We have come to the last of our episodes about the merriest of monarchs, Charles II. He had a great run for half a century, but the good times for Chuck and his court stop in 1685. What might be the cause of his death? And what happens to the ladies he left behind? All is revealed here to close out this trashy series.

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Though the Ides of March is long gone for the year, Alicia is engaged in some oratory this week and wanted to revisit a past episode about another famous orator - Gaius Julius Caesar. We’re taking stock of his life and times through his marriages, both the ones we’re sure happened, the one we aren’t sure happened – and of course, Cleopatra makes an appearance.

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Lady Colin Campbell has led quite a life in her day, and one very connected into our upcoming storytelling journey. Today, it is crossover all about her trashy divorce, sticky royal spiderwebs, and so much more as we enter Lady Colin Campbell into our cinematic universe as a future player and source too.

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The 15th century was a chaotic time the kingdoms that would eventually form modern Spain. Castile, Navarre, and Aragon - as well as Portugal - were constantly jostling for advantage, even though the rulers were generally all related to each other by blood, marriage, or both. For Castile, the last of these weak, bumbling rulers with questionable priorities was Henry IV (Enrique IV), whose petition for the dissolution of his first, childless marriage, argued that a hex had been placed on him that made him impotent with his wife Blanche of Navarre. But only with Blanche! You're definitely not ready for what happened next.

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After escaping her abusive husband, Hortense spent some time on the lam. She published her memoirs, which made her a celebrated author, and then, at the urging of the English ambassador, headed to London to "see her niece" - and within months, was yet another mistress of Charles II. And soon after, Charles II's eldest daughter with Barbara Villiers. There were plenty more lovers to come, so to speak, as well.

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The Restoration court of Charles II is known not for governing, but for the seemingly endless bed-hopping antics of the Merry Monarch. Today, in this Trashy Divorces crossover, we meet the last mistress to join that odd club, Hortense Mancini. Born to a big brood in Rome - Hortense was the eighth of ten - the family moved to Paris after her father's death, where her uncle Cardinal Mazarin gave them entry to the French court and planned for his nieces' futures as wives. He chose poorly in the case of Hortense, but her unhappy marriage ultimately propelled her to the shores of England, as well as making her a celebrated writer.

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It is late breaking Tudor news that Alicia had to share! Just published, scientists from the University of Bradford through a little fancy math and facial recognition just might have discovered the true face of Anne Boleyn, the second and murdered wife of Henry VIII.

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A century and a half before the “Golden Age of Piracy,” an Irish woman of noble birth was conquering the inland seas and coastlines on the western edge of the island. Gráinne Ó Máille, anglicized to Grace O’Malley, hailed from the Umhaill line, a seafaring clan of Connacht, and while the family did conduct legitimate forms of trade, they also ran protection rackets on boats that tried to fish their waters, and sometimes plundered merchant vessels in the area, as well as settlements belonging to neighboring clans.

Her life almost perfectly overlapped Queen Elizabeth I’s, and during Grace’s life, the English Crown was deeply invested in the conquest of Ireland, mostly by seducing its nobles into servitude with fancy English titles. Barons and Earls proliferated around Dublin for years, but English shenanigans finally reached the West of the country when Grace’s first husband was cut out from the line of succession to his family’s Chief of the Name. Then he was assassinated, leaving Grace ready and willing to enact violent revenge on his killers.

The Crown continued eroding the alliances she was building. Her second husband was demoted from his role as regional king of Connacht while Grace was jailed on a plundering trip. When the Crown-supported king died, Grace and her husband teamed up to raise an army of 2,000 men to insure his succession. He not only got the title, but was named a Baron as well, in exchange for his promise of fealty to English law.

But Crown agents had already set their sights on Grace O’Malley as the kind of noteworthy adversary whose arrest or death would send a message throughout the Emerald Isle, and Grace was eventually forced to sail to London to seek an audience with Queen Elizabeth herself, an effort in which she prevailed handily.

Grace’s story is full of courage, vengeance, and daring-do, but it’s also a story rooted in specific moment in time, when the longstanding society of Ireland was changing and being changed. Ireland’s Pirate Queen Grace O’Malley saw it all up close, and as a most unconventional woman, charted her own course through.

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Born into a noble French family in Brittany, Louise de Kérouaille's road to the English Court, and to Charles II's bed, passed through Charles's sister, Henrietta Anne Stuart, Duchess of Orleans. Her family, focusing on a well-worn path to prominence, originally tried to have Louise noticed by Louis XIV of France and become a royal mistress. Louis didn't bite, but the royal mistress thing worked out in the end - possibly as part of a spy plot to keep the French informed about the goings-on in England.

In 1670, Louise accompanied Henrietta on a diplomatic mission to Dover, where Charles was trying to bypass Parliament and secure some funding from the French. Henrietta, unfortunately, died unexpectedly around this time, leaving Louise in a bit of a predicament. No worries: Charles II appointed the attractive 21-year-old as a lady-in-waiting to his wife, ensuring her presence at Court. In 1672, Louise joined the Charles II Baby Mama Club, and the following year was given the titles Baroness Petersfield, Countess of Fareham, and Duchess of Portsmouth for life.

Whether Charles II knew or cared about the financial support and gifts that Louise was given by Louis XIV is not known, but the English people had a good sense of what was going on, and Louise was profoundly unpopular with the English public - a striking contrast to Nell Gwyn. 

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One of the big changes Charles II made upon his return to his kingdom was to reopen the theaters that Cromwell and his zealots had shuttered 18 years earlier, at the start of the English Civil War. He also encouraged theaters to hire women, creating England's first class of actresses.

And Charles being Charles, he also dated a few of those newly minted performers. Today, Alicia talks about Nell Gwyn, whose rags to riches story is an iconic part of Restoration England. Born to a (potentially unmarried) brothel owner with a serious alcohol addiction, she got her start in the theater not as an actress, but selling concessions. She was a beauty and a natural mimic, and soon enough, the manager of the King's Company, Thomas Killigrew, began training her for the stage.

By 1665, her star was on the rise, and by the time she and Charles II were becoming a long-term couple in early 1668, Pretty, Witty Nell Gwyn was one of London's most notable people, beloved especially as a comedian.

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It feels safe to say that when Russians recall a leader’s reign as a “dark era,” we’re into some deeply, deeply dark events. Empress Anna, a niece of Peter the (Not So) Great, had survived many humiliations before Russia’s Supreme Privy Council elevated her to Empress; they thought she would be easy to control, but instead, her decade-long reign was characterized by Anna’s cruelty and capriciousness. A career of personal vendettas was fueled by her limitless power and a secret police system she stood up to discover and end plots against her.

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