“Sex with Kings: 500 Years of Adultery, Power, Rivalry, and Revenge”, by Eleanor Herman

 

 

320 pages, William Morrow, ISBN-13: 978-0060585440

 

Well, that’s a title that will grab anyone’s attention. Sex with Kings: 500 Years of Adultery, Power, Rivalry, and Revenge by Eleanor Herman is a study of the European phenomenon of the official Royal Mistress – the maîtresse-en-titre as the French would have it (naturally) – and how these women influenced their royal masters. A clear-eyed and unromantic view of this…institution, Herman shows how the idea of an “official” mistress came about (to be distinguished from royal flings with this duchess or that chambermaid), what power was wielded, how they came and went, what the other women or the mistresses’ husband’s in the royal lives thought about it all (not that it really mattered), and so on. What is, perhaps, most interesting about this book is that, despite its topic, it is rarely salacious; oh, Herman talks about sex, alright, but it is the interaction of all of the various factions that interests her more, the interpersonal relationships that were formed and strained by all of those royal libidos. While the physical is never far away, it is the emotional and intellectual aspects of mistresshood that is being studied here.

While most mistresses were beautiful, not all were, and I think, if I may be so ‘umble, this says something about the Male species. While men are so often dismissed by members of the gentler sex as walking sex addicts, the fact that so many of the royal mistresses described within this book were plain – if not downright ugly – but possessing other virtues says something about My Boys. Some were brilliant conversationalists who could declaim on any number of topics. Some were excellent artists, musicians or poets who could entertain their royal lovers in any number of (nonsexual) ways. Some were artisans who planted gardens, decorated rooms or even designed whole palaces for their masters. But what they all were were companions who provided a sanctuary from royal duties, the pressures of government, their (sometimes) termagant wives and ungrateful children, or a true family atmosphere that they had never known. Most royal marriages were dynastic unions in which love did not and was not expected to exist, so if a king could find love outside of such a union then they did so (Queens? Not so much).

Speaking of which, as to what their relative queens thought of all this royal screwing is brought to light, but I, for one, think this is relatively straightforward. Just as many a king was not in love with his queen, seeing as these marriages were political acts, so many a queen was not in love with her king, either. I rather think that these queens liked the idea of a mistress to distract from the royal pillowing and leave her alone. Take Alexandra of Denmark, wife of Edward VII, who bore the king six children. On his deathbed, she allowed his mistresses to visit him, an act of which Society approved and which I was always perplexed by; I mean, why honor the women with whom your husband betrayed you with? Until you get a look at her husband: fat, squat, with bulging eyes and always reeking of booze and tobacco, Alexandra must have taken the time to thank these women for letting Bertie climb top them rather than her. As for why they let him, well, every man will tell you that a fat wallet compensates for a lot; Bertie may have thought these women wanted him for himself when all they were doing was chasing money and power. Sorry, Bert.

Luckily, in this instance at least, we know what was going on through the mind of Alexandra Caroline Marie Charlotte Louise Julia Glücksburg Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. When she was at last alone with her comatose king and Sir Francis Laking, Physician-in-Ordinary to King Edward VII, she spoke for many a Queen through the centuries:

…I would have done anything he asked of me. Twelve years ago, when I was so angry about Lady Warwick [Frances Evelyn “Daisy” Greville, Countess of Warwick], and the King expostulated with me and said I should get him into the divorce court, I told him once and for all that he might have all the women he wished, and I would not say a word; and I have done everything since that he desired me to do about them. He was the whole of my life and, now he is dead, nothing matters.

Or, while viewing the body of the King with Lord Esher, Alexandra spoke for many a wronged wife who makes a kind of peace with a philandering husband: “After all, he always loved me best”.

Sex with Kings was enlightening and entertaining and was much more than its title suggests. And it also displays, without outright stating so, why a Republic is so much better than a monarchy: while we may be stuck with an addlebrained, dimwitted, corrupt and idiotic President for a few years, for a kingdom it could be decades before such a fool at last shuffles off this mortal coil, costing his subjects an inordinate amount of money and inflicting who knows how much damage on the body politic.