July 15, 2025 • 47 mins
A frightening children's game. An intensely divisive, boozy drink. A real-life Royal. As Ben and Noel discover in today's episode, "Bloody Mary" alludes to several ridiculous -- and, at times -- disturbing things.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
much for tuning in. Let's hear it for our guest
super producer, Dylan the Chainsaw Fagan.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Dylan the Texas no the Tennessee Chainsaw Gentle Massacre Fagan. Yeah,
what a guy. Help his hands on the men's.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
And thanks for giving us a hand. By the way, Dylan,
they called me ben Bollen. That's Noel Brown. Uh No,
I gotta tell you, I don't think we've ever talked
about this. Uh, even in the days where I uh,
I would be the kind of person who would go
to one of those boozy mimosa brunches or whatever. I
(01:10):
never got the bloody Mary for me. You know, it's
a it's a cold soup, an alcoholic soup. It's like
a spacho with problems, a spacho soup. Where's my gaspacho soup? Yeah,
it's burning tip burn my mouth.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Not into it. Yeah, I don't know. I've I've tried
to like it in the past and had a sip.
I was dating somebody for a long time who's really
into them, but didn't didn't go for it. And now
I don't really drink too much, so it does seem
like a popular go to like hangover cure, which basically
just because you're drinking more. It's that hair of the
dog situation. Maybe there's vitamins in the juice. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Yeah, And look, I'm not morally opposed to the Bloody Mary.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Do is that will?
Speaker 1 (01:52):
There's a lot of creativity in it when you get
into the ingredients. But as we're going to learn in
this episode, Bloody Mary has three different kinds of ridiculous
history to it, going far past the drink.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Three aspects, right, like a holy trinity kind of situation.
How many times are you supposed to say it?
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Been in the game That is common in parts of
the West. Candyman rolls turn off the lights, Yeah, candy
Man rules you look in a mirror in the dark
and you say the name Bloody Mary three times.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Three times? Always three? Hey, another holy trinity situation. Whitmer
Thomas as are incredible the comedian. We very much enjoy
our incredible research associate Wren points out described the brunch
cocktail as a hot wing in a glass, and Ben,
I don't know if you've been or seen some of
these places that literally will put like a giant like
(02:52):
piece of bacon or even a actual hot wing like
on the side of the there.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
They're the buffet approaches.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
We got big.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
The value add for brunch is that you go to
a ridiculous spread of ingredients that you can put into
your Bloody Mary and people just go nuts with it.
It's like it's like an old dagwood sandwich, but it's
as a drink.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Oh yeah yeah, or like a like a savory froyo barre. Weird.
It's very weird.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
And we know also that Bloody Mary was a moniker
for a queen in the sixteenth century. She got this name.
It's it's not one of those ironic names. Nope, she
got it because she really did not dig Protestant She.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Likes to murder them copiously, that's for sure.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
And so those are the three ways that we're we're
going to be looking at the idea of bloody Mary.
The same term that can describe three very different things.
A queen, a childhood game, and a divisive beverage associated
with drinking alcohol first thing in the morning.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Yeah, yep, ye you love it, or yeah you hate it.
I don't know too many people who are indifferent to
it or will go for one, you know, every now
and again. It's something that people really dig. Yep, for sure.
The bloody Mary has been curing hangovers for over a century,
and it was by one account conducted by bartender Fernand
(04:24):
Petois in nineteen twenty one at Harry's Bar. I believe
this is the official account. A favorite Paris hangout for
a lot of the you know midnight in Paris types,
the American expat writers and recontours like f. Scott Fitzgerald
and of course famous lush Ernest Hemingway. The recipe was
(04:47):
first published in a collection of cocktail recipes called Harry's
ABC not ABC's of Cocktails.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
And over the years people played the game of telephone
in the glass here they they put their own spin
on the recipe. Different regional styles of a bloodyberry emerged.
For instance, in Charleston, a bloody Mary can typically come
with cold shrimp and pickled okra.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Which a shrimp cocktail, which I do like, I do
like a shrimp cocktail. Yeah, the okra is throwing me off,
not like in the okra. It's mucilaginous tastes. It's snotty.
So that's an official name for what type of veg
that is. But the drink staple ingredients remain the same
as led Zeppelin would put it. Salt and pepper, tabasco,
(05:34):
sauce Worcestershire sauce Worcester, depending on if you're nasty, lemon juice, vodka,
and tomato juice.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Of course, so I didn't. I didn't clock that.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
It did not either did not either, But I could
see that in the shrimp cocktail of planting a little,
a little, a little what's the word, a little zing.
Despite the cocktail's long standing popularity, the origins, as I
sort of indicated up to remain up for debate to
some degree as far as the name of it, at
(06:05):
the very least.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Right the provenance the origin of the name for the
drink specifically, you're going to see. You're going to see
a couple of theories, some that have more supporting evidence
than others. The big three of this, there is speculation
that our bar owner Guy named the drink as a
(06:28):
way to pay homage to an exotic dancer that he
had a big, big crush on it. Was a dancer
named Mary who was either working at a bar in
Chicago nicknamed Bucket of Blood or was a regular at
that bar, so it became known as a dive bar
(06:52):
in its day, or a home to the criminal element.
This is where all kinds of ne'er do wells of
Chicago would congregate, situated right across from something called Bedbug Roll,
which was the cheapest, uh agglomeration of sex houses of
ill repute.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Yeah, exactly, sex positive neighborhood.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Yeah, and they were the they were known as the
most affordable of of all of Chicago.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
So bed Bug Row, Yeah, I mean, I guess you
could maybe liken that to what's referred to often the
neighborhood in Los Angeles called skid Row. Usually, I don't know.
I guess they're positive rows. Are there? Fancy rows? Can row?
No canary rose a good row either? No, I don't
think so. I guess maybe I can't think of any
(07:42):
positive rows row row row. You're both. That's different. That's unrelated.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Quick amendment here. Now canery Row has been gentrified, of
course it has, and now it's now it's classy again.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
But in wasn't it a Steinbeck novel?
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Yeah, nineteen forty five, he was writing about canary here.
He had a novel called Canary Rose, set in the depression,
and it's about people who live on a street where
there are a bunch of fish canaries, and about how
life kind of stinks.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Savile row, thank you, thank you. Change. That is the
area in London where you can get a real nice
shirt exactly, and the tailors and fashioning bits along. It's great.
It's great.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
If you're walking around and you're thinking my wallet is
too heavy, exactly, well go over there. Bucket of Blood
was a nickname for this this notorious dive bar. It
was formally known as the New Delaware.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
It was famous.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Like the Yelper views, if such existed at the time,
would say, this place is famous for its bar fights,
so much so that by the end of the night,
when they were cleaning up before they closed, the mop
water would turn red with.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Is that is that how they made their pink lemonade?
Speaker 1 (09:03):
That's how? Yeah, that's how. Maybe that's I don't know.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
You got to remember that the callback was clown clownwn
mop water essentially from ringing out their.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
Tights, reading out their tights and their their clown costs.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Uh huh.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Luckily, for better or worse, we should say this is
not the only possible origin story of the drink. We've
got two more, right, we do.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
Indeed, rumor has it that our boy, uh, the very
tipsy Ernest Hemingway, i'd been dating a lady entertaining, a
lady named Mary just before his first marriage to Hadlee Richardson.
And as the story goes, according to PBS, Hemingway, who
was a notorious drunk, allegedly didn't want to have alcohol
(09:47):
on his breath when he next saw Lady Mary, so
he asked for a drink to be mixed with juice.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
And because God forbid, he just drink juice, God forbid,
he just not well, he's.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
Not going to forego that hair of the dog. I mean,
it's also, you never hung over if you're always drunk.
That's that's a philosophy that I think Hemingway would have
been here too. So, while drinking Patois's newest concoction, Hemingway
supposedly burst out with the swear, cursing bloody Mary for
(10:20):
causing him all this trouble. Because okay, as far as
another one, but this one seems like a little what's
the word apocryphal, hocr full?
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Thank you b Yeah, it just it also doesn't paint
hemingway in the best of life.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Not many stories do to be fair, right. Uh.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
The third idea is this wherever it comes from, right
or whatever inspired this guy to create this drink, it
does catch on. You can now find it in all
kinds of restaurants in Paris, and when it gets to Europe,
the name is generally a trip to the English Queen
(11:02):
Mary Tudor because she had the moniker Bloody Mary to
start with, so she comes before the drink, which isn't
that surprising?
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Might we add really quickly before we move on to
the Bloody Queen that Harry's still is around in Paris today,
much like what is it Lafitte's blacksmith shop in New
Orleans another one of those historical dive bars, and the
Bloody Mary is very much a specialty. They serve an
estimated twelve thousand of them every single year.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
That seems like a lot. You know, we're not experts,
but that's that's a lot of tomato juice. At the
very least it is.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
Yeah, and I mean I know you can also buy
like Bloody Mary mix. But I think if you're doing
it proper, you would just use like a you know,
an A one, not an A one. What's it called
V eight kind of situation set up yourself. But let's
jump in with the Queen Mary Tutor aka Bloody Mary,
(11:58):
England's first female ruler. Mary the First had a bit
of a rep for being one of history's biggest bullies.
As Wren describes their biggest battle axes, which I really dig.
She was brutal, She was unyielding and unforgiving. She ruled
England with an iron fist. She revived some long retired
(12:21):
laws against heresy in order to do a little bit
of persecution against the Protestants who she did not enjoy
living in her kingdom.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
Yeah, this is a non ideal situation. Mary is very
ideologically motivated, right to restore Catholic control over England. And
when we say heresy laws, we say persecution of these
upstart Protestants. We're not talking about making them pay extra
taxes or something like that. She spearheaded the death of
(12:56):
over three hundred people, burning them at the stake, on
charges of heresy. And this estimate is very rough. It
doesn't include the people who died in prison before the
government could set them ablaze. And it doesn't count the
eight hundred Protestants who immediately had to flee the country.
They may have died on the way they we don't
(13:17):
know what happened to them.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
I mean, this is absolutely a genocide of sorts, wouldn't
you say? I mean in terms of a targeting of
a particular type of people, a particular type of beliefs,
and essentially exterminating them.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
Yeah, if if Mary's administration had their way, everybody who
was Protestant would either convert or be murdered. This is
very much a mass casualty event. Look, we're saying she
earned the nickname Bloody Mary. There's a little bit of
empathy we can exercise. I don't know if it's deserved
(13:52):
in this case, but we do have to admit that
Mary's childhood was not pretty, non ideal. It was lonely,
it was bleak. Her father, Henry the Eighth we've discussed
in the past, was a real pill. Yes, so maybe
that had an effect. Let's learn a little bit more
(14:14):
about Mary's childhood.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
What do you say, Yeah, she was born in fifteen sixteen,
great year, to King Henry the eighth of England and
his longest standing wife, Catherine of Aragon. Although Catherine was
Henry's first wife, she'd previously been married to his older
brother Arthur, which is going to come into play in
a little bit. Catherine was betrothed to Arthur by her parents,
(14:38):
King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain, who we know,
didn't they send Crystobal Columbus.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
Yes, yes, Ferdinand, Queen Isabella of Spain, they are the
ones who sent crystobol Colo.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
Across the ocean of it be Colon even better, Catherine,
who was fifteen when she married Arthur, left everything she
knew from her previous life behind and became the queen
of a foreign land. However, just five months into their marriage,
Arthur passed away due to a mysterious illness, and Ren
(15:16):
points out, we got a lot of sick boys in
this episode, yeah, to.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Which I we respond, we've got a lot of sick people,
this boy and the sick man too. Unfortunately, and we
have to realize that there's this big romanticization of royalty,
especially here in the West. But being at the tippy
top of the social hierarchy did not necessarily a good
(15:41):
life make so this is an arranged marriage. Catherine doesn't
really have a say in all, yeah, at all.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
And she's going to be taken to task for a
thing that she didn't have a say in at all.
Little bit down the line, and a really gross abusive
power that just gets more abusive as time goes on.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
In fact, if you look at the larger context, she
was kind of lucky she made it to fifteen in
the first place before being carted off against her will
into this relationship. So now she's a teenage widow. Henry
the Eighth is only ten years old.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Insufferable at ten can you imagine he's.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
Very king Jeoffrey at head. That's why I say he's
ten years old. When his brother passes away and the
boy's father, Henry the seventh resumes his role as king.
But then, okay, we're throwing Roman numerals around. Folks talk
with him. Yeah, but then Henry the Seventh he dies
(16:40):
six years later, and by the time he dies, Henry
the Eighth is now of legal age, which means he
can assume the throne. Henry the Eighth could have chosen
another wife, but it is believed that his father's dying
wish was that he continued this English alliance with Spain so.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
And he wanted him to win one for the Gipper.
There's no question, so Ben I really quickly just backtracked.
You made a King Jeoffrey comment, and I just want
to say that young actor who played King Jeoffrey, great guy. Well,
he's fantastic Jack Leeson, but he, I think because of
all the backlash he got from playing such an insufferable,
detestable character, he said he wasn't gonna act anymore. But
(17:20):
did you notice he popped up in the new Sandman
season doing Shakespeare. Yeah, he plays one of the fairies
in the Midsummer Night's Dream and he plays Puck and
he's fabulous. Oh it's just I was just glad to
see him back because I'd such a bummer when you
feel as though a role that you've played, an absolutely
fictional role, is following you around and people are being
(17:41):
genuinely mean to you because of a pretend character you
played on TV.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
Happened to SIRC, happened to the guys who played the
Slytherin characters and Harry Potter. It's a rough one. You
may ask yourself Why are the guys throwing around all
these seven and eight interchangeably?
Speaker 2 (18:01):
Here?
Speaker 1 (18:01):
I thought we were talking about bloody Mary. To talk
about bloody Mary, we have to talk about Catherine here.
All this as a result of all this stuff in
these geopolitical shenanigans. In fifteen oh nine, to continue the
alliance with Spain, Henry the Eighth does marry his sister
in law. He is seventeen, she is twenty.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
Four, that's correct. And before Mary was born the couple
had a lot of trouble producing an air. You know,
that's a big part of the story with Henry. So
you'd think that her arrival would be a blessing, but
unfortunately she was not a male heir, which was a problem.
While Mary's mother was super excited and overjoyed to have
finally given birth to a healthy child having gone through
(18:45):
so much difficulty in previous pregnancies, Henry was not stoked
because at that stage only a male heir could continue
the line the Twota legacy to Despite Henry's indifference to
Mary's entire existence, Mary's mother doated on her as much
as she was able to do her parents. Mary's mother
(19:06):
uh spearheaded the Spanish Inquisition to violently convert Muslims and
Jews to Catholicism.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Oh and that's that's not Mary's mother, Catherine. That's Catherine's
parents whose spearheaded the Spanish Inquisition.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
That's all I'm saying, Yes, correct, and thank you for
the for the clarification. But this was something that she
was very much exposed to. That oh yeah, highly contributed
to her I don't know, mental state and her family,
her belief system.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
Because it's normalized.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
Right.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
It's kind of like how HP Lovecraft grew up with
a cat that had a very problematic name.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Goodness, that's true. Yeah it's a good story, but yeah
it's not good.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
Thank Goodness. HP Lovecraft didn't have the legal ability to
burn people.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
At the stake.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
But Mary's mom, Mary's mom does love her and does
what the best for her daughter. So even though it's
an imperfect childchildhood, Mary achieves something that is pretty rare
for the average woman of the time. She gets an
awesome education. She also becomes incredibly Catholic. Like and we're
(20:13):
not in any way casting aspersions on Catholicism or a
Catholic friends today. We're just saying she went super hard
on the paint. Yes, indeed so in fifteen twenty but
just to mention Mikole. At the time, you know, she
wasn't a total outlier. You know, Catholicism was.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
Still relatively common in the area or in the in
the country. In fifteen twenty two, Mary's mother Catherine got
a lady in waiting, a handmaiden, I believe is that
sort of similar situation, a companion assistant of lower birth.
But I've also still love nobility though I believe it
(20:52):
wasn't just like you know, a peasant. It was someone
who was of lower nobility but still not at the
same echelon. So she was almost like an apprentice, kind
of following her around, doing things for her, et cetera.
This was, of course, and blim, no relation. Yeah, she's
a different feeling, right right, she is.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
Anne is a regular presence in the royal court, and
this means that she gets the attention of that lecherous
old goat Henry, unlike so many other women that he
had initiated affairs with, and said no, she said, I
don't care how powerful you are, I'm not into it.
(21:34):
And there's still a lot of you know, we'll see
how the history works out, But there's still a lot
of speculation over whether this was like a long come right,
whether this is a chess game on her part, like
that old there's this old chauvinistic saying from I think
the nineteen forties. It was something like a man chases
(21:55):
a woman till she catches him, which is a pity
little turn of phrase.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
Is that where the term chaste comes from? Or is
that chastity? That's chastity? That it is a weird one. Yeah,
you got it?
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Uh So was she played you know, quote unquote hard
to get or was she genuinely saying no, I'm not
into it. Also, bro, you've got your you've got relationships
going on whatever kind of smell and you kind of yeah,
because it's the fifteen hundreds so and probably spelled too.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
Are we entering King Henry the eighth sort of fat
Elvis period at this point too? Isn't he a bit
of a monstrosity, you know, chouning down on No fat
shaming here, obviously, but he was a bit of a
of a you know, despicable creature who probably you know,
didn't I find him odious? Yes? Odious? Thank you? Ben
And odious, mainly because of his deeds and the way
(22:52):
he behaves towards women. But I do believe he was
also a bit of a grotesque.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
Right uh, because no one ever told him no. Start
maybe another king in a foreign land. Part of her
playing hard to get was saying, look, the only way
I'll sleep with you is if we do it honestly
in the eyes of the church. So Henry is yes,
anding all the way through this. He says, let's get married, Astik,
(23:22):
I've just picked her. Anne going yeah, but Henry, You're
already married, and he goes, oh yeah, Astik, is this
slight thing with that? We are Catholic as well, and
the Catholics won't let us get divorced. So I'm going
to go to the church and I'm going to ask
for the marriage to be annulled because of incest, because
(23:46):
she had first been married to my brother a decade
before we hitched up. And the Pope listens to this
like a skeptical venture capitalist on Shark Tank. Right, he's
got his fingers steepled, or he's like Simon Cowell watching
an audition on whatever that show was, America's Got Talent.
And after Henry does this performance and the incess thing
(24:10):
is technically true. The Pope looks around and says, nah, dog,
he's not good enough, not good enough. He won't grant
the annulment. And this is what leads Henry the Eighth
to sever ties with the Catholic Church and to found
the Church of England.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
And the ultimate I'm taking my toys and going home.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
Move because of this one hookup that he really wanted.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
I know, that's crazy, it's really wild. So under the
new Protestant regime, Henry was able to divorce Katherine and
Mary and and boor Henry another child, but surprise, surprise,
as you may well know, was not a male heir
yet again, this was Elizabeth, who would go on to
do some things in her own right. This is from
(24:55):
a great BBC History article on this whole sortid ef
Henry's allegations of incest effectively bastardized Mary. Yeah yeah, just
disowned entirely. And nothing is worse in these days than
being like an unwed mother or like a bastard. As
we know again from Game of Thrones, that term is
(25:17):
thrown around as quite a slanderous slur.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
And even if you're at the top again of the
social hierarchy. If you are royalty and there are legitimate
claims of illegitimacy, this is very dangerous. Your life is
still gonna stink. Any political rival is going to always
hammer that through when they want to get over on you. Still,
(25:41):
Mary is, as we said, she is a staunch Catholic.
After Anne Boleyn gives birth to Elizabeth, which we just mentioned,
Mary wants to see her parents, you know, like any
other kid, but she is not allowed to talk to
her parents. And in this postal Lie Elizabeth world, you
know how Sibley rivalry always gets intense. Imagine how much
(26:04):
you would hate your little sister if the moment she's
born you no longer get to be called a princess.
That's that's not a good look. That's just mean parenting there.
It truly is pitting them against each other. So for
years Mary lived in her infant sisters quarters. Like I
guess that's almost like Harry Potter living under.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
The stairs a little bit. It's not the most posh
of circumstances. It's you know, she's playing second fiddle, living
in her sister's shadow, essentially with very little acknowledgment from
anyone you know, relegated to a life of solitary. I
don't know, Steing frankly absolutely.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
I also want to take a second real quick, and
as I know, we've got a lot of fans of
musicals in the audience. We share that enthusiasm. There is
a great musical comedy called Six Good Yeah, The Lives
of the Six Wives of Henry the Eighth and it's
(27:06):
pretty neat. If you want a quick sample of it,
check out their Tiny Desk concert.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
It is historically based.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
It's a tangent, but it's it's worth mentioning because it's
a sick musical.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Historically based and historically based. There we go. That's perfect.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
That review should be on the pamphlet.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
I like it so okay.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
Spoiler alert, you know the Titanic sinks, A Lincoln has
a bad time at the play, Mary has a very
lonely as you said, Harry Potter under the stairs existence
and Ann Berlin doesn't have the best relationship with Henry.
She is beheaded in fifteen thirty six on charges of treason,
(27:48):
or more likely he got tired of her, and Henry
moves on to Jane Seymour Jane Seymore is the opposite
of Anne Boleyn and every way, at least according to historians,
She's not considered she's considered kind of playing on the inside.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
And the outcoms maybe not the same level. And again
we're not trying to character assassinate a dead historical figure
too much, but it did feel like Blenn had a
bit of a long game going on.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
Yeah, a bit of a calculation there.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
And Jane is a lot more good natured and you know,
considered to be a little bit more like you said, Ben,
a little bit more of vanilla. And she also had
sympathies for Mary because of her own background. Yeah, and
also because Jane Seymour was a decent person. You don't
want to see a kid in unnecessary in traumatic situations,
(28:46):
and she is. Look, Jane Seymour seems kind of like
a normal person in a way. She's very sweet, she
has a good heart to her. She goes to her
husband Henry and says, come on, man, this is your daughter.
Get her back into the royal court. And Mary is
(29:08):
she's got a lot going on here because remember she's
still very Catholic.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
This entire time. Her dad made up a church so
he could get divorced. She ultimately says, I am going
to let this one go because I love my dad
and I want to have a relationship with him. I
don't agree with him spiritually. I'm not going to denounce Catholicism,
(29:34):
but I I think you know what you did, Pops,
So there's still going to be some tension.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
Not going to hold out hope for that apology. Don't
think it ever came. So Jane finally gave Henry what
he'd been dreaming of, which was a male heir, and
unfortunately that led to Jane's passing. Now when she died of.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
Childbirth common not uncommon thing at the time.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
Yeah, fever took her twelve days after he was born.
And if I'm not mistaken to this, this male heir
like was very frail and like had hemophilia and it
was like super not particularly effective. Right, didn't he die
at a young age as well?
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Yeah, let's see, Henry the eighth had a had a
son named Henry, Duke of Cornwall, but that poor kid
died within weeks of being born. And then the kid
that Henry has with Jane is Edward the sixth. And
if I'm not mistaken, Ben, this boy was quite feeble
(30:52):
and considered a bit of a weakling, and that's Edward
the sixth. He did, however, prove to be quite bloodthirsty
and not a great dude, and he did die before
he was able to wreak too much havoc on the country.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
Geez.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
Yeah, and look it's an unhappy Brady bunch we're describing.
Mary is very, very sad to lose Jane Seymour because
Jane Seymour is kind of the closest thing to a
maternal figure that she has in her life. At this
point all of this has happened, Mary is just now
(31:28):
turning twenty one years old. She's second in line to
the throne, behind her much younger brother Edward, who we
just mentioned. Edward gets declared King of England after Henry
the eighth dies, even though Edward is a literal boy,
which sounds like alive from my Thinkure should leave.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
Yes, a literal boy or it's also like one of
an insult that Daniel plainsview with a hurl at somebody.
You literal boy. That's good, let's keep that.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
I like it so because this is not unprecedented in
the story of Royalty. What this means is there will
be a brain trust of adults. There will be a
group of folks who are regents, and the kid ruler
is a figurehead or a mascot until they attain their
(32:22):
majority and become considered an adult themselves. So the real
power at this time is a guy named the Duke
of Northumberland. And this dude is super duper duper Protestant.
So another bad blow for the super duper duper Catholic Mary.
(32:43):
As you said, Noel Edward never in the best of health.
This poor kid. We believe he died from tuberculosis at
the age of fifteen. And while he is on his deathbed,
this Duke of Northumberland gets over to this child, this
fifteen year old, and says, look, man, before you go,
(33:06):
I need you to officially make your older sister Mary
a bastard again. Rebastardize, rebastardizer, my boy, my lad, because,
my lad, because no, if you don't his logic here is,
if you don't make it impossible for her to become
(33:28):
the ruler of England, then she is going to turn
it back into a Catholic nation.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
Oh he wasn't he went wrong. We've been exercising a
lot of empathy for Mary. But let's not forget where
we started with Bloody Mary. That's where we're getting.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
Yeah, good call, That's why we put that stuff up
at the front. This is why Northumberland's seventeen year old
daughter in law becomes Queen Lady Jane Gray. And this
is a there's a real out of the blue plot
twist for the public. A lot of people loved Catherine.
(34:06):
She was the Princess Diana of her time. Princess nailed.
Lady Jane Gray's reign doesn't last very long.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
No, within nine days, Mary usurped Jane for the crown,
and within a few months Mary beheaded Jane for surprise
suppressed treason, the most open ended, vague death sentence in history,
I would argue.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
Yeah. And and the fact that she immediately went to
the nuclear option death yep, Yeah, that's a precedent.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
And she's been stealing, dude, she'd been stealing.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
She's been thinking a lot, and her infant sisters making lists,
you know, checking up twice. Yeah, she came here to
chew gum and killed Protestants and guess what, she didn't
know what gum was.
Speaker 2 (34:59):
Gum hadn't been in vintage yet. Yes, Mary, despite being
a bit of a pill herself, wanted nothing more than
to be a mother so much that she experienced a
few of something that I think it might be worth
an exploration onto itself. Phantom pregnancies pseudosciesis is the term
(35:19):
during which her abdomen and breasts would swell as though
she were pregnant. This is a new one to me, Ben,
I don't think I remember this from history class.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
Yeah, it's a it's a medical condition that can occur,
so it's not it is a physiological change, right, you
can see it manifested. I think it'd be Yeah, it'd
be interesting to do an episode of this. I think
you're onto something.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
Well, it is uncommon, Yeah, it's very It is very
and often attributed directly to to this monarch.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
Yeah. In the end, as we all know, Mary ends
up marrying a Catholic of course, Philip too from Spain.
She and Philip are both kind of unpopular with their
respective crowds. They never have issue, or they never have
a child. Issue is the fancy way you say child
(36:18):
when we're talking nobility. And the reason they didn't have
a kid is because their marriage was not romantic Philip
was not digging Mary. He thought she was unattractive. He
spent as much time as he could away from her.
So she Mary unfortunately dies in fifteen fifty eight, most
(36:40):
likely due to flu or stomach cancer, and her younger
sister Elizabeth takes the throne.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
Yep, and then immediately we entered the Elizabethan era on
day one. It's like we ever, it's the eighties now,
and I want to just really quickly walk back to
something I said earlier. Phantom pregnancy or pseudostiistis it's not.
When I say it was often attributed to Mary, I
just mean that she was probably one of the most
famous people to have suffered from this condition. So when
(37:08):
you look it up, you're going to see stories about
bloody Mary. And I'm not saying this is some sort
of imagined condition. It is very much rare and something
that happens to some women, for sure.
Speaker 1 (37:18):
And that's just because that's the most famous historical figure
with that case. That's the example you'll see in a
Textbook's right. Yeah, there's another big switcheroo. This is a
very weird time to be a peasant invested in politics,
because now that Elizabeth is ascending to the throne. We've
(37:40):
already switched back and forth from being Catholic to being Protestant.
We started a whole new church. Elizabeth switches everything back.
So now we're going back to the Church of England.
We're done with those Catholic reforms from Bloody Mary, and
we're ushering in a new age of Protestant England. This
(38:05):
also begins the golden age of Mercantalism, the c of E.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
As they often call it, the Church of England. Ben,
I think we need to deliver on a bit of
a promise that we did we made at the top.
We're not quite in two parter territory, but we're gonna
make this one a little bit longer than usual. We're
going to talk a bit about the third aspect of
Bloody Mary, the urban legend of it all. So why
don't we set the scene. I think we may have
(38:30):
all been there again for me and you. I think
our age it was probably more Candy Man kind of
replaced Bloody Mary because of where that movie kind of
loomed large in the zeitgeist of our youth. So we're
in middle school. It's a Friday night in late winter
and we're maybe having a slumber party. We're not old
enough to drive yet, so at this point we're getting
(38:51):
dropped off by mom and dad. There's nothing left to
watch on TV except for infomercials. What was it the
showtime Ron Pope heel remember those? I don't know about
the George Lopez show. That was apparently Wren's touch point there,
but I think she's a little younger than we are.
So we resign ourselves to sleep, and one friend suggest
(39:12):
that we play a spooky game because we don't have
phone light. Is a feather stiff as a board maybe, right?
Speaker 1 (39:19):
Or a weedge aboard? You might play with me anyway. Yeah,
So the rules are as follows. The participant enters a
darkened room with a lit candle. He or she looks
into a mirror while chanting Bloody Mary's name or a
phrase a specific number of times. If the ritual is
performed correctly, Bloody Mary might appear either in the mirror
(39:43):
or reach out of the mirror and scratch her face,
or be released from the afterlife to haunt him or
her forever, forever, forever.
Speaker 2 (39:52):
Yeah, and obviously you know Clive Barker was very familiar
with this urban legend when he created the candy Man
Neathos and took it to the next level with the
hook handy dude reaching out and slaughtering you when you
say his name. I think the first Candy Man movie
is pretty good, and the remake was interesting.
Speaker 1 (40:09):
The remakes interesting. It goes a little more anti hero.
Speaker 2 (40:12):
Yeah, and it's not perfect, but I did think it
was an interesting attempt, and the first one is pretty cool. Actually,
it's still.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
I was very frightened by the first things get holds up.
I also want us to shout out this that quotation
of the of the rough rules that comes from our
Alma matter how stuff works, So shout out to Deborah
Ronka for writing that. You know, the game might be
called candy Man or Bloody Mary, but if you travel
(40:39):
around the world, you'll see variations. They're all kinds of
phrases people might say, and it's usually naming some kind
of Boogeyman esque figure. But it would be funny to
go to make a kid go in there and just
say a silly phrase like you have to go in
and you have to say knickerbocker.
Speaker 2 (40:56):
Wibbbe yeah, and then three times and then heapy clown
pops out and hits you over the head with a
squeaky hammer.
Speaker 1 (41:04):
Or what is a knickerbocker?
Speaker 2 (41:06):
That's the old It's a type of pant.
Speaker 1 (41:09):
It is a pant I type of people.
Speaker 2 (41:13):
I want to say, maybe so, and it's what's definitely
a famous hotel in New York for sure, but I
guess I just know it as the pant and the hotel.
There are variations to this, as you mentioned, Ben, you
could alternatively, if you don't want to go with wibbledy
wobble d woo or knickerbocker, you could say, uh, let's
(41:33):
go dark with it, right, I killed your baby, bloody Mary.
But yeah, because you have to.
Speaker 1 (41:40):
You have to poke the bear a little little bit
me here, or sometimes the mirror would drip blood. Sometimes
this is very urban legend, the scary stories to tell
in the dark kind of style. Sometimes the kid who
dares bloody Mary comes out of you know, the locked
bathroom with their hair all white and maybe they're mute.
(42:04):
The legends of this or the origin of this strange
pastime is also kind of ambiguous. It's kind of murky.
There's a really interesting bit of research that Ren found
arguing that this is symbolically or thematically related to a
(42:24):
kid's or an adolescent's first experience with menstruation.
Speaker 2 (42:29):
Yeah, and there's a folklorist who wrote a book called
Bloody Mary in the Mirror, a ritual reflection of prepubescent anxiety,
Alan Dundas, who had this to say about it. Bloody
Mary ritual may not be a significantly accurate portrayal of menstruation,
but it does represent an anticipatory image of a forthcoming
major event in the individual females life cycle.
Speaker 1 (42:50):
And there's a second theory that says Bloody Mary could
be the spirit of more than one notoriously cruel member
of the nobility, Queen Mary Tudor or Countess Elizabeth Bathory.
I iced be fascinated with her, and I think I
think there's a really strong argument that history did her wrong.
Speaker 2 (43:11):
Oh really, I don't know about that. Then. I always
maybe that's just because I you know, I was read
the headlines, but I always associated her with being a
bloodthirsty individual who would murder female servants so that she
could bathe in their blood in order to stay youthful forever.
What's what's the alternate spin on her story? Well, this
(43:31):
happens a lot. The alternate spin is that the accusations
against her were either jimmied up or goosed, as we've
been saying lately.
Speaker 1 (43:43):
Yeah, the idea being that someone wanted to remove a
powerful person from power. She was accused long before Servants
of torturing and killing hundreds of girls and women from
I think a period of decades from fifteen ninety to
sixteen ten. Yeah, So, if true, quite the serial killer,
(44:06):
very much a bloody Mary. But why wouldn't you call
her bloody Beth?
Speaker 2 (44:10):
No, no, no, it's a good question. Remember that I killed
your baby thing from earlier. You may have already put
this together astute, ridiculous historians, but that may well have
been a reference to Bloody Mary, Mary Tutor and her
unfulfilled desire to become a mother.
Speaker 3 (44:30):
A real taunt, a real taunt, something like that, right,
And we know this is now a staple of American folklore,
and you can see her reference through the idea of
this supernatural creature referenced in everything from Beetlejuice to The
ring the adaptation of Ringu, the Japanese film, and to
(44:51):
as previously mentioned, candy Man.
Speaker 1 (44:53):
But if we bring it all back around, and we'really Mary's.
Speaker 2 (44:59):
For a little hair dog. Right.
Speaker 1 (45:01):
Yeah, they didn't just popularize the Bloody Mary in their
neck of the Global Woods. They've been credited with inventing
the Sidecar, the Blue Lagoon and the White Lady. Think
I know the sidecar, I don't know the other.
Speaker 2 (45:16):
Yeah. The sidecar is like I believe a gin cock
Oh look at this. You can go to Harry's Bar
dot com. How helpful, and then it's got a lot
of really interesting historical bits on it and a list
of their specialty cocktails, the Boulevardier, the Bloody Marry, the Sidecar,
which is Cognac triple second lemon juice. I do love
a French seventy five Champagne gin lemon juice and a
(45:39):
few drops of absent. I do love classic cocktails. I
don't drink a ton anymore, but when I do, I really,
when I go to a fancy place, I am more
disposed to enjoying one really really tasty classic cocktail.
Speaker 1 (45:52):
Boullevardier. Interesting. Well, we hope you found this interesting as well, folks.
This was a cool exploration that took us in unexpected
places and shout out to anybody who is sipping a
bloody Mary. As you tuned in, we we can't wait
for you to join us when we delve into some
(46:13):
more unexpected history spoiler with a certain dark night later
in the week. Meantime, big thanks to our producer Max Williams,
Big thanks to our guest producer Dylan the Chainsaw fac It.
Speaker 2 (46:24):
Huge thanks to Chris Frasciotis and needs Jeff Codes both
here in spirit, Jonathan Strickland, the quizter, Ay j Bahamas.
Speaker 1 (46:30):
Jacob's the Puzzler mm hmm, and big big shout out
to our rude dudes over app Ridiculous Prime. If you
dig us, you'll dig them. And as Harpal Dylan always says,
speaking to digging, let's dig up the root of vacos.
Speaker 2 (46:45):
Let's do it. Let's see you next time, folks. For
more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your Faceavorite shows
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
much for tuning in. Let's hear it for our guest
super producer, Dylan the Chainsaw Fagan.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Dylan the Texas no the Tennessee Chainsaw Gentle Massacre Fagan. Yeah,
what a guy. Help his hands on the men's.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
And thanks for giving us a hand. By the way, Dylan,
they called me ben Bollen. That's Noel Brown. Uh No,
I gotta tell you, I don't think we've ever talked
about this. Uh, even in the days where I uh,
I would be the kind of person who would go
to one of those boozy mimosa brunches or whatever. I
(01:10):
never got the bloody Mary for me. You know, it's
a it's a cold soup, an alcoholic soup. It's like
a spacho with problems, a spacho soup. Where's my gaspacho soup? Yeah,
it's burning tip burn my mouth.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Not into it. Yeah, I don't know. I've I've tried
to like it in the past and had a sip.
I was dating somebody for a long time who's really
into them, but didn't didn't go for it. And now
I don't really drink too much, so it does seem
like a popular go to like hangover cure, which basically
just because you're drinking more. It's that hair of the
dog situation. Maybe there's vitamins in the juice. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Yeah, And look, I'm not morally opposed to the Bloody Mary.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Do is that will?
Speaker 1 (01:52):
There's a lot of creativity in it when you get
into the ingredients. But as we're going to learn in
this episode, Bloody Mary has three different kinds of ridiculous
history to it, going far past the drink.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Three aspects, right, like a holy trinity kind of situation.
How many times are you supposed to say it?
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Been in the game That is common in parts of
the West. Candyman rolls turn off the lights, Yeah, candy
Man rules you look in a mirror in the dark
and you say the name Bloody Mary three times.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Three times? Always three? Hey, another holy trinity situation. Whitmer
Thomas as are incredible the comedian. We very much enjoy
our incredible research associate Wren points out described the brunch
cocktail as a hot wing in a glass, and Ben,
I don't know if you've been or seen some of
these places that literally will put like a giant like
(02:52):
piece of bacon or even a actual hot wing like
on the side of the there.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
They're the buffet approaches.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
We got big.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
The value add for brunch is that you go to
a ridiculous spread of ingredients that you can put into
your Bloody Mary and people just go nuts with it.
It's like it's like an old dagwood sandwich, but it's
as a drink.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Oh yeah yeah, or like a like a savory froyo barre. Weird.
It's very weird.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
And we know also that Bloody Mary was a moniker
for a queen in the sixteenth century. She got this name.
It's it's not one of those ironic names. Nope, she
got it because she really did not dig Protestant She.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Likes to murder them copiously, that's for sure.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
And so those are the three ways that we're we're
going to be looking at the idea of bloody Mary.
The same term that can describe three very different things.
A queen, a childhood game, and a divisive beverage associated
with drinking alcohol first thing in the morning.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Yeah, yep, ye you love it, or yeah you hate it.
I don't know too many people who are indifferent to
it or will go for one, you know, every now
and again. It's something that people really dig. Yep, for sure.
The bloody Mary has been curing hangovers for over a century,
and it was by one account conducted by bartender Fernand
(04:24):
Petois in nineteen twenty one at Harry's Bar. I believe
this is the official account. A favorite Paris hangout for
a lot of the you know midnight in Paris types,
the American expat writers and recontours like f. Scott Fitzgerald
and of course famous lush Ernest Hemingway. The recipe was
(04:47):
first published in a collection of cocktail recipes called Harry's
ABC not ABC's of Cocktails.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
And over the years people played the game of telephone
in the glass here they they put their own spin
on the recipe. Different regional styles of a bloodyberry emerged.
For instance, in Charleston, a bloody Mary can typically come
with cold shrimp and pickled okra.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Which a shrimp cocktail, which I do like, I do
like a shrimp cocktail. Yeah, the okra is throwing me off,
not like in the okra. It's mucilaginous tastes. It's snotty.
So that's an official name for what type of veg
that is. But the drink staple ingredients remain the same
as led Zeppelin would put it. Salt and pepper, tabasco,
(05:34):
sauce Worcestershire sauce Worcester, depending on if you're nasty, lemon juice, vodka,
and tomato juice.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Of course, so I didn't. I didn't clock that.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
It did not either did not either, But I could
see that in the shrimp cocktail of planting a little,
a little, a little what's the word, a little zing.
Despite the cocktail's long standing popularity, the origins, as I
sort of indicated up to remain up for debate to
some degree as far as the name of it, at
(06:05):
the very least.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Right the provenance the origin of the name for the
drink specifically, you're going to see. You're going to see
a couple of theories, some that have more supporting evidence
than others. The big three of this, there is speculation
that our bar owner Guy named the drink as a
(06:28):
way to pay homage to an exotic dancer that he
had a big, big crush on it. Was a dancer
named Mary who was either working at a bar in
Chicago nicknamed Bucket of Blood or was a regular at
that bar, so it became known as a dive bar
(06:52):
in its day, or a home to the criminal element.
This is where all kinds of ne'er do wells of
Chicago would congregate, situated right across from something called Bedbug Roll,
which was the cheapest, uh agglomeration of sex houses of
ill repute.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Yeah, exactly, sex positive neighborhood.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Yeah, and they were the they were known as the
most affordable of of all of Chicago.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
So bed Bug Row, Yeah, I mean, I guess you
could maybe liken that to what's referred to often the
neighborhood in Los Angeles called skid Row. Usually, I don't know.
I guess they're positive rows. Are there? Fancy rows? Can row?
No canary rose a good row either? No, I don't
think so. I guess maybe I can't think of any
(07:42):
positive rows row row row. You're both. That's different. That's unrelated.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Quick amendment here. Now canery Row has been gentrified, of
course it has, and now it's now it's classy again.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
But in wasn't it a Steinbeck novel?
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Yeah, nineteen forty five, he was writing about canary here.
He had a novel called Canary Rose, set in the depression,
and it's about people who live on a street where
there are a bunch of fish canaries, and about how
life kind of stinks.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Savile row, thank you, thank you. Change. That is the
area in London where you can get a real nice
shirt exactly, and the tailors and fashioning bits along. It's great.
It's great.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
If you're walking around and you're thinking my wallet is
too heavy, exactly, well go over there. Bucket of Blood
was a nickname for this this notorious dive bar. It
was formally known as the New Delaware.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
It was famous.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Like the Yelper views, if such existed at the time,
would say, this place is famous for its bar fights,
so much so that by the end of the night,
when they were cleaning up before they closed, the mop
water would turn red with.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Is that is that how they made their pink lemonade?
Speaker 1 (09:03):
That's how? Yeah, that's how. Maybe that's I don't know.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
You got to remember that the callback was clown clownwn
mop water essentially from ringing out their.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
Tights, reading out their tights and their their clown costs.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Uh huh.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Luckily, for better or worse, we should say this is
not the only possible origin story of the drink. We've
got two more, right, we do.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
Indeed, rumor has it that our boy, uh, the very
tipsy Ernest Hemingway, i'd been dating a lady entertaining, a
lady named Mary just before his first marriage to Hadlee Richardson.
And as the story goes, according to PBS, Hemingway, who
was a notorious drunk, allegedly didn't want to have alcohol
(09:47):
on his breath when he next saw Lady Mary, so
he asked for a drink to be mixed with juice.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
And because God forbid, he just drink juice, God forbid,
he just not well, he's.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
Not going to forego that hair of the dog. I mean,
it's also, you never hung over if you're always drunk.
That's that's a philosophy that I think Hemingway would have
been here too. So, while drinking Patois's newest concoction, Hemingway
supposedly burst out with the swear, cursing bloody Mary for
(10:20):
causing him all this trouble. Because okay, as far as
another one, but this one seems like a little what's
the word apocryphal, hocr full?
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Thank you b Yeah, it just it also doesn't paint
hemingway in the best of life.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Not many stories do to be fair, right. Uh.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
The third idea is this wherever it comes from, right
or whatever inspired this guy to create this drink, it
does catch on. You can now find it in all
kinds of restaurants in Paris, and when it gets to Europe,
the name is generally a trip to the English Queen
(11:02):
Mary Tudor because she had the moniker Bloody Mary to
start with, so she comes before the drink, which isn't
that surprising?
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Might we add really quickly before we move on to
the Bloody Queen that Harry's still is around in Paris today,
much like what is it Lafitte's blacksmith shop in New
Orleans another one of those historical dive bars, and the
Bloody Mary is very much a specialty. They serve an
estimated twelve thousand of them every single year.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
That seems like a lot. You know, we're not experts,
but that's that's a lot of tomato juice. At the
very least it is.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
Yeah, and I mean I know you can also buy
like Bloody Mary mix. But I think if you're doing
it proper, you would just use like a you know,
an A one, not an A one. What's it called
V eight kind of situation set up yourself. But let's
jump in with the Queen Mary Tutor aka Bloody Mary,
(11:58):
England's first female ruler. Mary the First had a bit
of a rep for being one of history's biggest bullies.
As Wren describes their biggest battle axes, which I really dig.
She was brutal, She was unyielding and unforgiving. She ruled
England with an iron fist. She revived some long retired
(12:21):
laws against heresy in order to do a little bit
of persecution against the Protestants who she did not enjoy
living in her kingdom.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
Yeah, this is a non ideal situation. Mary is very
ideologically motivated, right to restore Catholic control over England. And
when we say heresy laws, we say persecution of these
upstart Protestants. We're not talking about making them pay extra
taxes or something like that. She spearheaded the death of
(12:56):
over three hundred people, burning them at the stake, on
charges of heresy. And this estimate is very rough. It
doesn't include the people who died in prison before the
government could set them ablaze. And it doesn't count the
eight hundred Protestants who immediately had to flee the country.
They may have died on the way they we don't
(13:17):
know what happened to them.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
I mean, this is absolutely a genocide of sorts, wouldn't
you say? I mean in terms of a targeting of
a particular type of people, a particular type of beliefs,
and essentially exterminating them.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
Yeah, if if Mary's administration had their way, everybody who
was Protestant would either convert or be murdered. This is
very much a mass casualty event. Look, we're saying she
earned the nickname Bloody Mary. There's a little bit of
empathy we can exercise. I don't know if it's deserved
(13:52):
in this case, but we do have to admit that
Mary's childhood was not pretty, non ideal. It was lonely,
it was bleak. Her father, Henry the Eighth we've discussed
in the past, was a real pill. Yes, so maybe
that had an effect. Let's learn a little bit more
(14:14):
about Mary's childhood.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
What do you say, Yeah, she was born in fifteen sixteen,
great year, to King Henry the eighth of England and
his longest standing wife, Catherine of Aragon. Although Catherine was
Henry's first wife, she'd previously been married to his older
brother Arthur, which is going to come into play in
a little bit. Catherine was betrothed to Arthur by her parents,
(14:38):
King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain, who we know,
didn't they send Crystobal Columbus.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
Yes, yes, Ferdinand, Queen Isabella of Spain, they are the
ones who sent crystobol Colo.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
Across the ocean of it be Colon even better, Catherine,
who was fifteen when she married Arthur, left everything she
knew from her previous life behind and became the queen
of a foreign land. However, just five months into their marriage,
Arthur passed away due to a mysterious illness, and Ren
(15:16):
points out, we got a lot of sick boys in
this episode, yeah, to.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Which I we respond, we've got a lot of sick people,
this boy and the sick man too. Unfortunately, and we
have to realize that there's this big romanticization of royalty,
especially here in the West. But being at the tippy
top of the social hierarchy did not necessarily a good
(15:41):
life make so this is an arranged marriage. Catherine doesn't
really have a say in all, yeah, at all.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
And she's going to be taken to task for a
thing that she didn't have a say in at all.
Little bit down the line, and a really gross abusive
power that just gets more abusive as time goes on.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
In fact, if you look at the larger context, she
was kind of lucky she made it to fifteen in
the first place before being carted off against her will
into this relationship. So now she's a teenage widow. Henry
the Eighth is only ten years old.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Insufferable at ten can you imagine he's.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
Very king Jeoffrey at head. That's why I say he's
ten years old. When his brother passes away and the
boy's father, Henry the seventh resumes his role as king.
But then, okay, we're throwing Roman numerals around. Folks talk
with him. Yeah, but then Henry the Seventh he dies
(16:40):
six years later, and by the time he dies, Henry
the Eighth is now of legal age, which means he
can assume the throne. Henry the Eighth could have chosen
another wife, but it is believed that his father's dying
wish was that he continued this English alliance with Spain so.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
And he wanted him to win one for the Gipper.
There's no question, so Ben I really quickly just backtracked.
You made a King Jeoffrey comment, and I just want
to say that young actor who played King Jeoffrey, great guy. Well,
he's fantastic Jack Leeson, but he, I think because of
all the backlash he got from playing such an insufferable,
detestable character, he said he wasn't gonna act anymore. But
(17:20):
did you notice he popped up in the new Sandman
season doing Shakespeare. Yeah, he plays one of the fairies
in the Midsummer Night's Dream and he plays Puck and
he's fabulous. Oh it's just I was just glad to
see him back because I'd such a bummer when you
feel as though a role that you've played, an absolutely
fictional role, is following you around and people are being
(17:41):
genuinely mean to you because of a pretend character you
played on TV.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
Happened to SIRC, happened to the guys who played the
Slytherin characters and Harry Potter. It's a rough one. You
may ask yourself Why are the guys throwing around all
these seven and eight interchangeably?
Speaker 2 (18:01):
Here?
Speaker 1 (18:01):
I thought we were talking about bloody Mary. To talk
about bloody Mary, we have to talk about Catherine here.
All this as a result of all this stuff in
these geopolitical shenanigans. In fifteen oh nine, to continue the
alliance with Spain, Henry the Eighth does marry his sister
in law. He is seventeen, she is twenty.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
Four, that's correct. And before Mary was born the couple
had a lot of trouble producing an air. You know,
that's a big part of the story with Henry. So
you'd think that her arrival would be a blessing, but
unfortunately she was not a male heir, which was a problem.
While Mary's mother was super excited and overjoyed to have
finally given birth to a healthy child having gone through
(18:45):
so much difficulty in previous pregnancies, Henry was not stoked
because at that stage only a male heir could continue
the line the Twota legacy to Despite Henry's indifference to
Mary's entire existence, Mary's mother doated on her as much
as she was able to do her parents. Mary's mother
(19:06):
uh spearheaded the Spanish Inquisition to violently convert Muslims and
Jews to Catholicism.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Oh and that's that's not Mary's mother, Catherine. That's Catherine's
parents whose spearheaded the Spanish Inquisition.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
That's all I'm saying, Yes, correct, and thank you for
the for the clarification. But this was something that she
was very much exposed to. That oh yeah, highly contributed
to her I don't know, mental state and her family,
her belief system.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
Because it's normalized.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
Right.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
It's kind of like how HP Lovecraft grew up with
a cat that had a very problematic name.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Goodness, that's true. Yeah it's a good story, but yeah
it's not good.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
Thank Goodness. HP Lovecraft didn't have the legal ability to
burn people.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
At the stake.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
But Mary's mom, Mary's mom does love her and does
what the best for her daughter. So even though it's
an imperfect childchildhood, Mary achieves something that is pretty rare
for the average woman of the time. She gets an
awesome education. She also becomes incredibly Catholic. Like and we're
(20:13):
not in any way casting aspersions on Catholicism or a
Catholic friends today. We're just saying she went super hard
on the paint. Yes, indeed so in fifteen twenty but
just to mention Mikole. At the time, you know, she
wasn't a total outlier. You know, Catholicism was.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
Still relatively common in the area or in the in
the country. In fifteen twenty two, Mary's mother Catherine got
a lady in waiting, a handmaiden, I believe is that
sort of similar situation, a companion assistant of lower birth.
But I've also still love nobility though I believe it
(20:52):
wasn't just like you know, a peasant. It was someone
who was of lower nobility but still not at the
same echelon. So she was almost like an apprentice, kind
of following her around, doing things for her, et cetera.
This was, of course, and blim, no relation. Yeah, she's
a different feeling, right right, she is.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
Anne is a regular presence in the royal court, and
this means that she gets the attention of that lecherous
old goat Henry, unlike so many other women that he
had initiated affairs with, and said no, she said, I
don't care how powerful you are, I'm not into it.
(21:34):
And there's still a lot of you know, we'll see
how the history works out, But there's still a lot
of speculation over whether this was like a long come right,
whether this is a chess game on her part, like
that old there's this old chauvinistic saying from I think
the nineteen forties. It was something like a man chases
(21:55):
a woman till she catches him, which is a pity
little turn of phrase.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
Is that where the term chaste comes from? Or is
that chastity? That's chastity? That it is a weird one. Yeah,
you got it?
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Uh So was she played you know, quote unquote hard
to get or was she genuinely saying no, I'm not
into it. Also, bro, you've got your you've got relationships
going on whatever kind of smell and you kind of yeah,
because it's the fifteen hundreds so and probably spelled too.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
Are we entering King Henry the eighth sort of fat
Elvis period at this point too? Isn't he a bit
of a monstrosity, you know, chouning down on No fat
shaming here, obviously, but he was a bit of a
of a you know, despicable creature who probably you know,
didn't I find him odious? Yes? Odious? Thank you? Ben
And odious, mainly because of his deeds and the way
(22:52):
he behaves towards women. But I do believe he was
also a bit of a grotesque.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
Right uh, because no one ever told him no. Start
maybe another king in a foreign land. Part of her
playing hard to get was saying, look, the only way
I'll sleep with you is if we do it honestly
in the eyes of the church. So Henry is yes,
anding all the way through this. He says, let's get married, Astik,
(23:22):
I've just picked her. Anne going yeah, but Henry, You're
already married, and he goes, oh yeah, Astik, is this
slight thing with that? We are Catholic as well, and
the Catholics won't let us get divorced. So I'm going
to go to the church and I'm going to ask
for the marriage to be annulled because of incest, because
(23:46):
she had first been married to my brother a decade
before we hitched up. And the Pope listens to this
like a skeptical venture capitalist on Shark Tank. Right, he's
got his fingers steepled, or he's like Simon Cowell watching
an audition on whatever that show was, America's Got Talent.
And after Henry does this performance and the incess thing
(24:10):
is technically true. The Pope looks around and says, nah, dog,
he's not good enough, not good enough. He won't grant
the annulment. And this is what leads Henry the Eighth
to sever ties with the Catholic Church and to found
the Church of England.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
And the ultimate I'm taking my toys and going home.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
Move because of this one hookup that he really wanted.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
I know, that's crazy, it's really wild. So under the
new Protestant regime, Henry was able to divorce Katherine and
Mary and and boor Henry another child, but surprise, surprise,
as you may well know, was not a male heir
yet again, this was Elizabeth, who would go on to
do some things in her own right. This is from
(24:55):
a great BBC History article on this whole sortid ef
Henry's allegations of incest effectively bastardized Mary. Yeah yeah, just
disowned entirely. And nothing is worse in these days than
being like an unwed mother or like a bastard. As
we know again from Game of Thrones, that term is
(25:17):
thrown around as quite a slanderous slur.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
And even if you're at the top again of the
social hierarchy. If you are royalty and there are legitimate
claims of illegitimacy, this is very dangerous. Your life is
still gonna stink. Any political rival is going to always
hammer that through when they want to get over on you. Still,
(25:41):
Mary is, as we said, she is a staunch Catholic.
After Anne Boleyn gives birth to Elizabeth, which we just mentioned,
Mary wants to see her parents, you know, like any
other kid, but she is not allowed to talk to
her parents. And in this postal Lie Elizabeth world, you
know how Sibley rivalry always gets intense. Imagine how much
(26:04):
you would hate your little sister if the moment she's
born you no longer get to be called a princess.
That's that's not a good look. That's just mean parenting there.
It truly is pitting them against each other. So for
years Mary lived in her infant sisters quarters. Like I
guess that's almost like Harry Potter living under.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
The stairs a little bit. It's not the most posh
of circumstances. It's you know, she's playing second fiddle, living
in her sister's shadow, essentially with very little acknowledgment from
anyone you know, relegated to a life of solitary. I
don't know, Steing frankly absolutely.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
I also want to take a second real quick, and
as I know, we've got a lot of fans of
musicals in the audience. We share that enthusiasm. There is
a great musical comedy called Six Good Yeah, The Lives
of the Six Wives of Henry the Eighth and it's
(27:06):
pretty neat. If you want a quick sample of it,
check out their Tiny Desk concert.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
It is historically based.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
It's a tangent, but it's it's worth mentioning because it's
a sick musical.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Historically based and historically based. There we go. That's perfect.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
That review should be on the pamphlet.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
I like it so okay.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
Spoiler alert, you know the Titanic sinks, A Lincoln has
a bad time at the play, Mary has a very
lonely as you said, Harry Potter under the stairs existence
and Ann Berlin doesn't have the best relationship with Henry.
She is beheaded in fifteen thirty six on charges of treason,
(27:48):
or more likely he got tired of her, and Henry
moves on to Jane Seymour Jane Seymore is the opposite
of Anne Boleyn and every way, at least according to historians,
She's not considered she's considered kind of playing on the inside.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
And the outcoms maybe not the same level. And again
we're not trying to character assassinate a dead historical figure
too much, but it did feel like Blenn had a
bit of a long game going on.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
Yeah, a bit of a calculation there.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
And Jane is a lot more good natured and you know,
considered to be a little bit more like you said, Ben,
a little bit more of vanilla. And she also had
sympathies for Mary because of her own background. Yeah, and
also because Jane Seymour was a decent person. You don't
want to see a kid in unnecessary in traumatic situations,
(28:46):
and she is. Look, Jane Seymour seems kind of like
a normal person in a way. She's very sweet, she
has a good heart to her. She goes to her
husband Henry and says, come on, man, this is your daughter.
Get her back into the royal court. And Mary is
(29:08):
she's got a lot going on here because remember she's
still very Catholic.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
This entire time. Her dad made up a church so
he could get divorced. She ultimately says, I am going
to let this one go because I love my dad
and I want to have a relationship with him. I
don't agree with him spiritually. I'm not going to denounce Catholicism,
(29:34):
but I I think you know what you did, Pops,
So there's still going to be some tension.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
Not going to hold out hope for that apology. Don't
think it ever came. So Jane finally gave Henry what
he'd been dreaming of, which was a male heir, and
unfortunately that led to Jane's passing. Now when she died of.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
Childbirth common not uncommon thing at the time.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
Yeah, fever took her twelve days after he was born.
And if I'm not mistaken to this, this male heir
like was very frail and like had hemophilia and it
was like super not particularly effective. Right, didn't he die
at a young age as well?
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Yeah, let's see, Henry the eighth had a had a
son named Henry, Duke of Cornwall, but that poor kid
died within weeks of being born. And then the kid
that Henry has with Jane is Edward the sixth. And
if I'm not mistaken, Ben, this boy was quite feeble
(30:52):
and considered a bit of a weakling, and that's Edward
the sixth. He did, however, prove to be quite bloodthirsty
and not a great dude, and he did die before
he was able to wreak too much havoc on the country.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
Geez.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
Yeah, and look it's an unhappy Brady bunch we're describing.
Mary is very, very sad to lose Jane Seymour because
Jane Seymour is kind of the closest thing to a
maternal figure that she has in her life. At this
point all of this has happened, Mary is just now
(31:28):
turning twenty one years old. She's second in line to
the throne, behind her much younger brother Edward, who we
just mentioned. Edward gets declared King of England after Henry
the eighth dies, even though Edward is a literal boy,
which sounds like alive from my Thinkure should leave.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
Yes, a literal boy or it's also like one of
an insult that Daniel plainsview with a hurl at somebody.
You literal boy. That's good, let's keep that.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
I like it so because this is not unprecedented in
the story of Royalty. What this means is there will
be a brain trust of adults. There will be a
group of folks who are regents, and the kid ruler
is a figurehead or a mascot until they attain their
(32:22):
majority and become considered an adult themselves. So the real
power at this time is a guy named the Duke
of Northumberland. And this dude is super duper duper Protestant.
So another bad blow for the super duper duper Catholic Mary.
(32:43):
As you said, Noel Edward never in the best of health.
This poor kid. We believe he died from tuberculosis at
the age of fifteen. And while he is on his deathbed,
this Duke of Northumberland gets over to this child, this
fifteen year old, and says, look, man, before you go,
(33:06):
I need you to officially make your older sister Mary
a bastard again. Rebastardize, rebastardizer, my boy, my lad, because,
my lad, because no, if you don't his logic here is,
if you don't make it impossible for her to become
(33:28):
the ruler of England, then she is going to turn
it back into a Catholic nation.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
Oh he wasn't he went wrong. We've been exercising a
lot of empathy for Mary. But let's not forget where
we started with Bloody Mary. That's where we're getting.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
Yeah, good call, That's why we put that stuff up
at the front. This is why Northumberland's seventeen year old
daughter in law becomes Queen Lady Jane Gray. And this
is a there's a real out of the blue plot
twist for the public. A lot of people loved Catherine.
(34:06):
She was the Princess Diana of her time. Princess nailed.
Lady Jane Gray's reign doesn't last very long.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
No, within nine days, Mary usurped Jane for the crown,
and within a few months Mary beheaded Jane for surprise
suppressed treason, the most open ended, vague death sentence in history,
I would argue.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
Yeah. And and the fact that she immediately went to
the nuclear option death yep, Yeah, that's a precedent.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
And she's been stealing, dude, she'd been stealing.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
She's been thinking a lot, and her infant sisters making lists,
you know, checking up twice. Yeah, she came here to
chew gum and killed Protestants and guess what, she didn't
know what gum was.
Speaker 2 (34:59):
Gum hadn't been in vintage yet. Yes, Mary, despite being
a bit of a pill herself, wanted nothing more than
to be a mother so much that she experienced a
few of something that I think it might be worth
an exploration onto itself. Phantom pregnancies pseudosciesis is the term
(35:19):
during which her abdomen and breasts would swell as though
she were pregnant. This is a new one to me, Ben,
I don't think I remember this from history class.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
Yeah, it's a it's a medical condition that can occur,
so it's not it is a physiological change, right, you
can see it manifested. I think it'd be Yeah, it'd
be interesting to do an episode of this. I think
you're onto something.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
Well, it is uncommon, Yeah, it's very It is very
and often attributed directly to to this monarch.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
Yeah. In the end, as we all know, Mary ends
up marrying a Catholic of course, Philip too from Spain.
She and Philip are both kind of unpopular with their
respective crowds. They never have issue, or they never have
a child. Issue is the fancy way you say child
(36:18):
when we're talking nobility. And the reason they didn't have
a kid is because their marriage was not romantic Philip
was not digging Mary. He thought she was unattractive. He
spent as much time as he could away from her.
So she Mary unfortunately dies in fifteen fifty eight, most
(36:40):
likely due to flu or stomach cancer, and her younger
sister Elizabeth takes the throne.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
Yep, and then immediately we entered the Elizabethan era on
day one. It's like we ever, it's the eighties now,
and I want to just really quickly walk back to
something I said earlier. Phantom pregnancy or pseudostiistis it's not.
When I say it was often attributed to Mary, I
just mean that she was probably one of the most
famous people to have suffered from this condition. So when
(37:08):
you look it up, you're going to see stories about
bloody Mary. And I'm not saying this is some sort
of imagined condition. It is very much rare and something
that happens to some women, for sure.
Speaker 1 (37:18):
And that's just because that's the most famous historical figure
with that case. That's the example you'll see in a
Textbook's right. Yeah, there's another big switcheroo. This is a
very weird time to be a peasant invested in politics,
because now that Elizabeth is ascending to the throne. We've
(37:40):
already switched back and forth from being Catholic to being Protestant.
We started a whole new church. Elizabeth switches everything back.
So now we're going back to the Church of England.
We're done with those Catholic reforms from Bloody Mary, and
we're ushering in a new age of Protestant England. This
(38:05):
also begins the golden age of Mercantalism, the c of E.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
As they often call it, the Church of England. Ben,
I think we need to deliver on a bit of
a promise that we did we made at the top.
We're not quite in two parter territory, but we're gonna
make this one a little bit longer than usual. We're
going to talk a bit about the third aspect of
Bloody Mary, the urban legend of it all. So why
don't we set the scene. I think we may have
(38:30):
all been there again for me and you. I think
our age it was probably more Candy Man kind of
replaced Bloody Mary because of where that movie kind of
loomed large in the zeitgeist of our youth. So we're
in middle school. It's a Friday night in late winter
and we're maybe having a slumber party. We're not old
enough to drive yet, so at this point we're getting
(38:51):
dropped off by mom and dad. There's nothing left to
watch on TV except for infomercials. What was it the
showtime Ron Pope heel remember those? I don't know about
the George Lopez show. That was apparently Wren's touch point there,
but I think she's a little younger than we are.
So we resign ourselves to sleep, and one friend suggest
(39:12):
that we play a spooky game because we don't have
phone light. Is a feather stiff as a board maybe, right?
Speaker 1 (39:19):
Or a weedge aboard? You might play with me anyway. Yeah,
So the rules are as follows. The participant enters a
darkened room with a lit candle. He or she looks
into a mirror while chanting Bloody Mary's name or a
phrase a specific number of times. If the ritual is
performed correctly, Bloody Mary might appear either in the mirror
(39:43):
or reach out of the mirror and scratch her face,
or be released from the afterlife to haunt him or
her forever, forever, forever.
Speaker 2 (39:52):
Yeah, and obviously you know Clive Barker was very familiar
with this urban legend when he created the candy Man
Neathos and took it to the next level with the
hook handy dude reaching out and slaughtering you when you
say his name. I think the first Candy Man movie
is pretty good, and the remake was interesting.
Speaker 1 (40:09):
The remakes interesting. It goes a little more anti hero.
Speaker 2 (40:12):
Yeah, and it's not perfect, but I did think it
was an interesting attempt, and the first one is pretty cool. Actually,
it's still.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
I was very frightened by the first things get holds up.
I also want us to shout out this that quotation
of the of the rough rules that comes from our
Alma matter how stuff works, So shout out to Deborah
Ronka for writing that. You know, the game might be
called candy Man or Bloody Mary, but if you travel
(40:39):
around the world, you'll see variations. They're all kinds of
phrases people might say, and it's usually naming some kind
of Boogeyman esque figure. But it would be funny to
go to make a kid go in there and just
say a silly phrase like you have to go in
and you have to say knickerbocker.
Speaker 2 (40:56):
Wibbbe yeah, and then three times and then heapy clown
pops out and hits you over the head with a
squeaky hammer.
Speaker 1 (41:04):
Or what is a knickerbocker?
Speaker 2 (41:06):
That's the old It's a type of pant.
Speaker 1 (41:09):
It is a pant I type of people.
Speaker 2 (41:13):
I want to say, maybe so, and it's what's definitely
a famous hotel in New York for sure, but I
guess I just know it as the pant and the hotel.
There are variations to this, as you mentioned, Ben, you
could alternatively, if you don't want to go with wibbledy
wobble d woo or knickerbocker, you could say, uh, let's
(41:33):
go dark with it, right, I killed your baby, bloody Mary.
But yeah, because you have to.
Speaker 1 (41:40):
You have to poke the bear a little little bit
me here, or sometimes the mirror would drip blood. Sometimes
this is very urban legend, the scary stories to tell
in the dark kind of style. Sometimes the kid who
dares bloody Mary comes out of you know, the locked
bathroom with their hair all white and maybe they're mute.
(42:04):
The legends of this or the origin of this strange
pastime is also kind of ambiguous. It's kind of murky.
There's a really interesting bit of research that Ren found
arguing that this is symbolically or thematically related to a
(42:24):
kid's or an adolescent's first experience with menstruation.
Speaker 2 (42:29):
Yeah, and there's a folklorist who wrote a book called
Bloody Mary in the Mirror, a ritual reflection of prepubescent anxiety,
Alan Dundas, who had this to say about it. Bloody
Mary ritual may not be a significantly accurate portrayal of menstruation,
but it does represent an anticipatory image of a forthcoming
major event in the individual females life cycle.
Speaker 1 (42:50):
And there's a second theory that says Bloody Mary could
be the spirit of more than one notoriously cruel member
of the nobility, Queen Mary Tudor or Countess Elizabeth Bathory.
I iced be fascinated with her, and I think I
think there's a really strong argument that history did her wrong.
Speaker 2 (43:11):
Oh really, I don't know about that. Then. I always
maybe that's just because I you know, I was read
the headlines, but I always associated her with being a
bloodthirsty individual who would murder female servants so that she
could bathe in their blood in order to stay youthful forever.
What's what's the alternate spin on her story? Well, this
(43:31):
happens a lot. The alternate spin is that the accusations
against her were either jimmied up or goosed, as we've
been saying lately.
Speaker 1 (43:43):
Yeah, the idea being that someone wanted to remove a
powerful person from power. She was accused long before Servants
of torturing and killing hundreds of girls and women from
I think a period of decades from fifteen ninety to
sixteen ten. Yeah, So, if true, quite the serial killer,
(44:06):
very much a bloody Mary. But why wouldn't you call
her bloody Beth?
Speaker 2 (44:10):
No, no, no, it's a good question. Remember that I killed
your baby thing from earlier. You may have already put
this together astute, ridiculous historians, but that may well have
been a reference to Bloody Mary, Mary Tutor and her
unfulfilled desire to become a mother.
Speaker 3 (44:30):
A real taunt, a real taunt, something like that, right,
And we know this is now a staple of American folklore,
and you can see her reference through the idea of
this supernatural creature referenced in everything from Beetlejuice to The
ring the adaptation of Ringu, the Japanese film, and to
(44:51):
as previously mentioned, candy Man.
Speaker 1 (44:53):
But if we bring it all back around, and we'really Mary's.
Speaker 2 (44:59):
For a little hair dog. Right.
Speaker 1 (45:01):
Yeah, they didn't just popularize the Bloody Mary in their
neck of the Global Woods. They've been credited with inventing
the Sidecar, the Blue Lagoon and the White Lady. Think
I know the sidecar, I don't know the other.
Speaker 2 (45:16):
Yeah. The sidecar is like I believe a gin cock
Oh look at this. You can go to Harry's Bar
dot com. How helpful, and then it's got a lot
of really interesting historical bits on it and a list
of their specialty cocktails, the Boulevardier, the Bloody Marry, the Sidecar,
which is Cognac triple second lemon juice. I do love
a French seventy five Champagne gin lemon juice and a
(45:39):
few drops of absent. I do love classic cocktails. I
don't drink a ton anymore, but when I do, I really,
when I go to a fancy place, I am more
disposed to enjoying one really really tasty classic cocktail.
Speaker 1 (45:52):
Boullevardier. Interesting. Well, we hope you found this interesting as well, folks.
This was a cool exploration that took us in unexpected
places and shout out to anybody who is sipping a
bloody Mary. As you tuned in, we we can't wait
for you to join us when we delve into some
(46:13):
more unexpected history spoiler with a certain dark night later
in the week. Meantime, big thanks to our producer Max Williams,
Big thanks to our guest producer Dylan the Chainsaw fac It.
Speaker 2 (46:24):
Huge thanks to Chris Frasciotis and needs Jeff Codes both
here in spirit, Jonathan Strickland, the quizter, Ay j Bahamas.
Speaker 1 (46:30):
Jacob's the Puzzler mm hmm, and big big shout out
to our rude dudes over app Ridiculous Prime. If you
dig us, you'll dig them. And as Harpal Dylan always says,
speaking to digging, let's dig up the root of vacos.
Speaker 2 (46:45):
Let's do it. Let's see you next time, folks. For
more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your Faceavorite shows
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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