Favourite of King Charles II, and FIRST Governor of Duck Island.
Writer and wit, the ‘most refined epicurean of his age’, was born in Saint-Denis-le-Gast, France. He moved to London in April 1670 on the invitation of King Charles II, who appointed him to ‘the easiest of all sinecures, the Keepership of the Ducks in the Decoy in Saint James’s Park’, with a pension of 300l a year.
(By Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, London)