500 Years of Adultery, Power, Rivalry, and Revenge, Book Review Example

Theme

In 500 Years of Adultery, Power, Rivalry, and Revenge, author Eleanor Herman seeks to fuse two worlds, that of the historically accurate and informative novel, and the more sensational crowd-pleaser (as evidenced by the book’s main title of, Sex with Kings). Through a not necessarily chronological relating of fact-based anecdote, the thrust of the book is how mistresses and royal paramours have wielded great power over centuries of rule, primarily in the Western, European seats of monarchy. Her theme is adamantly open-minded in regard to the censure such women have generated in legend, and Herman neither shies away from condemning ‘bad’ mistresses nor fails to pay tribute to the good accomplished by strongly influential ones. Above all, the book is centered on the inescapable fact that regal mistresses have always played a vital part in historical governing, and that history itself is obligated to give them their due.

Substance of the Book

Herman’s work is clearly the result of some painstaking research, much of it necessarily a digging for material often only marginally available. It is one thing to reasonably assume that a Merovingian king of the Dark Ages had mistresses; it is quite another to find any surviving evidence of this in the form of letters or documentation. The career and enormous influence of the 12^th century’s Eleanor of Aquitaine, for example, has always been problematic for scholars and historians simply because there are so few records to be found dating from her rule as queens of both France and England. Not the least of the reasons for this lies in the illiteracy rates rampant within even the monarchy. Then, when the subject at hand is, as in the case, expected by all concerned parties and the public at large to be unfit for open discussion, and certainly not worthy of recording in governmental accounts, evidence beyond a certain point is reduced to traces of hearsay.

This dilemma notwithstanding, Herman engages in some reasonable speculation about the roles of mistresses in the Middle Ages and draws some very general, but not inherently unfounded, conclusions based on what we know of the epochs themselves. The thousand or so years in which the Roman Empire was falling and then collapsed completely, she points out, are shrouded in tales of primitive rules and raw Christian principles. From Herman’s own introduction: “The rise of the royal mistress in European courts was sudden, springing up from departing medieval mists” (2005, p.1). The statement, while excusable, sets the tone. It is not actual history being related here and the author is in fact making an unsupported assertion; as there were kings throughout those centuries, it is likely that there were consorts as well, and that we have no record of them by no means translates to their non-existence, or even lack of power.

However, Herman does not dwell in such murky terrain long and she moves quickly into the realms of what has been historically established. She begins her account of the world’s great mistresses with Alice Perrers, courtesan of England’s Edward III in the 14^th century. The reader can sense Herman’s joy in having evidence, and in particular evidence consisting of unbridled greed on the part of Miss Perrers.

Throughout the book, Herman is unconcerned with a chronological detailing of the famous paramours in European history. As her tapestry is loosely set between the 14^th and 19^th centuries, she instead chooses to use various women and anecdotes surrounding them to underline elements of the whole ‘royal mistress’ experience. Chapters are broken up by aspect, as it were: ‘Rivals for the King’s Love – the Mistress and the Queen’, ‘Cuckold to the King – the Mistress’ Husband’, ‘Political Power Between the Sheets’, etc. While many of these subjects are intrinsically intertwined, she adheres as faithfully as possible to the heading. Moreover, there is a sensible and pleasing trajectory to the contents. Herman moves from matters of royal lust and early complications within such arrangements to the ensuing issues of bastard children, the deaths of the monarchs, and what lives such women may carve out afterward.

In all chapters Herman maintains a voice that is appealing, accessible, and thoroughly non-judgmental. She has obviously taken the stance that these women were pivotal to history and deserving of attention, and she raises no moral objections whatsoever, seeing that as clearly irrelevant. The only scruples she ever displays are directed at behaviors within the confines of the practices themselves; a mistress who deceives her royal lover is not presented in a good light, as the active social benefits encouraged by a Madame Pompadour are viewed as just that, irrespective of the lady’s infamous reputation. There is no sense of ‘sin’ in Herman’s accounts, but only a pragmatic appraisal of a time-honored arrangement.

Then, Herman delves into issues seemingly peripheral to the role of mistress but vital to its maintenance and success. There is the matter of offspring, clearly an urgent matter in days long before contraception could be effectively practiced, and Herman devotes a chapter to the subject. She understands that modern readers may not realize how differently these things were viewed in past ages, and particularly when the father in question was a powerful ruler, so the reader comes to understand that a bastard state was in fact often a great mark of distinction. “There were advantages to a king’s having bastards. The marriages of bastards could be used to cement alliances, and, most importantly, bastards were greatly loyal. Being illegitimate, they were almost entirely dependent upon the king…” (Leese 25). In this Herman is fortunate, for history is replete with documentation regarding these occurrences. In all European courts and for centuries, the bastard was a valuable pawn in international affairs. Girls in particular were useful in easing tensions between nations through diplomatically arranged marriages. The female bastard may not hope for a prince, but an arch duke was not out of the question.

More to the point, Herman cites this potentially troublesome arena to illustrate how, as with the role of mistress itself, something normally damaging to a woman’s life could be used to great purpose. Many kings had queens who could not successfully produce heirs and, in what is perhaps the most famous instance of a courtesan rising to power, it was the presumed fertility of Anne Boleyn that brought about Henry VIII’s break with Roman authority, his divorce from Catherine of Aragon, and the founding of the Church of England. Global power balances shifted on a monumental scale, thousands died for religious differences, and all of it stemmed from the allure of a mistress who would probably get pregnant.

Herman also examines the harsh practicalities of the royal mistress’ career when the king either loses interest in her or dies. In the former instance, Herman wisely keeps to those paramours who endured, if only because it would be virtually impossible to document the untold numbers of women who pleased kings on a very temporary basis. Then, there is of course greater interest in the women who knew how to survive in such turbulent seas, and who in fact created a prestige for the unofficial position. Of these, as Herman notes, Madame de Pompadour reigns supreme in history. For nearly twenty years this woman, mistress of Louis XV, so entrenched herself in the ruling life of 18^th century France that the title actually became official, and the king had the court and the nation recognize her as maitresse-en-titre, or ‘titled lady’.  Had Pompadour survived the king, she would assuredly have lived in great state, having secured both money and rank in the French court.

All in all, Herman’s book covers the many complexities inherent in the life of a woman whose main objective is survival in a world where numberless opponents and rivals seek her downfall. As the author amply notes, mere sexual jealousy was rarely the motive for schemes to dislodge the king’s mistress; it was far more a matter of the enormous sway such women held over the monarchs, and laws and policies abound in Europe today which were in fact composed, not by laboriously earnest ministers, but at the instigation of the lady in bed with the king. From the trivial to the world-changing, Herman’s book addresses the fascinations and impacts of what is a bygone occupation.

Review

There are two major difficulties within Herman’s work, and the first is that of scope. Many of the women she briefly alludes to or draws in a short anecdote have histories which scholars have seen fit to treat in whole volumes. The career of Madame de Pompadour alone fills library shelves and, while it is acknowledged that her role in Herman’s book is intended to serve as one point in a line, no cursory glance at the woman can begin to capture her impact on France and Europe: “It is a life of business, intrigues, negotiations, a responsible part in politics, public exercise of power…of the interests of the nation and the will of the king” (Douglas, Du Barry 22). Herman is evidently aware of this but gives it little room in her pages.

More surprising is that no space is devoted at all to Anne Boleyn or her sister, Mary, both of whom were mistresses to Henry VIII, and both of whom had an unparalleled effect on history. This oversight may have been intended; it may be that Herman felt such a direct delving into global politics, even those at least partially set in motion by mistresses, would be taking her book into an unwelcome and more strictly historical direction. Nonetheless, these exclusions alone undermine the very point she wishes to make, that of the royal mistress being a highly influential character in the life of a king, and consequently his nation.

The other issue lies with the two worlds mentioned in the beginning here, which Herman seeks to reconcile. With a name like, ‘Sex with Kings’, it is obvious that the book is not intended to live on as a scholarly reference, and there is nothing at all wrong in wanting to address a significant factor in history in an entertaining way. In a very palpable manner Herman deliberately ‘dumbs down’ her own research, presenting even hard-edge accounts in a lighthearted and easily readable fashion. She wants to inform but she wants to please and captivate as well, and the dual purposes work against each other. The casual reader is a little uninterested in even the minor forays into historical fact, and the more serious reader is impatient with only bits and pieces of fascinating history. To her credit, Herman accomplishes her goal here and there, and the book is, on an over-all level, an enjoyable read. It is not pulp and, again, her facts are valid and well-researched.

Nonetheless, the fact remains that the author chose to write a single volume on a subject which has immense range, both chronologically and in impact on the world as we know it. In doing this she cuts corners; she has no alternative. Similarly, the random placement of anecdotes, set in no single chapter devoted to one nation or century, weakens the effect of the book as a whole. It is frustrating to see a subject as potentially riveting as the role of the mistress’ husband in court circles be addressed in a surface manner; it is too interesting for that and it cries out for a deeper look. Ultimately, as pleasurable as her book is, Herman has chosen a truly fascinating concept as her subject matter and, largely through the impossibility of the task itself, failed to live up to its challenges.

Works Cited   

Douglas, R.B., and Du Barry, J.B. The Life and Times of Madame du Barry. London, UK: Smithers, L., 1896. Print.

Herman, E. Sex with Kings: 500 Years of Adultery, Power, Rivalry, and Revenge. New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers, 2005. Print.

Leese, T.A. Blood Royal: Issue of the Kings and Queens of Medieval England, 1066-1399: The Normans and the Plantagenets. Westminster, ML: Heritage Books, Inc., 1996. Print.