Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
Speaker 1: much for tuning in. Let's hear it for our guest
Speaker 1: super producer, Dylan the Chainsaw Fagan.
Speaker 2: Dylan the Texas no the Tennessee Chainsaw Gentle Massacre Fagan. Yeah,
Speaker 2: what a guy. Help his hands on the men's.
Speaker 1: And thanks for giving us a hand. By the way, Dylan,
Speaker 1: they called me ben Bollen. That's Noel Brown. Uh No,
Speaker 1: I gotta tell you, I don't think we've ever talked
Speaker 1: about this. Uh, even in the days where I uh,
Speaker 1: I would be the kind of person who would go
Speaker 1: to one of those boozy mimosa brunches or whatever. I
Speaker 1: never got the bloody Mary for me. You know, it's
Speaker 1: a it's a cold soup, an alcoholic soup. It's like
Speaker 1: a spacho with problems, a spacho soup. Where's my gaspacho soup? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's burning tip burn my mouth.
Speaker 2: Not into it. Yeah, I don't know. I've I've tried
Speaker 2: to like it in the past and had a sip.
Speaker 2: I was dating somebody for a long time who's really
Speaker 2: into them, but didn't didn't go for it. And now
Speaker 2: I don't really drink too much, so it does seem
Speaker 2: like a popular go to like hangover cure, which basically
Speaker 2: just because you're drinking more. It's that hair of the
Speaker 2: dog situation. Maybe there's vitamins in the juice. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And look, I'm not morally opposed to the Bloody Mary.
Speaker 2: Do is that will?
Speaker 1: There's a lot of creativity in it when you get
Speaker 1: into the ingredients. But as we're going to learn in
Speaker 1: this episode, Bloody Mary has three different kinds of ridiculous
Speaker 1: history to it, going far past the drink.
Speaker 2: Three aspects, right, like a holy trinity kind of situation.
Speaker 2: How many times are you supposed to say it?
Speaker 1: Been in the game That is common in parts of
Speaker 1: the West. Candyman rolls turn off the lights, Yeah, candy
Speaker 1: Man rules you look in a mirror in the dark
Speaker 1: and you say the name Bloody Mary three times.
Speaker 2: Three times? Always three? Hey, another holy trinity situation. Whitmer
Speaker 2: Thomas as are incredible the comedian. We very much enjoy
Speaker 2: our incredible research associate Wren points out described the brunch
Speaker 2: cocktail as a hot wing in a glass, and Ben,
Speaker 2: I don't know if you've been or seen some of
Speaker 2: these places that literally will put like a giant like
Speaker 2: piece of bacon or even a actual hot wing like
Speaker 2: on the side of the there.
Speaker 1: They're the buffet approaches.
Speaker 2: We got big.
Speaker 1: The value add for brunch is that you go to
Speaker 1: a ridiculous spread of ingredients that you can put into
Speaker 1: your Bloody Mary and people just go nuts with it.
Speaker 1: It's like it's like an old dagwood sandwich, but it's
Speaker 1: as a drink.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah yeah, or like a like a savory froyo barre. Weird.
Speaker 2: It's very weird.
Speaker 1: And we know also that Bloody Mary was a moniker
Speaker 1: for a queen in the sixteenth century. She got this name.
Speaker 1: It's it's not one of those ironic names. Nope, she
Speaker 1: got it because she really did not dig Protestant She.
Speaker 2: Likes to murder them copiously, that's for sure.
Speaker 1: And so those are the three ways that we're we're
Speaker 1: going to be looking at the idea of bloody Mary.
Speaker 1: The same term that can describe three very different things.
Speaker 1: A queen, a childhood game, and a divisive beverage associated
Speaker 1: with drinking alcohol first thing in the morning.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yep, ye you love it, or yeah you hate it.
Speaker 2: I don't know too many people who are indifferent to
Speaker 2: it or will go for one, you know, every now
Speaker 2: and again. It's something that people really dig. Yep, for sure.
Speaker 2: The bloody Mary has been curing hangovers for over a century,
Speaker 2: and it was by one account conducted by bartender Fernand
Speaker 2: Petois in nineteen twenty one at Harry's Bar. I believe
Speaker 2: this is the official account. A favorite Paris hangout for
Speaker 2: a lot of the you know midnight in Paris types,
Speaker 2: the American expat writers and recontours like f. Scott Fitzgerald
Speaker 2: and of course famous lush Ernest Hemingway. The recipe was
Speaker 2: first published in a collection of cocktail recipes called Harry's
Speaker 2: ABC not ABC's of Cocktails.
Speaker 1: And over the years people played the game of telephone
Speaker 1: in the glass here they they put their own spin
Speaker 1: on the recipe. Different regional styles of a bloodyberry emerged.
Speaker 1: For instance, in Charleston, a bloody Mary can typically come
Speaker 1: with cold shrimp and pickled okra.
Speaker 2: Which a shrimp cocktail, which I do like, I do
Speaker 2: like a shrimp cocktail. Yeah, the okra is throwing me off,
Speaker 2: not like in the okra. It's mucilaginous tastes. It's snotty.
Speaker 2: So that's an official name for what type of veg
Speaker 2: that is. But the drink staple ingredients remain the same
Speaker 2: as led Zeppelin would put it. Salt and pepper, tabasco,
Speaker 2: sauce Worcestershire sauce Worcester, depending on if you're nasty, lemon juice, vodka,
Speaker 2: and tomato juice.
Speaker 1: Of course, so I didn't. I didn't clock that.
Speaker 2: It did not either did not either, But I could
Speaker 2: see that in the shrimp cocktail of planting a little,
Speaker 2: a little, a little what's the word, a little zing.
Speaker 2: Despite the cocktail's long standing popularity, the origins, as I
Speaker 2: sort of indicated up to remain up for debate to
Speaker 2: some degree as far as the name of it, at
Speaker 2: the very least.
Speaker 1: Right the provenance the origin of the name for the
Speaker 1: drink specifically, you're going to see. You're going to see
Speaker 1: a couple of theories, some that have more supporting evidence
Speaker 1: than others. The big three of this, there is speculation
Speaker 1: that our bar owner Guy named the drink as a
Speaker 1: way to pay homage to an exotic dancer that he
Speaker 1: had a big, big crush on it. Was a dancer
Speaker 1: named Mary who was either working at a bar in
Speaker 1: Chicago nicknamed Bucket of Blood or was a regular at
Speaker 1: that bar, so it became known as a dive bar
Speaker 1: in its day, or a home to the criminal element.
Speaker 1: This is where all kinds of ne'er do wells of
Speaker 1: Chicago would congregate, situated right across from something called Bedbug Roll,
Speaker 1: which was the cheapest, uh agglomeration of sex houses of
Speaker 1: ill repute.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, sex positive neighborhood.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they were the they were known as the
Speaker 1: most affordable of of all of Chicago.
Speaker 2: So bed Bug Row, Yeah, I mean, I guess you
Speaker 2: could maybe liken that to what's referred to often the
Speaker 2: neighborhood in Los Angeles called skid Row. Usually, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I guess they're positive rows. Are there? Fancy rows? Can row?
Speaker 2: No canary rose a good row either? No, I don't
Speaker 2: think so. I guess maybe I can't think of any
Speaker 2: positive rows row row row. You're both. That's different. That's unrelated.
Speaker 1: Quick amendment here. Now canery Row has been gentrified, of
Speaker 1: course it has, and now it's now it's classy again.
Speaker 2: But in wasn't it a Steinbeck novel?
Speaker 1: Yeah, nineteen forty five, he was writing about canary here.
Speaker 1: He had a novel called Canary Rose, set in the depression,
Speaker 1: and it's about people who live on a street where
Speaker 1: there are a bunch of fish canaries, and about how
Speaker 1: life kind of stinks.
Speaker 2: Savile row, thank you, thank you. Change. That is the
Speaker 2: area in London where you can get a real nice
Speaker 2: shirt exactly, and the tailors and fashioning bits along. It's great.
Speaker 2: It's great.
Speaker 1: If you're walking around and you're thinking my wallet is
Speaker 1: too heavy, exactly, well go over there. Bucket of Blood
Speaker 1: was a nickname for this this notorious dive bar. It
Speaker 1: was formally known as the New Delaware.
Speaker 2: It was famous.
Speaker 1: Like the Yelper views, if such existed at the time,
Speaker 1: would say, this place is famous for its bar fights,
Speaker 1: so much so that by the end of the night,
Speaker 1: when they were cleaning up before they closed, the mop
Speaker 1: water would turn red with.
Speaker 2: Is that is that how they made their pink lemonade?
Speaker 1: That's how? Yeah, that's how. Maybe that's I don't know.
Speaker 2: You got to remember that the callback was clown clownwn
Speaker 2: mop water essentially from ringing out their.
Speaker 1: Tights, reading out their tights and their their clown costs.
Speaker 2: Uh huh.
Speaker 1: Luckily, for better or worse, we should say this is
Speaker 1: not the only possible origin story of the drink. We've
Speaker 1: got two more, right, we do.
Speaker 2: Indeed, rumor has it that our boy, uh, the very
Speaker 2: tipsy Ernest Hemingway, i'd been dating a lady entertaining, a
Speaker 2: lady named Mary just before his first marriage to Hadlee Richardson.
Speaker 2: And as the story goes, according to PBS, Hemingway, who
Speaker 2: was a notorious drunk, allegedly didn't want to have alcohol
Speaker 2: on his breath when he next saw Lady Mary, so
Speaker 2: he asked for a drink to be mixed with juice.
Speaker 1: And because God forbid, he just drink juice, God forbid,
Speaker 1: he just not well, he's.
Speaker 2: Not going to forego that hair of the dog. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's also, you never hung over if you're always drunk.
Speaker 2: That's that's a philosophy that I think Hemingway would have
Speaker 2: been here too. So, while drinking Patois's newest concoction, Hemingway
Speaker 2: supposedly burst out with the swear, cursing bloody Mary for
Speaker 2: causing him all this trouble. Because okay, as far as
Speaker 2: another one, but this one seems like a little what's
Speaker 2: the word apocryphal, hocr full?
Speaker 1: Thank you b Yeah, it just it also doesn't paint
Speaker 1: hemingway in the best of life.
Speaker 2: Not many stories do to be fair, right. Uh.
Speaker 1: The third idea is this wherever it comes from, right
Speaker 1: or whatever inspired this guy to create this drink, it
Speaker 1: does catch on. You can now find it in all
Speaker 1: kinds of restaurants in Paris, and when it gets to Europe,
Speaker 1: the name is generally a trip to the English Queen
Speaker 1: Mary Tudor because she had the moniker Bloody Mary to
Speaker 1: start with, so she comes before the drink, which isn't
Speaker 1: that surprising?
Speaker 2: Might we add really quickly before we move on to
Speaker 2: the Bloody Queen that Harry's still is around in Paris today,
Speaker 2: much like what is it Lafitte's blacksmith shop in New
Speaker 2: Orleans another one of those historical dive bars, and the
Speaker 2: Bloody Mary is very much a specialty. They serve an
Speaker 2: estimated twelve thousand of them every single year.
Speaker 1: That seems like a lot. You know, we're not experts,
Speaker 1: but that's that's a lot of tomato juice. At the
Speaker 1: very least it is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I mean I know you can also buy
Speaker 2: like Bloody Mary mix. But I think if you're doing
Speaker 2: it proper, you would just use like a you know,
Speaker 2: an A one, not an A one. What's it called
Speaker 2: V eight kind of situation set up yourself. But let's
Speaker 2: jump in with the Queen Mary Tutor aka Bloody Mary,
Speaker 2: England's first female ruler. Mary the First had a bit
Speaker 2: of a rep for being one of history's biggest bullies.
Speaker 2: As Wren describes their biggest battle axes, which I really dig.
Speaker 2: She was brutal, She was unyielding and unforgiving. She ruled
Speaker 2: England with an iron fist. She revived some long retired
Speaker 2: laws against heresy in order to do a little bit
Speaker 2: of persecution against the Protestants who she did not enjoy
Speaker 2: living in her kingdom.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is a non ideal situation. Mary is very
Speaker 1: ideologically motivated, right to restore Catholic control over England. And
Speaker 1: when we say heresy laws, we say persecution of these
Speaker 1: upstart Protestants. We're not talking about making them pay extra
Speaker 1: taxes or something like that. She spearheaded the death of
Speaker 1: over three hundred people, burning them at the stake, on
Speaker 1: charges of heresy. And this estimate is very rough. It
Speaker 1: doesn't include the people who died in prison before the
Speaker 1: government could set them ablaze. And it doesn't count the
Speaker 1: eight hundred Protestants who immediately had to flee the country.
Speaker 1: They may have died on the way they we don't
Speaker 1: know what happened to them.
Speaker 2: I mean, this is absolutely a genocide of sorts, wouldn't
Speaker 2: you say? I mean in terms of a targeting of
Speaker 2: a particular type of people, a particular type of beliefs,
Speaker 2: and essentially exterminating them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if if Mary's administration had their way, everybody who
Speaker 1: was Protestant would either convert or be murdered. This is
Speaker 1: very much a mass casualty event. Look, we're saying she
Speaker 1: earned the nickname Bloody Mary. There's a little bit of
Speaker 1: empathy we can exercise. I don't know if it's deserved
Speaker 1: in this case, but we do have to admit that
Speaker 1: Mary's childhood was not pretty, non ideal. It was lonely,
Speaker 1: it was bleak. Her father, Henry the Eighth we've discussed
Speaker 1: in the past, was a real pill. Yes, so maybe
Speaker 1: that had an effect. Let's learn a little bit more
Speaker 1: about Mary's childhood.
Speaker 2: What do you say, Yeah, she was born in fifteen sixteen,
Speaker 2: great year, to King Henry the eighth of England and
Speaker 2: his longest standing wife, Catherine of Aragon. Although Catherine was
Speaker 2: Henry's first wife, she'd previously been married to his older
Speaker 2: brother Arthur, which is going to come into play in
Speaker 2: a little bit. Catherine was betrothed to Arthur by her parents,
Speaker 2: King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain, who we know,
Speaker 2: didn't they send Crystobal Columbus.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, Ferdinand, Queen Isabella of Spain, they are the
Speaker 1: ones who sent crystobol Colo.
Speaker 2: Across the ocean of it be Colon even better, Catherine,
Speaker 2: who was fifteen when she married Arthur, left everything she
Speaker 2: knew from her previous life behind and became the queen
Speaker 2: of a foreign land. However, just five months into their marriage,
Speaker 2: Arthur passed away due to a mysterious illness, and Ren
Speaker 2: points out, we got a lot of sick boys in
Speaker 2: this episode, yeah, to.
Speaker 1: Which I we respond, we've got a lot of sick people,
Speaker 1: this boy and the sick man too. Unfortunately, and we
Speaker 1: have to realize that there's this big romanticization of royalty,
Speaker 1: especially here in the West. But being at the tippy
Speaker 1: top of the social hierarchy did not necessarily a good
Speaker 1: life make so this is an arranged marriage. Catherine doesn't
Speaker 1: really have a say in all, yeah, at all.
Speaker 2: And she's going to be taken to task for a
Speaker 2: thing that she didn't have a say in at all.
Speaker 2: Little bit down the line, and a really gross abusive
Speaker 2: power that just gets more abusive as time goes on.
Speaker 1: In fact, if you look at the larger context, she
Speaker 1: was kind of lucky she made it to fifteen in
Speaker 1: the first place before being carted off against her will
Speaker 1: into this relationship. So now she's a teenage widow. Henry
Speaker 1: the Eighth is only ten years old.
Speaker 2: Insufferable at ten can you imagine he's.
Speaker 1: Very king Jeoffrey at head. That's why I say he's
Speaker 1: ten years old. When his brother passes away and the
Speaker 1: boy's father, Henry the seventh resumes his role as king.
Speaker 1: But then, okay, we're throwing Roman numerals around. Folks talk
Speaker 1: with him. Yeah, but then Henry the Seventh he dies
Speaker 1: six years later, and by the time he dies, Henry
Speaker 1: the Eighth is now of legal age, which means he
Speaker 1: can assume the throne. Henry the Eighth could have chosen
Speaker 1: another wife, but it is believed that his father's dying
Speaker 1: wish was that he continued this English alliance with Spain so.
Speaker 2: And he wanted him to win one for the Gipper.
Speaker 2: There's no question, so Ben I really quickly just backtracked.
Speaker 2: You made a King Jeoffrey comment, and I just want
Speaker 2: to say that young actor who played King Jeoffrey, great guy. Well,
Speaker 2: he's fantastic Jack Leeson, but he, I think because of
Speaker 2: all the backlash he got from playing such an insufferable,
Speaker 2: detestable character, he said he wasn't gonna act anymore. But
Speaker 2: did you notice he popped up in the new Sandman
Speaker 2: season doing Shakespeare. Yeah, he plays one of the fairies
Speaker 2: in the Midsummer Night's Dream and he plays Puck and
Speaker 2: he's fabulous. Oh it's just I was just glad to
Speaker 2: see him back because I'd such a bummer when you
Speaker 2: feel as though a role that you've played, an absolutely
Speaker 2: fictional role, is following you around and people are being
Speaker 2: genuinely mean to you because of a pretend character you
Speaker 2: played on TV.
Speaker 1: Happened to SIRC, happened to the guys who played the
Speaker 1: Slytherin characters and Harry Potter. It's a rough one. You
Speaker 1: may ask yourself Why are the guys throwing around all
Speaker 1: these seven and eight interchangeably?
Speaker 2: Here?
Speaker 1: I thought we were talking about bloody Mary. To talk
Speaker 1: about bloody Mary, we have to talk about Catherine here.
Speaker 1: All this as a result of all this stuff in
Speaker 1: these geopolitical shenanigans. In fifteen oh nine, to continue the
Speaker 1: alliance with Spain, Henry the Eighth does marry his sister
Speaker 1: in law. He is seventeen, she is twenty.
Speaker 2: Four, that's correct. And before Mary was born the couple
Speaker 2: had a lot of trouble producing an air. You know,
Speaker 2: that's a big part of the story with Henry. So
Speaker 2: you'd think that her arrival would be a blessing, but
Speaker 2: unfortunately she was not a male heir, which was a problem.
Speaker 2: While Mary's mother was super excited and overjoyed to have
Speaker 2: finally given birth to a healthy child having gone through
Speaker 2: so much difficulty in previous pregnancies, Henry was not stoked
Speaker 2: because at that stage only a male heir could continue
Speaker 2: the line the Twota legacy to Despite Henry's indifference to
Speaker 2: Mary's entire existence, Mary's mother doated on her as much
Speaker 2: as she was able to do her parents. Mary's mother
Speaker 2: uh spearheaded the Spanish Inquisition to violently convert Muslims and
Speaker 2: Jews to Catholicism.
Speaker 1: Oh and that's that's not Mary's mother, Catherine. That's Catherine's
Speaker 1: parents whose spearheaded the Spanish Inquisition.
Speaker 2: That's all I'm saying, Yes, correct, and thank you for
Speaker 2: the for the clarification. But this was something that she
Speaker 2: was very much exposed to. That oh yeah, highly contributed
Speaker 2: to her I don't know, mental state and her family,
Speaker 2: her belief system.
Speaker 1: Because it's normalized.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like how HP Lovecraft grew up with
Speaker 1: a cat that had a very problematic name.
Speaker 2: Goodness, that's true. Yeah it's a good story, but yeah
Speaker 2: it's not good.
Speaker 1: Thank Goodness. HP Lovecraft didn't have the legal ability to
Speaker 1: burn people.
Speaker 2: At the stake.
Speaker 1: But Mary's mom, Mary's mom does love her and does
Speaker 1: what the best for her daughter. So even though it's
Speaker 1: an imperfect childchildhood, Mary achieves something that is pretty rare
Speaker 1: for the average woman of the time. She gets an
Speaker 1: awesome education. She also becomes incredibly Catholic. Like and we're
Speaker 1: not in any way casting aspersions on Catholicism or a
Speaker 1: Catholic friends today. We're just saying she went super hard
Speaker 1: on the paint. Yes, indeed so in fifteen twenty but
Speaker 1: just to mention Mikole. At the time, you know, she
Speaker 1: wasn't a total outlier. You know, Catholicism was.
Speaker 2: Still relatively common in the area or in the in
Speaker 2: the country. In fifteen twenty two, Mary's mother Catherine got
Speaker 2: a lady in waiting, a handmaiden, I believe is that
Speaker 2: sort of similar situation, a companion assistant of lower birth.
Speaker 2: But I've also still love nobility though I believe it
Speaker 2: wasn't just like you know, a peasant. It was someone
Speaker 2: who was of lower nobility but still not at the
Speaker 2: same echelon. So she was almost like an apprentice, kind
Speaker 2: of following her around, doing things for her, et cetera.
Speaker 2: This was, of course, and blim, no relation. Yeah, she's
Speaker 2: a different feeling, right right, she is.
Speaker 1: Anne is a regular presence in the royal court, and
Speaker 1: this means that she gets the attention of that lecherous
Speaker 1: old goat Henry, unlike so many other women that he
Speaker 1: had initiated affairs with, and said no, she said, I
Speaker 1: don't care how powerful you are, I'm not into it.
Speaker 1: And there's still a lot of you know, we'll see
Speaker 1: how the history works out, But there's still a lot
Speaker 1: of speculation over whether this was like a long come right,
Speaker 1: whether this is a chess game on her part, like
Speaker 1: that old there's this old chauvinistic saying from I think
Speaker 1: the nineteen forties. It was something like a man chases
Speaker 1: a woman till she catches him, which is a pity
Speaker 1: little turn of phrase.
Speaker 2: Is that where the term chaste comes from? Or is
Speaker 2: that chastity? That's chastity? That it is a weird one. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you got it?
Speaker 1: Uh So was she played you know, quote unquote hard
Speaker 1: to get or was she genuinely saying no, I'm not
Speaker 1: into it. Also, bro, you've got your you've got relationships
Speaker 1: going on whatever kind of smell and you kind of yeah,
Speaker 1: because it's the fifteen hundreds so and probably spelled too.
Speaker 2: Are we entering King Henry the eighth sort of fat
Speaker 2: Elvis period at this point too? Isn't he a bit
Speaker 2: of a monstrosity, you know, chouning down on No fat
Speaker 2: shaming here, obviously, but he was a bit of a
Speaker 2: of a you know, despicable creature who probably you know,
Speaker 2: didn't I find him odious? Yes? Odious? Thank you? Ben
Speaker 2: And odious, mainly because of his deeds and the way
Speaker 2: he behaves towards women. But I do believe he was
Speaker 2: also a bit of a grotesque.
Speaker 1: Right uh, because no one ever told him no. Start
Speaker 1: maybe another king in a foreign land. Part of her
Speaker 1: playing hard to get was saying, look, the only way
Speaker 1: I'll sleep with you is if we do it honestly
Speaker 1: in the eyes of the church. So Henry is yes,
Speaker 1: anding all the way through this. He says, let's get married, Astik,
Speaker 1: I've just picked her. Anne going yeah, but Henry, You're
Speaker 1: already married, and he goes, oh yeah, Astik, is this
Speaker 1: slight thing with that? We are Catholic as well, and
Speaker 1: the Catholics won't let us get divorced. So I'm going
Speaker 1: to go to the church and I'm going to ask
Speaker 1: for the marriage to be annulled because of incest, because
Speaker 1: she had first been married to my brother a decade
Speaker 1: before we hitched up. And the Pope listens to this
Speaker 1: like a skeptical venture capitalist on Shark Tank. Right, he's
Speaker 1: got his fingers steepled, or he's like Simon Cowell watching
Speaker 1: an audition on whatever that show was, America's Got Talent.
Speaker 1: And after Henry does this performance and the incess thing
Speaker 1: is technically true. The Pope looks around and says, nah, dog,
Speaker 1: he's not good enough, not good enough. He won't grant
Speaker 1: the annulment. And this is what leads Henry the Eighth
Speaker 1: to sever ties with the Catholic Church and to found
Speaker 1: the Church of England.
Speaker 2: And the ultimate I'm taking my toys and going home.
Speaker 1: Move because of this one hookup that he really wanted.
Speaker 2: I know, that's crazy, it's really wild. So under the
Speaker 2: new Protestant regime, Henry was able to divorce Katherine and
Speaker 2: Mary and and boor Henry another child, but surprise, surprise,
Speaker 2: as you may well know, was not a male heir
Speaker 2: yet again, this was Elizabeth, who would go on to
Speaker 2: do some things in her own right. This is from
Speaker 2: a great BBC History article on this whole sortid ef
Speaker 2: Henry's allegations of incest effectively bastardized Mary. Yeah yeah, just
Speaker 2: disowned entirely. And nothing is worse in these days than
Speaker 2: being like an unwed mother or like a bastard. As
Speaker 2: we know again from Game of Thrones, that term is
Speaker 2: thrown around as quite a slanderous slur.
Speaker 1: And even if you're at the top again of the
Speaker 1: social hierarchy. If you are royalty and there are legitimate
Speaker 1: claims of illegitimacy, this is very dangerous. Your life is
Speaker 1: still gonna stink. Any political rival is going to always
Speaker 1: hammer that through when they want to get over on you. Still,
Speaker 1: Mary is, as we said, she is a staunch Catholic.
Speaker 1: After Anne Boleyn gives birth to Elizabeth, which we just mentioned,
Speaker 1: Mary wants to see her parents, you know, like any
Speaker 1: other kid, but she is not allowed to talk to
Speaker 1: her parents. And in this postal Lie Elizabeth world, you
Speaker 1: know how Sibley rivalry always gets intense. Imagine how much
Speaker 1: you would hate your little sister if the moment she's
Speaker 1: born you no longer get to be called a princess.
Speaker 1: That's that's not a good look. That's just mean parenting there.
Speaker 1: It truly is pitting them against each other. So for
Speaker 1: years Mary lived in her infant sisters quarters. Like I
Speaker 1: guess that's almost like Harry Potter living under.
Speaker 2: The stairs a little bit. It's not the most posh
Speaker 2: of circumstances. It's you know, she's playing second fiddle, living
Speaker 2: in her sister's shadow, essentially with very little acknowledgment from
Speaker 2: anyone you know, relegated to a life of solitary. I
Speaker 2: don't know, Steing frankly absolutely.
Speaker 1: I also want to take a second real quick, and
Speaker 1: as I know, we've got a lot of fans of
Speaker 1: musicals in the audience. We share that enthusiasm. There is
Speaker 1: a great musical comedy called Six Good Yeah, The Lives
Speaker 1: of the Six Wives of Henry the Eighth and it's
Speaker 1: pretty neat. If you want a quick sample of it,
Speaker 1: check out their Tiny Desk concert.
Speaker 2: It is historically based.
Speaker 1: It's a tangent, but it's it's worth mentioning because it's
Speaker 1: a sick musical.
Speaker 2: Historically based and historically based. There we go. That's perfect.
Speaker 1: That review should be on the pamphlet.
Speaker 2: I like it so okay.
Speaker 1: Spoiler alert, you know the Titanic sinks, A Lincoln has
Speaker 1: a bad time at the play, Mary has a very
Speaker 1: lonely as you said, Harry Potter under the stairs existence
Speaker 1: and Ann Berlin doesn't have the best relationship with Henry.
Speaker 1: She is beheaded in fifteen thirty six on charges of treason,
Speaker 1: or more likely he got tired of her, and Henry
Speaker 1: moves on to Jane Seymour Jane Seymore is the opposite
Speaker 1: of Anne Boleyn and every way, at least according to historians,
Speaker 1: She's not considered she's considered kind of playing on the inside.
Speaker 2: And the outcoms maybe not the same level. And again
Speaker 2: we're not trying to character assassinate a dead historical figure
Speaker 2: too much, but it did feel like Blenn had a
Speaker 2: bit of a long game going on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a bit of a calculation there.
Speaker 2: And Jane is a lot more good natured and you know,
Speaker 2: considered to be a little bit more like you said, Ben,
Speaker 2: a little bit more of vanilla. And she also had
Speaker 2: sympathies for Mary because of her own background. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: also because Jane Seymour was a decent person. You don't
Speaker 2: want to see a kid in unnecessary in traumatic situations,
Speaker 2: and she is. Look, Jane Seymour seems kind of like
Speaker 2: a normal person in a way. She's very sweet, she
Speaker 2: has a good heart to her. She goes to her
Speaker 2: husband Henry and says, come on, man, this is your daughter.
Speaker 2: Get her back into the royal court. And Mary is
Speaker 2: she's got a lot going on here because remember she's
Speaker 2: still very Catholic.
Speaker 1: This entire time. Her dad made up a church so
Speaker 1: he could get divorced. She ultimately says, I am going
Speaker 1: to let this one go because I love my dad
Speaker 1: and I want to have a relationship with him. I
Speaker 1: don't agree with him spiritually. I'm not going to denounce Catholicism,
Speaker 1: but I I think you know what you did, Pops,
Speaker 1: So there's still going to be some tension.
Speaker 2: Not going to hold out hope for that apology. Don't
Speaker 2: think it ever came. So Jane finally gave Henry what
Speaker 2: he'd been dreaming of, which was a male heir, and
Speaker 2: unfortunately that led to Jane's passing. Now when she died of.
Speaker 1: Childbirth common not uncommon thing at the time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, fever took her twelve days after he was born.
Speaker 2: And if I'm not mistaken to this, this male heir
Speaker 2: like was very frail and like had hemophilia and it
Speaker 2: was like super not particularly effective. Right, didn't he die
Speaker 2: at a young age as well?
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's see, Henry the eighth had a had a
Speaker 1: son named Henry, Duke of Cornwall, but that poor kid
Speaker 1: died within weeks of being born. And then the kid
Speaker 1: that Henry has with Jane is Edward the sixth. And
Speaker 1: if I'm not mistaken, Ben, this boy was quite feeble
Speaker 1: and considered a bit of a weakling, and that's Edward
Speaker 1: the sixth. He did, however, prove to be quite bloodthirsty
Speaker 1: and not a great dude, and he did die before
Speaker 1: he was able to wreak too much havoc on the country.
Speaker 2: Geez.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and look it's an unhappy Brady bunch we're describing.
Speaker 1: Mary is very, very sad to lose Jane Seymour because
Speaker 1: Jane Seymour is kind of the closest thing to a
Speaker 1: maternal figure that she has in her life. At this
Speaker 1: point all of this has happened, Mary is just now
Speaker 1: turning twenty one years old. She's second in line to
Speaker 1: the throne, behind her much younger brother Edward, who we
Speaker 1: just mentioned. Edward gets declared King of England after Henry
Speaker 1: the eighth dies, even though Edward is a literal boy,
Speaker 1: which sounds like alive from my Thinkure should leave.
Speaker 2: Yes, a literal boy or it's also like one of
Speaker 2: an insult that Daniel plainsview with a hurl at somebody.
Speaker 2: You literal boy. That's good, let's keep that.
Speaker 1: I like it so because this is not unprecedented in
Speaker 1: the story of Royalty. What this means is there will
Speaker 1: be a brain trust of adults. There will be a
Speaker 1: group of folks who are regents, and the kid ruler
Speaker 1: is a figurehead or a mascot until they attain their
Speaker 1: majority and become considered an adult themselves. So the real
Speaker 1: power at this time is a guy named the Duke
Speaker 1: of Northumberland. And this dude is super duper duper Protestant.
Speaker 1: So another bad blow for the super duper duper Catholic Mary.
Speaker 1: As you said, Noel Edward never in the best of health.
Speaker 1: This poor kid. We believe he died from tuberculosis at
Speaker 1: the age of fifteen. And while he is on his deathbed,
Speaker 1: this Duke of Northumberland gets over to this child, this
Speaker 1: fifteen year old, and says, look, man, before you go,
Speaker 1: I need you to officially make your older sister Mary
Speaker 1: a bastard again. Rebastardize, rebastardizer, my boy, my lad, because,
Speaker 1: my lad, because no, if you don't his logic here is,
Speaker 1: if you don't make it impossible for her to become
Speaker 1: the ruler of England, then she is going to turn
Speaker 1: it back into a Catholic nation.
Speaker 2: Oh he wasn't he went wrong. We've been exercising a
Speaker 2: lot of empathy for Mary. But let's not forget where
Speaker 2: we started with Bloody Mary. That's where we're getting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, good call, That's why we put that stuff up
Speaker 1: at the front. This is why Northumberland's seventeen year old
Speaker 1: daughter in law becomes Queen Lady Jane Gray. And this
Speaker 1: is a there's a real out of the blue plot
Speaker 1: twist for the public. A lot of people loved Catherine.
Speaker 1: She was the Princess Diana of her time. Princess nailed.
Speaker 1: Lady Jane Gray's reign doesn't last very long.
Speaker 2: No, within nine days, Mary usurped Jane for the crown,
Speaker 2: and within a few months Mary beheaded Jane for surprise
Speaker 2: suppressed treason, the most open ended, vague death sentence in history,
Speaker 2: I would argue.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And and the fact that she immediately went to
Speaker 1: the nuclear option death yep, Yeah, that's a precedent.
Speaker 2: And she's been stealing, dude, she'd been stealing.
Speaker 1: She's been thinking a lot, and her infant sisters making lists,
Speaker 1: you know, checking up twice. Yeah, she came here to
Speaker 1: chew gum and killed Protestants and guess what, she didn't
Speaker 1: know what gum was.
Speaker 2: Gum hadn't been in vintage yet. Yes, Mary, despite being
Speaker 2: a bit of a pill herself, wanted nothing more than
Speaker 2: to be a mother so much that she experienced a
Speaker 2: few of something that I think it might be worth
Speaker 2: an exploration onto itself. Phantom pregnancies pseudosciesis is the term
Speaker 2: during which her abdomen and breasts would swell as though
Speaker 2: she were pregnant. This is a new one to me, Ben,
Speaker 2: I don't think I remember this from history class.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a it's a medical condition that can occur,
Speaker 1: so it's not it is a physiological change, right, you
Speaker 1: can see it manifested. I think it'd be Yeah, it'd
Speaker 1: be interesting to do an episode of this. I think
Speaker 1: you're onto something.
Speaker 2: Well, it is uncommon, Yeah, it's very It is very
Speaker 2: and often attributed directly to to this monarch.
Speaker 1: Yeah. In the end, as we all know, Mary ends
Speaker 1: up marrying a Catholic of course, Philip too from Spain.
Speaker 1: She and Philip are both kind of unpopular with their
Speaker 1: respective crowds. They never have issue, or they never have
Speaker 1: a child. Issue is the fancy way you say child
Speaker 1: when we're talking nobility. And the reason they didn't have
Speaker 1: a kid is because their marriage was not romantic Philip
Speaker 1: was not digging Mary. He thought she was unattractive. He
Speaker 1: spent as much time as he could away from her.
Speaker 1: So she Mary unfortunately dies in fifteen fifty eight, most
Speaker 1: likely due to flu or stomach cancer, and her younger
Speaker 1: sister Elizabeth takes the throne.
Speaker 2: Yep, and then immediately we entered the Elizabethan era on
Speaker 2: day one. It's like we ever, it's the eighties now,
Speaker 2: and I want to just really quickly walk back to
Speaker 2: something I said earlier. Phantom pregnancy or pseudostiistis it's not.
Speaker 2: When I say it was often attributed to Mary, I
Speaker 2: just mean that she was probably one of the most
Speaker 2: famous people to have suffered from this condition. So when
Speaker 2: you look it up, you're going to see stories about
Speaker 2: bloody Mary. And I'm not saying this is some sort
Speaker 2: of imagined condition. It is very much rare and something
Speaker 2: that happens to some women, for sure.
Speaker 1: And that's just because that's the most famous historical figure
Speaker 1: with that case. That's the example you'll see in a
Speaker 1: Textbook's right. Yeah, there's another big switcheroo. This is a
Speaker 1: very weird time to be a peasant invested in politics,
Speaker 1: because now that Elizabeth is ascending to the throne. We've
Speaker 1: already switched back and forth from being Catholic to being Protestant.
Speaker 1: We started a whole new church. Elizabeth switches everything back.
Speaker 1: So now we're going back to the Church of England.
Speaker 1: We're done with those Catholic reforms from Bloody Mary, and
Speaker 1: we're ushering in a new age of Protestant England. This
Speaker 1: also begins the golden age of Mercantalism, the c of E.
Speaker 2: As they often call it, the Church of England. Ben,
Speaker 2: I think we need to deliver on a bit of
Speaker 2: a promise that we did we made at the top.
Speaker 2: We're not quite in two parter territory, but we're gonna
Speaker 2: make this one a little bit longer than usual. We're
Speaker 2: going to talk a bit about the third aspect of
Speaker 2: Bloody Mary, the urban legend of it all. So why
Speaker 2: don't we set the scene. I think we may have
Speaker 2: all been there again for me and you. I think
Speaker 2: our age it was probably more Candy Man kind of
Speaker 2: replaced Bloody Mary because of where that movie kind of
Speaker 2: loomed large in the zeitgeist of our youth. So we're
Speaker 2: in middle school. It's a Friday night in late winter
Speaker 2: and we're maybe having a slumber party. We're not old
Speaker 2: enough to drive yet, so at this point we're getting
Speaker 2: dropped off by mom and dad. There's nothing left to
Speaker 2: watch on TV except for infomercials. What was it the
Speaker 2: showtime Ron Pope heel remember those? I don't know about
Speaker 2: the George Lopez show. That was apparently Wren's touch point there,
Speaker 2: but I think she's a little younger than we are.
Speaker 2: So we resign ourselves to sleep, and one friend suggest
Speaker 2: that we play a spooky game because we don't have
Speaker 2: phone light. Is a feather stiff as a board maybe, right?
Speaker 1: Or a weedge aboard? You might play with me anyway. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So the rules are as follows. The participant enters a
Speaker 1: darkened room with a lit candle. He or she looks
Speaker 1: into a mirror while chanting Bloody Mary's name or a
Speaker 1: phrase a specific number of times. If the ritual is
Speaker 1: performed correctly, Bloody Mary might appear either in the mirror
Speaker 1: or reach out of the mirror and scratch her face,
Speaker 1: or be released from the afterlife to haunt him or
Speaker 1: her forever, forever, forever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and obviously you know Clive Barker was very familiar
Speaker 2: with this urban legend when he created the candy Man
Speaker 2: Neathos and took it to the next level with the
Speaker 2: hook handy dude reaching out and slaughtering you when you
Speaker 2: say his name. I think the first Candy Man movie
Speaker 2: is pretty good, and the remake was interesting.
Speaker 1: The remakes interesting. It goes a little more anti hero.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's not perfect, but I did think it
Speaker 2: was an interesting attempt, and the first one is pretty cool. Actually,
Speaker 2: it's still.
Speaker 1: I was very frightened by the first things get holds up.
Speaker 1: I also want us to shout out this that quotation
Speaker 1: of the of the rough rules that comes from our
Speaker 1: Alma matter how stuff works, So shout out to Deborah
Speaker 1: Ronka for writing that. You know, the game might be
Speaker 1: called candy Man or Bloody Mary, but if you travel
Speaker 1: around the world, you'll see variations. They're all kinds of
Speaker 1: phrases people might say, and it's usually naming some kind
Speaker 1: of Boogeyman esque figure. But it would be funny to
Speaker 1: go to make a kid go in there and just
Speaker 1: say a silly phrase like you have to go in
Speaker 1: and you have to say knickerbocker.
Speaker 2: Wibbbe yeah, and then three times and then heapy clown
Speaker 2: pops out and hits you over the head with a
Speaker 2: squeaky hammer.
Speaker 1: Or what is a knickerbocker?
Speaker 2: That's the old It's a type of pant.
Speaker 1: It is a pant I type of people.
Speaker 2: I want to say, maybe so, and it's what's definitely
Speaker 2: a famous hotel in New York for sure, but I
Speaker 2: guess I just know it as the pant and the hotel.
Speaker 2: There are variations to this, as you mentioned, Ben, you
Speaker 2: could alternatively, if you don't want to go with wibbledy
Speaker 2: wobble d woo or knickerbocker, you could say, uh, let's
Speaker 2: go dark with it, right, I killed your baby, bloody Mary.
Speaker 2: But yeah, because you have to.
Speaker 1: You have to poke the bear a little little bit
Speaker 1: me here, or sometimes the mirror would drip blood. Sometimes
Speaker 1: this is very urban legend, the scary stories to tell
Speaker 1: in the dark kind of style. Sometimes the kid who
Speaker 1: dares bloody Mary comes out of you know, the locked
Speaker 1: bathroom with their hair all white and maybe they're mute.
Speaker 1: The legends of this or the origin of this strange
Speaker 1: pastime is also kind of ambiguous. It's kind of murky.
Speaker 1: There's a really interesting bit of research that Ren found
Speaker 1: arguing that this is symbolically or thematically related to a
Speaker 1: kid's or an adolescent's first experience with menstruation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and there's a folklorist who wrote a book called
Speaker 2: Bloody Mary in the Mirror, a ritual reflection of prepubescent anxiety,
Speaker 2: Alan Dundas, who had this to say about it. Bloody
Speaker 2: Mary ritual may not be a significantly accurate portrayal of menstruation,
Speaker 2: but it does represent an anticipatory image of a forthcoming
Speaker 2: major event in the individual females life cycle.
Speaker 1: And there's a second theory that says Bloody Mary could
Speaker 1: be the spirit of more than one notoriously cruel member
Speaker 1: of the nobility, Queen Mary Tudor or Countess Elizabeth Bathory.
Speaker 1: I iced be fascinated with her, and I think I
Speaker 1: think there's a really strong argument that history did her wrong.
Speaker 2: Oh really, I don't know about that. Then. I always
Speaker 2: maybe that's just because I you know, I was read
Speaker 2: the headlines, but I always associated her with being a
Speaker 2: bloodthirsty individual who would murder female servants so that she
Speaker 2: could bathe in their blood in order to stay youthful forever.
Speaker 2: What's what's the alternate spin on her story? Well, this
Speaker 2: happens a lot. The alternate spin is that the accusations
Speaker 2: against her were either jimmied up or goosed, as we've
Speaker 2: been saying lately.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the idea being that someone wanted to remove a
Speaker 1: powerful person from power. She was accused long before Servants
Speaker 1: of torturing and killing hundreds of girls and women from
Speaker 1: I think a period of decades from fifteen ninety to
Speaker 1: sixteen ten. Yeah, So, if true, quite the serial killer,
Speaker 1: very much a bloody Mary. But why wouldn't you call
Speaker 1: her bloody Beth?
Speaker 2: No, no, no, it's a good question. Remember that I killed
Speaker 2: your baby thing from earlier. You may have already put
Speaker 2: this together astute, ridiculous historians, but that may well have
Speaker 2: been a reference to Bloody Mary, Mary Tutor and her
Speaker 2: unfulfilled desire to become a mother.
Speaker 3: A real taunt, a real taunt, something like that, right,
Speaker 3: And we know this is now a staple of American folklore,
Speaker 3: and you can see her reference through the idea of
Speaker 3: this supernatural creature referenced in everything from Beetlejuice to The
Speaker 3: ring the adaptation of Ringu, the Japanese film, and to
Speaker 3: as previously mentioned, candy Man.
Speaker 1: But if we bring it all back around, and we'really Mary's.
Speaker 2: For a little hair dog. Right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they didn't just popularize the Bloody Mary in their
Speaker 1: neck of the Global Woods. They've been credited with inventing
Speaker 1: the Sidecar, the Blue Lagoon and the White Lady. Think
Speaker 1: I know the sidecar, I don't know the other.
Speaker 2: Yeah. The sidecar is like I believe a gin cock
Speaker 2: Oh look at this. You can go to Harry's Bar
Speaker 2: dot com. How helpful, and then it's got a lot
Speaker 2: of really interesting historical bits on it and a list
Speaker 2: of their specialty cocktails, the Boulevardier, the Bloody Marry, the Sidecar,
Speaker 2: which is Cognac triple second lemon juice. I do love
Speaker 2: a French seventy five Champagne gin lemon juice and a
Speaker 2: few drops of absent. I do love classic cocktails. I
Speaker 2: don't drink a ton anymore, but when I do, I really,
Speaker 2: when I go to a fancy place, I am more
Speaker 2: disposed to enjoying one really really tasty classic cocktail.
Speaker 1: Boullevardier. Interesting. Well, we hope you found this interesting as well, folks.
Speaker 1: This was a cool exploration that took us in unexpected
Speaker 1: places and shout out to anybody who is sipping a
Speaker 1: bloody Mary. As you tuned in, we we can't wait
Speaker 1: for you to join us when we delve into some
Speaker 1: more unexpected history spoiler with a certain dark night later
Speaker 1: in the week. Meantime, big thanks to our producer Max Williams,
Speaker 1: Big thanks to our guest producer Dylan the Chainsaw fac It.
Speaker 2: Huge thanks to Chris Frasciotis and needs Jeff Codes both
Speaker 2: here in spirit, Jonathan Strickland, the quizter, Ay j Bahamas.
Speaker 1: Jacob's the Puzzler mm hmm, and big big shout out
Speaker 1: to our rude dudes over app Ridiculous Prime. If you
Speaker 1: dig us, you'll dig them. And as Harpal Dylan always says,
Speaker 1: speaking to digging, let's dig up the root of vacos.
Speaker 2: Let's do it. Let's see you next time, folks. For
Speaker 2: more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your Faceavorite shows