Sex with the Queen

by Eleanor Herman

  Much to Duke Cosimo’s dismay, Charles of Lorraine visited Florence frequently. Over the years the duchess took lowborn lovers and was even thought to have invited strapping Gypsy youths into her bed. Duke Cosimo averted his eyes to men of negligible rank; but when he found a steamy love letter from Charles of Lorraine, he was aghast at her betrayal with a worthy rival.

  In 1670 Grand Duke Ferdinand died. Cosimo was now grand duke and Marguerite grand duchess. But despite all the glory of her new position, by 1672 Marguerite had had enough. While visiting a Tuscan town, she wrote her husband that she would never return to him. She informed Louis XIV that there was no point in continuing the marriage—both she and her husband had committed adultery at least fifty times. Abandoning her three children, she wanted permission to return to Paris where she could have fun. But Louis XIV did not want her back in France as solid proof of a humiliating French failure at the Tuscan court. And the Tuscans did want her in Tuscany as their grand duchess, not a Tuscan failure at the French court. Louis informed her that if a French princess left her husband to return to France, her new home would be the Bastille.

  By sheer strength of will, the indomitable Marguerite finally got her way. Exhausted by her wrangling, in 1675 Louis XIV and Grand Duke Cosimo III decided she could return to France if she lived quietly in a Paris convent away from court. But Marguerite was not the kind of woman to live quietly in a convent. She left the convent at will, attending parties at court and ridiculing her husband and the entire Tuscan nation to the delighted laughter of French courtiers. She ran up huge bills which her husband was expected to pay. And she took her pick of lovers from among servants, stable boys, and the wandering fortune-tellers who visited her.

  “No hour of the day passes when I do not desire your death and wish that you were hanged…,” she informed Cosimo in what must be one of the nastiest letters ever written. “What aggravates me most of all is that we shall both go to the devil and then I shall have the torment of seeing you even there…. I swear by what I loathe above all else, that is yourself, that I shall make a pact with the devil to enrage you and to escape your madness. Enough is enough, I shall engage in any extravagance I so wish in order to bring you unhappiness….If you think you can get me to come back to you, this will never happen, and if I came back to you, beware! Because you would never die but by my hand.”8

  When a strict new prioress at the convent prevented her from coming and going at will, Marguerite set fire to the building as an excuse to move out. Servants reported one day seeing the grand duchess of Tuscany chase the prioress around the convent with an axe in one hand and a pistol in the other, swearing that she would kill her. An exasperated Louis XIV finally forbade her coming to court. Marguerite continued spewing her venom at the Medici family and the Tuscan people until her death at the age of seventy-six in 1721. She was one of the few princesses ever to break free from the slavery of an unhappy marriage, and she had done so only through a fearless toxic nastiness that verged on the psychotic.

  Princesses better natured than Marguerite had a harder time breaking their chains. Most never tried at all and attempted to find joy in their children and peace in prayer. Those who did seek escape often paid a heavy penalty.

  SOPHIA DOROTHEA OF CELLE, HEREDITARY PRINCESS OF HANOVER

  The Prisoner of Ahlden

  As Shakespeare wrote, “The fittest time to corrupt a man’s wife is when she’s fallen out with her husband.”

  After six miserable years of marriage, Hereditary Princess Sophia Dorothea of Hanover had definitely fallen out with her husband, Hereditary Prince George Louis, and was ripe for corruption.

  On March 1, 1688, the twenty-six-year-old Swedish mercenary Philip Christoph, count of Königsmark, charged into a ballroom at the Leine Palace and commandeered her heart. A swaggering man of military bearing, he swept her a low bow, flashed a winning smile, and asked if she recalled that many years earlier they had briefly played together at her father’s little court of Celle.

  Königsmark’s father had brought him to Celle to receive military training at the age of sixteen. He had flirted with the pretty little princess, pulled her sled over the snow, and traced with her their names on steamy palace windows with the words Forget me not. But soon he had been called to new training at other courts. In the intervening years he had launched a successful career as rakehell adventurer, fearless soldier, and irresistible seducer of women, bouncing around the courts and battlefields of Europe.

  Standing before him once again, her Serene Highness didn’t answer. Perhaps, remembering those happy carefree days before her terrible marriage, a sob rose in her throat and tears welled in her eyes, and it was all she could do to force them back down.

  The threads of Sophia Dorothea’s unhappy fate were woven years before her birth. Her father, George William, next in line to become duke of Hanover, had been appalled at the royal bride selected for him. Princess Sophia, daughter of the Palatine king of Bohemia, was a humorless intellectual who steeped herself in daily doses of philosophy. Her handsome mannish face and loud critical voice absolutely terrified George William.

  Hemmed in on all sides, in 1658 the unfortunate groom decided to cede his inheritance to his younger brother, Ernst August, if only he would take the unpalatable bride along with it. His ambitious brother was delighted, as long as George William signed a document promising he would never marry and sire rival heirs. On the surface, at least, Princess Sophia accepted philosophically the fact that she had been handed over like an unwanted bundle of clothes from one bridegroom to the next. But hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, and the spurned princess, who had been deeply in love with George William, felt herself very scorned indeed.

  Accepting the tiny duchy of Celle as his kingdom in return for the large domain of Hanover, at first George William contented himself with patronizing prostitutes on his yearly visits to Carnival in Venice. But in 1665 George William fell violently in love with a penniless but dazzling Huguenot refugee, Eleonore d’Olbreuse, a woman of dark bouncing curls, pretty pink ribbons, and soft smiles, the exact opposite of the frightening Sophia. To keep his promise to his brother, George William married her morganatically, a union which was sanctioned by the church but did not bestow legitimacy or inheritance rights on the children.

  Duchess Sophia, looking down her long regal nose, detested Eleonore, the woman George William had preferred to her, and sneeringly called her “the little clot of dirt.”9 After Sophia Dorothea was born in 1666, Eleonore worried about the girl’s future and began agitating for an official marriage and the child’s legitimization. In 1676 Ernst August and Sophia, now secure in their position at Hanover and boasting several strapping sons, agreed that one puny girl would be no threat. They permitted George William to officially marry Eleonore and legitimize their daughter, thereby making Sophia Dorothea the richest heiress in Germany.

  But just to be sure, they placed a high-level spy at George William’s court to report back to them his every move. Count Andreas Gottlieb von Bernstorff, prime minister of Celle, became George William’s most trusted adviser. Clever, smooth, and deceitful, he convinced the duke of Celle to follow his advice even as he pocketed large bribes from Hanover.

  Sophia Dorothea grew into a flirtatious beauty, with thick dark hair, large velvety dark eyes, and a flawless porcelain complexion. Proud of her tiny hands and feet, she had an exquisite figure and moved with exceptional grace. She was an avid reader and talented embroiderer, played the harpsichord beautifully, and loved to sing and dance. An only child, she was spoiled and admired, and gave free rein to her spirited emotions.

  There was talk of a marriage between Sophia Dorothea and the future king of Denmark but Duchess Sophia, her blue blood curdling at the thought of seeing her enemy’s daughter a queen, persuaded her friend the reigning queen of Denmark to break it off. “Fancy a king’s son for that bit of a bastard!” she cried.10 But neither did Ernst August approve of the girl’s engagement to the heir of his rival, the duk
e of Wolfenbüttel. Ernst August became apoplectic at the thought of so much property going out of the family, property which would remain in the family if Sophia Dorothea were to marry his son, her first cousin, George Louis.

  The day the Wolfenbüttel engagement was to be announced at a large feast, Duchess Sophia, somewhat against her will, was dispatched galloping to Celle to convince George William of the advantages offered by a marriage to her son. Sophia Dorothea, she pointed out, would eventually reign, not over the tiny state of Wolfenbüttel-Celle but over the huge domain of Hanover-Osnabrück-Celle. In addition, she might even one day become queen of England, as Duchess Sophia was the granddaughter of King James I and the English succession was uncertain. George William, intrigued by the advantages in both property and prestige, agreed.

  The new groom who trailed such mouthwatering possibilities in his wake was a dolt, unprepossessing in appearance, intelligence, and character. Six years older than Sophia Dorothea, George Louis was known as “the pig snout” in Hanover. His own mother didn’t like him and finally gave up trying to teach him literature and refinements. A poor student, he lived only for hunting and war. His parents had sent him to the court of Louis XIV to polish him up, but he returned to Germany just as tarnished as ever. He was sullen and slow, and behind his cold exterior lurked a relentless vindictiveness.

  Duchess Sophia found the marriage demeaning but realized the financial benefits. “One hundred thousand thalers a year is a goodly sum to pocket,” she wrote her niece Elizabeth Charlotte, duchesse d’Orléans, of the annual sum paid by the bride’s dowry, “without speaking of a pretty wife, who will find a match in my son George Louis, the most pigheaded, stubborn boy who ever lived, and who has round his brains such a thick crust that I defy any man or woman ever to discover what is in them. He does not care much for the match itself, but one hundred thousand thalers a year have tempted him as they would have tempted anybody else.”11

  Upon hearing the sudden news that her bridegroom would not be the lovable admirer of Wolfenbüttel but her repulsive cousin, Sophia Dorothea screamed, took the diamond-framed miniature of George Louis that Duchess Sophia had brought for her, and threw it against the wall. “I will not marry the pig snout!” she cried.12 But her father angrily insisted, and her mother, though trembling at the thought of her daughter’s future with such a husband and such a mother-in-law, was forced to acquiesce. Taken downstairs to kiss the hand of her future mother-in-law, Sophia Dorothea fainted dead away in her mother’s arms.

  A few days later when, with a pale and tearstained face, she was presented to George Louis, she fainted again. Nor was George Louis pleased with the betrothal; he believed that Sophia Dorothea was a bastard and her mother little short of a prostitute. Indeed, the only thing the bride and groom had in common was their disgust at the marriage, both having been raised to detest each other. The wedding was held on November 21, 1682, in the chapel of Celle Castle as a torrential downpour beat against the stained-glass windows. Pale and trembling, the sixteen-year-old bride looked as if she were walking to her execution. Distant and cold, George Louis looked as if he were her executioner. The mother of the bride sobbed loudly, and the mother of the groom was philosophically resigned. Only the two fathers were beaming, happy at the thought of the property settlement.

  Carting her dolls in a coffer behind her, Sophia Dorothea and her twenty-six-year-old maid of honor, Eleonore de Knesebeck, lumbered down the road to Hanover. Though her new home was only thirty miles away, Sophia Dorothea immediately found that Hanover was in fact a world away from her carefree childhood at Celle.

  The court of Hanover was a tawdry imitation of Versailles. Like Versailles, the Leine Palace boasted gilded rooms with tall mirrors and crystal chandeliers, carved marble hearths, and gleaming parquet floors, but on a lesser scale. Aping their French counterparts with a bit less aplomb, Hanoverian courtiers shone in silks and satins, sparkled in diamond buttons and shoe buckles. And like Versailles, Hanover prized horses far above cleanliness, which is evidenced by an inventory showing some six hundred carriage horses but only two washerwomen for the entire court.

  Sophia Dorothea’s mother-in-law scolded her frequently for her lack of etiquette. Her own husband was coldly formal to her; sometimes she saw him looking at her as if he were repulsed. He may have become more concerned about his marriage when a famous French fortune-teller predicted that if he were in any way responsible for his wife’s death, he himself would die within the year.

  Sophia Dorothea’s bright spirit faded in this gloomy environment of cold ceremony and constant criticism. Sometimes it revived over dinner when she would wax gay and witty, slicing and dicing her dull, plodding husband with her sharp repartee. George Louis, highly sensitive to criticism, started to resent his quicker-witted wife. He placed spies among her servants who reported back to him her every utterance, and the two began to indulge in loud and bitter arguments.

  After Sophia Dorothea had a son she named George in 1683, she sheathed her rapier wit and made efforts to please the father and grandparents of her child. Dressed beautifully for court events, smiling and ingratiating to all, she eventually found favor with George Louis who, even if he did not love her, was polite and sexually faithful. In 1686 she had a daughter named after her.

  Perhaps things would have gone well had it not been for Duke Ernst August’s mistress, Countess Clara Elizabeth Platen. The daughter of Count Philip von Meysenbug, a penniless adventurer, as a girl Clara Elizabeth had been taken by her father to various courts in Europe to see if she could find a profitable place as royal mistress. She first stormed Versailles, but Louis XIV’s mistress Athénaïs de Montespan climbed the battlements and defended her position valiantly, hounding her retreating enemy from the field. Next she went to England to besiege Charles II, but his mistress Louise de Kéroualle spotted her advance and used all the weapons in her well-stocked arsenal to vanquish the intruder. Luckless in capturing the big guns, the raven-haired beauty lowered her expectations and decided to invade the court of Ernst August, which offered less competition and a great preponderance of gentlemen. And here she gathered the laurels of victory at last.

  The flirtatious young Clara Elizabeth soon married Herr Franz Ernst von Platen, a minor court official. But the woman who had set her sights on Louis XIV and Charles II was not satisfied with such mediocre status. Her husband’s position at court served as an avenue to insinuate her way into the good graces of the ducal family. Within a short time Madame Platen took on twin responsibilities—lady-in-waiting to Duchess Sophia, and mistress to Duke Ernst August. If the duke ruled Hanover, the stormy Madame Platen ruled the duke, who named her compliant husband a baron, a count, and eventually prime minister. To win the gentlemen at court to her side—including George Louis—in the evenings she turned her home into a tavern, gambling den, and bawdy house where even in the midst of prostitutes she could shine unrivaled as the only noble lady present.

  After a life of hard living, by the age of thirty-four Countess Platen maintained her position as the handsomest woman at court with increasing difficulty. What she lost in looks she made up for in raiment—she hid her increasing plumpness under exquisite gold-embroidered brocades, gleaming silks, and the richest velvets, all adorned with snowy white lace. She wore so many fine large diamonds that she blazed like a galaxy—diamond pins in her hair; a diamond brooch on her breast; diamond earrings, rings, bracelets, and shoe buckles. Her toilette became more complex. She piled quantities of shining false curls on her head, spritzed herself with cloying French perfume, and painted on an astonishingly thick mask of makeup. And so when the sixteen-year-old Sophia Dorothea arrived at court—fresh, unsullied, and luminously beautiful—Countess Platen cast her a lingering venomous glance.

  Determined to vanquish her young rival, the countess set about finding George Louis a mistress and settled on the beautiful blond Melusina von Schulenburg, a poor girl of noble birth. The countess threw the two of them together constantly and coached Melusina on
how to win over the prince. Though too slender to appeal to most men of the time, and nearly a head taller than George Louis, Melusina soon became the prince’s mistress. He was seen riding and hunting with his new love and appeared publicly at the theater with her. At the same time he pointedly neglected his wife. Countess Platen’s arrow had hit its mark.

  Indignant to hear that her husband had a mistress, Sophia Dorothea complained to his parents and hers. Her mother was sympathetic to her plight. But Count Bernstorff, her father’s prime minister, now firmly in the pay of Countess Platen, had been feeding George William stories of Sophia Dorothea’s pride and temper, her sharp tongue and wifely disobedience. Impatient at her protests, the duke of Celle advised his daughter harshly to ignore her husband’s infidelity, as such things were beneath the notice of a hereditary princess; furthermore, the situation was entirely due to her own bad temper. He suggested she imitate the noble example of her mother-in-law, Duchess Sophia, who was too great a lady to bother about her husband’s affair with Countess Platen.

  The betrayed wife found more sympathy with her in-laws, who feared that a disruption of the marriage might stop the payment of Sophia Dorothea’s dowry of one hundred thousand thalers a year. But when they asked George Louis to become more circumspect with his mistress, he became enraged and went out of his way to treat his wife brutally. She, in turn, went out of hers to publicly mock her husband and his mistress, ridiculing the disparity in their height, which particularly galled him.

  Trapped in her palace like an animal in a cage, Sophia Dorothea led a miserable life until that night when Count Philip von Königsmark strutted into the ballroom and playfully greeted her. It was as if the clouds parted, the fog lifted, and a glorious ray of sunshine warmed her chilled soul. Her heart beat a little harder, her breathing came a little faster. The boring little court was suddenly alive with the sparkling Swede.