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About Mary Villiers (Duchess of Buckingham)

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From Grammont's footnotes

"Mary, Duchess of Buckingham, was the only daughter of Thomas, Lord Fairfax, and Anne, the daughter of Horace, Lord Vere; a most virtuous and pious lady, in a vicious age and court. If she had any of the vanities, she had certainly none of the vices of it. The duke and she lived lovingly and decently together; she patiently bearing with those faults in him which she could not remedy. . She survived him many years, and died near St. James's, at Westminster, and was buried in the vault of the family of Villiers, in Henry VII.'s chapel, anno 1705, ætat. 66." -- Brian Fairfax's Life of the Duke of Buckingham, 4to. 1758, p. 39. She was married at Nun Appleton, September 6, 1657. In the Memoirs of the English Court, by Madame Dunois, p. 11, it is said, "The Duchess of Buckingham has merit and virtue; she is brown and lean, but had she been the most beautiful and charming of her sex, the being his wife would have been sufficient alone to have inspired him with a dislike. Notwithstanding she knew he was always intriguing, yet she never spoke of it, and had complaisance enough to entertain his mistresses, and even to lodge them in her house; all which she suffered because she loved him." In some manuscript notes in Oldys's copy of Langbaine, by a gentleman still living, we are told that the old Lady Viscountess de Longueville, grandmother to the Earl of Sussex, who died in 1763, aged near 100, used to tell many little anecdotes of Charles II.'s queen, whom she described as a little ungraceful woman, so short-legged, that when she stood upon her feet, you would have thought she was on her knees, and yet so long waisted, that when she sat down she appeared a well-sized woman. She also described the Duchess of Buckingham, to whom she was related, as much such another in person as the queen; a little round crumpled woman, very fond of finery. She remembered paying her a visit when she (the duchess) was in mourning, at which time she found her lying on a sofa, with a kind of loose robe over her, all edged or laced with gold. This circumstance gives credit to Fairfax's observation above, that if she had any of the vanities, she had certainly none of the vices of the court.
http://www.pseudopodium.org/repre… see note 160

About Anne Scott (1st Duchess of Buccleuch)

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From Grammont's footnotes

This was Lady Anne Scott, daughter and sole heir of Francis, Earl of Buccleugh, only son and heir of Walter, Lord Scott, created Earl of Buccleugh in 1619. On their marriage the duke took the surname of Scott, and he and his lady were created Duke and Duchess of Buccleugh, Earl and Countess of Dalkeith, Baron and Baroness of Whitchester and Ashdale, in Scotland, by letters patent, dated April 20th, 1673. Also, two days after he was installed at Windsor, the king and queen, the Duke of York, and most of the court being present. The next day, being St. George's day, his majesty solemnized it with a royal feast, and entertained the knights companions in St. George's hall in the castle of Windsor. Though there were several children of this marriage, it does not appear to have been a happy one; the duke, without concealment, attaching himself to Lady Harriet Wentworth, whom, with his dying breath, he declared he considered as his only wife in the sight of God. The duchess, in May, 1688, took to her second husband Charles, Lord Cornwallis. She died Feb. 6, 1731-2, in the 81st year of her age, and was buried at Dalkeith, in Scotland. Our author is not more correct about figures than he avows himself to be in the arrangement of facts and dates: the duchess's fortune was much greater than he has stated it to have been.

http://www.pseudopodium.org/repre… see note 157

About Henrietta Stuart (Princess)

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From Grammont's footnotes

Henrietta, youngest daughter of Charles the First, born at Exeter, 16th June, 1644, from whence she was removed to London in 1646, and, with her governess, Lady Dalkeith, soon afterwards conveyed to France. On the Restoration, she came over to England with her mother, but returned to France in about six months, and was married to Philip, Duke of Orleans, only brother of Lewis XIV. In May, 1760, she came again to Dover, on a mission of a political nature, it is supposed, from the French king to her brother, in which she was successful. She died, soon after her return to France, suddenly, not without suspicion of having been poisoned by her husband. King James, in his Diary, says, "On the 22nd of June, the news of the Duchess of Orleans' death arrived. It was suspected that counter-poisons were given her; but when she was opened, in the presence of the English ambassador, the Earl of Ailesbury, an English physician, and surgeon, there appeared no grounds of suspicion of any foul play. Yet Bucks talked openly that she was poisoned; and was so violent as to propose to foreign ministers to make war on France." -- Macpherson's Original Papers, vol. i. At the end of Lord Arlington's Letters are five very remarkable ones from a person of quality, who is said to have been actually on the spot, giving a particular relation of her death.

http://www.pseudopodium.org/repre… see note 155

About Elizabeth Barry

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From Grammont's footnotes

Mrs. Barry was introduced to the stage by Lord Rochester, with whom she had an intrigue, the fruit of which was a daughter, who lived to the age of thirteen years, and is often mentioned in his collection of love-letters, printed in his works, which were written to Mrs. Barry. On her first theatrical attempts, so little hopes were entertained of her, that she was, as Cibber declares, discharged the company at the end of the first year, among others that were thought to be a useless expense to it. She was well born; being daughter of Robert Barry, Esq., barrister-at-law; a gentleman of an ancient family and good estate, who hurt his fortune by his attachment to Charles I.; for whom he raised a regiment at his own expense. Tony Aston, in his "Supplement to Cibber's Apology," says, she was woman to Lady Shelton, of Norfolk, who might have belonged to the court. Curl, however, says, she was early taken under the patronage of Lady Davenant. Both these accounts may be true. The time of her appearance on the stage was probably not much earlier than 1671; in which year she performed in Tom Essence, and was, it may be conjectured, about the age of nineteen. Curl mentions the great pains taken by Lord Rochester in instructing her; which were repaid by the rapid progress she daily made in her profession. She at last eclipsed all her competitors, and in the part of Monimia established her reputation. From her performance in this character, in that of Belvidera, and of Isabella, in the Fatal Marriage, Downes says she acquired the name of the famous Mrs. Barry, both at court and in the city. "Mrs. Barry," says Dryden, in his Preface to Cleomenes, "always excellent, has in this tragedy excelled herself, and gained a reputation beyond any woman I have ever seen on the theatre." "In characters of greatness," says Cibber, "Mrs. Barry had a presence of elevated dignity; her mien and motion superb, and gracefully majestic; her voice full, clear, and strong; so that no violence of passion could be too much for her; and when distress or tenderness possessed her, she subsided into the most affecting melody and softness. In the art of exciting pity, she had a power beyond all the actresses I have yet seen, or what your imagination can conceive. In scenes of anger, defiance, or resentment, while she was impetuous and terrible, she poured out the sentiment with an enchanting harmony; and it was this particular excellence for which Dryden made her the above-recited compliment, upon her acting Cassandra in his Cleomenes. She was the first person whose merit was distinguished by the indulgence of having an annual benefit play, which was granted to her alone in King James's time, and which did not become common to others till the division of this company, after the death of King William and Queen Mary." -- Cibber's Apology, 1750, p. 133. Tony Aston says, "She was not handsome; her mouth opening most on the right side, which she strove to draw t'other way; and at times composing her face, as if sitting for her picture: she was," he adds, "middle-sized; had darkish hair, light eyes, and was indifferently plump. In tragedy, she was solemn and august; in comedy, alert, easy, and genteel; pleasant in her face and action; filling the stage with variety of gesture. She could neither sing nor dance; no, not in a country dance." -- Supplement to Cibber, p. 7. The printed letters in Otway's works are generally supposed to have been addressed to her. She adhered to Betterton in all the revolutions of the theatre, which she quitted about 1708, on account of her health. The last new character, of any consequence, which she performed, seems to have been Phædra, in Mr. Smith's tragedy. She returned, however, for one night, with Mrs. Bracegirdle, April 7, 1709; and performed Mrs. Frail, in Love for Love, for Mr. Betterton's benefit; and afterwards spoke an occasional epilogue, written by Mr. Rowe. She died 7th November, 1713, and was buried at Acton. The inscription over her remains says she was fifty-five years of age.

http://www.pseudopodium.org/repre… see note 138

About John Wilmot (2nd Earl of Rochester)

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From Grammont's footnotes

John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester; "a man," as Lord Orford observes, "whom the muses were fond to inspire, and ashamed to avow; and who practised, without the least reserve, that secret which can make verses more read for their defects than for their merits "(Noble Authors, vol. ii. p. 43); was born, according to Burnet and Wood, in the month of April, 1648; but Gladbury,in his almanac for 1695, fixes the date on April 1, 1647, from the information of Lord Rochester himself. His father was Henry, Earl of Rochester, better known by the title of Lord Wilmot. He was educated at Wadham College, Oxford, and, in 1665, went to sea with the Earl of Sandwich, and displayed a degree of valour which he never shewed at any period afterwards. Bishop Burnet says, he "was naturally modest, till the court corrupted him. His wit had in it peculiar brightness, to which none could ever arrive. He gave himself up to all sorts of extravagance, and to the wildest frolics that wanton wit could devise. He would have gone about the streets as a beggar, and made love as a porter. He set up a stage as an Italian mountebank. [For a copy of his speech on this occasion, see note 142.] He was for some years always drunk; and was ever doing some mischief. The king loved his company, for the diversion it afforded, better than his person; and there was no love lost between them. He took his revenges in many libels. He found out a footman that knew all the court; and he furnished him with a red coat and a musket, as a sentinel, and kept him all the winter long, every night, at the doors of such ladies as he believed might be in intrigues. In the court, a sentinel is little minded, and is believed to be posted by a captain of the guards to hinder a combat; so this man saw who walked about and visited at forbidden hours. By this means Lord Rochester made many discoveries; and when he was well furnished with materials, he used to retire into the country for a month or two to write libels. Once, being drunk, he intended to give the king a libel he had writ on some ladies, but, by mistake, he gave him one written on himself. He fell into an ill habit of body, and, in set fits of sickness, he had deep remorses, for he was guilty both of much impiety and of great immoralities. But as he recovered, he threw these off, and turned again to his former ill courses. In the last year of his life, I was much with him. and have writ a book of what passed between him and me: I do verily believe, he was then so changed, that, if he had recovered, he would have made good all his resolutions." -- History of his own Times, vol. i. p. 372. On this book, mentioned by the bishop, Dr. Johnson pronounces the following eulogium:-- that it is one "which the critic ought to read for its elegance, the philosopher for its arguments, and the saint for its piety. It were an injury to the reader to offer him an abridgment." -- Life of Lord Rochester.

http://www.pseudopodium.org/repre… see note 109

About George Digby (2nd Earl of Bristol)

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From Grammont's footnotes

George Digby. The account here given of the practices of this nobleman receives confirmation from Lord Clarendon, who observes of him, "that he had left no way unattempted to render himself gracious to the king, by saying and doing all that might be acceptable unto him, and contriving such meetings and jollities as he was pleased with." -- Continuation of his Life, p. 208. Lord Orford says of him, that "his life was one contradiction. He wrote against popery, and embraced it; he was a zealous opposerof the court, and a sacrifice to it; was conscientiously converted in the midst of his prosecution of Lord Strafford, and was most unconscientiously a prosecutor of Lord Clarendon. With great parts, he always hurt himself and his friends; with romantic bravery, he was always an unsuccessful commander. He spoke for the Test Act, though a Roman Catholic, and addicted himself to astrology on the birth-day of true philosophy." -- Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors, vol. ii. p. 25. The histories of England abound with the adventures of this inconsistent nobleman, who died, neither loved nor regretted by any party, in the year 1676.

http://www.pseudopodium.org/repre… see note 107

About Sir Henry Bennet (Baron Arlington, Secretary of State)

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From Grammont's footnotes

Henry Bennet, Earl of Arlington, principal secretary of state, and lord-chamberlain to King Charles II.: a nobleman whose practices, during that reign, have not left his character free from reproach. Mr. Macpherson says of him, that he "supplied the place of extensive talents by an artful management of such as he possessed. Accommodating in his principles, and easy in his address, he pleased when he was known to deceive; and his manner acquired to him a kind of influence where he commanded no respect. He was little calculated for bold measures, on account of his natural timidity; and that defect created an opinion of his moderation that was ascribed to virtue. His facility to adopt new measures was forgotten in his readiness to acknowledge the errors of the old. The deficiency of his integrity was forgiven in the decency of his dishonesty. Too weak not to be superstitious, yet possessing too much sense to own his adherence to the church of Rome, he lived a Protestant in his outward profession, but he died a Catholic. Timidity was the chief characteristic of his mind; and that being known, he was even commanded by cowards. He was the man of the least genius of the party; but he had most experience in that slow and constant current of business, which, perhaps, suits affairs of state better than the violent exertions of men of grea parts." -- Original Papers, vol. i. Lord Arlington died July 28, 1685

http://www.pseudopodium.org/repre… see note 90

About George Villiers (2nd Duke of Buckingham)

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From Grammont's footnotes

George Villiers, the second Duke of Buckingham, was born 30th January, 1627. Lord Orford observes, "When this extraordinary man, with the figure and genius of Alcibiades, could equally charm the presbyterian Fairfax and the dissolute Charles; when he alike ridiculed that witty king and his solemn chancellor; when he plotted the ruin of his country with a cabal of bad ministers, or, equally unprincipled, supported its cause with bad patriots,-- one laments that such parts should have been devoid of every virtue; but when Alcibiades turns chemist; when he is a real bubble and a visionary miser; when ambition is but a frolic; when the worst designs are for the foolishest ends,-- contempt extinguishes all reflection on his character.
"The portrait of this duke has been drawn by four masterly hands. Burnet has hewn it out with his rough chisel; Count Hamilton touched it with that slight delicacy that finishes while it seems but to sketch; Dry-den catched the living likeness; Pope completed the historical resemblance." -- Royal and Noble Authors, vol. ii. p. 78.

Of these four portraits, the second is in the text; the other three will complete the character of this extraordinary nobleman.

Bishop Burnet says, he "was a man of noble presence. He had a great liveliness of wit, and a peculiar faculty of turning all things into ridicule, with bold figures, and natural descriptions. He had no sort of literature, only he was drawn into chymistry; and for some years he thought he was very near the finding the philosopher's stone, which had the effect that attends on all such men as he was, when they are drawn in, to lay out for it. He had no principles of religion, virtue, or friendship; pleasure, frolic, or extravagant diversion was all that he laid to heart. He was true to nothing; for he was not true to himself. He had no steadiness nor conduct; he could keep no secret, nor execute any design without spoiling it. He could never fix his thoughts, nor govern his estate, though then the greatest in England. He was bred about the king, and for many years he had a great ascendant over him; but he spake of him to all persons with that contempt, that at last he drew a lasting disgrace upon himself. And he at length ruined both body and mind, fortune and reputation equally. The madness of vice appeared in his person in very eminent instances; since at last he became contemptible and poor, sickly, and sunk in his parts, as well as in all other respects; so that his conversation was as much avoided as ever it had been courted." -- Burnet's Own Times, vol. i. p. 137.

Pope describes the last scene of this nobleman's life in these lines:--

"In the worst inn's worst room, with mat half hung,
The floors of plaster, and the walls of dung,
On once a flock-bed, but repair'd with straw,
With tape-tied curtains, never meant to draw;
The George and Garter dangling from that bed,
Where tawdry yellow strove with dirty red,
Great Villiers lies: -- alas ! how chang'd from him,
That life of pleasure, and that soul of whim!
Gallant and gay, in Clieveden's proud alcove,
The bower of wanton Shrewsbury and love;
Or, just as gay, at council, in a ring
Of mimic'd statesmen, and their merry king.
No wit, to flatter, left of all his store!
No fool to laugh at, which he valued more.
There, victor of his health, of fortune, friends,
And fame, this lord of useless thousand ends."
Moral Essays, Epist. iii. 1. 299.

He died 16th April, 1688, at the house of a tenant, at Kirby Moorside, near Helmsly, in Yorkshire, aged 61 years, and was buried in Westminster-abbey.

Though this note is already long, the reader will hardly complain at an extension of it, by the addition of one more character of this licentious nobleman, written by the able pen of the author of Hudibras. "The Duke of Bucks is one that has studied the whole body of vice. His parts are disproportionate to the whole, and, like a monster, he has more of some, and less of others, than he should have. He has pulled down all that nature raised in him, and built himself up again after a model of his own. He has dammed up all those lights that nature made into the noblest prospects of the world, and opened other little blind loop-holes backward, by turning day into night, and night into day. His appetite to his pleasures is diseased and crazy, like the pica in a woman, that longs to eat that which was never made for food, or a girl in the green sickness, that eats chalk and mortar. Perpetual surfeits of pleasure have filled his mind with bad and vicious humours (as well as his body with a nursery of diseases), which makes him affect new and extravagant ways, as being sick and tired with the old. Continual wine, women, and music, put false values upon things, which, by custom, become habitual, and debauch his understanding so, that he retains no right notion nor sense of things. And as the same dose of the same physic has no operation on those that are much used to it, so his pleasures require a larger proportion of excess and variety, to render him sensible of them. He rises, eats, and goes to bed by the Julian account, long after all others that go by the new style, and keeps the same hours with owls and the antipodes. He is a great observer of the Tartar customs, and never eats till the great cham, having dined, makes proclamation that all the world may go to dinner. He does not dwell in his house, but haunts it like an evil spirit, that walks all night, to disturb the family, and never appears by day. He lives perpetually benighted, runs out of his life, and loses his time as men do their ways in the dark: and as blind men are led by their dogs, so is he governed by some mean servant or other, that relates to his pleasures. He is as inconstant as the moon which he lives under; and although he does nothing but advise with his pillow all day, he is as great a stranger to himself as he is to the rest of the world. His mind entertains all things very freely that come and go, but, like guests and strangers, they are not welcome if they stay long. This lays him open to all cheats, quacks, and impostors, who apply to every particular humour while it lasts, and afterwards vanish. Thus, with St. Paul, though in a different sense, he dies daily, and only lives in the night. He deforms nature, while he intends to adorn her, like Indians that hang jewels in their lips and noses. His ears are perpetually drilled with a fiddlestick. He endures pleasures with less patience than other men do their pains." -- Butler's Posthumous Works, vol. ii. p. 72.

http://www.pseudopodium.org/repre… see note 89

About Prince Rupert

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From Grammont's footnotes
Grandson of James the First, whose actions during the civil wars are well known. He was born 19th December, 1619, and died at his house in Spring Gardens, November 22, 1682. Lord Clarendon says of him, that "he was rough and passionate, and loved not debate; liked what was proposed, as he liked the persons who proposed it; and was so great an enemy to Digby and Colepepper, who were only present in the debates of the war with the officers, that he crossed all they proposed." -- History of the Rebellion, vol. ii. p. 554. He is supposed to have invented the art of mezzotinto. --

http://www.pseudopodium.org/repre… see note 78

Lord Orford's contrast to this character of Prince Rupert is too just to be here omitted. "Born with the taste of an uncle whom his sword was not fortunate in defending, Prince Rupert was fond of those sciences which soften and adorn a hero's private hours, and knew how to mix them with his minutes of amusement, without dedicating his life to their pursuit, like us, who, wanting capacity for momentous views, make serious study of what is only the transitory occupation of a genius. Had the court of the first Charles been peaceful, how agreeably had the prince's congenial propensity flattered and confirmed the inclination of his uncle! How the muse of arts would have repaid the patronage of the monarch, when, for his first artist, she would have presented him with his nephew! How different a figure did the same prince make in a reign of dissimilar complexion! The philosophic warrior, who could relax himself into the ornament of a refined court, was thought a savage mechanic, when courtiers were only voluptuous wits. Let me transcribe a picture of Prince Rupert, drawn by a man who was far from having the least portion of wit in that age, who was superior to its indelicacy, and who yet was so overborne by its prejudices, that he had the complaisance to ridicule virtue, merit, talents. -- But Prince Rupert, alas! was an awkward lover!" Lord Orford here inserts the character in the text, and then adds, "What pity that we, who wish to transmit this prince's resemblance to posterity on a fairer canvas, have none of these inimitable colours to enface the harsher likeness! We can but oppose facts to wit, truth to satire. -- How unequal the pencils! yet what these lines cannot do, they may suggest: they may induce the reader to reflect, that if the prince was defective in the transient varnish of a court, he at least was adorned by the arts with that polish which alone can make a court attract the attention of subsequent ages." -- Catalogue of Engravers, p. 135, 8vo. ed.
[Lord Orford thus relates the circumstance of his inventing mezzo-tinto: "We must take up the prince in his laboratory, begrimed, uncombed, perhaps in a dirty shirt; on the day I am going to mention, he certainly had not shaved and powdered to charm Miss Hughes, for it happened in his retirement at Brussels, after the catastrophe of his uncle. Going out early one morning, he observed the sentinel, at some distance from his post, very busy doing something to his piece. The prince asked what he was about? He replied, the dew had fallen in the night, had made his fusil rusty, and that he was scraping and cleaning it. The prince looking at it, was struck with something like a figure eaten into the barrel, with innumerable little holes closed together, like friezed work on gold or silver, part of which the fellow had scraped away.

"One knows what a mere good officer would have said on such an accident; if a fashionable officer, he might have damned the poor fellow, and given him a shilling: but the Génie fécond en expériences from so trifling an accident conceived mezzotinto. The prince concluded that some contrivance might be found to cover a brass plate with such a grained ground of fine pressed holes, which would undoubtedly give an impression all black, and that by scraping away proper parts, the smooth superficies would leave the rest of the paper white. Communicating his idea to Wallerant Vaillant, a painter whom he maintained, they made several experiments, and at last invented a steel roller, cut with tools to make teeth like a file or rasp, with projecting points, which effectually produced the black grounds; those being scraped away and diminished at pleasure, left the gradations of light."

Evelyn, in his Diary, March 13, 1661, says: "This afternoon, Prince Rupert shewed me with his own hands the new way of graving called mezzotinto, which afterwards, by his permission, I published in my history of Chalcography; this set so many artists on work, that they soon arrived to the perfection it is since come, emulating the tenderest miniatures."

Pepys, in his Diary, February 4, 1664-5, says: "My Lord Bellasses told us an odd passage; how the king having put out Prince Rupert of his generalship, upon some miscarriage at Bristol, and Sir Richard Willis of his governorship of Newark, at the entreaty of the gentry of the county, and put in my Lord Bellasses; the great officers of the king's army mutinied, and* came in that manner with swords drawn, into the market-place of the town where the king was; which the king hearing, says: 'I must horse.' And there himself personally, when everybody expected they should have been opposed, the king came, and cried to the head of the mutineers, wtiich was Prince Rupert, 'Nephew, I command you to be gone.' So the prince, in all his fury and discontent, withdrew, and his company scattered."

Dallaway says: "He was the author of several inventions of decided utility, in his own profession, of a method to bore cannons, and of a mixed metal, of which they should be composed, and of great improvement in the manufacture of gunpowder. He communicated to Christopher Kirby a method of tempering steel for the best fish-hooks ever made in England."

Prince Rupert was also famous for his play at tennis, and for being an excellent shot. A particular instance of his skill is mentioned by Plot, where he is said to have sent two balls successively, with a horse-pistol, through the weather-cock of St. Mary's steeple at Stafford. The distance was sixty yards, and the feat was performed in the presence of Charles I.]

http://www.pseudopodium.org/repre… see note 151

About Ralph Mountagu

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Footnote from Grammont
Ralph Montagu, second son of Edward, Lord Montagu. He was master of the horse to the queen, and, in 1669, was sent ambassador extraordinary to France; on his return from whence, in January, 1672, he was sworn of the privy-council. He afterwards became master of the great wardrobe, and was sent a second time to France. He took a very decided part in the prosecution of the popish plot, in 1678; but on the sacrifice of his friend, Lord Russell, he retired to Montpelier during the rest of King Charles's reign. He was active at the Revolution, and soon after created Viscount Monthermer, and Earl of Montagu. In 1705, ne became Marquis of Monthermer, and Duke of Montagu. He died 7th March, 1 709, in his 73rd year, leaving behind him the character of a very indulgent parent, a kind and bountiful master, a very hearty friend, a noble patron of men of merit, and a true assertor of English liberty.

http://www.pseudopodium.org/repre… see note 74

About Frances Stuart (Duchess of Richmond)

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From Grammont's footnotes (some spoilers)
Frances, Duchess of Richmond, daughter of Walter Stewart, son of Walter, Baron of Blantyre, and wife of Charles Stewart, Duke of Richmond and Lennox: a lady of exquisite beauty, if justly represented in a puncheon made by Roettiere, his majesty's engraver of the mint, in order to strike a medal of her, which exhibits the finest face that perhaps was ever seen. The king was supposed to be desperately in love with her; and it became common discourse, that there was a design on foot to get him divorced from the queen, in order to marry this lady. [Pepys describes her as the greatest beauty he ever saw in his life: "With her cocked hat and a red plume, with her sweet eye, little Roman nose, and excellent taille;" and adds, "If ever woman can, do exceed my Lady Castlemaine, at least in this dress: nor do I wonder if the king changes, which I verily believe is the reason of his coldness to my Lady Castlemaine."] Lord Clarendon was thought to have promoted the match with the Duke of Richmond, thereby to prevent the other design, which he imagined would hurt the king's character, embroil his affairs at present, and entail all the evils of a disputed succession on the nation. Whether he actually encouraged the Duke of Richmond's marriage, doth not appear; but it is certain that he was so strongly possessed of the king's inclination to a divorce, that, even after his disgrace, he was persuaded the Duke of Buckingham had undertaken to carry that matter through the parliament. It is certain too that the king considered him as the chief promoter of Miss Stewart's marriage, and resented it in the highest degree. The ceremony took place privately, and it was publicly declared in April, 1667. From one of Sir Robert Southwell's dispatches, dated Lisbon, December 2/12, 1667, it appears that the report of the queen's intended divorce had not then subsided in her native country. -- History of the Revolutions of Portugal, 1740, p. 352. The duchess became a widow in 1672, and died October 15, 1702. See Burnet's History, Ludlow's Memoirs, and Carte's Life of the Duke of Ormond. A figure in wax of this duchess is still to be seen in Westminster Abbey.

Note: For whatever reason Grammont was not taken by her looks and didn't speak highly of her, which sharply cotnracts other writers of the time.
http://www.pseudopodium.org/repre… see note 69

About Barbara Palmer (Countess of Castlemaine)

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from Grammont's footnotes (quoting Burnet)
This lady who made so distinguished a figure in the annals of infamy, was Barbara, daughter and heir of William Villiers, Lord Viscount Grandison, of the kingdom of Ireland, who died in 1642, in consequence of wounds received at the battle of Edge-hill. She was married, just before the Restoration, to Roger Palmer, Esq., then a student in the Temple, and heir to a considerable fortune. In the 13th year of King Charles II. he was created Earl of Castlemaine in the kingdom of Ireland. She had a daughter, born in February 1661, while she cohabited with her husband; but shortly after she became the avowed mistress of the king, who continued his connection with her until about the year 1672, when she was delivered of a daughter, which was supposed to be Mr. Churchill's, afterwards Duke of Marlborough, and which the king disavowed. Her gallantries were by no means confined to one or two, nor were they unknown to his majesty. In the year 1670, she was created Baroness of Nonsuch, in Surrey, Countess of Southampton, and Duchess of Cleveland, during her natural life, with remainder to Charles and George Fitzroy, her eldest and third son, and their heirs male. In July 1705, her husband died, and she soon after married a man of desperate fortune, known by the name of Handsome Fielding, who behaving in a manner unjustifiably severe towards her, she was obliged to have recourse to law for her protection. Fortunately it was discovered that Fielding had already a wife living, by which means the duchess was enabled to free herself from his authority. She lived about two years afterwards, and died of a dropsy, on the 9th of October, 1709, in her 69th year. Bishop Burnet says, "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, while yet she pretended she was jealous of him. His passion for her, and her strange behaviour towards him, did so disorder him, that often he was not master of himself, nor capable of minding business, which, in so critical a time, required great application." -- Burnet's Own Times, vol. i. p. 129.

http://www.pseudopodium.org/repre… see note 55

About Sir Charles Berkeley (1st Earl of Falmouth, 1st Viscount Fitzharding)

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From Grammont's footnotes

He had the address to secure himself in the affections equally of the king and his brother at the same time. Lord Clarendon, who seems to have conceived, and with reason, a prejudice against him, calls him "a fellow of great wickedness," and says, "he was one in whom few other men (except the king) had ever observed any virtue or quality, which they did not wish their best friends without. He was young, and of an insatiable ambition; and a little more experience might have taught him all things which his weak parts were capable of." -- Clarendon's Life, pp. 34, 267. Bishop Burnet, however, is rather more favourable. "Berkley," says he, "was generous in his expence; and it was thought if he had outlived the lewdness of that time, and come to a more sedate course of life, he would have put the king on great and noble designs." -- History, vol. i. p. 137. He lost his life in the action at Southwold Bay, the 2nd June, 1665, by a shot, which, at the same time, killed Lord Muskerry and Mr. Boyle, as they were standing on the quarter-deck, near the Duke of York, who was covered with their blood. "Lord Falmouth," as King James observes, "died not worth a farthing, though not expensive." -- Macpherson's State Papers, vol. i. "He was, however, lamented by the king with floods of tears, to the amazement of all who had seen how unshaken he stood on other assaults of fortune." -- Clarendon's Life, p. 269.
http://www.pseudopodium.org/repre… see note 47

About Henry Jermyn (1st Earl of St Albans)

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From Grammont's footnotes

Henry Jermyn, Earl of St. Alban's, and Baron of St. Edmund's Bury. He was master of the horse to Queen Henrietta, and one of the privy-council to Charles II. In July 1660, he was sent ambassador to the court of France, and, in 1671, he was made lord-chamberlain of his majesty's household. He died January 2, 1683. Sir John Reresby asserts, that Lord St. Alban's was married to Queen Henrietta. "The abbess of an English college in Paris, whither the queen used to retire, would tell me," says Sir John, "that Lord Jermyn, since St. Alban's, had the queen greatly in awe of him; and indeed it was obvious that he had great interest with her concerns; but he was married to her, or had children by her, as some have reported, I did not then believe, though the thing was certainly so." -- Memoirs, p. 4. [Pepys says, in his Diary, Dec. 21st, 1660: -- "I hear that the Princess Royal hath married herself to young Jermyn, which is worse than the Duke of York's marrying the Chancellor's daughter, which is now publicly owned."] Madame Baviere, in her letters, says, "Charles the First's widow made a clandestine marriage with her chevalier d'honneur, Lord St. Alban's, who treated her extremely ill, so that, whilst she had not a faggot to warm herself, he had in his apartment a good fire and a sumptuous table. He never gave the queen a kind word and when she spoke to him he used to say, Que me veut cette femme?" Hamilton hints at his selfishness a little lower.
http://www.pseudopodium.org/repre… see note 45

About James Butler (Duke of Ormond, Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland)

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Footnote from Grammont
James Butler, Duke of Ormond, born 19th October, 1610, and died 21st July, 1688. Lord Clarendon, in the Continuation of his Life, observes, that "he frankly engaged his person and his fortune in the king's service, from the first hour of the troubles, and pursued it with that courage and constancy, that when the king was murdered, and he deserted by the Irish, contrary to the articles of peace which they had made with him, and when he could make no longer defence, he refused all the conditions which Cromwell offered, who would have given him all his vast estate if he would have been contented to live quietly in some of his own houses, without further concerning himself in the quarrel; and transported himself, without so much as accepting a pass from his authority, in a little weak vessel into France, where he found the king, from whom he never parted till he returned with him into England. Having thus merited as much as a subject can do from a prince, he had much more credit and esteem with the king than any other man." -- Continuation of the Life of Lord Clarendon, p. 4, fol. edit. Bishop Burnet says of him, "he was a man every way fitted for a court; of a graceful appearance, a lively wit, and a cheerful temper; a man of great expense; decent even in his vices, for he always kept up the form of region. He had gone through many transactions in Ireland with more fidelity than success. He had made a treaty with the Irish, which was broken by the great body of them, though some few of them adhered still to him. But the whole Irish nation did still pretend, that though they had broke the agreement first, yet he, or rather the king, in whose name he had treated with them, was bound to perform all the articles of the treaty. He had miscarried so in the siege of Dublin, that it very much lessened the opinion of his military conduct. Yet his constant attendance on his master, his easiness to him, and his great suffering for him, raised him to be lord-steward of the household, and lord-lieutenant of Ireland. He was firm to the protestant religion, and so far firm to the laws, that he always gave good advices; but when bad ones were followed, he was not for complaining too much of them." -- Burnet's Own Times, vol. i. p. 230.
http://www.pseudopodium.org/repre… see note 44

About Sir Edward Hyde (Earl of Clarendon, Lord Chancellor 1658-67)

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Grammont footnote on Hyde

Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, "for his comprehensive knowledge of mankind, styled the chancellor of human nature. His character, at this distance of time, may, and ought to be impartially considered. His designing or blinded contemporaries heaped the most unjust abuse upon him. The subsequent age, when the partizans of prerogative were at least the loudest, if not the most numerous, smit with a work that deified their martyr, have been unbounded in their encomium." -- Catalogue of Noble Authors, vol. ii. p. 18. Lord Orford, who professes to steer a middle course, and separate his great virtues as a man from his faults as an historian, acknowledges that he possessed almost every virtue of a minister which could make his character venerable. He died in exile, in the year 1674.
http://www.pseudopodium.org/repre… see note 43