Praised by Samuel Pepys for her comic performances as one of the first actresses on the English stage, she became best known for being a longtime mistress of King Charles II of England (c. April 1668 – 6 February 1685).

Called "pretty, witty Nell" by Pepys, she has been regarded as a living embodiment of the spirit of Restoration England, and has come to be considered a folk heroine, with a story echoing the rags-to-royalty tale of Cinderella.

This appears to be derived from a fragmentary pedigree by Anthony Wood that shows signs of confusion between different Gwyn families and it has not been firmly established.

[5] Nell Gwyn is reported in a manuscript of 1688 to have been a daughter of "Thos [Thomas] Guine a Capt [captain] of ane antient fammilie in Wales", but the statement is doubtful as its author does not seem to have hesitated to create or alter details where the facts were unknown or perhaps unremarkable.

[10] The fact that "Gwyn" is a name of Welsh origin might support Hereford, as its county is on the border with Wales; The Dictionary of National Biography notes a traditional belief that she was born there in Pipe Well Lane, renamed Gwynne Street in the 19th century.

Alexander Smith's 1715 Lives of the Court Beauties says she was born in Coal Yard Alley in Covent Garden and other biographies, including Wilson's, have followed suit.

One way or another, Gwyn's father seems to have been out of the picture by the time of her childhood in Covent Garden, and her "dipsomaniac mother, [and] notorious sister", Rose, were left in a low situation.

[12] She experimented with cross-dressing between 1663 and 1667, going under the name "William Nell" and adopting a false beard; her observations informed a most successful and hilarious character interpretation acting as a man on the stage in March 1667.

A 1667 entry in Pepys's diary records, second-hand, that:Here Mrs. Pierce tells me ... that Nelly and Beck Marshall, falling out the other day, the latter called the other my Lord Buckhurst's whore.

Various anonymous verses are the only other sources describing her childhood occupations: bawdyhouse servant, street hawker of herring, oysters, or turnips, and cinder-girl have all been put forth.

[15] Duncan provided Gwyn with rooms at a tavern in Maypole Alley,[16] and the satires also say he was involved in securing Nell a job at the theatre being built nearby.

[citation needed] The work exposed her to the theatre and to London's higher society: this was "the King's playhouse", and Charles II frequently attended performances.

This was no easy task in the Restoration theatre; the limited pool of audience members meant that very short runs were the norm for plays and 50 different productions might be mounted in the nine-month season lasting from September to June.

Nonetheless, since players of less substantial parts are seldom mentioned in cast lists or playgoers' diaries of the period, an absolute date for Gywn's debut cannot be ascertained.

Theatre historian Elizabeth Howe credits the gay couple's enduring success on the Restoration stage entirely to "the talent and popularity of a single actress, Nell Gwyn".

But so great performance of a comical part was never, I believe, in the world before as Nell do this, both as a mad girl, then most and best of all when she comes in like a young gallant; and hath the notions and carriage of a spark the most that ever I saw any man have.

"[30] Killigrew must have agreed with Pepys; once Gwyn left the acting profession, it was at least ten years before his company revived The Maiden Queen and even the less favoured The Indian Emperour because "the management evidently felt that it would be useless to present these plays without her".

Sometime after the end of April and her last recorded role that season (in Robert Howard's The Surprisal), Gwyn and Buckhurst left London for a country holiday in Epsom, accompanied by Charles Sedley, another wit in the merry gang.

Several anonymous satires from the time relate a tale of Gwyn, with the help of her friend Aphra Behn, slipping a powerful laxative into Davis's tea-time cakes before an evening when she was expected in the King's bed.

[44] As her commitment to the King increased, though, her acting career slowed, and she had no recorded parts between January and June 1669, when she played Valeria in Dryden's successful tragedy Tyrannick Love.

Several months later, Louise de Kérouaille came to England from France, ostensibly to serve as a maid of honour to Queen Catherine, but also to become another mistress to King Charles, probably by design on both the French and English sides.

In one instance, recorded in a letter from George Legge to Lord Preston, Gwyn characteristically jabbed at the Duchess's "great lineage," dressing in black at Court, the same mourning attire as Louise when a prince of France died.

In the cast list of Aphra Behn's The Rover, produced at Dorset Garden in March 1677, the part of Angelica Bianca, "a famous Curtezan" is played by a Mrs. Gwin.

Another is that Gwyn grabbed young Charles and hung him out of a window of Lauderdale House in Highgate, where she briefly resided, and threatened to drop him unless he was granted a peerage.

In addition to the properties mentioned above, Gwyn had a summer residence on the site of what is now 61–63 King's Cross Road, London, which enjoyed later popularity as the Bagnigge Wells Spa.

An inscribed stone of 1680, saved and reinserted in the front wall of the present building, shows a carved mask which is probably a reference to her stage career.

James II, obeying his brother's deathbed wish, "Let not poor Nelly starve," eventually paid most of Gwyn's debts and gave her an annual pension of £1,500.

Gwyn's will also conveys her charitable side with her leaving £100 to be distributed to the poor of the parish of St Martin-in-the-Fields and Westminster and £50 to release debtors from prison every Christmas.

"[59] In 1937, a new ten-storey block of 437 flats in Sloane Avenue, Chelsea, was given the name Nell Gwynn House, and in a high alcove above the main entrance is a statue of Gwyn, with a Cavalier King Charles spaniel at her feet.

The circumstances of the child's life in Paris and the cause of his death are both unknown, one of the few clues being that he died "of a sore leg", which Beauclerk speculates could mean anything from an accident to poison.