Eleanor Herman
- 500 Years of Adultery, Power, Rivalry, and Revenge -
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Book Details
Price
|
2.50 |
|---|---|
Pages
| 265 p |
File Size
|
1,290 KB |
File Type
|
PDF format |
ISBN
| 9780061751554 |
Copyright©
| 2004 by Eleanor Herman |
ELEANOR HERMAN was born in Baltimore, Maryland. She studied journalism and German at Towson State University and languages in Europe. For eight years she was associate publisher for North America for NATO’s Nations and Partners for Peace magazine. She is married and lives in McLean, Virginia, where she writes history from a woman's perspective.
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Introduction
When the destiny of a nation is in a woman’s bedroom,
the best place for the historian is in the
antechamber.
—CHARLES-AUGUSTIN SAINTE-BEUVE
When we imagine the finest mistress of all—she who is fit for a king—we
see a hazy, shimmering image of a woman whose hands caress and mold history.
She stands, for the most part, in the shadows of a world where the spotlight
shines solely on men bludgeoning history into shape. Now and then we hear the
rustling of a silk skirt, or hear her musical laughter echoing from behind the throne.
The rise of the royal mistress in European courts was sudden, springing up
from departing medieval mists. For a thousand years after the fall of Rome, royal
sin was hidden in the thick hangings of a four-poster bed and then lamented in
the stuffy darkness of the confessional. The powerful Catholic Church cast a
jaded eye on adultery, and the jezebels of the court were kept firmly in the background.
Sometimes a woman’s first name was linked to a feudal monarch, a Maude
or a Blanche, and nothing else is known. Numerous royal bastards,
acknowledged by kings, seemed to sprout from thin air, and we can only assume
they had mothers. This near-total lack of information of royal love affairs
derived not only from church demands for discretion. Illiteracy reigned just as
surely as the monarchs themselves, monarchs who were for the most part unable
to sign their names.
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION
ONE
SEX WITH THE KING
TWO
BEYOND THE BED—THE ART OF PLEASING A KING
THREE
RIVALS FOR A KING’S LOVE—THE MISTRESS AND THE QUEEN
FOUR
CUCKOLD TO THE KING—THE MISTRESS’S HUSBAND
FIVE
UNCEASING VIGILANCE—THE PRICE OF SUCCESS
SIX
LOVING PROFITABLY—THE WAGES OF SIN
SEVEN
POLITICAL POWER BETWEEN THE SHEETS
EIGHT
RED WHORES OF BABYLON—PUBLIC OPINION AND THE MISTRESS
NINE
THE FRUITS OF SIN—ROYAL BASTARDS
TEN
DEATH OF THE KING
ELEVEN
THE END OF A BRILLIANT CAREER AND BEYOND
TWELVE
MONARCHS, MISTRESSES, AND MARRIAGE
NOTES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
SEARCHABLE TERMS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CREDITS
COPYRIGHT
ABOUT THE PUBLISHER
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