Speaker 1: Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership
Speaker 1: with iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Described by some as a quote charming rogue. Charles Augustus
Speaker 2: Howell was a dodgy figure in Victorian London's art circles.
Speaker 2: There was deception, there was extortion, there was forgery, and
Speaker 2: just a whole lot of unsavory bits. Howell was an
Speaker 2: art dealer by trade who was also known to manipulate
Speaker 2: those around him so he could acquire works that would
Speaker 2: establish and increase his reputation and his financial security. When
Speaker 2: that didn't work. In the words of biographer Humphrey Hare, quote,
Speaker 2: Howell did not hesitate to blackmail. So let's get to
Speaker 2: know this charming yet unsavory character. Welcome to Criminalia. I'm
Speaker 2: Maria Trumurky and I'm Holly Frye. Howell was a flamboyant
Speaker 2: fellow who charmed his way into the pre Raphaelite art movement.
Speaker 2: The pre Raphaelites were a secret society, a brotherhood is
Speaker 2: what they called themselves, of seven young artists who were
Speaker 2: disenchanted with the contemporary painting scene in London at the time. Instead,
Speaker 2: these artists were inspired by Italian art of the fourteenth
Speaker 2: and fifteenth centuries, and they emulated the art of late
Speaker 2: Medieval and early Renaissance Europe through the time when Italian
Speaker 2: High Renaissance painter Rafaelo Sanzio da Urbino, known as raphael
Speaker 2: became popular, hence the name pre Raphaelites. Their intent was
Speaker 2: to create a new British art movement, and although short lived,
Speaker 2: they did this new movement. Their Brotherhood is characterized by
Speaker 2: vivid detail and bright luminous colors, tight brushstrokes, and a
Speaker 2: focus on small details. When it came to subject matter,
Speaker 2: Naturalism was key. Was formed in London in eighteen forty
Speaker 2: eight by three Royal Academy of Arts students. These principal
Speaker 2: members were Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who was a poet as
Speaker 2: well as a painter, painter William Holman Hunt and painter
Speaker 2: John Everett Malay, painter James Collinson, art critic Frederick George Stevens,
Speaker 2: sculptor Thomas Woolmer, and writer William Michael Rossetti, who was
Speaker 2: Dante's brother, were also invited to join. All were under
Speaker 2: the age of twenty five. Two additional painters, William Dyce
Speaker 2: and Ford Maddox Brown were also associated with the movement
Speaker 2: more as mentors really and also came to paint in
Speaker 2: the pre Raphaelite style.
Speaker 1: There were critics, of course, and among them was famous
Speaker 1: novelist Charles Dickens. These critics denounced the pre Raphaelites for
Speaker 1: their disregard for the then academic ideal of beauty, but
Speaker 1: also for what they considered an irreverence toward religious themes.
Speaker 1: Not everyone felt that way, though, One leading art critics,
Speaker 1: the polymath John Ruskin, defended their art, and primarily because
Speaker 1: of Ruskin's support, the artists did not lack for patrons.
Speaker 2: Five years after it started, the Brotherhood disbanded. John Malay,
Speaker 2: who began as a child prodigy and was considered the
Speaker 2: most technically gifted painter of the society, went on to
Speaker 2: become an academic success. Of the original seven members, only
Speaker 2: Hunt continued to pursue the style throughout most of his career,
Speaker 2: and he remained true to the pre Raphaelite principles. The
Speaker 2: style lived on through the eighteen fifties and eighteen sixties,
Speaker 2: famously with painters Edward Burne, Jones and William Morris.
Speaker 1: Howell was not himself an artist. He was an agent
Speaker 1: and probably also a fixer. He was born in a Porto, Portugal.
Speaker 1: Probably his father was an Englishman and his mother was Portuguese.
Speaker 1: In fact, Howell claimed to have aristocratic Portuguese ancestry, and
Speaker 1: he was known to where the red sash of the
Speaker 1: Portuguese Order of Christ, of which he would be happy
Speaker 1: to tell you was an inherited family order. He was
Speaker 1: very concerned about status. The Howells moved to Britain when
Speaker 1: Charles was young, and in some stories of his life
Speaker 1: it's reported that throughout his adulthood he would sometimes make
Speaker 1: up news stories about where he came from.
Speaker 2: In London, Howell officially and firmly entered the pre Raphaelite
Speaker 2: circle when Ruskin employed him as his private secretary, a
Speaker 2: position that trusted him with quote affairs needing delicate handling
Speaker 2: at a wise discretion. As we get further into the
Speaker 2: life of Charles Howell, though discretion may not be the
Speaker 2: appropriate word to associate with him, but let's keep on going.
Speaker 2: Though Howell increasingly argued for control over all of Ruskin's finances,
Speaker 2: His work usually had him managing Ruskin's charitable donations. He
Speaker 2: quickly became a close friend and an agent to a
Speaker 2: succession of leading artists, including Dante, Gabriel Rossetti, Frederick Sands,
Speaker 2: edwardburn Jones, George Frederick Watts, and American born artist James
Speaker 2: McNeil Whistler. Whistler, who is considered the first contemporary artist,
Speaker 2: was a significant figure in the Esthetic movement, a late
Speaker 2: nineteenth century art movement that emphasized the idea of art
Speaker 2: for art's sake. Whistler and Howell ran in similar circles.
Speaker 2: Some consider Howell to have been his unofficial agent. Whistler
Speaker 2: called Howell quote the creature of top boots and plumes,
Speaker 2: splendidly flamboyant.
Speaker 1: So far, it seems like Charles Augustus Howell wasn't such
Speaker 1: a bad guy. But we need to pause here for
Speaker 1: a break and a word from our sponsors, and when
Speaker 1: we return we will talk about how he became known
Speaker 1: as a blackmailer and why his friends and business partners
Speaker 1: all considered him a liar.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to Criminalia. Let's start talking about why people
Speaker 2: used words like skilled, amusing, and unscrupulous to describe Howell.
Speaker 1: At first, it seems there were a lot of good
Speaker 1: things to say about this guy. He could get you work,
Speaker 1: and he could sell it, he could manage money, he
Speaker 1: could apparently tell a good story, and he was a
Speaker 1: snappy dresser, so what's not to like. William Michael Rossetti
Speaker 1: once commented on Howell's sharp sense of business and knowledge
Speaker 1: of the artist world, stating he had quote quick and
Speaker 1: accurate discernment of the merits of works of art and
Speaker 1: decoration of many various kinds, along with extensive practical knowledge
Speaker 1: of their market value. He continued that Howell was a
Speaker 1: quote speculator and dealer in the works of many kinds,
Speaker 1: and a skillful salesman with his open manner, his winning address,
Speaker 1: with his exhaustless gift of amusing talk, not innocent of
Speaker 1: high coloring and actual blague, Howell was unsurpassable, and it's
Speaker 1: true he had secured many commissions for many artists. But
Speaker 1: there were cracks in Howell's character, and William also noted
Speaker 1: that Howell had quote the ability to exploit people's hobbies
Speaker 1: and weaknesses.
Speaker 2: Painter Ford Maddox Brown described him similarly as quote second
Speaker 2: to no One in England and his intimate knowledge of
Speaker 2: ancient and oriental furniture, china tapestries, but he also called
Speaker 2: him quote one of the biggest liars in existence.
Speaker 1: Eventually, Edward Burne Jones convinced Ruskin to sever his connections
Speaker 1: with Howell. The pre Raphaelite circle began to find him
Speaker 1: less and less charming and more to faced and corrupt.
Speaker 1: He could get things done for you, but he could
Speaker 1: also get things done against you.
Speaker 2: There are many stories of unethical, dishonest, and shameless things
Speaker 2: Howell did, but we chose this one because it just
Speaker 2: may be tops. As a master manipulator. Howell once convinced
Speaker 2: Dante Rosetti to exhume the body of his wife, Elizabeth
Speaker 2: Lizzie Siddle, to retrieve a book of poems he had
Speaker 2: buried with her, because Howell, as Rosetti's agent, thought he
Speaker 2: could make some money from them. Lizzie Siddle was an
Speaker 2: artist and a model, and she was both Rosetti's wife
Speaker 2: and his muse. She modeled for several artists in the
Speaker 2: pre Raphaelite brotherhood, and she became one of the most
Speaker 2: famous faces in Victorian England when she died of a
Speaker 2: laudanum overdose just two years into their marriage in eighteen
Speaker 2: sixty two. Rossetti placed in her coffin a journal containing
Speaker 2: the only copies of many of his poems. Seven years
Speaker 2: after her death, Howell somehow convinced Rossetti to dig up
Speaker 2: the grave and retrieve that a.
Speaker 1: Rosetti at this time in his life was broke and
Speaker 1: he was struggling with both grief and with alcohol misuse,
Speaker 1: a problem that he had developed after Lizzie's death. These
Speaker 1: were facts that Howell knew and that he took advantage
Speaker 1: of for his own financial gain. This was not to
Speaker 1: help a friend in need. At Howell's insistence and persistence,
Speaker 1: Rosetti got permission from Home Secretary Henry A. Bruce to
Speaker 1: have the coffin exhumed and to remove the book from inside.
Speaker 1: That event took place on October fifth, eighteen sixty nine,
Speaker 1: and it was done at night, so as to avoid
Speaker 1: causing any offense and to avoid causing anyone to think
Speaker 1: they were illegal body snatchers. Rosetti did not attend. London
Speaker 1: Solicitor Henry Virtue Tebbs accompanied Howell at the grave site,
Speaker 1: acting in illegal capacity as witness to the items taken
Speaker 1: from the coffin. Doctor Llewellen Williams also attended. His role
Speaker 1: was disinfecting the book. According to Howell's version of the event,
Speaker 1: after seven years, Lizzie had remained perfectly preserved, and he
Speaker 1: described her coffin to be full of her flowing hair.
Speaker 1: Howell and Rosetti did get the journal, and once the
Speaker 1: poems were transcribed, Rossetti had the original manuscript destroyed. The poems, though,
Speaker 1: hit the wrong notes with critics. On top of poor
Speaker 1: reviews and poor sales. Rosetti had said never got over
Speaker 1: the night his wife's body was disinterred.
Speaker 2: Admission of what they did that night in October of
Speaker 2: eighteen sixty nine did not become public until after Dante's
Speaker 2: death in eighteen eighty two. British writer Sir Thomas Henry Halkan,
Speaker 2: commonly known as Halcane, later recalled that his friend Dante
Speaker 2: regretted going through with the disinterment, citing this quote weakness
Speaker 2: of yielding to the importunity of friends and the impulse
Speaker 2: of literary ambition of Howell. Halcane had little good to say,
Speaker 2: and referred to him as a quote soldier of fortune.
Speaker 1: There's no clear evidence that Howell blackmail Dante Gabrielle Rossetti
Speaker 1: into digging up the book, but historians tend to err
Speaker 1: on the side of yes he used blackmail, as Howell
Speaker 1: had a reputation of using that tactic wherever and whenever
Speaker 1: he could to get whatever he wanted. However, it is
Speaker 1: also plausible that Howell skipped the blackmail and simply took
Speaker 1: advantage of a suffering man. After the exhumation of Lizzie
Speaker 1: Siddall's grave, Dante's brother William Rosetti insisted that the entire
Speaker 1: incident be kept quiet.
Speaker 2: We're going to take a break for a word from
Speaker 2: our sponsors. When we're back, we will talk about forgery,
Speaker 2: more blackmail, and where Howell's character lives on today.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Criminalia. Let's talk about Howell's involvement with
Speaker 1: forgery and how he exploited the pre Raphaelite artists.
Speaker 2: Charles Augustus Howell's tendency for manipulation in blackmail often ended
Speaker 2: his relationships, as any of us may imagine, but there
Speaker 2: was a charm factor at play. Even after he'd pressured
Speaker 2: Dante Rossetti to exhume Lizzie's coffin, his relationship with Rosetti
Speaker 2: didn't end. That usually didn't happen until after he persuaded
Speaker 2: his lover Rosa Cord to create forgeries of Rosetti's art.
Speaker 1: Rosa Francis Cord was Howell's mistress. He had a wife,
Speaker 1: and she wasn't it. Corter studied art, and for a
Speaker 1: time she had a studio at Newmarket where she painted
Speaker 1: racehorses and also portraits. Because of Howell's influence and insistence,
Speaker 1: she began to make copies of the eighteenth century portraits
Speaker 1: and erotic drawings of Henryfuse. Her name then became associated
Speaker 1: with forgeries of Rosetti's works, as well as works by
Speaker 1: John Malay. In her set of four drawings called the
Speaker 1: Story of Saint George Slaying the Dragon, which is based
Speaker 1: on stained glass windows by Dante Gabrielle Rosetti, the head
Speaker 1: of Saint George is said to have been modeled on
Speaker 1: Charles Augustus Howell behind the scenes of that particular work
Speaker 1: of art. In a letter dated March twenty second, eighteen
Speaker 1: seventy six, Dante wrote to Howell stating, quote, you borrowed
Speaker 1: a set of drawings of Saint George and the Dragon
Speaker 1: to copy for your own use only, please return them
Speaker 1: at once. Howell clearly didn't respect that whole for your
Speaker 1: own use part and Corter's forgery of Saint George Slaying
Speaker 1: the Dragon was later presented to the Birmingham Museums and
Speaker 1: Art Gallery by an anonymous donor through the National Art
Speaker 1: Collection's Fund in nineteen oh five. Corter's originals remain there today.
Speaker 2: For a time, Howell's wit and charm secured him a
Speaker 2: favored spot in several artists' lives, despite the awareness of
Speaker 2: his lies and manipulation in their tight circle. For instance,
Speaker 2: years after Dante Rosetti became convinced that Howell was profiting
Speaker 2: off of selling forgeries of his art, he still allegedly
Speaker 2: was endeared to how entertaining of a person Howell could be.
Speaker 2: Howell didn't do much to hide his true nature, though
Speaker 2: in addition to selling quarters forgeries, he very likely embezzled
Speaker 2: funds from Ruskin, and he made shady side deals while
Speaker 2: acting as agent for both Dante Rosetti and Edward Burne Jones.
Speaker 2: Burne Jones scathingly described Howell as quote a base, treacherous, unscrupulous,
Speaker 2: and malignant fellow. Years later, Edward's wife, Georgiana burn Jones
Speaker 2: described him as someone who had quote come against us
Speaker 2: in friend's clothing, but inwardly he was a stra to
Speaker 2: all that our life meant.
Speaker 1: Howell also worked as an agent to those who were
Speaker 1: not in the pre Raphaelite circle, such as with Whistler.
Speaker 1: He became a business advisor and personal secretary to English
Speaker 1: poet and critic Algernon Swinburne, an arrangement described as quote
Speaker 1: not only his man of business, but also the partner
Speaker 1: of his amusements and the recipient of his confidences. But
Speaker 1: after some of Swinburne's letters passed through Howell to a
Speaker 1: publisher named George Redway without Swinburne's permission, Swinburne was of
Speaker 1: course outraged, and he demanded the return of those letters.
Speaker 1: Many versions of this story suggest the letters contained quote
Speaker 1: indecent content of some sort, but regardless, he then faced
Speaker 1: blackmail from Redway. He was expected to give up the
Speaker 1: copyright of the manuscript a word for the Navy or
Speaker 1: the Saucy Letters would be published. Swinburne gave in, and
Speaker 1: he blame Howell for the whole sordid affair. After Howell's death,
Speaker 1: Swinburne wrote that he hoped Howell was quote in that
Speaker 1: particular circle of malbouge, where the coding of eternal excrement
Speaker 1: makes it impossible to see whether the damn dog's head
Speaker 1: is or is not tonsured. It's safe to say that
Speaker 1: Swinburne was not going to eulogize him.
Speaker 2: Though Howells considered to have been a well known blackmailer.
Speaker 2: We would be remiss if we didn't mention how Biographer
Speaker 2: Helen Rosetti Angelie has added to his legend that she
Speaker 2: has found actually nothing to support those accusations. Angelie, the
Speaker 2: daughter of William Michael Rosetti, doesn't defend Howell, but suggests
Speaker 2: that specific idea perhaps rose from extrapolations and assumptions related
Speaker 2: to the blackmail incident involving Swinburne and Redway, but not
Speaker 2: from Howell himself. What we know from the artists he
Speaker 2: worked with is that it's certain he couldn't be trusted.
Speaker 1: Like his birth, Howell's death at age five fifty is
Speaker 1: equally shadowy. Some reports suggest he probably died of tuberculosis,
Speaker 1: but in the more colorful and popular versions of the
Speaker 1: story of his death, it's reported that he was found
Speaker 1: murdered outside of Chelsea Public House, with his throat slit,
Speaker 1: and in some cases it's said that a coin was
Speaker 1: placed between his teeth, perhaps in a nod to the
Speaker 1: custom in Greek mythology paying the ferryman who carried the
Speaker 1: dead across the River Styx in the underworld.
Speaker 2: In the art world, Howell lives on as a two
Speaker 2: faced and morally bankrupt character, and such is also true
Speaker 2: in the literary world. Howell was the inspiration for British
Speaker 2: author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's antagonist in the Sherlock Holmes
Speaker 2: story The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton, published in nineteen
Speaker 2: oh four. Doyle, a contemporary of Howell, writes the character
Speaker 2: of Charles Augustus Milverton as quote, the king of Blackmailers,
Speaker 2: and critics point out that Milverton inspires in Sherlock Holmes
Speaker 2: a revulsion that's far greater than any of the murderers
Speaker 2: he encounters in his albeit fictional career. While Swinburne once
Speaker 2: described the real Howel as quote the violist wretch I
Speaker 2: ever came across, the fictional Holmes described the fictional Milverton
Speaker 2: as the worst man in London. Do you want to
Speaker 2: talk a little bit about coercion and coercion concoction?
Speaker 1: I Do you want to talk about coercion concoctions. When
Speaker 1: I was first looking at your notes on this, one
Speaker 1: particular alcohol immediately jumped to my mind in thinking about Howell,
Speaker 1: and that was Furnet Bronca. Now, just in case our
Speaker 1: listeners don't know about furnet bronca, it is a very
Speaker 1: bitter Italian liqueur. It's usually classify it as in amorrow.
Speaker 1: Some people would argue that it's actually its own subcategory,
Speaker 1: but there's a whole funny side of it where it's
Speaker 1: also nicknamed the bartender's handshake because bartenders like to do
Speaker 1: shots of it. It is not delicious to everyone's palate.
Speaker 1: I'll put it back.
Speaker 2: I don't think we have used it before.
Speaker 1: We have none. Because it is not delicious to everyone's
Speaker 1: palat people often describe it as something reminiscent of like
Speaker 1: a Jaegermeister, but without the sweetness. It's got some bite.
Speaker 1: So I thought we would put that in a drink
Speaker 1: and see if we could make it delightful in its
Speaker 1: own way. I will say this is a drink that
Speaker 1: not everyone's gonna love, not only because it has fer
Speaker 1: net bronca, but because it is almost all alcohol. It's
Speaker 1: a heavy hitter. Sure, so even if you do love it,
Speaker 1: maybe just drink one.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The inspiration for this, and the name of the drink
Speaker 1: is Buried Poems because I wanted some thing that had
Speaker 1: a very unique and bold flavor. Because you have to
Speaker 1: be bold as hell to suggest to your friend that
Speaker 1: they should dig up their deceased beloved because you want
Speaker 1: something that's in the coffin.
Speaker 2: That's just brazing, that's crazy, I know.
Speaker 1: So I wanted a very bold flavor. So here we go.
Speaker 1: Buried Poems is go ahead and pre chill that martini
Speaker 1: or cocktail glass. You want it cold, go ahead and
Speaker 1: put in the fridge. You want an ounce and a
Speaker 1: half of pomegranate liqueur, an ounce and a half of vodka. Now,
Speaker 1: when we get to for net Bronca, this is poorer's
Speaker 1: choice because these sound like minute amounts, but I'm telling
Speaker 1: you they have a strong impact on it. If you
Speaker 1: have never had it before and you're not sure that
Speaker 1: you're going to be into it, just put in like
Speaker 1: an eighth of an ounce, and if you're feeling a
Speaker 1: little more brazen, go ahead and go up to a
Speaker 1: quarter of an ounce. That's literally how little we're doing here.
Speaker 1: And then I also added a quarter ounce of vanilla syrup.
Speaker 1: Shake this until it is so cold with ice. This
Speaker 1: is one of those spirits that like, the colder it is,
Speaker 1: the better it is. Right, if you were to drink
Speaker 1: warm for a net, you would be like, this is scorable.
Speaker 1: I again, I cautioned be very judicious with your use
Speaker 1: of it because it can start to taste like pomegranate
Speaker 1: cough syrup and you don't want that. But you're just
Speaker 1: gonna shake this, shake it, strain it into your pre
Speaker 1: chilled glass. It's a really interesting sip, right, It does
Speaker 1: have that like herbal medicinal note to it, but I
Speaker 1: actually found like the pomegranate tempered that quite a bit
Speaker 1: and made it something interesting to my palette.
Speaker 2: Anyway, does the pomegranate make this drink red like his sash?
Speaker 1: It's pinkish. It's not enough to make it red, but yeah, pinkish, pinkish.
Speaker 1: It also depends on the pomegranate liqueur you get. Somemmer
Speaker 1: are redder than others. Now, if you want to do
Speaker 1: the mocktail, we're gonna do some stuff a little bit
Speaker 1: different because you just kind of have to.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is a very strong drink.
Speaker 1: It's all alcohol, right. What you're gonna do for the
Speaker 1: mocktail is you're gonna do two and a half ounces
Speaker 1: of pomegranate juice and one ounce of licorice tea. And
Speaker 1: then I hope in your case you are not the
Speaker 1: person who absolutely won't drink bitters because they have minute
Speaker 1: amounts of alcohol in them, but because you need a
Speaker 1: couple of dashes of angster of bitters here because it
Speaker 1: it gives it that kind of edginess that the furnette
Speaker 1: would have. It's not the same, nothing is quite. You
Speaker 1: cannot replicate what fernet does in my opinion. But so
Speaker 1: just two dashes of bitters, so it's super easy. Two
Speaker 1: and a half ounces of pomegranate juice, one ounce of
Speaker 1: licorice tea, two dashes of bitters, and then a quarter
Speaker 1: ounce of vanilla syrup. And the reason we bump down
Speaker 1: the syrup is because we're working with a juice, so
Speaker 1: that's already sweet. Same thing, shaken up, pour it into
Speaker 1: a pre chilled glass. Delicious in a different way, probably
Speaker 1: more delic just to most palettes them the cocktail. But
Speaker 1: the cocktail is really fun, and I think pretty.
Speaker 2: Yummy should be tried. Got to try it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you gotta try it. Listen. That's how you discover
Speaker 1: your favorite things.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: You may not know what your favorite cocktail is yet
Speaker 1: because you haven't sipped it. You got to go out
Speaker 1: and try all the weird stuff because one of them
Speaker 1: could be magical for you, and it might be for
Speaker 1: net maybe somebody. I love it. I am not a
Speaker 1: person who wants to do a shot of furnet, but
Speaker 1: some people truly love it. But I do love a
Speaker 1: shot of Yeager, So your mileage may vary. Right. That
Speaker 1: is the Buried Poems, which kind of breaks my heart.
Speaker 1: I feel like Rosetti is the one who just got
Speaker 1: hung out to dry emotionally and all of this. What
Speaker 1: a guy, Howl, You're not cool man. We hope that
Speaker 1: you have had a cool time hanging out with us
Speaker 1: today and hearing about Howl's absolutely horrifying behavior, and that
Speaker 1: you will come back and visit us again, because next
Speaker 1: week we're going to be right back here with more
Speaker 1: blackmail and another cocktail. Criminalia is a production of Shondaland
Speaker 1: Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio,
Speaker 1: please visit the iHeartRadio, app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.