I've wanted to do this since last year when those ghastly inbred Britons they keep making movies about had that wedding everyone seemed to think was so important. I'm not anti-Princess, you see, I'm just pro-truth when it comes to selling the deplorable lifestyle of European royalty to little girls. If the evil Disney corporation ever loses a class action lawsuit when a dozen poor little girls are horribly disfigured after their non-flame-retardant polyester princess gowns go up in flames at some birthday party in Hoboken, I hope part of the settlement involves handing out a coloring book like this one at all their theme parks, free of charge.

1. A Royal Wedding


Like most historical princesses, as soon as Princess Isabella of France reached breeding age she was shipped off to become a sperm depository in some other European duchy and live out her days incubating male heirs or facing the wrath of a shrewish dowager. In 1308 when Isabella was twelve she was sent to London to marry the gay prince, Edward II, who must have stared longingly at the many gowns of baudekyn, velvet, taffeta and cloth she brought with her from France (and almost certainly tried on all 72 of her headdresses and coifs when she wasn't looking). Unfortunately for Princess Isabella, Edward II loved his friend Piers so much he chose to sit with him rather than her at their own royal wedding. He even let Piers wear Isabella's jewelry in public. When Edward II later started shacking up with his other friend Hugh, Isabella left him and enlisted her relatives in France to help raise her son to to the throne. When she caught her husband's new husband, she dragged him from his horse, stripped him, and scrawled Biblical verses against corruption and arrogance on his skin. Poor Hugh was then castrated, condemned to hang as a thief, disemboweled, and drawn and quartered as a traitor. His body parts were picked up and dispersed throughout England. Isabella found herself a new boyfriend named Mortimer and her gay husband died a few years later in jail.


Isabella joined a convent after Mortimer was executed by her son for treason. 

2. A Princess Tea Party


Princess Nazli lived in a beautiful Turkish-style palace on the banks of the Nile in the early nineteenth century. A daughter of Muhammad Ali (the founder of modern Egypt), she was notorious for her cruelty. It was reported that her husband once said something kind to a beautiful serving girl; for the next night's feast, Nazli cut off the girl's head and served it to her husband as the main course. Nazli also demanded that her chambermaids hold a mosquito net above her bed all night, and if one dropped it she would be executed. When one servant girl dropped a corner of the net, Nazli ordered her eunuchs to pin the girl to the ground and place burning hot coals between her breasts. She then calmly boiled a pot of tea on the coals while the girl shrieked and burned to death. Not much later, news of Princess Nazli's exploits reached her family, and her brother Ibrahim ordered her to kill herself or he would do it himself. She reportedly took poison and died.


3. A Real-Life Prince Charming


Princess Marie Louise was was the eldest daughter of the Duke of Orléans. In 1679 when she was sixteen she was forced to marry the last Habsburg ruler of Spain, Charles II. Sadly, Charles II's gene pool was more like a fishbowl. The Empress Maria Anna was both his aunt and his grandmother and Margarita of Austria was both his grandmother and his great-grandmother. All of his great-grandparents were descended from one royal couple. His "Habsburg lip" was so pronounced he could not chew his own food and he was famous for drooling during important matters of state. This Prince Charming reportedly did not bathe. He went bald at a young age, suffered from epilepsy, and was supposedly lame, impotent, infertile, and mildly retarded.

When she arrived at court, Princess Marie Louise discovered that the starving Spanish populace already hated her. They frequently rioted outside her dark and gloomy rooms in the Royal Alcázar of Madrid. She and her husband presided over the largest auto-da-fé of the Spanish Inquisition, where over 21 people were burned at the stake. After ten unhappy years of marriage, Marie Louise grew fat and died of stomach pains while horseback riding. Rumor had it she was actually poisoned by her mother in law.


3. When You Wish Upon a Prophet


Princess Salome of Judea was the stepdaughter of King Herod (the king who wanted to kill baby Jesus, so he just went ahead and killed all the babies born in Judea around the same time). One night, Princess Salome performed a "special dance" for the drunk king and he was so impressed he became the proverbial genie in the bottle and said, "Your wish is my command." The girl pondered all of the riches she might possess, but at the urging of her mother simply said: "Bring me the head of John the Baptist." The old hermit's head was summarily brought to the princess on a platter.

5. The Princess and the Anarchist

 
Princess Elisabeth of Bavaria (popularly known as Sisi) was cousin to Mad King Ludwig II and the daughter of an eccentric Duke obsessed with mummies, folk music, and circuses. When she was sixteen she caught the eye of the emperor of Austria and left her beloved country castle for the rigid formalities of Imperial Vienna. She grew increasingly anxious, developed a fear of staircases, obsessed over exercise and combing her hair, and experimented with binge eating and anorexia. Princess Sisi's bulimia rotted out all her teeth, and after age 32 she constantly hid her face behind a leather fan. She was famous for her extremely tight corsets and her 16-inch waist. The only male heir she produced for the empire committed suicide in 1889 and afterwards she wore only black. In 1898 she was stabbed to death with a homemade shiv by an Italian anarchist too poor to buy a knife.

* * * * *

I was railing against the princess industrial complex well before that lady turned that great New York Times article into a really long book about it. See also:

Parenting the Enemy (the most fun to write)

Why Can't There be Fairy Archduchesses 

Santa Makes Local Dad Feel Like a Total Asshole

And previous coloring book remixes here.

Winter Math

Posted by jdg | Wednesday, February 08, 2012

This:


[see previously here, here, and here]
+ this:
= this:

[sorry for the shaky camera work, it's tough keeping up with that dog]

Unfortunately, this winter has been minus the snow so we've only had one chance to go dog sledding (which is only sad because we bought Wendell some really cool snow boots after this run and he still hasn't had a chance to use them). We're not complaining, mind you. There's still plenty of time for more homework.