In an era where women were constrained by their sex and status, royal mistresses managed to have outsized influence of English history through their connections with kings and the children that they bore them.

As I got into this book, it occurred to me that when you learn about history, the various favorites of kings and queens are left out except in very few instances where the story would make no sense without their inclusion (Anne Boleyn of course comes to mind). Instead their illegitimate children burst onto the scene to support or supplant their legally born siblings as though like Athena they sprang from one source only. This book purports to try and supply the other half of their DNA.

To some extent, it even succeeds. The author presents various mistresses of English kings throughout the medieval period, both before and after the Norman conquest, and discusses how their role and the public’s perception of it changed throughout the generations – from a dynastic strategy and even an honor to a private indulgence. It was interesting to learn how the mistresses slotted into the moral mores of the day, and the consequences that stemmed from when they did not.

However, I did feel that the book fell prey to the same flaws it was trying to avoid. There’s very little information available about these women, who were often relegated to history’s shadowy places for propriety’s sake. Unfortunately, the author then filled those pages discussing their men and their children, relating more broad strokes of English history that didn’t tell me much about the mistresses themselves. As such, I did not end up learning what I had decided to read this book for in the first place.

"Medieval Royal Mistresses" by Julia A. Hickey is an eye-opening journey into the intriguing and often scandalous lives of the women who dared to become mistresses to medieval kings. In a world where politics, power, and the quest for legitimate heirs dominated royal marriages, this book peels back the layers of history to reveal the hidden stories of these remarkable women.

Julia A. Hickey paints a vivid picture of a bygone era filled with love, lust, ambition, and danger. Each chapter introduces readers to a different mistress, from the audacious Nest of Wales, whose abduction ignited a war, to the infamous Alice Perrers and Jane Shore, who were subjected to public shaming and vilification. The stories of these women are brought to life with meticulous research and engaging storytelling.

One of the book's strengths lies in its ability to shed light on the complex and often perilous lives of royal mistresses. Hickey explores the challenges these women faced, including accusations of witchcraft, imprisonment, and even assassination. Yet, she also highlights their resilience and intelligence, showcasing how some were able to navigate the treacherous waters of the medieval court and secure their positions.

The book also delves into the intriguing relationships between these mistresses and their royal paramours. It examines how some kings married off their discarded mistresses to strengthen political alliances, offering a fascinating glimpse into the strategic aspects of medieval courtship.

"Medieval Royal Mistresses" goes beyond the scandalous affairs to explore the semi-official roles some mistresses held and the legacies they left behind. It touches on the illegitimate children who ascended to the throne, secret marriages, and the women who sought redemption through religion.

Julia A. Hickey's meticulous research and passion for her subject shine through in this book. She resurrects these often forgotten women from the footnotes of history, giving them a voice and a place in the annals of time.

For history enthusiasts and anyone intrigued by the lives of strong and ambitious women in a medieval context, "Medieval Royal Mistresses" is a compelling and enlightening read. It's a captivating journey through the lives of these remarkable women who defied convention and, in their own way, changed the course of history.

As an avid Medievalist, I had already heard of a few of the Royal mistresses discussed in Julia Hickeys book. The thing which I enjoy about these women is the power which many of them wielded albeit for their own purposes. As we know Royal and aristocratic marriages were political and financial for the greater part, love or even affection was often absent. The Divine Right of Kings applied also to their alliances with women and men it must be said, but women are specifically written of here.
I thoroughly enjoyed meeting new mistresses and revisiting known ones and recommend this book to students of the Medieval period and any interested lay person, this was a fascinating period. My thanks to Netgalley, Pen &Sword publishers for an excellent publication and the opportunity to read it.

When Medieval kings married, it was with the understanding that it was for power, gaining or securing, or maintaining power. Lust was an offshoot of the baser nature that was the exclusive domain of men. Does Medieval Royal Mistresses showcase how Medieval women were more than the footnote to power plays? In the barest, most perfunctory way. The blurb mentions kidnap, murder, and public shaming, however, the sterile style does not play up any of these elements in an intriguing way. There is no deep dive into women as individuals. They are named, but the story always reverts back to the guys. It reads like a running tally of marriages and relationships that jumps genealogical trees with every other paragraph. Too brief to get to know any of the characters and, save for the more recent timelines (i.e., popular/recognizable for the casual reader), are easily forgettable. The study gives greater weight to the male narrative vice the female, which is the supposed focus. Disappointing read.

This biography focuses solely on the mistresses in the Middle Ages! The were some that I have heard of like Alice Perrers and Kathryn Swynford! Others, I have never of before! Thus, the writing was very engaging and the work was very concise! I recommend this for fans of royalty!

This was an interesting book on women who were vilified in the past and are frequently ignored in the present. Unless a mistress played some major role in history or became prominent at court, she remained largely unknown. One thing this book does well is explore the changes in marriage and social customs over 4 centuries through the lives of the women involved.

Edith Swan-Neck, although seen as a mistress probably did undertake a form of marriage with Harald Godwinson. This was marriage more danico which technically allowed bigamy and easy divorce. It was recognized by society if not by the church.
The book goes all the way up to the mistresses of Edward IV in the late 15th century, but also covers the 4 centuries from before the Norman Conquest and the first wife of Cnut to the children of Henry I, the mistresses of Henry II and the other Plantagenet Kings.

I found the chapter on Jane Shore especially interesting. She was, apparently known for being kind-hearted and even warm: and was also (according to the author at least) fully literate. She could read and write.
Her bad reputation did not come from the Tudors but from Richard III.
Yes, she had 3-4 different lovers before her actual marriage, but it was Richard who really presented her as a manipulative seductress who led the King astray and he even tried to scupper her later attempts to find a husband. Richard III is too often presented as an innocent and wholly virtuous figure: but his treatment of Jane Shore might reveal a more vindictive and hypocritical side to his nature which is not often explored.

My only complaint that this book only really covers the mistresses and unofficial wives of English Kings. For a wider treatment which looks at other European Medieval monarchs, one would have to look elsewhere. You won’t find Agnes Sorel in here.

My thanks to Pen and Sword books who approved my request for a PDF of this title on Netgalley. This did not influence my opinion, which is my own and freely given.

I want to thank Netgalley and the author for gifting me the ebook. This novel was a really a great read. It was a very spicy read as in well it is about mistresses. But if you are looking for a good read about this topic and history you might want to check this out. The novel was interesting because I have not heard of a lot of these couples/women before.

Mistresses, concubines and courtesans have long been alluring figures and Julia A. Hickey’s Medieval Royal Mistresses: Mischievous Women Who Slept with Kings and Princes aims to introduce us a handful of mistresses helped shape Norman, English and Scottish history in the Middle Ages.

I was relieved that this wasn’t as salacious or slut-shaming as suggested by the book’s subtitle and synopsis (“mischievous women” and “shameful women”, really?) but I must echo other criticisms of the book: there isn’t really enough about the titular mistresses in this book.

This really comes down to two things: the available evidence and the need to provide context for the world these women inhabited. Hickey covers mistresses from pre-Norman times until the end of the Wars of the Roses, a period of five hundred years, which means there’s a lot of contextual information to impart just to make sense of these women’s lives and there’s not a lot of space to do it. The lack of evidence about individual women also means that they frequently become lost in an account of their era, overshadowed by more famous and better evidenced individuals. Sometimes it takes a while to get to them and sometimes it’s hard to remember who the mistress of the chapter is meant to be.

There are ways to get around that lack of evidence, by shifting from a biographical/historical approach to historiographical, digging into the mythology around the more famous mistresses and asking what it says about the way society viewed and treated scandalous women throughout the era. But that approach would take the book into the more academic realm.

I liked the way Hickey handled the history behind the women – there isn’t a drive towards the accepting the most scandalous and salacious rumours as fact but a tendency to regard them sceptically. There is a degree of oversimplification but that’s natural given the length and breadth of the history covered, though of course in these kinds of histories, once we got into time periods and personalities I’m more familiar with, it meant there was little new to me.

There were times when I thought more scepticism would be useful, such as in the discussion of Eleanor Talbot (which accepts Richard III’s claim about her secret marriage to Edward IV at face value despite the fact that Richard had a vested interest in declaring Edward IV’s children illegitimate and never had the claim properly investigated) and Roger Mortimer (who is assumed to have been Isabella of France’s lover though this has been debated and denied by Edward II historian Kathryn Warner). I personally struggled with the chapters on pre- and early Norman England, possibly because this is a period that I’m completely ignorant of, but I did find the rest of the book easy going and far more engaging.

My favourite chapters were the ones on the Angevin mistresses – probably because I had a better idea of what was going on but wasn’t as familiar with the history. I also liked the introduction but I felt that it lacked cohesion, as if it needed one more rewrite to tie everything together. I would’ve preferred to see a more overt acknowledgement of the issues of consent and coercion around a king or high-ranking nobleman taking a woman of significantly lower social status as a lover, and the silence of the records of her feelings (save the traditional and misogynist assertions that the man had been “seduced” or “bewitched” by her). We will most likely never be able to reconstruct how one of these women felt about their lover, whether they believed they had no choice to become his mistress or not, whether they loved him or not, and so on, but it is important to acknowledge that while we might like to imagine them as “mischievous women” or romantic heroines, the reality might have been very different for them.

I was pleased to discover that some male favourites such as Piers Gaveston, Hugh Despenser the Younger and Roger Mortimer (as the prospective lovers of Edward II and Isabella of France respectively) appeared in the book, though little is teased out about the differences between the male and female “mistresses”. It would have also been interesting to see discussions of Philippe II of France and Robert de Vere as rumoured lovers of Richard I and Richard II respectively, particularly when the latter would help bridge the gap between Alice Perrers and Eleanor Talbot. I was also surprised that Eleanor Cobham, the mistress and later wife of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, was not covered either – if Katherine Swynford counts as a royal mistress, why doesn’t Eleanor?

All up, while I believe this book could have been better, it is an interesting book and worth reading..

It is common knowledge that it was the norm for Monarchs marriages to form strategic alliances, rather than be a love match; therefore a King or Prince may have a lady (or several) on the side to bestow his affection and favour upon in the stead of his wife, who he married as his duty.

This book explores the many royal Mistresses both female & - shock horror - MALE (does Edward II & James VI/I ring any bells?), their role, personal gain & sometimes even legacy.

This book was well researched, with small chapters on each individual Mistress in relation to a particular King - I found it somewhat amusing how many chapters were dedicated to Mistresses of Henry I & I did get slightly bored when the next chapter was still his story, & the next...& the next...

There are little available sources for some of the earlier women, some not even having a definite name - there is some guess work here & there, also many had the same name, as did the Kings - which may be confusing for anyone not familiar with the time period.

There were many big names such as Nest of Wales, Alice Perrers, Jane Shore, Piers Gaveston, the legendary Rosamund & the woman who changed a royal dynasty's future - Katherine Swynford.

Overall - an interesting read, though not anything majorly new was introduced, there was little I didn't already know about the majority of the women/men featured, so perhaps this book would be suited to someone who is looking for a good overview and place to start researching said Mistresses.

It was a little disappointing that the main focus was on the man that the woman was attached to, & mainly his background etc rather than it being her own record, it felt that these women were footnotes to someone else's story.

A sad & prominent reminder that women were the property of men, to do with & discard as they pleased - many of these women felt that they had no other choice than to accept the King's advances; low & behold she was then vilainised as a whore, wanton, witch or a home wrecker (in some cases all of the above!).

An enjoyable read, but I would of liked a little bit more from it.

Throughout time, many royal marriages were often made due to dynastic purposes. This does not mean to say that they were always loveless, this sometimes developed with time, but it was not the priority. Forging alliances and building upon empires were just some of the many reasons of why a royal marriage could be arranged and while the life of a King was that filled with many momentous events, it was often to be expected that he would take a mistress whom he could share his bed and reap favours upon.

In Hickey's latest book, she aims to explore the reasoning and motivations behind these royal Mistresses for taking up these positions. Although they often did not have much of a choice, it could often bring beneficial rewards such as status, wealth or power.

There is no denying that this book has been comprehensively researched and the author has taken great pains to write which I am always in awe of. However, with the clear accessible style and information available, I do believe that this book is best suited to those venturing into the world of medieval history.

I was hoping for more. With the title and blurb so firmly focused on the role of women my expectations were high and hoped for such, but I can appreciate that when researching an era in which women were rarely recorded unless it were relevant to men, this would indeed be difficult.

What Hickey does provide is a fascinating insight to the value and appreciation of women during the medieval period.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley.

A book that discusses not only the mistresses, but the illegitimate children they birthed, too. It discusses how religion was ruling the land and country during the medieval times and all the ways which they were silenced during this time. A little bit heartbreaking for a modern woman to read, the world seemed to be a very strange, and man focussed place in medieval times and although this book is full of scandal and sex, it felt a bit wordy for my liking.

Princess Fuzzypants here: Seldom, if ever, did a Medieval king marry for love. Often it was a case of keeping your enemies closer and if love did evolve, it was a pleasant surprise. Women were traded from pillar to post, their lands and possessions given and then taken away at the whim of powerful men. Mistresses were fairly common but some mistresses were anything but common. Some of them knew how to play the game of thrones in real life. Much to the chagrin of many of the men watching, they wielded real power and had a cunning and intelligence to rise above their place.

This book is filled with the stories of many of those women. The fog of time and story telling have clouded the facts but the author takes considerable care in trying to sort through what written record exists. It is a fascinating look at the kings but mostly it is a fascinating look at how some women refused to stay in their allotted corners and made an impact on their times. Some suffered greatly for it. Some thrived. And to be be fair, there are also a couple of male “companions” whose influence and power threatened others around the monarch. It did not work out well for them.

Well researched and written in an accessible style, this fills in some of the blanks of Medieval court life. Four purrs and two paws up.

This book tells the story of the many mistresses of English medieval kings and princes. It also outlines the fate of their illegitimate children. Beginning with a brief history and discussion of the role of women in a patriarchal culture. It also highlights the religious ideas used to restrict and silence the voice of aristocratic women. Written for a popular rather than an academic audience, the book contains a bibliography but not citations.

Fresh new take on the women who were royal mistresses during the medieval period. I loved that this book covers various women from various countries and not only the English royal mistresses. Biographical information is difficult to come by when it comes to medieval women but this author made sure to stick to the facts. Highly recommended.

This is the first time Pen and Sword has let me down. As someone that is staunchly against the monarchy, I sure love reading about them. Kings are obviously the most written about topic. I found myself wanting to learn more about their queens, and then mistresses. So much of this is speculation. I don’t really find any names familiar until the first Plantagenets, so I felt disconnected with their stories.

It was an interesting read that made me wish to learn more about these women and their stories.
Well researched, informative and entertaining.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this arc, all opinions are mine

My views on this book are conflicting. On the one hand, kudos for seeking out some of the lesser known historical women and providing something despite there being very little to go on in some instances. But on the other hand, this really has provided nothing that a good google search could not turn up. On the one hand, there is an interesting selection of mistresses; yet on the other, they are tried and true selections with a number of inclusions I found myself questioning as to their inclusion at all.

I found the subtitle not only deceiving and infuriating but rather trite - "Mischievous Women who Slept with Kings and Princes" . Where were these vamps and ingenues, these Mata Haris who plied their wares before all manner of royalty, these saucy and salacious bawds who managed to seduce and satiate royal carnal desires all for gain. Cue Sid James and the Carry-On gang - disappointingly no. If the focus was to bring these women to the fore, calling them "shameful" from the very outset does nothing to further that aim.

Beginning in the late 10th century with Canute and finishing off with the last Plantagenet King Edward IV, we are treated to not only a history lesson but also a rather dry series of biographies. Hickey repeats all the usual rumours, innuendos and scandals, providing very little by way of anything new. The selections are narrowly focused on and in the British Isles - the side trip to France seemed out of place. As I mentioned before, there were a number of inclusions that really should not have been there at all as there were no sufficient proofs, and then there were the generalisations where names were unknown.

What I was looking for and yet found lacking was any real exploration of the role of the royal mistress. Many of these women had no choice in this - women were chattels - property of first their fathers then husbands, and ultimately of their direct lord; very few were able to assert the independence of thought and action that many of us can do today. It is a shame that through a lack of any detailed accounts of many, their lives are seen only as a mere footnote in the pages of the lives of the men with whom they were associated.

This tome is not overly long, however, the material contained therein was not sufficient to keep me fully engaged. Being extremely well read on much of the content already, I was looking for that little something more - that new take, some new theory or thoughts, even some small snippet of of the promise of something new. The phrase quality not quantity comes to mind in this instance - we know you have done your due diligence, but there is no need to cram it all into one space as it shows that you really don't know what to do with it all.

I am sure that there is a market for this and there will be many who will enjoy this immensely, unfortunately, I am not to be one of them.

I didn't get to dig into this one in a meaningful way, but will definitely be seeking it out when I have more time. I'm fascinated by some of the names in this book-Aelgifu is a favorite of mine. I enjoy medieval history in particular, and am hoping that this is a fair look at the women and the systems they were entwined with rather they wanted to or not.

I read this ARC for an honest review
All thoughts and opinions are mine

Loved this
Really well researched and I learned loads

A great read

Wow lots of interesting facts which blew me away…. how serial royal womanisers married off their discarded mistresses to bind their allies close. Explore the semi-official roles of some mistresses; the illegitimate children who became kings; secret marriage ceremonies; Edith Forne Sigulfson and Lady Eleanor Talbot who sought atonement through religion as well as the aristocratic women who became the victims of royal lust.