(Seated, leaning on a Table, resting her Head on her Hand. Wears a White Satin Dress, trimmed with Blue, and Pearls.)
Born, 1640. Died, 1709.—The only child of William Villiers, Viscount Grandison, by Mary, third daughter of the first, and sister and co-heiress of the second Viscount Bayning.
Lord Grandison, of whom Clarendon gives an exalted character for piety, loyalty, and valour; died in 1643, at Oxford, (of a wound which he had received a few weeks before, at the siege of Bristol), leaving a widow of 18, who five years afterwards, was re-married to Charles Villiers, Earl of Anglesey, cousin-german to her first husband. She did not long survive, and at her death, left her beautiful daughter to the stepfather’s care. It was under Lord Anglesey’s roof, that Barbara passed her early years, and we hear of her, on her first arrival in London, dressed in “a plain and countrified manner,” but this fashion was soon changed for the last “mode” of the town, and her surpassing beauty made her the object of general admiration. At the age of 16, the precocious coquette had already captivated Philip Stanhope, second Earl of Chesterfield, a young widower, who had just returned from his travels, and succeeded to his title, and property—“a beauty, a wit, a duellist,” and according to Swift, “the greatest knave in England.” His correspondence with Barbara, and her confidante and cousin, Lady Anne Hamilton (which was found in the Library of Bath House, in 1869), breathes the most ardent passion, which did not however, interfere with his being called three times in Church, the same year, with the daughter of Lord Fairfax, (who subsequently married George, Duke of Buckingham).
So early in life had Barbara embarked in a career of guilt, and artifice, that in spite of her liaison with Chesterfield, she threw her spells to such purpose round Master Roger Palmer, student of the Middle Temple, second son of Sir James Palmer, of Hayes, Middlesex, that the misguided youth married her in spite of the paternal prohibition. But the young wife did not break off her connection with her former lover, and not long after her marriage, she writes to Chesterfield, in a most affectionate manner, speaking of her recovery from the small-pox, and alluding to “Mounseer’s” (Mr. Palmer) jealousy, and how “he is resolved never to bring me to towne again.” Lord Chesterfield, in consequence of killing a young man in a duel, was compelled to fly the country, and he took refuge at Paris, at the Court of the Queen Mother (Henrietta Maria), and afterwards joined the English King, at Breda, where he solicited, and received the royal pardon, and returned to England with Charles on his restoration: all the time he was on the continent, keeping up his correspondence with his adored Barbara.
There exists great difference of opinion, as to the date of the first meeting between the King, and Mistress Palmer, but there seems little doubt that the favourite’s reign began on Charles’s eventful day, the 29th of May, 1660. Mr. Palmer, now a member of Parliament, had a house in King Street, Westminster, close to the Palace, as also to the lodgings of the Earl of Sandwich, whose housekeeper, “Sarah,” supplied his lordship’s cousin, and daily visitor, Mr. Pepys, with abundant gossip. The far-famed diary abounds in anecdotes of Barbara, praises of her beauty, alternating with blame of her conduct, but every word shewing the fascination she exercised over the writer. The Earl of Anglesey died in 1660-61: and about the same time a daughter was born to Mistress Palmer, which was the occasion of much scandal. [Roger Palmer was now raised to the title of Earl of Castlemaine, and Baron Limerick]. In 1662 Charles II. married Catherine of Braganza, but “Sarah” informed Pepys, that the King supped every night in the week preceding his nuptials, with Lady Castlemaine: “Likewise, when the whole street was aglow with bonfires, the night of the Queen’s arrival, there was no fire at my lady’s door.” On the birth of a second child a dreadful altercation took place between the husband, and wife, but the feud was ostensibly a religious one, for Lord Castlemaine, who had lately embraced the Roman Catholic faith, caused the infant to be baptized by a Popish Priest. Madam was furious, and, as usual, victorious in her struggles, and a few days afterwards “Charles” was re-baptized by a Protestant Minister, in the presence of his godfathers, the King, Lord Oxford, &c. Shortly after this event, Lady Castlemaine left her lord, carrying with her all her plate, and valuables. “They say,” writes Pepys, “that his Lordship is gone to France, to enter a Monastery.”
On the appointment of the Ladies of the Bedchamber to the Queen, Lady Sandwich was justified in her fear, “that the King would still keep in, with Lady Castlemaine.” A great commotion occurred, in the old Palace of Hampton Court. The Queen had never mentioned the favourite’s name; therefore Charles hoped she was ignorant of her rival’s existence; but when the list of the proposed Ladies of the Bedchamber, was submitted to her Majesty, Catherine deliberately pricked out the name of my Lady Castlemaine, which much disturbed her husband. By the King’s command, Lord Clarendon, sorely against his inclination, waited on Her Majesty, to try and induce her to cancel her refusal, but the Queen “was much discontented with her husband,” and declared that rather than submit to the insult, she would desire to return to her own country. Lady Castlemaine through an artifice however, approached her Royal mistress, and kissed her hand; who, on discovering the trick, fell into a swoon, and was carried from the apartment. The King was furious; the Queen for a while appeared inflexible, but Charles gained his point in the end, for after some time had elapsed, Barbara’s appointment was confirmed, and from that time forth, the Queen, by some strange persuasion, or obedience to the King’s orders, treated her rival with familiarity, and confidence; “was,” says Pepys, “merry with her in public, and in private used nobody more friendly.” But then, according to the same authority, “the Queen is a most good lady, and takes all, with the greatest meekness that may be.”
The syren seems indeed to have bewitched every one, Dryden himself did not disdain to write a poem in her honour. On one occasion the Countess had a violent altercation, with “la belle Stewart,” Maid of Honour, who had excited her jealousy, and the King, taking part against her, the imperious lady walked off to her uncle’s at Richmond, whither Charles soon followed her, on pretence of hunting, but really to ask pardon. Not long after, however, Pepys saw her on horseback, with the King, the Queen, Mistress Stewart, etc.; but he thought the King looked coldly on her, “and when she had to ’light, nobody pressed to take her down, but her own gentleman, and she looked, though handsome, mighty out of humour, and had a yellow plume in her hat.” A report reached the Queen’s ears, that Barbara had turned Papist, but though a zealot in her religion, Catherine “did not much like it, as she did not believe it was done for conscience sake.” Perhaps her Majesty agreed, with the learned Divine who said that “if the Church of Rome had got no more by Lady Castlemaine, than the Church of England had lost, the matter was not much.”
A curious, and unpleasant adventure befell Lady Castlemaine, in the Park, returning from a visit to the Duchess of York at St. James’s Palace, attended only by her maid, and a little page. She was accosted by three gentlemen in masks, who upbraided her in the strongest language, and reminded her that the mistress of Edward IV. had died of starvation, on a dunghill, abandoned by all the world. The infuriated and terrified beauty no sooner reached home, than she swooned; the King ran to the rescue, ordered the gates of the Park to be shut, but it was too late—several arrests were made, but no discovery ensued.
In the year of the Plague, the Court being at Oxford, Lady Castlemaine gave birth to a son, at Merton College. The lady and the King had high words on the occasion of the Duke of Buckingham being sent to the Tower, she speaking up boldly, in his behalf, Charles saying she was a jade that meddled in matters she had nothing to do with; she retorting that he was “a fool to suffer his business to be carried on by fools,” and so forth. But before five days had elapsed the Duke was at liberty. Lady Castlemaine was a determined enemy to Chancellor Clarendon, and she had declared in the Queen’s chamber, she hoped to see his head upon a stake to keep company with those of the Regicides, and there is no doubt she was instrumental in procuring the downfall of the King’s “faithful and able adviser.” Gambling was another vice in which Barbara indulged, and Pepys tells us she won £15,000, one night, and lost £25,000 another. But her favour was on the wane: she was libelled, and abused, and the King was weary of her, and it was reported that he had given her large sums of money and a fine house, (the residence of the Earls of Berkshire, on the south-west corner of St. James’s Street,) merely to get rid of her. Yet she still ruled him in many points, and she made great friends with the Duke and Duchess of York, while one of her violent hatreds was against the Duke of Ormond, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, because he would not confirm the grant of Phœnix Park, a house near Dublin, which the King had promised her. Meeting him in one of the royal apartments, she fell upon him with a torrent of abuse, and ended by expressing a hope that she might live to see him hanged. His Grace replied with calm dignity, “he was in no haste to shorten her days; all he wished was to live, to see her old.”
In 1670, Barbara, Countess of Castlemaine, was created Baroness Nonsuch, Countess of Southampton, and Duchess of Cleveland, in the Peerage of England, with the Palace and Park of Nonsuch, in Surrey, and an enormous increase of income: so that as far as pecuniary advantages went, the King was still sufficiently under her spell, to comply with her exorbitant demands. John Churchill, (afterwards the great Duke of Marlborough,) when a Court Page attracted the attention of Barbara. She lavished gifts upon him, procured him the post of Groom of the Bedchamber to the Duke of York, and obtained his promotion in the army. But in later years when her beauty had passed away, and her favour at Court, the man who had risen by her influence, refused to speak a word in her behalf, respecting the renewal of her ill-paid pension. The last grant made to the Duchess of Cleveland, and to the Earl of Northumberland, for their lives, was the Rangership of the honour, and manor of Hampton Court; but the lodge in Bushy Park was not habitable. It was about this time, that Barbara went to France, her name appearing as a liberal patroness to the Convent of the Blue Nuns, in the Faubourg St. Antoine (where she had placed her daughter Barbara), and other religious houses.