Speaker 1: Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and Grim and Mild from Aaron Manky listener discretion advised.
Speaker 1: In February eighteen, Britain's Postal Service released a collection of
Speaker 1: stamps commemorating the one hundred year anniversary of women's suffrage
Speaker 1: in the United Kingdom, if the puffed sleeves and cinched
Speaker 1: waists in the black and white photos on the stamps
Speaker 1: weren't an obvious indicator as to when the photos were taken,
Speaker 1: the sea of sashes and protest signs makes the context
Speaker 1: pretty clear. But because the size of the stamps is
Speaker 1: only a little bigger than an inch in either direction,
Speaker 1: the captions below each photo are helpful at distinguishing specifically
Speaker 1: what and whom we're looking at. Once damp reads the
Speaker 1: Great Pilgrimage of Suffragists, and it features a mass of
Speaker 1: women standing shoulder to shoulder preparing to march in London
Speaker 1: for their cause. Another is titled Women's Freedom League Poster Parade,
Speaker 1: and it shows a procession of women holding signs. The
Speaker 1: women are being led in their parade by a young girl,
Speaker 1: most likely no older than twelve. I should say the
Speaker 1: photos are all inspiring in a sort of non specific
Speaker 1: pleasant way. They're mostly nameless women, respectfully holding signs and
Speaker 1: gathering to assert their rights, and that makes sense when
Speaker 1: thinking about how women suffrage is most often remembered. The
Speaker 1: whole peaceful progress narrative just doesn't play as well next
Speaker 1: to pictures of police brutality and the prison force feedings
Speaker 1: that those women were forced to endure. Today, the women's
Speaker 1: right to vote is so lively accepted as an indisputable
Speaker 1: right that it's almost difficult to imagine the lengths to
Speaker 1: which the government once fought against women's suffrage. Looking back
Speaker 1: one hundred years to the past, I think we like
Speaker 1: to imagine the fight as sanitized and simple, easy and inevitable,
Speaker 1: which makes the inclusion of the second to last photo
Speaker 1: in the stamp collection all the more interesting. In that stamp,
Speaker 1: a woman dressed in a floor length fur coat stands
Speaker 1: on an empty sidewalk. A newspaper titled The Suffragette is
Speaker 1: held up in her right hand, with the headline propped
Speaker 1: up on a poster to her left. That headline is
Speaker 1: just one word revolution. The stamps caption reads, Sophia do
Speaker 1: Leep Singh sells the Suffragette and while it's technically true.
Speaker 1: It's enough to make you wonder in a collection of
Speaker 1: photos of women gathered and masked, why is this single
Speaker 1: woman recognized by name and given a stamp entirely her own?
Speaker 1: Well For starters, the caption buries the lead before its
Speaker 1: first word. The descriptor to this photo should read Princess
Speaker 1: Sophia do leep singh sells The Suffragette and were character
Speaker 1: count not a factor? The small caption might also include
Speaker 1: the fact that the seemingly nondescript sidewalk that the princess
Speaker 1: is standing on was actually outside the grounds of Hampton Court,
Speaker 1: where she had been granted an apartment by her godmother,
Speaker 1: Queen Victoria. Contrary to the caption, Princess Sophia's main goal
Speaker 1: outside Hampton Court that day was not just selling newsprint,
Speaker 1: at least east not the newspapers in her hand. Whether
Speaker 1: or not she sold even a single copy of The
Speaker 1: Suffragette that day, the princess knew that pictures of her
Speaker 1: trying would soon be gracing the gossip pages of every
Speaker 1: newspaper in London, and considering the fact that she's the
Speaker 1: star of a women's suffrage publicity campaign a hundred years
Speaker 1: after the fact. She was absolutely correct about the power
Speaker 1: of her celebrity. But what I find especially satisfying about
Speaker 1: Princess Sophia's stamp in the Royal Males collection is the
Speaker 1: implication her presence there brings with it. The other stamps
Speaker 1: show women protesting the quote unquote right way, peacefully marching, politely,
Speaker 1: posing in sashes. Even the one photo of two women
Speaker 1: being released from prison shows them smiling and waving from
Speaker 1: a flower covered carriage. And then there is Princess Sophia
Speaker 1: who is pictured selling newsprint advocating revolution. And it's a
Speaker 1: newspaper from an organization which had very publicly attacked, like
Speaker 1: actually attacked with very real bombs, the Crown and its policies.
Speaker 1: And she's doing so on the steps just outside her
Speaker 1: royal apartments given to her by her godmother, Queen Victoria. Now,
Speaker 1: nothing about the image itself spells out anything especially controversial,
Speaker 1: which makes it an ideal image for the Royal Male's
Speaker 1: portrayal of women's suffrage. But if you know your history,
Speaker 1: you know that Sophia and her association with the suffragette
Speaker 1: movement was enough to have the Crown seething for retribution.
Speaker 1: The Indian princess, whose nation had been stolen by the
Speaker 1: very country she had no choice but to call home,
Speaker 1: had the power to shake this supposedly superior government with
Speaker 1: just a bag of printed paper and a sandwich board.
Speaker 1: The revolution, as written across her poster, was coming, and
Speaker 1: Princess Sophia du leep Singh was ready to meet those
Speaker 1: who tried to stop it head on. The reason Princess
Speaker 1: Sophia Duleep Singh, daughter of the last Maharajah of the
Speaker 1: Sikh Empire and god daughter to Queen Victoria, stood holding
Speaker 1: out a copy of The Suffragette is most likely the
Speaker 1: same reason her image was specifically highlighted by the royal nail.
Speaker 1: She was a true change maker, though from the outside
Speaker 1: she may have given off the image of the demure
Speaker 1: Indian princess quote unquote, her very existence was enough to
Speaker 1: shake the British government to its core, a fact she
Speaker 1: made sure to never let them forget. I'm Dana Schwartz
Speaker 1: and this is noble blood. On a typical morning for
Speaker 1: the dew Leep sing children, it was not uncommon to
Speaker 1: stumble out of bed and glance out the window to
Speaker 1: find one of their many servants chasing an exotic animal
Speaker 1: over the dew laden lawns of elevated In Hall in Suffolk, Sussex, England.
Speaker 1: The children's house may have lied on British soil, but
Speaker 1: that had in no way stopped their father, Maharajah de
Speaker 1: Leep Singh, from collecting a menagerie of wild animals from
Speaker 1: his homeland and bringing them to their estate. Echoes of
Speaker 1: India ran in abundance through eleviad In Hall, which under
Speaker 1: the Maharajas order had been fully stripped, and Ramon to
Speaker 1: emulate the stylings and culture he had been forbidden to
Speaker 1: return to. Following the death of his father, the Lion
Speaker 1: of Punjab, Ranjit Singh, and following the British East India
Speaker 1: Company's annexation of the Punjab what we now consider to
Speaker 1: be India and Pakistan, the then eleven year old Maharajah
Speaker 1: was given little other choice than to emigrate to London.
Speaker 1: Upon his arrival, Queen Victoria was quick to dote on him,
Speaker 1: and of course by dote I mean anglicize away all
Speaker 1: traces of his Indian identity and convert him to Christianity.
Speaker 1: It wouldn't be until the young royal was married and
Speaker 1: surrounded with children of his own, that he would stop
Speaker 1: to reconsider everything he had been forced to leave behind.
Speaker 1: After his sixteenth birthday, the Maharajah received a stipend of
Speaker 1: twenty five thousand dollars a year, the equivalent of around
Speaker 1: two point five million dollars today, which may seem exorbitant,
Speaker 1: but in reality was a pittance compared to the amount
Speaker 1: of well he would have had had he still been
Speaker 1: ruling his own kingdom. Predictably, as the years passed, his
Speaker 1: resentments towards the British Crown grew and his expenses began
Speaker 1: to surpass the threshold of what the India Office was
Speaker 1: willing to forgive. The upkeep for his exotic animal menagerie
Speaker 1: alone wasn't cheap, and neither was the top down renovations
Speaker 1: he had insisted upon at Elvidon Hall that, paired with
Speaker 1: his unfortunate gambling habit, brought the de leep Singh family
Speaker 1: to the brink of financial ruin. By eighteen five, Facing
Speaker 1: bankruptcy and an irreparable reputation, the Maharajah told his family
Speaker 1: to pack their bags. They were going home to India.
Speaker 1: This was are from Duleep Singh's first attempt to return
Speaker 1: to India, but with the near constant surveillance as well
Speaker 1: as his monetary dependence on the British government, all previous
Speaker 1: attempts had been stopped before they started. Considering the political
Speaker 1: turmoil in the British Raj since the Maharaja's exile, it
Speaker 1: was unsurprising that the British Crown was less than enthusiastic
Speaker 1: about the idea of the son of India's beloved Lion
Speaker 1: of the Punjab returning to his homeland. As such, it
Speaker 1: was equally unsurprising that, despite the secretive nature of their
Speaker 1: attempted escape, the Maharajah and his family didn't make it
Speaker 1: passed Egypt before they were stopped by British authorities. Ordered
Speaker 1: to return to England at once. Do Leip Singh acquiesced
Speaker 1: to sending his wife and children on a Britain bound ship,
Speaker 1: but he refused to board it himself. Instead, he watched
Speaker 1: from the docks as his family sailed back to the
Speaker 1: country that had taken everything from him, and he himself
Speaker 1: turned to board ship to France alone to start a
Speaker 1: new life. Upon the Famili's returned to England, Dewleep Singh's
Speaker 1: absence had Sophia's mother plummeting into a staggering depression, the
Speaker 1: rest of the children clung on for any remaining semblance
Speaker 1: of familial stability. Little more than a year later, eleven
Speaker 1: year old Sophia contracted typhoid. Her mother sat vigil at
Speaker 1: her bedside during the night, but when the doctors came
Speaker 1: to check on the young Sophia the next morning, they
Speaker 1: found her mother dead at her bedside. Doctors eventually concluded
Speaker 1: that she went into renal failure. Her recent bout of alcoholism,
Speaker 1: combined with the stress relating to her ailing daughter and
Speaker 1: absentee husband, proved to be too much for her body
Speaker 1: to handle. Regardless, Sophia and her siblings were now parentless
Speaker 1: in a country that was never supposed to be their homeland.
Speaker 1: The princess would go on to spend her formative years
Speaker 1: in houses of British aristocracy until eighteen, when Queen Victoria
Speaker 1: granted her and her sisters a Grace and Favor apartment
Speaker 1: in Hampton Court in London. It was there Princess Sophia
Speaker 1: would truly have her first taste of freedom from outside
Speaker 1: the near constant surveillance that she had been kept under
Speaker 1: since her mother died. After years of receiving a quote
Speaker 1: unquote proper English education, culminating in a Britain ask debut
Speaker 1: into society with the white gowns and ostrich feathers, Sophia
Speaker 1: took to her freedom with newfound vigor. Thanks to the
Speaker 1: attention garnered by her debut, The Princess was a common
Speaker 1: staple at London's most exclusive social gatherings, each host clamoring
Speaker 1: to boast their connection to the young Indian royal. The
Speaker 1: god daughter of Queen Victoria, She was often seen wearing
Speaker 1: the newest fashions in the finest fabrics, the walking envy
Speaker 1: of every British socialite, and when she wasn't the talk
Speaker 1: of London's nightlife, Sophia still managed to grab headlines with
Speaker 1: her ever expanding list of unorthodox hobbies, despite the rumors
Speaker 1: associated with its ill effect on a woman's reproductive help.
Speaker 1: Sophia became an avid cyclist, procuring the latest equipment and
Speaker 1: often traversing the short distance between Hampton Court and Richmond Park,
Speaker 1: while to the horror of many un chaperoned. She also
Speaker 1: carried on her father's love of animals with her own
Speaker 1: pack of show dogs that she took pride in breeding
Speaker 1: for competitions at any time. The air in her home
Speaker 1: was a chaotic blend of dog for and imported foreign tobacco,
Speaker 1: which didn't take too long too great on the other
Speaker 1: two de leep sing daughters. Sophia's sisters, Bomba and Caroline,
Speaker 1: were famously critical of their younger sister's fondness for her
Speaker 1: small brood of animal companions, But despite Hampton Court technically
Speaker 1: being their shared residence, the sisters never made a habit
Speaker 1: of staying around long enough to call at home. Caroline
Speaker 1: followed their former governess abroad to Germany, while Bomba traveled
Speaker 1: to the United States to go to medical school in Chicago.
Speaker 1: That was until Northwestern University decided women weren't fit to
Speaker 1: study medicine, citing quote women men cannot grasp chemical laboratory
Speaker 1: work or the intricacies of surgery. But considering this was
Speaker 1: the same generation of scientists that believed a bicycle seat
Speaker 1: would be detrimental to a woman's reproductive health, I think
Speaker 1: it's safe to assume the scientific basis for their prejudice
Speaker 1: may have had less to do with evidence and more
Speaker 1: with a few fragile male egos. Regardless When Bamba do
Speaker 1: Leap Sing reluctantly returned to Hampton Court, it was with
Speaker 1: heaviness in her step. The event that had led her
Speaker 1: back to Britain obviously weighed painfully on her mind, but
Speaker 1: Sophia was intent on bringing her sister out of her slump.
Speaker 1: Sophia may not have been old enough to fully understand
Speaker 1: the extent of her mother's depression after their father had
Speaker 1: abandoned them, but her sister Bomba's discontent was not something
Speaker 1: she could stand to watch fester. The day is at
Speaker 1: Hampton Court were leaching the life out of her sister,
Speaker 1: and so Sophia said about achieving what their father had
Speaker 1: never been able to do. She was going to bring
Speaker 1: them back to India. In the end, she found that
Speaker 1: it would be easier to ask forgiveness than permission. The
Speaker 1: sisters told no one of their plans, and possibly even
Speaker 1: used false names to gain passage to the homeland they
Speaker 1: had never known. When they finally arrived and Princess Sophia
Speaker 1: descended the ship's steps and finally set her feet on
Speaker 1: Indian soil for the first time in her life, she
Speaker 1: had expected something to happen. She had at least expected
Speaker 1: to be acknowledged, considering she and her sister had just
Speaker 1: illegally gained passage to the one country on Earth she
Speaker 1: and her family had been expressly forbidden to travel to
Speaker 1: since before she was born. She expected some sort of
Speaker 1: reprimand once the British authorities pieced together their whereabouts, But
Speaker 1: when she stepped off the ship, the only thing to
Speaker 1: meet her, along with the blistering Indian heat, was the
Speaker 1: cool air of English indifference. The authorities had certainly taken
Speaker 1: note of the princess's arrivals, but had opted to ignore
Speaker 1: them and their disobedience altogether. This meant, rather than providing
Speaker 1: a guide to the English speaking sisters, as would have
Speaker 1: been customary for anyone else of their name and rank,
Speaker 1: the deleep Singh princesses were now forced to embark on
Speaker 1: their travels alone, and while the Crown may have felt
Speaker 1: vindicated in their passive aggression, it unfortunately had the inverse
Speaker 1: effect of exposing Sophia and her sisters to parts of
Speaker 1: India that didn't necessarily look kindly upon British rule. For
Speaker 1: the first time in her life, Sophia was welcomed into
Speaker 1: rooms not as the quote exotic Indian princess, but as
Speaker 1: the granddaughter of their beloved Raj Singh, the stairs in
Speaker 1: her direction were not due to the color of her skin,
Speaker 1: but the blood in her veins. Despite the language barrier,
Speaker 1: Sophia took every moment she could to learn more about
Speaker 1: her country and its history. It was during this first
Speaker 1: trip to India that the princess learned of the poverty
Speaker 1: and plague her people had been subjected to under British rule.
Speaker 1: The version of history that she had been given in
Speaker 1: the halls of a Buckinghamshire estate were wildly different from
Speaker 1: what she was learning as she rode on horseback through
Speaker 1: the Punjabi countryside. She was now determined to find out
Speaker 1: the truth for herself. When Sophia eventually made her way
Speaker 1: back to England, she found the extravagant gowns cluttering her
Speaker 1: closet begging to be worn to the countless social events
Speaker 1: no longer brought her the same joy they once had.
Speaker 1: Even though she had been born and raised in England,
Speaker 1: she had always known it was not her home, not really.
Speaker 1: But it was one thing to understand that concept, and
Speaker 1: another thing entirely to be so blatantly confronted with the
Speaker 1: inequity and destruction that had trailed in the wake of
Speaker 1: the British rule in her homeland, and even more infuriating
Speaker 1: in theory. She was in a position of power, and
Speaker 1: yet she found herself powerless to affect any meaningful change
Speaker 1: for the people that she had met overseas. Pomp and
Speaker 1: pageantry of her life suddenly felt so insignificant. She needed
Speaker 1: to do something. It was with that fire that in
Speaker 1: h eight, Princess Sophia found herself walking into the home
Speaker 1: of one Una Dugdale, a woman holding a meeting for
Speaker 1: a group called the Women's Social and Political Union. Sophia
Speaker 1: watched as the woman spoke her impassioned tone, boldly declaring
Speaker 1: the necessity for progress in their country, for equal rights
Speaker 1: and equal representation, for the women's right to vote. Una
Speaker 1: described a movement of like minds, a group tired of
Speaker 1: waiting for permission to take up space, and when Sophia
Speaker 1: went home that night, for once, she didn't spare a
Speaker 1: thought for the countless gowns that no longer fit the
Speaker 1: person she had become. For the first time since her
Speaker 1: return from India, Princess Sophia do Leep Singh felt that
Speaker 1: she had found a home. Before we continue, I just
Speaker 1: want to make a quick note that from here on
Speaker 1: out I'll be using the term suffragette rather than suffragist,
Speaker 1: simply because that was how Sophia referred to herself, and
Speaker 1: I think in telling her story, it's important to use
Speaker 1: the language that she identified with. Now back to that story.
Speaker 1: From that day forward, Sophia became a devout supporter of
Speaker 1: the Women's Social and Political Union, or WSPU, throwing all
Speaker 1: of her efforts into fundraising for the cause. It didn't
Speaker 1: take long for the organization to take an interest in
Speaker 1: the Royal Suffragette, and soon Emmiline Pankhurst was asking to
Speaker 1: use Sophia's image strategically to promote their message. The princess
Speaker 1: didn't have to think twice. Amidst the reports of hunger
Speaker 1: strikes and subsequent force feedings coming out of the prisons,
Speaker 1: Sophia was more than ready to be put on the
Speaker 1: front lines. Though as excited as she was to show
Speaker 1: her port for the w SPU, even she could not
Speaker 1: have predicted the horror of what was to come. On
Speaker 1: November eighth, the streets outside Caxton Hall were cold and
Speaker 1: wet in the late autumn morning, As more and more
Speaker 1: women gathered in the narrow street, the energy between them
Speaker 1: crackled through the dreary London fog. Only a week before,
Speaker 1: Pinkhurst had stood at the head of Albert Hall and
Speaker 1: addressed her legion of supporters with grave news. The Conciliation Bill,
Speaker 1: which the w SPU had been working on tirelessly for months,
Speaker 1: was on the brink of failure after a letter leaked
Speaker 1: from the Prime Minister outlining his intentions to quash the
Speaker 1: bill before it could pass through Parliament. Quote if the bill,
Speaker 1: in spite of our efforts, is killed by the government,
Speaker 1: then first of all I have to say there is
Speaker 1: an end of the truce. Pink Hurst's anger echoed through
Speaker 1: the hall she was speaking at, and when she declared
Speaker 1: her intention to beat down the doors to the House
Speaker 1: of Commons, the roar of the crowd support was deafening.
Speaker 1: A week later, Sophia walked alongside pink Hurst at the
Speaker 1: head of the three person strong procession to the House
Speaker 1: of Commons. Sophia was next to eight other women purposefully
Speaker 1: chosen to signify the face of the women's suffrage movement.
Speaker 1: The morning's tension only grew as the protesters poured steadily
Speaker 1: into Parliament Square. Sophia continued to put one foot in
Speaker 1: front of the other, but it was difficult to ignore
Speaker 1: the stairs of the police and civilian men who had
Speaker 1: been awaiting their arrival. Pankhurst's group managed to summit the
Speaker 1: steps to Saint Stephen's Gate, the last obstacle between them
Speaker 1: and Parliament, But as Sophia turned to look back on
Speaker 1: her sisters and arms beside her, the cheers she thought
Speaker 1: she heard suddenly sent chills of horror down her spine.
Speaker 1: By the time Big Ben struck twelve noon, all hell
Speaker 1: had broken loose. The events of this day would go
Speaker 1: on to live in infamy under the name Black Friday,
Speaker 1: a well deserved moniker for possibly one of the darkest
Speaker 1: days for the women's suffrage movement in Great Britain. For
Speaker 1: the following six hours, police would attack the suffragettes, throwing
Speaker 1: them to the ground with excessive force and sexually assaulting
Speaker 1: those who had the nerve to stand back up. There
Speaker 1: were numerous reports of policemen and plainclothes officers groping women's breasts,
Speaker 1: a practice which at the time was widely believed to
Speaker 1: cause breast cancer. Others would recall being tossed between officers,
Speaker 1: having their clothes ripped and dislodged as they fought and
Speaker 1: clawed back in self defense. Meanwhile, at St. Stephen's Gate,
Speaker 1: Sophia and her cohort were trapped by a line of
Speaker 1: policemen blocking their way back into the square. Pankhurst yelled
Speaker 1: herself horse in an attempt to get the police to
Speaker 1: rein in their men, while another woman in their party,
Speaker 1: who rode alongside them on horseback, took matters into her
Speaker 1: own hands. She broke the line by riding her horse
Speaker 1: through the officers, taking down as many as she could
Speaker 1: with her riding crop. Sophia had just enough time to
Speaker 1: watch her friend be pulled from her horse before she
Speaker 1: managed to break through the line of police herself and
Speaker 1: run headfirst into the fray. The brutality from Afar had
Speaker 1: been horrifying, but once within the chaos, the reality was
Speaker 1: much more gruesome. She watched a woman near her bethrown
Speaker 1: to the ground by an officer multiple times, each blow
Speaker 1: making it more difficult for the woman to stay on
Speaker 1: her feet. When Sophia could no longer stand to watch,
Speaker 1: she pushed her way through the crowd and placed herself
Speaker 1: between the two, demanding that the police officer stop his
Speaker 1: abuse immediately. Now it should be noted that it barely
Speaker 1: taller than five ft. The princess was hardly an imposing figure,
Speaker 1: but when the officer finally stopped to take in who
Speaker 1: had stopped him, he didn't think twice before running in
Speaker 1: the opposite direction. Princess Sophia's face was a staple in
Speaker 1: all the London papers, and even if she was not
Speaker 1: the most physically intimidating figure, her social status alone was
Speaker 1: enough to make the power that the police officer flaunted
Speaker 1: so gratuitously just moments earlier wither away into dust after
Speaker 1: she had gotten his badge number. He was Constable V
Speaker 1: seven hundred. Unfortunately, despite Sophia's quick thinking, Constable V seven
Speaker 1: hundred would not be charged with any sort of crime
Speaker 1: for the atrocities committed on Black Friday, nor would any
Speaker 1: of the officers responsible for the Wanton bloodshed. The Home
Speaker 1: Secretary at the time, a relatively young Winston Churchill, issued
Speaker 1: a statement saying that they would not be charging the
Speaker 1: officers with any offenses which may have taken place, since
Speaker 1: all charges against those suffragettes arrested that day had also
Speaker 1: been dropped, as if that evened the score. For weeks
Speaker 1: following the event, Sophia wrote to the Office of the
Speaker 1: Home Secretary, citing specific events she witnessed and demanding justice
Speaker 1: be handed down. Eventually, Churchill got so tired of receiving
Speaker 1: mail from the princess that he had his office flag
Speaker 1: her name so no further postage from her would make
Speaker 1: its way to her desk, as if she could be ignored.
Speaker 1: After the events of Black Friday, the Princess's involvement in
Speaker 1: the WSPU only continued to grow. The following February, on
Speaker 1: the day the King was said to make a speech
Speaker 1: to Parliament, Sophia participated in a coordinated protest where she
Speaker 1: jumped in front of the Prime Minister's car holding a
Speaker 1: banner which read give women the Vote. After being hauled
Speaker 1: away by police, the authority parties contemplated taking further action
Speaker 1: against the princess, but they ultimately decided against it. The
Speaker 1: King's speech was meant to be the story in the
Speaker 1: papers the following day, not the arrest of Queen Victoria's
Speaker 1: god daughter, and so much to the chagrin of the
Speaker 1: Prime Minister, the princess was allowed to walk free. By
Speaker 1: this point, the British government was more than ready to
Speaker 1: reprimand the royal pain in their sides, but prison time
Speaker 1: for the princess remained out of the question. The reports
Speaker 1: of force feedings and abuse within the prison system would
Speaker 1: have only acted to make the Princess a murtyr, something
Speaker 1: the Crown could not afford in their ongoing fight against
Speaker 1: the suffrage movement. Instead, they chose to punish her through
Speaker 1: the most public legal channel they possessed. After years of
Speaker 1: participating in public protests and proudly defying the government in
Speaker 1: the name of women's suffrage, in June nine eleven, Princess
Speaker 1: Sophia finally received a court summons for her failure to
Speaker 1: pay the licensing fees for her dogs. Scandalous, I know.
Speaker 1: In reality, her lack of proper canine documentation was a
Speaker 1: mere bullet point in the lengthy list of taxes the
Speaker 1: princess was refusing to pay. Sophia was an ardent supporter
Speaker 1: of the Women's Tax Resistance League, which had taken to
Speaker 1: adopting the Americans Revolutionary War slogan no taxation without representation.
Speaker 1: Just a few weeks previously, another suffragette had been arrested
Speaker 1: for her tax in subordination, and Sophia was prepared to
Speaker 1: be led away in handcuffs as well. The court, however,
Speaker 1: was set on taking a different approach. Two weeks after
Speaker 1: her court summons, bailiffs arrived at Empton Court with a warrant.
Speaker 1: They warned Sophia, should she once again refuse to pay
Speaker 1: her fines, they would be forced to enter her home
Speaker 1: and find goods which they could auction off to compensate
Speaker 1: for her debts. The princess kindly informed the officers that
Speaker 1: she would be happy to pay once women had the
Speaker 1: right to vote. Predictably, this didn't sit well with the bailiffs,
Speaker 1: who proceeded to raid her home and take a seven
Speaker 1: stone diamond ring from her collection of jewels, the value
Speaker 1: of which far surpassed the sum of her finds. But
Speaker 1: when the ring was set to be auctioned off a
Speaker 1: little over a month later, this time, Sophia was not alone.
Speaker 1: By the time the auction began, the room was filled
Speaker 1: wall to wall with suffragettes waiting for the moment the
Speaker 1: ring would be brought to the stage. When the seven
Speaker 1: diamonds finally glinted from the front of the hall, the
Speaker 1: auctioneer opened the bidding to absolutely no response. A smug
Speaker 1: silence settled over the room as the auctioneer was repeatedly
Speaker 1: forced to place the starting bid lower and lower. Only
Speaker 1: when he reduced the starting price to ten pounds did
Speaker 1: a woman finally raise her hand. I like to imagine
Speaker 1: the auctioneer never swung a gavel so fast in his life.
Speaker 1: As soon as the ring was paid for, the woman
Speaker 1: in question placed the ring in Sophia's palm, to the
Speaker 1: uproarious cheers of the suffragettes around them. The government's efforts
Speaker 1: to make an example of their royal suffragette only served
Speaker 1: to make her burn brighter. Over the next few years,
Speaker 1: Sophia's dedication to the cause remained unwavering, even as those
Speaker 1: around her began to falter. By thirteen, the actions of
Speaker 1: the WSPU had gone from civil disobedience to arson bombings
Speaker 1: and rather ironic considering their ten commemoration the destruction of mail.
Speaker 1: Now I want to be on the record and say
Speaker 1: I do not support arson bombings or the destruction of mail,
Speaker 1: no matter how ironic the destruction of mail is. But
Speaker 1: for better or for worse, Sophia was steadfast and her
Speaker 1: support of the w s p u s efforts. The
Speaker 1: princess may have loathed public speaking, but she offered to
Speaker 1: stand on stage next to Pankers to amplify her support
Speaker 1: for the cause whenever she would have her. This was
Speaker 1: also around the time she would begin to stand outside
Speaker 1: her residence at Hampton Court with a satchel full of
Speaker 1: copies of the Suffragette newspaper. With the w SPUs methods
Speaker 1: resorting to more and more violent action by the day,
Speaker 1: Sophia continued to use her image to bolster support even
Speaker 1: when they're formerly ardent supporters began to desert them. But
Speaker 1: just as tensions between the British government and the w
Speaker 1: SPU threatened to reach a boiling point in June nineteen fourteen,
Speaker 1: a bullet was fired in Sarajevo and not even the
Speaker 1: w SPU could dodge the collateral damage. In the wake
Speaker 1: of World War One, the w SPU immediately stalled their
Speaker 1: practices so they could help contribute to the war effort.
Speaker 1: The hard stop was difficult for some of the Suffragettes
Speaker 1: to take, but so Fia easily pivoted to her new
Speaker 1: line of work. By nineteen fifteen, Sophia was volunteering as
Speaker 1: a nurse for the British Red Cross in Brighton, after
Speaker 1: having spent so many months abroad. Wounded Punjabi men coming
Speaker 1: off the front lines found themselves comforted by the site
Speaker 1: of familiar brown skin, but no doubt, they quickly became
Speaker 1: flustered at the realization that their wounds were being tended
Speaker 1: by the granddaughter of their beloved Ragitet Singh. When the
Speaker 1: Princess could, she presented some of the injured men with
Speaker 1: small carvings of ivory to take home, keepsakes meant to
Speaker 1: brighten the dreary realities that the war held over their heads.
Speaker 1: Putting her image to use. In nine seventeen, Princess Sophia
Speaker 1: organized in India Day fundraiser, which funded over fifty thousand
Speaker 1: huts for sepoys stationed around the world. And she wasn't
Speaker 1: a own in her efforts, whether through fundraising, nursing, or
Speaker 1: filling the posts left vacant by soldiers off to fight
Speaker 1: on the front lines, women carried England economy on their
Speaker 1: previously assumed to be meek and fragile backs. By the
Speaker 1: end of the war, women's role in the community had
Speaker 1: so completely shifted that in Parliament passed the Representation of
Speaker 1: the People Act, which widened the previous restrictions on citizens
Speaker 1: suffrage to include certain women among their ranks. And suddenly,
Speaker 1: as white flags were waved over trenches and soldiers were
Speaker 1: finally called back home, Sophia was confronted with the bitter
Speaker 1: sweet realization that, in order for the country to move
Speaker 1: forward toward the future, she had helped to fight for
Speaker 1: the home she had once found among the suffragettes no
Speaker 1: longer needed to exist. The years following the war passed
Speaker 1: in a painfully slow pace for the Princess. The void
Speaker 1: left in the wake of her social activism had already
Speaker 1: threatened to sink her into a staggering depression, but the
Speaker 1: grudges held steadfastly by the British government had her struggling
Speaker 1: to keep afloat. Across the ocean, the fight for Indian
Speaker 1: independence was growing by the day, which inversely meant that
Speaker 1: the adoration for the grandchildren of the Line of Punjab
Speaker 1: was beginning to fall by the wayside. The British government,
Speaker 1: most likely still bitter because of the public embarrassment the
Speaker 1: Princess caused the Crown with her actions for the WSPU
Speaker 1: decided it was within the best interests of the British
Speaker 1: people to all but cut off the dew leap singing
Speaker 1: at children. For Sophia's siblings, who were either married or
Speaker 1: financially independent by this point, this was a non issue.
Speaker 1: But for Sophia, the sudden lack of funds meant that
Speaker 1: while the government didn't dare touch the home granted to
Speaker 1: her by Queen Victoria, she could barely afford to keep
Speaker 1: it heated during the winter. After several attempts unsuccessfully to
Speaker 1: get the India Office to reconsider their decision, Sophia's brother
Speaker 1: stepped in to assist in her finances. He also hired
Speaker 1: someone who would be able to help her manage the
Speaker 1: apartments at Hampton Court, a gesture that would indirectly shape
Speaker 1: the rest of Princess Sophia's life. Janet Ivy Bowden, or Bozy,
Speaker 1: as she was known, like her employer, was a force
Speaker 1: to be reckoned with. At the time she was hired,
Speaker 1: Bosey was only twenty two years old, but if she
Speaker 1: had anything it was the audacity. On previous occasions when
Speaker 1: the Princess's depression seemed to get the better of her,
Speaker 1: the majority of her staff had gone out of their
Speaker 1: way to avoid her, but with a full house to
Speaker 1: run on a shoestring budget, Bosey did not have time
Speaker 1: to coddle the princess, as she saw it, and instead
Speaker 1: she told Sophia to simply, quote, stop pouting. After a
Speaker 1: lifetime of being catered to by servants who had never
Speaker 1: dared to speak back to her. It was Bosi's blunt,
Speaker 1: but arguably fair demeanor that not only secured her employment
Speaker 1: with the princess but served to make her a lifelong friend.
Speaker 1: Bosey and Sophia grew so close that she would eventually
Speaker 1: make Sophia the godmother to her daughter, a role Sophia
Speaker 1: took on with the same enthusiasm and devotion she did
Speaker 1: all other roles before. From a young age, Sophia made
Speaker 1: sure to instill in her new god daughter the important
Speaker 1: of using her voice in the world. Bose's daughter would
Speaker 1: later recall her godmother making her promise quote, you are
Speaker 1: never ever not to vote. You must promise me when
Speaker 1: you are allowed to vote, you are never ever to
Speaker 1: fail to do so. You don't realize how far we've
Speaker 1: come when we look back on social change, Throughout history,
Speaker 1: we have a tendency to boil down the entirety of
Speaker 1: a movement to the outcome it achieved. Namely, this makes sense.
Speaker 1: Every story needs a beginning, middle, and end. But the
Speaker 1: more time passes, the more a beginning, middle, and end
Speaker 1: somehow shifts into a before and after binary way of
Speaker 1: interpreting history, time giving the illusion that the after would
Speaker 1: have given enough time, inevitably come to pass. But that's
Speaker 1: just the thing, isn't it. The outcome of these movements,
Speaker 1: these freedoms, and these rights that we have the privilege
Speaker 1: to benefit from, we're not given to us. They were
Speaker 1: hard fought for, tooth and nail, inch by grading inch.
Speaker 1: In August, Princess Sophia du leip Sing passed away peacefully
Speaker 1: in her sleep at the age of seventy two. She
Speaker 1: left behind no spouses or airs, but in her place
Speaker 1: stands a legacy of bravery and perseverance that continues to
Speaker 1: live on in the ballots of women around the world.
Speaker 1: That's the life of royal suffragette Princess Sophia du Leepsing,
Speaker 1: but stick around after a brief sponsor break to hear
Speaker 1: more about how she spent some of the later years
Speaker 1: of her life. In two thousand two, the grieving family
Speaker 1: of a man named Michael Sarbert was sorting through his
Speaker 1: belongings when they made a peculiar discovery. Deep within a
Speaker 1: hidden box of his possessions that were never before seen
Speaker 1: were photos of Sarbert as a child, which would not
Speaker 1: have been all that odd except for the inexplicable presence
Speaker 1: of an elderly Indian woman in the frame beside him.
Speaker 1: Beneath the photos, Michael had left his family a letter
Speaker 1: explaining his final wish was to have his ashes spread
Speaker 1: around the grounds of the house in the photos. The
Speaker 1: house in question happened to be a residence in Buckinghamshire,
Speaker 1: where Sarbert and his two siblings stayed during World War
Speaker 1: Two with none other than Princess Sophia herself. During the Blitz,
Speaker 1: so Fia had evacuated her residence in Hampton Court and
Speaker 1: gone to stay with her sister Katherine in the British countryside.
Speaker 1: While there, she volunteered to take in a family of
Speaker 1: three children and their mother. One of the children was Michael.
Speaker 1: You might already be familiar with the idea that children
Speaker 1: were evacuated from London during the Blitz. It's a scene
Speaker 1: that happens at the beginning of the Famous Lion, the
Speaker 1: Witch and the Wardrobe, but this was reality. The princess
Speaker 1: quickly grew to dote on the children, and she frequently
Speaker 1: took them walking around the ground with her and her
Speaker 1: famous dogs. Michael's sister recalled quote she once told me
Speaker 1: I had to tell her everything, leaving no detail out,
Speaker 1: because she had never gone to school like us and
Speaker 1: wanted to know what she had missed. After the war,
Speaker 1: Michael moved back to London with his family and eventually
Speaker 1: grew up and immigrated to New Zealand, where he would
Speaker 1: go on to have a family of his own. He
Speaker 1: never spoke of his time in Princess Sophia's home in
Speaker 1: the countryside, and so it was left to Michael's sister
Speaker 1: to explain her brother's final request and this previously unknown
Speaker 1: chapter of his life to his family. In two thousand four,
Speaker 1: Sarbert's sister was able to return to England to fulfill
Speaker 1: her brother's final wish to go back to the place
Speaker 1: he had quote been happiest in his life. Noble Blood
Speaker 1: is a production of I Heart Radio and Grim and
Speaker 1: Mild from Aaron Manky Noble Blood is hosted by me
Speaker 1: Danish Wortz. Additional writing and researching done by Hannah Johnston,
Speaker 1: hannah's Wick, Mirra Award, Courtney Sunder and Laurie Goodman. The
Speaker 1: show is produced by rema Il Kali, with supervising producer
Speaker 1: Josh Thaine and executive producers Aaron Mankey, Alex Williams, and
Speaker 1: Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit
Speaker 1: the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.