Book 35: Sex With Kings

Sex With Kings: 500 Hundred Years of Adultery, Power, Rivalry, and Revenge is a little bit of a misnomer by Eleanor Herman. The book was definitely about how Kings would use sex and in many cases love throughout the ages but often it felt like the book was more about the mistresses that would have relationships with kings over the years.

This book was selected for the mere reason that I wanted to continue learning about the royals of yore. After reading Royal Pains, I remembered that I read an Eleanor Herman book a while ago called Sex With the Queen  and I enjoyed it back in the day and never finished the companion book.


This book was shocking and makes me question how things got passed down in history. The book was full of stories about things that transpired between a king and his mistresses.  Some of the letters that weren't burn are just crazy especially between Ludwig I and Lola but at the same time you see how he was in love with her. Then there are stories that I'm curious about how some stories lasted the test of time.  Since while it was funny how one mistress wasn't very loyal to her royal and the royal was able to exact some revenge on the guy hiding in the fireplace, why and who would share the information after the fact (since that story didn't have a specific citation).

My biggest thought about the book was how this book was about the mistresses. Don't get me wrong, I love learning about Madame du Barry, Madame de Pompadour and others but I wasn't expecting to read about how a "corrupt" lemon would kill one of them. I know in some courts like the French court, they were the ones to shape how to manage a king and who was the one who was truly intimate with the king.