Catherine had been married to Peter lll and history tells us that they had for all intent and purposes, a loveless marriage. There is ongoing debate about their being the best of friends. However, Peter displayed unruly and often childish tendencies in court and in the bedroom. He would beat his dogs for sport, and play cruel and vicious practical jokes on the courtiers.

Unlike the playful tendencies which most women would enjoy, according to historians, he suffered from a “physical deficiency” which disabled him from amorous acts with his wife. Accounts have pointed to his having what some have termed “an ill-fitting cap”, meaning his foreskin was far too tight and he could not get an erection. Others have said that this tightening around the head of his penis inhibited the flow of oxygen to his brain, thus explaining his behavior around the palace.

The marriage of the virgins lasted seven years as virgins, until Elizabeth decided Catherine must give her an heir. Considering that the goal for Catherine was to produce an heir, Peter was fast turning out not to be the man for the job. Smallpox had made him ugly in appearance and when they married he was seventeen and not willing or able to have sex with his wife. When the time finally came, he listened to bawdy stories from the men around him and decided quite strongly that he had no appetite for sex at all. He would stay up very late into the night playing with toy soldiers and having campaigns on the coverlets of his and Catherine’s bed. Very often forcing her to stay awake with him to play, causing her more consternation than any wife should bear. Yes, certainly the type of character to which a woman would be attracted. This is a man any woman would jump at the chance to spend a night with. Women swoon for men who leave tiny toy soldiers holding tiny bayonets under our bottoms just to gift us with the exquisite joy of rolling over onto them during our sleep. A fetish I don’t personally understand.

Empress Elizabeth, frantic for an heir, forced the couple to spend monumental amounts of time together. This did not sit well with Catherine. Finally, in 1752, after seven years of a marriage to Peter without sex, the virgin Catherine was given a soldier by Elizabeth and fell in love with him. She became pregnant and gave birth to her son Paul whom Elizabeth then took from her to be raised. Shortly after Catherine’s coronation, Peter died and instead of being regent to Paul, she took the throne herself. She wasn’t a kind leader and often displayed horrid tendencies toward the peasant and servant classes. She also became very public about her sex life. Discretion not being her finest suit. One of her ex-lovers, Grigori Potemkin, would procure her young men from all ranks, mostly however soldiers of her personal guard. Her ladies-in-waiting always tried her “toys” out for her and if they passed muster, she took them to her bed. She was a talented horsewoman (get those thoughts out this minute) and spent a great deal of time working her personal stable with the help of her guards and stable team.

It has been rumored since her death that Catherine actually died from injuries resulting from having a horse crush her while being strapped to its belly in an act of bestial copulation.

Her upheld reputation for complete abandonment of principal and ethic, is not the case of her death. Although my personal feeling is that human kind needs this kind of outrageous remembrance if only to keep us aware of just how bizarre a ruler can become when holding immense power. I won’t name names here but I’m sure you get the picture.

Sexual innuendo and rumor serve the greater population with the fodder to view leaders as human. (In many cases as sub-human.) If figures of leadership fall into history with a pristine past, what fun does that provide the people? What other topic would the comedians focus on? Marie Antoinette said “let them eat cake”. Au contraire Marie, let them eat delicious rumor and gossip. The champagne of the rich is the water of the poor. If one of the royals spits in the champagne, a headline will follow. Humans are by nature a gossipy bunch. What we can’t live in our own lives, we’ll talk about to our friends. History, now there is a ripe field full of luscious growth for the picking. To pluck a snippet from history and reroute it through the maze of the human communication network, leaves us with this divine sense of knowing something naughty about someone dead. History is a free paradise for fertile imaginations. Can they sue for slander? Highly unlikely. Can they take it to the papers? Only if they use a medium to do so. So we as human beings are safe to speculate and cogitate over people like Catherine.

Granted, history is taken very seriously by those historians who root about until they uncover the uglier rumors of mediocrity that must eventually surface and grind out the more exciting tidbits. Believe me, they don’t like it either. History provides either excitement or mediocre tales. One is much more fun to explore than the other.

The fact of the matter is, Catherine died while sitting on the commode, of a massive stroke. Yes, you read correctly. She died on the john. Immediate history even went so far as to have her great girth and bountiful bottom break the commode causing her bleeding injuries from which she supposedly died. This Russian leader could not even leave the world that. No juicy fodder for the quills of the historians. No tales (tails?) of bestiality did she leave us with. No, Catherine died while pursuing bodily functions rather than bodily passions. The horse story never held basis in fact.

The horse whom she was most fond of, reveled in the fame for the remainder of his life. However, his heirs and predecessors still snigger about their ancestor’s penchant for royalty.