Elisabeth Farnese

Born in Parma in 1692, Elisabeth was the sole surviving child of a hereditary prince who died when she was an infant. Her mother remarried her uncle in a failed bid for another heir, leaving Elisabeth the only heiress - and a high-stakes matrimonial prize. In 1714 she married Spain's Philip V, whose first wife had just died, and within months had dismantled the French faction at court and seized control of foreign policy while her husband's mental incapacity gave her room to maneuver. She launched the War of the Quadruple Alliance in a bid to install her children on European thrones, failed, earned her subjects' contempt, then pivoted: through the wars of Polish and Austrian Succession she won Naples, Sicily, and Parma for her sons and married her daughters into the French and Portuguese royal families, recovering the old Spanish holdings in Italy. She was called authoritarian, scheming, unscrupulous; she personally led army divisions when the moment required it. Frederick the Great said she walked boldly toward her designs, that nothing could surprise or stop her. She governed as regent in 1759-1760, and every Duke of Parma since has descended from her line.