Lucy Walter

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Lucy Walter

Lucy Walter , also called Walters or Waters, (* 1630 in Roch Castle, near Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire , Wales , † 1658 in Paris ), was the daughter of the Welsh noblemen Richard Walter and Elizabeth Protheroe.

Lucy Walter was one of the many mistresses of King Charles II of England and the mother of James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth . Due to the birth of the first, officially recognized, illegitimate son of Charles II and the childlessness of the English Queen Katharina Henrietta , suspicions and rumors about a secret marriage between Lucy and the king were spread again and again. Lucy was described rather negatively by contemporaries such as Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn . She did not get any benefit from her position as mistress and lover of Charles II and did not seem to care much about her surroundings. No testimonies or sources have come down from her herself.

Life

Childhood and youth

The Walter family were a noble Welsh family who sided with the royalists during the English Civil War. During the civil war, the family's castle, Roch Castle, was captured and destroyed. Other sources speak of a family residence in the village of Ravendale (Welsh: Cwmcigfran ), five miles from Carmarthen. The family first fled to London . Lucy was later brought to The Hague by her uncle, the Earl of Carbery .

Introduced into English society at thirteen or fourteen, she was soon the mistress of Algernon Sidney , a young officer in Oliver Cromwell's army . In The Hague, she is said to have met her lover's younger brother, Robert Sidney, who later introduced her to Charles II.

It is controversial whether the precocious Lucy Walter, who called herself Mrs. Barlow as Robert's lover, exchanged one lover for a new one without hesitation, or whether she was passed on from one man to the next. Both views are represented in different biographies.

Mistress of the king

Lucy Walter

In The Hague , Lucy actually met the English heir to the throne Charles II for the first time , who was already very receptive to feminine beauty and immediately became very interested in Lucy. The Baron d'Aulnoy described Lucy as follows:

Her beauty was so perfect that when the King saw her ...
he was so charmed and ravished and enamored
that in the misfortunes which ran through the first years
of his reign he knew no other sweetness or joy
than to love her, and be loved by her.
(Baronne d'Aulnoy, Memoirs of the Court of England in 1675)
Her beauty was so perfect that when the King saw her (Lucy),
he was carried away, disarmed, and bewitched, and
that despite the misfortune of his reign in the first few years
knew no other joy and grace,
than to love her and to be loved by her.
Charles II, King of England

Lucy was not inexperienced, nor was she the first mistress of the heir to the British throne. John Evelyn describes Lucy as "brown, beautiful, bold but insipid creature" (brown (dark), beautiful, cheeky but mindless). He also referred to her as a whore (a strumped) because of her coarse and unaffected way of showing and living out her sexuality very openly . She also called Samuel Pepys "a common whore" (a common whore) .

The affair of Charles II and Lucy must have started before June 1648, as their son James was born on April 9, 1649, who was initially baptized in the name of James Crofts. The English heir to the throne immediately asserted his paternity after the birth of the child. Later Charles II raised James to Duke of Monmouth and took care of his upbringing shortly before his mother's death.

The relationship between Lucy and Charles II took place at intervals. They traveled to Paris and Jersey together , but Lucy quickly became unfaithful to her royal lover. She gave birth to her daughter Mary, whom she had with Henry Bennet, 1st Earl of Arlington , when Charles II could not see her for a long time. Another time she expressed her intention to marry Baron Henry de Vere. Although Charles II gave his approval for this wedding, it never took place. Whether Baron de Vere got cold feet because the good reputation of his future wife was already too damaged, or whether Lucy suddenly no longer wanted to marry; both motives are within the realm of the possible.

Lucy seemed unimpressed by the reputation she had. Around 1655 she is said to have thrown herself into numerous affairs in quick succession, until even Charles II, for whom "every common whore was just right" (a common whore is good enough) , became too much. In 1655 he asked his friend and confidante Theobald Taaffe, 1st Earl of Carlingford , to remove Lucy from the Hague area as quickly as possible.

Advise her, both for her sake and mine,
that she goes to some place other than the Hague,
for her stay there is very prejudicial to us both.
Advise her, for her sake and for my sake,
that she goes to a place other than The Hague,
staying there is very detrimental to both of us

Taafe was not very lucky in removing Lucy from The Hague. A short time later she became his lover.

Charges and arrests in England

In 1656 Lucy was accused of having aborted two more illegitimate children, whose fathers remained unknown. She was also charged with murdering a maid. Both charges were later dropped.

In the summer of the same year she returned to England with her children James and Mary. The family were immediately arrested by Oliver Cromwell's envoys upon arrival and taken to prison. When she was arrested, Lucy Walter was officially referred to as "the wife and mistress of Charles Stuart" for the first time , which would later fuel the rumor of a secret marriage between Charles II and Lucy.

Lucy Walter managed to be released from prison with her children and traveled back to The Hague. Taafe, meanwhile again acting as a mediator between Lucy and Charles II, assured her a regular pension payment, especially to see their son James well looked after.

Loss of son

In 1658 the royal mediators achieved that Lucy could place her son James under the care of Charles II. Lucy refused to give up her son, but was retuned.

James, 9 years old at the time, was completely uneducated and had never received any kind of instruction or education. He was illiterate and did not know how to behave in normal company. Furthermore, it would not have served his future to continue living with his mother, whose reputation had meanwhile been devastatingly damaged and whose house in Brussels served as an unofficial brothel . Lucy placed James in his father's care. Charles II named a tutor to teach and educate James from 1658. He never saw his mother again.

End of life

After losing her son, Lucy traveled to Paris in 1658, where she died in September or October of the same year and was buried in an unmarked grave. She was only 28 years old.

According to official sources, she died of “a disease incident to her profession”. Most likely she died of complications from a venereal disease that she contracted after 1651.

reception

Voices of contemporaries: legend and myth

In later years, and while Charles II was still alive, it was rumored that he and Lucy Walter had secretly married. Thus her son James, who later became the Duke of Monmouth , would have been a legitimate contender for the throne of England. This rumor became even more explosive because the marriage between Charles II and his wife Katharina Henrietta remained childless.

When Charles II's brother, Jakob II./VII , became the next heir to the throne due to his brother's childlessness and officially converted to Catholicism in 1672 , resistance against a Catholic king arose in England. James was proclaimed the rightful heir to the throne by the Protestant opposition in the country, as he was primarily a Protestant .

After the death of his father, James claimed the throne in place of his uncle Jakob II./VII, his troops were defeated on July 6, 1685 near the village of Sedgemoor . He was captured on July 15, 1685 and finally executed in the Tower of London .

progeny

Children with Charles II (1630–1685):

Children with Henry Bennet, 1st Earl of Arlington:

  • Mary Crofts (* 1651), not recognized, married William Sarsfield, later William Fanshaw, and worked as a healer in Covent Garden.

literature

swell

  • Baronne d'Aulnoy: "Memoirs of the Court of England in 1675"
  • Samuel Pepys: "Diary"
  • John Evelyn: "Diary"
  • Laurence Eachard: "History of England (1723)"

See also

Web links

Individual documents and notes

  1. ↑ cf. also TG Lamford: The Defense of Lucy Walter , Preface vii
personal data
SURNAME Walter, Lucy
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Mistress of King Charles II of England, mother of James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth
DATE OF BIRTH 1630
PLACE OF BIRTH Roch Castle
DATE OF DEATH 1658
Place of death Paris