Nell Gwyn
(1651?-1687), Actress; mistress of Charles IIEleanor ('Nell') Gwyn
Sitter associated with 30 portraits
Eleanor Gywn, or 'Pretty witty Nell', as Pepys called her, came to London as an orange-seller, and rose to become one of the leading comic actresses of the day, and mistress to the King, Charles II. The playwright Dryden supplied her with a series of saucy, bustling parts, ideally suited to her talents. She had two sons by the King, and the elder, Charles Beauclerk, was created Duke of St Albans. She was said to have been remembered by Charles on his deathbed with the words 'Let not poor Nelly starve'.
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