In the English court, a royal mistress was a woman who was the lover of the King. She may have been taken either before or after his accession to the throne. Although it generally is only used of females, by extrapolation, the relation can cover any lover of the monarch whether male or female. To date no English reigning Queen is known to have had a lover. Monarchs had an incentive to take mistresses in that they generally made dynastic marriages of convenience, and there was often little love in them.