A Pair of Merrie Ladies: Katherine Sedley & Nell Gwyn

Readers of The Countess and the King have been intrigued by the relationship between Katherine Sedley and actress Nell Gwyn, and have asked for more information about their friendship. I'm happy to oblige!

At first glance, the two seem to have little in common. Nell Gwyn (1650-1687), left, was born into extreme poverty. Raised by her mother in a brothel, she was saved from that fate by her beauty, her charm, and, most of all, her gift for being able to entertain others with her singing, dancing, and witty, bawdy banter. She was also lucky. The return of Charles II to the English throne in 1660 marked the end of Puritan rule. One of the first acts by Charles was to reopen the playhouses, and better still, permit women on the stage for the first time. The rowdy Restoration playhouse was the perfect place for Nell’s saucy exuberance, and she rose quickly from being an orange seller in the pit to a leading lady in comic roles. She was a favorite of audiences, and in 1667, when she first would have met Katherine, she was a seventeen-year-old superstar that had already been noticed by the king himself.

Katherine Sedley (1657-1717), right, was the daughter of baronet, poet, politician, and libertine Sir Charles Sedley (1639-1701.) Sir Charles was young, wealthy, and sufficiently connected at court that he regularly drank and played tennis with the king. But Sir Charles’s wife was mad, believing herself to be queen, and he soon sent her to live out her days in a foreign convent. This left Sir Charles as the only parent to their only child, and instead of having ten-year-old Katherine reared by relatives, he decided to include her in his life. This meant that Katherine stayed out late at playhouses and taverns, and that some of the town’s most disreputable, high-born gentlemen (known as the Merry Gang) became like indulgent uncles. In the company of her father’s friends, she learned to drink, swear, and gamble. Because she amused them, she was encouraged to speak freely, and outrageously. Whatever well-bred shyness she might have once possessed vanished, and unlike most young ladies her age, she came to enjoy being the center of attention for what she said.

She probably met Nell in a playhouse tiring room, for Sir Charles liked actresses, and kept at least one of Nell’s friends as a mistress. In turn Nell was mistress to one of Sir Charles’s closest friends, Charles Sackville, Lord Buckhurst. Katherine certainly knew Nell by July of 1667, when Lord Buckhurst and Nell retreated to a house in Epsom for the summer. Sir Charles was a frequent visitor, and he often brought Katherine with him. Nell taught Katherine to dance the theatrical jigs that had made her famous, and amidst all the drunken partying and general excess that were the talk of Epsom –– another friend of Sir Charles, the infamous Earl of Rochester was a frequent guest as well –– it’s likely Katherine observed and learned a great deal more than just jigs. (I've included much of this summer at Epsom in my novel about Nell, The King's Favorite.)

Back in London, the baronet’s daughter and the actress continued to cross paths. Nell recognized a kindred spirit in the younger girl, and looked after her – if not exactly like a mother, then as an affectionate older sister. When Nell left Lord Buckhurst’s keeping for that of the king, becoming a royal mistress, Katherine took notice. Wives were banished to the country (or, like her mother, abroad), while mistresses stayed in town and had much more fun. Is it any wonder that when Sir Charles, belatedly worrying about his daughter’s future, began to speak of finding a husband for the teenaged Katherine, she wasn’t interested?

Instead Katherine became part of the royal court, first attending the palace with her father and later, as a maid of honor, in her own right. There she was again united with Nell. They must have been quite a pair to see: Katherine tall, dark, and angular, with snapping dark eyes that missed nothing, and tiny, doll-like Nell with her auburn curls. Together they must have struck fear in the hearts of all gentlemen who lacked the quickness to follow their wit, or worse, to deflect it. The two women were fast with jests, jibes, droll observations, and barbed insults, and because they were women, they often got away with saying things that might have landed a man in the Tower.  They also amused the King, and that, too, was a sure way to success at court. But women as clever as these two were a rarity, and being the only females connected to the Merry Band must have also strengthened their friendship.

Certainly Nell provided an example of the fun-loving royal mistress for Katherine, and neither one pretended to be better than they were. While Louise de Keroualle, another of Charles’s mistresses, clung to the French notion of a royal mistress as an honorable position of state, Nell and Katherine thought otherwise. When anti-Catholic sentiment makes a crowd stop Nell’s carriage, mistaking her for French Louise, Nell famously popped her head through the window and reassured the onlookers that they should be calm and let her pass, because she “was the Protestant whore.”

Katherine, too, believed in calling a spade a spade. It was James’s idea to make her a countess, not Katherine’s, and Katherine wickedly enjoyed reminding the reserved Mary of Orange (the Mary of William and Mary) that she had been Mary’s father’s whore. Shortly before Katherine’s death in 1717, she attended one of George I’s drawing rooms. Among those attending were two other former royal mistresses: Louise , and Elizabeth Villiers, mistress to William II. Cackling with delight, Katherine loudly announced their presence: “Who would have thought that we three old whores should meet here?”

Who, indeed?  By then the time of the Merry Gang were forever done, and no other English royal court would welcome two such outrageous ladies as Katherine and Nell. For better or worse, but certainly for quieter, the palace would never be the same.

Introducing Katherine Sedley, Heroine of "The Countess & the King"

At first glance, Katherine Sedley (1657-1717) doesn’t seem like heroine material. In most English history books, she’s not mentioned at all, and even in histories that concentrate on the Restoration (1660-1685), she’ll merit just a footnote if she’s lucky. She didn’t come from a stellar royal family, or one with notable talent or power. She wasn’t a great beauty, or a queen or princess who changed the course of history.

Yet still I made Katherine Sedley the heroine of my new historical novel, The Countess and the King, and in the perverse ways of writing, all those reasons why Katherine shouldn’t merit a book turned out to be exactly the same reasons why she made for such a wonderfully contradictory heroine.  Katherine was always unpredictable, and always determined to go her own way – not something most 17^th c. English ladies would dare to do.

 Katherine was born the only child of privelged teenaged parents who weren’t much more than children themselves. In another time period, their families would have likely exerted a steadying influence, and seen that the young family followed a responsible path through life. But Katherine was born just before the grim Puritan ways of Oliver Cromwell’s Protectorate were replaced by the much merrier ones of Charles II, restored at last to his throne. With the king’s return, wealthy young aristocrats like the Sedleys flocked to join the free-wheeling court.

Respectability was out of fashion; exuberant excess was the new style, and young Sir Charles became a well-known libertine, famous for drunken debauchery. His young wife, however, remained at home, sinking deep into madness. Against such a background, Katherine’s upbringing reads like something from a modern tabloid. Her father treated her more like an amusing pet than a daughter, taking her with him to playhouses and taverns and introducing her to his notorious friends.  She was both adored and spoiled, and learned how to drink, swear, and tell off-color jokes, and was equally comfortable with actresses like Nell Gwyn and with the king himself.  With such connections, and as the heiress to her father’s large fortune, Katherine should have been primed for a splendid dynastic marriage.

Except, however, for a few sizable stumbling-blocks. First, Katherine was considered shamefully plain. In a court that prized languid, voluptuous beauties, she was pale, thin, and angular, with heavy brows and a wide mouth.  She was also intelligent, her wit quick and sharp. (Her first portrait, above left, by Sir Peter Lely, shows how she didn’t fit the fashionable ideal, yet still captures the sense that she was a lot of fun.) Most of all, she had no wish to wed and give control of her life to a husband. From her own mother to the queen herself, the court was full of neglected, lonely wives, and Katherine was far too independent for that.  She had her own fortune, and was determined to choose her own loves.  The first two men she gave her heart to very nearly broke it, choosing prettier women to wed instead, and another who she rejected proved to be a fearsome enemy at court.

But finally Katherine found a man who appreciated her: James Stuart, Duke of York, and heir to the throne of England. Katherine didn’t care that James was married, or that he was much older, or that the rest of the court regarded him as a poor second in comparison to his brother the king. James found her witty and outrageously amusing and beautiful, and Katherine gleefully gave herself over to the role of a royal mistress. Her portrait, above right, by Godfrey Kneller from this time shows her unadorned elegance, her expression seemingly bemused by her good fortune.

Even as a prince’s mistress, Katherine couldn’t be conventional. She delighted in the scandal she caused, enjoying every moment of it. But the carefree days were short-lived. James had always been a polarizing figure at court, and before long his religious beliefs made him a politically dangerous one as well. Katherine was thrust into the intrigue, torn between her royal lover and England itself, and her cleverness was valuable not for amusement, but for survival. When Charles suddenly died and James became king, Katherine’s position at court grew all the more perilous. The last portrait, above left, by the studio of Godrey Kneller, shows her soon after James has been crowned, and after he has made her Countess of Dorchester. Formally posed on the edge of a gilded bed, lifting aside the bed curtain in a royal mistress’s welcome, her earlier merriment has vanished. Instead she appears reserved and self-contained, as if she already knows the difficult choice before her, a choice that will determine both her fate, and that of The Countess and the King. 

Let the Blog Tour Begin!

I'm in the final countdown until the release date for "The Countess & the King" –– that's next Tuesday, September 7, the day after Labor Day –– but I've already begun my blog tour.

Today's the beginning of the  "Countess & King" week-long event at the Historical Fiction Bloggers Roundtable. Here's the introduction, featuring an interview, but there will also be a new post daily on each of the Roundtable's blogs, where I'll be discussing all manner of topics related to the book. Plus each blog will be giving away a copy of "Countess & King", so please leave a question or comment to enter to win.

I'll be participating in another event over at Passages to the Past. On Monday, September 13, I'll be appearing there in a live chat, and, in the meantime, PTTP is also offering a "Giveaway Extravaganza", with one entry receiving all five of my historical novels to a reader who comments, with extra entries for anyone who announces the contest via their own blog, twitter, or FB.

PTTP has already posted their review of "Countess & King", too, and it's lovely.

More to come over the next few weeks....