The wisest and yet the horniest of Jewish kings. Solomon reigned for forty years during which time, according to the Old Testament, he "loved many strange women", including seven-hundred wives and anything up to three hundred mistresses. He had a way with words, you see: according to the "Song of Solomon" his chat-up technique included the lines, "thy hair is as a flock of goats" and "thy teeth are like a flock of sheep that are even shorn". Solomon's failure to produce more than a single heir however was said to be God's punishment for his
promiscuity.
Ramses II 'the Great' (1279 - 13 BC)
The ancient Egyptians believed that their pharaohs were gods and were keen to keep the blood-line of their deities as pure as possible by encouraging sex with near relatives. Ramses II, the third king of the nineteenth dynasty of Egypt, had the second longest reign in Egyptian history. He took two "principal" wives then complicated matters by marrying his youngest sister Henutmire and the eldest three of his four daughters, Bin-tameth, Meritamen and Nebettawi. In between fighting the Hittites and the Libyans and building statues of himself all over Egypt, Ramses also found time to pleasure two hundred concubines and fathered ninety-six sons and sixty daughters. Inappropriately, he gave his name to a leading brand of condom.
King Henry I (1068-1135)
The third Norman king of England succeeded his very unpopular and probably very gay elder brother William 'Rufus'. Blessed with allegedly phenomenal sexual stamina, Henry set an undefeated record for an English king by fathering at least 20 and possibly 25 illegitimate children. Unfortunately his only legitimate living heir was a daughter, Matilda, which led to a disastrous period of civil war known as the Anarchy.
King Charles II (1630-85)
Nicknamed 'Old Rowley' after a great old racehorse that had gone on to become a famous stud stallion, Charles was allegedly the first king ever to use a condom, although there are many dukes, earls and barons today who can trace their existence directly back his failure to wear one. He fathered at least fourteen 'official' bastards by seven different mothers, of whom Nell Gwynne, the Covent Garden orange seller and actress, was the best known. Another, Barbara Villiers, duchess of Cleveland, survived him, having borne him six children; she was later alleged to have performed fellatio on a bishop and bitten off his penis.
Augustus II 'the Strong' (1670-1733)
The Saxon-born king of Poland, whom it is said "left no stern unturned" over a period of half a century, fathered three hundred and sixty five bastards, give or take a dozen; it is only fair to record that there was also one legitimate heir. He presided over an enormous warren of mistresses and found it so difficult to keep track of his bastards that he "accidentally" slept with at least one of his own daughters. Although his libido was one of the great marvels of the age, it didn't go down well with his wife, Eberdine, who was so embarrassed by her spouse's outrageous philandering that she refused to set foot in Poland throughout his reign.
King John V (1689-1750)
Portugal's inappropriately self-styled Most Faithful King cleverly combined his twin passions, Catholicism and sex, by sleeping with nuns. The king enjoyed open sexual relations with members of the Odivelas Convent, which resulted in the birth of several illegitimate sons, known as "the children of Palhava," after the palace in Lisbon where they grew up.
King Louis XV (1710-1774)
The Bourbon kings of France were all known for their tireless sex lives, but that of Louis XV was the most astonishing of all. His personal brothel was the biggest ever to service the needs of one man and was stocked with a constant supply of healthy girls. It was rumoured the king acquired his stamina by bathing daily in children's blood. He also liked them very young - as young as 14. He was paranoid about catching syphilis and thought that it this reduced his chances of something infectious lurking inside the royal codpiece.
King Fatafehi Paulah (d1784)
Captain James Cooke, on his third voyage in 1777, visited the Pacific island of Tonga where he met King Fatafehi Paulah, thirty-sixth ruler of the Tu'i Tonga dynasty. The king, a hefty octogenarian, informed Cook that it was his royal duty to deflower every maiden on the island. Apparently his busy schedule required him to perform between eight and ten times a day, every day, and he had never slept with the same woman twice. It is estimated that, allowing for holidays and illness, King Fatafehi Paulah would have slept with approximately thirty-seven thousand and eight-hundred virgins during his reign.
Empress Catherine II 'the Great
The Russian Empress got through a string of lovers who were generally very large men, including Gregory Potemkin, a giant Russian known as 'cyclops' (he lost one eye in an argument over a game of billiards). Potemkin's allegedly enormous penis was the subject of several persistent and apocryphal stories attached to Catherine, that she took a cast of her lover's member and consoled herself with it during his absences. The age gap between the Empress and her lovers grew less respectable as her reign progress and although obese and in chronic ill health she continued to drag young soldiers into her bed into late middle age. She was sixty when she took her last official lover, twenty-two-year-old Platon Zubov. In her youth, the Empress was an obsessive horse rider and refused to ride side-saddle, which ladies of the day were instructed to do to avoid gynaecological problems. It gave rise to a popular myth that she was crushed to death while having sex with a horse. In fact the old Empress fell off her toilet seat and died of a massive stroke while straining to poo.
King William IV (1765-1837)
Little wonder the Victorians decided to clean up their act after Britain's last Hanoverian monarch, or "Pineapple head" as he was known, thanks to his oddly-shaped head. William fathered ten illegitimate children, five sons and five daughters, by his long-term lover, the Irish actress Dorothea Jordan, and one by a London prostitute, Polly Finch.
King Edward VII (1841-1910)
Queen Elizabeth II's great-grandfather, "Edward 'the Caresser," was said to have slept with about three different women per week for nearly half a century, which works out as a very conservative 7,800. Although usually considered a stickler for "proper form," when it came to women he wasn't fussy about rank or social status - he was equally happy in the arms of princesses or prostitutes. At his coronation in 1902, a special area set aside at Westminster Abbey for his various mistresses was nicknamed 'the king's loose box'.
King Ibn-Saud (1876-1953)
Their first ruling monarch of Saudi Arabia allegedly slept with three different women every night from the age of 11 until his death in 1953, although he had a night off during battles. He had an estimated 42 sons and 125 daughters by 22 wives and married into more than 30 tribes, effectively uniting his new country in bed. Thanks to their founding father, today there are about 20,000 Saudi princes.
No comments:
Post a Comment