Lady of the Bedchamber

Samuel Pepys' Diary. 26th July 1662. Thence to Mrs. Sarah, and there looked over my Lord's lodgings, which are very pretty; and White Hall garden and the Bowling-ally (where lords and ladies are now at bowles), in brave condition. Mrs. Sarah told me how the falling out between my Baroness Castlemaine's [aged 21] and her Lord was about christening of the child lately¹, which he would have, and had done by a priest: and, some days after, she had it again christened by a minister; the King [aged 32], and Lord of Oxford, and Duchesse of Suffolk, being witnesses: and christened with a proviso, that it had not already been christened. Since that she left her Lord, carrying away every thing in the house; so much as every dish, and cloth, and servant but the porter. He is gone discontented into France, they say, to enter a monastery; and now she is coming back again to her house in Kingstreet. But I hear that the Queen [aged 23] did prick her out of the list presented her by the King;² desiring that she might have that favour done her, or that he would send her from whence she come: and that the King was angry and the Queen discontented a whole day and night upon it; but that the King hath promised to have nothing to do with her hereafter. But I cannot believe that the King can fling her off so, he loving her too well: and so I writ this night to my Lady to be my opinion; she calling her my lady, and the lady I admire. Here I find that my Lord hath lost the garden to his lodgings, and that it is turning into a tennis-court. Hence by water to the Wardrobe to see how all do there, and so home to supper and to bed.

Note 1. The boy was born in June at Baroness Castlemaine's house in King Street. By the direction of Lord Castlemaine, who had become a Roman Catholic, the child was baptized by a priest, and this led to a final separation between husband and wife. Some days afterwards the child was again baptized by the rector of St. Margaret's, Westminster [Map], in presence of the godparents, the King, Aubrey De Vere [aged 35], Earl of Oxford, and Barbara, Countess of Suffolk [aged 40], first Lady of the Bedchamber to the Queen and Baroness Castlemaine's aunt. The entry in the register of St. Margaret's [Map] is as follows: "1662 June 18 Charles Palmer Ld Limbricke, s. to ye right honorble Roger Earl of Castlemaine by Barbara" (Steinman's "Memoir of Barbara, Duchess of Cleveland", 1871, p. 33). The child was afterwards called Charles Fitzroy, and was created Duke of Southampton in 1674. He succeeded his mother in the dukedom of Cleveland in 1709, and died 1730.

Note 2. By the King's command Lord Clarendon [aged 54], much against his inclination, had twice visited his royal mistress with a view of inducing her, by persuasions which he could not justify, to give way to the King's determination to have Baroness Castlemaine's of her household.... Lord Clarendon has given a full account of all that transpired between himself, the King and the Queen, on this very unpleasant business ('Continuation of Life of Clarendon,' 1759, ff. 168-178). Steinman's Memoir of Duchess of Cleveland, p. 35. The day at length arrived when Baroness Castlemaine's was to be formally admitted a Lady of the Bedchamber. The royal warrant, addressed to the Lord Chamberlain [aged 61], bears date June 1, 1663, and includes with that of her ladyship, the names of the Duchess of Buckingham [aged 24], the Countesses of Chesterfield and Bath [aged 22], and the Countess Mareshall. A separate warrant of the same day directs his lordship to admit the Countess of Suffolk as Groom of the Stole and first Lady of the Bedchamber, to which undividable offices she had, with the additional ones of Mistress of the Robes and Keeper of the Privy Purse, been nominated by a warrant dated April 2, 1662, wherein the reception of her oath is expressly deferred until the Queen's household shall be established. We here are furnished with the evidence that Charles would not sign the warrants for the five until Catherine had withdrawn her objection to his favourite one. Addenda to Steinman's Memoir of Duchess of Cleveland (privately printed), 1874, p. i.

The Times. 24th December 1895. The Duke of Leeds [deceased] died at Hornby Castle [Map], yesterday morning at 5 o'clock. He recently contracted a severe chill, which led to an attack of bronchitis. He took to his bed about a week ago and gradually sank. George Godolphin Osborne, ninth Duke of Leeds in the peerage of England, Marquis of Carmarthen, Earl of Danby, Viscount Latimer, and Baron Osbome of Kiveton, all in the peerage of England; Viscount Osbome and Viscount Dunblane in the peerage of Scotland; and Baron Godolphin of Paraham Royal, in the Peerage of the United Kingdom, a baronet, and a Prince or the Holy Roman Empire, was born in Paris in 1828, the eldest son of the eighth duke. He married, in 1861, the Hon. Fanny Georgiana Pitt [aged 58], daughter of the fourth Baron Rivers, who was born in 1836 and was Lady of the Bedchamber to the Princess of Wales from 1863 to 1873. He was appointed captain in the North Yorks Militia in 1852, and resigued in 1859, but was reappoined in 1861. He succeeded to the family honours in 1872, and has issue living three sons and five daughters. The family descends from Sir Edward Osborne, knight, who was Vice-President of the Council of the North in 1629 and Lieutenant-General of the forces raised there against the Parliamentary Army in 1841. His son was Treasurer of the Navy and Lord High Chancellor, and as Earl of Danby was impeeched by the Commons in 1679. The fifth duke married Amelia, in her own right Baroness Conyers, but this title left the main line in 1859 on the death of the seventh duke. The late duke was nephew of the late Rev. Lord Sydney Godolphin Osborne, who wrote much over the familiar signature "S.G.O.," and brother of Lord Francis George Godolphin Osborne [aged 65], who was rector of Great Elm, but joined the Church of Rome in 1875. The Duke of Leeds is succeeded by his eldest surviving son [aged 33], the Marquis of Carmarthen, who was born in 1862, was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, and was formerly a lieutenant in the Yorkshire Hussars. Lord Carmarthen unsuccessfully contested the Newmarket Division of Cambridgeshire as a Conservative in 1886, and has sat since July, 1887, for the Brixton Division of Lambeth, in which constituency his sucoession to the peerage now creates a vacancy. Lord Carmarthen was an assistant Private Secretary to the Secretary for the Colonies (Lord Knutsford) from 1886 to 1888. He was appointed Treasurer of the Household on the formation of the present Ministry. He married, in 1884, Lady Katherine Frances Lambton [aged 33], daughter of the second Earl of Durham, and has issue four daughters.