Royal Mistresses: Defining Their Own Destinies

Barbara Villiers, Countess of Castlemaine

A couple of months ago I wrote an article for a web site that focuses on women's empowerment issues. The site's creator, Barrie-Louise Switzen, was interested to know how royal mistresses' lives tied in with her theme. I maintain that in many cases royal mistresses had more options open to them than the queens whose connubial prerogatives they usurped . . .

One thing that struck me as I researched the lives of the royal mistresses who are profiled in ROYAL AFFAIRS was that for the most part, these women were not “victims” who were thrust into compromising relationships with men they didn’t love. On the contrary, they were clever women who, given the legal and social constraints on females during their day, had the rare opportunity to shape their own destiny—and grabbed it with both hands.

Now, I can’t say that many of the mistresses I “met” during my research were “nice girls.” Many of them were greedy and grasping, with their hands in the treasury, the privy purse, and the pockets of those who sought to gain patronage from their royal lovers. King George I had two German mistresses who exemplify this type. Lady Castlemaine, one of Charles II’s favorite mistresses and the mother of several of his children was renowned for her relentless greed. But that’s not to say that these women didn’t passionately—and occasionally too passionately—adore their men. And, no matter whether you’d want to have lunch with them, these women—all of them—were significantly more empowered in their day than just about any other women of their era, including the queen-consorts, their “rivals” for the monarch’s affection. In general, a queen-consort was little more than a well-dressed womb whose job was to produce the requisite “heir and a spare” and remain otherwise chaste, maintaining a stainless reputation in order to avoid all suspicion that her children might not have been spawned by her husband, the sovereign.

Nell Gwyn

Some of the women profiled in ROYAL AFFAIRS had careers of their own before they met their royal lovers. Nell Gwyn, Mary Robinson, and Dorothy Jordan were the most celebrated actresses of their day. However, they lived during a time when being an “actress” (even if you performed the works of Shakespeare and other “serious” dramatists) was tantamount to being a prostitute. Actresses displayed their bodies on the public stage—for money! They were notoriously considered loose-moraled, supplementing their salaries on the gifts (monetary and otherwise) that came from their various “admirers.” But my research into royal affairs led me to a great hypocrisy, which should not have surprised me, I suppose, yet as an actress myself, it made me shiver with anger.

The double-standard I discovered was that acting was considered a disgraceful profession for the reasons I cited above, yet the royals thought nothing of (even if they were married—or if the actress was married), consummating a passionate and frequently adulterous affair with them. However, if they wished to become the prince’s or king’s mistress—before such extra-connubial canoodling could take place, the actresses were requested by their royal lovers to put aside their “disgraceful” and “shameful” profession—the career that had gained these women recognition and renown (as well as an independent income—a rare thing for a woman before the 20th century).

Mary Robinson

My Forward to ROYAL AFFAIRS includes a paragraph about royal mistresses and how many of them they were able to parlay their unusual opportunity into a life-changing event:
And what of the mistresses? During the earlier, and more brutal, eras of British history, a woman didn’t have much (if any) choice if the king exercised his droit de seigneur and decided to take her to bed. Often, girls were little more than adolescents when their ambitious parents shoved them under the monarch’s nose. However, most of the mistresses in Royal Affairs were not innocent victims of a parent’s political agenda or a monarch’s rampaging lust. They were clever, accomplished, often ambitious women, not always in the first bloom of youth and not always baseborn, who cannily parlayed the only thing they had—their bodies—into extravagant wealth and notoriety, if not outright fame. In many cases, their royal bastards were ennobled by the king, making excellent marriages and living far better than their mothers could have otherwise provided. Eventually taking their place in the House of Lords, the mistresses’ illegitimate sons went on to become the decision makers who shaped an empire and spawned the richest and most powerful families in Britain.

Having talked about other women’s stories, I’d like to share my own with you. I spent many years in “pink collar” jobs making other people money before becoming a full-time writer and my own boss. I worked in several fields, including journalism, marketing, and law. When I toiled for lawyers, I was usually employed by solo practitioners. More often than not I was their legal secretary, legal assistant, receptionist, bookkeeper, and office manager. I ate lunch over my keyboard. I took home barely enough money to make ends meet. Scratch that—I dipped deep into my savings to support myself, even as a single woman in NYC living in a rent-stabilized apartment. I got my assignments done as quickly, thoroughly, and efficiently as possible, so I could leave myself time in the workday to write. Thank God for Windows programs where one can quickly switch screens! My employers never had cause to complain about my work ethic or my output—though of course when I left the jobs they would cite my writing during business hours as an issue! Naturally, I challenged them on this point: if they knew what I was doing and had a problem with it, why, during the entire course of my employment, had they never raised the subject?

In June, 2003, I was downsized from a secretarial position I’d held for half a year, By that date I had had two novels published and another one in the editorial pipeline. In fact book #3, TEMPORARY INSANITY, was about my experiences in day-job hell. But rather than jump back into the survival-job pool and seek a new position working for yet another boss who undervalued my skills or company that had made me feel miserable, and had systematically sapped my soul, I chose to become the mistress of my own destiny. I decided that come hell or high water, from then on I would make my living as a writer. I would enrich myself, literally and spiritually for the first time in my life. Serendipity had offered me the chance to choose to follow my bliss.

And I did. This year, 2008, my 10th and 11th novels were published. I have written 7 works of contemporary women’s fiction under my own name, and 4 works of historical fiction under the pen name Amanda Elyot—all of which have been published since 2002. ROYAL AFFAIRS marks my nonfiction debut and I have just entered an agreement with my publisher for another nonfiction book, currently titled NOTORIOUS ROYAL MARRIAGES. This volume will spotlight many of Europe’s most famous royal couples (including Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, Ferdinand and Isabella, and Napoleon and Josephine—up through the centuries all the way to the marriage of Charles and Camilla—seen through the prism of the wife’s point of view).

I’m my own boss now. I make my own hours, and you have no idea how fabulous it feels to be finally enjoying a fulfilling career (instead of a frustrating job). And sometimes I like to joke that instead of all my hard work making some jerky boss rich, now I’m the “jerk” who gets to enjoy the fruits of my labors.

I can’t emphasize enough that any woman at any stage in her life can take charge of her destiny and pursue her passion, no matter how long she has neglected it, or her own needs. Impractical? Imprudent? Unrealistic? Unattainable? Somehow, once a woman sets her mind and focuses her energies on empowering and enriching herself, the economics seem to take care of themselves.

ROYAL AFFAIRS released today!

Writing a book is like giving birth. Jane Austen, who never married or had kids, was known to have said "my books are my children."

In the grand scheme of things, it's been a relatively short gestation period, but the labor was the most difficult I've ever experienced in my writing career thus far. For one thing, ROYAL AFFAIRS is nonfiction. And I'm accustomed to making stuff up for a living. Actually, I did encounter a few things in historical biographies written by some rather well respected scholars that were inaccurate, and what I call "bad history" that was regurgitated over the years from bio to bio, or is repeated as fact on the Internet. And it was a difficult task to extract the real "truth" from some of what's been reported as such through the ages.

But all that said--ROYAL AFFAIRS became a joy to write. I'm a history geek and I love to learn new things. My research process became a crash-course in over 900 years of British history.

A side effect of all this new knowledge and perspective was that I became quite spoiled. It's impossible for me to watch a film or TV version of the royals' lives (unless it's a documentary) without going nuts about all the things they "got wrong"--from the historical facts themselves to the costumes or weapons. And in some cases, the casting. Don't get me started about The Tudors!

On the other hand -- please do get me started on The Tudors. Millions of people find this series to be wildly entertaining. In ROYAL AFFAIRS I unveil their true sex scandals -- for your delectation and amusement.

Let's dish about The Tudors!

Do you care that Henry VIII was actually big and brawny and redheaded? He was a real hunk until he reached his 30s, by the way. He wasn't dark and small and churlish-looking.

Do you care that his younger sister was actually named Mary and not Margaret, and that at age 18 she married the elderly (he was 52!) king of France--not the king of Portugal? Do you care that the real Mary Rose Tudor was a beautiful, willowy redheaded teen and not a raving bitch -- and that she did not smother the king to death? And that the love of her life, Charles Brandon, was actually about a dozen years her senior, which meant that being older and wiser, he should have known better than to flout the king's expressed wishes?

Do you care that Anne Boleyn waited until Henry made an honest woman of her, rather than shtupping (or "tupping" as the Tudors and Elizabethans would have put it) the king in a forest glade. I watched this scene slack-jawed -- with disbelief - at the travesty of history in the name of good old family entertainment. Well, maybe not the entire family. While I was thinking "nice boots" as I gazed at Anne's black leather footwear, most of the men in the audience were probably gaping at something a bit further north and thinking "nice boobs."

I encourage you to read ROYAL AFFAIRS, where sex and politics, plotting and betrayal, make for titillating bedfellows, not only for the real Tudors, but for their predecessors and their descendants as well.

The Other Boleyn Girl's Story: The Real One

My literary agent and I made a girls’ afternoon out of watching “The Other Boleyn Girl” on opening day. After all the research I did for ROYAL AFFAIRS, my nonfiction debut this June, I found myself wincing in pain. We were watching what I couldn't help referring to as "Betty and Veronica in Tudorland." But this post isn’t intended to debate the artistic merits (or lack thereof) of the film adaptation of Philippa Gregory’s novel, which is in itself alternative history—the other Boleyn history, if you will.

Want to hear about the real Mary Boleyn (1499-1543), her affair with Henry VIII (1491-1547) and her relationship with her relatives?

Mary Boleyn (1499-1543)

The French monarch François I called her his “hackney,” explaining that he loved to ride her. An Italian visitor to François’s court thought her “una grandissima ribald et infame sopre tutte” (a great prostitute and more infamous than all of them). She is probably best remembered as the older sister of Anne Boleyn. What seems clear is that this daughter of Sir Thomas Boleyn and Lady Elizabeth Howard knew how to have fun in bed.

Mary Boleyn possessed the blond, blue-eyed, curvy beauty that was the era’s belle idéale. In 1514, she was a member of the French court in the household of the queen, Henry VIII’s younger sister Mary Tudor. But after Mary’s husband, King Louis XII, died on New Year’s Day in 1515, Mary Boleyn remained at the French court, where she became a lady-in-waiting to the new queen, Claude, the wife of François d'Angoulême. Claude was the older daughter of Louis XII, but France was under Salic law, which prohibited a female from inheriting the throne. So on Louis's death, his son-in-law became king.

Francois I (1494-1547)

Evidently, Mary Boleyn also became the paramour of the new king, François I. But after François tired of Mary, she consoled herself in the arms of enough of his courtiers to create a scandal. In 1519, at the age of twenty, Mary was ignominiously dismissed from Queen Claude’s service and packed back to England, much to the embarrassment and disgrace of her family.

But the Boleyns were a powerful family, so Mary quickly secured a place as a lady-in-waiting to Queen Katherine, the unofficial but de facto usual incubator for a royal mistress. Sure enough, soon after Bessie Blount delivered Henry’s son in 1519, the regal eye began to rove, alighting before long on the new flavor in his wife’s retinue.

His affair with Mary Boleyn was reputedly short but intense. And in a situation similar to Bessie Blount’s, Henry saw to it that Mary made a financially brilliant marriage. So, on February 4, 1520, at the Chapel Royal in Greenwich, Mary Boleyn wed William Carey, one of Henry’s favorite Gentlemen of the Bedchamber. His Majesty himself attended the wedding, bestowing an offering of six shillings, eightpence in the chapel. However, some believe that Mary was still Henry’s mistress at the time she was wed to William Carey.

(Henry VIII 1491-1547)

In any case, Henry was so immensely grateful for the gift of Mary’s favors, he enriched her father as well as her new husband. Sir Thomas Boleyn was made Viscount Rochford, and William Carey’s coffers were vastly enlarged.

In 1525, Mary gave birth to a son, who she named Henry. The king never claimed paternity, and Mary never pressed the point, so the boy was likely her husband’s. But Mary’s motherhood had the effect of dampening Henry’s lust, just as it had more or less killed his ardor for Bessie Blount soon after she gave birth.

Yet there was another reason Mary was supplanted: Henry had fallen madly in lust with her younger sister, Anne.

Mary wasn’t too upset about it. She devoted herself to her husband and their two children. But in 1528, after the thirty-two-year-old William Carey died during the outbreak of the sweating sickness, Mary found herself buried under a mound of debts. Petitions to her family were fruitless. Requests to Henry fell on deaf ears as well. Only Anne, who at the time of William’s death was the king’s inamorata, managed to procure something for her sister—an annual pension of £100 (nearly $72,000 today), and an elaborately wrought golden cup.

Anne Boleyn (1500 (?) - 1536)

In 1534, Mary secretly married William Stafford, a commoner without rank of any kind. She bore him two children. For wedding a man so far beneath her station, the Boleyns disowned her for good, but Mary emphatically averred, “For well I might a’ had a greater man of birth, but I assure you I could never a’ had one that loved me so well. I had rather beg my bread with him than be the greatest queen in Christendom,” a rather pointed swipe at her sister, as well as a triumphant declaration of True Love. But the jibe struck too close to Anne’s bones, and Anne, now queen, declared that Mary and her husband would never again be received at court.

Her ostracism was probably a blessing; Mary was well rid of the vipers’ nest of the Tudor court. She rusticated with her small family at Rochford in Essex while Anne and their brother George tasted the full measure of Henry’s rough justice. Mary did not visit her siblings as they waited in the Tower for the executioner’s blade to end their lives. Perhaps she was cannier than she’d been credited; she deliberately remained as far from the madness as possible, the better to avoid getting swept into the bloody dustbin of her family’s history.

Mary died at home on July 19, 1543.

Her son, Henry Carey, was eventually made a Knight of the Garter by Elizabeth I. Mary’s daughter Catherine became a maid of honor to both Anne of Cleves and Kathryn Howard. One of Catherine Carey’s daughters, Lettice Knollys, was Queen Elizabeth’s bosom companion, lady-in-waiting—and later, her rival and enemy, after she married Robert Dudley, the great love of Elizabeth’s life.

Mary Boleyn’s twentieth-century descendants include Winston Churchill; Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon (the mother of Elizabeth II); Diana, Princess of Wales; and Sarah Ferguson.

Stranger than fiction? Better than fiction? What other historical personages can you think of who had more more fascinating (even juicy) lives than their fictional avatars?

ROYAL AFFAIRS cover!

I'm so excited to finally be able to post the finalized cover for ROYAL AFFAIRS.



Insatiable kings. Lecherous queens. Kissing Cousins.Wanton consorts.

Welcome to nearly 1,000 years of Naughty Behavior.

Royal unions have always been the stuff of scintillating gossip, from the passionate Plantagenets to Henry VIII’s alarming head count of wives and mistresses, to the Sapphic crushes of Mary and Anne Stuart right on up through the scandal-blighted coupling of Prince Charles and Princess Diana. Shoved into loveless arranged marriages for political and economic gain, many royals were driven to indulge their pleasures outside the marital bed, engaging in delicious flirtations, lurid love letters, and rampant sex with voluptuous and willing lovers.

This nearly pathological lust made for some of the most titillating scandals in Great Britain’s history. Hardly harmless, these affairs disrupted dynastic alliances, endangered lives, and most of all, have fed the salacious curiosity of the public for centuries.

Peek between the covers…



The title will be released from NAL Trade on June 3, 2008. If your book club chooses this title, I'd be delighted to arrange a special "tryst" just for your club where, on a mutally agreeable date, I'll answer any questions individual readers may have and we'll have an interactive chat about the book, my research and the affairs themselves. We can even chat about the ones I might have omitted and why. I look forward to hearing from my readers!

Much Ado about Di and Dodi

More than eleven years after her death as the result of a high-speed car chase in Paris, the inquest into Princess Diana's demise continues.

Now it's newsworthy that, according to the princess's former butler and confidant, Paul Burrell, Diana had no intentions of marrying Dodi at the time. Burrell told the inquest that his former employer was enjoying "a 30-day affair" with the notorious playboy, and had confided to Burrell that "I want another marriage like I want a bad rash." According to Burrell, Diana was on the rebound from a two-year relationship, a passionate clandestine affair with heart surgeon heartthrob Hasnat Khan, and was not emotionally ready to commit herself to another man--certainly not one she had known for barely more than a month.

Paul Burrell

Burrell said, "The princess had just finished a long-term relationship with someone she cared deeply about. I know that, because I was there. I saw it." He characterized Dodi Fayed as "someone who was very kind and attentive and generous."

Under pressure from the coroner, Lord Justice Scott Baker, Burrell reluctantly disclosed information regarding a rather harsh conversation between Diana and her mother, the late Frances Shand-Kydd, who would win few mum-of-the year awards, and who was none too crazy about either of the two beaux, and had some harsh words for Diana about her somewhat catholic (in the original sense of the noun) taste in men. Burrell said Diana invited him to listen in on the call, and he heard Frances say Diana was "a whore" who was messing around with Muslim men." She said some very nasty things," Burrell told the coroner.

Dodi Fayed, under the Brooklyn Bridge

Care to chime in? We know almost as much as everyone else does--which is next to nothing--but it doesn't prevent anyone from airing their opinions. Do you think Di and Dodi were close to marriage at the time of their deaths?

Call it the Royal "WeTube"

"Her Majesty never changes--she adapts," said a Buckingham Palace commenter on CNN this morning, in reference to Queen Elizabeth II's announcement of The Royal Channel on YouTube, from now on, the go-to location for all things royal.

Her Majesty's official site currently boasts a number of video clips, including her coronation and rare silent footage from the 1927 royal marriage of the queen's parents, the Duke of York (and future George VI) and Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon.

This year, the 81-year-old monarch will wed tradition with technology as her fiftieth annual Christmas broadcast will be viewable on The Royal Channel's YouTube url.

Happy Christmas to all!

Well done, Your Majesty!

Not an affair to remember in the annals of British royal history -- but certainly a date to remember.


As of this morning, Queen Elizabeth II, who was born on April 21, 1926, has surpassed Queen Victoria as Britian's oldest reigning monarch. Victoria was 81 years, 7 months and 29 days old when she died on January 22, 1901. She had ruled for sixty-three years, seven months, and two days.

Elizabeth I

True, Victoria ruled for more years than Elizabeth II has (to date), and has an entire era named for her (the Elizabethan era is of course named for Elizabeth I (1533-1603), but her reigning majesty's milestone should be recognized nonetheless.


Elizabeth II ascended the throne on the death of her father, King George VI, on February 6, 1952. Since her mother lived to be 101, it's quite possible she may outlast her heir apparent, Prince Charles, who will turn 60 next November 14. And if Charles is still Prince of Wales on that date, he will have surpassed Queen Victoria's eldest son and heir, the future Edward VII, who was 59 years old when he finally became king.

Since the Norman Conquest in 1066, there have only been a handful of queens regnant (queens who rule in their own right, as opposed to being the consort of a king--a "queen-consort" through her marriage to him).

The Execution of Lady Jane Grey (1833) by 19th c. French romantic painter Paul Delaroche

The teenage Lady Jane Grey (known as the "Nine Days' Queen") was never crowned, but ostensibly ruled England in the brief window of time between July 10-19, 1553, as the puppet of a conspiracy to keep a Protestant on the throne and prevent the Catholic Mary, the daughter of Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon, from ascending the throne. The hapless Jane Grey, the granddaughter of Henry VIII's younger sister, Mary Tudor, was judicially executed within the precincts of the Tower of London on April 12, 1554.


Mary I

Elizabeth I's older half-sister, Mary, ruled England as Mary I from 1553-1558. Mary earned her nickname "Bloody Mary" for the numerous executions of Protestants. carried out in her name.

Elizabeth I acceeded to the throne on Mary's death, and it was not until 1689, after the successful "Glorious Revolution" of 1688 led to James II's abandonment of his throne and the coronation of William III of Orange and his wife, Mary Stuart (James II's elder daughter) that England saw a regnant queen once more. William and Mary (she was Mary II) ruled jointly, although they had both taken a parliamentary oath swearing that William would be the primary ruler.



Mary II

However, William was a warrior-king and during the spring and summer months when he was out of the country on military campaigns, Mary was fully in charge of the kingdom and rose to the occasion. She died in 1694 and William continued to rule alone until his death in 1702.

Queen Anne

William's successor was his wife's younger sister, Anne, under whose reign England and Scotland were united, thereby becoming the first monarch of Great Britain.


After Anne, there was not another regnant queen until the barely eighteen-year-old Victoria acceded to the throne in 1837, on the death of her uncle, William IV.







So, here's to Queen Elizabeth II, the second longest serving head of state in the world after King Bhumibol of Thailand. Her reign has seen 11 prime ministers, starting with Sir Winston Churchill. Long may she reign over us (well, them). God save the queen.