Charles Hart and Nell Gwnyye
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Charles Hart (17th-century actor)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Charles Hart (1625 - August 18, 1683) was a British Restoration actor.
The date of his birth is conjectural, based on assertions that he
acted women's parts as a boy before the Commonwealth closing of the
theatres 1642-1660.
The well-known story that Hart was the illegitimate grandson of
Shakespeare's sister Joan is largely discredited. During the
Commonwealth, Hart was a soldier, and also did some clandestine
acting, for which he was harassed and on occasion imprisoned. Just
before the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, acting resumed on a
larger scale, and Hart seems to have been then a member of a company
performing at the Cockpit playhouse, led by Michael Mohun. As soon as
the King's Company was formed in 1660, Hart became its leading man,
specializing in playing the male half of witty, bantering couples.
This type of dialogue in Restoration comedy was largely influenced by
the talents and personalities of Hart and Nell Gwyn, who was his
mistress before she became Charles II's. Hart's natural dignity in
playing royal roles was also often commented on by contemporaries, and
in the heroic play he "was celebrated for superman roles, notably the
arrogant, bloodthirsty Almanzor in [John] Dryden's 'Conquest of
Granada"" (Dixon)
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Nell Gwynne
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Nell Gwyn (or Gwynn or Gwynne), was born Eleanor Gwynne, (February
1650 - 14 November 1687), the most famous of the many mistresses of
King Charles II, was called "pretty, witty Nell" by Samuel Pepys.
The daughter of Thomas Gywnne and his wife Rose, Nell Gwyn was
probably born in an alley near Covent Garden (though sometimes said to
have been born in Hereford or Oxford) and never learned to read or
write. Her mother ran a bawdyhouse, where Nell grew up. (Her mother
died because she passed out from too much brandy and drowned in a
brook.)
Having first made a living selling oranges in the pit of a London
theatre, where she also may have acted as pimp, procuring actresses
for the men in the audience, she herself became an actress (not at
that time a respectable profession) when she was fifteen. She was
taught her craft by one of the fine male actors of the time, Charles
Hart, and learned dancing from another, John Lacy; both were her
lovers.
As an actress, she had enormous success in partnership with Hart; they
were admired by theatre goers, including Samuel Pepys, especially in
'Secret Love, or the Maiden Queen', in which they made a sensation
(the part of Florimell was written for her, and portrays her
faithfully). When she was 19 she became the king's mistress, having
previously been the mistress of Lord Buckhurst and of Sir Charles
Sedley. Though often caricatured as an empty-headed woman, Dryden said
that her greatest attribute was her native wit, and she certainly
became a hostess who was able to keep the friendship of Dryden, the
playwright Aphra Behn, the Duke of Marlborough (another lover), John
Wilmot, Earl of Rochester and the king's other mistresses, who
included her fellow-actress Mary 'Moll' Davis (she is said to have
slipped a diuretic into Moll's drink on an evening when she was
expected in the king's bed).
Nell is especially remembered for one particularly apt witticism,
which was recounted in the memoirs of the Comte de Gramont,
remembering the events of 1681:
"Nell Gwynn was one day passing through the streets of Oxford, in her
coach, when the mob mistaking her for her rival, the Duchess of
Portsmouth, commenced hooting and loading her with every opprobrious
epithet. Putting her head out of the coach window, 'Good people,' she
said, smiling, 'you are mistaken; I am the Protestant whore.'"
This appeal to British bigotry made her immensely popular. The
particular Catholic whore (of the moment) was the Frenchwoman Louise
de Kérouaille, Duchess of Portsmouth.
Nell is also famous for another remark made to her coachman, who was
fighting with another man who had called her a whore. She broke up the
fight, saying, "I am a whore. Find something else to fight about."
By Charles, Nell had two sons, Charles Beauclerk (1670-1726) and James
Beauclerk (1671-1680). Charles was the first Earl of Burford, later
Duke of St. Albans. There are two variations about the former of how
he was given the Earldom of Burford, both of which are unverifiable.
The first (and most popular) is that when Charles was six years old,
on the arrival of the King, Nell said, "Come here, you little bastard,
and say hello to your father." When the King protested her calling
Charles that, she replied, "Your Majesty has given me no other name by
which to call him." In response, Charles made him the Earl of Burford,
and later Duke of St. Albans.
Another is that Nell grabbed Charles and hung him out of a window (or
over a river) and threatened to drop him unless Charles was granted a
peerage. The King cried out "God save the Earl of Burford!" and
subsequently officially created the peerage, saving his son's life.
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Based on the above sketches, consider whether anything of
Shakespeare's connection with the theater and perhaps royalty had to
do with procuring and grooming not horses but whores. The bits about
Gwynne as an actual orange girl in the pits and being taught her craft
as an actress-procuress by Charles Hart, a possible Shakespeare
relative, is intriguing, plus the historical fact of becoming the
king's mistress.
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