Full name: Nell Gwyn: Mistress to a King

Author: Charles Beauclerk Year: 2005 Rank: Rating: Original Rating: Pop Rating: Genres/categories: History, Biographies, Non Fiction, Historical fiction Purchase/reserch links: Goodreads Amazon LibraryThing ISBNs: 9780871139269 087113926X

Written by a direct descendant of the union between Nell Gwyn and King Charles II, Nell Gwyn tells the story of one of England's great folk heroines, a woman who rose from an impoverished, abusive childhood to become King Charles II's most cherished mistress, and the star of one of the great love stories of royal history. Born during a tumultuous period in England's past, Nell Gwyn caught the eye of King Charles II, the newly restored, pleasure-seeking "merry monarch" of a nation in full hedonistic reaction to Puritan rule. Their seventeen-year love affair played out against the backdrop of the Great Fire of London, the Great Plague, court scandals, and the constant threat of political revolution. Despite his other lovers' Machiavellian efforts to win the king's favor and humiliate Nell, the self-proclaimed "Protestant whore" earned the devotion of her king and the love of her nation, becoming England's first "people's princess." Magnificently recreating the heady and licentious, yet politically charged atmosphere of Restoration England, Nell Gwyn tells the true-life Cinderella story of a common orange salesgirl who became mistress to a king. Similar books: King Charles II by Antonia Fraser On a Grander Scale by Lisa Jardine Brief Lives by John Aubrey A Gambling Man by Jenny Uglow The Unruly Queen by Flora Fraser History of William the Conqueror by Jacob Abbott Victoria by Julia Baird Samuel Pepys by Claire Tomalin Disraeli by Robert Blake Privilege and Scandal by Janet Gleeson Bess of Hardwick by Mary S. Lovell That Woman by Anne Sebba Mary, Queen of Scotland and the Isles by Stefan Zweig Elizabeth the Queen by Sally Bedell Smith Arbella by Sarah Gristwood Andrew Jackson and the Miracle of New Orleans by Brian Kilmeade Georgiana by Amanda Foreman Jane Austen at Home by Lucy Worsley The Indifferent Stars Above by Daniel James Brown The Family Romanov by Candace Fleming