Page:The Complete Peerage Ed 2 Vol 3.djvu/111

 CASTLEMAINE 91 Jan. i6-j^/, re-committed Nov. 1679, ^"d tried and acquitted June 1680, for his supposed share in the plot fabricated by Titus Oates. He was sent on an Embassy to Constantinople and subsequently by James II to Rome where he affected great state. (^) P.C. 25 Sep. 1687 till Feb. 1688/9. He did not attend the Pari, of James II, 7 May i689.('') He was excepted from the Act of Indemnity of 1690. He m., 14 Apr. 1659, at St. Gregory's by St. Paul's, London, Barbara, da. and sole h. of William (Vil- LiERs), 2nd Viscount Grandison [I.], by Mary, da. of Paul (Bayning), 1st Viscount Bayning of Sudbury, which Barbara, in or before 1661, deserted him and became Mistress to King Charles II, by whom she had several children. He d'. s.p.m.,{f) 28 July 1705, at Oswestry, Salop, and was bur. at Welshpool, co. Montgomery, aged 71, when his honours became extinct. Will, dat. 30 Nov. 1696, pr. 25 Oct. 1705, by his da. Anne, Countess of Sussex.('^) He directs that he should be bur. by his "uncle Powis" if he die in Wales. His notorious wife was cr., 3 Aug. 1670, DUCHESS OF CLEVELAND, &c. She d. 9 Oct. 1709, at Chiswick, Midx. See fuller account of her under "Cleveland," Dukedom of, cr. 1670; extinct IJJ^. (*) An account of this Embassy, with many fine plates, including one of the Earl "kissing the Pope's toe," was "printed for the author {fi/io) 1688." On 28 Oct. 1689, he was brought to the bar of the House of Commons to answer for having gone "upon an employment unwelcome to them," and, as the Speaker stated, "they have great reason to think it was to reconcile this Kingdom with the church of Rome, the highest crime that can be committed"! His Lordship, in a speech showing both dignity and ability, pleaded: "I went as the King's servant; as the King's minister upon a compliment ... I did not meddle with religion . . . though I do profess myself a Catholic." He was however of course imprisoned in the Tower on a warrant of High Treason. (See Hist. MSS. Com., Portland MSS., vol. viii., pp. 22-27, where the proceedings are given in full). V.G. (^) For a list of peers present in, and absent from this Pari., see Appendix D to this volume. ('^) It was doubtless on account of Castlemaine's absence from England 1662 or 1663 to 1667 that the three sons of his wife (all of them born in wedlock, and all of them called by his surname of Palmer in their infancy) were legally regarded as bastards, for no divorce ever took place. Had they been capable of succeeding, his honours would have descended with the Dukedom of Southampton (afterwards, 1 709-74, merged in that of Cleveland) till 1774, and, after that date, with the Dukedom of Grafton. V.G. (<^) His wife's eldest child, whose paternity is somewhat doubtful, Anne Palmer otherwise Fitzroy, /i. 25 Feb. 1660/1, m. Thomas (Lennard), ist Earl of Sussex. She is generally supposed to have been the child of Lord Chesterfield, yet Lord Castlemaine always acknowledged her as his own, as did the King a/so, who, by warrant, dat. 28 Feb. 1672/3, grants to her and her sister, viz. "unto the Lady Jnne Fitzroy and the Lady Charlotte Fitzroy, his dear and natural daughters by the Duchess of Cleveland," the same armorial ensigns as those of " his dear and natural son Charles Fitzroy, Earl of Southampton, their eldest brother."