Marriage for Medieval kings was about politics, power and the provision of legitimate heirs. Mistresses were about love, lust and possession. It was a world that included kidnap, poison, murder, violation, public shaming and accusations of witchcraft. Ambition and quick wits as well as beauty were essential attributes for any royal mistress. Infamy, assassination and imprisonment awaited some royal mistresses who tumbled from favour while others disappeared into obscurity or respectable lives as married women and were quickly forgotten. Meet Nest of Wales, born in turbulent times, whose abduction started a war; Alice Perrers and Jane Shore labelled ‘whores’ and ‘wantons’; Katherine Swynford who turned the medieval world upside down with a royal happy-ever-after and Rosamund Clifford who left history and stepped into legend. Discover how serial royal womanisers married off their discarded mistresses to bind their allies close. Explore the semi-official roles of some mistresses; the illegitimate children who became kings; secret marriage ceremonies; Edith Forne Sigulfson and Lady Eleanor Talbot who sought atonement through religion as well as the aristocratic women who became the victims of royal lust. Most of the shameful women who shared the beds of medieval kings were silenced, besmirched or consigned to the footnotes of a patriarchal worldview but they negotiated paths between the private and public spheres of medieval court life - changing history as they went.

First published in 1990, Royal Mistresses provides an innovative way of looking at the development of British monarchy, and at the same time investigates the relationship between sex and power. Charles Carlton focuses not so much on the amorous activities of the mistresses of British monarchs as on their influences on those monarchs and on society at large. Ranging from the early medieval period to the late 1990s, he shows that a monarch’s illicit sexual life sheds light on his character and reign. It is no coincidence that Henry I, Charles II, and Edward VII, who were successful with their mistresses were also successful in their reigns, while the divorced John and the lovelorn Edward VIII failed Not surprisingly, the affairs of the sovereign’s heart have very often become the affairs of state. This book will be of interest to students of history and literature.

Tells the history of the French Renaissance through the lives of its most prominent queens and mistresses.

Throughout the centuries, royal mistresses have been worshiped, feared, envied, and reviled. They set the fashions, encouraged the arts, and, in some cases, ruled nations. Eleanor Herman's Sex with Kings takes us into the throne rooms and bedrooms of Europe's most powerful monarchs. Alive with flamboyant characters, outrageous humor, and stirring poignancy, this glittering tale of passion and politics chronicles five hundred years of scintillating women and the kings who loved them. Curiously, the main function of a royal mistress was not to provide the king with sex but with companionship. Forced to marry repulsive foreign princesses, kings sought solace with women of their own choice. And what women they were! From Madame de Pompadour, the famous mistress of Louis XV, who kept her position for nineteen years despite her frigidity, to modern-day Camilla Parker-Bowles, who usurped none other than the glamorous Diana, Princess of Wales. The successful royal mistress made herself irreplaceable. She was ready to converse gaily with him when she was tired, make love until all hours when she was ill, and cater to his every whim. Wearing a mask of beaming delight over any and all discomforts, she was never to be exhausted, complaining, or grief-stricken. True, financial rewards for services rendered were of royal proportions -- some royal mistresses earned up to $200 million in titles, pensions, jewels, and palaces. Some kings allowed their mistresses to exercise unlimited political power. But for all its grandeur, a royal court was a scorpion's nest of insatiable greed, unquenchable lust, and vicious ambition. Hundreds of beautiful women vied to unseat the royal mistress. Many would suffer the slings and arrows of negative public opinion, some met with tragic ends and were pensioned off to make room for younger women. But the royal mistress often had the last laugh, as she lived well and richly off the fruits of her "sins." From the dawn of time, power has been a mighty aphrodisiac. With diaries, personal letters, and diplomatic dispatches, Eleanor Herman's trailblazing research reveals the dynamics of sex and power, rivalry and revenge, at the most brilliant courts of Europe. Wickedly witty and endlessly entertaining, Sex with Kings is a chapter of women's history that has remained unwritten -- until now.

Kings throughout medieval and early modern Europe had extraconjugal sexual partners. Only in France, however, did the royal mistress become a quasi-institutionalized political position. This study explores the emergence and development of the position of French royal mistress through detailed portraits of nine of its most significant incumbents: Agnès Sorel, Anne de Pisseleu d’Heilly, Diane de Poitiers, Gabrielle d’Estrées, Françoise Louise de La Baume Le Blanc, Françoise Athénaïs de Rochechouart de Mortemart, Françoise d’Aubigné, Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson, and Jeanne Bécu. Beginning in the fifteenth century, key structures converged to create a space at court for the royal mistress. The first was an idea of gender already in place: that while women were legally inferior to men, they were men’s equals in competence. Because of their legal subordinacy, queens were considered to be the safest regents for their husbands, and, subsequently, the royal mistress was the surest counterpoint to the royal favorite. Second, the Renaissance was a period during which people began to experience space as theatrical. This shift to a theatrical world opened up new ways of imagining political guile, which came to be positively associated with the royal mistress. Still, the role had to be activated by an intelligent, charismatic woman associated with a king who sought women as advisors. The fascinating particulars of each case are covered in the chapters of this book. Thoroughly researched and compellingly narrated, this important study explains why the tradition of a politically powerful royal mistress materialized at the French court, but nowhere else in Europe. It will appeal to anyone interested in the history of the French monarchy, women and royalty, and gender studies.

Historian Alison Weir brings to life the tale of Katherine Swynford, a royal mistress who became a crucial figure in the British royal dynasties. Born in the mid-14th century, Katherine experienced the Hundred Years' War, the Black Death, and the Peasants' Revolt, and crossed paths with many eminent figures, among them her brother-in-law, Geoffrey Chaucer. At age ten, she was appointed to the household of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster and fourth son of King Edward III; at twelve, she married Hugh Swynford, an impoverished knight. Widowed at 21, Katherine, gifted with beauty and charms, later became John of Gaunt's mistress. Throughout their illicit union, John and Katherine were devoted to each other. In middle age, after many twists of fortune, they wed, and her children by John, the Beauforts, would become direct forebears of the Royal Houses of York, Tudor, and Stuart, and of every British sovereign since 1461 (as well as four U.S. presidents).--From publisher description.

"This book is a series of case studies reflecting on narrative primary source representations of queens, regents, and royal mistresses in medieval and early modern France. Examining stories of famous women, including Isabeau of Bavaria, Valentina Visconti, Agnáes Sorel, Diane de Poitiers, Eleanor of Austria, and even Anne Boleyn, who spent her formative years at the French court, author Tracy Adams takes unprovable or false anecdotes as a point of departure and follows them back to their primary sources. When readers open a work of history, they have the right to assume that what they find on the pages is "historically true," in other words, that it accords with primary sources. And yet scholars studying women of the medieval and early modern periods know all too well how often unprovable or even false anecdotes, frequently scandalous or misogynistic, pass for true. Typically deriving from secondary sources that themselves rely on secondary sources, these anecdotes are passed along in a self-reflexive feedback loop. The central argument of Queens, Regents, Mistresses is that, taken on their own, primary sources cannot be used as straightforward vehicles of truth. Each of Adams' case studies therefore lays out the process of engaging with these sources. Revised interpretations leave readers with new perspectives on these famous women, and also the bibliographical information necessary to turn to the primary sources for themselves"--

The thoroughly researched, thoroughly gripping fictional account of Alice Perrers - notorious mistress of 14th century King Edward III. Married at 14, when her husband disappears, she is taken under the protection of King Edward III and Queen Philippa, and the king singles her out for more than just royal patronage.

First published in 1984, The Royal Bastards of Medieval England establishes a list of royal bastards in medieval England, and discusses their roles in the history of the period. The authors describe how gradually the church began to formulate more definite views on sexual and marital customs, with a consequent decline in the status of illegitimate children. By early sixteenth century, however, royal bastards were once again making their way into the peerage. The book charts the lives of these men and women against the background not only of contemporary political developments, but also of changing ideas about morality and family. This book will be of interest to students of history, religion and literature.

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Pages: 25. Chapters: Katherine Swynford, Jane Shore, Lady Eleanor Talbot, Rosamund Clifford, English royal mistress, Mary Boleyn, Barbara Palmer, 1st Duchess of Cleveland, Elizabeth Blount, Eleanor, Duchess of Gloucester, Margaret and Mary Shelton, Anne Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon, Alys, Countess of the Vexin, Nest ferch Rhys, Alice Perrers, Henrietta Wentworth, 6th Baroness Wentworth, Elizabeth Carew, Catherine Montagu, Countess of Salisbury, Anne Bassett, Catherine Pegge, List of English royal mistresses, Elizabeth Amadas, Elizabeth Somerset, Countess of Worcester. Excerpt: An English royal mistress is the unofficial title used to refer to the person who held the position of unmarried lover to the king of England either before or after his accession to the throne. Female lovers were, by convention, the most easily acknowledged, and often became influential individuals. However, there appear to have also been male love interests to monarchs, both male and female, who also wielded considerable influence. However, as this was not an official position of any kind, the influence of all Royal lovers was precarious, linked inextricably with their ability to hold the monarch's interest. The primary reason a king would take a mistress seems to be the fact that royal marriages were rarely, if ever, based on love alone. Most often, English monarchs made a dynastic match, first for the production of heirs of royal blood and second for the treaties and huge dowry that often accompanied such brides. Compatibility was rarely considered in the contracting of these marriages. Often, these brides were stringently instilled with a sense of chastity that often developed into sexual frigidity. To a king whose sexual appetites were often nurtured by friends and father-figures from a young age, this was a difficult barrier to surmount. This, added to...