The Runaway Duchess

Noble Blood

iHeartPodcasts and Grim & Mild

Society & Culture, History

4.7 • 13.9K Ratings

🗓️ 14 September 2021

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Hortense Mancini is perhaps most famous for being a royal mistress, but her life was a series of adventures and scandals. Hortense was willing to do whatever it took to be a woman who lived on her own terms in the 17th century.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio and Grimm and Myelt from Aaron
0:05.4	Manky.
0:06.4	Listener discretion is advised.
0:13.6	It was after the restoration of the Monarchy in England at the end of the 17th century,
0:19.2	and two women were fencing in St. James Park.
0:23.5	The fencing match wasn't violent, neither woman parried or lunged with any attempt to
0:28.0	name them.
0:29.0	They were giggling and twirling around each other as they fought with their training
0:33.3	swords, gathering a small crowd of spectators around them.
0:38.3	I'm sure it's easy for you to imagine why they attracted so much tension, after all,
0:43.3	they were two women publicly fencing in a park in the 1600s.
0:48.8	But there was another reason the crowd were drawn to the fensers.
0:52.3	Both women were famous.
0:54.6	Women was Ann Leonard, Countess of Sussex, the illegitimate daughter of the king Charles
1:00.0	II and one of his longtime mistresses, the Duchess of Cleveland.
1:05.1	Rumor had it that Ann was conceived on the night of the king's coronation.
1:10.4	The other woman was one of the biggest celebrities in Europe at the time, a woman famous across
1:16.4	multiple countries for her charm and looks and her outlandish gallivanting.
1:22.6	This woman was Hortens Mancini.
1:27.1	Hortens Mancini was born in Italy but raised and educated in France as one of the seven
1:32.8	nieces of the influential minister Cardinal Maserine.
1:37.4	Maserine's nieces, called the Maserinettes, were all well regarded in French court for their
	...

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