Sex with Kings (18 page)

Over a period of twenty years, Dorothy bore William ten children. To generate the greatest possible revenues, she performed all over England, often bumping about for days in a carriage on muddy roads. But however generous her acting income, it was immediately siphoned off for the care of her fourteen children—education for the boys, dowries for the girls, and gambling debts for sons and sons-in-law. In 1797 the duke and Dorothy moved into the elegant Bushy House. This venerable mansion was not a gift from William to his mistress, but a gift from the mistress to her prince. In one letter complaining about the pace of her acting engagements, Dorothy wrote, “I have been playing [acting], and fagging myself to death, but it has enabled me to pay a good part of the purchase money of my house.”
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In 1810, as William ran headlong into debt, Dorothy felt him slipping away from her and worked harder than ever for the cash she hoped would bind him to her; but as she jolted across England for performances, the duke began courting an heiress of twenty-two. When the heiress rejected him, William coldly informed Dorothy that they must part, as he considered his relationship with her a primary obstacle to a successful matrimonial suit.

By 1815, in poor health and besieged by her own creditors and those of impecunious family members, Dorothy escaped to France rather than face debtors' prison. The duke, her lover of
twenty years and father of ten of her children, refused to lift a finger. She was not even allowed to write to him.

In France, worn down by disappointment and worry, Dorothy's health took a turn for the worse. She awaited eagerly each day's mail, hoping against hope for news that she could return home to England. Her neighbors in France, including many British expatriates, admired Dorothy's loyalty and fortitude. They never heard her say an unkind word about the duke. One day, when the post failed yet again to bring her a letter, Dorothy collapsed and died. She was buried in a corner of the churchyard through the charity of friends. None of her family was present at her death or burial.

When William became king in 1830, the dark whispers about his treatment of Dorothy rose into a pained cry. One paper lambasted him: “The people…have witnessed a man who has inundated his country with bastards, and deserted the deserving but helpless mother of his offspring, and finally left her to perish like a dog in the streets, and to be buried as a pauper at the public charge when she ceased to maintain him by her own exertions.”
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After her death, one of her daughters revealed that the duke of Clarence had borrowed—and never repaid—some thirty thousand pounds from Dorothy.

I
T WAS OFTEN ASSUMED THAT THE KING WAS MOST SUSCEPTIBLE
to political suggestions when lying down, that the royal mistress, having purchased power through sex, hopped out of bed, smoothed down her rumpled skirts, and victoriously wielded her omnipotence over court and country alike. This perception is generally incorrect. With a few notable exceptions, most mistresses exerted political
influence,
the influence of a loved one persuading the monarch to look at a problem from a different angle, to consider different solutions. Some mistresses worked in concert with the king's ministers by informing them of the royal mood and the best times to present proposals. They calmed the king down when he was angry and buoyed him up when he was despondent, thereby oiling the wheels of state.

Many mistresses were either too stupid or too self-absorbed to be interested in politics and limited themselves to appointing their friends and relatives to government positions. Most kings, prickly with pride in their God-given authority, were repelled at the thought of a woman's meddling. After hours of discussing politics with his ministers, the king visited his mistress for a cozy dinner, light conversation, and good sex.

In the 1570s and 1580s, Archduke Francesco de Medici (1541–1587) fumed that he would brook no interference in politics by women. His mistress Bianca Cappello tactfully made Francesco believe her ideas had originated in his own brilliant mind. The archduke sank so frequently into irretrievable pits of depression that Bianca effectively ran Tuscany with her friend Secretary of State Serguidi. Together they made most of the political decisions and appointments to important posts. Even after the archduke married his mistress in 1578, Bianca, now the archduchess of Tuscany, still remained seemingly in her woman's role in the background, quietly pulling all the strings.

Some kings, however, cherished the sage political advice of their clever mistresses, many of whom spoke honestly, unlike the royal ministers. The quiet pillow talk in a curtained four-poster bed often had greater effect than the bobbing and angling of ambitious ministers pushing one self-aggrandizing plan or another. “Ah, and who is left now to tell one the truth?” lamented Louis XV upon hearing of the death of his mistress Madame de Châteauroux.
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The first mistress to wield true royal power in her own right was, naturally, French. In the 1550s Diane de Poitiers, the older, wiser mistress of Henri II, signed official documents; appointed ministers; bestowed honors, pensions, and titles; and bequeathed and revoked great estates. She became a member of the privy council and exerted great influence over the other members.

To help fill the empty royal treasury Diane imposed taxes—most notably on salt and church bells. She signed her name simply as Diane—as royalty did—not bothering with the string of ungainly titles most nobles proudly trailed behind their names.
Sometimes both Diane and the king signed a document, their signatures running together as “HenriDiane.” When a group of cardinals protested her influence, she sent thirteen of them to Rome, ostensibly to represent French interests, but really to get them out of her way at court.

In the 1590s, Henri IV of France issued a royal decree that all foreign ambassadors be presented to his mistress Gabrielle d'Estrées, stipulating that all French nobility, clerics, and officials visiting the court wait on her immediately after speaking to the king himself.

Gabrielle possessed a great gift for using women's weapons—persuasion, conciliation, and charm—rather than men's—battle axes, cannonballs, and swords—to iron out the turbulent conflicts besetting France. Born Catholic, Gabrielle convinced Protestant Henri to convert to Catholicism to end the religious civil war, prompting him to maintain, “Paris is well worth a Mass.”
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Although the king made Gabrielle the marquise de Monceaux and later the duchesse de Beaufort, she had no official position at court to match her diplomatic duties. No-nonsense Henri, adept at calling a spade a spade, appointed her “Titulary Mistress of His Majesty, the King of France.”
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Armed with her new title, Gabrielle communicated directly with the pope. The Vatican had been supporting the Catholic League led by Spain against Henri and had not stopped supporting it after what they considered to be his fraudulent and politically motivated conversion to Catholicism. Philip II of Spain made routine incursions into the south of France, draining Henri's resources.

Gabrielle, sending the pope copies of her letters patent naming her “titulary mistress,” politely requested that His Holiness stop supporting a useless war now that Henri had become a true son of the church. She reminded him that it was she who had convinced Henri to become Catholic, and hinted darkly at the possibility of France breaking with the church completely, as
England had sixty years earlier, if the Vatican continued to support the kingdom's enemies. Two weeks later, the pope instructed all religious houses in France to pray for the health of King Henri IV. When Henri was informed of the pope's acceptance of his conversion he was heard to say, “Gabrielle has succeeded where others have failed.”
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Gabrielle then set to work settling the differences between Henri and the duc de Mayenne, head of the powerful de Guise family. Mayenne had been the leader of the Catholic League; he still held a large body of troops and refused to make peace with the king. Mayenne's female relatives were close to Gabrielle; a scheme was hatched among the women to force the men to make peace. Gabrielle persuaded Henri to be more conciliatory to his adversary, and the de Guise women set to work on Mayenne to give up a lost cause. Finally, Gabrielle conferred with Mayenne himself for two days in a small château, ironing out the details of his surrender. Henri made many concessions—including a large sum in gold and three châteaus—to pacify his enemy.

Gabrielle had become Henri's most important diplomat but had no official seat in the council, where national policy was made. Yet there was a precedent—only forty years earlier Diane de Poitiers had served on the council. In March 1596, bypassing with royal aplomb the customary steps, Henri bestowed on Gabrielle the set of gold keys which gave her the right to join the council. To deflect criticism, at the same time he wisely gave an identical set to his sister, the devout Catherine. And so he appointed two female council members in one fell swoop, Gabrielle known for her diplomatic skill, and Catherine for her saintliness. On many public occasions after this it was observed that Gabrielle, instead of flaunting her magnificent diamonds, proudly wore her little gold keys on a chain about her neck.

In 1597 the duc de Mercoeur, virtual ruler of the state of Brittany, led the last pocket of rebellion. When war looked inevitable and the two armies faced each other across the battlefield, Gabrielle invited Mercoeur's wife to a tête-à-tête with her in a carriage. The two women arranged Mercoeur's surrender under honorable terms and a marriage between their children.
They then set to work persuading their men to agree to their decision. And so Henri's last victory was achieved without shedding a drop of blood. It was a woman's victory.

The civil war having been finally quelled, Henri looked toward preventing another one. Tensions between Catholics and Protestants ran deep, and Henri looked for a way to reconcile the two groups. Henri's Huguenot sister and Catholic mistress set to work. The duc de Montmorency, constable of France, wrote, “Madame [Catherine] and the Duchess de Beaufort have begun their formidable task of reconciling the unreconcilable. They will need to exercise their command of the arts of persuasion to the utmost and to utilize the natural charms with which they are endowed, for surely no two women have ever undertaken a more difficult task.”
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Some Catholics resented being lectured on the subject of religion by the king's mistress. These were reminded that it was Gabrielle who had convinced the pope himself to accept Henri into the church. Henri was thrilled at Gabrielle's success in convincing powerful Catholics, one by one, to accept his decree of religious toleration. He wrote, “My mistress has become an orator of unequaled excellence, so fiercely does she argue the cause of the new Edict.”
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Through a combination of warm charm and cold threats Gabrielle pushed her point home. In 1598 the Edict of Nantes was signed granting Huguenots certain rights while deferring to Catholics. The sure sign of the edict's justice was the fact that both sides went away grumbling. But Henri was thrilled and knew he could not have issued the edict without Gabrielle's diplomatic skill.

Henri's grandson Louis XIV did not permit his mistresses any great exercise of political power. Louis himself in his memoirs, which were intended to help his heir rule after him, wrote, “Time given up to love affairs must never be allowed to prejudice affairs of state…. And if we yield our heart, we must never yield our mind or will…. We must maintain a rigorous distinction
between a lover's tenderness and a sovereign's resolution…and we must make sure that the beauty who is the source of our delight never takes the liberty of interfering in political affairs.”
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Louis's Madame de Montespan had little interest in politics, but she demanded that her views be heard in the realms of art, architecture, literature, and music. Her protégés included Molière, Racine, Boileau-Despréaux, and La Fontaine. Her only success in the political domain was in getting her candidates appointed to high-level positions—and even then, she usually promised much and delivered little.

One courtier, the marquis de Puyguilhem, tired of waiting for her to procure for him a coveted position at the king's disposal, actually hid beneath her bed while she was out having lunch with Louis, knowing they would return to her room for sex afterward. Silent as the grave, the marquis listened to the royal lovemaking and their postcoital conversation. He was furious to hear Madame de Montespan argue
against
his appointment, despite her glittering promises.

Later, as Madame de Montespan and her ladies started walking toward the palace theater, the marquis accosted her, calling her a dog's whore and a liar and repeating word for word what she had said to the king. Shaking with fear—certain that the devil himself was in league with Puyguilhem against her—the royal mistress stumbled to the theater, where she promptly fainted and was revived only with great difficulty.

While Louis XIV did not allow his mistresses political influence, he knew his cousin Charles II was far more susceptible to their blandishments. In 1670 Charles first spotted Louise de Kéroualle among the retinue of his sister Princess Henrietta, who had married Louis XIV's brother, during her visit to England. Thunderstruck with admiration, Charles asked to keep the girl at his court. Knowing her brother's debauchery, Henrietta
firmly refused and took Louise back to France. Within weeks Henriette was dead, and the French king, hoping Louise could help France more than Charles's mistress Lady Castlemaine had, agreed that Louise should be sent to England.

The ambassador of Savoy informed his monarch of Louise's arrival at the English court. “Mademoiselle de Kéroualle…is a beautiful girl,” he related, “and it is thought the plan is to make her mistress to the King of Great Britain. He [Louis XIV] would like to dethrone Lady Castlemaine, who is his enemy, and…his Most Christian Majesty would not be sorry to see the position filled by one of his subjects, for it is said the ladies have a great influence over the mind of the King of England.”
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Louise was in no rush to give her virginity to the English king. She wanted to make sure he appreciated the great gift she was about to bestow on him, and thought that his gratitude would be proportionate to the amount of time he was required to wait. As the months went by, and Charles's admiration for Louise remained encouraged but unsated, the French ambassador began to stir uneasily—Louise was taking so long that she risked losing the king's interest entirely.

A full year after her arrival in England, the envoys were happy to inform the French minister that Louise had been nauseated. The dispatch reported, “The affection of the King of England for Mademoiselle de Kéroualle increases every day, and the little attack of nausea which she had yesterday when dining with me makes me hope that her good fortune will continue.”
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The French foreign minister replied eagerly, “The King was surprised at what you wrote me concerning Mademoiselle de Kéroualle, whose conduct while she was here, and since she has been in England, did not inspire much expectation that she would succeed in achieving such good fortune. His Majesty is anxious to be informed of the result of the connection which you believe exists between the King and her.”
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But these royal hopes were inspired, after all, by only a fit of indigestion. There had been no sex between Charles and Louise. Disappointed, the French envoys felt that Louise didnot understand the importance of her position and was not doing
her duty for her country. They were afraid that another pretty face—one less prudish than Louise—would steal the English king away, and Louise would irrevocably lose her chance. But after applying pressure to her from all sides—including the threat of sending her to a strict convent—the French ambassador wrote, “I believe that I can assure you that if she has made sufficient progress in the King's affection to be of use in some way to his Majesty, she will do her duty.”
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Louise finally did her duty in late October 1671. It is reported that she lounged around in a state of undress—petticoats and shift, but no stays—and after a mock marriage ceremony, finally bedded the king. The proof was in the pudding—nine months later she gave birth to a son, whom she named Charles.