she certainly sustained in February, 1669, at any rate, she also appeared as Panura, in Fletcher’s “Island Princess,” and as Theodosia, in Dryden’s comedy of “An Evening’s Love, or, The Mock Astrologer,” to the Jacyntha of Nell Gwynne; there is scarcely a record of her assumption of any other part, unless she be the same Mrs. Hughes who impersonated Mrs. Monylove, in a comedy called “Tom Essence,” produced at the Dorset Garden Theatre in 1676.  But it is believed that she quitted or was taken from her profession—­was “erept the stage,” to employ old Downes’s phrase—­at an earlier date.  The famous Prince Rupert of the Rhine was her lover.  He bought for her, at a cost of L20,000, the once magnificent seat of Sir Nicholas Crispe, near Hammersmith, which afterwards became the residence of the Margrave of Brandenburg; and at a later date the retreat of Queen Caroline, the wife of George IV.  Ruperta, the daughter of Mrs. Hughes, was married to Lieutenant-General Howe, and, surviving her husband many years, died at Somerset House about 1740.  In the “Memoirs” of Count Grammont mention is found of Prince Rupert’s passion for the actress.  She is stated to have “brought down and greatly subdued his natural fierceness.”  She is described as an impertinent gipsy, and accused of pride, in that she conducted herself, all things considered, unselfishly, and even with some dignity.  The King is said to have been “greatly pleased with this event”—­he was probably amused at it; Charles II. was very willing at all times to be amused—­“for which great rejoicings” (why rejoicings?) “were made at Tunbridge; but nobody was bold enough to make it the subject of satire, though the same constraint was not observed with other ridiculous personages.”  Upon the Prince the effect of his love seems to have been marked enough.  “From this time adieu alembics, crucibles, furnaces, and all the black furniture of the forges; a complete farewell to all mathematical instruments and chemical speculations; sweet powder and essences were now the only ingredients that occupied any share of his attention.”  Further of Mrs. Hughes there is nothing to relate, with the exception of the use made of her name by the unseemly and unsavoury Tom Brown in his “Letters from the Dead to the Living.”  Mrs. Hughes and Nell Gwynne are supposed to address letters to each other, exchanging reproaches in regard to the impropriety of their manner of life.  Nell Gwynne accuses her correspondent of squandering her money and of gaming.  “I am ashamed to think that a woman who had wit enough to tickle a Prince out of so fine an estate should at last prove such a fool as to be bubbled of it by a little spotted ivory and painted paper.”  “Peg Hughes,” as she is called, replies, congratulating herself upon her generosity, treating the loss of her estate as “the only piece of carelessness I ever committed worth my boast,” and charging “Madam Gwynne” with vulgar avarice and the love of “lucre of base coin.”  We can glean nothing more of the story of Mrs. Hughes.