Peter II
Born 1715
Ascended the throne 1727
Reigned 2 years
Grandson of Peter the Great
Never married
Died 1730, aged 14
Anna
Born 1693
Ascended the throne 1730
Reigned 10 years
Niece of Peter the Great
Married Frederick William of Courland
Died 1740, aged 47
Pages: 39-40
Ivan VI
Born 1740
Ascended the throne 1740
Reigned 13 months (deposed and later murdered)
Great nephew of Empress Anna
Never married
Died 1764, aged 23
Elizabeth
Born 1709
Ascended the throne 1741
Reigned 20 years
Daughter of Peter the Great
Never married
Died 1762, aged 52
Pages: 86-87
Peter III
Born 1728
Ascended the throne 1762
Reigned six months (deposed and murdered)
Grandson of Peter the Great; nephew of Empress Elizabeth
Married Sophie Frederike Auguste of Anhalt-Zerbst
(later Catherine II)
Died 1762, aged 34
Pages: 3, 86-88, 93, 191-192
Catherine II (The Great )
Born 1729
Ascended the throne 1762
Reigned 34 years
Married Peter III
Died 1796, aged 67
Pages: 3-7, 86-88, 93, 191-192
Paul I
Born 1754
Ascended the throne 1796
Reigned 4 years (assassinated)
Son of Catherine II (paternity remains uncertain)
Married (1) Wilhelmina of Darmstadt (2) Sophia Dorothea of Wurttemberg
Died 1801, aged 46
Pages: 191-193
Alexander I
Born 1777
Ascended the throne 1801
Reigned 24 years
Son of Paul I
Married Princess Louise of Baden-Durlach
Died 1825, aged 47
Page: 192
Nicholas I
Born 1796
Ascended the throne 1825
Reigned 29 years
Brother of Alexander I
Married Princess Charlotte of Prussia
Died 1855, aged 58
Alexander II
Born 1818
Ascended the throne 1855
Reigned 26 years (assassinated)
Son of Nicholas I
Married Marie of Hesse-Darmstadt
Died 1881, aged 62
Alexander III
Born 1845
Ascended the throne 1881
Reigned 13 years
Son of Alexander II
Married Princess Dagmar of Denmark
Died 1894, aged 49
Nicholas II
Born 1868
Ascended the throne 1894
Reigned 22 years (deposed and murdered)
Son of Alexander III
Married Alexandra (granddaughter of Britain’s Queen Victoria)
Died 1918, aged 50
Pages: 194-197, 281-284
APPENDIX IV
Timeline
Select Bibliography
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Bryan, J., III and Charles J. V. Murphy. The Windsor Story: An Intimate Portrait of Edward VIII and Mrs. Simpson. 1979. Morrow. New York
Chamberlin, E. R. The Bad Popes. 1969. Dorset. New York
Cronin, Vincent. Louis XIV. 1965. Houghton Mifflin/Riverside Press. Cambridge
Davies, Norman. Europe: A History. 1996. Oxford University Press. Oxford-New York
De Rosa, Peter. Vicars of Christ: The Dark Side of the Papacy. 1988. Crown. New York
Donaldson, Frances. Edward VIII: A Biography of the Duke of Windsor. 1974/75. Lippincott. Philadelphia and New York
Duffy, Eamon. Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes. 1997. Yale University Press. New Haven and London
Erickson, Carolly. Bloody Mary. 1978. Doubleday. Garden City, New York
———. To the Scaffold: The Life of Marie Antoinette. 1991. Morrow. New York
Fraser, Antonia. Mary Queen of Scots. 1969. Delacorte. New York
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Fulford, Roger. The Wicked Uncles: The Father of Queen Victoria and His Brothers. 1933/1968. Books for Libraries Press. Freeport, New York
Gramont, Sanche de. Epitaph for Kings. 1967. G. P. Putnam’s Sons. New York
Green, David. Queen Anne. 1970. Charles Scribner’s Sons. New York
Green, V. H. H. The Hanoverians. 1948. Edward Arnold. London
Haldane, Charlotte. Queen of Hearts: Marguerite of Valois. Bobbs-Merrill. Indianapolis-New York
Hamilton, Elizabeth. William’s Mary: A Biography of Mary II. 1972. Taplinger. New York
Hatton, Ragnhild. George I: Elector and King. 1978. Harvard University Press. Cambridge, Massachusetts
Hibbert, Christopher. George IV: Prince of Wales. 1972. Longman. London
———. George IV: Regent and King. 1973. Harper & Row. New York, Evanston, San Francisco, London
Langdon-Davies, John. Carlos: The King Who Would Not Die. 1962. Prentice-Hall. Englewood Cliffs, NewJersey
Liss, Peggy K. Isabel the Queen. 1992. Oxford University Press. Oxford-New York
Longford, Elizabeth, ed. The Oxford Book of Royal Anecdotes. 1989. Oxford University Press. Oxford, New York
Luke, Mary M. Gloriana: The Years of Elizabeth I. 1973. Coward, McCann, Geoghegan. New York
———. The Nine Days Queen: A Portrait of Lady Jane Grey. 1986. Morrow. New York
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Massie, Robert K. Nicholas and Alexandra: An Intimate Account of the Last of the Romanovs and the Fall of Imperial Russia. 1967. Atheneum. New York
———. Peter the Great: His Life and World. 1986. Knopf. New York
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McGuigan, Dorothy Gies. The Hapsburgs. 1996. Doubleday. Garden City-New York
Mitford, Nancy. The Sun King: Louis IV at Versailles. 1966. Harper & Row. New York
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Sedillot, Rene, trans. Gerard Hopkins. An Outline of French History. 1961. Knopf. New York
Seward, Desmond. The Wars of the Roses. 1995. Viking. New York
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St Aubyn, Giles. Edward VII: Prince and King. 1979. Atheneum. New York
———. Queen Victoria: A Portrait. 1992.
Atheneum. New York
Steinberg, Mark D., and Vladimir M. Khrustalev. The Fall of the Romanovs. 1995. Yale University Press. New Haven and London
Suetonius, trans. Robert Graves. The Twelve Caesars. 1957. Penguin Classics. London
Troyat, Henri. Catherine the Great. Trans. Joan Pinkham. 1980. E. P. Dutton. New York
Warren, W. L. Henry II. 1973. University of California Press. Berkeley and Los Angeles
Ziegler, Gilette, trans. Simon Watson Taylor. At the Court of Versailles: Eye Witness Reports from the Reign of Louis XIV. 1966. E. P. Dutton. New York
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Acknowledgments
I want to thank all my wonderfully supportive family and friends, especially my mom, dad, and sister Mary, Melissa O’Neill Alshab, Jamie Beidleman, Anne Hennessey Conway, Mike Curtin, Mary Jane and Bill Foote, Mike Grimpus, Nancy and Pip Lisas, and Tom O’Neil.
I also want to thank my outstanding agent, Jenny Bent, and editor, Caroline White, as well as the folks at Penguin who put this book together, and Erik Falkensteen of the Granger Collection who spent so many hours finding the illustrations.
Many of my current and former colleagues at The Washington Post helped me in numerous and diverse ways, especially Marty Barrick, Mike Drew, Bill Elsen, Mary Hadar, Marla Harper, Melissa McCullough, Olwen Price, Boyce Rensberger, Curt Suplee, Mary Lou White, and Tom Wilkinson.
Finally, I am most grateful to Ann Marie Lynch, who defines the word friendship, and Gene Weingarten of The Washington Post whose twisted genius is a gift from God.
1 Find out just how much Catherine hated Peter in Part III, Chapter 4.
2 He was killed when a lance pierced through his visor during a joust and shattered into his face, a demise supposedly predicted by the famed seer Nostradamus.
3 For a full account of Henry VIII and his six wives, see Part III, Chapter 2.
4 His grandfather, father and brother all were beheaded as traitors.
5 The king’s illness is examined in Part VI, Chapter 5.
6 Just how vacuous is seen in Part II, Chapter 6.
7 As explained in Part I, Chapter 3.
8 Jane Grey’s tragic career is examined in Part IV, Chapter 2.
9 George’s hellish marriage is detailed in Part III, Chapter 5. 2Queen Anne, for one, was so obese that she had to be carried at her coronation because her legs couldn’t support her.
10 Wallis Warfield Simpson is introduced in Part 1, Chapter 3.
11 That terrible legacy is detailed in Part VI, Chapter 2.
12 He was also Charles I of Spain.
13 A title used by British monarchs ever since.
14 Recounted in Part IX, Chapter 4. 2The first of Catherine de Medici’s three sons to rule France (see Part I, Chapter 2).
15 As seen in Part I, Chapter 1.
16 With devastating results that are recounted in Part VI, Chapter 2.
17 John Dudley also was the father of Elizabeth I’s great love, Robert (see Part I, Chapter 3).
18 Peter the Great wasn’t the only Russian monarch to murder his child. In 1581, Ivan the Terrible grew so enraged at his son and namesake that he clobbered him with his iron staff, killing young Ivan instantly.
19 George IV and William IV, among a number of her other licentious uncles.
20 One of a number of undignified royal demises explored in Part IX.
21 Among his most ardent supporters is a group called The Richard III Society, which believes the king has been maligned by history, especially by Shakespeare and by one of the sources for his unflattering play about Richard, Sir Thomas More. Far from the demonic “bottled spider” conjured by the Bard, many Ricardians see a cuddly medieval teddy bear. “I just know that if I were alive in the fifteenth century I could borrow a cup of sugar from Richard,” one Ricardian gushed in a society newsletter. Thomas More, partisans say, was nothing but a Tudor-era lackey, writing his history of Richard III during the reign of Henry VIII (the son of Richard’s vanquisher), and loath to offend his monarch—never mind that More eventually lost his head for his willingness to defy royalty. While it is true that Richard was not deformed—that was a literary device to indicate raw evil—the evidence of his treachery is compelling indeed. There is, among so much else, the well-documented heap of bodies and reputations that Richard climbed over to achieve power, and the inescapable fact that it was during his reign that his young nephews disappeared forever.
22 Details of Mary’s crush on Frances are found in Part I, Chapter 3.
23 Queen Anne did have a half brother, James Edward Stuart, known as “The Old Pretender.” He was James II’s son by his second wife Mary of Modena, but was declared ineligible to inherit the British crown because he was an avowed Catholic. Nevertheless, he did have supporters, including Louis XIV of France, and they declared him King James III upon his father’s death in exile. The Old Pretender made several abortive attempts to gain the throne, as did his son, Charles Edward Stuart, known as both “The Young Pretender” and “Bonnie Prince Charlie.” The Stuart cause was a lost one, however, and the foreign Hanoverian line continues to rule to this day. 2And who, as seen in Part I, Chapter 3, raised lechery to new heights.
24 Some sources attribute this sentiment to Frederick’s equally unloving mother, Queen Caroline.
25 See Part III, Chapter 6.
26 Henry’s strained family relations are recounted in Part V, Chapter 1.
27 See Part III, Chapter 1.
28 In addition to his first wife, Maria of Portugal (Don Carlos’s mother), Philip also was married to “Bloody” Mary I, with whom he shared the English crown until her death in 1558, and Elizabeth of Valois, daughter of Henri II and Catherine de Medici. 3To avoid confusion with Charles II of England, who reigned at roughly the same time, Charles II is spelled the Spanish way here.
29 The war resulted in the acension of a French Bourbon king, Philip V, to the Spanish throne.
30 The Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary was formed in 1867, and lasted until the collapse of the Habsburg monarchy in 1918.
31 See Part III, Chapter 4.
32 See Part IX, Chapter 11.
33 Because of an historical glitch in the numbering of popes, there was no Pope John XX. There was, however, another (discredited) John XXIII in the fifteenth century.
34 Other sources say the young pope died of a stroke while having sex.
35 Antipopes are individuals whose claim to the papacy has been rejected by the Church, though certain tumultuous periods in papal history have made it sometimes difficult to distinguish between valid and invalid claimants. There are thirty-nine listed antipopes. Some, like the original John XXIII, have the same name as officially recognized popes.
36 The Cathars were ascetics with a strict moral code who believed in the duality of life—that good and evil were actually separate creations.
37 This Clement VII is now considered an antipope, while the Clement VII who reigned two centuries later (and who denied Henry VIII his divorce from Katherine of Aragon) is officially recognized. Benedict XIII and Alexander V are other antipopes listed in this section.
38 Mary’s miserable marriage to Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, is recounted in Part III, Chapter 3.
39 Louis XIV’s career as the center of attention at Versailles is explored in Part II, Chapter 2.
40 See Part I, Chapter 3, for details about George II’s busy love life, and Part V, Chapter 5, for the account of his unpleasant relationship with his son, Frederick.
41 Louis XVI’s execution also was a degrading public spectacle. After being mangled by the guillotine, the king’s severed head was seized by a young guard who, according to one eyewitness, paraded it around the scaffold “with the most atrocious and indecent gestures.”
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