The work exposed her to multiple aspects of theatre life and to London's higher society: this was after all the "King's playhouse" and Charles frequently enough attended the performances. The orange-girls would also serve as messengers between men in the audience and actresses backstage; they received monetary tips for this role and certainly some of these messages would end in sexual assignations. Whether this activity rose to the level of may be a matter of semantics. Some sources think it also likely that Gwyn prostituted herself during her time as an orange-girl.
Actress
The new theatres were the first in the to feature actresses; earlier, women's parts were played by men. Gwyn joined the rank of actresses at Bridges Street when she was fourteen, less than a year after becoming an orange-girl. If her good looks, strong clear voice, and lively wit were responsible for catching the eye of Killigrew, she still had to prove herself clever enough to succeed as an actress. This was no mean task in the Restoration theatre; the limited pool of audience members meant that very short runs were the norm for plays and fifty different productions might be mounted in the nine-month season lasting from September to June. Gwyn was her entire life (signing her initials "E.G." would be the extent of her ability to read or write), adding an extra complication to the memorisation of her lines.
She was taught her craft by one of the fine male actors of the time, , and learned dancing from another, ; both were rumored by satirists of the time to be her lovers, but if she had such a relationship with Lacy (Beauclerk thinks it unlikely), it was kept much more discreet than her well-known affair with Hart.
Gwyn was slated to play a part in Killigrew's Thomaso, or The Wanderer in November 1664, but the play seems to have been cancelled. Instead, she made her first recorded appearance on-stage in March 1665, in 's , playing Cydaria, daughter of and love interest to , played by her real-life lover Charles Hart. Pepys, whose diary usually has great things to say about Gwyn, was displeased with her performance in this same part two years later: "...to the King's playhouse, and there saw 'The Indian Emperour;' where I find Nell come again, which I am glad of; but was most infinitely displeased with her being put to act the Emperour's daughter; which is a great and serious part, which she do most basely."
Gwyn herself seems to agree that drama did not suit her, to judge from the lines she was later made to say in the epilogue to a drama:
We have been all ill-us'd, by this day's poet.
'Tis our joint cause; I know you in your hearts
Hate serious plays, as I do serious parts.
It was in the new form of that Nell Gwyn would become a star. In May 1665, she appeared opposite Hart in James Howard's comedy All Mistaken, or the Mad Couple. This was the first of many appearances in which Gwyn and Hart played the "gay couple", a form that would become a frequent theme in restoration comedies. The gay couple, broadly defined, is a pair of witty, antagonistic lovers, he generally a fearing the entrapment of marriage and she feigning to do the same in order to keep her lover at arm's length. Theatre historian Elizabeth Howe goes so far as to credit the enduring success of the gay couple on the Restoration stage entirely to "the talent and popularity of a single actress, Nell Gwyn".
The shut down the Bridges Street theatre, along with most of the city, from the summer of 1665 through the autumn of 1666. Gwyn and her mother spent some of this time in , following the King and his court. The King's Company is presumed to have mounted some private theatrical entertainments for the court during this time away from the virulent capital. Gwyn and the other ten "women comedians in His Majesty's Theatre" were issued the right (and the cloth) to wear the King's at the start of this exile, proclaiming them official servants of the King.
After the theatres reopened, Gwyn and Hart returned to play role after role that fit the mold of the gay couple, including in James Howard's The English Monsieur (December 1666), Richard Rhodes' Flora's Vagaries, an adaptation of 's The Chances by , and then in their greatest success, Secret Love, or The Maiden Queen. This play, a written by the theatre's house dramatist, , was performed in March 1667. It was a great success: King Charles "graced it with the Title of His Play" and Pepys' praise was effusive:
... to the King's house to see 'The Maiden Queen', a new play of Dryden's, mightily commended for the regularity of it, and the strain and wit; and the truth is, there is a comical part done by Nell, which is Florimell, that I never can hope ever to see the like done again, by man or woman. The King and Duke of York were at the play. But 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 notions and carriage of a spark the most that ever I saw any man have. It makes me, I confess, admire her.
Many comedies of the day, like The Maiden Queen, featured , where the actresses appeared in men's clothes under one pretense or another; if nothing else this could draw an audience eager to see the women show off their figures in the more form-fitting male attire. The attraction had another dynamic: the theatres sometimes had a hard time holding onto their actresses, as they were swept up to become the kept of the aristocracy. In 1667, Nell Gwyn made such a match with , titled Lord Buckhurst at that time. She supposedly caught his eye during an April performance of All Mistaken, or The Mad Couple, especially in one scene in which, to escape a hugely fat suitor able to move only by rolling, she rolls across the stage herself, her feet toward the audience and her flying about. A satire of the time describes this and also Hart's position now, in the face of competition from the upper echelons of society:
Yet Hart more manners had, then not to tender
When noble Buckhurst beg'd him to surrender.
He saw her roll the stage from side to side
And, through her drawers the powerful charm descry'd.
Beauclerk describes Buckhurst: "Cultured, witty, satirical, dissolute, and utterly charming". He was one of a handful of court wits, the "merry gang" as named by . Sometime after the end of April and her last recorded role that season (in Robert Howard's The Surprisal), Gwyn and Buckhurst left London for a country holiday in , accompanied by , another wit in the merry gang. Pepys reports the news on 13 July: "[Mr. Pierce tells us] Lord Buckhurst hath got Nell away from the King's house, lies with her, and gives her £100 a year, so she hath sent her parts to the house, and will act no more." However, Nell Gwyn was acting once more in late August, and her brief affair with Buckhurst had ended.
Early years with King Charles II
Late in 1667, took on the role of unofficial manager for Gwyn's love life. He aimed to provide King Charles II someone who would move aside , his principal current mistress (and Buckingham's cousin), moving Buckingham closer to King's ear. The plan failed; reportedly, Gwyn asked £500 a year to be kept and this was rejected as too dear a price. Buckingham had a backup, though: he was also involved in successful maneuvers to match the King with , an actress with the rival . Davis would be Nell's first rival for the King. Several anonymous satires from the time relate a tale of Gwyn, with the help of her friend , slipping a powerful into Davis' tea-time cakes before an evening when she was expected in the king's bed.
Romance between the King and Gwyn began in April of 1668, if the stories are correct: Gwyn was attending a performance of 's She Wou'd if She Cou'd at the theatre in . In the next box was the King, who from accounts was more interested in flirting with Nell than watching the play. Charles invited Nell and her date (a Mr. Villiers, a cousin of Buckingham's) to supper, along with his brother . The anecdote turns charming if perhaps apocryphal at this point: the King, after supper, discovered that he had no money on him; nor did his brother. Gwyn had to foot the bill. "Od's fish!" she exclaimed, in an imatation of the King's manner of speaking, "but this is the poorest company I ever was in!"
Previously having been the mistress of Charles Hart and Charles Sackville, she jokingly titled the King "her Charles the Third". By the summer of 1668, Gwyn's affair with the King was well-known, though there was little reason to believe it would last for long. She continued to act at the King's House, her new notoriety drawing larger crowds and encouraging the playwrights to craft more roles specifically for her. June 1668 found her in Dryden's An Evening's Love, or The Mock Astrologer, and in July she played in Lacy's The Old Troop. This was a farce about a company of soldiers during the , based on Lacy's own experiences. Possibly, Nell Gwyn's father had served in the same company, and Gwyn's part — the company whore — was based on her own mother. As her commitment to the king increased, though, her acting career slowed, and she had no recorded parts between January and June of 1669, when she played Valeria in Dryden's very successful tragedy .
King Charles II had a considerable number of mistresses through his life, both short affairs and committed arrangements. He also had a wife, the , who was in an awkward position in several ways: made pregnant, she consistently , and she had little or no sway over Charles' choice to have mistresses. This had come to a head shortly after their 1662 marriage, in a confrontation between Catherine and Barbara Palmer that became known as the "Bedchamber crisis". Ostracised at court and with most of her retinue sent back to her home nation of Portugal, Catherine had been left with little choice but to acquiesce to Charles' mistresses being granted semi-official standing.
During Gwyn's first years as Charles' mistress, there was little competition in the way of other mistresses: Barbara Palmer was on her way out in most respects and other mistresses, such as Moll Davis, kept quietly away from the spotlight of public appearances or . Nell gave birth to her first son, Charles, on . This was the King's seventh son — by five separate mistresses.
. Painting by , c. 1681.
Several months later, came to England from France, ostensibly to serve as a maid of honour to Queen Catherine, but also to become another mistress to King Charles, probably by design on both the French and English sides. She and Gwyn would prove rivals for many years to come. They were opposites in personality and mannerism; Louise a proud woman of noble birth used to the sophistication of , Nell a spirited and pranking ex-orange-wench. Gwyn nicknamed Louise "Squintabella" for her looks and the "Weeping Willow" for her tendencies to sob. Their relationship was not strictly adversarial; they were known to get together for tea and cards, for example. was the popular game at the time, and Gwyn was a frequent — and high-stakes — gambler.
Gwyn returned to the stage again in late 1670, something Beauclerk calls an "extraordinary thing to do" for a mistress with a royal child. Her return was in Dryden's , a two-part epic produced in December 1670 and January 1671. This may have been her last play; 1671 was almost certainly her last season. Nell Gwyn's theatrical career spanned seven years and ended when she was just 21.
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After the stage
In February 1671, Nell moved into a brick at 79 . The property was owned by the crown and its current resident, Nicholas Leke, 2nd , was instructed to transfer the lease to Gwyn. It would be her main residence for the rest of her life.
Gwyn seemed unsatisfied with being a leasee only – in 1673 we are told in a letter of that "Madam Gwinn complains she has no house yett." Gwyn is said to have complained that "she had always conveyed free under the Crown, and always would; and would not accept [the house] till it was conveyed free to her by an Act of Parliament." In 1676, Gwyn would in fact be granted the to the property, which would remain in her family until 1693; as of 1960 the property was still the only one on the south side of Pall Mall not owned by the Crown.
Nell Gwyn gave birth to her second child by the King, James, on . Sent to school in when he was six, he would die there in 1681. The circumstances of the child's life in Paris and the cause of his death are both unknown, one of the few clues being that he died "of a sore leg", which Beaclerk (p. 300) speculates could mean anything from an accident to poison.
There are two variations about how the elder of her two children by Charles was given the Earldom of Burford, both of which are unverifiable.
The first (and most popular) is that when Charles was six years old, on the arrival of the King, Nell said, "Come here, you little bastard, and say hello to your father." When the King protested her calling Charles that, she replied, "Your Majesty has given me no other name by which to call him." In response, Charles made him the Earl of Burford, and later Duke of St. Albans. Another is that Nell grabbed Charles and hung him out of a window (or over a river) and threatened to drop him unless Charles was granted a peerage. The King cried out "God save the Earl of Burford!" and subsequently officially created the peerage, saving his son's life. Shortly afterwards, the King granted Burford House, on the edge of the in , to Nell and their son. She lived there when the King was in residence at the .
King Charles died on . , obeying his brother's deathbed wish, "Let not poor Nelly starve," eventually paid most of Gwyn's debts off and gave her a pension of 1500 pounds a year. He also paid off the on Gwyn's lodge in , which would remain in the Beauclerk family until 1940. At the same time, James applied pressure to Nell and her son Charles to convert to , something she resisted.
In March of 1687, Gwyn suffered a that left her paralysed on one side. In May, a second stroke left her confined to the bed in her Pall Mall house; she made out her will on 9 July. Nell Gwyn died on , at ten in the evening, less than three years after the King's death. She was 37 years old.
She was buried in the Church of , at the corner of , , after a funeral in which , the , preached a sermon on the text of 15:7 "Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance."
Legacy
Though Nell Gwyn was often caricatured as an empty-headed woman, said that her greatest attribute was her native wit, and she certainly became a hostess who was able to keep the friendship of Dryden, the playwright , (another lover), and the king's other mistresses.
Nell is especially remembered for one particularly apt witticism, which was recounted in the memoirs of the Comte de Gramont, remembering the events of :
Nell Gwynn was one day passing through the streets of , in her coach, when the mob mistaking her for her rival, the Duchess of Portsmouth, commenced hooting and loading her with every opprobrious epithet. Putting her head out of the coach window, "Good people", she said, smiling, "you are mistaken; I am the Protestant whore."
This appeal to British bigotry made her immensely popular. The whore was still the Frenchwoman Louise de Kérouaille, who had been raised to in 1673.
Nell is also famous for another remark made to her coachman, who was fighting with another man who had called her a whore. She broke up the fight, saying, "I am a whore. Find something else to fight about."
Nell was the only one of Charles II's many mistresses to be genuinely popular with the English public. It is thought to have been Nell who persuaded the king to build the in for ex-servicemen.
played the part of Nell Gwyn in the 2004 film . Gwyn is a supporting character but some of her history and her current (at the time the movie portrays) role as the King's mistress is mentioned.
, the wife of leader is thought to be a descendant of Nell.
