December 19, 2022 • 37 mins
Bonus special episode! Dana Schwartz guests on Significant Others, a narrated, nonfiction podcast about folks just beyond the spotlight of history, hosted by Liza Powel O’Brien. Each episode tells the story of a talented, difficult and little-known individual who altered the destiny of their better-known partner, child, sibling, or friend, and impacted the world they left behind.
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Liza is joined by Dana Schwartz, host of Noble Blood, which explores the stories of the world’s most fascinating nobles. Today, Dana takes us on a crash course through the complicated dynamics of royal marriages and answers our burning questions! What set Catherine the Great apart? Did Anne Boleyn play her cards right? And who was the first appointed royal spouse that was male? Turns out that relationships aren't so easy when your nation depends on their success. Who knew?
Want to support Significant Others? Rate and review wherever you listen to your podcasts and keep sending suggestions of Significant Others you’d like to hear about our way at significantpod@gmail.com!
And support Noble Blood:
— Bonus episodes, stickers, and scripts on Patreon
— Order Dana's book, 'Anatomy: A Love Story' and pre-order its sequel 'Immortality: A Love Story'
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey guys, this is Dani Schwartz. You probably noticed this
is not a normal episode of Noble Blood, and that's
because I was a guest on the podcast Significant Others,
hosted by the incredibly fun and charming Lizapaoulo O'Brien. We
just had a blast talking about well significant others in history,
famous spouses of monarchs and nobles, which has been a
(00:23):
topic that we've covered on this show, but it was
just so fun to be able to chat about it
casually with Lijah. So I really hope you enjoyed this
conversation as much as I did. And of course your
regular episode will be coming Tuesday. Welcome back to Significant Others.
(00:43):
I'm Liza Powell O'Brien, and just because I'm deep in
research for season two doesn't mean we have to stop
bringing you stories of interesting plus ones. In the first
of these bonus episodes, Stacy Schiff and I talked about
her new book, The Revolutionary, which is all about Samuel
Adams and his wildly underreported role in the birth of America.
(01:04):
So check that one out if you haven't already. And
as royal relationships are very much in the media these days,
even more than usual, I thought it would be interesting
to delve a little bit into the idea of a
royal marriage in general, since there really isn't anything else
like it, and to talk about a few of the
more significant examples of what that kind of a marriage
can look like. So I reached out to the absolute
(01:27):
Queen no pun intended of such information, historian, author and
host of the delightful podcast Noble Blood, Dana Schwartz. Dana,
thank you so much for talking with us today. For
anyone who's listening who might not already be familiar with
your podcast, could you tell us a little bit about it? Yeah. Absolutely.
(01:48):
It's a scripted podcast where I research and write UM episodes,
every episode exploring sort of a lesser known story from
the lives of royals throughout history. Some are sort of
lesser known stories or aspects about really famous people like
Marie Antoinette or Inn Boleyn, but I also try to capture,
you know, fascinating stories about people that maybe American listeners
(02:13):
might not have even heard about. Like I just recorded
an episode about this Portuguese princess named in Nez de Castro,
queen actually um but sort of her her gruesome and
tragic death. So yeah, a lot of um perhaps surprising
amount of of royal stories and in gruesome deaths, but
that's part of the fun. It's so addictive your podcast,
(02:34):
I have to really honestly, it's almost problematic because I'll
start listening to them and then I realized four hours
have gone by and I've done I've attended to no children,
I've I've cooked no meals. Um So you have to
limit your intake the highest phrase um So. In this podcast,
we focus on intimate relationships. Sometimes parents are friends of
(02:58):
historical figures, you sually it's a spouse. That's because I've
always been really personally fascinated by um intense one on relationships,
especially marriages, And one of the things I find especially
interesting in marriages is power dynamics and how they differ,
and when it comes to royal marriages, which is sort
of falling under your umbrella of expertise, I find that
(03:21):
to be so specific because there's such an inherent power
imbalance baked in from the beginning. Absolutely, and I have
just observed myself that there's a whole range of responses
that humans throughout history have had to this condition of
being put in the position of being a royal spouse
and you know, everything from totally compliant to completely revolutionary,
(03:45):
and I thought you might be the best person to
walk us through some of those examples. So I'm just
wondering if you can what whatever comes to you in
response to that idea of like, what are the different
ways that this kind of relationship has played out? Absolutely,
I think the power dynamic that you're pointing out is
(04:05):
so important when we're talking about royal marriages. One because traditionally,
let's say for several hundred years, it would be a
man in charge of any marriage, you know, any family relationship.
And then to to give someone the power of you know,
absolute rule, God's vessel on earth, that power sort of
(04:28):
takes on an even bigger light. I think when we're
talking about royal wives, the first thing that pops into
most people's heads is King Henry the Eighth and his
six wives, and what a fascinating saga that is because
of the way he went from woman to woman, and
I think in the stories these women sort of are
are unfortunately always sort of seen in response to him.
(04:50):
And I think it's been a modern movement, like in
the musical Six to try to reclaim their own agency
and sort of the narrative potential of them. I mean,
you think of someone like Henry the Eighth's first wife,
Catherine of Aragon, who was his loyal wife at his
side for twenty plus years. I mean, this is a
woman who was a princess in her own right, the
(05:13):
the daughter of two of the most important monarchs in Europe,
the aunt of the Holy Roman Emperor, like the most
connected and powerful individual a woman can be at this time,
really right, like she's the Queen of England. Her parents
are are a king and a queen. Her family is
massively powerful throughout Europe, her you know, nephew. At a
(05:36):
certain point, sachs, the Vatican has the Vatican under his control.
She has all the mechanisms of power. And yet because
this woman, even though she's been a loyal, loving wife
for twenty plus years, even though the kingdom loves her,
you know, she's seen as this pious woman because she
hasn't provided Henry with a son. He does everything in
(05:58):
his power to dispose of her. And he he does.
I mean, even though again, like the stop gaps in
place to prevent a man just from saying I don't
want to be married to you anymore at this point
are I mean, he's the head of the church and
she's a subject subject but they're Catholic, right, Like, he
(06:19):
can't divorce. He will literally separate from the Catholic Church,
become excommunicated, start the Church of England. He will do
everything in his power to to undermine their marriage, and
she has she plays all of her cards and it
doesn't work like that. I think the tragedy of that
is so emblematic of the way that a man has
power over his wife in certain ways. But then and
(06:42):
again not to monologue and ramble because already, like give
me the popcorn, I'm ready to go. You put a
microphone in front of me and I start, you know,
I mean, and then you have a situation like Catherine
the Great who it's this very strange different dynamic where
Catherine the Great is a German princess from a low
(07:02):
born family um is sort of brought in to marry
the heir to the Russian throne because they think she's
sort of going to be easily controlled. Again, she has
none of the entrenched political power that someone like Katherine
Bergan would have had. But over the course of her
marriage to Peter, Katherine ingratiates herself to the Russian people,
(07:24):
converts to Russian orthodoxy in a way that like the
people fall in love with learns the Russian language. There's
a story about her she she catches still very early
on in her marriage and the store, and she's bedridden,
and the story that sort of spreads that feeds into
her legend is that she was up at night pacing
(07:45):
on the cold floor studying Russian and that's why people
like fall in love with her. And her husband is
such an ineffective, bad emperor in so many ways that
six months into his reign, even though she wasn't Russian born,
even though she was an heir to the throne, even
(08:05):
though she really has no claim to the Russian throne
in any legitimate way. We we might imagine through lineage,
she rallies the the armies behind her, the people behind her,
the church behind her, and overthrows her own husband. So
she was ambitious. So it's sort of like there are
(08:26):
these Catherine Varragon. I don't know how ambitious she might
have been. A Bolen is always proteted. Prichette is very ambitious, right,
And I don't again, I don't know so much myth
has been made about all of Henry's well Henry himself
and all of his wives, And I don't know. I
sort of love the idea of Amberleyn as like a
you know, a schemer. I don't know how much it
(08:48):
was the right place, right time, you know. I mean,
it's she she had a very limited opportunity, right. It's
like her family is saying, like, do this thing. This
is the one thing you're supposed to do. This is
how to advance as a woman. I mean, in the hundred's,
advancing as a woman was marrying, yeah, and then not
getting be added. And if the king wants you, you're you're.
(09:13):
You have fewer cards to play than than maybe people think.
And I my anvioln hot take is I think she
played her cards magnificently and if she had happened to
have a son, she would have been fine. And because
she didn't, these things, yeah, these things, these things happen,
but like it was an impossible situation, right, and then
(09:35):
the patriarchy does that to us. So when was the
first appointed royal spouse who was male? Oh gosh, I
guess it depends on if we're going to count Empress Matilda.
So there's are you watching the new Game of Thrones
by chance? I'm not. I'm not okay. So for people
(09:56):
who are watching, how's the dragon? The character um Rania,
like the young princess who was claiming queen, is sort
of based on this figure named Empress Matilda, who, depending
on who you ask, counts or doesn't count as a
monarch of England. So she was the daughter of King
(10:18):
Henry the First. His only legitimate son, William died uh
in a ship disaster, a ship crashed against some rocks,
and so her father said, my daughter Matilda is my heir.
Of course, then her father dies, and uh, A lot
of people in eleven hundred England say, no, we do not.
(10:41):
I know, we swore for fealty to her when your
father is alive. But your father is not alive anymore,
and so there becomes a civil war in England known
as the Anarchy. And her nephew cousin nephew, Um, I'm
gonna get this wrong, and so I hope no one
angrily corrects me. A relative, either a cousin or nephew,
Stephen is is sort of the the counterfaction who then
(11:04):
claims power. But Matilda, who was fighting in the Civil
War for her right um to the throne, had her
husband Jeffrey, who was focused on conquering Normandy, which was
also considered part of the the English crowns power at
that time, so that that's sort of an interesting husband fascinating.
(11:26):
There's there are other few sort of interesting dynamics where
a wife has technically higher claim at a given time,
Like Mary, Queen of Scott's was married to a Prince
of France who then became the King of France. But
at the time that they were married, she was the
Queen of Scotland. Her mother was ruling in her stead
(11:47):
and her her half brother was sort of ruling while
she was in France, but she was the independent queen
of a country married to the Dafa France uh and
that had its own interesting political called dynamics because being
but unfortunately, as Mary Queen of Scott's learned like her
(12:07):
marriage is only ever really diminished her power. She makes
the terrible decision to marry this man named Lord Darnley,
who she had been charmed by but was it was
a terrible match. He dies in mysterious uh, an explosion,
that was and then he was found strangled like there
was a murder attempt because he was awful, and Mary,
(12:27):
Queen of scott was sort of like, oh no, my
husband died. That's so sad. I'm you know, I'll definitely
look into what happened. But the people of Scotland at
the time see that and don't like that. That's her reaction.
And then she marries, in her third marriage, the man
who was implicated in her second husband's death, which the
people of Scotland absolutely hate. Some historians say she didn't
(12:50):
have a choice in that matter, that you know, he
raped and kidnapped her. Some say that, you know, she
just made a terrible calculation. But either way, those were
two matches that ultimately diminished her power, and someone like
her cousin, Elizabeth the First of England, realized that she's
already queen. Marrying a man is only gonna gonna compromise
(13:13):
compromise her power, thank you exactly. And so is she
the only example? She's the most obvious example of an
unmarried female monarch. Is there other? Is there anyone else
who did that? In England? No, I'm sure around the
world there are and I just off the top of
my head, can't can't recall. Uh, it's definitely absolutely several
(13:34):
African monarchs and queens, but in England, no queen. Elizabeth
made the calculation of ruling as a virgin queen. But
there's a benefit of that, right, which is that she
doesn't have to submit to a man. But the cost
of that is it's the end of the tutor dynasty
(13:55):
because she doesn't have airs. And at the end of
the day, the purpose of a of a monarchy is
to create your dynasty, have it keep going, create airs.
And I think part of the problem also, especially in
the fifteen hundreds, if we're talking about Elizabeth, the first
childbirth is a is a very dangerous prospect. So it's
(14:19):
that's it's very much a bodily risk, that's right. So
to put the monarch through that kind of a trial
from which what percentage of women didn't you know, emerge successfully?
You know? Sure, Yeah, I'm totally making that and I'm
like that that sounds right. I don't know, it's very
it's dangerous, right, You're putting the monarch in, that's right,
(14:42):
a very vulnerable position, right. Um, In terms of the
selection process, for lack of a better phrase, for these
royal partners. You know, we know sort of in pop
culture what the story is about, you know, the current
royal family in England or the most recent ration. But
was there like was it selected by the ruling monarch?
(15:05):
Was there a council? Was that the family? Was it
all of the above? How did that work the family?
In most cases? Because you are absolutely correct that these
are not decisions very often made for love. These are
strategic decisions. The role of marriage for a lot of
you know, Western history from a certain you know, from
(15:27):
at least as long as we have, like the English
monarchy recorded, it was to secure alliances. It was to
secure political or religious alliances, to combine land dowries were important,
and so yeah, love was sort of a something reserved
for poor people, I suppose, right, like almost a luxury
(15:48):
that the monarchy couldn't afford, right, Yeah, and I can't
worry about that. It was very much understood, especially in
France at the time. Royal mistress was an official position
with a salary and apartments that you lived in. It
was right, So it was akin to I mean, it
wasn't marriage obviously, because marriage was considered this very political, legal,
(16:12):
religious institution. But it was almost a marriage of sorts
because by appointing someone your royal mistress, they are they
have an official position in your life. And so I
think in France it was very much understood that your
wife is to fulfill this certain role and your mistress
is to fulfill another role. And I actually think, now
(16:34):
you've gotten me on my on my high horse. This
is sort of a pet subject of mine. It was
to Marie Antoinette's detriment that her husband never did take
a mistress. Her husband, Louis the sixteenth, was sort of awkward.
It took them seven years to consummate their marriage. He
was not a very sexual person. I think sometimes people
(16:56):
like to think, well, was he gay, and I think no.
I think more likely he just was maybe closer to
a sexual He just wasn't very sexual. And Marie Antoinette,
because he never had an official royal mistress to sort
of differ court attention and gossip and the more frivolous
aspects of courtly life. Marie Antoinette was in this unfortunate
(17:19):
position of being forced to do both, where she was
both the one that everyone looked to for fashion and
style and gossip, but also at the same time she
was expected to be, you know, the royal mother and
the queen and and honor that position with with the
dignity they expected. There's a famous example of a portrait
that was painted in three of Marie Antoinette in a
(17:45):
simple Muslim gown. It's like a chemist style gown that
was meant to evoke farm simplicity. She was doing seventeen
eighties cottage corps, and that was very fashionable at the
time for rich people to sort of play at simplicity,
you know, the way I think people kind of do
on TikTok today, like baking bread. But at the time
(18:08):
this portrait was so scandalous that it was pulled from
display because the first response was that it was too sexual,
that it looked like she was in her undergarments, that
it was so casual, and that as a queen, she
she you know, she was dishonoring the the position as queen,
(18:28):
that the status, the title, the status that she held.
She was sullying herself, sullying selling the position of queen.
And also you know, imagine she's trying to put the
French silk merchants out of business by now wearing a
silk gown, and so it was this sort of horrible
thing where it backfired on every account where I think
common people in France saw her as being condescending. You know,
(18:52):
that's sort of like slumming it where they're like, what
are you doing? You know, the way that I think
if we saw, you know, a celebrity today making rice
and beans and being like, oh I love eating or whatever,
you know, some like very casual food where you're like,
what's like, that's not what you are. But then the
rich people were like, you are selly in your position
as queen, and so it fully backfired on every account.
(19:14):
Where did this line up with her farm that she
famously created behind Versailles, We are exactly there. You absolutely
nailed it. She had people also make fun of this
a lot. She had this thing called the Queen's Hamlet,
which was a working It was a model farm, but
it was a working dairy farm where she went to
escape because Versailles was like being in a fish bowl.
(19:37):
You are always watched, and every step from the order
in which you get dressed in the morning to your
meals is watched and perfectly choreographed, and so of course,
like you imagine, like she just wanted like a a breather,
like a minute, just to like be by herself and
just hang out. And this was actually very common in
the late seventeen hundreds of nobles building these sort of
(20:00):
faux farms to evoke a don't simplicity homey exactly. So yeah,
she had a fake working farm, and she was sort
of dress up like a um, you know, in more
casual clothes, and and just spend time with her children,
which was also considered a very weird thing she did.
(20:21):
It was like, why are you spending all this time
parenting your children? Don't you know you can pay people
to parent your children for you. That echoes with Lady
Diana and her interests. Also, Um, you said something that
I have been very curious about since I listened to
your episode on The Mad King. King George the third.
(20:44):
We're talking about how he, whatever his affliction was, was
sort of at bay for many years, and he became
ill later in his life, but there was a long
period of time where he was sort of managing the
royal business fairly well, and he had all these siblings
who were sort of crazy. I mean, they were all
acting insane, and nobody was marrying who they were supposed
(21:05):
to marry, and and I was just thinking about, like,
you know, I don't hear much just as a lay person,
and I don't know how big of an area of
scholarship it is, but of these royals who you know,
were with this incredibly strict and conventional idea of marriage
and partnership in that way, like what what of the
(21:26):
you know, the queer royals through history? Like do we
know anything about any of them? And you know, I'm
sure their fate was complicated if it was recorded at all,
But do you know anything about any of that? Yeah,
we have um a few interesting stories. So there was
King Edward the second of England and this is now
(21:47):
in the late twelve hundreds, and there was a man.
I mean because so much of it isn't recorded the
way that I think modern sources would want it to
be recorded. And I think these these things are complicated
because I don't think these the character characters. The people
at the time wouldn't have called themselves gay or queer.
That vocabulary didn't exist. And so I, as like an
(22:08):
untrained historian, I'm always like waried to put these labels
on people. But King Edward the Second of England, who was,
you know, King of England. This is late twelve hundred's
early thirt hundreds had a favorite, Pierce, Pierce Gaveston, who
sort of had exclusive access to the king. It was
(22:29):
heavily implied this was a romantic relationship. I mean, I
would argue that it absolutely is romantic, if not sexual,
but medieval chroniclers, so even at the time people were
writing that this relationship is sexual. Um. Christopher Marlowe, the
playwright sort of a contemporary of Shakespeare, basically says as
much in the play Edward the Second, and some modern
(22:52):
historians I think disagree on the extent of the sexual relationship,
but he was very much his favorite, and it's a
it's tragic story. I mean, basically, the other nobles don't
like this favoritism, and they retaliate against him, and they
retaliate against Pearce, and like, this is a time when
even being king could only go so far at certain points,
(23:15):
because again, marriage at this time is not about happiness.
It's about securing this religious political alliance and having airs
and a lover of the same sex. And I think
it was sort of a sometimes it don't ask, don't
tell policy of certain monarchs, and sometimes it really was
(23:37):
politically damaging. I mean, part of what led to Marie
Antoinette's downfall was the incredible amount of political propaganda against her,
which were cartoons of her engaged in sexual lesbian acts
with her closest ladies in waiting. And so I think
it is a challenge of historians today to sort of
tease out when these relationships were set told because obviously
(24:01):
gay people existed, because people existed, um, But yeah, the
sources are tricky, and I think because for so much
of European history, Christianity was so deeply ingrained in Yeah, exactly,
So queer relationships were both powerful tools of propaganda because
(24:21):
accusing some of it someone of it was obviously incredibly damaging,
but also something that someone would have kept a secret.
You also have that great episode on the person whose
name I am not going to remember the French um, yes, yes, exactly,
which is such a great story. It's so interesting to
untangle it and and I won't go into the whole story,
(24:44):
but it is. Um. I like to think of a
person who chose of her own free will to live
as a woman and even though we wouldn't have had
or they wouldn't have had the vocabulary to call themselves
trans I think it's so interesting to remind people that know,
for hundreds of years people made these decisions. Is there
(25:11):
a time that you can peg it too? In terms
of when, I don't remember when the sort of modern
sensibility about what romantic love is and how it plays
into marriage. I can't remember when that sort of entered
the society in the Western world anyway. But in the
sense of royal marriages, I don't think they are any
more meant to be about international alliances. At least again
(25:36):
in Europe they still have that. Now their success right
is just through the roofs. Getherway with that, and they're
they're that all works. Yeah, but was there a moment
where it shifted. I think one of the key moment,
at least in my understanding, is the relationship between Queen
Victoria and Prince Albert. This was a situation where Victoria
(25:58):
fell head over heels in love and she was devoted
to Albert to a fault. I mean, she loved her
husband so much that when he died, she spent the
rest of her life in mourning. I mean it's so
funny because obviously the Victorian era so powerful, and we
imagine her as such a large I mean she's tiny,
(26:20):
she's like, you know, four ft ten, but a larger
than life figure in in English history. And she was
obsessed with her husband to a degree that I think,
like nowadays people would be jealous of. I'm like, oh
my god. She hated having children. She they had you know,
ten children, and she absolutely hated having children. But she
just loved being intimate with her husband. And no one
(26:43):
taught her about birth control. So you know, she was like, say, lovey,
they were what you gotta do, You do what you
gotta do. I mean, she had a this is a
one a young woman who had a very very controlled childhood.
When she was born, she was the basically air apparent
eventually after her father, after her uncle died, she was
(27:08):
she's the only legitimate granddaughter of King Charles the Third,
King Jesus christ Um, King George the Third. King Charles
the Third is right now, he has a lot of whatever.
She's the only legitimate granddaughter of King George. She is
born and she's this precious thing, and so she's raised
under this incredibly strict system called the Kensington system, with
(27:29):
where her mother like basically doesn't let her be a
person until she actually is literally Queen of England. And
so by falling in love and marrying this man, it's
sort of her her act of rebellion and freedom. She
sort of pushes her mother and her mother's adviser out
of her orbit and focuses all of her attention on
(27:51):
on Albert, and they have an incredibly by all accounts,
happy marriage and life for the you know, for the
years they have together. She empower him in an unusual way.
They had a partnership. Really, I mean, I guess the
question is, what is a new It's unusual at all
that it was in a late eighteen hundreds marriage where
(28:13):
the woman had a more important job than the man.
Absolutely absolutely, and probably also relatively rare for a marriage
steeped in romantic love to be successful, because most people
had nothing, and so most people had very hard life,
and so even if they were in love with their spouse,
it may not have played out so great, you know,
through all the years. But I'm of course contrasting it
(28:36):
to the popular understanding or fantasy about Queen Elizabeth and
Prince Philip's relationship where you know, from what I can
gather in certainly what I imagine to be true that
that it was tough for a man to be second
to his female spouse. And I don't know if there's
(28:56):
any um, you know, if there was any agitating on
Albert's part, if the if the adoration was enough for him,
if it was just you know, I'm here for you
because you're so wonderful to me, and together we will
you know, found many museums have all these babies and
have a great life. I think, you know, it's hard
for me to get into these people's heads. So a
(29:17):
lot of this is guesswork. I think Victoria was so
deferential to Albert that he felt okay, you know, and
I think it was a little bit harder, weirdly for Philip,
because again, this is like the nineteen fifties, right, This
is like when the idea of masculinity is at it's
real mad men peak. And here's a situation where you know,
(29:38):
under Victoria she was an empress. This is like, Okay,
the monarchy is at the height of its actual power,
whereas like Queen Elizabeth, like this is a symbolic role
largely at this point, and so it's you know, maybe
he had less of a inherent difference reference reverence, and
so I think it might have been a little harder
(29:58):
when they got into the argument they did have where
he was like, wait, so my kids aren't going to
have my name. She's like, no, are you? I mean
she's like she didn't say this. But if if it
was me, I would have been like, are you effing
kidding me? They're going to have like my last name,
that's the Queen Victoria's last name. They're kind of your
made up German last name. Like, what are you talking about? Well,
(30:18):
I think that would have gone very well. If you
would be like that, I would have been great to
be married time. I would have been like are you
are you absolutely kidding me? And I have to think
that the era of um sort of media awareness that
they existed in would have made it much more difficult
to because he's getting you know, feedback from everyone about
(30:39):
their relationship rather than just managing it privately. Just just
a lot harder, right, He's hearing every comment of someone
saying like, oh, can you believe this guy walking one
step behind his wife? We're also queen Victoria was so
deferential to her husband, where even though she was the queen,
like I mean some she's she's using a lot of
(31:01):
eighteen hundreds language and talking about her She like worships
and obeys her husband, And so I feel like he
would have been okay with that. You know, she covered
it because this is again she she is so obsequious
and deferential to him that it would have been hard
for him to get mad. Where it's like Queen Elizabeth.
(31:21):
This is a sort of trickier situation, just as the
monarchy is that this is a weird like modernizing crux
like feminism and masculinity, and the patriarchy is changing in
the twentieth century. I feel like we can't not talk
about Wallis Simpson just a little team of good and
I think most people probably know exactly who Wallis Simpson is,
(31:41):
but just in case they missed it, came to do
a quick overview of that. Sure um, King George five
had two sons, and the oldest son obviously is in
line to inherit the throne and he becomes King Edward
the eighth, but he falls in love with a divorced
(32:03):
American actress named Wallace Simpson, and as the head of
the Church of England, it's against church laws to marry
a divorce if their spouse is still alive. She's a
divorcee with a living spouse. That's big of me, like,
you can't do that. And also for a bunch of
other reasons, like he fundamentally was ill suited to being king,
(32:25):
and he was a Nazi sympathizer, which we won't go
into because I'll just get mad. But he abdicates the
throne in favor of his younger brother, who becomes George
the six who is Queen Elizabeth the Seconds father, and
so that's why we have the line we have now.
But Wallace Simpson was this uh yeah, divorced American woman
(32:47):
who scandalized the royal family by falling in love with
uh with David, but who took the regular name King
Edward the Eighth, and uh yeah, he abdicated the throne
and they they instead of being King and Queen, they
went with the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. She never
got her royal highness, which is sort of like an
(33:08):
honorary title, because that was sort of them sticking it
to her, and they lived sort of the rest of
their lives in France, visited, you know, chumming it up
with Hitler, thinking well, maybe if this Hitler chap wants
to put us back on the throne, that would be fun,
wouldn't it. Oh. I didn't realize there was that element
to that relationship. It was sealed until very recently. This
(33:31):
is a sort of thing that the royal family has
not hize broadcast, but there are yeah, photographs, uh, and
when you have a photograph smiling next to Hitler, it's
not a good look. But no, that especially during the
Second World War obviously when Germany was the enemy, the
British Royal family tried very hard to make sure that
(33:52):
it was suppressed that that m Wallace and and David
were cozying up or had been cozying with with the Amon's.
But yeah, they they sort of had this I think
what they characterized as this love story that he was
willing to give up the throne for her, but I
think for a lot of other reasons he was ill
(34:13):
suited to being king, and I'm I'm glad he wasn't. Yeah,
no kidding, is is there another example of that happening
that you know of of someone falling in love and
giving up there seat of power. Well, if we're also
talking also about um, queer possibly queer monarchs. There was
(34:34):
a Queen of Sweden named Queen Christina who uh some
people argue was lesbian or or would have been. She
she favored men's dress. Uh, she was, you know, Queen
of Sweden, but but resigned for whether it was religious reasons.
She refused to marry, which was its own scandal, then
(34:57):
converted to Catholicism secretly. And oh, I think she she's
buried in the Vatican and is either the only woman
buried in the Vatican or one of only a few
women buried in the Vatican. But she's someone who gave
up her throne not for a man, but for a
lack of man. I just wanted to add that in
(35:19):
the realm of people who are significantly influential, I have
to say that your podcast. Without it, I don't know
that I would have ever thought to do what I'm doing.
Not that that's any great shakes for the world, but
but um, but I'm grateful. I'm so grateful that you
do what you do. And um, I feel you're a trailblazer.
(35:39):
And I personally have benefited from that, so thank you.
Oh my gosh, that is the truly, the genuinely kindest
thing anyone has said. I feel very lucky that people
let me rant into a microphone about historical figures I
find interesting and I am. I love when when that
exists more in the world. So I'm very excited for
what you're doing. Well. Thank you so much. Um. Do
(36:02):
you have anything that you want to be working on
a couple of books? I don't know if you have
anything that you want to plug or promote or send
us to, Oh my gosh, that would be great. I
have a new book coming out in February called Immortality,
a Love Story. And if you're interested in historical royals,
I have a few cameos. I have Princess Charlotte of
Wales appears, Lord Byron appears, a few other characters I've
(36:24):
talked about on my podcast. But it's available for preorder. No,
that book sounds amazing. UM. Too late for this Christmas,
but definitely in time for Valentine's Day. Absolutely, thank you
so much. This is such a pleasure. Thank you so
much for listening, and thanks again to Dana for joining us.
(36:45):
If you haven't already, please check out her podcast, Noble
Blood wherever you get your podcasts. I promise you won't
be disappointed. We'll continue to release bonus episodes while we
work on season two, so be sure to hit the
subscribe button, and as always, we welcome any and all
suggestions for upcoming episodes. You can email us at significant
(37:06):
pod at gmail dot com
Hey guys, this is Dani Schwartz. You probably noticed this
is not a normal episode of Noble Blood, and that's
because I was a guest on the podcast Significant Others,
hosted by the incredibly fun and charming Lizapaoulo O'Brien. We
just had a blast talking about well significant others in history,
famous spouses of monarchs and nobles, which has been a
(00:23):
topic that we've covered on this show, but it was
just so fun to be able to chat about it
casually with Lijah. So I really hope you enjoyed this
conversation as much as I did. And of course your
regular episode will be coming Tuesday. Welcome back to Significant Others.
(00:43):
I'm Liza Powell O'Brien, and just because I'm deep in
research for season two doesn't mean we have to stop
bringing you stories of interesting plus ones. In the first
of these bonus episodes, Stacy Schiff and I talked about
her new book, The Revolutionary, which is all about Samuel
Adams and his wildly underreported role in the birth of America.
(01:04):
So check that one out if you haven't already. And
as royal relationships are very much in the media these days,
even more than usual, I thought it would be interesting
to delve a little bit into the idea of a
royal marriage in general, since there really isn't anything else
like it, and to talk about a few of the
more significant examples of what that kind of a marriage
can look like. So I reached out to the absolute
(01:27):
Queen no pun intended of such information, historian, author and
host of the delightful podcast Noble Blood, Dana Schwartz. Dana,
thank you so much for talking with us today. For
anyone who's listening who might not already be familiar with
your podcast, could you tell us a little bit about it? Yeah. Absolutely.
(01:48):
It's a scripted podcast where I research and write UM episodes,
every episode exploring sort of a lesser known story from
the lives of royals throughout history. Some are sort of
lesser known stories or aspects about really famous people like
Marie Antoinette or Inn Boleyn, but I also try to capture,
you know, fascinating stories about people that maybe American listeners
(02:13):
might not have even heard about. Like I just recorded
an episode about this Portuguese princess named in Nez de Castro,
queen actually um but sort of her her gruesome and
tragic death. So yeah, a lot of um perhaps surprising
amount of of royal stories and in gruesome deaths, but
that's part of the fun. It's so addictive your podcast,
(02:34):
I have to really honestly, it's almost problematic because I'll
start listening to them and then I realized four hours
have gone by and I've done I've attended to no children,
I've I've cooked no meals. Um So you have to
limit your intake the highest phrase um So. In this podcast,
we focus on intimate relationships. Sometimes parents are friends of
(02:58):
historical figures, you sually it's a spouse. That's because I've
always been really personally fascinated by um intense one on relationships,
especially marriages, And one of the things I find especially
interesting in marriages is power dynamics and how they differ,
and when it comes to royal marriages, which is sort
of falling under your umbrella of expertise, I find that
(03:21):
to be so specific because there's such an inherent power
imbalance baked in from the beginning. Absolutely, and I have
just observed myself that there's a whole range of responses
that humans throughout history have had to this condition of
being put in the position of being a royal spouse
and you know, everything from totally compliant to completely revolutionary,
(03:45):
and I thought you might be the best person to
walk us through some of those examples. So I'm just
wondering if you can what whatever comes to you in
response to that idea of like, what are the different
ways that this kind of relationship has played out? Absolutely,
I think the power dynamic that you're pointing out is
(04:05):
so important when we're talking about royal marriages. One because traditionally,
let's say for several hundred years, it would be a
man in charge of any marriage, you know, any family relationship.
And then to to give someone the power of you know,
absolute rule, God's vessel on earth, that power sort of
(04:28):
takes on an even bigger light. I think when we're
talking about royal wives, the first thing that pops into
most people's heads is King Henry the Eighth and his
six wives, and what a fascinating saga that is because
of the way he went from woman to woman, and
I think in the stories these women sort of are
are unfortunately always sort of seen in response to him.
(04:50):
And I think it's been a modern movement, like in
the musical Six to try to reclaim their own agency
and sort of the narrative potential of them. I mean,
you think of someone like Henry the Eighth's first wife,
Catherine of Aragon, who was his loyal wife at his
side for twenty plus years. I mean, this is a
woman who was a princess in her own right, the
(05:13):
the daughter of two of the most important monarchs in Europe,
the aunt of the Holy Roman Emperor, like the most
connected and powerful individual a woman can be at this time,
really right, like she's the Queen of England. Her parents
are are a king and a queen. Her family is
massively powerful throughout Europe, her you know, nephew. At a
(05:36):
certain point, sachs, the Vatican has the Vatican under his control.
She has all the mechanisms of power. And yet because
this woman, even though she's been a loyal, loving wife
for twenty plus years, even though the kingdom loves her,
you know, she's seen as this pious woman because she
hasn't provided Henry with a son. He does everything in
(05:58):
his power to dispose of her. And he he does.
I mean, even though again, like the stop gaps in
place to prevent a man just from saying I don't
want to be married to you anymore at this point
are I mean, he's the head of the church and
she's a subject subject but they're Catholic, right, Like, he
(06:19):
can't divorce. He will literally separate from the Catholic Church,
become excommunicated, start the Church of England. He will do
everything in his power to to undermine their marriage, and
she has she plays all of her cards and it
doesn't work like that. I think the tragedy of that
is so emblematic of the way that a man has
power over his wife in certain ways. But then and
(06:42):
again not to monologue and ramble because already, like give
me the popcorn, I'm ready to go. You put a
microphone in front of me and I start, you know,
I mean, and then you have a situation like Catherine
the Great who it's this very strange different dynamic where
Catherine the Great is a German princess from a low
(07:02):
born family um is sort of brought in to marry
the heir to the Russian throne because they think she's
sort of going to be easily controlled. Again, she has
none of the entrenched political power that someone like Katherine
Bergan would have had. But over the course of her
marriage to Peter, Katherine ingratiates herself to the Russian people,
(07:24):
converts to Russian orthodoxy in a way that like the
people fall in love with learns the Russian language. There's
a story about her she she catches still very early
on in her marriage and the store, and she's bedridden,
and the story that sort of spreads that feeds into
her legend is that she was up at night pacing
(07:45):
on the cold floor studying Russian and that's why people
like fall in love with her. And her husband is
such an ineffective, bad emperor in so many ways that
six months into his reign, even though she wasn't Russian born,
even though she was an heir to the throne, even
(08:05):
though she really has no claim to the Russian throne
in any legitimate way. We we might imagine through lineage,
she rallies the the armies behind her, the people behind her,
the church behind her, and overthrows her own husband. So
she was ambitious. So it's sort of like there are
(08:26):
these Catherine Varragon. I don't know how ambitious she might
have been. A Bolen is always proteted. Prichette is very ambitious, right,
And I don't again, I don't know so much myth
has been made about all of Henry's well Henry himself
and all of his wives, And I don't know. I
sort of love the idea of Amberleyn as like a
you know, a schemer. I don't know how much it
(08:48):
was the right place, right time, you know. I mean,
it's she she had a very limited opportunity, right. It's
like her family is saying, like, do this thing. This
is the one thing you're supposed to do. This is
how to advance as a woman. I mean, in the hundred's,
advancing as a woman was marrying, yeah, and then not
getting be added. And if the king wants you, you're you're.
(09:13):
You have fewer cards to play than than maybe people think.
And I my anvioln hot take is I think she
played her cards magnificently and if she had happened to
have a son, she would have been fine. And because
she didn't, these things, yeah, these things, these things happen,
but like it was an impossible situation, right, and then
(09:35):
the patriarchy does that to us. So when was the
first appointed royal spouse who was male? Oh gosh, I
guess it depends on if we're going to count Empress Matilda.
So there's are you watching the new Game of Thrones
by chance? I'm not. I'm not okay. So for people
(09:56):
who are watching, how's the dragon? The character um Rania,
like the young princess who was claiming queen, is sort
of based on this figure named Empress Matilda, who, depending
on who you ask, counts or doesn't count as a
monarch of England. So she was the daughter of King
(10:18):
Henry the First. His only legitimate son, William died uh
in a ship disaster, a ship crashed against some rocks,
and so her father said, my daughter Matilda is my heir.
Of course, then her father dies, and uh, A lot
of people in eleven hundred England say, no, we do not.
(10:41):
I know, we swore for fealty to her when your
father is alive. But your father is not alive anymore,
and so there becomes a civil war in England known
as the Anarchy. And her nephew cousin nephew, Um, I'm
gonna get this wrong, and so I hope no one
angrily corrects me. A relative, either a cousin or nephew,
Stephen is is sort of the the counterfaction who then
(11:04):
claims power. But Matilda, who was fighting in the Civil
War for her right um to the throne, had her
husband Jeffrey, who was focused on conquering Normandy, which was
also considered part of the the English crowns power at
that time, so that that's sort of an interesting husband fascinating.
(11:26):
There's there are other few sort of interesting dynamics where
a wife has technically higher claim at a given time,
Like Mary, Queen of Scott's was married to a Prince
of France who then became the King of France. But
at the time that they were married, she was the
Queen of Scotland. Her mother was ruling in her stead
(11:47):
and her her half brother was sort of ruling while
she was in France, but she was the independent queen
of a country married to the Dafa France uh and
that had its own interesting political called dynamics because being
but unfortunately, as Mary Queen of Scott's learned like her
(12:07):
marriage is only ever really diminished her power. She makes
the terrible decision to marry this man named Lord Darnley,
who she had been charmed by but was it was
a terrible match. He dies in mysterious uh, an explosion,
that was and then he was found strangled like there
was a murder attempt because he was awful, and Mary,
(12:27):
Queen of scott was sort of like, oh no, my
husband died. That's so sad. I'm you know, I'll definitely
look into what happened. But the people of Scotland at
the time see that and don't like that. That's her reaction.
And then she marries, in her third marriage, the man
who was implicated in her second husband's death, which the
people of Scotland absolutely hate. Some historians say she didn't
(12:50):
have a choice in that matter, that you know, he
raped and kidnapped her. Some say that, you know, she
just made a terrible calculation. But either way, those were
two matches that ultimately diminished her power, and someone like
her cousin, Elizabeth the First of England, realized that she's
already queen. Marrying a man is only gonna gonna compromise
(13:13):
compromise her power, thank you exactly. And so is she
the only example? She's the most obvious example of an
unmarried female monarch. Is there other? Is there anyone else
who did that? In England? No, I'm sure around the
world there are and I just off the top of
my head, can't can't recall. Uh, it's definitely absolutely several
(13:34):
African monarchs and queens, but in England, no queen. Elizabeth
made the calculation of ruling as a virgin queen. But
there's a benefit of that, right, which is that she
doesn't have to submit to a man. But the cost
of that is it's the end of the tutor dynasty
(13:55):
because she doesn't have airs. And at the end of
the day, the purpose of a of a monarchy is
to create your dynasty, have it keep going, create airs.
And I think part of the problem also, especially in
the fifteen hundreds, if we're talking about Elizabeth, the first
childbirth is a is a very dangerous prospect. So it's
(14:19):
that's it's very much a bodily risk, that's right. So
to put the monarch through that kind of a trial
from which what percentage of women didn't you know, emerge successfully?
You know? Sure, Yeah, I'm totally making that and I'm
like that that sounds right. I don't know, it's very
it's dangerous, right, You're putting the monarch in, that's right,
(14:42):
a very vulnerable position, right. Um, In terms of the
selection process, for lack of a better phrase, for these
royal partners. You know, we know sort of in pop
culture what the story is about, you know, the current
royal family in England or the most recent ration. But
was there like was it selected by the ruling monarch?
(15:05):
Was there a council? Was that the family? Was it
all of the above? How did that work the family?
In most cases? Because you are absolutely correct that these
are not decisions very often made for love. These are
strategic decisions. The role of marriage for a lot of
you know, Western history from a certain you know, from
(15:27):
at least as long as we have, like the English
monarchy recorded, it was to secure alliances. It was to
secure political or religious alliances, to combine land dowries were important,
and so yeah, love was sort of a something reserved
for poor people, I suppose, right, like almost a luxury
(15:48):
that the monarchy couldn't afford, right, Yeah, and I can't
worry about that. It was very much understood, especially in
France at the time. Royal mistress was an official position
with a salary and apartments that you lived in. It
was right, So it was akin to I mean, it
wasn't marriage obviously, because marriage was considered this very political, legal,
(16:12):
religious institution. But it was almost a marriage of sorts
because by appointing someone your royal mistress, they are they
have an official position in your life. And so I
think in France it was very much understood that your
wife is to fulfill this certain role and your mistress
is to fulfill another role. And I actually think, now
(16:34):
you've gotten me on my on my high horse. This
is sort of a pet subject of mine. It was
to Marie Antoinette's detriment that her husband never did take
a mistress. Her husband, Louis the sixteenth, was sort of awkward.
It took them seven years to consummate their marriage. He
was not a very sexual person. I think sometimes people
(16:56):
like to think, well, was he gay, and I think no.
I think more likely he just was maybe closer to
a sexual He just wasn't very sexual. And Marie Antoinette,
because he never had an official royal mistress to sort
of differ court attention and gossip and the more frivolous
aspects of courtly life. Marie Antoinette was in this unfortunate
(17:19):
position of being forced to do both, where she was
both the one that everyone looked to for fashion and
style and gossip, but also at the same time she
was expected to be, you know, the royal mother and
the queen and and honor that position with with the
dignity they expected. There's a famous example of a portrait
that was painted in three of Marie Antoinette in a
(17:45):
simple Muslim gown. It's like a chemist style gown that
was meant to evoke farm simplicity. She was doing seventeen
eighties cottage corps, and that was very fashionable at the
time for rich people to sort of play at simplicity,
you know, the way I think people kind of do
on TikTok today, like baking bread. But at the time
(18:08):
this portrait was so scandalous that it was pulled from
display because the first response was that it was too sexual,
that it looked like she was in her undergarments, that
it was so casual, and that as a queen, she
she you know, she was dishonoring the the position as queen,
(18:28):
that the status, the title, the status that she held.
She was sullying herself, sullying selling the position of queen.
And also you know, imagine she's trying to put the
French silk merchants out of business by now wearing a
silk gown, and so it was this sort of horrible
thing where it backfired on every account where I think
common people in France saw her as being condescending. You know,
(18:52):
that's sort of like slumming it where they're like, what
are you doing? You know, the way that I think
if we saw, you know, a celebrity today making rice
and beans and being like, oh I love eating or whatever,
you know, some like very casual food where you're like,
what's like, that's not what you are. But then the
rich people were like, you are selly in your position
as queen, and so it fully backfired on every account.
(19:14):
Where did this line up with her farm that she
famously created behind Versailles, We are exactly there. You absolutely
nailed it. She had people also make fun of this
a lot. She had this thing called the Queen's Hamlet,
which was a working It was a model farm, but
it was a working dairy farm where she went to
escape because Versailles was like being in a fish bowl.
(19:37):
You are always watched, and every step from the order
in which you get dressed in the morning to your
meals is watched and perfectly choreographed, and so of course,
like you imagine, like she just wanted like a a breather,
like a minute, just to like be by herself and
just hang out. And this was actually very common in
the late seventeen hundreds of nobles building these sort of
(20:00):
faux farms to evoke a don't simplicity homey exactly. So yeah,
she had a fake working farm, and she was sort
of dress up like a um, you know, in more
casual clothes, and and just spend time with her children,
which was also considered a very weird thing she did.
(20:21):
It was like, why are you spending all this time
parenting your children? Don't you know you can pay people
to parent your children for you. That echoes with Lady
Diana and her interests. Also, Um, you said something that
I have been very curious about since I listened to
your episode on The Mad King. King George the third.
(20:44):
We're talking about how he, whatever his affliction was, was
sort of at bay for many years, and he became
ill later in his life, but there was a long
period of time where he was sort of managing the
royal business fairly well, and he had all these siblings
who were sort of crazy. I mean, they were all
acting insane, and nobody was marrying who they were supposed
(21:05):
to marry, and and I was just thinking about, like,
you know, I don't hear much just as a lay person,
and I don't know how big of an area of
scholarship it is, but of these royals who you know,
were with this incredibly strict and conventional idea of marriage
and partnership in that way, like what what of the
(21:26):
you know, the queer royals through history? Like do we
know anything about any of them? And you know, I'm
sure their fate was complicated if it was recorded at all,
But do you know anything about any of that? Yeah,
we have um a few interesting stories. So there was
King Edward the second of England and this is now
(21:47):
in the late twelve hundreds, and there was a man.
I mean because so much of it isn't recorded the
way that I think modern sources would want it to
be recorded. And I think these these things are complicated
because I don't think these the character characters. The people
at the time wouldn't have called themselves gay or queer.
That vocabulary didn't exist. And so I, as like an
(22:08):
untrained historian, I'm always like waried to put these labels
on people. But King Edward the Second of England, who was,
you know, King of England. This is late twelve hundred's
early thirt hundreds had a favorite, Pierce, Pierce Gaveston, who
sort of had exclusive access to the king. It was
(22:29):
heavily implied this was a romantic relationship. I mean, I
would argue that it absolutely is romantic, if not sexual,
but medieval chroniclers, so even at the time people were
writing that this relationship is sexual. Um. Christopher Marlowe, the
playwright sort of a contemporary of Shakespeare, basically says as
much in the play Edward the Second, and some modern
(22:52):
historians I think disagree on the extent of the sexual relationship,
but he was very much his favorite, and it's a
it's tragic story. I mean, basically, the other nobles don't
like this favoritism, and they retaliate against him, and they
retaliate against Pearce, and like, this is a time when
even being king could only go so far at certain points,
(23:15):
because again, marriage at this time is not about happiness.
It's about securing this religious political alliance and having airs
and a lover of the same sex. And I think
it was sort of a sometimes it don't ask, don't
tell policy of certain monarchs, and sometimes it really was
(23:37):
politically damaging. I mean, part of what led to Marie
Antoinette's downfall was the incredible amount of political propaganda against her,
which were cartoons of her engaged in sexual lesbian acts
with her closest ladies in waiting. And so I think
it is a challenge of historians today to sort of
tease out when these relationships were set told because obviously
(24:01):
gay people existed, because people existed, um, But yeah, the
sources are tricky, and I think because for so much
of European history, Christianity was so deeply ingrained in Yeah, exactly,
So queer relationships were both powerful tools of propaganda because
(24:21):
accusing some of it someone of it was obviously incredibly damaging,
but also something that someone would have kept a secret.
You also have that great episode on the person whose
name I am not going to remember the French um, yes, yes, exactly,
which is such a great story. It's so interesting to
untangle it and and I won't go into the whole story,
(24:44):
but it is. Um. I like to think of a
person who chose of her own free will to live
as a woman and even though we wouldn't have had
or they wouldn't have had the vocabulary to call themselves
trans I think it's so interesting to remind people that know,
for hundreds of years people made these decisions. Is there
(25:11):
a time that you can peg it too? In terms
of when, I don't remember when the sort of modern
sensibility about what romantic love is and how it plays
into marriage. I can't remember when that sort of entered
the society in the Western world anyway. But in the
sense of royal marriages, I don't think they are any
more meant to be about international alliances. At least again
(25:36):
in Europe they still have that. Now their success right
is just through the roofs. Getherway with that, and they're
they're that all works. Yeah, but was there a moment
where it shifted. I think one of the key moment,
at least in my understanding, is the relationship between Queen
Victoria and Prince Albert. This was a situation where Victoria
(25:58):
fell head over heels in love and she was devoted
to Albert to a fault. I mean, she loved her
husband so much that when he died, she spent the
rest of her life in mourning. I mean it's so
funny because obviously the Victorian era so powerful, and we
imagine her as such a large I mean she's tiny,
(26:20):
she's like, you know, four ft ten, but a larger
than life figure in in English history. And she was
obsessed with her husband to a degree that I think,
like nowadays people would be jealous of. I'm like, oh
my god. She hated having children. She they had you know,
ten children, and she absolutely hated having children. But she
just loved being intimate with her husband. And no one
(26:43):
taught her about birth control. So you know, she was like, say, lovey,
they were what you gotta do, You do what you
gotta do. I mean, she had a this is a
one a young woman who had a very very controlled childhood.
When she was born, she was the basically air apparent
eventually after her father, after her uncle died, she was
(27:08):
she's the only legitimate granddaughter of King Charles the Third,
King Jesus christ Um, King George the Third. King Charles
the Third is right now, he has a lot of whatever.
She's the only legitimate granddaughter of King George. She is
born and she's this precious thing, and so she's raised
under this incredibly strict system called the Kensington system, with
(27:29):
where her mother like basically doesn't let her be a
person until she actually is literally Queen of England. And
so by falling in love and marrying this man, it's
sort of her her act of rebellion and freedom. She
sort of pushes her mother and her mother's adviser out
of her orbit and focuses all of her attention on
(27:51):
on Albert, and they have an incredibly by all accounts,
happy marriage and life for the you know, for the
years they have together. She empower him in an unusual way.
They had a partnership. Really, I mean, I guess the
question is, what is a new It's unusual at all
that it was in a late eighteen hundreds marriage where
(28:13):
the woman had a more important job than the man.
Absolutely absolutely, and probably also relatively rare for a marriage
steeped in romantic love to be successful, because most people
had nothing, and so most people had very hard life,
and so even if they were in love with their spouse,
it may not have played out so great, you know,
through all the years. But I'm of course contrasting it
(28:36):
to the popular understanding or fantasy about Queen Elizabeth and
Prince Philip's relationship where you know, from what I can
gather in certainly what I imagine to be true that
that it was tough for a man to be second
to his female spouse. And I don't know if there's
(28:56):
any um, you know, if there was any agitating on
Albert's part, if the if the adoration was enough for him,
if it was just you know, I'm here for you
because you're so wonderful to me, and together we will
you know, found many museums have all these babies and
have a great life. I think, you know, it's hard
for me to get into these people's heads. So a
(29:17):
lot of this is guesswork. I think Victoria was so
deferential to Albert that he felt okay, you know, and
I think it was a little bit harder, weirdly for Philip,
because again, this is like the nineteen fifties, right, This
is like when the idea of masculinity is at it's
real mad men peak. And here's a situation where you know,
(29:38):
under Victoria she was an empress. This is like, Okay,
the monarchy is at the height of its actual power,
whereas like Queen Elizabeth, like this is a symbolic role
largely at this point, and so it's you know, maybe
he had less of a inherent difference reference reverence, and
so I think it might have been a little harder
(29:58):
when they got into the argument they did have where
he was like, wait, so my kids aren't going to
have my name. She's like, no, are you? I mean
she's like she didn't say this. But if if it
was me, I would have been like, are you effing
kidding me? They're going to have like my last name,
that's the Queen Victoria's last name. They're kind of your
made up German last name. Like, what are you talking about? Well,
(30:18):
I think that would have gone very well. If you
would be like that, I would have been great to
be married time. I would have been like are you
are you absolutely kidding me? And I have to think
that the era of um sort of media awareness that
they existed in would have made it much more difficult
to because he's getting you know, feedback from everyone about
(30:39):
their relationship rather than just managing it privately. Just just
a lot harder, right, He's hearing every comment of someone
saying like, oh, can you believe this guy walking one
step behind his wife? We're also queen Victoria was so
deferential to her husband, where even though she was the queen,
like I mean some she's she's using a lot of
(31:01):
eighteen hundreds language and talking about her She like worships
and obeys her husband, And so I feel like he
would have been okay with that. You know, she covered
it because this is again she she is so obsequious
and deferential to him that it would have been hard
for him to get mad. Where it's like Queen Elizabeth.
(31:21):
This is a sort of trickier situation, just as the
monarchy is that this is a weird like modernizing crux
like feminism and masculinity, and the patriarchy is changing in
the twentieth century. I feel like we can't not talk
about Wallis Simpson just a little team of good and
I think most people probably know exactly who Wallis Simpson is,
(31:41):
but just in case they missed it, came to do
a quick overview of that. Sure um, King George five
had two sons, and the oldest son obviously is in
line to inherit the throne and he becomes King Edward
the eighth, but he falls in love with a divorced
(32:03):
American actress named Wallace Simpson, and as the head of
the Church of England, it's against church laws to marry
a divorce if their spouse is still alive. She's a
divorcee with a living spouse. That's big of me, like,
you can't do that. And also for a bunch of
other reasons, like he fundamentally was ill suited to being king,
(32:25):
and he was a Nazi sympathizer, which we won't go
into because I'll just get mad. But he abdicates the
throne in favor of his younger brother, who becomes George
the six who is Queen Elizabeth the Seconds father, and
so that's why we have the line we have now.
But Wallace Simpson was this uh yeah, divorced American woman
(32:47):
who scandalized the royal family by falling in love with
uh with David, but who took the regular name King
Edward the Eighth, and uh yeah, he abdicated the throne
and they they instead of being King and Queen, they
went with the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. She never
got her royal highness, which is sort of like an
(33:08):
honorary title, because that was sort of them sticking it
to her, and they lived sort of the rest of
their lives in France, visited, you know, chumming it up
with Hitler, thinking well, maybe if this Hitler chap wants
to put us back on the throne, that would be fun,
wouldn't it. Oh. I didn't realize there was that element
to that relationship. It was sealed until very recently. This
(33:31):
is a sort of thing that the royal family has
not hize broadcast, but there are yeah, photographs, uh, and
when you have a photograph smiling next to Hitler, it's
not a good look. But no, that especially during the
Second World War obviously when Germany was the enemy, the
British Royal family tried very hard to make sure that
(33:52):
it was suppressed that that m Wallace and and David
were cozying up or had been cozying with with the Amon's.
But yeah, they they sort of had this I think
what they characterized as this love story that he was
willing to give up the throne for her, but I
think for a lot of other reasons he was ill
(34:13):
suited to being king, and I'm I'm glad he wasn't. Yeah,
no kidding, is is there another example of that happening
that you know of of someone falling in love and
giving up there seat of power. Well, if we're also
talking also about um, queer possibly queer monarchs. There was
(34:34):
a Queen of Sweden named Queen Christina who uh some
people argue was lesbian or or would have been. She
she favored men's dress. Uh, she was, you know, Queen
of Sweden, but but resigned for whether it was religious reasons.
She refused to marry, which was its own scandal, then
(34:57):
converted to Catholicism secretly. And oh, I think she she's
buried in the Vatican and is either the only woman
buried in the Vatican or one of only a few
women buried in the Vatican. But she's someone who gave
up her throne not for a man, but for a
lack of man. I just wanted to add that in
(35:19):
the realm of people who are significantly influential, I have
to say that your podcast. Without it, I don't know
that I would have ever thought to do what I'm doing.
Not that that's any great shakes for the world, but
but um, but I'm grateful. I'm so grateful that you
do what you do. And um, I feel you're a trailblazer.
(35:39):
And I personally have benefited from that, so thank you.
Oh my gosh, that is the truly, the genuinely kindest
thing anyone has said. I feel very lucky that people
let me rant into a microphone about historical figures I
find interesting and I am. I love when when that
exists more in the world. So I'm very excited for
what you're doing. Well. Thank you so much. Um. Do
(36:02):
you have anything that you want to be working on
a couple of books? I don't know if you have
anything that you want to plug or promote or send
us to, Oh my gosh, that would be great. I
have a new book coming out in February called Immortality,
a Love Story. And if you're interested in historical royals,
I have a few cameos. I have Princess Charlotte of
Wales appears, Lord Byron appears, a few other characters I've
(36:24):
talked about on my podcast. But it's available for preorder. No,
that book sounds amazing. UM. Too late for this Christmas,
but definitely in time for Valentine's Day. Absolutely, thank you
so much. This is such a pleasure. Thank you so
much for listening, and thanks again to Dana for joining us.
(36:45):
If you haven't already, please check out her podcast, Noble
Blood wherever you get your podcasts. I promise you won't
be disappointed. We'll continue to release bonus episodes while we
work on season two, so be sure to hit the
subscribe button, and as always, we welcome any and all
suggestions for upcoming episodes. You can email us at significant
(37:06):
pod at gmail dot com
Host
Dana Schwartz
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