Ladies of the Bedchamber : The Role of the Royal Mistress

by Friedman, Dennis

• ISBN13: 9780720611601
• ISBN10: 0720611601
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-07-01
• Publisher: Dufour Editions

Summary

The "ladies of the bedchamber" may not have all been ladies--in fact, some of them weren't--but anyone who has shared a bed with a reigning British sovereign, or his or her heir, has in more than one instance changed the course of history. Sexual infidelity threads its way through five hundred years of the British monarchy from the Tudors to the present day. Here are the murderous and determined (to father a male heir) Henry VIII, James II and his interest in boyishly slim women, including Arabella Churchill and Barbara Villiers (who shows up in Pepys's diaries and in his erotic dreams), and William IV who, while serving in the Navy, divided his time between fornication and flogging. Freidman examines the role played by the mistress and the concubine, as well as by commercial sex, and he shows how sex addiction has cast its shadow over the twentieth century, from Edward VII to his great-great-grandchildren, Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles, and their "thirty-year game of chess."

Author Biography

Dennis Friedman is a psychiatrist who has published many innovative studies on phobias, sexual problems and other psychological disorders. Formerly of St Bartholemew's Hospital, London, he has also made frequent appearances on television documentaries about the British Royal Family

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	7	(3)
List of Illustrations	10	(3)
Preface	13	(4)
Henry VIII: Liaisons Dangereuses	17	(24)
Charles II: And So to Bed	41	(26)
James II: And That, Said James, Is That	67	(12)
William IV: Sailor King or `Silly Billy'?	79	(16)
Edward VII: Rien Ne Va Plus	95	(30)
Edward VIII: The Merry Wives of Windsor	125	(48)
Charles, Prince of Wales: `When You Are King, Dilly Dilly . . .'	173	(18)
Bibliography	191	(4)
Index	195