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The Ladies of Llangollen, Anne Lister, Anna Seward, and the problem of "Modern History's First Lesbians" Lesbians, sapphics, tribades, lesbi-gays, dykes, clitorist, beanflicker, Amy-John, clam smacker, scissor sister, invert. There’s plenty of names for women who love women, but what is our history, and who was the first lezza? Historical Sapphism Some historians believe that prior to the twentieth century there was simply no such thing as female homoeroticism, even arguing that women prior to this century couldn’t experience ‘lesbianism’ or lesbian sex because such concepts were invented by sexologists in the late nineteenth century. It’s laughable, and a brief look into the history books tell us quite opposite. In an article published in 2017, Anna Clark discusses historic sapphic subcultures among dancers and prostitutes, especially in metropolitan Paris in the early eighteenth-century. (Of course it's Paris.) Additionally, recent study of ‘deviant’ sexualities in European courts have explored Christina of Sweden’s affairs with women, notably Ebba Spare, as well as Marie Antoinette’s ‘lesbian’ sexual exploits which were the subject of several pamphlets during the French Revolution. Furthermore, in her 1789 denunciation, Hester Thrale Piozzi described Marie Antoinette as “ the Head of a Set of Monsters call’d by each other Sapphists ” Used liberally in this article and by this historian generally, the terms 'Sapphic', and ‘Sapphist’ were understood to be insults relating to female homoeroticism based on the comprehension that the Ancient Greek poet Sappho had sexual and romantic relationships with women as early as the fifteenth century. Sappho is also where we get the term ‘lesbian’, as this was the term for people from the Isle of Lesbos, where she lived. This terminology is evidenced as early as the fifteenth century . Furthermore, Rebecca Jennings’ A Lesbian History of Britain: Love and Sex Between Women Since 1500, provides a valuable discussion of evidence of female homoeroticism throughout ancient, medieval and early modern history in medical texts, literature, visual art and travel journals. In fact, female sexual gratification during the fourteenth - seventeenth centuries was thought to be fundamental to conception and to curing symptoms of female hysteria; if a husband was thought to be incapable of administering an orgasm, it was expected that a midwife would do so. Thus, female ‘administered’ sexual gratification was well established. A lack of awareness may be attributable to a lack of legal jurisdiction regarding female homoeroticism in comparison to strict laws and punishments for male homoeroticism throughout the centuries. Phallic-free sex couldn’t really be comprehended in strictly patriarchal societies, so even when and where there were laws regarding ‘lesbianism’, they were based on the use of ‘tools’ which weren’t a real penis in intercourse with women. For example, women in the fifteenth and sixteenth century in the Southern Netherlands faced strict prosecution for the crime of sodomy. These facts did little to disprove dominant historiography concerning female homoeroticism (or rather lack thereof) in historical study until the publication of Anne Lister’s explicit sexual exploits in the 1980s. Emma Donoghue has described these texts as the 'Dead Sea Scrolls of lesbian history’ for their incomparable impact in proving female homoeroticism prior to the twentieth century. Since the rediscovery and decoding of her diaries, Anne Lister has become a sapphic icon comparable to Sappho herself. Her apparent singularity in her efforts to live freely in matrimony with another woman has elicited a wealth of historical and cultural media attention. Most recently, she has dominated BBC ratings in the series ‘Gentleman Jack’, named for Lister’s malicious nickname among Halifax residents for the way she appeared ‘like a man’ according to her dress and engagement in business. The show is well worth a watch, and has been developed according to the 26 volumes that Lister wrote, specifically focussing on the last eight years of her life, when she decided to settle down and ‘marry’. There are inaccuracies, and several liberties taken with costume (she didn’t wear a tall hat, for example), and her height, but the changes are not particularly important to the narrative of the show, nor how we remember her. (This isn’t a historical-fiction article, so no more comments about the accuracy of dress, I promise.) The first series depicts Lister's determined mission to court and marry the much younger and often bewildered local heiress, Ann Walker. The final episode of the first series depicts the pair ‘marrying’ at the Holy Trinity Church in York on Easter Sunday, 1834. Series two follows their ‘marriage’ and Lister pushing Walker into making Lister a large beneficiary of her estate, something Lister had previously done for the 'love of her life' Mariana Lawton (née Belcombe). These events, depicted in remarkable accuracy support a popular belief that Lister was the first modern lesbian, and her ‘marriage’ to Walker unique. However, we know for a fact that female homoeroticism was not invented by this dashing sapphic in the eighteenth century, and if you cast your eye slightly broader, even the idea of marriage to another woman was not her own. (Shockingly, lesbians have always been trying to move in with each other and live their lives together.) Lister has had an undeniable impact on Sapphic history, yet her popular legacy as ‘Modern History’s first Lesbian’ is ridiculously unfair. For starters, the term lesbian, although used throughout this article, isn’t really one that we can use as the term was not popularly known or used, certainly not by the women we are discussing. Secondly, Anne Lister was not the only woman to fancy other women, otherwise she wouldn’t have found anyone to shag. And finally, if Anne Lister had to give an opinion on the subject, she would likely argue that she was 'Modern History’s First Lesbian', after the Ladies of Llangollen. Lady Eleanor Butler and Miss Sarah Ponsonby In July 1822, Anne Lister, along with her aunt, the elder Anne Lister, embarked on a long-awaited tour of North Wales, the shining moment of which was a stay in the Vale of Llangollen and two visits to a Tudor Style Cottage named Plas-Newydd. Meaning New-House’, Plas-Newydd was the home to the Anglo-Irish gentlewomen Lady Eleanor Butler and Miss Sarah Ponsonby. This pair of women were significant because they had done something completely out of the ordinary for eighteenth-century women, they had run away, and set up their own home, completely cutting ties with their families. Now that’s a simplified summary of events, so let’s go into more detail. Ponsonby and Butler met in around 1776, Butler was already a spinster (she was in her 30s, scandalous!), and Ponsonby, an eighteen-year-old. They would meet for tutoring, long walks and deep conversations, when Butler travelled, they sent rambling letters, telling how much they missed the other. It became clear quite quickly, that the pair were completely obsessed with each other. (Typical.) In April 1778, discovering that Ponsonby’s family were discussing her marriage, they decided to sneak out from their respective homes in Kilkenny and escape to Wales, where Butler had found a discrete cottage for their elopement. The first escape effort failed, and they were both imprisoned in their homes, until Butler, learning that she was to be packed off to a convent, escaped, and managed to get into Ponsonby’s chambers, where she hid for several days whilst the families debated what to do with their unruly girls. Eventually, on the 6th May, they were allowed to leave, with Ponsonby’s trusted maid, on the premise that they would not take any income from their families, nor return to Kilkenny. (Such a hardship…) So, Butler and Ponsonby ran off to Wales, eloping in ‘exquisite retirement’. They found a home in Llangollen and spent their days engaging in literary scholarship and lengthy walks around the Welsh hills, and their evenings in the same bed. They became a site of fascination for society, their ‘romantic friendship’ as it was known, thought of as an exquisite form of platonic love. Even Queen Charlotte (yes that one) adored them, and the Ladies engaged with her by sending a plan of their home and gardens. They welcomed a constant stream of visitors there to view the extensive literary collection, and the spectacle of the ladies themselves. These visitors included Anna Seward, who we will discuss in a moment, William Wordsworth, and even Lord Byron. Lister’s intrigue with these ‘Ladies of Llangollen’ as they were nicknamed, was two-fold; firstly, regarding their extensive literary scholarship, and secondly, the exact intimate nature of their relationship. During her visit on the 23rd July 1822, Lister attempted to ask Ponsonby about the true nature of their relationship, asking if they were ‘classical’, meaning homoerotic, which Ponsonby denied. Although she was unable to discern the true extent of the intimacy shared between Butler and Ponsonby, the impact on the then 31-year-old Lister was made. Later that day Lister writes, ‘I cannot help but thinking that surely it [their relationship] was not platonic’. (Very astute, Anne.) Romantic Friendship or homo-eroticism? Whilst historical study on the Ladies of Llangollen has not been lacking in quantity, in terms of ‘queer’ studies it has certainly been lacking in quality. The story of the pair’s attempted secret flight and eventual successful elopement, against the best efforts of their families, would, had either been male have been an undeniably sexually charged tale of forbidden lovers. However, dominant historiography continues to consider Butler and Ponsonby’s relationship as the idyllic platonic ‘Romantic Friendship’ of the long eighteenth century: a fairly common intimate relationship between women which surpassed any other friendship, but was not sexual. This is despite substantial evidence which supports an argument that their elopement was every bit the twenty-first century cottage-core fantasy it appears. As well as the basic fact that other romantic friendships would last for a few years at the most, and end with one or both women involved marrying men and moving on. Historians have struggled to conceptualise this relationship in light of the facts, for example, the 1936 narrative biography Chase of the Wild Goose by lesbian, doctor, and author, Mary Gordon presents the Ladies as proto-feminist and proto-lesbian. In her fantastical epilogue she alludes to the queer connotations of their partnership and thanks them for making ‘the way straight for the time that we inherited …’. However, she does not entertain a possibility of a sexual relationship. Similarly, Elizabeth Mavor, writing in 1971 strives to decry claims of a sexual relationship, or ‘Freud-ism’, concluding that whilst the Ladies of Llangollen are an example of an extraordinarily close ‘Romantic Friendship’ the ambiguity of their intimacy stems from their longevity, and nothing more. Now we know that these arguments are fundamentally flawed, female homoeroticism was an established fact, Gordon and Mavor’s obsessive attempts to avoid any implication of a sexual relationship, or ‘Freud-ism’ in their portrayals of the Ladies of Llangollen has resulted in texts which ignore glaring and simple facts. Such as their dramatic elopement; fifty years of cohabitation; bed sharing; exclusive use of the phrase ‘My Beloved’; never spending a night apart; and their uninhibited and unwavering dedication to each other from the moment of their meeting. (It's all very straight, isn't it?) If this were truly an innocent Romantic Friendship, why was their elopement scandalous? Lady Betty Fownes, Ponsonby's guardian, wrote of her happiness on hearing of Butler's impending confinement, 'I wish she had been safe in one [a convent] long ago; she would have made us [all] happy. Many an unhappy hour she has cost me, and, I am convinced, years to Sally [Sarah]' . Despite Mavor and Gordon’s wilful ignorance, the retirement to Wales was clearly understood by all parties to not be a temporary excursion. The dedication shown by these women was indicative even to their earliest contemporaries of something greater than a ‘Romantic Friendship’. Furthermore, considering primary texts such as the Hamwood Papers (Butler’s diaries and their correspondence) it is clear that Butler and Ponsonby thought of themselves as good as married. In convincing Fownes that she could be trusted with her guard, Butler promised that she would care for her ‘for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness or in health’. Whilst Ponsonby, in response to Mrs Lucy Goddard’s fearful warning that Butler was a woman who ‘does not understand virtue…’ adding, ‘…she might make love to you,” replied laughing , ‘I hope that she will love me… she does so beautifully. ’ Regardless of if these comments were meant in sincerity or jest, it is clear that they were aware of, and unafraid of the connotations their intimate relationship encouraged. In a discussion of their self-awareness it is also worth noting that the Ladies of Llangollen had a string of dogs named Sappho. As literary scholars this may be ignored as simple poetic favour, fragments of Sappho’s poetry which may have been considered homoerotic were typically censored throughout the eighteenth century. However, as stated, Sappho was already synonymous with female homoeroticism, Emma Donoghue and Susan Lanser have established that any exclusion of these excerpts indicate an inherent, and fearful understanding of deviance, but this censorship wasn’t complete, and the texts could be accessed. It would be ignorant to argue that the Ladies of Llangollen, whose literary scholarship was almost unparalleled, were unaware of the implication of this name. Why is it so difficult to accept historic sapphism? Jennings explains that the fundamental obstacle to studies of ambiguous sapphic relationships is ‘essentialism’ (the idea that same-sex relationships have always existed and need to be rescued) and ‘constructionism’ (that sexual practises and identities are defined by wider culture and thus, how we define them tells us more about ourselves than of the relationships in question). It is perhaps because of this difficulty, and because of what Jennings describes as an obsession with defining ‘lesbianism’ through sex, that the Ladies of Llangollen are overlooked as an example of female same-sex love and homoeroticism. To put it simply, it seems to suit conservatism to consider Anne Lister entirely singular in her vulgarity. Fiona Brideoake provides the most effective rebuttal of reductive studies, starting with a criticism of Faderman’s conclusion that ‘lesbianism’ is a gendered commitment to another woman. Brideoake argues that these relationships are in fact, indicative of a multifaceted identity which should be considered equal to heterosexuality. However, the issues surrounding comprehending these relationships remain, thus, the terminology used to discuss them must be carefully chosen. Brideoake favours the umbrella term ‘ queer’ meaning alternative to heteronormativity, Sarah Bentley defines their relationship, or rather our understanding of ‘Romantic Friendships’ to be ‘queer platonic’. However, is the accuracy of their intimacy the most significant factor of their relationship? As Elin Salt, the playwright of ‘Celebrated Virgins’ a 2022 play about the Ladies of Llangollen, states ‘if this was a man and a woman... We'd just accept they were two people who loved each other .” It is not the complexities of their relationship which are important, it is their impact as perceived Sapphists which needs to be considered. An anti- ‘lesbian’ argument could be supported by Hester Thrale Piozzi’s good friendship with Butler and Ponsonby. Piozzi is damning of perceived sapphism. For example, in her in 1789 denunciation of Marie Antoinette; Piozi also accused Anne Seymour Damer, an artist who was a rumoured sapphist of ‘ liking her own sex in a criminal way... ’. Piozzi would have been aware of the suggestions made concerning the intimacy of Butler and Ponsonby’s relationship thanks to a number of news publications disparaging the Ladies and their relationship, such as an article titled ‘Extraordinary Female Affection’ for a 1790 issue of the St James’ Chronicle . It is perhaps due to the inaccuracies of such articles that Piozzi does not disparage Butler and Ponsonby as she does other women who appear unsuitably single , describing them instead as ‘ enchantresses’. However, as established ‘lesbians’ Anne Lister and Anna Seward both considered the Ladies of Llangollen as their emotional and erotic ‘kin’ it is in a study of these latter women that their position as ‘Modern History’s First Lesbians’ can be understood. Understanding sapphism through tragedy Queer history is often quite tragic, between forced heterosexuality, death and separation, you're hard pressed to find a truly happy queer relationship. Even Sarah and Eleanor's de facto marriage necessitated an almost permanent split from their families and homes. Queer individuals and relationships are recognisable through tragedy, a good example of this is Anna Seward, queer, a romantic poet and friend to the Ladies of Llangollen. Seward's writing and letters support an argument of lesbianism; she wrote to Mrs M. Powys in 1796 describing the Ladies of Llangollen as a modern Rosalind and Celia, the cross-dressing ‘lesbians’ of Shakespeare’s As You Like It . More significant however, is the suggestion that through their relationship, Seward was able to mourn the loss of her own love, living somewhat vicariously through her friends. The majority of Seward’s biographical studies pay little attention to the cause of her lifelong depression, perhaps to avoid a discussion of the poet’s sexuality. Literary studies of her work have however highlighted the cause of her heartbreak as the loss of Honora Sneyd, first to marriage and later to death, primary to that of the other numerous griefs Seward suffered, including the death of her sister and father, to both of whom she was remarkably close. Sneyd, who Seward refers to as the ‘sun of my youthful horizon’, ‘my lost Honora’ and ‘my constant companion’ is considered to be an equal or greater inspiration to Seward’s Ossianic literature than the death of her other famous lover Major Andre. She describes her grief for her lost lovers simultaneously, writing [the memory of them is] ‘rising, like an exhalation, in my memory’ . In her 2015 publication, Joellen DuLucia situates Seward’s grief and her sapphism in the context of her epic, Llangollen Vale, which personifies Butler and Ponsonby . This, along with William Wordsworth’s later sonnet were significant contributors to the Ladies’ popular celebrity, and the language used by both is thought to have protected the Ladies of Llangollen from scandal regarding the nature of their relationship. However, if read through a queer lens, Seward’s epic narrative in particular, can be read as an ode not only to ‘Eleanora and Zara’, but through the lack of tragedy, a melancholic ode to the tragic Honora Sneyd. Particularly enlightening is the line which hopes that they [Butler and Ponsonby] will ‘perish together beneath “one kind icebolt,” a peace she and Sneyd could never share. ‘Modern History’s First Lesbian’ herself, Anne Lister, first read about the Ladies of Llangollen in an 1810 article in the fashionable magazine La Belle Assemblee. However, Lister’s sapphism could not be attributed to the reading of an article. As her diaries indicate, Lister had been considered ‘odd’ throughout her childhood, too masculine, too daring and too vulgar. Her first relationship began when Lister was 15, and confined to the attic of her boarding school in fears that she would negatively influence the other girls. Her roommate, Eliza Raine, an Anglo-Indian girl who was also considered too non-conformist to share the usual dormitories, became her first love from 1806 until 1814. Moreover, Lister’s relationship with Mariana Lawton began in 1812, however, it is only once Mariana visits Llangollen in 1817 and writes of Butler and Ponsonby’s unparalleled devotion that the pair began to seriously envisage a future together, despite Lawton’s marriage and the unfortunate eventuality that her husband did not die. Initially pushed by Lawton, from the moment of her own visit in 1822, Lister too was entirely convinced; she wrote days after her visit ‘ I should not like to live in Wales – but if it must be so, and I could choose the spot, it should be Plas-Newydd at Llangollen, which is already endeared even to me by the association of ideas. ’ (Very platonic!) Plas-Newydd and Llangollen Vale became, during the lifetimes of Lady Eleanor Butler and Miss Sarah Ponsonby and continues to be to this day, a destination of pilgrimage for LGBTQIA+ individuals. This is indicative of their legacy as identifiable non-conformists to a cis and heteronormative society with which countless cannot identify. In considering the impact of these women on Anne Lister and Anna Seward it is clear that in a discussion of the ‘Modern History’s First Lesbians’ the Ladies of Llangollen do precede Anne Lister, regardless of the sexual intensity of their relationship. Further reading: ‘The Hamwood Manuscripts’, papers of Lady Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby, comprising diaries and correspondence, together with related papers, (1774-1831) The National Library of Wales, < https://archives.library.wales/index.php/hamwood-manuscripts > Norton, Rictor (Ed.), "Extraordinary Female Affection, 1790", Homosexuality in Eighteenth-Century England: A Sourcebook , (22 April 2005, updated 15 June 2005) http://rictornorton.co.uk/eighteen/1790extr.htm l Seward, Anna, ‘Llangollen Vale, inscribed to the Right Honourable Lady Eleanor Butler, and Miss Ponsonby’, in Llangollen Vale, with Other Poems, (London: 1796), Published online at Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive, < https://www.eighteenthcenturypoetry.org/works/bse96-w0010.shtml > Thrale, Hester Lynch, Thraliana: The Diary of Mrs Hester Lynch Thrale (Later Mrs Piozzi), 1776-1809, Ed. Katherine C. Balderston, Vol.2 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1942) The Diaries of Anne Lister Lister, Anne, Whitbread, Helena (ed.), I know My Own Heart: The Diaries of Anne Lister, (New York and London, 1988) Lister, Anne, Whitbread, Helena (ed.), No Priest but Love: The Journals of Anne Lister from 1824-1826, (New York: New York University Press, 1992) Lister, Anne, Whitbread, Helena (ed.), The Secret Diaries of Anne Lister, (London: Virago Press, 2010) ‘Courageous and Audacious Ladies of Llangollen’, Duke University Libraries, (06/03/2018), < https://blogs.library.duke.edu/rubenstein/2018/03/06/courageous-audacious-ladies-llangollen/ > ‘Female Sodomy’, Not Just the Tudors, (2022), https://open.spotify.com/episode/1UVn5aESC9aIf2ShXyEKKZ?si=OD_AV7_AR8ano9Qr7G3WcA Baigent, Elizabeth, ‘Lister, Anne’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, (2004/updated 2019), < https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/37678 > Bentley, Sarah, ‘The Ladies of Llangollen’, Wellcome Collection, (13/03/2018), < https://wellcomecollection.org/articles/WqewRSUAAB8sVaKN > Bowerbank, Sylvia, ‘Seward, Anna ( called the Swan of Lichfield), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, (2004). < https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/25135 > Brideoake, Fiona, ‘” Extraordinary Female Affection”: The Ladies of Llangollen and the Endurance of Queer Community’, Romanticism on the Net, Number 36-27, (November 2004, February 2005), < https://doi.org/10.7202/011141ar > Bryan, Nicola, ‘Gentleman Jack: The Ladies of Llangollen who intrigued Anne Lister’, BBC News, (02/04/2022), < https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-60917657 > Castle, Terry, The Apparitional Lesbian: Female Homosexuality and Modern Culture, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993) Clark, Anna, ‘Secrets and Lies: Anne Lister’s Love for Women and the Natural Self’, in Clark, Anna, Alternative Histories of the Self: A Cultural History of Sexuality and Secrets, 1762-1917, (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2017), pp.5-77, <: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3840441 > Colwill, Elizabeth, ‘Pass as a Woman, Act like a Man: Marie-Antoinette as Tribade in the Pornography of the French Revolution’, in Merrick, Jeffrey, and Ragan, Bryant T., (eds.) Homosexuality in Modern France, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996) Coyle, Eugene, ‘The Irish Ladies of Llangollen: ‘The two most celebrated virgins in Europe’’, History Ireland, Vol.23, No.6 (Nov/Dec 2015), pp.18-20, < https://www.jstor.org/stable/43598746 > Crampton, Caroline, ‘The lesbian Dead Sea Scrolls: Anne Lister’s diaries’, The New Statesman, (05/12/2013), < https://www.newstatesman.com/uncategorized/2013/12/lesbian-dead-sea-scrolls > DeLucia, JoEllen, ‘Queering Progress: Anna Seward and Llangollen Vale’, in DeLucia, JoEllen, A Feminine Enlightenment: British Women Writers and the Philosophy of Progress, 1759-1820, (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2015), pp.87-116, < DOI:10.3366/edinburgh/9780748695942.003.0003 > Euler, Catherine A., Moving Between Worlds: Gender, Class, Politics, Sexuality and Women’s Networks in the Diaries of Anne Lister of Shibden Hall, Halifax, Yorkshire, 1830-1840, (D. Phil: University of York, May 1995), Faderman, Lillian, Surpassing the Love of Men, (London: The Women’s Press LTD., 1985) Figes, Lydia, ‘Lesbian love and coded diaries: the remarkable story of Anne Lister’, Art UK, (10/05/2019), Gordon, Mary, The Llangollen Ladies, originally titled Chase of the Wild Goose (North Wales: John Jones, 1936, this ed. 1999) Grant, Allison, ‘The Dangers of Playing House: Celia’s Subversive Role in As You Like It’, Selected Papers of the Ohio Valley Shakespeare Conference, Vol.4, Article 5, (2011), <: http://ideaexchange.uakron.edu/spovsc/vol4/iss2011/5 > Griffiths, Hannah, ‘The Ladies of Llangollen’, The National Archives Blog, (08/02/2022), < https://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/the-ladies-of-llangollen/ > Hallett, Judith P., ‘Sappho and Her Social Context: Sense and Sensuality’, Signs, Vol.4, No.3, (Spring 1979), pp.447-464, < https://www.jstor.org/stable/3173393 > Hunt, Margaret R., ‘The Sapphic Strain: English Lesbians in the Long Eighteenth Century’, in Bennett, Judith M., and Froide, Amy M., (eds.) Singlewomen in the European Past, 1250-1800 , (Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999), pp.270-296 Iglikowski-Broad, Vicky, ‘Gentleman Jack: Anne Lister - the first modern lesbian?’ the National Archives Blog, (09/07/2022), Jennings, Rebecca, A Lesbian History of Britain: Love and Sex Between Women Since 1500, (Oxford, Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood World Publishing, 2007) Katz, Brigit, ‘The 19th-century Lesbian Landowner who set out to find a wife’, Smithsonian Magazine, (19/04/2019), < https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/19th-century-lesbian-landowner-who-set-out-find-wife-180971995/ > Mavor, Elizabeth, ‘Butler, Lady (Charlotte) Eleanor’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, (2004/2006), < https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/4182 > Mavor, Elizabeth, The Ladies of Llangollen: A Study in Romantic Friendship, (London: Penguin Books, 1971) Reynolds, Nicole, ‘Cottage Industry: The Ladies of Llangollen and the Symbolic Capital of the Cottage Ornee’, The Eighteenth Century, Vol.51, No.1/2, (Spring/Summer 2010), pp.211-227, < https://www.jstor.org/stable/41468095 > Saunders, Amy, ‘The Afterlife of Christina of Sweden: Gender and Sexuality in Heritage and Fiction’, Royal Studies Journal, Issue 6, (2019), pp.204-221, < http://doi.org/10.21039/rsj.199 > Valladares, Susan, ‘” An introduction to the Literary Person[s]” of Anne Lister and the Ladies of Llangollen’, Literature Compass, Issue 10, (2013), pp.353-368 Willis, Matthew, ‘Who were the Ladies of Llangollen?’, JSTOR Daily, (10/04/2022), < https://daily.jstor.org/who-were-the-ladies-of-llangollen/ >

Is historical fiction good or bad for women’s history? (Disclaimer: This article will include several spoilers for Doctor Who series 2 episode 4, and for the series generally, the episode came out seventeen years ago so I take no blame for spoiling it but I’d suggest watching this episode before you read on so you know what I’m going on about.) Historical episodes of Doctor Who tend to have a decent grounding in fact, screenwriters typically justify decisions of the Doctor to not kill Hitler for example, by stating that the history he was a part of, and therefore his death is a fixed point in time, changing it would create a paradox. So, typically when they tell us about history, they are overall correct, albeit with a sci-fi take. A resounding opinion among most Doctor Who fans is that the series two episode ‘The Girl in the Fireplace’ is one of the best. It has some of the best lines, who can forget Rose berating a drunk Doctor with “Oh look what the cat dragged in. The oncoming storm.” The plot is ridiculous: David Tennant slightly falls in love with the future Madame de Pompadour whilst Rose and Mickey discover that the ship is being fixed with human parts and that unbeknown to them, the clockwork mechanics want the brain of Madame de Pompadour because the ship is named after her. I remember watching this episode when it first came out, I was six, and this was before the history bug had fully grasped my attention (The Four Georges at the end of the first episode of Horrible Histories is to thank for that), but the fact that this was a historical episode that mostly focussed on a woman stuck with me, what I knew about history at that point was male centric and largely concerned war. As I got older and understood more about my place in the world, my identity as a woman and a historian, I questioned the popular (and lazy) idea that only people with obvious authority had power, meaning men. Throughout my undergraduate studies I became fascinated by the idea of the Royal Mistress, her political and social importance. Even now, we effectively have a Royal Mistress as our Queen Consort, so this isn’t a position that should be forgotten. In recent years and months, I’ve conducted a lot of my own research into the concept of the Maitresse en Titre, the chief of official mistress of the king of France, and the evolution of this role in the English court under Charles II too. I always come back to this episode, and the explanation of Madame de Pompadour’s life that the Doctor helpfully gives for an audience who might not have a comprehensive understanding of eighteenth-century France. On a side note, I was slightly disappointed that we didn’t get any real reference to her in the BBC series Marie Antoinette that recently came out, she was dead and replaced by du Barry by then but some acknowledgement that the Petit Trianon was built for her, or that she helped create the alliance with Austria that saw Marie Antoinette become queen would have been nice. Despite my fascination with Madame de Pompadour, and this episode, I hadn’t researched her in much depth until now. Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson, or ‘Reinette’, lived from the 29th December 1721 to the 15th April 1764, she encapsulated what it was to be a mistress of the king of France, and the success of her personal influence is arguably unlike any before, and certainly after her. Interestingly, she wasn’t nobility of her own right, and her parentage was debated, making her a slightly controversial choice for Louis XV. It is partially this non-aristocratic background which garnered her criticism from her contemporaries and celebration from historians. Let’s start with her name, surely that can’t be too wrong, right? Well, the Doctor first meets Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson, the future Madame de Pompadour through her fireplace in 1727, she’s meant to be six years old. She tells him that her name is Reinette, and it’s not until we meet her again as she leaves Paris, presumably to her marriage at nineteen that the Doctor works out exactly who she is. He helpfully exclaims “Reinette Poisson? Later Madame d’Etoiles! Later still Mistress of Louis XV! Uncrowned Queen of France! Actress, artist, musician, dancer, courtesan, fantastic gardener!” This is all factually correct, except for when we meet Reinette in 1727, she did not yet have this nickname, nor would she have been in Paris. At 5, in 1726, her legal guardian, Charles Le Normant de Tournehem (her mother’s lover and possibly her real father) sent her to be educated at the Ursuline Convent in Poissy, she didn’t return home until 1730, aged 9 with poor health. It was whilst she was ill that her mother took her to a fortune teller who told them that Jeanne-Antoinette would one day rule over the heart of the king. ‘Reinette’ literally means ‘little queen’ in French, and it became her nickname from then on, a good three years after she introduces herself by this name. It really wouldn’t have been hard to make the year 1730. Still, for narrative sense, maintaining one name is easier, we’ll give them a pass on that. In her teenage years she received an extensive private education, instilling in her many of the qualities that the Doctor points out: she was an accomplished actress, musician, dancer, and crucially a courtesan (basically a high-class prostitute) and a politician. There’s a significant part of her history missed; at nineteen, Reinette married the nephew of her guardian, (her cousin if Tournehem was her father), Charles Guillaume Le Normant d’Etoiles. On their marriage Tournehem disinherited the rest of his nieces and nephews, naming d’Etoiles (and consequently his guard/daughter) his entire estate. Within her marriage Reinette was seemingly content, they had two children, one who died in infancy and a second who died at 9-years-old. She is said to have stipulated that she would leave her husband only for the king, which she did in 1745. Doctor Who effectively summarises the influence of the Royal Mistress at the French Court better than a lot of other examples, in a simple scene where Reinette discusses the illness of the current mistress of the king, and her aspirations. Her friend, Katherine, says “Madame de Chatearoux is ill and close to death… The king will therefore be requiring a new mistress.” Reinette replies “He is the king and I love him with all of my heart, and I look forward to meeting with him.” “Every Woman in Paris knows your ambitions.” “Every woman in Paris shares them.” Now it might be slightly hyperbolic that ‘every woman in Paris’ had ambitions on being the mistress of the king, certainly not every woman would have had the position, education or ability, nor likely the self-belief to pursue this, but the sentiment is true. Maitresse-en-titre ‘chief’ mistress was a particularly sought after position for French upper-class women. The queen of France was always foreign, the Royal marriage typically a diplomatic relations matter; Mary Tudor had smoothed over English relations, Marie Antoinette would secure allyship with Austria, Catherine and Marie de Medici brought money, Marie Leszczyńska had been chosen because the country needed a quick heir. The mistress on the other hand, was always French, and was typically better at having the ear of the king than his wife. In many ways, the position of mistress was a domestic matter, and therefore, who she was, was also important to the court. Louis XV’s initial adultery had been encouraged on the basis that the mistresses he took were apolitical, as his councillors wanted to avoid Marie Leszczyńska having any sort of political standing. However, by the time he got to Reinette in 1745, this apolitical proponent appears to have gone out the window. Reinette met the king, officially, at the so-called Yew Tree Ball to celebrate the marriage of the Dauphin in February 1745 as the episode shows, but this was unlikely to have been their real first meeting. Since her marriage, Reinette would have had free reign to visit Parisian Salons, making a name for herself among the societal elite and likely being spoken about at Court, in 1744 she intentionally drove in front of the king’s path as he led a hunt near her estate in Senart, twice! Even if they didn’t speak, the moment made enough of an impression that the Madame de Chatareaux explicitly warned Reinette away from the king. Louis XV, for his own part, gifted her venison and invited her to the aforementioned ball several months later. At the ball, Reinette dressed as Diana the Huntress, to remind the king of their meeting, a bold choice which the episode doesn’t show particularly clearly. The Doctor explains, to the typically clueless Rose, that she is Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson, and she is “ one of the most accomplished women who ever lived… she’s got plans on being his [the king’s] mistress” and that actually, she and the queen of France “got on very well.” So, is this accurate? Well, yes and no; she certainly was accomplished, if she was one of the most accomplished is probably a matter of opinion, but her patronage and participation in art, and crucially her activity in French politics was unlike the actions of even the queen at this time. She did become the king’s mistress, quickly being elevated to Maitresse-en-titre , by March 1745, Reinette had rooms directly above the king’s in Versailles, in May her and her husband officially separated, in June she was gifted the title and estates of the marquisate de Pompadour, and in September she was presented at court by the Princess of Conti. She cleverly pledged loyalty to the queen, allowing a friendly relationship to develop. I hasten to add that their relationship wasn’t rosy, the queen had simply resigned herself to her husband’s infidelity. Reinette benefitted because she wasn’t the most abrasive of his mistresses, and paid due reverence to the queen, it’s really understandable that Marie tried to protest her becoming a lady-in-waiting although unsuccessfully, would you want your partner’s partner among your closest companions? Reinette is a fascinating mistress because she only appears to have fulfilled the sexual role of her position for a few years, all sexual relationships with the king ended in 1750 due to poor health partially caused by 3 miscarriages in five years. Despite this, she remained court favourite until her death, she is regarded to have made herself invaluable for her patronage and political guidance. She was also open about her love for the king, disregarding any concern about the king’s sexual relationships with women at the Parc-aux-Cerfs that "It is his heart I want! All these little girls with no education will not take it from me. I would not be so calm if I saw some pretty woman of the court or the capital trying to conquer it." Pompadour’s comment seems a fitting sequel to the queen’s alleged comment about her that “if there must be a mistress, better her than any other.” Her artistic patronage is typically the easiest element to consider, she is the figure typically credited with popularising Paris as the arbiter of taste and culture in Europe, encouraged the development of the Rococo and as shown in the plans for Le Petit Trianon, its development into neo-classicism. (She unfortunately died 4 years before it was finished). Throughout her life she patronised Jean-Marc Nattier, Francois Boucher, Francois-Hubert Drouais, Jacques Guay; she also learnt engraving, becoming an amateur print-maker, and championed porcelain and the decorative arts. Her personal portfolio, including several of her engraving prints was rediscovered in 2016 and shows a woman who was not only an admirer of art but was personally accomplished in the field. “Uncrowned Queen of France” is again perhaps an overstatement, and it doesn’t appear to have been used much at the time, in stark contrast to descriptions of Barbara Palmer, Duchess of Cleveland and mistress of Charles II a century earlier. But the Doctor doesn’t use it here to disparage as Samuel Pepys did regarding Cleveland, so what accuracy does it have? Elise Goodman, a historian of Pompadour, has stated that by the mid-1750s, Reinette was effectively fulfilling a role of Prime Minister to the king, she was responsible for a host of political activities, including appointing advancements, favours and dismissals and was an active contributor to domestic and foreign policies. For example, it was her influence in 1755 which saw the development of the Diplomatic Revolution, which would ally France with Austria and eventually lead to the marriage of the future Louis XVI to archduchess Marie Antoinette. She was also the subject of criticism for actions and political steps which arguably led to Britain overtaking France as the leading colonial power. Many libels came in the form of ‘poissonades’, pamphlets which criticised and shared rumours. But they appear to have had little effect on her predominance at court, she was not replaced as Maitresse-en-titre until four years after her death, there were mistresses, but not someone to begin to fill Pompadour’s place until Madame du Barry made her entrance, but she’s a discussion for another day. The episode does well to reflect her seniority at court and the importance she held on Louis XV, the last time the Doctor tries to visit her she is taken away from Versailles in her coffin, it is pouring with rain as it was in real life (knowing this was filmed in Wales I wonder if they planned this scene or if it was a happy coincidence). The downpour was something that her critics described as befitting her ending, as if a sort of pathetic fallacy. In this final scene in eighteenth-century France, the king hands over a letter, and when the Doctor refuses to share its contents, he says “ Of course. Quite right ” demonstrating simply and quietly his accurately displayed reverence Louis XV had for his penultimate Maitresse-en-titre . The episode doesn’t exactly intend to go into depth about Madame de Pompadour’s successes, but it does gloss over the intricacies of a lot of her achievements, the main characteristic of Doctor Who’s Madame de Pompadour is that she is brave, empowered, and single-minded. This appears fair, if one-dimensional. With any depiction of women’s history, I always question how well it has been written, excusing accuracy or inaccuracy, does it deal with the themes well? Perhaps because the concept of this episode is to provide sneak peeks at her life, there are a lot of details ultimately left out of the narrative, her children, and her miscarriages, for example, fail to be mentioned. These deaths, and health problems would have had a profound effect on her life, and likely her mental well-being, that there is no mention of them, even when she is visited by Rose in what would have been a year after her daughter’s death at the age of nine, she is instead entirely practical, and it does come across as uncaring, which feels like an oversight. Moffat’s inspiration, among other facets like ‘The Turk’ (an eighteenth-century invention which was apparently a machine able to play a real-life human opponent at chess), appears to have been The Moberly-Jourdain incident. I won’t go into detail about this here but it’s worth having a read about when you can. The episode obviously caters towards entertainment before it does education, and in terms of time-travel and science fiction, it does a decent job of creating a not believable but surprisingly empathetic heroine. Even more remarkably, somehow making Louis XV out to be a somewhat decent person and not a serial philanderer who created a political climate so tempestuous it ended up with his grandson getting his head chopped off. If we consider the entertainment on the side of the Hist-Fic, it is generally good, the use of Welsh country-houses to recreate Versailles does an alright job of setting the scene, although unconvincing at demonstrating the extent of her artistic prevalence in this period. In my opinion, the clockwork monsters are an impressive way of calling to both the historical period and the entertainment intended, specifically their slightly terrifying masks are even if not intentional, a nice reference to the fact that Reinette first officially met Louis XV at a masked ball. I’m always wary in historical fiction of exactly how ‘feminist’ writers have made their historical women, as a feminist and a woman’s historian, that might be a slightly strange thing to read. But I’m of the opinion that women in history do not necessarily need post-humous empowerment, often, the most feminist thing to do with a woman’s history is to tell it exactly how it happened, with full transparency for her actions and flaws and struggles. Often that is not particularly empowering. Reinette is, as most Moffat-written women are, slightly intimidating to the men around her, in a way that if we were discussing another woman in eighteenth-century France, I might say is incorrect, but for Reinette, intimidating is right, she was a self-constrained woman, she knew her place in her world and she clearly knew how to engage with the constrictions of the society she lived in. Moffat’s Reinette is undoubtably a bit anachronistic, you’d be hard-pressed to find any woman in hist-fic who isn’t, but she is a fair representation of this woman for the twenty-first century. This series asks “Is historical fiction good for women’s history?”, for this case, I’m going to say yes. She isn’t entirely accurate, and the sensitivity of her story falters in oversight of her life not pertaining to a fictional relationship with the titular Time Lord, but in a 45-minute Doctor Who episode it’s understandable that a mother grieving would be cut for clockwork monsters. It’s fantastical and ridiculous, but crucially, it doesn’t pretend not to be. The Girl in the Fireplace has stuck with viewers, and so I am inclined to argue that yes, she deserves a lot more attention and care, but how many people know Madame de Pompadour’s name because David Tennant shouted that he snogged her in 2006? Me, for certain. To watch the episode or read more about Madame de Pompadour, see here: Doctor Who, Series 2, Episode 4: ‘The Girl in the Fireplace’, BBC, https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0074fmn/doctor-who-series-2-4-the-girl-in-the-fireplace?seriesId=b007vvcq ‘The real Madame de Pompadour’, The National Gallery, < https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/learn-about-art/paintings-in-depth/the-real-madame-de-pompadour > Stamberg, Susan, ‘More than a Mistress: Madame De Pompadour was a minister of the arts’, National Portrait Gallery, (10/05/2016), < https://www.npr.org/2016/05/10/477369874/more-than-a-mistress-madame-de-pompadour-was-a-minister-of-the-arts > A recent episode of the History Hit Podcast Not just the Tudors with Suzannah Lipscomb discussed Louis XIV and his mistresses, it gives a really good insight into the phenomenon of the French Royal mistress, go and have a listen!

Isabella of France 1295-1358 The Hundred-Year War started because of a woman. In 1295 or 1296 Queen Joan I of Navarre (a medieval Basque kingdom in Northern Spain) gave birth to a child called Isabel. The daughter of an autonomous queen and the king of France, Phillip IV, Isabella was by all accounts, destined to be a queen, but typically she would be refrained from being so in her own right. Her father arranged marriages between Isabel’s aunt, Marguerite, and the current king of England, Edward I, and his infant daughter and child prince Edward, ensuring French influence in England for at least two kings’ reigns. The marriage between Isabel (then anglicised to Isabella) and Edward II took place in 1308, the king was 24, and his queen 12, perhaps understandably, he showed little interest in his child-bride, but plenty in formerly exiled favourite Piers Gaveston. Several historians have debated the exact nature of the relationship between Piers and the king, if it was homosexual, there is little to disprove it, but also, there is little to prove it. Homosexuality was not exactly unheard of, but it wasn’t shouted about either, crucially, when Piers was brought out of exile, a chronicler wrote that ‘He [Edward II] had home his greatest love.’ We may not know the exact nature of their relationship, but much like Anne of Denmark in the seventeenth century, Isabella found herself often ousted in favour of the male favourite: Piers had received a portion of Isabella’s dowry, he was put in charge of the new queen’s coronation, at the event itself he was seated next to the king, rather than her, his coat of arms, rather than Isabella’s was also displayed. If it wasn’t a homosexual relationship, it certainly was a queer one. Piers Gaveston was exiled, then returned within eighteen months, with him and the king fleeing north from the barons who had enforced the exile with a pregnant seventeen-year-old Isabella in tow. She was safe when they left her to escape on a ship, and by the summer, Piers was murdered. In the months that Piers had not been at court, Isabella had fallen pregnant, so you’d hope, for the teenage queen’s sake, that without him, things would settle down. Alas, not. In came a man named Hugh le Despenser, described as hating the queen even more than his predecessor, by 1321 she was practically imprisoned, and by 1324, all of her lands had been given to the new royal favourite. Until now, Isabella looks pretty weak, and abused, so you may be wondering, how on earth could she have started a war, and why on earth is this article titled ‘The She-Wolf of France’? Well, let's firstly give Isabella some grace for being a child in her marriage, sent to a country she did not know, living in practical poverty despite being the queen of England and having a child at 16 or 17, followed by four more children. There is somewhat of a turning point in Isabella’s life when she is allowed marginal freedom and autonomy in 1325. Her husband pushed Isabella to return to France on his behalf, to negotiate with her brother, now king of France, for Gascony, a duchy which had been brought to the English crown by Eleanor of Aquitaine (a duchy which the king of England continued to hold). The French king had declared Gascony forfeit for Edward’s failing to pay homage, and to put it simply, Edward wanted it back. Isabella convinced her husband to allow their son, prince Edward to travel with her, a move which rendered the negotiations successful as he was able to pay homage in place of his father. However, her intention in taking her son may have had a more rebellious intent, as once in France, Edward II demanded the prince be returned to England as if suddenly realising that this prince was his heir. In France Isabella and the soon-to-be Edward III was joined by Roger Mortimer, an English exile, the king’s half-brother, Edmund of Woodstock, and several Englishmen who were disheartened with the king and his favourite. Isabella found financial support in Hainaut, began a romantic and sexual relationship with Mortimer, and arranged a marriage between her son and Phillipa of Hainaut. Here she also (and this is crucial for later) gave up any claim she had to the French throne. Isabella’s rebel army returned to England in 1326, landing in Suffolk. Her husband was quickly captured and Edward III, then fourteen was crowned, with his mother as regent. Isabella ruled on behalf of from 1327 to 1330 and remained an advisor to her son. As for the now previous king, he wound up dead in 1327, legends say at Isabella’s own hand by a red hot poker, or strangulation, his lover(s), were hacked apart and/or dragged, hanged, drawn, and quartered. ‘She-Wolf’ is making sense now. In 1328, Isabella’s brother died, and the French throne faltered, he had produced no heir, and after a decision to keep the line distinctly French, the crown to the Valois line for the first time. Now you might be thinking, okay well that is fine, remember Isabella gave up any right to the throne in 1326? Well, Edward III and his mother disagreed, they thought that the French throne should stay Capetian, and as Isabella couldn’t rule anyway (Salic Law prevented her even if her actions in 1326 are disregarded), her son was already a king, and was a grandson and nephew of kings of France, he was also Capetian through his mother and a descendant of several French nobility who had far greater exposure to the French throne than the new Valois king. The French consistently rejected Edward’s efforts, for one, whilst the English loved her, the French hated Isabella, considering her ‘depraved’ and not wanting her near the throne. These tensions were heightened because in 1331 Edward III had arrested his mother and her lover Mortimer, trying, and executing him. Isabella was placed under house arrest, and then became a nun, so claiming the throne through his mother was perhaps not the greatest standpoint for Edward’s efforts when he declared himself king of France in 1337. Sources: ‘The Wild Life of English Queen Isabella, She-Wolf of France aka the Rebel Queen Who Killed the King of England’, Ancient Origins, (30/12/2018), < https://www.ancient-origins.net/history-important-events/isabella-france-0011247 >, [30/03/2023] Weir, Alison, Isabella, (London: Vintage Publishing, 2012)