There were occurring in England at this time certain events of moment to find places either in the page of history or biography; but in many of which "the chargeable ladies about the Court," as Shaftesbury designated the King's mistresses, would probably take very little interest. The deaths of Fairfax or St. John, of Clarendon or Milton, of the mother of Oliver Cromwell or of the loyal Marquess of Winchester (all of which happened during the time referred to in the present chapter), would hardly create a moment's concern at Whitehall. The news of a second Dutch war might excite more, as it involved an expense likely to divert the King's money from his mistresses. Greater interest, we may be sure, was felt in the death of the Duchess of York and the speculations on the subject of her successor, in Blood's stealing the Crown, in the opening of a new theatre in Dorset Gardens, in the representation of "The Rehearsal," in the destruction by fire of the first Drury Lane, and in the marriage of the King's eldest child by the Duchess of Cleveland, to Thomas Lord Dacre afterwards Earl of Sussex.
While "The Rehearsal" was drawing crowded houses,—indeed in the same month in which it first appeared,—Nell Gwyn was delivered (25 Dec. 1671)
