Barbara Villiers

Occupation: Duchess of Cleveland 3-Aug-1670
Countess of Southampton 3-Aug-1670
Baroness Nonsuch 3-Aug-1670
Lady of the Bedchamber to the Queen Consort Aug-1662
Ranger of Bushey Park 1677

Comments: aka Barbara Palmer.

Dau. of Vis. Grandison, William Villiers (abt1630-1643, slain at siege of Bristol) and Hon. Mary Bayning (abt1623-1672) who married 31-Oct-1639.

m. at age 18 (14-Apr-1659, at St. Gregory's, London) to Roger Palmer, he later Baron Limerick & 1st Earl of Castlemaine (11-Dec-1661).

She never legally divorced Roger (d. 28-Jul-1705, only 4 years before her). He appeared not to have fathered any of her children, except perhaps the eldest daughter, Anne.

Barbara met King Charles II at the Hague in 1659, and accompanied him to England the next year - the King spent the first night of his return to the country in her company.

She exercised a pernicious and almost uncontrolled influence over King Charles II for ten years.

King Charles II forced his wife, a mere three months after her marriage, to accept Barbara Villiers as his acknowledged Mistress. Barbara was, says Pepys: "removed as to her bed, from her own home to a chamber in Whitehall next to the King's own, which I am sorry to hear."

She had affairs with at least nine other men.

She left the Palace (and lost the Royal favour) in 1668.

A mere four months after the death of her legal husband Roger Palmer, she married (25-Nov-1705, aged 65) Robert Fielding, aka Col., Major-Gen. and 'Beau' Fielding. He was financially ruined and of bad character, but "as handsome as any of the early lovers." However, Robert was still legally married at the time to Mary Wadsworth (his second marriage), and she was still alive. Despite the ceremony have been conducted at night, and by a Romish priest with only one witness, it was held to be valid. Robert was convicted of bigamy, and sent to the Fleet Gaol, though later pardoned by Queen Anne. His marriage to Barbara Villiers was annulled and he returned to Scotland with the said Mary, and remained there until his death in 1712.

Burnet, in his 'History of his own Times', (vol. i, p129) says of her: "She was a woman of great beauty, but most enormously vicious and ravenous; foolish but imperious; very uneasy to the King, and always carrying on intrigues with other men."

Her immense fortune was mainly squandered at the gaming tables, where she is said by Pepys in 1668 to have placed £1,000 and £1,500 bets, to have won £15,000 in one night and lost £25,000 in another.