Royal Mistresses Eleanor Herman's new

Royal Mistresses

Eleanor Herman's new book, Sex With Kings. 500 Years of Adultery, Power, Rivalry, and Revenge, a history of European mistresses, isn't devoid of information about the public finance. Jonathan Yardley reviewed it in the July 1 Washington Post: "In His Majesty's, Ahem, Service"

""In the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries, the position of royal mistress was almost as official as that of prime minister. The mistress was expected to perform certain duties -- sexual and otherwise -- in return for titles, pensions, honors, and an influential place at court. She encouraged the arts -- theater, literature, music, architecture, and philosophy. She wielded her charm as a weapon against foreign ambassadors. She calmed the king when he was angry, buoyed him up when he was despondent, encouraged him to greatness when he was weak. She attended religious services daily, gave alms to the poor, and turned in her jewels to the treasury in times of war."

The position was fraught with difficulty. Yardley notes:

"As for the mistresses, they may have been pampered and even adored, but they lived in limbo. A mistress's claim upon the king's time and exchequer rested entirely on her ability to please and amuse him. There was an endless stream of "pretty women attempting to gain the king's attention," and the mistress of the moment was forever on red alert: "When the royal eye wandered, as it did with alarming frequency, there was great speculation as to whether the object of kingly desires would prove a meaningless flirtation or if she would completely replace the existing power structure at court."

I learned about this from the Arts & Letters Daily