who´s was the most beautiful KINGS and QUEENS in History
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The concept of beauty has changed a lot over time. That is a reality that we cannot deny.
For this reason, when we look for testimonies about the most beautiful kings and queens in history, if these characters are far from us in time, their images can be shocking to us. We can get to wonder how someone with these characteristics could come to be considered as the pinnacle of beauty of her time.
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But, according to the canons of the time, they probably stood out above the rest in those virtues considered culturally beautiful at that time.
To prove it, below we want to introduce you to some of the kings and queens that were considered at the time as true canons of beauty. With some appointments you will certainly agree … with others, probably not so much. Do you want to discover them? Keep going!
Grace of Monaco
Grace of Monaco
For starters, we chose a princess whose inclusion on a list like this should be beyond question.
Princess Grace of Monaco (1929-1982) was the wife of Prince Rainier III of Monaco and one of the most beautiful women not only in royalty, but also in cinema in the mid-20th century. The one who became an Oscar winner before abandoning her film career (another muse of Alfred Hitckock) to marry Rainier stood out in life for her enormous beauty and great elegance, which monopolized covers around the world before and after becoming in princess.
The large number of graphic and audiovisual testimonies that remain of this princess leave us no doubt about her ravishing beauty.
Tall, slim and graceful, with beautiful white skin, classic features, blond hair and deep, ravishing light eyes, the beauty of Grace of Monaco left no one indifferent.
In fact, she has crossed the barrier of time and, even today, decades after her death, the great lady of cinema who left the screens to be a princess in Europe is still considered one of the most beautiful women of the 20th century. The amount of graphic and audiovisual testimonies that we have left of this princess leaves us in no doubt about her ravishing beauty.
Tall, slim and graceful, with beautiful white skin, classic features, blond hair and deep, ravishing light eyes, the beauty of Grace of Monaco left no one indifferent.
In fact, she has crossed the barrier of time and, even today, decades after her death, the great lady of cinema who left the screens to be a princess in Europe is still considered one of the most beautiful women of the 20th century.
Henry VIII
Henry VIII
Cleopatra
From the descriptions that are preserved about her, she certainly had attributes that currently would not be considered too attractive. It was said that she was very small and that she had a long, aquiline nose, something that is endorsed by the busts and effigies that remain of her. However, most of the descriptions that remain of her tell us that, despite being a beautiful woman, what made her irresistible was her great charm and her power of seduction.
For example, Plutarco said of her the following: “Her beauty, as we have been told, was not really incomparable, nor did she captivate those who saw her; but in her conversation she had an irresistible charm and her presence, combined with the persuasiveness of her speech and the character that was somewhat diffuse in her behavior towards others, had something stimulating about her.
There was also a sweetness in the tones of his voice; and her tongue, like an instrument with many strings, could be perfectly converted into any language that she wanted ”. Plutarco also remarked that her charms also increased with her experience, which is why she considered it easier to seduce Marco Antonio than Julius Caesar, who met her when she was younger and less experienced. In this way, we find that one of the most beautiful women in history was not so much for her appearance, without being this unpleasant, but for her irresistible personal charm and her intellectual attributes.
Alberto de Saxe-Coburgo-Gotha
We return to England again to present another well-known protagonist of this type of lists. Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, popularly known as Prince Albert, was the husband of Queen Victoria of England, whose passion and love for her spouse is well known.
Although at the end of his life the fall of his hair and the ravages of time affected the youthful and athletic appearance that made him famous in his youth, his early death at the age of forty-two meant that his image did not suffer the deterioration that We have seen in the case of Henry VIII.
When Victoria met him, she wrote that he had found him enormously attractive, with big blue eyes, a beautiful nose, a small mouth, and good teeth, coupled with great charisma and charm in his manner.
In her book on the couple, Gillian Gill indicates that, in addition, Alberto was tall and broad in the shoulders, being at the time of his marriage at the height of his physical perfection.
She says that even her fiercest enemies could not help but admit that she was extremely attractive and the only thing they criticized was that her legs were “too heavy”, being the only fault that, in general, they could get out of her.
Her portraits in which she appears as a knight of great beauty or as a man with perfect features taken from medieval novels or from Classical Antiquity, attest to this.
To this was added the desire that Alberto always had to show off an immaculate appearance in public that would adequately represent the Monarchy of which she was a part and distance her from her English relatives. The queen’s uncles were known for their dissolute life and their excesses, which had caused them to be very badly regarded by public opinion.
Alberto was terrified of the possibility of one day becoming a plump man, undermined by excesses and looking horrifying like those uncles from whom he and his wife tried to distance their own image.
Thus, Alberto always tried to control his weight and, when alopecia began to appear, he tried to apply as many remedies as possible to keep his hair on his head.
In any case, from his youth to his death and beyond, the image of Prince Albert as one of the most beautiful men in the History of the Monarchy survived without anyone ever being able to deny it.
Alfonso XII, King of Spain
Despite the fact that, as we have already indicated, beauty is a matter of tastes and cultural constructions, it is also true that among the holders of the crowns linked to Spain, there are not many titular monarchs considered as especially beautiful.
There are exceptions, such as Felipe I the Fair but, in any case, they are not very numerous. In this sense, the gallant figure of Alfonso XII stands out among the effigies of his ancestors.
This monarch, who reigned between 1875 and 1885, has gone down in legend above all for his tragic love affair with his cousin María de las Mercedes de Orleáns, which ended with her early death. The romantic halo that surrounds him figure has only increased the attractiveness that is still attributed to him.
The young king was described as a good-looking man, tall, slender and pleasant-looking, with deep eyes and prominent black hair that also populated his mustache, cut in the fashion of the time.
Alfonso XII also liked to highlight his appearance by dressing in an elegant and distinguished way to the point that, when he began to wear a red scarf constantly at the end of his reign, those who knew him expressed their surprise, as it was a very unusual for a man as elegant as King Alfonso. What they did not know is that the monarch was suffering from tuberculosis at the time and that he used a red handkerchief to hide from public view the blood that he sometimes expelled when he coughed.
However, many of his contemporaries attribute his appeal not only to his physical presence, but also to his personality. He is described as an affable and close person, without the affectations that are usually associated with the nobility and royalty.
He was also a good talker, capable of making himself agreeable to everyone and making anyone feel comfortable in his presence. He was educated, intelligent, a man of the world who spoke several languages and possessed great discretion.
All these characteristics made Alfonso XII considered one of the most attractive and charming monarchs of his time, as the portraits and photographs that preserve his image beyond the centuries also show us.
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