#I say let's go full france and get rid of the monarchy.

[thelikesoffinn]

Is there even a single person who chooses to side with Nerissa? Like, honestly not just for story telling? Because I can't. Even in playthrough's where my traveller isn't angry or feels betrayed, I just can not agree with her on anything - the Cursa matter or anything regarding the future of the system.

[qqueenofhades]

You're going to think I'm such a weirdo because you're my go-to person for whether particular British monarchs were gay, but I have another question along those lines. Was Queen Anne in a lesbian relationship with Sarah Churchill? And if not, was she gay? I read one book that explained she wasn't "because she hadn't heard of it." Needless to say, I didn't finish it.

Ahaha. We’ve all gotta be known for something, right?

Short answers to both your questions: No and no, but also in both cases sorta, and which reflects a really fascinating entry point into a discussion of the female side of seventeenth/eighteenth-century LGBT culture. (Seriously, guys, the eighteenth century was HELLA GAY. I’ve written about the male side of it, but there is just as much or more to look at from the female. It’s also why you should continue to laugh at Certain Unnamed Persons telling you gay people did not exist before the 1960s.)

Anyway, so, Anne. As girls, both she and her sister Mary (the future Queen Mary II) had a passionate attachment to an older woman, Frances Apsley, and wrote letters to her that reflect this romantic imagining. (p.1648-49). The thirteen-year-old Mary addressed the twenty-two-year-old Frances as “my dearest dear husband” and called herself “your faithful wife, loyal to your bed […] how I dote on you, oh I am in raptures of sweet amaze, when I think of you I am in ecstasy.” In fact, when Anne began her own correspondence with Frances, Mary was jealous of her/seemed to have viewed her sister as a romantic rival for Frances’ affections. In their letters, Anne cast herself and Frances as star-crossed lovers from the play Mithridates, and there was an atmosphere of unabashed hedonism and sexual liberty at the Restoration court of Charles II. The girls were mostly kept away from this, but there were plenty of plays, novels, etc that centered around themes of female same-sex desire. Eighteenth-century English literature (see p. 261-62) had all kinds of exploration of it, and indeed reflects a vernacular for LGBT relationships arguably more detailed than what we have today (if by nature pejorative): “sodomite” and “molly” were the terms for the active and passive partner in a male homosexual relationship, and “sapphic” and “tommy” were the equivalents for a female homosexual relationship. (But of course, I forgot, we didn’t have LGBT people before the 1960s.) 

What Valerie Traub calls “the renaissance of lesbianism in early modern England” wasn’t just a literary phenomenon either. The habit of women sharing beds at all level of society, from working class to noblewomen, and the usually all-female social circle of young women offered a convenient environment for practical explorations of the kind of passionate desire seen above. At least one contemporary commentator had no problem with it (see p. 54) and viewed it in pragmatic terms:

Calling himself “neither their censor nor their husband,” Brantôme maintains that “unmarried girls and widows may be excused for liking such frivolous and vain pleasures and preferring to give themselves to each other thus and so get rid of their heat than to resort to men and be put in the family way and dishonored by them, or to have to get rid of their fruit.” As for the homoerotic exploits of married women: “the men are not cuckolded by it.”

In other words, female same-sex activity might not be optimal, but it’s essentially harmless, preferable to unwanted pregnancies, illicit abortions, or the spoiling of marriage prospects. And since everyone knows (according to bountiful eighteenth-century medical wisdom) that women are “hot” and need to relieve their humors with sex, lesbianism (though it wasn’t yet called that) was fine as an option. This of course was not the only view on it, but it does absolutely make it the case that yes, Anne (and other women of her class and era) would have heard of it. (Seriously, do these Str8 Historians just… assume that nobody ever mentioned same-sex relations/desire/literature, because gay people are “so modern” or… what? I’m baffled. On that note, Emma Donoghue’s “Passions Between Women: British Lesbian Culture 1668-1801″ is also a recommended read.)

Anyway, back to Anne and Mary themselves. It’s highly unlikely that their ardor toward Frances Apsley ever went beyond letters, and Mary did not have another relationship with a woman of the same intensity; after a very rocky start to her 1677 marriage to William of Orange, she fell quickly in love with him and devoted herself to him. However, Anne continued to have the same sort of passionate attachments to women, including that to Sarah Jennings, later Lady Churchill, the Duchess of Marlborough. Sarah is a fascinating historical lady for many reasons, and through her relationship with Anne over several decades, was able to exert considerable influence and prestige. She was a strong-willed, well educated, politically ambitious, and formidable woman, and I think the assessment of her relationship with Anne in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (login needed for full text) is essentially correct:

Anne wasemotionally vulnerable and always depended very much upon her near circle offriends; Sarah wasthe closest of these. Anne wasromantically, but platonically, in love with Sarah, who, for her part, understood very well theimmense value of her relationship with the princess. So close did Anne feel to Sarah that from about 1691 she insisted thatthe aliases Mrs Morley and Mrs Freeman be used between them, to overcomeany undue feeling of formality when in private. Although Sarah eventually found the princess’sattentions irritating in their childlike ardour, she responded with genuineaffection, but not with love. She later wrote that she had little in commonwith Anne; she usedher periods of exclusion from the court to widen her reading, including Shakespeare, Dryden, Milton, Montaigne, and Seneca, whereas Anne remained stubbornly non-intellectual. Nonethe less, their political interdependence and genuine affection kept theirpersonal relationship alive.

I would say in my view this is about right. Anne was definitely in love with her, while Sarah liked her, but saw the overall value in being attached to the princess (later queen). They fell out over differing political opinions (Sarah was a Whig, Anne was a Tory) and both had devoted relationships with their husbands. Sarah’s was John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, the statesman, political player, and hero of the War of Spanish Succession, and Anne’s was Prince George of Denmark. Sarah and Churchill had seven children, while Anne had at least seventeen pregnancies by George, but only one living son (William, Duke of Gloucester, who died at the age of eleven).

George has generally gotten a bad rap as a total unambitious dullard, and there has been some attempt to portray Anne and Sarah as lovers while Anne was unavoidably saddled with George and only kept having sex with him in hopes of a Stuart heir, which I think is both inaccurate and unfair to George. He had almost no political ambition at all and was absolutely happy to let his wife rule and be queen and to support her decisions, which was the reverse of Anne’s sister Mary and her husband William (Anne’s immediate predecessors). William refused to let Mary be crowned as sole queen, even though Mary and Anne were both daughters of James II and the hereditary right was Mary’s (for her part, Mary refused to countenance rulership without William and never wanted it much, but accepted it in the name of the Protestant cause/saving England from Catholic monarchy under her father). So by the time of Anne’s reign (1702-1714) it was still not at all negotiated how exactly a new (female) constitutional monarch, post-1689 and Bill of Rights, would rule by herself, but Anne did pretty much that. She didn’t have constitutional strife, she took England from the chaos and civil/religious wars/Commonwealth/etc of the seventeenth to its emergence as a major world power in the eighteenth, and George was a-okay with all of this. He declared that “I am her Majesty’s subject, I will do naught but what she commands me,” and they adored each other. George’s death in 1708 absolutely devastated Anne and was one of the reasons that snapped her fraught relationship with Sarah, as one observer wrote:

[George’s death] has flung the Queen into an unspeakable grief.She never left him till he was dead, but continued kissing him the very momenthis breath went out of his body, and ‘twas with a great deal of difficulty my Lady Marlborough prevailedupon her to leave him.

Sarah and Anne’s relationship had been steadily deteriorating over political differences, Sarah’s domineering personality, and Anne’s affection for a new female favorite, Abigail Masham. Indeed, Anne’s Whig opponents (and Sarah herself) fanned rumors that Anne and Abigail’s relationship was that of lovers, including by scandalous poetry (see pp. 157-8):

Whenas Queen Anne of great RenownGreat Britain’s Sceptre sway’dBesides the Church, she dearly lov’dA Dirty Chamber-Maid….

As Traub points out, Sarah’s accusations are more likely motivated by jealousy at losing her position as favorite to Abigail, and Anne herself never forgave Sarah for insinuating lesbianism (as in the physical act of it, rather than romantic feelings) in their relationship. Again as Traub comments: “It was the result of a transformation in discourse, whereas intimate female friends, including matronly monarchs with seventeen pregnancies behind them, could be interpreted as purveyors of sexual vice.” In other words, the accusations flung at Elizabeth I, the woman ruling alone in the late 16th-early 17th century, had been that she had inappropriate male lovers; now the charges against Anne, a century later, were of inappropriate female lovers, and reflected, as discussed above, the emergence of this entire construction and visibility of same-sex female desire. Accusations or intimations of homosexuality were nothing new to the Stuarts; both William and Mary (especially William) had been painted as having inappropriately intimate same-gender relationships, and William’s Jacobite enemies had likewise gotten considerable mileage out of pamphlets portraying him as a “sodomite.” (Which, again, they had political reasons to do, so there is that, but it’s fascinating, if unfortunate, that this had now become the preferred currency of political slander, as that was not necessarily the case before).

Overall, Anne certainly had strong emotional relationships to women for her entire life, and in some cases, those relationships were accused of being explicitly sexual (reflecting a culture that was, as noted, really hella gay for both women and men, and this gayness was both accepted and reviled in turn) but for the benefit of her enemies (Sarah’s unflattering depiction of Anne was basically accepted as fact until the late 20th century). So in one sense, Anne and Sarah were in a long relationship that ended badly, and Anne was absolutely biromantic. Sex (or the lack of it) is not the only defining marker of a relationship, but if we mean a lesbian relationship in the modern sense of the word (where they are both romantic and sexual partners) then no. Anne and George were known for being devoted and faithful to each other (as noted, not at all the norm in the Stuart court) and Anne’s seventeen pregnancies make it clear they had sex throughout their marriage. Anne herself took the accusation of physical lesbianism with Abigail Masham as an unforgivable slight on Sarah’s part; i.e. the feelings or the rhetoric were acceptable to her, but the action was not. We have no reason to think she was being a hypocrite about this, or willfully concealing/ignoring it. Because, surprise! People’s attitudes and identities toward sexuality are complicated and shifting and partial and evolving, and conditioned by class, time, place, religion, society, etc.

Anyway, since this is another novel: we could definitely classify Anne as queer in the modern definition (having romantic feelings/romantic-if chaste-involvements with women, but lovingly and faithfully married to her husband who was her sexual partner), but probably not actively and certainly not exclusively lesbian. She was traditional in her views and devoted to the Protestant church (and to George), so yes. I would classify her as biromantic with a preference for/sexual activity with men, but whose long relationships with women were both politically and personally influential and absolutely deserve attention within the context of eighteenth-century LGBT history and literature.

[kermiejpg]

This was Jefferson's last letter to James Madison

DEAR SIR, -- My last to you was of Oct. 8 by the Count de Moustier. Yours of July 18. Sep. 6. & Oct. 24. have been successively received, yesterday, the day before & three or four days before that. I have only had time to read the letters, the printed papers communicated with them, however interesting, being obliged to lie over till I finish my dispatches for the packet, which dispatches must go from hence the day after tomorrow. I have much to thank you for. First and most for the cyphered paragraph respecting myself. These little informations are very material towards forming my own decisions. I would be glad even to know when any individual member thinks I have gone wrong in any instance. If I know myself it would not excite ill blood in me, while it would assist to guide my conduct, perhaps to justify it, and to keep me to my duty, alert. I must thank you too for the information in Thos. Burke's case, tho' you will have found by a subsequent letter that I have asked of you a further investigation of that matter. It is to gratify the lady who is at the head of the Convent wherein my daughters are, & who, by her attachment & attention to them, lays me under great obligations. I shall hope therefore still to receive from you the result of the further enquiries my second letter had asked. The parcel of rice which you informed me had miscarried accompanied my letter to the Delegates of S. Carolina. Mr. Bourgoin was to be the bearer of both & both were delivered together into the hands of his relation here who introduced him to me, and who at a subsequent moment undertook to convey them to Mr. Bourgoin. This person was an engraver particularly recommended to D'r. Franklin & Mr. Hopkinson. Perhaps he may have mislaid the little parcel of rice among his baggage. I am much pleased that the sale of Western lands is so successful. I hope they will absorb all the Certificates of our Domestic debt speedily, in the first place, and that then offered for cash they will do the same by our foreign one. The season admitting only of operations in the Cabinet, and these being in a great measure secret , I have little to fill a letter. I will therefore make up the deficiency by adding a few words on the Constitution proposed by our Convention. I like much the general idea of framing a government which should go on of itself peaceably, without needing continual recurrence to the state legislatures. I like the organization of the government into Legislative, Judiciary & Executive. I like the power given the Legislature to levy taxes, and for that reason solely approve of the greater house being chosen by the people directly. For tho' I think a house chosen by them will be very illy qualified to legislate for the Union, for foreign nations &c. yet this evil does not weigh against the good of preserving inviolate the fundamental principle that the people are not to be taxed but by representatives chosen immediately by themselves. I am captivated by the compromise of the opposite claims of the great & little states, of the latter to equal, and the former to proportional influence. I am much pleased too with the substitution of the method of voting by persons, instead of that of voting by states: and I like the negative given to the Executive with a third of either house, though I should have liked it better had the Judiciary been associated for that purpose, or invested with a similar and separate power. There are other good things of less moment. I will now add what I do not like. First the omission of a bill of rights providing clearly & without the aid of sophisms for freedom of religion, freedom of the press, protection against standing armies, restriction against monopolies, the eternal & unremitting force of the habeas corpus laws, and trials by jury in all matters of fact triable by the laws of the land & not by the law of nations. To say, as Mr. Wilson does that a bill of rights was not necessary because all is reserved in the case of the general government which is not given, while in the particular ones all is given which is not reserved, might do for the audience to whom it was addressed, but is surely a gratis dictum, opposed by strong inferences from the body of the instrument, as well as from the omission of the clause of our present confederation which had declared that in express terms. It was a hard conclusion to say because there has been no uniformity among the states as to the cases triable by jury, because some have been so incautious as to abandon this mode of trial, therefore the more prudent states shall be reduced to the same level of calamity. It would have been much more just & wise to have concluded the other way that as most of the states had judiciously preserved this palladium, those who had wandered should be brought back to it, and to have established general right instead of general wrong. Let me add that a bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth, general or particular, & what no just government should refuse, or rest on inferences. The second feature I dislike, and greatly dislike, is the abandonment in every instance of the necessity of rotation in office, and most particularly in the case of the President. Experience concurs with reason in concluding that the first magistrate will always be re-elected if the Constitution permits it. He is then an officer for life. This once observed, it becomes of so much consequence to certain nations to have a friend or a foe at the head of our affairs that they will interfere with money & with arms. A Galloman or an Angloman will be supported by the nation he befriends. If once elected, and at a second or third election out voted by one or two votes, he will pretend false votes, foul play, hold possession of the reins of government, be supported by the States voting for him, especially if they are the central ones lying in a compact body themselves & separating their opponents: and they will be aided by one nation of Europe, while the majority are aided by another. The election of a President of America some years hence will be much more interesting to certain nations of Europe than ever the election of a king of Poland was. Reflect on all the instances in history antient & modern, of elective monarchies, and say if they do not give foundation for my fears. The Roman emperors, the popes, while they were of any importance, the German emperors till they became hereditary in practice, the kings of Poland, the Deys of the Ottoman dependances. It may be said that if elections are to be attended with these disorders, the seldomer they are renewed the better. But experience shews that the only way to prevent disorder is to render them uninteresting by frequent changes. An incapacity to be elected a second time would have been the only effectual preventative. The power of removing him every fourth year by the vote of the people is a power which will not be exercised. The king of Poland is removeable every day by the Diet, yet he is never removed. Smaller objections are the Appeal in fact as well as law, and the binding all persons Legislative Executive & Judiciary by oath to maintain that constitution. I do not pretend to decide what would be the best method of procuring the establishment of the manifold good things in this constitution, and of getting rid of the bad. Whether by adopting it in hopes of future amendment, or, after it has been duly weighed & canvassed by the people, after seeing the parts they generally dislike, & those they generally approve, to say to them `We see now what you wish. Send together your deputies again, let them frame a constitution for you omitting what you have condemned, & establishing the powers you approve. Even these will be a great addition to the energy of your government.' At all events I hope you will not be discouraged from other trials, if the present one should fail of its full effect. I have thus told you freely what I like & dislike: merely as a matter of curiosity, for I know your own judgment has been formed on all these points after having heard everything which could be urged on them. I own I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive. The late rebellion in Massachusetts has given more alarm than I think it should have done. Calculate that one rebellion in 13 states in the course of 11 years, is but one for each state in a century & a half. No country should be so long without one. Nor will any degree of power in the hands of government prevent insurrections. France, with all it's despotism, and two or three hundred thousand men always in arms has had three insurrections in the three years I have been here in every one of which greater numbers were engaged than in Massachusetts & a great deal more blood was spilt. In Turkey, which Montesquieu supposes more despotic, insurrections are the events of every day. In England, where the hand of power is lighter than here, but heavier than with us they happen every half dozen years. Compare again the ferocious depredations of their insurgents with the order, the moderation & the almost self extinguishment of ours. After all, it is my principle that the will of the majority should always prevail. If they approve the proposed Convention in all it's parts, I shall concur in it chearfully, in hopes that they will amend it whenever they shall find it work wrong. I think our governments will remain virtuous for many centuries; as long as they are chiefly agricultural; and this will be as long as there shall be vacant lands in any part of America. When they get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, they will become corrupt as in Europe. Above all things I hope the education of the common people will be attended to; convinced that on their good sense we may rely with the most security for the preservation of a due degree of liberty. I have tired you by this time with my disquisitions & will therefore only add assurances of the sincerity of those sentiments of esteem & attachment with which I am Dear Sir your affectionate friend & servant Thomas Jefferson P. S. The instability of our laws is really an immense evil. I think it would be well to provide in our constitutions that there shall always be a twelve-month between the ingross-ing a bill & passing it: that it should then be offered to it's passage without changing a word: and that if circum-stances should be thought to require a speedier passage, it should take two thirds of both houses instead of a bare majority.