The Intimate Sex Lives of Famous People (67 page)

Meanwhile Henry had become taken with yet another lady-in-waiting.

Catherine Howard was the most beautiful of Henry’s wives. At 18 she was fair, slender, merry, and light on her feet, and her pretty, tinkling laughter was often heard echoing down the castle halls. When her uncle informed her that she was to marry Henry, Catherine protested that she was in love with Thomas Culpeper, who happened to be the king’s favorite courtier. Her uncle convinced her, however, that her personal wishes did not matter. Her fate had already been decided, and besides, she owed it to her family.

Henry felt that he was in love for the first time. At 50 he was having an Indian summer, and his lust for Catherine was insatiable. He caressed her in public much more than he had his other wives; in fact, he could not keep his hands off her. Catherine was his “rose without a thorn.” He did his best to be her gallant bridegroom.

Catherine tried to please Henry. She avoided Culpeper as best she could, while poor Tom, as the king’s favorite, was often called to his bedside when he was not with Catherine; there Henry would recall the joys he had shared with his fresh, young wife in excruciating detail. But soon rumors began circulating about Catherine. Henry’s archbishop discovered that as a teenager she had been rather wild, had even been sexually involved with one of the boys who would pay nightly visits to her boarding school. Henry laughed it off at first. But when the court began to pour forth its evidence, he aged before their eyes. He cried in public for the first time. Wanting desperately to find a way to overlook Catherine’s premarital indiscretions, he prolonged her life. But when it was discovered that she was currently in love with Thomas Culpeper, he flew into a rage.

Catherine, her former lover, and Culpeper were all executed. Before the block Catherine announced: “I die a queen. But I would rather die the wife of Thomas Culpeper.” She was buried near Anne Boleyn, her cousin.

His last tangle with romantic love had left Henry a very old and broken man.

He had given Catherine his all, only to discover that she had never really let him into her heart. She was the first woman for whom he had not come first. But a year and a half later fortune smiled on him again in the form of yet another Catherine. Catherine Parr had a long hooked nose, a short neck, a respectable body, and a well-shaped, even ardent mouth. At 31 she had been widowed twice.

She was cultured, graceful, and tactful. When, in 1543, Henry proposed marriage, she let out a shriek, saying that it would be better to be his mistress. But she soon took pity on the aging monarch, and pity developed into warm affection. She was a patient nurse for him in his old age, when Henry had grown fat and needed constant care. They were married for four years before Henry succumbed to his many illnesses. Though he had loved his last Catherine well, he asked to be buried next to Jane Seymour, “the woman who died in order to give me a son.”

—J.H.

Muhammadan Heaven

KING ABDUL-AZIZ IBN-SAUD OF SAUDI ARABIA

(1880?–Nov. 9, 1953)

HIS FAME:
Known as the King of the Desert, this magnetic charmer was the first leader to succeed in uniting all the warring nomadic tribes and sects of Arabia. In 1932 he bestowed his family name on the new nation, calling it Saudi Arabia and proclaiming himself its absolute ruler. The following year he flung open the doors of his desert kingdom and admitted Western developers, who rushed in to tap the lakes of oil beneath the Saudi sands. During his lifetime, while sharing 50-50 with his new friends, Ibn-Saud—whose official car had been a battered Studebaker— saw his personal income catapulted to a dizzying $2.5 million weekly. This sum provided tidily for his innumerable wives, concubines, slaves, and children.

HIS PERSON:
The Sauds had ruled much of Arabia for 100 years, but soon after Ibn-Saud’s birth the family was ousted from power by their rivals, the Rashids, and the future king spent his youth as an impoverished exile in Kuwait. During these refugee years, Ibn-Saud’s father toughened the boy for desert fighting, ordering him to ride untamed horses bareback and forcing him to exercise every midday by walking barefoot over scorching rocks and sand. At 20 Ibn-Saud was pronounced groomed for revenge against the Rashids. He was 6 ft. 4 in., lean and muscular, and thirsty for battle. One black night, accompanied by 40 camel-borne men, he sneaked into his father’s former capital of Riyadh, shot the governor, and occupied the castle. Overjoyed, onetime followers of the Saud dynasty rallied to him, as did nomadic tribesmen and religious leaders. It took him only two years to recapture half of Arabia. Subsequent battles eliminated remaining rivals, and Arabia became his. Ibn-Saud promptly proclaimed himself king and renounced further conquest.

The arrival of oil revenue, and the problem of spending it, bewildered him. He regarded this income as his own, built no schools because he believed all learning was in the Koran, and no hospitals because Saudi Arabia had no doctors. Instead he acquired a stable of 500 luxury automobiles (one a green Rolls-Royce from Winston Churchill complete with a sterling silver ablution bowl), a trailer furnished like a throne room, and a fleet of airplanes.

Ibn-Saud’s devotion to his Islamic faith was total. Five times daily he humbly bowed toward Mecca and prayed. He did not drink, smoke, gamble, or view motion pictures. And in rigid observance of the Koran, he never permitted himself more than four wives at a time.

The standards he set for his sons were equally puritanical. When the oilmen introduced alcohol to the country, he was appalled. After one of his sons embarked on a drunken binge, his father had him publicly flogged. Another son, following a night of boozy revelry that had seen him ousted from the British vice-consul’s home, reappeared at his host’s residence demanding an English girl for his
King Ibn-Saud with two of his more than 100 children
collection. When his request was refused, the young prince shot the consul dead.

Ibn-Saud promptly ordered his son’s arrest and invited the bereaved consul’s widow to choose the method of execution, throwing in a promise that the prince’s head would be stuck on a pike outside the British embassy. The widow declined the privilege, whereupon the sorrowful father sentenced his son to prison and commanded that he receive 20 lashes monthly. Dismayed by his sons’ behavior, Ibn-Saud banished alcohol, and Saudia Arabia remains a dry country to this day.

SEX LIFE:
By the grace of Allah—who had spoken through the prophet Muhammad—Ibn-Saud enjoyed sanctioned polygamy. By murmuring “I divorce thee” three times, he created frequent vacancies in his harem, always discarding one wife before a journey in anticipation of replacing her with a new discovery while on the road. He was forgivably vain about his sexuality. Aided by close to 200 wives, he fathered 44 legitimate sons. He is thought to have had 64 daughters, but the figure may be inexact since no one bothered to count girls.

Sometimes new brides were chosen by emissaries. Brought to him veiled, they were taken immediately to the bridal chamber. If they displeased the king, they were divorced on the spot and sent away—still veiled.

Yet, in surprising recognition of women’s rights, Islamic law decrees that each wife receive her share of connubial bliss. Obedient to his faith, Ibn-Saud made his rounds without protest. His duties accomplished, he then visited with his concubines and slaves.

His first bride, the beautiful Bint al Fiqri, whom he wed in Kuwait when he was 15, remained the love of his life although she died just six months after their wedding. Only one wife, Munaiyir, survived all the harem shuffles. She gave the king seven sons and also some daughters. He divorced Munaiyir once, but after her marriage to another man he realized that he missed her. Ibn-Saud demanded that she shed her new husband, then gratefully rewed her.

Ibn-Saud’s last children were born when he was 67. His subsequent sterility depressed him, and in a final stab at youth he dyed his graying hair black. A heart attack took his life but it may not have ended his sexual career. He had prayed that God would allow his six favorite wives to join him in paradise. Perhaps God did.

QUIRKS:
He considered morning sex unhealthy.

He despised communism, not ideologically, but because he believed Communist men slept with their mothers and sisters.

Shortly before each of his babies was to be born, he left the palace grounds and refused to view the infant until it was several days old. Following Islamic practice, he avoided the new mother sexually for 40 days.

HIS THOUGHTS:
“The longest winter night is too short for me.”

“Sleep is but a slice of death inserted into life; why have too much of it?”

(True to his credo, he never slept more than five or six hours a day, dividing his sleep into three periods.)

—S.W.

The Sun King

LOUIS XIV (Sept. 5, 1638–Sept. 1, 1715)

HIS FAME:
Known as “the Sun King” for

the opulence and grand decadence of his

reign, Louis XIV at the height of his power

ruled every aspect of French life. A patron

of artists, writers, and scientists, Louis led

his army to victories over the other great

nations of Europe. Although he created

one of the most grandiose civilizations in

history, he left his country impoverished,

and his political and religious persecutions

led to the French Revolution.

HIS PERSON:
Whether or not Louis

himself believed that he was a “visible

divinity,” he insisted that his subjects so regard him. He taxed the French people mercilessly to support the ostentatious life of his royal court and nearly bankrupted France to build the incomparable pleasure palace at Versailles.

The monarchy Louis inherited from his father was plagued by rebellious nobles, who in 40 years had fought 11 civil wars against the throne. Louis XIV

brought the French nobles under royal control by offering them positions at his court, where he seduced them with wine, women, and fortunes. His elaborate system of patronage extended beyond politics to the ladies at court, where it was estimated there were never fewer than 300 of them scheming for the king’s attentions. He was not reluctant to bestow wealth and prestige upon those women who participated in his dalliances.

Although facially scarred by a childhood bout with smallpox, Louis XIV was an athletic and witty charmer and an indefatigable lover. Married twice, he had innumerable affairs with noblewomen and palace servants alike and was generous to them all, ignoring scandal while he rewarded them with jewels, estates, and rank. His women were confidantes as well as lovers, and he decreed legitimate his many children born out of wedlock. However, torn between his licentious nature and the constant urgings of his religious counselors to atone for his many sins, Louis was often as harsh in his punishment of others’ sins as he was lax in controlling his own. In 1674 he ordered the noses and ears cut off all prostitutes found servicing the soldiers stationed within 5 mi. of Versailles.

SEX LIFE:
Although he was sexually initiated at 16 by a court seamstress who threw herself naked into his arms, Louis’ first real love was Marie Mancini, a niece of his closest political adviser, Cardinal Jules Mazarin. Their affair of the heart lasted two years, until the entreaties of both Mazarin and Louis’ mother convinced him to send her away from court. To bring about peace between France and Spain, Louis married Marie Thérèse of Austria, the daughter of the Spanish king.

Queen Marie Thérèse was a plain if not an ugly woman, devoutly religious but determined to do her “duty”—at least twice a month—by her husband, even if it meant sharing their living quarters with his mistresses. She bore six of Louis’

children, although only one, the Dauphin Louis, survived infancy. The solitary suggestion of scandal to mar her married life occurred when a rival for Louis’

affections, Madame de Montespan, claimed that Marie Thérèse had borne a black child after being given a black dwarf by an African prince. The queen said that during her pregnancy the dwarf once frightened her, and that that incident caused the child to be born black. The queen generally tolerated Louis’ many transgressions, but her temper erupted one night when the king failed to return to their chamber. She had the entire palace searched, and every woman in Versailles was interrogated to find out whether she had the king in her bed.