 Chapter
4
The Seventeenth Century: Escape from the
Gilded Cage
For glances beget ogles, ogles sighs,
Sighs wishes, wishes words, and words a letter?
And then, God knows what mischief may arise,
When love links two young people in one fetter,
Vile assignations, and adulterous beds,
Elopements, broken vows and hearts and heads.
- Byron
Seventeenth-century monarchs were somewhat less brutal to their unfaithful
wives than Henry VIII; though some queen consorts indeed lost their
heads over handsome men, not a single one did so in the literal sense.
Many hoped to escape from the servitude of an unhappy marriage, though
this was usually only possible in widowhood. A divorce or annulment
offered jubilant freedom spiced with disgrace. And some dreamed of
true escape, the escape of simply running away.
Maria Francisca of Savoy, Queen of Portugal:
"This Disagreeable Frenchwoman"
The summer of 1666, the eighteen-year-old Princess
Maria Francisca Isabel de Savoy arrived with her retinue in Lisbon
harbor to marry King Alfonso VI of Portugal. Delighted at the prospect
of being a queen, she had turned a deaf ear to rumors that her new
husband was fat, impotent, and mentally retarded. Many people were
just jealous, she thought. True, the king had suffered a nearly fatal
fever at the age of three which left him slightly paralyzed on his
right side. True, his tutors had given up in despair trying to make
him sit still and learn something. True, he had once tried to shoot
a comet out of the sky, and his favorite pastime was galloping through
the streets with his ruffian friends, knocking down pedestrians. But
most kings suffered from some debility or other, and at twenty-three,
he really couldn't be all that bad.
When the satin-clad crowds rushed onto her ship
to welcome their new queen, Maria Francisca looked about for her new
husband in vain. King Alfonso was in the palace hiding. He did not
want to get married and had only agreed to it once he realized a refusal
would result in his throne going to his younger brother, Pedro. Pedro,
handsome, intelligent, beloved by all. Pedro, whom the Portuguese
would have preferred as their king. Alfonso would do anything to prevent
Pedro from ascending the throne, even if it meant that Alfonso, hopelessly
impotent, married a princess.
The king had tried to counter the reputation
of his impotence by surrounding himself with the most infamous prostitutes,
whom he paid generously to tell stories of his sexual exploits. He
even found a little girl who resembled him and, claiming her as his
illegitimate daughter, brought her out at public events. The child's
mother was forced to walk along casting longing glances at the king,
which he ardently returned. Only later did she swear that she had
never had sex with the king, though he had tried, and the child had
been fathered by her cousin.
Now despite all his efforts at pretended virility,
Alfonso had been backed into a corner. If he had stayed a bachelor,
his incapacity might have been rumored but never proved. Now it was
only a matter of time before the whole world knew for sure. |
