Scandalous Review: The Kings' Mistresses by Elizabeth Goldsmith

Title:  The Kings' Mistresses: The Liberated Lives of Marie Mancini, Princess Colonna, and Her Sister Hortense, Duchess Mazarin

Author:  Elizabeth C. Goldsmith
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Publication date: 4/3/2012

Pages: 288

From the inside cover: The Mancini Sisters, Marie and Hortense, were born in Rome, brought to the court of Louis XIV of France, and strategically married off by their uncle, Cardinal Mazarin, to secure his political power base. Such was the life of many young women of the age: they had no independent status under the law and were entirely a part of their husband’s property once married.

Marie and Hortense, however, had other ambitions in mind altogether. Miserable in their marriages and determined to live independently, they abandoned their husbands in secret and began lives of extraordinary daring on the run and in the public eye. The beguiling sisters quickly won the affections of noblemen and kings alike. Their flight became popular fodder for salon conversation and tabloids, and was closely followed by seventeenth-century European society. The Countess of Grignan remarked that they were traveling “like two heroines out of a novel.” Others gossiped that they “were roaming the countryside in pursuit of wandering lovers.”

My thoughts:  I've been waiting for a long time for someone to write a biography of two of the Mancini sisters, so I was excited to get a copy of Elizabeth Goldsmith's new book The Kings' Mistresses which will be published this Tuesday.  The book's title is a bit misleading, there is no evidence that Marie Mancini was Louis XIV's mistress, although he contemplated marrying her before being convinced by Mazarin, her uncle, that he needed to make a dynastic marriage to his cousin the Spanish Infanta Maria Theresa.

The book is a more than just a biography of the lives of these two Scandalous Women. It is also a fascinating look at the realities of marriage for women in the 17th century.  Although both Marie and Hortense were well born, they had very little rights when it came to marriage. Both marriages were not successful. She was married off at the age of 15 just before her uncle died. Hortense's husband was obsessed with her to the point of madness, he forced her to travel with him up and down the country visiting his various properties, he restricted her movements,  and who she could see.  While keeping her a virtual prisoner, he then systematically began spending all the money that her uncle had left to them. In 6 years, Hortense had given birth to 4 children, and she had enough of her husband. She attempted to seperate from him using the courts, but she found herself thwarted and frustrated at every opportunity by her husband to the point that she felt that she had no choice but to flee the country.

Meanwhile Marie married an Italian prince. In the beginning her marriage seemed to be going better than Hortense's. Marie scandalized Roman society by freely roaming around the city, and taking part in theatrical productions. After giving birth to 3 sons, Marie wanted seperate bedrooms, but her husband , like Hortense's wasn't used to being thwarted. When Marie began to suspect that he was trying to kill her, she too fled first to France and then to Spain.

Both women spent years leading nomadic lives, trying to stay one step of their husbands and the courts.  They published their memoirs to share their stories.  This was highly unusual, very few aristocratic women published their memoirs, if they wrote them at all, they were privately published or circulated amongst their friends and family.  It was an incredibly bold move for the time, and helped to engender public sympathy for the women. It also served to strengthen the attitudes of those men and women who feared independent women. In an age before newspapers, it is incredible how the story of the Mancini sisters spread across Europe. Their memoirs were translated into many languages, leaving a remarkable record of women's lives. It is not hard to sympathize with the sisters, particularly given just how awful their husband's were. It is shocking the lengths that both men went to try and bring their wives to heel, everything from keeping their children from them to keeping them impoverished. Hortense's in particular was just insane, even his children later took him to court to try and recover their inheritances that he had squandered.

Goldsmith's book is incredibly well-researched and written, if a little too academic at times. The book is filled with details from previously unpublished letters, it is most effective when Goldsmith allows the women to tell their stories in their own words.  The sisters come across as bold, witty, and highly intelligent, larger than life characters but also women who in the end paid a high price for their need for independence. There are a few typos in the galley that I read, which will hopefully be corrected when the book is published.  For example Goldsmith states that Henrietta Maria was Louis XIV's cousin when she was actually his aunt, James I was Charles II's grandfather not his father, at one point she states that it is 1665 and then 1675.  And there were some strange omissions, not once does she discuss Cardinal Mazarin's relationship to Anne of Austria nor does she mention that one of the reason's that Louis XIV became more religious as he got older and revoked the Edict of Nantes was his relationship with Madame de Maintenon. Despite these flaws, the book is well worth reading.

Verdict:  Highly recommended

Happy Birthday Nell Gwyn!

Today is Nell Gwn's birthday, born February 2nd, 1650 which would make her 362 years old this year if she were a vampire. Nell has always been my favorite of Charles II's mistresses, probably because apart from his Queen, Catherine of Braganza and his sister Minette, I've always felt that Nell was the only one of his mistresses who truly loved him as Charles the man, not Charles the King. She seems to have been relatively undemanding compared to Barbara Palmer, and she wasn't a spy for the French like Louise de Keroualle. With her, the King could pretty much be himself.

Called "pretty, witty Nell" by the diarist Samuel Pepys,  Nell has long been seen as a living embodiment of the spirit of Restoration England. She's become something of a folk heroine over the years, her story echoing the rags-to-royalty tale of Cinderella. Elizabeth Howe, in The First English Actresses, calls she was "the most famous Restoration actress of all time, possessed of an extraordinary comic talent." Despite her great success on the stage, she gave it all up to be the King's mistress.

The details of her early life are a bit sketchy.  Some historians believe that she was born in London, some in Oxford, and some point to Hereford, near Wales, since Gwyn is a Welsh name. Most historians do agree that her father, Thomas Gwyn, was probably a Captain in the Royalist army during the English Civil War.  What happened to her father is unknown, whether he died, or deserted the family.  What is clear is that he was soon out of the picture, and Nell, her older sister Rose, and her mother had to fend for themselves.  There are stories that Nell's mother ran or worked in a bawdy house, and that Nell, herself might have been a child prostitute. By the time she was 12, she had a protector named Duncan who kept her for about 2 years. After the relationship was over, Nell became an orange girl at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. By the time she was 16, she was appearing on the stage instead of selling oranges to the audience in front of it.

Because she was illiterate, she learned her lines by rote. She was taught her craft of performing at a school for young actors developed by Thomas Killigrew and one of the finest male actors of the era, Charles Hart,
who became her lover. She was famous for her roles in breeches parts, where she could dance, sing and show off her legs, which were apparently quite good. It was the Duke of Buckingham who allegedly introduced the King to Nell, looking for a way to supplant his cousin, Barbara Palmer, as the King's mistress. Apparently Nell asked for 500 pounds initially which was considered too much, so Buckingham went to plan B, which was the actress Moll Davis. Whatever the story, by 1688, Nell was the King's mistress. Since she'd been the mistress of both Charles Hart and Charles Sackville, she jokingly titled the King "her Charles the Third".

Unlike his other long-term mistresses Barbara Palmer and Louise Keroualle, Nell never received a title of her own, although her oldest son Charles was made first Earl of Burford and then Duke of St. Alban's with an allowance of 1,000 pounds a year. Her younger son James died while in school in Paris in 1681. In 1671, she had a house of her own at 79 Pall Mall, however the house was the property of the crown.  It wasn't until 1676, that the freehold of the house and land were given to Nell.  The King also gave her Burford House in Windsor, where she lived whenever the King was at Windsor Castle. She also had a summer residence near the area that was known as Bagnigge Wells Spa. In 1685, King Charles died. His dying wish was that, "Let not poor Nelly starve." The new King, James II, paid Nell's debts off and gave her a pension of 1,500 pounds a year. Nell only lived two more years. She had a stroke in 1687, at the rather young age of 37, which left her paralyzed on one side. She soon suffered another stroke, and finally passed away on November 14, 1687.

Nell has long been a popular subject for novelists because of her rags to riches story. In honor of her birthday, I thought I would highlight a few of the most recent novels and biographies.

This biography was written by Charles Beauclerk, the Earl of Burford, who is a direct descendant of Nell. I haven't read it, but it's supposed to be very good.

This novel by Priya Parmar really focuses on Nell's early years and her career as an actress. Filled with juicy backstage gossip, I highly recommend it.

The Darling Strumpet, by Gillian Bagwell. I had the privilege of getting to hear Gillian read one of the naughtier scenes from this book last year at the Historical Novel Society conference.

Another excellent novel about Nell by Susan Holloway Scott, a frequent guest here on the blog.

Guest Post: Author Gillian Bagwell on Jane Lane – The Girl who Saved the English Monarchy

Scandalous Women is very pleased to welcome author Gillian Bagwell to the blog today to talk about her new book The September Queen which came out on November 1st. Happy Release week Gillian! 

While researching The Darling Strumpet, my novel about Nell Gwynn, I read Derek Wilson’s book All the King’s Women, about the numerous women important to Charles II. As all of us who know anything about Charles II are aware, he liked women. His mistresses were many and famous, whether loved by the people like Nell Gwynn or hated like Louis De Keroualle.

So I was intrigued to read his account of Jane Lane, an ordinary Staffordshire girl who played a starring role in an extraordinary part of Charles’s life – his six-week odyssey after the Battle of Worcester trying to escape to safety in France.

The Battle of Worcester took place on September 3, 1651. Charles and his ragged and outnumbered army knew that all their hopes rested on that day, and the 21-year-old king believed that the outcome for him would be “either a crown or a coffin.” Cromwell triumphed, and the bloody rout ended the Royalist cause. Once Charles had been convinced that the best he could do was survive, he fled as his supporters made a last ferocious stand, and legendarily dashed out the back door of his lodgings as the enemy entered at the front, slipping out the last unguarded city gate.

From that disastrous night until he finally sailed from Shoreham near Brighton on October 15, he was on the run, sheltered and aided by dozens of people – mostly simple country folks and very minor gentry. One of Charles’s companions during his flight from Worcester was the Earl of Derby, who had recently been sheltered at a house called Boscobel in Shropshire. He suggested that the king might hide there until he could find a way out of England.

Jane Lane, a young woman of about 25 years old, lived at Bentley Hall in Staffordshire, not far from Boscobel. She became involved in the king’s flight because she had a pass allowing her and a manservant to travel the hundred miles to visit a friend near Bristol – a major port where the king might board a ship. In a story that sounds like something out of fiction, the 21-year-old king disguised himself as Jane’s servant, and Jane rode pillion (sitting sidesaddle behind him while he rode astride) along roads traveled by cavalry patrols searching for Charles, through villages where the proclamation describing him and offering a reward for his capture was posted, and among hundreds of people who, if they recognized him, had every reason to turn him in and none – but loyalty to the outlawed monarchy – to help him.

It was an improbable scheme. Charles was six feet two inches tall and very dark complexioned, not at all common looking for an Englishman of that time. But time after time he rode right under the noses of Roundhead soldiers without being recognized. He narrowly eluded discovery and capture so many times that the whole event eventually became known as the Royal Miracle.

Jane Lane played a much more important part in great events than women usually did in those days, especially women who were not monarchs. The fugitive king had been proclaimed a traitor, and anyone who was found to have helped him would be executed for treason. What Jane did took great bravery, as she was not only risking her life but the lives and lands of her family.

I was convinced by the evidence Wilson presented that Jane and Charles became lovers when they were in each other’s company, in close physical contact, and in perilous circumstances from September 9 to September 18, 1651. Jane remained in touch with Charles until he was restored to the throne in 1660. Then she became famous, and Charles rewarded her richly, awarding her a pension of £1000 pounds a year – quite a lot of money then – as well as giving her a watch that had belonged to his father, paintings of himself, and many other personal mementoes. He also offered her brother a title and gave her family the right to add the three Lions of England to their coat of arms.

The time that Charles spent on the run was an enormously formative experience, he told the story for the rest of his life, and Jane was clearly someone who he regarded with respect and affection until his death. He When Jane returned home she married a neighbor, Sir Clement Fisher, who she had likely known before embarking on her adventures with Charles. But she had no children, and towards the end of her life she declared that her hands would be her executors, i.e., that she would spend all she had. She did more than that, and because her pension was not being paid on time, she was in debt and died with an estate worth only £10.

If Charles had been caught, he would certainly have been executed, and it is an open question whether the monarchy would have been restored as it eventually was in 1660, after the death of Oliver Cromwell. So Jane’s courage had far-reaching results and her story deserves to be remembered.

Gillian Bagwell’s novel The September Queen, the first fictional accounting of Jane Lane’s adventures with the young King Charles, was released on November 1. Please visit her website, www.gillianbagwell.com, to read more about her books and read her blog Jane Lane and the Royal Miracle www.theroyalmiracle.blogspot.com, which recounts her research adventures and the daily episodes in Charles’s escape after Worcester.

One lucky winner will receive a copy of the book THE SEPTEMBER QUEEN. Here are the rules for the giveaway. This giveaway is open solely to my American readers! The contest runs from today through Tuesday, November 8th.

1. Leave your name and email in the comments. Email is very important so that I can contact you for your address.
2. If you are not a follower and become one, you get an extra entry
3. If you tweet about the giveaway, you get an extra entry.

Good luck!

Title: The Painted Lady
Author: Maeve Haran
Paperback: 400 pages
Publisher: Pan (19 Aug 2011)

Synopsis:

'This is my tale and I will leave you to tell whether it be high romance or tragedy.’

Sixteen-year-old Frances Stuart arrives at the Restoration court to find her innocence and beauty are highly-prized commodities, envied by the women and desired by the men. Before long, King Charles II falls passionately in love with her and will stop at nothing to make her his mistress.

But Frances is no conventional court beauty. She is determined to make her own choices in life, and to be with the man she loves. Can she overcome the dangerous pitfalls of the King’s obsession, the Queen’s jealousy, and the traps set for her by the King’s notorious mistresses, and make the life she wants for herself?

Set against the drama of the Great Plague and the Fire of London, The Painted Lady brings to life the vibrant and decadent court of Charles II and in Frances Stuart discovers a passionate young woman prepared to fight for her own destiny.

Frances Stuart, Duchess of Richmond, painted by Sir Peter Lely

My thoughts: King meets girl, King loves girl, King doesn't get girl.  If you change the last sentence it would the story of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, but no this is the story of the one woman who got away from Charles II, the one woman who didn't succumb to his charms, who held out, not for marriage but because she was in love with someone else. Maeve Haran's new book The Painted Lady (published in Britain by Pan Books, thanks to Daphne at Tanzanites Castle Full of Books for alerting me to the book), features a tale as old as time but with fascinating twist.

I'm a sucker for any book set at the Court of Charles II.  Perhaps it's all those Restoration plays that I read in theatre history in college or performed during my acting career, but I adore the licentiousness of the period. It's like Restoration Dynasty, everything is about money, sex and power but it was also a great period in English literature, particularly the stage which had been dormant during the years Cromwell was in power.  All those repressed desires, well not in the case of Charles II who could have used a chastity belt!

The book opens in 1659 when Frances and her family are in exile at the court of Louis XIV, waiting hopefully for the moment when Charles will be restored. It is in France that Frances first makes the acquaintance of the King, but it is not unil 4 years later, that the story really begins.  Frances has been sent to take up a post as a Maid of Honor to Queen Catherine who is just about to arrive in England.  No sooner does she arrive at court when the King spies her beauty and falls madly in love with her. What follows is 400 pages of will she or won't she? It sounds like it would be tedious but surprisingly it isn't.  In Haran's skillful hands, Frances is no goody two shoes holding out for a crown or clutching her virtue with two hands.  She's a romantic girl, also a bit childish (she loves to build castles out of playing cards and to play Blind Man's bluff) but Frances  is also sensible, independent and spunky, at home wearing breeches or a pretty ball gown. She yearns after years abroad to have her own home. Can't fault a girl for that!

As I read the book, I also felt for Charles, a flawed man definitely but one who in is own way years for the same things that Frances wants. Of course, after years of poverty, humiliation and degradation, it's now wonder that he wants what he wants when he wants it. Frances, however, is an astute judge of character, she knows that the King once he has her, will toss her aside. Unlike Barbara Castlemaine who is only after what she can get, Frances has no desire to push herself or her family forward.

Haran is not only a master at getting deep in to her character's psyche, but she manages to make the 17th century amazingly vivid and real. She doesn't shie away from the harsher elements of life, there are countless descriptions of just how dirty and disgusting the streets of London were, and the lack of hygiene amongst even the nobility! My only quibble with the book is that we don't get to see who Frances' other admirers were.  Apparently Pepys thought she was one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen as she was courted by several men before the King staked his claim on her, but the reader isn't privileged to see any of that which I think is a shame. It would have made the book that much richer and explained a little more what the King saw in her, the qualities that made him choose her to be the face of Britannia. The characters in the book seem to spend most of their time envying her or placing bets to see when the King might get lucky!

I enjoyed this book immensely for the rich recreation of Restoration London, and a heroine that was a breath of fresh air, and a love story that makes you believe that someone people are fated to be together.

Scandalous Women in Fiction: Exit the Actress

EXIT THE ACTRESS
Author:  Priya Parmar
Publisher: Simon & Schuster, February 1, 2010

From the back cover:  While selling oranges in the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, sweet and sprightly Ellen "Nell" Gwyn impresses the theater’s proprietors with a wit and sparkle that belie her youth and poverty. She quickly earns a place in the company, narrowly avoiding the life of prostitution to which her sister has already succumbed. As her roles evolve from supporting to starring, the scope of her life broadens as well. Soon Ellen is dressed in the finest fashions, charming the theatrical, literary, and royal luminaries of Restoration England. Ellen grows up on the stage, experiencing first love and heartbreak and eventually becoming the mistress of Charles II. Despite his reputation as a libertine, Ellen wholly captures his heart—and he hers—but even the most powerful love isn’t enough to stave off the gossip and bitter court politics that accompany a royal romance. Telling the story through a collection of vibrant seventeenth-century voices ranging from Ellen’s diary to playbills, letters, gossip columns, and home remedies, Priya Parmar brings to life the story of an endearing and delightful heroine.

Scandalous Women says: When I first heard about this book, I thought, does the world need another book about Nell Gwynn? Especially after Darling Strumpet by Gillian Bagwell just came out in January. And I was a little put off by the notion that the novel was going to be partly narrated by Nell's diary, since from my research, I had read that she was pretty much illiterate.  The author, Priya Parmar, writes in her afterward that she had a hard time with the idea that Nell could be an actress and illiterate but given how many bards memorized huge poems like The Iliad and The Odyssey who couldn't read, I have no problem with that idea that Nell could perform 2 or 3 plays a week without being able to read. Some heavy weight names in historical fiction provided blurbs for the book including Sandra Gulland, Philippa Gregory and one of my idols Sharon Kay Penman, so naturally I was curious to see what they saw in the book.

So I decided to give the book a try and I'm glad I did. From the first page I was sucked into this book and I couldn't put it down until I finished it. Parmar has perfectly captured the effervescent, spunky, and delightful personality of Ellen Gwynn as she calls her in the book. Her decision to also use playbills, letters and gossip columns (Ambrose Pink of The London Gazette) was genious, I really got a sense of the period and what was happening in the outside world without having to have characters either discuss it in dialogue or huge amounts of story thrown at me in narrative. I particularly loved the letters from King Charles's mother Henriette Maria, the busybody who keeps sending unwanted and unsolicited advice and the tender letters from Madame of France, the King's beloved baby sister Henriette Anne who died tragically too young.

I have to say that my favorite parts of this book and why it became an automatic keeper for me were all the scenes backstage at the theatre.  Nell's interaction with her fellow actors, the description of the plays that they were doing, the playwrights of the age including John Dryden (who knew he was such a dandy) and Etherege were exciting. I felt as if I was eavesdropping in the Green Room. I could smell the greasepaint, and the grotty rehearsal clothes, the candle wax dripping on the stage, the need for the actresses to provide their own costumes. As a former actress, I felt instantly at home in this world that Nell leaves behnd when she falls in love with the King. At the heart of the book is a story of a woman forced to choose between the profession that she loves and the man that she loves. Who can't relate to that? This is the first book where I really felt that I got to know Nell Gwynn the actress, and not just Nell Gwynn, royal mistress. We finally get to see Nell's struggles to get on the stage, her first tentative forays into this career that became a passion, how she was miscast as a tragedienne when she really excelled at comedy and how she finall;y convinced the powers that be to give her a chance to do what she was really good at.

All the usual suspects are here, Barbara Palmer, Rochester, Buckingham, but the characterizations never felt stale in Parmar's hands.  Nell's affection and respect for Catherine of Braganza touched my heart. Nell finds herself wanting to befriend the Queen at the same time that she is falling for her husband, which she knows cannot end well. My heart broke as Nell's did when she realizes how she's hurt the Queen.

Parmar won me over in the end, and I'm excited to see what she writes next. She has a natural feel for narrative drive as well as for portraying characters that the audience roots for.  Who doesn't want to see Nell win the King's heart? In Parmar's hands, Nell's conquering of the King is not a slamdunk, she bungles the first attempt, and Buckingham of all people, tries to give her advice to woo the King! Parmar's book is going on my keeper shelf next to Jean Plaidy's series set during the reign of Charles II, and Susan Holloway Scott's books.

Verdict:  Highly recommended. A behind the scenes peek at the world of Restoration Theatre seen through the eyes of pretty, witty Nell Gwnn.