Encounters with Love: That Changed the World

By Rodney Castleden

This e-book is an extract from Encounters that Changed the World and is also available as part of that complete publication.

Anne Boleyn’s meteoric rise from complete obscurity to the dizzy heights of the English throne was followed by an equally swift journey to the Tower of London. Accused of plotting to kill the King, Anne was no murderer. Her real crime was that she failed to produce a male heir for Henry VIII. In the topsy turvy world of the Tudors, Anne was certain to lose her head. Read about Anne Boleyn’s torrid romance with Henry VIII and her spectacular fall from grace, along with many other momentous encounters with love that changed the world forever.

Contents: Anthony and Cleopatra, Abelard and Heloise, Dante and Beatrice, Queen Isabella and Roger Mortimer, Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, Catherine the Great and Grigori Potemkin, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, Napoleon and Josephine, John Keats and Fanny Brawne, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett, Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas, Pierre and Marie Curie, King Edward VIII and Mrs Simpson, Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes

• Language: English
• Publisher: Canary Press eBooks Limited
• Release date: Jul 16, 2020
• ISBN: 9781908698391

Book preview

Introduction

We all have encounters that change the way we think, the way we see the world, and ultimately the way we behave. It is one of the characteristics that make us human beings. A lot of these encounters are commonplace, like the encounters we have with our teachers at school, and most of us can remember moments when a teacher somehow, by telling us or showing us something, made us see things differently.

Then there are encounters with friends, colleagues, husbands, wives and lovers, building over the course of months, years and decades to change us piecemeal in all sorts of ways. And there are fleeting encounters with strangers, maybe a brief conversation, maybe no more than a fragment of someone’s conversation overheard as they pass.

All these different encounters, significant and insignificant alike, are woven into the fabric of our lives, changing us sometimes subtly and gradually, sometimes with dramatic suddenness, into different people.

The encounters with love described in this book are particularly striking as they have such a powerful emotional charge attached to them. Often the passion is two-sided, like the intense relationship between Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning. But sometimes the love can be completely one-sided.

The relationship between Dante and Beatrice is an extreme case of one-sided love. Beatrice had no idea whatever of Dante’s feelings for her, and she died in her twenties without knowing that he was already turning her into a literary icon that would ensure her immortality. She was to all intents and purposes completely outside the encounter!

Sometimes love really can change the course of history. The affair between Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson threw Britain into crisis in January 1936. At the moment of King George V’s death, Edward automatically became king. But Edward was forced to choose between the crown and the woman he loved and had to abdicate 11 months after his accession before he was ever crowned king.

This book is inevitably about encounters experienced by people who have made their mark, famous people whose lives are a matter of record. Some encounters look full of promise, as if they should lead on to something momentous, yet they don’t. Other encounters may appear doomed from the outset like Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson. But, as I hope the book shows, it is always the unpredictability of human encounters that give them their peculiar interest.

1

Antony and Cleopatra

(42 bc)

Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt and last of the Macedonian (Hellenistic) dynasty of the Ptolemies, was born in 69 bc . She led a turbulent life, struggling to hang on to her throne and to her kingdom’s independence at the fringe of the Roman Empire. Her father’s will was that she should share the Egyptian throne with her younger brother, Ptolemy. She was deposed and exiled by Ptolemy’s guardians and was about to launch a campaign to assert her right to half the throne when, in the autumn of 48 bc , Pompey fled from the forces of Julius Caesar to Alexandria, seeking sanctuary. Ptolemy was only 15 years old, but ruthless. He had his throne set up on the shore at Alexandria and from there he cold-bloodedly watched as Pompey was murdered and beheaded on a small boat in front of him. Ptolemy had ordered Pompey’s death with the idea of pleasing Julius Caesar; he hoped to ally himself with Rome.

This was a bad miscalculation on Ptolemy’s part. When Caesar arrived in Egypt two days later, and Ptolemy presented him with Pompey’s severed head, Caesar was upset and angry. Pompey had been a major political adversary, but he was also the widower of Caesar’s only daughter, Julia: he was family.

In his anger, Caesar seized Alexandria and set himself up as arbiter between the rival claims of Ptolemy and Cleopatra; he was now predisposed to favour Cleopatra. Cleopatra returned from exile and had herself presented to Caesar rolled up in a carpet. Caesar was taken with this gesture, and charmed by Cleopatra herself. In spite of the age difference, he (at 52) and Cleopatra (just 21) became lovers. Nine months later, she gave birth to his son, Caesarion. Julius Caesar gave up his plans to annex Egypt; instead he supported Cleopatra’s claim to the throne. Her brother, Ptolemy XIII, resisted this and there was a brief civil war. This ended when Ptolemy XIII was drowned in the Nile. Then Cleopatra was restored to the throne of Egypt, with her younger brother Ptolemy XIV installed as her co-ruler.

Cleopatra pressed Caesar to make her son Caesarion his heir, but he would not; he decided to name his grand-nephew Octavian instead. Cleopatra visited Rome between 47 and 44 bc with her infant son. She may even have been in Rome at the time when Julius Caesar was assassinated in March 44 bc. Ptolemy XIV died, apparently of natural causes, and Cleopatra then made Caesarion her co-ruler and successor.

In the power vacuum that followed Caesar’s assassination, a triumvirate was set up, a team of three Roman leaders. Mark Antony, who had been Caesar’s friend, was one of the triumvirs. In 42 bc, the 41-year-old Mark Antony summoned Cleopatra, who was then aged 27, to Tarsus; he wanted to meet her and test her loyalty to Rome. She arrived in great style, dazzling Antony. He was so charmed by her, just as Caesar had been, that he travelled to Alexandria with her. In December 40 bc, Cleopatra gave birth to two more children, apparently (though not necessarily) fathered by Antony – Cleopatra Selene II and Alexander Helios.

Three years later, Antony visited Alexandria again, this time on his way to make war on the Parthians. His relationship with Cleopatra was renewed, marrying Cleopatra according to the Egyptian rite, and from then on Alexandria was his home. It seems Antony had become so infatuated with Cleopatra that he overlooked the fact that he was already married. He had a wife back in Rome, Octavia. This was a significant political blunder, because the very publicly jilted and humiliated wife was the sister of Octavian, his fellow triumvir. Though young, Octavian was already an accomplished political operator, and he put this snub to good use. Antony piled one offence on another; soon Cleopatra was producing another child allegedly fathered by him, Ptolemy Philadelphus.

Antony was meanwhile waging wars in the east. His army conquered Armenia. Following this success, in 34 bc Antony announced what was in effect the formation of a new eastern empire ruled by himself and his new Egyptian family. He had Cleopatra and Caesarion crowned co-rulers of Egypt and Cyprus, and Alexander Helios ruler of Parthia, Media and Armenia. Cleopatra Selene was crowned ruler of Cyrenaica and Libya, while Ptolemy Philadelphus became ruler of Syria, Phoenicia and Cilicia. Cleopatra was also given the rather flashy title Queen of Kings. In fact the whole episode looks like a piece of foolish play-acting. It was as if Antony was suffering from too much sun, or too much eastern magic.

In Rome, there was general astonishment at Antony’s behaviour. The new personal empire emerging in the east was a clear threat to the power of Rome. It was believed that Cleopatra was planning to set herself up in Rome as Empress of the World. The formal coronations organized in Alexandria gave Octavian the excuse he needed to take military action against Antony and Egypt. Octavian successfully persuaded the Senate to declare war against Egypt. This marked the beginning of the end of Antony and Cleopatra’s fantasy empire.

In 31 bc the Roman fleet met Antony’s and Cleopatra’s fleets off Actium. Tradition has it that when she saw Antony’s poorly equipped ships losing to the Romans’ superior fleet she withdrew her ships and fled from the