The Dukes (22 page)

Her second son, Henry, is the one who concerns us. Just as Mon­mouth, the King's son by Lucy Walter, had been married off at
a
tender age to the rich heiress of the Buccleuchs, so this infant was wedded, at the age of nine, to Isabella, five-year-old daughter and heiress of the Earl of Arlington, and owner of Euston Hall,
a
splendid estate near Thetford in Norfolk. Through her, the boy would have estate and income; for her part, she would gain title and status: it was precisely the same arrangement for the same reasons that the Monmouth/Buccleuch marriage took place. According to the marri­age laws prevailing, the marriage was void if either party be under the age of seven years, but perfectly valid if they be aged between seven years and fourteen years, with this condition: at fourteen in the boy's case, or at twelve in the girl's, either of them might withdraw their consent and the marriage was automatically voided. But if they both agreed to continue, the original ceremony was still valid.
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It is as well to bear these laws in mind when we read of so many infant weddings; it explains why a good number of children elect to re­marry when they are older and understand what they are doing. In Restoration England, fourteen for a boy and twelve for a girl was quite old enough in a matter such as this.

So, the son of Barbara Villiers, Duchess of Cleveland, was mar­ried in August 1672; two weeks later he was created Earl of Euston, the title taken from the country seat of his wife's family, where his descendants still live and still bear this title. In 1675 he was created Duke of Grafton, at the age of twelve. In 1679 the children went through a second marriage ceremony. He was now sixteen, and she was twelve, the minimum legal age to marry with consent.

The subsequent career of the 1st Duke of Grafton was short, but laudable. Evelyn wrote that he was "exceedingly handsome, by far surpassing any of the King's other natural issue", but he had reser­vations about his manners, and thought he had been "rudely bred". "Were he polished ... he would be a tolerable person."
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He was the opposite of a dandy. He loved the sea, and rose to be vice-admiral of England. He was also, not surprisingly considering his parentage, short-tempered and impulsive. He fought a duel with the brother of the Earl of Shrewsbury, for which he was pronounced guilty of man­slaughter. But when he died at the siege of Cork, aged only twenty- seven, he was much lamented as a fine soldier and a rugged, honest man.The Duke of Grafton was only five years old (and not yet ennobled) when the King began to taste the earthy charms of his most famous mistress, Nell Gwynn. She is one of the most enduring popular heroines of England, her irrepressible spirit, impudence, good humour, and Cockney frankness as alive in folklore now as they were in 1668. She is also the ancestress of the Duke of St Albans.

Nell was born probably in London (some say Hereford); she was a Cockney, working-class character, bold, uninhibited, friendly, and amusing. She was completely illiterate; the most she could bring herself to write was E.G. (for "Eleanor Gwynn") at the foot of a letter written for her by someone else. It is perfectly true that her career began at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, selling oranges. In the popular mind this is assigned to tradition but it is fact.

By virtue of an affair with one of the actors, she progressed from the pit to the stage, where she eventually became one of the most celebrated actresses of her day. Our knowledge of her career we owe largely to Samuel Pepys, who found her delightful and called her "pretty witty Nell". She was apparently an excellent comedienne, but embarrassingly bad when she tried heavy drama. It was at this point in her life, sometime in 1668, that the King "asked for" her; in other words, he knew her as an actress, not as an orange-girl. More accurately still, he knew her as a whore; all the theatres were as Burnet says, "nests of prostitution". Nell never made any attempt to disguise this bald truth, and the people loved her for it. She was rough, candid, honest. She could so easily have had her head turned by the royal favour. She could have assumed airs and graces, tried to make herself a "lady" with fine clothes. She could have softened her Cockney accent, pruned her rough speech of its worst swear-words, tried to compete with the ladies at Court. Charles would have grown bored. He could have any number of grand ladies; what he wanted was a change. And Nell's vitality, wit, honesty, her lack of pretence were intoxicating to him. Nell forever remained the rough diamond that she was, teasing the King, amusing him, shocking the other ladies with their noses in the air, irresistibly impertinent and iconoclastic. Evelyn spoke for the Court when he called her "an impudent comedian". It was a happy love affair, which gave the King years of pleasure and relaxed enjoyment. It could not have been more pointedly contrasted with the tempestuous affair with Barbara. It should never be forgotten that Charles II had spent years in exile, away from the glitter of the Court and the forced chatter of aristocracy. He already knew the people, and recognised in Nell the qualities which he had previously valued. He was the most approach­able King England has ever had. He liked to walk in the park for hours every day, feeding the ducks, talking with anyone who was about, strolling and telling stories. There was nothing pompous or remote about him. Nelly responded to that cheeky side of his nature which was amused to see the haughty and pretentious discomfited. He was at heart always a rascal, and Nell became his playmate.

Nell cost much less than Barbara, too. Of course, she had an allowance, it was part of the bargain that she should be paid, and Charles was not the kind of man to refuse. But she did not pester for vast sums merely to satisfy her vanity. She never forgot that she was a woman of the people, who had learnt in a harsh school the lessons of survival, and was used to being satisfied with life. The King gave her a residence and an income, and she did not ask for more.

Above all, her uninhibited teasing of the King was to the merry monarch a constant joy. She would give boisterous parties at her house at 79 Pall Mall, where the King and the Duke of York mixed with friends from the theatre and prostitutes from Drury Lane. They would all get drunk, and singing would go on well into the night. Once, Nell asked a singer called Bowman and his crew to entertain the royal guests. When they had finished, the King said how much he had enjoyed it. "Then, Sir," said Nell, "to show that you do not speak like a courtier, I hope you will make the performers a handsome present." The King rummaged in his pocket but had no money with him. The Duke of York did not have enough either. Nell turned to her friends and, feigning surprise, she said, "Odd's fish, what company am I got into."
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She was wonderfully indiscreet, and total' -"ithout respect for her successor Louise de Kerouaille, who did assume the dignities she thought were due to a royal mistress. When once she was mobbed at Oxford, the crowd believing that her carriage contained Louise (whom they loathed and distrusted), Nell put her head out and said, "Pray, good people, be civil; I am the
Protestant
whore."

For the first two years of her royal liaison, Nelly had no serious rival. In 1670 she bore the King a son, Charles, who would one day found the line of the dukes of St Albans. By a dramatic coincidence, as we shall see, on the very night that Nelly was in labour, the King was on his way to Dover to meet his beloved sister Henrietta ("Minette") who was sailing from France. One of her entourage was a pretty baby- faced beauty called Louise de Kerouaille. Charles was captivated by his new mistress as his son by Nelly was being born.

The rivalry between the pretentious French intruder and the down-to-earth Cockney actress entertained London for years. Nelly was a merciless tease, and would not allow the newcomer to get away with any
folies de grandeur.
Louise simply could not understand why the King should want to spend any time at all with such a low person as Nell; she stifled with rage to find herself competing with a common whore, a "noisy ill-mannered creature from the London slums",
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whom she would rather not be obliged to look at. She was haughty, disdainful. The London people were naturally whole­heartedly on Nelly's side. They thought Louise was a French spy (and in that they were not far wrong); they distrusted her; they could not pronounce her name, so she became known as "Mrs Carwell", which further infuriated her.

When the Chevalier de Rohan was executed in France, Louise appeared at Court in deepest black, to signify that she was in mourning for a dear and close relation. The next day, Nelly turned up in black also. Louise asked her why, and Nell said she was in mourning for the Cham of Tartary, who was just about as closely related to her as was the Chevalier de Rohan to Louise. Louise swept off in a sulk, while Nell and the King laughed.
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Madame de Sevigne reported a statement of Nell's in one of her famous letters. "This Duchess," said Nell (Louise was by now Duchess of Portsmouth), "acts the fine lady; she says she is related to everyone in France; as soon as any great nobleman dies she goes into deep mourning. Right, if she is of such nobility, why is she a whore? She ought to die of shame. As for me, it's my trade, I don't set myself up as anything better."
³⁸

In the same letter, Madame de Sevigne gives us this vivid portrait of Louise's mortifications at the hands of Nell. "But she did not foresee that a young actress was to cross her path, and to bewitch the King. She is powerless to detach him from this actress. He divides his money, his time, and his health between the pair. The actress is as proud as the Duchess of Portsmouth, whom she jeers at, mimics, and makes fun of. She braves her to her face, and often takes the King away from her, and boasts that she is the better-loved of the two. She is young, wild, bold, lewd, and ready-witted. She sings and dances and frankly makes love her business."
³⁷

By 1673, the new French mistress had been created Duchess of Portsmouth. The King's second son by Barbara Villiers had been given the titles Duke of Grafton and Earl of Euston
_v
and was safely married, though still a child, to a rich heiress. Barbara herself had become Duchess of Cleveland, and another of her sons had been created Duke of Southampton. Meanwhile, the faithful and amusing

Nell was still plain Nell Gwynn, and her sons (there were now two) still nameless. They remained so for another three years.

There are two stories which tell how Nell's eldest son eventually received his title; one is traditional, but unverifiable, the other more likely. According to the first, Nell grew so impatient with the King that she grabbed hold of his six-year-old son, held him out of the window, and threatened to drop him if the King would not give him a name. "Stop, Nelly," shouted the King. "God save the Earl of Burford." The second story originates with the historian Granger and is more credible. Nelly said to her son, "Come here, you little bastard, and say hello to your father." The King remonstrated with her: "Don't call him that, Nelly," to which she replied, "Your Majesty has given me no other name to call him by."
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So the child was created Earl of Burford and Baron Heddington on 27th December 1676. In 1683, when he was not yet thirteen, he was created Duke of St Albans, and the following year, Hereditary Grand Falconer of England. This office, which entails looking after the King's hawks, still belongs by right to the Duke of St Albans.

Nell herself received no title. There was a rumour that she was to be created Countess of Greenwich in 1685, but the King died before he could put his intention into effect. It is just as well that he did not. A title would not have suited her - perhaps she would not have accepted it - and would have offended the aristocracy. She may have made the King happy, but she was still an illiterate girl from the slums, and it would not have been considered fitting that she should be elevated to the peerage.

A far more appropriate memorial to her is the erection of Chelsea Royal Hospital, which tradition asserts was Nell's idea.
³⁹
There is no proof that she had anything to do with it, but the tradition is too solid to collapse beneath the scepticism of historians. She was known to be kindly, warm-hearted, charitable and benevolent. The most one can say is that it would have been entirely characteristic of her to be involved in such a scheme. It accords with the temper and tone of her will, to which there was a codicil asking her son to "lay out twenty pounds yearly for the releasing of poor debtors out of prison every Christmas day" (a request which, like the others, he honoured).
⁴⁰
Her own father had died in a debtors' gaol in Oxford.

Another instance of Nell's generosity and kindness is witnessed by a letter, one of the few we have, and written in another hand of course, which bears the date 14th April 1684.
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It is addressed to Mrs Jennings (probably the mother of Frances and Sarah Jennings, who later became Duchesses of Tyrconnel and Marlborough),
⁴²
and one sentence
says,
"Good madam, speak to Mr Beaver to come down too, that I may bespeak a ring for the Duke of Grafton, before he goes into France." The Duke of Grafton was now twenty-one years old, but the important point is that he was the son of Charles II by a former mistress, Barbara Villiers, and that Nell Gwynn wanted to give him a going-away present.

The King had granted Nell a house called Bestwood Park, which stayed in the family of St Albans until 1940. When she died in 1687 she left her estate to "my dear natural son, His Grace the Duke of St Albans", with specific codicils benefiting her servants, her nurses, and has already been noted, the poor.