The Rest Is History - 97. Top Ten Mistresses

Episode Date: September 16, 2021

Tom Holland is joined by Ali Ansari to discuss the most influential mistresses in history. The definition of success is to impact history, despite often humble beginnings. Recorded live at the London Podcast Festival. A Goalhanger Films & Left Peg Media production Produced by Vasco Andrade Exec Producer Tony Pastor *The Rest Is History Live Tour 2023*: Tom and Dominic are back on tour this autumn! See them live in London, New Zealand, and Australia! Buy your tickets here: restishistorypod.com Twitter:  @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Thank you for listening to The Rest Is History. For weekly bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to series, and membership of our much-loved chat community, go to therestishistory.com and join the club. That is therestishistory.com. Hello, welcome to The Rest Is History. This is going to be, in every way, a historic episode. Firstly, because it's the first episode that we've done at a podcast festival. So it's absolutely fantastic to be here. We've been going for less than a year, and so to actually be here and to see you guys, well, I can just about see you guys out there,

is really fantastic. So thanks so much for coming. Also, this is going to be a historic episode, because as you can probably tell, even though they have a kind of similar degree of follicle challenge, this is

not Dominic. This is Professor Ali Ansari of the University of St. Andrews, Professor of Iranian Studies. And the reason that Ali is here rather than Dominic is because Dominic has only gone and caught COVID. He's over the worst. I think he was quite ill, so I mustn't be horrid about it and accuse him of malingering. I think he was quite ill, so I mustn't be horrid about it and accuse him of malingering. I think he really was ill. And he's on his last day of quarantine, so absolutely terrible timing.

But, you know, every cloud has a silver lining, and the silver lining in this case is Ali. And those of you who are regular listeners to the podcast may well remember the episode we did on Persia, in which Ali, you were set the challenge of basically proving that everything came from Persia. Which I think I did rather well, didn't I? You did. You did.

So what was it? It was religion. Empire. High heels. Time. High heels. Suits. Spaghetti, which sort of slightly went off the edge, actually, I have to say. After a while, I got some abuse for that, I have to say.

And the British Civil Service. The British Civil Service, I thought was, yeah, I thought was pretty, yeah. Yeah, so if you haven't listened to that, Ali conclusively demonstrating that everything is basically Persian, please do. But the third reason that this is a historic podcast is, of course, because it's about history. And today's episode, we are going to look at the top 10 mistresses in history. And in a way, this is a companion piece to an earlier episode we did,

the top 10 eunuchs in history. And it's been a kind of running theme, genital mutilation, but we're trying to kind of expand on that. And actually they're similar because what both of them do, firstly, to kind of expand on that and actually they're similar because what both of them do firstly they kind of you know inherently salacious so it does enable us to talk about you know fair degree of filth I suppose but it's not just about the filth

truly ladies and gentlemen because actually the subject of mistresses I mean Ali it's about those who are powerless rather as with eunuchs it's about those who are powerless rather as with eunuchs it's about those who are powerless having a chance actually to exert influence that's right basically the the ability to exert political influence at quite an intimate level I think it's a way to look at it but but they do exert the influence they do it although as we'll see as we go down the list I mean the some exert less than others but yes so the format we're going to do is we've got we've drawn up ten and Dominic has also had his feedback so he's

contributed to this list so the three of us is definitely here in spirit and I will be calling for a friend if I need to so the the three of us have have come up with this basically this top ten and we'll be going from from number ten all the way up to number one the the person we think is the most influential mistress in history and basically the the parameters are you have to have come from nowhere and exerted a kind of incredible influence on the course of history or whatever so that's basically other specifications Ali, do you want to kick off? Because you'll see up there, we've got our first one.

At number ten, we have... Yes, the nightingale. The nightingale, who I had never heard of. Yes. But is she in any way Persian? Well, the truth is, yes. Is she influential? Probably not. But it was partly as your means of getting me on this podcast

that I insisted that we at least have one person on there that came from Persia. And this is... Obviously, when we're looking at the topic of mistresses, it's a bit difficult. As much as I scoured through Persian history and general Islamic history to find, you'll find that the patriarchy is not only entrenched,

but it's probably institutionalised. So what you have is a situation where if you can have many wives and many concubines, mistresses are somewhat surplus to requirements. So it's a bit... It was quite difficult to locate. So the nightingale was basically a concubine rather than a mistress of an early 19th-century Persian king. But she's notable for the influence she exerted on him. And you'll acknowledge, of course, and I'll have to acknowledge,

that the influence was pretty slight because this king had, ooh, I think about 1,000 concubines. But the interesting thing is it was noticed that this particular dancing girl from Shiraz, as it turns out, had obviously captured the heart of this king, the painting of whom you saw. Yes, what's his name? His name is, and I shall have to sort of say it, but no tittering please in the audience, is Fat Ali Shah. Now, not that that describes his look, as Tom will verify having seen the painting.

And he had very sporting high heels, I have to say. He heels I have to say he had the most enormous beard didn't he this is we as the sign of virility so Ali and I went yesterday to the exhibition on epic Iran at the Victorian Albert Museum and if you haven't seen it it's really wonderful and this guy fat Ali Shah he was not particularly fat but he does the most enormous beard. And I'm guessing that a large beard is a symbol that you can cope with a thousand confidants. He had a... I mean, interestingly, your previous podcast was on eunuchs because his uncle was a eunuch.

Sadly, yes, castrated at the tender age of six in order to prevent him actually becoming king. But that didn't stop him. And because he couldn't obviously have any children, his nephew decided to really go for it and basically created an entire tribe on his own. He's quite a character, this chap. But what's interesting about the nightingale,

whose name in Persian actually is Tuti, which, as Tom and I were discussing earlier, actually means parrot, which is not quite as attractive a name. But the term in Persian, I suppose, is a little bit more... It was meant to be a little bit more dismissive. I prefer Nightingale because I think Nightingale sounds nicer. So what influence did she exert?

The only influence really that I could find that she exerted is one is that she came to the notice of British observers at the time who said that she clearly had captured the heart of the king, which, let's face it, if you have 1,000 concubines and it's the one that captured the heart, that's not bad. And she died very young, tragically, and the king was very moved by this and was seen to visit her grave regularly with melancholia.

And actually what they said was that this young girl basically humanised this king. So she had a modest influence. I can't say it's big and I have to say... Is that it? I have to say, if I wasn't here, I don't think she'd get into the top ten. I thought the least she would have encouraged him

to invade India or something. No, no, he was far too busy in the harrow. I mean, a thousand concubines. Is there time for anything else? OK, so... So that, I'm afraid... She didn't do anything. She died young and she was called the parrot.

But she was, yeah, but... But she was Persian. But she was noticed. She was noticed by the British and she was Persian. And I suppose she does reflect, and it allows us to talk a little bit about this, I suppose, is the fact that, yes, in these societies where you had, what can we say, you can have four wives and as many concubines as you can afford,

I mean, mistresses don't really come into it. Okay, so you can see, ladies and gentlemen, why the nightingale or the parrot was at number ten. That's right. So that's her. So number nine, you said that the parrot had, or nightingale, had... Let's go for nightingale, I think. Had no influence on history. Our next one is someone who had an absolutely outsized influence on history.

And you may well be surprised to discover she's only at nine. Yeah. Cleopatra, in at number nine, of course, is one of the great names, not just in ancient history, but in global history. Absolute kind of historical celebrity. The mistress of the two most powerful men in the world, first Julius Caesar and then Mark Antony. And you may be wondering, well, why is she so low? Well, the answer is that by our rubric,

you have to come from nowhere and achieve great things. Cleopatra is the queen of Egypt. She, of course, is not as powerful as the Roman warlords who control the day because middle of the first century BC Rome is the superpower and Egypt is pretty much the only independent kingdom left after several centuries of Roman conquests across the Mediterranean. But Cleopatra is a player. And so she is bringing things that both Caesar and Antony want. And I think it's absolutely telling that the reputation of Cleopatra among the Romans and then kind of more recent works of pornography, for instance, have been obsessed by her, is that she had a voracious sexual appetite.

And this is kind of explains her relentless appetite. In fact, as far as we know, she only ever slept with two men. And these two men both happen to be incredibly powerful. And I think that that tells you what she was about. She slept with first Julius Caesar and then with Mark Antony because she needed Roman power. First of all, with Caesar to establish her on the Egyptian throne. So she came from a long line of Macedonian kings and queens

who had adopted the native Egyptian tradition of brother and sister marrying each other and Cleopatra was initially married to her younger brother Ptolemy the 13th but she didn't want him around kind of pesky younger brother so she gets embroiled in the civil war in Alexandria Caesar turns up Cleopatra according to the story, has herself delivered to Caesar, rolled up in a carpet. That's right. And I think that Cleopatra, if that's true, has judged Caesar's character. But the interesting thing about her, I suppose,

is where the balance of power is, really. Because certainly with Mark Antony, I think she's very much got the whip hand, hasn't she? Well, she gets it. I mean, certainly with Caesar, it's evident. She's kind of the classic paradigm of the mistress, someone who is very kind of dependent on Caesar. But then once, you know, once Caesar's established her securely on the throne, she, you know, she becomes a player in her own right. Something of the sort of the outsider when

she, when the Romans don't really take to her, do they? Well, she goes to Rome just before the Ides of March and causes a great scandal. She snubs Cicero, you know, who's a kind of very offended by this. Yeah, never snub an academic. Never snub the academic. Yeah, no, that's true. And then the Ides of March happens, and Cleopatra's... Oh, and Cleopatra's got herself pregnant as well with Caesar.

Was she there over the Ides of March? Yes, she's there at the Ides of March, and she's her young son, Caesarian. Caesarian. Giving a clue as to who the father is. I know. So her plan, basically, to establish a kind of dynastic union with the most powerful man in Rome is foiled by Caesar's assassination.

And the Roman world gets divided between Mark Antony, Caesar's best lieutenant, and the future Augustus, Octavian, who is his adopted son. The world gets split. Mark Antony takes the eastern half of the Roman Empire and summons Cleopatra in a very imperious way to Tarsus, where he's made his base. And Cleopatra, who had wowed Caesar by being rolled up on the carpet, wows Antony, who's a much more vulgar man, by turning up with the most incredible bling. It's a massive kind of barge. This is the thing that, you know, Shakespeare makes kind of wonderful,

kind of purple passage. Presumably Mark Antony was quite taken by the fact that he would be going with Caesar's mistress. That's absolutely part of it, yes. But essentially Cleopatra is... She can play on that, of course. She is wowing him with her, you him with her gold, her splendour, her pizzazz. And basically... Could you say she emasculates him?

No, because Antony and Cleopatra are definitely a pair, a unit. But politically emasculates them. Well, that's what subsequently happens because Antony has an affair with Cleopatra, then goes back, basically signs a peace treaty with Octavian, by the terms of which he will marry Octavian's sister Octavia, who is a kind of upright Roman matron, very much not Cleopatra.

Antony stays with her for a while, but then basically bins her and shacks up with Cleopatra. Anthony stays with her for a while, but then basically bins her and shacks up with Cleopatra. And the propaganda in Rome coming from the future Augustus, which then gets picked up by Roman historians and in due course by Shakespeare and Cecil B. DeMille and Elizabeth Taylor and so on, is that this is all for love. But the probability is that it's a kind of dynastic throw. Antony is looking essentially to get rid of his pesky partner in the rule of the Roman world. He needs Cleopatra for that.

But it all goes wrong. Antony and Cleopatra get defeated at Actium. And by that point, basically, Cleopatra's the powerful one because Cleopatra's the queen of Egypt, but Antony's lost everything. Antony's nothing. So Antony dies, and the story is that Cleopatra

then makes a pitch at Octavian. That wouldn't have gone down well, though. Well, Octavian doesn't need her, though. I must admit, I thought the sibling marrying stuff was all Zoroastrian, but you're saying the Egyptians are up to it as well, which is quite interesting. And they got their first wedding.

I'm going to try and get something Persian in on everyone. No, the Egyptians got their first. Did they? Yeah, I'm afraid so. Terrible. Not that that's the finest achievement. But anyway, that's me. So basically, and then Cleopatra, of course,

famously commits suicide rather than walk in Caesar's trial with the asp smuggled in in the basket of figs. And by that point, you could almost say that the roles have reversed. And it's, you know, Cleopatra is the powerful one and Antony is the suitor. And so that then opens up a question which is focused by our next one. Which is interesting. Which is the question, can there be a male mistress? That's right.

So, Ali, do you want to? Well, this takes me back to my medieval history. So who is number eight? So Piers Gaveston, who was the, shall we call it, the intimate friend of Edward II. And as I understand, was actually introduced into the household by his father, Edward Longshanks, which is probably not the wisest thing to have done,

because he then discovered that the relationship between his son and Piers Gaveston was getting a little bit too close. Now, of course, we don't know posthumously. They've talked about how intimate that relationship was, but clearly he had a degree of influence which the nobility in England after Edward became king weren't particularly keen on. So there's a sort of an interesting dynamic there

about whether we can categorise Piers Gaveston as a sort of a mistress type figure. Well, he's a favourite, isn't he? He's a favourite, yeah. So men who come from nowhere, or, you know, not even from nowhere, I mean, you know, Gaveston is... Came from Gascony. Yeah, he's from Gas from nowhere, I mean, Gaveston is... Came from Gascony. Yeah, he's from Gascony. I mean, he's kind of well-born.

But the idea of the favourite who is over-promoted is a very distinctive category. But I think that what makes Gaveston kind of interesting is that, as you say, there is absolutely these kind of... There do seem to have been these rumours that there were kind of a sexual dimension to it. that gets picked up by by Christopher Marlowe who writes a play about it and it it's fed it into I think the Piers Gaveston Club at Oxford is the Bullingdon Club yes for kind of people who wear opera

clothes so anyway it does bring in this... I mean, it is an interesting sort of relationship. I mean, whether, you know, we were talking about, you know, later monarchs such as Catherine the Great, who had a string of sort of male lovers who played a very sort of influential role in her. I mean, actually helped her kill her husband, actually. But I guess they'd be favourites.

I mean, they were kind of favourites, yeah, but they were sort of... And I think Gaveston is a sort of a quite a... At least a famous one of these in that sense. Because I think that... I mean, the reason that Gaveston causes so much trouble, it seems from the sources, isn't really because of the sexual dimension, if indeed that existed.

It is because he's clearly a massive lad. He's really he's really he's really good at tournaments and he's so he's on campaign with Edward the first in Scotland and he bunks off to go to a tournament which is you know not that kind of interesting thing is if Edward the first has introduced him he must have thought highly of him I mean that's the thing he regrets it he does regret and then and then the moment the moment Edward dies, the now Edward II, the lavishing gifts on him is,

he makes him the Earl of Cornwall, and Gaveston enters the tournament again and kind of humiliates the established aristocracy. So I think it's that that really... He's a bit of a show-off, really. He's a kind of peacock. He's driven up with his Lamborghini and stuff like that. Absolutely.

He looks, and the traditional aristocracy aren't very keen on this sort of thing. So the aristocracy are kind of endlessly trying to get rid of him. And Edward is kind of forced to send him into exile. And then Gaveston comes back, and then the cycle goes over and over and over. And then finally in 1312, Gaveston gets cornered and executed. And his head gets chopped off. end is not pretty, is it? I don't think. I mean, if I remember...

No, his head gets chopped off. It's Edward II whose end is not pretty. But wasn't Piers Gaveston hung, drawn and quartered? No, I think he just got executed. Oh, just that one. I think he just had his head chopped off. Just head chopped off, it's all right. But Edward II had it rather, yeah.

Well, everybody involved in this story... They claim. Terrible things are told of them. So all the stuff about Gaveston, the rumours, we don't know whether they're true or not. Edward II notoriously, he ends up getting deposed by his wife, Isabella, the she-wolf of France, and her lover.

And he gets put in Barkley Castle and terrible screams are heard. And the story is, of course, that he is killed by having a red-hot poker shoved up his anus. Perhaps to disguise what had happened, and perhaps as a kind of brutal joke about his relationship. Was it also because you mustn't shed royal blood?

Yeah, that as well. That's a very sort of like, you know, Middle Eastern idea. Possibly Persian. Yeah, possibly. blood yeah that that that as well it's a very sort of like so brother you know Middle Eastern interesting I was reading as I told you there was reading a one of the earliest histories of Britain written written actually by a Persian traveler who who accounts for this actually describes the death of Edward the second in some. He finds it quite interesting. What did he say? What did he just say? He had something stuck up an orifice. And does he not elaborate? Yeah, he just says, you know, that was just the way it was. I think these were sort of routine means of execution.

These barbarians. These barbarian kings. Actually, interestingly, he also adds, which I'll throw in here, that the only reason Henry VIII had so many problems with his wives is he couldn't have more than one at the same time. I mean, if he could, like, you know, good Persian kings,

there'd be no problem. But his wife, Isabella, it was said of her that at the age of 70 she took an alchemical elixir that enabled her to have sex with 40 young men at a time. What, is she a wolf? Yes. We told you it was going to get a selection.

So shocking, shocking detail. But all I'm sure not true. So we only mention it to discount it, which is very much having your cake. I mean, that would be quite, yeah, 40, yeah. Having your cake and eating it. Yeah, having your cake, yeah, absolutely. So do we think, I mean,

Piers Gavison's kind of a mistress, isn't he? He is. I mean, I think we've got to be, you know, we've got to look at this, you know, with a level playing field, really. I mean, I think he definitely, you know, he uses his intimacy to gain influence. But it does, I mean, it does highlight the way in which, overwhelmingly, we are talking about societies

in which it's the men who have power. Yeah. And in a sense, therefore, for men to have, to obtain power through sexual relations yn y cyd-dynion sydd ganddo bwysigrwydd. Ie. Ac yn ymddygiad, felly, i fod i dynion gael bwysigrwydd drwy gysylltiadau seksuol, mae'n cael ei weld fel ddwylo. Ie. Ie, mae hynny'n wir. Yn ystod y cyd, rydych chi'n ymddygiad lle mae gennych unwyr. Ie. Mae hynny'n ein cyflwyno yn ôl i'r fesodd gyntaf.

Felly, rwy'n credu bod Piers Gaveston, I mean he's kind of interesting choice and a good choice but I think doesn't deserve to feature any higher than number eight. So shall we move on to number seven? Number seven. Okay so number seven. There was a gentleman, I was coming on the tube here and he recognized me and said that he was coming here. So I don't know if you're here, gentlemen. Yes, there your hand goes up. Lovely to see you.

I'm so glad you made it. So he wasn't making it up. And I was, I never make anything up. No, no, no, absolutely. And I was busy reading a book, kind of swatting up, ready for this. And the book was a biography of Nelson, which will give you a clue as to the woman who comes in at number seven. Well, I have to say, she's a particular favourite of mine, but you, Karen. So Emma Hamilton, Lady Hamilton,

who famously had an affair with, well, more than an affair, a great kind of lifelong, a great passion with Admiral Nelson. And I think that we can say of Emma Hamilton that she absolutely fits the paradigm of the woman who comes from nowhere...a'i ddefnyddio'n dda i'r paradigwyr o'r gwbl......y mae'n dod o gwbl... ...a'i ddefnyddio ar gyfer ei ddysgu sexu... ...i'w ddysgu'r sgwrs... ...i'w ddysgu'r ddysgu... ...i fyny'n fawr o'r sefydliad y mae hi wedi'i ddod o'i ffwrdd.

Yn 1765, pan oedd hi'n dod o'i ffwrdd... ...mae Lloegr yn cymdeithas cyffredinol. Mae Emma wedi'i ddod o' society and Emma is born in Cheshire, quite humble background, but she heads to London as so many ambitious people, both male and female, did. And London, of course, is a terribly dangerous, threatening place for young people with high ambitions. So Emma was always kind of treading a tightrope of potential ruin. And for women particularly, those who are going to use their sex appeal, the risk is always that you kind of end up pregnant, ruined, and just thrown on the dung heap.

So Emma is taking huge huge huge risks in going to London she she enters the kind of the theatrical world again as as so many successful mistresses Doug yeah so she works as as an actress she also she works as she's employed as a maid to successful actresses so she kind of picks up on that um and she becomes a dancer and her ability to i mean they have dancers in persia that's right yeah she was very so almost famous for her beauty of course i mean the thing with emma emma the thing with emma alton is it's just for me the most is the tragedy of it all actually i mean to be honest i mean she's basically passed on from one successful man to

another so so so so you you yes so the first one so her achievement is to to bag a man yeah a powerful posh man and this man is charles greville who seems to be rather boring he was but much older is very rich yeah so so charles greville, it's kind of my fair lady scenario. So he puts her up in a house in Paddington and Emma is very, very... She shows herself to be very proficient at languages. So she learns Italian and French very quickly. She becomes great friends with the Queen.

So... Of Naples. Yeah, the Queen of Naples. And she has this great thing, it's always my favourite thing about her, that she, and this is again where the dancing comes in, they're called Emma Hamilton's Attitudes. Oh, that's right, yes, yes, I read about it.

And she kind of, she uses her control of dance and mime to simulate scenes from classical antiquity. So William Hamilton's pots, you know, there'll be nymphs or something on the pots. And she will pose. And, you know, before YouTube, this is the kind of hottest ticket in Naples. So everyone gathers round to watch her do her attitudes. And it's all, you know, it's all great fun. Very Enlightenment stuff, isn't it, really? Yes, yes.

And then, of course, Nelson turns up. Oh, yes. And he kind of turns up in the early 1790s, and, you know, eyes meet across crowded rooms. But then the thing that really kind of lights the taper is that Nelson turns up after the Battle of the Nile, where he has destroyed the French fleet. Napoleon's gone to Egypt to try and conquer Egypt, where he has destroyed the French fleet. Napoleon's gone

to Egypt to try and conquer Egypt, which he does, but gets stranded because Nelson has sailed in into the mouth of the Nile and with great daring has destroyed the French fleet. And as a result, he's absolutely the kind of, you know, the toast of the anti-French Europe and particularly of Britain, goes back to Naples, is informed that he's become Lord Nelson and he needs a rest. He needs to recharge his batteries. And Emma recharges his batteries for him. You put it so well.

Well, I have to say, yes, William Hamilton is quite, how should we say? He's quite mellow about it. He's quite mellow about it, yeah. He doesn't take it too badly, does he? I think he's a mellow guy. Yeah He's quite mellow about it, yeah. He doesn't take it too badly, does he? I mean, he's... I think he's a mellow guy. Yeah, yeah.

And there's definitely something there where it's definitely a passionate love affair, isn't it? Between... Yes, so they both... Yes, and Nelson, of course, and the reason that Emma is a mistress is that Nelson is married. He's married, yeah.

To Fanny, who is back in kind of wet, dank, dreary Norfolk, with apologies to anyone from Norfolk. But it can't measure up to the sheer pizzazz and excitement of the court. And Emma with her attitudes and her general sense of fun. And Nelson just gets completely besotted. And in due course there's a kind of a revolution which Nelson helps to well it doesn't more than help I mean basically puts down and this becomes a cause of considerable

controversy back in England you know has it has he gone too far has he been too brutal with it but Nelson helps to put that down and then and then they all go back home to England because William Hamilton has been recalled. And so they go back across Europe via Vienna, where Hayden in Vienna gets obsessed by Emma, big fan, go back to England. And Nelson, of course, is the hero that England needs at this difficult time in the war against Napoleon. He's tremendously charismatic. He's the great hero who saved Britain.

He has colour. He is, in every way, the kind of the pin-up. And he brings this baggage of celebrity because it's kind of absolute tabloid fodder because basically you know his wife his wife is distraught doesn't want to give him up without a fight nelson's obsessed with emma emma is still with william hamilton the whole thing is absolute kind of you know it's brilliant everybody's obsessed by it and writing it up and everywhere they go they're being followed.

So it's exactly like the tabloids. But I was surprised that this early stage, because I always thought this sort of more prudish attitude has come out later on with the Victorian era, that the idea of someone having a mistress would have been, I suppose George III never had mistresses, did he? So he probably didn't set the tone wasn't right, was it? Well, no, it is...

Probably a little bit more Puritan than we might have thought. Well, no, I mean, it doesn't lose Nelson his popularity. In a way, it's kind of in harsh, is it? She gets it. She gets it quite tough. It's not exactly a... So Nelson ends up... You know, he leaves his wife. Hamilton dies.

Nelson and Emma shack up together in a house in Merton next to the River Wandel. So I'm very keen on walking London's rivers and you walk the River Wandel and suddenly every pub, every street is named after Nelson

and you know that you've reached the site of the long vanished house that he and Emma Hamilton lived in. every pub, every street is named after Nelson, and you know that you've reached the site of the long-vanished house that he and Emma Hamilton lived in. But interestingly, they're after Emma. Yeah, so, of course, and they have a daughter, Horatia. So she's giving a massive clue as to who the father is. I mean, it couldn't, you know... And Horatia looks exactly like Nelson.

Oh, dear. I mean, obviously, she has an arm and hasn't lost an eye, but apart from that, she looks very like Nelson. I mean, obviously he has an arm and he hasn't lost an eye, but far from that, she looks very like him. And then of course, Nelson Sails Off dies at Trafalgar. And as he's dying, he thinks of Emma and he says, you know, please look after Emma, make sure that Emma is cared for. And he misses Emma so much that it is that, it is said, that prompts him to ask Hardy to give him a kiss. Doesn't have Emma there, so Hardy will do, and then he dies. So you think he actually did say to Hardy, I thought it was kismet,

I thought it was about destiny or something. Oh, the Persian thing again. Well, yeah, I thought it was, yeah. No, but the bad news is, of course, is that once Nelson dies, i think it's his brother isn't it who sort of inherits everything yes and his brother is a vicar is that right yes and uh rather how should we say you know not he doesn't approve let's put that way yes and then of course uh you know one of the things that i found very i mean it's quite tragic that you have this extraordinary funeral, obviously, state funeral for Nelson, held in St Paul's and everything, all sort of glorious, technicolour and everything.

The one person who isn't invited is Emma. Yeah. And she's left outside, basically. Yeah. And from then on, she's effectively ostracised. And loses her money. Yeah. I mean, it is tragic.

Has to sell the house at Merton. Sell the house at Merton. Goes to debtors prison, gets freed by some of Nelson's friends but she kind of you know dies I think in Calais which is 1815. Yeah 1815, Calais is the place you know like Beau Brummel where ruined regency celebrities go to die and it and it's yeah and it's it's it's terrible and and people do feel guilty about it and actually I mean you talked about kind of Victorian morality but I think it's in the 1840s that that people feel so guilty about how she's been she'd been treated that that the government ends up settling money on Horatio's three children as a way of kind of making amends. So I think that Emma is a kind of, in a way,

she's kind of the paradigm of the kind of mistress that we're going to be looking at from now on. But she's at number seven because she doesn't really, you know, she has this wonderful kind of relationship with Nelson, but she doesn't bed you know she she she has this wonderful kind of relationship with nelson but she doesn't bed it down and and in a sense the the way that she's used her beauty and her notoriety to to to leverage herself up into a position of power and wealth it ends up chewing her up and of course that's something that that you know we see today with with the way that celebrities get treated. Yeah, it is, yeah. But our next one is also someone who came from nowhere,

got involved with the theatre, but was incredibly successful. So basically, Nell Gwynn is very successful because in many ways she causes the least problems for her lover in that since Charles the second obviously Charles the second famous or for numerous mistresses it has to be said one of which is it lady castle made whose Barbara Villiers particularly particularly difficult it might be said certainly to charge so he had amazing underwear and the peeps going through

Whitehall sees lady castle mains underwear and kind of rushes back home and then there's some asterisks in his diary but the but the interesting thing with nell gwynn i suppose is first of all where she comes from so she's from very so she's a you know an actress come fruit seller well i think even lower than i mean she she comes from a slum i mean there are kind of various stories about where so gwyn that perhaps she comes from wales but i think almost certainly she's born kind of in you know the stews of drury lane covent garden uh and and clearly there's the kind of you know the the very very strong whiff of prostitution around everything to do with her origins, her upbringing.

Yeah. In the pre-modern sense. Yeah, and so she becomes an orange girl. That's the famous thing that everyone knows about Nell Gwynn, is that she sells oranges. And she's, what, kind of, I think, 14 or something? But isn't it seen, to Charles II's credit in some ways, that he's besotted or falls in love with someone who is so much salt of the earth?

It's not aristocratic. There's no basis of, here she is, coming from basic... So in some ways it adds to its popularity, of course, doesn't it? Absolutely, yes. So she goes from being an orange girl, which basically means it's the equivalent of selling fruit pastels in the West End now. You're going around with your tray of...

Are there people selling fruit pastels in the West End? It's a mystery of 17th century historiography. Yeah, yeah. And not just oranges, it's kind of lemons and fruit. But these are exotic fruit pastels. Exotic, yes, exactly, exactly. And then she's very... Well, again, peeps calls her pretty witty Nell she's she's pretty she's witty and it's evident to the the guys who basically employed her

in the theater that she's got the makings of a great comic actress and I think I mean it's kind of thinking who a modern equivalent would be, and I would guess it would be Barbara Windsor. Yeah, I'm wondering. She's smart, she's clever, she's funny, she's sexy, she's sort of the earth. People just kind of seem to love her. And she's sort of like... The impression you get is that she's, for Charles anyway,

she's sort of problem-free. She doesn't demand anything of him. In the way that others do. They're all demanding things of him. She doesn't. And at the end of the day, he does actually get, you know, he does in his will, say, you know, look after Nell and all this sort of thing.

Absolutely. Well, so she comes in in 1668 as Lady Castlemaine, Barbara Villiers, is kind of starting to fade. Right. She overplayed her hand and she's ageing, which of course is an occupational hazard for a mistress. And it becomes known that Charles II is looking for a replacement.

So there are kind of various actresses. And supposedly, Nell Gwynne gives a rival actress a laxative. Oh, really? Just before a date with Charles II which kind of obviously is well it's that does that does it's it's a brilliant thing to do to get rid of a potential love rival um and and so and then and and then it all goes tremendously well but I mean Charles II I mean I think that that of all because of course you know if he where there's a mistress there's a guy who has a mistress I think Charles II is has the, I think that of all... Because, of course, where there's a mistress,

there's a guy who has a mistress. I think Charles II has the greatest array of mistresses of any English king. And Nell Gwynne's great rival is Louise de Kerouet, who is French and Catholic, and who Nell Gwynne nicknames Squintabella. Squintabella? So, again, that's very kind of Barbara Windsor. Oh, dear.

You know, get out of my pub! There's a whole... You stuck-up French Catholic. And there is a thing that... Squintabella. So Nell Gwynn, as a kind of sort-of-the-earth, lovable Cockney Protestant, is much more popular with the London crowds

than the stuck-up French Catholic. Yeah. And there's this famous story that Nell Gwynne is out on a carriage. The mob gets her. The mob think... Yeah, yeah. And she says that, you know, I'm the king's Protestant. I'm the Protestant whore.

That's right, yeah. So they all go, great, no problem. Because we forget, of course, the sectarian anxieties of the 17th century, I should say. Yes. So, you know, having a Catholic, yeah, having a Catholic mistress. And Charles himself is kind of, you know, he... He's leaning towards...

Well, Charles II is leaning towards Catholicism and also is basically in the pocket of the French, of Louis XIV. Yeah, absolutely, Louis XIV. So, Louise is, you know, his aspirational mistress. Was she not placed there by Louis XIV? Yes. Yeah, yeah, there you go.

Yes, yes. And then also you've got Francis Stuart, who famously doesn't become his mistress and therefore you know plays hard to get and so Charles is even more obsessed with her and she's the one who becomes the first model for Britannia so so Nell Gwynn up to this point you could say I mean what's the difference with with um with Emma Hamilton the difference is of course that Nell Gwynn doesn't, you know, everything goes fine. Yeah, she doesn't get, Charles II dies and she is looked after and she does her son become...

Yeah, so she has two sons. Two sons. And the son, the kind of various stories about how this works. One is that Charles is kind of, you know, hanging out with Nell and the young boy, who's also called Charles, wanders in. And Nell Gwynne says, come here, you little bastard. And Charles II says, you can't call my son a little bastard. And Nell Gwynne says, yes, but that's what he is.

Unless you give him a peerage. Nicely done. And the other story, which is even more improbable, is that she kind of dropped him, hung him out of a window and threatened to drop him unless Charles gave him a peerage. So he becomes, I think, the Earl of Burford and then the Duke of St Albans, Charles Beauclair. And the Beauclairs, I think the house in Windsor that they got given, they lived there until quite recently.

And they're all kinds of members of the aristocracy to this day. The line isn't extinct then, it's still... No, they're all very, very proud to be descended from Nell Gwynne and, you know, from Charles. So, I think that that's, you know, she's a winner. No, I think she is.

I mean, if you compare, obviously, with Emma Hamilton, I mean, that's, she's done well. Yes, she does, she has done well. So, she's in at six. And then at number five... Yeah, this is your one, I think. Yes, so Lily Langtry is a fascinating...

She complements and contrasts with Nell Gwynn. So Nell Gwynn uses the stage to become the mistress of a member of the royal, you know, to become a king. Lily Langtry uses her affair with the Prince of Wales, the future Edward VII, to become an actress. And the reason we put her in at five is that Lily Langtry serves as a kind of prototype for possibly the two most famous mistresses of the 20th century, Marilyn and Camilla. And Lily Langtry is part of a kind of a trend in the 19th century for

kind of celebrity courtesans who sleep with incredibly a range of famous people. So there's Lola Montes, despite her name is is actually Irish yeah and she kind of pretends to be a Spanish dancer and she gets off with um she's a fascinating figure though I think I mean Lola Montes uh to be honest I would have had her instead of Lily Langtry but yes we we we we have agreed yes we have debated this and now is not the time but I would say something. Yes, so Lola Monta, as you correctly pointed out, she has affairs with Franz Liszt, with Alexandre Dumas,

who writes The Three Musketeers, and famously with Ludwig I of Bavaria. Yeah, that's the best one. Lola Monta thinks she's absolutely made it. She's in this car here, hanging out in Bavaria. And then 1848 turns up, the year of revolutions, and she gets to go to America. One other famous person she has an affair with, of course, is Flashman.

That's right, and that's how I became acquainted with Lola Montez, I have to say, is Flashman. So there's Lola Montez, and then there's those of you who've listened to the episode that we did on statues. May remember, on Whitehall, there's a statue of Spencer Cavendish, the Duke of Devonshire. This guy I'd never heard of till Dominic told me who he was I mean the most extraordinary lingerie you've ever seen on the statue and Dominic revealed that he was most interesting because he had an affair with this woman Catherine Walters who was known as Skittles and Skittles

was famous for riding in the tightest riding habit that any woman... Riding through Hyde Park. Yes, riding through Hyde Park and St James' Park in this incredibly tight riding habit. And so she had an affair with the Duke of Devonshire, but also with Napoleon III and with the Prince of Wales, the future Edward VII, who probably comes second to Charles II

as a royal sponsor of mistresses. But didn't he sort of, wasn't he also quite, I mean Edward VII, I mean in terms of l'entente cordiale, wasn't it sort of partly he was having, you know, a few of his flings were quite good for building relations. Well that's what he said. I mean he was, you know, it was important for him. That's what he told mummy.

He was doing a diplomatic service, yeah. I'm not sure about that. It's important for, it's important for him. That's what he told mummy. He was doing a diplomatic service, yeah. Yeah. I'm not sure about that. I'm not sure about that. It's important for Anton Cordial that I have a few... But, I mean, I think Lily Langtry

is Edward VII's most famous mistress. Yeah, famous, yeah. They had the fling long before he succeeded his mother, Queen Victoria. Lily Langtry, she came from Jersey. She was known as the Jersey Lily. Her husband, who gives her the name, I think it's Edward Langtry, he turns up in Jersey with a fabulous yacht.

So Lily Langtry, who's the daughter of this clergyman, who's an absolute ladies' man, completely notorious, kind of falls into his arms with great gratitude and they sail off to London. Her father is a ladies' man? Is that what you said? Yeah, her father is this... I think he's the dean of... And he's a great ladies' man. He's a great ladies' man. Oh. Yes, yeah.

And when she's in London, she's incredibly beautiful. She gets taken up by kind of artists. She serves as a model for all kinds of painters. And that's how she ends up with the Prince of Wales. And she's with the Prince of Wales for three years, gets presented to Queen Victoria, unbelievably. I mean, it's kind of, you know, she's... What did she make of it?

Well, Lily Lantry's incredibly charming. And all mistresses, to be a mistress, it's not just enough to be gorgeous. You've got to be charming and witty and intelligent. Yeah, absolutely. And so they separate. Basically, you know, Prince of Wales moves on to Pastors New. But he's always very fond of Lily.

But the problem that Lily faces once the Prince of Wales has kind of moved on is that all her creditors immediately move in because they've been living beyond their means. and so Lily's stuck for things to do and so her great friend Oscar Wilde says well have you thought of going on the stage so it exactly reverses what happens with with with Nell Gwynn and she but she's a great success at this she becomes a you know she's a fabulously good and she goes to America. She's a great smash on the American stage.

She starts to kind of take an interest in horse racing, starts to own horses. She wins Goodwood. She hangs out with Gladstone. I mean, obviously doesn't have an affair with Gladstone. They wouldn't have an affair with Gladstone. But she becomes incredibly famous. And she ends up marrying this guy,

and I'm going to have to read this because his name is so posh, Hugo Gerald de Bath. I hope I've pronounced that right. Hugo Gerald de who? Hugo Gerald de Bath. Bath. And she ends up as Lady de Bath. And in her 70s, she lives in Monte Carlo.

Gerald is in Venice. And it's all... So when did she eventually die? 1920s sometime. Oh, right. So she's a bridge between the age of the classic Victorian courtesan and, of course, the famous mistresses of the 20th century. So Marilyn, who's an actress, you know just as famous as JFK yeah and Camilla

who I think is actually descended from Lily Lantry so so anyway so so Lily Lantry I think is is is a deserved she deserves to be at number five she you know she makes a tremendous success of it. She still has pubs named after her to this day. Oh, and I forgot to say about Nell Gwynn. Nell Gwynn, I think, is the only mistress to have a statue. We're very interested in statues. There's a statue of Nell Gwynn.

She's the only royal mistress to have had a statue. There's a block of flats in Chelsea called Nell Gwynn House. And there's a statue of her? There's a statue of her, yeah. Wow. And I think, you know, in our statues episode we were... Oh yes, I've been past that. We were talking about how all the statues are kind of basically of generals, but we could

do with more statues of royal mistresses. So a statue of Nell Gwynn, a statue of Lily Langtry, it would be great. I'm Marina Hyde. And I'm Richard Osman. And together we host The Rest Is Entertainment. It's your weekly fix of entertainment news,

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and early access to live tickets, head to therestisentertainment.com. That's therestisentertainment.com. Number four. Now, this is a proper mistress. Yeah, we're talking proper mistress. Yeah, this is a proper mistress. Yeah, we're talking proper. Yeah, this is proper stuff. None of these sort of actresses.

So, Madame de Pompadour, who is the mistress to Louis XV of France. Now, the interesting thing about Madame de Pompadour, as powerful as she becomes, and she actually does break some of the standards that we've been talking about in as much as in the French royal system there was a post of chief royal mistress.

Yes. And not only does she fill this post, but it comes with lodgings. Make prens on keep. Yeah. So this is a formal position for Louis V. And she ends up basically effectively running parts of the state, which is, you know, she has quite a lot of political power.

She becomes prime minister, basically. Yeah, she basically does. She also is there, as we were saying, long after, you know, you said, you know, age is a sort of an occupational hazard, but not in her case. I mean, she hangs in there. Yes. Until quite late, you know, and she knows that she gets to a stage where she sort of says,

I'm not really interested in all this intimate stuff anymore. I can't handle it. So I'm going to bring in some other people to sort out the king on this basis, as long as they don't mess around with his affections. So it's kind of layers of mistress. Yeah. So she's in a different league, actually, I think. But kind of creepy and weird as well.

She's sort of like a second wife. But it's interesting, because, I mean, when kind of creepy and weird as well. She sort of sounds like a second wife. But it's interesting, because when we go back, if we can go back to number ten, what's the distinction between this as a mistress and a second wife? Well, I'll tell you one distinction. I mean, she's basically his second wife, right? But one distinction is that she is groomed for that position. Groomed?

She's groomed. And I use the word advisedly. So before she becomes Madame de Pompadour, her name is Poisson, so she's called Fish. Fish? Yes. It's almost as bad as Pat. Jean-Antoinette Poisson.

And at the age of nine, apparently she's told by a fortune teller that she's going to win the heart of a king. And so from that point on, she becomes known to her family as a reinet, little queen. And basically, her parents start grooming her to become the royal mistress, which, I mean, even for the French... LAUGHTER

Yeah, I mean, I must admit, that's... It's quite odd, isn't it yeah so and so you know rather like Emma Hamilton kind of educates herself to you know be able to kind of hang out with with rich people she is you know she's she's kind of educated given dance lessons all that kind of stuff. I mean, you're saying it's sort of quite creepy in some ways. It's probably creepy to us, but probably not to 18th century French society. I mean, if you think that their idea is that this is a formal position.

Yeah, so she's applying for a job. So the king is out hunting and she goes along to the hunting and she wears a pink dress and drives a kind of blue chariot. And then she puts on a blue dress and drives a pink chariot while he's hunting. And you'd think rather than infuriating him, which frankly if I was hunting and this woman turns up kind of scaring all the game, I'd be pretty cross. But no, he really likes this.

And so then they have a masked bull at which he, very peculiarly, goes as a tree. Goes which he very peculiarly goes as a tree. He goes as a tree? He goes as a tree. Wow. And she goes as Diana, the goddess of hunting. So all very... Right.

Right. And so then they take off their masks. But you're beautiful. And there it is. She's kind of... But she, as you say, is absolutely qualified. I mean, she's an incredibly impressive woman, very, very competent,

and basically the king can't function without her. And when I say function, I mean politically. And here's the interesting thing, I suppose, in terms of where we're heading, is that she has a very, very emphatic and decisive political role to play because she's the one who basically in the seven years war manages the switch in alliance between in and makes yeah austria and france basically allied after years and years of

animosity but the seven years war um as those of you who who've listened to the episode we did with dan snow um i mean it actually didn't go very well no not for the phrase so the famous as those of you who've listened to the episode we did with Dan Snow, it actually didn't go very well. No, not for the French. So the famous phrase, après moi, le deluge. Yeah, that's her, yes. Yeah, that's her famous phrase. But, yeah, she was obviously awesomely competent, efficient, also a great patron of the Enlightenment,

a great enthusiast for Diderot But she sort of set up this house for his sort of sub-mistresses Yes He called it the stag house or something Yeah It's quite an extraordinary It's all very French

It's all very French Extremely powerful though Yes So I think she's in it for But we've now come to the top three Okay It's getting important now The top three

In at number three um we have a greek uh aspasia i'll have to leave this one to you and i well no ali because well there is going to be a person that i mentioned yes but i i i there's a case i think for having asp having Aspasia in at number one. So she is from Miletus, which is a famous trading city on the Aegean coast of what is now Turkey, had been destroyed by the Persians, but by the mid fifth century when Aspasia is born,

is starting to recover, it's likely that she is descended from a very aristocratic Athenian family to which the great Athenian statesman Pericles, who commissions the Parthenon and rebuilds Athens in its golden age. And so she goes with her sister to Athens and settles there. Now, Athens is a kind of very chauvinist place, so she's seen as a foreigner.

And Athens is also an unbelievably kind of Taliban-esque place in its attitudes towards women. Yes, so it's... Women are very, veryordinate in in Athenian life they they do not have a public role to play at all the pub that the women who do kind of you know meet men and kind of hang out with them are called Tyra they're kind of very rather cortisans kind of very posh educated prostitutes and so there is this aspasia as this very high profile foreign woman is an obvious but for the

mockery of pericles's enemies and for um comic dramatists like aristophanes. And so there is this kind of seam of abuse of Aspasia that she's either a high class courtesan or a low class courtesan, a low class courtesan. And there are stories that she actually runs a brothel. And Aristophanes accuses Aspasia of starting the Peloponnesian War, the war between Athens and Sparta, which ends up ruining Athens, because she becomes Pericles' mistress. And the story goes that people from a city called Megara have stolen three prostitutes from Aspasia's brothel and it's in vengeance for that that

Pericles introduces a trade embargo against Megara which in turn sets up a kind of domino effect which culminates in the Peloponnesian war. Now is this true that there is a very different way to look at Aspasia and that is to say that she is a person who has an absolutely seismic influence on the two aspects of Athens for which it's best known in its golden age. The first is politically, and the second is in the dimension of philosophy. So Aspasia becomes the mistress of Pericles, the most powerful man in Athens. Pericles is obsessed by her. He can't marry her because of a rule, a law that he himself has introduced, which says that Athenian men can't marry foreign women. But basically, they kind of live as effectively as man and wife. He is notorious for kissing her in public.

He's notorious for kissing her every day. This is noted by Plutarch centuries later as a kind of weird aberration. You know, kissing the same woman endlessly. Wouldn't have happened in Persia. No. If it only moved across the Aegean, eh? But it's an interesting point

about how badly women are treated in Athens, actually, because, I mean, of course, you know... Yeah, it's much more liberating in Persia. I think it's an interesting point about how badly women are treated in Athens, actually, because, I mean, of course, you know... Yeah, it's much more liberated in Persia. I think it's really tough. But according to Plato, it's Aspasia who actually writes the famous funeral oration that Pericles gives, which is recorded in Thucydides' history, over the war dead in the first years of the Peloponnesian War. So there's this kind of...

So even the kind of Aristophanian joke about Aspasia starting the Peloponnesian War, it's casting her as a political player. And the idea of a woman as a serious contributor towards Athenian political life, I mean, is staggering, absolutely staggering. But on top of that, there's the possibility that she stands as the fountainhead of the entire Western philosophical tradition. And this is the thesis of a wonderful book by the Oxford classicist, Armand D'Angour, who wrote a book, Socrates in Love. And he argues that, well, basically before Pericles,

Aspasia had a relationship with Socrates. And again, from Plutarch, rydym wedi'i ddweud bod Socrates yn y great theory of love. And Socrates says that his philosophy of love derives from a woman called Diatima. He says, everything that I have learned, I learned long ago, you know, when I was a young man, from this very, very clever, brilliant woman. Who is Diatima? Armand's argument is that Diatima, it means honored by Zeus. Pericles' nickname was Zeus, a bit like Macron calls himself Jupiter, Pericles was known as Zeus, and that Diotima is Aspasia, and that therefore you can make the case that you've got Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, Aspasia, that Aspasia stands at the head of this entire tradition, you know, which

is an absolutely brilliant thesis, absolutely stunning. The reason that I haven't put Aspasia in at number one is because I think it's unproven and the counter view is that basically we know nothing about Aspasia at all. So because... A good Greek myth. Yeah, well this is a problem.. If Dominic were here, he'd just be kind of going, yeah, well, there's a problem with ancient history. I'm going to tell my inner Dominic any moment now. But I'm slightly puzzled. I mean, you know, I must say...

Well, because all this stuff... Let's talk about this relationship with Socrates. I mean, Socrates was not renowned for being a great sort of, how shall we say, seducer of... Yeah, but as a young man, as a young man. And he talks about this woman that he... She must have been in love with his intellect, I presume. Well, as a young man, I'm sure, you know, he's a...

Yeah. Yeah, no, I mean, we know he fights and... Certainly in the Muslim tradition, Socrates is not considered to be particularly... And is there a Persian dimension to Aspasia? Well, there is, there is, now that you mention it. Which might actually go to the argument that she may well have certainly existed. I don't know about the influence that you claim she held.

But Cyrus the Younger, who was the satrap, the governor of Western Anatolia, he apparently named his mistress after her as a sort of emulation, so to speak, which is quite interesting, actually, in that sense. So he obviously thought that she was someone of significance. So the Persian seal of approval as well. Lydia.

So I think she deserves to be at number three. Were the evidence a little bit firmer, she'd be in at number one. And the Peloponnesian War, remind me, who benefited from the Peloponnesian War? The Spartans. And who were the supporters of the Spartans? The Persians. Thank you. Yes anyway let's move on. She must have been important, she must have been important because she she basically she basically facilitated the destruction of Athens which is...

Okay so that's why she's at three and not at one. Exactly, there you are. OK. So, number two. Ah, right. Number two, just bubbling under, we have... Marie Waleska. Now... And this is your choice, Ali. This is my choice, yeah. Because I think she plays a very, very important role, actually, in the history of Europe and certainly in the history of Napoleonic Europe. So tell us who she is.

Marie Waleska was the wife of a Polish nobleman. A very old one. A very old Polish nobleman. A very old one, wasn't he? A very old Polish nobleman, it has to be said, who, when Napoleon goes careering across Europe and defeats the Prussians and then the Russians and he's heading into what is now Poland, the Polish noblemen gather round and encourage Marie Valeska. They sort of say,

if you want to do your duty for your country, to your country, we would encourage you to engage in, basically, to become Napoleon's mistress. And if you become Napoleon's mistress, it will further the cause of Polish independence, because then he will have a very personal interest in all this. Now, I don't know how much of that is realistic, but certainly he became infatuated with her. He was certainly very taken by her. And she did indeed become his mistress. And then, of course, Napoleon did then set up from the conquest the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, which was going to be then the sort of fledgling, I mean, the anticipation was, was that he would recreate the Kingdom of Poland, which had been divided amongst the empires of Russia, Prussia and Austria.

So she plays quite an important role in that, I think a very strong political role. She became, despite her reluctance to begin with, I think very fond of Napoleon, and actually was the one person to visit him on Elba when he was in exile in 1814, although I don't think he was terribly responsive, I have to say. But he has the interest, the other interesting thing, I suppose, is that he does have a son by her, which convinces him then that, of course, the problem is not with him,

but with Josephine, and therefore the divorce with Josephine goes ahead, and he then marries into the Austrian, the Habsburg royal family. But I think she's significant, really, for, I suppose, this important role she plays in European history and the influence she obviously has on Napoleon. The son, Alexander, I mean, you know, she's then looked after, you know, after Napoleon goes into exile finally in St Helena, and she's, you know, the descendants are still with us. So it's not as if she was thrown aside.

I mean, when Napoleon III comes back in, and the descendants of Alexander and others are well catered for. So it's quite an influential, I think, an influential relationship in that sense. There's a brilliant thing I just read just before coming out that Napoleon was in Warsaw when he met her. Yeah. And he had invited Josephine to come to Warsaw.

But then he said no. He said, I'm busy now. No, he didn't. No, he didn't. What he said to Josephine was, I love you with all my heart, but the winter is terrible. Yeah, that's right. It would be far too cold for you to go. Yeah, yeah. So disgraceful behaviour from Napoleon. And do you know what the Countess Pataki said about Marie?

No. Gorgeous but thick. Oh, really? So that's the counter view view is that perhaps she just got she just got lucky she's got well i mean i agree i think that that that she she clearly you know she didn't get involved she did her duty because she was very pious she was very pious catholic and um she was obviously i mean in fairness her husband was was i think twice or almost three times her age.

I don't think he was overblown by that. He was 52 years older than her, apparently. Yeah, 52 years older. But the idea that a delegation of Polish noblemen would come up to you and sort of say, look, I really think you need to take one for the team. Yeah. Off you go.

Yeah. And, you know, she's obviously, you know, not entirely... I mean, I think partly she's slightly in awe of this individual. But it does turn out to be one of the great love affairs. I mean, in fairness, it does turn out to be one. So I think she's in it too because, you know, compared to Napoleon, she's obviously a very obscure person. Yeah, absolutely.

And she achieves great things for her country. It's a kind of heroic thing to have done. I mean, the only thing I would, the only, you know, the caveat know the caveat i'd have i suppose with them why she's probably not number one is that you know would napoleon have have recreated the grand duchy warsaw or helped without her probably yes i mean i think that would i mean this probably just edge things along yes okay so number one is someone who indisputably yeah now this does have an impact qualitatively indisputably has a seismic impact on the course of history, and who, perhaps more than anyone else in the list, comes from nowhere. So she comes from nowhere to shape the destiny, not just of nations, but of continents.

And our number one is La Melinche and La Melinche for those who don't know she she's born on the edge of the Aztec Empire just before the Spanish arrive. She is, we don't, so the measure of the obscurity from which she comes is we don't know her original name. We know that she was the daughter of a nobleman. Probably her mother was a slave. This is a community that is kind of constantly overshadowed by the expansionism of the Aztecs. And when she's still quite a young girl, so maybe seven or eight, she gets sold into slavery. Perhaps her parents are forced to do it. Perhaps she gets kind of, you know, given as a way of trying to buy off Aztec aggression so she gets taken to a great kind of slave Mart she gets bought by the mayor and people of the mayor the Tabasco and the river Tabasco as in the

Mexican well she actually has to take herself? No she's not. She's from one of these tribes that are subjugated by the Aztec. Yes so she's kind of on the, yeah absolutely and this is really important to what then happens. So she gets brought up as a slave there, again we don't know what name she has as a slave but she speaks Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs and of that kind of band. She goes, she learns Maya, and then the Spanish arrive. And they, basically the people who own her

are so intimidated that they make an offering of 20 slaves to the Spanish, And this girl is one of them. And this is the making of her because present in the Spanish ranks is a Spaniard called Jerónimo de Aguilar who had been a slave himself. He'd been captured by the mayor. So he speaks one of the

Mayan languages and so this means that the Spanish can start to communicate because this girl speaks Mayan the Spaniard speaks Mayan and so the Spaniards can start to communicate so does she learn Spanish of him well hold the comfort so she gets given the name of the crew she gets converted you make baptized gets given the name marina the the the people of Central America they transliterate this as Melina they start to call her Melina sin which is a, which is a way of dignifying her name. And Du calls the Spanish again, kind of Hispanicizes and call her La Melincha. And the key turning moment in her life is when the Spaniards with Hern Cortes, the leader,

go back up towards where they're going to launch the expedition against the Aztecs. Go to Tenochtitlan, the great capital, attack Moctezuma. I'm impressed you said that. Thank you. Well, we did a wonderful episode with Camilla Townsend on this, so I had to practice for that. And there it turns out that Aguilar does not speak Nahuatl right and Cortes is furious about this because they can't communicate and then La Malinche steps forward and says I can I can speak Nahuatl so you have this kind of chain that as as the Spaniards march towards Tenochtitlan

La Malinche will translate from Nahuatl, will translate into Maya, Aguilar will then translate it into Spanish. But as they go, La Malinche is very, very smart. She starts to learn Spanish. Aguilar gets cut out. La Malinche essentially becomes the interface for Cortes and everybody in the Aztec empire. Now, some these of course are the enemies, the Aztecs themselves, but for La Melinche this is a chance to get back at the Aztecs and so it's La Melinche who basically constructs the alliance that enables the Spanish to defeat the Aztec Empire because there are all kinds of subject peoples who are desperate to revolt and it's La Militia who is not only a brilliant linguist but a brilliant diplomat who essentially stitches this stitches this this this

alliance together because I mean the number of Spaniards were talking about what 500 yeah they're very very very very few so La Militia is recognized by the Spaniards themselves as having played absolutely key role so she has it she has this relationship with with Cortes he has a son by him Martin Cortes who for Mexicans to this day serves as the kind of fountainhead of the the the the mixing of the European and the Central American. So he's kind of seen as the first Mexican, if you like, in that kind of, you know,

the first embodiment of modern Mexico. And she is seen by Mexicans today in a very ambivalent light. So is she a traitor? But this is- So for lots of Mexicans, she's seen as the embodiment of a traitor. But for lots of Mexicans, she's seen as someone who basically creates Mexico. And she has this huge, huge influence on Cortes, on the Spanish, and on the Aztecs,

and on all the other various Nahuatl-speaking people. You can only really, this interests me, you can only really see her as a traitor if you look at her through the prism of modern nationalism, surely. I mean, that's the thing. And you can see her, but from the perspective of 16th century Mexico, she was probably taking revenge

for the way her people had been treated for many, many years. And it's really striking that she, for instance, she never adopts a European dress. That's interesting. She always wears... She's recounted in Diaz's Conquest of New Spain, is that right? Absolutely. And he says that she's a hugely admirable figure.

Cortés himself says that he owes, obviously, for the conquest of Mexico, he owes most to God, but then he owes most to La Melinche. I mean, it's seismic when you think about it. I mean, the role she plays and the conquest of New Spain and basically the establishment of the Spanish Empire in America is, well... Yeah. I don't think you can beat that, really. No, and she establishes a school of translators.

Wow. So she's the person basically who enables, you know, the two sides to communicate. She is kind of cheerful. She's charming. Basically everybody loves her. I mean, everybody who meets her loves her. So presumably Cortes had a wife in Spain? Yes, and so he can't... That's a long way away. No, he loves her. I mean, everybody who meets her loves her. So presumably, Cortés had a wife in Spain?

Yes, and so he can't... That's a long way away. No, he's not going to marry her, but he does marry her to a kind of very well-bred conquistador, which then means that she is recognised as a donna, a lady by the Spaniards. So Cortés kind of does right by her. And she dies very young,

but having achieved incredible, incredible things. And I think that she's number one. I mean, we all agreed that she should be number one because, as you say, she comes from nowhere. She's a slave. She's a nameless slave. We don't know what her name was as a slave or before she became enslaved.

And she rises to have this outsized impact on the history of Mexico, on the history of Spain, on the history of the world. and she rises to have this outsized impact on the history of Mexico, on the history of Spain, on the history of the world. So I think that La Melinche shows just how far a mistress can go. Well, I mean, we started with a slave who did basically nothing. Yes. And we've ended with a slave who enabled the conquest of the Aztec Empire,

which is, yeah, I said, I mean, I said, I agree. I mean, I think her influence is outsized, really. I mean, it's enormous. Mae'n wych. Mae'n wych. Mae'n wych. Mae'n wych. Mae'n wych. Mae'n wych. Mae'n wych. Mae'n wych. Mae'n wych. Mae'n wych.

Mae'n wych. Mae'n wych. Mae'n wych. Mae'n wych. Mae'n wych. Thanks for listening to The Rest Is History. For bonus episodes, early access, ad-free listening, and access to our chat community, please sign up at restishistorypod.com. That's restishistorypod.com.