Lucy Walter or Lucy Barlow (c. 1630 – 1658) was a mistress of King Charles II of England and mother of James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth. She is believed to have been born in 1630 or a little later at Roch Castle near Haverfordwest, Wales into a family of middling gentry. Rumours that she had married the king during his exile (and thus that she was Queen of England) appeared by the mid-1650s, but the question was later seized upon during the Exclusion Crisis, when a Protestant faction wished to make her son the heir to the throne, while the king denied any marriage, and supported the claim of his brother, the Duke of York.
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Famous quotes containing the words lucy and/or walter:
“She lived unknown, and few could know
When Lucy ceased to be;
But she is in her grave, and oh,
The difference to me!”
—William Wordsworth (1770–1850)
“But could youth last, and love still breed,
Had joys no date, nor age no need,
Then these delights my mind might move
To live with thee and be thy Love.”
—Sir Walter Raleigh (1552?–1618)