Mistresses of the Royal Family − from prince killer to secret sham weddings

Sex, scandal and power − down the centuries royal mistresses have held huge sway on the world’s blue-blooded elite. A film was even made in 2023 about the life of Jeanne du Barry, who held the semi-official title of “chief mistress” to 18th century French king Louis XV, played by Johnny Depp.

Actress Maïwenn Le Besco played Barry, who rose from poor prostitute to become a married member of the aristocracy, while also the monarch’s favourite lover. She was later executed by guillotine for treason, aged 50, during the French Revolution.

However, Barry’s story is not the only one to come from the secret sex lives of the royals across the world. Here, we look at the lives of some other famous royal mistresses.

Crystal ball

Madame du Barry was the last of the mistresses of the married Louis XV, whose previous paramours had included a string of sisters. There were even rumours of a menage-a-trois with two of them.

Another was Madame de Pompadour. When she was just Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, a fortune teller predicted she would “reign over the heart of a king”.

Sure enough a besotted Louis set her up in a secret private apartment above his own at his palace in Versailles. And when he moved on to other mistresses she even became his political adviser.

Pretty & witty

Daughter of a brothel-keeper, Nell Gwyn once sold oranges to get by but would later become an actress and catch the eye of married Charles II. Described as “pretty and witty” by diarist Samuel Pepys, she’s the most famous of his 13 mistresses and had two children with the king.

She got them titles and lived the high life. When Charles died in 1685, he said: “Let not poor Nelly starve,” making sure she had a pension. Charles had other favourites, including Barbara Villiers, saying she had all the bedroom tricks “practised to give pleasure”. In fact, he had 12 children by his mistresses, yet no legitimate heirs.

Sham wedding

Famed for his love of food, gambling and women, the Prince Regent − who would go on to become George IV − juggled a string of mistresses along with a disastrous marriage to Queen Caroline. One of his first conquests, actress Mary Robinson, was paid off so she didn’t expose his love letters.

Another beauty, Elizabeth Conyngham, may also have been the lover of Russian Tsar Nicholas I. But George once secretly tried to illegally wed his favourite, the twice married Catholic Maria Fitzherbert, his “wife of heart and soul”, and was buried with a miniature of her when he died in 1830.

Lover – and killer

Edward VIII would give up his throne in 1936 in order to marry his US divorcee mistress Wallis Simpson, but by that time he had a past as a habitual womaniser. One of his early mistresses was Parisian courtesan Marguerite Alibert, who would go on to marry Egyptian aristocrat Ali Kamel Fahmy Bey.

The princess shot him dead at the Savoy Hotel in 1923, but was sensationally acquitted of his murder. Before meeting Simpson, Edward carried on a series of affairs with married socialites such as Freda Dudley Ward and Lady Furness.

Sister act

Brainy and famed for her “black and beautiful eyes”, Henry VIII eventually divorced his first wife Catherine of Aragon to marry Anne Boleyn in 1533. She had wooed him by dancing and flirting − but refused the king until they were wed.

Yet the randy Tudor ruler, who would go on to have Anne executed and marry a total of six wives, had already bedded her older sister Mary – said to be even more of a beauty. Played by Scarlett Johansson in movie The Other Boleyn Girl, she’s believed to have romped with French king Francis I too. One courtier cruelly described her as a hackney whom all could ride”.

Sexual ‘alley cat’

Portly lothario Edward VII was nicknamed “Edward the Caresser” and “Dirty Bertie”. He had a reputation for visiting brothels, using a special chair designed for sex and had 50 affairs.

Among his mistresses were Lady Randolph Churchill, mother of Winston Churchill, and actress Lillie Langtry who he once even introduced to his unamused mother, Queen Victoria. But his favourite was married beauty Alice Keppel, described by one historian as having “the morals of an alley cat” for her affairs. She became the 56-year-old king’s lover aged 29.

When Edward lay dying in 1910, his wife Alexandra grudgingly allowed the distraught Alice in to say goodbye. Her great-granddaughter is Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, the wife of Prince Charles, who is said to have been his mistress during his failed marriage to Princess Diana.

Serial conquest

Spanish actress, dancer and courtesan Carolina Otero, or “La Belle Otero”, was so famous for her bosom that the cupolas on the Hotel Carlton in Cannes are said to have been modelled on them. The beauty is reckoned to have been a serial royal mistress, becoming the lover of Edward VII as well as Albert I of Monaco and multiple members of the Russian royal family too.

Six men are said to have committed suicide after their love affairs with Otero ended, while two more fought a duel over her.

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