Hortense Mancini’s English Affairs
In exile, Hortense Mancini captivated 17th-century Europe – and king Charles II – with her beauty and charm. But her path to freedom was mired in scandal.
Hortense Mancini arrived in London in December 1675 and caused a diplomatic crisis. Famous across Europe as the heiress of Cardinal Mazarin and as the duchess who had fled her abusive husband, Mancini came to England to take up sanctuary tendered to her by Charles II. By all accounts, she was treated as a celebrity refugee. Her arrival prompted curious crowds to mass wherever she stayed. Yet it was not her status as an asylum seeker that unsettled the political elite. Rather, her beauty and charm worried the king’s French mistress, Louise de Kéroualle, and the French ambassadors who had worked tirelessly to install Kéroualle as their puppet. When Mancini did – as expected – draw the attention of the king and supplant Kéroualle, the French envoys panicked and the French monarch, Louis XIV, repeatedly sacked and appointed a succession of ambassadorial replacements to rescue the situation. Some 18 months later the crisis resolved itself when Mancini embarked on an affair with the prince of Monaco, humiliating Charles and ending her tenure as official royal mistress.
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