by Roger Powell
‘by his extravagance and love of gambling, entirely ruined his estate and his large inheritance passed from his family’.
Charles FitzCharles, as her son was called, was born in 1657 in what was then the Spanish Netherlands and as he was rather swarthy like his father, he soon became known as as Don Carlos and sometimes as Mr Green. At the age of eighteen, he was created Earl of Plymouth in 1675 and the arms granted to him were those of his father, debruised by a baton sinister vair. On his first appearance in England in 1672 a contemporary noted:
‘A new gentleman begins to appear, one Mr Green, who hath been bred some years in Flanders. The King hath not seen him yet, much less owned him’.
Another Sir Charles Lyttelton also wrote
‘There was a fine youth wth the King, by the name Don Carlos, who the King ownes by my Lady Greene, who has bine bred in Flanders. They say he has a great deal of witt and is finely bred’.
Cromwell’s spies had also been well aware of this latest addition to the Royal family and had sought to make mischief by spreading rumours that Catherine was loose living woman and/or that Charles II had heartlessly seduced her.
The timing of their son’s appearance in England was obviously designed to remind the King of his existence and the néed for him to make adequate provision for his education and future. Lady Green’s assessment of her son mirrored that of many an anxious mother and she wrote to Lord Danby of her concerns viz:
‘knoweing his nature perfectly good, but easily drawne to liberties pleasing to youth if he have not a constraint put upon him by one he valwes’.
However, her main concern was ‘to see him well educated’ and to this end, in 1674, the King appointed Sydney Lodge as his tutor and Robert Cheeke his governor. The effect on the young man was remarkable, for within several months his education had come along by leaps and bounds and King Charles considered the possibility of sending him up to Cambridge, only to change his mind.
It would seem that this young man was very spoilt and ran up huge debts, particularly tailors’ bills, which his father ultimately had to settle. But Don Carlos’s visit to England was all too brief, for in late 1674 he returned to the continent with his tutor in the royal yacht Portsmouth for a period of study in France, accompanied by Robert Paston, the younger brother of his brother-in-law Lord Paston. They were royally received by the Governor of Calais, the Duc de Charrost, and all the garrison towns that they passed before heading for the south of France. Once there, Paston wrote to his mother that Don Carlos
‘is most altered in everything for the better, as it cannot be imagined; insomuch that the last post Mr Cheeke writt to the King, and did give him a very good character of him, wch I hope will make the King more kind to him’.
Paston’s praise was endorsed by his tutor
‘My Lord has made a considerable improvement; I endeavour to make his Ldsp knowing in ye latine; to yt end I have advis’d him to ye reading of Tullies offices; wherein he’ll meet with instructions fitting to his quality; he is now reading besides Tullie, Sallust, Aurelius Victor etc. I intend shortly to invite his Lordsp to ye reading Caesar’s commentaries etc’.
After several years in France, Plymouth became restive and wrote to Lord Danby expressing his hope that the King would send him on campaign, but nothing came of the appeal. Instead he became embroiled in an incident with the Duke of Somerset which made King Charles very angry and determined that the young man should be sent home. The result, however, was gratifying in many ways for him because the King allowed him to serve as a volunteer in the Prince of Orange’s army. On his return he further tarnished his reputation by fighting a duel with Sir George Hewitt in 1679, Lord Mordaunt being his second. His behaviour, so reminiscent of his half brother Monmouth during his early years at court, angered the King who declared ‘he shall make him know he hath no rank but what he has given him’. Nevertheless, in July 1680 he was appointed Colonel of the 4th Regiment of Foot.
As he had done with the Duke of Monmouth, King Charles took great care to select a suitable wife for his son. By the end of 1678 the negotiations for his marriage to Lord Danby’s daughter were completed and they were married at Wimbledon in Surrey. Lady Bridget Osborne, was the second daughter of Thomas (Osborne), Duke of Leeds, better known as Thomas Danby, Lord Treasurer to Charles’ father. A document relating to their marriage and signed by Charles II emerged recently when sold in Nottingham in February 2003. The marriage was described by Robert Paston in the following manner
‘I have to give my Lord Plimouth joy, who was this day sennight married at Wimbledon very privately; his settlements are yet to make, for there is but 4,000 l a year more yet given him, which is out of the excise; he has his apartment at the Cockpit & lies it out every day till 12 o’clock’
Shortly thereafter the King allowed the Earl to serve as a volunteer at Tangier, acquired by King Charles in 1661/2 as part of Catherine of Braganza’s dowry. In return for which he (Charles) was obliged to
‘take the interest of Portugal and all its dominions to heart, defending the same with his utmost power by sea and land even as England itself’.
In June 1663 Charles had duly fulfilled his obligations to the full when a force of three thousand men, mainly Cromwellian veterans, defeated the army of Don Juan of Austria, illegitimate son of Philip IV of Spain, at the battle of Amegial, thereby greatly assisting in securing Portuguese independence from Spain.
The chief command for this expedition had been given to the Earl of Mulgrave, who later married Plymouth’s cousin Lady Katherine Darnley, but the decision to send the Earl to Tangier was to have fateful consequences for in October 1680, aged only 23, he died there of a ‘bloody flux’ whilst the garrison was repulsing the forces of the Alcaide of Alcazar, commander of the Moorish army, sent to capture the town. It was a sad and premature end to what had promised to be a glorious chapter in this young man’s life. In Tangier he had been described as ‘a fine youth with a great deal of witt and is finely bred’ and he even rated a mention in Pepys’ diary. His body was returned to England and was buried at Westminster Abbey, whereupon, having no children, all his honours became extinct.
There are conflicting reports about his younger sister, Catherine FitzCharles,who is often confused with her half-sister Cecilia FitzRoy (see page 73), the daughter of Barbara Villiers. Catherine died young, whilst Cecilia, became a nun at Dunkirk under the name Dame Cecilia OSB.
Anne, Countess of Sussex (née Palmer, later FitzRoy) (1661–1722)
Anne FitzRoy, was the eldest daughter of the notorious Barbara Villiers or Palmer, later to become Countess of Castlemaine and Duchess of Cleveland (1641–1709). Her mother, a notable beauty had an unenviable reputation as a very promiscuous woman, with a dozen or more known lovers to her credit, including, it is alleged, Philip Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield, Charles II, Harry Jermyn, Charles Hart (the actor), Jacob Hall (tightrope dancer), John Churchill (the soldier) and many many more.
Anne was born on 25 February 1660/1, almost exactly nine months after the glorious restoration of King Charles II. However, she was not conceived in London on the night of the Restoration, 28 May 1660, as has always been alleged, but at the court of the exiled King Charles on the continent. Anne’s date of birth indicates that she was probably conceived at The Hague whither Charles had gone on 14 May 1660 in preparation for his return to England. Barbara and her husband Roger Palmer arrived at the exiled court in February 1660, with an offer of £1,000 to the King, for which Palmer expected a percentage as he had a gay wife and a small income. Within weeks her ‘sinister and exotic beauty’ had captivated and ensnared the King. Thomas Hearne the antiquarian wrote of her:
‘The Dutchess was certainly a Lady of admirable beauty and in all other respects very fit for so accomplished a Prince as K. Charles II was, had her Extract been equal to his, and her virtues been greater. Yet she writ but a very bad Hand, nor were the Things she writ done with much spirit. She was so little versed in the Art of inditing, that she c
ould not spell. She could talk as well as any body, and write, even at best as badly. Her Thoughts were gone when she come to take time to committ them to writing, but nothing was more gay and pleasing as they came in Discourse from her Mouth.’
When she met Charles, Barbara was a bride of just thirteen months, but he was not her first love; that prize went to Philip Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield. He is often credited with the paternity of Barbara’s first child, but as the following account shows the assertion cannot be true. In January 1660, at the height of his affair with Barbara, the Earl was obliged to flee England after killing another gentleman in a duel over ‘a sprightly mare’. On reaching the Continent he went straight to Paris where he wrote to Charles offering his services. Eventually, on receipt of a favourable reply, he then travelled to Breda, to which Charles had moved with his meagre court in April 1660. Once there, he obtained the King’s pardon and immediately returned to France. In the meantime Barbara’s passion for Chesterfield had cooled considerably, and her fateful meeting with Charles killed it completely.
However, contemporary gossip still attributed Anne’s paternity to the Earl of Chesterfield, but as he was in France at the time of her conception he cannot have been her father. In fact he did not return to the King and Court again until the day he departed from Holland for England – 23 May 1660 – and Anne was conceived during his absence. Barbara had no doubts about her paternity and many years later wrote to Charles
‘that as she is yours, I shall allwayes haue som remains of that kindness I had formerly for I can hate nothing that is yours’.
Legally, however, she was the child of Barbara’s husband, Roger Palmer, shortly to become Earl of Castlemaine, in recompense no doubt for his timely donation to the King’s coffers and the services of his wife to the king. As he had not yet separated from his wife, Anne therefore bore his surname. In an officially recorded pedigree, the Palmer family declared that
‘The Lady Anne Palmer daughter to the Earle of Castlemaine & Barbara, Countess of Castlemaine, was borne 25 Feby being Shrove Munday about 10 of the clock 1660.’
However, Charles acknowledged her paternity in 1673 when he granted arms to both her and her younger sister, Charlotte (see page 63), together with the surname of FitzRoy. In the patent, he described them as ‘his dear and natural daughters by the Duchess of Cleveland’, and granted them the precedence as daughters of a duke, all of which helped to cement their mother’s position at Court. But despite this, Roger Palmer always regarded Anne with affection and made her his trustee and chief beneficiary under his will.
At the age of eight Barbara sent her daughter to the Queen Mother’s monastery at Chaillot in France for her education, but Henrietta Maria’s death the following year cut short her visit. In 1671 her mother tried again and this time sent Anne to the Abbey of Pontoise, in Normandy, where Lady Neville was Abbess, only returning to London in November 1672. On her return there was a new arrrival in the nursery, another sister Lady Barbara FitzRoy, born the previous June. Two years later aged only thirteen, Anne was married at Hampton Court, with a dowry of £20,000 from the King, to Thomas (Lennard), 15th Lord Dacre, who was created that year Earl of Sussex; unfortunately the dowry was never paid.
The young Earl ‘was Lord of the Bedchamber to King Charles & coming very young to Court fell (as was natural enough to do at his age) into the expensive way of living he found the fashion there, and through this unlucky setting out, and the neglecting afterwards to tak a proper care of his affairs from an easiness & Indolence in his disposition: not to be excused (as he neither wanted parts or capacity), and by great losses at Play, he was so much entangled and distressed that at different times he was obliged to sell several of his estates etc’
Of Lady Sussex’s character there is an abundance of evidence. She had by all accounts inherited her mother’s beauty, but she was wilful and extravagant. Only three years later her behaviour had so enraged her husband, in particular her intimacy with the Duchess de Mazarin, that he decided to retire into the country. The cause of his displeasure was twofold. The first related to her friendship with the beautiful Hortense Mancini, Duchess de Mazarin, who had been introduced to court by Ralph Montagu with the intention of her making her the King’s mistress. She had arrived at the beginning 1676 and within seven months had befriended Lady Sussex whose apartments, formerly her mother’s, were immediately above the King’s, with entry by a private staircase. Soon the French Ambassador was able to inform his master that:
‘The King goes nearly every day to visit Madame Sussex, whom Madame Mazarin is nursing. I happened to be there the day before yesterday when he came in. As soon as he came in Madame Mazarin went and whispered to him with a great air of familiarity, and she kept it up all the time the conversation was general, and never called him Your Majesty once. At the end of a quarter of an hour His Britannic Majesty sat on the end of the bed, and as I was alone I thought it proper to retire. But I remain convinced that it is not without foundation that the most enlightened courtiers believe that the King their master desires to profit by his opportunities’
Lord Sussex was naturally dismayed by his wife’s role in bringing the King and Madame Mazarin together, and was even more so, after an incident in St James’s Park when it was reported that:
‘She and Madam Mazarine have privately learnt to fence, and went down into St James’s Park the other day with drawn swords under their night gowns, which they drew out and made several fine passes with, to the admiration of several men which was lookers on in the Park’.
‘Lady Sussex is put by her mother into a religious house in France, and she means certainly to come hither in the spring either to ajust things better between her and her Lord or to get his consent that her daughter may goe into orders’.
But within a short time Lady Sussex had managed to win the sympathy of the English Ambassador and his wife, who promptly offered her the hospitality of their home in Paris. The Duchess of Cleveland was incensed by her daughter’s behaviour and put the worst possible interpretation on the whole affair. When the news reached England the Duchess’s version of the whole affair became common gossip:
‘After amusing herself for a time with hunting, hawking, nyne pins, crekkit matches etc, she became quite tired both of the country and of her husband and before the end of the year definitely left him to go and live with her mother in Paris. During that lady’s temporary absence she supplanted her in the affections of Ralph Montagu [afterwards Duke of Montagu], then ambassador there, who lived with her ‘in open scandal’ to the wonder of the French court and the high displeasure of this.’
However, Henry Savile’s account was hotly denied by the ambassador’s wife, who leapt to the defence of Lady Sussex and claimed that she had been cruelly slandered, because she had invited her into her Paris home on account of her ill health and depleted finances. Unfortunately for the ambassador, Ralph Montagu, the Duchess of Cleveland wrote furiously to King Charles complaining of his behaviour. The end result was that he was recalled from his post and banished from Court. Four years later Lady Sussex returned to England and went back to her husband, only to be ungenerously referred to in Rochester’s poem:
‘And here would time permit me I could tell
Of Cleveland, Portsmouth, Crofts & Arundel,
Moll Howard, Su---x, Lady Grey and Nell
Strangers to good but bosom friends to ill,
As boundless in their lusts as in their will.’
Fortunately the reunion was a success and Anne duly presented her husband with three more children, the first of which was a son Charles, who was baptised at Windsor Castle in June 1682, with the King as sponsor. Despite her past behaviour the King continued to be kind to her, and a week after her confinement, it was reported that he had bought Lord Falkenbridge’s house for her.
At the revolution in 1688 Lady Sussex finally separated from her husband, a staunch Protestant, and joined her uncle King James in exile at St Germain-en-Laye, where she attended the Qu
een as one of her Ladies in Waiting. She took her two daughters with her despite the non payment of her annuity. The Earl, who was a Gentleman of the Bedchamber, was eventually forced to sell his Hurstmonceux and other estates in 1708 as a result of excessive litigation, reckless extravagance and gambling losses. He died aged in 1715, aged 61, without male issue at Chevening, Kent, when the earldom became extinct, but the much older barony of Dacre fell into abeyance between his two daughters and co-heirs, Barbara and Anne, his sons having died young. His widow, who, judging from her portraits at Belhus and by the Swede, M. Dahl, was a very handsome woman, died in 1722. Her senior representative today is Anthony, 6th Viscount Hampden and Rachel, the Baroness Dacre (27th), widow of William Douglas-Home, the playwright.
Sir Charles FitzRoy, formerly Palmer, KG, 1st Duke of Southampton & 2nd Duke of Cleveland (1662–1730)
Of all the King’s illegitimate issue the Duke of Southampton was the least blessed with those qualities that could equip him to make a mark in the world. He would, according to Dean Prideaux, ‘…ever be very simple, and scarce, I believe, ever attain to the reputation of not being thought a fool’. This want of intellect was due, if John Aubrey is to be believed, to an unfortunate incident in his youth:
‘The Duke of Southampton who was a most lovely youth, had two foreteeth that grew out, very unhandsome. His cruel mother caused him to be bound fast in a chair and had them drawn out; which has caused the want of his understanding’.
One of ‘Barbara’s Brats’ as Nell Gwyn was to describe him, he was the eldest son of King Charles II by Barbara Villiers, the daughter of William, Viscount Grandison, who had earlier married Roger Palmer, later Earl of Castlemaine; she was later created Duchess of Cleveland in 1670. Not all of her contemporaries admired her character, one in particular Antoine Hamilton castigated ‘the crudeness of her manners, her ridiculous haughtiness and her perpetual suspicions and petty passions’. Another Bishop Burnet wrote of her