Milady de Winter

## Relevent Pages

**Milady de Winter** (real name **Anne**) is one of the main characters in *The* Musketeers￼.￼

## Background

At a young age, Milady was a thief and a convicted criminal. As the woman, Anne, she and Athos met each other and married. Milady never told her husband of her secret. After she murdered Athos' brother, Thomas, who attempted to rape her, Milady tried to tell Athos that Thomas forced himself upon her. In anger, Athos ordered for Milady to be hanged. According to Milady, Athos did not have the strength to watch, so he fled and thought for the past five years his wife was dead. Remi, the person Athos came to help execute her, was seduced by Milady as he revived her. (Commodities)

Milady wished vengeance upon Athos and began a spy and agent for Cardinal Armand Richelieu. She hid the scar around her neck with a choker. Overtime she saw herself as a soldier.

## Storylines

### Series 1

#### One Night Stand with D'Artagnan - Episode 1: "Friends and Enemies"

On D'Artagnan's first night at Paris, Milady beds with him and reveals that the man she loved tried to kill her had scarred her neck. D'Artagnan, unaware that it was Athos who did it, said he would make the stranger pay for what he did for her. Milady tells him she might have to uphold him on that promise one day. When d'Artagnan falls asleep, Milady murders the man she came with earlier and plants the bloody dagger in her lover's bed.

Milady goes to meet Richelieu, who asks why she chose Athos to take the fall for all the robbery and murder. Milady says she has her reasons and gives Richelieu the letters that Captain Cornet was carrying and gives them to the Cardinal. She goes to watch Athos' execution. However, she walks away in anger when D'Artagnan, Aramis and Porthos come with a letter that overturns Athos' death sentance.

## Abilities

Milady is said to be one of the most dangerous adversaries the Musketeers ever faced. She is a master assassin, having killed multiple people in the Cardinal's name. He has sent her to spy on others, which included D'Artaganan, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis.

Milady also is very manipulative, as she even turned King Louis to become his Mistress. She tried to manipulate Athos and D'Artaganan, trying to turn them against each other and seemingly ruined their friendship. However, it ultimately failed

## Relationships with main characters

### Athos

Athos and Milady's relationship is a complicated one; he is her former husband and the man who tried to see her hanged for the murder of his brother. Throughout the series, much of Milady's arc focuses on her desire to have revenge on Athos for trying to kill her. She spies, murders and manipulates in desperate attempts to bring him down and believes neither will be satisfied until they both are dead,

### D'Artagnan

Upon meeting young D'Artagnan, Milady uses her wiles to charm him, painting her former husband as a villain who tried to kill her and would gladly do so again. Relying on the knowledge that D'Artagnan believes his father to have been killed by Athos, she seduces him, and even gets so far as having D'Artagnan declare "Say the word, and I'll kill him for you."

She often makes a show of romancing or attempting to romance him, much to the chagrin of his eventual love interest Constance D'Artagnan (then Constance Bonacieux), even going so far as to kiss him in front of her, which angers D'Artagnan.

### King Louis

Eventually, Milady becomes the mistress of the King. In Through a Glass Darkly, she is paraded by him at court, much to the chagrin of everyone else present. During the episode, she is gleefully flaunted as the king's mistress, including a display where she (representing the moon) passes in front of Queen Anne (who represents the sun in the illustration), and "eclipses" her. Louis, totally oblivious to the message this sends, is overjoyed by the demonstration.

In later episodes, Milady gives up the charade of pretending to love the king and their subsequent interactions become minimal.

### Queen Anne

Anne, too, has a complicated relationship with Milady. The affair between Milady and her husband is flaunted in front of Anne's face in Through a Glass Darkly, several times. Despite this, Anne seems to hold little if any ill will towards her, and in season three, the now Queen Regent visits with her and asks her for a favor, allowing her to work as a spymaster to perform a covert assassination. She then allows Milady to disappear with no consequences.

### Cardinal Richelieu

Perhaps Milady's most complicated cat and mouse game aside from Athos is that of her relationship with Cardinal Richelieu. Richelieu trusts her as a spymaster but becomes disappointed with her continual failure to kill or harm the reputations of the Musketeers. He threatens and is physically violent toward her (one scene shows him choking her after a failure).

The series heavily implies that Cardinal Richelieu may have saved Milady from a life as a prostitute after she fled her husband.

## Book

In the book, Milady is described with having blonde hair and brilliant blue eyes as opposed as her brown hair and green eyes. Also, in the books, Milady is twenty-two when this incarnation appears to be in her early thirties. Like the show, Milady is married to Athos but he found out that she was a wanted criminal, having the fleur de lis burned on her shoulder. He killed her himself.

Milady went by many aliases, many of which were among them:

* Anne de Breuil
* Comtesse de la Fère
* Milady de Winter, Baroness Sheffield
* Lady Clarik/Clarick
* Charlotte Backson

Of the first alias, Milady's real name is implied to be Anne on the show, the same name she used when she and Athos met each other for the first time.

At the end of the novel, she is executed by beheading. However, in the show, Milady survived.