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holidays-events · 4 years ago

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The First Christmas Tree

Alison Barnes sets the record straight on who was really responsible for introducing this popular custom to Britain.

Alison Barnes | Published in History Today Volume 56 Issue 12 December 2006

A Christmas tree for German soldiers in a temporary hospital in 1871Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s consort, is usually credited with having introduced the Christmas tree into England in 1840. However, the honour of establishing this tradition in the United Kingdom rightfully belongs to ‘good Queen Charlotte’, the German wife of George III, who set up the first known English tree at Queen’s Lodge, Windsor, in December, 1800.

Legend has it that Queen Charlotte’s compatriot, Martin Luther, the religious reformer, invented the Christmas tree. One winter’s night in 1536, so the story goes, Luther was walking through a pine forest near his home in Wittenberg when he suddenly looked up and saw thousands of stars glinting jewel-like among the branches of the trees. This wondrous sight inspired him to set up a candle-lit fir tree in his house that Christmas to remind his children of the starry heavens from whence their Saviour came.

Certainly by 1605 decorated Christmas trees had made their appearance in Southern Germany. For in that year an anonymous writer recorded how at Yuletide the inhabitants of Strasburg ‘set up fir trees in the parlours ... and hang thereon roses cut out of many-coloured paper, apples, wafers, gold-foil, sweets, etc.’

In other parts of Germany box trees or yews were brought indoors at Christmas instead of firs. And in the duchy of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, where Queen Charlotte grew up, it was the custom to deck out a single yew branch.

The poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) visited Mecklenburg-Strelitz in December, 1798, and was much struck by the yew-branch ceremony that he witnessed there, the following account of which he wrote in a letter to his wife dated April 23rd, 1799: ‘On the evening before Christmas Day, one of the parlours is lighted up by the children, into which the parents must not go; a great yew bough is fastened on the table at a little distance from the wall, a multitude of little tapers are fixed in the bough ... and coloured paper etc. hangs and flutters from the twigs. Under this bough the children lay out the presents they mean for their parents, still concealing in their pockets what they intend for each other. Then the parents are introduced, and each presents his little gift; they then bring out the remainder one by one from their pockets, and present them with kisses and embraces’.

When young Charlotte left Mecklenburg-Strelitz in 1761, and came over to England to marry King George, she brought with her many of the customs that she had practised as a child, including the setting up of a yew branch in the house at Christmas. But at the English Court the Queen transformed the essentially private yew-branch ritual of her homeland into a more public celebration that could be enjoyed by her family, their friends and all the members of the Royal Household.

Queen Charlotte placed her yew bough not in some poky little parlour, but in one of the largest rooms at Kew Palace or Windsor Castle. Assisted by her ladies-in-waiting, she herself dressed the bough. And when all the wax tapers had been lit, the whole Court gathered round and sang carols. The festivity ended with a distribution of gifts from the branch, which included such items as clothes, jewels, plate, toys and sweets.

These royal yew boughs caused quite a stir among the nobility, who had never seen anything like them before. But it was nothing to the sensation created in 1800, when the first real English Christmas tree appeared at court.

That year Queen Charlotte planned to hold a large Christmas party for the children of all the principal families in Windsor. And casting about in her mind for a special treat to give the youngsters, she suddenly decided that instead of the customary yew bough, she would pot up an entire yew tree, cover it with baubles and fruit, load it with presents and stand it in the middle of the drawing-room floor at Queen’s Lodge. Such a tree, she considered, would make an enchanting spectacle for the little ones to gaze upon. It certainly did. When the children arrived at the house on the evening of Christmas Day and beheld that magical tree, all aglitter with tinsel and glass, they believed themselves transported straight to fairyland and their happiness knew no bounds.

Dr John Watkins, one of Queen Charlotte’s biographers, who attended the party, provides us with a vivid description of this captivating tree ‘from the branches of which hung bunches of sweetmeats, almonds and raisins in papers, fruits and toys, most tastefully arranged; the whole illuminated by small wax candles’. He adds that ‘after the company had walked round and admired the tree, each child obtained a portion of the sweets it bore, together with a toy, and then all returned home quite delighted’.

Christmas trees now became all the rage in English upper-class circles, where they formed the focal point at countless children’s gatherings. As in Germany, any handy evergreen tree might be uprooted for the purpose; yews, box trees, pines or firs. But they were invariably candle-lit, adorned with trinkets and surrounded by piles of presents. Trees placed on table tops usually also had either a Noah’s Ark or a model farm and numerous gaily-painted wooden animals set out among the presents beneath the branches to add extra allurement to the scene. From family archives we learn, for example, that in December 1802, George, 2nd Lord Kenyon, was buying ‘candles for the tree’ that he placed in his drawing room at No. 35 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London. That in 1804 Frederick, fifth Earl of Bristol, had ‘a Christmas tree’ for his children at Ickworth Lodge, Suffolk. And that in 1807 William Cavendish-Bentinck, Duke of Portland, the then prime minister, set up a Christmas tree at Welbeck Abbey, Nottinghamshire, ‘for a juvenile party’.

By the time Queen Charlotte died in 1818, the Christmas-tree tradition was firmly established in society, and it continued to flourish throughout the 1820s and 30s. The fullest description of these early English Yuletide trees is to be found in the diary of Charles Greville, the witty, cultured Clerk of the Privy Council, who in 1829 spent his Christmas holidays at Panshanger, Hertfordshire, home to Peter, 5th Earl Cowper, and his wife Lady Emily.

Greville’s fellow house guests were Princess Dorothea von Lieven, wife of the German Ambassador, Lord John Russell, Frederick Lamb, M. de la Rochefoucauld and M. de Montrond, all of whom were brilliant conversationalists. Greville makes no mention of any of the bons mots that he must have heard at every meal, however, or of the indoor games and the riding, skating and shooting that always took place at Panshanger at Christmas. No. The only things that really seem to have impressed him were the exquisite little spruce firs that Princess Lieven set up on Christmas Day to amuse the Cowpers’ youngest children William, Charles and Frances. ‘Three trees in great pots’, he tells us, ‘were put upon a long table covered with pink linen; each tree was illuminated with three circular tiers of coloured wax candles – blue, green, red and white. Before each tree was displayed a quantity of toys, gloves, pocket handkerchiefs, workboxes, books and various other articles – presents made to the owner of the tree. It was very pretty’.

When in December, 1840, Prince Albert imported several spruce firs from his native Coburg, they were no novelty to the aristocracy, therefore. But it was not until periodicals such as the Illustrated London News, Cassell’s Magazine and The Graphic began to depict and minutely to describe the royal Christmas trees every year from 1845 until the late 1850s, that the custom of setting up such trees in their own homes caught on with the masses in England.

By 1860, however, there was scarcely a well-off family in the land that did not sport a Christmas tree in parlour or hall. And all the December parties held for pauper children at this date featured gift-laden Christmas trees as their main attraction. The spruce fir was now generally accepted as the festive tree par excellence, but the branches of these firs were no longer cut into artificial tiers or layers as in Germany, but were allowed to remain intact, with candles and ornaments arranged randomly over them, as at the present day.

Whatever their type or mode of decoration, Christmas trees have always delighted both children and adults alike. But perhaps no tree ever gave greater pleasure than that first magnificent Yuletide tree set up so thoughtfully by Queen Charlotte for the enjoyment of the infants of Windsor.

https://www.historytoday.com/archive/history-matters/first-christmas-tree

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ljones41 · 7 years ago

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"FLASH FOR FREEDOM!" (1971) Book Review

Below is my review of George MacDonald Fraser's 1971 novel, "FLASH FOR FREEDOM", which featured the character of British Army officer Harry Flashman:

”FLASH FOR FREEDOM!” (1971) Book Review I believe there are at least six novels from George MacDonald Fraser’s series about the adult adventures of Harry Flashman, the cowardly bully from ”Tom Brown’s School Days”, that I consider among the best that the author has written. One of these six novels happens to be ”FLASH FOR FREEDOM!”. Published in 1971, the novel featured Harry Flashman’s experiences with the Atlantic trade of African slaves and the American slave system in the antebellum South. The novel took that great English symbol of cowardice, lechery and bigotry from the coast of Dahomey in West Africa, to the Caribbean, Washington D.C., New Orleans, the Mississippi River Valley, the Ohio River Valley and finally back to New Orleans. ------------------- ”FLASH FOR FREEDOM!” began with Flashman’s arrival from the European continent, where a series of revolutions had appeared during the early spring of 1848 (see ”ROYAL FLASH”). Fearful of a class uprising that seemed to be brewing within a British radical group called the Chartists, Flashy’s father-in-law, John Morrison, arranged for Flashman to meet political figures like Benjamin Disraeli and Lord George Bentinck at a country house party in order to seek help in jumpstarting his own political career. But an encounter with an old nemesis from ”FLASHMAN” (1969) framed Flashman with card cheating . . . and the surprisingly innocent Flashy assaulted him. Morrison has Flashman shipped out of the country to ride out the scandal . . . on a slave ship bound for the western coast of Africa. I had not been kidding when I claimed that ”FLASH FOR FREEDOM” was one of Fraser’s best novels. His passages featuring Flashman’s experiences aboard the Balliol College are masterful. Not only did the author give a detailed description of life aboard a 19th century slave ship, he provided readers with probably his best fictional creation - master of the S.S. Balliol College, Captain John Charity Spring. Not long after Flashman becomes a member of the Balliol College's crew, he realize that his father-in-law has put him under the thumb of a Latin-quoting psychotic. In one sequence, Spring discoveres that another crewman, a mentally challenged young man named Looney, has pissed on the food prepared for the slaves. Needless to say, Spring's enraged whipping of poor Looney would turn out to be an event that Flashman would later attempt to exploit for his own means. Upon the Balliol College's arrival upon the coast of West Africa, Fraser gave readers a bird’s eye view of how African slaves were purchased from African rulers like King Ghezo of Dahomey and European traders along the West Africa coastline. Fraser also provided readers with a peek into the kingdom of Dahomey (which eventually became Benin), its ruler and the latter’s famous female warriors - Dahomey Amazons - some of whom the Balliol College’s psychotic captain longed own for scholarly reasons. When King Ghezo hands over six of his “Amazon” warriors to Captain Spring, the remaining women, resentful of the exchange, attack the Balliol College’s landing party during its trek back to the ship. One of the women (who had taken a slight fancy to Flashy) wounds one of the crewmen, an Englishman named Beauchamp Comber. Just before his death aboard the Balliol College, Comber confess to Flashman that he was a Royal Navy agent charged with gathering evidence against Captain Spring and the other owners of the ship. One of the ship’s investors turned out to be Flashman’s pernicious father-in-law. The Balliol College eventually reach the Honduras coast, where the crew deliver the new slaves and pick up a half-dozen mulatto slave prostitutes to be delivered in New Orleans. But a U.S. Navy sloop under the command of the young and ambitious Captain Fairbrother spots the Balliol College and a brief sea battle ensues in which the slave ship is damaged and Springs is shot by a mentally challenged mate named Looney, at Flashman’s instigation. To avoid facing arrest for illegal slave trading, Flashy assumes the late Lieutenant Comber’s identity. Once more, Fraser used his journalistic skills to good use in his description of what is known by historians as theMiddle Passage. He went into great detail about how slavers dealt with captured slaves being held below deck. Fraser also described the practice of some sailors to mate with female slaves in order to impregnate them. This sexual practice was used to ensure a higher value among these female slave and any racially mixed children they might produce. Flashman is assigned to have sex with a Dahomey female slave he has named Lady Caroline Lamb. Another interesting aspect about this passage in the novel was how Fraser revealed the racism and herd mentality of white Westerners like Flashman, Captain Spring and the Balliol College’s first mate, Mr. Sullivan. Following Comber’s death, Spring refused to immediately bury the Royal Navy officer at sea, after one of the slaves had died on the same day and was tossed into the sea. Apparently, the slave captain found the idea of a white man and a black man being “buried” in the same area within hours of each other racially repellent. In another scene, Mr. Sullivan seems to have a ready answer for Flashman’s ponderings about the slaves’ “docile” behavior. He believed that the captured Africans were basically brainless brutes who had simply surrendered to the idea of becoming slaves without any resistance. And Flashman simply accepted his excuse. I found it interesting that both Flashman and Sullivan used race as an excuse to the newly captured slaves’ ”docile” behavior. Neither man had bothered to consider the possibility that a series of traumatic experiences – being captured as prisoners of war, enduring a trek from the interior to the coast; and being tossed into a barracoon or holding place, before being loaded aboard the Balliol College - may have contributed to their mental state. Instead, the two white men indulged in some kind of herd mentality and dismissed the slaves’ behavior as typical of their race. ----------------- Forced to continue his disguise as Comber, Flashman becomes acquainted with various American politicians that happened to be sympathetic to the abolitionist cause. One of them turned out to be one-term Congressman Abraham Lincoln. I must admit that I enjoyed Fraser’s portrayal of the future president as a shrewd, manipulative and humorous man. Lincoln not only spotted Flashman as a rogue, but suggested that he might also be one. The novel also featured a dinner conversation in which Lincoln expressed his exasperation with the abolitionist movement and especially the presence of blacks in the United States. If ”FLASH FOR FREEDOM” had been published for the first time in the past twenty years, Lincoln’s opinion of blacks would not have seem surprising. But in 1971 (when the novel was first published), his opinion probably did. Ironically, many 19th century abolitionists – black and white – had harbored ambiguous or even contemptuous feelings toward Lincoln’s moderate views. Congressman Lincoln manages to blackmail Flashman into traveling to New Orleans in order to testify against Captain Spring. It seemed the sea captain had survived Looney’s attack. Having no desire to be exposed as a charlatan, Flashman manages to escape from his U.S. Navy escort in New Orleans and seek refuge at a brothel owned by an English Cockney madam named Susie Wilnick. Fraser must have visited New Orleans, while researching for this novel . . . and fallen in love. Not only did he describe the Crescent City circa 1848 in great detail, but also allowed Flashman to fall in love with the city. This segment also introduced the character of Susie Wilnick, the red-haired madam who will end up having a major impact upon Flashy’s life in the novel, ”FLASHMAN AND THE REDSKINS”. Before Flashman can board a ship bound for Europe, local agents of the Underground Railroad, an organization that aids escaped slaves, snatches him. They deliver him to their leader, a Mr. Crixus. He “recruits” Flashman into escorting a wanted escaped slave named George Randolph to Canada, via a steamboat journey up the Mississippi River. Flashman’s meeting with Mr. Crixus of the Underground Railroad is where Fraser committed a major mistake. The mistake centered around Crixus’ description of the Underground Railroad as an organization that sent agents into the Southern states to help slaves escape to the North and Canada. And according to Mr. Crixus, many or most of these agents happened to be white. This might be one of those rare times in which Fraser’s research may have failed him. The Underground Railroad was not as organized as the author had indicated. It simply consisted of anti-slavery sympathizers who assisted any runaway slave that managed to reach their homes in either the Slave or Free States - regardless of race, gender and region of origin. Granted, there were a few like the wanted fugitive Harriet Tubman and the white Virginian John Fairfield who made excursions into the South to free slaves. But their numbers were few and usually operated in the Upper South. Either Fraser had known this and made the Underground Railroad more organized for the sake of the story, or he simply embraced the myth of it being highly organized and mainly operated by white abolitionists. --------------------- This segment also introduced the character of George Randolph, an infamous runaway slave whom Flashman was recruited to escort up the Mississippi River Valley. Randolph’s self-righteousness and conceit proved to be a thorn in Flashy’s side. Yet, his presence in the story allowed Fraser to sharpen his writing skills and describe the society that existed in the Lower Mississippi River Valley in the late 1840s with his usual penchant for detail. Flashman’s journey up the Mississippi River not only revealed steamboat travel in the antebellum South, but also the colorful characters that populated that particular region - including slave traders and planters that acquired new money from the slave trade and the cotton plantations. Fraser also contrasted these slave and cotton magnates to the more haughty and refined planters from older regions of the South like Virginia, Kentucky and the Carolinas: ”All very fine, in a vulgar way, and the passengers matched it; you may have heard a great deal about Southern charm and grace, and there’s something in it where Virginia and Kentucky are concerned – Robert Lee, for instance, was as genteel an old prig as you’d meet on Pall Mall – but it don’t hold for the Mississipi Valley. There they were rotten with cotton money in those days, with gold watch-chains and walking-sticks, loud raucious laughter, and manners that would have disgraced a sty.” The dialogue spoken by these Mississippi Valley citizens seem a lot more cruder than what one would have heard coming from Robert E. Lee’s mouth. Which makes me wonder if Fraser had read Kyle Onscott’s 1957 novel about slavery, ”MANDINGO”: ”Don’ you give me none o’your shines, ye black rascal! Beds, by thunder! You’ll lay right down where you’re told, or by cracky you’ll be knocked down! Who’re you, that you gotta have straw to keep your tender carcase offen the floor? ‘Tother hands is layin’ on it, ain’t they? Now, you git right down there, d’ye hear?” ---------------------- George Randolph’s refusal to play the docile slave ends up endangering his life and Flashman’s chances to leave the South. The runaway slave’s behavior ends up attracting the attention of a slave trader named Peter Omohondro (my God, what a name!). Flashman makes his escape over the rails and into the Mississippi River. He eventually swims toward the state of Mississippi and ends up at a cotton plantation called Greystokes, where he is hired as an overseer. There, Flashman’s use of slave women as concubines attracts the attention of Greystokes’ mistress, Annette Mandeville. I must say that was a little disappointed that Fraser never bothered to delve into any detail about life on a Mississippi cotton plantation. Instead, he focused upon Flashman’s misery at being stuck in the U.S. and far from home. He also touched upon the English officer’s frustration at his dalliances with women he viewed beneath contempt – namely Greystokes’ female slave population. This segment also dealt with Flashman’s observations of the Mandevilles’ pathetic marriage. Mr. Mandeville, who was a noveau riche cotton planter, had married the daughter of a Creole aristocrat. Mandeville had married for love and his wife, for money. And yet, it is the haughty Annette who regards her husband with contempt. And Flashman ends up sharing her feelings whenever Mandeville brags about Annette’s non-existent sexual desire for him. -------------------- Not surprisingly, Flash realizes that the haughty Mrs. Mandeville has a yen for him and the two embark upon a sexual affair for a few months. The affair becomes easy to conduct, due to Mr. Mandeville’s frequent business trips. Flashman tries to incite expressions of emotion or passion from his mistress, but she seems to regard him as nothing more than her own personal bed warmer. The affair eventually ends when Mandeville returns home earlier than expected: ”We had just finished a bout; Annette was lying face down on the bed, silent and sullen as usual, and I was trying to win some warmth out of her with my gay chat, and also by biting her on the buttocks. Suddenly, she stiffened under me, and in the same instant feet were striding up the corridor towards the room, Mandeville’s voice was shouting: “Annie! Hullo, Annie honey, I’m home! I’ve brought –“ and then the door was flung open and there he stood, the big grin on his red face changing to a stare of horror. My mouth was open as I gazed across her rump, terror-stricken.” I must admit that I found the above passage a little evocative. How often does Fraser allow Flashman to be caught in such a compromising position, while nipping his bed partner’s ass? On the other hand, I found Harry’s attempts to provoke some kind of passionate response from Annette Mandeville rather irritating – and a little out of character. It was quite obvious that she saw him as nothing more than a mere stud. And she was not the first female character to use him in such a manner. So, why was it important to Flashman for Annette to express some kind of affection toward him? Ego? These scenes between Flashman and Mrs. Mandeville seemed a bit off to me, considering the Englishman’s womanizing nature and lack of love toward the plantation mistress. --------------------- Upon discovering his wife in bed with Flashman, Mandeville goes ballistic and threatens the former’s life. However, one of the planter’s slave trading friends offer to sell Harry as a mixed-blood slave to his cousin, an Alabama cotton planter with a plantation near the Tombigee River. Harry finds himself tossed into a slave cart bound for Alabama. Also in the cart is a beautiful light-skinned slave named Casseopeia “Cassy”. Mandeville’s discovery of Flashman and Annette’s affair was a well-written segment that featured one of the Englishman’s most terrifying moments in the novel. I found it terrifying not because of the possibility of Flashman facing death, as he had done fleeing the Dahomey Amazons, facing gunfire from the U.S. Navy or fleeing from Peter Omohundro’s suspicions. What made this sequence terrifying was that Mandeville’s friends, Luke Johnson and Tom Little, were sending him into the constant hell of black slavery.

------------------ During their first hours together inside the slave cart, Cassy tries to comfort Flashman. But when she realizes that he is a white man being punished by Mandeville, Cassy’s own hostility towards whites – generated from years of enslavement - kicks in: ”’Well, now one of you knows what it feels like.’ She went back to her corner. ‘Now you know what a filthy race you belong to.’” Cassy ignores him for several more hours, while Flashman tries to convince Johnson and Little to release him. Eventually, she overcomes her disgust toward Flashman’s race and conspires to free them both from the slave cart. She attracts the two slave traders’ attention by faking sex with Flashy (must have been a great temptation for the poor devil), before killing the pair. Cassy and Flashman dump the bodies and head for Memphis. The above sequence brought back memories of Flashman’s conversation with the Balliol College’s first mate about the Africans’ disposition to be docile about becoming slaves. Yet, in a near ironic twist, the very same thing nearly happened to Flashman inside the slave cart. Especially after Luke Johnson and Tom Johnson refused to heed his pleas to release him. Just before Cassy could laid out her plans for escape, Flashman seemed on the verge of surrendering to years of slavery for himself. And I found it interesting that Cassy turned out to be the one instrumental to their escape. Then again, I should not have been surprised, considering the Englishman’s cowardly and obsequious nature. ---------------------- The pair arrives in Memphis, Tennessee; where Flashman puts Cassy on the market to be sold. Again, Fraser’s journalistic eye comes to the fore. Flashman’s description of the Tennessee metropolis seemed to center around two words – rain and mud. But his account of a slave auction struck me as another example of Fraser’s ability to send his readers back into the past: If you’ve never seen a slave auction, I can tell you it’s no different from an ordinary cattle sale. The market was a great low shed, with sawdust on the floor, a block at one end for the slaves and auctioneer, and the rest of the space taken up with the buyers and spectators – wealthy traders on seats at the front, very much at ease, casual buyers behind, and more than half the whole crew just spectators, loafers, bumarees and sightseers, spitting and gossiping and haw-hawing. The place was noisy and stank like the deuce, with clouds of baccy smoke and esprit de corps hanging under the beams.” Very colorful indeed. Yet, there was something about the slave auction segment that disturbed me. Through Flashman’s eyes, Fraser focused on the entertaining and colorful auctioneer, the auction’s location and the male attendants’ reaction to Cassy’s attempts to raise her price (via a strip tease, apparently). Not once did Fraser give the readers a glimpse – however brief – into the other slaves’ reactions to being sold like stock on parade. Granted, Flashman is not the type who would care about their feelings. But being an observant man, surely he would have noticed the reaction of those slaves who were sold before Cassy? Like I had said, I had found this particular aspect of the sequence slightly disappointing. ---------------------- In the end, someone buys Cassy for $3,400 dollars. After Flashman purchases steamboat tickets and clothes for them both, Cassy escapes from the Memphis slave pen and board a northbound steamboat with Flashman. During the trip up the Mississippi River, Flashman and Cassy become lovers. And the Englishman discovers that his companion has great ambitions and an exceedingly strong will. He also discovers that her trust of him is not as strong as he had assumed. Unfortunately, the pair discovers that Flashman had purchased tickets for a steamboat bound for St. Louis, Missouri, instead of their intended location, Louisville, Kentucky near the Ohio River. In St. Louis, Flashman discovers that he is wanted for slave stealing and the murders of Luke Johnson and Tom Little. Flashman and Cassy board another steamboat to take them from St. Louis on the Mississippi Rover to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania at the end of the Ohio River. However, the Ohio River freezes near Owensboro, Kentucky and the pair is forced to leave the safety of the steamboat. At a Kentucky tavern near the river, Flashman and Cassy have an unpleasant encounter with a slave catcher named Buck Robinson. Flashy ditches Cassy and flees across the frozen Ohio with the escaped slave, along with Robinson and his friends close at his heels. Cassy proves to be more dependable when she saves Flashman after he had been shot in the ass in this well written passage: ”It was so bitter that I screamed, and she turned back and came slithering on all fours to the edge. I grabbed her hand, and somehow I managed to scramble out. The yelping of the dogs was sounding closer, a gun banged, a frightful pain tore through my buttock, and I pitched forward on to the ice. Cassy screamed, a man’s voice sounded in a distant roar of triumph, and I felt blood coursing warm down my leg. ‘My God, are you hurt?” she cried, and for some idiot reason I had a vision of a tombstone bearing the legend: “Here lies Harry Flashman, late 11th Hussars, shot in the arse while crossing the Ohio River”. The pain was sickening, but I managed to lurch to my feet, clutching my backside, and Cassy seized my hand, dragging me on.” I strongly suspect that Fraser may have been inspired by Harriet Beecher Stowe’s famous 1851 novel, ”UNCLE TOM’S CABIN”; when writing Flashman and Cassy’s flight across the Ohio River. The pair eventually seek refuge at an abolitionist’s home in Portsmouth, Ohio. There, Flashman is reunited with Abraham Lincoln. Buck Robinson catches up with them and Lincoln defends Flashy and Cassy in a scene that has become legendary with fans of the FLASHMAN novels: ”Buck was mouthing at him, red-faced and furious, but Lincoln went on in the same hard voice. ‘So am I, Buck. And more – for the benefit of any shirt-tail chawbacon with a big mouth, I’m a who’s-yar boy from Indiana myself, and I’ve put down better men than you just by spitting teeth at them. If you doubt it, come ahead! You want these people – you’re going to take them?’ He gestured toward Cassy. ‘All right, Buck – you try it. Just – try it.’ The rest of the world decided that Abraham Lincoln was a great orator after his speech at Gettysburg. I realized it much earlier, when I heard him laying it over that gun-carrying bearded ruffian who was breathing brimstone at him.” In the above passage, Fraser continued to tear down the prevailing view of Lincoln as some modest, gentle giant who found himself caught up in national politics. Fraser’s portrayal of Lincoln revealed a tough and intimidating man to the rough-neck Buck Robinson. And not only did he reveal that George Randolph made it to freedom, Lincoln also managed to blackmail Flashman into returning to New Orleans for John Charity Spring’s slave smuggling trial. Before Flashman could leave Ohio, a Canada-bound Cassy says good-bye to him in one of the funniest scenes in the novel: ”’There,’ says Mrs. Payne. ‘I think you may kiss your deliverer’s hand, child.’ I wouldn’t have been surprised if Cassy had burst out laughing, or in a fit of raage, but she did something that horrified Mrs. Payne more than either could have done. She bent down and gave me a long, fierce kiss on the mouth, while her chaperone squawked and squeaked, and eventually bustled her away. ‘Such liberties!’ cries she. ‘These simple creatures! My child, this will never-‘ ‘Good-bye,’ says Cassy, and that was the last I ever saw of her – or of the two thousand dollars we had had between us.” As noted the recent passage, Flashman discovers that Cassy had quietly taken the remaining money she had earned in Memphis. No wonder she remains one of my favorite female characters in the FLASHMAN novels. --------------------- After a U.S. marshal escorts our hero back to New Orleans (thanks to Lincoln), Flashman appears in court to testify against Spring for smuggling slaves into the U.S. Due to the testimonies of two of Spring’s “cargo”, Flashman realizes that the insane captain had been conveying American-born slaves to New Orleans, when the U.S. sloop had captured the Balliol College. Which meant that Spring had not broken the law by conveying American slaves. This also meant that Flashman had the means to avoid testifying against Spring and avoid being exposed as a fraud. I must admit that this latest sequence featured one of the funniest moments in the novel. I especially enjoyed the testimonies of two female slaves named Drusilla and Messalina. The novel ends with the charges against Captain Spring are dismissed and Flashman asking for passage back to Europe aboard the Balliol College. From the psychotic Spring, Flashy learns that his father-in-law had passed away; leaving his beloved wife Elspeth a rich woman. Unfortunately for Flashman, another year or two will pass before his return to England . . . as depicted in ”FLASHMAN AND THE REDSKINS”. --------------------- As I had stated at the beginning of this article, I consider ”FLASH FOR FREEDOM” to be one of the best from the FLASHMAN series. Through Flashman’s jaundiced eyes, Fraser revealed a richly detailed account of the African slave trade during the mid 19th century. In fact, Fraser’s account of the trade is one of the most detailed I have ever read in any fictional story – from the Balliol College crew’s preparation of the slave deck, to the crew’s expedition to Dahomey and King Gezo’s court; from the Middle Passage across the Atlantic Ocean to the slave marts of Honduras and Cuba; and finally the Balliol College’s encounter with a U.S. Navy frigate in the Gulf of Mexico. I have to admit that Fraser’s writing was supreme in the novel’s first half. Once Flashman reached the United States, the story became unevenly paced. From the moment Captain Fairbrother sent Flashman to Washington D.C. to the moment when the Englishman boarded the Sultana Queen with George Randolph and black Underground Railroad agents posing as slaves, the story raced at a fast pace. Perhaps too fast for my tastes. The story managed to slow down to a leisurely pace in order to describe Flashman’s trip up the Mississippi River aboard the Sultana Queen. But upon his arrival at Greystokes, the Mandevilles’ plantation; the story’s pace quickened again. And for the second time, it slowed down when Mandeville caught Flashman in bed with the missus. This meant that Fraser never bothered to give readers a detailed account of life on a Mississippi cotton plantation. Instead, he focused upon Flashman’s affair with Annette Mandeville. I also found myself surprised by Fraser’s description of the Underground Railroad. For a writer who usually went through a great deal to incorporate historical accuracy into his novels as much as possible, he certainly failed to do so in regard to the abolitionist organization. The Underground Railroad had never been as organized as Fraser described it in the novel. Most of the agents lived above the Mason-Dixon line. And they simply assisted those slaves that managed to reach the Free States with food, clothing and temporary shelter. The Underground Railroad was never dominated by white agents that escorted runaways out of the South. Granted, personalities like Harriet Tubman, John Fairfield and John Brown may have engaged in such activities, but they were rare in numbers and usually operated in the Border or Upper South. Regardless of whether they were successful or not, the runaway slaves bore most or all of the responsibilities for their bids for freedom. And I never understood how Captain Spring managed to avoid being convicted of slave smuggling in the end. Granted, the slaves he had picked up in Honduras and Cuba were all American-born . . . save for one. There was also the Dahomey slave, Lady Caroline Lamb. Captain Fairbrother of the U.S. Navy had certainly met her. I never understood how the Federal judge managed to overlook her presence aboard the Balliol College. Flashman claimed that she had not been shackled. And because of this particular testimony, she was not deemed a non-American slave aboard Spring’s ship. Frankly, I found this a bit too thin . . . but what can one say? One last problem I had with ”FLASH FOR FREEDOM” centered around Fraser’s portrayals of non-white characters. Mind you, he had provided strong portrayals of West African characters in the novel’s first half. However, King Gezo was a historical figure, Lady Caroline Lamb was a passive bed mate for Flashy, and not one of the Dahomey Amazons had a name – not even the leader who had taken a fancy to Flashman. With the exception of two, the African-Americans featured in the novel’s second half ended up being mere background characters. Even worse, the only two major slave characters of African descent were light-skinned. George Randolph was one-quarter black and Cassy was one-eighth black. Both were light enough to pass for white, bar a few physical characteristics that hinted their African ancestry. And once again, I stumbled across another disappointment. Granted, Fraser probably needed Cassy light enough to pass for white during her and Flashman’s flight up the Mississippi River. But why Fraser thought it was necessary to portray Randolph as light-skinned? What exactly was the author trying to hint? That only light-skinned African-Americans were intelligent enough to be interesting characters? But despite my misgivings about ”FLASH FOR FREEDOM”, I still consider it to be one of Fraser’s better works. First of all, I thought it took a great deal of guts on his part to write a serio-comic story that featured African slavery or race in the 19th century American South as its main theme. The only other works of art that I can recall that dared to even touch upon the subject using comedy seemed to be an episode of ”BEWITCHED” called (5.02) "Samantha Goes South For A Spell" in which Samantha Stevens ends up trapped in 1868 New Orleans; the 1971 movie ”SKIN GAME”; its 1974 remake,”SIDEKICKS” and Quentin Tarantino’s 2012 movie, “DJANGO UNCHAINED”. And despite the novel’s grim subject matter, Fraser provided some very funny moments: *Flashman’s attempt to seduce Fanny Locke (soon to be Duberly) at the political house party at Cleeve House *A cabin boy’s offer to sexually service Flashman *One of the Dahomey Amazons’ interest in Flashman *Abraham Lincoln sniffs out Flashman as a scoundrel *Cassy’s passionate farewell to Flashman *Captain Spring’s trial in New Orleans *Flashman’s reaction to John Morrison’s death But there are two humorous scenes that truly stood out for me. One involved Flashman’s description of Captain Spring and his wife: ”At any rate, he lost no opportunity of airing his Latinity to Comber and me, usually at tea in his cabin, with the placid Mrs. Spring sitting by, nodding. Sullivan was right, of course; they were both mad. You had only to see them at the divine service which Spring insisted on holding on Sundays, with the whole ship’s company drawn up, and Mrs. Spring pumping away at her German accordion while we sang ‘Hark! the wild billow’, and afterwards Spring would blast up prayers to the Almighty demanding his blessing on our voyage, and guidance in the tasks which our hands should find to do, world without end, amen. I don’t know what Wilberforce would have made of that, or my old friend John Brown, but the ship’s company took it straight-faced – mind you, they knew better than to do anything else.” Another passage that I found particularly hilarious was U.S. Navy Captain Fairbrother’s reaction to finding the slave Lady Caroline Lamb inside his cabin, aboard the Balliol College: ”’Mr. Comber,’ says he, ‘there’s one of those black women in my berth!’ ‘Indeed?’ says I, looking suitably startled. ‘My G-d, Mr. Comber!’ cries he. ‘She’s in there now – and she’s stark naked!’ I pondered this; it occurred to me that Lady Caroline Lamb, following her Balliol College training, had made her way aft and got into Fairbrother’s cabin – which lay in the same place as my berth had done on the slaver. And being the kind of gently-reared fool that he was, Fairbrother was in a fine stew. He’d probably never seen a female form in his life.” ”FLASH FOR FREEDOM” had its share of virtues. But what really stood out in the novel was its collection of some of the most interesting fictional characters created by Fraser. Yes, the novel had its share of historical figures like Benjamin Disraeli, King Gezo and Abraham Lincoln. But the fictional characters proved to be the novel’s finest assets. Fraser introduced his readers to characters like the imbecilic and pathetic Looney, the Dahomey Amazon that took in interest in Flashy, the intense and enthusiastic Underground Railroad agent Mr. Crixus, the conceited and self-involved George Randolph, the ever suspicious slave trader Peter Omohundro, the pathetic Mandeville and his cold and controlling wife Annette, and the brutish slave catcher Buck Robinson. But two characters stood above the rest. They were the beautiful, yet ruthless and determined fugitive slave, Casseopeia; and the psychotic master of the Balliol College, Captain John Charity Spring. In fact, I would say they were among the best of Fraser’s creations. I might as well add that the novel was not perfect. Its description of the Underground Railroad was historically incorrect. Most of the African-American characters were poorly conceived, with the exception of two that happened to be light-skinned. And the novel’s second half seemed to be marred by uneven pacing. Fortunately, the virtues outweighed the flaws. Fraser did an excellent job of creating semi-humorous story from the grim topic of slavery. The story had its share of drama and action. It provided a detailed account of the Atlantic slave trade during the mid 19th century. And the novel also featured some of the most fascinating fictional characters in the entire FLASHMAN series. In the end, I believe it is one of the best novels written by George MacDonald Fraser.

#flashman papers #harry flashman #george macdonald fraser #flash for freedom #atlantic slave trade #american slavery #historical novel

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isayeed-blog · 4 years ago

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Death, Disbelief and Doctorates

That secular modernity has not come to South Asia has been a source of embarrassment for Western academics and our local intelligentsia, influenced by the former. This should not have come as a surprise if we consider the literature of the region in modern times, especially in its treatment of death. Death is not a problem in South Asia, as it became a problem in Western society. Consider Shakespeare’s reassuring view of death:

Men must endure

Their going hence, even as their coming hither;

Ripeness is all.

And Edmund Spenser happily urged:

Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song.

The poetry produced had a cheerful aspect, which is not to say that dark themes were not discussed. Thus, Hamlet reflects on death, and its afterwards:

To die, to sleep;

To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause

Here, we see every man and woman’s anxiety regarding the posthumous life, if any.

With the Romantics, things appear darker: Death is now a problem. “It is at these extremes of human nature which they know so well how to explore, where horror and delight, love and hate, cruelty and tenderness are indistinguishable, that the Romantics sought a heightened, transformed, superhuman existence which might abolish life as it is actually lived; nationalism is the political expression of this quest....Nationalism looks inwardly, away from and beyond the imperfect world. And this contempt of things as they are, of the world as it is, ultimately becomes a rejection of life, and a love of death (Elie Kedourie, Nationalism (London: Hutchinson & Co Ltd, 1969), p 87).”

But I would add that the loss of religious faith beginning to be felt led to a meaninglessness regarding death, and nationalism as a new secular religion would eventually command men’s allegiance as religion had done.

As Benedict Andersen observes: “...in Western Europe the eighteenth century marks not only the dawn of the age of nationalism but the dusk of religious modes of thought. The century of the Enlightenment, of rationalist secularism, brought with it its own modern darkness. With an ebbing of religious belief, the suffering which belief in part composed did not disappear. Disintegration of paradise: nothing makes fatality more arbitrary. Absurdity of salvation: nothing makes another style of continuity necessary. What then was required was a secular transformation of fatality into continuity, contingency into meaning. As we shall see, few things were (are) better suited to this end than an idea of nation (Imagined Communities, Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 2006) pp 10-11.)” The great religions provide the existential answers to immemorial questions: “Why was I born blind? Why is my best friend paralysed? Why is my daughter retarded?”

In addition, language confers a sort of vicarious immortality - the syllables survive as soul. As Andersen quotes: “Yes, it is quite accidental that I am born French; but after all, France is eternal (p 12).”

Peter Berger put his finger on it when he wrote that religion - the “sacred canopy” - protects the believer, and his or her community, from the possibility that life has neither meaning nor purpose (Grace Davie, The Sociology of Religion (New Delhi, SAGE: 2008), p 53). “What happens to us when we die?”, according to Davie (p 19), has become a pivotal social and sociological question today.

How wonderful is Death,

Death and his brother Sleep!

Thus begins Shelley’s utopian poem, Queen Mab. But he went on to be more personal than that: in Stanzas Written in Dejection near Naples, he contemplates his death as a release from despair. Like a tired child, he would lie down and weep away a life of care

Till death like sleep might steal on me,

And I might feel in the warm air

My cheek grow cold, and hear the sea

Breathe o'er my dying brain its last monotony.

The atheist, evicted from Oxford for his polemic The Necessity of Atheism, still yearned for immortality which he found in scenes of desolation:

I love all waste

And solitary places; where we taste

The pleasure of believing what we see

Is boundless, as we wish our souls to be

Byron’s perfervid regret at being alive echoes even today with lyrical pathos:

Count o’er the joys thine hours have seen,

Count o’er thy days from anguish free,

And know, whatever thou hast been,

’Tis something better not to be.

And every schoolchild knows Keats’s famous death-wish:

Darkling I listen; and, for many a time

I have been half in love with easeful Death,

Call’d him soft names in many a musèd rhyme,

To take into the air my quiet breath;

Now more than ever seems it rich to die,

To cease upon the midnight with no pain,

While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad

In such an ecstasy!

Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain—

To thy high requiem become a sod.

These dark themes fructify, if that’s the word, into “the beginning of the coming universal wish not to live”, as the advanced doctor informs Jude in the novel by Thomas Hardy, inspired, again, if that’s the word, by the dour philosophy of Schopenhauer.

Modern Bengali literature dates, somewhat inauspiciously, from the founding of Fort William College in 1800. Education was soon to be Anglicised - and occidentalised. Lord William Bentinck put an end to the employment of the vernacular. From 1830, public instruction was to be in English.

The era of Rabindranath Tagore (1890-1930) witnessed the poet’s prolific output. Translations can ill convey the lyrical beauty of his poetry. He was heavily influenced by the Romantics, not only in the form of his poetry, but also in his love of nature. However, he - and his successors - showed little preoccupation with life’s absurdity and hardly shared the former’s obsession with death. Death is not a problem in South Asia. Indeed, it seems difficult for the South Asian mind to think beyond religion. The other function of religion - to promote social bonding, as Davie observes (p 19) - seems eminently fulfilled in these parts: the group encapsulates one throughout one’s entire lifetime. A poet may die so young, as Auden put it, but here he or she will scarcely ever live for years alone. Although the Hofstede individualism index must be treated with caution, a low score for Bangladesh rather adequately describes the “embeddedness” of the individual in society. “Bangladesh, with a score of 20 is considered a collectivistic society. This is manifest in a close long-term commitment to the member ‘group’, be that a family, extended family, or extended relationships. Loyalty in a collectivist culture is paramount, and over-rides most other societal rules and regulations. The society fosters strong relationships where everyone takes responsibility for fellow members of their group.”

The expectation that religion will, or should disappear, is a Western expectation. And when it doesn’t, the outcome is considered illegitimate. That would not have mattered had the disappointment been restricted to Western scholars and academics. Our academics, heavily influenced, share the expectation, turning the universities into citadels of alienation (as Hugh Tinker observed with regard to communism). The international “faculty club” observed by Peter Berger, the globalisation of academia, shares a subculture of animosity towards religion, just as it shared animosity towards capitalism at one time during the Cold War. Scholars bring back more than PhDs from the London School of Economics.

“If Europe is not the global prototype,” intones Grace Davie in defence of her book, “both Europe and European scholars have everything to learn from cases other than their own. Not least among such lessons is the importance of taking the religious factor seriously, and in public as well as private life. Taking religion seriously, moreover, is greatly facilitated by the assumption that you expect it to be there, as an integral, normal part of modern as well as modernising societies. That is the assumption embedded in the argument of this book (p 109).”

The 2001 British Census threw up a surprise. Those with “no religion” did not happen to be clustered in the large conurbations of the industrial North of Britain, but in “a markedly different group of cities in the South, very often those where a university and its employees form a sizeable section of the population (p 92).”

Analytic thinking predisposes people to religious scepticism, argues Ara Norenzayan. As an example, he picks a puzzle from Daniel Kahneman’s book Thinking, Fast and Slow.

A bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total. The bat costs $1.00 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?

The intuitive answer - 10 cents - is wrong. The correct answer is 5 cents. “Participants who were more likely to overrule the intuitive answer were also less likely to believe in God (Big Gods: How Religion Transformed Cooperation and Conflict (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013), p 182).” Slow thinking, rather than fast thinking yields greater caution in belief.

“What about entire subcultures where analytic thinking is the gold standard, inculcated every day? These subcultures are called universities. And indeed, this link between analytic thought and disbelief might explain the overrepresentation of disbelievers among the more educated classes (p 185).”

He ought to have added, “In WEIRD societies.” [= White, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, Democratic] For this doesn’t appear to happen here. For evidence that socialisation rather than analytic thinking makes us cautious in belief-claims, look no further than the hatriots churned out of universities in Bangladesh. These people are in a cultural fix: with their Western drinking-buddies, they must don an analytic hat; with their local confreres, they must doff the cap. For our university graduates have more in common with high school dropouts in Paris than with the Sorbonne graduates: they are as nationalist as the National Rally voters and not at all likely, in private, to receive with approbation Emmanuel Macron’s elitist barb: the leprosy of nationalism.

He echoes and amplifies the words of Norman Davies regarding Europe before the Great War: “The educated, multilingual cosmopolitan elite of Europe grew weaker, the half-educated national masses, who thought of themselves only as Frenchmen, Germans, English or Russians, grew stronger.”

Collective life will always trump individual rationality in Bangladesh, and, indeed, South Asia.

#rationalisty #religion #secularisation #south asia #bangladesh #nationalism

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defensivelee · 7 months ago

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ok ok here's my detailed nsfw headcanons (or ig....canon anyway bc it's my story?? LMAO) for six lives. obvious warning for nsfw/kink but also for mentions of domestic violence and sexual abuse (of adults and minors)

-William IS asexual in the usual sense that he doesn't experience attraction, however this society doesn't... have a term for that

-ironically, he's the guy fucking the most here. he has a very unhealthy view of sex-- he thinks it's unnecessary, it's awkward, he'd prefer to avoid it altogether, but he feels that because he CAN have sex as an Overlifer... he SHOULD. something his father taught him!

-he CAN enjoy it, just for the stimulation, but even that makes him kind of ill afterwards. it's a mix of the feeling that he saw something he shouldn't have as well as his trauma from the CSA

-he likes all sorts of BDSM, it genuinely makes sex a little more fun for him bc he's actively doing smth else while fucking. he CANNOT handle just lying there and taking it, and he can't handle seeing someone else that way, either

-for example: he loves to stim with the gags Bentinck puts on him. they need to be taken off pretty quickly so he can breathe, but he lovesss drooling over it

-he does draw the line at choking tho DO NOT CHOKE HIM

-if he loves you (like he does Bentinck) then he'll wrap his long long tail around your waist while you fuck his brains out 🥺🥺

-i've mentioned this before but he's very vocal. if you get him into subspace, he'll say things or make noises you NEVER could have imagined for him...

-now Bentinck! so this guy acts normal but he's kinky as shit, same levels as William

-he can be a gentle dom but he has a mild preference for subbing. he LOVES to be ruined

-he doesn't like pain so much tho, he's more into bondage and servitude and humiliation

-he loves gangbangs, especially when shit gets MESSY. he wants to be covered in cum and piss and drool and sweat

-however sometimes it's hard to enjoy them when he knows the people fucking him aren't really attracted to him, they're attracted to the idea of fucking an Ally, like some kind of power reversal. his biggest fantasy is being 'worshipped' by a bunch of his followers, and being instead fucked by people who would like to see him dead really messes with him... it's like, they don't deserve to see that of him

-he hardly ever cums without jacking off or someone doing it for him

-he's very good with fisting (he took someone up to their shoulder once and YES THAT IS POSSIBLE AND NO DONT ASK ME HOW I KNOW THAT) and huge dildos. he owns a few crazy monster cocks and has great fun riding them

-eating ass/pussy is his favorite thing in the world (oh yeah when Keppel shows up it's gonna be over for you bitches)

-he laughs. a lotttt. it's kind of a nervous response in the aforementioned gangbangs William sets him up to do, but he also does it bc he's having fun when he's topping

-Mary time!! she's actually pretty vanilla but rlly enjoys blindfolds, and she's got a bit of a sadistic streak

-she loves making boys cheat on their partners with her it's her favorite thing (imagine getting cucked by Mary tho LMAOOO)

-she's actually not super horny all the time like her father but when she gets high, she goes fucking nuts and is something of a power bottom

-also when she gets high, she's very loud

-she'll only let girls dominate her

-that's why she's got a bit of a friends-with-benefits situation going on with Anne Villiers, they regularly fuck and Anne's great at it so Mary has High Standards for her partners

-she prefers to have sex with her assassination targets before she kills them bc she rlly hates getting blood on her clothes. to her it's the hottest shit when she's washing blood off her tits

-and yes as Anne mentioned before she has lots of dildos and sex toys too. she can have her own fun

-in particular she loves vibrators

-and now we have her father!! oh dear where do i even begin. full on sadomasochist, the extremes of both sides of the spectrum. not a kink out there he doesn't like. he'll try everything

-generally he prefers to be a dom as well as a top, there's VERY few people he's willing to sub and/or bottom for

-however even as a dom he likes to receive pain. and like i mean crazy amounts of pain, he loves being whipped until he bleeds and he's REALLY into CBT

-there's also, ofc, knives, which he gets if he genuinely attempts to kill Maria. force her to fight back and all that

-you can't even nonconsensually torture this man bc he loves it so much

-as for the pain he INFLICTS, he loves flogging, beating, slapping, choking, shocking, all that wild shit. he'll just do it unprovoked tho, like without any discussion beforehand

-he regularly ignores safewords and pushes his partners to their very limits

-obv he ADORES bondage

-his favorite aspect of bondage is gags, specifically ring gags (the ones that force your mouth open). he loves to use Marly's mouth like that

-can't forget the green stockings kink. here it's extended to him being drawn to just the color green in general, he couldn't tell you why but he LOVES to see it on people and makes his partners wear it to remind everyone that he 'owns' them

-completely opposite views from William; he believes that as an Overlifer, he's entitled to the bodies of everyone around him. and he'll take them whenever he likes

-when he forces himself upon somebody for the first time, there's a very good chance he'll kill them if they don't show him respect for it. he seems to calm down a little after you get used to it, but it's terrifying for anyone involved. ofc, part of what's so thrilling to him is the fear

-he loves humiliating Marly and Maria. sometimes both at the same time

-sometimes when fucking Marly he'll mock the latter for his moans, like he'll hear Marly let out a gasp and then he'll copy it just to echo how pathetic he sounds

-mean rough fucker, won't let you cum without begging. and he's VERY good at making people beg

-there's no love for his subs after he's done with them. despite the fact that they might have reacted like he wanted them to, he still finds them fucking UNBEARABLE to look at afterwards. for just a moment, he hates them for their powerlessness

-necrophilia? probably. don't ask

-and now for everyone's favorite: Marly!!! ooh he's not kinky at ALL, despite the fact that he often finds himself in some damn Situations in all his movies/shows, and has actually come to hate BDSM for what he associates with it

-he's not even that much of a hoe tbh. he just happens to work for James, who thinks Marly is a horny little bitch who eats everything up

-despite being terrified of bondage, he finds the powerlessness and vulnerability kind of DOES turn him on. even the fear itself does smth for him. he's not sure why but the idea that he likes it even a little bit makes him highly uncomfortable

-as well as James taunting and humiliating him for it? no thank you, not for him

-he hates pain especially, all the ways James slaps and bats him around during sex INFURIATE him. he wants to be treated nicely in bed yknow

-he can tolerate BDSM a little bit more if it's consensual, but ofc it never fully is bc. well it's kinks he doesn't like. but like, if James is extra affectionate that night... he thinks he'll be okay

-he's never once complained about it tho. he thinks if that's how James wants to use his body, then he deserves to, and he gets enough out of it by having James fuck him anyway and knowing that his master is rlly enjoying himself using HIS body. oh it's an honor to him

-i mean it's crazy, he REALLY loves James' cock, he loves sucking it and worshipping it and taking it

-he's very polite. calls James 'sir' and thanks him for everything, even when he's just about losing his mind in the middle of it

-also a lot of 'i love you's. he tries to be very sweet

-oh yknow the tattoos on James drive him nuts

-something he's weirdly into is how he'll put on makeup and by the end of the night it'll be SO fucked up bc of how rough James was with him

-sometimes, if the two of them are drunk enough, they'll have the closest thing to loving, consensual sex they can get to. none of the bondage or violence Marly hates, just a lot of kissing and whispers on James' part, and Marly thinks he can remember why he ever fell in love with this man in the first place

-it's just a very complicated thing for him. some nights, James' touch is all he can think about, other times he just wishes James would look away for once

-during the three-ways with James and Maria, he'll usually be their sub. mostly he just feels bad for her; she's clearly VERY uncomfortable

-he's never had sex with Sarah once. he believes it to be heresy and that he doesn't deserve her, even tho he REALLY wants to do so...

-ok here's a speed round for characters that don't fuck much in the story/haven't appeared yet but i still think about them

-Keppel's favorite thing in the world is sucking cock without a doubt. he's soft when someone's fucking him, but he'll be hard as shit while blowing someone

-he loves drinking cum

-he can switch his genitalia out anytime!

-with a pussy he's a squirter like no other and loves being eaten out

-also he's a fierce power bottom and brat. takes a lot to get him to fully sub for you but... i think William can manage it, no?

-Charles is 100% a pup. he's got the hood and everything

-he also likes to be called 'good girl' and have his asshole referred to as a 'cunt.' curious, curious

-Maria's not that much into BDSM either, but James finds her a lot more receptive when she's drunk or upset. she'll do anything for him in that state

-she's actually fully asexual too and struggles with a lot of guilt when it comes to pleasing the devil ancestors

-Anne Villiers is absolutely a full sub and bottom, she WISHES Hanni would tie her up like he does to William...

-Shrewsbury is an exhibitionist. period full stop he just loves humiliation and having people watch him and degrade him and all that. he might be a sex worker here but i gotta think about that

-Louis loves being gang fucked by a bunch of his nobles and politicians, it's a form of worship to him

-he also has a breastfeeding kink, having given birth to his own kids he likes it when his partners suck milk out of him too

#THIS TOOK TOO LONG....#and it also GOT very long ooops #ooh i think i enjoyed writing the marly stuff a little too much #if you guys have any of ur own headcanons for this.... pls send them.... im always thinking about this AU #six lives won't make you happy #suggestive

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defensivelee · 2 months ago

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on the subject of trans six lives characters I ALWAYS regret not making william trans 😭 and we're too far in to change it now. I could theoretically do it but it would be so annoying and tedious I'd just be like ragghh and also lowkey it's kind of embarrassing

I think he's a character for whom it would make sense. and he'd get to strap on some crazy monster cocks to fuck bentinck with wouldn't that be fun?

probably he would do top surgery but no hrt, like shrewsbury here :3

anyway my deepest apologies to no one in particular, missed opportunity here !! to make up for it I'm gonna need more trans ppl 😤😤😤 I'm riding the down with cis bus

#six lives won't make you happy

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defensivelee · 8 months ago

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i just really really really like the idea of keppel eating bentinck out. that's always been super fun to me. like first of all hanni is a big beautiful sweaty boy and keppel? literally just a twink. femboy, even. and that tongue works wonders in william's court so naturally it has to be good at making his enemy/lover's hole look fucking SLOPPY. ((bonus if there's fisting but that's not what this post is about))

i also think it works both ways, like if keppel's subbing then he's rimming the hell out of that man, fucken hole worship ig LMAO. maybe bentinck can sit on his face. and if keppel's domming then bentinck won't even know what hit him. he calls bentinck 'good girl' and that's the fucking K.O

and ofc keppel thinks it's so hot too. probably his favorite thing to do to bentinck. likes it more than blowing him. likes it more than riding him. he just loves messing him up back there

#i need to get better at drawing hole so i can do this #suggestive #hansijoost tag

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defensivelee · 9 months ago

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hello to all my kinky William enjoyers out thereee! god has a plan for you, and by god i mean me, and by plan i mean a WIP from the tenth hot spring part two :)

i think i will be posting more Six Lives WIPs as time goes on bc uhh chapters are very spread out in between but im always so excited to show off what im working on and i want to feed you every now and then. some things will probably change in the final draft, or perhaps the WIP won't even appear in the end at all, but for now it's what i'll be happy with posting! if you want to read spoilz free, thats fine too :) obv i won't post any shattering plot points or anything like that

this ones some very nsfw/kinky b&w that i was very proud of and also i shamelessly found it hot so i wanted to post it like rn. i do have to give warnings for mentions of CSA, mentions of incest, having sex while intoxicated, and unhealthy BDSM practices. seriously, do not do what they did here william's just very drunk. otherwise, enjoy :]!

“Yeah...nothing...nothing, nothing, nothing, it was never anything to us...not in New Amsterdam, not to the Overlifers.” He glared up at the ceiling and took Bentinck’s hand. “And not to him.” He pulled Bentinck forward suddenly, and Bentinck gasped, his face flushing as he stared into William’s eyes. He felt the legs spreading around his own, William laughing and caressing his friend’s cheek.

“William, you...” Bentinck wanted to step away, tell him to calm down. But he let his Overlifer guide his hands, so that he found himself pulling away William’s jacket, and then his tie. William sighed in relief.

“Feels so good to have it off, Hans,” he whispered, caressing Bentinck’s cheek with one black nail. “Hm? Thank you. Clothes...fucking hate it.”

“Maybe you could try wearing less,” Bentinck said with an awkward cough.

“What do you think I’m tryna do, Hans?” William laughed again. “Get it all off, baby, I can’t stand it. I can’t stand it. It’s always worse when I drink...it’s always better.”

“What?” But Bentinck, once more, did as William said, all while William clumsily undid his belt and threw it to the side. Then he brought Bentinck in for a kiss like never before.

It wasn’t exactly what the Ally had in mind, especially after today. But once he touched the divine lips he gave in, sucking on William’s tongue and stroking his horns until they were both out of breath, though that never said much for William.

“Hans,” William said in between pants, “you are going to fuck me.”

“N-No, I...” Bentinck shook his head. “We tried once. You were so scared.”

“I need that damned fox and I need you,” William growled a little too quickly. “Is this not what you fuckin’ wanted? I want it. I’m not afraid ‘n I never was.”

“William, I’m not going to do this if you don’t really want it,” Bentinck said firmly. “You don’t have to do this for anyone but yourself. It wouldn’t be good for you.”

“I just said I wanted it!” William yelled, snapping his jaws near Bentinck’s face as if he had inherited his father’s sharp teeth. Bentinck jumped back, and William chuckled as he sat up.

“Look, Hans, I got over sucking my daddy’s cock by sucking yours,” he said, grinning wickedly. “What makes you think this won’t work, too?”

“I- I really don’t think you should phrase it like that.” Bentinck let out a nervous laugh as William pulled his pants down.

“Why not? Don’t like it when I call someone else daddy?” William climbed on top of him, and Bentinck couldn’t stop staring. “Want to be the only one, is that right?”

“Please don’t call me that,” Bentinck said. He sighed, relenting at last when William began to unbutton his shirt. “So you think riding me would make it better for your first time? You’d be more in control.”

“He made me ride him, too. When I was sixteen.”

“Oh.” Bentinck looked away. He really didn’t know what to say to that. William was never this forward.

“I’ll be fine,” William said. “I’ll be okay. Don’t worry. I’ll be fine, I’ll be fine, you’ll be fine, okay?” He shut his eyes, and Bentinck wondered if he was really talking to himself instead. He was tempted to tell him to stop this, he was just drunk and he had no idea what he wanted, but then William was on him and he was so beautiful and he didn’t seem afraid anymore when Bentinck was in him.

It was everything Bentinck thought it might have been. He could tell it hurt William at first, but he seemed to like it even then. He took hold of Bentinck’s wrists and bowed his head, his breaths short and matching his movements. Bentinck gripped his waist to help him out, letting out his own huffs through his clenched teeth. There was never, ever going to be anything that would feel better than this.

“Hans,” William gasped, “hit me.”

“W-Where?”

“Anywhere. Leave a mark.”

“Should we- should we not talk about this first?”

“Fucking hit me, Ally.”

So Bentinck slapped his thigh hard, and William tossed his head back with a vicious roar in his moans. “Oh, Ferocity! Harder, harder, Hans!”

“Again?” Bentinck had to admit, he was pleased with the result of that.

“On my face...please.”

Bentinck slapped his face, tugged William around by his horns and tail, shoved his head back by a grip on his hair, all things William asked for and met with a howl Bentinck would have found hilarious if it really wasn’t so hot. When William lay back on the bed and ordered him to continue that way, he didn’t hesitate— he pinned his master’s arms beside his head and fucked him as an Overlifer was meant to be serviced. William arched his back, crying out and hissing like an animal.

“You’re so fucking hot, William, I hope you know that,” Bentinck leaned in to say.

“And you’re...you’re so big, oh, shit...” William was wheezing dangerously, but neither of them were done yet, and Bentinck only stopped if William told him to. “Blindfold me.”

Bentinck looked around, briefly stopping to reach out for his own tie he’d been wearing what felt like hours ago and tying it tightly around William’s head. That was when William turned around and ordered Bentinck to continue that way, and Bentinck gladly did so, holding William’s tail up just to look at himself inside of the Overlifer.

“Hold my arms back, don’t let me fucking move, pussy—!” William shouted, and Bentinck pinned his arms back, shoving into him as much as he could. William jolted forward with a snarl, his legs shaking. “Fuck, yes! Cum in me, Hans, I want your children!”

Bentinck burst out laughing, just as he came inside William, and then everything was meaningless from there. The only thing that mattered was William gasping, his tightness around Bentinck and his whines under his breath.

“Thank you, sir...thank you...thank you...”

Bentinck paused to catch his breath, then leaned forward to pull down the tie from William’s eyes. “You don’t have to say that to me,” he said with a smile. “I was doing it all for- for you. And I loved it.”

But William didn’t answer. His eyes were screwed shut, his breaths short, and Bentinck rubbed at his back. “William? Do you need your inhaler?”

William opened his eyes and nodded. “It’s...just you.”

“Yes.”

“Oh, thank the- thank the dwaallichten.” He took Bentinck’s hand and didn’t let go for the rest of the night.

#b&w tag #chains and wips #six lives won't make you happy #heed all warnings !!

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