There was no one less pitied than the courtesan of a dead king. Her carefully constructed position—which had been upheld only at the king’s insistence—suddenly collapsed, flinging her far below ordinary mortals. She was rarely permitted the right of the poorest citizen to participate in her lover’s funeral obsequies or visit the body lying in state.
Retribution from the royal family for perceived insults was often swift and merciless. While former mistresses, long since dismissed by the deceased monarch, were forgotten and permitted to rusticate gracefully, it was the king’s final mistress who bore the full resentment of the royal family, courtiers, and commoners. In 1350 when Alfonso XI of Castile died of the black plague, his mistress Leonor de Guzman was imprisoned by Alfonso’s long-ignored wife Queen Maria and murdered in her cell by the queen’s express order.
The following century was only slightly more civilized. After the death of Edward IV of England in 1483, court and public opinion were so violently hostile to his final mistress, Jane Shore, that she was forced to march through London wearing the white shroud and dunce cap of a penitent, holding a candle. Though there is evidence that she survived another forty years, a legend sprung up that she died on a dunghill, pelted by stones, and many subsequent royal mistresses were heartily wished the death of Jane Shore.
The new king, usually the son of the former monarch, often ached to punish the woman who had hurt his mother the queen. Charles VII’s son and heir Louis often bristled at the insults offered his long-suffering mother by his father’s mistress Agnes Sorel. One day in 1444, Louis, running into Agnes, cried, “By our Lord’s passion, this woman is the cause of all our misfortunes,” and punched her in the face.2 Perhaps it was lucky for Agnes that she predeceased her royal lover; one cannot imagine a peaceful existence for her under Louis XI.
In 1760, as King George II of England lay dying, his beloved mistress was nowhere near his deathbed. Lady Yarmouth, who knew the future George III was no admirer of hers, was quietly stuffing ten thousand pounds into a strongbox to take back to her native land of Hanover, where young George couldn’t get her.
Upon hearing of a monarch’s serious illness, friends deserted his mistress in waves in an effort to ingratiate themselves with the future king. Madame de Pompadour experienced this in 1757, when a madman stabbed Louis XV as he entered his carriage at Versailles. Though superficial, the wound in his side was bloody, and Louis thought death was imminent. Madame de Pompadour, whose rooms were always filled with simpering courtiers, suddenly found fewer visitors, and those with gloating faces. “They came to see how she took it,” wrote her lady’s maid.3 Her enemy the marquis d’Argenson could not conceal his glee when he reported, “She pretends not to feel her disgrace, but little by little people are forsaking her.”4
Crying, deserted, the royal mistress packed her bags and prepared to flee to her safe haven in Paris in the event of the king’s death. But after several days Louis, rallying, grabbed a cane, called “Don’t you come” to his son, and hobbled down the private staircase to her rooms.5 Madame de Pompadour’s position was once more secure, and the obsequious courtiers once again waited in her antechamber for an audience.
Death was a friend of sorts to a long-betrayed queen, serving up her husband cold on a platter, all hers for the first time since their honeymoon. She knew where he was, and he was in no position to escape her clutches to visit a mistress. The few days between the king’s death and his burial were often sacred to his neglected wife, and the last thing she wanted was his mistress to soil the sanctity.
Shortly after Edward VII’s death in 1910, his widow Queen Alexandra invited her friend Lord Esher to take one last look at the king’s body before the funeral. He was perplexed by her smiling gaiety until he realized this was the first time in nearly fifty years of marriage that Alexandra completely possessed her husband with no competition in sight. “After all,” she said over the corpse, “he always loved me best.”6
“Bitterness… will be but sweetness beside my great loss”
In 1559 Diane de Poitiers, the most powerful woman in France, lost everything in an instant when a wooden lance shattered the visor and pierced the eye of her lover Henri II in a joust. Both Diane and Queen Catherine had been cheering in the stands for the king when the accident occurred. As Henri’s limp body was carried away, blood gushing from his smashed visor and splinters driven deeply into his brain, his unloved queen became monarch in name and fact, ruling for her young son.
Diane tried to push her way through the crowds to see Henri but could not. He was carried on a litter to the palace, where she was barred admittance. Inconsolable, she returned to her house in Paris and tried desperately to get word of the king’s condition. None was brought to her. She could not know that her dying lover called out her name unceasingly, but Queen Catherine refused to send for her. Finally, fate had delivered full possession of the wayward king to his neglected wife, and she was not about to share it with the detested Diane.
The king endured several days of agony as surgeons probed his shattered eye socket. The queen coldly had four condemned criminals beheaded so their skulls could be probed in a fruitless effort to save her husband.
Ten days after the accident the queen sent a messenger to Diane demanding the crown jewels Henri had given her. Diane asked quietly, “Is the King dead?” The messenger replied that death was not far off. Diane responded, “So long as there remains a breath of life in him I wish my enemies to know that I do not fear them. As yet there is no one who can command me. I am still of good courage. But when he is dead I do not want to live after him, and all the bitterness that one could wish me will be but sweetness beside my great loss.”7
Two days later the king died, and another messenger was sent to Diane to retrieve the crown jewels and the keys to the king’s cabinets and desk. Diane returned a box containing the jewels and keys, as well as an inventory of its contents and a personal letter to the queen asking her pardon.
Diane was not permitted to attend Henri’s funeral but watched the procession pass under the window of her Paris house. Then she sat down and waited to be arrested. But the guards never came for her. Diane had ruled France prudently for the twelve years of Henri’s reign and could not be accused of treason. Perhaps more important, she had married her two daughters into families that were powerful allies of the queen. Catherine satisfied herself with claiming Chenonceaux, the fairy-tale castle Henri had given Diane, and defacing the countless “HD” ciphers Henri had placed all over his many châteaus. She either had them removed and burned or hired a wood carver to turn them into an “HC.”
Diane retired to the château of Anet, which she had inherited from her long-dead husband. Devoting her last years to good works, she built a hospital and a home for unwed mothers, orphans, and widows. She left money to several convents for Masses to be said for her soul. In 1566, seven years after Henri’s death, she died quietly after a brief illness at the age of sixty-five, still lovely. One courtier wrote, “It is sad that earth should hide that beautiful body.”8
“Let not poor Nelly starve”