Cecil Rhodes: Man and Empire-Maker - Tapa blanda

Princess Catherine Radziwi?? (1858-1941) was a Polish princess from the Polish-Lithuanian aristocratic Radziwi?? family. She was born as Countess Ekaterina Adamovna Rzewuska. She married Prince Wilhelm Radziwi?? at age 15 and moved to Berlin to live with his family. It was speculated that she was the author of a book gossiping about the German Emperor William II and Berlin society in 1884 under the pen name Paul Vasili. She stalked the English-born South African politician Cecil Rhodes and asked him to marry her, but he refused. She then got revenge by forging his name on a promissory note. She was convicted of forging Rhodes' signature and spent time in a South African jail for her crimes.

The conquest of South Africa is one of the most curious episodes in English history. Begun through purely mercenary motives- it yet acquired a character of grandeur which as time went on- divested it of all sordid and unworthy suspicions.' (Excerpt from Chapter 1)