Hot Babes of History: Lady Hester Stanhope

 As we all know, the annals of history are positively overflowing with hot babes. Today's Saturday spotlight goes to Lady Hester Stanhope (1776-1839). She was born to an aristocratic British family (her father was the 3rd Earl of Stanhope) and in her 20s, she served as hostess in the household of her Uncle, Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger. After his death, she was left with a fairly sizable pension (read: trust fund). However, she was bothered that she no longer wielded any power or importance, so she decided to travel east.

On its way east to Cairo, Egypt, the ship Hester was sailing on got caught in a storm and wrecked. She lost everything she had taken with her in the wreck, and as a result, had to buy new clothes in the Ottoman Empire. Hester, being a rather take-charge kind of lady, decided that she didn't want to wear tradition women's garb and veil, so instead she dressed in traditional men's clothes- turban and all.

It was around this time that she decided that she was really big deal. She consulted with various fortune-tellers and did some divination herself, saying that she found many omens that it was her destiny to marry the messiah. While I'm not really sure how I would her reacted, apparently her dressing habits/spending habits/overall behavior really impressed the local sheiks, who actually treated her as if she were the big deal that she thought she was (who knows, maybe its all true and she was a really big deal). She became known as "Queen Hester" (overdoing just a little, I think, but hey- whatever floats your boat).

She eventually got tired of wandering around the Middle East and settled down in an abandoned monastery in Lebanon. Here, she exerted supreme control on the surrounding localities, to the point where she really messed with local politics. Eventually she sank into a ton of debt and became a hoarder. Not really the world's best end, but regardless, she is this week's Hot Babe of History.