All Episodes

May 3, 2024 60 mins

Heather R. Darsie lives in the United States. She has a Bachelor of Arts in German Languages and Literature, and a Juris Doctorate. During her time at university, she had the privilege of studying in Costa Rica and France, with visits to Germany and other countries.

Ms. Darsie first became interested in the Renaissance time period when she read a biography about Elizabeth I of England. She found Elizabeth I to be very inspiring and her world to be both foreign and familiar.

Ms. Darsie has spent the last ten years researching the history of the Holy Roman Empire. This has helped her gain perspective as to the political world stage during the Renaissance.

As a bibliophile, she turned her attention to illuminated manuscripts. She is learning more each day and is glad to share it with you.  Today we talk about Lutheran connections to the House of Cleves.

Her book: 

Children of the House of Cleves: Anna and Her Siblings



https://maidensandmanuscripts.com/

Support the show

  • Confessional Languages Scholarship
  • Youtube ( even more behind-the-scenes videos available for certain patron tiers)
  • Facebook
  • Website
  • Interview Request Form
  • email: thelutheranhistorypodcast@gmail.com
  • About the Host
    • Benjamin Phelps is a 2014 graduate from Martin Luther College with a Bachelor of Arts with a German emphasis. From there went on to graduate from Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary in 2018.
      Ben loves all things history and enjoys traveling. A descendant of over a dozen Lutheran pastors, Ben has an interest in his family roots, especially 19th-century Lutheranism, and has written several papers and journal articles on the topic. His 2018 thesis on Wyneken won the John Harrison Ness award and the Abdel Ross Wentz prize. He is also the recipient of two awards of commendation from the Concordia Historical Institute.
      Ben is currently a doctoral student in historical theology through Concordia Seminary's reduced residency program in St. Louis.
Mark as Played
Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Unknown (00:37):
Welcome back to the Lutheran History podcast. Today
is our last episode of theseason. It will take a little
break until summer. But we'revery happy to welcome to the
podcast, Heather our Darcy. Sheis an author of several books,
including Duchess of Cleves, theking's beloved sister, which is
about honor of Cleves, one ofthe wives, the fourth wife, I

(00:58):
believe, of Henry the eighth.
And her more recent bookchildren of the house of Cleves,
Ana and her siblings. If you arereally deep into Luther history
or history history buff, youmaybe didn't know this, maybe
you did. But that honor isrelated to the same family that
protected Martin Luther shemarried the nephew of Frederick
the Wise, John, the magnanimouswho became a elector of Saxony

(01:23):
as well. So there's a directfamily connection to the
Reformation today. So HeatherDarcy is joining joining us,
she's going to take a look moreat the the political, possibly
some of the social aspects ofthe history of this family. But
how all this political stuff isgoing on during the time of
reformation is broaderconnections to the rest of the

(01:45):
Reformation history. I shouldmention here quickly that
Heather has a website calledmaidens and manuscripts, she has
a lot of interesting articlesand research on there, including
some stuff directly related toMartin Luther and the
Reformation. So with no furtherado, Heather, thank you for
joining us today. Thankyou so much for having me. I'm
very excited to talk aboutMartin Luther and what Saxony in

(02:07):
greater Germany were like duringthe 16th century.
Yeah. And sometimes I think theolder the better with history.
And this is about as far back asyou can get for for Luther
history back to the 1500s. Andjust getting our minds wrapped
around what's going on at thistime. context. I always find
very interesting before yousometimes get into the details

(02:31):
of the theology. So we're gonnabe talking a lot about that
today. Hopefully So, Heather, Ijust want to ask because they
ask a lot of our guests How didyou get started on this project?
For me, it was a natural seguefrom the first book on a duchess
of Cleves. I learned a lot moreabout what was happening with
German politics and Germanreligious movements as I was

(02:51):
researching my first book on aduchess of Cleves, and I wanted
to continue with that becauseher older sister Isabella, who
we were talking about a momentago, Mairead, Electra, Johann
Friedrich, who, as youmentioned, was the nephew of
Frederick the Wise and the sonof John the steadfast. And she
became she and her husbandbecame the first Lutheran power

(03:13):
couple if I can put it that way.
And she was a huge supporter ofMartin Luther. And of course,
that was her husband and herhusband's family. And while I
was learning about them, I knewthat I needed to write or I felt
very drawn to write another bookthat was more so focusing on
what Ana's brother and sisterswere up to in Germany while she
was over in England.

(03:37):
Yeah, excellent. And I was justlooking link about a week ago
with some some Lucas chronicpaintings and others, the older
and the younger can ever keepthem straight. But there are
quite a few paintings of Sybil,who you just mentioned there.
And in fact, she's in somerather famous paintings, if
you're kind of a Lutheran ArtHistory person. There's that
famous chronic altarpiece inWittenberg with the Luther

(04:00):
preaching Christ crucified, youhave the keys, in confession,
you have the word separate, butin the baptism painting, I
believe she's supposed to be themother, or at least she's one of
the women around the baptismalfont. So you've probably seen
her face without recognizing it.
Many of our listeners here todayof course, the thumbnail for our
episode was going to be apicture of, of Sybil as well. So
to kind of get a bigger broaderview of what we're talking about

(04:29):
today. What are your thoughts onMartin Luther and his role in
the Reformation as that connectsnow to the house of please
Cleves Sokeeping in mind that I am not
any type of theologianwhatsoever and if anything, my
background, I have a bachelor'sdegree in German languages and
literature. I'm actually anattorney so I have a law degree

(04:49):
and then added to that Icompleted several graduate ma
courses in history. So I'mlooking at it more so from a
legal historical perspectivethan I am from a theological
perspective. What I think isinteresting about Martin Luther
is I don't believe he meant forany of this to happen. I don't
think he regrets whatsoever thatit happened. But I don't think

(05:10):
that he meant for it to. So Weof course know the famous story
of him riding home in thelightning storm. And he swore
that if he got home safely, thathe would then dedicate his life
to God, which he did do. Butwhat was happening around this
time, lots and lots of increasesin taxes by the Catholic Church
and also the curious installmentof indulgences. And effectively,

(05:33):
if you paid what was a tax tothe Catholic Church, then you
could save your soul, or buyless time and Purgatory or
whatever it was, and this seemedinappropriate. So one day
Halloween day of 1517, he postedthese 95 theses 95 ideas that he
had to debate on the witan bag,chapel door, wanting to have

(05:57):
this discussion, and that act inand of itself was not strange,
or out of the ordinary, it wascommon if you're going to have a
deep debate that someone woulddo that it was a very public
place. But what came after thatis what's really extraordinary.
And also at around this timeperiod, or during this time
period, we see the transitionfrom Maximilian the first as a

(06:19):
Holy Roman Emperor, to hisgrandson, Charles the fifth,
that election happened in 1519.
And the Germans weren't really abig fan of having a Spanish
Burgundian come to lead themrather than someone like
Maximilian, who was Austrian, orat least much more German and
could speak German, as opposedto his grandson Charles the

(06:42):
fifth. And then when you keepgoing, Germany was much farther
behind. And I'm sorry, I'm gonnapause for a second, I'm going to
be using the terms Germany andthe Holy Roman Empire
synonymously. Most of what wasor what is Germany now was
within the Holy Roman Empire,but it didn't, what we think of
as Germany now didn't existuntil around the 1870s. But in

(07:03):
the beginning of the 16thcentury, is when the Germans
start seeing themselves as beinga nation, the Holy Roman Empire
of the German nation. So I'll beusing Germany and Holy Roman
Empire interchangeably, sorry.
But what's good, Germany isreally far behind as far as
social justice goes. So inEngland, you still have your
peasants, but it's not they'renot quite as tied to the land

(07:26):
and not quite as oppressed asthey still are in Germany. And
so you have Martin Luther,coming in posting these theses,
they kind of catch on, peoplestart wanting to learn more
about it and think about it. Andaside from the oppression, this
of the social structures, youalso have what they're
perceiving as an impression fromthe church, which is, of course,
all these taxes and whateverother silly things the Catholic

(07:48):
Church was, or perceived to besilly things I should say, the
Catholic Church was doing withinthe borders of Germany. And it
made for Martin Luther to becomea figurehead. And so we see
things like the peasants revolt,and the peasants involved in
that in 1515 21, I believe whenit kicked off, or using Martin

(08:10):
Luther as a figurehead, to startrebelling against the German
princes. And Martin Luther didnot like that. And he was not in
favor of it. But we repeatedlysee these activities that Martin
Luther didn't invite, but thatuse him as a figurehead or
circle around him. And I don'tlike I said, I don't know that

(08:32):
he meant for any of that tohappen. But that's what
occurred. And then also, on topof that, the Germans were
struggling against the Overlordship, if you will, of the Holy
Roman Emperor, because usually,there were over 200 duchies,
within the Holy Roman Empire,and they all wanted to have more

(08:53):
control over their territories.
And part of what happened is, ifyou remained Catholic during the
German reformation, that meantthat you were pro empire. But if
you became a Lutheran, thatmeant that you were anti empire
and anti emperor. SoLutheranism, in a way, aside
from the important religiousaspects, also became almost like

(09:15):
a political party.
Yeah, and there's a whole fieldof reformation studies that I
myself have only dipped my toein kind of the social aspect of
that, and there's a wholeMarxist school in there. There's
the urban movement. There's alot of stuff on that. But I
think your point, and you're,like you said, coming to kind of
a more secular legal point ofview. You know, I think I don't

(09:38):
think Martin Luther woulddisagree that he did. This was
not an intentional thing,especially the stuff he never
even took ownership for at all.
Even the split from the churchthough, theologically. He saw
the church as a whole as a unit,right? It's, it's called the
Lutheran Reformation that theLutheran revolution or rebellion
or anything like that, it's theidea of reforming things. As you
know, but it's impossible forthis to just affect one aspect

(10:04):
of life and for Americans maybeand we've talked about this in
other episodes, it's kind ofhard though. There's, for us to
picture this. There's not reallya separation of church or state
or secular, your publicreligious life versus your
private religious life, it isall mixed up. So if Luther is
going to touch one, one of thosethings, there's going to be a
domino effect or it's allinterconnected in some way. So

(10:27):
no surprise that we all havesomething to talk about whether
we're looking at the theologicalor the legal aspect. But of
course, I'm sure you know thatLuther started off as a lawyer
before he you know, thethunderstorm thing. So that's
interesting that you werebrought to the reformation is
from a legal perspective, justjust as he was brought into
theology from that area, well,that's got it to me. It seems

(10:50):
like a neat little parallelthere. Yes. So yeah, yeah. So
that's that's good to understandthe political connection because
now that's where you get intothe the family of things to the
veteran Rubinstein family, thehouse of Saxony. Oh, I always
get them confused. The Albertinawere nesting branch they are
nesting right that Yes. So thewise is from? Yes,

(11:16):
that's exactly right. I cannotremember the name of Frederick
the Wise, wise his grandfather,but he had two sons anston out
Albus or Ernest and Albert, youhave to forgive me because I
wind up saying German names andstuff all the time. And it's
just kind ofthis podcast, you never have to
ask forgiveness for speaking inGerman, so okay, it just

(11:36):
gets in my head. And so so therewere two brothers, Aaron Ste.
And Albert. And the sons whodescended from albirex were the
lesser lords, if you will. Andso they remained Dukes, but they
were not along the electoralline. So an elector is higher
than a Duke in within the Iguess you could call it nobility

(11:57):
system, or at least hierarchy ofthe Holy Roman Empire. And there
were a limited number ofelectors within the Holy Roman
Empire. And they're the ones whoelected the next emperor until
that became hetero hereditarybetween maximum and the first
and Charles of fifth, which is awhole different topic, but just
to give a rough overview. So andthen the sons of Aaron's
directly they became theelectors of Saxony. And so there

(12:21):
was always a bit of a struggle.
And before specifically talkingabout Frederick the Wise, and
John The steadfast. I justwanted to mention that the
Albert 18 side like Duke, Georgethe bearded and a few others
that followed after him, alwaysstruggled against and tried to
undermine the Ernestine branch,which are the ones who protected

(12:45):
Luther and so the Albert teenbranch remained Catholic so that
they could remain unified withthe Holy Roman Emperor. So that
out of the way, I'm now going toswitch to talking a little bit
about Frederick of SaxonyFrederick the third, he was
known as the cheap or as thewise, I've learned the cheap
part. It's been interesting whenI was researching this book, I

(13:08):
found that most people had twoepithets, one slightly negative
and one more positive so on aCleves father was known as
Johann this, Johan the simple,or Johan the peaceful. So and
they kind of go together alittle bit. Yeah, so you could
be cheap and maybe that makesyou appear wise because you're

(13:31):
not spending all your money. Andwe have to keep in mind to that.
Friedrichs Frederick the thirdof Saxony, his father had spent
a lot of money on wars andaccumulating more territory, and
he stopped doing that. So I'mwondering if that might be what
led to calling him the cheaperthe wise. But what was really
interesting about him and madehim stand out from his forebears
is, he was very intellectuallycurious. So he was interested in

(13:57):
reading and learning. He at onepoint tried to purchase a large
collection of Greek works fromsomewhere in Venice, he brought
back relics from the Holy Land,very, very intellectually
curious, and in some ways, Ithink he's the first German

(14:18):
Renaissance Prince, or at leastthe first German prince, who was
very, very visible as an electorto start embracing these
rennaisance ideals. So inFrance, of course, we have
Francis the First who'sembracing these ideals. In
England, we have Henry theeighth in Scotland, we have
James the fourth. So these ideasof being curious, looking at
older literature's investing inart, things like that. He's the

(14:43):
first one to start doing that.
He also was interested inreforming the legal system, and
also adhering to the legalsystem. And I think a big
example of us seeing this iswhen we look at the 1521 diet of
voms it looks like worms. It'svoms under 1521 Diet of Worms.

(15:07):
And that's of course, whereMartin Luther is effectively
declared an outlaw. And has toLee Frederick the Wise doesn't
agree with this becauseFrederick believed that it was
his jurisdiction and that he'sthe one who should make the
decision because Martin Lutherwas a subject of Saxony. And
although the Emperor has his ownImperial prerogative, it had not

(15:31):
quite risen to that level yet.
So for the Emperor to go fromzero to 60, like that was
extraordinary. And by zero to60, I mean, for him to just
quickly, outlaw Martin Lutherwithout a trial was
extraordinary. And of course,when people were outlawed back
then that meant that you legallydid not exist as a person. So
when we think of the termoutlaw, we think of oh, this is

(15:54):
a bad person, their criminal inthe legal sense for that time
period. It meant that you didnot own anything anymore, that
your life was forfeit that youhad no rights.
And Fredricka no protections atall right? Nothing that anyone
could do anything to you and getaway with it.

(16:15):
Yeah, exactly. And so Frederickthe Wise, again, from a legal
perspective, regardless ofwhether he agreed with Martin
Luther sought that that was notacceptable. And so he then, of
course, intercepts Martin LutherOr has someone intercept Martin
Luther on his way from the diet.
And then at that point, MartinLuther hides in Vuitton bag for
several months, as younger yourdog or the young servant or

(16:40):
young lord George.
Yeah, and we had a whole episodetalking about that whole Diet of
Worms in the fake napping,kidnappings every want to call
it and that's just aninteresting story. But yeah,
that's that's a good point torealize that and I believe, you

(17:00):
know, I think I've heard it saidthat the Frederick the Wise
never fully came out and said,I'm a Lutheran or anything like
they are religiously. I thinkmost people who study him say,
well, he's definitely verysympathetic to what Luther has
to say. And maybe that's comingfrom his his curious mind, he
wants to listen, not just what'spolitically is advantageous to
because you could say with allhis relic collection,

(17:22):
financially just made sense forhim to sit on his relics and
make money because people wouldpay money to, to get that. Of
course, there's other stuffgoing on. But he's hearing
Luther out and saying, This guywho happens to be kind of the
star of my, my brand newuniversity, I want to protect
him. But you're also pointed outto us, which is a very good
insight. There's some legalarguments he's making to this

(17:46):
isn't Charles the fifth iscrossing the line here as far as
me protecting my subject and mymy jurisdiction.
To put it another way, ifFrederick the Wise allowed that
to stand, then in theory,Charles a fifth could pluck
anybody off the street, hewanted to outlaw them and take
their property and kill them.
And that was not okay. InGermany didn't have the Holy

(18:08):
Roman Empire didn't have aunified criminal system at this
point, either. Which was anotherissue that I would assume
Frederick the Wise was thinkingabout. So you start seeing like
a criminal constitution,everything under Charles a fifth
comes out, I think, in 1525 orso. But there's not even a
unified legal system within theHoly Roman Empire. So it really
is governed territory byterritory. But turning a bit

(18:29):
from that, I want to go back towhat you're saying about
Frederick the Wise beingsympathetic to Luther. And I
think that's accurate. He neveras far as I'm aware, and I'm not
an expert on Frederick the Wise,but I did spend quite a bit of
time researching him forchildren of the house of Cleves.
He wanted to know what whatMartin Luther his thoughts were,

(18:51):
and he wanted to understand andhe wanted to think for himself
before he made any decisions andwhether Frederick made any overt
decisions. I don't believe hedid other than not outlawing or
otherwise forbidding MartinLuthers teachings, because there
are certain other areas inGermany that completely forbade

(19:12):
Martin Luther his teachings. Ifwe go to jewel years, Cleves
Burg, or as I say it you coulduse a bag, which is where the
bill of Cleves came from. Herparents were both very, very
Catholic, but they took the VMAidea the intermediate way or the
middle road towards approachingthis encroachment of
Lutheranism, because severalpeople from the Duchy of Ulis,

(19:34):
which was a very wealthy or Ithink actually it was the
wealthiest of the three mainduchies would go to Viton back
become educated and Lutheranismor Lutheran teachings and then
come back, so it wasn't outlawedto be a Lutheran there in your
paper bag, but you couldn't becaught spreading Lutheran
literature, you couldn't becaught parasitizing so it wasn't

(19:57):
it legally to be Lutheran, youjust couldn't do anything to
further advance it. And so therewas, again varying degrees of
laws going from German territoryto German territory somewhere,
as I mentioned, completelyoutlawed Lutheranism somewhere.
If I don't see it, I don't knowabout it somewhere, they
completely tolerated it. Sothere are really a lot of

(20:19):
varying degrees. But whatFrederick of Saxony did is he
allowed Martin Luther to keepthinking and I have to wonder if
Frederick saw Martin Luther, notjust for the importance of his
theological perspectives, butalso as an intellectual and if
he's, as we were discussing,really intellectually curious,

(20:40):
it would make sense that thatcould be a reason why he's
wanting to protect him, as well.
Yeah, and we, he deserves hisown episode basically, or a
couple, right? And today, we'rebringing him up because we're
going to follow the family tree.
Okay, here's Frederick the Wise,which is even your basic
knowledge of the Reformation.

(21:02):
You should probably know whothat is. He's a main player on
the political stage, but whatsome people maybe don't realize,
well, he doesn't live muchlonger past the diet and forums
and Luthor is doing a lot ofLutheranism. There's a lot of
stuff going on.
Low key and in the backgroundbecause he's younger York at
this point. Yeah.
Up in the Wartburg Castle. Yeah.
But so much of the otherdevelopments of not only Luthers

(21:26):
life but the Reformation takeplace when Frederick the Wise is
no longer around. So you want totake us through the next next
couple of electors here and asthey connect us to the House of
Leaves?
Absolutely. So Frederick thethird one never had legitimate
children. He did have a womanwith whom he maintained a long

(21:49):
term relationship and had atleast two sons with him. But due
to his lack of a legitimate heirit next went to his younger
brother John known as John Thesteadfast or John the
persistence. So I suppose beingpersistent isn't a negative one,
but he was known as John thepersistent during his lifetime.
And he, to use modern slang wasspicy and sassy towards Charles

(22:14):
the fifth about Lutheranism, oneof my favorite things that he
did, and I'm sorry, I don'tremember which diet this was,
oh, there's so many of them.
Yeah. Well, Charles in fifthwould
specifically say you can't haveany Lutheran anything at the
diet, and he would just show up,and would be brought, you know,

(22:34):
all of His people, His servantsin attendance with him would be
wearing John's motto, and thenhe would have a Lutheran service
happening and just doing all thethings that Charles if it didn't
want, so John did not whatCharles thought. And I think
that that's where we reallystart to see the breakdown in
the relationship between theelectorate of Saxony and the

(22:56):
Holy Roman Empire. So you haveBroderick, who was a calmer
personality, shall we say? Or atleast? Not as aggressive? And
then we have John who just doesnot can. He's not impressed with
the Spanish Burgundian emperor.
And then he fortunately did havea son named Johann Friedrich or
John Frederick and of course,Frederick in German is freezer

(23:19):
and John is Johan. So I believethat Johann Friedrich was named
after his father John Thesteadfast, and his uncle
Frederick the Wise. For a periodof time before the Diet of Worms
and before Frederick the Wisedisappeared, Martin Luther
temporarily. Johann Friedrichwas meant to married to one of

(23:44):
Charles the fifth sisters. Andso they've been engaged for a
little while and after that,after the whole Diet of Worms
mess, Charles a fifth said, No,you will not marry my sister, so
he was free to find anotherbride. If we go back a few
generations, the Saxon electorsare related to the Dukes and
duchesses of ulick which is ofcourse where Isabella of Cleves

(24:09):
is from and so there had been aspat. Actually, at the
coronation, I believe it was ofthe Emperor and Aachen cathedral
of who would take precedence ifJohann the third of he was so
honored Isabella of Cleves,Father Johann first became the
Duke of eulogy and bag when hisfather in law died because women

(24:31):
could not be duchesses regnantthey could not be in charge of
their own territory. So by Johanthe third of Cleves, Mark
marrying Maria of eulogy bag,that meant that and Maria had no
legitimate siblings, that meantthat when Maria's dad died, then
Johann became the Duke of Uliand bag by right of his wife.

(24:52):
So, why this is important or tobring it back to the Auckland
cathedral thing thing is at thetime that Charles a fifth had a
ceremony there. And I'm sorry, Ican't remember if it was for him
becoming the Holy Roman, Ibelieve was for him becoming a
Holy Roman Emperor. But it wasright around 1519 1520 Johan of

(25:12):
Cleves mark at this point wasonly the Duke of you that
handbag because his father wasstill alive. There was a spat
between representatives fromSaxony and representatives from
your handbag as to whether yourthe handbag was should be under
the umbrella and had lessprecedents than Saxony. So there

(25:33):
was some tension there becausethe Saxons were very much
agitating towards wanting tohave control of your the handbag
which as we discussed before,was a wealthy territory. It's
amazing how many things comeback to money. So after

(26:01):
after the diet of wolves andafter the engagement between
Johann Friedrich and one ofCharles if Sisters is ended, he
has find another brideconveniently, Johann the third
of yudishe paperbag hasdaughters, he has three of them.
One of them's the biller, theeldest was born in 1512. And she

(26:22):
was of an appropriate age tobecome engaged. She wasn't yet
of an age to go live withsomeone. So we have to keep in
mind that in this time period,women had to be 15 before they
could go live with theirhusbands. And men had to be 14
because even though they gotmarried really young, there was
still this recognition that if ayoung lady was below a certain
age, it was dangerous to her tobecome pregnant. So Isabella

(26:46):
would have been 13 and 1525engagement talk really starts to
pick up and 1526 and then issolidified. And then she goes to
Saxony and 1527 to celebrate hermarriage.
So they would have kind oflonger engagements when these
are political deals, or werethey still, it seems like just a

(27:09):
little more than here, if I'mcatching that, right.
Sometimes they would i If Irecall correctly, Johann
Friedrich became engaged toCharles a Fifth Sister when he
was a child, so it could even bedone in childhood. Yeah. And
sometimes what would happen iswell, and if we look at Margaret

(27:33):
of Austria, Maximilian, thefirst Holy Roman Emperor
Maximilian, the first daughter,sometimes the daughter would be
sent to the court of the futurehusband to be raised on within
the culture of that court, evenif the marriage itself was
delayed. Also sometimes, forexample, using Vilhelm of Cleves

(27:53):
ability of Cleves brother andthe thorn in the side of Johann
Friedrich and Henry the Eighthof England and several other
leaders within Europe at thetime. His first wife was a
French princess. They weremarried when she was 12. They
consummated the marriage by himsymbolically putting his
unschooled foot on the bed inwhich John del Bray was lying,

(28:19):
mostly or fully clothed. Andthen he went home to Germany and
she never actually went toGermany to go live with him
because they wound up having anannulment a few years ago, or a
few years after that, excuse me.
So it wasn't uncommon for ayounger person, or for noble
people to be engaged Much, muchyounger or even married much

(28:39):
younger, they just weren'tallowed to live together until
the young lady was at least 15.
Okay, yeah, that makes sense.
And just a quick caveat, noteveryone got married that young
that was just something thathigher ranking people did normal
people. So by normal, I mean,non nobles, non Royals would
usually get married in their20s.

(29:03):
So now, not terribly differentfrom from today. Yeah. No,
no, no. But the nice thing abouthaving the biller of Cleves Mary
Johann Friedrich of Saxony isthat would, in theory, end the
dispute over the territory ofYulia because you'd be rejoining
the two houses together, and anysense that they had would, in

(29:25):
theory, have a claim to you thatnow all of that winds up being a
huge giant mess 100 years later,but we're not going to worry
about that. So, and the biller,we don't so she was raised
Catholic, but she was 15 whenshe moved to Saxony. We don't
really know how firmly Catholicshe was at the time when she

(29:48):
moved to Saxony, or how muchintroduction she had had to
Lutheranism. But she wasregarded immediately as being
very pious, and she adoptedLuth. Lutheranism very, very
quickly. So with and she thereare some record or there are a
few letters that she wrote toMartin Luther, I would assume

(30:08):
she had some sort of interactionwith Katrina when Baba.
Otherwise, or at least I don'tknow why she wouldn't have
because I would have assumedthat Katrina would have been at
court as well, or at least wouldhave been around Martin Luther
here and there. But Zillow windsup becoming a household backbone
in the model Lutheran woman toall the other noble ladies about
the Saxon court.

(30:31):
I'm curious, do you have anyexamples? You know, you said she
was regarded as very pious arenow very devout are a good
example. Is there any like forinstance, that that comes to
mind, you know, her daily habitsor practice things, she said.
I don't have any direct quotesprepared. But what I can say is

(30:51):
that in her letters,particularly during Johann
Friedrich some period ofimprisonment, she was always she
did reference the Bible ratheroften. I know that that's not
necessarily direct evidence ofLutheranism. But she always had
God in the Bible in theforefront of her mind. I do
believe that's evidence of that.
But a lot of it had to do withdaily habits. And of course,
being the wife of the mostimportant person within the

(31:13):
electorate of Saxony. She washighly visible, and so people
would log and see what she wasdoing.
Oh, kind of like the letter homeI saw the, the Electress or
whatever title is doing thiswith it. Okay. Gotcha. Well, and
I don't I'm not an expert inthis either. But, you know,
Luther was one of his manythings he's famous for is

(31:34):
actually translating the Bible.
So unless she she knew Latin,she couldn't have known. The
Bible verses per se, to well, itslowed may be a Lutheran thing
to just have biblical literacyat this point in time.
Yeah, that's a great point.
That's that's absolutely a greatpoint. That might have been her
harkening back to what she wasable to learn because he did
translate it, you're absolutelyright, and her form of German.

(31:56):
So the type of German that herparents spoke was very
different, or different tovarious degrees from what was
spoken in Saxony, her father'sform of German was heavily mixed
with what we would think of asmodern or as not modern, but as
Dutch. So there's a very heavyDutch influence on his German
and when you look at where theUnited duchies are, most of the

(32:19):
territory former territory iswithin the German state of North
Rhine Westphalia, some of itsalso in modern day, another
lens. When we look at hermother's language, she very much
you can tell that it's German,you can always tell that it's
German. So sometimes with herfather's language, it's a little

(32:40):
confusing if you're not aware ofwhat you're reading, but the
spelling's and some of the otherwords were different from what
you'd see in Saxony. So the wayI like to compare her mother's a
bill of clues mother's dialectwith Johan or excuse me, not
young Johann Friedrich, herfather, Johann of Cleves, it
would, it would kind of be likeputting an English person with

(33:02):
someone from Texas, they canunderstand each other, but
there's going to be somedifficulties with some of the
words that are used or how thewords are used. Does that make
sense? Itdoes. Yeah. Well, I know that
for Luther, that was a majorchallenge is translation. Do I
translate just into thisdialect? Or do I try to find
okay, what's the word thateveryone from everywhere in

(33:23):
Germany could possiblyunderstand? Even if it's not
their native way of saying it?
So it you know, other historianshave been credited him with kind
of unifying the German languagefrom being too divergent after
that point, at least? But yeah,a major challenge. So yeah, I
was thinking, Oh, well, at leastshe does. You know, Seville
doesn't have to go to court tolearn the language, which you're

(33:45):
telling us that? Well, she kindof did. The culture too, I would
imagine.
Yes, absolutely. And if we takethis child of a person, one is
from England, and one is fromTexas, so they have that
interesting dialect. And then weput them in Scotland, which
modern Scotland we're, we'respeaking predominantly English

(34:06):
and not Scots. But that's alsoanother thing that she had to
keep taking into consideration.
But when I look at her lettersfrom the 1540s, she's very much
writing in a Saxon dialect asfar as I can tell. And what's
incredible about Martin Lutheris work just from a linguistic
perspective, and you did justtouch on this, but it wasn't

(34:28):
just his translation of theBible that was solidifying the
German dialect because Germanmodern German absolutely comes
from Saxon German, just like aItalian, I believe, comes from
the Florentine dialect ofItalian, and I believe Spanish
is Catalonian I want to say. Soall the languages are the modern
languages that we're speakingnow did come from dialects

(34:50):
originally, but one great thingthat happened with Martin Luther
is the printing press and So ofcourse, that's invented in the
1400s. But he was able to notonly translate the Bible into a
language that Germans couldunderstand, but he was able to
make copies. He was also able tomake pamphlets. So for example,

(35:12):
we were talking about thepeasants war versus the the
peasants revolt in the early1520s. And Martin Luther had to
come out of hiding to go againstthat. People were able to print
things or he was able to printhis thoughts going against that
revolt, using the printingpress, and therefore
disseminating it much, muchfaster. Do you see what I'm

(35:33):
saying? And so he just had ahuge impact on it. And the other
thing that's wonderful aboutthis as well, is that neither
Frederick the Wise, or John Thesteadfast said, No, you can't do
that. No, you cannot use thepress that way.
Yeah, it's all it's allconnected somehow.

(35:56):
Yeah, it's pretty crazy. Andthen we of course have in the,
by the 1530s, Johann FriedrichIsabella's husband becomes the
Elector of Saxony. They havethey wound up having four boys
together, but sadly, only threeof them lived past infancy. And
fun fact, King Charles a thirdof England is actually descended

(36:17):
from the villa of Cleves sons.
Oh, is that through? Alberta?
who marries Victoria? Is he asoundboard
and Victoria? Both of them haveboth of them? Yes. And I think I
might have if I go really fardown the rabbit hole, and I'd
have to double check this, butthey might also be related to on
his brother Vilhelm. But that'sgoing I'd have to double check

(36:38):
that and go back a lot farther.
But yeah, yeah. So they'redescended from the bellows
is totally, totally irrelevanthistory we're talking about I
mean, like, you know, I'm kindof saying that tongue in cheek,
but but it is, you know, this isa direct connection to people
still still on thrones today.
Yeah.

(36:58):
So we also have the League ofsmall called, which was founded
by Philip Hasha. And JohannFriedrich, and this was also
called the Protestant League. Sothis is your first we were
talking earlier about how beingpro Lutheran was being anti Holy
Roman Empire. This is the firstmajor step towards this
happening. And there were otherplaces that were creating
similar leagues, or alliances.
So for example, in Denmark, theywere kind of forming something

(37:24):
against the Holy Roman Emperor,but again, that was taking the
form of being Protestants orbeing reformed minded. And the
biller, as far as I know, wassupportive of this league of
small called are thoseProtestant League, Martin Luther
was supportive of it justbecause it's thought of let's

(37:46):
protect the progress that we'vemade with reforming the church
because we have to keep in mindto some of the things that had
already started being done. Werethe Saxon within Saxony. Right
around the time Martin Lutherposted his 95 theses. Some of
the Catholic Church's smallerproperties were being I guess,

(38:07):
you could say dissolved, I wastrying to avoid that word,
because he had the dissolutionof the monasteries over in
England that starts happening afew years after that goes on in
Saxony, but it really is a verysimilar process of taking land
and items away from smallerCatholic churches within Saxony
that were perhaps not behavingwell. So Martin Luther is very

(38:27):
much in favor of this ProtestantLeague, this league of small
called and having a militarybacking for protecting the
reformist or Lutheran purposewithin Germany.
Yeah, he also, you know, samething with he didn't intend the

(38:48):
Reformation as like a revolutionwithin the church. He had kind
of had a parallel thoughtpolitically to for all he didn't
want, okay, we're Lutherans,we're going to start a rebellion
overthrow the government and theEmperor. He wasn't going that
far. And in fact, they had kindof a crisis of conscience. I was
studying stuff going down inNuremberg, and they're like, we

(39:08):
can't even protest too stronglyor something like that, is it?
Well, no, we had to find thatline of how can we not actually
openly revolt but yet protectour a reformation? Can we do
alliances? Can we do thatmilitarily? And so you have the
small called leave verypolitical military? And then you
come up with this confessionaldocument that the small called

(39:30):
articles which, which is one ofthe things that Luther wrote is
what as well?
Yes, absolutely. And I, fromwhat I can tell Martin Luther
did whatever he could, to notcross that line. Yeah. And
unfortunately for him witheverything that was happening in
Europe at the time, and with theGerman princes, generally just
not liking Charles the fifth. Hefrequently was dragged over the

(39:53):
line. But overall, I would Iwould agree, and I don't I don't
think he was trying to he wasn'ttrying to cause an A she'll
write.
I think it just like his I thinkit's kind of his character's
personality. And I do believeit's part of his conscious and
religious convictions though. Hereally looks down on the end
justifies the means. Like, aslong as there's a good goal we

(40:14):
can say and do whatever ever wewant. And I think he was really
pushing back against that.
Pretty much wherever England popup.
I think so, Tim? Yeah.
So how did you know talkingabout John, your Johann
Friedrich here, you know, howdid he kind of get along with
Luther and or Seville? Is theretoo? Do you have any insight of

(40:36):
their personal interactions orconnections? I
didn't dive deeply into it. ButI have no reason to think that
they didn't get along or theydidn't care about each other
that they weren't friendly witheach other or that. Johann
Friedrich was against MartinLuther, Johann Friedrich was a
Lutheran. The villa was aLutheran, their sons were
Lutherans. So they weresupportive of Martin Luther his

(41:00):
work, or at least of what washappening around Martin Luther,
as a result of his owncuriosities about what was
happening within the CatholicChurch. And he was Johann
Friedrich always welcomed MartinLuther at Quartz. Sorry, I lost
my train of thought.

(41:21):
Well, I have a little littletip, a little tidbit trivia to
fill it. If you go to the go toWeimar we're back was for a few
years, where I forget the nameof the church, but it's another
famous chronic altarpiece. Youhave Luther, in the middle of
the altarpiece. But on the lefton the right, you have you on
Frederick Sibylla, then thosethree sons that were alive,

(41:41):
they're all in the same paintingagain, yes, together. That's
another example. So, at least inthe public's perception, or at
least, what the artist Craddockwas trying to do, they're
painted together, least twicenow, that if I if I'm connecting
the Wittenberg altarpiece aswell, so they yes, they're
definitely publicly identifyingwith him. And as you said that

(42:02):
they're Lutheran. And it's notlike today where a whole you
have this and that you're makinga pretty big statement if you
publicly identified yourself.
Yes, I'm in the Reformation.
Now,I would say I believe that it's
insofar as the biller and JohannFriedrich go, and Martin Luther
that was done post humorously ofthem, but the sons are still
alive. So, but that tells usthat the sons viewed all of them

(42:25):
as going together. Right?
Yeah. Is it from the 1550s?
Possibly, I mean, do you have itin your book? Maybe?
I do. Yes. It's from 1555. Okay.
And zebula and Johann Friedrichdied a couple of years before
that. Okay. Yeah, Martin Lutherhad been gone for a while at

(42:46):
that point. Yeah. 1546.
Yeah. Good. Okay. Well, for thesake of time, we have a little
more things we like to getthrough today. Anything with
Sybilla that we want to talk ifyou would like to talk about
before we maybe goes through herher siblings, and probably Molly
is the one who I'm talking aboutto Isabella
had an impressive amount ofcourage. So we were talking

(43:08):
about the legal small called, orthe Protestant League, of
course, you have the smallCeltic wars, in from about 1546
to 1547 is the first set ofsmall Celtic wars. And then
there's a second set in theearly 1550s. During the Battle
of mailbag in, I believe wasMarch of 1547, Johann Friedrich
is captured. And we don't knowat the time, it was reported, he

(43:32):
might have been dead, becausewitnesses who saw him be
captured saw him received thishuge slash this huge gash on his
face that went from his lefteyebrow or maybe corner of his
eye all the way down to his chinor under his left lip. And in
portraits of him after this, andalso portraits of him, post him

(43:52):
as portraits of him, you seethis huge scar on his face,
which was unusual for the timeperiod, because many people had
scars on their faces, even likewe do today. But those weren't
usually painted. So you wouldn'tknow that they were there.
Yeah, that was kind of like amurder thing. You know, I got

(44:13):
this wound for my face in a way,right. So um, it's not something
I'm ashamed of to show that off?
I think so. And I'd have to lookat the bimah Castle chapel
altarpiece that we were talkingabout a moment ago to see if he
has any sort of mark on hisface. But again, if you look at
any portraits, you'll seeanything from like a tiny little
halfmoon under his eye to thefull scar going from his brow

(44:34):
down to his face. But because ofthat scar, and because he or
that wound, and because hedidn't come back, Sybil of
Cleves was worried that he wasdead and had a legitimate reason
to worry that he was dead. Also,their eldest son had been taken
into custody. So Isabella isdown in bitten bag defending the

(44:56):
castle she had it fortified, wasready for the Emperor to go
homme. He comes bombards thecastle for several days. I
believe that several days it wasleast a couple of days. And
eventually she has to capitulateor risk everyone within the
castle and within the city. Shegoes out with her ladies to meet
with the Emperor. She's clad inblack, and she just immediately

(45:17):
begs for Johan Friedrichs body.
Because they one thing that Ireally enjoy about Isabella and
Johann Friedrich is even thoughtheir marriage was arranged as
most of them were back then theygenuinely loved each other and
for this woman to have thecourage to go and go to the most
powerful person who could havealso taken her into custody and

(45:37):
say, Hey, can I please have myhusband back, have his body back
she then learns that he's alive.
The Emperor agrees to let JohannFriedrich go home with Isabella
for a week or two before hestarts his leave with six years

(45:57):
five, six years of imprisonment.
And she, the biller wrote to herhusband faithfully, she sent him
presents while he wasimprisoned, this included gifts
like songbirds to cheer him up.
She sent him pomegranates at onepoint because she heard that he
was unwell. So even while he wasbeing carted around in the

(46:18):
custody of the Emperor, and shewent without seeing him for such
a long time, she was very stillvery devoted to him as her
husbandYeah, that's a it's a very
warming story. Like it's a goodpoint, you know, you kind of
have to be with each otherbecause your your parents told
you so or your you know,diplomatically politically just
make sense. And you know,Seville is finger sister Anna

(46:40):
had the other half of that whereit was totally set up. Did not
have the lasting romance withHenry the Eighth there, which
kind of got off lucky comparedto a couple of the other wives
there. But still, by comparison,yeah, it's such it isn't a
story. And that's one of thethings I appreciate about your
book is I don't know if I'veseen that story anywhere else,

(47:00):
and if it is probably not inEnglish. So that's, that's it.
One of the values of your bookis bringing this to light to an
English speaking audience.
And turning to the buildsrelationships with her brother
and sisters, so ANA, who marriedHenry, the eighth of England,

(47:23):
that marriage was annulled forpolitical reasons. For those of
you who are unaware of myresearch, I'd very much
encourage you to read on aduchess of Cleves, the king's
beloved sister, which is thefirst book about on a cleaves
research and written from theGerman perspective. Henry didn't
get rid of her because hethought she was ugly. We'll just
leave it at that. But Ana, asfar as I can tell, was not a

(47:46):
very spiritual or religiousperson. So there were people
were expected to attend churchand they were expected to have
an interest in their souls, butmuch like today, some people
went through the motions andsome people were devoted and
devout Ana, from what I can tellwent through the motions,
whereas the biller was devoted,and devout. So Ana was Catholic.

(48:10):
I don't know that she ever shewould have been aware of
Lutheranism. I don't know if itwas really something that she
thought about just again, herpersonality being different from
Isabella Vilhelm. Their brotherwas Lutheran or Catholic when it
suited him. So he started tobecome more friendly to the

(48:33):
Lutherans after he became theDuke of UDK. For bag after Ana
and Isabel of Cleves fatherdied, because he wanted to hold
on to this territory that he wasfighting with Charles a fifth
about and again, if you want tolearn more about that you can,
it's in both of my books. Butthat occasionally meant that he
had to be Lutheran for politicalreasons. So he could have

(48:55):
Lutherans back him. Then in theCleves war, he's defeated, and
he has to be a Catholic and anyof his sons because they will
become the ones to rule theUnited duchies of you that way.
Footbag have to be Catholic. Soon paper Vilhelm was Catholic
for the rest of his life. Butinterestingly, periodically he

(49:17):
would take the Lutheran form ofthe sacrament, communion that's
the word I'm looking for. Or I'msorry, he would occasionally
partake in a Lutheran form ofcommunion or he would indulge in
a Lutheran style service. So he,he was never Lutheran. But he

(49:39):
was never totally Catholic inhis adulthood or after he became
the Duke when he was about 22years old. Now, the youngest
sister a Malia, that's the onefor anyone who's watched the
tutor's TV show it talks abouton a cleaves Annamalai of Cleves
and a lot of people who areinterested in more so the Tudor
history aspect, rather than theGerman reformation, totally
forgot that Isabella The eldersister even existed, but, uh,

(50:02):
Malia never winds up gettingmarried. And at one point it
said that she was too Lutheranto marry anyone. Wow.
What is that supposed to meet?
I'm not quite sure. But I cantell you she was very devout and
maybe also as sassy as heroldest sister because when a
Malia's sister in law, passedaway in the 15th I think it was

(50:25):
1581 or so. The sister in lawwife avail home, was very
Catholic, and had a Catholicmass for her burial. And a Malia
refused to go because it wasCatholic. At one point, she made
her brother Vilhelm, so angrywith her Lutheranism that he
chased her with a sword, and aservant had to intervene and

(50:46):
slammed the door shut. HerVilhelm had six surviving
children, he had seven total butlittle girl, Unfortunately, he
passed away when she was quiteyoung, but he had two sons and
four daughters. She would havespent a lot of time raising the
four daughters or with the fourdaughters, I should say. They're
her nieces in Germany, and Idon't remember the exact

(51:12):
breakdown, but all of them wereLutheran for at least a little
while, if not for the rest oftheir lives. So Isabella and
Amalia we have to assume hadsome sort of correspondence.
Amalia was very much in favor ofit. She was so in favor of it
that she risked her brother'swrath and did not care and also

(51:33):
made sure to pass it on to hernieces. Amalia never wound up
marrying anyone or having any ofher own children.
Well, seems like she had herhands full just being a full
time with her andI think so. Yeah. Yeah. So she's
that in some ways, it's aninteresting contrast between
oldest and youngest youngestsiblings, Avila is this beacon

(51:53):
of Lutheranism and, and Lutheranwomanly behavior, and is an
excellent role model up inSaxony in the Northeast. And
then you have a molly of Cleves,who's to Lutheran to marry and
incites her brother to violencewith her stubborn Lutheran
Lutheran Ness, and then alsorefuses to go to her sister in
law's funeral because it's notLutheran. So it's just

(52:16):
interesting to see two sides ofthe same devoted coin.
Right? Very, very firm in theirconvictions and yet, how they,
how they how that plays out intheir lives. Yeah, that's, well,
that said, nothing's new, Iguess, or nothing that's
happened today hasn't reallyhappened the past you'll find
people like that, too. Althoughbeing chased with a sword.

(52:39):
That's a whole nother level. Shemust have really, really done
something there. No. All right.
Well, thank you for thatoverview. We could spend so much
more time and I've reallyenjoyed her time with that
today. But if you told us thewhole book, nobody would go and
buy your book. So I encourageour audience to pick it up. It's
just the title children in thehouse of Cleves, Ana and her
siblings by Heather Darcy. Now,I do want to ask you about any

(53:02):
future projects you'reanticipating. But before that, I
didn't get to ask you before.
But we chatted briefly earlier.
And I think it's veryinteresting. Can you tell us a
little bit about your researchprocess and how you're bringing
up this information because Ithink you've done some pretty
serious archival work that Ithink our audience would be

(53:22):
interested in hearing a littlebit about. Thank
you. I will start with how Ibegan my journey into
researching on a Cleves. As Imentioned before, I have the
bachelor's degree in Germanlanguages and literature. And
when I was in law school, I, Ibecame interested in English
history. And really what it camefrom was my dad who

(53:45):
unfortunately, passed away in2020. He would always read
history books, but he never didanything with it. But he would
always read like World War Twohistory books in World War One.
And growing up, you know, wealways think that our parents
know everything about somethingand I'm in my early 20s. At this
point, I'm like, Dad, what doyou know about the English Wars
of the Roses, and he's likenothing. I said, I'm gonna go

(54:06):
learn about it. So I did. Andthat's what really got me into,
or led me into Henry the Eighthand his six wives. And all I
ever read about ANA who was fromGermany was that she was ugly,
and she got dumped, and thatthat just it seems so it seemed
too simple of an explanationbecause the cost to ship her
over there. Also, women didn'tget discarded because they were

(54:27):
unattractive. I mean, Claude ofFrance, who married Francis the
First had a twisted spine eitherbecause of tuberculosis,
lodging, and her spine orscoliosis. And there was a there
have been plenty of examples ofwomen being unattractive, quote,
unquote, for whatever reason,and they still went and had
children with their importantspouse who was a king or a Duke

(54:51):
or, or whatever it was, so itdidn't make any sense to me and
then this is very ignorant ofme, but I didn't think her name
name could have been an becausean spelled that way isn't a
German name. And so I decidedone day, you know what? I'm
going to learn more about her.
So I wrote a letter to the mayorof Cleves in German saying who I
was and what I wanted to do andasking for help. And then I got

(55:15):
and I wrote a physical letter,because, in my opinion, if you
have something that you'reholding in your hand, that's
harder to ignore than an email.
But then I received an emailfrom his support staff, and they
had forwarded my letter to thecastling, Cleves and to the
archives and Duisburg. And itjust kind of went from there.

(55:36):
And other things that occurredwhile I've been researching this
family would include when I goto the Newberry library in
Chicago, for example, I livearound Chicago. And I'd be
researching one thing and findanother and they also have a lot
of, or at least enough of MartinLuthers works in the original

(55:56):
German. And so in some ways justto learn how to read our older
German, Saxon German. And theneventually, of course, the
dialects spoken by ANA Clevesparents, I would just go to the
Newbery and I would read thosedifferent books and pamphlets
with Martin Luther is and justseeing how much more was there
and the random things that Iwould stumble upon, I just knew

(56:18):
that I had to put this togetherin a greater work. And I think
that having part of my purpose,too, was we have a lot of
theologically leaning booksabout the Lutheran Reformation,
which makes perfect sense. But Iwanted to explore more about the
Lutheran Reformation from a nontheological perspective, which I

(56:38):
hope I was successful in doingin this book.
Yeah, it's very, veryinteresting. And I think you
said at one point, you'relooking at stuff, not just, you
know, Luthers works have beenprinted and published in German,
your your reading, demand themanuscript part, right, where
it's handwritten for some ofthat, I believe Luthers. But if

(57:00):
certain other documents haveother other documents in your
research, yeah. And that, youknow, that I've tried, and I've
not really cracked the code. Andthat's, I'm just talking about
like, 19th century German.
You're doing older stuff,although I think sometimes it
might be clear, but that's awhole nother topic. But yeah,
that just so our audience knowslike you're doing real you know
what the right word for it, butreal archival work in that and

(57:22):
that that's very valuable, thatyou're able to just read the
letters on the page, translateit, and then tell it in a story
printed in English for us to beable to read it. Like I said,
I'm not aware that maybe thereis but I'm not aware of this,
the whole civil story andthat's, I just find that
fascinating because it's reallyclose to really close to what a

(57:43):
lot of people study theReformation, but just never get
around to to that far. So, tome, you're making a big, big
contribution.
Thank you. And then I'm, um, Ido have a few more books coming
out. I am deviating slightlyfrom my favorite Germans, but I
promise that I'm coming back tothem I have later this year I
have Stewart spouses, acompendium of consorts from

(58:05):
James the First of Scotland toQueen Anne of Great Britain,
that should be released aroundSeptember of 2024. And then they
also have books about Katherineof Aragon, Henry the eighth's
first wife, and Anne Boleyn.
Henry, the eighth second wife.
And then after that, I'm goingto be writing about Charles the
Fitz sisters. So we'll begetting back to Lutheran

(58:26):
Reformation history. In a coupleyears, you have to wait a couple
years, but it's coming, Ipromise. All
right. Awesome. Wellkeep up the good work. You have
a big schedule in front of you alot, a lot of stuff going on.
I don't regret my lifestyle.
Well, and thank you for yourtime today. It's been a pleasure
to have you on the podcast.
Thank you so much for having me.
Absolutely. And for ourlisteners, just a little heads

(58:49):
up. You are now able to listento our podcast episodes on
YouTube. I believe I've linkedher episodes there. Don't judge
the listed count. It's going tobe a little low is when he gets
off the ground on YouTube, butyou can go there and connect
with us there. If you'd like tosupport the podcast there's ways
to do that on our website aswell as through Patreon. Hold on
through the summer. Listen tosome favorite episodes. We have

(59:10):
some more material ready for youalready has
Advertise With Us

Popular Podcasts

Crime Junkie

Crime Junkie

Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.

24/7 News: The Latest

24/7 News: The Latest

The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.

Stuff You Should Know

Stuff You Should Know

If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.

Music, radio and podcasts, all free. Listen online or download the iHeart App.

Connect

© 2025 iHeartMedia, Inc.