A Royal Mistress: Lucy Walter, Charles II of England’s First Mistress

Born in 1630 at Roch Castle to a family of middling gentry,  Lucy Walter was one of the many mistresses of King Charles II of England.

When she was 14, her family home, Roch Castle, was destroyed by the Parliamentarians (who battled against Charles I and the Cavaliers or Royalists), Walter fled to The Hague for safety after journeying to London. There, she met the Prince of Wales (future King Charles II) for the first time in the summer of 1648. The king was immediately captivated by the “private Welshwoman of no good fame but handsome,” as Lord Clarendon described her. Shortly afterwards, she gave birth on April 9, 1649, a son he named James. 

 Whether or not Lucy and King Charles II were married is still being debated up to this day. The issue was infamously brought up during the Exclusion Crisis, when a Protestant group expressed their desire to make James the heir to the throne. Charles, however, denied that any union had ever happened.

Charles left Lucy at The Hague as he departed for Scotland in June of 1650. During the king’s absence, Lucy, described by English Diarist John Evelyn as “a brown, beautiful, bold but insipid creature,” embarked on an affair with Theobald, 2nd Viscount Taaffe. The dalliance produced a daughter named Mary.

In 1651, King Charles II returned to The Hague after losing in the Battle of Worcester. It was during his return that he officially ended his relationship with Lucy.

 After her four-year failed attempt to convince English churchman John Cosin that she was a convert, Lucy Walter further fell into numerous scandals, which caused great humiliation for the prince. In 1656, she was advised by Charles’s friends to leave Cologne for England with a promise of an annual pension amounting to 5,000 livres or £ 400.

In June of 1656, Lucy and her maid Ann Hill were arrested and dispatched to the Tower of London after the Lord Protector’s intelligent department accused the former of being a spy. After further investigation, she was discharged and sent back to the Low Countries the following month. She died in 1658 in Paris after suffering from a venereal disease.  

His son, James, recognized as a natural son by Charles II. He was created Duke of Monmouth in 1663. He led the unsuccessful Monmouth Rebellion in 1685 in an attempt to depose his uncle, King James II. However, the rebellion failed and he was beheaded for treason in 1685. He was the ancestor of the Dukes of Buccleuch, one of Scotland's largest landowners. One of his descendants was Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester.