Royal Scandals

Treasury of Royal Scandals

From Nero's nagging mother (whom he found especially annoying after taking her as his lover) to Catherine's stable of studs (not of the equine variety), here is a wickedly delightful look at the most scandalous royal doings you never learned about in history class.

Royal Misbehavior

Gleeful, naughty, sometimes perverted-like so many of the crowned heads themselves - A Treasury of Royal Scandals presents the best (the worst?) of royal misbehavior through the ages. From ancient Rome to Edwardian England, from the lavish rooms of Versailles to the dankest corners of the Bastille, the great royals of Europe have excelled at savage parenting, deadly rivalry, pathological lust, and meeting death with the utmost indignity - or just very bad luck.

Michael Farquhar writes about history for The Washington Post. His work has also appeared in the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Dallas Morning News, and Newsday, as well as on the Discovery Channel's Web site.

Treasury of Royal Scandals: The Shocking True Stories of History's Wickedest, Weirdest, Most Wanton Kings, Queens, Tsars, Popes, and Emperors by Michael Farquhar

Sex with Kings : royal mistresses

Throughout the centuries, royal mistresses have been worshiped, feared, envied, and reviled. Royal mistresses 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 tale of passion and politics chronicles five hundred years of scintillating women and the kings who loved them.

Functions of a Royal Mistress

Curiously, the main functions 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.

Royal Mistress Often ad the Last Laugh

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 or 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.

Sex with Kings: 500 Years of Adultery, Power, Rivalry, and Revenge by Eleanor Herman
ISBN: 0060585439, HarperCollins Publishers