Today's Princess: Catherine Sedley

By Peter Lely via Wikimedia Commons

Most royal mistresses are renowned for their beauty but the ladies enjoyed by King James II of Great Britain were so unattractive that his brother King Charles II joked that they must be penance for his sins. In the case of Catherine Sedley (1657-1717), even she admitted that she had no beauty.

Catherine grew up in an unhappy home. Her father, the poet Sir Charles Sedley, was renowned for enjoying the lascivious social life of Restoration England, while her mother went insane, insisting that she was the Queen, and was eventually put away in a hospital. The teenaged Catherine found herself on her own when her dad brought a new ladylove into the home. Somehow, Catherine landed on her feet with a position in service to Princess Mary of Modena, the new wife of James (then Duke of York.) This brought her to the Duke's amorous attention. After his accession, he created her Countess of Dorchester. She remained in England after he was forced from the throne in the Glorious Revolution of 1688, although she was not immediately admitted back at court, eventually earning a pension from King William III. A few years later, she married David Colyear, who would later become Earl of Portmore.

Catherine and James had several children, but only a daughter, Catherine Darnley, survived. From her descended the celebrated Mitford sisters. Through one of her sons by her husband, Catherine Sedley is the ancestress of Charles Darwin.

Renowned for her wit and her biting honesty, she told her sons by Portmore, "If anybody call either of you a son a whore, you must bear it; for you are so: but if they call you bastards, fight till you die; for you are an honest man's sons."

For more about Catherine, I recommend Royal Mistresses: Catherine Sedley, Countess of Dorchester on the Scandalous Women blog, which I consulted for this post.

Today's Princess: Ada de Warenne

Ada's father-in-law David I and her oldest son Malcolm IV

In the turbulent world of medieval Scotland, life could be very uncertain. So it was that Ada de Warenne found herself as the widowed mother of seven children when she was in her early thirties. The daughter of a distinguished noble English house, Ada likely had little choice when it came to husbands, but she drew a regal straw when she was married off to the King of Scotland's son Henry as part of the Treaty of Durham in 1139, which brought peace between England and Scotland so that England's King Stephen could concentrate on trying to defeat his cousin Empress Matilda, who was asserting her claim to that throne. (Read my post about her in Royal Escape Artist.) Through Henry, Ada became the Countess of Huntingdon. She fulfilled her wifely duties with the regular delivery of royal children. She never became queen of Scotland because her husband died shortly before his father. Upon the death of her father-in-law King David I, the throne passed to her 12-year-old son as King Malcolm IV. His reign was far from harmonious, suffering both from poor health and quarrelsome nobles, and he died suddenly at the age of 24 while Ada was in the middle of planning his wedding. Her second son, better known as William the Lion, assumed the throne and earned the distinction of having Scotland's second longest reign (nearly 50 years).

Ada spent much of her widowhood at her dower estate in Haddington. She is best remembered for her generous support of the church, particularly making grants of land and money to the Blackfriars and the Cistercian nuns in the area.

Ada lived to be nearly 60 years old. The Scottish royal House of Bruce descended from her third son David while the House of Stewart descended from her daughter Marjorie.

Today's Princess: Crown Princess Victoria

Copyright kungahuset.se
Photo: Mattias Edwall

Victoria Ingrid Alice Désirée Bernadotte was born first in line to the Swedish throne on July 14, 1977, but she did not keep that position for long. Less than two years later, her younger brother Carl Philip was born and immediately assumed the position of Crown Prince. That same year, however, Sweden became the first country to adopt absolute primogeniture. This "gender blind" succession calls for inheritance to be based on birth order alone. Previously, all sons and their offspring took precedence over daughters. The new rules went into effect exactly 35 years ago today (January 1, 1980) and Victoria became The Crown Princess at the age of two and a half. (Interestingly, a similar situation existed when Norway when it adopted absolute primogeniture but provisions there ensured that Crown Prince Haakon did not lost his status to his older sister Princess Martha Louise.)

Victoria attended university in France and the United States--at Yale!--before completing additional training in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and armed services. She has traveled abroad extensively to represent Sweden, and also devotes her time to numerous charitable causes. She is a champion of environmental issues (choosing not to use fireworks during her wedding celebrations because of their negative impact) and disabled and ill children.

As a teen and young woman, Victoria reportedly battled anorexia. She formed a romantic relationship with Daniel Westling, her personal trainer, but waited eight years to marry him in 2010. Their daughter, Princess Estelle, will be two in February. So, if she (and we!) are lucky, we might hear the pitter-patter of royal baby feet again soon.