Speaker 1: Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Miinki listener. Discretion is advised.
Speaker 1: What makes someone a royal? This isn't a loaded or
Speaker 1: a trick question. I'm actually asking trying to come up
Speaker 1: with a common sense, non dictionary definition. Maybe it's easier
Speaker 1: to start by asking how somebody becomes a royal? Well
Speaker 1: blood right, Certainly, that's the first and easiest way to
Speaker 1: get into the aristocracy. You are literally grandfathered in if
Speaker 1: your ancestors are nobles in a certain country. Barring a revolution,
Speaker 1: you'll also be a noble. Although even after a revolution
Speaker 1: there were plenty of Russian aristocrats who fled the country
Speaker 1: and settled in various European manners and hotel rooms and
Speaker 1: still called themselves dukes and duchesses. What have you without
Speaker 1: a country? So blood there it is. But you can
Speaker 1: also be granted a title by a royal for an
Speaker 1: act of service or greatness, or you can marry a royal.
Speaker 1: Those are two ways for a commoner to insert his
Speaker 1: or herself into an already existing system of nobility. You
Speaker 1: probably won't be the main monarch, but you'll still get
Speaker 1: a title, And then there's the coup strategy. If you
Speaker 1: can overthrow a king, then you become the king so
Speaker 1: long as the military and certain foreign powers will accept you.
Speaker 1: So what is the actual common denominator then that unites
Speaker 1: the cousins, the spouses, the usurpers, what makes them all
Speaker 1: real royals? That then diagram becomes even harder to reckon
Speaker 1: with when you add in a country like Belgium, which
Speaker 1: imported in a semi random Bavarian prince to be their
Speaker 1: king in eighteen thirty one because they figured that any
Speaker 1: self respecting independent European country needed a king. It's not
Speaker 1: necessarily money that makes a king. There are plenty of
Speaker 1: royals who are history rich and cash poor, and it's
Speaker 1: certainly not actual power. Just ask any of the present
Speaker 1: day royals whose days consist more of charity events and
Speaker 1: ceremonial displays than declarations of war. I suppose, at its
Speaker 1: most basic core, if you strip away the factor of
Speaker 1: historical precedent and focus only on any given moment actually
Speaker 1: in the present, A monarch is a figure supported by
Speaker 1: the people or government financially or otherwise, who can offer
Speaker 1: opinions or proclamations, who attend the needs of the people
Speaker 1: to the best of their ability, who serve as a
Speaker 1: uniting symbol, someone that the government and the people have
Speaker 1: decided is a monarch. With that in mind, and only
Speaker 1: semi ironically, in honor of A Berl Fool's Day, I
Speaker 1: ask you to consider the curious case of Emperor Norton
Speaker 1: the First, the man who in eighteen fifty nine declared
Speaker 1: himself to be the Emperor of the United States. Most
Speaker 1: contemporary accounts saw him as an eccentric if they were
Speaker 1: being polite, insane if they weren't. But today, now that
Speaker 1: we've moved past fiefdoms and protectorate, maybe the entire notion
Speaker 1: of royalty, of someone being born more worthy of power
Speaker 1: than somebody else, is a little bit insane. And there's
Speaker 1: certainly nothing more American than a man who decided what
Speaker 1: he wanted to be and then lived it. I'm Danis Schwartz,
Speaker 1: and this is noble blood. The man who would eventually
Speaker 1: style himself as Emperor. Norton the First was born in Deptford, Kent,
Speaker 1: present day a part of London, on November fourth, eighteen eighteen,
Speaker 1: to English Jewish parents. There's actually some historical disagreement as
Speaker 1: to the actual year that Norton was born. Even his
Speaker 1: obituary when he died gave his age as quote about
Speaker 1: sixty five. But from what I've read, eighteen eighteen seems
Speaker 1: to be the year with the most documented supporting evidence,
Speaker 1: and that evidence includes the record of Norton being two
Speaker 1: years old when his parents moved from England to South
Speaker 1: Africa in eighteen twenty. After the Napoleonic Wars, England was
Speaker 1: facing an unemployment crisis, and the government responded by encouraging
Speaker 1: their citizens to move to England's African Colony. The promise
Speaker 1: was wealth and opportunity. Those who traveled there eventually came
Speaker 1: to be known as the eighteen twenties settlers, and though
Speaker 1: the eastern border of the colony never became the densely
Speaker 1: populated metropolitan are area that the British governor in South
Speaker 1: Africa no doubt envisioned, it seems that the land provided
Speaker 1: at least enough stable income for Norton's parents to go
Speaker 1: on to have six more children. Norton's mother died in
Speaker 1: eighteen forty six and his father died just two years later,
Speaker 1: leaving Norton as an orphan. In his early thirties. Without
Speaker 1: an anchor, he had no real connection to South Africa,
Speaker 1: and though we don't have this specific date to confirm
Speaker 1: when it happened, most of his siblings didn't make it
Speaker 1: past infancy. He was his father's sole surviving son, which
Speaker 1: meant that he inherited whatever property was left over after
Speaker 1: they passed. Norton was an ambitious man. Like his parents,
Speaker 1: he was willing to cross oceans to chase opportunity. He
Speaker 1: took his inheritance, stopped briefly in South America, and then
Speaker 1: made his way towards that mythical land of gold, the
Speaker 1: American West. There was a gold rush happening in California
Speaker 1: in eighteen forty nine, and Joshua Norton was going to
Speaker 1: San Francisco in almost no time at all. Norton became
Speaker 1: a semi prominent businessman. Now, this part of Norton's life
Speaker 1: when he first arrived in America is another major point
Speaker 1: of contention amongst those who study and write about Norton's life.
Speaker 1: Right after Norton's death, an obituary asserted that Norton had
Speaker 1: arrived in San Francisco with forty thousand dollars an inheritance
Speaker 1: from his father. That number has been almost endlessly duplicated
Speaker 1: in other sources. You find sometimes by more sensationalist accounts,
Speaker 1: which also go on to declare that Norton quickly parlayed
Speaker 1: that forty thousand dollars using his business acumen, into two
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty thousand dollars. But there's not a ton
Speaker 1: of evidence for those claims, although they do paint a
Speaker 1: compelling picture of a man catapulting himself from obscurity to
Speaker 1: wealth in less than a year in the land of opportunity.
Speaker 1: More detailed biographies imply that Norton's father was actually in
Speaker 1: debt in South Africa. Still, it's possible that after liquidating
Speaker 1: his father's business and paying off debts, Norton still had
Speaker 1: a decent inheritance, and it's more than possible that he
Speaker 1: turned that inheritance into a hefty profit once he reached California.
Speaker 1: Although to me the two d and fifty thousand dollar
Speaker 1: amount seems a little nebulous, it's probably more accurate to
Speaker 1: say that by eighteen fifty two Norton was a member
Speaker 1: of the San Francisco well to do by Association, perhaps
Speaker 1: not as wealthy as most of the other social elite,
Speaker 1: but well liked and certainly well respected. But that was
Speaker 1: a status that wouldn't last long. In December of eighteen
Speaker 1: fifty two, China banned the export of their rice in
Speaker 1: response to a famine, so that its own citizens could
Speaker 1: afford to eat. As you might imagine, that band of
Speaker 1: Chinese exports caused the price of rice to skyrocket around
Speaker 1: the rest of the world. The staple, which usually cost
Speaker 1: four cents a pound in San Francisco, was going for
Speaker 1: as high as thirty six cents a pound. That's when
Speaker 1: a business acquaintance came into Norton's office. The man pulled
Speaker 1: a handful of rice from his pocket. Excellent quality. Where
Speaker 1: did you get that? Norton asked. There are two hundred
Speaker 1: thousand pounds of it on board the ship the Glide,
Speaker 1: sitting in the harbor right now. The acquaintance said, the
Speaker 1: rice came from Peru. It's the only rice San Francisco
Speaker 1: is going to get for a while, and definitely the
Speaker 1: only rice of this quality. I'll take the entire shipment,
Speaker 1: Norton said. He bought all two hundred thousand pounds of
Speaker 1: Peruvian rice for twelve cents a pound. He would control
Speaker 1: the entire market, and if all went according to plan,
Speaker 1: he would make a massive profit. It's probably not a
Speaker 1: surprise if I say things didn't go according to plan.
Speaker 1: Norton was all set to make a tidy profit until
Speaker 1: several more shipments of Peruvian rice arrived in Port over
Speaker 1: the next few days. By the very next week, there
Speaker 1: was so much rice from Peru in San Francisco that
Speaker 1: the price was lowered to two cents a pound. And
Speaker 1: to make matters worse, the two hundred thousand pounds of
Speaker 1: rice from the Glide that Norton had purchased was small, hard,
Speaker 1: terrible quality, nothing like the beautiful handful of rice that
Speaker 1: had glimmered like pearls in his acquaintance's hand, the rice
Speaker 1: that had tempted him into what was promised to be
Speaker 1: a sure fire investment. Norton was ruined. He claimed that
Speaker 1: he was misled by the business associate and tried to
Speaker 1: avoid his contract and began a lengthy legal battle. Norton
Speaker 1: one in lower courts, but eventually the California Supreme Court
Speaker 1: ruled against him. If the payment for the two hundred
Speaker 1: thousand pounds of low quality, overpriced rice hadn't already been
Speaker 1: enough to ruin him. The legal fees took what was left.
Speaker 1: Norton's holdings were foreclosed on. Norton declared bankruptcy, fed up
Speaker 1: and exasperated by the American judicial system. In eighteen fifty eight,
Speaker 1: he was living as a pauper in a cheap San
Speaker 1: Francisco boarding house, paying by the week, alongside degenerates and
Speaker 1: the impoverished. There's no record of what Norton did while
Speaker 1: he was licking his wounds, hiding from the society, folks
Speaker 1: who had up until so recently been his friends. He
Speaker 1: was a proud man, and he remained in seclusion until
Speaker 1: he was ready to be reborn. On September sevent eighteen
Speaker 1: fifty nine, a proclamation was printed in the San Francisco
Speaker 1: Daily Evening Bulletin. It read, at the peremptory request of
Speaker 1: a large majority of the citizens of these United States,
Speaker 1: I Joshua Norton, formerly of Algoa Bay, Cape of Good Hope,
Speaker 1: and now for the past nine years and ten months
Speaker 1: of San Francisco, California, declare and proclaim myself Emperor of
Speaker 1: these Us, and in virtue the authority thereby in me
Speaker 1: vested do hereby order and direct the representatives of different
Speaker 1: states of the Union to assemble in the Music Hall
Speaker 1: of this city on the first day of February next
Speaker 1: then and there to make such alterations in the existing
Speaker 1: laws of the Union as may ameliorate the evils under
Speaker 1: which the country is laboring, and thereby caused confidence to exist,
Speaker 1: both at home and abroad in our stability and integrity.
Speaker 1: That meeting of all the states at the Musical Hall
Speaker 1: it never happened, But Norton wasn't entirely wrong about the
Speaker 1: troubling direction that the American political system was heading into.
Speaker 1: We were a year away from Abraham Lincoln being elected president,
Speaker 1: and it would be a year after that that the
Speaker 1: Civil War would begin. Norton saw the fractures in this country,
Speaker 1: the deep roots of racism and division amongst its people.
Speaker 1: He figured an emperor would be just the thing to
Speaker 1: fix us. He had delivered his typewritten proclamation to newspaper
Speaker 1: offices around the city. In person, he was a large man,
Speaker 1: more stocky than tall. Behind his thick mustache and full beard,
Speaker 1: he had small, sharp eyes and a complexion that verged
Speaker 1: on ruddy. His hair was dark and curly, but almost
Speaker 1: always hidden beneath a beaver hat, although eventually he would
Speaker 1: take to wearing the sunken, flat soft cap of a
Speaker 1: Union soldier along with the rest of a blue Union uniform.
Speaker 1: Norton purchased these uniforms from pawn shops, usually left behind
Speaker 1: by Union deserters. Over time, Norton's uniform gradually became more elaborate.
Speaker 1: He was gifted gold plated epaulets that he affixed to
Speaker 1: his clothing whenever he wanted to look particularly regal, and
Speaker 1: his hat would come to house a peacock feather and
Speaker 1: a rosette. Sometimes Norton walked around the San Francisco streets
Speaker 1: with a cane. His politics were progressive. His first proclamation
Speaker 1: after announcing himself, of course, was to dismiss the governor
Speaker 1: of Virginia for hanging the abolitionist John Brown. Norton would
Speaker 1: go on to demand that African Americans be permitted to
Speaker 1: attend public schools and to ride public street cars, and
Speaker 1: that Chinese people be permitted to testify in court. Quote,
Speaker 1: the eyes of the Emperor will be upon anyone who
Speaker 1: shall counsel any outrage or wrong on the Chinese Emperor,
Speaker 1: Norton wrote and with respect to Native Americans, Norton wrote
Speaker 1: that any parties connected with frauds against the quote Indian
Speaker 1: tribes were to be punished before a council of as
Speaker 1: many Native American chiefs as could be assembled. Though his
Speaker 1: words didn't make much of a polite to call impact
Speaker 1: in San Francisco, at least, it didn't take long for
Speaker 1: Emperor Norton to gain massive attention as a popular figure,
Speaker 1: a figure who captured the public imagination and became something
Speaker 1: of a citywide mascot. Just two years after Norton appeared
Speaker 1: on the scene, a new theater in San Francisco opened
Speaker 1: with a comic opera written and staged about him, called
Speaker 1: Norton the First or Emperor for a Day. Citizens delighted
Speaker 1: at seeing him in public, especially if he happened to
Speaker 1: be accompanied by two of San Francisco's other most famous citizens,
Speaker 1: beloved street dogs Bummer and Lazarus. Industrialist Leland Stanford, who
Speaker 1: was the president of the Central Public Railroad, clocked Norton's
Speaker 1: popularity and saw an opportunity to gain some good pr
Speaker 1: to help dispel his robber baron reputation, Stanford gave Norton
Speaker 1: a free pass for all of his train routes in California,
Speaker 1: Norton lived off of goodwill donations and good deals throughout
Speaker 1: the city. Most pubs offered a free lunch with the
Speaker 1: purchase of a drink, but Norton typically ate at the
Speaker 1: Bank Exchange, where you could get a free lunch of soup, salmon, roast, beef, potatoes, bread,
Speaker 1: and cheese, all with the purchase of a brandy smash
Speaker 1: for just twenty five cents. His clothes were shabby, visibly secondhand,
Speaker 1: and if friends from his former life tried to help him,
Speaker 1: Norton would be willing to take fifty cent pieces, but
Speaker 1: only because he referred to them as taxes and recorded
Speaker 1: them dutifully in a notebook that he always carried with him.
Speaker 1: He's actually secretly incredibly wealthy, went the gossip on the streets.
Speaker 1: Didn't you hear he's a millionaire. He only accepts charity
Speaker 1: and lives the way he does because he's very cheap.
Speaker 1: It's all a ruse. Yes, I've heard that, came the
Speaker 1: typical sponse. Did you know he's actually the secret son
Speaker 1: of Louis Napoleon. When Napoleon invaded Mexico, Norton gave himself
Speaker 1: an additional title Protector of Mexico, despite the fact that
Speaker 1: there's no evidence that Norton ever set foot in Mexico
Speaker 1: at any point during his life. One brief side note,
Speaker 1: if you happen to have listened to my Noble Blood
Speaker 1: episode about Maximilian and Carlotta of Mexico, you'll know that
Speaker 1: Norton um didn't do such a great job as Protector.
Speaker 1: All the while, Norton continued to issue decrees that were
Speaker 1: published by newspapers. A proclamation that the Democratic and Republican
Speaker 1: parties were to be abolished, a demand that Sacramento clean
Speaker 1: up the mud on its street and installed gaslight on
Speaker 1: the street leading to the Capitol Building. And a very
Speaker 1: forward thinking idea that a bridge or tunnel should be
Speaker 1: built to connect Say and Francisco to Oakland. When norton
Speaker 1: second hand uniform began to fall apart, the San Francisco
Speaker 1: Board of Supervisors bought him a new one. In response,
Speaker 1: Norton sent a formal thank you letter and issued every
Speaker 1: member of the board quote a patent of nobility in perpetuity. Newspapers,
Speaker 1: particularly the Daily Alta California, recognized what a boon umper
Speaker 1: Norton was to circulation numbers. He was a central comic
Speaker 1: figure to the tapestry of the city. People loved him,
Speaker 1: and so in short time, certain newspapers began using Norton's
Speaker 1: name and notoriety to make editorial jokes about political situations,
Speaker 1: writing phony proclamations supposedly by him. It's under these circumstances
Speaker 1: that one of the most widely shared proclamations supposedly by
Speaker 1: Norton was issued in eighteen seventy two. Quote whoever, after
Speaker 1: do and proper warning, shall be heard to utter the
Speaker 1: abominable word frisco, which has no linguistic or other warrant,
Speaker 1: shall be deemed guilty of a high misdemeanor, and shall
Speaker 1: pay into the Imperial Treasury as penalty the sum of
Speaker 1: twenty five dollars. Charming and a good reminder never to
Speaker 1: call San Francisco frisco, but probably not actually written by
Speaker 1: Emperor Norton. Because Emperor Norton was almost from the outset,
Speaker 1: a figure larger than life, a living myth, it can
Speaker 1: be difficult to parse out the truth in his history,
Speaker 1: as opposed to stories that were merely urban legends that
Speaker 1: cast a colorful folk hero in the leading role. There's
Speaker 1: also the question as to whether well Emperor Norton was
Speaker 1: mentally unwell. He seemed to genuinely believe that he was
Speaker 1: the Emperor of the United States. The eighteen seventy census
Speaker 1: lists his occupation sensibly as emperor, but also added the
Speaker 1: note that he was insane. The famous writer Mark Twain
Speaker 1: was living in San Francisco for several years during Emperor
Speaker 1: Norton's reign, and in Twain's column for the Daily Morning Call,
Speaker 1: he wrote of Norton, quote, Oh, dear, it was always
Speaker 1: a painful thing for me to see the Emperor begging
Speaker 1: for Although nobody else believed he was an emperor, he
Speaker 1: believed it. In eighteen sixty seven, a man named Armand Barbier,
Speaker 1: who was working as part of a civilian security policing force,
Speaker 1: arrested Norton and tried to have him involuntarily committed to
Speaker 1: a psychiatric facility. The outrage was loud an instant. The
Speaker 1: Daily Alta wrote an article with the headline arrest of
Speaker 1: the Emperor, which read quote Special Officer Barbier yesterday arrested
Speaker 1: the Emperor Norton the first and took him to the
Speaker 1: calaboost to be examined by the Commissioner of Lunacy. Norton was,
Speaker 1: in his day a respectable merchant, and since he has
Speaker 1: worn the Imperial purple, he has shed no blood, robbed
Speaker 1: and nobody, and despoiled the country of no one, which
Speaker 1: is more than can be said for any of his
Speaker 1: fellows in that line. Within a day, the San Francisco
Speaker 1: Chief of Police himself personally granted Norton's release and issued
Speaker 1: a formal apology, which Norton graciously accepted. Norton also graciously
Speaker 1: granted an imperial pardon to Barbier, who Norton understood was
Speaker 1: only trying to do his job. The Dailyalta's article about
Speaker 1: his release read honorably discharge urged his Imperial majesty. Norton,
Speaker 1: the first who was arrested as a lunatic on Monday night,
Speaker 1: as stated in The Altar, was promptly discharged from custody
Speaker 1: as soon as the facts of the arrest were made
Speaker 1: known to the proper authorities. Yesterday, he called the property
Speaker 1: Clerk's desk, received back the key of the palace and
Speaker 1: the imperial funds amounting to four dollars and seventy cents
Speaker 1: of lawful money of the United States. From that day on,
Speaker 1: whenever police saw Emperor Norton walking through the streets of
Speaker 1: San Francisco and his uniform and hat, they saluted. Norton
Speaker 1: was a fixture of the city, riding trains, trolleys, and ferries,
Speaker 1: attending sessions of the state legislature, university lectures, and occasionally
Speaker 1: traveling across California to inspect military troops. Norton also issued
Speaker 1: his own currency from fifty cents to ten dollars, which
Speaker 1: was happily accepted by the restaurants that he frequently patronized.
Speaker 1: Norton was so famous and beloved in the city that
Speaker 1: businesses would gleefully declare themselves as the Emperor's favorite to
Speaker 1: gain publicity. Emperor Norton reigned for over twenty years, traveling
Speaker 1: the city, writing his proclamations on typewriters at the city library,
Speaker 1: greeting any small dogs were children who came his way
Speaker 1: with a smile, and declaring any child who met him
Speaker 1: to be king or queen for a day. But then,
Speaker 1: on January eight, Norton was on his way to a
Speaker 1: lecture at the California Academy of sciences. When he collapsed
Speaker 1: on the corner of what is now California Street and
Speaker 1: Grand Avenue. A policeman happened to be nearby, and he
Speaker 1: rushed to get Norton a carriage to the hospital, but
Speaker 1: it was too late. Norton had a stroke and he
Speaker 1: died almost instantly. As it turns out, all of the
Speaker 1: rumors of the Emperor having secret wealth were unfounded. When
Speaker 1: the authorities went through his belongings, they found only six
Speaker 1: dollars in small change and no personal belongings of value,
Speaker 1: although there was one fake letter from Alexander the Second
Speaker 1: of Russia congratulating Norton on his impending marriage to Queen Victoria.
Speaker 1: Over the years, Norton had sent numerous letters to the
Speaker 1: Queen of England proposing that they unite their empires through matrimony,
Speaker 1: although rudely Victoria never responded. Norton was going to be
Speaker 1: buried in a simple redwood box until the people of
Speaker 1: San Francisco decided that he deserved a proper burial. The
Speaker 1: Pacific Club issued a subscription list two sponsors who would donate.
Speaker 1: That list supposedly is still available to see in their
Speaker 1: club room. Norton was buried in a rosewood casket, and
Speaker 1: his funeral procession was over two miles long, with as
Speaker 1: many as ten thousand people lining the streets to pay
Speaker 1: their final respects. Norton lived on in literature. Mark Twain's
Speaker 1: most famous novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, includes two
Speaker 1: con artists who call themselves the Duke and the King,
Speaker 1: the latter pretending to be the descendant of the dead
Speaker 1: Dauphin Louis, the seventeenth of France. Although those characters are
Speaker 1: antagonists wildly not merely eccentric but actually nefarious, they were
Speaker 1: nevertheless inspired by the Emperor. But I find a more
Speaker 1: fitting literary description of Emperor Norton in Young gay Men's
Speaker 1: graphic novel series The Sandman in the story Three Septembers
Speaker 1: and a January. If you haven't read Sandman yet, please
Speaker 1: put it on your list immediately. In the series, Despair, Dream, Delirium, Desire,
Speaker 1: and Death are all semi living characters, immortal siblings called
Speaker 1: the Endless. In the comic, after Norton fails as a businessman,
Speaker 1: he is a victim of despair until Dream arrives and
Speaker 1: gives him the dream of him being an Emperor. It's
Speaker 1: that dream that keeps him from going mad. He ought
Speaker 1: to be mine, but he isn't. Is he delirium asks
Speaker 1: He's so sane except about being the Emperor. Of course,
Speaker 1: his madness keeps him sane. At the end of the issue,
Speaker 1: when death comes for Emperor Norton, the two of them
Speaker 1: walk away side by side. I've met a lot of
Speaker 1: kings and emperors and heads of state in my time,
Speaker 1: Joshua Death says to him, I've met them all, and
Speaker 1: you know something I think I like to you best.
Speaker 1: That's the story of Emperor Norton. But keep listening after
Speaker 1: a brief sponsor break to hear a little bit more
Speaker 1: about the Emperor's legacy in San Francisco, And just a
Speaker 1: quick reminder if you want to support the show, we
Speaker 1: have a Patreon, Patreon, dot com slash Noble Blood Tales
Speaker 1: where you can get access to scripts, episode bibliographies, and
Speaker 1: other behind the scenes information. Eventually, after Norton's death, there
Speaker 1: was a bridge built between San Francisco and Oakland, the
Speaker 1: Bay Bridge, built in fifty six years after Norton's death.
Speaker 1: Since then, there have been multiple campaigns to rename the
Speaker 1: bridge in his honor. Another little bit of interesting Norton
Speaker 1: comes from Jose Saria, who became the first openly gay
Speaker 1: person to ever run for public office in the United
Speaker 1: States when he ran for the San Francisco Board of
Speaker 1: Supervisors in Sarria was also a drag performer who sometimes
Speaker 1: styled himself as her Royal Majesty Embrace of San Francisco,
Speaker 1: Jose the First the Widow Norton. Sarria actually purchased the
Speaker 1: grave plot next to Joshua Norton, and that's where he
Speaker 1: was buried next to his imaginary husband, the Imaginary Emperor.
Speaker 1: Noble Blood is a production of I Heart Radio and
Speaker 1: Grimm and Mild from Aaron Minky. The show was written
Speaker 1: and hosted by Dani Schwartz and produced by Aaron Manky,
Speaker 1: Matt Frederick, Alex Williams, and Trevor Young. Noble Blood is
Speaker 1: on social media at Noble Blood Tales, and you can
Speaker 1: learn more about the show over at Noble blood Tales
Speaker 1: dot com. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit
Speaker 1: the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows. M