Barbara Villiers Palmer was a nineteen-year old newlywed when her husband, Roger Palmier and his group of fellow-conspirators sent her to Brussels with a message to the king-in-waiting, Charles Stuart, and a fortune of gold coin sewn into the hem of her dress.  Witty and reckless and a renowned beauty, she immediately caught the eye of the much older king, and it was mutual attraction immediately.  She became his mistress and held that position for a turbulent decade.   The Puritan regime of Cromwell was […]