Search results
Barbara Villiers, Lady Castlemaine, was the favourite mistress of King Charles II…. To the writer and diarist John Evelyn, she was ‘the curse of the nation’. To the Bishop of Salisbury, she was ‘a woman of great beauty, enormously vivacious and ravenous; foolish but imperious’. To the Chancellor of England, she was ‘that lady’.
Oct 4, 2024 · Barbara Villiers was a woman so beautiful, so magnetic and so sexually attractive that she captured the hearts of many in Stuart-era Britain. Her beauty is legendary: she became the muse of artists such as Peter Lely, the inspiration of writers such as John Dryden and the lover of John Churchill, the future great military leader whom we also know as the 1st Duke of Marlborough.
The earliest contemporary remarks about Barbara Villiers and her activities at the newly restored court come, not surprisingly, from Samuel Pepys, who saw Barbara, young wife of the royalist supporter Roger Palmer, for the first time on 13 July 1660: ‘[there were] great doings of Musique at the next house … the King and Dukes [of York and Gloucester were] there with Madam Palmer, a pretty ...
Nov 27, 2019 · Barbara Villiers: Charles II's mistress and 'curse of the nation' Posted 27 Nov 2019, by Chloe Esslemont Known alternately as 'the uncrowned queen' of Great Britain, or – as famous diarist John Evelyn termed her – 'the curse of the nation', Barbara Villiers remains one of the most divisive and fascinating women of the Restoration.
Barbara Palmer, 1st Duchess of Cleveland, Countess of Castlemaine (née Barbara Villiers / ˈ v ɪ l ər z / VIL-ərz; 27 November [O.S. 17 November] 1640 [2] – 9 October 1709), was an English royal mistress of the Villiers family and perhaps the most notorious of the many mistresses of King Charles II of England, by whom she had five children, all of them acknowledged and subsequently ennobled.
Mistress of Charles II The favourite mistress of Charles II during the 1660s, Barbara Villiers was a dominant presence both at court and in the public's imagination. She married Roger Palmer, later the Earl of Castlemaine, in 1659, and met Charles soon after. She was appointed Lady of the Bedchamber to the Queen in spite of the latter's protests. Regarded as the foremost beauty of her day, she ...
People also ask
Who was Barbara Villiers?
Who painted Barbara Villiers?
What did Barbara Villiers look like?
Who is Barbara Palmer?
Did Guido Reni paint Barbara Villiers?
Why does Barbara Villiers wear red and blue robes?
Jul 30, 2024 · Barbara Villiers was a woman so beautiful, so magnetic and so sexually attractive that she captured the hearts of many in Stuart-era Britain. Her beauty is legendary: she became the muse of artists such as Peter Lely, the inspiration of writers such as John Dryden and the lover of John Churchill, the future great military leader whom we also know as the 1st Duke of Marlborough.
