United Service Institution at Whitehall. As a reward for his services Villettes was appointed governor of Bastia and gazetted colonel in the army from 21 Aug. 1795. In the following year he relinquished this command on account of ill-health, and returned to England. On 30 Nov. 1796 he was appointed a brigadier-general in Portugal, where he served with the army under Sir Charles Stuart (1753-1801) [q. v.] On 23 March 1797 he was transferred from the lieutenant-colonelcy of the 69th foot to that of the 1st dragoon guards, and was shortly afterwards made comptroller of the household to the Duke of Kent.
On 12 June 1798 he was promoted to the rank of major-general. He served for a short period in Corfu in 1799, until appointed second in command of the troops in Malta, succeeding in 1801 to the chief command there. In the meantime he was made colonel of a newly raised regiment of foot from 12 April 1799, and was appointed colonel-commandant of a newly raised battalion of the 4th king's own on 28 March 1801. This battalion was disbanded on 24 May 1802. He served in Malta until 1807, exhibiting great tact and firmness during a somewhat troublesome period. He raised the royal regiment of Malta, and was appointed its colonel on 7 Dec. 1804. On 30 Oct. 1805 he was advanced to the rank of lieutenant-general.
He returned to England in 1807, on 7 Nov. of which year he was appointed lieutenant-governor of the island of Jamaica, and commander of the forces there, with the local rank of general. On 4 Jan. 1808 he was appointed colonel of the 64th foot. While on a tour of inspection in the island in July 1808 he was seized with fever, and died, unmarried, on 12 July, at Union. He was buried with military honours in the parish of Halfway Tree, near Kingston, and a monument was erected to his memory in Westminster Abbey.
[Short View of the Life and Character of Lieutenant-general Villettes, by J. Bowdler, 1815; Despatches and Letters of Lord Nelson, by Sir H. Nicolas, 1846; Gent. Mag. 1808 ii. 852, 1809 i. 297, 301, ii. 798.]
VILLIERS (afterwards Palmer), BARBARA, Countess of Castlemaine and Duchess of Cleveland (1641–1709), born at Westminster in the autumn of 1641, and baptised in St. Margaret's Church on 27 Nov., was the daughter of William Villiers, second viscount Grandison, who received a commission as colonel-general at the outset of the war to raise a regiment for the king, captured Nantwich in 1642, fought at Edgehill, and was mortally wounded at the siege of Bristol in July 1643. His epitaph may be read upon the stately white marble monument in the cathedral at Oxford, and his handsome face was depicted by Van Dyck in a portrait now in the possession of the Duke of Grafton (for the character of Grandison see Clarendon's Hist. 1826, iv. 144-51, and Collin's Peerage, ed. Brydges, iii. 784). Barbara's mother was Mary (d. 1684), third daughter of Paul Bayning, first viscount Bayning. The scandalous story related in the 'Secret History of Charles II' (1690), that she was the daughter of Henrietta Maria by the Earl of St. Albans, is devoid of foundation.
Barbara, who was named after her grandmother, the wife of Sir Edward Villiers [q. v.], was first seen in London at the house of her stepfather (for her mother married again in 1648), Charles Villiers, second earl of Anglesey [see under Villiers, Christopher, first earl]. There about 1656, as Boyer credibly relates, she became the object of divers young gentlemen's affections (Queen Anne, 1735, Append, p. 48; cf. Letters of Philip, second Earl of Chesterfield, 1829). On 14 April 1659, at the church of St. Gregory-by-Paul's, she gave her hand to Roger Palmer [q. v.], who was shortly afterwards created Baron Limerick and Earl of Castlemaine; but he does not appear to have been the father of any of her offspring. It is impossible to say precisely when the intimacy commenced between Mrs. Palmer and Charles II, but it certainly was not later than 28 May 1660, or the night of the king's return to Whitehall. On 'Shrove-munday,' 25 Feb. 1660-1 (not, as Steinmann, p. 25, and Sanford say, on 1 March), was born Barbara's first child, Anne, the paternity of which was claimed by Palmer, but was afterwards acknowledged by the king (by a royal warrant of 1673), though the child was generally assigned to the Earl of Chesterfield, whom, says Lord Dartmouth, she resembled very much both in face and person (Burnet, i. 64 n.) In the following December Pepys saw at the privy seal office the patent creating Roger Palmer Earl of Castlemaine, and remarked upon the limitation of the honours to the lady's heirs male, 'the reason whereof every body knows' (Diary, ed. Wheatley, ii. 151). On 13 May 1662 Catherine of Braganza [q. v.] arrived in England, and it was noticed that Lady Castlemaine was out of fashion, for she had no bonfire before her door; but Pepys observes that Charles spent the evening with her, and that 'the king and she did send for a pair of scales, and they did weigh one another' (Pepys, ed. Wheatley,
