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Bullying on Twitter is nothing compared with what Charles II’s mistresses endured

30 May 2020

9:00 AM

30 May 2020

9:00 AM

Lisa Hilton Mistresses: Sex and Scandal at the Court of Charles II Linda Porter

Picador, pp.204, 20

Strolling through Whitehall Palace in the early years of the Restoration, Samuel Pepys was thrilled to spy a washing line displaying ‘the finest smocks and linen petticoats of my Lady Castlemaine’s… and did me good to look upon them’. The owner of the glamorous undergarments was Barbara Villiers, the first of the many maîtresses-en-titre of King Charles II who form the subject of this incisive new study.

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