Speaker 1: Hey guys, this is Dani Schwartz. You probably noticed this
Speaker 1: is not a normal episode of Noble Blood, and that's
Speaker 1: because I was a guest on the podcast Significant Others,
Speaker 1: hosted by the incredibly fun and charming Lizapaoulo O'Brien. We
Speaker 1: just had a blast talking about well significant others in history,
Speaker 1: famous spouses of monarchs and nobles, which has been a
Speaker 1: topic that we've covered on this show, but it was
Speaker 1: just so fun to be able to chat about it
Speaker 1: casually with Lijah. So I really hope you enjoyed this
Speaker 1: conversation as much as I did. And of course your
Speaker 1: regular episode will be coming Tuesday. Welcome back to Significant Others.
Speaker 1: I'm Liza Powell O'Brien, and just because I'm deep in
Speaker 1: research for season two doesn't mean we have to stop
Speaker 1: bringing you stories of interesting plus ones. In the first
Speaker 1: of these bonus episodes, Stacy Schiff and I talked about
Speaker 1: her new book, The Revolutionary, which is all about Samuel
Speaker 1: Adams and his wildly underreported role in the birth of America.
Speaker 1: So check that one out if you haven't already. And
Speaker 1: as royal relationships are very much in the media these days,
Speaker 1: even more than usual, I thought it would be interesting
Speaker 1: to delve a little bit into the idea of a
Speaker 1: royal marriage in general, since there really isn't anything else
Speaker 1: like it, and to talk about a few of the
Speaker 1: more significant examples of what that kind of a marriage
Speaker 1: can look like. So I reached out to the absolute
Speaker 1: Queen no pun intended of such information, historian, author and
Speaker 1: host of the delightful podcast Noble Blood, Dana Schwartz. Dana,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for talking with us today. For
Speaker 1: anyone who's listening who might not already be familiar with
Speaker 1: your podcast, could you tell us a little bit about it? Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: It's a scripted podcast where I research and write UM episodes,
Speaker 1: every episode exploring sort of a lesser known story from
Speaker 1: the lives of royals throughout history. Some are sort of
Speaker 1: lesser known stories or aspects about really famous people like
Speaker 1: Marie Antoinette or Inn Boleyn, but I also try to capture,
Speaker 1: you know, fascinating stories about people that maybe American listeners
Speaker 1: might not have even heard about. Like I just recorded
Speaker 1: an episode about this Portuguese princess named in Nez de Castro,
Speaker 1: queen actually um but sort of her her gruesome and
Speaker 1: tragic death. So yeah, a lot of um perhaps surprising
Speaker 1: amount of of royal stories and in gruesome deaths, but
Speaker 1: that's part of the fun. It's so addictive your podcast,
Speaker 1: I have to really honestly, it's almost problematic because I'll
Speaker 1: start listening to them and then I realized four hours
Speaker 1: have gone by and I've done I've attended to no children,
Speaker 1: I've I've cooked no meals. Um So you have to
Speaker 1: limit your intake the highest phrase um So. In this podcast,
Speaker 1: we focus on intimate relationships. Sometimes parents are friends of
Speaker 1: historical figures, you sually it's a spouse. That's because I've
Speaker 1: always been really personally fascinated by um intense one on relationships,
Speaker 1: especially marriages, And one of the things I find especially
Speaker 1: interesting in marriages is power dynamics and how they differ,
Speaker 1: and when it comes to royal marriages, which is sort
Speaker 1: of falling under your umbrella of expertise, I find that
Speaker 1: to be so specific because there's such an inherent power
Speaker 1: imbalance baked in from the beginning. Absolutely, and I have
Speaker 1: just observed myself that there's a whole range of responses
Speaker 1: that humans throughout history have had to this condition of
Speaker 1: being put in the position of being a royal spouse
Speaker 1: and you know, everything from totally compliant to completely revolutionary,
Speaker 1: and I thought you might be the best person to
Speaker 1: walk us through some of those examples. So I'm just
Speaker 1: wondering if you can what whatever comes to you in
Speaker 1: response to that idea of like, what are the different
Speaker 1: ways that this kind of relationship has played out? Absolutely,
Speaker 1: I think the power dynamic that you're pointing out is
Speaker 1: so important when we're talking about royal marriages. One because traditionally,
Speaker 1: let's say for several hundred years, it would be a
Speaker 1: man in charge of any marriage, you know, any family relationship.
Speaker 1: And then to to give someone the power of you know,
Speaker 1: absolute rule, God's vessel on earth, that power sort of
Speaker 1: takes on an even bigger light. I think when we're
Speaker 1: talking about royal wives, the first thing that pops into
Speaker 1: most people's heads is King Henry the Eighth and his
Speaker 1: six wives, and what a fascinating saga that is because
Speaker 1: of the way he went from woman to woman, and
Speaker 1: I think in the stories these women sort of are
Speaker 1: are unfortunately always sort of seen in response to him.
Speaker 1: And I think it's been a modern movement, like in
Speaker 1: the musical Six to try to reclaim their own agency
Speaker 1: and sort of the narrative potential of them. I mean,
Speaker 1: you think of someone like Henry the Eighth's first wife,
Speaker 1: Catherine of Aragon, who was his loyal wife at his
Speaker 1: side for twenty plus years. I mean, this is a
Speaker 1: woman who was a princess in her own right, the
Speaker 1: the daughter of two of the most important monarchs in Europe,
Speaker 1: the aunt of the Holy Roman Emperor, like the most
Speaker 1: connected and powerful individual a woman can be at this time,
Speaker 1: really right, like she's the Queen of England. Her parents
Speaker 1: are are a king and a queen. Her family is
Speaker 1: massively powerful throughout Europe, her you know, nephew. At a
Speaker 1: certain point, sachs, the Vatican has the Vatican under his control.
Speaker 1: She has all the mechanisms of power. And yet because
Speaker 1: this woman, even though she's been a loyal, loving wife
Speaker 1: for twenty plus years, even though the kingdom loves her,
Speaker 1: you know, she's seen as this pious woman because she
Speaker 1: hasn't provided Henry with a son. He does everything in
Speaker 1: his power to dispose of her. And he he does.
Speaker 1: I mean, even though again, like the stop gaps in
Speaker 1: place to prevent a man just from saying I don't
Speaker 1: want to be married to you anymore at this point
Speaker 1: are I mean, he's the head of the church and
Speaker 1: she's a subject subject but they're Catholic, right, Like, he
Speaker 1: can't divorce. He will literally separate from the Catholic Church,
Speaker 1: become excommunicated, start the Church of England. He will do
Speaker 1: everything in his power to to undermine their marriage, and
Speaker 1: she has she plays all of her cards and it
Speaker 1: doesn't work like that. I think the tragedy of that
Speaker 1: is so emblematic of the way that a man has
Speaker 1: power over his wife in certain ways. But then and
Speaker 1: again not to monologue and ramble because already, like give
Speaker 1: me the popcorn, I'm ready to go. You put a
Speaker 1: microphone in front of me and I start, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, and then you have a situation like Catherine
Speaker 1: the Great who it's this very strange different dynamic where
Speaker 1: Catherine the Great is a German princess from a low
Speaker 1: born family um is sort of brought in to marry
Speaker 1: the heir to the Russian throne because they think she's
Speaker 1: sort of going to be easily controlled. Again, she has
Speaker 1: none of the entrenched political power that someone like Katherine
Speaker 1: Bergan would have had. But over the course of her
Speaker 1: marriage to Peter, Katherine ingratiates herself to the Russian people,
Speaker 1: converts to Russian orthodoxy in a way that like the
Speaker 1: people fall in love with learns the Russian language. There's
Speaker 1: a story about her she she catches still very early
Speaker 1: on in her marriage and the store, and she's bedridden,
Speaker 1: and the story that sort of spreads that feeds into
Speaker 1: her legend is that she was up at night pacing
Speaker 1: on the cold floor studying Russian and that's why people
Speaker 1: like fall in love with her. And her husband is
Speaker 1: such an ineffective, bad emperor in so many ways that
Speaker 1: six months into his reign, even though she wasn't Russian born,
Speaker 1: even though she was an heir to the throne, even
Speaker 1: though she really has no claim to the Russian throne
Speaker 1: in any legitimate way. We we might imagine through lineage,
Speaker 1: she rallies the the armies behind her, the people behind her,
Speaker 1: the church behind her, and overthrows her own husband. So
Speaker 1: she was ambitious. So it's sort of like there are
Speaker 1: these Catherine Varragon. I don't know how ambitious she might
Speaker 1: have been. A Bolen is always proteted. Prichette is very ambitious, right,
Speaker 1: And I don't again, I don't know so much myth
Speaker 1: has been made about all of Henry's well Henry himself
Speaker 1: and all of his wives, And I don't know. I
Speaker 1: sort of love the idea of Amberleyn as like a
Speaker 1: you know, a schemer. I don't know how much it
Speaker 1: was the right place, right time, you know. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's she she had a very limited opportunity, right. It's
Speaker 1: like her family is saying, like, do this thing. This
Speaker 1: is the one thing you're supposed to do. This is
Speaker 1: how to advance as a woman. I mean, in the hundred's,
Speaker 1: advancing as a woman was marrying, yeah, and then not
Speaker 1: getting be added. And if the king wants you, you're you're.
Speaker 1: You have fewer cards to play than than maybe people think.
Speaker 1: And I my anvioln hot take is I think she
Speaker 1: played her cards magnificently and if she had happened to
Speaker 1: have a son, she would have been fine. And because
Speaker 1: she didn't, these things, yeah, these things, these things happen,
Speaker 1: but like it was an impossible situation, right, and then
Speaker 1: the patriarchy does that to us. So when was the
Speaker 1: first appointed royal spouse who was male? Oh gosh, I
Speaker 1: guess it depends on if we're going to count Empress Matilda.
Speaker 1: So there's are you watching the new Game of Thrones
Speaker 1: by chance? I'm not. I'm not okay. So for people
Speaker 1: who are watching, how's the dragon? The character um Rania,
Speaker 1: like the young princess who was claiming queen, is sort
Speaker 1: of based on this figure named Empress Matilda, who, depending
Speaker 1: on who you ask, counts or doesn't count as a
Speaker 1: monarch of England. So she was the daughter of King
Speaker 1: Henry the First. His only legitimate son, William died uh
Speaker 1: in a ship disaster, a ship crashed against some rocks,
Speaker 1: and so her father said, my daughter Matilda is my heir.
Speaker 1: Of course, then her father dies, and uh, A lot
Speaker 1: of people in eleven hundred England say, no, we do not.
Speaker 1: I know, we swore for fealty to her when your
Speaker 1: father is alive. But your father is not alive anymore,
Speaker 1: and so there becomes a civil war in England known
Speaker 1: as the Anarchy. And her nephew cousin nephew, Um, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna get this wrong, and so I hope no one
Speaker 1: angrily corrects me. A relative, either a cousin or nephew,
Speaker 1: Stephen is is sort of the the counterfaction who then
Speaker 1: claims power. But Matilda, who was fighting in the Civil
Speaker 1: War for her right um to the throne, had her
Speaker 1: husband Jeffrey, who was focused on conquering Normandy, which was
Speaker 1: also considered part of the the English crowns power at
Speaker 1: that time, so that that's sort of an interesting husband fascinating.
Speaker 1: There's there are other few sort of interesting dynamics where
Speaker 1: a wife has technically higher claim at a given time,
Speaker 1: Like Mary, Queen of Scott's was married to a Prince
Speaker 1: of France who then became the King of France. But
Speaker 1: at the time that they were married, she was the
Speaker 1: Queen of Scotland. Her mother was ruling in her stead
Speaker 1: and her her half brother was sort of ruling while
Speaker 1: she was in France, but she was the independent queen
Speaker 1: of a country married to the Dafa France uh and
Speaker 1: that had its own interesting political called dynamics because being
Speaker 1: but unfortunately, as Mary Queen of Scott's learned like her
Speaker 1: marriage is only ever really diminished her power. She makes
Speaker 1: the terrible decision to marry this man named Lord Darnley,
Speaker 1: who she had been charmed by but was it was
Speaker 1: a terrible match. He dies in mysterious uh, an explosion,
Speaker 1: that was and then he was found strangled like there
Speaker 1: was a murder attempt because he was awful, and Mary,
Speaker 1: Queen of scott was sort of like, oh no, my
Speaker 1: husband died. That's so sad. I'm you know, I'll definitely
Speaker 1: look into what happened. But the people of Scotland at
Speaker 1: the time see that and don't like that. That's her reaction.
Speaker 1: And then she marries, in her third marriage, the man
Speaker 1: who was implicated in her second husband's death, which the
Speaker 1: people of Scotland absolutely hate. Some historians say she didn't
Speaker 1: have a choice in that matter, that you know, he
Speaker 1: raped and kidnapped her. Some say that, you know, she
Speaker 1: just made a terrible calculation. But either way, those were
Speaker 1: two matches that ultimately diminished her power, and someone like
Speaker 1: her cousin, Elizabeth the First of England, realized that she's
Speaker 1: already queen. Marrying a man is only gonna gonna compromise
Speaker 1: compromise her power, thank you exactly. And so is she
Speaker 1: the only example? She's the most obvious example of an
Speaker 1: unmarried female monarch. Is there other? Is there anyone else
Speaker 1: who did that? In England? No, I'm sure around the
Speaker 1: world there are and I just off the top of
Speaker 1: my head, can't can't recall. Uh, it's definitely absolutely several
Speaker 1: African monarchs and queens, but in England, no queen. Elizabeth
Speaker 1: made the calculation of ruling as a virgin queen. But
Speaker 1: there's a benefit of that, right, which is that she
Speaker 1: doesn't have to submit to a man. But the cost
Speaker 1: of that is it's the end of the tutor dynasty
Speaker 1: because she doesn't have airs. And at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, the purpose of a of a monarchy is
Speaker 1: to create your dynasty, have it keep going, create airs.
Speaker 1: And I think part of the problem also, especially in
Speaker 1: the fifteen hundreds, if we're talking about Elizabeth, the first
Speaker 1: childbirth is a is a very dangerous prospect. So it's
Speaker 1: that's it's very much a bodily risk, that's right. So
Speaker 1: to put the monarch through that kind of a trial
Speaker 1: from which what percentage of women didn't you know, emerge successfully?
Speaker 1: You know? Sure, Yeah, I'm totally making that and I'm
Speaker 1: like that that sounds right. I don't know, it's very
Speaker 1: it's dangerous, right, You're putting the monarch in, that's right,
Speaker 1: a very vulnerable position, right. Um, In terms of the
Speaker 1: selection process, for lack of a better phrase, for these
Speaker 1: royal partners. You know, we know sort of in pop
Speaker 1: culture what the story is about, you know, the current
Speaker 1: royal family in England or the most recent ration. But
Speaker 1: was there like was it selected by the ruling monarch?
Speaker 1: Was there a council? Was that the family? Was it
Speaker 1: all of the above? How did that work the family?
Speaker 1: In most cases? Because you are absolutely correct that these
Speaker 1: are not decisions very often made for love. These are
Speaker 1: strategic decisions. The role of marriage for a lot of
Speaker 1: you know, Western history from a certain you know, from
Speaker 1: at least as long as we have, like the English
Speaker 1: monarchy recorded, it was to secure alliances. It was to
Speaker 1: secure political or religious alliances, to combine land dowries were important,
Speaker 1: and so yeah, love was sort of a something reserved
Speaker 1: for poor people, I suppose, right, like almost a luxury
Speaker 1: that the monarchy couldn't afford, right, Yeah, and I can't
Speaker 1: worry about that. It was very much understood, especially in
Speaker 1: France at the time. Royal mistress was an official position
Speaker 1: with a salary and apartments that you lived in. It
Speaker 1: was right, So it was akin to I mean, it
Speaker 1: wasn't marriage obviously, because marriage was considered this very political, legal,
Speaker 1: religious institution. But it was almost a marriage of sorts
Speaker 1: because by appointing someone your royal mistress, they are they
Speaker 1: have an official position in your life. And so I
Speaker 1: think in France it was very much understood that your
Speaker 1: wife is to fulfill this certain role and your mistress
Speaker 1: is to fulfill another role. And I actually think, now
Speaker 1: you've gotten me on my on my high horse. This
Speaker 1: is sort of a pet subject of mine. It was
Speaker 1: to Marie Antoinette's detriment that her husband never did take
Speaker 1: a mistress. Her husband, Louis the sixteenth, was sort of awkward.
Speaker 1: It took them seven years to consummate their marriage. He
Speaker 1: was not a very sexual person. I think sometimes people
Speaker 1: like to think, well, was he gay, and I think no.
Speaker 1: I think more likely he just was maybe closer to
Speaker 1: a sexual He just wasn't very sexual. And Marie Antoinette,
Speaker 1: because he never had an official royal mistress to sort
Speaker 1: of differ court attention and gossip and the more frivolous
Speaker 1: aspects of courtly life. Marie Antoinette was in this unfortunate
Speaker 1: position of being forced to do both, where she was
Speaker 1: both the one that everyone looked to for fashion and
Speaker 1: style and gossip, but also at the same time she
Speaker 1: was expected to be, you know, the royal mother and
Speaker 1: the queen and and honor that position with with the
Speaker 1: dignity they expected. There's a famous example of a portrait
Speaker 1: that was painted in three of Marie Antoinette in a
Speaker 1: simple Muslim gown. It's like a chemist style gown that
Speaker 1: was meant to evoke farm simplicity. She was doing seventeen
Speaker 1: eighties cottage corps, and that was very fashionable at the
Speaker 1: time for rich people to sort of play at simplicity,
Speaker 1: you know, the way I think people kind of do
Speaker 1: on TikTok today, like baking bread. But at the time
Speaker 1: this portrait was so scandalous that it was pulled from
Speaker 1: display because the first response was that it was too sexual,
Speaker 1: that it looked like she was in her undergarments, that
Speaker 1: it was so casual, and that as a queen, she
Speaker 1: she you know, she was dishonoring the the position as queen,
Speaker 1: that the status, the title, the status that she held.
Speaker 1: She was sullying herself, sullying selling the position of queen.
Speaker 1: And also you know, imagine she's trying to put the
Speaker 1: French silk merchants out of business by now wearing a
Speaker 1: silk gown, and so it was this sort of horrible
Speaker 1: thing where it backfired on every account where I think
Speaker 1: common people in France saw her as being condescending. You know,
Speaker 1: that's sort of like slumming it where they're like, what
Speaker 1: are you doing? You know, the way that I think
Speaker 1: if we saw, you know, a celebrity today making rice
Speaker 1: and beans and being like, oh I love eating or whatever,
Speaker 1: you know, some like very casual food where you're like,
Speaker 1: what's like, that's not what you are. But then the
Speaker 1: rich people were like, you are selly in your position
Speaker 1: as queen, and so it fully backfired on every account.
Speaker 1: Where did this line up with her farm that she
Speaker 1: famously created behind Versailles, We are exactly there. You absolutely
Speaker 1: nailed it. She had people also make fun of this
Speaker 1: a lot. She had this thing called the Queen's Hamlet,
Speaker 1: which was a working It was a model farm, but
Speaker 1: it was a working dairy farm where she went to
Speaker 1: escape because Versailles was like being in a fish bowl.
Speaker 1: You are always watched, and every step from the order
Speaker 1: in which you get dressed in the morning to your
Speaker 1: meals is watched and perfectly choreographed, and so of course,
Speaker 1: like you imagine, like she just wanted like a a breather,
Speaker 1: like a minute, just to like be by herself and
Speaker 1: just hang out. And this was actually very common in
Speaker 1: the late seventeen hundreds of nobles building these sort of
Speaker 1: faux farms to evoke a don't simplicity homey exactly. So yeah,
Speaker 1: she had a fake working farm, and she was sort
Speaker 1: of dress up like a um, you know, in more
Speaker 1: casual clothes, and and just spend time with her children,
Speaker 1: which was also considered a very weird thing she did.
Speaker 1: It was like, why are you spending all this time
Speaker 1: parenting your children? Don't you know you can pay people
Speaker 1: to parent your children for you. That echoes with Lady
Speaker 1: Diana and her interests. Also, Um, you said something that
Speaker 1: I have been very curious about since I listened to
Speaker 1: your episode on The Mad King. King George the third.
Speaker 1: We're talking about how he, whatever his affliction was, was
Speaker 1: sort of at bay for many years, and he became
Speaker 1: ill later in his life, but there was a long
Speaker 1: period of time where he was sort of managing the
Speaker 1: royal business fairly well, and he had all these siblings
Speaker 1: who were sort of crazy. I mean, they were all
Speaker 1: acting insane, and nobody was marrying who they were supposed
Speaker 1: to marry, and and I was just thinking about, like,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't hear much just as a lay person,
Speaker 1: and I don't know how big of an area of
Speaker 1: scholarship it is, but of these royals who you know,
Speaker 1: were with this incredibly strict and conventional idea of marriage
Speaker 1: and partnership in that way, like what what of the
Speaker 1: you know, the queer royals through history? Like do we
Speaker 1: know anything about any of them? And you know, I'm
Speaker 1: sure their fate was complicated if it was recorded at all,
Speaker 1: But do you know anything about any of that? Yeah,
Speaker 1: we have um a few interesting stories. So there was
Speaker 1: King Edward the second of England and this is now
Speaker 1: in the late twelve hundreds, and there was a man.
Speaker 1: I mean because so much of it isn't recorded the
Speaker 1: way that I think modern sources would want it to
Speaker 1: be recorded. And I think these these things are complicated
Speaker 1: because I don't think these the character characters. The people
Speaker 1: at the time wouldn't have called themselves gay or queer.
Speaker 1: That vocabulary didn't exist. And so I, as like an
Speaker 1: untrained historian, I'm always like waried to put these labels
Speaker 1: on people. But King Edward the Second of England, who was,
Speaker 1: you know, King of England. This is late twelve hundred's
Speaker 1: early thirt hundreds had a favorite, Pierce, Pierce Gaveston, who
Speaker 1: sort of had exclusive access to the king. It was
Speaker 1: heavily implied this was a romantic relationship. I mean, I
Speaker 1: would argue that it absolutely is romantic, if not sexual,
Speaker 1: but medieval chroniclers, so even at the time people were
Speaker 1: writing that this relationship is sexual. Um. Christopher Marlowe, the
Speaker 1: playwright sort of a contemporary of Shakespeare, basically says as
Speaker 1: much in the play Edward the Second, and some modern
Speaker 1: historians I think disagree on the extent of the sexual relationship,
Speaker 1: but he was very much his favorite, and it's a
Speaker 1: it's tragic story. I mean, basically, the other nobles don't
Speaker 1: like this favoritism, and they retaliate against him, and they
Speaker 1: retaliate against Pearce, and like, this is a time when
Speaker 1: even being king could only go so far at certain points,
Speaker 1: because again, marriage at this time is not about happiness.
Speaker 1: It's about securing this religious political alliance and having airs
Speaker 1: and a lover of the same sex. And I think
Speaker 1: it was sort of a sometimes it don't ask, don't
Speaker 1: tell policy of certain monarchs, and sometimes it really was
Speaker 1: politically damaging. I mean, part of what led to Marie
Speaker 1: Antoinette's downfall was the incredible amount of political propaganda against her,
Speaker 1: which were cartoons of her engaged in sexual lesbian acts
Speaker 1: with her closest ladies in waiting. And so I think
Speaker 1: it is a challenge of historians today to sort of
Speaker 1: tease out when these relationships were set told because obviously
Speaker 1: gay people existed, because people existed, um, But yeah, the
Speaker 1: sources are tricky, and I think because for so much
Speaker 1: of European history, Christianity was so deeply ingrained in Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: So queer relationships were both powerful tools of propaganda because
Speaker 1: accusing some of it someone of it was obviously incredibly damaging,
Speaker 1: but also something that someone would have kept a secret.
Speaker 1: You also have that great episode on the person whose
Speaker 1: name I am not going to remember the French um, yes, yes, exactly,
Speaker 1: which is such a great story. It's so interesting to
Speaker 1: untangle it and and I won't go into the whole story,
Speaker 1: but it is. Um. I like to think of a
Speaker 1: person who chose of her own free will to live
Speaker 1: as a woman and even though we wouldn't have had
Speaker 1: or they wouldn't have had the vocabulary to call themselves
Speaker 1: trans I think it's so interesting to remind people that know,
Speaker 1: for hundreds of years people made these decisions. Is there
Speaker 1: a time that you can peg it too? In terms
Speaker 1: of when, I don't remember when the sort of modern
Speaker 1: sensibility about what romantic love is and how it plays
Speaker 1: into marriage. I can't remember when that sort of entered
Speaker 1: the society in the Western world anyway. But in the
Speaker 1: sense of royal marriages, I don't think they are any
Speaker 1: more meant to be about international alliances. At least again
Speaker 1: in Europe they still have that. Now their success right
Speaker 1: is just through the roofs. Getherway with that, and they're
Speaker 1: they're that all works. Yeah, but was there a moment
Speaker 1: where it shifted. I think one of the key moment,
Speaker 1: at least in my understanding, is the relationship between Queen
Speaker 1: Victoria and Prince Albert. This was a situation where Victoria
Speaker 1: fell head over heels in love and she was devoted
Speaker 1: to Albert to a fault. I mean, she loved her
Speaker 1: husband so much that when he died, she spent the
Speaker 1: rest of her life in mourning. I mean it's so
Speaker 1: funny because obviously the Victorian era so powerful, and we
Speaker 1: imagine her as such a large I mean she's tiny,
Speaker 1: she's like, you know, four ft ten, but a larger
Speaker 1: than life figure in in English history. And she was
Speaker 1: obsessed with her husband to a degree that I think,
Speaker 1: like nowadays people would be jealous of. I'm like, oh
Speaker 1: my god. She hated having children. She they had you know,
Speaker 1: ten children, and she absolutely hated having children. But she
Speaker 1: just loved being intimate with her husband. And no one
Speaker 1: taught her about birth control. So you know, she was like, say, lovey,
Speaker 1: they were what you gotta do, You do what you
Speaker 1: gotta do. I mean, she had a this is a
Speaker 1: one a young woman who had a very very controlled childhood.
Speaker 1: When she was born, she was the basically air apparent
Speaker 1: eventually after her father, after her uncle died, she was
Speaker 1: she's the only legitimate granddaughter of King Charles the Third,
Speaker 1: King Jesus christ Um, King George the Third. King Charles
Speaker 1: the Third is right now, he has a lot of whatever.
Speaker 1: She's the only legitimate granddaughter of King George. She is
Speaker 1: born and she's this precious thing, and so she's raised
Speaker 1: under this incredibly strict system called the Kensington system, with
Speaker 1: where her mother like basically doesn't let her be a
Speaker 1: person until she actually is literally Queen of England. And
Speaker 1: so by falling in love and marrying this man, it's
Speaker 1: sort of her her act of rebellion and freedom. She
Speaker 1: sort of pushes her mother and her mother's adviser out
Speaker 1: of her orbit and focuses all of her attention on
Speaker 1: on Albert, and they have an incredibly by all accounts,
Speaker 1: happy marriage and life for the you know, for the
Speaker 1: years they have together. She empower him in an unusual way.
Speaker 1: They had a partnership. Really, I mean, I guess the
Speaker 1: question is, what is a new It's unusual at all
Speaker 1: that it was in a late eighteen hundreds marriage where
Speaker 1: the woman had a more important job than the man.
Speaker 1: Absolutely absolutely, and probably also relatively rare for a marriage
Speaker 1: steeped in romantic love to be successful, because most people
Speaker 1: had nothing, and so most people had very hard life,
Speaker 1: and so even if they were in love with their spouse,
Speaker 1: it may not have played out so great, you know,
Speaker 1: through all the years. But I'm of course contrasting it
Speaker 1: to the popular understanding or fantasy about Queen Elizabeth and
Speaker 1: Prince Philip's relationship where you know, from what I can
Speaker 1: gather in certainly what I imagine to be true that
Speaker 1: that it was tough for a man to be second
Speaker 1: to his female spouse. And I don't know if there's
Speaker 1: any um, you know, if there was any agitating on
Speaker 1: Albert's part, if the if the adoration was enough for him,
Speaker 1: if it was just you know, I'm here for you
Speaker 1: because you're so wonderful to me, and together we will
Speaker 1: you know, found many museums have all these babies and
Speaker 1: have a great life. I think, you know, it's hard
Speaker 1: for me to get into these people's heads. So a
Speaker 1: lot of this is guesswork. I think Victoria was so
Speaker 1: deferential to Albert that he felt okay, you know, and
Speaker 1: I think it was a little bit harder, weirdly for Philip,
Speaker 1: because again, this is like the nineteen fifties, right, This
Speaker 1: is like when the idea of masculinity is at it's
Speaker 1: real mad men peak. And here's a situation where you know,
Speaker 1: under Victoria she was an empress. This is like, Okay,
Speaker 1: the monarchy is at the height of its actual power,
Speaker 1: whereas like Queen Elizabeth, like this is a symbolic role
Speaker 1: largely at this point, and so it's you know, maybe
Speaker 1: he had less of a inherent difference reference reverence, and
Speaker 1: so I think it might have been a little harder
Speaker 1: when they got into the argument they did have where
Speaker 1: he was like, wait, so my kids aren't going to
Speaker 1: have my name. She's like, no, are you? I mean
Speaker 1: she's like she didn't say this. But if if it
Speaker 1: was me, I would have been like, are you effing
Speaker 1: kidding me? They're going to have like my last name,
Speaker 1: that's the Queen Victoria's last name. They're kind of your
Speaker 1: made up German last name. Like, what are you talking about? Well,
Speaker 1: I think that would have gone very well. If you
Speaker 1: would be like that, I would have been great to
Speaker 1: be married time. I would have been like are you
Speaker 1: are you absolutely kidding me? And I have to think
Speaker 1: that the era of um sort of media awareness that
Speaker 1: they existed in would have made it much more difficult
Speaker 1: to because he's getting you know, feedback from everyone about
Speaker 1: their relationship rather than just managing it privately. Just just
Speaker 1: a lot harder, right, He's hearing every comment of someone
Speaker 1: saying like, oh, can you believe this guy walking one
Speaker 1: step behind his wife? We're also queen Victoria was so
Speaker 1: deferential to her husband, where even though she was the queen,
Speaker 1: like I mean some she's she's using a lot of
Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds language and talking about her She like worships
Speaker 1: and obeys her husband, And so I feel like he
Speaker 1: would have been okay with that. You know, she covered
Speaker 1: it because this is again she she is so obsequious
Speaker 1: and deferential to him that it would have been hard
Speaker 1: for him to get mad. Where it's like Queen Elizabeth.
Speaker 1: This is a sort of trickier situation, just as the
Speaker 1: monarchy is that this is a weird like modernizing crux
Speaker 1: like feminism and masculinity, and the patriarchy is changing in
Speaker 1: the twentieth century. I feel like we can't not talk
Speaker 1: about Wallis Simpson just a little team of good and
Speaker 1: I think most people probably know exactly who Wallis Simpson is,
Speaker 1: but just in case they missed it, came to do
Speaker 1: a quick overview of that. Sure um, King George five
Speaker 1: had two sons, and the oldest son obviously is in
Speaker 1: line to inherit the throne and he becomes King Edward
Speaker 1: the eighth, but he falls in love with a divorced
Speaker 1: American actress named Wallace Simpson, and as the head of
Speaker 1: the Church of England, it's against church laws to marry
Speaker 1: a divorce if their spouse is still alive. She's a
Speaker 1: divorcee with a living spouse. That's big of me, like,
Speaker 1: you can't do that. And also for a bunch of
Speaker 1: other reasons, like he fundamentally was ill suited to being king,
Speaker 1: and he was a Nazi sympathizer, which we won't go
Speaker 1: into because I'll just get mad. But he abdicates the
Speaker 1: throne in favor of his younger brother, who becomes George
Speaker 1: the six who is Queen Elizabeth the Seconds father, and
Speaker 1: so that's why we have the line we have now.
Speaker 1: But Wallace Simpson was this uh yeah, divorced American woman
Speaker 1: who scandalized the royal family by falling in love with
Speaker 1: uh with David, but who took the regular name King
Speaker 1: Edward the Eighth, and uh yeah, he abdicated the throne
Speaker 1: and they they instead of being King and Queen, they
Speaker 1: went with the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. She never
Speaker 1: got her royal highness, which is sort of like an
Speaker 1: honorary title, because that was sort of them sticking it
Speaker 1: to her, and they lived sort of the rest of
Speaker 1: their lives in France, visited, you know, chumming it up
Speaker 1: with Hitler, thinking well, maybe if this Hitler chap wants
Speaker 1: to put us back on the throne, that would be fun,
Speaker 1: wouldn't it. Oh. I didn't realize there was that element
Speaker 1: to that relationship. It was sealed until very recently. This
Speaker 1: is a sort of thing that the royal family has
Speaker 1: not hize broadcast, but there are yeah, photographs, uh, and
Speaker 1: when you have a photograph smiling next to Hitler, it's
Speaker 1: not a good look. But no, that especially during the
Speaker 1: Second World War obviously when Germany was the enemy, the
Speaker 1: British Royal family tried very hard to make sure that
Speaker 1: it was suppressed that that m Wallace and and David
Speaker 1: were cozying up or had been cozying with with the Amon's.
Speaker 1: But yeah, they they sort of had this I think
Speaker 1: what they characterized as this love story that he was
Speaker 1: willing to give up the throne for her, but I
Speaker 1: think for a lot of other reasons he was ill
Speaker 1: suited to being king, and I'm I'm glad he wasn't. Yeah,
Speaker 1: no kidding, is is there another example of that happening
Speaker 1: that you know of of someone falling in love and
Speaker 1: giving up there seat of power. Well, if we're also
Speaker 1: talking also about um, queer possibly queer monarchs. There was
Speaker 1: a Queen of Sweden named Queen Christina who uh some
Speaker 1: people argue was lesbian or or would have been. She
Speaker 1: she favored men's dress. Uh, she was, you know, Queen
Speaker 1: of Sweden, but but resigned for whether it was religious reasons.
Speaker 1: She refused to marry, which was its own scandal, then
Speaker 1: converted to Catholicism secretly. And oh, I think she she's
Speaker 1: buried in the Vatican and is either the only woman
Speaker 1: buried in the Vatican or one of only a few
Speaker 1: women buried in the Vatican. But she's someone who gave
Speaker 1: up her throne not for a man, but for a
Speaker 1: lack of man. I just wanted to add that in
Speaker 1: the realm of people who are significantly influential, I have
Speaker 1: to say that your podcast. Without it, I don't know
Speaker 1: that I would have ever thought to do what I'm doing.
Speaker 1: Not that that's any great shakes for the world, but
Speaker 1: but um, but I'm grateful. I'm so grateful that you
Speaker 1: do what you do. And um, I feel you're a trailblazer.
Speaker 1: And I personally have benefited from that, so thank you.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, that is the truly, the genuinely kindest
Speaker 1: thing anyone has said. I feel very lucky that people
Speaker 1: let me rant into a microphone about historical figures I
Speaker 1: find interesting and I am. I love when when that
Speaker 1: exists more in the world. So I'm very excited for
Speaker 1: what you're doing. Well. Thank you so much. Um. Do
Speaker 1: you have anything that you want to be working on
Speaker 1: a couple of books? I don't know if you have
Speaker 1: anything that you want to plug or promote or send
Speaker 1: us to, Oh my gosh, that would be great. I
Speaker 1: have a new book coming out in February called Immortality,
Speaker 1: a Love Story. And if you're interested in historical royals,
Speaker 1: I have a few cameos. I have Princess Charlotte of
Speaker 1: Wales appears, Lord Byron appears, a few other characters I've
Speaker 1: talked about on my podcast. But it's available for preorder. No,
Speaker 1: that book sounds amazing. UM. Too late for this Christmas,
Speaker 1: but definitely in time for Valentine's Day. Absolutely, thank you
Speaker 1: so much. This is such a pleasure. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for listening, and thanks again to Dana for joining us.
Speaker 1: If you haven't already, please check out her podcast, Noble
Speaker 1: Blood wherever you get your podcasts. I promise you won't
Speaker 1: be disappointed. We'll continue to release bonus episodes while we
Speaker 1: work on season two, so be sure to hit the
Speaker 1: subscribe button, and as always, we welcome any and all
Speaker 1: suggestions for upcoming episodes. You can email us at significant
Speaker 1: pod at gmail dot com