QUEEN CATHERINE and BARBARA VILLIERS MUST PUT UP WITH EACH OTHER ? SOON BOTH WIFE AND MISTRESS MUST ACCEPT YET ANOTHER MISTRESS : FRANCES STUART

Catherine of Braganza, the Queen, however arranged her marriage to King Charles II was, did hope that she and the King would love each other and have a good relationship. She didn't speak the language, was pretty but not a great beauty, and she had many adjustments to make to get alone. She could not be oblivious to the fact that the King was not spending much time with her and had a Mistress. However, it seems she warmed to him and fell in love with the King herself. Though she was a bit delicate, she took her responsibility to have children seriously. Realizing she had no friends, lonely, the Queen decided to be friendly with Barbara. The King meanwhile kept her close, having Barbara assigned to assist his wife as a Lady of the Bedchamber.

Excerpt page 55 from The Illustrious Lady by Elizabeth Hamilton

The Chancellor and his friends made their greatest mistake in acknowledging the Lady's physical attractions but failing to recognize her intelligence, her instinctive knowledge of the workings of the Court, and her in bread ability to move at east in royal circles...  The Lady outclasses them all (the Kings other mistresses of short duration) in her power not only to capture the King's affection but also to dominate and manipulate his circle of friends.

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1662: The King's advisors followed him to the house on King Street where the King had put Barbara. She entertained them all there with good conversation. It was politically and socially the best way for them to have his ear. But some found that she could also prevent them from speaking the King. Frances Stuart, a pretty young woman, was introduced to the King to divert his interest to another Mistress.

Excerpt page 68 from The Illustrious Lady by Elizabeth Hamilton

... Shining by virtue of her own luminescence, she had become independent and selfish, and distressingly difficult to bribe.  Nor was it possible to prophesy how long she would keep her hold over the King. Her reign had already lasted longer than any Mistress could rightfully expect, and it had to be admitted that in the early summer of 1663 her looks had deteriorated....

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However, not to be repressed, Barbara Villiers - Countess of Castlemaine, gave birth to a son, Henry, and a couple days later headed out to be with the King. The King did not accept paternity of this son immediately due to rumors that she had another lover. Aware that she might be loosing her position, Barbara did something to please her Catholic husband, Roger Palmer, and converted to Catholicism herself.  Was it possible she would have to live with him and spend the rest of her life with him?

1664: All three women had to get along, co-exist though rivals, and avoid being hostile openly with each other in order to please the King.  Barbara might have been aging and might have competition with other women and enemies among the men who sought to influence and advise the King on all things, but in September of that year, she gave birth again, her fourth child and second daughter and the King immediately accepted the baby as his offspring.  

Sadly, a little over a week later, Barbara once again determined to entertain the King and socialize and this time it was too much for her.

Excerpt page 79 from The Illustrious Lady by Elizabeth Hamilton

... Her maid and her page, the only attendants who were with her,  helped her back to the Palace, and as soon as she reached her room she fainted.  The King was informed at once, and he showed his concern by the speed with which  he rushed to her apartments and his alacrity in ordering that all the Park gates should be closed and everyone inside arrested ... The incident proved that however great the Lady might become, she would always have her enemies ... But she soon recovered her full beauty and those who had so hopefully sponsored Frances (Stuart) were transferring their loyalty back to the Lady in the knowledge that it was at her evening gatherings they would spend their time most profitably.

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Three years into the King's relationship with Frances, Barbara won the more exclusive attention of the King, for neither Frances or his wife, the Queen, had become pregnant.

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BARBARA VILLIERS - PALMER BECOMES THE ACKNOWLEDGED MISTRESS OF KING CHARLES II : THE KING CONTINUES TO PARTY AND AWAITS CATHERINE OF BRAGANZA, THE PORTUGUESE INFANTA TO WED

1660: King Charles II was restored as King of England. The festivities continued. Barbara and Roger Palmer entertained, while more than one man vied to have her in his bed. Though a decade or so of exile had visibly aged the King, he still had energy and liked a good time - dinners, theater, boat races, tennis. Barbara's family considered her success with the King to be good for their family. The King's marriage to Catholic Catherine of Braganza, the Portuguese Infanta, who would bring 500,000 pounds cash as well as the ownership of important towns for trade in the Caribbean and Mediterranean, was being arranged. The Spanish were against it and the French for it, but in the end the King married the woman who had first been proposed as his bride when she was only six years old. However...

In February 1661, Barbara Villiers- Palmer gave birth to her first child, a daughter, Anne, and some people thought it was her lover who was the father. Roger Palmer, her husband, was happy to acknowledge the child as his. Several months later, Barbara became the acknowledged mistress of King Charles II. Then, a second birth:

Excerpt page 40 from The Illustrious Lady by Elizabeth Hamilton

...There had been rumors as far back as the summer of 166-1 that Mrs. Palmer was with child, and in the new year of 1992 the truth had become all too apparent.  It was also clear that the unfortunate Roger had become a husband only in name. In spite of the fact that negotiations for his marriage had gone ahead, the King showed no signs of overcoming his infatuation. Most people were beginning to accept the fact that his levity was more than a veneer of youthful high spirits, and it was significant that when he was described in a collect for the Parliament as 'our most religious King.' the phrase caused a ripple of amusement.  Clarendon might have gone on hoping, against all the evidence, that the King would in the end extricate himself from his youthful companions and self-indulgent way of life, even if the change of heart was slow in coming.  There was still a last chance that a good wife might be able to work the miracle; one encouraging rumor had it that when his mistress asked him what he expected her to do on the arrival of the Queen, he replied, 'You must stick to your husband as I 8ntend to stick to my wife.'  While the reset of the world waited, fearful or fascinated, to see what effect the arrival of the Portuguese Infanta would have on the King's relationship with Barbara Palmer, Clarendon worked diligently to prevent her from upsurging Catherine's position in advance...

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BARBARA VILLIERS MARRIED ROGER PALMER BUT SMALLPOX HAD EVERTHING TO DO WITH HOW SHE MET KING CHARLES II

In the spring of 1659, Charles II had spent a decade in exile in Brussels, and the Royalists who supported him were working to bring him back to England and power. He and his courtiers were searching for a proper marriage alliance for him and he was not yet married.

Young Barbara Villiers was courted by Royalist Roger Palmer, who had a modest inheritance but was educated at Eton and Cambridge and considered to be of good character and steady. Palmer was excellent choice for a young woman of lesser expectations. In April 1659, when he was twenty-four and she was eighteen, they married in church. Barbara's family was against this marriage because Roger and his family were Catholics. His father was also against the marriage. He had warned Roger that Barbara would not be faithful to him. His father was right. She continued to love and be the lover of the man who had first stolen her heart. But soon that man would flee to France and she would be sent to Brussels.

She had become ill with smallpox.  Luckily she survived it and without the disfigurement that often resulted. It was understood that a survivor of smallpox had immunity.

Excerpts Pages 23 -24 from The Illustrious Lady by Elizabeth Hamilton

The King's Court was now at Brussels, and in the spring of 1660 there was a virulent outbreak of smallpox in Flanders, so that it was important to choose messengers from England who had already had the disease.  But it was becoming increasingly difficult to find Royalists who were free to ross the Channel, for many of them were working hard for the Kings cause (to return to England) and others, like Roger Palmer, had immersed themselves in the forthcoming elections in the hope of achieving a Parliament loyal to the Crown....

...The trusting Roger may have appreciated the advantages of sending a member of the family to the exiled Court, but in spite of all the warnings he had been given he apparently failed to foresee just how much success his wife was likely to achieve.  Nothing definite is known about the steps that were taken to convey Barbara Palmer to the Continent, or what were the real reasons for the decision, but it is generally agreed that she did visit the King, and that he succumbed to her charms without undue delay  He was by now something of a connoisseur of female beauty. He had been credited with sixteen mistress, an estimate which he himself modestly disclaimed, although flattered that he was thought capable of such a total.  Nobody disputed the fact that Barbara was beautiful, and it was equally certain that she was no longer innocent, for she had been schooled int he world of royalist society where nobody thought too much about the future of worried themselves unduly about the consequences of their own actions.

... King or not, Charles II was attractive enough to conquer a woman in his own right.  Tall and very dark, with an amenable disposition and humorous outlook on life, he seemed to possess an unlimited capacity for enjoyment....

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The King had several known mistresses, short relationships if they were that, and only Lucy Walter, who had a son with the King, refused to be sent away.  In the summer of 1659 King Charles II did return to England. Roger Palmer had the King's favor, for he had made loans to the King, and had returned to Parliament. It was necessary that he live nearby - for now.

Excerpt page 27

...The route from Canterbury had been lined with people and strewn with flowers, 'like one continues street wonderfully inhabited'. As the King rose over London Bridge, bare heard, church bells rang, trumpets sounded and there was music, publicly played for the first time for years. The enthusiasm of the crowed was likened to the joy of emancipated slaves. It seemed as if the age of austerity was over; the streets were hung with tapestry, the fountains ran with wine....

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It is said that Barbara lost no time in bedding the King.

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