Born into poverty around 1650 — possibly in a brothel — Nell Gwyn began selling oranges at London’s Drury Lane Theatre as a young teenager: the seventeenth-century equivalent of hawking popcorn at the movies. In doing so, she became immersed in the theatrical world by default, absorbing the rhythms of the stage, its language, and the larger-than-life personalities who inhabited it.
She also happened to find herself in the right place at the right time. This was The Restoration — not just the restoration of the monarchy, but the restoration of all things fun after the dour austerity of Oliver Cromwell’s Puritan rule. When Charles II was restored to the throne in 1660, England threw itself enthusiastically into hedonism. Theatres reopened, music and public entertainments flourished, fashion became extravagant, and the royal court quickly earned a reputation for scandal and excess. Charles himself was legendary for his mistresses and enthusiasm for pleasure in all its forms.
Also at this time, women were permitted to perform professionally on the stage, allowing them to claim for themselves the female roles that had been always filled by boys. And Restoration theatre was bawdy and loud and wildly popular — the perfect environment for the pretty, witty Nell, as described by Samuel Pepys himself, who adored her performances. It would seem Nell was a natural, with a knack for comedic timing just at the moment when London was ready for a rollicking good laugh.
By the end of the 1660’s, Nell had caught the attention of the king himself. She became one of Charles II’s most beloved mistresses giving birth to their first son, Charles, in 1670, followed by a second, James, at the end of 1671, who, unfortunately, didn’t live past his sixth birthday.
When Charles lay dying in 1685, he famously pleaded with his brother and successor, James II , to “let not poor Nelly starve.” And James did not, granting her a substantial pension which she, sadly, didn’t get to enjoy for long. Nell died just two years after the king, at 37, most likely from complications related to syphilis.
Nell Gwyn remains to this day, a vivid figure of Restoration England: the orange seller who beguiled a king, the actress who rose from poverty to become the it-girl of her time, perhaps the only royal mistress ever to be remembered with genuine affection. Disdainful of court politics, audacious, outspoken, she was always unapologetically herself, leaving behind a legacy far larger than her short life — one that reverberates with wicked glee throughout the history books to this day.