Introduction

Why infamous women? Why the murderesses and mistresses, the poisoners and pirates, the adultresses and assassins? Why the queens accussed of rebelling against their own countries and not the Good Queen Besses?

Well, I do love Elizabeth I but not because I believe that she was the saint her propaganda would have us think. Elizabeth, a bastard and imprisoned traitor, knew how important it was to have public opinion on her side. She succeeded where all the other women on these pages failed: she made sure that the voices of those on her side were louder than those of her detractors. Her opponents were never quite silenced which makes her an even more fascinating figure, but her Early Modern PR machine won out. The rest of these women have suffered at the hands of a hostile press. We may or may not believe that Messalina competed with a prostitute to see how many lovers she could satisfy in a night; we may or may not believe that Catherine de' Medici used black magic or that Athénaïs was involved in ritual infanticide. What matters, though, is that it is these legends that survive. It is less often noted that Catherine de' Medici's prime motivation was to secure her dynasty and her children's inheritance or that Athénaïs was witty, intelligent and beautiful.

© Copyright Gillian L. Jack 2007