Another Hairy Marie Antoinette Rumor

Marie Antoinette is not alone in this hairy rumor. It supposedly happened to Henry IV of France, Thomas More, Annie Oakley and Jerry Garcia. I swear it happened to Bill Clinton. If you ask around it seems everyone has a friend of a friend who had a grandmother that it happened to. It might be happening to me right now as I sit here writing this blog entry...procrastinating working on edits for my next book.

I am talking about hair going white literally over night or at the very least in less than a week. In my research on Marie Antoinette, I read two different accounts of her hair going white overnight before her final execution. When Madame Campan saw the queen two days after her arrest at Varennes she reported, “In a single night it (her hair) had turned as white as that of a woman of seventy.¹” Legend also has it that Marie’s hair turned white the night before her execution.

I will admit that I am a little obsessed with Marie Antoinette’s hair. So the image of her going to bed with mounds of shinny, bouncy blond curls and waking up with a head of ghastly white hair has always stuck in my mind. We all know that stress is a killer. And surely, knowing that your head is going to be sliced off like a tomato in a Ginsu commercial can leave you a bit stressed. But could Marie’s stress have caused her hair to turn white overnight?

Let’s Break for the Science Bit
A hair strand resides in a hair follicle. The cells in the hair’s follicle, called melanocytes, make the prized melanin which gives our hair color. When we age, the melanocytes get a little sluggish and stop producing melanin resulting in the dreaded white hairs. Once that strand of hair turns white, it’s not going back to your lustrous color without some help from Miss Clairol.

Going Gray Gracefully
Hair is dead matter so when you are frightened or stressed whiteness cannot shoot down the strand. Instead, as hair grows from the root the whiteness starts there and gets longer and longer. As more and more hair is cut off at the ends by routine haircuts, we are left with white hair. This means that hair can only turn white as fast as it can grow.

There is a rare medical condition called diffuse alopecia areata that causes only your pigmented hair to fall out. This hair loss causes someone to appear like they have suddenly gone white when really they have just lost most of their colored hair. Alopecia Areata is often triggered by stress and can happen as rapidly as a couple of weeks.

Did Marie Antoinette really go Bald Overnight?
It is possible that the stress after Marie’s arrest caused her to loose so much hair that she was left with only white hair. Accounts do report that she was sick enough to be bleeding internally.

The last sketch of Marie immortalized by Jacque-Louis David may hold the clue to busting this rumor. The sketch portrays a weathered and grim faced Marie being taken to the scaffold in an open cart with her hands bound behind her back. Her hair had been cut off leaving what appears from the sketch only about two inches. Marie’s hair may have still had some color left, but the colored ends would have been lopped off to prepare her for the guillotine.

How Time Flies When You're Having Fun
Look at that…an hour has passed and I still have not done any work. If time flies when you are writing a silly blog entry then it must really seem to speed up when you are busy trampling and mutilating anyone who is wearing the wrong pants. To the revolutionary onlookers, it may have seemed like Marie’s hair turned white overnight, but she was hidden away from the public for months while in prison—plenty of time for the last two inches of Marie’s famed locks to turn white.

Sources:

1. Farr, Evelyn. The Untold Love Story: Marie Antoinette & Count Fersen (1995)

Jeanne Louise Henriette Campan: Memoirs Of Marie Antoinette at Gutenberg
Wanjek, Christopher. Bad Medicine: Misconceptions and Misuses Revealed, from Distnace Healing to Vitamin O. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2003

Lever, Evelyne. Marie Antoinette, The Last queen of France. New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000

Train Wrecks and Truths

The countdown to reading my first review on The Raucous Royals has started. Some authors don’t care about book reviews. I am not one of those authors. And those authors that say they don’t care…BIG FAT LIARS. How can you work 2+ years on a project and not care about how it is reviewed? Impossible. Books are usually reviewed at least 3 months in advance so somewhere out there in the cruel world of book reviews is a nicely typed paragraph either dashing my hopes or raising them up. I probably won't see the first review until August. tick tock.

I really hope that whoever reviews my book hated history as a child as much as I did. I don’t think you can fully understand a 5th graders utter contempt without having been that kid who yawned at the French Revolution, or even worse, that teacher who has to continually stand in front of a class of yawning 7th graders when they rather be playing video games.

So there are six weeks now to release and I supposed to be able to talk about the book easily when people ask, “What is your book about?” Here is the long explanation:

A little bit about the book: what it IS and what it is NOT:
The Raucous Royals is definitely not a detailed biography of 13 royal figures throughout history. I have lots of book recommendations for kids and adults if you are looking for a deeper study of one of these royals. The Raucous Royals is more of a glimpse at some fascinating rulers and the rumors that changed their lives. It jumps from one rumor to the next on a rollercoaster ride of scandals and palace romps, and just like any good rumor, we'll never know the whole story. This may throw off some readers who prefer more detailed coverage in a biography. Fair enough. Other authors do that very well and that is why I have provided a huge book section on this site. “In depth” is not my style, and if you have ever watched a 10 year old channel surf then you will understand my choice not to focus on the minutia of each royal ruler.

Miss Prim and Proper at it Again
Back to why I am worried about reviews…. The reviews were not exactly kind to my last book, Who put the B in the Ballyhoo? I was prepared. I took on a tough subject. You can’t sugar coat the real history of circus life. I remember one reviewer said that Ballyhoo, “skirts propriety”. Ouch. If Ballyhoo skirted propriety then The Raucous Royals rips the pants off propriety. The way I look at it, history has not always followed the rules of decorum so I can’t make apologies for leaving the juicy bits in. If someone had left the murders, love scandals, sibling rivalries and countless beheadings in for me, then I would not have discovered my love of history so late in life.

I view this book as a gateway drug to history. The age range is 8+ but I am really hoping it appeals more to kids than adults. If you have a reluctant history lover….this is the book for that child. Teaching students about Henry VIII’s love life may not teach them how the English Reformation changed the course of history. But it just might peak that child’s interest enough to pick up another book on Henry VIII. And then maybe another book….and then another book. And pretty soon that same reluctant reader is carting around an overstuffed tome as big as their head on the English Reformation. And isn’t that the most important job of a book? To get readers to pick up another.

The Train Wreck
I didn’t really understand this concept until one of my author visits. It was a school visit for Ballyhoo and I was telling the story of Jumbo the elephant. The life of Jumbo is a story any parent, teacher or librarian can be proud to tell their kids. But then there was this incorrigible, freckle faced boy who in the middle of my heartfelt tale screamed, “Didn’t Jumbo get hit by a train?” I was frozen. I had about 50 young eyes on me looking to hear the truth. I never tell this part of the story. What was I to do? I could hear every parents’ scorn in the back of my head, “you told my child that Jumbo was hit by a train!....You gave my child nightmares!” So I breathed in deeply and said, “Yes, Jumbo was hit by a train. But his body still toured with the circus so his spirit never died.” All true. And what is that saying about the truth…something about it setting you free? Hmmm. It didn’t exactly work that way. A million questions about the gory details of Jumbo’s death followed my very truthful answer. The story of how Jumbo died is probably the only thing those kids remembered that day.

Kids want the truth. Sadly, authors who write textbooks are often forced to give a water downed version of it. It’s almost as if we don’t want our children to ask questions. Other books can fill in the gaps. And every parent has a choice. If you feel a book is not appropriate for your child’s age level, don’t buy it. If you are a librarian and are uncomfortable with some of history’s more scandalous eras, than don’t recommend the book.

After my school visit, a bunch of kids stormed the library. Not to read my book…. but to find books on Jumbo.

Maybe the truth can set readers free.

Queen Poker Face

When many people think of Queen Elizabeth, we picture the stately, stiff-backed queen richly garbed in jewels. All paintings during Tudor times were produced as propaganda to demonstrate the monarchy’s absolute strength and wealth. Elizabeth’s image was no more than a public service announcement that the queen was healthy and still in charge. With so much of the people’s faith riding on a simple painting, Elizabeth was extremely careful about how she was depicted. She commissioned very few artists to paint her portrait and used those selected works as the master for all artists to copy. I have written more information about Elizabeth in portraiture here.

A couple of years ago, I saw the famous “Darnley Portrait” at the National Portrait Gallery. I was a little disappointed. Not because it is not a stunning painting. It truly is unique because it is one of the more lifelike images of Elizabeth. But I had thought that when I saw the painting up close, Elizabeth’s haughty and regal gaze would reveal some clues as to the woman behind the painting. Elizabeth’s disapproving expression just made me feel like I had stolen an old lady’s purse. What was Elizabeth really like? Her painting tells no secrets.

Paintings of Elizabeth before her accessions in 1558 have always fascinated me much more than the carbon copies of the ageless Virgin Queen. There are only two paintings that historians can say for certain depict Elizabeth as a teenager. One shown here to the left shows Elizabeth in a rose damask gown and portrays a far more uncertain woman. This painting was probably produced around 1546 by the court painter William Scrots.

The other painting depicts Elizabeth around the age of ten in a family group and was produced around 1544-5 by an unknown artist. A close-up of the painting can be viewed at Marilee Cody’s site.

Recently another painting depicting a young Elizabeth was discovered at Boughton House and is believed to be a copy of a lost original. The painting shows Henry VIII, his fool Will Somers, Henry’s son Edward VI, Mary I, and to the far right Elizabeth. This painting is such a significant find because it suggests that other paintings of unknown women are also Elizabeth. A portrait at Syon House was once believed to be Lady Jane Grey before Sir Roy Strong identified it as Elizabeth in 1969. This new discovery confirms Strong’s assessment of the sitter. She wears the same somber protestant dress with high collar and the hairstyle and black cap are remarkably similar. The heavy lidded eyes and prominent nose clearly resemble Elizabeth’s coronation painting.

If you like to learn more about this lost portrait then listen to Alison Weir on the BBC podcast.

Anne Boleyn and this boy baby business

I am just getting caught up on my episodes of The Tudors. Last night, I watched the episode in which Anne had another miscarriage. If you have seen this Sunday’s episode….don’t tell me what happens to the broken queen, because I have not seen it yet.

Ha ha. No, we all know what is going to happen. Her fate is either sad or well-deserved depending on whether you are an Anne hater or fan. But after watching last week’s episode, I couldn’t help wonder – why so many miscarriages? Some historians put the number as high as six.

I have heard a few theories.

Theory #1: I married a king and all I got was this lousy STD
It’s been claimed by many historians that Henry VIII had the “French Pox” otherwise known as syphilis. It is believed that this could have affected his virility and also prevented Anne from carrying a child to term. The evidence for the syphilis theory is:

1. Henry’s oozing puss from his supposedly syphilitic leg wound.
2. His deformed nose common in the final years of the disease.
3. His grumpiness and paranoia being a symptom of the syphilitic attack on the brain.

A New World
It is important to remember that syphilis was a much stronger disease in the 16th century than it is today. Syphilis is caused by the Treponema pallidum spirochete bacterium and was believed (although hotly debated) to have been imported into Europe when Columbus’s crew returned to Spain. New diseases tend to be more potent because people lack immunity to them. To Treponema pallidum, Europe was the New World. It left people disfigured, demented and eventually dead. Surely, syphilis would cramp your love life today, but in the 16th century it was hell on earth.

Rub-a-dub, dub
Historian Susan Maclean Kybett presents a very convincing argument against the syphilis rumors. First off, there isn’t any record of Henry or Anne ever taking the standard cure for syphilis of mercury. Although today we would freak out if a drop of this poisonous substance got on our skin, people in the 16th century would bathe in it. In fact, the Mother Goose rhyme that we innocently chanted as children, “rub a dub dub, three men in a tub”, describes the mercury baths commonly administered to sick syphilitic patients.

Mary and Elizabeth never had signs of syphilis either which also indicates that their father may not have contracted it.

A Prude with Pox?
And as I mentioned a few weeks ago about Henry’s love life, the king really wasn’t getting much action in the boudoir. I see Henry as a man who was very selective on whom he slept with and preferred serial monogamy to bedding any ole wench that crossed his path. Serial monogamy would not have protected him from the disease, but it also gives him less chance of contracting it.

So what caused Henry to be such a puss-oozing grump?

Theory #2: Pass the sparrow pie
Kybett points to an insidious culprit often forgotten in today’s vitamin popping culture –Scurvy. We know today that scurvy is caused by a deficiency in Vitamin C. The symptoms of scurvy include bleeding gums, tooth loss, ulcers and serious crankiness. It affected the land bound royalty in winter months as much as it did sailors.

That foul, dirty vegetable
We tend to forget just how vitamin deficient Henry’s court was. Vegetables were viewed as peasant food. Eating a vitamin-C rich turnip was the equivalent of sustaining yourself today on a diet of lo mein noodles and spam. If it grew in the dirt, they weren’t eating it. A pig that rolled in mud and his own feces…now that is food fit for a king.

Baby wants Lemons
Fruit were not deemed as detestable as vegetables, but they were way too costly to eat during the winter months. The Leathersellers' Company paid six silver pennies for one stinkin’ lemon at Henry and Anne’s coronation feast. These were tough times to be pregnant and craving apples.


Highly Scientific Case Study (sort of)
When I was pregnant I sucked down so much lemonade that I was convinced my baby would come out yellow. I drenched lemons over peanut butter sandwiches. My husband walked around saying, “baby wants lemons” for nine months. (A line from The Breakup). Not that my sole experience is any scientific proof for the importance of vitamin C during pregnancy, but I certainly wasn’t craving a rack of lamb. Many of my friends have claimed that they ate up fruits and salads like ferociously starved rabbits too.

No more apples for Anne
Kybett also points out that Henry’s illnesses coincided with the spring Lenten period of fasting when fruits and vegetables would have been scarce. With meat and more meat being the staple of Anne’s diet, miscarriages may have been caused by nutritional deficiencies in both the father’s and mother’s diet.

Theory #3: Bad Blood
Some historians have suggested that Anne was RH negative and Henry was RH positive. The rare blood combination causes the mother’s antibodies to literally attack the fetus, but the autoimmune response does not happen until the second pregnancy. Although this is an interesting theory, it can not be proven.

So what do you think? Why did Anne have so much trouble delivering a male heir?

Sources:
Maclean Kybett, Susan. "Henry VIII - A Malnourished King?" History Today, September 1989, pp. 19-25.

Warnicke, Retha M. The Rise and Fall of Anne Boleyn. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press; Reprint edition (July 26, 1991).

Hayden, Deborah. Pox: Genius, Madness, And The Mysteries Of Syphilis .Jackson, TN : Basic Books, 2003.

Royal Yummy Mummy

This week, in honor of mother’s day, I am featuring the truly captivating and beautiful, yummy mummy, Eleanor of Aquitaine. Eleanor was born in 1122 and had 10 children including two kings of England, Richard I(Richard the Lionheart) and John. Today, having 10 children alone would qualify you for some serious respect on mother's day. But Eleanor survived more than just the dangers of child birth.



Here is a bit of information about this facinating queen:

Mice of Men
Eleanor married Louis VII and became queen of France in 1137. Eleanor and Louis could not have been more different. Louis was quiet and religious and could often be indecisive. Eleanor was vivacious, bold, loved adventure and craved the romance of courtly love. Her love of adventure sent her on the crusades to the Holy lands with Louis. (Louis had more religious motives.)

It wasn’t long before Eleanor was bored out of her mind with her lackluster marriage and begging for a divorce. Eleanor was not the type of mom to stay home and pray while her husband bungled wars. She wanted to be free. At the time, Eleanor had only given birth to two girls in 15 years of marriage with Louis. (some historians have inplied that there was not much action in the royal bedroom). Louis needed a son. He was eventually convinced that he must remarry to get an heir. The pope granted Eleanor her annulment and she literally galloped as fast as she could away from France and into the arms of husband #2, the 18-year-old Plantagenet stud, Henry II. Eleanor was 30 at the time…practically washed up for the 12th century.

The Cougar tries to tame the Lion
Eleanor had traded in her dull, pious hubby for a hotheaded philanderer. Eleanor certainly cared for Henry, but their temperaments ultimately clashed. Eleanor resented Henry’s many affairs and Henry could not tolerate Eleanor trying to run the show.

Who needs a man to rule
Eleanor and Henry had eight children before Eleanor decided to leave and set up court in Poitiers. Surrounded by troubadours and artists, she educated her sons on the art of both love and war. For five years Eleanor flourished. These were Eleanor’s golden years, but her independence was not to last. Trouble started when Henry ordered her to turn over the province’s tax revenues to his treasury. Eleanor refused.

Never mess with a man’s mom
When Henry and Eleanor butted heads over Poiters' taxes, she put her years of mom power to good use. She incited her sons to rebel against their father. Henry was having none of it. He put down the rebellion and locked Eleanor up. Eleanor was imprisoned until Henry died in 1189. Set free at the ripe, old age of 67, she continued to arrange marriages, put down rebellions and offer support and advice to her children. Now that is a super mom.

Eleanor died in 1204 at the age of 82.

In a time where queens were merely baby mills, Eleanor was not a woman to take a back seat to the men in her life. But her unconventional quest for power meant that her reputation had to suffer through scandals and rumors. After her death, historians even wrote that she was a demon. In reality, her combination of sexuality and power simply sat uncomfortably on the thrones of England and France.

The Royal Trendsetters (part II)

Ode to the Pouf
A few weeks ago, I wrote about kings and queens who became fashion icons. Any discussion of trendsetting is not complete without the queen of the pouf, Marie Antoinette. Marie took her hair to dizzying heights by fortressing her locks with wire, cloth, gauze, horsehair and ironically, the flour that so many peasants needed to survive. Her hairstyles were copied by all of French society, despite the fact that they sometimes included gardens of carrots, artichokes, radishes, and heads of cabbage. You have to be a powerful fashion icon to get people to put cabbage in their hair.

A martyr for hair
And let’s not forget about the shear inconvenience of putting radishes in your hair. To sleep, ladies would have to wrap their hair up like conical packages supported with piles of pillows. It would have made an interesting slumber party today. Vermin especially enjoyed the high-hair craze and made protective nests out of them. (Special head scratchers were designed to provide relief.) And imagine having to stick your head out your carriage like a dog or kneel on the carriage floor to get your hair sculpture safely to the ball. Marie would shun tight-fitting corsets, but would make any sacrifice for her hair.

Why go through all this pain and agony for hair? Growing up in the 80's, gives you a certain appreciation for big hair. The girls of my highschool were armed with the power of our trusty blow dryers and enough hair spray to take out half the ozone. We would spend hours getting our hair cemented into feathered pomps and spikes. I have yet to find documented cases, but I am sure our hair took out a few eyes.

Was it all just to look pretty?

For anyone who survived the 80s, we were just following another stupid fashion trend. In Marie’s case, hair was a more serious business. Hair allowed Marie to “play with politics” in an age when women wielded little political clout¹. To support the medical movement toward inoculation, Marie wore her pouf a’ la inoculation featuring Aesculapius’s serpent wrapped around an olive tree. To show her support for the American colonies, Marie donned a pouf a’ la Belle Poule (shown here). Marie proudly advertised her political messages right on her head. It made them hard to miss and may have made others uncomfortable with her power. The queen was allowed to control fashion, as long as it didn’t make political statements.

The pamphleteers fought back. The first libels to attack Marie, targeted her head. Thousands of more libels followed with more licentious implications.

So what do you think? Was Marie just a bored queen playing dress-up? Or was she trying to make both political and fashion statements.?

A Blogging Dare
Now that I have shared my disastrous 80’s flashback…..I dare anyone to post their own version of the 80's pouf or any other bad hair moment.

Sources:
Weber, Caroline. Queen of Fashion, What Marie Antoinette wore to the Revolution: Henry Holt & Co, New York, NY, 2006.
¹ Weber, Queen of Fashion, 105
Lever, Evelyne. Marie Antoinette, The Last queen of France. New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000.
Marie Antoinette. DVD. PBS, David Grubin Productions, Inc., 2006.

Illustration Credits:
Plate 1: 1778 fashion plate of French court dress with wide panniers and artificially enchanced "big hair". Plate 43 in Galerie des Modes for 1778. Caption: "Jeune Dame de Qualité en grande Robe coëffée avec un Bonnet ou Pouf élégant dit la Victoire. Dessiné par Desrais. Gravé par Voysant."Scanned by H.Churchyard. More info
Plate 2: Unknown, Servants Standing on a Ladder, Preparing a Pouf for Bed (C. 1778). The Picture Gallery at the New York Public Library
Plate 3: Carlyn Beccia sporting big hair, copyright long expired.
Plate 4: French Fashion Caricature: Coiffure a' l' Independence of The Triumph of Liberty (c. 1778) . Reunion des Musees Nationaux/Art Resource, NY)
Plate 5: "Marie Antoinette as a Serpent" Source: mfr 87.55. More info

oh Madge, Madge, Madge

I am thoroughly enjoying the second season of The Tudors. I admit that I love anything British. I actually think corn belongs in Tuna and I get positively giddy at the sight of a red telephone booth. I have not enjoyed a mini series this much since Patrick Swayze wore tight britches in North & South. It’s easy to get hooked on the combination of romance and British history.

Faithful historians get a little peevish when TV mucks up history’s facts. To that I say, “booooooooooo!” I guess that makes me a history tramp. I actually think the series helps create interest in a very explosive period in British history. Most people who enjoy The Tudors, but know little of the time period enjoy discovering which parts really happened. Sure, the decision to combine Henry’s sister, Mary and Margaret into one person was a bit lazy. And I admit that every time a horse drawn carriage goes by, I get a little distracted (horse drawn carriages were not in vogue yet. Royalty was carried around in liters). And yes, I too would like nothing better than to see Jonathan Reese Myers sporting a cod piece. (come on….you know you have looked for it!)

With that said, one thing has me confused. What’s with all these random booty calls for Henry VIII? I know this is just to instill a little soap opera drama into the series, but because the show uses so many real life facts… I am constantly left wondering if some of these women really existed. Who was Eleanor Luke? I did a google search on her and found nothing.

For the record, I agree with the producer’s decision to spice up Henry’s love life. If they gave an accurate portrayal of Henry’s palace romps then the show would resemble more of a campy Viagra commercial then a dramatic soap opera. Henry was extremely discreet about his love affairs and was, the for the most part, your typical serial monogamist. He wasn't half as naughty as his contemporary, the syphilitic King of France, Francis I . Ironically, if we are to believe the accounts of George Boleyn, he actually had trouble rising to the royal occasion.

I just want to know if there is any truth to some of these sexual escapades? I know the affair with Madge Shelton (shown above) really happened, but did Henry abduct a pretty maiden from the woods?

And did anyone else roll on the floor laughing with the Madge seduction scene when Myers kept repeating, “Madge, Madge, Madge?” That scene might have been a good time to break for a Viagra commercial.