Princesses Behaving Badly: Real Stories from History Without the Fairy-Tale Endings

278 Pages·2013·3.78 MB·English

Copyright © 2013 by Linda Rodriguez McRobbie All rights reserved. No
part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written
permission from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Number: 2012953988
eISBN: 978-1-59474665-9
Designed by Doogie Horner Illustrations by Douglas Smith Production
management by John J. McGurk Quirk Books
215 Church Street
Philadelphia, PA 19106
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v3.1
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Once Upon a Time: An Introduction
WARRIORS
PRINCESSES WHO FOUGHT THEIR OWN BATTLES
1. Alfhild, the Princess Who Turned Pirate
2. Pingyang, the Princess Who Led an Army
Seven Warrior Queens of Antiquity
3. Olga of Kiev, the Princess Who Slaughtered Her Way to Sainthood
4. Khutulun, the Princess Who Ruled the Wrestling Mat
5. Lakshmibai, the Princess Who Led a Rebellion (with Her Son
Strapped to Her Back)
USURPERS
PRINCESSES WHO GRABBED POWER IN A MAN’S WORLD
6. Hatshepsut, the Princess Who Ruled Egypt as a King
A Family Affair: A Word about Royal Incest
7. Wu Zetian, the Princess who Became Emperor of China
Wei’s Way
8. Njinga of Ndongo, the Princess Who Kept Male Concubines in Drag
SCHEMERS
PRINCESSES WHO PLOTTED AND PLANNED
9. Justa Grata Honoria, the Princess Who Nearly Wrecked the Roman
Empire
10. Isabella of France, the “She-Wolf” Princess
The Sorceress Princesses
11. Roxolana, the Princess Who Went from Sex Slave to Sultana
12. Catherine Radziwill, the Stalker Princess
13. Stephanie von Hohenlohe, the Princess Who Partied for Hitler
SURVIVORS
PRINCESSES WHO MADE CONTROVERSIAL AND QUESTIONABLE
CHOICES
14. Lucrezia, the Renaissance Mafia Princess
15. Malinche, the Princess Who Served Her Country’s Conquerors
The War Booty Princess
16. Sophia Dorothea, the Prisoner Princess
Marriage or Insane Asylum?
17. Sarah Winnemucca, the Princess Accused of Collaborating
18. Sofka Dolgorouky, the Princess Who Turned Communist
PARTIERS
PRINCESSES WHO LOVED TO LIVE IT UP
19. Christina, the Cross-Dressing Princess
20. Caraboo, the Phony Princess Who Hoodwinked England
Six Ways to Fake Princesshood
21. Charlotte of Prussia, the Princess Who Threw a Sex Party
22. Clara Ward, the Princess Who Ran Off with a Gypsy … and a
Waiter … and a Station Manager
The Dollar Princesses
23. Gloria von Thurn und Taxis, the Punk Princess Who Went Corporate
Princess Excess
FLOOZIES
PRINCESSES NOTORIOUS FOR THEIR SEXY EXPLOITS
24. Caroline of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, the Princess Who Didn’t Wash
Death and the Victorian Age
25. Pauline Bonaparte, the Exhibitionist Princess
26. Margaret, the Princess Who Caused a Bank Robbery
Three Princesses Who Chucked Their Crowns for Love
MADWOMEN
PRINCESSES WHO WERE LIKELY MAD, OR CLOSE TO IT
27. Anna of Saxony, the Princess Who Foamed at the Mouth
Three Mad Princesses (and One Who Probably Wasn’t)
28. Elisabeth of Austria, the Princess Who Wore a Meat Mask
Beware the Black Dwarf
29. Charlotte of Belgium, the Princess Who Scared the Pope
Royal Hotline to Heaven
30. Franziska, the Amnesiac Who Became the Lost Romanov Princess
Famous Last Words
Selected Bibliography
About the Author
Acknowledgments
Once Upon a Time
AN INTRODUCTION
“E .”
VERY GIRL PRETENDS SHE IS A PRINCESS AT ONE POINT
Lindy, from Alex Finn’s Beastly
Every little girl? Not quite.
When I was growing up, I didn’t want to be a princess. I wasn’t a
tomboy or anything; I just wasn’t into them. Horses, yes, especially the
unicorn or winged or, best of all, winged unicorn kind. But then again,
when I was a little girl, the Disney princess wasn’t the glittery pastel-
colored juggernaut it is today. You could be a little girl and not limit
your dress-up choices to Belle, Ariel, or Cinderella (or Mulan or Merida,
if you’re feeling feisty).
Nowadays, princess obsession is the default setting for many little
girls. In 2000 Disney decided to market the doe-eyed denizens of its
feature films by their primary identifying characteristic: their princess
titles. And thus was born the princess plague. Princesses are now the
biggest industry for the pre-tween set. In 2012 the Disney Princess media
franchise was the best-selling of its kind in North America, outselling
Star Wars and Sesame Street and earning more than $4.6 billion
worldwide. Add to that all the collateral stuff—The Princess and the
Popstar Barbies, the Melissa & Doug Decorate Your Own Princess Mirror
sets, countless pink-spangled princess T-shirts—and you’ve got what
social commentators and worried parents are calling the “Princess
Industrial Complex.”
In her fascinating book Cinderella Ate My Daughter (Harper, 2011),
Peggy Orenstein examines the obsession with bundling girls into “pink
and pretty” princess costumes. Orenstein, among many others, worries
that princess play presents unrealistic expectations of feminine beauty, is
overly restrictive (pink ball gown, or purple?), and is turning little girls
into budding narcissists. So do I. Though no direct evidence supports
claims that the ubiquitous princess culture harms girls’ self-esteem, it
seems to me that the phenomenon smacks of an unjustified sense of
entitlement, a kind of fake power derived not from good decision-
making skills or leadership or intelligence but physical attractiveness,
wealth, and relationships with strong male characters. “Princess” is a
title that establishes bizarre expectations of how one should be treated,
of what has value, and of what women will or should achieve in their
lives.
Obviously, most little girls don’t grow up believing that life is all
dress-up heels, fairy godmothers, and Prince Charmings. But the princess
fantasy is one that we don’t ever really give up. Witness the fascination
with Kate Middleton, the pretty girl-next-door commoner who married
Britain’s dashing Prince William in April 2011. Though she’s technically
not a princess—her official title is Duchess of Cambridge—Catherine’s
story has all the hallmarks of a fairy tale. The royal wedding even looked
like a cartoon—I almost expected to see twittering bluebirds carrying
Kate’s train.
Sweetly two-dimensional “Princess Kate” was the image that tabloids
the world over traded on, despite the grim reality of what happened to
the last British princess given the fairy-tale treatment. Blonde blue-eyed
Diana was Cinderella, a similarity not lost on media then or now. Diana’s
real story, however—her marriage of convenience, her husband’s
infidelity, rumors of her own unfaithfulness, struggles with fame and
eating disorders, her courtship of the British press, and her eventual
death after being chased by paparazzi—is distinctly not the happy fairy
tale everyone hoped for.
Perhaps the best way to make sure that the fairy tale doesn’t become
the expectation is to talk about real princesses and to stop turning their
lives into fairy tales. Some real princesses were women who found
themselves in circumstances they couldn’t control. Sophia Dorothea of
Celle, for example, was forced to marry a man she called “pig snout,” a
man who violently assaulted her, cheated on her, and, after she
retaliated by having her own affair, locked her in a castle for more than
three decades until her death. Others, like Anna of Saxony, were
genuinely mentally unstable—a limited gene pool can be just as
corrupting as absolute power. Pretty Grimm.
But some princesses found ways to shape their own destinies. Empress
Wu of China showed that princesses can be just as Machiavellian as any
prince. Some, like Sarah Winnemucca, used their titles (both real and
imagined) to draw attention to a higher cause. Others were just out for a
good time, like the American Clara Ward, a so-called Dollar Princess
who left her Prince Not-So-Charming to run off with a gypsy violinist.
And more than a few weren’t even princesses at all, like Caraboo or
Franziska, the Polish factory worker who claimed to be the lost
Romanov princess Anastasia.
Historical princesses have been capable of great things as well as
horrible things; they’ve made stupid decisions and bad mistakes, loved
the wrong people or too many people or not enough people. They are
women who lied, murdered, used sex as a weapon, or dressed like a man
to hold on to power. They weren’t afraid to get a little dirt, or blood, on
their hands. These women were human, but the word princess, along
with its myriad connotations, often glosses over that humanity.
For each of the women described in the following pages, I’ve tried to
strip away the myth and portray something as close as possible to the
real person. But history is only as accurate as those who record it, and
that goes double when the subject is a woman. I’ve made every effort to
track down stories from the most reliable sources, but, as with any
reconstructing of the past, some of the tales must be chalked up to
rumor, gossip, and assumption.
Nevertheless, here are the stories of real princesses and real women.
They may begin once upon a time, but they don’t always end happily
ever after.