Mrs. Palmer belonged to one of the oldest families in England, and
traced her descent to Pagan de Villiers, in the days of William Rufus,
and a good deal farther among the nobles of Normandy. She was the
daughter of William, second Viscount Grandison, and rejoiced in the
appropriate name of Barbara, for she _could_ be savage occasionally. She
was very beautiful, and very wicked, and soon became Charles's mistress.
On the Restoration she joined the king in England, and when the poor
neglected queen came over was foisted upon her as a bedchamber-woman, in
spite of all the objections of that ill used wife. It was necessary to
this end that she should be the wife of a peer; and her husband accepted
the title of Earl of Castlemaine, well knowing to what he owed it.
Pepys, who admired Lady Castlemaine more than any woman in England,
describes the husband and wife meeting at Whitehall with a cold
ceremonial bow: yet the husband _was_ there. A quarrel between the two,
strangely enough on the score of religion, her ladyship insisting that
her child should be christened by a Protestant clergyman, while his
lordship insisted on the ceremony being performed by a Romish priest,
brought about a separation, and from that time Lady Castlemaine, lodged
in Whitehall, began her empire over the king of England.
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