of a brother to whom he was sincerely attached. In the same year in which he relieved Nelly from her outlawry, two additional payments of 500l. each were made to her by way of royal bounty; and two years afterwards the same book of accounts records a payment to Sir Stephen Fox of 1256l. 0s. 2d. for so much by him paid to Sir Robert Clayton, the alderman and great city merchant, in full of 3774l. 2s. 6d. for redeeming the mortgages to Sir John Musters, of Beskwood Park, for settling the same for life upon Mrs. Ellen Gwyn, "and after her death upon the Duke of St. Alban's, and his issue male, with the reversion in the crown."[1] Beskwood Park is in the county of Nottingham, on the borders of merry Sherwood, and was long an appurtenance to the Crown, eagerly sought for by royal favourites. Whether it remains in the possession of the present Duke of St. Alban's, as the descendant of Nelly, I am not aware.
James's kindness to Nelly, and his known design of reconciling the nation to the Church of Rome, gave rise to a rumour, perpetuated by Evelyn in his Memoirs, that she at this time. "was said to go to mass." He alludes to her conversion in the same brief entry with that of Dryden:—"such
- ↑ Secret Service Expenses, p.167.
