Intimate companion of a ruler or other important person
A
favourite
was the intimate companion of a ruler or other important person. In
post-classical
and
early-modern Europe
, among other times and places, the term was used of individuals delegated significant political power by a ruler. It was especially a phenomenon of the
16th
and
17th centuries
, when government had become too complex for many hereditary rulers with no great interest in or talent for it, and political institutions were still evolving. From 1600 to 1660 there were particular successions of all-powerful minister-favourites in much of Europe, particularly in Spain, England, France and Sweden.
[1]
By the late 17th century, the royal favourite as quasi-
Prime Minister
declined; in France, the King resolved to
rule directly
, while in Britain, as the power of the monarch relative to
Parliament
declined, executive power slowly passed to the new office of
Prime Minister
and other parliamentary ministers.
The term is also sometimes employed by writers who want to avoid terms such as "
royal mistress
", "friend", "companion", or "lover" (of either sex). Some favourites had sexual relations with their monarch (or the monarch's spouse), but this was far from universal. Many were favoured for their skill as administrators, while others were close friends of the monarch.
The term has an inbuilt element of disapproval and is defined by the
Oxford English Dictionary
as "One who stands unduly high in the favour of a prince",
[2]
citing
Shakespeare
: "Like favourites/ Made proud by Princes" (
Much Ado about Nothing
, 3.1.9
[3]
).
Rises and falls of favourites
[
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]
Favourites inevitably tended to incur the envy and loathing of the rest of the
nobility
, and
monarchs
were sometimes obliged by political pressure to dismiss or execute them; in the Middle Ages nobles often rebelled in order to seize and kill a favourite. Too close a relationship between monarch and favourite was seen as a breach of the natural order and hierarchy of society. Since many favourites had flamboyant "over-reaching" personalities, they often led the way to their own downfall with their rash behaviour. As the opinions of the
gentry
and
bourgeoisie
grew in importance, they too often strongly disliked favourites. Dislike from all classes could be especially intense in the case of favourites who were elevated from humble, or at least minor, backgrounds by royal favour. Titles and estates were usually given lavishly to favourites, who were compared to mushrooms because they sprang up suddenly overnight, from a bed of
excrement
. The King's favourite
Piers Gaveston
is a "night-grown mushrump" (mushroom) to his enemies in
Christopher Marlowe
's
Edward II
.
[4]
Their falls could be even more sudden, but after about 1650, executions tended to give way to quiet retirement. Favourites who came from the higher nobility, such as
Leicester
,
Lerma
,
Olivares
, and
Oxenstierna
, were often less resented and lasted longer. Successful minister-favourites also usually needed networks of their own favourites and relatives to help them carry out the work of government –
Richelieu
had his "creatures" and Olivares his "hechuras".
[5]
Oxenstierna and
William Cecil
, who both died in office, successfully trained their sons to succeed them.
The favourite can often not be easily distinguished from the successful royal administrator, who at the top of the tree certainly needed the favour of the monarch, but the term is generally used of those who first came into contact with the monarch through the social life of the court, rather than the business of politics or administration. Figures like William Cecil and
Jean-Baptiste Colbert
, whose accelerated rise through the administrative ranks owed much to their personal relations with the
monarch
, but who did not attempt to behave like grandees of the nobility, were also often successful.
Elizabeth I
had Cecil as
Secretary of State
and later
Lord High Treasurer
from the time she ascended the throne in 1558 until his death 40 years later. She had more colourful relationships with several courtiers; the most lasting and intimate one was with
Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester
, who was also a leading politician.
[6]
Only in her last decade was the position of the Cecils, father and son, challenged, by
Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex
, when he fatally attempted a coup against
the younger Cecil
.
Cardinal Wolsey
was one figure who rose through the administrative hierarchy, lived extremely ostentatiously, then fell suddenly from power. In the
Middle Ages
in particular, many royal favourites were promoted in the church, English examples including Saints
Dunstan
and
Thomas Becket
; Bishops
William Waynflete
,
Robert Burnell
and
Walter Reynolds
.
Cardinal Granvelle
, like his father, was a trusted Habsburg minister who lived grandly, but he was not really a favourite, partly because most of his career was spent away from the monarch.
Some favourites came from very humble backgrounds:
Archibald Armstrong
,
jester
to
James I of England
infuriated everyone else at court but managed to retire a wealthy man; unlike
Robert Cochrane
, a
stonemason
(probably a senior one, more like an
architect
than an
artisan
) who became
Earl of Mar
before the
Scottish
nobles revolted against him and hanged him and other low-born favourites of
James III of Scotland
. Melchior Khlesl, minister-favourite of Emperor Matthias (1609-1618) and cardinal, was the son of a Protestant baker in Vienna
[7]
.
Olivier le Daim
, the barber of
Louis XI
, acquired a title and important military commands before he was executed on vague charges brought by nobles shortly after his master died, without the knowledge of the new king. It has been claimed that le Daim's career was the origin of the term, as
favori
(the French word) first appeared around the time of his death in 1484.
Privado
in Spanish was older, but was later partly replaced by the term
valido
; in Spanish, both terms were less derogatory than in French and English.
[8]
Spain had a succession of
validos
during the reigns of
Philip II
,
Philip III
, and
Philip IV
.
[9]
Such rises from menial positions became progressively harder as the centuries progressed; one of the last families able to jump the widening chasm between servants and nobility was that of
Louis XIV's
valet,
Alexandre Bontemps
, whose descendants, holding the office for a further three generations, married into many great families, even eventually including the extended royal family itself. Queen Victoria's
John Brown
came much too late; the devotion of the monarch and ability to terrorise her household led to hardly any rise in social or economic position.
Decline
[
edit
]
In England, the scope for giving political power to a favourite was reduced by the growing importance of
Parliament
. After the "mushroom"
Buckingham
was assassinated by
John Felton
in 1628, Charles I turned to
Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford
, who had been a leader of Parliamentary opposition to Buckingham and the King, but had become his supporter after Charles made concessions. Strafford can therefore hardly be called a favourite in the usual sense, although his relationship with Charles became very close. He was also from a well-established family, with powerful relations. After several years in power, Strafford was
impeached
by a Parliament now very hostile to him. When that process failed, it passed a
bill of attainder
for his execution without trial, and it put enough pressure on Charles that, to his subsequent regret, Charles signed it, and Strafford was executed in 1641. There were later minister-favourites in England, but they knew that the favour of the monarch alone was not sufficient to rule, and most also had careers in Parliament. In 1721, the
new office of Prime Minister
was created, formalizing the replacement of ministers chosen by the monarch with a political
head of government
.
In France, the movement was in the opposite direction. On the death of
Cardinal Mazarin
in 1661, the 23-year-old Louis XIV determined that he would rule himself, and he did not allow the delegation of power to ministers that had happened during the previous 40 years. The
absolute monarchy
pioneered by
Cardinal Richelieu
, Mazarin's predecessor, was to be led by the monarch himself. Louis had many powerful ministers, notably
Jean-Baptiste Colbert
, in finances, and
Francois-Michel le Tellier, Marquis de Louvois
, the army, but the overall direction was never delegated, and no subsequent French minister ever equalled the power of the two cardinals.
In Spain under the
Habsburgs
, when Olivares was succeeded by his nephew
Luis Mendez de Haro
, the last real
valido
, the control of government into a single pair of hands had already been weakened.
In literature
[
edit
]
Favourites were the subject of much contemporary debate, some of it involving a certain amount of danger for the participants. There were many English plays on the subject; amongst the best known are Marlowe's
Edward II
, in which Piers Gaveston is a leading character, and
Sejanus His Fall
(1603), for which
Ben Jonson
was called before the
Privy Council
, accused of "Popery and treason", as the play was claimed by his enemies to contain allusions to the contemporary court of
James I of England
.
Sejanus
, whose career in
Ancient Rome
under
Tiberius
was vividly described by
Tacitus
, was the subject of numerous works all around Europe.
[10]
Shakespeare
was more cautious, and with the exceptions of
Falstaff
, badly disappointed in his hopes of becoming a favourite, and Cardinal Wolsey in
Henry VIII
, he gives no major parts to favourites.
[11]
Francis Bacon
, almost a favourite himself, devoted much of his
essay
On Friendship
to the subject, writing as a rising politician under Elizabeth I:
It is a strange thing to observe, how high a rate great kings and monarchs do set upon this fruit of friendship, whereof we speak: So great, as they purchase it, many times, at the hazard of their own safety and greatness. For princes, in regard of the distance of their fortune from that of their subjects and servants, cannot gather this fruit, except (to make themselves capable thereof) they raise some persons to be, as it were, companions and almost equals to themselves, which many times sorteth to inconvenience. The modern languages give unto such persons the name of
favourites
, or privadoes ... . And we see plainly that this hath been done, not by weak and passionate princes only, but by the wisest and most politic that ever reigned; who have oftentimes joined to themselves some of their servants; whom both themselves have called friends, and allowed other likewise to call them in the same manner; using the word which is received between private men.
[13]
Lord Macaulay
wrote in 1844 of
George III
's old tutor,
John Stuart
, who became
Prime Minister
: "He was a favourite, and favourites have always been odious in this country. No mere favourite had been at the head of the government since the dagger of Felton had reached the heart of the Duke of Buckingham".
[14]
Study of the subject
[
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]
In 1974
Jean Berenger
published "Pour une enquete europeenne, l'histoire du ministeriat au XVIIe siecle" in
Annales
, a seminal study on the subject.
[15]
According to Berenger, the simultaneous success of minister-favourites in several monarchies of the 17th-century was not coincidental, but reflected some change that was taking place at the time.
J.H. Elliott
and
Laurence Brockliss
's work (that resulted in the collection of essays
The World of the Favourite
), undertaken to explore the matter put forward by Berenger, became the most important comparative treatment of this subject.
[15]
Notable favourites
[
edit
]
- Biblical figures with many elements of the favourite are
David
(of
Saul
) and
Joseph
(of a pharaoh)
- Hephaestion
, favourite of
Alexander the Great
(4th century BCE)
- Ji Ru
, favourite of
Emperor Gaozu
of
Han China
(2nd century BCE)
- Hong Yu
, favourite of
Emperor Hui of Han
- Sejanus
, favourite of
Tiberius
, who executed him in 31
- Kapilar
, a
Tamil
poet and alleged favourite of
Vel Pari
, died by
vatakkiruttal
around 125 CE at
Kabilar Kundru
after his beloved's death
- Antinous
, favourite of Emperor
Hadrian
, d. 130
- Cleander
,
freedman
favourite of
Commodus
, who executed him in 190
- Basil I the Macedonian
, born a peasant, became a favourite of
Michael III
, who raised him to co-emperor of the
Byzantine Empire
. Basil later had Michael killed and succeeded as sole emperor, founding the
Macedonian dynasty
- Ibn Ammar
came to the attention of the Muslim ruler of the
taifa
of
Seville
through his poetry and skill at
chess
, but tried to seize part of the kingdom for himself, and was strangled personally by his monarch in 1086
- Piers Gaveston
, 1st Earl of Cornwall, possibly the lover of
Edward II of England
, was given high office, including being
Regent
when Edward went abroad, but was executed after capture by rebels in 1312
- Hugh Despenser the Younger
, also possibly the lover of Edward II, was captured and killed in a rebellion led by
Edward's Queen
in 1326
- Alvaro de Luna
executed in 1453 after pressure from the nobility of
Castile
- Robert Cochrane
, favourite of
James III of Scotland
, taken by a cabal of nobles led by
Archibald "Bell the Cat" Douglas, 5th Earl of Angus
and hanged along with his confederates from
Lauder
bridge
- Pargalı Ibrahim Pasha
, favourite of
Suleiman I
of the
Ottoman Empire
, who ordered his execution in 1536, possibly on suspicion of treason
- Jang Yeong-sil
, favourite of
Sejong the Great
, who dismissed him from court in 1442.
- Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester
favourite of
Elizabeth I of England
for 30 years, rumoured lover and long-term candidate for her hand; also a leading
patron
and statesman. He was succeeded by his rasher stepson
Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex
who was executed in 1601 after an abortive coup
- "
Les Mignons
" ("the Darlings"), a group of favourites of
Henry III of France
- Francisco Gomez de Sandoval y Rojas, Duke of Lerma
, died 1625, the first "valido", a semi-official title for Spanish favourites-ran Spain for 20 years before falling from favour and being replaced by
Gaspar de Guzman y Pimentel, Count-Duke of Olivares
who ran Spain for a further 20 years
- Charles d'Albert, duc de Luynes
in France, the
mignon
of
Louis XIII
, arranged the murder of the Queen Mother's favourite
Concino Concini
in 1617. Concini owed his favour to his wife's close relationship with
Marie de' Medici
.
- George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham
, very influential politically and assassinated in 1628, was favourite to both
James I
and his son
Charles I of England
. James, who had been effectively orphaned as a baby, and
was possibly homosexual
, was
very prone to dependency
on favourites, although whether sexual activity took place remains unclear.
Esme Stewart, 1st Duke of Lennox
, 37 to James' 13 when they met, was forced into exile by opponents, and eventually succeeded by
Robert Carr, 1st Earl of Somerset
; despite titles and wealth, both ended unhappily.
- Axel Oxenstierna
ran the government of
Sweden
, very successfully, for over 40 years until his death in 1654, when his
son Eric
took over
- Henri Coiffier de Ruze, Marquis of Cinq-Mars
in France, executed in 1642 after leading a conspiracy against his rival and patron
Cardinal Richelieu
, who governed France for 18 years
- Cardinal Mazarin
, governed France for almost 20 years until his death in 1661;
Louis XIV
's public decision that he would thenceforward "govern alone" marked the end of the golden age of the favourite
- Luis de Vasconcelos e Sousa, 3rd Count of Castelo Melhor
, was the favourite of the mentally-unstable
Afonso VI of Portugal
; notably, he convinced the king that his mother
Luisa de Guzman
was out to steal his throne and, as a result, Afonso had her sent to a convent
- Corfitz Ulfeldt
became son-in-law to
Christian IV of Denmark
before trying to kill him, and then defecting to Swedish service
- Sidney Godolphin, 1st Earl of Godolphin
, a transitional figure as a protege of
Charles II of England
who also had a successful career in
Parliament
- Marie-Anne de la Tremoille, princesse des Ursins
(died 1722) through force of character enjoyed extraordinary power successively in the courts of France, Spain and the English
Jacobite
exiles
- Constantine Phaulkon
, Greek first counsellor of King
Narai
of
Ayutthaya
, his influences over the King led to the
Siamese revolution of 1688
- Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough
, domineering friend of
Anne, Queen of Great Britain
, eventually supplanted by her cousin
Abigail Masham, Baroness Masham
- Alexander Menshikov
, lifelong best friend of
Peter I of Russia
, came from the most humble origins and attained enormous power, not least after the Tsar's death, when he was
de facto
ruler for two years until he was banished to
Siberia
- Heinrich von Bruhl
(1700-1763), greedy, venal and ultimately disastrous Prime Minister of the
Electorate of Saxony
- Johann Friedrich Struensee
in Denmark, the royal doctor, who ran the government of the schizophrenic
Christian VII
whilst having an affair with
the Queen
, before being executed in 1772
- Frederick von Blucher
in Denmark, the
Adjutant-General
and
Hofmarschall
of
Frederick VI of Denmark
, whilst possibly having an affair with
the Queen
- Heshen
, who amassed an enormous fortune during the latter part of the reign of the
Qianlong Emperor
of
Qing China
- Grigory Alexandrovich Potemkin
(died 1791) was the lover of the Empress
Catherine II of Russia
for two years, but continued to have enormous power in the government for a further fifteen
- Platon Alexandrovich Zubov
was the last favourite of the Empress
Catherine II of Russia
who later took substantial part in the murder of her
son and heir
- Count Axel von Fersen the Younger
(died 1810), was a lover and trusted friend of the last Queen of France
Marie-Antoinette
- Marie-Louise, princesse de Lamballe
(died 1792) was the dear friend of
Marie-Antoinette
and stayed faithful to her until her death
- Gabrielle de Polastron, Duchesse de Polignac
(died 1793) was the favourite of the last queen of France, Marie-Antoinette, and one of the few women that
King Louis XVI
liked and trusted
- Manuel de Godoy
, whose unpopularity led, along with Napoleon's dynastic ambitions, to the abdication of
Charles IV of Spain
in 1808, after which Godoy spent over 40 years in exile
- Grigori Rasputin
, Mystic favourite of the
Romanov family
of
Russia
, murdered in 1916
- Choi Soon-sil
, favourite of
Park Geun-hye
, former
President of South Korea
Mistresses
[
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]
- Margaret Erskine
, mistress of
James V of Scotland
and mother of
James Stewart, 1st Earl of Moray
- Diane de Poitiers
, mistress of
Henry II of France
- Louise de La Valliere
, mistress of Louis XIV of France, succeeded by
Madame de Montespan
- Madame de Maintenon
refused to become the mistress of Louis XIV, and became his second,
morganatic
wife.
- Madame de Pompadour
, mistress of
Louis XV of France
- Madame du Barry
, later lover of
Louis XV of France
, guillotined during the French Revolution
See also
[
edit
]
Notes
[
edit
]
- ^
Elliott:5, summarising the work of French historian
Jean Berenger
- ^
"favourite"
.
Oxford English Dictionary
(Online ed.).
Oxford University Press
. Retrieved
23 January
2019
.
(Subscription or
participating institution membership
required.)
- ^
"Much Ado About Nothing 3.1"
.
www.shakespeare-online.com
. Retrieved
2019-01-23
.
- ^
s:Edward the Second
- ^
Elliott:6
- ^
Adams pp. 17–18
- ^
Haberer, Michael (2023).
"Melchior Khlesl - Fighter and Tactician on many fronts"
.
www.michael-haberer.com
. Retrieved
June 11,
2024
.
- ^
Elliott:1
- ^
some blog
- ^
Elliott:2-3
- ^
Blair Worden in Elliott:171
- ^
Bacon, Francis
(1597).
"On Friendship"
.
authorama.com
.
- ^
Published 1597, perhaps the earliest use of the word in English, it is missed by the
OED
, who give the Shakespeare use quoted above, perhaps written in 1598.
[12]
- ^
Essay on "The Earl of Chatham", quoted Elliott:1
- ^
a
b
Todesca, James J. (2016).
The Emergence of Leon-Castile C.1065-1500
.
Taylor & Francis
.
ISBN
9781317034353
.
- ^
Portraits of Sarah Churchill
.
National Portrait Gallery (United Kingdom)
. Retrieved on 7 August 2007.
References
[
edit
]
- Adams, Simon:
Leicester and the Court: Essays in Elizabethan Politics
Manchester UP 2002
ISBN
0719053250
- J.H. Elliott and LWB Brockliss, eds,
The World of the Favourite
,1999, Yale UP,
ISBN
0-300-07644-4
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