Reinas en la sombra

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) is quoted as saying that “where there is marriage without love, there will be love without marriage.”  History confirms this maxim. There are but a few monarchs who do not have a long history of extramarital relations. It’s no wonder. Most of the time royal marriages have been the result of state interests and princesses have been nothing but the stamp that sealed a strategic or political pact.

This is most likely the reason why the monarchs’ adventures were always looked upon with a certain indulgence. So much so, that at the Court in Versailles, for instance, la maître-en-titre, or the king’s official lover, had an economic stipend, her own quarters in the palace and played a leading role in court ceremonies.  

It is clear that, with the passing of centuries, the circumstances have changed but, whatever the case, the truth is that the king’s “wife” is not always the queen. Or at least this is what comes across on reading these twenty love stories that, from the fourteenth to the twenty-first century, file past these pages and altered royal destinies.