#the ladies of llangollen

[sharry-arry-odd]

Her attraction to heights accompanied her fear that she might be tempted to leap. Each time, she went grimly aloft to experience the possibility of a fall.

The Ladies, by Doris Grumbach

[makingqueerhistory]

Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby, the Ladies of Llangollen, were two Irish women who fell in love. Renowned international oddities, these women lived together and slept in the same bed. Together with their maid and their succession of dogs named Sappho, the two collected gothic art and lived happily ever after.

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[burningvelvet]

me and who

[chocolatepot]

I realized that the best example to make my point is the Ladies of Llangollen, Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby.

The Ladies were a pair of female friends who ran away together in 1778, dressed in men's clothes; they were caught and separated, but made another escape attempt that was more successful, and their families reluctantly allowed them to go their own way. Minor celebrities, their neighbors just knew them as a pair of eccentric ladies who kept house together while people in the know came from far away to visit them.

They habitually wore masculine-styled riding habits. They were buried in the same grave (along with the servant who helped them elope, Mary Caryll). Butler left a diary that said nothing about them having sex. Some in the period suggested they were lesbians and they reportedly were shocked. This was an era where men and women had same-sex "romantic friendships" that were more effusive than what we'd consider platonic today. Anne Lister, Definite Lesbian*, visited them.

All of these data points can be interpreted in two ways, one implying they're queer and one taking it for granted that they weren't.

Riding habits: They're the closest women could get to men's or gender-neutral clothing in the Georgian era / They're practical and hard-wearing

Same grave: They were in love and wanted to be buried like spouses / They were best friends and didn't want to be separated

Diary: Butler didn't want to provide proof of what would have been considered wrongdoing to anyone who found her notes / Butler just didn't have any romance or sex to record

Shocked: They worried about exposure and had to pretend to be horrified at the thought / They genuinely were not behaving as anything except platonic friends and were genuinely shocked

Effusive: Many romantic friendships were in fact what we'd call queer today, acceptable to the world as non-sexual homoromantic relationships / Romantic friendships were between straight friends, like it says on the tin

Anne Lister: Lister recognized a kinship with these women and wanted to be part of their network or validate her sexuality through their acceptance or something / Lister was imposing her own take on their relationship or just admired them as independent women

Neither option is more objectively true. The first interpretations are simply using a different lens than the second, one that presumes that the Ladies being queer is a possibility.

Our culture generally teaches us that straight is the default, that everyone is far and away more likely to be straight than anything else, so it's not only safe, but the most sensible thing to do to choose an interpretive lens that doesn't bother engaging with the possibility of queerness. With this assumption in place, any reading of historical evidence (visual or textual) that doesn't exhaust all possible straight readings before moving on to a queer one is suspect as not having scholarly rigor. (It's also, of course, seen as much worse to consider someone queer if they would call themselves straight than to do the reverse, in general.)

People on the street do this and historians who don't have any background with queer theory do it too. That doesn't make it the only correct way to talk about the potential queerness of historical figures, and in fact more historians are developing the ability to balance potential queer readings with others!

Complete rigidity about this these days is, in fact, generally a sign that someone has very little interaction with real, contemporary historical scholarship. The study of history is not an attempt to determine all the facts of the past, but an attempt to interpret them in many different ways in order to illuminate what might otherwise be ignored.

If you want to read more about the Ladies of Llangollen, how they've been perceived, and how good historians deal with the ambiguity of queer readings of history, I would recommend ���Extraordinary Female Affection”: The Ladies of Llangollen and the Endurance of Queer Community by Fiona Brideoake, which appears to be open access.

*Anne Lister, I should mention, has only been considered a Definite Lesbian herself since the translation of the sexually explicit parts of her diaries from code, because We Must Always Presume Straightness even if a historical woman behaves highly unconventionally for a straight woman of her time. Actually, they were decoded in the early 20thc by a Lister descendant and literally hidden again because, if only 100% serious proof allows a queer interpretation of someone's actions, lacking that proof means that nobody will be able to seriously speculate without getting called a loser writing fanfiction.

[enthusiasteditor]

While reading a guide of Wales in anticipation of my next holiday, I discovered the beautiful story of Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby, known as the Ladies of Llangollen. These two Irish women loved each other and, in order to live their love in peace, at the end of the 1700s they ran away together and eventually stopped in Wales (precisely in Llangollen) where they went to live in a cottage and there they spent their whole lives together. I'm delving into their story, and not only because a forbidden love that finds refuge in a cottage for a peaceful life is something that reminds me too much of our beloved Aziraphale and Crowley, but also because these two women were truly courageous. I'm really happy to have met them.

William Wordswordth described their love with these words:

A love allowed to climb, even on this earth, above the reach of Time

[bonnie131313]

A History of Queer Women | Betwixt The Sheets

[naanima]

For Pride Month I would like to introduce you all to the Ladies of Llangollen, a lesbian power couple of the 18th century, Eleanor Butler (1739-1829) and Sarah Ponsonby (1755-1831). The two met in 1768, Ponsonby was a teenager and Butler was in her late twenties. They were from wealthy Irish families (aristocracy), but didn't want to be married off. Ten years after they met they ran away together with a dog. They dressed as men, but was found by their families because of their barking dog.

Their families wanted to send them to convents, but for whatever reason their families were convinced to let them go and be together as long as they left Ireland, I suppose to escape the shame they had casted upon their families for being very public lesbians. The two left Ireland for Wales, and travelled together before settling down in the town Llangollen in 1780 (Ponsonby was 25 and Butler was 41). They lived together as a couple for almost 50 years with Mary Carryl, their FEMALE servant, and a series of dogs named Sappho.

Being part of the aristocracy and very public about NOT marrying, being sisters in love as they say, the two were a bit of a curiosity amongst the rich & nobility. They were provided with a small stipend from intolerant families, donations from friends etc. They were so well known that they reached celebrity status! Papers wrote about them (they sued them!), art was made of them, and they had VERY RICH & VERY KNOWN guests.

Their guests included people such as William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, Charles Darwin, the Duke of Wellington and many more. King George III eventually provided the ladies with a royal pension based on the advice of Queen Charlotte... Bcos she wanted to visit their cottage.

ALSO, REMEMBER THEIR FEMALE SERVANT Mary Carryl (d. 1809)? Well, the woman was super loyal to them, and when she passed away she left the land she owned to Sarah! NOW, this could just be a deep friendship, bcos Sarah & Eleanor did save her from a shitty situation, BUT, our Ladies of Llangollen are buried together in the same plot with the same grave marker as MARY CARRYL. So, friendship or a nice lesbian polygamous RELATIONSHIP even in death?! I leave it to you to decide dear readers.

[whats-in-a-sentence]

This portrait of the Ladies of Llangollen goes some way to repeat the slander against them: that they were an 'odd' couple, dressed in masculine clothing and mimicked husband and wife. James Henry Lynch copied Margaret Parker's secret of drawing the faces of these inseparable friends, Eleanor Butler (c.1738-1829) and Sarah Ponsonby (c.1755-1831), without permission and added the manly jackets, men's top hats and their well-known garden scene, and mass-produced the image.

"Normal Women: 900 Years of Making History" - Philippa Gregory

[bitterkarella]

Midnight Pals: Ladies of Llangollen

Mary Shelley: sup fuckers Shelley: what's going on here Lord Byron: [tossing hair] ah mary what a vision you are Lord Byron: [tossing hair] percy and i were just about to visit the ladies of llangollen Shelley: why are my boyfriends sneaking around together behind my back

Mary Shelley: what the hell is this ladies of llangollen bullshit Lord Byron: [tossing hair] ah see mary it's a most curious thing Byron: [tossing hair] two women living together Byron: [tossing hair] science simply can't explain it Mary Shelley: they're lesbians byron

Byron: [tossing hair] no see it's these 2 women living together Byron: [tossing hair] and their lady servant too Byron: [tossing hair] explain that! Mary Shelley: what's so hard to understand? it's a fuckin polycule Mary Shelley: we're literally in one

Lord Byron: [tossing hair] lesbians? Byron: [tossing hair] oh ho ho only cuz they haven't met me yet! Byron: [tossing hair] isn't that right percy old man? Percy Shelley: yes dear

Byron: [tossing hair] now we're off! Mary Shelley: why're you going all the way to llangollen Mary Shelley: we got perfectly good lesbians at home Byron: [tossing hair] what? Mary Shelley: you heard me fucker

Mary Shelley: byron are you just going to llangollen to hide from your ex girlfriend Byron: [tossing hair] ha ha mary what a ridiculous notion Byron: [tossing hair] ha ha just uh Byron: [tossing hair] ridiculous

Mary Shelley: so it wouldn't bother you if caroline lamb also visited the ladies of llangollen then Byron: [tossing hair] it wouldn't bother me at all Byron: [pausing mid hair toss] why? is she there? what did you hear?

[at llangollen] Byron: [tossing hair] delightfully devilish byron, caroline lamb will never think to look for you here Caroline Lamb: [barging into llangollen] WHERE'S BYRON Lamb: I KNOW HE'S HERE Lamb: DON'T YOU LESBIANS LIE TO ME Lamb: I CAN SMELL HIS AXE BODY SPRAY

William Wordsworth: i was so inspired by those ladies of llangollen that i wrote a sonnet about them Wordsworth: "there once was a girl from nantucket..." Mary Shelley: that's not a fuckin sonnet Wordsworth: uh excuse me i think i know sonnets

[gingersnaptaff]

It's time for Who do you think is Welsh mythology Arthuriana's most sexy man, lady, God or dubious entity (Part 3 - thr five G's edition.)

First off: Gwydion - Absolute tricksy bastard. Man I legally have to hate or I will perish. Arguably the main character of the fourth branch of the Mabinogi. He proceeds to cause chaos to allow his brother, Gilfaethwy, to rape their Uncle Math's foothold Goewin. How do they do this you might ask? BY STEALING PRYDERI'S FUCKING PIGS. When Pryderi finds out about this - Gwydion had given him dogs made out of magic essentially - he's fuckin livid and declares war on Gwynedd. (As u do.) When the war doesn't work Pryderi and Gwydion have single combat on top of Y Felen Rhyd. Pryderi loses because of [Gwydion's] 'strength and valour and magic and enchantment' and dies. Later - after three years once he and Gilfaethwy are forced by Math to transform into a stag and a hind, a pig and a sow, and a wolf and his bitch (and they also have kids who Math then adopts) - he aids his nephew/possible son, Lleu Llaw Gyffes, in his escapades with Blodeuwedd.

Gwyn ap Nudd - simply the coolest man. Often gets confused with Arawn which I don't get. Brother of Edern, Creiddylad, Lludd and Llefelys. Sometimes has antlers which I mean that's not Gwyn, that's Cernunnos. Best known for featuring in Culhwch ac Olwen where u get the full rundown of his May Day fight with Gwythyr (which yes I imagine gets him fucking battered each year) after Gwyn's abducted Creiddylad. Gwythyr also does the - admittedly unwise - thing and wages war against Gwyn. In the process of this Gwyn 'captured ... Nwython and Cyledyr Wyllt, his son, and forced Cyledyr to eat his father's heart and because of that Cyledyr went mad.' Also, 'God has put the devils of Annwfn in him.' I have to stand. He's also king of the Tylwyth Teg, and once tried to trick Saint Collen. Also wears a blue and red particoloured tunic like 🤷 incredibly fashion forward. Plus he has a cloud white dog called Dormarch and his nose glows red. Djdjddjdjd

Gofannon - God of smithing. Brother of the aforementioned Gwydion and also Aranrhod, Amaethon, and Gilfaethwy. Dôn, u have way too many kids. Sndjdkd He's a bit-part character in all honesty, but he's mentioned in Culhwch ac Olwen as being needed to 'set the plough. He will not undertake work willingly save for a rightful king, nor can u force him.' He also BATTERED HIS NEPHEW, DYLAN AIL DON, TO DEATH IN A PRIME DICK MOVE. 😡😡😡 I want to gnaw his fuckin arms off.

Geraint - pls don't vote for this man. PLS. He abuses Enid and is just The Worst. I can't think of a single good thing he does. Horrid bastard. He was put on this earth to make my life hell, I'm only including him to make up the numbers. DON'T VOTE FOR HIM. I'M PUTTING HIM IN THE BIN. PUSHING HIM OFF YR WYDDFA AS WE SPEAK.

Gwenhwyfar - OG GUINEVERE. MY WIFE. I AM LEGALLY MARRIED TO HER. I HAVE A BOOK I AM (hoping) TO GET BACK INTO WRITING ABOUT HER. I THINK SHE'S THE BEST OKAY?! Her name means 'white phantom' and she's amazing. Either there are three Gwenhwyfar's or one Gwenhwyfar depending on what u read (triads or the Mab) Probably best known as Arthur's queen, she features in the three romance tales - and is mentioned by Arthur in Culhwch ac Olwen where he's like 'yeah my wife is like the seventh thing ur legally not entitled to AFTER PRYDWEN, HIS FUCKIN B O A T (Arthur, get ur fuckin priorities in ORDER. UR WIFE CAN FUCKIN HEAR U.) - she's known as being the cause of Camlann after either her sister Fach slaps her or Medrawd- who Fach is married to - pulls her from her throne and strikes her. There's a ref in a Hywel ab Owain poem about a possible question Arthur had to undertake to get her from her father Ogrfan's hall. I don't know what but like I go CRAZY thinking about it. She's a giantess, she had a cross - Croes Gwenhwyfar- in Llangollen that Edward Lhyud mentions, her son, Llacheu, dies by Gwalchmai's hand, she's honestly so so so so fun and fuck it it's my poll so like VOTE FOR MY WIFE. In my head, she looks like this:

(I can't take the credit for drawing her. @wildbasil drew her for me.)

[queerwelsh]

'Queer Welsh Women in Art' - including Ladies of Llangollen, Cranogwen, Gwen John, Nina Hamnett, Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies, Jan Morris and me!

[makingqueerhistory]

What article would you recommend to someone just getting into queer history?

It would really depend on the person and what they are looking for in terms of queer history, but how about we do a choose-your-own-adventure type answer!

Are you looking for a look at how we got to where we are today in terms of queer history?

Read: Magnus Hirschfeld or Maryam Khatoon Molkara

Are you looking to find comfort in the fact that queerness has existed throughout history?

Read: Khnumhotep and Niankhkhnum or Sir Ewan Forbes 

Are you looking to have some of your preconceived notions about queer history to be challenged?

Read: The Golden Orchid Society or Rotimi Fani-Kayode

Does queer history intimidate you because you are afraid of it being a list of tragedies?

Read: The Ladies of Llangollen or Jackie Shane

Do you want to learn about the intersection of queer and disability history?

Read: Lou Sullivan or Victoria Arellano 

Do you want queerness that resonates with lesser-known/discussed identities?

Read: Kristina King of Sweden or Zinaida Gippius 

Are you looking for more information about names you already recognize?

Read: Sappho or Langston Hughes

Are you looking to be pulled into a rabbit hole of queer history?

Read: Edward Carpenter or Xulhaz Mannan 

Are you looking for someone within your region?

Read: Making Queer History by country

Just searching for an odd little slice of queer history to wet your appetite?

Read: Elmyr de Hory or Salim Halali 

Just want to know something new?

Read: Bajazid Doda or Geoffrey Bawa

Just looking for a story to grip you emotionally?

Read: Emmeline Freda Du Faur or Zdeněk Koubek 

I hope you find something in this list that helps!

[chicago-geniza]

Okay the costume ball is fantastic. Satirizing both the Victorian upper classes (Versailles and rococo revival were all the rage; Nan counts three Marie Antoinettes) and lesbians (six Sapphos with lyres, several Ladies of Llangollen--"I'd never even heard of any ladies from Llangollen" lmfao)

[burningvelvet]

Excerpt from Byron’s letters reveal the real queer love and loss that inspired his poetry by Sam Hirst, University of Nottingham

"There is a note of patronage in Byron’s emphasis on offering Edleston a partnership. This is a thread that ran through many of his relationships. A joking letter to his former tutor Henry Drury during his sexually adventurous travels in Greece promised a treatise on 'Sodomy simplified or Pederasty proven to be praiseworthy from ancient authors and modern practice.'

This ancient Greek model, of a sexual relationship with a younger, lower status man or teenage boy, which included aspects of patronage, was one of the primary models Byron had access to to describe and understand his own desires and relationships. Byron also draws comparisons with contemporary and historical figures as models, giving an insight into relationships used as a queer shorthand in the period:

"I rejoice to hear you are interested in my protégé: he has been my almost constant associate since October, 1805, when I entered Trinity College. His voice first attracted my attention, his countenance fixed it, and his manners attached me to him for ever. He departs for a mercantile house in town in October, and we shall probably not meet till the expiration of my minority, when I shall leave to his decision either entering as a partner through my interest, or residing with me altogether. Of course he would in his present frame of mind prefer the latter, but he may alter his opinion previous to that period; —however, he shall have his choice. I certainly love him more than any human being, and neither time or distance have had the least effect on my (in general) changeable disposition. In short, we shall put Lady E. Butler and Miss Ponsonby to the blush, Pyladrs and Orestes out of countenance, and want nothing but a catastrophe like Nisus and Euryalus, to give Jonathan and David the ‘go by.’ He certainly is perhaps more attached to me than even I am in return. During the whole of my residence at Cambridge we met every day, summer and winter, without passing one tiresome moment, and separated each time with increasing reluctance. I hope you will one day see us together; he is the only being I esteem, though I like many."*

With the exception of the ladies of Llangollen Eleanor Butler and Susan Ponsonby, who ran away from Ireland in 1780 and lived together till their deaths, his examples are all steeped in tragedy and death.** Nisus and Euryalus are two inseparable soldiers in Virgil’s Aeneid who died together. They are the subject of two poems in Byron’s first collection, Hours of Idleness (1807). His repeated return to their story, suggests an internal (though perhaps subconscious) map of queer masculinity which offers little hope of shared futures and emphasises tragic loss and queer love that kills."

*[I have extended the above quotation, which is from a Trinity College Cambridge, July 5th 1807 letter to his childhood friend Miss Elizabeth Pigot, discussing his lover John Edleston, who Byron met in 1805 when Byron was 17 and Edleston was 15. Edleston left the school in 1807 because he lost his singing scholarship due to changes in his voice. Byron graduated in 1808 and in 1809 went traveling abroad for two years, and when he came back in 1811 Edleston was dead of consumption. Edleston is referenced in much of Byron's poetry, sometimes referred to as Thyrza]

**Byron is listed as a visitor of the ladies of Llangollen Eleanor Butler and Susan Ponsonby on their Wikipedia page.

[sgtjamesrogers]

#for when i finally write that massive post-series tharkay/laurence temeraire fic 👀 very excited to read that when you write it

ahehehe i'm honestly really excited to write it too, i'm doing some forcible self-denial from allowing myself to write any fic right now (i'm desperately trying to finish the first draft of my 'hell is leaking' wip before the end of the year, and i'm soooo slow going with original fiction word counts that i have to keep flexing the muscle of writing original fiction to keep my word count pace on target) especially since that one, in particular, will require lots of fun research and supplemental reading :))))

but! there are roughly fifteen bullet points of general events i'm shooting for, and six bulky paragraphs of planned plot waiting for me in my gdoc for this, along with some research links for me to dive down :) they're going to have to share the groundskeeper's cottage until the weather relaxes enough for workers to come and fix the roof on tharkay's manse :)) they're going to get invited to stay with the ladies of llangollen for a few weeks when spring breaks... because perscita lives with them there now :)) sir walter scott might show up??

there's definitely going to be erotic book reading and a brief/torrid awkward foray into an unspoken 'please tell me what to do and let me fix everything and cook for you and help you with your boots' dynamic, because will Desperately wants to be Of Service.... there's a lot going on lmao and i can't want to treat myself with it

[fionabrennanartisttours]

This charming book has a small chapter on same-sex relationships and tells of Georgian-period terminology (mostly regarding gay men and women, in that order!) and people of note. What the Georgians got up to is of interest to us here, as Dublin was a Georgian city and of course, the laws made in London during the Georgian period affected Ireland. Therefore, if you could be hanged for "sodomy" in England, you could be strung up in Ireland too.

But the book goes into the nuance of everyday life in the period versus what may be written in the law books. For example, in 1822, the Anglican Bishop of Clogher in Northern Ireland had been caught in the act with a guardsman - the Bishop was dismissed from his position, but from the public's point of view, he became a figure of fun and jokes. And so same-sex activity was "semi-known and semi-secret"; very serious and dangerous on one hand and part of the furniture and a source of amusement on the other.

Another hint at the Georgian's attitude toward queerness is the sheer number of terms used to refer to it! For the gay men we had "mollies", "back-gammon players" and "catamites" (a Classical reference to the mythologically handsome adolescent boy, whose beauty caused Zeus to steal him away to Olympus to serve him). For the lesbians we had "flats", "tommies" and "rubsters". In fact, it is semi-jokingly stated that lesbians did not exist before 1870, because the more euphemistic terms were in use instead!

These terms for same-sex love and identity shows an emergent social awareness for the LGBTQ community in the Georgian era. Albeit mostly for the L and the G!

And of course we know that lesbians existed in Ireland before 1870, just one example being "The Ladies of Llangollen", two upper-class ladies who lived together (with only one bed in the house!) for 50 years. While numerous Georgian ladies lived together as companions, Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby declared their loving relationship openly in upper-class society.

It seems that historical relevance and the holding of a powerful position in society both protected queer Georgians/Anglo-Irish aristocrats from punishment and encouraged historians to record their lives for our historical interests today. Therefore, there are no mention of everyday, "lower-class" Irish queers in this chapter of The Georgians. This is certainly a sad oversight in our LGBTQ+ history. But it's fun to read about 18th and 19th century queer people of note, especially the tommies and "female husbands" who I always picture dressed up like Gentleman Jack!