February 13 | Catherine Howard

1523? 1525? - February 13, 1542: Age between 17 and 19

Catherine Howard was another of those poor misplaced characters. Pretty, sexy, romantic, full of vitality, she might have had a happy life as a middle-class householder. She was, however, a pawn of a ruthlessly ambitious family, and made some pretty foolish choices. But then what teenager doesn't?

Her mother died when she was very young, and she was cared for by a step-grandmother, who paid little attention to her. She hung out with the other unmarried women of grandma's household, who all slept together in a kind of dormitory. It seems the sexual education available in that dorm was rich and extensive, and by the time Catherine was 12 she was enjoying the pleasures of womanhood with at least two male household employees.

If she was unlucky in losing her mother so young, her next bit of bad luck came when she attracted the attention of the King. Her family had obtained for her a position in the household of Anne of Cleves, then (briefly) Queen of England. Anne's marriage with the King was clearly not going to last, and the entire court was in the throes of the familiar game of "Who Can Get a Woman in the King's Bed Fastest?" Her family, the Howards, won.

Catherine was foolish, but the King should have known better. He was nearly 50 years old had already been married four times, and had slept with countless other women. However he was in the grip of an elaborate fantasy about his "English rose without a thorn", and despite all evidence to the contrary (including the fact that Catherine slept with him before the annulment of his marriage) he was convinced that she was a pure and chaste as she appeared. It was rumoured that she was pregnant when they married, but that proved untrue.

Once married, Catherine discovered she was unable to keep up the pretense of being attracted to her new husband. He weighed about 300 pounds and had a smelly festering sore on one of his thighs, and in fact his wily previous wife had convinced him to annul their marriage on the grounds of non-consummation (pretending of course that she was too ugly for him). With her appetite for sex, her eye began to wander, and she began an affair with one of the courtiers.

This was not as stupid as it appears. Despite many marriages and pregnancies, the King had only one living male heir; it was imperative that a "spare" be produced. The King himself had been a "spare"; it was his older brother who had been brought up to rule, but he died before their father. Tongues were already wagging about Catherine's licentious past; the cost of bribes to keep them still was escalating and the Howards were aware that their position was getting fragile. If Catherine could become pregnant and produce a son, she (and the family) would be safe from any gossip.

By 1541 she had not become pregnant, and the truth about her conduct was known to everyone in the realm except her husband. He was finally informed, delicately, that Catherine had be "precontracted" to someone else before her marriage to him; this would invalidate the marriage legally, and she could safely be removed from court with minimal loss of face all round. All she needed to do was confirm the precontract.

She was arrested in November. Upon her arrest she pulled away from her guards and rushed to the church where the King was taking Mass. She pounded on the doors and screamed his name, but was ignored, and the guards caught up to her and dragged her away.

At this point she completely lost it. She became continuously incoherent and hysterical, steadfastly denying the precontract, desperately trying to hang on to her position as Queen. Repeated gentle questioning, hints, and outright stern advice didn't move her... her family, who should have supported and helped her, completely abandoned her at this point, feigning shock and outrage at her "deception" and otherwise trying to lie low and not be noticed. (It didn't help most of them, so many of them were arrested the Tower became overcrowded.) This brought about the unpleasant necessity of proving she had committed adultery after her marriage. Her two lovers confessed under torture and were executed for treason.

She was summarily convicted of intent to commit treason (Parliament had to be hastily summoned to pass a law making this a capital offence) and sentenced to death. On the night before her execution, the poor kid spent hours practising how to lay her head up on the block with dignity. When she approached the scaffold, pale and terrified, she had to be helped up the steps. There she gave a little prepared speech about her "worthy and just punishment" and begged for mercy for her family (who hardly deserved it). Her head came off with one stroke.

And I have reached the end of this story without once mentioning the fat bastard's name.

Sources: Wikipedia, Catherine Howard

February 8 | Mary I of Scotland

December 8, 1542 - Februry 8, 1587: Age 44

Mary Stuart became Queen of Scotland at just six days old. Her father died of cholera, leaving no male heirs. She was just nine months old at her coronation; someone had to prop her up while the heavy crown was lowered onto a velvet circlet on her head.

She was by nature impulsive, clever, kind, friendly, and compassionate; few of these qualities would be useful to her as a monarch. In another time, or another station in life, she would probably have lived to be a great and wise old lady, benefitting countless people with her warmth and intelligence. It was not to be.

She peaked early. Sent to France at five to marry the Dauphin, she had a happy childhood, getting the best education available and being a great favourite with the French court. At 16, her father-in-law died, making her Queen of France, but only for one year: her husband died in 1560, and she returned to Scotland, where she was still Queen. As the great-granddaughter of Henry VII of England, she was also next in line to the English throne after Elizabeth I, and here lay her greatest peril: as a Catholic, she was regarded by other Catholics as someone who would return England to the True Church if Elizabeth were to die without heir. This made her an enemy of the Queen of England, whether she liked it or not.

Meanwhile the Scotland she returned to was a dangerous and complicated place. She tried to make friends with her cousin Elizabeth, but was unsuccessful. Elizabeth, the canny politician, was infuriated by her bad decisions, which included marrying twice for love, both terrible men who abused and betrayed her, as well as abdicating the throne in favour of her three-year-old son, James. A virtual prisoner in her own country, she fled to England, throwing herself on Elizabeth's mercy. Elizabeth had none to spare: her presence was an acute danger to the Queen and to the stability of the country, and an embarrassment as well. She was immediately imprisoned, and for nearly 18 years Elizabeth fretted about what to do with her.

In the end, Elizabeth's own secret service were able to entrap Mary into plotting, or at least appearing to plot, to escape and take the throne. She was tried, found guilty, and condemned to death.

She took it all with grace and calm. When she mounted the scaffold, her executioners knelt before her and asked forgiveness, to which she replied "I forgive you, for you are about to end my troubles!" They helped her remove her black outer gowns, revealing a deep red chemise underneath, a dramatic reference to the liturgical colour of martyrdom in the Catholic Church. She smiled a little and joked, "never have I had such assistants to disrobe me, and never have I put off my clothes before such a company."

She was blindfolded, knelt down, positioned her head on the block, and stretched out her arms behind her. It took two strokes of the ax to behead her; the first blow missed her neck and hit her on the back of her head, and she was heard to whisper "Sweet Jesus". The second blow severed her neck, but the executioner had to saw back and forth a bit to cut the last bit of sinew. Then, as tradition dictated, he grasped her head by her hair to hold it aloft, but he was left holding a wig while the head itself fell back down and rolled away. Mary's auburn tresses had been fake for years; her actual hair was short and gray. It is said that as her head lay on the stage after this, the lips were still moving in prayer for 15 minutes after it was severed.

At this point, to everyone's great surprise, her little dog suddenly emerged from under her skirts and circled her head, crying anxiously. Covered in blood, he refused to be parted from her, and had to be taken away forcibly by her maids.

In a very real way, Mary was a martyr, but she was killed by Catholics as well as Protestants. Although she herself probably harboured no ambitions for the English throne, her existence made her a flashpoint for Catholic fanaticism, whose interest in her guaranteed that her death become a political necessity for the English sovereign and government.

Sources: Wikipedia, The Execution of Mary Queen of Scots

January 26 | Chinese Gordon

January 28, 1833 - January 26, 1885: Age 51

Major General Charles "Chinese" Gordon was an extremely popular and influential figure in the British Empire. He served in the Crimea, China, South Africa, India, and the Sudan. Brave to a fault, he often rode ahead of his troops, swinging his sword and engaging the opposition in hand-to-hand combat. This made him popular, but one wonders at his judgment.

In 1884 he was sent to Sudan to evacuate occupying Egyptian troops in the face of a rising tide of angry Moslems, who did not fancy British overlordship. Instead of evacuating, Gordon fortified their position and demanded that the British government send reinforcements. "I shall hold out here as long as I can, and if I can suppress the rebellion I shall do so," he wrote. "If I cannot, I shall retire to the equator and leave you the indelible disgrace of abandoning the garrisons."

Knowing the cause to be lost, the government was reluctant to agree, but public opinion eventually forced them to send relief. It came too late. By December 1884 both of Gordon's aides had died, leaving him the last British official in Khartoum. "I think the game is up. We may expect a catastrophe." The leader of the Moslem forces sent word to him that if he surrendered, he would be spared and sent back to England. Gordon characteristically refused. On January 26 the rebels swarmed into Khartoum, and Gordon's remaining forces lasted only 30 minutes.

Gordon himself stood outside his quarters in the palace, dressed in his white uniform, with his left hand on his sheathed sword and his right hand holding a revolver. He used neither as a Moslem fighter shoved a spear through Gordon's breast. Gordon fell forward on the palace floor as other rebels jabbed their spears into his body. He was decapitated and his head delivered to the Moslem leader.*

The British reinforcements arrived two days later, on what would have been Gordon's birthday. Seeing the city in ruins, they turned back without a fight.

Back in England, the public reacted to his death with rage. No matter that the cause was hopeless, and that the whole endeavour of colonialism was becoming more and more obviously untenable. Gordon was a hero: if anything had gone wrong, it was the government's fault. By the summer, the government had fallen, and Gordon had a statue in Trafalgar Square.

*Forbes, Malcolm, They Went That-A-Way, Simon and Shuster, New York, 1988

December 7 | Cicero

January 3, 106 BC - December 7, 43 BC: Age 63

"It is a great thing to know our vices."

Cicero was a lawyer, statesman, political theorist and philosopher in Rome during the heady times of Caesar and Mark Anthony. Anyone who has taken classical Latin in school has read excerpts, at least, from his essays, which are beautifully written and considered the pinnacle of Latin prose style of the era.

Cicero passionately believed in the ideal of the Roman Republic when Julius Caesar began to systematically accumulate power and dismantle the traditional forms of government in order to secure his position. Cicero opposed Caesar until it became clear that resistance was futile. At that point Caesar extended the hand of peace, inviting him to return to Rome (he had prudently withdrawn). Cicero was a respected politician and citizen and his support was valuable to Caesar. Cicero acquiesced, focusing his efforts on trying to persuade Caesar to revive the Republic and on protecting what little of it remained.

He did not fare so well under Mark Anthony. After Caesar's assasination in 44 BC, a brief period of instability brought Cicero much prominence and popularity as various factions competed for his favour. Mark Anthony rose to become the other leading man in Rome as consul, and a power struggle ensued: Cicero's eloquence and influence over Anthony's control over the armies.

The outcome was inevitable. Anthony's power grew, and his paranoia along with it. He began to draw up long lists of "enemies of the state" to be hunted and murdered by his soldiers. Cicero made the list as soon as he lost the favour of Octavian, Caesar's nephew and adopted son. He tried to take ship to Macedonia, but was caught leaving his villa in Formiae.

It is said that his last words were "there is nothing proper about what you are doing, soldier, but do try to kill me properly". They cut off his head, and later his head and hands were put on display in the Forum. Anthony's wife Fulvia is said to have taken his head, pulled out his tongue, and stabbed it repeatedly with a hairpin in rage.

Sources: Wikipedia

November 22 | Edward Teach

1680? - November 22, 1718: Age 38

Edward Teach was the notorious Blackbeard, the most famous pirate of all time. His real name is unknown, as is his precise background — it was not uncommon for professional pirates to keep their origins secret in order to protect their families at home.

His story reads like so many movies, and that's because every piece of pirate fiction owes something to the persona he himself created. He dressed... well, like Johnny Depp, very flamboyant and wearing half a dozen pistols at a time. A large man, he cultivated a massive scraggly beard and rasta locks, in which he wove strings of hemp and cannon fuses that could be lit with a match during battle to give him a diabolically smoky appearance.

In fact he was not a sadist nor a particularly violent man. He was interested in treasure, women (he "married" 14 times), and the freewheeling combination of chaos and discipline that made up a life at sea. After apprenticing with Benjamin Hornigold, the most feared pirate of the day, he took over his "practice" when Hornigold decided to retire (just like in The Princess Bride!). His reputation was greatly enhanced when he bested the English Man o' War Scarborough in a running duel. Rather than sink or take the Scarborough, he allowed it to withdraw when it became obvious the pirates would win.

Whether or not he intended it, the stories spread by the crew of the Scarborough were a goldmine of fearsome publicity. That, combined with his eccentric appearance, meant that simply seeing Blackbeard on the deck of a marauding ship was enough to make many prey ships surrender on the spot. This, of course, was the point.

In May 1718 Teach capped off his career with a complete blockade of the port of Charleston, South Carolina, during which he took a number of high ranking citizens prisoner in exchange for medical supplies. He got his supplies and nobody was harmed.

At this point, Blackbeard decided to retire. The British government (who had after all created all the pirates by hiring them as privateers during the war with Spain) offered a blanket pardon to any pirate captain willing to give himself up. He surrendered to the governer of North Carolina and settled down in Bath, marrying his 14th wife, this time legally (the other 13 had bee on-deck ceremonies at sea). It seems, however, that retirement didn't suit Teach, and he began to pirate here and there in a quiet sort of way. The Governor of Virginia, incensed that the infamous pirate was operating unhindered so close to his border, hired two sloops and a number men to back them up on shore to hunt out Teach in his hideout on the inland side of Ocracoke Island. They succeeded in engaging with Teach's two ships there and, although outgunned, were able to trick Teach onto the deck of one ship by hiding the men below decks, making it appear that most of them had died in the preceding heavy fire. Teach fell for it and boarded the sloop with a small force. The expedition's leader, Robert Maynard, burst from below decks with his men and a duel between the two worthy of any Hollywood movie ensued. From the National Geographic:

Maynard's men swarmed out of the hatches. Blackbeard went straight for Maynard, the two men firing pistols at the same time. The pirate's shot rang wide, but Maynard hit Teach square in the chest. Still, the pirate fought on, landing a cutlass blow so fierce it broke Maynard's sword. Just then, the pirate was staggered by a sword blow to his neck from behind. He pulled his last pistol but was too weak to fire. Blackbeard collapsed on deck, in the end having been shot five times and stabbed more than 20.

Teach's head was severed and hung from the bowsprit of the sloop. His body was thrown into the sea, and it is said the headless body swam around the ship several times before sinking. Legend has it that Blackbeard's ghost can still be seen in the neighbourhood, looking for his head.

Sources: Wikipedia, National Geographic, Edward Teach

November 3 | Olympe de Gouge

December 31, 1745 - November 3, 1793: Age 47

In French law during the 17th century women had no legal right to declare the paternity of their children. So Olympe de Gouge, in a strange way, had the freedom to define herself: she was denied by her natural father, a marquis, and her washerwoman mother had no legal say in the matter.

We may not find it surprising that Olympe grew up to be a passionate defender of the rights of the oppressed, but in fact it occurred to very few people that anybody who wasn't a white male should have any rights at all. At the time that the whole country, indeed the whole of Europe and the New World, was in a intellectual ferment over the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, the rights of women, slaves, and children were considered ridiculous (when considered at all).

During the events leading up to the French Revolution and the Revolution itself, Olympe de Gouge supported herself by finding male patrons willing to protect her while she wrote plays and essays proposing and defending universal human rights. She wrote a play attacking slavery in 1774 (L'Esclavage des Nègres) but it went unpublished until 1789, the year of the Revolution, and even then she could not get it staged because, among other obstacles, she couldn't find actors willing to play negro parts.

She became involved and tried to speak out about any injustice: "A woman has the right to mount the scaffold. She must possess equally the right to mount the speaker's platform." She opposed the execution of Louis XIV. The year that Déclaration des droits du Homme et du Citoyen was published, she published Déclaration des droits de la Femme et de la Citoyenne. She was combative, outspoken, difficult, and hated. Even a century after her death, the historian Jules Michelet commented, "She allowed herself to act and write about more than one affair that her weak head did not understand."

Eventually she paid for her views with her "weak head". In 1793 she was arrested for publishing an essay that demanded a plebiscite on a choice of three potential forms of government: an indivisible Republic, a federalist government, or a constitutional monarchy. On November 3 her "right to mount the scaffold" trumped her right to mount the speaker's platform, and she was guillotined.

Source: Wikipedia

October 29 | Sir Walter Raleigh

1552 - October 29, 1618: Age 66

Walter Raleigh was the consummate Elizabethan English gentleman: poet, courtier, explorer, romantic. He was a favourite of Elizabeth I until he risked it all by secretly marrying one of her ladies in waiting, a move he knew would infuriate the Queen. It did, and they had to live away from court for many years. He did return to favour briefly near the end of the Queen's life, but she died in 1603.

Elizabeth died without a direct heir. Her cousin, James VI of Scotland, took power as James I of England, and James I didn't find Raleigh charming at all. Moreover, English Catholics were forever plotting to overthrow the Protestant government, and Raleigh was implicated in one of their plots (although he was very likely innocent). He was arrested tried and, despite the skill of his defence (which he conducted himself), was found guilty. His life, however, was spared indefinitely by the King. Now legally dead, from 1604 on Raleigh lived in the Tower of London, quite literally at the King's pleasure. Being noble, his cell was quite a bit nicer than most people's homes of that day, and his wife and friends visited him freely. His youngest son was conceived there in 1604.

In 1616 he was released in order to lead an expedition to Venezuela in search of gold. He did not succeed in finding any in the conventional fashion and, desperate for booty of some sort, his men sacked a Spanish outpost. The Spanish ambassador furiously demanded that his death sentence be reinstated and politics at the time dictated that James I grant that request.

Raleigh was beheaded on October 29, 1618. He suffered from malaria, and was worried that the daily period of fever and trembling brought about by the disease be mistaken for cowardice. "Let us dispatch," he asked his executioner. "At this hour my ague comes upon me. I would not have my enemies think I quaked from fear." He felt the edge of the axe, commenting, "This is what will cure all sorrows." When the executioner hesitated before striking, he urged him on: "What dost thou fear? Strike, man, strike!"

His embalmed head was given to his widow, who kept it in a velvet bag until she died 29 years later.

Sources: Wikipedia; Forbes, Malcolm, They Went That-a-Way, Simon and Schuster, 1988.

October 16 | Marie Antoinette

November 2, 1755 - October 16, 1793: Age 38

Marie Antoinette was born as an Archduchess of Austria. Her mother, the Empress of the Holy Roman Empire and Queen of Hungary, was a formidable woman who read and signed state papers while in labour with Marie Antoinette, who was her 15th child.

The main job of a young royal female in those days was to get married as advantageously as possible, but since Antoinette had 10 sisters she didn't receive much attention until 1767, when a smallpox epidemic reduced the number of eligible sisters by two. Other sisters were already married (except one who was crippled and ineligible) so plans began for a marriage between the young Antoinette and the Dauphin of France. She was married by proxy in April 1770 (age 14) and was handed over to the French in May. She became Queen four years later, when her father-in-law died of smallpox.

Then came the French Revolution. 1989, with the storming of the Bastille, marked the end of any real royal power in France. Popular hatred for the aristocracy gradually and inevitably extended to hatred for the King and Queen, and by 1792 their legal power was abolished and they became known as "Louis and Antoinette Capet" and imprisoned. In December of that year Louis was put to trial for "undermining the Repulic" and condemned to death, which followed by guillotine in January. Antoinette, became known as "Veuve Capet" (Widow Capet). Imprisoned with her surviving son and daughter (two children had died in infancy), she fell into a deep depression.

Her 8-year-old son, Louis Charles, by rights the King of France, was taken away from her in July and given into the "care" of a cobbler. There he was mistreated and coached to hate his parents. In October Antoinette was put on trial for various crimes for which there was not a shred of real evidence, including the allegation that she had sexually abused and masturbated her son. The boy was brought into court and coached into accusing his mother, causing her great distress. The conclusion was pre-ordained: she was found guilty on all counts.

Early on the morning of her execution her hair was cut and her hands bound. She was put in a open cart and carried through the streets of Paris to the Place de la Révolution. When she stepped down from the cart and looked up at the guillotine, the priest whispered, "This is the moment, Madame, to arm yourself with courage." She replied, "Courage? The moment when my troubles are going to end is not the moment when my courage is going to fail me."

When she mounted the platform she accidentally stepped on the executioner's foot, and said, "Monsieur, I ask your pardon. I did not do it on purpose." These were her last words. She was executed shortly after noon. Her head was displayed to a cheering crowd; and her body was dumped in an unmarked mass grave in the Rue d'Anjou. (In 1815 it was retrieved and reburied at St. Denis Cathedral.)

Sources: The Free Republic, Wikipedia

September 11 | Beatrice Cenci

February 6, 1577 - September 11, 1599: Age 22

Beatrice Cenci was the daughter of an Italian Count named Francesco Cenci. He had a dubious reputation, and kept Beatrice and her mother virtually prisoners in his country castello while he amused himself with the vicious pleasures of Rome. His visits home were no picnic for the women, as he was said to have abused both of them physically and sexually.

One day in 1598 a great commotion was heard in the castle. The locals rushed over to find Beatrice's mother screaming, Beatrice "strangely silent", a splintered wooden balcony, and the Count's bloody body 30 meters below it in a gully of rocks and shrubs. He was definitely dead. In fact, oddly enough, he was cold. Moreover, when the body was washed, it was discovered that he had somehow acquired several stab wounds in the head that were not quite consistent with the notion of a fall.

A year of investigations revealed that the Count had been drugged and then two men had entered the castle and driven an iron spike into his head. They pushed the body off the balcony and made a hole in the balcony floor to make it look like an accident, but neglected to get rid of the bloody sheets and mess inside. Extensive confessions (obtained under torture) revealed that the men had been hired for this purpose by the Count's family. Both murderers died during the investigation: one ran away but got his head cut off by a bounty-hunter's hatchet, the other died under torture. Although Beatrice never confessed, it was believed that she had been the most determined of the conspirators, urging the men on when they hesitated at the last minute. The whole family was found guilty.

Alhtough Beatrice never confessed, nobody doubted her culpability. The Count was extremely unpopular and the common people had no trouble believing he had abused Beatrice. That, combined with her youth and beauty — she was thought to be about 17 — made her a cause célèbre. Widespread protest of the verdict did bring about a brief stay of execution, but in the end the Pope ordered that the sentences be carried out. (The family estate reverted to the Church.)

On September 11, 1599, one year and two days after the murder, the sentence was carried out. The elder brother, Giacomo, was publicly tortured to death. Beatrice and her mother were beheaded. The other brother, being only 12, was considered by the judges to have been too young to have had anything to do with it. Even so, he was sentenced to be present on the scaffold with his family to witness their executions before being sent to the galleys for a life of slavery. Today, Beatrice's ghost can be seen every year on the night of the eve of her execution, walking the Sant'Angelo Bridge where the scaffold was built, carrying her severed head.

Over the years the story of the desperate innocent girl driven to murder by her father's abuse seized the imagination of artists, playwrights, poets, and filmmakers. The portrait by Reni (shown here) was a big part of that continuing interest; many wrote about its inspiring effect. Mary Shelley, writing of her husband's interest in the legend (he wrote a play about it), said that the portrait's "beauty cast the reflection of its own grace over her appalling story; Shelley's imagination because strangely excited." Stendhal wrote of "a poor girl of 16 who has only just surrendered to despair. The face is sweet and beautiful, the expression very gentle, the eyes extremely large; they have the astonished air of a person who has just been surprised at the very moment of shedding scalding tears." Dickens foudn it "a picture almost impossible to be forgotten", full of "transcendent sweetness" and "beautiful sorrow". Hawthorne found it "the very saddest ever painted or conceived: it involves an unfathomable depth of sorrow", and further wrote, "She is a fallen angel — fallen and yet sinless."

Modern historical research is such a buzzkill. Reni was Bolognese and didn't even paint in Rome before 1608, nine years after her death. It's much more likely the portrait is one of the Muses, and the link with Beatrice is a based on pure speculation ("probably the Cenci girl" written in a catalogue in the late 18th century). Moreover, documentary research has turned up a record of her birth and shown that "the poor girl of 16" was 22 when she was executed. Finally, there is some suggestion that she had an illegitimate child — a plausible explanation for her "imprisonment" in the castle.

It is obvious that the Cenci family was dysfunctional, even abusive; there is plenty of evidence supporting that. However this story, that grew into a rather simplistic drama laced with sex and violence, is deeper and more complicated than the myth.

Sources: Beatrice Cenci: Storia del secolo XVI (Francesco Domenico Guerrazzi), Screaming in the Castle (Charles Nicholl), Wikipedia