Womankind

PRINCESS ÉBOLI

As I stared at the image of Doña Ana de Mendoza, the Princess of Éboli - known as the “princess with the eye patch” - my eyes began to smart. A daughter of the all-powerful House of Mendoza, a family of nobles who served the Spanish realm as knights, interpreters of the law and administrators for the monarchy, Ana (1540-1592) might have become a minor supporting player in Spanish history, but due to her aristocratic origins, a judicious marriage, her beauty, intellect, and the mystery surrounding the eye patch she wore over her right eye from girlhood to her death, she became a leading figure in the court of King Philip II of Spain - the man who sent the armada across the English Channel in a bid to re-establish Catholicism in the English court.

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