Louise de Kérouaille, Duchess of Portsmouth
George Bowers (fl.1660 - 1689)
Category
Coins and medals
Date
1673 - 1685
Materials
Silver
Measurements
283 mm (Diameter)
Place of origin
London
Order this imageCollection
Osterley Park and House, London
NT 773269
Summary
Silver, Louise de Kérouaille, Duchess of Portsmouth (1649-1734), by George Bower (fl. 1660-89), struck London, United Kingdom, 1673 or 1685. A silver medal by George Bower, depicting Louise Renée de Kérouaille, mistress of King Charles II. The legend of the obverse of the medal is a satirical commentary on the granting to Louise of the title of Duchess of Portsmouth, on 19 August 1673. The obverse shows the Duchess in profile, facing right, her hair loosely curled at front and tightly braided behind, wearing a loose shift. On the reverse is Cupid, god of love, seated atop the globe, with the inscription ‘[Love] conquers all’. The medal has usually been thought to have been issued in 1673, at the time of the Duchess’s ennoblement. It is more likely to have been made in 1685, when it caused considerable offence and was withdrawn from open sale.
Full description
Louise Renée de Penancoët de Kérouaille (1649-1734) was the daughter of a minor Breton aristocrat, who would become one of the most significant of mistresses of Charles II, by whom she was enobled as the Duchess of Portsmouth. Charles first saw Louise de Kérouaille when she accompanied the king’s sister Henriette, Duchess of Orleans (‘Minette’, 1644-70) to England, for the signing in June 1670 of the secret Treaty of Dover which created an alliance between Britain and France. As Henriette prepared to return to France, brother and sister discussed what farewell presents they should give one another, Charles saying, when offered a jewel from Minette’s casket, ‘I will take Louise. She is the only jewel I covet.’ Louise was sent back to England by Louis XIV and his chief minister Colbert in the Autumn of 1670, soon becoming the king’s latest mistress. Louise maintained close connections with Colbert and Louis, using her influence to advance French interests in England. Bishop Gilbert Burnet (1643-1715) wrote in his eye-witness history of the years of the Restoration that Charles was ‘so entirely possessed by the Duchess of Portsmouth, and so engaged by her in the French interest, that this threw him into great difficulties, and exposed him to much contempt and blame.’ (Gilbert Burnet, History of His Own Time, 2 vols., London 1724-34, I, p. 338). Louise de Kérouaille was also ruthless in her own self-advancement, obtaining in 1673 the titles of Duchess of Portsmouth, Countess of Fareham and Baroness Petersfield, as well as the titles of Duke of Richmond and Earl of March for Charles Lennox, her illegitimate son by the king. Charles was devoted to Louise, writing to her that ‘tis impossible to express the true passion and kindness I have for my dearest dearest fubs.’ Beyond the King however, Louise was generally deeply unpopular in England. As Lord Rochester wrote in a rhyme, The Royal Buss: ‘Portsmouth, the incestuous Punk Made our most gracious sov’reign drunk And drunk she made him give that Buss That all the kingdom’s bound to curse, And so red hot with wine and whore, He kicked the Commons out of door!’ On the obverse of this deeply satirical medal, the pomp of Louise de Kérouaille’s title is contrasted with her state of half-undress in her bust portrait, whilst the reverse alludes to the power of love to influence the affairs of the world. It has generally been assumed that it was made in 1673, when Louise was enobled as the Duchess of Portsmouth. Evidence for an early dating is the way in which the medal seems to ape the ‘British Colonisation’ medal of 1670 designed by John Roettiers (Medallic Illustrations, I, p. 554, no. 215; Barber 1991, fig. 11), the obverse of which has the conjoined busts of Charles II and his queen Catherine of Braganza, and the reverse an image of the globe. That medal challenged Dutch claims to mastery of the seas. The image of the globe on the reverse of the medal of the Duchess of Portsmouth would appear to be the first medallic image to show the coastline of Western Australia in recognisable form. However, despite these parallels with Roettiers’ 1670 medal, it seems more probable that the Portsmouth medal in fact dates to 1685, when Charles discovered that Louise was in the midst of an affair with the Grand Prior of France. According to a passage by Burnet, absent from the printed version of his history but contained in a manuscript version in the British Library, after the Grand Prior had been dismissed from the Court, the King’s affection for the Duchess of Portsmouth unexpectedly seemed greatly to increase. Burnet noted that ‘There was also a medal struck for her: her face was on the one side, with Lucia duchissa portsmouthensis about it; and on the reverse a cupid was sitting on a globe, and about him Omnia vincit. This was insolent to all degrees, the medals being exposed to sale by the goldsmiths: and one that happened to go by a goldsmith’s shop, bought one of them for me, which I happened to show that evening to some of the court that came to see me. Whether this was told again or not I cannot tell, but the very next day all the medals were called in, and were never seen any more. So that I never saw any of them but my own, which is in silver and of the size of half-a-crown. This I thought deserved to be put in history, to show how far the insolence of a whore can rise.’ Jeremy Warren 2019
Provenance
Given to the National Trust in 1993 by George Child Villiers, 9th Earl of Jersey (1910-1998).
Marks and inscriptions
Obverse, legend: .LVCIA . DVCISSA . PORTSMOVTHEИSIS. Reverse, legend: OMNIA VINCIT
Makers and roles
George Bowers (fl.1660 - 1689), medallist
References
Notes and queries : 1849-, XII (1855), p. 380. Hawkins, Franks and Grueber 1885: Edward Hawkins, Augustus W. Franks and Herbert A. Grueber (eds.), Medallic Illustrations of the History of Great Britain and Ireland to the death of George II, 2 vols., London 1885, vol. I, pp. 554-55, no. 215. Scharloo 1991: Marjan Scharloo (with an additional comment by Peter Barber), ‘A Peace Medal that caused a War?’, The Medal, no. 18 (Spring 1991), pp. 11-22, pp. 20-21, fig. 12. MacLeod 2013: Catharine MacLeod (ed.), The Lost Prince. The Life and Death of Henry Stuart, exh.cat., venue: National Portrait Gallery, London 2013, p. 150, no. 54. Eimer 2010: Christopher Eimer, British Commemorative Medals and their Values, London 2010, p. 59, no. 250, Pl. 31.