Speaker 1: Also media.
Speaker 2: What's got a functional sedative? My host of this podcast,
Speaker 2: This is Behind the Bastards, the podcast hosted by someone
Speaker 2: with PTSD who has not been sleeping well for the
Speaker 2: last like six months and finally got on a good sedative.
Speaker 2: I went out like a fucking zombie last night, and
Speaker 2: I woke up actually feeling like I slept. So I'm
Speaker 2: unstoppable today, I'm unconquerable. I've built up at eleven ten am,
Speaker 2: which is the earliest I've gotten up in months, feeling great.
Speaker 2: Everybody really feeling good. I can't mix these with alcohol,
Speaker 2: which is a bummer, unlike Benzo's, which my doctor says
Speaker 2: are safe to mix with alcohol. No, don't do that.
Speaker 2: It'll kill you. Killed everybody in the seventies. That's why
Speaker 2: there's none of those people left.
Speaker 1: I'm really glad that you've gotten some sleep, mostly because
Speaker 1: that makes my life a lot easier, but also good
Speaker 1: for you.
Speaker 2: Speaking of not speaking of doing drugs in the nineteen seventies,
Speaker 2: but speaking of being as cool as the nineteen seventies.
Speaker 2: Our guest this week, Princess Weeks. Princess, you are a YouTuber,
Speaker 2: a comedian, and you are here today. How are you feeling.
Speaker 3: I wish I had slept as well as you. Now
Speaker 3: I know what I need. I'm so high. I'm so high.
Speaker 3: I am a history nerd. I love this podcast. I
Speaker 3: want to know who my bastard is so badly.
Speaker 2: All right, well, we're going to get into it. I
Speaker 2: do want to ask you one question first about the past,
Speaker 2: because you know it's been going around this year. I
Speaker 2: think it was this year that this started the whole, Like,
Speaker 2: how often do you, as a man think about the
Speaker 2: Roman Empire? And for most, at least for me and
Speaker 2: all of my social serve, my male social circle, it's
Speaker 2: a daily thing. But what I think is a more
Speaker 2: universal experience, at least among the people that I know
Speaker 2: and care for, male and female, is how often do
Speaker 2: you think about getting access to those good height of
Speaker 2: the seventies kuayludes, Because that's what I don't stop thinking
Speaker 2: about every day. For me, it's thinking about louds hourly, hourly, hourly, hourly. Okay,
Speaker 2: that's good, Yeah, speaking of quailudes. That was the drug
Speaker 2: of the fashionable set in the height of Hollywood. I
Speaker 2: don't know, like grime and shit in the seventies, degeneracy,
Speaker 2: financial industry, degeneracy. And when I think about degeneracy, when
Speaker 2: I think about fashion, one thing that comes to mind
Speaker 2: is the suit, right, the suit and tie the uniform
Speaker 2: of the finance industry, the uniform of business, of class,
Speaker 2: of wealth and power in the Western world. And today,
Speaker 2: this week, we're going to talk about where the suit
Speaker 2: and tie came from. And we're going to talk about
Speaker 2: where the concept of a celebrity came from. Because the
Speaker 2: modern suit and tie, our conception of a celebrity, the
Speaker 2: fashion influencer, everything that's going to become, like the way
Speaker 2: influencing works on Instagram and TikTok, all of it was
Speaker 2: created in the seventeen hundreds by one man and his
Speaker 2: name was bau Brummel. And that's what we're going to
Speaker 2: talk about this week. Princess, have you heard of bo I?
Speaker 4: Hate him already? I've never heard of bo I was
Speaker 4: really writing.
Speaker 3: My brain, But every time we said suit and tyke,
Speaker 3: I thinking about Justin Timberlake, so like it.
Speaker 4: Was gonna be either way. We were gonna get him.
Speaker 1: We all we all have Justin on the brain.
Speaker 4: This is interesting.
Speaker 2: I kind of wonder how you're gonna if you're gonna
Speaker 2: wind up actually hating this guy. But well, we'll move
Speaker 2: to that after the cold open, because we're done with
Speaker 2: the cold open.
Speaker 4: We're going up.
Speaker 2: We're ready to hit the fucking ground running.
Speaker 4: We're back.
Speaker 3: I am so excited. You had me at seventeen hundreds.
Speaker 4: Yes.
Speaker 2: Yes, And what's weird to me is how of the
Speaker 2: stuff that, like a lot of times, you can if
Speaker 2: you we're like, yeah, this is the origin of this
Speaker 2: very modern thing, and you can be like, well, I
Speaker 2: can see how it built from there. When it comes
Speaker 2: to him, everything he's doing as a fashion influencer is
Speaker 2: exactly the way it works today for people using social media.
Speaker 2: But he's doing it person to person in very like
Speaker 2: intriguing ways. He like knows this is the guy who
Speaker 2: learns how to make shit spread virally, but he's doing
Speaker 2: it all analog and it's really interesting the way that
Speaker 2: he like makes this work. But I'm also here's the thing,
Speaker 2: the admission I'm going to make to you as we
Speaker 2: come back, is I don't know that he's actually a bastard.
Speaker 2: A lot of people are convinced that he was. This
Speaker 2: is gonna be an interesting one for us. I guess
Speaker 2: I should just get into it. Are you ready for
Speaker 2: me to start the script? Princess, I'm sorry, so you
Speaker 2: look great. I am not what you would paul a
Speaker 2: fashionable man. I am wearing like a discount Chud hoodie
Speaker 2: that I got from the hunting store.
Speaker 4: Chut hoodie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's head stuff. Yeah, yeah, everybody loves a good Chud.
Speaker 1: One of my one of my favorite things about when
Speaker 1: like Robert and I fly in for like a business
Speaker 1: meeting or go meet with own for a business meeting,
Speaker 1: is like, I'll come and I am business Barbie, and
Speaker 1: then there's Robert in his chut hoodie and it just works.
Speaker 4: It just really works.
Speaker 2: He's kind of yeah, I look like someone like I'm
Speaker 2: confident enough to say this about myself. I look like
Speaker 2: I'm not. But I look like someone who might pull
Speaker 2: a gun on you in the parking lot for taking
Speaker 2: the space for my f two fifty, which I park
Speaker 2: in four spaces, right Like, that's it. That's the hi
Speaker 2: I give off. I'm very polite with my parking, but
Speaker 2: I don't dress well. I did used to, which I
Speaker 2: think is surprising because I haven't in a long time.
Speaker 2: Kind of the change for me was back in twenty seventeen,
Speaker 2: I had a near death experience and I was wearing
Speaker 2: uncomfortable pants and a belt, and I was like, well,
Speaker 2: if I'm going to die, and I am some day
Speaker 2: I'm not going to die, I'm going to die wearing
Speaker 2: like sweatpants, like some nice thin Merino blend or something right,
Speaker 2: And that's all I've worn ever since. So I might
Speaker 2: be better primed than most people to accept at the
Speaker 2: inventor of the suit and tie, Bo Brummel could be
Speaker 2: a bastard. But before we, you know, go further, I
Speaker 2: need to clear that, like, first off, Bo did not
Speaker 2: invent He's not a tailor. He doesn't actually like make
Speaker 2: any of this stuff, So he didn't actually he didn't
Speaker 2: literally invent the suit and tie, like a bunch of
Speaker 2: different guys over a long period of time invented the
Speaker 2: suit and tie iterating, But he is the one who
Speaker 2: first combined a series of fashion trends in the way
Speaker 2: that guaranteed the suit and tie would be the result,
Speaker 2: you know, a couple of generations down the line, right,
Speaker 2: and he is most It seems like broadly agreed by
Speaker 2: fashion historians that it's fair to credit him as being
Speaker 2: the father or at least the spiritual father of the
Speaker 2: modern Western suit, right, even though he did not literally
Speaker 2: make it. We'll walk through that whole process, and I
Speaker 2: think that'll make it more understandable later. So I was
Speaker 2: excited when I started doing my research on him because
Speaker 2: I refused to wear a tie. I did just get
Speaker 2: fitted for a suit for the first time in like
Speaker 2: a decade, because in my dad's funeral, I looked like
Speaker 2: shit and my brother looked reasonably nice in a suit,
Speaker 2: and I was like, actually, kind of feel bad that
Speaker 2: I look like shit, you know, like my dad wouldn't
Speaker 2: have cared, like he knows, he knew the kind of
Speaker 2: trash person that I was. But I'm I'm trying to
Speaker 2: dress up a little bit more now. That said, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm not inherently sympathetic to a fashion influencer. And I
Speaker 2: found a couple of articles and I started doing this.
Speaker 2: That's why I started reading about him that made him
Speaker 2: sound like a sinister figure. And the first of them
Speaker 2: was a piece in Esquire that describes him as a boring,
Speaker 2: uptight villain by Alexandra Rowland, and she makes the case
Speaker 2: that he killed the era of like elaborate, creative, colorful
Speaker 2: men's fashion and is kind of responsible for the fact
Speaker 2: that men men today. That's her argument that men today
Speaker 2: are scared to express themselves through clothing right lest they
Speaker 2: feel effeminate. And I'm going to read a quote from
Speaker 2: her article bo Brummel, who was the beginning of two
Speaker 2: hundred years of death for men's fashion, and the reason
Speaker 2: that many straight, white, heterosexual men today feel self conscious
Speaker 2: about wearing color or textures, or patterns or anything else
Speaker 2: that makes them stand out from the sea of dull
Speaker 2: blues and grays. Sure, there have always been flares of counterculture,
Speaker 2: almost all of which werelied on style appropriated for marginalized communities.
Speaker 2: But the prevailing baseline, if appropriate and presentable men's wear,
Speaker 2: the things worn by senators, CEOs and lawyers, has not
Speaker 2: significantly changed in centuries now. And I think what she's
Speaker 2: it comes to her overall analysis of like fashion. I
Speaker 2: don't think that's wrong. I mean, it's obviously like it's
Speaker 2: a paragraph that's simplifying it a bit, but I think
Speaker 2: there's an argument to be made there.
Speaker 3: I think it's interesting because like every year during the
Speaker 3: met Gala, that's always the conversation is, like the women,
Speaker 3: whether or not they're on theme or not.
Speaker 4: That's a whole different conversation. But the women were white.
Speaker 3: He's extravagant outfits, like really live lavishly, but it feels
Speaker 3: like post Halloween middle grade. It just becomes like your
Speaker 3: batman's your black suit, Like, yeah, the batman outfit is
Speaker 3: the suit and tie of Halloween men's wear. So I'm
Speaker 3: so intrigued about, like why he decided to be so boring, Like, and.
Speaker 2: I think this is where I disagree with Alexandra, and
Speaker 2: I think she's she's being unfair because I think she
Speaker 2: wanted to find an easy way to think to blame
Speaker 2: for what is a much more complicated problem, which is
Speaker 2: men feeling like they'll be considered gay if they express themselves.
Speaker 2: Because bo was not boring. And I don't actually think
Speaker 2: it's fair to say that he made fashion boring. I
Speaker 2: think it's fair to say that because of some of
Speaker 2: the trends he started, other people made fashion boring. But
Speaker 2: he was a disruptor of fashion in a way that
Speaker 2: I think was Actually he deserves credit for being creative
Speaker 2: in he was an artist in a lot of ways.
Speaker 2: And I think that the reason Roland comes down on
Speaker 2: him so hard and The reason a lot of like
Speaker 2: pop history writers do is that you're always looking when
Speaker 2: you do kind of pop internet history, looking for traffic.
Speaker 2: You're searching for like algorithmic glory.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: You want be able to make a quick case that
Speaker 2: seems to explain something frustrating about the world. And everyone
Speaker 2: can get angry at a guy, and sometimes it's easy
Speaker 2: to do that. Sometimes there's good ways to do that, right.
Speaker 2: We do that a decent bit around here. But also
Speaker 2: I think when you do that, you can run into
Speaker 2: the trap of over extending a few facts about someone
Speaker 2: and ultimately losing the person's humanity and kind of exaggerating
Speaker 2: and missing where a lot of the harm actually came from.
Speaker 2: I'm not trying to come down on Alexandra Well. I've
Speaker 2: done this myself. There's plenty of criticism, you know, for
Speaker 2: my body of work, but this whole subject is personal
Speaker 2: to me because I'm not just a guy who dresses
Speaker 2: like shit because it's comfortable. I'm also a guy. I've
Speaker 2: dealt with an eating disorder. I've spent a lot of
Speaker 2: my adult life insecure about my appearance. It took me
Speaker 2: years to like figure out who I was, and I
Speaker 2: think that's the case for a lot of men, right,
Speaker 2: We're no different from anybody else in that regard. And
Speaker 2: I think that like the way Hollywood, I actually really
Speaker 2: appreciated Channing Tatum's talked a good amount about like the how,
Speaker 2: you know, being as gorgeous as he is, but like
Speaker 2: how many weird body image issues he got because if
Speaker 2: you were a leading man, you are basically your job
Speaker 2: is to be professionally a disordered eater, like you're supposed
Speaker 2: to have mons too. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think it's
Speaker 2: good that they do say that, right, Like, you know,
Speaker 2: you can argue there's they contributed to the harm, but
Speaker 2: I think it's more like in the same way that
Speaker 2: we all drive cars, right, because we've got to, you know.
Speaker 2: I think it's it's useful when people come out and
Speaker 2: acknowledge this stuff. And I think that's kind of how
Speaker 2: I came in looking at bo right, And I think
Speaker 2: what I saw in him when I did a deeper
Speaker 2: dive and read some of the more the actual like
Speaker 2: not pop history, but like like like professional, rigorous academic
Speaker 2: history about him, is I saw a man who was
Speaker 2: not just dealing with his own insecurity, but who was
Speaker 2: living inside of a vis one of the most viciously
Speaker 2: evil social systems that ever existed, which is the upper
Speaker 2: crust of the aristocracy in the early British Empire. It's
Speaker 2: one of the most hideous and cruel cultures that ever existed.
Speaker 2: And I think he was a decent man who was
Speaker 2: desperate to find a way to survive and protect himself,
Speaker 2: and he kind of did the best that he could.
Speaker 2: And that's where I come down on bo Actually, I
Speaker 2: think there's still some a lot of harmful aspects of
Speaker 2: his legacy, but I think it's a much more interesting
Speaker 2: story than just like he hated fashion and he made
Speaker 2: men afraid to dress. Well, right, we'll see how you
Speaker 2: think when we get through this. Ultimately. I do want
Speaker 2: to note I think a lot of the conclusions from
Speaker 2: Alexander's article are still valid. Brommel did inaugurate a sea
Speaker 2: change in male fashion that is dominant today, and this
Speaker 2: has had toxic knock on effects. He's also the first
Speaker 2: modern celebrity. He is a man who his life was
Speaker 2: very similar to modern professional fashion influencers today in ways
Speaker 2: that are like so direct it's kind of boggling. But
Speaker 2: I don't know if I would call him a bastard
Speaker 2: that said, by talking about his life, we're going to
Speaker 2: go into the deep sickness at the heart of the
Speaker 2: British Empire and its culture. So either way, we are
Speaker 2: going to get behind some bastards. You know, I promise
Speaker 2: you will fit.
Speaker 1: The name a seventeen eighteenth centuries British Yeah.
Speaker 2: I was like, this is the regency, this.
Speaker 4: Is ever were Y. Yeah, baby, let's go if.
Speaker 2: You want the most. The biggest touchstone culturally for this
Speaker 2: era is Jane Austen. Jane Austen is a contemporary of Bow.
Speaker 2: She's born I think two and a half years before him,
Speaker 2: but they live in London basically during the same time,
Speaker 2: and she never references him directly. I read a very
Speaker 2: detailed article by some scholars with the Jane Austen fan club,
Speaker 2: who I trust to know their shit, who argue like,
Speaker 2: she didn't reference him directly, but most of the male
Speaker 2: characters in her novels were either based on him or
Speaker 2: reactions to him. Not entirely, right, but like, like mister
Speaker 2: Darcy has a lot of Bow in him, right, So
Speaker 2: that's an argument that people make.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: I'm not a Jane Austin scholar, but these Jane Austen.
Speaker 2: Scholars make that argument. So, George Brian Rubble was born
Speaker 2: on June seventh, seventeen seventy eight in Downing Street, London.
Speaker 2: The house he was born and partly raised in was
Speaker 2: essentially a palace yea Downing Street. So that's like the
Speaker 2: heart of government.
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly, say I know that address.
Speaker 2: He is raised there. I mean they are basically it's
Speaker 2: a palace for government employees at the highest level of
Speaker 2: British government. That's where he's raised and he spends most
Speaker 2: of his childhood. Right, this is where the people who
Speaker 2: are running the empire live well for very little while
Speaker 2: they make the empire go. His father is a guy
Speaker 2: named Billy Billy Brummel, and he is private Secretary to
Speaker 2: Lord North, the first Lord of the Treasury. So that's
Speaker 2: a big gig, right, This is the guy who is
Speaker 2: running the purse for the entire British empire, Lord North,
Speaker 2: Lord North. Yes, he's a powerful man.
Speaker 4: Billy is notable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, George's dad, and George is going to become bo.
Speaker 2: Billy is notable because he's one of a small elite
Speaker 2: cadre of men who old hide positions in the British state,
Speaker 2: but are not members of the aristocracy. They are commoners. Right,
Speaker 2: technically they are commoners, but they are not common You know,
Speaker 2: their families had been in living memory. They are not
Speaker 2: of the nobility, but they are extremely wealthy and very privileged,
Speaker 2: right Billy's.
Speaker 4: Dad like, yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, exactly. You might even look at them as
Speaker 2: like the cheneye to be honest. So these are the
Speaker 2: people who they have a lot of money and a
Speaker 2: lot of power. You know, their dads generally made a
Speaker 2: lot of money and a lot of power. And then
Speaker 2: before that the family lineage was a little more common.
Speaker 2: Billy's dad bose grandpa had made the family fortune because
Speaker 2: he owned a boarding house. And on paper that makes
Speaker 2: him sound like he owned a motel. The reality is
Speaker 2: that he was a pimp, right because of where this
Speaker 2: is and this is this is reading between the lines,
Speaker 2: but historians seemed to broadly agree given where the boarding
Speaker 2: house was located, he made his money providing beds and
Speaker 2: employing women who stepped out with the men who ran
Speaker 2: the country. So this is not a tawdry boarding house.
Speaker 2: This is a guy who and this is not like
Speaker 2: some street pimp. This is a guy who provides escorts
Speaker 2: to the most powerful men in the mp too, kings
Speaker 2: literally to the.
Speaker 4: King, official mistresses and all those kinds of things.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, exactly. Billy's dad is going to die with
Speaker 2: an estate worth the modern equivalent of something like fifteen
Speaker 2: million dollars. Right, So he is not He's not just
Speaker 2: like running a motel six. You know. This is a
Speaker 2: man who is doing he's doing some pimping, right, Like, yeah,
Speaker 2: he's quick. It is not easy, no, but you could
Speaker 2: argue it's necessary someone. He also had a private apartment
Speaker 2: in Hampton Court, which is a former royal palace. Right,
Speaker 2: So it's one of those places where it's a fashion,
Speaker 2: it's you don't. I don't think you pay to live there.
Speaker 2: I think if you are important and well liked enough,
Speaker 2: you basically get an invite from the aristocracy, like you
Speaker 2: can have a subsidized apartment at Hampton Court. Right. So
Speaker 2: again not a not just a guy running a boarding house, right,
Speaker 2: this is a man who is powerful. His son, Billy
Speaker 2: Bo's dad started out as a and a valet. If
Speaker 2: you're technically common by blood, you a lot of times
Speaker 2: you're going to work as a valet. That is, you
Speaker 2: could call it a working class gig, but it's basically
Speaker 2: this kind of this class of people who do a
Speaker 2: lot of the administration of the empire, but who aren't
Speaker 2: nobility themselves. They start out as basically body servants for
Speaker 2: the aristocracy, and they're part of that job is making connections,
Speaker 2: becoming liked and trusted, and then eventually as the young
Speaker 2: man that when you're both nineteen twenty twenty one, you're
Speaker 2: squiring about to parties, you're holding his hair back as
Speaker 2: he pukes. When he takes his positions in the empire,
Speaker 2: he'll give you positions below him, right, because he knows
Speaker 2: he can trust you. You know, that is how a
Speaker 2: lot of the actual like business of the empire gets done.
Speaker 2: Billy does well enough to make himself indispensable to a
Speaker 2: number of powerful men, including Lord North, his son George
Speaker 2: the future. Bo is baptized on July second in the
Speaker 2: parish church for the House of Commons. Right, so again
Speaker 2: he's a com but not common. He grows up. His
Speaker 2: child playmates are royal, right, they're members of the aristocracy.
Speaker 2: They're you know, princes and princesses and the like. Most
Speaker 2: of the adult influences around young George are women because
Speaker 2: his dad's working all the time, so he is largely
Speaker 2: raised by his mom and his aunts. And as a result,
Speaker 2: he's got to be really good with women. And I
Speaker 2: don't mean like, oh, he's a lethario. I mean that
Speaker 2: like he genuinely enjoys their company and is a good friend.
Speaker 2: And most of what we know.
Speaker 4: About him respects women a little bit.
Speaker 2: He a lot, Like most of what we know about
Speaker 2: him is like a lot of the women were who
Speaker 2: were his friends or his mistresses wrote about him, and
Speaker 2: they all tended to be like, yeah, it.
Speaker 4: Was fucking rad.
Speaker 2: Like he didn't suck, he would listen to what you
Speaker 2: had to say, he didn't hit you. He was like
Speaker 2: a nice guy.
Speaker 1: Like I keep reminding myself that we're talking seventeen hundreds,
Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds, Great Britain. Yeah, because I'm waiting for the bastardy.
Speaker 2: There will be there's a lot of bastardy in the
Speaker 2: social class. But like, again, one of the things you
Speaker 2: have to respect about this guy is we have a
Speaker 2: lot of women who wrote about him, and none of
Speaker 2: them were like and this is the time he was
Speaker 2: like an abusive prick to me, you know, and you
Speaker 2: really have to be pretty cool to not have stories
Speaker 2: like that about you in the seventeen hundreds as a
Speaker 2: man of means.
Speaker 4: Right Exactly.
Speaker 3: It's like when they're like, yeah, Hunter Biden, he does crack,
Speaker 3: but he's very nice while he does it.
Speaker 2: So yeah, it's it is if you've known people who
Speaker 2: use a lot of crack or cocaine, it's really hard
Speaker 2: to do that every twenty minutes and have someone be
Speaker 2: like I felt safe with him.
Speaker 4: He just seemed like such a nice, chill process of
Speaker 4: like calming.
Speaker 2: Interesting, he did eleven thousand dollars worth of crack a day,
Speaker 2: but I felt like really calm around him. This is
Speaker 2: centering presence. Yeah, most of the adult influences for again,
Speaker 2: for young George are women. His aunts noted later that
Speaker 2: he was a massive baby with a massive appetite. That
Speaker 2: is the number one thing to say about him as
Speaker 2: a baby. It's like he was fucking huge. One of
Speaker 2: the stories we get about him is he was They
Speaker 2: had tarts one day, and he was so into eating
Speaker 2: a tart that when he got full and he couldn't
Speaker 2: eat anymore, he started screaming because he wanted to eat
Speaker 2: more tart. Classic fable. Yeah, yeah, same homie, my cat.
Speaker 3: She's like, she's like, I know you just fed me,
Speaker 3: but like I can use another round, Like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I feel I feel I feel that. So
Speaker 2: in seventeen eighty, Lord North and the party of men
Speaker 2: that George's dad had made his bed with were firmly
Speaker 2: on the downswing of their careers. Because you know, seventeen
Speaker 2: eighty what do we all know happened a couple of
Speaker 2: years earlier. The Great Britain loses freedom North America.
Speaker 3: Right, freedom, freedom, Yeah, freedom, freedom, the best parts.
Speaker 2: All the good parts. My god, you know, the Virginia,
Speaker 2: New York, probably other states. Delaware, Delaware, Oh my god,
Speaker 2: can you imagine losing Delaware and all of the great
Speaker 2: I feel like sheets. They've got sheets is in Delaware.
Speaker 2: Maybe I'm wrong about who has sheets.
Speaker 4: They got a bank there. I think they've got the oldest.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: A crushing blow to Lord North and the cadre of
Speaker 2: men who were running the empire. Right, And so George's
Speaker 2: dad and his friends, they're not going to be out
Speaker 2: of power immediately, but this is going to kind of
Speaker 2: their past and a deer of their power because they
Speaker 2: are he is like one of the guys who helps
Speaker 2: lose the United States, and you're going to take a
Speaker 2: hit for that. Yeah, And it's you know, that's not
Speaker 2: the only thing that happens. They also are the men
Speaker 2: who like win a big war against France. So that
Speaker 2: part's good. But Lord North makes some other mistakes. His
Speaker 2: biggest is that he doesn't really hate Catholics as much
Speaker 2: as most men in the UK do. And that's that's
Speaker 2: going to hurt him. Mistake right now, not being just
Speaker 2: enough against the Irish. Yeah. So the fact that he
Speaker 2: just doesn't hate Irish people quite enough culminates in June
Speaker 2: of seventeen eighty in an angry mob attacking the Brummel
Speaker 2: home in London. George is not directly exposed to any violence,
Speaker 2: but he would have heard the shouting, he would have
Speaker 2: seen the fear in his family's faces, and he would
Speaker 2: have heard volleys of gunfire from Royal troops who had
Speaker 2: to put down the rioters by shooting into crowds. It's
Speaker 2: pretty ugly. So his family, they spend most of their
Speaker 2: time out in the country after this, a lot of it. Right,
Speaker 2: This is not an uncommon thing for people with means
Speaker 2: and wealth to do during this period. We're and they're
Speaker 2: lead up to the French Revolution, right, so things are
Speaker 2: not going to get a lot calmer in the near future.
Speaker 2: They also officially get given rooms at the Hampton Court
Speaker 2: Palace then, which is something of an upgrade from Downing Street.
Speaker 2: And during this period, George is going to have his
Speaker 2: first brush with fame because he and his brother are
Speaker 2: painted by a famous artist named Joshua Reynolds. And this
Speaker 2: is Bow and his brother as like four year olds.
Speaker 4: Oh that's these kids.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, literally a very very yeah. They look
Speaker 2: you would say, if you don't know much about like
Speaker 2: classic art, you would say, well, they look like little girls.
Speaker 2: And they get little girls because little boys wore dresses
Speaker 2: back then, right, It's elegant, it's cute. Dresses are very
Speaker 2: convenient to put on a little kid, so I get it.
Speaker 2: You can find I think photos of FDR in addresses
Speaker 2: a baby. So this this practice lasts a while. We
Speaker 2: just don't yeah, there for no good reason.
Speaker 3: I remember we went to when I was in college.
Speaker 3: We went to FDR's house in Poughkeepsie and his mother
Speaker 3: had like clipped out his baby curls and like kept
Speaker 3: them forever to like I guess harass eleanor with them. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it would be off. She wasn't such a raging bitch,
Speaker 3: but like definitely they're like all these little picture of
Speaker 3: little baby FDRs, little curls.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, he was a gorgeous baby. You can just
Speaker 2: that baby's gonna well, he's gonna do some problematic things,
Speaker 2: but overall one of the better presents.
Speaker 4: Yeah he's.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's gonna commit some crimes against humanity. He's going
Speaker 2: to stop some crimes against humanity, like net like down
Speaker 2: to crimes against humanity, which is not bad for a president,
Speaker 2: not great for a president either. I don't know, I
Speaker 2: don't know whatever who cares. So while the painting's being made,
Speaker 2: a famous poet, Mary Robinson, lover of the Prince of Wales,
Speaker 2: is inspired to write a poem about Bo, who she
Speaker 2: describes as an infant cherub that's also famous. So he
Speaker 2: is like kind of a child star in his era,
Speaker 2: although he's largely not aware of it. Like he winds
Speaker 2: up in a lot of very famous art just because
Speaker 2: he's a really cute kid and he's around all of
Speaker 2: these artists who hang around the people running the country.
Speaker 2: That was enlightening to me reading that was enlightening to
Speaker 2: me because it made a lot of the more pop
Speaker 2: history articles on his background read differently. I want to
Speaker 2: give you an idea of how he's normally written about
Speaker 2: in some of these kind of less nuanced takes. He's
Speaker 2: a quote from a nat Geo article by Ignatio Peiro
Speaker 2: Bo Brummel was not an aristocrat. He was a commoner
Speaker 2: admitted to the royal circle. That's technically literally true, but
Speaker 2: it makes it sound like he snuck his way in
Speaker 2: as opposed to well, no, there's a class of people
Speaker 2: who are common but are part of the upper class,
Speaker 2: and his family was very, very solidly among that group
Speaker 2: of people. The Esquire article tries to portray his family
Speaker 2: as like economically anxious and social climbers, describing them as
Speaker 2: middle class Londoners with loftier aspirations who were desperate to
Speaker 2: climb that next rung on the social ladder. And that's
Speaker 2: not really right because they were at the top. They
Speaker 2: were as high as you could go in the social ladder.
Speaker 2: Bo's dad is the body man for like the Lord
Speaker 2: of the Treasury. There's really not a hired place for
Speaker 2: them to have gone. Anyway, The Brumo family are not
Speaker 2: royalty though, and as you can see, though, he was
Speaker 2: like he's not common as a child. In seventeen eighty six,
Speaker 2: his father decided to leave governance behind. He had done
Speaker 2: very well for himself in Downing Street, and now that
Speaker 2: he was like in his fifties, he decided to spend
Speaker 2: his remaining years investing his wealth into property and entering
Speaker 2: a sort of working retirement. So he buys a country
Speaker 2: home for his family. It's a mansion. It's made in
Speaker 2: the style of older homes that had never really existed,
Speaker 2: but like this was people's idea of what older manners
Speaker 2: have been. Yeah, and it's it was built in Greece.
Speaker 4: We're like, this is the fitties.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, exactly, No one ever lived this way, right,
Speaker 2: And the guy who builds it, it's kind of like
Speaker 2: a mc mansion in some ways. It's built by It's
Speaker 2: like a super fancy house built by this aristocrat who
Speaker 2: bankrupts himself building it. And then Billy's able to get
Speaker 2: it for cheap because he's just much smarter than a
Speaker 2: lot of these guys. Right. Here's how Ian Kelly, Bo's
Speaker 2: biographer describes the process of readying the home for habitation.
Speaker 2: Donnington Grove still bears the marks of the Brummeles social ambitions.
Speaker 2: Like all fashion conscious Georgian landowners, they wanted to create
Speaker 2: an arcadia without visible signs of the economy that supported
Speaker 2: their luxury. They had a paper mill demolished, it spoiled
Speaker 2: the view, and replaced with the medieval style of fish
Speaker 2: and pavilion. See this is like Jefferson's doing a lot
Speaker 2: of similar stuff. We're like, you don't want anyone to
Speaker 2: see the servants, right, you don't want to see You
Speaker 2: just want it to look like it's magical clean.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like you want to die like minimally, like like
Speaker 3: oh yeah, just the black people just appear in the
Speaker 3: house and then they just vanished.
Speaker 2: Right right, right. So we're gonna talk more about Bo's
Speaker 2: childhood and his attendance at a little school called Eaton.
Speaker 2: But first off, before we do that, why don't you
Speaker 2: eat in some of these ads? We're back so as
Speaker 2: a boy, as like a you know, young kid, pre adolescent.
Speaker 2: George's idol George is the future Bo. His idol is
Speaker 2: his older neighbor who's a semi famous guy, Tom Sheridan.
Speaker 2: Tom is going to become like he's he's a celebrity
Speaker 2: his day. He's a soldier, he writes plays. He's like
Speaker 2: a professional adulterer. He's one of these men who, like
Speaker 2: part of his legacy is how good he is at
Speaker 2: cheating on his different wives and mistresses. Right, classic kind
Speaker 2: of guy, And like most of those guys, he dies
Speaker 2: young of tuberculosis, right, And that's how.
Speaker 3: You know it was big, you know, like it's like, yeah,
Speaker 3: he was prolific.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're not really like a famous romantic like male
Speaker 2: influencer if you don't die of TV. That's the that's
Speaker 2: like the capstone, you know. That's like winning an oscar
Speaker 2: in this era. Right, If Leonardo DiCaprio had been a
Speaker 2: Regency era like dandy, he would have been looking to
Speaker 2: die of fucking tuberculosis by forty as opposed to doing
Speaker 2: that Bear movie where he won the oscar.
Speaker 3: Right, It's like you got to be out by thirty six,
Speaker 3: le Byron, because then it's like what.
Speaker 4: Are we what are we been doing here?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not going to get better right after thirty six.
Speaker 2: You're pretty much washed in this period at time anyway.
Speaker 2: So yeah, Tom Sheridan, the main thing that George is
Speaker 2: going to take from him is that Tom is a wit,
Speaker 2: and that's what George is going to grow up wanting
Speaker 2: to be. So I should digress here. One thing the
Speaker 2: story of Bo Brumble makes clear is that Twitter didn't
Speaker 2: invent anything new. It just gave us a way to
Speaker 2: do it online.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: People have always appreciated sharing funny bits like little lines
Speaker 2: by strangers, and people have always gotten famous. People have
Speaker 2: always in part gotten famous from dropping good one liners.
Speaker 2: Most of Regency era British culture that comes down to
Speaker 2: us is, at least a huge amount of it is
Speaker 2: in the form of one liners and quips from people
Speaker 2: like Tom and Bo, who are more famous for like
Speaker 2: Tom writes plays and stuff, but he's mostly famous for
Speaker 2: like these little put downs and jokes, these epigrams, than
Speaker 2: any play or novel. Right. Tom is said to have
Speaker 2: originated this bit when his father demanded he'd take a wife.
Speaker 2: He responded, yes, sir, but who's And then his dad
Speaker 2: is like, little motherfucker, I'm not joking around. If you
Speaker 2: don't Mary, I'm gonna cut you off with only a
Speaker 2: penny to your name. And Tom's response was, can I
Speaker 2: have the penny now?
Speaker 3: Then?
Speaker 2: Right, He's that kind of a wit right, Yeah, these
Speaker 2: are these are the bits.
Speaker 4: No wonder you was sleeping with people's wives exact, of course, he.
Speaker 2: Is right, And this is there's no difference between this
Speaker 2: and dunking on dudes on Twitter, right, Like it is
Speaker 2: the same thing, right. The ancient rome they're doing this too,
Speaker 2: a lot of like Roman graffiti is like dunks. It's
Speaker 2: little and in fact, the these British guys, all of
Speaker 2: them in school, are studying the way Romans and Greeks
Speaker 2: used to dunk on each other in order to like
Speaker 2: and that's like the core of a lot of like
Speaker 2: the culture of humor in this time.
Speaker 3: We should teach that course before people get like podcaster mics, like,
Speaker 3: it should be a required course before you get.
Speaker 4: Yes, exactly, take a class.
Speaker 2: Yeah, take take a Yeah, take a good class in
Speaker 2: dunking people back then. You have to understand being a
Speaker 2: poster isn't new. We've always had posters. The ancient Romans
Speaker 2: were some of the best posters who ever lived. They
Speaker 2: would understand the Internet in the second you know. Now,
Speaker 2: the ancient Greeks, Yeah, they were posters too. A lot
Speaker 2: of posters. Most people in history were posters. That's the
Speaker 2: great lesson of Humankind.
Speaker 3: I think the Greeks would have had like a substack.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, oh my god.
Speaker 3: Aristotle would have loved Aristotle would have loved substacks like Jesus.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Aristotle was, Yeah, he would. He would have had
Speaker 2: like he would have been one of those things too
Speaker 2: where you would have gotten like ten pages in and
Speaker 2: then they would it would have had like the to
Speaker 2: read the rest of the you got to subscribe to
Speaker 2: Aristotle substack. Yeah, right, and no one would have so
Speaker 2: we just would have had like a bunch of half articles,
Speaker 2: which is kind of what we have with Aristotle now.
Speaker 2: So these little bits, stories about people giving these little
Speaker 2: bits about these japes made at parties would spread person
Speaker 2: to person through letters, through like human gossip, and through
Speaker 2: newspapers and magazines which reported on a lot of like
Speaker 2: the social gossip between the big figures of the day.
Speaker 2: Novels were another major place where this kind of culture spread.
Speaker 2: Jane Austen is a big part of this, right, So
Speaker 2: Bo grows up idolizing Tom Sheridan, and specifically idolizing the
Speaker 2: fact that he earns a lot of respect because he's
Speaker 2: funny and kind of a dick. He's going to learn
Speaker 2: from Tom that like, that's sort of how you make
Speaker 2: a place in yourself in societies. You learn how to
Speaker 2: put people down in a way that's so funny, they
Speaker 2: don't really get angry at you. You know, that's the
Speaker 2: kind of the key to social success in his culture.
Speaker 2: In seventeen eighty six, his dad sends him away to Eton,
Speaker 2: the most famous and prestigious boarding school on the island.
Speaker 2: This is the school of the Prince and you know,
Speaker 2: the future king, the Prince of Wales now attends. And
Speaker 2: it's not Eton Is. It's still around today, and it
Speaker 2: is a school today at this point in time. It's
Speaker 2: not a school in the way modern people mean when
Speaker 2: they talk about a school. You don't go to Eton
Speaker 2: to learn a trade or a vocation. You don't go
Speaker 2: there because like, well, I'd like to be an English major,
Speaker 2: or I would like to be, you know, be an
Speaker 2: engine or whatever. You go there. You do go there
Speaker 2: to prepare for your job. But as I talked about, earlier,
Speaker 2: jobs for people in this social class at the top
Speaker 2: of the ladder in the British Empire are given out
Speaker 2: by aristocrats to like the people they trust the most.
Speaker 2: And so the way that you prepare to start your
Speaker 2: future career and do get a job. Is not learning
Speaker 2: how to do things. It's learning how to be good company. Right.
Speaker 2: It's learning how to fit in at the parties. Right,
Speaker 2: that will eventually secure you a gig. So Eternians they
Speaker 2: learn Greek, they read the classics, they study philosophy. But
Speaker 2: the purpose of most of this is so that they
Speaker 2: can like share references. And you should think about this
Speaker 2: not as today if somebody's dropping references to like Homer
Speaker 2: or Virgil and like conversation like, oh, you want people
Speaker 2: to know you're smart. Right in this era, it's more
Speaker 2: like how if you're hanging out with like a bunch
Speaker 2: of thirty something comedians, everybody's like quoting old bits from
Speaker 2: the Simpsons, right, it helps you fit Yeah, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Why Charles was so many Yeah because King Charles didn't
Speaker 1: go there, right, and he was real mad about it
Speaker 1: and definitely sent his sons there. But yeah, that makes
Speaker 1: a lot of sense.
Speaker 2: I think we lose a lot when we see these
Speaker 2: classical educations learning Latin, learning Greek and all this stuff
Speaker 2: as like well, because they were much smarter than us
Speaker 2: as opposed to like this was kind of the meme
Speaker 2: culture of the day, being able to throw a good
Speaker 2: Plato quote in when somebody said something or make a
Speaker 2: good reference to him. That was how people. That was
Speaker 2: how like you communicated.
Speaker 3: You know, yeah, it's like footboy finishing school. But like, yeah,
Speaker 3: because they did it.
Speaker 2: In Latin, it seems fancier to us, but it's not
Speaker 2: really any different from the way like the Internet of
Speaker 2: cultures us all to communicate now. Right. In its early days,
Speaker 2: back in the fifteen hundreds, education at Eton had been
Speaker 2: largely religious, but as Britain had sucked in the world's wealth,
Speaker 2: more and more of the focus had turned towards cultivating
Speaker 2: a social class who would wield obscure knowledge to separate
Speaker 2: themselves from commoners and gain a common identity right that
Speaker 2: was kind of existed in exclusion to the rest of
Speaker 2: the country and the rest of the world. The people
Speaker 2: who did not have that education would almost speak a
Speaker 2: different language. At the end of the eighteenth century, the
Speaker 2: specific style of speaking that was taught in Eton was
Speaker 2: based on classic Greek and Roman epigrammatists. An epigram is
Speaker 2: an it's a bit, right, That's what we would call
Speaker 2: a bit. It's a couple of good lines, usually satiric
Speaker 2: that often played the role of like a rap battle. Right,
Speaker 2: this is how a lot of like old time Greek
Speaker 2: and Roman thinkers would like talk shit on each other
Speaker 2: in epigrams.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: It's also how ancient Greek and Roman graffiti took, Like,
Speaker 2: that's the form it took. One surviving epigram from POMPEII
Speaker 2: reads and this is like, this is graffiti on a
Speaker 2: wall in POMPEII. I'm astonished Wall that you haven't collapsed
Speaker 2: into ruins, since you're holding up the weary verse of
Speaker 2: so many poets, right, Like, I'm surprised that you haven't
Speaker 2: collapsed into the weight of everybody trying to seem smart
Speaker 2: by like throwing out a good one liner. You know, some.
Speaker 1: Tailor swift ash shit right there, Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, right exactly, department ass wall.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is kind of like that somebody bitching about everybody, yeah,
Speaker 2: trying to put on airs seems smarter than they are.
Speaker 2: So it's here that George Brumble is educated in the
Speaker 2: art of observing the world and then boiling his thoughts
Speaker 2: into a single razor sharp line. He develops a reputation
Speaker 2: for cutting mockery and also for being the funniest kid
Speaker 2: in school. Right, he is like the guy, he's the
Speaker 2: cut up, he's the he's a charming joker. Now, and
Speaker 2: that's your Another major focus of eating culture are the uniforms.
Speaker 2: Boys are expected to own a dozen shirts and cravats,
Speaker 2: plus numerous pairs of pants, waistcoats, breeches, hats, and stockings
Speaker 2: for different occasions. And knowing what to wear and win
Speaker 2: is part of what is big part of what you're
Speaker 2: learning there, because that's part of what separates you from
Speaker 2: the masses who have whatever set of clothes they have, right,
Speaker 2: and maybe a Sunday set of clothes and generally look
Speaker 2: like shit. Right, Yeah, you have the wealth to have
Speaker 2: clothing and care about how you look. Forcing boys who
Speaker 2: are generally twelve or thirteen, that's when you start at
Speaker 2: Eaton to fit into this social class is not a
Speaker 2: peaceful process. You don't just do it by teaching them
Speaker 2: Greek and making them dress up. You do it by
Speaker 2: beating the shit out of them. Right. That is a
Speaker 2: major part of a culturating young men here. And I'm
Speaker 2: going to quote in from an article by Austin Jensen
Speaker 2: for reaches of discipline, a boy would be flogged Eaton
Speaker 2: specifically used to be renowned for its use of corporal punishment,
Speaker 2: generally known as beating. Friday was set aside as flogging
Speaker 2: Day until nineteen sixty four. Offending boys could be summoned
Speaker 2: to the head master or lower master as appropriate to
Speaker 2: receive a birching on the bear posterior in a semi
Speaker 2: public ceremony held in the library. So like every you
Speaker 2: all go to get the shit beat out of you
Speaker 2: and watch, like everybody's gotta watch is your bare askets
Speaker 2: paddled in front of the school.
Speaker 4: And they wonder why these are not well to people?
Speaker 2: Like, yeah, why all of them grow up? I mean,
Speaker 2: I'm sure it's part of why guys like Bo's grandpa
Speaker 2: are able to make a good living as a pimp,
Speaker 2: right because there's probably a lot of money for early
Speaker 2: dominatrixes in this culture, right.
Speaker 3: Right, Because you've got to develop a complex where it's
Speaker 3: like everything about you is like latched onto like this
Speaker 3: weird social like sado masochist thing. But you got to
Speaker 3: be smart while you did it by like doing a
Speaker 3: whiff after like yeah your ass beat.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you gotta be able to make a good's there's
Speaker 2: a great movie called If That's set. It's actually the
Speaker 2: first Malcolm McDowell movie, like it's his first starring role.
Speaker 2: But it's set in the mid century twentieth century at
Speaker 2: one of these boarding schools, and there's still about this
Speaker 2: brutal into the late twentieth century. But like, one of
Speaker 2: the things that covers is the way in which it's
Speaker 2: almost ritualized and sexualized, this physical violence that all of
Speaker 2: the boys have to endure, and it's a pretty vicious system.
Speaker 2: You know, the prefects where the older boys do a
Speaker 2: lot of the actual beatings. It was called a tunding,
Speaker 2: which was beating a disobedient student across the back of
Speaker 2: his waistcoat with a ground ash the width of a finger,
Speaker 2: so it's like a finger with ash stick. Ash is
Speaker 2: very hard wood, and the art of it is to
Speaker 2: catch the edge of a shoulder blade to hit someone
Speaker 2: in the back and catch them or like hit them
Speaker 2: over the shoulder and catch them in the back and
Speaker 2: hit the same spot every time, right, And your kind
Speaker 2: of the goal is to cut their vest their waistcoat
Speaker 2: into strips by whipping them over time, because then they
Speaker 2: have to pay to replace it too. Not only are
Speaker 2: you driving up welts on their back, but they have
Speaker 2: to replace their clothes.
Speaker 4: God, the British are not a well people. I hate
Speaker 4: that they colonize my all of my groups.
Speaker 3: It's like, yeah, you're whipping each other's clothes off, and
Speaker 3: then you also had time to enslave so many people
Speaker 3: like pick a Han get.
Speaker 4: Go to therapy.
Speaker 2: Anytime you read about like that's probably why they did it.
Speaker 4: They were like it, this is.
Speaker 2: Our our therapy is doing a couple of genocides, right, like, yeah,
Speaker 2: that's how we're going to starve thirty million people in
Speaker 2: Bengal and that's that's really is good for the soul.
Speaker 2: It is interesting every time you read about like, oh,
Speaker 2: the British encounter this barbarous pat practice in Kenya, or
Speaker 2: this this horrible practice in India, and like every culture
Speaker 2: has things that they do and have done that are
Speaker 2: not certainly we don't consider to be moral in a
Speaker 2: modern sense that we're really ugly. But they act as
Speaker 2: if like you guys are whipping each other bloody and
Speaker 2: you've ritualized it, and like some chunk of the boys
Speaker 2: are always sexually molesting each other, because like that is
Speaker 2: partly how the system is built is to like enable
Speaker 2: these like systems of sexual abuse because you have younger
Speaker 2: boys are paired. It's called the fag fag master system.
Speaker 2: That is where the slur comes from. And a fag
Speaker 2: is a younger boy who is paired with an older
Speaker 2: boy and he's basically that boy servant and the older
Speaker 2: boy can in addition to whip him basically is supposed
Speaker 2: to control him. And it's not always sexual, but a
Speaker 2: lot of these relationships are sexual, and they're deeply abusive.
Speaker 2: And this is like part of the culture of going
Speaker 2: to a private school is you are probably going to
Speaker 2: get molested. That's a very especially in this period of
Speaker 2: very high odds, right, Like these are barbarous.
Speaker 3: Especially when they're like right, especially when they're like fetishizing
Speaker 3: the Greeks that were like very much oh in that
Speaker 3: mentality of you you you rear a young boy for
Speaker 3: that same kind of like molestation, but also like you're
Speaker 3: supposed to be giving them access to your mind and
Speaker 3: I'm supposed to elevate them through that whole process.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so it's you're going part of what you're
Speaker 2: doing is you're mixing in the head the things that
Speaker 2: the kid's gonna grow up to be proud of my education,
Speaker 2: my professional competence, And you're also chaining that to the
Speaker 2: abuse that they endure at the hands of adults, which
Speaker 2: is I mean, it profoundly damages the Greeks, it profoundly
Speaker 2: damages the Brits. You know, we are still dealing with
Speaker 2: some of the consequences of this to this day. One
Speaker 2: thing that is interesting about this system is that in
Speaker 2: this school I said, at Eton, the Prince of Wales
Speaker 2: goes here. Most of the high aristocracy go to Eton.
Speaker 2: They are not immune to being punished. They're not immune
Speaker 2: to being punished by people who are lower than them
Speaker 2: on the social hierarchy. They get. The Prince of Wales
Speaker 2: and the Duke of York, who go to the school
Speaker 2: a little before George does, are noted by their sisters
Speaker 2: having been flogged like dogs for misbehavior. So there's also
Speaker 2: an element of like trauma bonding for the entire upper
Speaker 2: class in that they have this common experience that's very important.
Speaker 2: Now George, he he goes through this system, he is
Speaker 2: noted as being very well liked. He is not somebody
Speaker 2: who ever, is noted as having flogged anyone else and
Speaker 2: he seems to have almost entirely escaped being physically abused
Speaker 2: himself in a way that is so unique. It was
Speaker 2: remarked upon by his peers at the time like somehow
Speaker 2: he always got out of it and nobody else did, right,
Speaker 2: And part of how he got out of the bullshit
Speaker 2: is like everyone really liked him. We have numerous reports
Speaker 2: in his classmates of like he was the cool kid
Speaker 2: in school. He was the kid you wanted to be,
Speaker 2: and nobody, even like the upper classmen, the school teachers
Speaker 2: just didn't seem to want to fuck with him much
Speaker 2: because he was so funny. He was so like you
Speaker 2: wanted him to like you and think you were cool.
Speaker 4: Right, do we have.
Speaker 1: Any information like like what books was he reading? Like
Speaker 1: where is he getting his coolness from? Like why is
Speaker 1: he so fucking cool he's reading at Riz?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's kind of just natural, Riz. You know, he
Speaker 2: paid attention to Tom growing up. He pays attention to
Speaker 2: like how you craft a joke. He does really well
Speaker 2: in school, so he's good on his Greek and his
Speaker 2: lad and he's good at his history. He's not the best.
Speaker 2: He avoids doing too well because he doesn't want to,
Speaker 2: like then people to like you if you do too well.
Speaker 2: But he's like good enough to be noted as a
Speaker 2: good student, not so good that people are like fuck
Speaker 2: with him for it, right, he has this. He's one
Speaker 2: of these people who seems to be born with an
Speaker 2: innate sense of social navigation. He always knows how to
Speaker 2: be most maximally appealing in any situation without crossing any
Speaker 2: kind of lines that like make you tiring to people. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's riz, you know, he's just yeah, he's got yeah.
Speaker 4: He's got it.
Speaker 3: Everything you said about him reminds me of what people
Speaker 3: said about Truman Capoti, about how like even when he
Speaker 3: was very like toxic, but he was so funny, so charming,
Speaker 3: new stuff about everybody that he always would have, for
Speaker 3: the most part, a circle of people around him because
Speaker 3: he was just so ingrat it even kind reminds me
Speaker 3: of Shakespeare, with the idea of like this person who's
Speaker 3: like not of the right class to some people, but
Speaker 3: still like very charismatic, knows enough stuff that like it
Speaker 3: doesn't matter enough.
Speaker 2: Yeah it doesn't matter, And he seems to be he
Speaker 2: seems to be so confident and he seems to know
Speaker 2: what he wants so well that you kind of line
Speaker 2: up behind him, because most people, even if you're at
Speaker 2: the top of the class, even if you're the fucking
Speaker 2: Prince of Wales, inside you're a ball of insecurity. And
Speaker 2: I actually think Bo was as well. I think everyone is,
Speaker 2: but he seemed to have a sense of direction for
Speaker 2: himself that kind of makes everyone feel like you want
Speaker 2: to just follow. You want him to like you, because
Speaker 2: then you feel like maybe you know where you're going to.
Speaker 2: He's that kind of a person, right, He's a natural leader.
Speaker 2: I also think of Tom Cruise when I see this,
Speaker 2: not that Tom doesn't have his weird side, but like
Speaker 2: if you notice how people will point this out. You
Speaker 2: can look at like long shots of Tom when he's
Speaker 2: like they're not actively filming, but like he's on set
Speaker 2: and you'll see him like walking and he's like one
Speaker 2: hundred yards back from the camera, but his face he
Speaker 2: always instinctively is always turned in such a way that
Speaker 2: it's ideally framed in the camera. He just has he
Speaker 2: always knows in his brain how he's being looked at
Speaker 2: and how to present himself in this part of what
Speaker 2: makes him Tom Cruise, Bo's got that right. It's almost
Speaker 2: a supernatural sense for that sort of thing. And you
Speaker 2: know what else is supernatural the quality of our sponsors.
Speaker 2: You'll see. God, we're back and we're talking about Bo.
Speaker 2: So I've talked about you know, the system that he's
Speaker 2: in where you've got he. You know, all the younger
Speaker 2: kids in Eton are the job title. They have his fags,
Speaker 2: and then you have your older boy who's your master,
Speaker 2: who is supposed to run you. We have a quote
Speaker 2: from the guy who is that for Bo, and this
Speaker 2: is what he said about Bo. While they were in
Speaker 2: school together, no one at the school was so full
Speaker 2: of animation, fun and wit. He was a general favorite.
Speaker 2: Our dame, his tutor, and my tutor and doctor goodall
Speaker 2: all petted him. You asked me whether he was pugnacious.
Speaker 2: I do not remember that he ever fought or quarreled
Speaker 2: with anyone. Indeed, it was impossible for anyone to be
Speaker 2: more good natured than he was. And again, like everyone
Speaker 2: fights at this school, everybody gets into scraps except for Bo.
Speaker 2: Nobody even wants to fight him. He's just that kind
Speaker 2: of naturally charming. And that's what I see in that
Speaker 2: is that like this is a defense mechanism. He is
Speaker 2: someone who knows and we get from the women who
Speaker 2: know him at the time. He doesn't like a lot
Speaker 2: of aspects of how brutal this system is, like nobody
Speaker 2: really does. And he knows that the way to protect
Speaker 2: himself is by being defensively likable. Right. So yeah, now
Speaker 2: Eton is not a placid place. Boys are given a
Speaker 2: lot more freedom than we give adolescence today. Of the
Speaker 2: other things you learn at Eaton is how to drink,
Speaker 2: which you start learning as a young man in the
Speaker 2: British aristocracy at thirteen or fourteen. So these boys outside
Speaker 2: of school, there's a town nearby that has a couple
Speaker 2: of bars that cater specifically to eat and boys. And
Speaker 2: part of what you're learning is how to drink like
Speaker 2: a man, right, Like you are getting wasted as a
Speaker 2: little kid, because that you need to be able to
Speaker 2: drink like a son of a bitch in order to
Speaker 2: in order to exist in high society.
Speaker 3: Right, How can you die of a liver problem if
Speaker 3: you don't start drinking, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you don't really get a handle
Speaker 2: on this soon, you might live past forty and we
Speaker 2: don't want that. Nobody wants to live you. You've got
Speaker 2: to get some tuberculosis, guys, you.
Speaker 4: Know, come on right, amateur hour, Yeah right.
Speaker 2: Like what if you wind up not being sauced your
Speaker 2: entire adult life, that would be a real loss. So
Speaker 2: these kids are rich little shits. They wind up in
Speaker 2: fights with local boys a lot because they can't even
Speaker 2: communicate with these boys. They are raised speaking effectively different languages,
Speaker 2: and often literally different languages, because they communicate a lot
Speaker 2: in Latin among each other, right in French and Greek.
Speaker 2: This passage from a biography on Beau Brummel by Ian
Speaker 2: Kelly describes one instance of young bo confronting the violence
Speaker 2: that resulted from this situation, this kind of discrepancy between
Speaker 2: the local common kids and the eton boys. A boatman
Speaker 2: who had found himself in some altercation with the schoolboys
Speaker 2: was on the point of being thrown over the bridge
Speaker 2: into the low waters of the Thames by a mob
Speaker 2: of over one hundred Etonians. Buck Brummel, perhaps fourteen at
Speaker 2: the time, caught the attention and laughter of the Etonian
Speaker 2: and cad hooligans alike by shouting, my dear fellows, don't
Speaker 2: send him into the river. That man is obviously in
Speaker 2: a state of perspiration, and it almost amounts to a
Speaker 2: certainty that he will catch cold. Brummell was rewarded with guffaws,
Speaker 2: perhaps some amusement in the face of such paradoxical whimsy,
Speaker 2: typical of his later style, and the Boatman was released.
Speaker 2: So he comes upon a crowd his his schoolboys. They
Speaker 2: run around in big groups because they will get picked
Speaker 2: on by the locals otherwise. They start a fight with
Speaker 2: this random work king class guy, and they're about to
Speaker 2: throw him into the fucking river. And Bo comes up
Speaker 2: and he makes fun of the guy. He's like, look
Speaker 2: at how sweaty he is, Like you don't want it,
Speaker 2: Like he's already wet enough, you don't even to throw
Speaker 2: him into the river. But he makes fun of this
Speaker 2: guy to disarm the situation and stop him from being
Speaker 2: further abused, which I think speaks to an aspect of
Speaker 2: his character that's actually like complex and positive. Yeah, cool guy.
Speaker 2: So it was learning this that made me think Bo
Speaker 2: was a more complicated figure than the first articles I
Speaker 2: read made him out to be. To quote again from
Speaker 2: that x that Esquire article attacking him, he made an
Speaker 2: habitual performance of rye cruelty, lifting himself up by putting
Speaker 2: other people down, and a lot of people even to
Speaker 2: this day think that kind of thing is funny. And
Speaker 2: I think the difference is, I think what Alexander's doing there,
Speaker 2: She's looking at a lot of Internet put down culture,
Speaker 2: which is deeply cruel and is focused around singling people out,
Speaker 2: often making uncharitable conclusions or often uncharitable interpretations of their
Speaker 2: words to to get in a quick dunk for social
Speaker 2: media engagement. That's a huge most of social media today,
Speaker 2: and it's really ugly. It's very abusive. It's part of
Speaker 2: why harassment is such a problem online. And I kind
Speaker 2: of see a lot of what Bose doing is kind
Speaker 2: of the opposite and part of how you can get
Speaker 2: that some of these are put downs. He says mean
Speaker 2: things to people, they usually still like him, and the
Speaker 2: mean things are often to diffuse tense social situations with humor,
Speaker 2: right by taking the piss out of people as opposed
Speaker 2: to trying to like. I think he does bet he
Speaker 2: can be a dick to It's not the only thing
Speaker 2: he does. But we get examples of him that come
Speaker 2: down to us from three hundred years ago of him
Speaker 2: stopping fights bye bye by this kind of thing, by
Speaker 2: like you know, making a good joke at the right time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm going to use my history minor cap on
Speaker 3: and say, like, he probably I don't know, I don't
Speaker 3: know who this guy is, but I'm guessing he probably
Speaker 3: pissed off somebody that was high enough that they were
Speaker 3: able to sort of like reframe a narrative.
Speaker 4: Because right now he sounds great.
Speaker 3: I would love a blunt rotation with him that sounds
Speaker 3: like I think he'd be really cool. But I definitely
Speaker 3: think that like there's gonna be a mixture of a
Speaker 3: class issue because people keep talking about him in these
Speaker 3: articles that you're referencing as if he's like a Kardashian almost,
Speaker 3: as if like, yeah, where does he think he's coming
Speaker 3: from with his fat ass, you know, like trying to
Speaker 3: take up space in our society. So I can't to
Speaker 3: see who he pisses off because I know I know
Speaker 3: it's coming.
Speaker 2: We are building to that, because that is his fall.
Speaker 2: His fall is he like he talks shit about the
Speaker 2: wrong guy and that does like destroy his entire life eventually, right,
Speaker 2: and I'll do it, and the guy he talks about
Speaker 2: deserves it. You know, it's not fair on his part
Speaker 2: that he gets fucked for that. But yeah, I think
Speaker 2: you have to look at his put downs, the fact
Speaker 2: that this is the primary way that he communicates with
Speaker 2: the world. But within the context of this is how
Speaker 2: his social class communicates with each other. Having a sharp
Speaker 2: tongue is the key to popularity and the key of
Speaker 2: protecting yourself. And it's a lot that his old master
Speaker 2: describes him as like nobody wanted to fight with this guy,
Speaker 2: which means all of the jokes he's making, none of
Speaker 2: them like culminate and someone demanding an honor duel with him, right,
Speaker 2: Like they don't. They're good natured, exactly exactly. So yeah,
Speaker 2: I think that's what we see with bo Is. He
Speaker 2: he enters, he's entering, and he's aware that he's entering
Speaker 2: a culture dominated by the cruel, wealthy fail sons of
Speaker 2: his era, who are on the lookout for any signs
Speaker 2: of difference that they can attack and the people around them.
Speaker 2: And he makes himself their idol in the most popular
Speaker 2: boy at the school, as a method of self defense,
Speaker 2: because that's the only way to get by in this world, right,
Speaker 2: And I kind of see him in that as a
Speaker 2: little bit of a rebel right, and it's from a
Speaker 2: desire to rebel at Eton that the foundations of what
Speaker 2: would become the modern suit are going to present themselves
Speaker 2: to bow for the first time. Every year, Eaton Boys
Speaker 2: engaged in a festival called Montam. Montam is a mix
Speaker 2: of like how we see Halloween today and like a
Speaker 2: child riot, like it was a controlled riot of rich kids,
Speaker 2: kind of mixed with Halloween all of the Eton boys
Speaker 2: of course, yeah right, yeah.
Speaker 4: Of course, a fun, little rich boy riot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah. The kids need their little their little riot,
Speaker 2: you know, we gotta let them beat up the commoners,
Speaker 2: which is a lot of what happens during Montum. The
Speaker 2: boys will elect captains, and the captains and the kids,
Speaker 2: the upper classmen who get elected to positions. Almost it's
Speaker 2: like a homecoming thing. They dress in these insanely elaborate,
Speaker 2: expensive uniforms, and the younger boys dress in these quasi
Speaker 2: military uniforms, and they they form up in gangs on
Speaker 2: like the bridges, and they will rob common people trying
Speaker 2: to cross the road basically, and it's yeah, hoodlams. It's
Speaker 2: kind of it's ritualized, so like they're not like they
Speaker 2: usually are not taking your actual stuff. You know what
Speaker 2: Montum you want to have like some treats and stuff
Speaker 2: for the boys who are like going to be pretending
Speaker 2: to be brigands, Like, right, give them some beer. You know.
Speaker 3: That's how they're getting the trigger treat It's like it's
Speaker 3: like we'll fight you or give us your.
Speaker 2: Food, right, And usually it's like a friendly Yeah, the
Speaker 2: kids are out tonight, they're doing their Montum thing, We'll
Speaker 2: give them some treats. Sometimes people fuck up, or the
Speaker 2: kids are drunk and so they start shit, or sometimes
Speaker 2: the locals are drunk and they start so things can
Speaker 2: get very violent. Sometimes Montum turns into something that is
Speaker 2: like a really ugly riot, but it is supposed to
Speaker 2: be this like ritualized sort of blowing off of steam thing.
Speaker 2: And like every other aspect of eating, Montum has a
Speaker 2: rigorously enforced class system. So the higher up you get,
Speaker 2: the more insane your costume, which fits in, you know,
Speaker 2: the costumes that montum fit in with the fancy dress
Speaker 2: of the day, which emphasizes men are wearing these powdered
Speaker 2: wigs that we're all familiar with from like Revolutionary War
Speaker 2: era media, right, and they wear these incredible multipiece outfits
Speaker 2: that would be considered like a bit much at the
Speaker 2: met Gala today, and you give a little more detail
Speaker 2: about this. I want to quote from an article I
Speaker 2: found published by the Jane Austin Society, written by Jeffrey
Speaker 2: Nigro and William Phillips. By seventeen seventy five, Yeah, this
Speaker 2: is good. We got a fun picture coming up for you.
Speaker 2: By seventeen seventy five, it was still acceptable for men
Speaker 2: to wear silk, satin, or velvet in bright or pastel colors,
Speaker 2: with lace, cravats and cuffs, powdered hair, and perfume. The
Speaker 2: most extreme fashion victims of the moment were the Macaronis.
Speaker 2: These Foppish men supposedly derived their fame from the Macaroni Club,
Speaker 2: an organization of fashionable young Englishman who had returned from
Speaker 2: the Grand Tour with a love for continental fashions, culture,
Speaker 2: and cuisine. The Macaroni style was an extreme form of appearance,
Speaker 2: exaggerated in costumes, cosmetics, and hair styles. And these people,
Speaker 2: I'm going to show you. Sovie's going to pull up
Speaker 2: a picture to look at how this is a This
Speaker 2: is a macaroni, like a man dressed in this style,
Speaker 2: and it's like.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, he has the dune worm on his
Speaker 3: fucking headdog, what's you talking about?
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: He's got like Marge Simpson hair. I would describe the
Speaker 2: look on his face is like what if there was
Speaker 2: a pedophile for pedophiles, Like it is a creepy smile.
Speaker 2: He's got like a joker smile. It's exacerbated by his
Speaker 2: insane makeup.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, they should be thanking this man like
Speaker 3: it looks like he's his hair sounds about to ejaculate,
Speaker 3: Like I really, it's gaping at me.
Speaker 4: It's really, it's very so gross. I love it, but
Speaker 4: I'm glad it's gone.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I'm glad it died out. I'm glad it
Speaker 2: existed when we can look at this picture now and
Speaker 2: you can see how elaborate and heavy that dress is, right,
Speaker 2: and this is not that hair piece is not a
Speaker 2: normal day to day where for someone that is masquerade
Speaker 2: where that I just showed you, but it shows you,
Speaker 2: like the during festivals, how outrageous the costumes were, and
Speaker 2: the normal social costumes are less insane, but there's still
Speaker 2: really elaborate. There's a lot of gold and gilding and
Speaker 2: silver on them, a lot of jewelry, a lot of makeup,
Speaker 2: a lot of powder, and the hair pieces people wore
Speaker 2: at the time are not light or comfortable. Outfits like this,
Speaker 2: which are in outfits that are more elaborate than this,
Speaker 2: are common among upper classmen during montam but one group
Speaker 2: of boys who make up the majority of the Mountum crowd,
Speaker 2: the younger boys, are pullmen, and they wear a simpler
Speaker 2: outfit because they're kind of the grunts the soldiers of
Speaker 2: the older boys who are wearing these elaborate outfits, and
Speaker 2: they wear dark blue jackets with two rows of buttons
Speaker 2: and pale, tight writing breeches. George comes to prefer this
Speaker 2: outfit as a matter of daily wear as opposed to
Speaker 2: the more elaborate, fancy dress of the time, and when
Speaker 2: he goes gets out of Eton, he continues to dress
Speaker 2: like a pullman, like this is like a costume, but
Speaker 2: it's one that he really digs and he just starts
Speaker 2: wearing it every day. And it's important to note this outfit,
Speaker 2: what he is wearing, the pullman's outfit that becomes he
Speaker 2: is going to eventually kind of streamline this into the
Speaker 2: precursor of the modern suit. This is a quasi Milliet
Speaker 2: Tarry outfit. It is made in part and imitation of
Speaker 2: some of the military outfits of the day. It's also
Speaker 2: ath leisure, right, most popular dress clothing is very restrictive,
Speaker 2: but because of the weight and the materials used to
Speaker 2: make it. The outfits George favored take after the jackets
Speaker 2: and stuff to and the waistcoats take after military uniforms.
Speaker 2: So you have to be able to move into some extent.
Speaker 2: And the breeches are writing pants. They're not quite modern trousers,
Speaker 2: but you're meant to be able to move in them. Right.
Speaker 3: So well, you're telling me is that not only was
Speaker 3: he the precursor of the suit and tie, he was
Speaker 3: a precursor of wearing leggings as pants.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, these are literally legs. These are so tight.
Speaker 2: One of the jokes will let you day make is
Speaker 2: that once breeches start being like common and the more
Speaker 2: common fashionble pants, one of the jokes men where women
Speaker 2: will make is that, like, oh, these are great. You
Speaker 2: can always tell what your man is thinking, right because
Speaker 2: you can you can see his dick through the fucking
Speaker 2: it's so tight, right, Like, because these are skin tight pants,
Speaker 2: you're almost poured into them. As a man. These are
Speaker 2: yoga pants. Yeah, and older people will attack this outfit
Speaker 2: for the same reason that they attack yoga pants. Where
Speaker 2: was like, it's obscene. The kids are dressing this way.
Speaker 2: He's tight, braches failthy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're just cutting off the circulation.
Speaker 4: They're going to end the bloodline.
Speaker 2: Right, right, right, So influenced by the central role of
Speaker 2: fashion that Eton, by the time George Brummel left the school,
Speaker 2: he had developed a reputation for fastidiousness.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: He is noted to be almost obsessively like focused on
Speaker 2: his personal hygiene and the fit of his clothes. He's
Speaker 2: already spending a significant time every day getting ready to dress.
Speaker 2: He's always focused on how he looks. And he might
Speaker 2: have had what we would describe as like dysmorphia or
Speaker 2: even you know, some sort of It's impossible to know,
Speaker 2: but I'm gonna read you a quote from Ian Kelly's biography.
Speaker 2: It may speak partly of an uncomfortable relationship with his body.
Speaker 2: This may be attributed to his position in the male
Speaker 2: gaze at Eton, a supremely homosexual environment, and may also
Speaker 2: be related to growing up in a highly sexualized society
Speaker 2: that it was at the same time, violently and empathetic
Speaker 2: to the direct outlet of adolescent male energy. Right, everyone
Speaker 2: is a lot. There's a lot of these boys are
Speaker 2: fucking each other. Right. There's not a small amount of
Speaker 2: older men, particularly at the school, who are also abusing boys.
Speaker 2: And everyone's dressing, it's very common. A lot of these
Speaker 2: dresses are especially like the outfits that he prefers. These
Speaker 2: tight leggings are extremely revealing. And he's always conscious of
Speaker 2: how he looks because he's always conscious that he's being sexualized, right,
Speaker 2: and that influences him a lot. And the evidence that
Speaker 2: he suggests that we have, I think suggests that the
Speaker 2: fact that he adopts this outfit for himself and he's
Speaker 2: going to make everyone else adopt it as a result
Speaker 2: of how much they want to be like him, because
Speaker 2: he is the cool guy. Everyone wants to be like. Bo.
Speaker 2: I see this suit he starts to create as a
Speaker 2: suit of armor, right, to protect himself from his fellow men. Right,
Speaker 2: And he's so good at this that they come to
Speaker 2: admire him. He is rare, if not singular, in this
Speaker 2: period for being a man of his social class who
Speaker 2: had a lot of close female friends and one of
Speaker 2: the first is Julius Storer. This is his first love.
Speaker 2: He describes it as he follows falls violently in love
Speaker 2: with her when he's like fourteen or fifteen, but he
Speaker 2: ultimately loses out to the guy who wins her. You know,
Speaker 2: in the parlance at the time is they are both
Speaker 2: for Julius fourteen or fifteen. Bo is fourteen or fifteen.
Speaker 2: The guy who uh you know she winds up going
Speaker 2: with is thirty years from colonel. Yeah, yeah, age, Yeah,
Speaker 2: he is a He is a colonel in the army.
Speaker 4: Colonel and yeah, sorry, I was like.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: He is seen as being very handsome of his day,
Speaker 2: although bo will repeatedly note as an adult that he's stank,
Speaker 2: he smelled terrible. Bo is obsessed with his hygi. Bo
Speaker 2: is the at least in this period. Eventually he's going
Speaker 2: to make this this again. People will all follow him
Speaker 2: in this. But he is like the first man of
Speaker 2: his social class to make daily hot baths a part
Speaker 2: of his life, right, kon.
Speaker 4: Honestly, I'm like, we love it, both like to see it.
Speaker 2: He's unique because like he doesn't wear perfume. He refuses
Speaker 2: to because he's like, you only wear perfume if you're
Speaker 2: fucking gross, right like, because because that's why people wear
Speaker 2: perfume in this period of time. I'm not going to
Speaker 2: just take a fucking bath and ed you're clothes washed
Speaker 2: every day, you know. And I think some of that
Speaker 2: is a reaction to this colonel who he thinks is
Speaker 2: nasty and who also who also wins. Again, we are
Speaker 2: talking about a pedophilic relationship. But the way he looks
Speaker 2: at it in the time is this is another man
Speaker 2: who is one, you know, who's beaten him in this contest. Right.
Speaker 2: I'm not saying that because I think that's a good
Speaker 2: way to look at it, but that's how it's looked
Speaker 2: at at the time, and you have to you have
Speaker 2: to know that, right you know. Again, this is a
Speaker 2: thirty year old and a fourteen year old or something.
Speaker 2: Julia and George are both teenagers. The colonel is a creepy.
Speaker 2: He is also married, so this is not his Thirty
Speaker 2: year olds can court fifteen year olds in this period
Speaker 2: and there be a degree of legitimacy to it. This
Speaker 2: is not that kind of case. He is married, He
Speaker 2: is not supposed to be doing this his wife. To
Speaker 2: make this fucking colonel Cotton his wife has postpartum depression,
Speaker 2: and after she has like, I forget I think it's
Speaker 2: that first or second kid. She's like, I'm never going
Speaker 2: to sleep in the same bed with you again because
Speaker 2: I don't want any more kids. This is awful, and
Speaker 2: so he's like, well, I guess I'm going to go
Speaker 2: fuck a child.
Speaker 3: Cool, there you go. I mean, rational decision. It's like,
Speaker 3: what do you want to want me to leave you?
Speaker 3: Would you either not get blown? I don't understand the question.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's fine, I will ruin the life of a
Speaker 2: teenage girl, which he does, so he has extramarital sex
Speaker 2: with a child. This devastates young George, and it's much
Speaker 2: much worse for Julia because she gets pregnant. Now at
Speaker 2: that time, she is in high society woman. She is
Speaker 2: a member of the aristocracy, and being having sex out
Speaker 2: of wedlock with a married man, it means you're worthless
Speaker 2: now you can't get married, and that's all your your
Speaker 2: future social capitals, your ability to get married. She is
Speaker 2: going to become an un person because of this right,
Speaker 2: lacking better options. Thus, she hides her pregnancy in the
Speaker 2: outlandish outfits of the upper class, which it gives you
Speaker 2: an idea of how ridiculous the dresses during this period.
Speaker 2: No one right, right. She is able to hide that
Speaker 2: she's pregnant until her water breaks during an audience with
Speaker 2: the Queen, which is the worst.
Speaker 3: For baby baby dude, what the fuck that is an hop?
Speaker 5: Yeah, So, like her water breaks at like a party
Speaker 5: and it's the queen and all of the Queen's friends
Speaker 5: and this her whole family is almost wiped out as
Speaker 5: like influential members of society.
Speaker 2: Because of the shame from this, her brother challenges Colonel
Speaker 2: Cotton to a duel. Colonel Cotton, by the way, is fine.
Speaker 2: This is not the end of his social life. Of course,
Speaker 2: she gets thrown out of her home, and since she's married,
Speaker 2: she can't go to Colonel Cotton's home, so she winds
Speaker 2: up sneaking into an empty room at the palace because
Speaker 2: there are a lot of empty rooms and she has
Speaker 2: to deliver her own baby at age fifteen.
Speaker 3: She loves no fucking I hate everything now that's kill Cotton.
Speaker 2: George stops talking to her for a while, not because
Speaker 2: of this, because like she breaks up with him, right,
Speaker 2: and he's broken hearted, But we know at the time
Speaker 2: he writes about because he's aware of what happens to her,
Speaker 2: and he thinks it's awful. He's like upset about how
Speaker 2: cool this is, Like this fucking thirty year old molests
Speaker 2: her and now she's an un person that's like like
Speaker 2: fuck my culture, right, Like he's very much angry about this.
Speaker 2: She is going to have four more kids with the
Speaker 2: colonel because basically she winds up living in sin with
Speaker 2: him in a country house. Thankfully, she is rich, She's
Speaker 2: a lot luckier than most women in this situation, and
Speaker 2: that she does have family money, so she doesn't wind
Speaker 2: up desperate. She will eventually become one of the most
Speaker 2: famous courtisans of her era. She becomes a famous and
Speaker 2: successful high end sex worker for the aristocracy and actually
Speaker 2: kind of earns her way to a degree, back into
Speaker 2: high society because if you are a high end courtisan,
Speaker 2: there are certain high society gatherings that you're allowed in,
Speaker 2: and she does eventually. It's part she's a very powerful
Speaker 2: woman in that way. And it's from her memoirs that
Speaker 2: we know some of what we know about George, because
Speaker 2: as adults they become friends and lovers again, and we
Speaker 2: don't know the full details of their relationship. It speaks
Speaker 2: well to bo that like, he does not care that
Speaker 2: she has a love child, which is how he describes it.
Speaker 2: That's the parlance at the times with this soldier. He
Speaker 2: doesn't care that she's disgraced. He thinks the society is wrong.
Speaker 2: And he actually one of the beautiful hints that we
Speaker 2: get about, like what the kind of decency of his
Speaker 2: heart is that he writes a poem for her child,
Speaker 2: for this baby, because he views what happens to this
Speaker 2: baby and his mom as an evil. Right, and again
Speaker 2: he does describe this as a love child. We think
Speaker 2: that's gross. That's how people talked about this at the time, right,
Speaker 2: And here is here is the poem he writes for
Speaker 2: her child, unhappy child of indiscretion, poor slumberer on a breast,
Speaker 2: forlorn pledge in reproof of past transgression. Dear, though unwelcome
Speaker 2: to be born, unless the injurious world upbraid thee for
Speaker 2: mine or for thy mother's ill, a nameless father still
Speaker 2: shall aid thee, a hand unseen protect thee. Still. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: in these sequestered valleys, still thou shalt rest in calm,
Speaker 2: content for innocence, may smile at malice and thou oh,
Speaker 2: thou art innocent, and this is because he helps her out,
Speaker 2: he helps protect her and her kids. As an adult,
Speaker 2: he's like, that's a decent man, aware of the evil
Speaker 2: of his time. And that's actually a pretty good poem too.
Speaker 2: He's a good writer.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's a good man, Savannah. You know, like that's
Speaker 3: all very solid for him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, solid dude for the seventeen eighties, I know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the Hunter Biden of his time, true.
Speaker 2: Excellent, strong hunter vibes. The George Brummel who writes this
Speaker 2: would be at age sixteen, is going to make his
Speaker 2: first decision as an independent adult, which is going to
Speaker 2: be to purchase a commission as an officer in the army,
Speaker 2: specifically in the very regiment where the Colonel Cotton disgraced
Speaker 2: Colonel Cotton had once held his command. Right, He's going
Speaker 2: to choose to not just join the army again. He's
Speaker 2: obsessed with smelling good. This smells bad. He joins the
Speaker 2: same regiment that this guy had once helped to run,
Speaker 2: and it was at this regiment that he's going to
Speaker 2: meet the man who's going to make him into a star.
Speaker 2: The future King and current Prince of Wales, and we're
Speaker 2: going to talk about all that in part two. Princess,
Speaker 2: how are you feeling about h BO so far? Hero
Speaker 2: or a villain?
Speaker 4: I mean, I'm really ruined for the guy. I like rich.
Speaker 3: I feel like he got cut out there by rich
Speaker 3: white people, which who has it? So I really I'm
Speaker 3: waiting for something bad to happen, so I can see
Speaker 3: why they hate him, But I'm.
Speaker 4: Rooted for the guy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, there'll be there's a couple of la He's
Speaker 2: not a perfect man, but so far I see a
Speaker 2: guy who's just tried to do his best in a
Speaker 2: really fucking dog shit society, and who amongst us doesn't
Speaker 2: feel like that? Sometimes?
Speaker 4: So true?
Speaker 3: And also I like the I like the Regency era
Speaker 3: men attire. I like those tight ass breaches.
Speaker 2: So oh yeah, yeah, yeah, our yoga pants entrepreneur. Yeah
Speaker 2: all right, Well, I'm going to go put on some
Speaker 2: yoga pants. I'm actually going to put on much looser pants,
Speaker 2: and we'll be back and well, for you and I
Speaker 2: will be like seven minutes, but for the audience it'll
Speaker 2: be like a day or so.
Speaker 1: Princess, do you have anything you want to plug at
Speaker 1: the end here?
Speaker 3: M h yeah, I just My YouTube channel is Princess Weeks.
Speaker 4: I have fun videos out.
Speaker 3: By the time this comes out, I should have some
Speaker 3: new fun stuff and I'm really excited to learn more
Speaker 3: about bo Uh yeah that's me.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah. Check out Princess and uh well, I'm not
Speaker 2: going to tell you to go buy a suit because
Speaker 2: you know who can't afford to do that. A lot
Speaker 2: of people. Uh but I don't know.
Speaker 4: Get some yoga, get some yoga pants. Thanks.
Speaker 1: Behind the Bastards is a production of cool Zone Media.
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