In 1670, Barbara, Countess of Castlemaine, was created Baroness Nonsuch, Countess of Southampton, and Duchess of Cleveland, in the Peerage of England, with the Palace and Park of Nonsuch, in Surrey, and an enormous increase of income: so that as far as pecuniary advantages went, the King was still sufficiently under her spell, to comply with her exorbitant demands. John Churchill, (afterwards the great Duke of Marlborough,) when a Court Page attracted the attention of Barbara. She lavished gifts upon him, procured him the post of Groom of the Bedchamber to the Duke of York, and obtained his promotion in the army. But in later years when her beauty had passed away, and her favour at Court, the man who had risen by her influence, refused to speak a word in her behalf, respecting the renewal of her ill-paid pension. The last grant made to the Duchess of Cleveland, and to the Earl of Northumberland, for their lives, was the Rangership of the honour, and manor of Hampton Court; but the lodge in Bushy Park was not habitable. It was about this time, that Barbara went to France, her name appearing as a liberal patroness to the Convent of the Blue Nuns, in the Faubourg St. Antoine (where she had placed her daughter Barbara), and other religious houses.
In 1678 occurred the episode, with the English Ambassador, to which we have alluded in the notice of the Duke of Montagu, when Barbara on her return from London, found that her own daughter, the Countess of Sussex, had supplanted her, in the favour of that fickle nobleman. In 1694, she was living in Arlington Street, Piccadilly, and received as a companion a certain Madame De la Rivière, one of the daughters and co-heiresses of Sir Roger Manley, Bart., a woman of no reputation, save as the authoress of some inferior literary productions; who after a stormy friendship, repaid her patroness’s hospitality by contriving a clandestine marriage for her eldest son, the Duke of Southampton, with the daughter of Sir William Pulteney, a match very much disapproved by his mother.
Lord Castlemaine died in 1705. After his separation from his wife, as far back as 1662, his life was eventful; he travelled far, fought at Solebay, was twice sent to the Tower, went as Ambassador to Rome, was the author of several political pamphlets, and in fact “meddled a little in everything around.” Four months after his death, his widow married the celebrated “Beau” Feilding, the widower of two heiresses, viz., the only daughter of Lord Carlingford, and the only daughter of the Marquis of Clanricarde, widow of Viscount Muskerry, and of Robert Villiers, Viscount Purbeck. Both ladies died without children, and the Beau at the time of his marriage with Duchess Barbara, was a man of desperate fortune, and character. He ill-treated his wife, who was most generous to him, and would have divested her of all her property, had not her sons stood by her. Fortunately, for her Grace, it was discovered that the Beau had already, but a few days before his marriage with her, espoused a certain Mary Wadsworth, who had been palmed off upon his credulity, as a widow of enormous wealth. He was tried, and found guilty of bigamy, Barbara being in court during the trial, and the marriage was pronounced null, and void.