WEBVTT - Why Doesn't Disney Celebrate these Princesses? 0:00:00.120 --> 0:00:02.640 Guess what, Mango, what that will? So you know how 0:00:02.720 --> 0:00:05.760 tons of kids want to be princesses, right like there's 0:00:06.000 --> 0:00:09.040 Sophia the First and Disney movies. I know, you know, 0:00:09.119 --> 0:00:12.399 my my, my daughter, four year old Ruby actually wants 0:00:12.480 --> 0:00:14.840 none of that. She wants to be a professional golfer, 0:00:14.920 --> 0:00:17.320 she says right now. She's also been telling people she 0:00:17.360 --> 0:00:20.360 wants to be a professional t ball player. And uh 0:00:20.440 --> 0:00:23.880 and when she does ballet, it's honestly like less delicate 0:00:23.960 --> 0:00:27.360 and more aggressive than any stylent ballet you've ever seen before. 0:00:28.160 --> 0:00:30.520 Oh I love that, and I love Ruby's ideas. And 0:00:30.560 --> 0:00:32.560 you know what, I actually believe her if she wants 0:00:32.600 --> 0:00:35.080 to be a professional golfer, I believe she will be 0:00:35.120 --> 0:00:38.440 a professional golfer. So though, but anyway, I'm glad Ruby's 0:00:38.479 --> 0:00:40.680 got her own ideas. You know. The funny thing about 0:00:40.720 --> 0:00:43.680 history is that people have always looked up to princesses 0:00:43.720 --> 0:00:46.840 and you know, tried to imitate their style. And one 0:00:46.840 --> 0:00:49.960 really strange version of this was the Alexandra Limp. Have 0:00:50.040 --> 0:00:53.040 you heard about this? So? So the limp is named 0:00:53.040 --> 0:00:56.480 for the Princess Alexandra of Denmark. Now, initially she had 0:00:56.480 --> 0:00:58.600 a scar on her next so she started wearing a 0:00:58.720 --> 0:01:02.440 choker to conceal it, and immediately all the fashionable women 0:01:02.440 --> 0:01:06.440 in society did the same thing, and overnight chokers became 0:01:06.640 --> 0:01:09.280 all the rage, which I guess makes a certain type 0:01:09.319 --> 0:01:11.720 of sense. We see this kind of thing happened. But 0:01:11.720 --> 0:01:14.480 but then when Alexandra had a bout of rheumatic fever 0:01:15.000 --> 0:01:18.120 that left her with this pronounced limp, so people actually 0:01:18.200 --> 0:01:21.280 started trying to imitate that too, and and they weren't 0:01:21.319 --> 0:01:24.440 being ironic with this, It just fascinating to read about. 0:01:24.760 --> 0:01:28.600 So they purposely started wearing mismatch shoes to imitate her walk, 0:01:29.040 --> 0:01:31.400 and then shoemakers even got in on the act. They 0:01:31.400 --> 0:01:34.840 started selling these one tall heeled shoe and one low 0:01:34.880 --> 0:01:36.600 shoe as a pair, so that you could get a 0:01:36.600 --> 0:01:40.360 little bit more of that natural Alexandra limp. I'm not kidding. 0:01:41.000 --> 0:01:43.920 That's ridiculous. How long did this last for? I think 0:01:43.959 --> 0:01:46.000 it was maybe a season or two, And you know, 0:01:46.120 --> 0:01:49.800 most commoners thought that high society folk looked like idiots. 0:01:49.840 --> 0:01:52.680 But the BBC reports that there was a fashion journal 0:01:52.720 --> 0:01:54.920 that called for an immediate end to the trend a 0:01:55.000 --> 0:01:58.000 year or two after it started. I think instead they 0:01:58.000 --> 0:02:01.200 suggested quote. The skirt of the season, we are informed, 0:02:01.280 --> 0:02:04.480 is to clean closely round the feet in consequence, whereof 0:02:04.560 --> 0:02:06.880 ladies will be obliged to walk because if their feet 0:02:06.880 --> 0:02:11.880 were tied together. Which doesn't sound like much of an improvement, No, 0:02:12.040 --> 0:02:16.320 it definitely isn't, but it does show society's obsession with princesses, 0:02:16.480 --> 0:02:19.720 or at least a certain kind of princess, and today's 0:02:19.720 --> 0:02:22.760 show is all about breaking that stereotype. So we're gonna 0:02:22.760 --> 0:02:27.600 be talking about princesses behaving badly, warriors, schemers, Charlatan's and 0:02:27.680 --> 0:02:51.440 a whole lot more. So let's dive in. Hey, their 0:02:51.480 --> 0:02:54.320 podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson 0:02:54.400 --> 0:02:56.320 and as always I'm joined by my good friend man 0:02:56.360 --> 0:02:59.560 Guesha Ticketer and sitting behind that soundproof glass wearing a 0:02:59.560 --> 0:03:03.840 shirt that just says inconceivable, which is a nice Princess 0:03:03.840 --> 0:03:06.680 Bride reference from Tristan over there. That's our friend and 0:03:06.720 --> 0:03:10.040 producer Tristan McNeil. Now, speaking of Princess Bride, do you 0:03:10.040 --> 0:03:12.240 know how that book was written? Mango, I don't so. 0:03:12.280 --> 0:03:14.560 The author, William Goldman, he wanted to write a book 0:03:14.560 --> 0:03:17.360 for his daughters and they were four and seven years old, 0:03:17.400 --> 0:03:19.680 I think at the time, and so he just asked him, like, 0:03:19.720 --> 0:03:22.560 what should it be about? And one set of princess 0:03:22.639 --> 0:03:24.600 and the other one said a bride, And so that's 0:03:24.600 --> 0:03:27.799 how I got his title. That's pretty fun, and it's 0:03:27.840 --> 0:03:30.680 perfect for today's show because it isn't really a safew 0:03:30.760 --> 0:03:33.359 princess story, right, yeah, I mean it's it's definitely one 0:03:33.360 --> 0:03:35.760 of my favorites, but but we should jump in. So 0:03:35.840 --> 0:03:38.160 today on the program, we've got an old friend and 0:03:38.440 --> 0:03:40.760 one of our favorite writers from our Mental Floss days, 0:03:40.840 --> 0:03:44.440 Linda Rodriguez McRobbie. Now, she wrote a book called Princesses 0:03:44.520 --> 0:03:48.920 Behaving Badly, Real stories from history without the fairy tale endings, 0:03:49.280 --> 0:03:51.240 and we can't wait to ask her all about it. 0:03:51.280 --> 0:03:53.680 So welcome to the show, Linda, Hi, thank you so 0:03:53.720 --> 0:03:55.480 much for having me on. Why don't we start with 0:03:55.520 --> 0:03:58.560 one of my favorite badass princesses from this lot, who's 0:03:58.680 --> 0:04:00.920 uh could have? Lunit think? I don't know how you 0:04:00.920 --> 0:04:04.120 pronounced it. Could you tell us a little bit about her? So? 0:04:04.160 --> 0:04:07.520 She was a Mongolian princess. She was um, she was 0:04:07.640 --> 0:04:10.760 a relative of Genghis Khan. She was a great great 0:04:10.840 --> 0:04:13.680 granddaughter of Genghis Khan. She was the only girl in 0:04:13.680 --> 0:04:18.440 a family of fourteen boys, and she was impressive. I 0:04:18.480 --> 0:04:22.240 mean she you know, Marco Polo, who's the you know, 0:04:22.279 --> 0:04:26.800 the famous Venetian traveler and chronicler. Um, he saw her 0:04:26.920 --> 0:04:29.200 in action, and one of the things that she was 0:04:29.200 --> 0:04:31.440 particularly good at, she was you know, she was she 0:04:31.520 --> 0:04:34.680 was an archer and an excellent horsewoman, and those were 0:04:34.720 --> 0:04:37.800 things that were fairly common to Mongolian courship culture at 0:04:37.800 --> 0:04:41.200 the time, even among women. But she was an amazing wrestler. 0:04:41.279 --> 0:04:44.400 She could not be beaten. And supposedly, by the time 0:04:44.440 --> 0:04:47.280 Marco Polo saw her, she had amassed a herd at 0:04:47.360 --> 0:04:50.760 like ten thousand horses, because the common thing to do 0:04:50.920 --> 0:04:55.040 was to bet horses on the outcome of this match, 0:04:55.160 --> 0:04:59.280 and so she would just always win and she and 0:04:59.800 --> 0:05:03.080 it so by the time that Marco Polo finds her, um, 0:05:03.200 --> 0:05:06.280 the rumors got around and that she refused to marry 0:05:06.279 --> 0:05:09.080 anyone who couldn't beat her on the wrestling mat. And 0:05:09.120 --> 0:05:12.200 so at that point she was still unmarried, and that 0:05:12.240 --> 0:05:13.840 was kind of getting a little bit sticky, a little 0:05:13.880 --> 0:05:18.440 complicated for her family. Um. But from what the historical 0:05:18.480 --> 0:05:20.719 record seems to show she never was beaten, and she 0:05:20.760 --> 0:05:23.640 eventually just chose to marry someone even though they could 0:05:23.720 --> 0:05:27.240 beat her on the wrestling that so and and Linda. 0:05:27.279 --> 0:05:29.400 Part part of the amazing thing about her dominance in 0:05:29.440 --> 0:05:33.920 wrestling is it actually affected the clothes that athletes were, right. So, yeah, 0:05:34.040 --> 0:05:38.520 supposedly now even in today, when Mongolian men wrestle, they 0:05:38.560 --> 0:05:41.640 wear this kind of long sleeved best that's open in 0:05:41.680 --> 0:05:44.920 the front to show their opponents that they don't have rest. 0:05:45.880 --> 0:05:48.440 And supposedly it's men as a tribute to the female 0:05:48.440 --> 0:05:52.000 wrestler who was never defeated. Yeah, that's pretty great. And 0:05:52.040 --> 0:05:54.760 you know, obviously kulun Is is certainly one of our 0:05:54.800 --> 0:05:56.599 favorites from the book. I mean, do you have a 0:05:56.680 --> 0:05:59.320 favorite warrior princess? I know there's so many to choose from, 0:05:59.320 --> 0:06:01.960 but I'm I'm curious of in doing the research for 0:06:02.000 --> 0:06:04.400 the book, that was one that just really stuck out 0:06:04.440 --> 0:06:08.640 to you. One of my absolute favorites is Outfield, the 0:06:08.760 --> 0:06:13.000 Pirate Princess. So she's there isn't a lot of great 0:06:13.040 --> 0:06:17.160 evidence that she actually existed, but I just love her story. Um, 0:06:17.279 --> 0:06:20.840 she was a she was a princess of the fifth 0:06:20.839 --> 0:06:24.240 century and daughter of a of a Goth king. So 0:06:24.279 --> 0:06:26.039 this is all sort of out of the like you know, 0:06:26.279 --> 0:06:30.919 icy cold Scandinavian North, and she's certainly in the tradition 0:06:30.960 --> 0:06:34.840 of the kind of shield maiden warrior Princess model Um, 0:06:34.880 --> 0:06:37.240 and her story starts a little bit funny because she's 0:06:38.320 --> 0:06:43.240 she is meant to be so beautiful that she was 0:06:43.279 --> 0:06:46.320 forced by her family to cover her face lest she 0:06:46.440 --> 0:06:49.560 provoked the men around her into just you know, connections 0:06:49.600 --> 0:06:52.320 of lust or whatever they thought was right to happen. Um. 0:06:52.600 --> 0:06:56.000 And she was given by her father, the king. She 0:06:56.120 --> 0:07:00.000 was given a viper and a snake to rear Um, 0:07:00.040 --> 0:07:02.599 wishing to defend her chastity by the protection of these 0:07:02.640 --> 0:07:04.839 reptiles when they came to grow up. So basically she 0:07:04.920 --> 0:07:11.120 has these two deadly reptiles as her guard animals Um, 0:07:11.920 --> 0:07:15.080 and the idea was that, you know, if somebody could 0:07:15.120 --> 0:07:19.160 get through that, then then maybe he could be worthy 0:07:19.440 --> 0:07:24.520 of her Um. And eventually someone dead and this is 0:07:24.560 --> 0:07:26.440 the part that kind of cracks me up because the 0:07:26.440 --> 0:07:29.000 guy who eventually was able to kill both of the 0:07:29.040 --> 0:07:34.640 snakes and make it alive to alfhild Um was named 0:07:34.720 --> 0:07:37.360 Alf so if they got married, they would have been 0:07:37.760 --> 0:07:43.600 Alf and Elf Hills. Um. But where this story starts 0:07:43.640 --> 0:07:45.640 to kind of beer away from the whole sort of 0:07:46.000 --> 0:07:49.320 you know, princess and a castle rescued by the handsome 0:07:49.360 --> 0:07:52.400 prince thing is that she was given the decision once 0:07:52.440 --> 0:07:55.920 once he made it through killed pets. Um, she give 0:07:55.960 --> 0:07:58.480 a decision do you actually want to marry him or not? 0:07:58.600 --> 0:08:02.440 And she actually chose not to and instead became a 0:08:02.520 --> 0:08:06.200 pirate with a crew of lady pirates with her, and 0:08:06.280 --> 0:08:10.240 they tore up and down the Baltic Sea around the coast, 0:08:10.360 --> 0:08:14.280 and she amassed a flotilla and she basically came became 0:08:14.360 --> 0:08:19.240 like a pirate admiral, and um, I just I just 0:08:19.360 --> 0:08:21.880 loved this idea of her sort of you know, being 0:08:21.920 --> 0:08:25.360 like I could get married or I could be a pirate, 0:08:26.680 --> 0:08:29.320 and that's just way more fun. And so you know, 0:08:29.480 --> 0:08:31.240 this is also kind of one of the like ancient 0:08:31.280 --> 0:08:35.120 meat cute stories because Alf, of course has never forgotten 0:08:35.160 --> 0:08:38.960 about this, this beautiful maiden who um, you know, was 0:08:39.000 --> 0:08:41.840 so chased and so modest and yet spurned his advances 0:08:41.840 --> 0:08:44.079 and decided to become a pirate take to the sea 0:08:44.400 --> 0:08:46.400 that he's been following her. He's been trying to find her, 0:08:46.559 --> 0:08:50.120 and eventually he comes across this this you know, this 0:08:50.280 --> 0:08:54.000 flotilla of of pirate ships, of kind of Viking pirate ships, right, 0:08:54.679 --> 0:08:57.959 and in his head he's thinking like, right, nothing will 0:08:58.040 --> 0:08:59.800 keep me from my love. I know, I'm so close 0:08:59.840 --> 0:09:01.560 to her. I'm going to find her. It's gonna be great, 0:09:01.559 --> 0:09:03.400 it's gonna be awesome. I just gotta get to these 0:09:03.440 --> 0:09:05.640 pirates first. So they're fighting, he's fighting on the deck. 0:09:05.679 --> 0:09:09.040 He's found the pirates. Fun he accidentally knocks off one 0:09:09.080 --> 0:09:14.839 of the pirates helmet and it's herd and so, you know, 0:09:14.960 --> 0:09:16.839 and then and then the story gets a little bit 0:09:16.920 --> 0:09:20.040 like a little bit disappointing because oh, they got married, 0:09:20.240 --> 0:09:24.079 and and not long after that Elf got on her 0:09:24.320 --> 0:09:27.640 a son. So it's, you know, that's a little bit disappointing. 0:09:27.679 --> 0:09:31.640 But the start of the story is is really really exciting, 0:09:31.760 --> 0:09:33.920 and the fact that she was able to kind of 0:09:33.920 --> 0:09:38.240 pursue her own destiny in a way that was was 0:09:38.360 --> 0:09:41.359 different certainly to other women and was kind of contrary 0:09:41.360 --> 0:09:45.800 to that that what would later become an established fairytale story. 0:09:45.840 --> 0:09:48.400 I think it's really compelling and kind of fun, and 0:09:48.679 --> 0:09:50.400 I think I'm going to choose to believe that that 0:09:50.520 --> 0:09:52.440 was true. Let's just go with this as a as 0:09:52.440 --> 0:09:55.760 a real story. I want to believe that she's a 0:09:55.800 --> 0:09:58.360 real person. I mean, the story came out like six 0:09:58.440 --> 0:10:00.400 hundred years after this was meant to have and in 0:10:00.880 --> 0:10:04.080 a sort of you know, history that also included it 0:10:04.160 --> 0:10:06.560 was like a history of the Danes that also included 0:10:06.640 --> 0:10:12.800 like giants and dragons and other things that we're probably 0:10:12.840 --> 0:10:21.200 not true. So one of the things we've been fascinated 0:10:21.240 --> 0:10:24.079 in recent culture is like watching things like down Abbey 0:10:24.320 --> 0:10:27.960 or even like Prince Harry's engagement where these like commoners 0:10:28.080 --> 0:10:31.000 sort of marry in and uh. And I was curious 0:10:31.000 --> 0:10:33.640 about the story that you tell about Clara Ward, who's 0:10:34.040 --> 0:10:36.120 I guess hails from Detroit. Can you tell us a 0:10:36.160 --> 0:10:40.679 little bit about her? Yeah, Clara Ward was, I mean 0:10:40.720 --> 0:10:43.800 her her story is very very much in line with 0:10:43.840 --> 0:10:45.200 a lot of what was happening at the end of 0:10:45.200 --> 0:10:51.400 the nineteenth century. Essentially, Europe was a Europe was the 0:10:51.440 --> 0:10:54.400 tough place to be. Um the sort of the national 0:10:54.440 --> 0:10:58.280 borders were changing all the time. Um, the fortunes of 0:10:58.320 --> 0:11:02.360 the European aristocrats were tumbling, and at the same time 0:11:02.400 --> 0:11:08.319 America was ascending in a big way, and particularly um 0:11:08.440 --> 0:11:12.880 American wealth was was becoming very very attractive, and so 0:11:13.480 --> 0:11:17.959 you saw a lot of these marriages between European aristocrats 0:11:18.000 --> 0:11:21.960 and American heiresses, and essentially the heiresses were bringing the 0:11:22.000 --> 0:11:25.760 money and the aristocrats were bringing the sort of you know, 0:11:27.280 --> 0:11:30.480 the titles, yeah, and the social standing and and all 0:11:30.520 --> 0:11:33.079 of that. That seemed sort of very very important then. 0:11:34.000 --> 0:11:39.040 And Clara Ward, who was the daughter of an American industrialist, 0:11:39.840 --> 0:11:44.120 she came from Detroit. She her her mother seems to 0:11:44.120 --> 0:11:47.440 have really wanted that life for her, and starting when 0:11:47.440 --> 0:11:50.360 she was in her teens, had her educated in London, 0:11:51.000 --> 0:11:54.480 in Italy and France. And the sort of most notable 0:11:54.480 --> 0:11:56.560 thing about those times was that Clara Ward got kicked 0:11:56.559 --> 0:11:59.839 out of every single school she went to, was just 0:12:00.000 --> 0:12:04.440 scribed as sort of far too wild to ever fit 0:12:04.559 --> 0:12:07.360 in into this kind of European society. But she eventually 0:12:07.480 --> 0:12:11.520 did marry. Um. She was very young, she was, you know, 0:12:12.000 --> 0:12:14.440 in her teens still when she married the Prince Caraman 0:12:14.480 --> 0:12:19.600 de Chimayum she was a Belgian prince, and they stayed together. 0:12:19.720 --> 0:12:22.840 Sort of it wasn't a good match. I mean, as 0:12:22.920 --> 0:12:25.480 as much as you can sort of you know, assume 0:12:25.760 --> 0:12:29.160 from a lot of these these marriages of wealth and title. 0:12:30.240 --> 0:12:34.199 People weren't always in it for love. Everything weren't in 0:12:34.240 --> 0:12:37.000 it for love. So Clara was seventeen years old when 0:12:37.000 --> 0:12:40.440 she met Prince Joseph Dick Caraman Chimay. He was the 0:12:40.520 --> 0:12:43.640 son of the Belgian foreign affairs minister. He was in 0:12:43.720 --> 0:12:46.280 serious debt, but of course he had this this title, 0:12:46.880 --> 0:12:50.760 and they got married in Paris in the eighteen ninety 0:12:50.800 --> 0:12:53.679 Her dress costs like like ten thousand dollars, I mean, 0:12:53.679 --> 0:12:57.080 which is just an insane amount of money in you know, 0:12:57.160 --> 0:13:01.520 in eighteen ninety. Um. Once they were married, they traveled 0:13:01.600 --> 0:13:04.880 to all of the sort of European hot spots. They 0:13:04.960 --> 0:13:08.400 were in the Belgian court, and they went to the Riviera, 0:13:08.600 --> 0:13:11.920 the Paris, went all over the place, and she you know, 0:13:12.400 --> 0:13:16.000 had two children this time. But it was clear from 0:13:16.000 --> 0:13:19.600 the reports that she was not happy, um, and that 0:13:19.679 --> 0:13:23.120 her relationship with her husband, which had you know, from 0:13:23.120 --> 0:13:26.320 the beginning not been great, was getting worse, and that 0:13:26.520 --> 0:13:29.840 she was potentially cheating on him and he didn't really 0:13:29.840 --> 0:13:32.400 care enough to stop her. Um. Things really came to 0:13:32.440 --> 0:13:35.960 the head when she was in the Belgian court. And 0:13:36.040 --> 0:13:40.840 evidently she says that King Leopold the Second showed so 0:13:40.920 --> 0:13:44.000 much attention to her too, that she was shunned by 0:13:44.000 --> 0:13:46.200 the rest of the court and became a sort of 0:13:46.200 --> 0:13:49.400 social pariah. And I think at that point really kind 0:13:49.400 --> 0:13:53.880 of crystallized her dislike of the European aristocratic circles that 0:13:53.960 --> 0:13:56.959 she was traveling in. So eventually, um there, Now, by 0:13:56.960 --> 0:14:00.160 the time they get to Paris, things are really you know, 0:14:00.160 --> 0:14:03.480 we've we've set the stage for a break between her 0:14:03.520 --> 0:14:06.040 and her husband, and sort of one of the first 0:14:06.120 --> 0:14:09.360 kind of best opportunities she takes it. And that opportunity 0:14:09.480 --> 0:14:13.559 happened to be a Hungarian gypsy violinist called Rigo Jancy. 0:14:13.800 --> 0:14:16.360 It's November eighteen ninety six. She's at a cafe, she 0:14:16.400 --> 0:14:20.480 sees him playing his violin. They smile at each other, 0:14:20.680 --> 0:14:24.080 and then ten days later she runs away with him. 0:14:24.160 --> 0:14:27.800 And two months after that she's divorced from her husband 0:14:27.840 --> 0:14:30.120 and separated from her children and also forced to pay 0:14:30.480 --> 0:14:35.680 him alimony for the rest of her life. She's now free, right, 0:14:35.680 --> 0:14:37.520 so this this like you can imagine too, I mean, 0:14:37.520 --> 0:14:40.680 this must have been this was incredibly scandalous. At the time. 0:14:40.920 --> 0:14:44.160 The courtroom for her divorce trial was packed. She didn't 0:14:44.200 --> 0:14:46.640 actually show up. All of her statements were actually went 0:14:46.680 --> 0:14:50.040 out by her lawyers. But she was just she was 0:14:50.120 --> 0:14:52.040 just done with it. And she even said, you know, 0:14:52.120 --> 0:14:54.960 she said, I wanted to be free. I am done 0:14:54.960 --> 0:14:57.200 with it. I don't think And she says later on 0:14:57.280 --> 0:15:02.400 too that that American went and could not fit into 0:15:02.920 --> 0:15:06.240 this kind of lifestyle, that it's too stifling, that it's 0:15:06.320 --> 0:15:10.120 too petty, and and she just hated it. But from 0:15:10.160 --> 0:15:14.120 that point on she lived her life to the fullest. 0:15:14.160 --> 0:15:18.120 I mean, she was you know, the she was painted 0:15:18.120 --> 0:15:21.320 by Vito loose law track. She was a star of 0:15:21.360 --> 0:15:25.200 Bellapoc friends. She you know, she posed in in these 0:15:25.240 --> 0:15:31.440 like skin tight leotard things with strange things on her head, 0:15:31.520 --> 0:15:35.360 had her pictures taken. She showed her ankles, I mean, 0:15:35.640 --> 0:15:41.320 she was having She she divorced Rigo Gout was involved 0:15:41.320 --> 0:15:43.960 with someone else, got married again who I think he 0:15:44.120 --> 0:15:47.160 was the handsomest man in Naples. I think that was 0:15:47.240 --> 0:15:50.720 his sort of you know, claimed the fame. And then 0:15:50.760 --> 0:15:53.000 they divorced and she married somebody else, and and it 0:15:53.080 --> 0:15:56.880 sort of you see that her you know, interest in 0:15:56.920 --> 0:15:59.000 her life is perpetual all the way up until the end. 0:15:59.080 --> 0:16:02.880 But details and actual facts about it are pretty slim 0:16:02.960 --> 0:16:05.880 on the ground. You don't really get a lot of great, 0:16:05.920 --> 0:16:09.040 great information about and reliable information about what happens to 0:16:09.080 --> 0:16:13.280 her after all these subsequent divorces. But um, she ended 0:16:13.360 --> 0:16:17.760 up I mean sadly. You know, she she died really young. 0:16:17.880 --> 0:16:21.640 She was only forty three. She died of pneumonia. And 0:16:21.760 --> 0:16:25.160 at the time, there were all these rumors that she 0:16:25.480 --> 0:16:29.040 was penniless, that she was completely cut off from her family, 0:16:29.280 --> 0:16:31.640 that you know, she had no friends and all these things. 0:16:32.000 --> 0:16:34.200 And while she may have been very much cut off 0:16:34.200 --> 0:16:37.480 from society, she wasn't penniless by any means. Um. She 0:16:37.600 --> 0:16:40.160 was certainly cut off from her children, but she hadn't 0:16:40.200 --> 0:16:45.360 been completely disowned. And you know, in the end, all 0:16:45.400 --> 0:16:48.200 of her obituaries just remembered her as this sort of 0:16:48.240 --> 0:16:54.800 you know, bright spark that blew out too quickly. And yeah, 0:16:54.840 --> 0:16:57.080 I mean you wrote about how she'd been at a 0:16:57.160 --> 0:17:00.360 convent and she shocked the nuns at the convent, like 0:17:01.160 --> 0:17:06.720 the waiter and a station manager, and I mean, she 0:17:06.800 --> 0:17:08.800 has such a remarkable life, and I think it's also 0:17:08.880 --> 0:17:10.560 kind of difficult, Like all the stuff that she's doing 0:17:11.240 --> 0:17:13.160 is you know, the kinds of things that if if 0:17:13.200 --> 0:17:16.359 we're to happen to a modern celebrity celebrity now, you know, 0:17:16.359 --> 0:17:18.400 it would be equally as interesting. But this is all 0:17:18.400 --> 0:17:20.440 happening at the turn of the century. This is this 0:17:20.520 --> 0:17:23.240 is the eighteen nineties to the nineteen tents. I mean, 0:17:23.280 --> 0:17:27.320 she died in nineteen sixteen, you know, so this is 0:17:27.359 --> 0:17:30.560 all like like she is she is. You know, she 0:17:30.760 --> 0:17:33.919 is a celebrity in the vein of celebrities now, but 0:17:34.040 --> 0:17:37.400 without the kind of machinery around promoting that celebrity. So 0:17:37.560 --> 0:17:40.240 if there's always kind of wonderful gossip columns and stuff 0:17:40.280 --> 0:17:43.400 that you read. And the Library of Congress, by the way, 0:17:43.520 --> 0:17:46.280 is a treasure trope and has everything. And I found 0:17:46.280 --> 0:17:49.040 out a lot from all the newspapers that they had 0:17:49.080 --> 0:17:52.560 their um But you know, you can see the beginnings 0:17:52.560 --> 0:17:54.639 of the steeds of the kinds of celebrities that we 0:17:54.680 --> 0:17:58.399 have now. And you know, her claimed aime was that 0:17:58.480 --> 0:17:59.879 she had a lot of money and she did some 0:18:00.000 --> 0:18:03.040 dosy things with it. She feels very modern in that regard, 0:18:03.119 --> 0:18:07.280 But I also just appreciate that she lived the life 0:18:07.320 --> 0:18:10.800 that she wanted to lead and wasn't going to be 0:18:10.920 --> 0:18:13.560 put into the boxes that her family wanted her to 0:18:13.600 --> 0:18:15.920 be in, or the European Court wanted her to be in, 0:18:16.480 --> 0:18:18.919 and or even you know, the public wanted her to 0:18:18.960 --> 0:18:23.000 be in. She she, she did her and good honor. 0:18:24.119 --> 0:18:26.840 We have several more fascinating lives that we want to 0:18:26.880 --> 0:18:28.720 ask you about, but before we do that, let's take 0:18:28.720 --> 0:18:44.280 a quick break. Welcome back to Part Time Genius. We're 0:18:44.280 --> 0:18:49.240 talking to Linda Rodriguez McRobbie, the author of Princesses Behaving Badly. Now, Linda, 0:18:49.320 --> 0:18:52.159 before we get back to some of the other specific princesses, 0:18:52.400 --> 0:18:54.439 I did appreciate, you know, so many of the side 0:18:54.480 --> 0:18:57.440 stories and sidebars and other guides that you had in 0:18:57.480 --> 0:18:59.840 the book, and one of these was a guide to 0:19:00.080 --> 0:19:03.040 faking prince's Hood. And I was, curiously, can you tell 0:19:03.119 --> 0:19:06.280 us some of the better strategies for pretending you're a 0:19:06.359 --> 0:19:10.800 royal if you're not actually a royal? Uh? Well, there 0:19:10.800 --> 0:19:14.359 are some fantastic examples of people doing that, and my 0:19:14.400 --> 0:19:17.960 favorite at Christmas Princess Cariboo. Who's in it? But um, 0:19:18.000 --> 0:19:20.920 it seems like the best way to pretend that you're 0:19:21.040 --> 0:19:25.280 royal when you're not is to just put your all 0:19:25.400 --> 0:19:28.640 into it and and stay it with confidence. It's sort 0:19:28.680 --> 0:19:30.359 of like people will believe you more if you just 0:19:30.359 --> 0:19:34.040 say it really loudly. Princess all of the Cumberland. She 0:19:35.280 --> 0:19:38.560 her story. This was This was in the early eight hundreds, 0:19:39.000 --> 0:19:41.480 right around the time in England when the press was 0:19:41.560 --> 0:19:47.000 becoming really really powerful and there were a lot of 0:19:47.000 --> 0:19:50.560 places where you could get pamphlets printed. And these pamphlets 0:19:50.560 --> 0:19:52.879 were probably they're just everywhere, like pretty much every it was. 0:19:52.880 --> 0:19:55.800 It's basically the same thing as having something self published. 0:19:55.840 --> 0:19:57.880 Now and you said, you will see tons of them 0:19:57.920 --> 0:20:01.600 where you know, the George Wilson, the Black Heath Pedestrian, 0:20:01.600 --> 0:20:04.160 a man who's walked a thousand miles, like, he gets 0:20:04.200 --> 0:20:06.560 his pamphlet printed and tells his story, it sells it. 0:20:06.760 --> 0:20:09.280 So she had her pamphlet printed and claimed to be 0:20:09.960 --> 0:20:13.880 Princess Olive of Cumberland, the sort of a legitimate sort 0:20:13.880 --> 0:20:18.800 of illegitimate, illegitimate daughter of the king's brother. Um. And 0:20:19.560 --> 0:20:22.520 any time that somebody says these things confidence, they put 0:20:22.520 --> 0:20:24.040 it down in paper, they put it down in writing, 0:20:24.119 --> 0:20:27.879 they tell enough people, they say it with enough power, 0:20:28.040 --> 0:20:30.840 they use the prince, people are going to start to 0:20:30.840 --> 0:20:33.920 believe it. Yeah, and it's it's amazing. I feel like 0:20:33.960 --> 0:20:36.560 there was one u one story in there. I can't 0:20:36.560 --> 0:20:39.720 remember who, but like there was a woman who refused 0:20:39.720 --> 0:20:44.159 to speak German unless unless a fellow queen or princess 0:20:44.200 --> 0:20:47.239 spoken to her. Like there's such elaborate ways out of 0:20:47.480 --> 0:20:50.040 like you know, explaining away the reason that you can't 0:20:50.040 --> 0:20:52.800 speak a language or whatever. It's just kind of amazing. 0:20:53.080 --> 0:20:55.439 It's also I think because people, you know, people do 0:20:55.640 --> 0:20:58.080 want to believe like there's there's I think this is 0:20:58.160 --> 0:21:01.720 part of the sort of really interesting world that um 0:21:01.800 --> 0:21:04.920 that royalty and habits that because it feels so special 0:21:05.119 --> 0:21:08.840 to people around you feel special by being connected to you. 0:21:09.000 --> 0:21:11.639 So if you know that that and of itself is 0:21:11.800 --> 0:21:14.480 enough for people to want to support your idea and 0:21:14.520 --> 0:21:17.639 to support you in your claim, and you know, so 0:21:17.720 --> 0:21:20.920 it becomes this kind of self perpetuating thing. I mean, 0:21:21.800 --> 0:21:26.800 it feels you know, royalty still feels special. So I 0:21:26.800 --> 0:21:28.680 I want to get back to some of the seedier 0:21:28.800 --> 0:21:32.320 sides of being a princess and h and can you 0:21:32.320 --> 0:21:34.440 tell us a little bit about Charlotte of Prussia who 0:21:34.480 --> 0:21:39.280 threw a notorious party. Oh yeah, she's one of my 0:21:39.280 --> 0:21:44.000 favorites too, because I think she's the granddaughter of Queen Victoria. Right, 0:21:44.080 --> 0:21:46.120 so who you know, we think of Queen Victoria as 0:21:46.760 --> 0:21:51.639 um Victorian. Yeah, I mean, just you know, everything about 0:21:51.880 --> 0:21:55.359 Victoria in the Victorian era is buttoned up in prim 0:21:55.400 --> 0:22:01.080 and proper. But in eight Charlotte of Prussia, um chain 0:22:01.160 --> 0:22:05.680 smoking Princess Victoria Elizabeth August Charlotte, granddaughter in Queen Victoria, 0:22:05.760 --> 0:22:08.520 the daughter of the Prussian rulers, the younger sister of 0:22:08.600 --> 0:22:13.280 Kaiser Vilham, the second um through a sex party at 0:22:13.320 --> 0:22:18.919 a hunting lodge in the woods, and evidently dozens of 0:22:19.359 --> 0:22:24.320 aristocrats showed up. It was you know, it was drinking 0:22:24.520 --> 0:22:30.080 and dancing and sex and lots of things going on. 0:22:30.600 --> 0:22:33.160 And the only reason that people found out about this 0:22:33.880 --> 0:22:37.440 was that there was someone in the party that night 0:22:37.760 --> 0:22:40.800 who leaked the story and started to blackmail the other 0:22:40.840 --> 0:22:43.960 people who were there, and they could describe in detail 0:22:44.400 --> 0:22:46.520 some of the naughty things that everybody who was up to. 0:22:47.040 --> 0:22:51.080 And it came out that um that Charlotte was the 0:22:51.080 --> 0:22:53.439 one who had thrown the party, and she had a 0:22:53.440 --> 0:22:57.600 reputation for being snobby and for being rude. Um. She 0:22:59.160 --> 0:23:04.320 did not have an academic mindset, so to speaking. Um, 0:23:04.640 --> 0:23:07.200 she was a flirt, you know. So so there was 0:23:07.320 --> 0:23:09.080 there's not a lot going for him, and this was 0:23:09.119 --> 0:23:12.520