#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

[spiced-wine-fic]

The irresistible tale of their passionate, 50-year “romantic friendship” and the elaborate, beautiful home and garden they constructed made them famous in their own lifetimes, and they have remained a symbol of enduring same-sex happiness ever since. They are “queer foremothers”, as a newly rereleased book about the Ladies, Chase of the Wild Goose, puts it.

[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

[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.

[atropos-moth]

Who wants to drink hot chocolate with me in our idyllic gothic house?

[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

[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)

[sharry-arry-odd]

Her ears closed upon the sound of Eleanor's voice assuring her that once again they would manage their escape together, somehow: nothing, no one, would prevent them.

The Ladies, by Doris Grumbach

[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!

[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.

[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!

[valkyries-things]

ELEANOR BUTLER & SARAH PONSONBY // NOBLEWOMAN

“They were known as the Ladies of Llangollen, who were two upper-class Irish women who lived together as a couple. Their relationship scandalised and fascinated their contemporaries. The pair moved to a Gothic house in Llangollen, North Wales, in 1780 after leaving Ireland to escape the social pressures of conventional marriages. Over the years, numerous distinguished visitors called upon them. Guests included Byron, Shelley, Wellington and Wordsworth, the latter of whom wrote a sonnet about them.”