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. That man, 'who
never said a foolish thing, and never did a wise one,' was the slave of
this imperious and most impudent of women. She forced him to settle on
her an immense fortune, much of which she squandered at the
basset-table, often staking a thousand pounds at a time, and sometimes
losing fifteen thousand pounds a-night.

Nor did her wickedness end here. We have some pity for one, who, like La
Vallière, could be attracted by the attentions of a handsome,
fascinating prince: we pity though we blame. But Lady Castlemaine was
vicious to the very marrow: not content with a king's favour, she
courted herself the young gallant of the town. Quarrels ensued between
Charles and his mistress, in which the latter invariably came off
victorious, owing to her indomitable temper; and the scenes recorded by