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The Story of Nell Gwyn and the Savings of Charles Ii.
The Story of Nell Gwyn and the Savings of Charles Ii Author:Peter Cunningham Subtitle: With the Author's Latest Corrections, Edited, With Introduction, Additional Notes, and a Life of the Author General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1892 Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books... more » edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: INTRODUCTION And once Nell Gwynne, a frail young sprite, Look'd kindly when I met her ; I shook my head perhaps -- but quite Forgot to quite forget her. Fred Locker [ -- Lampson]'s St. James's Street (London Lyrics). We know that Nell Gwyn was born on the id February 1650-51, but the place of her birth and her parentage are more than doubtful. The preponderance of opinion may be said to be in favour of Hereford as the birthplace, although there is little or no evidence on the subject. The local feeling has not been so strong in London, and no one has urged the claims of the Coal Yard with any force, but the inhabitants of Hereford have been anxious to claim this famous woman as their own. The street in which the house popularly supposed to have been her birthplace was situated, ' Pipe Well Lane,' has now been renamed in her honour Gwyn Street. Moreover, in 1883, the Bishop of Hereford gave his consent to the fixing of a memorial tablet to Nell Gwyn on the outer face of his garden wall. This is intended to mark the site of the house where the royal favourite is supposed to have been born. Family. -- As to Nell Gwyn's father opinion is even more divided than it is in respect to her birthplace. When she had become prosperous some subservient person found her a coat of arms, but there is no evidence that she was of gentle birth. ' Captain Thomas Gwyn, of an ancient family in Wales,' is a singularly shadowy personage, and from the sordid circumstances of Nell's early life it seem...« less