Sex with Kings: 500 Years of Adultery, Power, Rivalry, and Revenge [Bargain Price] [Paperback]

Eleanor Herman (Author)

Book Description

Release date: April 5, 2005

Throughout the centuries, royal mistresses have been worshiped, feared, envied, and reviled. They set the fashions, encouraged the arts, and, in some cases, ruled nations. Eleanor Herman's Sex with Kings takes us into the throne rooms and bedrooms of Europe's most powerful monarchs. Alive with flamboyant characters, outrageous humor, and stirring poignancy, this glittering tale of passion and politics chronicles five hundred years of scintillating women and the kings who loved them.

Curiously, the main function of a royal mistress was not to provide the king with sex but with companionship. Forced to marry repulsive foreign princesses, kings sought solace with women of their own choice. And what women they were! From Madame de Pompadour, the famous mistress of Louis XV, who kept her position for nineteen years despite her frigidity, to modern-day Camilla Parker-Bowles, who usurped none other than the glamorous Diana, Princess of Wales.

The successful royal mistress made herself irreplaceable. She was ready to converse gaily with him when she was tired, make love until all hours when she was ill, and cater to his every whim. Wearing a mask of beaming delight over any and all discomforts, she was never to be exhausted, complaining, or grief-stricken.

True, financial rewards for services rendered were of royal proportions -- some royal mistresses earned up to $200 million in titles, pensions, jewels, and palaces. Some kings allowed their mistresses to exercise unlimited political power. But for all its grandeur, a royal court was a scorpion's nest of insatiable greed, unquenchable lust, and vicious ambition. Hundreds of beautiful women vied to unseat the royal mistress. Many would suffer the slings and arrows of negative public opinion, some met with tragic ends and were pensioned off to make room for younger women. But the royal mistress often had the last laugh, as she lived well and richly off the fruits of her "sins."

From the dawn of time, power has been a mighty aphrodisiac. With diaries, personal letters, and diplomatic dispatches, Eleanor Herman's trailblazing research reveals the dynamics of sex and power, rivalry and revenge, at the most brilliant courts of Europe. Wickedly witty and endlessly entertaining, Sex with Kings is a chapter of women's history that has remained unwritten -- until now.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

When kings marry foreign strangers for dynastic or financial reasons and queens are trained in piety over sensuality, royal mistresses seem an inevitability. Kings had flings and extramarital relationships through much of European history, and in her first book, Herman offers, with relish and dry wit, a delightful overview of their sexual escapades. Her subjects are international, though France dominates and England gets a strong showing. It's a lively account, organized by topic e.g., "The Fruits of Sin—Royal Bastards." Herman weaves into a larger pattern the tales of recurrent figures, such as Louis XIV's mistress Athénaïs de Montespan and Madame de Pompadour, who is perhaps more famous than her royal lover, Louis XV. Fashions, love potions and cheerful conversation kept kings enthralled while mistresses made themselves wealthy, husbands acquiesced or simmered, courtiers wooed the mistresses and the public admired or ridiculed. A striking number of these relationships continued despite arguments and even the lack of sex. George II even felt it necessary to keep a mistress for his reputation despite actually loving his wife. Herman ends on a modern note, recounting how Camilla Parker-Bowles famously introduced herself to Prince Charles by noting that her great-grandmother had been his great-great-grandfather's mistress. Herman ends on a serious note, but her wit and perceptiveness will carry readers through this royally pleasurable romp.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Certainly a catchy title. And Herman's spirited history of royal "mistresshood" is certainly a catchy read. Her book is not a collective biography of mistresses of European kings through the ages, although she does pay relatively brief but nevertheless trenchant visits to famous ones and some not so famous. No, her book is more an accounting of the "art and science" of being a royal mistress, ranging in time from the "departing mists" of medieval Europe (before which "royal sin" was kept from public knowledge) to the present day (namely, Prince Charles' girlfriend, Camilla Parker-Bowles). Her treatment is a royal-mistresses-for-dummies look at male monarchs having sex on the side. She establishes a basic chronological history of the institution and assigns it a set of general characteristics (for instance, the paramour is "never to be tired, ill, complaining, or grief-stricken"). The author explains what mistresses got out of their relationships, and she looks into the issue of how mistresses traditionally got along (or didn't) with queen wives. History made as buoyant as fiction. Brad Hooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks (April 5, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060585447
• ASIN: B000GH2YQ0
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (89 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #589,955 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

62 of 62 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Mistress of all she surveys August 18, 2004

By E. A Solinas HALL OF FAMETOP 100 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

Okay, the title is going to make people giggle or cringe. But "Sex With Kings: 500 Years of Adultery, Power, Rivalry and Revenge" is a genuinely engrossing book, full of funny and tragic stories about royal mistresses through history. From Madame de Pompadour to Camilla Parker-Bowles, Eleanor Hermann studies these controversial -- sometimes fascinating -- women.

There are mistresses of all types: married and single, noble and low-born, beautiful and ugly, smart and stupid. Some befriended the queens, some attacked (and were attacked by) them. Some died alone and unhappy, some became nuns, and some lived in luxury to the end. Some were sweet and pious, and some were nightmares. Hermann studies why the kings got involved with these women, and how brains and sweet natures could mean a lot more than a pretty face. They could (sometimes) influence politics, succession, and their illegitimate children were sometimes better-loved than the king's legitimate kids.

The mistresses themselves are a colorful bunch, from the bratty, grasping Lola Montez, bawdy Nell Gwynn, pious Louise, and the legendary Madame de Pompadour. One of the most memorable is the grasping Madame de Montespan, who used black magic to ensnare the king, only to eventually drive him into the arms of a "batlike" governess.

Yes, it's called "Sex with Kings." But it's not all about sex -- in fact, it becomes clear that sex is only one factor. Hermann does a pretty good job of studying all angles of mistresshood. Sure, a mistress sometimes got the prettiest dresses and jewels, but she could be kicked out on a whim. There were dozens of setbacks, and only a very wily mistress could avoid them. The author also devotes attention to the mistress's children, her lover the king, and sometimes the mistress's husband. Even the unfortunate queen gets a chapter, as well as the occasional mistress who married the king.

But Hermann keeps it funny and light as well. One particularly funny story is of a plain German princess and a French transvestite prince -- both of whom ask how they can possibly sleep with the other. But she doesn't avoid the touchier issues of mistresses either, like the religious or political angles. Nor does she cater to double standards by blaming either the kings or mistresses.

Hermann finishes up the book on a promising note, pointing out recent marriages between royal men and the title-less women they love. But even if mistresshood is a thing of the past, the unique story of these women is well mapped-out in "Sex With Kinds." A fun and unique read.

33 of 33 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The king's mistress September 30, 2004

By Frank J. Konopka VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

This is a breezy telling of the somewhat spotted history of royal mistresses, from King David & Bathsheba down to Prince Charles & Camilla. There's a rather light-hearted approach to the subject, but it does go into detail of the lives of the women who seduced, or were seduced by, various monarchs. Interwoven in the tale is much of European history, and a lot of diplomacy which was occasionally (mis)managed by politically ambitious mistresses. The ends of mistresses varied greatly, from death in childbirth, to dismissal with pensions or not, to long lives with their husbands, to early death from illness, to being murdered. The story of the Duke and Dutchess of Windsor is particularly interesting, for it puts a different slant on that affair than I had ever considered, and for that bit of information alone I consider the book well worth reading.

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The Royal Bed Warmers August 31, 2004

By Artist Barbara Garro

Format:Hardcover

Sort of embarrassed,I stood in line with my "Sex with Kings" book for all to see in the hands of this prim prime-timer, hoping the transaction would go quickly.

Worried about the outside, I soon learned I had nothing to fear from the inside. "Sex with Kings" has no sexual details unless you consider one mention of a king's foot fettish sexy, but, oh is it rich with life details.

I discovered amazingly interesting history from the Biblical mistress Bathsheba to today's Camilla Parker Bowes. Some main mistresses ruled both the kings and their kingdoms for years while some along with their children nearly starved. One mistress was so hated for marrying her prince that the king ordered assassins to rip her to shreads in her own garden.

And, the author has an obsession with Madame Pompadour who appears throughout the book as if the icon for a king's mistress.

One mistress went to war with her king. Most mistresses were constantly at war with those who would unseat them.

Out in our Wild West one Bible studying Lola, King Ludwig's mistress who broke his heart, chased, caught and horsewhipped a man.

Can you imagine what one former mistress lectured about in 1857 at 37 in America and Europe and was well paid for it and attracted crowds?

Find out about the tossed aside mistress whose jealous and insane husband announced he was a tulip, planted his feet into the ground, and ordered his servants to water him, which they did. Learn the fates of the cast aside mistresses who went crawling back to their husbands.

All of this intrigue, gossip, backbiting, sabbotage, murder, poisoning, potions, betrayal, espionage among mostly stinking, dirty, flea-infested, lice-covered people who rarely bathed, except one mistress who insisted on a bath at least three times each week and put up with the stench of her king, makes the book a hard-to-put-down read.

The detailed life of a mistress: no peace, no rest, always at your best and subject to loss of royalty's attention at the drop of a petticoat. Yet, famous paintings of Agnes Sorel (Charles VII) grace some of the most famous museums in our time.

I learned what country's mistresses were the most powerful and which were the least, in general. What mistress who married after she was let go by the king told her sons that they have to take it on the chin if people call them sons of a whore because they are, but told them never to allow anyone to call them bastards because they were legitimate, unlike the king's children she birthed.

And wait until you hear about their financial rewards during and after their tour of bed duty, including the one who absconded with her booty and had it confiscated. Fascinating is the best word for this book.