Royalty in History

[Deleted]

mouse said:

guinastasia said:

Marie seems to be a real character, but I don't know if there are any good biographies of her. I'll keep that book you mentioned in mind.

The Last Romantic: Marie of Roumania by Hannah Pakula. Definitely worth a read. I see Daisy Pusher mentioned it. Pakula also wrote a book about Victoria's eldest daughter, the Empress Frederick. Her son was the infamous Kaiser Wilhelm II, the villain of WWI. I wish I could remember the name of it, oh...

Thank you, Amazon! An Uncommon Woman: The Empress Frederick.

Oh, and Daisy Pusher, Charlotte of Germany could also have inherited the disease from her father's family, which descended from Frederick the Great.

Kafka, I agree Victoria was quite a character, but I can't bring myself to hate her. I think she was a very complex, very troubled individual, and it's possible she suffered from mental illness. She obviously suffered from depression and had several nervous breakdowns. I don't really love her, nor do I hate her-I just find her fascinating.

I think the thing that angers me most about her was her selfishness with her offspring, and who they married. She pushed Victoria Melita of Edinburgh (Missy of Roumania's sister) to marry their cousin, the Duke of Hesse (brother of the Tsarina Alexandra), even though neither of them wanted it. Ernie, the Duke, was a flaming bisexual, and Ducky, as VM was called, was very snotty and tended to look down on everyone around her.

Also, her total indifference to Ireland, while she went on and on about how badly the Scots were treated-can we say hypocrite?

But then, I like how she managed to intimidate her grandson, the Kaiser, and how Otto von Bismarck (whom I LOATHE!) was terrified at the prospect of meeting with her. Or how she liked her tea with whiskey, was fond of nude and semi-erotic artwork, or how she hated religious zealots.

I do feel, though, that Albert shares some of the blame-he was a notorious prude-Victoria herself wasn't nearly as prudish as she's painted to be.

Yeah, Bertie was pretty cool. He had his faults, but I like him.


Besides, Kafka, I'll bet I get more flack for not liking Diana than you get for not liking Victoria!


Peggy Lane, I'm with you on Alix of Russia. She had a hell of a hard life-her brother died when she was just an infant, and her mother sunk into a deep depression, then she lost both her mother AND her baby sister at the same time. I've read she wasn't so much cold and arrogant as she was extremely, painfully shy. Nicky and Alix sucked big time as rulers, but as far as spouses and parents, they rocked. She was blamed for not having a son until Alexei, even though we know now that the blame THERE was Nicky's! Then her mother in law totally dominated her, her relatives made fun of her, etc. She just couldn't cut a break. She probably suffered from depression. I think she and Nicholas would have been better as minor royals, happily living somewhere with their kids, doing charity work and the like.

Oh, and Eddie, May's first fiance, wasn't hemophilliac-none of the Wales kids were. He died of influenza or something like that, but more importantly, he was probably borderline mentally retarded. I think she liked George a lot more, and was probably relieved.


For those who found the Duke and Duchess of Windsor romantic, you should look up Michael and Natasha: the Life and Love of Michael II, the Last of the Romanov Tsars. Michael, or "Misha" as he was called, married a twice-divorced commoner and had a similiar situation that the Duke of Windsor had.


Mouse-did you know that Alix of Britain also had a friendship with Joseph Merrick, aka the Elephant Man? She insisted on meeting him and then for the rest of his life, they were penpals. I thought that was sweet. But she was a TERRIBLE parent, even worse than Victoria. At least Beatrice got to marry-Alix made her daughter Victoria (Toria) her virtual slave.

-Phillip: a lot of his problems could stem from his upbringing. His mother was mentally ill, and his father was in prison and died when Phillip was young. He was raised by his grandmother and various older siblings and aunts and uncles.

[Daisy Pusher]

Oh, and Daisy Pusher, Charlotte of Germany could also have inherited the disease from her father's family, which descended from Frederick the Great.

Good point.

you should look up Michael and Natasha: the Life and Love of Michael II, the Last of the Romanov Tsars. Michael, or "Misha" as he was called, married a twice-divorced commoner and had a similiar situation that the Duke of Windsor had.

Oh yes! Misha and Natasha. Now there was love story. I think historians have, by and large, been fairly unkind about them. Misha was always seen as some dimbulb younger brother (not true) and Natasha as some scheming villainess who used him (also not true). The Crawfords' book, while overly florid in its description of the romance, I think, goes a long way in rehabilitating them. They relied on primary sources, including letters written by Misha and Natasha, as well as recollections of Natasha's descendants. And at the risk of sounding like a TOTAL flake, I actually was crushing on Misha for a while there! Who develops a crush on a man who's been dead for over 80 years?

Can I say this is my favorite thread? *Echoes Kafka's hurrah!*

[Peggy Lane]

Daisy, I have a feeling you might not be alone in this thread with long dead crushes. Ahem.

[Deleted]

Yeah, Misha was truly crushworthy. VERY handsome. I find it really awful that even with all the resurgence in Romanov popularity, and the rehabilitation and the like, they STILL haven't bothered to locate his remains.

My other dead royalty crush is King Alexander of Yugoslavia. Kind of nerdy, but I like nerdy.

[kafka]

guinastasia said:

-Phillip: a lot of his problems could stem from his upbringing. His mother was mentally ill, and his father was in prison and died when Phillip was young. He was raised by his grandmother and various older siblings and aunts and uncles.

Yep. Learning about Alice, his rather awful father, his really difficult childhood and the rest, was what softened my position on him. Plus, I don't think it's been easy for a man of his background and character to take a backseat as he's done, let alone as well as he's done. Which is usually the time to cue in the comments about the affairs and his racism, but I concede all that without question. As I said earlier, I've gone from a position of 100% dislike to only about 75%. That's rather good for me given how I feel about Charles and the Queen Mum. <shudder>

I don't think I have a crush on any dead royal but Pr. Philip was gorgeous as a young man. Mountbatten was very handsome too, although I didn't like him.

In terms of those whom I really like, I have a HUGE soft spot for Prinny. It's illogical and completely irrational, but I simply can't help it.

Amongst the women, I've mentioned my obsession with Cleopatra but I have to add a fascination with Livia and Josephine too. Somehow, few of the mid-19th century European royals intrigue me all that much but the ones from earlier centuries really do.

[Peggy Lane]

I'm fascinated by Julia. Did she marry Pompey out of love? Did she marry him in a conscious decision to improve her father's position? Was she a helpless pawn in a game where she had no control? Was it some combination of the above? I wasn't happy with McCollough's representation of Julia (all five or so pages), a little more passive than imagine her.

The articles were really good, Kafka. It brought up another reason why the Queen Mother grated; Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother. I read a book about titles that pointed out no other Dowager Queen had ever been addressed in this manner, and no one else had ever managed to work being called Queen twice in the same title.

Reading the jewel articles makes me rather sad that Mary and Wallis didn't really know each other. They shared a lot of characteristics; as bitter as DoW could be about his mother, I think he might just have given up a country to marry a woman a hell of a lot like her.

BTW, Philip was hot as hell. For YEARS. None of the kids are as attractive. I think it's the horseman thing.

[Deleted]

The Duke of Windsor never wanted to be King-I think it wasn't Wallis, it would have been someone else.

I didn't get the idea that Andrew of Greece was that bad, just that he wasn't there, and Alice had her breakdown and they split. He was lucky he had his grandmother-Victoria of Milford Haven. Count me as another one of her fans.

Oh, and one of my favorite stories about Bertie-he was eating lunch with a group and his grandchildren were there. David, the future Duke of Windsor tried to interupt their conversation when Bertie stopped him and told him to wait until they were finished with their comments-because it was rude to interupt. Well, they finished, and then he turned to David and asked him what he wanted to say. David said, "Grandpa, I wanted to tell you that there was a caterpillar in your salad, but never mind-you just ate it."

And May could be amusing sometimes. I liked how she told Lilibet how to behave-the future Queen was grabbing onto her sleeve to interupt something, and said, "Royalty speaking!" Her grandmother shook her head and said, "Royalty is NEVER an excuse to be rude." She also used to make mudpies with her granddaughter. I think that's pretty cool.

[kafka]

peggylane said:

I'm fascinated by Julia. Did she marry Pompey out of love? Did she marry him in a conscious decision to improve her father's position? Was she a helpless pawn in a game where she had no control? Was it some combination of the above? I wasn't happy with McCollough's representation of Julia (all five or so pages), a little more passive than imagine her.

I think it's impossible to really know, Peggy Lane. Writers contemporary to the time never focused on women unless they were hugely evil. Much of our view of the political players (and those in their orbit) comes from scraps of things without a context, or from Suetonius' Twelve Caesars. The latter's presentation and comments are problematic. Even apart from the significantly later time period in which he was writing (and the underlying biased, propaganda aspects), the view of women at the time was either paternalistic and condescending when they were sweet, pliable and biddable; or mysognistic, threatened and resentful when they were strong, powerful or independent. As a result, most of the time when writers spoke about women it was because they were in the latter category: Cleopatra, Livia, Messalina, etc.

Women like Julia didn't warrant discussion because they were traditional and without power in their own right. Thus, dismissable and unimportant. If they were written about, it hasn't really survived in any significant way. Certainly not in a way sufficient to create a true portrait of their character or motivations.

The misogynistic, male-derived and male-biased view of women at the time is one of the many reasons why we have such a distorted image of Cleopatra. Of course, the main one is that Octavian's propaganda machine went into over-drive and those politically-motivated slurs have lasted throughout the ages. People think of Cleopatra as this sluttish, gorgeous temptress but she wasn't really. Actually, she was so much more. She was the first really powerful political female. She was politically astute, pragmatic and a force in her own right, like no woman before her. She spoke 7 or 8 languages, knew math, sciences, military strategy, philosophy, wines, literature, art and more. She created perfume, among other things, and is really the person who instigated the Julian calendar we have today.

No woman until Empress Theodora of Byzantium came close to approaching her in power. And, like Cleopatra, Theodora was equally hated with attempts to bring her down by relying on sexual rumours and political propaganda. Until Elizabeth I, no powerful woman avoided that situation and, arguably, Elizabeth only managed to get away with it because she was the "Virgin Queen." Even then, threatened males who resented the power of a woman over them tried to manipulate her through marriage, in order to reestablish the power of balance. And when that failed, they resorted back to the Octavian method of sexual rumours to tarnish and weaken the woman's power. For example, claims that she slept with Dudley & whatshisface.

Cleopatra used sex as a weapon, and she paid the price for it. But she's so much more than the one dimensional aspect that has come down through the ages. IMO, she would be the ideal first martyr to the feminist cause.

Erm..... I think I digressed from your original question. My apologies. It's hard to think of Julia when a contemporary of hers is so much my favorite, and when that contemporary shines so brightly that everything else is dulled in comparison.

BTW, Philip was hot as hell. For YEARS. None of the kids are as attractive. I think it's the horseman thing.

Nah, it's not the horseman thing because he'd have been sex on a stick even if he never moved from a couch!

[Mouse]

Theodora is a truly fascinating figure. I'm aware that a lot of the sordid tales about her come from Procopius's The Secret History, but a lot of historians are skeptical about that work, yes?

[dissolvedgirl]

kokopelli said:

chatchien said:

And I always thought that it was very interesting that the mad disease of porphyria that George III had has never showed up downline in any of his supposed descendents.

Porphyria did in fact show up again. QV's eldest granddaughter, Charlotte (Vicky's daughter), and her daughter Feodora were both apparent porphyria sufferers. Feo was an only child and herself died childless.

It also seems to have cropped up a lot closer to home for the royals than this. Before his death William of Gloucester (the current Duke's older brother) was apparently diagnosed with it, prompting a flurry of testing amongst other European royals. The results of those tests aren't known of course so who knows if it might not still be lurking.