Their Majesties' Servants. Annals of the English Stage (Volume 1 of 3). Doran John
XV. By impulse, she could be charitable; but by neglecting the claims of her own creditors she could be cruel. Charles alluded to her extravagance when, on his deathbed, he recommended those shameless women, Cleveland and Portsmouth, to his brother's kindness, and hoped he would "not let Nelly starve." An apocryphal story attributes the founding of Chelsea Hospital to Nelly's tenderness for a poor old wounded soldier who had been cheated of his pay. The dedications to her of books by such people as Aphra Behn and Duffet are blasphemous in their expressions, making of her, as they do, a sort of divine essence, and becoming satirical by their exaggerated and disgusting eulogy. For such a person, the pure and pious Bishop Ken was once called upon to yield up an apartment in which he lodged, and the peerage had a narrow escape of having her foisted upon it as Countess of Greenwich. This clever actress died in November 1687 of a fit of apoplexy, by which she had been stricken in the previous March. She was then in her thirty-eighth year. She had been endowed like a princess, but she left debts, and died just in time to allow James to discharge them out of the public purse. Finally, she was carried to old St. Martin's-in-the-Fields to be buried, and Tennison preached her funeral sermon. When this was subsequently made the ground of exposing him to the reproof of Queen Mary, she remarked, that the good doctor, no doubt, had said nothing but what the facts authorised.
In the time of Nelly's most brilliant fortunes, the people who laughed at her wit and impudence publicly contemned her. In February 1680 she visited the Duke's Theatre, in Lincoln's Inn Fields, on which occasion a person in the pit called her loudly by a name which, to do her justice, she never repudiated. The affront, which she herself could laugh at, was taken up by William Herbert, brother of Philip, Earl of Pembroke, who had married the younger sister of another of the King's favourites, Henrietta de Querouaille. The audience took part, some with the assailant, others with the champion of Nelly. Many swords were drawn, the sorrows of the "Orphan" were suspended, there was a hubbub in the house, and more scratches given than blood spilt. That Nelly found a knight in Thomas Herbert only proves that a hot-headed young gentleman may become a very sage as years grow upon him. This Thomas, when Earl of Pembroke, was "first plenipotentiary" at the making of the treaty of Ryswick, and Chief Commissioner in establishing the Union of England and Scotland. His excellent taste and liberality laid the foundations of the collection of antiques which yet attracts visitors to Wilton. But love for leading play-house factions did not die out in his family. Four and forty years after he had drawn sword for the reputation of Nell Gwyn, his third Countess, Mary, sister of Viscount Howe, headed the Cuzzoni party at the Opera-house against the Faustina faction, led by the Countess of Burlington and Lady Delawar. Whenever Faustina opened her mouth to sing, Lady Pembroke and her friends hissed the singer heartily; and as soon as Cuzzoni made a similar attempt, Lady Burlington and her followers shrieked her into silence. Lord Pembroke sat by, thinking, perhaps, of the young days when he was the champion of Nell Gwyn, or of Margaret Symcott, if an old tradition be true that such was Nelly's real name.
Of the ladies who played at the Duke's House, under Davenant, the principal were Mrs. Davenport, Mrs. Davies, Mrs. Gibbs, Mrs. Holden, Mrs. Jennings, Mrs. Long, and Mrs. Norris. Chief among these were Mistresses Davenport, Davies, Saunderson, and Long. Mrs. Davenport is remembered as the Roxalana of Davenant's "Siege of Rhodes," which she played so well that Pepys could not forget her in either of her successors, Mrs. Betterton or Mrs. Norton. She is still better remembered in connection with a story of which she is the heroine, although that character in it has been ascribed to others.
Aubrey de Vere, the twentieth Earl of Oxford, was the last of his house who held that title, but the one who held it the longest, namely, seventy years, from 1632 to 1702. Aubrey de Vere despised the old maxim, "Noblesse oblige." He lived a roystering life, kept a roystering house, and was addicted to hard drinking, rough words, and unseemly brawling and sword-slashing in his cups. The young earl made love, after the fashion of the day and the man, to Mrs. Davenport, but he might as well have made love to Diana; and it was not till he proposed marriage that the actress condescended to listen to his suit. The lovers were privately married, and the lady was, in the words of old Downes, "erept the stage." The honeymoon, however, was speedily obscured; Lord Oxford grew indifferent and brutal. When the lady talked of her rights, he informed her that she was not Countess of Oxford at all. The apparent reverend gentleman who had performed the ceremony of marriage was a trumpeter, who served under this very noble Lord in the King's own regiment of cavalry. The forlorn fair one, after threatening suicide, sought out the King, fell at his feet, and demanded justice. The award was made in the shape of an annuity of £300 a year, with which "Lord Oxford's Miss," as Evelyn calls her, seems to have been satisfied and consoled; for Pepys, soon after, being at the play, "saw the old Roxalana in the chief box, in a velvet gown, as the fashion is, and very handsome, at which I was glad."
As for Miss Mary Davies, it is uncertain whether she was the daughter of a Wiltshire blacksmith, or the less legitimate offspring of Thomas Howard, the first Earl of Berkshire, or of the earl's son – not the poet, but the colonel. However this may be, Mary Davies was early on the stage, where she danced well, played moderately ill, announced the next afternoon's performance with grace, and won an infamous distinction at the King's hands, by her inimitable singing of the old song, "My lodging is on the cold ground." Then there was the publicly furnishing of a house for her, and the presentation of a ring worth £600, and much scandal to good men and honest women. Thereupon Miss Davies grew an "impertinent slut," and my Lady Castlemaine waxed melancholy, and meditated mischief against her royal and fickle lover. The patient Queen herself was moved to anger by the new position of Miss Davies, and when the latter appeared in a play at Whitehall, in which she was about to dance, her Majesty rose and left the house. But neither the offended dignity of the Queen, nor Lady Castlemaine "looking fire," nor the bad practical jokes of Nell Gwyn, could loose the King from the temporary enchantment to which he surrendered himself. Their daughter was that Mary Tudor, who married the second Earl of Derwentwater, whose son, the third earl, was the gallant young fellow who lost his head for aid afforded to his cousin, the first Pretender, in 1715. Before his death, a request was made to the Duke of Richmond, son of Charles II., by Madlle. de Querouaille, to present a memorial to the Lords in order to save the young earl's life. The Duke presented the memorial, but he added his earnest hope that their lordships would reject the prayer of it! In such wise did the illegitimate Stuarts play brother to each other! Through the marriage of the daughter of Lord Derwentwater with the eighth Lord Petre, the blood of the Stuart and of Moll Davies still runs in their lineal descendant, the present and twelfth lord.
Happy are the women who have no histories! Such is the case with Miss Saunderson, better known to us as Mrs. Betterton. For about thirty years she played the chief female characters, especially in Shakspeare's plays, with great success. She created as many new parts as she played years; but they were in old-world pieces, which have been long forgotten. In the home which she kept with her husband, charity, hospitality, and dignity abided. So unexceptionable was Mrs. Betterton's character, that when Crowne's "Calisto" was to be played at court in 1674, she was chosen to be instructress to the Lady Mary and the Lady Anne. These princesses derived from Mrs. Betterton's lessons the accomplishment for which both were distinguished when queens, of pronouncing speeches from the throne in a distinct and clear voice, with sweetness of intonation, and grace of enunciation. Mrs. Betterton subsequently instructed the Princess Anne in the part of Semandra, and her husband did the like office for the young noblemen who also played in Lee's rattling tragedy of "Mithridates." Two individuals, better qualified by their professional skill and their moral character, to instruct the young princesses and courtiers, and to exercise over them a wholesome authority, could not then have been found on or off the stage. After Betterton's death, Queen Anne settled on her old teacher of elocution a pension of £500 a year.
Of the remainder of the actresses who first joined Davenant, there is nothing recorded, except their greater or less efficiency. Of Mrs. Holden, Betterton's kinswoman, the only incident that I can recall to mind is, that once, by the accidental mispronunciation of a word, when playing in "Romeo and Juliet," and giving it "a vehement action, it put the house into such a laughter, that London Bridge at low water was silence to it!" Under its echoes let us pass to the "gentlemen of the King's Company."
CHAPTER IV
THE GENTLEMEN OF THE KING'S COMPANY
Of the King's Company, under Killigrew – Hart, Burt, and Clun have already been noticed as players