Imperia was the most precious, the most fantastic girl in the world, although she passed for the most dazzling and the beautiful, and the one who best understood the art of bamboozling cardinals and softening the hardiest soldiers and oppressors of the people. A free fight only brought a smile to her lips, and often the Sire de Baudricourt — one of the King’s Captains — would ask her if there were any one he could kill for her that day… Thus she lived beloved and respected, quite as much as the real ladies and princesses, and was called Madame. Rabbit hole avoided: I was going to write a couple of thousand words about Chigi, his monopoly on the alum trade, and how that brought him into head-on conflict with King Henry VII of England, whose grandfather Owen Tudor we glimpsed as a handsome young courtier in the last post.
Author: Doug Muir
Published at: 2026-02-24 23:54:44
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