fascination connected with her name — she • Note by Boyer in his translation of De Grammont, 8vo. 1714, p. 343. NELL AS ALMAHIDE. 69 was stud)dng the part of Almaliide in Dryden's new tragedy, " The Conquest of Granada." Before, however, the play could be produced Nelly was near giving bu^th to the future Duke of St. Alban's, and therefore unable to appear, so that Dryden was obliged to postpone the production of his piece till another season. The poet alludes to this postpone- ment in liis epilogue, — Think him not duller for the year's delay ; He was prepared, the women were away ; And men without their parts can hardly play. If they through sickness seldom did appear, Pity the virgins of each theatre ; For at both houses 'twas a sickly year ! And pity us, your servants, to whose cost In one such sickness nine whole months were lo§t. The allusion is to Miss Davis at the Duke's, and to Nelly at the King's ; but the poet's meaning has escaped his editors. The " Conquest of Granada " was first performed in the autumn of 1670, — Hart playing Almanzor to Nelly's Almahide. With what manhness and grace of elocution must Hart have dehvered the weU- known lines, — I am as free as Nature first made man. Ere the base laws of servitude began, When wild in woods the noble savage ran. The attraction, however, of the play rested mainly 70 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. upon NeUy, who spoke the prologue ''in a broad- brimmed hat and waist-belt," and apologised in the following manner for her appearance, to the renewed delight of the whole audience : This jest was first of th' other House's making, And, five times tried, has never failed of taking ; For 'twere a shame a poet should be kiU'd Under the shelter of so broad a shield. This is that hat whose very sight did win ye To laugh and clap as though the devil were in ye. As then for Nokes, so now I hope you'll be So dull to laugh once more for love of me. The jest *' of the other house's making " is said to have occuiTed in May, 1670, while the Court was at Dover, to receive the King's sister, the beautiful Duchess of Orleans. The reception of her royal high- ness was attended with much pomp and gaiety — the Duke's company of actors plajdng Shadwell's " Sullen Lovers," and Caryl's " Sir Salomon, or the Cautious Coxcomb," before the Duchess and her suite. One of the characters in Caryl's comedy is that of Sir Arthur Addle, a bawling fop, i)layed by Nokes with a reality of action and manner then imsurpassed upon the stage. The dress of the French attending the Duchess, and present at the performance of the plays, included an excessively short laced scaxlet or blue coat, with a broad waist-belt, which Nokes took care to laugh at, by wearing a still shorter coat of CHARLES II. IN LOVE WITH NELLY. 71 the same character, to which the Diike of Monmouth added a sword and belt from his own side, so that he looked, as old Downes the prompter assures us, more like a dressed-up ape, or a quiz on the French, than Sir Arthur Addle. The jest took at once. King Charles and his whole Cornet falling into an excess of laughter as soon as he appeared upon the stage, and the French showing their chagrin at the personality and folly of the imitation. The sword, which the Duke had buckled on the actor with his own hands, was kept by Nokes to his dying day. It was in the character of Almahide in " The Conquest of Granada," and while wearing her broad- brimmed hat and waist-belt in the prologue to the same play, that Charles became more than ever enamoured of Nelly. A satirist of the time has expressed the result of the performance in a couplet not wholly destitute of force — There Hart's and Rowley's souls she did ensnare, And made a King a rival to a player; — while Granville, who enjoyed the friendship of Waller, and lived to be the patron of Pope, has told the result in his poem called " The Progress of Beauty : " Granada lost, behold her pomps restor'd. And Almahide again by Kings adored. 72 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. An effect from a stage performance which some still live to remember, when it found a i)araUel in the passion which George IV., when Prince of Wales, evinced for Mrs. Eobinson, while playing the part of Perdita in " A Winter's Tale." What a true name is Perdita indeed for such a fate, and what a lesson may a young actress learn from the story of poor Mrs. Eobinson, when told, as I have heard it told, by her grave in Old Windsor churchyard ! Nor is Nelly's story without its moral — and now that we have got her from the purlieus of Drury Lane, and the contaminations of the green-room, — for the part of Almahide was her last performance on the stage,* — we shall find her true to the King, and evincing in her own way more good than we should have expected to have found from so bad a bringing up. ♦ The Mrs. Gwyn or Quyn who appeared on the stage while Nelly was alive, was a different person, though hitherto always confounded with her. I had come to this conclusion, when I was pleased to find my conviction made good by a MS. note by Isaac Reed, in his copy of the first edition of the Roscius Anglicanus, in my possession. Downes distinguishes Nelly by calling her " Madam Gwin," or " Mrs. Ellen Gwin ; "—the other is always " Mrs. Gwin." CHAPTEK IV. PERSONAL CHARACTER OP KING CHARLES H. The character of King Charles II. has been drawn with care and skill by several writers of distinguished reputation to whom he was known : by the great Lord Clarendon; by the Marquess of Halifax; by the Duke of Bucldngham; by Evelyn and Sir William Temple; by Bm-net, Dryden, and Eoger North. Lord Clarendon had been acquainted with him from his boyhood, and had been his principal adviser for many years; Halifax had been his minister; Buckingham had received distinguished marks of favour at his hands; Evelyn not only frequented his court, but had often conversed with him on matters of moment, and was iatimate with many who knew him well; Temple had been his ambassador; Burnet had si)oken to him with a freedom which nothing but his pastoral character would have sanctioned; Dryden was his Poet 74 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. Laureate ; and Noiiih added to his own his brother the Lord Keeper's experience of the King's character. From such ^Titers as these, and with the aid of such incidental illustrations as a lengthened interest in the subject will supply, I propose to draw the portraiture of the King, using, where such fidelity is requisite, the very words of the authorities I employ. His jDersonal appearance was remarkable. He was five feet ten inches in height and well-made, with an expression of countenance somewhat fierce, and a great voice.* He was, says Saville, an illustrious exception to all the common rules of physiognomy ; for, with a most saturnine, harsh countenance, he was both of a merry and merciful disposition. His eyes were large and fine ; and his face so swarthy, that Monk, before the Restoration, used to toast him as "the black boy."+ " Is this like me ?" he said to Eiley, who had just completed liis portrait; "then, odd's fish ! (his favomdte phrase),.! am an ugly fellow." E/iley, however, must have done him an injustice : certaiuly, at all events, he is not an ugly fellow on the canvas of Lely, in the miniatures of Cooper, the sculpture of Gibbons, or the coins of Simon. He lived a Deist, but did not care to think on the subject of rehgion, though he died professedly a ♦ Evelyn, ii. 207, ed. 1850. t Hinton's Memoirs, p. 29. CHARACTER OF CHARLES II. 75 Eoman Catholic. His father had been severe with him, and once, while at sermon at St. Mary's in Oxford, had struck liim on the head with his staff for laughing at some of the ladies sitting op^DOsite to liim.* Later in life the ill-bred familiarity of the Scottish divines had given him a distaste for Pres- byterian discipline, while the heats and animosities between the members of the Established Church and tli-e Nonconformists with which his reign commenced made him think indifferently of both. His religion was that of a young prince in his warm blood, whose inquiries were apphed more to discover arguments against belief than in its favour. The wits about his Court, who found employment in laughing at Scripture — All by the King's example liv'd and loVd— delighted in turning to ridicule what the preachers said in their sermons before him, and in this way induced him to look upon the clergy as a body of men who had compounded a religion for their own advantage.! So strongly did this feeling take root in him, that he at length resigned himself to sleep at sermon time — not even South or Barrow having the art to keep him awake. In one of these half-hours ♦ Dr. Lake's Diary, p. 26. t Clarendon's Life, iii. 3, ed. 1826. 76 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. of sleep when in chapel, he is known to have missed, doubtless ^ith regret, the gentle reproof of South to Lauderdale during a general somnolency : — " My lord, my lord, you snore so loud you will wake the King." He loved ease and quiet; and it was said, not imtruly, that there was as much of laziness as of love in all those hours he passed among his mistresses. Few things, remarked Burnet,* ever went near his heart. It was a trouble to him to tliink. Unthiiiklngness, indeed, was said by Halifax to be one of his characteristics t — and Unthinking Charles, ruled by unthinking thee, is a line in Lord Rochester. Sauntering is an epithet appUed to him by Shefl&eld, Saville, and Wilmot. He chose rather to be eclipsed than to be troubled, to receive a pension from France rather than ask his Parliament for subsidies. His affection for his children was worthy of a better man. He loved the Duke of Monmouth with the fondness of a partial parent, and forgave him more than once for injuries, almost amounting to crimes of magnitude, personal and political. The Duke of Grafton, one of his sons by the Duchess of * Burnet, ii. 469, ed. 1823. t Halifax, p. 4. CHARACTER OF CHARLES II. 77 Cleveland, he loved "on the score of the sea,"* and for the frankness of his nature. His queen's manners and society he never could have liked, though liis letter to Lord Clarendon, written from Portsmouth, upon her first arrival, is ardent in passion, and might have been held to promise the most constant affection for her person.! He grew at last to believe that she never could bring him an heir,t an opinion in which he was confirmed by the people about him ; but, anxious as he certainly was for another wife, he rejected with scorn a proposition that was made to him to send her away in disguise to a distant region. His steadiness to his brother, though it may and indeed must in a great measm'e be accounted for on selfish principles, had at least, as Fox remarks, a strong resemblance to virtue.§ Prince Eupert he looked upon, not unjustly, as a madman.|| If he was slow to reward and willing to forgive, he was not prone to forget. His secret service expenses record many payments, and at all periods, to the several branches of the Penderells, to whom he was indebted for liis preser- vation after the battle of Worcester.^ , * Pepys's Tangier Diary, ii. 36. t See it among the Lansdowne MSS. (1236) in the British Museum. It is not fit to print. X Clarendon's Life, iii. 60, ed. 1826. g Fox's James II., p. 70. || Pepys's Tangier Diary, ii. 36. % Printed for the Camden Society. Mr. Macaulay says, harshly enough— " Never was there a mind on which both services and injuries left such faint and transitory impressions." 78 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. He lived beloved, and died lamented, by a very- large portion of his |)eople. What helped to endear him has been happily expressed by Waller : the first English born That has the crown of these three kingdoms worn. Then, the way in which he was seen in St. James's Park feeding liis ducks ; * or in the Mall playing a manly game with great skill ; t or at the two theatres encouraging English authors, and commending Enghsh actors and actresses, added to his popularity. He really mixed with his subjects ; and though a standing army was first established in his reign, it was needed more for his thi'one than for liis person. He did not study or care for the state which most of his predecessors before him had assumed, and was fond of dropping the formality of a sovereign for the easy character of a com^oanion. He had lived, when in exile, upon a footing of equality with his banished nobles, and had partaken freely and promiscuously in the pleasm-es and froHcs by which they had endea- voured to sweeten adversity. He was led in tliis way to let distinction and ceremony fall to the ground, as useless and foppish, and cotdd not even on premedi- tation, it is said, act for a moment the part of a king * Gibber's Apology, p. 26, 8vo., 1740. t Waller's poem " On St. James's Park." CHARACTER OF CHARLES II. 79 either at parliament or council, either in words or gesture. When he attended the House of Lords, he would descend from the throne and stand by the fire, drawing a crowd about him that broke up all the regularity and order of the place. In a very Httle time he would have gone round the House, and have spoken to every man that he thought worth speaking to.* He carried his dogs to the council table — His very dog at council board Sits grave and wise as any lord,f and allowed them to lie in his bed-chamber, where he would often suffer them to pup and give suck, much to the disgust of Evelyn, and of many who resided at court.+ His very speeches to his par- liament contain traits of his personal character. " The mention of my wife's arrival," he says, " puts me in mind to desire you to put that compliment upon her, that her entrance into the town may be with more decency than the ways will now suffer it to be, and for that purpose I pray you would quickly pass such laws as are before you, in order to the • Buraet, i. 472, 3, ed. 1823. In his speech in the House of Commons, March 1, 1661, he says — " In a word, I know most of your faces and names, and can never hope to find hetter men in your places." t Lord Eochester's Poem, 1697, p. 150. X Evelyn, vol. ii., p. 207, ed. 1850. Charles was fond of animals and natural history. In the Works Accounts at Whitehall, for 1667-8, I observe a payment for " the posts whereon the king's bees stand." 80 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. amending those ways, and that she may not find Whitehall smTounded by water." * Nothing but his character, as Sir Robeil Walpole observed of Sir William Yonge, could keep down his parts, and nothing but his parts support his character. His mistresses were as diBferent in their humours as in their looks. He did not care to choose for himself, so that, as Halifax observes, it was resolved generally by others whom he should have in his arms as well as whom he should have in his councils. Latterly he lived under the traditional influence of his old engagements; and though he had skill enough to suspect, he had wit enough not to care.t His passion for Miss Stuart, as I have abeady said, was a stronger feeling of attachment than he is thought to have entertained for any body else.t His understanding was quick and Uvely ; but he had little reading, and that tending to Ms pleasures more than to instruction. He had read men rather than books. The Duke of Buckingham happily characterised the two brothers in a conversation with Burnet : — " The King," he said, " could see things if he would, and the Duke would see things if he could." § Nor was the observation of Tom * Speech, Marcli 1, 1661-2, See the allusion explained in my " Handbook for London," art. Whitehall. | Halifax's Character, p. 21. + Clarendon's Life, iii. 61, ed. 1826. § Burnet, i. 288, ed. 1823. CHARACTER OF CHARLES II. 81 Killigrew, made to the King himself in Cowley's hearing, without its jDoint. This privileged wit, after telling the King the ill state of his affairs, was pleased to suggest a way to help all. " There is," says he, " a good honest able man that I could name, whom if your majesty would employ, and command to see things well executed, all things would soon be mended, and this is one Charles Stuart, who now spends his time in employing his lips about the court, and hath no other employment; but if you would give him this employment, he were the fittest man in the world to perform it."* He had what Sheffield called the foible of his family, to be easily imposed upon ; for, as Clarendon truly remarks, it was the unhappy fate of the Stuart family to trust too much on all occasions to others.! To such an extent did he carry unnecessary confidence, that he would sign papers without inquning what they were about.I He drew well himself,§ was fond of mathematics, fortification, and shipping; knew the secrets of many empirical medicines, passed many hours in his laboratory, and in the very month in wliich he died was running a process for fixing mercury.|| The * Pepys, 8 Dec, 1666. f Clarendon's Life, iii. 63, ed. 1826. t Burnet, i. 417, ed. 1823. g Walpole's Anecdotes, by Wornum, p. 427. II Bumet, ii. 254, ed. 1823. Among the satires attributed to Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, is one on Charles IL, called " The Cabin Boy." 82 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. Observatory at Greenwich, and the Mathematical School at Christ's Hospital, are endiu^ing instances of his regard for science. He had all the hereditary love of the Stuarts for poetry and poets, and in this respect was certainly different from George II., who considered a poet in the light of a mechanic* He carried Hudibras about in his pocket,! protected its publication by his royal warrant, but allowed its author to starve. Nor was this from want of admiration, but from indolence. Patronage had been a trouble to him. The noble song of Shirley — The glories of our blood and stal;e, was often sung to him by old Bowman, and, while he enjoyed the poetry, he could have cared but little for the moral grandeur which pervades it. He suggested the Medal to Dry den as a subject for a poem while walking in the Mall. " If I was a poet," he said, '' and I think I am poor enough to be one, I would write a poem on such a svibject in the following manner." — Dryden took the hint, carried his poem to the I&Qg, and had a hundred broad pieces for it.t A good new comedy, we are told by *" Lord Cbestei-field's Works, by Lord Mahon, ii. 441. t Dennis's Reflections on Pope's Essay on Criticism, p. 23. X Spence's Anecdotes, p. 171. CHARACTER OF CHARLES II. 83 Dennis, took the next place in liis list of likings immediately after his last new mistress. In points connected with the stage he was even more at home than in matters of poetry, insomuch that the parti- ciilai' differences, pretensions, or complaints of the actors were generally ended by the King's personal command or decision * This, however, he would at times carry to excess, and it has been even said, that ''he would hear anybody against anybody." One of liis latest acts was to call the attention of the poet Crowne to the Spanish play " No Puedeser; or, It cannot be," and to command him to write a comedy on a somewhat similar foundation. To this suggestion it is that we owe the good old comedy of " Sir Com-tly Nice." t He hated flattery,! was perfectly accessible, would stop and talk with Hobbes, or walk tln^ough the park with Evel3Ti, or any other favourite. Steele remem- bered to have seen him more than once leaning on D'Urfey's shoulder, and humming over a song with him.§ Hume blames him for not preserving Otway from his sad end ; but Otway died in the next reigii, more from accident than neglect. His passion for music (lie preferred the violin to » Gibber's Apology, p. 75, ed. 1740. t Crowne's Preface to Sir Courtly Nice, 4to. 1685. X Temple's Works, ii. 409, ed. 1770, § The Guardian. g2 84 THE STORY OF NELL GWYN. the viol) is not ill illustrated in the well-known jingle— Four-and-twenty fiddlers all in a row, And there was fiddle-fiddle, and twice fiddle-fiddle, &c. written on his enlargement of liis band of fiddlers to four-and-twenty, — his habit, while at his meals, of having, according to the French mode, twenty-four violins playing before him ; * or by his letters written during liis exile. "We pass our time as well as people can do," he observes, "that have no more money, for we dance and play as if we had taken the Plate fleet " ; t " Pray get me pricked down," he adds in another, " as many new corrants and sarabands and other little dances as you can, and bring them with you, for I have got a small fiddler that does not play ill." I Like others of his race, like James I. and James V. of Scotland, like his father and his gi'andfather, he was occasionally a poet. A song of his composition is certainly characteristic of liis way of life : — v^^-. I pass all my hours in a shady old gi-ove, ' But I live not the day when I see not my love; I survey every walk now my Phillis is gone, And sigh when I think we were there all alone ; then, 'tis then, that I think there's no hell Like loving, like loving too well. ♦ Antony A. Wood's Life, ed. Bliss, 8vo. p. 70. j Mis. Aulica, p. 117. X Ellis's Letters, 2nd series, vol- iii. p. 376, and Mis. Aul. p. 155. CHARACTER OF CHARLES II. 86 But each shade and each conscious bow'r when I find, Where I once have been happy, and she has been kind ; When I see the piint left of her shape on the green, And imagine the pleasure may yet come again ; then 'tis I think that no joys are above The pleasures of love. While alone to myself I repeat all her charms, She I love may be lock'd in another man's ai'ms. She may laugh at my cares, and so false she may be, To say all the kind things she before said to me : then, 'tis then, that I think there's no hell Like loving too well But when I consider the truth of her heart, Such an innocent passion, so kind without art ; I fear I have wronged her, and hope she may be So full of true love to be jealous of me : And then 'tis I think that no joys are above The pleasures of love.* That he understood foreign affairs better than all his councils and counsellors put together was the repeated remai'k of the Lord Keeper Guildford. In his exile he had acquired either a personal acquaint- ance with most of the eminent statesmen in Europe, or else from such as could iastruct him. he had received their characters : — and this knowledge, the Lord Keeper would contiuue, he iDcrpetuaUy improved by conversiQg with men of quahty and ambassadors, whom he would sift, and by what he obtained from ♦ From Choice Ayres, Songs, This is all very excellent ; but readers like myself have been long accustomed to invest these enter- taining Memoirs with something of the character of history; and if we can show, in spite of a few chronological excesses, that the events in the book may be brought within a very short compass of years — seven at the most — that their accuracy may be supported, if not by a " cloud of witnesses," by the DE GRAMMONT'S MEMOIRS. 185 unquestionable evidences of one or more admitted authorities ; surely the book must rise in value, and even in the interest which it gives the reader : for, take it up in what sense we will, as an episode in History, or as a book somewhat akin to Kenilworth or Ivanhoe, the nearer it approaches to truth it becomes invested with additional interest, and may be made to take its place either on the sheK of history or the sheK of fiction, as the fancy or the inclination of the reader may choose to place it. Sir WilHam Musgrave, the great print-collector, had paid considerable attention to the cln^onology of the De Grammont Memoirs. " From many circum- stances," he says, " the events mentioned in these Memoirs appear to have happened between the years 1663 and 1665." But this is evidently too restricted; and I shall now endeavour to show that the several events may, with very few exceptions, be confined to the period of De Grammont's residence in England, from May 1662 to October 1669. The author has divided his work into eleven very unequal chapters. The first five relate only Con- tinental adventures ; and the last six, by far the largest part of the work, are confined to the Count's adventures and amours in tlie court of Charles II. The author is very particular, it will be seen, in the 186 APPENDIX. period of the Count's arrival. '' The Chevalier de Grammont arrived about two years after the Restora- tion." ....'* It was m the height of the rejoicings they were making for this new queen [Catherine of Braganza] that the Chevalier de Grammont arrived, to contribute to its magnificence and diversions." Now Catherine landed at Portsmouth on the 14th May, 1662, and on the 21st of the same month was married at Portsmouth to King Charles II. On the 29th, the bridegroom and bride arrived at Hampton Coui^t ; and on the 2nd June the lord-mayor and aldermen made theu' addresses to the queen at Whitehall, " and did present her with a gold cup, £1000 in gold therein." The court therefore arrived in London about June or July, 1662. The event of the Count's arrival is related in Chapter VI., the earliest English chapter of the book ; and the only other occmTence mentioned in the same division, is the duel between young Harry JermjTi and Giles Eawlins. Tliis was in August 1662, Pepys describing the duel under the 19th of that month and year. Chapter VII., like Chapter VL, has only two events to attract the chronological student — the splendid masquerade given by the queen, at which Lady Muskerry appeared in the Babylonian dress; and DE GRAMMONT'S MEMOIRS. 187 the period " when the queen was given over by her physicians.'- Editors hitherto have only helped us to the latter of the two events ; but the former is of far more importance. A masquerade at cornet was too great an occurrence to escape either Evelyn or Pepys. " 2 Feb. 1664-5. — I saw a masq perforai'd at Court by 6 gentlemen and 6 ladies, surprising his Ma*^, it being Candlemas-day." — Evelyn. *' 3 Feb. 1664-5. — Mrs. Pickering did at my Lady Sandwich's command tell me the manner of a masquerade before the king and court the other day. Where six women (my Lady Castlemaine and Duchess of Monmouth being two of them), and six men (the Duke of Monmouth, and Lord Avon, and Monsieur Blanfort, being three of them) in vizai'ds, but most rich and antique dresses, did dance admii'ably and most gloriously." — Pepys. The queen was given over by the physicians in October 1663, when she was so ill that her head was shaved, and pigeons put to her feet. The events in Chapter VIII., to which in tliis investigation it is necessary to allude, are, first, the audience of the Muscovite ambassadors ; second, the period when Lady Chesterfield was packed from Whitehall to Bretby in Derbyshire ; third, the period when Margaret Brook was married to Sir John Denham. " The Earl of Chesterfield was informed," says Hamilton, " that he was to attend the Queen at an audience she gave to seven or eight 188 APPENDIX. Muscovite ambassadors." Now when was this ? Let us see what Pep3^s and Evel}^! can do for us in this emergency : — "29 Dec, 1662. — Saw the audience of the Muscovite Ambass'' which was with extraordinary state, his retinue being numerous, all clad in vests of several colours, with buskins after ye Eastern manners : their caps of furr ; tunicks richly embrodred with gold and pearls made a glorious show." — Evelyn. " 5 Jany. 1662-3. — To the King's Chamber, whither by and by the Russian Ambassadors come."— Pepys. The arrival of the Muscovite ambassadors, though not the particular audience, thus satisfactorily settled, the next event in the same chapter is the period when the Countess of Chesterfield (the heroine of the Memoirs) was sent into the country by her jealous- pated husband, as the mts and gallants of the court chose to call a courageous earl, unwilling to wink at the dishonour of his wife. The cause of the Countess of Chesterfield's retirement was her open and very indiscreet conduct with the Duke of York. "3 Nov. 1662.— He [Pierce] tells me how the Duke of York is smitten in love with my Lady Chesterfield ; and so much that the Duchess of York hath complained to the King and her father about it, and my Lady Chesterfield is gone into the country for it." — Pepys. This was, perhaps, only a temporary banishment ; for if Hamilton's narrative is correct, and there is no DE GRAMMONT'S MEMOIRS. 189 reason to doubt its accuracy in this matter, she was certainly in town when the Muscovite ambassador had his audience of the queen, nearly two months after the period assigned by Pepys. But this was too interesting an event to be concise upon. Pepys has more to say : — "19 Jany. 1662-3.— This day, by Dr. Clarke, I was told the occa- sion of my Lord Chesterfield's going and taking his lady (my Lord Ormond's daughter) from court. It seems he not only hath been long jealous of the Duke of York, but did find them two talking together, though there were others in the room, and the lady by all opinions a most good virtuous woman. He the next day (of which the Duke was warned by somebody that saw the passion my - Lord Chestei-field was in the night before) went and told the Duke how much he did apprehend himself wronged, in his picking out his lady of the whole court to be the subject of his dishonom- ; which the Duke did answer with gi-eat calmnesse, not seeming to under- stand the reason of complaint, and that was all that passed ; but my lord did presently pack his lady into the country inDerbyshu'e near the Peake ; which is become a proverb at court, to send a man's wife to the Peake when she vexes him." — Pepys. j It appears from the books of Uie Lord Steward's office, to which I have had access, that Lord Chester- field set out for the country on the 12th May, 1663; and from his '' Short Notes," referred to in the Memoirs before his Correspondence, that he remained at Bretby in Derbyshire with his wife throughout the summer of that year. None of the biographers of Sir Jolm Denham tell us when his second marriage took place. But 190 APPENDIX. we must not look to printed books for every kind of information. We must extend our inquiries further, and may sometimes do so with success. Denham's marriage to Margaret Brook is recorded in the register of Westminster Abbey, imder the 25th of May, 1665. Poor Miss Brook! She was cold in her grave, like Lady Chesterfield, before De Gram- mont had married Miss Hamilton, or the period I am seeking to assign to these Memoirs had well-nigh closed. The death of Lady Denham, mentioned in Chapter IX., took place 6th January, 1666-7:* still within the limit I have named. * Hamilton accuses the poet of making away with his wife. " The precedent of Lord Chesterfield was not," he says, " sufficiently hitter for the revenge he meditated ; besides, he had no countiy-house to which he could carry his unfortunate wife. This being the case, the old villain made her travel a much longer journey without stirring out of London." Pepys mentions her death :— " 7 Jany. 1666-7.— Lord Brouncker tells me that my Lady Denham is at last dead. Some suspect her poisoned, but it will be best known when her body is opened to-day, she dying yesterday morning. The Duke of York is troubled for her, but hath declared he Avill never have another public mistress again, which I shall be glad of, and would the King would do the like."— Pepys. The lampoons of the day, some of which are to be found in Andrew Marvell's works, more than insinuated that she was deprived of life by a mixture infused into some chocolate. She " was poisoned," says Aubrey, '* by the hands of the CO. of Roc. with chocolatte."* I cannot imagine for a moment to whom Aubrey alludes ; not the Countess of Rochester, surely, for there was no Countess of Rochester at the time. A Key to Count Grammont's Mp-Tnoirs (8vo, 1715) says that " the Duchess of York was strongly suspected of having poisoned her with powder of diamond*." But the question is, was she poisoned ? Her body was opened, and at her own desire, hut no sign of poison found. This curious piece of information, hitherto overlooked by all who have written on the subject, is ♦ Letters, &c. vol. ii. p. 319. DE GRAMMONT'S MEMOIRS. 191 The same chapter contams Miss Hobart's cele- brated sketch of the principal persons at court : " to the best," she says, " of my knowledge, without injury to any one, for I abominate the trade of scandal." Of Aubrey de Vere, Earl of Oxford, Miss Hobart observes — she is addressing Miss Temple : — -' "The Earl of Oxford fell in love with a handsome, graceful actress, belonging to the Duke's Theatre, who performed to perfec- tion, particularly the part of Roxana, in a very fashionable new play, insomuch that she ever after retained that name. This creature being both very virtuous and very modest, or, if you please, wonder- fully obstinate, proudly rejected the addresses and presents of the Earl of Oxford. This resistance inflamed his passion; he had recourse to invectives, and even to spells, but all in vain. This disappointment had such effect upon him, that he could neither eat nor drink ; this did not signify to him ; but his passion at length became so violent, that he could not neither play nor smoke. In this extremity, Love had recourse to Hymen. The Earl of Oxford, one of the first peers of the realm, is, you know, a very handsome man ; he is of the Order of the Garter, which greatly adds to an air naturally noble. In short, from his outward appearance you would suppose he was really possessed of some sense ; but as soon as ever you hear him speak, you are perfectly convinced of the contrary. This passionate lover presented her with a promise of marriage, in due form, signed with his own hand ; she would not, however, rely upon this, but the next day she thought there would be no danger, when the earl himself came to her lodgings attended by a clergyman, and another man for a witness. The marriage was accordingly solemnised with all due ceremonies, in the presence contained in a letter from Lord Orrery to the Duke of Ormond, dated Charleville, January 25, 1666-7. His Lordship's words are, "My Lady Denham's body, at her own desire, was opened, but no sign of poison found." ♦ * Orrery State Papers, fol. 1742, p. 219. 192 APPENDIX. of one of her fellow-players, who attended as a witness on her part. You will suppose, perhaps, that the new countess had nothing to do but appeal' at court according to her rank, and to display the earl's arms upon her carriage. This was far from being the case. When examination was made concerning the marriage, it was found to be a mere deception : it appeared that the pretended priest was one of my lord's trumpeters, and the witness his kettle- drummer. The parson and his companion never appeared after the ceremony was over ; and as for the other witnesses, they endeavoured to persuade her that the Sultana Roxana might have supposed, in some part or other of a play, that she was really married. It was all to no purpose that the poor creature claimed the protection of the laws of God and man, both which were violated and abused, as well as herself, by this infamous imposition. In vain did she throw herself at the king's feet to demand justice : she had only to rise up again without redress ; and happy might she think herself to receive an annuity of 1000 crowns, and to resume the name of Roxana, instead of Countess of Oxford." Here is a good deal of confusion, to wliicli further confusion has been added by the annotators. Roxana is a character in Lee's Rival Queens ; but the Rival Queens was brought out at the King's Theatre, not the Duke's ; and the actress seduced by the Earl of Oxford belonged, Hamilton tells us, to the Duke's Theatre. We are assured by the annotators, that the actress thus seduced was Mrs. Marshall, who acted Roxana in Lee's Rival Queens ; but Malone had disposed of this belief in a note to one of Dryden's Letters ; and it is very curious how Scott, who had Malone's edition of Dryden pretty well by heart, should have missed it when he was seeing his DE GRAMMONT'S MEMOIRS. 193 edition of De Grammont through the joress. After disposing of Mrs. Marshall's claim, Malone makes a very near guess when he names Mrs. Frances Davenport instead : — " The person seduced probably was Mrs. Frances Davenport, an eminent actress in the Duke of York's company, who was celebrated for her performance of Roxolana inDavenant's Siege of Rhodes, 1662, and in another Roxolana in Lord Orrery's Mustapha in 1665. She acted in Dryden's Maiden Queen in 1668, but her name is not found in any of the plays performed by the Duke of York's servants after they removed to Dorset Gardens in 1671 ,* and Downes, the prompter of that playhouse, mentions it in his quaint language, that she was before that time * by force of love erept from the stage.' " The editor of the last English edition* has had some idea glimmering in his miad that Roxolana, and not Eoxana, was the lady seduced by the founder of the regiment still distinguished from his colonelcy as the Oxford Blues. He inserts, without remark, the following extract from Evelyn : — *' 9 Jan. 1661-2. — I saw the third part of the Siege of Rhodes. In this acted y^ faire and famous comedian, called Roxolana, from ye part she perform'd ; and I think it was the last, she beiug taken to be the Earl of Oxford's misse, as at that time they began to call lewd women." To this I must add that Pepys, as usual, comes in to support the accm^acy of his friend and fellow memorialist : — • That of Bohn in 1846. 194 APPENDIX. "18 Feb. 1661-2. — To tlie Opera and saw The Law against Lovers, a good play and well performed, especially the little girls (whom I never saw act before) dancing and singing ; and were it not for her, the loss of Roxolana would spoil the house. " 2 Apinl, 1662. — To the Opera and there saw The Bondman most excellently acted ... lanthe acting Cleron's part very well now Roxolana is gone." "19 May, 1662.— To the Opera, and there saw the second part of the Siege of Rhodes, but it is not so well done as when Roxolana was there, who, it is said, is now owned by my Lord of Oxford." " 2T Dec. 1662.— With my wife to the Duke's Theatre, and saw the second part of Rhodes done with the new Roxolana ; which do it rather better in all respects for person, voice, and judgment, than the first Roxolana." The new Eoxolana was Mrs. Betterton ; the old Eoxolana, " Lord Oxford's misse," either Frances or Elizabeth Davenport ; for there were two sisters of that name on the stage of the Duke's Theatre at this time. I suspect, however, that the old Eoxolana was the younger sister, Betty. The elder was on the stage in 1668 : — "7 Ajpril, 1668. — The eldest Davenport is, it seems, gone to be kept by somebody, which I am glad of, she being a very bad actor." — Pepys. Now it appears from Lilly's Nativities in the Ashmolean Museum, that the Earl of Oxford's son by Eoxolana was born 17tli April, 1664, and Eoxo- lana herself 3rd March, 1642. Whenever a new edition of De Grammont is again required (and a DE GRAMMONT'S MEMOIRS. 195 new one is very much needed), I hope to see no more confusion in tliis matter.* Chapter X. of the Memoirs is equally true to the chronology of history. Here we have the story of Lord Rochester's residence as a German doctor in Tower Street, and that famous adventm^e of Miss Jennings and Miss Price disguised as orange- guis. No one has told us when Rochester assumed the part of Alexander Bendo, and issued his bill detailing what he had done and what he could do ; but there is reason to believe that it was before the 26th May, 1665, when he ran off with the heiress he subsequently married. Rochester was at the attack on Bergen on the 2nd August, 1665, at the great fight at sea in 1666, and married to Elizabeth Mallet, *' the melancholy heiress," as Hamilton calls her, before the 4th February, 1666-7, when Pepys records liis seeing them at court as man and wife. Hamilton connects tlie two events, — Rochester's City residence, and Miss Jennings and Miss Price's disguise as orange-girls. Pepys is silent about the German doctor, but Miss Jennmgs' adventure did not escape him : — * I may add, that the next editor will do well to refer to Malone's note about the age of the Earl of Oxford, proving from indisputable evidence that Lord Oxford was seventy-five instead of being, as the annotators inform us, upwards of eighty at his death. o 2 196 APPENDIX. " 21 Feb. 1664-5.— My Lady Sandwich tells me what mad freaks the mayds of honour at court have: that Mrs. Jennings, one of the Duchesse's maids, the other day dressed herself like an orange wench, and went up and down and cried oranges; till falling down, or by some accident, her fine shoes were discerned, and she put to a great deal of shame.*' Hamilton's description is in keeping with the narrative in Pepys : — *' He [Brouncker] was, however, surprised to see them have much better shoes and stockings than women of that rank generally wear, and that the little orange-girl, in getting out of a very high coach, showed one of the handsomest legs he had ever seen.'* Miss Jennings was not very likely to have made a second disguise of this description, so that we may assume fairly enough that Pepys and Hamilton record the same adventure. It deserves to be remembered that this Miss Jennings was afterwards the reduced Duchess of Tyrconnel, who sat at the New Exchange and played the part of the " "White Milliner," an adventure still more notorious than her trip to the German, Alexander Bendo. The visit of the Court to Tunbridge Wells, also described in Chapter X., must have taken place before the 3rd June, 1665, because Lord Muskerry, who was killed in the action of 3rd June, 1665, attended the Court on that occasion with his wife, the celebrated Babylonian Princess of the Memoirs, DE GRAMMONT'S MEMOIRS. 197 The Court was at Tunbridge in July, 1663, and again in July, 1666. Hamilton has confounded, I fancy, the two visits. Lord Muskerry and Nell Gwyn, he says, were both present. Now Lord Muskerry was dead before the second visit, and Nell was unknown when the first took place. Another historical event referred to in this chapter was the visit of the Duke of York to the city whose name he bore. This took place in August, 1665, A third is the death of Edward Montagu before Bergen, 2nd August, 1665 ; a fourth, the Duchess of York's amour with Henry Sydney, discovered wliile the Court was at York in August, 1665 ;* and a fifth, the commencement of the Duke's partiality for Arabella Chm-chill, another consequence of his visit to the north. In the same chapter we are told that Wilmot, Earl of Eochester, made love (love, shall we call it ?) to a niece of one of the Mothers of the Maids. * There cannot, I think, be any doubt of the intrigue of the Duchess of York (Anne Hyde) with Harry Sidney, afterwards Earl of Romney, brother of Algernon Sidney and of Waller's Sacharissa. See on what testimony it rests. Hamilton more than hints at it ; Burnet is very pointed about it in his History ; Eeresby just mentions and Pepys refers to it in three distinct entries and on three different authorities. But the evidence is not yet at an end. " How could the Duke of York make my mother a papist ? " said the Princess Mary to Dr. Burnet. " The Duke caught a man in bed with her," said the Doctor, " and then had power to make her do anything." The Prince, who sat by the fire, said " Pray, Madam, ask the Doctor a few more questions." Spence's Anecdotes, ed. Singer, p. 329. 198 APPENDIX. Her name is not given : she is only called Miss Sarah. She had some disposition, it is said, for the stage ; and Hamilton tells us, that after Lord Rochester " had entertained both the niece and the amit for some months in the country, he got her entered in the king's company of comedians the next winter ; and the pubHc was obliged to him for the prettiest, but at the same time the worst actress in the kingdom." Tliis, the annotators tell us, was Mrs. Barry — "famous Mrs. Barry," as she was called ; and we have a long, rambling, incorrect history of the lady in consequence. Sm-ely, how- ever, the description is not at all applicable to Mrs. Barry, who was so far from being the prettiest and the worst actress, that she was the ugliest and the best. Look at her j^ortrait at Hampton Couiii in Kneller's large pictm^e of King William on horseback ! She was anything but pretty. *' And yet tliis fine creature," says Tony Aston, '' was not handsome, her mouth opening most on the right side, which she strove to draw in t'other way," — a very indifferent account of the " prettiest actress." But let us come to dates. "When was Mrs. Barry born ? She departed this life, her monument at Acton tells us, on the 7th of November, 1713, aged fifty-five years. She was, consequently, born in DE GRAMMONT'S MEMOIRS. 199 1658, and was only eleven years old in 1669, the date of the last event related in the De Grammont Memoirs, Now Mrs. Barry came first upon the stage, there is every reason to believe, in 1674;* and the events in the De Grammont Memoirs may all be said to have taken place (as I have shown) prior to October, 1669. Mrs. Barry's name was Elizabeth, not Sarah. "Miss Sarah" therefore was not Mrs. Barry. Who, then, was she ? Unquestionably Sarah Cooke, an actress at the King's House, who spoke the prologue on the first night of Eochester's Valentinian, and the new prologue on the second night. She seems to have been but an indifferent actress, and her parts were generally restricted to prologues and epilogues. She is mentioned in the State Poems ; t by Dryden in a letter to Tonson ; 1 and by Sir George Etherege, not very decently, in a MS. letter now before me.§ Count Hamilton is not inexact in his chronology : it is liis annotators who are wrong. , The elevenm and last chapter preserves the same historical consistency to the seven years over which the events recorded in the Memoirs may safely be confined; — the marriage of the Duke of Monmouth * Genest's History of the Stage, i. 157. t State Poems, 8vo. 1703, p. 136. % Malone, ii. p. 24. g Addit. MSS. in British Museum, No. 11,513. 200 APPENDIX. (20th April, 1663); the visit of the Court to Bristol in September, 1663; the birth of Henry Fitzroy, Earl of Euston and Duke of Grafton (20th September, 1663); the return of the Court to London (2nd October, 1663); the mention of the fitting out of the Guinea fleet in August, 1664; the expedition against Gigery in October, 1664; the marriage of La Belle Stuart in March, 1667 ; the duel of the Duke of Buckingham and the Earl of Shrewsbmy (16th January, 1667-8); Lord Buckliurst's carrying off Nell Gwyn in July, 1667 ; the attack on Henry KiUigrew, 18th May, 1669; and the marriage of Count Grammont to EUzabeth Hamilton in 1668. Here the Memoirs end, De Grammont returning to France with liis wife and family in October, 1669. I have thus reduced a book which, as Walpole says, has really nothing to do with chronology, into sometliing hke chronological exactness. A few events, however, still remain unnoticed, — such as the creation of the Countess of Castlemaine to be Duchess of Cleveland, somewhat antedated in the Memoirs, for the creation did not take place till the 3rd August, 1670 ; the intrigue of the Duchess with Colonel Churchill apparently placed some seven or eight years beforehand; the letter to Lord Corn- waUis about his father-in-law, Sir Stephen Fox, DE GRAMMONT'S MEMOIRS. 201 which could scarcely have been written before the 27th December, 1673, when Lord Comwallis married Sir Stephen Fox's daughter, and the reference ia the last page but one to the publication of Ovid's Epistles, "translated into English verse by the greatest wits at Court;" when it is known that the earliest printed edition of Ovid's Epistles in English verse was published in 1680, sixteen years too late to have suggested to Miss Jennings her parody on the " Epistle of Ariadne to Theseus," addressed to the perfidious Jermyn, and containiag a description of the perils and monsters that awaited him in Guinea. Perhaps, after all, no reference whatever was intended to a printed edition ; and that the word published must be taken in its ordinary sense of circulated, though now commonly applied to what is printed : — and this, I see every reason to think, was the case. The Count de Grammont, who died on the 30th January, 1707, is said to have dictated these Memoirs to his vivacious brother-in-law. " I only hold the pen," says Hamilton, "while he directs it to the most remarkable and secret passages of his life." This is in Chapter I. ; iq the eleventh and last chapter he says, " We profess to insert nothing in these Memoirs but what we have heard from the 202 APPENDIX. mouth of him whose actions and sayings we transmit to posterity." And a little farther on the same page he observes, " For my own part I should never have thought that the attention of the Count de Grammont, which is at present so sensible to inconveniences and dangers, would have ever per- mitted him to entertain amorous thoughts upon the road, if he did not himself dictate to me what I am now writing." No one has thought for a moment that De Grammont was, in point of fact, the author of the Memoirs which beai^ his name. His excellence as a man of wit was entirely limited to conversation. He is said, however, to have sold the MS. for 1500 livres ; and it is added that when the MS. was brought to Fontenelle, then censor of the press, he refused to license it on account of the scandalous conduct imputed to the Court in a party at quinze, described in the third chapter. It is a somewhat singular omission on the i)art of all the English editors and annotators of De Grammont, that they do not tell us when the first edition of the Memoirs appeared. If the book was printed in De Grammont's lifetime, which the story of the license granted by Fontenelle to the Count himself certainly supposes, there must have been an edition before 1707, the year in which the Count DE GRAMMONT'S MEMOIRS. 203 died; whereas the earhest edition described by Watt, and, what is more, the earhest edition pre- served in the British Museum, is an edition in 12mo., printed at Cologne in 1713. I am inchned to think that there is no edition of a prior date ; * and for this reason, that, had the book been pubUshed in the Count's lifetime, we should have had an English translation of it before that of Boyer in 1714, unquestionably the earhest Enghsh translation of the work. I was once willing to think that the publication had been withheld to that year from motives of dehcacy towards many mentioned in the work, who were still ahve. For instance, the Earl of Chesterfield, who makes so conspicuous a figure in the work, and Progers, another person not very deUcately referred to, were both removed by death in 1713, the year in which the first edition was pubhshed. But this supposition is, I have since found, of very little value, for when the first Enghsh translation appeared, eight different persons particulaiiy referred to in the work were still ahve : Sir Stephen Fox and Sir Charles Lji^telton, both of whom died in 1716; Lady Lyttelton (Miss Temple that was), who died in 1718 ; the gTeat Duke of Marlborough, who died in 1722; Mrs. * Mr. Bolton Coraey is also of this opinion (Notes and Queries, vol. iv. p. 261). 204 APPENDIX. Godfrey (Arabella Churchill) and Mademoiselle de la Garde, both of whom died in 1730 ; the Duchess of Tyrconnel (Frances Jennings), who died in 1731 ; and the Duchess of Buccleuch (the widow of Monmouth and the Earl of Cornwallis), the last survivor of Hamilton's heroes and heroines, who died on the 6th of February, 1731-2, in the eighty- first year of her age. To three ladies, Jennings, Temple, and Arabella Churchill, the Memoirs of de Grammont must have been a very unwelcome pubhcation ; and any delicacy that existed towards Lord Chesterfield must have been felt in a much stronger degree for the ladies who were stUl alive to remember and regTet the follies and frailties of their youth. It is almost unnecessary to add, that the work attracted a great deal of attention at the time, — so much attention, indeed, that a tract, price two- pence, was published in 1715, called, A Key to Count Grammont' s Memoirs, and Boyer's bald translation of the book was reprinted in 1719. If a '^ key " was necessary then, stUl more necessary is it now, for very few books stand so much in need of historical illustration. THE HAMILTONS. 205 B. SOME ACCOUNT OF HAMILTON, HIS BROTHERS AND SISTERS. " The beauties at Windsor," says Wal^^ole, *' are the Court of Paphos, and ought to be engraved for the Memoirs of its charming historiographer, Count Hamilton." If the reader is of Walpole's way of thinking, how much more necessary is it that some- thing should be said about " the charming historio- grapher " himself ! Anthony Hamilton (who never appears himself in any part of his work) was the third son of the Honourable Sir George Hamilton, by Mary Butler, third daughterof Walter, Viscount Thuiies, eldest son of Walter, eleventh Earl of Ormond. His father, who died in 1667, leaving six sons and three daughters, was the fourth son of James, first Earl of Abercorn. His mother died in August, 1680, as appears from an interesting and affecting letter of her brother, the great Duke of Ormond, dated Carrick, August 25, in that year. Of the six sons of the Honourable Sir George Hamilton, James, the eldest, was groom of the bed- chamber and colonel of a regiment of foot to Charles II. I can find no earlier mention of him than the 206 APPENDIX. following passage in a letter from Edward Savage to Sancroft, then Dean of St. Paul's, and afterwards Aixhbishop of Canterbury. The letter is dated, '' From the Cockpit at Wliitehall, 25 October, 1664," and the passage is as follows: — "Mr. O'Neale, of Bedchamber, dyed yesterday, very rich, and left his old lady all. Mr. James Hamilton, the Duke of Ormond's nephew, shall have his gToome of the Bedchamber's place, and Sir William Blakestone his Troop of Horse." * Savage was right in his intelli- gence; Hamilton received the appointment. But this w^as not the first time the king had shown a friendly feehng towards liim. He had previously interested himself in obtaining for liim the hand in marriage of Elizabeth Colepepper, eldest daughter of John, Lord Colepepper, of Thoresway, but it is uncertain when the marriage took place, Wood, in his edition of Douglas s Pee7'age, puts it under 1661, a year, I think, at least, too late ; the parish register of St. Margaret's, Westminster, recording the baptism of George, their second son, on the 18th March, 1662-3. Nor did the king's regard for James Hamilton cease with the Bedchamber appointment. By a privy seal of the 29tli November, 1671 (Harl, MS. 7344) he made him ranger of Hyde Park, from ♦ Harl. MS. 1785. which appointment Hamilton Place, Piccadilly, derives its name. By letters patent of the 15th May, 1672, he granted him a pension of 850i. per annum ; but this he did not live very long to enjoy. In the engagement against the Dutch, 4th June, 1673, he had one of his legs taken off by a cannon- ball, and dying on the 6th, was buried next day, as the register records, in Westrainster Abbey. ** 1673, Coll. Hamilton, rec*^ his death wound in ye engagem* agst ye Dutch, was b<* w*^° y« north mon' door, June 7." It deserves to be told, to the credit of the king, that he was not forgetful of the widow and children of James Hamilton. I have letters patent before me, dated 20th July, 1673, granting a yearly pension of 850i, to Mrs. Hamilton, in trust for her three sons, and a yearly pension of 6001. for herself. •Mrs. Hamilton died in 1709, aged seventy-two. Of her three sons, James, the eldest, was sixth Earl of Abercom ; George, the second, was killed at the battle of Steinkirk, in 1692; and William, the youngest, settled at Bocton Place, near Lenham, in Kent, and acquired a large property there.* And this is all I have been able to discover of the * They would appear to have had another son, who probably died young : — 4 Nov. 1664.— John Hambleton, S. to James Hambleton, Esq., by Dame Eliz. his wife. — Baptismal Register of St. Margaret^ s, Westminster. 208 APPENDIX. elder brother, the handsome James Hamilton, the hero of the celebrated adventure at Bretby, tvith^ or rather without, the Countess of Chesterfield. His portrait was at the Marquis of Abercorn's, at Stanmore, but, I suppose, was sold with the rest of the Stanmore pictures, at Christie and Hanson's, a few years back. George, the second son of Sir George and Lady Hamilton, married " the lovely Jennings ; " — Frances Jennings, elder daughter and coheir of Eichard Jennings, of Sandridge, in Hertfordshire, and sister of Sarah Jennings, the celebrated Duchess of Marlborough. He had three daughters (his elder brother had three sons), all nobly married : Elizabeth to Eichard, Viscomit Eoss ; * Frances to Hemy, Viscount Dillon; and Mary to Nicholas, Viscount Kingsland. The king, by a warrant before me, dated 20th April, 1666, granted him a pension of 6001. a- year, " the better to enable him to support himself and family." He is there called " George Hamilton, Esq., Lieutenant of our troop of Guards." He was in love with Miss Stewart, and a most amusing account of the doings in her chamber is put into his mouth by his brother Anthony. This * 21 March, 1666-7, Eliz. Hambleton, d. to George, Esq., by Frances.— .BapfiswwzZ Register of St. Margaret' s, Westminster. THE HAMILTONS. 209 IS the Hamilton who served in the French army with distinction. I know not when he died. Evelyn, however, is of some assistance in determining the time. "12 November, 1675. There was in my lady ambassadress's company my Lady Hamilton, a sprightly young lady, much in the good graces of the family, wife of that valiant and worthy gentle- man, George Hamilton, not long after slaine in the warrs. She had been a maid of honour to the Dutchesse, and now turned Papist." His widow married Tall Talbot, afterwards Earl and Duke of Tyrconnell (d. 1691), the hero of the famous Lilli- bullero ballad, and dying in Dublin, 6th March, 1731, was buried in St. Patrick's Cathedral. Anthony, "the charming historiographer," was the third son. He is said to have been bom at Eoscrea, in the county of Tipperary, in 1646, in which year Owen O'Neale took Eoscrea, and, as Carte says, "put man, and woman, and child, to the sword, except Sir George Hamilton's lady, sister to the Marquis of Ormond, and some few gentlewomen whom he kept prisoners." His father and mother were Eoman Catholics; Anthony therefore was bred in the reUgion to which he adhered conscien- tiously through life. He was twenty-two years old when his sister. La Belle Hamilton, married the 210 APPENDIX. Count de Grainmont; about which time he went abroad, and, unable as a Eoman Catholic to find employment at home, entered the army of Louis XIV. " He distinguished himself," it is said, " in his profession, and was advanced to considerable posts in the French service." When James II. succeeded to the throne, and the door of preferment was open to Roman Catholics, Anthony Hamilton entered the Irish army, where we find him, in 1686, a lieutenant- colonel in Sir Thomas Newcomen's regiment. Other appointments were in storefor him, and he was subsequently constituted governor of Limerick, colonel of a regiment, and a privy councillor. Lord Clarendon, the son of the chancellor, and then lord-lieutenant of Ireland, was very kind to him at this time. He speaks of him in several of his letters. " If Lieutenant-colonel Anthony Hamilton may be beheved, and I take him to be the best of that sort." " If Lieutenant- colonel Hamilton may be believed, who understands the regiment better than the colonel, for he makes it his business." And to liis brother. Lord Rochester, he writes, " He is a very worthy man, and of great honour, and will retam a just sense of any kindness you may do him. He has been in very good employment and esteem when he served THE HAMILTONS. 211 abroad, and men of honour cannot always brook the having little men put over their heads, who, in the judgment of all the world, are not equal to their stations."* After the total overthrow of James's affairs in Ireland, he retired to St. Germain, acquired the confidence of the Duke and Duchess of Berwick (the Duke was King James's son by Arabella Chiu'chill), cultivated his taste for poetry, wrote one or two agreeable novels, translated Pope's Essay on Criticism into French, carried on a correspondence with Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, in the name of his niece, the Countess of Stafford ; and having sent his Memoires de Grammont to the press, died at St. Germain, 21st April, 1720, aged about seventy-four.t Thomas, the fourth son, was bred to the sea service, became captain of a ship of war, and died in New England. Kichard, the fifth son, was a bfigadier-general in King James's army in Ireland, and a lieutenant-general in the French service. He led King James's cavalry at the Battle of the Boyne, and died in France. John, the sixth and youngest * See Clarendon's Diaiy and Correspondence, by Singer, pp. 421, 423, 553. t For the fate of Mr, Hamilton's Correspondence Avith Mr. Le Poer, see Preface to " Hanmer Papers," p. vii. I 212 APPENDIX. son, was a colonel in King James's army, and was killed at the battle of Aghrim in Ireland, in 1691. Of the six sons of Sir George and Lady Hamilton, tln*ee were killed in action, one died in New England, and two in France. Of the three daughters, Elizabeth, the eldest, the only one of whom any- thing is known, was married to the Comit de Grammont, by whom she also had three daughters. She was Anthony's senior by five years, and was twenty-seven years old when married. The Count was forty-seven. One of their three daughters was the Countess of Stafford, described by Lord Hervey in his Memoirs, as "an old French lady, daughter of the famous Count de Grammont, who had as much wit, humour, and entertainment in her as any man or woman I ever knew, with a great just- ness in her way of thinking, and very little reserve in her manner of giving her opinion of things and people."* » Lord Hervey's Memoirs ii. 116. BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITEKRIARS.