Roxana: The Fortunate Mistress

In 1683, 10-year-old Roxana, who is born of French Huguenot extraction, moves from Poictiers, France, to London with her family. Compared to most refugees, her parents are affluent, and her father sells French brandy, paper, and other goods, to his advantage. Roxana grows up attractive, intelligent, and fluent in English. She is married off at the age of 15 to a brewer, who lacks business sense, but gives her five children. Following several business errors, the brewer loses his brewery and spends Roxana’s dowry. One day, he goes out hunting and does not return. Roxana sinks into poverty and feels unable to provide for her five young children. She enlists the help of her maid, Amy, who puts them into the care of an Uncle in Law. 

Roxana’s landlord takes pity on the two women; he invites them to dine often and gives them money. The women are grateful, but suspicious that the landlord will want some reward in exchange for his generosity. Amy offers to bed the landlord so that her lady will be able to retain her virtue. Roxana speechifies on her virtue, saying that “a Woman ought rather to die, than to prostitute her Virtue and Honour” (29).

The Landlord courts Roxana in a protracted series of dinners and domestic refurbishments. One evening, he tells Roxana that if she agrees to be his mistress he “wou’d be every thing else that a Woman cou’d ask in a Husband” (33), keep her in a lavish life-style, and even provide her with a respectable living in the event of his death.  

After about a year and a half of cohabiting, Amy teases her mistress that she is not yet pregnant with the Landlord’s child. Amy jests that were she to bed him, she would become pregnant immediately. Seeking to prove that she does not have a spousal hold over her benefactor and to tarnish her maid’s reputation, Roxana forces Amy into intercourse with the Landlord. She further insists that Amy should keep copulating with the Landlord, until she becomes pregnant. Roxana herself becomes pregnant with the Landlord’s children, giving birth to a daughter, who dies at 6 weeks, and a son, who survives.

The Landlord and Roxana go on a journey to Paris and take a house there. Despite Roxana’s ominous premonitions, the Landlord goes on a business trip and gets robbed and stabbed to death by three masked riders. Roxana is devastated and recasts herself as a charming widow. A French Prince begins courting her with compliments about her peerless beauty and luxurious gifts. She agrees to become his mistress and he keeps her in such luxury that she does not need to remind him to provide for her. When she becomes pregnant, she stays at the country house that he has provided for her confinement. She gives birth to a charming little boy, and the Prince assures her that the child’s illegitimacy will not be an obstacle to his betterment. The Prince’s promise is fulfilled when the child grows up to be a Colonel of a Regiment of Dragoons.

The Prince entreats Roxana to travel to Italy with him, where she enjoys becoming fluent in the Italian language. On this trip, she gives birth to a second son, but the baby dies and she is stoical about the matter when she acknowledges that it would be difficult to tend to an infant on a journey.

On the couple’s return to France, Roxana bears the Prince a third son. However, when the Prince’s true wife, the Princess, dies, he turns to virtue and vows that he can no longer see Roxana. Their parting is amicable, and the Prince agrees to pay for the upkeep of his surviving sons and the rent on the house. Meanwhile, Roxana, who “was at Liberty to go to any Part of the World, and take care of my Money myself” (111), seeks to return to England.