Trashy Royals

It's probably no surprise that in a family with as much internal intrigue as the Bonapartes had, Napoleon had a favorite among his three sisters. Pauline Bonaparte was eleven years younger than her brother, but was similarly ambitious and was generally happy to take part in his plans for himself and her. A natural beauty with a flirtatious, if slightly sinister, reputation, Napoleon pushed her into two strategic marriages, and ended up with the titles Princess consort of Sulmona and of Rossano - this through her second, unhappy marriage - and Princess of Guastalla. This title referred to a Duchy her brother granted her in Italy, but upon finding out that the place was basically backwater, she organized its sale to Parma for six million francs and a courtesy title. Pauline was the only one of Napoleon's siblings who visited him in exile, and their bond was so strong that there were rumors of incest throughout their lives. Pauline enjoyed them, believing that such stories implied that she had far more influence over her brother than she probably really did. As a woman who constantly courted scandal and attention, Pauline made an important contribution to the Italian art world when, during her marriage to Prince Camillo Borghese, she commissioned sculptor Antonio Canova to create a statue of her as the goddess Venus, and insisted on posing nude in Catholic Rome while the work was produced. Upon the Venus Victrix's arrival at their home at Palazzo Salviati-Borghese in Florence, Camillo immediately had it moved to a storage area, far from the eyes of guests. Listen ad-free at patreon.com/trashyroyalspodcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Napoleon's youngest brother Jerome was an endless headache for him. Lacking ambition but loving luxury, he fled a stint in the French navy (after nearly sparking a war with England) for America to wait out his brother's wrath. It was in Baltimore that he met the woman who would become his first wife, socialite Elizabeth Patterson. Marrying her against both her father's wishes and his brother's permission created quite a conundrum for all involved. Worse, when the young couple, now pregnant, tried to return to Europe to smooth things over, Jerome abandoned Betsy in order to be brought back into the fold - and eventually made King of Westphalia. Betsy gave birth to their son in London, the only harbor that would let her ship dock, and returned to America to build a fortune through canny real estate investing. She and her son spent decades splitting their time between America and Europe, where the Bonaparte women decided - finally - that they liked the headstrong Betsy, though she and Bo really wanted nothing to do with them. Perhaps that was the secret all along. Listen ad-free at patreon.com/trashyroyalspodcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When it came time for Napoleon to find a successor to Josephine as his wife, pickings were slimmer than you might expect. Russia's Alexander I wouldn't entertain the idea of a marriage between the French emperor and Alex's youngest sister, Anna Pavlovna. Austria, which had spent years battling - and losing to - France, became the unlikely solution to Napoleon's problem. Archduchess Marie Louise of Austria was 19, suitable in rank, and available. The fact that she was Marie Antoinette's grand-niece was perhaps not brought up by the French side during negotiations for her hand. Her marriage to Napoleon in April 1810 started badly, but things would level out between the couple and she gave birth to their son, Napoleon II, on March 20, 1811. The heir situation handled, Napoleon resumed his increasingly disastrous military campaigns, including a failed invasion of Russia that cost him half a million soldiers. After a thorough defeat by unified European armies - including Austria's - in 1814, Napoleon was exiled to Elba, and Marie Louise and her son made their way back to Vienna, and what would become a surprising new chapter of her life. Listen ad-free at patreon.com/trashyroyalspodcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Part of the joy of history is how resonant it often is. Imagine an ambitious if dysfunctional family with some minor claim to nobility in some far off backwater rising to power - to the highest office in the land - on the strength of a charismatic son known as much for his professional acumen as his arrogant, sometimes outrageous behavior. Welcome to revolutionary France! When the Italian-by-way-of-Corsica Bonaparte family arrived in France in 1779, when young Napoleon was 9, it set into motion a course of events that would change history. Trained in prestigious French military academies, Napoleon would become a military hero and an influential supporter of the French Revolution and the various governments that followed - including the ones that had nearly beheaded, and then released, Josephine de Beauharnais. It is a historical irony that Josephine, Empress of France, was not even Josephine until her relationship with Napoleon, and Beauharnais was her first husband's name. Napoleon didn't like her given name of Rose, so he changed it, and Josephine's first extremely unhappy marriage was ended by the revolutionaries' guillotine to her husband's neck. Born in colonial Martinique, Josephine made her way to France in place of her recently deceased sister, who had been betrothed to the Viscount of Beauharnais. Napoleon and Josephine had a passionate, if rocky, marriage that his family always detested. His mother referred to his wife in highly derogatory terms, and his brothers turned themselves into the Hardy Boys of Gossip Against Josephine. Napoleon's sisters hated Josephine as well, so it's a wonder that the couple made it 14 years. Still, once you go from Republican-leaning military officer to Emperor, you have to give your country an heir, and while Josephine entered the marriage with two children from her first, Napoleon had been notably childless both with her and his many mistresses. Then - like a miracle, and possibly through his own family's trickery - one of his mistresses gave birth to a baby he believed was his own! Josephine's time as his wife was clearly limited; they annulled their 14-year-long marriage in 1810, and Josephine lived out her days at the Chateau de Malmaison outside of Paris, tending a lavish garden of roses and remaining close to her former husband until her death in 1814. Listen ad-free at patreon.com/trashyroyalspodcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Long a vassal state to its much larger neighbors, Belgium only became independent in 1830, at which time it decided that what it really needed was a (constitutional) monarchy! Its first king, Leopold I, earned the gig by virtue of being born a Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld prince who had cultivated his relationships with Europe's royal houses during a distinguished military career. Like his son, he was not a paragon of family values, which prompted his second wife, Louise of Orleans, to lash out at their children. When Leopold II succeeded his father in 1865, he was hot to trot in acquiring colonial possessions, something that his father had attempted to achieve but never managed to. This led to a world-changing catastrophe and a crime of truly historic proportions. Leopold II engineered a private scheme by which he became the sole owner of the territory that is today the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where he essentially enslaved the population and forced them to pillage their own land - rubber and ivory were especially valuable at the time - for his enrichment. Failure to meet quotas was punishable by death. Rape, mutilations, destruction of settlements, and taking workers' families as hostages to force them to work harder were all common. Leopold was savvy enough to recognize that this state of affairs wouldn't fly with the public in Belgium, so he invested heavily in a propaganda effort to mask the reality on the ground. For the average person in Belgium, the stories of the Christianization of the people of the Congo and the improving social and economic conditions there supported their king's enterprise entirely. Meanwhile, writers and journalists around the world began to realize through their own travels what was really going on. But even millions of deaths, a horrifying population-wide immiseration, and the slimy personal enrichment Leopold had attained through those practices didn't cause the Belgian Parliament to rush to correct the situation. It wasn't until 1908, a year before Leopold's death, and decades into his brutal domination of the Congolese people, that Belgium's elected government took control of what would become the Belgian Congo, and later, the Democratic Republic of the Congo. His involvement with the Congo wasn't the only thing damaging Leopold's image at home. He was a terrible husband to his wife, Queen Marie Henriette, and at the age of 65, in 1899, very publicly took a 16-year-old mistress who he lavished with money and properties around Europe, including the famous Villa Leopolda. Listen ad-free at patreon.com/trashyroyalspodcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

One of the outcomes of the 20th century's two world wars was the widespread abolition of monarchies across Europe. Some of these events were brutal, as in Russia, but others, like Italy, happened bloodlessly and through the popular will. After a long reign that saw the Kingdom of Italy enthralled by Benito Mussolini's fascist dictatorship, World War II, and King Victor Emmanuel III aiding and abetting it all, the Italian people were exhausted. In an effort to preserve the institution, Victor Emmanuel III abdicated in 1946, elevating his son, Umberto II and his wife Marie-Jose of Belgium, to the throne. A referendum on the future of the monarchy was already scheduled, so Umberto and Marie-Jose, whose marriage had been uniquely unhappy, barnstormed the country trying to salvage public opinion and hang onto their thrones. It didn't work; by a 54-46% vote, Italians chose to create the Republic of Italy, and the reign of King Umberto II and Queen Marie-Jose ended after just over a month. They and their four children were exiled to Portugal, but it wasn't all bad news. After all, the independent and curious Marie-Jose had been strategically wed to a dullard who happened also to be gay. Once free of her role as anybody's Queen, she left Umberto on the Portuguese Riviera and took the kids to a new life in Switzerland and never looked back. Unfortunately, their one son, Vittorio Emanuele, did not exactly live his best life in the aftermath of it all. While just a child when the monarchy ended, he had a strained relationship with his father, fell into arms dealing and shady international finance as an adult, and managed to get himself into - and out of - serious legal trouble a number of times. Listen ad-free at patreon.com/trashyroyalspodcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you worried that royal houses had gotten a little too genteel by the 19th century, the story of Ranavalona I of Madagascar will disabuse you of that pretty quickly. Seizing the throne in 1828 after the death of her husband, King Radama - despite not being the rightful heir to it - she immediately launched a campaign of murder against her political rivals and potential successors, and summarily ended friendly relations with European nations, including expelling missionaries who had established schools. She didn't merely promote the local customs and faith traditions of the Malagasy people; she eventually banned the practice of Christianity entirely and executed those who practiced it. In fact, she executed a lot of people, in a variety of creative ways, and historians believe that in her 33-year reign of terror, she depopulated Madagascar by about half. It's no wonder that she's considered Madagascar's Bloody Mary, and Madagascar's Caligula. Listen ad-free at patreon.com/trashyroyalspodcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When she assumed the throne in 1558, she made it clear to the members of her court that they shouldn't plan to have their wives or female companions around the place. She intended to be singular as she consolidated power, but perhaps she had another motive as well; by banishing the wives, Robert Dudley, newly appointed Master of the Horse to Her Majesty the Queen, was not required to send for his wife, Amy Robsart, to join him in London. Elizabeth and Robert were not overly discreet in their enjoyment of one another's company, while the young queen's advisors, especially William Cecil, her Secretary of State, grew more and more insistent that Elizabeth find a suitable strategic marriage to enter into with some titled European. This, of course, was not to be. Her relationship with Robert became such a scandal that Cecil himself decided it would cause her government to fall, and everything carried on very precariously until the morning of September 8, 1560, when Amy Robsart was discovered dead at the bottom of a flight of stairs at her home at Cumnor Place. The scandal banished Robert from court for more than a year, and while he and Elizabeth would remain close for the rest of his life, the intense romance that characterized the beginnings of her reign was over. Listen ad-free at patreon.com/trashyroyalspodcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

While Queen Elizabeth I of England famously never married, her close relationship with Robert Dudley began when the two were small children together in the court of Henry VIII. Elizabeth was a princess who was downgraded to a lady after her mother, Anne Boleyn's, death. Robert was the grandson of an advisor to King Henry VII who was executed for treason upon the ascension of Henry VIII, forcing the Dudley family to struggle mightily to rehabilitate its noble image at court. All of which is to say that these two could really relate to each other, tossed about as they were by their families' fortunes and the whims of a King both had reasons to love and hate. But when Mary I seized the throne in 1553, everything changed for both of them. Robert's father had engineered the ascension of Lady Jane Grey, his daughter in law, to the throne over Henry VIII's eldest daughter, Mary, and after The Nine Days' Queen was deposed, the male Dudleys were imprisoned in the Tower of London, condemned to death. Catholic Mary also imprisoned her protestant half-sister Elizabeth, fearing a credible challenge to her reign. Alicia imagines - with the help of some Taylor Swift lyrics - what the months Elizabeth and Robert spent together in The Tower must have been like, doomed as they both believed themselves to be, confidants since they were toddlers. Listen ad-free at patreon.com/trashyroyalspodcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's a big week for Tortured Poets, so we decided to take a long look at history's most famous one: William Shakespeare himself. Alicia explores the mystery around the true identity of the author of some of the world's most famous pieces of literature. Was it really the actor from Stratford-upon-Avon penning Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and all the sonnets, or was that a convenient pseudonym for someone else, or a group of someone elses? Listen ad-free at patreon.com/trashyroyalspodcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As Taylor Swift launches her latest era with The Tortured Poets Department, Alicia dives into her favorite era: Tudor England. We explore the 17 surviving love letters that King Henry VIII penned during his courtship and early relationship with Anne Boleyn in the latter half of the 1520s, particularly noting that for quite a long time, it seems like Anne wasn't really that into him. Listen ad-free at patreon.com/trashyroyalspodcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

However much 'protocol' may attempt to intervene, the truth is that eccentricity is a trait that even royals have. This is certainly the case for Elisabeth of Wied, a German princess who became Romania's first queen, wife of Romania's King Carol I. Politics in Europe were extra complex in the latter half of the 19th century. In Russia, Tsar Alexander II had concluded his father's Crimean War in 1856, but even with the defeat of Russia in the conflict, the Ottoman Empire was in retreat. As Ottoman influence waned, former vassal states, including what would become modern Romania, were shaped by the other great powers and their own internal politics, which led to the unification of several formerly Ottoman principalities into what is now Romania. And what does a newly independent player on the European stage need? A royal house, of course! And wouldn't you know it - the Germans had so many of those lying around that it was easy pickings to find some stuffy but qualified guy to 'elect' king. King Carol I was both a liberalizing influence on the new nation's politics, as well as personally fastidious and, according to accounts, quite humorless. Which must have been tough on his wife, Elisabeth, a flamboyant writer with an artist's temperament who is better known by her nom de plum, Carmen Sylva. She was enough of a handful in the Romanian court that her husband once exiled her back to Germany for a couple of years, from which she sent letters to the Romanian Crown Prince's wife, Marie of Edinburgh, that she hoped Marie's forthcoming baby would turn out to be a girl! Listen ad-free at patreon.com/trashyroyalspodcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The fourteenth century was full of challenges to marital bliss, especially for nobles. Travel was complicated, especially during times of war, but royal houses still needed to cement alliances through marriage - often among woefully young princes and princesses who, again, were separated by vast distances and perhaps had never met. So it was for Portugal's young prince Pedro, born 1320. Proxy-married to Constanza Manuel, a Castillian noblewoman, the union was made so Portugal's king, Alfonso IV, could register his disdain for the ruler of Castile, King Alfonso XI. Yes, it's a little confusing. And also, there was a war on in Europe, so it would be five long years before young Constanza could safely make the journey to Portugal to meet her young husband. For Pedro, encountering his bride for the first time was an experience of fireworks and butterflies - because of the presence of her lady-in-waiting, Inês de Castro, a Galician noblewoman with whom he fell madly in love. This was obviously not an ideal situation for anyone, and while various machinations were tried to end the affair between Pedro and Inês, it was genuinely true love, with an extremely tragic and violent eventual outcome that lives on as a story of deep cultural resonance in Portugal to this day. Listen ad-free at patreon.com/trashyroyalspodcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We touched on England's King George IV in our episode about Queen Victoria's Trashy Hanoverian Uncles (episode 17), but there's so much more to the story of his misspent youth and his cataclysmic marriage to Princess Caroline of Brunswick. To help out, we asked our friend Sam from the podcast I'm Horrified!, who recently delivered this banger of a story over there. The daughter of King George III's eldest sister, Caroline was raised in the German duchy of Braunschweig, or Brunswick in English. Her family situation was fraught; while her parents remained married throughout their lives, her father's undisguised and longstanding mistress made for difficult family dynamics, where a kind interaction with one parent led to rebuke and allegations of disloyalty from the other. Upon meeting her soon-to-be new husband, Crown Prince George of England, the antipathy was mutual. Not only was George already illegally married, he also openly brought his mistress (to be clear, these are two separate women) to their introductory dinner. That would set the stage for the rest of Caroline's life. They managed to have one child, Princess Charlotte, but quickly agreed to live separate lives at separate residences due to their mutual disdain. George seems to have spent a good amount of time trying to dirty his estranged wife's reputation, but she was quite popular with the public, especially balanced against his poor reputation as a drunkard and wastrel. Propaganda campaigns were waged against one another in the press and in Parliament, and as King George III's health deteriorated and Crown Prince George's power grew, Caroline left the country. Her travels across Europe and the Holy Lands with a handsome Italian servant set tongues wagging everywhere, but when George III died in January 1820, Caroline realized that she had to return to England if she had any hope of blunting her husband's power - he was king now, and she was queen - and asserting any of her own. But it didn't go that way; George's mission with his new throne was to exclude his wife from everything and try to formally strip of her titles. Because of his own rampant infidelity, divorce was out of the question, but perhaps poisoning wasn't? Thanks so much to Sam for sharing this banger of a story. Listen to new episodes of I'm Horrified! every Tuesday! Listen ad-free at patreon.com/trashyroyalspodcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week, we take a look at a different European monarchy, that of Denmark, through two King Frederiks of Denmark. Frederik VII held the throne from 1848 to 1863, and was the last absolute monarch of the country, bowing to calls for reforms and signing Denmark's constitution, which implemented the constitutional monarchy that persists to this day. He was also a terrible husband, was divorced by two wives, and appears to have been part of a throuple with his third wife and their male lover for the last decade or so of his life. He died without legitimate heir, leading to a succession crisis and the reign of Christian IX, who became known as "the father-in-law of Europe." Then we fast forward to this very year, when Christian IX's fifth-generation descendant - and Queen Victoria's, too - became King Frederik X of Denmark, succeeding his mother Queen Margrethe II after her surprise abdication. A one-time Playboy Prince, Frederik has matured into a down-to-earth leader with strong military credentials and a passion for the outdoors, but his recent history is not without a hint of scandal. Cheating rumors swirled last fall, a situation that seemed to deeply pain his wife, the Australian-born Mary Donaldson, who has since become the first Australian to become a European queen. Was the abdication an attempt to save Frederik and Mary's marriage? Listen ad-free at patreon.com/trashyroyalspodcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After the death of Edwina Mountbatten in 1960, Dickie still had another 19 years of living to do, and while he was single, he was in no way alone. He had romances with plenty of women in his later years, and according to many, he had male lovers - including, it is alleged, boys - as well. A mentor to Prince Charles, his advice to the young man may have contributed to what turned into the tragic marriage, divorce, and untimely death of Princess Diana, who was exactly the sort of woman that Dickie encouraged the playboy prince to settle down with. The men remained close through the end of Dickie's life, and Charles delivered the eulogy at both of Dickie's services in 1979. Dickie was clearly a charming older man who counted Shirley MacClaine, Barbara Cartland, Christina Ford, and Sacha Hamilton, Duchess of Abercorn, who was also his god daughter, among his paramours. Let's say it was all pretty complicated, but that would only be keeping with rest of his and Edwina's history. Listen ad-free at patreon.com/trashyroyalspodcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As Edwina took pains to lay low in Malta after the scandals of her affairs, Italy decided to exit the League of Nations and invade Ethiopia. To protect their children, she took them to Budapest and installed them in a hotel with their nanny and governess... and then forgot which hotel they were in. For months. As the summer of 1935 turned to fall, and then winter, they just stayed in their hotel until Edwina finally came across the paper she'd written the hotel's name on, tucked into the pocket of an outfit she hadn't worn in a while. Careless people. But then World War II came, and with so much asked of ordinary Britons, the privileged were required to step up. For perhaps the first time in her life, the skills and networking that Edwina had spent her life developing could suddenly be applied to a grand purpose: fundraising, organizing, lobbying for help in the United States. Louis was in the fight as a Naval officer, but Edwina was equally engaged, and the experience brought them together as never before. They would have further adventures together in India, overseeing the end of the Colonial period there, and form a distinct attachment to Indian Prime Minister Nehru that would last to the end of her life in 1960. Listen ad-free at patreon.com/trashyroyalspodcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Programming note: This episode is a bit more explicit than most, including strong language and descriptions of sex. If you listen with wee ones, use your judgment. The early '30s were a roaring time for Edwina's various romances, though two in particular would have far-reaching implications for her lovers. The first, with American actor Paul Robeson, caused scandal in the London tabloids because Robeson was Black. The Royal Family considered the situation dire enough that they demanded that Louis and Edwina sue the tabloid that wrote it about for libel, and saw to it that the court would handle the case... carefully. An early morning hearing, of which no notice was given to anyone but the Mountbattens, resulted in a quick ruling in Edwina's favor, though the couple notably did not ask for damages. Paul Robeson himself was apparently quite wounded by the whole incident, having been close to Edwina and left to deal with the fallout on his own. The second notable affair was with Leslie "Hutch" Hutchinson, a Grenada-born musician whom Edwina had met in New York City. She encouraged him to bring his talents to England, where he became a bona fide star of the 1920s and '30s, entertaining royals and society patrons, and his work gained national prominence with frequent airings on the BBC. During his dalliance with Edwina, there are rumors that the two became "stuck" in flagrante delicto, requiring transportation by ambulance in the pose that was causing them troubles. Louis was outraged especially by Edwina's affair with Hutch, and as the scandal grew, Hutch found that his royal and society patrons had abandoned him. In spite of his celebrity, the Mountbattens appear to have had a role in his near erasure from history. It's all reminiscent of Fitzgerald's line in Gatsby: “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy - they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.” Listen ad-free at patreon.com/trashyroyalspodcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As the Roaring '20s turned into the '30s, Edwina's appetite for other lovers showed no sign of diminishing, and eventually led to a breaking point with her long-suffering husband, Louis. At one point, they decided that divorce was the best option, but quickly reconciled with new rules for their relationship: Edwina would be more discreet in her dalliances, which had previously been headline news, and Louis would be free to take lovers of his own. But a funny thing happened when he finally did - Edwina was jealous! Listen ad-free at patreon.com/trashyroyalspodcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It didn't take long for Edwina, young, rich, and alone while her husband Louis was away with the Navy, to begin flirtations and then affairs with various suitors. There were the young men of her social strata, to be sure, but there was also a scandalous rumored fling with the notably female American entertainer Sophie Tucker, "The Last of the Red-Hot Mamas." These affairs took a toll on her marriage and her relations with the British Royal Family, but also laid the template for the Mountbatten marriage. Listen ad-free at patreon.com/trashyroyalspodcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices