Note 60 — VENICE PRESERVED; OR, A PLOT DISCOVERED.
Reading edition
Louise de Kerouaille, Charles II.'s well-known mistress, who was sent over by Louis XIV., and who supplanted all Charles's other mistresses, except Nell Gwyn. Wealth and honours were heaped upon her, and her apartments at Whitehall were far more splendid, Evelyn tells us, than the queen's. She had, of course, many enemies, one of whom, in the same year in which Otway wrote this dedication, placed the following lines beneath her portrait:—
"Lowly born and meanly bred, Yet of this nation is the head; For half Whitehall make her their court, Though the other half make her their sport. Monmouth's tower, Jeffery's advance, Foe to England, spy to France, False and foolish, proud and bold, Ugly, as you see, and old; In a word, her mighty Grace Is whore in all things but her face."
She was, however, at this time not more than thirty-seven, and survived the king for fifty years.