One of the pleasures of the Royal Mistress Challenge is reading different novels about the same person, so as to compare and contrast. So I was delighted to learn that there are two new novels about Nell Gwyn coming out early next year.
Who was Nell Gwyn(n)?
Wild and Indiscreet
Nell was around seventeen or eighteen years old when she became mistress to Charles II. In one respect she is an unusual heroine for a genre dominated by royal and aristocratic characters: she came from the people. She may even have been brought up in a brothel, and she sold oranges in the theatre before becoming an actress. She had two sons by Charles: the eldest, Charles Beauclerk, was the first Duke of St Albans and ancestor of the present-day Duke. Nell herself, unlike rivals Louise de Keroualle and Barbara Castlemaine, was never given a title, although there may have a plan to create her Countess of Greenwich which was foiled by King Charles’s death.
Nell didn’t stop acting just because she had left the stage. She kept the King in stitches with her impersonations of the courtiers, and was described by historian Gilbert Burnet as:
the indiscreet and wildest creature that ever was in a Court.
Did Nell Gwyn really look like this?
It’s hard to know. This is an engraving by Thomas Wright after a portrait by Peter Lely, a very fashionable painter who tended to homogenise his female sitters. Many other portraits have been identified as depicting Nell Gwyn – more than any other personage of the 1660s and 1670s – but few can be proved to portray her. The confusion over identification makes it harder to know what she looked like.
Here Nell is depicted as a shepherdess, a very popular pose at the time. What distinguishes her portrait from that of her more virtuous contemporaries is her revealing dress – it seems to have been acceptable only for mistresses to show their breasts in portraits. Her hairstyle, known as a hurluberlu, dates the original portrait to the early 1670s. The hurluberlu was invented by a Parisian hairdresser, Mme Martin, in 1671. The aristocratic letter-writer Madame de Sevigné ridiculed the style at first, claiming it made women’s head look like cabbages, but changed her mind and in April of that year sent her daughter instructions on how to create the style:
This hair style is just what will suit you, you will look like an angel and it is quickly done… Now just imagine the hair parted peasant fashion to within two inches of the back roll; the hair each side is cut in layers and made into round loose curls which hang about an inch below the ear; it looks very young and pretty – two bouquets of hair on each side. Don’t cut your hair too short because the curls require a lot of hair as several ladies have found out and are an example to others. Ribbons are arranged in the usual fashion and a large curl on top which sometimes falls down the neck. I don’t know if I have explained it very well. I shall have a doll dressed with this hair style and send it to you.
Translation quoted from Nicole Kipar’s Late 17th Century Clothing History
The Darling Strumpet by Gillian Bagwell
The Darling Strumpet will be released by Berkley Publishing Group on 4 January 2011 .
From London’s slums to its bawdy playhouses, The Darling Strumpet transports the reader to the tumultuous world of seventeenth-century England, charting the meteoric rise of the dazzling Nell Gwynn, who captivates the heart of King Charles II—and becomes one of the century’s most famous courtesans. Witty and beautiful, Nell was born into poverty but is drawn into the enthralling world of the theater, where her saucy humor and sensuous charm earn her a place in the King’s Company. As one of the first actresses in the newly-opened playhouses, she catapults to fame, winning the affection of legions of fans—and the heart of the most powerful man in all of England, the King himself. Surrendering herself to Charles, Nell will be forced to maneuver the ruthless and shifting allegiances of the royal court—and discover a world of decadence and passion she never imagined possible.
Exit the Actress by Priya Parmar
Exit the Actress (Touchstone Fireside) will hit the bookstores just under a month later, on 1 February 2011.
While selling oranges in the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, sweet and sprightly Ellen “Nell” Gwyn impresses the theater’s proprietors with a wit and sparkle that belie her youth and poverty. She quickly earns a place in the company, narrowly avoiding the life of prostitution to which her sister has already succumbed. As her roles evolve from supporting to starring, the scope of her life broadens as well. Soon Ellen is dressed in the finest fashions, charming the theatrical, literary, and royal luminaries of Restoration England.
Ellen grows up on the stage, experiencing first love and heartbreak and eventually becoming the mistress of Charles II. Despite his reputation as a libertine, Ellen wholly captures his heart—and he hers—but even the most powerful love isn’t enough to stave off the gossip and bitter court politics that accompany a royal romance.
Telling the story through a collection of vibrant seventeenth-century voices ranging from Ellen’s diary to playbills, letters, gossip columns, and home remedies, Priya Parmar brings to life the story of an endearing and delightful heroine.
One Royal Mistress, Two Covers
The covers of both these novels, coming out in the cold winter months, are dominated by warm reds, pinks and oranges. Exit the Actress uses roses as a symbol of femininity and voluptuousness, The Darling Strumpet, the oranges Nell used to sell. The sophisticated layout of Exit the Actress emphasises the image of the theatre; The Darling Strumpet, with its emphasis on Nell’s bosom, is closer to how she was portrayed in her own time.
We wish the best of luck to debut authors Gillian and Priya!
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Source for information about Nell Gwyn: Painted Ladies: Women at the Court of Charles II, ed. Catharine MacLeod and Julia Marciari Alexander, exhibition catalogue, National Portrait Gallery, London: 2001
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The Royal Mistress Challenge 2011
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Do you know of any more royal mistress books, fiction or non-fiction, to be released in 2011? Let us know at the Misadventures of Moppet!
I’m blanking on the title (The King’s Favorite maybe?) but I read a book last year about Nell Gwyn. I enjoyed the character but not so much the writing. I’ll keep these two in mind for the challenge.
Could have been this one?
I have read a Nell Gwyn book but it was way back when – one of the Lozania Prole books. Think it might have been Pretty, Witty Nell. I was about 13 and the opening scene in the brothel has really stuck in my memory – none of the rest of the book has though.
Completely off-topic, but I can’t resist. Hurluberlu – what a fabulous word!
Isn’t it great? I have no idea how that style got named!
Thank you, dear Mistress Moppet! Thrilled to be here! Hurluburlu! Could that have developed into hurly-burly or vice versa? I will have to investigate…
Gillian, thanks so much for stopping by! Yes, I wonder if the words are related – do let us know if you find out!
I wonder if ‘hurluberlu’ had the sense of ‘pell-mell’ in that the curls were riotous and untamed, as opposed to the more rigid ringlets worn in the 1660s.
I am looking forward to reading The Darling Strumpet. The other title is new to me!
Interesting. I doubt I’ll have the time, what with college and other books, many of them heavy, but I may try to check this out.
I discovered quite a few books through college: La religieuse by Diderot and Eugenie Grandet by Balzac are two which come to mind. I absolutely loved La religieuse. Hope you enjoy some of the books you have to read!