1671 – London: The Civil War is over and Charles II, the ‘Merry Monarch’, is revelling in the throne of his murdered father and all the privileges and power that comes with it. Sharing the spoils is his favourite companion, the celebrated beauty, actress Nell Gwyn.
I have an attraction to the stories of women – and the occasional man – from the footnotes of history, historical characters whose lives have either been ignored or erased from the historical record, or about whom the slightest of tantalising clues reach us.
Those shadowy characters who have previously inspired me range from Mary Seymour, the lost daughter of Queen Katherine Parr and Thomas Seymour, to Catherine Catesby, wife of Gunpowder plot ringleader, Robert. All have been eclipsed in some way by other more famous characters in the historical narrative. All have a story to tell even if the evidence for it is faint or well-hidden.
My dual-time novel about Rose Gwyn, the sister of the far more famous Nell Gwyn came about in much the same way as the others. A relative had acquired a new portrait for his collection which claimed to be Nell Gwyn. I had a general awareness of Nell as an actress from the Restoration era and one of the more famous mistresses of King Charles II but the portrait prompted me to read more about her, and one line in a biography jumped out at me:
“Nell and her elder sister Rose both worked as orange girls in the theatre…”
I knew about the oranges – they could almost serve as Nell Gwyn’s emblem and sometimes unofficially do, but the bit that caught my interest was that Nell had an elder sister, Rose.
Finding any references to Rose Gwyn in the historical record was almost impossible. She was more than elusive, almost invisible. There is a lot of information on Nell Gwyn and from that one can infer some elements of her sister’s life, particularly in their shared upbringing and early life, raised on the backstreets around Covent Garden and in the brothel where their mother worked.
However, much of what is written about Nell is gleaned from letters, diaries and contemporary observations rather than official records. Many of these are biased depending on the author. A lot of what we “know” of Nell including her wittiest comments and the anecdotes such as her dangling her elder son out of first floor window until the King gave him a title, are hearsay and legend, no doubt embroidered in the retelling. So where does that leave a sister about whom no one bothered to record much at all?
The first official record of Rose Gwyn is from 1663 when she was imprisoned for theft and wrote to the King to petition for bail (or someone wrote on her behalf as both she and Nell had no formal education). One chronicler refers to her as the “notorious thief Rose Gwyn.”
In her letter, Rose stated that her father had “lost all he had in the service of the late King.” Her petition was successful, supporting the genealogical data that suggests their father was Captain Thomas Gwyn, who died in a debtor’s prison shortly after Nell was born. Like many of the minor Royalist gentry, the Civil War had left his family destitute.
Both Rose and Nell sold sweet oranges to the audiences who flocked back to the theatre after Charles II’s restoration in 1660 but whilst for Nell this was a springboard into an acting career, Rose had no such talent. The next we hear of her she was married to a highwayman called Captain John Cassells. In 1670 Rose helped one of his fellow “knights of the road” to gain a pardon from the King for his crimes, presumably by asking Nell to intercede for him. What happened to John Cassells is a mystery – he was no Dick Turpin and his story has not come down to us through history – but we know that he pre-deceased Rose and that she married for a second time.
These then, were the meagre facts of Rose Gwyn’s life which provided a framework for my story. Had I been writing a non-fiction book I would have struggled but the gaps in the historical record give a novelist ample space to allow their imagination to roam. As this was a dual time novel, I wanted the contemporary narrative to be a mirror of the historical one in some senses, weaving together as the story progressed. And in one respect I was fortunate; there is some evidence that for the first few years of their life, Nell and Rose Gwyn grew up in Oxford.
I was able to visit the parish that was said to have been their home, and to wander the city streets, picturing them back in the 17th century when Oxford played such a key role in the Civil War, and later when Charles II located his court there during the plague. That seventeenth-century Oxford is close beneath the surface; visiting the city, it is possible to shut out the present day and recreate in your mind’s eye the place that Rose Gwyn knew.
Nicola Cornick
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About the Author
Nicola Cornick grew up in Yorkshire and studied History at the University of London and at Ruskin College Oxford where she was awarded a Distinction for her Masters dissertation on heroes and hero myths. She worked in academia for a number of years before becoming a full-time writer. She is the author of acclaimed dual-time mysteries as well as of award-winning historical romance. When she isn’t writing, Nicola volunteers as a guide and researcher for the National Trust at the 17th century hunting lodge Ashdown House. She has given talks and chaired panels for a number of festivals and conferences including the London Book Fair, the Historical Novel Society and the Sharjah Festival of Literature. Nicola also gives talks on history topics to WIs, history societies and other interested groups. In her spare time she is a bookseller at Wantage Bookshop and a puppy walker for the Guide Dogs charity. Find out more at Nicola's website
www.nicolacornick.co.uk and follow her on TwitterX
@NicolaCornick
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