Having previously been the mistress of Charles Hart and Charles Sackville, Gwyn jokingly called the King "her Charles the Third". By mid-1668, Gwyn's affair with the King was well-known, though there was little reason to believe it would last for long. She continued to act at the King's House, her new notoriety drawing larger crowds and encouraging the playwrights to craft more roles specifically for her. June 1668 found her in Dryden's "An Evening's Love", or "The Mock Astrologer", and in July she played in Lacy's "The Old Troop", a farce about a company of Cavalier soldiers during the English Civil War, based on Lacy's own experiences. Possibly, Nell Gwyn's father had served in the same company, and Gwyn's part—the company whore—was based on her own mother. 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 very successful tragedy "Tyrannick Love".