95 Fascinating Facts about Queens

French Queen Marie Antoinette had a fully functioning peasant village built on the grounds of Versailles. She loved strolling the village in simple shepherdess garb pretending to live a simple life milking cows or sheep, which were carefully maintained and cleaned by the servants.

27. Marie Antoinette syndrome designates the condition in which scalp hair suddenly turns white. The name alludes to the unhappy Queen Marie Antoinette of France (1755-1793), whose hair allegedly turned white the night before her last walk to the guillotine during the French Revolution. She was 38 years old when she died.

28. When W.A. Mozart was 7, he was giving a concert in front of royalty in Vienna. When he slipped, Marie Antoinette helped him up and he immediately proposed to marry her.

29. Duckies ("duckys") was a medieval English slang term for a woman's breasts, used by (among others) Henry VIII in letters to Anne Boleyn (Queen of England).

30. Pianist Jan Ladislav Dussek was the court musician of Catherine the Great and Marie Antoinette, had an affair with a princess and was an acquaintance of Napoleon and Talleyrand.

Lady Jane Grey was executed simply for being related to Henry VIII and for being nominated Queen by her cousin. Even the executioner asked for her forgiveness before carrying out the beheading.

32. The Queen Elizabeth II never gave a press interview, went to an election or publicly expressed a personal opinion.

33. Queen Elizabeth II was once accidentally filmed during an argument with Prince Philip throwing tennis shoes and a racquet at him. The Australian film crew, under mild encouragement destroyed the footage out of respect.

34. Queen Elizabeth II employs somebody to wear her shoes before her to ensure they are comfortable.

35. In preparation for a state visit by Nicolae Ceausescu (Romanian President), Elizabeth II ordered the guest rooms of Buckingham Palace to be stripped of valuables for fears that they'd be stolen. She later described the visit as the worst three days of her life.

There is a society in the UK called the "Royal Bastards", consisting of illegitimate descendants of British Royalty. As she has both legitimate and illegitimate ancestry, Queen Elizabeth II has been invited to join.

37. In 1956, French Prime Minister Guy Mollet proposed a union between the United Kingdom and France with Elizabeth II as head of state and a common citizenship.

38. In 1982, a man named Michael Fagan managed to break into Buckingham Palace, ate some cheese, drank some wine, only to leave and come back another day to have a bedside chat with Queen Elizabeth II.

39. Elizabeth II, the Queen of the United Kingdom, is also the Queen of Jamaica, Barbados, the Bahamas, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Belize, Antigua and Barbuda, and Saint Kitts and Nevis.

40. Queen Elizabeth II and her husband Prince Philip started dating/courting when he was 18 and she was 13.

Queen Elizabeth has a Big Mouth Billy Bass that she keeps at the Royal Family summer home.

42. Queen Elizabeth II had two mentally disabled cousins named Nerissa and Katherine Bowes-Lyon who were institutionalized for 40+ years. Their family never visited them, never sent birthday or Christmas gifts or cards, provided false dates of death to the public before they died and did not attend the elder daughter's funeral.

43. In the British Army, there was a Goat named William "Billy" Windsor I who was ranked Lance Corporal. Billy was once temporarily demoted for "lack of decorum" and "disobeying a direct order" at Queen Elizabeth II's 80th birthday parade.

44. Pharaoh Hatshepsut disguised herself as male, reigned longer than any other woman, and was one of the most successful pharaohs of Egypt.

45. The Byzantine Empress Theodora began her life as an actress of ill repute in the hippodrome and was even rumored to perform shows where geese would eat barley off her naked body in front of thousands of people.

Despite Napoleon divorcing Joséphine de Beauharnais so he could have an heir, his first wife Josephine is the ancestor of five of the current royal houses of Europe. Napoleon is the ancestor of none.

47. The Chevalier d'Éon, a French diplomat and spy, appeared publicly as male for 49 years but once infiltrated the court of Empress Elizabeth of Russia by posing as a woman. In 1777, he began dressing publicly as a woman and claimed to be female.

48. Razia Sultana was the first and last female ruler of Delhi Sultanate. She dressed like a man and sat in open durbar.

49. In 1550s, Catherine de' Medici of France was so disgusted by women with "thick waists", she enforced a ban on them from her court. This lead to the widespread use of the corset throughout western civilization for the next 350 years.

50. In 1533, when Catherine de' Medici became queen of France; she was so fancied by spinach, she insisted it to be served at every meal. To this day, dishes made with spinach are known as "Florentine", reflecting Catherine's birth in Florence.