Before the hot water bottle era, how did people make a cozy bed? The answer, as far as the English aristocracy was concerned, was to use a human hot-water bottle. A servant would be sent to the master’s icy bed to act as a bed warmer. Then, when her ladyship had drunk her port and mocked her quail, she would retire to her four-poster bed, take out her human water bottle, and climb into her now warmer bed. Your very own hot water bottle that breathes!

Years later, when Prince James, heir to the British throne in 1688, was born, a bed warmer was at the center of the plot to disinherit him. Rumor had it that Queen Mary had miscarried and that she had been sent for a heater. The conspirators convinced their subjects that a peasant’s baby had been substituted for the stillborn prince; Smuggled into the Queen’s boudoir hidden in a bed warmer! Doubts about the legitimacy of the baby Prince and the desire of the conspirators to eliminate the Catholic line of succession forced the Queen to flee to France in search of the safety of the “Bedwarming Prince”. She never succeeded to the British throne. When she invaded 20 years later, he was defeated by the English fleet, and George I was instead crowned King of England. He was denied his birthright because of a bed warmer!

The bed at the center of the “Bedwarmer Prince” scandal is in Kensington Palace, the former home of Princess Diana. The bed warmer incident played a huge role in the birth of the future royal babies. It was decreed that a senior government figure must be present in the Queen’s bedroom, negating the possibility of any future deception and thus removing any doubt as to the true identity of a royal baby. It was only when Queen Victoria gave birth to her first child that Prince Albert banned the practice, deeming it: “Ridiculous!” A bed warmer indeed!