Medieval Royal Mistresses

Mischievous Women who Slept with Kings and Princes

Julia A Hickey

• Publisher: Pen and Sword History
• Year: 2022
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9781399081955
• Subtopic: European Medieval History
• Index: History

Marriage for Medieval kings was about politics, power and the provision of legitimate heirs. Mistresses were about love, lust and possession. It was a world that included kidnap, poison, murder, violation, public shaming and accusations of witchcraft. Ambition and quick wits as well as beauty were essential attributes for any royal mistress. Infamy, assassination and imprisonment awaited some royal mistresses who tumbled from favour while others disappeared into obscurity or respectable lives as married women and were quickly forgotten. Meet Nest of Wales, born in turbulent times, whose abduction started a war; Alice Perrers and Jane Shore labelled 'whores' and 'wantons'; Katherine Swynford who turned the medieval world upside down with a royal happy-ever-after and Rosamund Clifford who left history and stepped into legend. Discover how serial royal womanisers married off their discarded mistresses to bind their allies close. Explore the semi-official roles of some mistresses; the illegitimate children who became kings; secret marriage ceremonies; Edith Forne Sigulfson and Lady Eleanor Talbot who sought atonement through religion as well as the aristocratic women who became the victims of royal lust. Most of the shameful women who shared the beds of medieval kings were silenced, besmirched or consigned to the footnotes of a patriarchal worldview but they negotiated paths between the private and public spheres of medieval court life - changing history as they went.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• FM
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Illustrations
• Author’s Note
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 Queen Emma and Ælfgifu of Northampton
• Chapter 2 Edith Swanneck and her Daughter Gunnhild
• Chapter 3 Herleva of Falaise
• Chapter 4 Maud Peverel
• Chapter 5 Robert of Gloucester’s Mother and Ansfride of Seacourt
• Chapter 6 Nest of Wales
• Chapter 7 Sybilla Corbet
• Chapter 8 Edith Forne Sigulfson and the Unknown Mothers of King Henry I’s Illegitimate Children
• Chapter 9 Elizabeth de Vermondois and her Daughter Isabel de Beaumont
• Chapter 10 Eleanor of Aquitaine, Ykenai, Annabel de Baliol and the Count of Brittany’s Daughter
• Chapter 11 Rosamund Clifford, Ida de Tosny, Alys of France, Nesta and BelleBelle
• Chapter 12 Ela de Warenne, Constance, Clemencia and Agatha de Ferrers and Isabella of Angoulême
• Chapter 13 Magna Carta Mistresses
• Chapter 14 Piers Gaveston, the Tour de Nesle Affair and the Consequences of Adultery
• Chapter 15 Hugh Despenser, Roger Mortimer, Unhappy Marriages and the Further Consequences of Adultery
• Chapter 16 Katherine Mortimer and Margaret Drummond
• Chapter 17 Alice Perrers
• Chapter 18 Katherine Swynford
• Chapter 19 Elizabeth Wayte
• Chapter 20 Lady Eleanor Talbot Butler and Elizabeth Woodville
• Chapter 21 Jane Shore
• Glossary
• Appendices: English Kings, their Mistresses and Children Listed in Chronological Order
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Acknowledgements
• Plates Section