THE  NOT  WHAT   YOU'D  CALL  PRIVATE  LIFE

OF

NELL GWYNNE

Carol Ann Martin

The Minister for Old Stuff That Occasionally Turns Up today refused to confirm that a recently found notebook once belonged to Samuel Pepys.

The notebook, discovered inside a seventeenth century grandfather clock, is strongly believed to be a hitherto unknown volume of Pepys’s famous diary. When pressed by the press at his monthly press conference to state whether or not this is indeed the most significant historical find since Richard III turned up in a car park, the minister replied, “That’s for me to know and you to find out.”

Samuel Pepys:

Well, of course it’s my bloody diary! Three hundred and fifty years I’ve been wondering where I left it and now I know. It was in my coat pocket when Lady Castlemaine shoved my clothes into the clock after me, wasn’t it? And what I was doing in the clock is a personal matter between me, Lady Castlemaine and whoever she was having it off with at the time. Can’t remember who it was, but he came home unexpectedly from The Gentlemen’s Club (No Dogs or Women) after he realised he wasn’t wearing his wig. He was, however, wearing his sword and I wasn’t wearing anything, so an immediate departure did seem the best course of action.

Barbara, Lady Castlemaine:

Mr Pepys, darling, is that you? How come? I thought we were both supposed to be The Dear Departed, but here we are again. It’s that book that’s done it, isn’t it? As soon as that turns up, we turn up. And I don’t suppose it’s just you and me, either. Sooner or later, no matter what that peculiar little man from the ministry says, sooner or later, heaven knows what will emerge. It depends what you wrote in your silly diary, I suppose.

But no, you don’t have to tell me. It’ll be all about her, won’t it? It was always about her…slut-face, common-as-muck, smelly little Nelly Gwynne from Coal Yard Alley. I mean to say, what kind of an address is Coal Yard Alley, Covent Garden? Oh yes, trés beau monde if you don’t mind rat poo in your bed and chamber pots emptied out of the window. Hot and cold sewage running down the gutters I heard. But we all have to live somewhere, I suppose.

Her father died in a debtors’ prison, you know. But of course you know, everybody knew. I’m not repeating gossip, I’m simply stating an historical fact. Just the same as it’s a fact that her mother ran a bawdy house. So we don’t have to ask what Nell did for a living do we? I mean, I know she always said that her job was to serve strong drinks to the gentlemen, but if that’s all she served to them, my name’s not Barbara Villiers-Palmer, First Duchess of Cleveland, Countess Castlemaine, Baroness Nonsuch.

But Samuel, pumpkin, there’s something that probably isn’t in your notebook, although it ought to be.

You remember that enormous do they put on in May 1660, when Charles came home to pick up his crown after eleven years in exile? All that bell-ringing, flower-flinging and choral-singing, the cannons booming, the bonfires burning and the fountains running with wine – you do remember that? Of course you do, you were on the organising committee. Well, Nell Gwynne was just ten years old then, a snotty-nosed little oik in a filthy frock standing in the crowd to watch the king ride by. I’m sure it thrilled her to bits. But at the end of that day, a very big day, where did Charles go to unwind with a little of what he fancied? Where was the royal wick dipped, so to speak? Moi, Lady Castlemaine, I was the one. So Pepysey, sweet pea, if all sorts of juicy little regal secrets are going to be trumpeted around, I want them to be about me!

Pepys

July 20th, 1661: Nooky with the housemaid, then coffee with the lads at White’s and the word is that the king is to restore the theatres. After God knows how long under Noll Cromwell and his fun police, the parliament that banned Christmas, the lights are going on again all over England.

Tom Killigrew has been granted a licence and the wherewithal to build a theatre in Drury Lane and set up The King’s Company, and Sir William Davenant the same to form the Duke’s Company in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, that’s what I’ve been told.

Charles II, King of England

My dear chap, of course I restored the theatre and The King’s Playhouse was one of my crowning achievements, don’t you know? King … crowning …what? You did get that didn’t you? Oh, smart fellow!

It wasn’t as if we had to start from scratch. The English theatre wasn’t dead, it had merely been in hiding. All those sets under beds and backdrops behind wardrobes, box offices turned into privies and Mr Dryden and Mr Etherage secretly scribbling about the funny side of sex at a time when there wasn’t supposed to be one, they were all just waiting for the nod from me and before you could say break a leg, it was show time in London again.

And that’s not all. If I haven’t been remembered for anything else, I do hope that history has recorded that it was me, Charles Rex, who finally made it legal for women to perform on the stage. No more young men with squeaky voices and wadding stuffed down their bodices, but real females playing female parts. Surely the greatest cultural breakthrough since Sir Walter Raleigh brought us fish and chips.

Theatre-going was one of my greatest pleasures, apart from the obvious, of course. I sometimes tried to go incognito, but that didn’t always work for me because most people knew that their king looked like a six-foot Italian dance instructor with big hair. I blame my Medici grandmother for that.

But I was always enormous on culture and those afternoons in Drury Lane are with me still; the guttering candles, the passions, the intrigues, the boozing and the bottom-pinching, the fondling of squidgy bits and the appreciative cries of “Bravo!” and “Show us your knockers!” Oh, rather! There were, too, the marvellous plays being performed onstage. I ask you, what civilised nation would be without its theatre?

It was at the playhouse that I first saw her, Miss Eleanor Gwynne, my dearest Nelly. She was a just a vending wench selling oranges before the show, but the way she walked through the crowd with her basket on her arm, she could have been a duchess. Only a small duchess for sure, but in a class all her own. That was Nell, always herself, never anything else

She walked out to the front, slid back her shawl and unveiled all her charms, bubbling out of her bodice like the froth on a pot of ale. She tossed those chestnut curls, lifted her basket and yelled, “Come and get ‘em! Sweet and juicy, just how you like ‘em and only sixpence apiece!”

Then she looked up at my box and slowly closed one gorgeous hazel eye in a wink. Saucy baggage!

I’m not sure whether she knew I was her monarch or not. It could have been one of the days when my incognito wasn’t quite incognito enough. But it was the first time Nell Gwynne made me laugh and she charmed me on the spot.

Lady Castlemaine

Charles Stuart, you are such a lying bastard! I saw that wink and you swore to me it was directed at the fishmonger sitting behind us. She fancied him rotten, you said. But now it’s ooh, ooh, she charmed me on the spot.

I’ve always wondered why Tom Killigrew picked up Nell Gwynne for his theatre school. Acting lessons from Charles Hart, who had to be good because Shakespeare was his uncle, and the dancing lessons from John Lacy. All a bit over the top for someone whose talents lay in looking tarty and selling fruit. It was you, wasn’t it? Good old Charlie doing a little royal favour. Here she is gentlemen, a bit of rough for sure, but your job is to turn her into a star. Ha! So how did you feel when she started having a few lessons with Hart on the side, then? And we’re not talking about acting here. Still charmed were you, were you??

Oh, naughty me, getting all worked up. We both know, don’t we, darling, that it was always me you loved the best? It was only me that you ever loved at all. Even the queen knew that, the poor dear. Not that some Portuguese princess with rabbit teeth and a long nose could expect to oust me, especially as she came as part of a package deal; Tangier, Bombay, three hundred thousand pounds and Catherine of Braganza thrown in. Not bad really, just so that you’d protect Portugal from the Spanish and the Dutch.

I don’t know who Catherine thought she was when you brought her home after the wedding, but she soon found out who I was. Everyone knew who I was, the king’s number one mistress and England’s unofficial First Lady.

I suppose she didn’t have a honeymoon to speak of, but we did all go to Hampton Court for a bit of a jolly holiday and she was lucky that she was invited, too. And do you remember the way she went off when I wanted to be one of her Ladies of the Bedchamber? All that crying and carry on about the insult and the humiliation and how it wasn’t going to happen? Well, we soon put her straight about that, didn’t we? What Barbara wanted, Barbara got. And when Charles was a bad boy, he had to go down on his knees and crawl to Barbara for forgiveness. Oh, that was so much fun!

Anyway, I paid my dues. Five healthy children I gave you and all she could manage was a couple of miscarriages. And I helped you to run the bloody country! Oh, I know the people didn’t like me for that. In fact, they didn’t like me for anything much, but what the hell did that matter? I got the jewels and the money and the houses and lots and lots of lovely pressies. I got my title and my children got their titles, which was the way it should be.

We both had our fun and games, elsewhere, too, didn’t we, Charles? All those floozies that Mr Chiffinch, Pimp by Appointment to The Crown, used to ship downriver to the back stairs at Whitehall and up then into your bedchamber. And I could always pull any fellow I wanted, anytime I wanted. We were two of a kind, but we were always fireworks in bed together. And sweetie, it’s been a century or two, but here we are again, so how about setting off a few rockets for old time’s sake?

Nell Gwynne

Hold your horses, Barb, it can’t be done! We’re wotsits…phantasms… and phantasms can’t do it. I know ‘cos I’ve tried. Everything’s all floaty and there’s nothing to get hold of, if you know what I mean.

Never mind, aye, there’s plenty of other things, aren’t there? And, sweetheart, do you have to keep banging on about me and the king? You said yourself, that was back in the sixteen-sixties, so get over it. And anyway, his majesty will back me up on this, me and him were just friends, nothing more, for ages before I made that night trip down the Thames to Whitehall.

That wink you saw was just me being cheeky. If a cat can look at a king, I’m sure an orange girl can wink at one. He laughed, that was all. What did you expect him to do, have my bleeding head chopped off?

Ok, so you were his number one fancy woman for years, but the whole of England and some bits of Scotland and Wales knew the pair of you were like alley cats, so why put on all the lah-de-dah with me? I was a whore, you were a whore, not much difference between an actress and a duchess under Charles II, or on top of him for that matter.

Talking about sex, is Oliver Cromwell around, do we know? Somebody needs to tell him that compulsory puritanism doesn’t work. The minute he’d gone everybody was at it again, with the king in the lead like one of his own Newmarket stallions. Ollie, if you’re there, I just want you to know that it was on for young and old at Whitehall, with fops and floozies, rakes and strumpets, all boozing and bonking, writing very rude poems and scrounging off the public purse…nice.

Not that I was anywhere near the royal court to begin with. I was just busting to get my first part in a stage play. That came in March of sixty five, when I got to play Cydaria in Mr Dryden’s The Indian Empress. It was all right, but there weren’t too many laughs in it and you’ve got to have a few laughs in a play, haven’t you? Comedy is what I was best at, but before I had a chance to show it, everything turned seriously pear-shaped.

Pepys

August 17th, 1665: Finest and warmest summer in years. Marvellous beach weather, or just for a paddle in the Thames. Picnics in the park, boating on the lake, it could all have been so pleasant if it weren’t for the war with Holland and the bubonic plague.

As it is, cannons are booming and thumping at sea, splattering blood and guts all over the place and knocking sailors’ heads off like coconuts at a funfair. On land the death bells toll all day and corpse carts rumble all night. I tell you, if I were the puritan I used to be, I’d swear the Almighty was having a word about the way England is carrying on these days. But now I’m not all that pure and not so sure about the Almighty, I can only venture to say that somebody has got it in for us for something.

Charles

Samuel, my dear chap, you’re not wrong. The year 1665 was an absolute annus horribilis. As if I didn’t have enough on my plate with people all around the country freaking out about a Catholic take-over and even mutterings about the loyalty of my dear wife, the most inoffensive and accommodating of queens. On top of that I’m supposed to do all kinds of fancy footwork with the French to keep them happy and off my back.

Then what happens? In March we find ourselves at war with the Dutch. I blame you for that, Barbara. All right, so you were stunning to look at, a most adventurous nymphomaniac and you played a great hand of cards, but oddsfish, did I ask you to stick your finely chiselled nose into politics? I grant you, the Dutch were a constant worry, making off with all our trade, their Dutch East India Company scooping more of the riches of the Orient than I would have liked, not to mention the tedious way they kept setting up trade on the West African Coast and in New England. It was on my ‘to do’ list to declare war on them, but I just had to get round to it. But you, my dear, toxic, lovely , had to go sneaking about, getting into this ear and that, stacking parliament and generally doing my thinking for me. And you wonder why the people hated you.

I often wished that I could have sent Nell over to charm them into surrender, but at that time I didn’t know her well enough to ask such a huge favour.

Then, as summer came on, something even worse happened − the Black Death. My people started dying in their thousands and I really didn’t want that to happen. Even with a war on, we were all so merry and having so much fun. But the plague was unstoppable and rich, poor, young and old, man, woman and child all went the same way, fever, headaches, purgings, swellings and sores and then an agonising death. A ghastly business really. So many people came to this unfortunate end that it was impossible keep up with the funerals. The best they could do was to collect all the bodies onto carts and toss them into mass graves. They couldn’t even cover them over, but had to burn them with quicklime. Appalling!

London was becoming a ghost town and we did the only thing we could do, we moved my court to Oxford.

It wasn’t so bad there, quite a pleasant break, in fact. You had a nice time, didn’t you Barbara? Given that the theatres had closed, it was fortunate that Mr Killigrew was able to put together a troupe of entertainers to come with us. Those little shows they put on for us were marvellous and quite dispelled the gloom associated with the plague and the war. It was too bad that Samuel had to stay in London, but someone had to keep the ship afloat and as Secretary to the Navy Board, it was down to him. Damned courageous he was, too, if I may say so.

Nelly was in the theatre party, of course, with that Hart fellow. And her mother came, too. Dear Mrs Gwynne, somewhat reminiscent of a Thames barge and totally off her face on brandy most of the time, but nevertheless a delightful woman.

It wasn’t the best summer of my reign, but we salvaged what we could of our merriment until it was safe to go home, which was, if I remember correctly, in February 1666.

Pepys

March 5th, 1666: We are bringing London back from the dead. We have tarted her up, painted her face and she’s ready to move on.

You wouldn’t believe what’s been done to the King’s Theatre. The stage is twice the size it was and there’s all this whizzbang machinery for shunting the scenery around. We also now have the technology to hoist the players up and down through the air like so many angel visitations. Mr Dryden, Mr Lacy and Mr Howard are writing some brilliant pieces for the new season and, best of all, we have Nell. Our dear, pretty, witty Nell, what a goer she is! The way she flounces around the stage, all bare shoulders and bouncing boobs, flirting with the audience and giving every line exactly the right nuance. Her timing is impeccable, her double entendres hilarious. She pouts, she giggles and is altogether deliciously wicked.

Lady Castlemaine

Oh, Pepys, my petal, really! You always were one of her more fawning sycophants and I don’t believe you would have minded getting your leg over, would you? But then, men of a certain nature do get incredibly turned on by the cheap and vulgar, so it really was bad luck for you that Nell was so wrapped in Charles Hart.

But, as you so rightly point out, that didn’t prevent her from behaving like a floozy onstage. I’ll never forget her in All Mistaken. As far as I could tell, her part only called for her to roll around on the stage giving the gentlemen an eyeful of her drawers. I mentioned at the time that it was amazing that she was wearing any.

But, to be fair, Nell always did take an inordinate pride in her underwear. I recall that by the time she was at Whitehall she never missed an opportunity to show her frillies to anyone who cared to look. She always pointed out how clean and white they were and that really mattered to her. But when one considers the filthy rags that she grew up in, it’s hardly surprising.

However, returning to your diary entry, Samuel, I do think you are just a tiny bit OTT when you talk about her talent. Oh, she could be quite amusing in a naff sort of way, but I never felt that she quite pulled off her dramatic roles. I mean to say, I’m not sure that Mr Shakespeare ever intended Desdemona to wave her legs in the air and shriek with laughter while being murdered by Othello. But maybe I’m just being picky.

Charles certainly appreciated actresses. Well, just for a quickie he did, even a whole night, or a little longer if they were lucky. Mr Chiffinch was so good at arranging a quick in and out on the q.t. I will never, ever understand why that wasn’t the case with Giggling Gertie Gwynne. What was so damned special about her?

Nell

Oh, Barb, I’m sorry it still gets right on your tits that I was a success, but my career certainly was taking off. Me and Mr Hart had a great thing going and the audiences loved us. The Mad Couple they called us and that’s what we were, a comedy team in play after play and in real life as well. The two of us were made for each other, or so I thought.

But like they say, life’s a bitch. Just when London was ready to fall at my feet, up she went in flames.

Everybody remembers the date, September 2nd, 1666. And it’s like “What were you doing when the Great Fire of London broke out?” Well, I can still remember. Saturday night and me and Mr Hart had done a show, been out to supper and gone back to his place. The fire started just after midnight and I can’t be so exact as to say whether we were asleep or…busy. I remember waking up in the early hours because the wind was rattling the shutters and I did think there was a bit of a funny smell. But life in those days was full of funny smells, so I went back to sleep.

But the next morning there was no mistaking that the smell was smoke. We went outside and there was still an easterly wind blowing. Everything was wild and gusty and there was hardly any light because great clouds of smoke were bellying across the sky and covering the sun. There was all this stuff, flakes of ash and bits of burnt paper and rag, flapping around like drunken crows.

The fire was still a way off, in the old part of the city and down at the docks by the river. Mr Hart went to the alehouse to see what he could find out and I went home to be with my mum. She was taking a little brandy to calm herself and by noon she was so calm she couldn’t stand up.

Even though it was nearly blowing a gale, the whole neighbourhood was out in the street, all coughing and teary from the smoke and yelling at each other over the rush of the wind. Rumours were spreading like, well, like wildfire, and you could take your pick of what you wanted to believe. A baker in Pudding Lane, Eastcheap way, hadn’t damped his oven down properly and a spark had spat out onto some straw. The wind had carried the fire along to Fish Street and Thames Street, then down to the docks. After that it was on for young and old and nobody could stop it.

That was one version, but if you liked it better, this was a terrorist attack. The fire had been started on purpose by Catholics, or the Dutch, or the French, or all of them. They were going round the city tossing fireballs into people’s houses.

Lord Mayor Bloodworth had tried pissing on the fire, or he had asked his wife to piss on it for him.

The King and the Duke of York were going to take charge of the firefighting, but then Whitehall Palace burned down and they went to Oxford instead.

Whatever else was happening, we could see that the fire was getting bigger and everybody was scared to go to bed that night in case the wind changed to our direction. My dear Mr Hart didn’t show up and Mum calmed herself senseless. So I just watched and waited and wondered if the play would still be on tomorrow.

Pepys

September 5th, 1666: What with the plague and now this, I’m seriously thinking that London is, indeed, on the wrong side of God. It’s not as if we don’t go to church or anything, but eighty seven of them have burned down this week, including Saint Paul’s Cathedral, and it’s only Wednesday.

All kinds of wild stories are flying around and it’s just as well that the Gazette was destroyed before it could print them. But if there is one thing I specialise in, it’s facts. So here are the facts, as carefully ascertained by me.

The fire was caused by an ember from the oven in Tom Farriner’s bakehouse in Pudding Lane around midnight on Sunday. The building was alight in minutes and fanned by a strong wind, within the hour the fire had taken hold of the whole area down by the Thames, including the docks.

Firefighters tried hard enough, but leather buckets and water pumped from the river wouldn’t do it. So the constables fetched Lord Mayor Bloodworth, who was a much use as the proverbials on a bull. He was urged to give the order for houses to be pulled down to make a firebreak, but he was worried about having to pay compensation to the owners. So the stupid twit looked at the fire, said “Pish, a woman could piss it out,” and went back to bed.

Next morning I saw for myself how things were. The fire seemed to be racing in all directions and so were the panicking people. It was rapidly turning into pandemonium and I decided that I should go to the king and tell him that we had a problem.

I can only say that if people accused the king of deserting them during the plague, he certainly made up for it during the Great Fire. His majesty gave orders that houses were to be demolished immediately. He placed his brother, the Duke of York, in charge of the firefighting operations and mobilised every male member of his court to join a team. Then he went to fight the fires himself. It took them four days to do it and there are pockets of it burning still, but the Great Fire of London is finally under control.

Nell

Right, Mr P, by Wednesday afternoon maybe, but not when I woke up on the Monday morning. I’d been having a dream that I was standing in front of St Paul’s and this great big pit opened up right at my feet. All I could see in the pit was smoke and flames, but there were human beings down there, I knew because I could hear them screaming and wailing. On and on it went and it was terrible. They sounded as though they were crying out to me, Nell! Nell! Nell! ‘Course, they could’ve been screaming hell, but either way, they were poor tormented souls calling out to somebody. I wanted to help them, but it was like my body was frozen. I started to cry and I was still crying when I woke up.

It was a relief to be out of that dream, but nothing to get too thrilled about. I knew before I opened my eyes that the fire was still going, I could just feel it. And when I did look, I could see that smoke still filled the sky and the smell of it was still as strong. It was just that there was a lot more of it now. No sign of Mr H and with Mum it was still like, Keep Calm and Carry on Drinking, so I went to the theatre to see if rehearsals were on.

As I walked down Drury Lane, I could hear the screaming again. Oh, I could hear the roar of the wind and maybe even of the fire, but even though it was far off, I could still hear that dead eerie screaming as well. And it still seemed to me that they were screaming my name.

Most of the cast was at the theatre, but Mr Killigrew had come to tell us that he was closing down until further notice. Well, with my co-star still off slaking his thirst and nobody knowing if the wind would change for the worse, we probably wouldn’t have sold many tickets anyway. Some of the men were going to help fight the fire and scores of boats were sailing down the river to pick up refugees.

I went backstage to wardrobe and put on a pair of breeches and a shirt and boots. Then I ran down to the river and jumped on a boat that was just about to cast off. It was full of blokes and I knew that not one of them thought I was a bloke, too. It wasn’t that kind of a disguise. In fact, a ginger-haired chap cried, “By golly, it’s Nelly!” Then he said, “You’re a mad cow, you know that, don’t you? Every other woman in London is trying to get out and here you are trying to get in.”

Lady Castlemaine

Oh, Lord, here we go, Nelly to the rescue. Why did she always have to be so Nell? What the hell did she think she could do in the face all that? I had asked myself the same question and the answer was, nothing. In the meantime, Whitehall was in the path of the fire and I was busy packing. Most of the men had gone with Charles and James, but there were still a few ancient dodderers around, plus my female staff.

They told me that the queen was staying; she wasn’t going anywhere without the king. Up to her, of course, but I was out of there. The news I was getting was that the roads were blocked by refugees, so I decided to take only the bare essentials, three wagonloads of clothes, jewellery and odds and sods of silver and gold ornaments and nic-nacs. But then I was told that it was getting ugly out there. They were bashing up foreigners and Catholics, even stringing them up if there was a pole handy. Now I’d been a devout Catholic for years and the great unwashed hated me anyway, so there was I between a rock and a hard place, burn with the palace or be hung by the mob? As the most beautiful woman in England, I knew that escaping unnoticed was not an option.

One thing I knew for sure, Charles Stuart was going to be doing a lot of carpet crawling for putting the riff-raff before me.

Nell

Yeah, you’re right, Barb, it was just me being me again. I thought it was going to be a big adventure, but it was bloody awful.

Just getting off the boat was a battle for a start. The minute the gangplank went down, there was this mad stampede of people trying to rush on and us that were trying to get off would all have been flattened if we hadn’t made a jump for it. I might have had one of the best pairs of legs in the business, but they weren’t the longest and I’d have ended up in the water if one of the men hadn’t picked me up and jumped with me in his arms. Nice bloke, he put me down again once we’d landed. Not that anybody’d want to think about anything except what was going on around us. Totally broke my heart, it did.

The noise was enough to do your head in. Everything I’d been hearing from far off was right there, only a hundred times louder. There was a monstrous roaring that was both wind and fire in a terrible rage. The flames were whooshing upward a hundred feet in the air, spreading in every direction, swallowing everything they came to; homes, shops, warehouses, churches all booming and crackling and crashing to the ground.

All the time there was the screaming and wailing. People were running around in their hundreds like turkeys with their heads chopped off. Some poor souls were scrambling out of buildings with flames hard behind them, not knowing where to go or what to do. Hundreds more did know what they wanted to do, they wanted to get out of the city and take their belongings with them. The streets and laneways were jam-packed with folk moving bundles and baggage any way they could. They’d loaded stuff onto carts, wagons and horses and they were chucking their chattels off the wharves and into boats, or just carrying them on their backs. Men and women, even some of the older kids, clutched babies in their arms and on their shoulders and struggled along with more little kids hanging onto them. I saw the sick and the old carried on pallets and I heard the lost shrieking for somebody to find them.

On top of all that, there was this scorching hot wind, bitter smoke stinging our throats and eyes and noses and everything had this horrible, dead creepy, brownish red light. It was like Dante’s wotsit and London herself was in hell.

You might well ask, Barb, what I thought I could do, ‘cos I was buggered if I knew. But then I saw this woman. She wouldn’t have been more than nineteen or twenty, but she had a bundle nearly as big as herself on her back, a toddler in her arms and a boy about five holding onto her skirt. All three of them were crying, but she kept saying to her kids, “We’re all right, we’re all right.” The little boy was getting knocked and shoved and any minute he was going to be trampled on the ground.

“Hang on, sweetheart!” I shouted into the woman’s ear. “Give the little nipper to me and you take your boy.”

With a child apiece, we did the only thing we could do, we went along with the crowd. Then we managed to squeeze ourselves into this alcove in a stone wall and get ourselves a bit sorted. And that’s how I met Molly Draper. She was a widow, lost her sailor husband in the battle of Lowestoft. All on her own with her kids, their house burnt down and nothing to their name but the clothes they were wearing and the bundle on her back. Well, you can’t leave somebody in a pickle like that, can you?

“Come on,” I said. “I’ll take you home to mine.”

Molly knew a different way back to the river. It was still bedlam, but now I could see that there were some who were trying to fight the fire instead of running away. With the warehouses down at the docks all ablaze, there was no way water could be pumped or bucketed up, so all they could do was pull down buildings to make firebreaks. They were using ropes and whopping great hooks for that and teams of blokes were doing a great job. And, blimey teddy, who do you think was in charge? It was the Duke of York, riding up and down on his charger and shouting orders like there was a war on. He even had the Coldstream Guards at it. It was a dangerous business an’ all, with bits of falling houses and fiery lumps of stuff flying all over the place, but nobody could say the duke wasn’t on for it.

There were a whole lot more blokes with shovels clearing away the rubble and that wasn’t the cushiest of jobs, neither. One of them was a lot taller than the rest, jacket off, shirt unlaced and sleeves rolled, he was shovelling away like hell. His hair was plastered to his head and his shirt was sticking to him with sooty sweat. He stopped for a minute to wipe his eyes with the back of his hand and then he saw me looking at him. He looked straight back at me, then he grinned and he winked. Cheeky sod!

All right, your majesty, you were sexy as, half-dressed, broad chest, big shoulders, muscles all hard, phwaaar!! But it wasn’t really sex I was thinking about just then. It was more that we’d kind of clicked in a way I couldn’t quite figure out.

Anyway, funny old world, innit? London’s burning and I meet a woman who’s going to be one of my best friends ever. Molly Draper was also going to be one of the best seamstresses the King’s Theatre wardrobe ever had.

And I got winked at by the king.

Charles

Dear God, how many times had I told them? The city I rode into on my 30th birthday, my capital, my London, was a bonfire waiting to be lit. It was a dog’s breakfast of alleys and laneways, packed with wood and plaster buildings, thatched roofs, open hearths, candles. Down at the docks, warehouses stuffed with oil, pitch, hemp and, would you believe, gunpowder? Again and again I ordered new building regulations, fire precautions, so many things that had to be done. But nothing was done and we paid the price.

On that ghastly day, when we fought so hard to save the city, I do remember you appearing, dear girl. Filthy dirty and tangle-haired, you stood looking at me over the head of that child you were holding. You were the only good thing that happened that day.

Pepys

Tens of thousands homeless, so much lost, even the great cathedral of St Paul’s. But life goes on, even, it now appears, if one has been dead for centuries. Christopher Wren got his dream job, redesigning the city and in December the theatres re-opened. It’s not surprising that his majesty knew Nell at a glance on that fiery day, even though she was dressed as a boy. He’d seen her that way often enough before.

After aeons of watching young men play girls onstage, theatre-goers now wanted to see girls playing young men, so play after play was written to accommodate this new fad. After all, what could be more culturally uplifting than the right shaped female in a pair of tight pants?

Nell in particular was a huge hit in breeches roles. Who will ever forget her as Florimel in Secret Love? Well, some might have done so by now, by I certainly haven’t. Those divine legs, that ravishing little bottom, what a performer!

But please don’t think that Nell’s nether parts were the only parts she was famous for. She shone in every role she played. Her singing her dancing, her acting, she enchanted us all. Nelly was a star.

Judy

I was a star. They told me I was. “Sing,” they said. “Dance,” they said. “You’ll get there in the end.” But no matter how hard I sang and how fast I danced, no matter how many sparkle and shine pills I took, I never could get over that rainbow. I never could find that place they promised me was there.

One night I died on the bathroom floor. Do you think anybody noticed my sparkle had gone out?

Nell

Sweetheart, you were brilliant. More than you ever knew! Who gives a fiddler’s about a place that isn’t there? You shone brightest of all and you made rainbows for thousands who couldn’t find one. They miss you and they’ve never forgotten.

Charles

I continued to be a dedicated follower of the career of Ms Eleanor Gwynne, oh rather! Loved her in The English Monsieur, saw her five times in Flora’s Vagaries, and as for Secret Love, well, I designated it as ‘my play’, don’t you know?

It was my experience that actresses could be quite as entertaining in bed as they were onstage and Nell was very, very, entertaining onstage. So, after waiting for a while after that wink, just to tease her a little, as one does with the ladies, I asked my Mr Chiffinch to send for her.

Do you know the message that came back? Mistress Gwynne thanks His Majesty for his kind invitation to come over and join him in a bit of the other, but regrets that this evening she will be washing her hair and so will be unable to attend.

I laughed at the audacity of the girl, but decided to put her in her place by having a little divertissement with another actress, Mall Davies.

Mall was a saucy gel whose main talent was for taking a fairly innocuous jig – you know, hop, hop, skippety-hop – and turning into something that Salome would have drawn the line at. My dear Queen Catherine innocently invited Mall to perform in a Royal Command Performance at Whitehall, but when she began her raunchy little number, both the Queen and Lady Castlemaine (hypocrite!) walked out. I, on the other hand, rather liked it and thought that Mall might be just the girl to put Nell’s nose out of joint.

But Nell’s nose retained its adorable shape and the gossip sizzling around town that the king was sleeping with Mall Davis didn’t seem to disturb her one iota. I don’t think that Nell ever really did jealousy and there wasn’t a seriously malicious bone in her body.

I absolutely refuse to believe that she had anything to do with the unfortunate evening when Mall was too indisposed to come to the palace as arranged. That was solely the work of Aphra Behn.

Aphra had worked for me for a while in the Secret Service but now she was trying her hand at writing for the theatre. Jolly good at it she was, too, and one of England’s first female playwrights, don’t you know? She and Nell were good friends, but I am certain that it was Aphra and Aphra alone who put a purgative into Mall’s teacake. Quite put paid to a very promising evening, she did.

But at the end of the day, Mall wasn’t all that enticing, Barbara and I were still playing our games, but more out of habit than anything else. All the other highborn hussies that were so readily available to me did nothing for me at all.

My court was a world of disguise. Faces were painted languidly pale and blemishes hidden beneath black patches. They peered at each other through masks and vizards and from behind their fluttering fans. They flattered each other with back-handed compliments and told elaborate lies with simpers and whispers and flourishing gestures. But here was this perfectly splendid girl, cheerful and independent, who always said what she meant, showed her heart in her face and hooted with laughter far too loudly and too often for good manners. She was a new kind of woman and I wanted her around me.

Nell

Yeah, well, we couldn’t have been singing from the same song sheet, your majesty. Your classy mistresses always did all right, property, money, titles for themselves and titles for the children they had by you. But the showgirls, the bits of crumpet Mr Chaffinch pimped for you whenever you felt like it, they were more your ‘easy-come-easy-go’ sort of arrangement. I would have been just another one of them and I didn’t fancy that. Besides, I had my Mr Hart, didn’t I?

But then my Mr Hart dumped me, just like that. Seems he’d found a bit of a distraction, so to speak. Yes, I’m looking at you, Lady Castlemaine. But never mind, aye, he wasn’t that fantastic, was he? Bit ordinary for you really, when it came down to it. Not like that other chap you had. Remember Jacob the Rope Dancer, him that had a booth at St Bartholomew’s Fair and did somersaults and backflips and jumped through hoops? That must have made things interesting for you.

So here’s the king carrying on with Mall and Mr Hart carrying on with Babs, so what am I supposed to do? Well, the show had to go on and it turned out I was as good solo as I was with Mr H, better even. And blimey, we never know what’s round the corner, do we? Who should be waiting with open arms but Charles Sackville, Sixth Earl of Dorset and First Earl of Middlesex, Lord Buckhurst. Posh, eh?

So, from Charles Hart to Charles Buckhurst and that wasn’t bad at all. He had a wicked sense of humour and wrote this brilliant poetry and stuff, taking the piss out of the coxcombs and the posers. When he asked me to go away with him to Epsom, I thought, why not? We had a lovely time and talk about laugh! Nell Gwynne was in a relationship and it felt good.

But then things started to change. I could smell a rat and, believe me, where I come from we know what a rat smells like. Buckhurst started to say maybe we were rushing things. Next thing he’d got a job, groom of the king’s bedchamber at six thousand quid a year. Nice, except that it kept him too busy to see me. Then, to top it off, he was sent off on a mission to France and no telling when he’d be back.

By now the rat pong would knock you over backwards and I knew who the rat was. Charles Stuart had paid off Charles Buckhurst and his majesty thought I was for sale. Well not on this Nelly! It was back to the stage for me and what a comeback! I performed my bum off and I’d never been better.

But the king didn’t give up. He came to watch me two or three times a week and the notes and the presents kept coming. For a year I kept sending them back, but then I thought, sod it, every girl deserves to have breakfast in bed with royalty at least once. Just as long as his majesty understood it was me doing the favour and not him, I finally said, “Oh, go on then!”

Pepys

To Mr Chundle for important discussions on naval matters. He not being home, I delighted Mrs Chundle more than somewhat and more than once. Then to White’s for hot chocolate and gossip.

Main item is that a cloaked and hooded young woman of short stature and much cheerful laughter was rowed under cover of darkness to the landing steps at the palace.

Mr Chiffinch will not be drawn on her identity, but for a sovereign and a complimentary short black, he offered the clue that her name rhymes with belly.

Charles

It was, indeed, a night when history was made. Never before had I almost been incapable of the deed because of laughing. But Nell, your impression of Lady Castlemaine trying to do it with that acrobat chappie on a tightrope had me tearful and limp with mirth. But not permanently, I’m happy to say. It was after your first visit that a senior member of my staff thought it necessary to pin a notice on the wall of my chamber, ‘The Royal Bed Is Not for Jumping On.’

My madcap darling, you were as generous in and out of bed as you were high-spirited, and you were so very funny. You made no demands or promises and you played no emotional games. I wanted you in my life forever.

Nell

Yes, well, Charles was used to getting what he wanted, but I’d had to work for what I’d got in my life. My career was going nicely and I wasn’t about to throw everything away for a bit of a royal roll in the hay. And don’t think we didn’t do that, neither! There were quite a few discreet haystacks around the stables.

Anyway, what with me being so well-known and Barbara still throwing regular hissies, me and the king decided to take it slowly and quietly for a start. Mr Chiffinch would arrange for us to meet on the q.t. and we had some lovely times together. There was this spot on the river near Windsor where I taught Charles to fish. In those days it wasn’t much of a pastime for the upper crust and Charles didn’t have to panic about where his next meal was coming from. But he always remembered those weeks on the run after he got hammered at the battle of Worcester and before he escaped to France. He knew then what it was to be alone and hungry. Anyway, for whatever reason, he loved going fishing with me.

We went skinny-dipping in the River Fleet and then made love in the grass under the elm trees and it was all so good. Every now and then, a voice in my head would go, Oi, you! This is the king of England you’re larking about with! But then I’d just go, so what?

Charles had a fair bit on his plate, what with parliament and the war and that. I had my life on the stage and looking after my mum, and if people had any idea that the king and Nell Gwynne had something going, it was only another of his little flings between duchesses.

That year I turned eighteen and I was what you might call ripening. I had always done funny and cheeky, but more and more I was doing sexy. Backstage was absolutely perishing that winter and all I can remember are the cold and the goose-bumps, while my dresses got skimpier and my curves got curvier and my roles called for me to wiggle my stuff more and more and more. Charles thought it was hilarious. “My little sexpot is London’s new sex symbol,” he said.

Marilyn

Oh, honey, I was one of those…. “Marilyn, look this way…Smile, Marilyn…Marilyn, Marilyn, over here!” I was a pair of legs, a pair of bazoomers and a sassy ass. I starred in movies and wet dreams and on men’s shed walls and don’t think I didn’t have secrets in high places happy birthday Mr President and whadya know diamonds aren’t a girl’s best friend and a candle in the wind yes that was it a candle in the wind and they blew my candle out. Poof!!

Nell

You aren’t a candle, sweetheart, you’re a goddess. Just your name, the one name, it’s everything that’s beautiful and sad, clever and messed up. I cry every time I think of you and wish I’d been there to hold your hand. But you are a goddess and I’m just me. Who do they remember? Marilyn is forever, but it’s Nell who?

Pepys

March 25th, 1670: My eyes grow dim and I fear I am going blind (another reason for my dear wife to say that she told me so). But life still has its little treasures and among all the dross of tired gossip comes a glittering little gem. Rehearsals for Mr Dryden’s new tragedy, Almanzar and Almahide, have ceased because Almahide is found to be in an interesting condition. Nell, this time the show will not go on.

Barbara

Oops! Nelly’s little secret was out. Not that it was ever a secret from me, but on May 8th , Nell had a baby boy and while he wasn’t born with a pencil moustache and shoulder length hair, even I didn’t quibble about who his father was. Nobody could quibble about it, because after her opening night as royal mistress, there has never been any evidence that Nell ever slept with anyone but the king. If there had been such evidence, believe me, I would have found it.

She called the baby Charles. Brilliant move! I called my oldest son Charles. In all the king fathered at least fourteen illegitimate children and you’d be amazed how many of them were called Charles.

He was a good father, the king, I will say that. All his children were looked after and the ones with well-bred mothers, like moi, were granted titles and estates. The daughter of a bankrupt soldier and a dipsomaniacal brothel keeper could not be classed as well-bred, which is probably why Nell went all independent, got herself a little rented place in Pall Mall and returned to the stage. She needn’t have bothered. For reasons I’ll never understand, the king gave her this absolutely fabulous house at 79 Pall Mall, an allowance, servants, the works, all signed over to her for keeps.

He took her to Newmarket for the races, dined with her at Whitehall, danced with her at St James Palace, sang with her in recitals at Windsor Castle and chased her round the gardens at Hampton Court. No doubt he screwed her in all of those places.

I wouldn’t want anyone to think I was jealous. It is a monarch’s privilege to make a complete ass of himself if he wishes and I had my cross-stitch and my lovers, plenty to keep me occupied.

One of my greatest pleasures was to put on my best gown and all my jewels and have my coachman drive me round the city, just to give the hoi polloi something to gawp at. But then Nell hired a cart and a team of bullocks and drove behind me, cracking a whip and shouting, “The whores are off to market!”

I assume she thought that amusing and it was certainly a hit with the unwashed and toothless set, although I did hear that the king had laughed, too. But then, Charles always did have a childish sense of humour.

Nell

Blimey, Barb, you don’t half carry on! There was never any point in getting your knickers in a twist about the king. You knew, I knew, everybody including the queen knew, that no one woman was going to satisfy him forever, not in bed, anyway. Depends what you’re looking for, but I always found plenty more to Charles than that. He was kind and generous and always polite, no matter how big a plonker he was obliged to talk to. He was witty, he loved a laugh and he hardly ever got angry.

And while we’re at it, Charles’s head wasn’t permanently in his codpiece, neither. There wasn’t much he didn’t know about art and music and all that cultural stuff from the continent. He was brilliant on the guitar and he liked to play along with his own string orchestra. Come to that, who do you think put the ‘Royal’ in the Royal Society and the Royal Observatory? What with the Dutch and the French always having a go and the bloody whigs and tories always on his case, is it any wonder he needed a fair bit of bonking to keep his pecker up?

Hey, do you remember that de Keroualle woman, Louithe with a lithp, who was sent over from France to keep tabs on Charles? They reckoned she was supposed to be a lady-in-waiting to the queen, but we all twigged that she was a pressie for the king, with love from Louis. Charles wasn’t stupid, but neither was he one to look a gift horse in the mouth. He had a ball with Louithe and even made her Ducheth of Porthmouth. Pity she couldn’t even thay it.

Anyway, who was I to complain if he put himself about a bit? He was always good to me and to our kids. Yes, we had another little boy, James, my Jemmy, on Christmas day ’71 and that was another reason to be grateful. My kids were never going to sleep in a bed that was alive with fleas, or play in an alley with shit floating in the puddles. I was happy.

Charles

Ah, Nelly, if only all my women had your talent for happiness. Good grief, sometimes I felt that my sex life was like a giant octopus with all these tentacles wrapped around me, crushing and choking me, suckers slurping at me, more, more, give me more! The price I had to pay, I suppose for fancying thoroughbred sluts. But with you I was always free. You were my fresh air and sunshine and is there any wonder that I always came back to you?

I remember that last time you went back onstage after our first son was born. You had committed yourself to Almanzar and Almahide and back you went to finish it. But oddsfish, what a finish!

Over at the Duke’s Theatre, some actor chappie named Nokes had raised a laugh by appearing in a large hat that was a send-up of the latest vogue in Paris. But you, of course, had to send up the send-up.

There I was, together with half my court, at your opening performance. Time for the prologue and on walked a mushroom - not just any mushroom, but one the size of a wagon wheel. So, we were all staring at it in rather a bemused way, when from underneath the mushroom came that gurgling hoot of laughter we knew so well. The play was billed as a tragedy, but Nelly in that amazing hat was the funniest thing we’d seen in months and we almost wet our noble selves. Need I say mushroom was definitely on the menu in my bedchamber that night? Rather!

For all we dollied it up with brilliance and bling and all things de rigeur, the Palace of Whitehall was a damp, draughty sprawl of mismatched buildings held together loosely by corridors, galleries and staircases. Somehow it lacked a certain something, but when you came, Nell, you warmed up and lit up the whole damned place with your fun and bounce and peerless wit.

And those supper parties you gave at Number 79! Where else could I just be with a few friends, Aphra, Rochester, Molly Draper, Dorset, great food, marvellous wines, silly skits, musical jam sessions and, often as not, skylarking after dark in St James Park? Then when everyone else had gone, just you and I sharing a pigeon pie in bed.

Poor Louithe..Louise, would have burst into tears at your impersonations of her. But then, Louise burst into tears at just about everything. Much as I adored her, don’t you know, I swear she was the most lachrymose mistress I ever had the pleasure of. All that sobbing and sniffling made the palace even damper than usual.. I shouldn’t have laughed, I suppose, but when you put on all those funeral weeds and trailed around wringing your hands and wailing á la Keroualle, it did make her histrionics slightly less tiresome.

The poor woman, she was French and she was Catholic and that was enough to make the people despise her, even to booing and jeering her in the streets. But when you went out, you were greeted with cheers and waves. People brought armsful and baskets of flowers to your house. Of course, you always belonged to the people and the people loved you, Nell.

Diana

The people loved me. I was their princess, and you’ve no idea how much they loved me. I slept in a royal bed and I was the mother of princes, which should have been enough. I knew how to love and I loved being loved, but somehow I couldn’t get the happy ever after bit together like you could. You never wanted to run away, you believed you had it all. Did I have it all? I was running away from it all to find it all when I died. The people brought me lots of flowers.

Nell

Oh, princess darling, love’s such a funny thing. It’s no good running after it, I don’t think. There are always going to be some who don’t love us enough and some who love us too much; we can’t ever have it all. But I reckon the people knew. None of us is perfect, least of all me and you. They could see a generous heart and a beautiful princess who kept getting lost and that was good enough for them.

Pepys

With my eyes all but done for, I had but two pleasures left, sex and the coffee house gossip. For the first I had my wife, always the foremost in my heart, and for the second I had you.

There was the day when you were visiting Oxford and a crowd seeing your coach mistook you for de Keroualle. They were getting quite nasty, jeering and jostling and shouting abuse at the Catholic whore. Then you stopped the coach, stuck out your head and said, “All right, settle down you lot. It’s me, the Protestant whore!” And they cheered you.

What about that Easter Sunday in the Chapel Royal when you asked His Grace Gilbert Sheldon, Archbishop of Canterbury, if he thought your new gown made your bum look big. We always looked to you for something to talk about and you never disappointed us.

Then came the news that surprised many, yet delighted many more. We all knew how both you and his majesty doted on your two boys, but let’s face it, my dear, with a mother from your background, titles for those little lads seemed highly unlikely. Yet what do we hear on December 27th, 1676, but the king has created Charles Beauclerk Baron of Headington and Earl of Burford? Quite a mouthful for a little fellow scarcely seven years old, but what a tribute to his mother.

Nell

I always knew I had no right to ask for anything for myself, but I did always want the very best for my boys. I needed to be sure that they’d always be looked after, no matter what happened to me. I forget how it came up about Jem going to be educated in Paris, but the king was all for it. He reckoned that Jemmy would learn all the best about art and music and book-reading and that kind of stuff. Jem seemed a bit little to me, only eight and quite shy at that. I wasn’t sure how he’d go, being away from me for months at a time, but I could see that French schooling would turn him into a proper gentleman, so in the end I let him go.

I missed my boy like you wouldn’t believe, but I kept on telling myself that soon he’d be coming home for a holiday, or I could go and see him.

One night, I’m not sure where the king was, maybe with his new mistress, Hortense whats-er-face Mancini, I was asleep at home by myself. It was like the time of the Great Fire and I could hear somebody crying, only this time it wasn’t a whole lot of voices, it was just one. Jemmy was crying and he was calling for me. He was like that sometimes when he was poorly or upset about something. His nurse wouldn’t do, it had to be me.

I woke up and I could still hear him crying for me, but I knew Jem was over the sea in France. I had to make sure it wasn’t his brother crying, so I went to his bedroom to check. Charles was fast asleep and his nurse didn’t know what I was on about. She couldn’t hear the crying and I’m sure she thought I’d gone barmy. But a mother knows when her child needs her.

Pepys

25th September, 1680: How sad the news from the palace. Master James Beauclerk, the son of his majesty and Miss Eleanor Gwynne has died in Paris. He would have been nine years-old on Christmas Day. We are told that the child had ‘a sore leg’, whatever that might mean.

Mr Chiffinch has told me privately that the mother is inconsolable. Oh, Nell!

Charles

My Nelly, my dearest dear, it was never supposed to be like that, was it? For you and I, it was supposed to be laughter, never any sadness and never any pain.

For months I thought I’d lost you as well as Jem. I had Louise and Hortense bitching and fighting over me, the queen still childless and parliament growing ever more agitated that my brother James, a bloody Catholic, was my only heir.

It all got to be a severe pain in the arse and I needed you, sweetheart, to hold onto.

I knew that jewels wouldn’t do it, but I did give you the one thing I thought might help you over your grief. I transferred the vacant title of Duke of St Albans to our boy Charles. So there he was, a nobleman, and all his descendants for evermore.

In time I did hear you laugh again. You entertained again and everyone at court wanted your invitations, because your parties were better than anything anyone else could attempt. And your heart, always so kind, always seeing more than others saw, began to reach out again.

I remember a day when we were driving though London and you spied a couple of old soldiers from the civil war, one with a missing leg, both in tatters and begging in the street.

You cried out, “Oh, those poor old buggers, they’re everywhere and they shouldn’t be! They deserve better than that!”

You made me stop the carriage and empty my pockets of every coin I had, then you went and started talking to those two old chaps. You could have been at the palace, talking to Lord Rochester and the Duke of Monmouth, the way you sparkled and brought smiles to their hopeless faces. The money you gave them was an extra, it was the warmth you gave them that they’d remember.

In bed that night, with our legs entwined and your head on my shoulder, you said, “All those veterans of the civil war, it doesn’t much matter what side they were on, does it? We’ve put all that behind us, but there they are, all crippled up and forgotten. But you’re their king and you should bloody well do something.”

So I bloody well did something and now we have the Royal Chelsea Hospital for the old soldiers of Edgehill, Marston Moor, Naseby and all British battles since. I laid the cornerstone, but it was Nell Gwynne who made it happen.

And look here, I doubt the world will ever know how many people received a leg-up out of the gutter, the debtors’ prison or some other hardship because of her.

Barbara

Oh, per-leease! If we’re talking about the gutter, perhaps the one thing that Louise Keroualle and I agreed upon was that one could always tell where Nell came from because of her swearing.

She was common and vulgar, but all right, I admit it, there were times when she was better company than Louithe or Hortense, or any of the others. If I was totally bored, I would occasionally have a game of Bassett with her and unlike some, she paid up when she lost.

Maybe we did have a few laughs and, Nell, when your little James died my heart ached for you, because you didn’t deserve that.

All right, sod it, in some bizarre, inexplicable way, I liked you. I still do like you.That’s a bit of a turn-up, isn’t it?

Charles

Indeed, Barbara, and somewhat of a turn-up, too, that in February 1685 I was felled by some sort of a stroke. I knew I wasn’t coming back from it and parliament was having kittens because brother James was going to be king. But the saddest thing for me was leaving all my lovely ladies, don’t you know?

Barbara, by the time I died our affair was already history and you had been employing your remarkable talents in many a bed after mine. But for the good times, I could only thank you.

And Nell, as I slipped further and further away from you, I could only think of what Aphra Behn had written about you in her play, the Feigned Courtesan.

Besides all the charms and attractions and powers of your sex, you have beauties

peculiar to yourself – an eternal sweetness, youth and air which never dwelt in

any face but yours. You never appear but you gladden the hearts of all that have

the happy fortune to see you, as if you were made on purpose to put the whole

world in good humour.

Nell

Well that’s really lovely, Charles, and you broke my heart when you left me, because you were always the best friend I had. But James looked after me like you asked him to and there’s no need for us all to be dead miserable,’cos we’re all together again because of Samuel’s Other Diary.

But hang about! Samuel Pepys, you went well-nigh blind and stopped writing in 1669, so how come this new diary has stuff in it up to 1685? Is it all a fake, or what? Or did somebody else keep on writing it for you? Come on, let’s have it. Who was your ghost writer?

Aphra

Sprung!

More confusion over the recently discovered seventeenth century diary that may or may not have been written by Samuel Pepys. Threatened with a lawsuit by the National University unless he reveals where the diary is being kept, the Minister for Old Stuff That Occasionally Turns Up admitted that the notebook has gone missing.

“This is entirely the fault of the previous government’, the minister said. “They had six years to go into that clock, find the diary and put it into a safe place. But they failed to do so and, thanks to their incompetence, a lot of invaluable historical information is lost to us forever.

Nell

Oh my, that’s a bugger, ain’t it?