We all love a hottie, and that has not changed.
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Doña Ana de Mendoza, the Princess of Éboli (1540 - 1592)
So it has come to our attention at HfH HQ (a small but perfectly formed apartment hollowed out of Michaelangelo’s David’s left buttock) that we’ve been featured in a certain clickbait article that has netted us a few hundred new followers. For some reason we were called “admirable historians” which this contributor is finding personally offensive. We at HfH have always strived to provide only the finest rumour, conjecture and half-baked analysis wrapped up in a bow of pure scandal. We’re like the tabloid press that way. All sources originate with what some man down the pub said after we’d all had a few too many.
So without further ado, the Princess of Éboli.
Doña Ana de Mendoza y de la Cerda, Duchess of Pastrana was born in 1540 to the noted ladykiller of the Spanish Court, Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, a close personal friend of the future King Philip II. Her early life was shaped by the two men’s political aspirations, and at the age of twelve she was betrothed to Ruy Gómez de Silva, Philip’s favourite (there’s a reason we have at least a few monarch’s ‘favourites’ among HFH’s articles so far. Beauty, intrigue and rumours of other-than-heterosexual activity make for a delicious character profile).
Although the pair were married in 1553, it wasn’t until 1558, when Ana was 18 and Ruy was 42 that the marriage was consummated. Ruy had spent the interim years travelling between foreign courts with Philip. Their relationship was fruitful - between 1558 and 1573 they had ten children, but this was cut short by Ruy’s death. Throughout the marriage, rumours abound the court that Ana and the King were lovers. Were they living in a ménages à trois? was she the unicorn that Philip and Ruy had been searching for? I’ll stop before we get into ye olde Daily Mail territory.
Ruy was soon followed by both of Ana’s parents, so after a brief period of retirement in a convent - where by all accounts she fell out with every single nun in the place - Ana jumped back into Spanish Court intrigue, first deftly handling her father’s widow, who was pregnant with a child who could have threatened her inheritance, before forming an alliance with her husband’s protegé, Antonio Perez. Some claim their relationship was a torrid affair, that sparked jealousy in King Philip, others say they were simply breaking court propriety rules, as Perez was a married man.
Regardless, they were both soon embroiled in a conflict between Philip an his half-brother, Don Juan of Austria, playing both sides against each other, altering correspondences and selling state secrets. Although Perez was never prosecuted, Ana was put under house arrest and stripped of her parental and property rights. Many speculated that Philip’s harsh judgement was based on his own jealousy of Perez and Ana’s relationship. She died a decade later, having never been released.
I can’t write any summary of the Princess of Eboli without mentioning arguably the most striking thing about her portraits - the eyepatch. Like everything else about her life, it’s shrouded in mystery and there’s not a lot to go on except rumors and medical theories. Some say she wore it to hide a lazy eye, something that would have hampered her chances at securing a good match. The most abiding rumour of her day however, was that she was an expert fencer, and lost the eye in a duel with a page at the age of 12.
Regardless, I bet that’s the version she told her contemporaries over dinner, before flipping the patch up and winking.
So it has come to our attention at HfH HQ (a small but perfectly formed apartment hollowed out of Michaelangelo’s David’s left buttock) that we’ve been featured in a certain clickbait article that has netted us a few hundred new followers. For some reason we were called “admirable historians” which this contributor is finding personally offensive. We at HfH have always strived to provide only the finest rumour, conjecture and half-baked analysis wrapped up in a bow of pure scandal. We’re like the tabloid press that way. All sources originate with what some man down the pub said after we’d all had a few too many.
So without further ado, the Princess of Éboli.
Doña Ana de Mendoza y de la Cerda, Duchess of Pastrana was born in 1540 to the noted ladykiller of the Spanish Court, Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, a close personal friend of the future King Philip II. Her early life was shaped by the two men’s political aspirations, and at the age of twelve she was betrothed to Ruy Gómez de Silva, Philip’s favourite (there’s a reason we have at least a few monarch’s ‘favourites’ among HFH’s articles so far. Beauty, intrigue and rumours of other-than-heterosexual activity make for a delicious character profile).
Although the pair were married in 1553, it wasn’t until 1558, when Ana was 18 and Ruy was 42 that the marriage was consummated. Ruy had spent the interim years travelling between foreign courts with Philip. Their relationship was fruitful - between 1558 and 1573 they had ten children, but this was cut short by Ruy’s death. Throughout the marriage, rumours abound the court that Ana and the King were lovers. Were they living in a ménages à trois? was she the unicorn that Philip and Ruy had been searching for? I’ll stop before we get into ye olde Daily Mail territory.
Ruy was soon followed by both of Ana’s parents, so after a brief period of retirement in a convent - where by all accounts she fell out with every single nun in the place - Ana jumped back into Spanish Court intrigue, first deftly handling her father’s widow, who was pregnant with a child who could have threatened her inheritance, before forming an alliance with her husband’s protegé, Antonio Perez. Some claim their relationship was a torrid affair, that sparked jealousy in King Philip, others say they were simply breaking court propriety rules, as Perez was a married man.
Regardless, they were both soon embroiled in a conflict between Philip an his half-brother, Don Juan of Austria, playing both sides against each other, altering correspondences and selling state secrets. Although Perez was never prosecuted, Ana was put under house arrest and stripped of her parental and property rights. Many speculated that Philip’s harsh judgement was based on his own jealousy of Perez and Ana’s relationship. She died a decade later, having never been released.
I can’t write any summary of the Princess of Eboli without mentioning arguably the most striking thing about her portraits - the eyepatch. Like everything else about her life, it’s shrouded in mystery and there’s not a lot to go on except rumors and medical theories. Some say she wore it to hide a lazy eye, something that would have hampered her chances at securing a good match. The most abiding rumour of her day however, was that she was an expert fencer, and lost the eye in a duel with a page at the age of 12.
Regardless, I bet that’s the version she told her contemporaries over dinner, before flipping the patch up and winking.
![Picture](/uploads/8/8/0/7/88071814/hh2.jpg)
Johann Trollmann (1907 - 1943)
Johann Trollmann by the early 1930s was a fairly well successful and beautiful German boxer. In the boxing ring he would dance around, very much a precursor to Mohammad Ali’s fighting style – floating like a butterfly, stinging like a bee. Yet in 1933, after the Nazi consolidation of power and rise to the Reichstag, Johann Trollmann’s life was going to change. In a bout for the German light-heavyweight title versus Adolf Witt, Trollmann was denied victory and the fight was deemed ‘undecided’ – largely due to Johann Trollmann’s Sinti ethnicity. After uproar from the spectators and crowd over the unjust decision, a match was rescheduled for Trollmann with a different opponent.
However for the next match Trollmann was told that he could not return to the ring with his trademark fighting style as it was considered too un-German. On hearing this news Trollmann protested and bleached his hair blond and covered his skin with chalk. He entered the ring as a caricature or Hitler’s Aryan racial ideology, and being unable to fight in a way that was familiar to him, was quickly defeated.
In the following years the racial discrimination against people of Romani and Sinti ethnicity heightened; large groups were forced into concentration camps and many were sterilised. Following his return from fighting on the Eastern front in the Wehrmacht, he divorced his wife, with whom he had a four year old daughter, in order to protect them. Yet, Trollmann was arrested by the Gestapo and was taken to the Neuengamme concentration camp. In the camp he attempted to keep a low profile, but the camp commander had been a boxing official prior to the war and recognised Trollmann. He forced the fighter to train the SS men by night, however Trollmann was beginning to become weakened by the punishing work and malnourishment. Following a dramatic decline in his health, the SS soldiers faked his death and managed to get him transferred to the adjacent camp of Wittenberge under a different identity. However even here, Trollmann was soon recognised and the prisoners organised a fight between him and Emil Cornelius, a former criminal. Obviously, the brilliant and brave Trollmann won and Cornelius soon sought revenge for his humiliation and beat Trollmann to death with a shovel.
I feel very honoured that I came upon Johann Trollmann that night in Berlin. He was a brilliant and amazing man who stood up for what was right in one of the darkest periods of history. Johann Trollmann, you were remarkably handsome and you were also one of the most remarkable people I’ve ever read and written about. You are a complete knockout.
Johann Trollmann by the early 1930s was a fairly well successful and beautiful German boxer. In the boxing ring he would dance around, very much a precursor to Mohammad Ali’s fighting style – floating like a butterfly, stinging like a bee. Yet in 1933, after the Nazi consolidation of power and rise to the Reichstag, Johann Trollmann’s life was going to change. In a bout for the German light-heavyweight title versus Adolf Witt, Trollmann was denied victory and the fight was deemed ‘undecided’ – largely due to Johann Trollmann’s Sinti ethnicity. After uproar from the spectators and crowd over the unjust decision, a match was rescheduled for Trollmann with a different opponent.
However for the next match Trollmann was told that he could not return to the ring with his trademark fighting style as it was considered too un-German. On hearing this news Trollmann protested and bleached his hair blond and covered his skin with chalk. He entered the ring as a caricature or Hitler’s Aryan racial ideology, and being unable to fight in a way that was familiar to him, was quickly defeated.
In the following years the racial discrimination against people of Romani and Sinti ethnicity heightened; large groups were forced into concentration camps and many were sterilised. Following his return from fighting on the Eastern front in the Wehrmacht, he divorced his wife, with whom he had a four year old daughter, in order to protect them. Yet, Trollmann was arrested by the Gestapo and was taken to the Neuengamme concentration camp. In the camp he attempted to keep a low profile, but the camp commander had been a boxing official prior to the war and recognised Trollmann. He forced the fighter to train the SS men by night, however Trollmann was beginning to become weakened by the punishing work and malnourishment. Following a dramatic decline in his health, the SS soldiers faked his death and managed to get him transferred to the adjacent camp of Wittenberge under a different identity. However even here, Trollmann was soon recognised and the prisoners organised a fight between him and Emil Cornelius, a former criminal. Obviously, the brilliant and brave Trollmann won and Cornelius soon sought revenge for his humiliation and beat Trollmann to death with a shovel.
I feel very honoured that I came upon Johann Trollmann that night in Berlin. He was a brilliant and amazing man who stood up for what was right in one of the darkest periods of history. Johann Trollmann, you were remarkably handsome and you were also one of the most remarkable people I’ve ever read and written about. You are a complete knockout.
![Picture](/uploads/8/8/0/7/88071814/hh3.png)
Gwenllian Ferch Gruffydd (1097-1136)
Gwenllian Ferch Gruffudd, now know as Gwen, was born to Prince Gruffydd of Gwynedd, in 1097. At this time Wales was ruled by a number of Princes, who were at war with the English, and Normans after 1066.
At the age of 16, a delegation of Princes from the South visited her father’s court and several of them noticed the young, startlingly beautiful Princess. However, it was the 20-year-old Prince Gruffydd who caught her eye - not content with declarations of love from balconies and duelling with her hankie pinned to his lapel, they cut the courtship short and eloped.
Because The Welsh Princes were at war with pretty much everyone else on the island who had the audacity to come over here, rape, pillage and take their land, and Gruffydd’s princedom was one of the most contested, Gwen’s in-laws spent the next 23 years moving from stronghold to stronghold, hill to fen. Gwen had been brought up a shieldmaiden, and so was a match for her husband and his men, and accompanied them when living in the forests of south Wales and leading a group of soldiers herself for the odd ambush, variously while pregnant or with a small child on her hip. They harrassed the Norman and English colonists and redistributed their wealth and land amongst the local people, whose land had been taken by the colonists.
Historians believe it’s Gwen and Gruff’s reputation that filtered through legend to produce the story of Robin Hood and Maid Marion. She is also believed to be one of the sources for Guinevere in Arthurian Legend and Eówyn in Tolkien’s the Lord of the Rings, and is set to be the subject of a
In 1136, while her husband was in the North, drumming up support for an attack against a Norman strongpoint, a Norman-English force marched on Gwen’s princedom. She quickly roused and army and led the several thousand-strong force against their attackers at Kidwelly Castle, but was captured and beheaded as a warning to the other Princes, along with two of her sons.
Rather than pacify them, however, Gwen’s death enraged them out of their complacence, and a unified Wales was able to stand up to their Norman invaders. Throughout this “Great Revolt”, and for a further 300 years, the battle-cry of Welshmen was, "Ddail Achos Gwenllian! - Revenge for Gwenllian"
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Tomoe Gozen
Say hello to Tomoe Gozen, a late 12th century samurai warrior. Female samurai warrior at that! What a bad ass! While not much is known about her life, she is famous for having killed Honda no Moroshige, arguably one of the best swordsmen in Japan at the time. There is an ancient story that called The Tale of the Heike that describes her as being a very beautiful and courageous woman, but also an excellent archer and swordswoman. Not much is known of her later life either, but some accounts say she eventually became a nun and died in her 90s.
WARNING: None of these babes are on tinder.
Historical Women Crush Wednesday
!This makes a great drinking game!
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