Private Attachments With Public Consequences

It’s easy to think of history’s most beloved relationships, maybe even their most scandalous ones—but the books are also packed with inappropriate ones historians would probably love for us to never think about. They unfolded in royal households, imperial courts, religious institutions, literary circles, and political systems; in many cases, the surviving details reveal a great deal about the expectations of the age. Come with us as we go through some of the strangest so-called relationships in history. 

William Frederick Yeames on Wikimedia

1. Nero and Sporus

Roman emperor Nero was no stranger to…odd relationships (if you can even call them that). He ordered the death of his wife, Poppaea Sabina, in 65 CE, although the exact circumstances remain debated. He then later had a young freedman named Sporus castrated and took part in a public wedding ceremony with him, presenting Sporus in the role of a bride. 

shakko on Wikimedia

2. Julius Caesar and Cleopatra

Cleopatra VII met Julius Caesar in Alexandria in 48 BCE while she was struggling for control of Egypt against her brother. Caesar was married to Calpurnia in Rome, but Cleopatra eventually birthed a son, whom she presented as Caesar’s child. When Cleopatra later visited Rome, her presence only worsened political unease around Caesar’s growing power and his connection to her.

TorinoDoc on Wikimedia

3. Mark Antony and Cleopatra

Caesar wasn’t the only one with ties to Cleopatra. Mark Antony also became involved with her after Caesar’s death. At the time, Antony was married to Octavian’s sister, but he spent long stretches in the eastern Mediterranean with Cleopatra and recognized their children. Octavian took that personally, used Antony’s association with Cleopatra as part of his campaign against him, and the whole thing ended with Antony and Cleopatra’s suicides in 30 BCE.

After Nathaniel Dance-Holland / William Shakespeare on Wikimedia

4. Peter Abelard and Héloïse

Peter Abelard was hired to teach Héloïse around 1115, the highly educated niece of Fulbert, a canon of Notre-Dame in Paris. Well, it didn’t take long before their affair produced a child, and the pair entered into a secret marriage. Sure enough, it ended disastrously; Fulbert’s associates later attacked Abelard and castrated him, after which Abelard became a monk, and Héloïse entered religious life.

Antoni Oleszczyński on Wikimedia

5. Henry II and Rosamund Clifford

Rosamund Clifford became pretty close to King Henry II when he was already married to Eleanor of Aquitaine. Henry’s favor toward Rosamund only made rumors worse and was even widely remembered in later accounts, though many of the more dramatic stories about her death belong to legend rather than evidence. She died around 1176 and was buried at Godstow Abbey, where her connection to the king continued to define her memory.

Thomas Pennant on Wikimedia

6. John of Gaunt and Katherine Swynford

As we all know, history is packed with mistresses and whispered-about relationships, and John of Gaunt was no different. The Duke of Lancaster had a long relationship with Katherine Swynford while he was married to Constance of Castile. Katherine had served in his household, and their children were born before the couple married in 1396. Those children were later even legitimized as the Beauforts.

Ford Madox Brown on Wikimedia

7. Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn

Henry VIII pursued Anne Boleyn while he was still married to Catherine of Aragon, a marriage he had kept going for over 20 years. His campaign for an annulment led to a break with papal authority and the establishment of royal supremacy over the English church. It wasn’t all sunshine for Anne, though. Yes, she became queen in 1533, and yes, she gave birth to the future Elizabeth I—but she was also executed in 1536 on charges of adultery and treason.

Workshop of Hans Holbein the Younger on Wikimedia

8. Catherine Howard and Thomas Culpeper

Catherine Howard married Henry VIII in 1540, becoming the king’s fifth wife while she was only a teenager. Evidence later emerged that she had held private meetings with Thomas Culpeper, a gentleman of the privy chamber, and that Lady Rochford had helped arrange access between them. Well, Culpeper was then executed in 1541, and Catherine was beheaded in 1542.

Wenceslaus Hollar on Wikimedia

9. Mary, Queen of Scots, and Lord Bothwell

Mary, Queen of Scots, married James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, in 1567, only months after the murder of her second husband, Lord Darnley. Bothwell was tried and acquitted for Darnley’s murder, but many nobles remained deeply hostile to his rise. They had reason to, it would seem, as the marriage helped provoke armed resistance and her forced abdication in favor of her infant son James VI.

Unidentified painter on Wikimedia

10. Elizabeth I and Robert Dudley

Robert Dudley occupied an unusually favored position at Elizabeth I’s court from the start of her reign. Dudley was married to Amy Robsart, but her death in 1560 became a subject of intense speculation, blamed largely on a fall at Cumnor Place. Though Elizabeth never married Dudley, she kept him as one of her closest friends and elevated him to the Earl of Leicester.

George Gower / Formerly attributed to Steven van der Meulen / Formerly attributed to Hans Eworth on Wikimedia

11. James I and George Villiers

George Villiers rose relatively quickly at the court of James I after attracting the king’s attention in the 1610s. It didn’t look good to others, especially since James gave him everything you could want at the time: titles, offices, estates, and exceptional access. Villiers even managed to become the Duke of Buckingham. Their correspondence was also strangely affectionate, and Villiers soon became one of the most hated political figures in England.

Peter Paul Rubens on Wikimedia

12. Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan

Françoise-Athénaïs de Rochechouart became the mistress of Louis XIV, all while serving near Queen Marie-Thérèse. She, too, was married at the time, but she still bore several children with the king, many of whom were later legitimized.

Workshop of Pierre Mignard I on Wikimedia

13. Louis XV and Madame du Barry

Jeanne Bécu, later Madame du Barry, became the official mistress of Louis XV near the end of his reign. Her origins and earlier life made her reception at court especially hostile among members of the old aristocracy. Public opinion of her wasn’t very high, and after the French Revolution, she was arrested, tried, and executed in 1793.

Manner of Louis-Michel van Loo on Wikimedia

14. Lucrezia Borgia and Giovanni Sforza

Lucrezia Borgia married Giovanni Sforza in 1493, when she was still a teenager, as her father, Pope Alexander VI, sought an alliance with Milan. Once the marriage lost its value, the whole thing ended in he-said, she-said shambles. Alexander had it annulled by claiming Giovanni was impotent, a charge Giovanni publicly denied. Sforza then retaliated by accusing Lucrezia of relations with her father and brother, which helped define the Borgia family’s scandalous reputation.

Peter Hoffer on Wikimedia

15. Lord Byron and Augusta Leigh

Lord Byron was already notorious for his affairs, but he somehow managed to damage his reputation further when rumors kicked off around his relationship with his half-sister, Augusta Leigh. In 1814, Augusta gave birth to a daughter, and some believed Byron was the father. The scandal contributed to the collapse of his reputation in England, and he left the country permanently just two years later.

Thomas Phillips on Wikimedia

16. Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings

Sally Hemings was enslaved at Monticello, coming into Jefferson’s household through his wife’s family. Research supports the conclusion that Jefferson fathered several of Hemings’s children. A DNA study from the ‘90s actually linked male-line Jefferson descendants to descendants of Eston Hemings, which only undercut an older claim that Jefferson’s Carr nephews fathered Hemings’s children.

Rembrandt Peale on Wikimedia

17. Edgar Allan Poe and Virginia Clemm

Edgar Allan Poe married Virginia Clemm in Richmond in May 1836. That sounds well and good until you remember two major points: Poe was 27 at the time, while Virginia was only 13—and she was also his first cousin. She died of tuberculosis in 1847, and Poe’s later writing was shaped by the grief.

Mathew Benjamin Brady on Wikimedia

18. John Ruskin, Effie Gray, and John Everett Millais

Running off with someone new was a big deal in the Victorian Era, and no one knew it more than Effie Gray. She married famous art critic John Ruskin in 1848, but the union was annulled just six years later due to non-consummation. To make things worse, Effie also got close to painter John Everett Millais while he was working on Ruskin’s portrait, and while he was still married to Effie. Effie married Millais after the annulment, and the ordeal became a massive scandal.

Thomas Richmond (1802-1874) on Wikimedia

19. Charles Dickens and Ellen Ternan

Charles Dickens met actress Ellen Ternan in 1857 while preparing a theatrical production in Manchester. Again, that sounds fine and dandy until you remember that Dickens was 45 and Ternan was 18. Regardless, he separated from his wife the following year after more than 20 years of marriage, and the connection was carefully concealed during Dickens’s lifetime.

unattributed on Wikimedia

20. Charlie Chaplin and Lita Grey

Charlie Chaplin married Lita Grey in 1924, when she was 16, and he was 35. Even creepier, Grey had appeared in Chaplin’s films as a child, and their marriage followed after she became pregnant. Their divorce became a public scandal in 1927, damaging Chaplin’s public image.

Unknown photographer on Wikimedia