Roger Palmer, 1st Earl of Castlemaine (1634–1705) was an English courtier, diplomat, and politician who sat in the House of Commons in 1660. He was also a noted Catholic writer. His wife Barbara Villiers was one of Charles II’s mistresses.

On 14 April 1659 he married Barbara Villiers against his family’s wishes; his father predicting at the time of the wedding that she would make him one of the most miserable men in the world. Roger was a quiet, studious, bookish man and a devout Roman Catholic while his wife was an accomplished sexual athlete and a woman who her later lover, Charles II himself, is recorded by Pepys on 15 May 1663 as having claimed that “she hath all the tricks of Aretin that are to be practised to give pleasure”.

At the time of Roger’s wedding to Barbara, she was already the mistress of the Earl of Chesterfield and the marriage does not appear to have prevented her from continuing this relationship nor indeed of seeking out new partners.

Within a year, Barbara became the favourite mistress or ‘mistresse en titre,’ of King Charles II, coincident with his restoration to the throne in May 1660. In an entry to his diary on the 13th July 1660 Pepys describes “[t]he King and Dukes there with Madame Palmer, a pretty woman that they have a fancy to, to make her husband a cuckold”.

On 25 February 1660 Barbara, gave birth to a daughter named Lady Anne Palmer, whom Palmer believed was his own daughter and the diary of Samuel Pepys on 23 August 1662 said: “But that which pleased me best was that my Lady Castlemayne stood over against us upon a piece of Whitehall - where I glutted myself with looking on her. But methought it was strange to see her Lord and her upon the same place, walking up and down without taking notice one of another; only, at first entry, he put off his hat and she made him a very civil salute - but afterwards took no notice one of another. But both of them now and then would take their child, which the nurse held in her armes, and dandle it”. The child was Anne. However, Charles II also acknowledged her (with her sister Charlotte) as one of “his dear and natural daughters by the Duchess of Cleveland” and described her as “the Lady Anne Fitzroy” when granting her a patent of the arms granted to her brother Charles, then Earl (later Duke) of Southampton. The Earl of Chesterfield also claimed the child as his own.

In early June 1662 Barbara had given birth to a son named Charles who it is believed was fathered by the King. Although Roger Palmer insisted on treating the boy as his and ensured that he was christened as a Roman Catholic, Barbara snatched away the young boy and arranged for him to be re-christened in the Church of England. Other children followed, none of whom were claimed by Palmer as his own, and most of whom were subsequently acknowledged by Charles II.