Indeed, had Charles been always at his best he would have had a very different name in history.  He could be in every sense a king.  He had a keen knowledge of human nature.  Though he governed England very badly, he never governed it so badly as to lose his popularity.

The epigram of Rochester, written at the king’s own request, was singularly true of Charles.  No man relied upon his word, yet men loved him.  He never said anything that was foolish, and he very seldom did anything that was wise; yet his easy manners and gracious ways endeared him to those who met him.

One can find no better picture of his court than that which Sir Walter Scott has drawn so vividly in Peveril of the Peak; or, if one wishes first-hand evidence, it can be found in the diaries of Evelyn and of Samuel Pepys.  In them we find the rakes and dicers, full of strange oaths, deep drunkards, vile women and still viler men, all striving for the royal favor and offering the filthiest lures, amid routs and balls and noisy entertainments, of which it is recorded that more than once some woman gave birth to a child among the crowd of dancers.

No wonder that the little Portuguese queen kept to herself and did not let herself be drawn into this swirling, roaring, roistering saturnalia.  She had less influence even than Moll Davis, whom Charles picked out of a coffee-house, and far less than “Madam Carwell,” to whom it is reported that a great English nobleman once presented pearls to the value of eight thousand pounds in order to secure her influence in a single stroke of political business.

Of all the women who surrounded Charles there was only one who cared anything for him or for England.  The rest were all either selfish or treacherous or base.  This one exception has been so greatly written of, both in fiction and in history, as to make it seem almost unnecessary to add another word; yet it may well be worth while to separate the fiction from the fact and to see how much of the legend of Eleanor Gwyn is true.

The fanciful story of her birthplace is most surely quite unfounded.  She was not the daughter of a Welsh officer, but of two petty hucksters who had their booth in the lowest precincts of London.  In those days the Strand was partly open country, and as it neared the city it showed the mansions of the gentry set in their green-walled parks.  At one end of the Strand, however, was Drury Lane, then the haunt of criminals and every kind of wretch, while nearer still was the notorious Coal Yard, where no citizen dared go unarmed.

Within this dreadful place children were kidnapped and trained to various forms of vice.  It was a school for murderers and robbers and prostitutes; and every night when the torches flared it vomited forth its deadly spawn.  Here was the earliest home of Eleanor Gwyn, and out of this den of iniquity she came at night to sell oranges at the entrance to the theaters.  She was stage-struck, and endeavored to get even a minor part in a play; but Betterton, the famous actor, thrust her aside when she ventured to apply to him.