Barbara Berkeley, Viscountess Fitzhardinge
Barbara Berkeley, Viscountess Fitzhardinge was a lady-in-waiting to Queen Anne of Great Britain and governess to Prince William, Duke of Gloucester. Her sister Elizabeth Villiers was the acknowledged mistress of William III of England from 1680 to 1695.
Born to Colonel Sir Edward Villiers of Richmond and Lady Frances Howard, Barbara became a maid of honour to the princesses of York before Mary married William in 1677. Instead of accompanying her sisters Anne, Katherine and Elizabeth to The Hague, Barbara remained in England to join Anne's household, attracting the companionship of Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough, and invoking a sense of jealousy and rage within their royal mistress, Queen Anne. Naturally ambitious like the rest of her family, Barbara mixed scintillating wit with devious deception in order to promote dissatisfaction against the Churchills, who came to abhor the reign of William III and Mary II.
Barbara was thought to be a secret Jacobite.Issue
Barbara married John Berkeley, 4th Viscount Fitzhardinge of Berehaven. They had two daughters, neither of whom inherited their father's title:
