Notorious women of the world

Who labelled these women notorious? Not I, but author Sharma of India.

You will agree that it is better for my mental plus physical health to concentrate on the notorious women of other countries than of my own. Yet, the book with this same title carries one story on one of our women, not among the living now, and even owning a life story going back to pre-historic times. She is Suparnika, sister of Ravana.

She could be the oldest character in it. Most of the others born this side of pre-historic times, with Cleopatra, born BC, heading the list as per the age.

A good number of the notorious women are connected to royalty. This could be due to the fact that data about these women are readily available.

There may be thousands of notorious women on the streets and in pastoral landscapes, then and now, but nobody keeps a track of their doings while the data of women appended to the royal courts and high society are recorded in most instances.

Most of the women are of European descent that could be attributed to the same reason. After the tale of Suparnika who divided her flirtations between India and Lanka the curtain opens on Barbara Villiers, a very pretty English woman of the 17th century who lived and loved in the reign of Charles 11.

Most of the women are very attractive that one wonders whether danger hides behind beauty. Pretty Barbara became the mistress of Charles and played her amorous games even after the king married Catherine Braganza of Portugal. During the king's legal courtship days Barbara was pregnant by the king.

Influence

However, her influence in Court remained intact and she was powerful enough to demand a room in the palace next to the king's bedroom. Despite all this attention she had many men as her lovers. Later she fled to Paris and when she returned the king had been beheaded. She died in 1709 as a pauper,after living on charity.

Next we proceed to Hungary to the reign of Emperor Mathias. It was again the 17th century and Countess Elizabeth Banthory was an influential character in the ramparts of Sejde Palace, in the Carpanthian hills of Hungary. Very beautiful she was and intent on preserving her beauty had been advised evilly that drinking the blood of young lasses made her retain it.

Married to an officer in royal service at 15 she soon became influential in court and had the chance to drink the blood of many virgins. In 1610 she was tried in the open court of the Emperor for murder and confined to a dinghy room in which she died in the muck of her own waste.

Intrigue

Now we come to later times, as late as the mid 19th century and to the Dragon Empire. This time Tzu is the notorious woman, born in 1835 and was one of the many girls selected to serve the 20-year-old Chinese Emperor. Via a network of cruel intrigue she ended up the Empress and played a main role in the Boxer Revolution, that is the war fought to keep Christianity away from China.

War raged bitterly and Tzu too went ahead even sacrificing the fortunes of many dear to her, including her son. But at the end she suffered a heart attack and by 1908 was dead. Her grave was looted by bandits who even crushed her skeleton.

The next character of this category comes from Latin South America, and initially from Ireland. She is Eliza Lynch, an Irish woman who goads Lopez to become the dictator of Uruguay. She left her husband whom she married at 15 and came to live in Paris.

A beautiful woman she soon began to mix with the rich and powerful. Spreading her trap for a powerful man, Lopez enmeshed in South American politics and was soon in it.

After touring Europe and buying the most expensive wardrobe, Eliza entered Paraguay but was dubbed "The Irish prostitute" and boycotted by the high society there. But Lopez idolised her. She had given birth to seven children by now. Again war flared in the Latin American countries and Eliza confiscated jewellery to be spent on the war but had them really packed to Paris. Dead in 1886, she got recognition many years later when her body was taken from London to Paraguay for burial overlooking her sordid past.

Consort

Next emerges Tissarakha from India said to be a consort of king Asokha who planned and plotted to murder the king's children by the first wife. Asoka, according to this tale had not only been a brilliant statesman but a womaniser too and while at Ujjain had met and married this female, daughter of a local trader.

The sending away of Asoka's two children to Sri Lanka is said to be connived by this woman, again subject to conjecture. Anyway the complications regarding Asoka's love life connected to many a good looking Bharatha woman prevent the authenticity of this story.

Now on to Spain and end of 18th Century and to Maria, the queen of Spain. Married to her cousin Charles 1V at 14 she drifted away from him to enjoy the company of strongly built army men. Soon her husband became a mere puppet in her hands and was indifferent to his wife's wild escapades including an affair with the Prime Minister, Godoy much younger to her. She had also begun to change lovers like dresses. When revolt broke out in Spain Maria fled the country with Godoy in 1803.

Now on to England. And to Mary Tudor who hated the Protestant religion spreading around. By 1559 she had ordered 283 converts to the new religion from Roman Catholicism killed. She was the daughter of Henry VIII and so a victim of many of his marital adventures.

Averse to marriage to secure her place on the throne she was forced to marry but the real affair was with religion in which cause she had many murdered. Some death warrants had been signed by her just before her death in 1558. Next comes Jane Digby from England born in 1808 who broke into publicity after appearing on stage covered only by soap bubbles.

Her dismayed parents sent the pretty woman off to London where she married a Lord twice her age. While her husband was knee-deep in state craft she had many flings with several and totalled 600 including three from the Moslem world.

Her last husband was a 21-year-old historian whom Jane "captured" while on a desert trip. She passed away at 74 making many quip that had she lived on, she would have trapped another young man.

Now on to Greece and Egypt to perhaps the most famous woman in history, Cleopatra. Greek historians dubbed her Meriochane that meant a potential devourer of 10,000 men.

Her palace was a stage for many an erotic and sexual orgy where nude dances and open promiscuity were encouraged.

Her love affair with Julius Caesar needs no elaboration. Caesar even promised to make her children by him the heirs to his empire which promise proved his undoing. Born in 69 BC to Ptolemy family of Greece, she herself married first to this family though it is said that she lost her virginity at 12.

Come over to the land of pharaohs after a spate of historical events that shook the world, Cleopatra committed suicide by a self initiated snake bite preceding a threat that she would be forced to parade the streets of Rome, naked. She is today the stuff of many a film and book. sporting the love triangle of Julius Caesar, Mark Antony and herself.

(Courtesy Ashok Kumar Sharma)