Doomed Queens, page 6
Still, Irene harbored secret ambitions, which she was able to fulfill after Leo’s unexpected demise in 780. The emperor had taken a sacred crown from Hagia Sophia for his personal use. Problem was the heavily jeweled crown rubbed his brow until it blistered; the blisters became infected. After Leo’s death, Irene arranged for additional pearls to decorate the crown, which she returned to the church in time for display at Christmas mass. She also became regent for ten-year-old Constantine, who was much too young to rule.
Now in charge, Irene restored icon veneration, which pleased her subjects immensely. In another populist move, she cut taxes, which pushed the treasury into the red. As a corrective, she minted and distributed coins bearing her portrait. Though her son was also on them, it was Irene who held the scepter and was labeled basileus—emperor.
Not surprisingly, the empress refused to relinquish power when Constantine came of age. He pushed her off the throne in 790 but proved to be an incompetent ruler. Seven years later, Irene took matters back into her own hands. She imprisoned her son and had him blinded, an act considered marginally more merciful than outright assassination.
Nevertheless, Irene’s days on the throne were numbered. She was deposed by her finance minister in 802 and exiled to the island of Lesbos. The woman who was once empress spent the remainder of her life there spinning wool for clothing.
CAUTIONARY MORAL
Make sure your style has substance.
* * *
LIFE AFTER DEATH
Despite her misdeeds, the Eastern Orthodox Church did not forget all Irene had done to further the restoration of icon veneration. For this, the former empress was beatified as a saint, thus reforming Irene’s tarnished public image.
Bust of Irene on an eighth-century coin.
* * *
End-of-Chapter Quiz
or
What We Have Learned So Far
1. Why did Boudicca battle the Roman Empire?
a. She wanted to prove to her daughters that the Romans were wusses.
b. She was tired of converting exchange rates for Roman tourists.
c. The Romans got too cozy with her land and her daughters’ chastity.
d. She knew it was a great branding opportunity for her tribe.
2. To hold on to her throne, Empress Hu was willing to do anything but:
a. Plot against her enemies.
b. Slip poison into her son’s favorite dish.
c. Watch her favorite lover get bumped off by her son.
d. Cough up lots and lots of dough for her favorite Buddhist temples.
3. Amalasuntha’s many talents included:
a. The ability to speak several languages fluently.
b. A sensitivity to the cultural legacy of the Goths.
c. The wisdom to make the most of her time in exile.
d. Knowing which scholars were da bomb of her era.
4. What did Brunhilde and Galswintha not have in common?
a. The same parents.
b. The same in-laws.
c. The same happily-ever-after marital history.
d. The same grudge against Fredegund, that slut.
5. Irene of Byzantium was known for:
a. Her affection for icons—religious tchotchkes for the devout home decorator.
b. Her sublime skills as a mother.
c. Fiscal brilliance to rival a Rockefeller.
d. The serenity to accept the things she could not change.
ANSWER KEY
1, c: The Romans pushed Boudicca too far when they raped her daughters and stole their inheritances. 2, c: This was the final act that turned mother against son. 3, a and d. 4, c: Brunhilde had a happy marriage; Galswintha was murdered by her husband. 5, a: Irene’s icon-worshipping ways led her husband to reject her in the bedroom.
CHAPTER THREE
Middle Age Crisis
OUT OF THE MOUTHS OF BABES
I am much to be pitied both as a queen and as a woman: When one is fifteen a crown is heavy to wear, and I have not the liberty of the meanest of my subjects….
Joan of Naples, via Alexandre Dumas
One would suspect that, after the travails of the Dark Ages, life could only improve for queens of the later Middle Ages. It didn’t. Next in line to ratchet up the royal fatality count were the Crusades and the Black Death (aka the bubonic plague).
To avoid infection by the plague, most blue-blooded females sought sanctuary from the larger populace. Boccaccio’s Decameron describes one such scenario, where a group of noblemen and-women retreat to an isolated villa to pass the time until the worst of the epidemic passes. Even so, without an emergency broadcasting system in place, there was little to prevent a princess traveling to a distant dynastic alliance from strolling straight into plague territory. Some ended up wearing their bridal veil as a burial shroud; Joan of England, fiancée of Pedro of Castile, was one such unfortunate victim. Feminine vulnerabilities were also made apparent in childbirth, which killed approximately 20 percent of medieval mama wannabes—clearly this was not the age of Childbirth Without Fear.
As for the Crusades, royal women were generally more prone to survival than their male counterparts—usually they weren’t the ones marching into battle. Nonetheless, Sibyl of Jerusalem chose to participate in the Third Crusade, only to lose her life and daughters as a result. It is hoped that the powers that be appreciated her sacrifice.
While it is unknown how many people died during these religious wars, it is estimated that as many as thirty million folks were killed by the plague—approximately half of Europe’s population at that time. That written, marriage proved to be a far more deadly enterprise for many queens. Without divorce readily available, murders were often initiated by unhappy spouses and uppity relatives eager to rid themselves of an unwanted alliance. The deaths of Gertrude of Meran, Blanche of Bourbon, Joan of Naples, and Maria of Hungary all serve as cautionary tales for those eager to embrace nuptial delights.
Urraca of Castile
1126
n 1109 Urraca, the daughter of King Alfonso VI, became the queen of Castille and León; these two kingdoms sat cozily next to each other in what is now Spain.
Until this point, Urraca’s sheltered life was filled with the usual princess distractions of getting married and getting knocked up. She was wed as a child to Raymond of Burgundy, with whom she had a son and a daughter before his premature demise in 1107. Becoming queen wasn’t even on Urraca’s radar, but all this changed when Urraca’s only brother was killed in battle in 1108, making the widowed princess heir to the throne. Soon after, her father, King Alfonso VI, went to his eternal reward. Next thing Urraca knew, everyone was addressing her as “your majesty.”
Before his death, King Alfonso had arranged for Urraca to exchange vows with another Alfonso—Alfonso I of Aragon. This Alfonso was better known as Alfonso the Battler because of his prowess as a warrior. Problem was Urraca and Alfonso Junior shared the same great-grandfather—the church considered the union too close for comfort. The couple were wed nonetheless, but the ensuing scandale pushed the marriage to the breaking point, especially after Alfonso proved to be a battler at home as well as on the battlefield.
But Urraca was tough: The queen dumped Alfonso when she did not promptly conceive an heir by him. One wonders if the reason for their lack of issue went beyond the horrors of domestic abuse. The king was fond of declaring, “The man devoted to war needs the companionship of men, not women.”
Urraca and Alfonso’s disastrous union was annulled in 1114. Regardless, resentment between the two monarchs continued to simmer. It exploded into a long and bloody war after Alfonso used his finely honed military skills to grab some of his exwife’s lands. Urraca was woman enough to fight back and, with the aid of her son by her first husband, she emerged victorious.
Urraca proved to be as passionate in love as she was in war. While she never married again, she did enjoy a bevy of friendships with benefits. This ultimately proved to be her Achilles’ heel—in the end the woman who had reigned over much of Spain during such tumultuous times was most likely undone by childbirth. The Historia Compostelana, an anonymously written history of that era, relates that Urraca got knocked up by a lover and perished in labor.
At the time of her death, the queen had reached the advanced maternal age of forty-six, after reigning more than capably for seventeen years.
* * *
Childbirth
Be they of royal or common blood, women of ye olde times considered childbirth a dark passage that could drag both mother and child to early graves. Puerperal fever, a form of blood poisoning linked to unsanitary conditions, was recorded by Hippocrates in ancient Greece. It took until 1847 for the connection between puerperal fever and germs to be made. Viennese physician Ignaz Phillippe Semmelweis noted a dramatic decline in postpartum maternal deaths after he began washing his hands before attending a birth. Afterward, the good Herr Doktor confessed, “God only knows the number of women whom I have consigned prematurely to the grave.”
Puerperal fever was Scylla to the Charybdis of obstructed births. Forceps were not introduced until the 1700s, so too many women expired after days of unproductive labor. Sawbones foolhardy enough to attempt a cesarean usually saved the child at the expense of the mother.
Even if a woman survived with a healthy, living child, there was still the torture of labor to endure without an epidural. Many judged these pains punishment for Eve’s trespasses in Eden.
* * *
CAUTIONARY MORAL
Biology can be a bitch.
Sibyl of Jerusalem
1190
eanwhile, in other parts of the Western Hemisphere, the Crusades were in full swing. These holy wars were initially intended to return the Muslim-occupied lands of Jerusalem and beyond to the dominion of those who followed the Christian faith. However, the Crusades soon became a venue for mercenary knights to seek their fortunes and for the pious to sacrifice their lives, conveniently reducing the population on both counts. Good times.
By the end of the First Crusade in 1099, Jerusalem had been dragged back into the Christian fold, though the holy war festivities would continue for another two centuries. The new-and-improved Kingdom of Jerusalem was set up as a traditional monarchy and began acquiring neighboring territories to flesh out its skeletal realm—an encroachment not unnoticed by border Muslim states. It was into this powder keg of a situation that Sibyl inherited the throne of Jerusalem in 1186.
Queen Sibyl was born around 1160 to Amalric I and Agnes of Courtenay. Amalric became king of Jerusalem in 1162 after his brother died. Interestingly, Sibyl’s mother was never crowned queen because the church considered their union incestuous—Amalric and Agnes shared a common great-great-grandfather. The royal marriage was annulled after Amalric became king, though Sibyl’s and her brother Baldwin’s legitimacy were upheld.
Gettin’ hitched, medieval style. Adapted from a period manuscript.
Sibyl’s hand in marriage was a hot property, especially after it came out that Baldwin had leprosy—ergo, anyone who gained her hand would wind up king of Jerusalem once father and brother bit the dust. Sibyl’s marital history took on Liz Taylor proportions as she became engaged, married, widowed, and annulled in varying combinations. She met her soul mate in Guy of Lusignan, whom she wed in 1180. Two daughters soon followed, joining her son, Baldwin V, from an earlier marriage.
Six years later, Amalric and Baldwin the leper were cold in their graves and Sibyl became queen. For numerous reasons, the powers that be decided that Guy was a less than desirable king. They pressured Sibyl to dump him pronto. But the new queen proved to be wily beyond her twentysomething years. She agreed to their request, as long as she could choose her next husband. Sibyl remarried Guy before the ink had a chance to dry on the annulment decree.
While all these matrimonial shenanigans were taking place, the Muslims had been united in their outrage by Saladin, sultan of Egypt. A mere year after Sibyl became queen, Saladin successfully invaded Jerusalem, kicking Sibyl and Guy into exile and setting the stage for the Third Crusade.
Queen Sibyl died in 1190 during the Third Crusade after an epidemic infected most of her military camp. Her two young daughters expired with her.
* * *
or
If at First You Don’t Succeed
As a ruling monarch, Queen Sibyl was quite the catch on the medieval-era matrimonial market.
* * *
CAUTIONARY MORAL
When you wage war for God,
you may inherit the kingdom of heaven.
Gertrude of Meran
1213
everal hundred years before Shakespeare wrote “To be or not to be,” there was another Queen Gertrude who was not to be. This Gertrude was born in the seaside duchy of Meran and became the wife of Andrew II, the king of Hungary, at the beginning of the thirteenth century. But like Hamlet’s ill-starred mother, she became entangled in unseen conspiracies that would lead to the grave.
Much of Gertrude’s misfortune can be traced to timing. She married into the Hungarian nobility during a tricky period of transition. Her husband, Andrew, was in the midst of transferring lands from the crown to the people, a process that had begun during his predecessor’s reign. Some of the lesser nobles became impatient for their share and perceived any favor shown to another as a slight against their rights. Gertrude took the fall after several of her relatives were granted high positions at court. True, Andrew was the crown behind the appointments, but it mattered not. Several jealous Hungarian aristocrats expressed their extreme displeasure by murdering the queen in 1213.
Béla IV. A Hamlet with a difference.
One account states Gertrude was assaulted while out hunting. Andrew was unable to protect her, since he was off squelching a rebellion in neighboring territories. At the time of her demise, the queen was only twenty-eight years old, but had already fulfilled her biological duty by giving birth to five children. They included an heir, Béla IV, and two daughters to be married off, Anna Maria and Elisabeth.
Gertrude’s murderers were not punished until more than thirty years later. At the time of her death, King Andrew simply shrugged off the loss and married again—the situation was too politically explosive to seek justice. However, it was a different story after 1235, when Andrew died and Béla took over the throne of Hungary.
King Béla was Hamlet with a difference. While he was slow at avenging his mother’s murder, he was effective—he tracked down her murderers and punished them. Béla ruled Hungary until his death in 1270, more than half a century after Gertrude had been sacrificed for royal intrigue.
CAUTIONARY MORAL
Justice served late
doesn’t remedy death served early.
* * *
LIFE AFTER DEATH
Gertrude’s daughter Elisabeth of Hungary was as pious as her brother Béla was patient. Four years after her death in 1231, she was canonized.
Elisabeth spent her childhood apart from her mother. At the age of four, she was betrothed to Louis, the Landgrave of Thuringia, and sent to live in his court. The couple was very happy together, but when Louis died during the Fifth Crusade, Elisabeth devoted herself to good works and entered a convent. Her story inspired another Hungarian, Franz Liszt, to compose an oratorio.
The miracle of the roses: To avoid having her charity work discovered, St. Elisabeth tranformed bread for the poor into roses for the rich. Liszt used the incident in his oratorio of her life.
* * *
Oghul Ghaimish
1248
he Mongol Empire was spread over the largest contiguous land mass in history. At its height, it held an estimated one hundred million subjects—about a third of the current population of the United States. The territory that comprised the empire encompassed the harshest environments in the world. Temperatures drop below 30 degrees Fahrenheit in the winter and spike to over 100 in the summer. Despite this, its location made it economically valuable. The Silk Road wound through the heart of the empire, channeling rich resources from China to Rome.
In other words, becoming the great khan, or emperor, of the Mongol Empire went far beyond simply bossing people around—it was about controlling the wealth of nations.
When Oghul Ghaimish grabbed the throne of the Mongol Empire, it was as if Melinda Gates made herself chairwoman of Microsoft without first checking in with the shareholders. Like Melinda, Oghul had connections: Her husband, Güyük, a grandson of Genghis Khan, ruled the empire until his death from alcoholism at the age of forty-two in 1248. She had familial precedent: Güyük’s mother, Töregene Khatun, served as regent for five years before amassing enough political might to transition her son onto the throne.
The Mongols were famed as fierce warriors.
Unlike Töregene, Oghul’s reign lasted only a few months. A nasty power struggle immediately erupted over the question of who should be the next ruler, which many thought should be someone other than the previous great khan’s widow.
