Cupid Sometimes Botches!

Are you walking around your room breathing in the heady scent of hundreds of long stemmed red roses, or selecting another delicious choccy while draped in a silky red kimono, or perhaps still opening all of the Valentine’s cards sent by your hundreds of admirers? Yes, Valentine’s Day was here and gone, I hoped you had a day filled with romance and for the rest of us there’s always the consolation that Cupid doesn’t always get it right!

These star-crossed lovers are proof of the fact that Cupid sometimes botches and no amount of red roses will ever put the mess right. 

This actually was started not by Valentine’s Day approaching but by the discovery of that fabulous gold, heart-shaped pendant top left and one thing led to another. Henry VIII was very fond of giving jewels with hearts and monograms (although this heart shaped one with the letters H&K is believed to be a prize perhaps and not personal jewellery). Good that he didn’t start carving names into trees while he'd have needed a huge tree, and anyway how credible was he as a lover? He wrote a simperingly, juvenile love letter to Anne Boleyn with her initials surrounded by a heart and swore that ''Henry is looking for no other than Anne Boleyn'', we all know how well that went! 

Antony and Cleopatra, well that ended in disaster thanks to a sword and/or a snake or poison, Romeo and Juliet, nah ended badly. At the bottom of the page we've got Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria and Mary Vetsera, this ended badly at Mayerling. 

Rudolf it seems was fascinated by the romantic idea of suicide (he was also fascinated by prostitutes), before he at the age of 30 and his mistress Mary Vetsera who was 17, ended it all in a murder/suicide, Rudolf had asked his other bit on the side (who was an actress/ prostitute, Mary wasn’t) to join him in death, Mizzi Kaspar laughed at him but was concerned and told the police, who helpfully suggested she shouldn’t stick her nose into the affairs of royalty. Mary, a diplomat’s daughter, left a very poignant suicide note to her mother, the document turned up in a safe in 2015 and reveals her idealistic thoughts about joining each other in death. So, it ended badly. 

Cupid didn’t do such a good job with Rhett and Scarlett, OK they are fictional but still all that bodice ripping passion for it all to end with ‘’Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn! And finally, Napoleon and his Josephine, often touted as a great romance, fact is she was seriously unimpressed after their marriage; an older lady, he needed someone to open the doors into French society. Napoleon was obsessed and wrote raunchy, passionate letters from the front which Josephine often didn’t even read. Josephine had a roving eye, what followed was a passionate and toxic tit for tat series of affairs, she fell in love with him, he had side chicks for revenge for her affairs. However, things came to a head when Napoleon needed an heir and Josephine who was lovingly referred to as '' the old lady'' by her in laws, couldn’t provide one. Divorce was on the cards, even at the divorce ceremony the couple read out passionate statements to each other. Napoleon allowed Josephine to keep the title of empress and declared that he was marrying a ''womb'' in his new wife. 

A case of they couldn’t live with each other and couldn’t live without, when Napoleon died her name was the last word on his lips. Don’t get too smug about that romantic end ….. before saying Josephine, he said France, the army and the head of the army!

 You see, Cupid botched again!