Lucy Walter

Lucy Walter (c. 1630 - 1658) was the mistress of the English king Charles II and reputed mother of the duke of Monmouth, believed to have been born in 1630, or a little later, at Roch Castle, near Haverfordwest, Wales.

Origins

The Walters were a Welsh family of good standing, who declared for the king during the Civil War. Roch Castle was captured and burned by the parliamentary forces in 1644, and Lucy Walter found shelter first in London and then at the Hague.

Life as a courtesan

She entered the fringes of London society through family connections, and at the age of seventeen was the mistress of Algernon Sidney, a Roundhead officer related to the Earl of Leicester. In the Netherlands, she met his younger brother, a Royalist exile, Robert Sidney, with whom she began an affair. It was through Robert that she met Charles II.

There is little truth that can be supported to the story that she was the first mistress for Charles II; it is certain that he was not her first lover in royal circles. The intimacy between him and this "brown, beautiful, bold but insipid creature," as John Evelyn called her, who chose to be known as Mrs Barlow (Barlo), lasted with intervals till the Autumn of 1651, and Charles claimed the paternity of a child born in 1649, whom he subsequently created Duke of Monmouth.

After her relationship with Charles II ended for unknown reasons, she led a poor and dissolute life, which possibly resulted in her premature death, at Paris in September/October 1658. However the cause of death is not known.

A daughter, Mary (b. 1651), of whom the reputed father was Henry Bennet, 1st Earl of Arlington, married William Sarsfield.

Reference

• This entry incorporates public domain text originally from the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica.