Great Moments in Ribaldry

I've been reading Neal Stephenson's novel Quicksilver, the first book in his "Baroque Cycle" (being a slow reader, I don't embark lightly on a 3000-page trilogy, but after 500 pages, it's proven to be time well spent), which is set in one of my favorite periods of history, the late 17th century. (See also An Instance of the Fingerpost.) I was never a fan of cyberpunk buffoonery, but Stephenson is turning into a first-rate historical novelist.

It had me re-reading parts of Will Durant's The Age of Louis XIV, where I found this gem of an anecdote about Nell Gwynn, first first lady of the English theater, and mistress to King Charles II (who reigned during The Restoration):

All the world knows how, when the London populace mistook Nell for her Catholic rival and jeered her, she put her pretty head out the coach window and cried: "Be silent, good people; I am the Protestant whore!"