past life in so sincere a manner, that he desired her to describe her contrition in a letter to the King. At her request Burnet drew the draft of such a letter, but she never had strength enough to copy it out. Burnet on this wrote in his own name to the King, and sent a strong letter of remonstrance through Will Chiffinch, the keeper of the backstairs. Seldom, indeed, has a sovereign been addressed so boldly as by Burnet in this letter.[1] The King read it twice over, and then threw it in the fire; expressing himself not long after with great sharpness when Burnet's name was mentioned to him. But Charles had his own way, in this life at least, of atoning for his misdeeds, and to one of his best actions he is said to have been instigated by no less a person than Nell Gwyn.
This was the erection of a Royal Hospital at Chelsea for aged and disabled soldiers, the first stone of which was laid by the King himself in the spring of 1682. The idea, it is said, originated with Nelly, and I see no reason to doubt the tradition, supported as it is by the known benevolence of her character, her sympathy with the suffering, and the fact that sixty years ago at least Nelly's share in its foundation was recorded beneath her portrait serving
- ↑ Burnet, i. 457, ii. 287, and vi. 257, Ed. 1823; also Calamy's Life, ii. 83.
