William married Charlotte Werden on 13 Dec 1722. Charlotte died on 3 Jun 1770. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Charles married Diana De Vere on 13 Apr 1694. Diana (daughter of Aubrey (20Th & Last Earl of Oxford) De Vere and Dianna Kirke) died on 15 Jan 1942. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

For a listing of web sites that have the genealogy of family lines ofroyal houses, many noble houses and more, go to the entry "INFORMATION,Royal Houses family lines web sites" in this file.

"Charles II (1630 - 1685)

Charles II Charles II, as the oldest surviving son of Charles I, spentpart of the English Civil War (1642-6) fighting on his father's behalf inthe West of England, most notably at the Battle of Edgehill (1642). Hewas forced into exile - travelling first to the Isles of Scilly andJersey. (It was in Jersey that he met the mistress who was eventually togive birth to his son, James, Duke of Monmouth.)

From exile in France, Charles attempted to save his condemned father'slife by presenting to Parliament a signed blank sheet of paper, whichwould have allowed the government to agree to whatever terms would savehis father's life.

After his father's execution in 1649, and after he agreed to makePresbyterianism the religion of England and Scotland, Charles wasproclaimed King of Scotland - and some parts of England and Ireland - atScone, in 1651. Two years later, he invaded England, and fought Cromwellat the Battle of Worcester.

Defeated, Charles once again fled to France, where he lived a poorexistence. Eventually he moved to Germany and then to the SpanishNetherlands.

In 1660, Charles's restoration to the throne was engineered by GeneralGeorge Monck, an English soldier who had fought for Cromwell, butrealised the importance of the monarchy in rebuilding the country.Charles returned to London on his birthday, 29 May 1660.

The King's desire for religious toleration (due in large part to hisleanings toward Roman Catholicism) was overwhelmed by the new parliament.Royalist in nature, they passed the Clarendon code, which ensuredAnglicanism as the state religion and threatened non-conformists. CharlesII tried to increase religious tolerance with his Declaration ofIndulgence, but was forced to withdraw it.

He entered into a series of diplomatic deals, first with the creation ofan alliance between Holland and Sweden. At the same time, without theknowledge of Parliament, he negotiated the Treaty of Dover with LouisXIV.

In this secret treaty he agreed, in exchange for ?200,000 a year, toconvert to Catholicism, along with his brother James (the future JamesII), and to continue to war against the Dutch.

He further attempted to encourage Catholic freedom with the passing ofanother Declaration of Indulgence, but Parliament overruled him, and cameback with further controls against Catholicism, this time forbiddingCatholics from sitting in Parliament. The King's alliance with Louis ofFrance was forcibly ended at this point, with the brokered marriage ofCharles's niece, Mary, to the Protestant William of Orange - arch rivalof Louis.

By 1678, anti-Catholic sentiment was at the highest point in Charles'sreign. Over the next three years, his royal family line suffered manychallenges to its existence, with innumerable threats from Parliament.The period saw the rise of the Whigs (who wanted James excluded from thesuccession) and the Tories (who wanted no change). In 1681, Charlesdissolved Parliament for the last time. From henceforth he ruled as anabsolute monarch, and found himself popular with his subjects once again.

As well as these domestic problems, his reign also saw the rise ofcolonisation and trade in India, the East Indies and America (where theBritish captured New York from the Dutch in 1664), and the passage ofNavigation Acts that secured Britain's future as a sea-power.

The king had a hedonistic character - he had numerous mistresses andillegitimate children, and loved racing and gambling - and this led tohim having a considerable influence on Restoration art and literature."
From BBC athttp://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/charles_ii_king.shtml


BRITANNIA GATEWAYS
at http://www.britannia.com/history/charmist.html

THE MISTRESSES OF CHARLES II
by Brenda Ralph Lewis

Monarchs and mistresses were an expected combination when royal wiveswere chosen for dynastic or political rather than for personal reasons.However, even by the permissive standards this implied, King Charles II(1630-1685) was an extraordinarily active monarch, who ran more than onemistress in harness at a time and made no secret of his fourteenillegitimate children. Charles started young, at eighteen, when he was inexile in France following Parliament's victory in the Civil War againsthis father, Charles I. There, in his idleness, Charles had little to dobut womanise. The first pretty girl to catch his eye and the first of atleast fifteen mistresses, was a Welshwoman, Lucy Walter whom he met inThe Hague in the summer of 1648. Lucy took up with Charles shortly afterhis arrival , and in 1649 gave birth to his first child, James, laterDuke of Monmouth. Lucy was her lover's constant companion, but he madethe mistake of leaving her behind when he left The Hague in 1650. Hereturned to find she had been intriguing with a certain Colonel HenryBennet. Charles ended the affaire there and then, leaving Lucy to a lifeof prostitution. She died, probably of venereal disease, in 1658.
Charles, meanwhile, moved on to other mistresses and enjoyed at leastfour more before his exile ended and he was recalled to England to becomeking in 1660. The list of illicit royal affaires burgeoned after that,and came to typify the unbuttoned society which grew up around therestored monarch. Joyless puritans did not berate Charles as 'that greatenemy of chastity and marriage' for nothing, One of the spectacles at hiscourt was Charles ' toying with his mistresses,' and surrounded by hisfavourite spaniels. For a scene of decadence, that took some beating.

Charles was not fussy about the status of his women. A pretty face and acomely figure were enough for a mistress to be taken on the strength, andhe was particularly prone to actresses. . The stage provided a handyhunting- ground for the regular royal theatregoer, and it was here thatCharles encountered Moll Davis in about 1667. Moll was a popularsinger-dancer- comedienne, but she had her dark side. Mrs. Pepys, wife ofSamuel Pepys the diarist, called her 'the most impertinent slut in theworld' and she was grasping and vulgar with it. Moll flaunted her successas a royal mistress, showing off her 'mighty pretty fine coach' and aring worth the then vast sum of ?600.

Moll , who gave up the stage in 1668, had a daughter by Charles thefollowing year but soon fell foul of Nell Gwynne, one of the King'sconcurrent mistresses, who had a wicked sense of humour. Hearing thatMoll was due to sleep with the king on a night early in 1668, Nellinvited her to eat some sweetmeats she had prepared. Unknown to Moll, herrival had mixed in a hefty dose of the laxative jalap. After that, thenight in the royal bed did not exactly go as planned. Charles, too, had asharp sense of humour, but this time, he was not amused and Moll wassummarily dismissed. Being a generous man, though, Charles sent Mollpacking with a pension of ?1,000 a year.

However, Nell herself was the target of some opposition from another ofthe royal mistresses, the high and mighty Louise de Keroualle who beratedCharles for taking up with this coarse, common 'orange wench'. Nell'sname for Louise who had a slight cast in on eye, was Squintabella.Another name Nell gave her was 'weeping willow', since Louise would usetears to prise some gift or favour from the King. Both nicknamesinfuriated Louise, but amused Charles.

Yet the fact remained that Louise was socially more exalted than Nell,who had emerged from the squalor of London's east end as first, a whorein a bawdy house, next a theatre orange-seller, then an actress beforebecoming a royal mistress. The daughter of a Breton family of ancient anddistinguished lineage, Louise was maid of honour to the Duchess ofOrleans, Charles' sister,who took her her to England in 1670. The Kingfell for Louise's baby- faced beauty on sight and she became maitresse entitre - official mistress - in 1671.The following year she gave birth toher first child, Charles Lennox, later Duke of Richmond. Louise herselfwas created Duchess of Portsmouth.

Louise, however, had an agenda of her own.She attempted to persuadeCharles to become an Catholic, a suicidal move in strongly ProtestantEngland. Charles was canny enough to resist, despite his own Catholicleanings. But Louise had fingers in other pies. She reportedly engineeredthe disgrace of the prominent courtier, the Duke of Buckingham and in1677, another of Charles' mistresses, Barbara Villiers, Duchess ofCleveland. She fought off several rivals, including the Duchess ofMazarin, a further mistress, and the young Duke of Monmouth. Sheingratiated herself, sometimes through sexual favours, with powerful men,including the influential statesman the Earl of Danby.

. Meanwhile, Louise was building a substantial nest-egg. She enjoyed asplendid apartment at Whitehall Palace, which was redesigned three timesto satisfy her expensive tastes. In addition, she was allowed ?40,000 ayear from the royal coffers. In total, the rapacious Louise accumulatedover ?136,668 from her royal connection.

Barbara Villiers, later Countess of Castlemaine and Duchess of Clevelandwas another beauty with a less than beautiful disposition. Barbara, aViscount's daughter, was already married when she met Charles soon afterhis return to England in 1660. When Charles' future queen, Catherine ofBraganza arrived from Portugal in 1662, Barbara appears to have beenheavily pregnant by him. She gave birth to a son on 18 June, five weeksafter Catherine's arrival. That same day, the Queen visited Barbara inher apartment at Hampton Court, and was so shocked to see the newbornchild that she threw a fit and had to be carried out.

Charles had a dichotomous attitude towards Barbara. Although , likeLouise, she was never faithful to her royal lover, the King used to visitBarbara four nights a week at her apartments in Whitehall. When hersecond son was born in 1663, Charles denied paternity but neverthelessgave Barbara lavish Christmas presents the same year. Yet the couple hadferocious arguments and she was not above threatening Charles. When shewas expecting another child in 1667, Barbara swore that if he deniedpaternity again, she would dash the infant's brains out. Barbara's powerover Charles was such that he went down on his knees to be 'pardoned' forhis very well-founded suspicions.

Ultimately, Barbara's demands were so great, her temper so fierce and herinfidelities so brazen that Charles tired of her. Louise de Keroualle wason to a surefire thing when she conspired to get her rival removed fromcourt. Barbara left for Paris in the spring of 1677, to embark on moreliaisons which produced yet more children until her tally totalled seven,fathered by at least six different men. Her husband was not one of them.

No mistress could have been more different from these haughty graspingbeauties than the kindhearted, faithful, diverting Nell Gwynne. She firstmet Charles at the Duke's House theatre in 1668 .He was enchanted by theunaffected girl Pepys later called 'pretty, witty Nell' and before long,they became lovers. Nell was totally committed to the King, so much sothat she punched the Duke of Buckingham over the ear when he tried tokiss her. Buckingham was not the only would-be seducer at court, but likehim, all of them found Nell was completely uninterested.

Charles never tired of Nell, who gave him two more sons, andunderstandably so. Although he lavished two fine homes on her, one ofthem in London's Pall Mall, she never treated them like prizes orpersonal gains to be flaunted, but as places where he could relax andenjoy what his other mistresses never gave him - a real home and aninteresting social life.

When Nell used her influence with Charles, it was often in the cause ofothers. She persuaded him, for instance, to free the disgraced Duke ofBuckingham from prison and campaigned for the foundation of the RoyalHospital, Chelsea after coming across an old soldier begging in thestreet. Her great worry, though - and his - was their twenty year agegap. On his deathbed in 1685, the King begged his brother and successor,James 'Do not let poor Nelly starve.' James generously paid Nell's debtsand gave her an allowance, but it was not for long. Nell survived herking by only two years. She died of 'the pox' in 1687, aged 37.Afterwards, Nell became something of a legend, as a goodnatured charmer,and an ordinary girl from the slums who was probably the only mistress ofKing Charles who truly loved him.

From http://www.britannia.com/history/charmist.html

RHYME TO REMEMBER THEM BY

Willy, Willy, Harry, Ste,
Harry, Dick, John, Harry three,
One, two, three Neds, Richard two,
Henries four, five, six - then who?
Edwards four, five, Dick the bad,
Harries twain and Ned the lad,
Mary, Bessie, James the vain,
Charlie, Charlie, James again,
William & Mary, Anna Gloria,
Four Georges, William and Victoria,
Edward, George, then Ned the eighth
quickly goes and abdicat'th,
leaving George, then Liz the second,
and with Charlie next it's reckoned.

That's the way our monarchs lie
since Harold got it in the eye!

PS. Sorry, Lady Jane Grey - you got the chop!

This rhyme has been rememorised by British school children for a greatmany years. In this version the current Royal family has been added. Itcomes from "English Monarchs Dates & Ages" by John Owen Smith athttp://www.johnowensmith.co.uk/histdate/monarchs.htm

Charles + Nell (Eleanor) Gywnne. Nell (daughter of Thomas Gwynne and Eleanour Smith) was born on 2 Feb 1650; died on 13 Nov 1687. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Below from http://www.cyburkespace.info/content/nodes/Gwynn_N.txt

LIFE AND TIMES:
After the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, the restraints of the
Puritans were thrown off and hundreds of brothels opened in London. Nelland her sister were employed at a popular brothel run by a Madame Rossand visited by diarist Samuel Pepys*. The new king, Charles II*, set uphis court nearby at Whitehall and the area became busy.

At the end of 1660, Gwynn's sister Rose had been set up by HarryKilligrew, the son of Tom Killigrew, a favorite companion of the King.Tom Killigrew was given a license for one of the new theaters the Kingauthorized. It was in Covent Garden and became known as the King'sPlayhouse. The sisters were taken on as orange girls through her friend,Mary Meggs (known as Orange Moll), who had been granted a license to sellrefreshments at Killigrew's theater.

Killigrew had obtained from the King the exclusive right to use women in
women's parts. By 1664, Gwyn was acting at the playhouse, although shecould neither read nor write. She was noticed by poet and playwright John
Dryden*, in a play called "Thomaso", by Tom Killigrew, when she played a
courtesan. Although the play closed after one performance (it was so
terrible), Dryden asked that Nell be taught to act and given propercostumes. By the time she was 15, Gwyn had found a protector, playwrightCharles Hart, through whom she met fashionable young men and members ofthenewly formed Royal Society.

Gwyn learned how to behave in polite society and, given her natural wit,
she attracted the attention of a number of celebrated men. Christopher
Wren*, the architect, was taken by her, as were other members of theRoyal
Society, such as scientist Robert Hooke*.

Just as Gwyn's career was about to take off, however, the Great Plague of
1665 broke out and the theater was closed. After the plague passed, Nellgot
the leading female role in a play, but with the 1666 Great Fire ofLondon the
theaters were closed again. When the fire danger was past, Gwyn got the
lead in in Dryden" s "Secret love, or The Maiden Queen". The play was ahit. The King saw it several times, and ordered acommand performance atCourt.

Gwyn became friends with another actress, Moll Davis. Both had the same
life's aim: to find rich, aristocratic protectors on as permanent a basis
as possible. The Duke of Buckingham had ousted the King's current
mistress, and a replacement was being sought by the King's friends.Theyapproached both Nell and Moll, suggesting they follow the Court toTonbridge Wells at Christmas, 1667. It was Moll who got invited into theKing's bed, but Gwyn ingratiated herself with the courtiers, and in thespring of 1668, sat at the theater with a relative of Buckingham's in thenext box to the King and his brother, the Duke of York.The Kingimmediately engaged her in conversation and after the performance theyall had supper together. By the end of the summer, Gwyn was the King'sfavourite.

Gwyn continued as an actress, but was often away for days with the King.
She and the King spent weeks at Newmarket. In 1669, when Gwyn became
pregnant, it was clear that the King did not regard her as just another
whore. He ate at least one meal a day with her, played cards and received
diplomats and petitioners at her house.

In 1670, she bore a son, Charles Beauclerk. In 1671, she had a secondson,
James.

The King never made Nell his official mistress. That position was
conferred in 1671 to Louise de Keroualle, whom Charles later made Duchess
of Portland. Charles divided his time between the two. When the King's
Playhouse reopened in 1674 after a fire, Gwyn was given her own box. In
1676, her first son, Charles Beauclerk, was made Baron Heddington and Earl
of Burford (and seven years later, the Duke of St. Albans.)

Gwyn was as popular with ordinary people as with the King's friends,mainly
because she remained down-to-earth. Gwyn was considered to keep the besttable and the King was particularly fond of her pigeon pies.

In 1679, the King took ill at Windsor and it was feared he would die.Gwyn, with the Queen's permission., nursed him. At Christmas 1679, theKing gave Gwyn a house near Windsor Castle. When members of the RoyalSociety visited the King, they often stayed there. In 1680, her secondson died and the King spent Christmas of that year with her. In 1681,Dryden read his poem "Absalom and Achitophel" to Charles and Gwyn.

Gwyn apparently never asked for much, and that was one of the qualities
that appealed to the King. However, she was insulted that she was givenno
title, and the King decided to please her and make her the Countess of
Greenwich. But, in 1685, Charles died before the title could be bestowed.
His death was relatively sudden, occurring after a few days' illness,
during which Gwyn was forbidden to see him. Diarist John Evelyn* writes
that before Charles died, he beseeched his brother, James, to make sure
that "Nelly might not starve". James paid her debts and Gwyn was
treated more kindly than the King's other mistresses, but she had to sell
her jewels to support herself. In 1687, two years after the King died,
Gwyn herself fell ill and became partially paralyzed. She died onNovember
14th.

ASSESSMENT: Gwyn was a folk heroine to the people of her time because she
always remained, and behaved as, one of the people.

EXTRA CONNECTIONS: None

BIBLIOGRAPHY: MacGregor-Hastie, Roy, Nell Gwynn, Robert Hale, London,1987

From http://www.cyburkespace.info/content/nodes/Gwynn_N.txt

Notes:

Married:
1 _MSTAT Friends

Aubrey + Dianna Kirke. Dianna and died. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]