Hell Hath No Fury by Rosalind Miles Page B

power collapsed with the death of Alexander VI in 1503, she attempted to regain control of her lands but was thwarted by her Medici brothers-in-law. In her final years, she found refuge in a convent and consolation in training her son by Giovanni de’ Medici in the art of war.
    Reference: Antonia Fraser,
The Warrior Queens,
1988.
    TAMARA
    Queen of Georgia, b. 1160, d. 1213
    Dubbed “King of Kings and Queen of Queens” by her subjects, Tamara presided over an all-too-brief “golden age” in the history of Georgia, a trans-Caucasian kingdom on the very edge of the medieval Christian world. Canonized by the Orthodox Church and, with scant regard for history, characterized by the nineteenth-century Russian writer Mikhail Lermontov as a “sprite from hell,” she extended Georgia’s boundaries to their greatest extent in its history while mounting numerous military expeditions and quashing a series of rebellions in a reign of perpetual campaigning.
    Georgia first emerged as a regional power during the reign of Tamara’s great-grandfather, David Aghmashenebeli (1089–1125)—sometimes known as “David the Builder”—who drove the Seljuk Turks from his kingdom and established the capital city of Georgia in Tbilisi. By the time of his death, his empire stretched from the Black Sea in the west to the Caspian Sea in the east.
    In 1178, David’s grandson, George III, declared his nineteen-year-old daughter, Tamara, his co-ruler and heir apparent. Proclaiming her “the bright light of his eyes,” he hailed her as queen with the assent of Georgia’s patriarchs, bishops, nobles, viziers, and generals. Seated on George’s right hand and wearing purple robes trimmed with gold and silver, she was given her official title, “Mountain of God,” while a crown encrusted with rubies and diamonds was placed on her head.
    On George’s death in 1184, Tamara became sole ruler, although she was placed under the guardianship of her paternal aunt Rusudani. The Georgian nobility, anxious for her to produce a male heir, rushed Tamara into a marriage with George Bogolyubski, a debauched Russian prince. He lasted two years before Tamara sent him into exile. Her second husband, David Sosland, an Ossetian prince, fathered a son and a daughter, both of whom would later ascend the Georgian throne.
    With the succession secure, Tamara was now free to embark on a policy of military expansion, which also had the advantageous by-product of distracting the Georgian nobility from their favorite sports, limiting the power of the monarch and increasing their own. However, she had first to deal with Bogolyubski, who in 1191 attempted to wrest the kingdom from her. She defeated her former husband twice in the field, took him prisoner, and exiled him for a second time.
    She then turned her attentions to the Seljuk Turks, fulfilling the roles of queenly figurehead and active strategist in her campaigns. In the field, she always addressed her troops before they went into battle. At Cambetch in 1196, she urged them on with the words “God be with you!” to which the army responded with cheers of “To our king Tamara!” Eight years later, Tamara marched barefoot at the head of the army to make camp on the eve of the Battle of Basiani. The next day she gave the order to mount before taking up a position to watch the Georgian victory from a safe vantage point.
    The campaign of 1204 took her troops to Trebizond, on the southern shore of the Black Sea, which became a Georgian protectorate. Tamara exercised a loose sway over Muslim semi-protectorates on her southern marches, while on her northern borders the people of southern Russia paid her tribute. In 1210, she launched a furious response to an incursion by the Sultan of Ardabil, who in the previous year had crossed the Arak mountains, slaughtering and pillaging as he went. Ardabil was seized in a surprise attack, and on