THIS WEEK'S WINNER
Royalty and infidelity
By Serena Estrella (The Philippine Star) Updated October 30, 2011 12:00 AM Comments (0)
Serena Estrella’s great interest and passion for world history started with a book about Henry VIII’s six wives when she was 11 years old. Nowadays, she helps out with her family’s business and continues to remain a keen observer of today’s society and how the lessons of history still apply to it regardless (or perhaps even because) of how evolved society has become. “The names Marie Antoinette, Henry VIII, and Elizabeth I stand alongside those of Warren Buffett and Robert Kiyosaki on my bookshelf and on my office desk.”
When there’s marriage without love, there will be love without marriage. — Benjamin Franklin
MANILA, Philippines - Prior to the 21st century, infidelity was one crime that most monarchs frequently got away with. The general public was quick to rally with their pitchforks if their ruler ever unjustly executed one of their own or emptied the treasury to indulge their every whim. On the other hand, they either looked the other way or watched in awe as their much-married sovereign paraded around with a breathtaking beauty. For years, I assumed that it was because a flashy paramour was simply another status symbol or that society can be rather lenient when it comes to certain people, males especially, engaging in such dalliances. Opening up Eleanor Herman’s Sex with Kings, however, showed me that there was so much more behind it.
Herman is quick to point out that royal marriages were more like business contracts. Some marriages served to solidify alliances against foreign powers and each princess represented massive dowries, peace treaties, and trade concessions. With the peace and prosperity of entire nations depending on which princess one chose to marry, I suppose it was unlikely that physical beauty, intellectual prowess or even basic compatibility was a main consideration.
Just imagine being 14 or 16 years of age and leaving your friends, family, and homeland forever to travel to a faraway country. After an uncomfortable sea voyage (where you could easily perish if stormy weather or some mythical sea creature capsizes your barge), you are presented to a man you have never met or seen (obviously they didn’t have Facebook back then). You are then married to this stranger, served food you don’t recognize or like, forced to make conversation in a language you don’t understand (they could well be telling you that your breath stinks, given how their equivalent of toothbrushes then were tree branches with the bark pulled back), and then stripped down to your linen shift. This would be the only layer of clothing standing between you and your new husband as attendants gently push you into bed with him. Notaries stand at the ready (in the same room), poised to record the first shriek or moan as proof that the marriage “has been consummated.” One can only perceive the awkwardness and great confusion of the whole affair and how resulting incompatibility can wreak havoc on a baseless union devised partly to create a much-longed-for heir to the throne.
The marriage between George IV of Great Britain and Princess Caroline of Brunswick was one such fiasco. Caroline found the then-heir to the throne very fat and “not so handsome” while fastidious George despaired at how he could possibly bring himself to impregnate such an ill-kempt creature: “She showed….such marks of filth…that she turned my stomach…I made a vow never to touch her again.” They both came to detest each other so much that George hired prizefighters to prevent his wife from entering Westminster Abbey and being crowned alongside him. In the midst of ill-conceived but utterly necessary marriages, I suppose these monarchs yearned for some relief. Though “sanctified” their blood may be, they still had the very human need to be held, cherished, and loved.
Enter the royal lover.
For kings and princes, there was the maitresse-en-titre, the principal mistress. She was usually a member of the aristocracy and was thus well-educated and well-mannered, although there were notable exceptions. A maitresse-en-titre could also be known for her luminous beauty but women who relied solely on such never held a sovereign’s interest for very long. Virginie di Castiglione, for instance, had a delicate, classic beauty and a magnificent bosom that she allowed to “dangle freely” but was also prone to conversing solely about her own glorious beauty, proclaiming herself “the most beautiful woman of the century” and thus prompting her quarry, Emperor Napoleon III of France, to declare that she “bores me to death.” As principal mistress, Virginie lasted only a year. In stark contrast, Camilla Parker-Bowles is very plain and is older than her lover and now husband Prince Charles. She’s hardly “the most beautiful woman of the century” and yet the heir to the most prestigious monarchy in the world has remained utterly in her thrall, even while he was married to one of the world’s most celebrated beauties. Why? Herman explains it quite succinctly: “Camilla was….fiercely loyal…reassuring, calm, capable, and — rare in a world of scepters and crowns — unpretentious.…Diana nagged, moaned, complained, accused, threw vases, slammed doors. Arriving at Camilla’s place, Charles would be offered some wine and cheese, asked how his day had gone, told a funny little story. Which companion would you prefer?” Little wonder that their relationship has been ongoing for more than three decades now and that Charles eventually married her and has remained loyal since.
Today, a majority of the world’s monarchies have been abolished and international laws and governing bodies mediate relations between countries. Businesses are conducted across continents, communication at one’s fingertips is commonplace and most foreign commodities are available locally thanks to advances in freight and storage technology. Modern royal marriages have crossed social class boundaries: Crown Prince Haakon of Norway married a former waitress who never finished her education, Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden married her personal trainer, and Charles’ own heir, Prince William, married his college sweetheart, the commoner Kate Middleton.
One might argue that the contents of Herman’s Sex with Kings are no longer applicable to our current world. Yet one reason why I love it so much is that it is a keen social history with underlying important lessons delivered with great panache and humor. My generation grew up bombarded by media messages that tell young women like me that we have to be whiter, sexier (i.e., waif-thin with huge breast implants), and injected with Botox to attract and hang on to our significant others. Incredibly foolish as that sounds, some young women still believe in it. (Watch this year’s “Teen Choice Awards” if you don’t believe me.)
Sex with Kings reveals that legendary royal consorts had their share of physical imperfections, wrinkles, and weight gain but it was their well-cultivated minds, kindness, loyalty, and devotion that bound kings, emperors, and princes to them. Perhaps the best lesson from the book is that the most enduring relationships are the result of not only choosing someone special who would treat you with the utmost respect and devotion but also choosing to be someone of substance while still able to make the significant other feel as loved and cherished as any revered monarch, whoever one’s king might turn out to be in this life.
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