The story of Nell Gwyn (21 page)

p. 72. Twenty-four violins playing before him.

See Roger North's Me?noirs of Alusick, ed. Rimbault, 1846, p. 99 (notes), for a list of the royal violinists in 1674.

p. 84. Old Rowley.

It may be added that a portion of the Newmarket racecourse is still called Rowley Mile, from the same stallion (see Notes and Queries, ist ser., ix. 477).

In the Richatdsoniana is mentioned another derivation of the King's nickname of Rowley : " There was an old goat that used to roam about the privy-garden to which they had given this name ; a rank lecherous devil, that everybody knew and used to stroke, because he was good-humoured and familiar; and so they applied this name to Charles."

The name of the lady who sang the ballad is there correctly given as Howard (not Holford, as Cunningham writes it). She was Dorothy, eldest daughter of William Howard (fourth son of Thomas, first Earl of Berkshire), and a maid of honour to the Duchess of York; her mother, Elizabeth, daughter of Lothiel, Lord Dundas, in the Scottish peerage, was housekeeper to the Duke of York (see Pepys's Diary, March 4, 1668-9). She married, Nov. 23, 1675 (her age being then about twenty-three), James Graham, of Levens, co. Westmoreland, second son of Sir George Graham, second baronet of Esk, CO. Cumberland, who was afterwards M.P., and keeper of the privy purse to King James II. She was buried in Westminster Abbey Dec. 17, 1701. Evelyn (Sept. 15, 1685) speaks of her as "an excellent house-wife, a prudent and virtuous lady."

NOTES

p. 92. A sermon by South.

The incident is usually connected with South's often quoted description of Cromwell's first appearance in parliament, "with a threadbare torn coat and a greasy hat (and perhaps neither of them paid for)." But, as is pointed out by the Rev. Alexander Gordon in his excellent article on South in the Dictionary of National Biography, this passage occurs in a sermon preached, after Charles's death, at Westminster Abbey on Feb. 22, 1684-5. South was chaplain in ordinary to Charles, but had no other preferment from him than a Westminster prebend. He is said, however, to have been subsequently offered bishoprics.

p. 92. Laurence Hyde, Lord Rochester.

The Hon. Laurence Hyde, second son of Edward, first Earl of Clarendon, by his second wife, Frances, daughter of Sir Thomas Aylesbury, bart., was baptized March 15, 1641-2. He was Master of the Robes, 1662-75 ; First Lord of the Treasury (head of tlie Government), 1679-84, and again, 1685-7, being created, April 24, 1681, Baron Wotton Bassett, Wilts, and Viscount Hyde of Kenilworth, co. Warwick, and (nineteen months later), Nov. 29, 1682, Earl of Rochester. From Aug. 1684 till Feb. 1684-5 he was Lord President of the Council, being thus, as Lord Halifax wittily expressed it, "kicked upstairs." At the accession of his brother-in-law, James H., to the throne, he was reappointed to the Treasury as above mentioned, but was dismissed therefrom in Dec. 16S7. His bearing at a fruitless conference to convert him to the Roman Catholic faith is supposed to have told against him. He received, however, on his dismissal, an annuity of ;^2000, and another (for two lives) of £\ooo. In 1689, though he spoke in favour of a Regency, he took the oath to the new Government; acted as Viceroy of Ireland (Lord Lieutenant), 1700-3; and Lord President of the Council (for the second time), 1710-11. He died suddenly at his house near the Cockpit, Whitehall, May

NOTES

2, i/ii. Lord Romney (Henry Sidney) in his Diary calls him "the undisputed leackr of the Tory party, to whose highest principles in Church and State he shewed a constant and probably conscientious attachment." He was an eftective writer and a good man of business, but was too fond of drink, and used (says Roger North) to " swear like a cutter' when in a passion. According to a ballad {Lamentable Lory, 16S4):—

"To lliose that ask booiis He swears by God's 'oons, And chides them as if They came there to steal spoons."

He married in 1665 Henrietta, fifth daughter of Richard Boyle, first Earl of Burlington (Earl of Cork), by Elizabeth, in her own right Baroness Clifford. She was one of the beauties of the period. The Earl of Ailesbury in his Memoirs says that : "It was commonly said, and I believe with good grounds, that my Lady Henrietta Hyde, afterwards Countess of Rochester, did great prejudice to her Lord, when Minister." Lady Rochester died at Bath, in her forty-second year, April 12, 1687.

Lord Rochester, to whom Nell Gwyn addressed a letter (printed at p. 207), was one of her executors. In the ninth Report of the Historical MSS. Commission there is printed the following excerpt from a letter of Ralph Montagu, afterwards Duke of Montagu : " I know for certain there is a great caball to bring in Mr. Hyde, and that Nelly and the Duke of Buckingham are in it." IMontagu was, however, a most vicious, unprincipled man, and his statements cannot count for much.

p. 96. M'^ken on his deathbed, the Queen sent him a message.

The Queen's grief was undoubtedly sincere ; not so Charles's when she was supposed to be dying. The Comte de Cominges, the French ambassador in London, wrote to Louis XIV. (Nov. i, 1663) as follows : " Though she [the queen] lias some little respite from time to time,

NOTES

I despair of her recovery. . . . The King seems to me deeply affected. Well! he supped none the less yesterday with Madame de Castlemaine, and had his usual talk with Mile. Stewart, of whom he is excessively fond. There is already a talk of his marrying again, and everybody gives him a new wife according to his own inclination ; and there are some who do not look beyond England to find one for him." But Catherine of Braganza took care to set all these plans to naught ; cured of her physicians, thanks to her husband's kindness, she recovered ; there were great rejoicings, none being more sincere, the ambassador wickedly observes, than the Duke of York's and his wife's (M. J. J. Jusserand's A French Ambassador at the Court of Charles the Second, p. 88).

p. lOO. Sir Fleetwood Sheppard.

After Nell had borne the King a first son, Sheppard was appointed her steward, and seems to have managed all her financial business. Under date Oct. i6, 1678, Wood writes : " The King returned from Newmarket to London. Some dayes before which Nell Quin with I'"leetw[ood] Shepard were entertained by certaine scholars at Cambridge (either by the vice-chancellor or proctors) and had verses presented to her " {Life and Times, Oxf. Hist. Soc, ii. 420). Sheppard was the first to recognise the promise of Matthew Prior. To him Prior addressed in 1689 two of his genial verse " Epistles." He died in 1698, ?ged sixty-four.

Nelly's secretary was James Booth, one of the witnesses to her will (see Mr. F. G. Plilton Price's interesting communication to Notes aitd Queries, 9th ser., vi, 350).

p. icx). Louise Renie de Penencourt de Querouaille.

Louise Renee de Keroualle was the elder of the two daughters of Guillaumede Penancoet, sieur de Keroualle, a Breton gentleman of very ancient linenge, whose wife was through her mother connected with the De Rieux. The time of her birth is uncertainly referred to the year 1649.

NOTES

Our author is mistaken in saying that Louise was left in England by the Duchess of Orleans. She returned to France with her. After the duchess's tragic end a coldness on the part of Charles II. towards Louis XIV. resulted. Louise was thereupon sent back to England, Charles ordering a royal yacht to meet her at Calais. On arriving in London she was named maid of honour to the patiently enduring Queen Catherine.

During a sojourn of the King at Newmarket Louise was, in Oct. 1671, invited to Lady Arlington's country seat of Euston, where, with the co-operation of the French ambassador and others, she was established as mistress en titre. Evelyn, who was a guest of the Arlingtons, has described the ceremonies ; for minuter details thereof see Forneron's Louise de K^roualle, English translation, pp. 70-74. On Aug. 19, 1673, she was created Baroness Petersfield, Countess of Fareham, and Duchess of Portsmouth, all in co. Southampton, and by the King of France she was made Duchess of Aubigny in Aubigny in Jan. 1684.

To the aversion inspired by the Duchess of Portsmouth much of Nell Gvvyn's popularity is attributable. Her rapacity was fearful. In 1681 the sums paid to her amounted to the enormous total of ;^I36,668. Her splendid apartment at the end of the gallery at Whitehall was, according to Evelyn, "twice or thrice puU'd down and rebuilt to satisfy her prodigal and expensive pleasures " ; it was ultimately destroyed by fire, with all its costly contents, April 9, 1691. In contrast to the virago Duchess of Cleveland she was said at times of difficulty to rely chiefly on the influence of tears.

At the end of July 1688 she suddenly took her departure to France. The remainder of her life, chiefly spent on her estate at Aubigny, was a struggle against pecuniary difficulties. Saint-Simon in 1718 speaks of her as old, embarrassed in her affairs, and "very converted and penitent" [Mc'/noires, edit. 1863, x. 48; Did. Nat. Biog., art. " Keroualle"). She died at Paris Nov. 14, 1734.

Evelyn writes under date Sept. 10, 1675: "I was

NOTES

casually showed the Duchess of Portsmouth's splendid apartment at Whitehall, luxuriously furnished, and with ten times the richness and glory beyond the Queen's; such massy pieces of plate, whole tables, and stands of incredible value."

Again, on Oct. 4, 1683. he writes: "Following his Majesty this morning through the gallery, I went, with the few who attended him, into the Duchess of Portsmouth's dressing-room within her bed-chamber, where she was in her morning loose garment, her maids combing her, newly out of bed, his Majesty and the gallants standing about her ; but that which engaged my curiosity, was the rich and splendid furniture of this woman's apartment, . . . whilst her Majesty's does not exceed some gentlemen's ladies in furniture and accommodation. Here I saw the new fabric of French tapestry, for design, tenderness of work, and incomparable imitation of the best paintings, beyond anything I had ever beheld. Some pieces had Versailles, St. Germains, and other palaces of the French King, with huntings, figures, and landscapes, exotic fowls, and all to the life rarely done. Then for Japan cabinets, skreens, pendule clocks, great vases of wrought plate, tables, stands, chimney-furniture, sconces, branches, braseras, etc., all of massy silver, and out of number, besides some of her Majesty's best paintings."

p. loi. Her only child by the King.

Charles Lennox, born July 29, 1672 ; created Aug. 9, 1675, Baron of Settrington, Earl of March, and Duke of Richmond, in Yorkshire, in the English peerage, and Nov. 9 following. Baron Methuen, Earl of Damley, and Duke of Lennox, in the peerage of Scotland. He married, Jan. 1692-3, Anne, second daughter of Francis, Lord Brudenell, and widow of Henry, second Lord Bela-syse, of Worlaby. He died at Goodwood, May 27,

1723.

Evelyn speaks of him in 1684 as " a very pretty boy," while Macky {Characters) in 1704, though he calls him

NOTES

"well shaped," adds "black complexion; much like King Charles." He adds also that he is "good-natured to a fault ; very well bred, and has many valuable things in him ; is an enemy to business ; very credulous," to which Dean Swift adds " a shallow Coxcomb." He apparently " had the easy pleasant manners of his father, but was an unprincipled adventurer through life, and was in his old age addicted to drunkenness and other vices " {Diet. Nat. Biog.).

p. 102. Her neighbour on one side.

Another near neighbour of Nelly's in Pall Mall in 1671 was Mary Knight, a celebrated singer and mistress of Charles H. Evelyn refers to her singing as incomparable, and adds that she had "the greatest reach of any English woman ; she had been lately roaming in Italy, and was much improv'd in that quality " {Diary, Dec. 2, 1674).

From the satires of the time we learn that she and Nelly had once been friends ; she is also represented as being rather a procuress for Charles H. than his mistress. In Etherege's The Lady of Pleasure, the King, on hearing of Nelly's charms, is made to say :—

"Goe Mrs. Knight, quoth he, and fetch her strait."

The same writer devotes another satire to a recital of the jealousies of the rival mistresses. A few lines may be cited :

" Pitty poor Nell that's haunted by Moll Knight. ***** Knight, cruel Knight, that once lay in my Breast, My constant Crony and eternal Guest, Th' Applauder of my Beauty and my Jest; She, She, that cruel She to France is fled, Yet lets me not enjoy my quiet Bed.

***** Even now in Terror on my Bed I lie, Send Dr. B[urne]t to me, or I die." 186

NOTES

p. 102. Nelly at first had only a lease of the house.

The story (probably a mere invention) is told by W. F. Ewin in a letter to the Rev. James Granger as follows :—

"My friend Dr. Heberden has built a fine house in Pall Mall, on the Palace side; he told me it was the only freehold house on that side ; that it was given by a long lease by Charles II. to Nell Gwyn, and upon her discovering it to be only a lease under the Crown, she returned him the lease and conveyances, saying she had always conveyed free under the Crown, and always would ; and would not accept it till it was conveyed free to her by an Act of Parliament made on and for that purpose. Upon Nell's death it was sold, and has been conveyed free ever since. I think Dr. Heberden purchased it of the Waldegrave family" (Granger's Letters, p. 308).

In Mr. Dasent's admirable History of St. James s Square (1895) is the following clear account of Nelly's residences in Pall Mall:—"Nell Gwyn did not actually live in St. James's Square, as Pennant states. In 1670 she did undoubtedly occupy a house on the north side of Pall Mall, at the corner leading into the Square, removing in the following year to a better house on the south side of the same street, and one door westward of Lady Portland's. (It is said that this house, now an Insurance Office, was occupied at one time by Mrs. Fitz-IIerbert, thus forming a characteristic link between the reigns of Charles II. and George IV.) . . . The house in the .Square wrongly attributed to her, and depicted in the Crace Collection of London Views in the British Museum, was the one actually inhabited by Moll Davis. Both houses are now merged in the site of the Army and Navy Club "(pp. 183-4).

p. 103. The imperious Co7tntess of Castlemaine.

How the virago Countess became a duchess ("by reason of her own personal virtues") is narrated with I'elightful humour in Hamilton's Memoirs of Count Gratnmont.

NOTES

p. 104. Mrs. Corey . . . Lady Harvey.

Pepys writes under date Jan. 15, 1668-9:—" Sir W. Coventry told me of the great factions at Court at this day, even to the sober engaging of great persons, and differences, and making the King cheap and ridiculous. It is about my Lady Harvy's being offended at Doll Common's acting of Sempronia, to imitate her; for which she got my Lord Chamberlain, her kinsman, to imprison Doll : when my Lady Castlemayne made the King to release her, and to order her to act it again, worse than ever, the other day, where the King himself was : and since it was acted again, and my Lady Harvy provided people to hiss her and fling oranges at her : but it seems the heat is come to a great height, and real troubles at Court about it."