"heartily sorry," my friend Mr. Ward has painted a picture of surprising truthfulness and beauty.[1]
When this interview occurred the King was taking his usual quick exercise in the park, on his way to the Duchess of Cleveland, at Berkshire House—subsequently, and till within these few years, called Cleveland House—a detached mansion built by the Berkshire branch of the Howard family, on the site of the present Bridgewater House. Charles at this time divided his attentions between Nelly and the Duchess. Moll Davis had fallen out of favour, though not forsaken or unpensioned:—while many open and almost avowed infidelities on the part of the Duchess of Cleveland had lessened the kindly feelings of the King towards her; though he continued to supply ample means for the maintenance of the rank to which his partiality had raised her.[2] Poor Alinda, however, was no longer young, and the memory of old attractions could make but little way with Charles against the wit
- ↑ See frontispiece to this book. In Ravenscroft's London Cuckolds (4to. 1683) is the following stage direction—"Dashwell and Jane upon a mount, looking over a wall that parts the two gardens," p. 73. Among Mr. Robert Cole's Nell Gwyn Papers (Bills sent to Nelly for payment) there is a charge for this very Mount.
- ↑ She had 6000l.. a year out of the excise, and 3000l. a year from the same quarter for each of her sons. (Harl. MS. 6013, temp. Chas. II.) Her pension from the Post Office, of 4700l. a year, was stopped for a time in William the Third's reign; but the amount then withheld was paid in George the First's reign to her son the Duke of Grafton, sole executor and residuary legatee. (Audit Office Enrolments.)
