Nell Gwyn, vivacious mistress of Charles II

by Bryan Bevan

Nell Gwyn was an actress and later mistress to Charles II King of England,1630-1685. Even after three cen­turies Nell Gwyn still holds an en­dur­ing place in the hearts of the British peo­ple. She is re­garded with more af­fec­tion than any of her ri­vals, largely for­got­ten today, who were mis­tresses of Charles II. For al­most sev­en­teen years she main­tained her po­si­tion at Court, de­light­ing the fickle monarch with her gai­ety, wit and ir­re­sistible charm. He never tired of her as he did of Moll Davis, an ac­tress in the Duke's The­atre, who had pre­ten­sions to be a lady. Nell never pre­tended to be other than what she was; a lit­tle cock­ney of the Lon­don streets, who had risen to fame owing to her great abil­ity and fas­ci­nat­ing per­son­al­ity. Her very hon­esty of vice, her utter lack of pre­tence, her saucy wit cap­ti­vated her con­tem­po­raries as they have cap­ti­vated us ever since.