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- [00:00]
Kate Lister
Hello everyone, it's me, your host, Kate Lister. I'm just jumping in before the episode to ask you for a little favor. If you are enjoying betwixt, and I hope that you are, we'd love it if you could vote for us for the Listeners Choice Awards at the British Podcast Awards. If you follow the link in the show notes, it should take you to the place you need to go and it would mean the world to us. We were shortlisted last year and the one before that and the one before that. We were so close and it just made us want it even more. I think we can do it this year. Right on with the show.
- [00:38]
Alex Von Tunzelman
This is History's Heroes. People with purpose, brave ideas and the courage to stand alone. Including a pioneering surgeon who rebuilt the shattered faces of soldiers in the first World War.
- [00:51]
Unnamed Historian
You know, he would look at these men and he would say, don't worry, sonny, you'll have as good a face as any of us when I'm done with you.
- [00:58]
Alex Von Tunzelman
Join me, Alex Von Tunzelman for History's Heroes. Subscribe to History's Heroes wherever you get your podcasts.
- [01:07]
Unnamed Advertiser
With a five dollar meal deal with new McValue. You pick a McDouble or a McChicken, then get a small fry, a small drink and a four piece McNuggets. That's a lot of McDonald's for not a lot of money. Prices and Participation may vary. McDouble meal, $6 in some markets for a limited time only.
- [01:25]
Kate Lister
Hello my lovely betwixters. It's me, Cait Lister. You are you, I am me. And this is betwixt the sheets. And thank goodness you've decided to pop by once more to have me wittering into your ear holes. But before we can go any further together, I have to tell you this is an adult podcast. Spoken by adults to other adults about adulty things in an adulty way, covering a range adult subject and you spared adult too. We call that the fair dues warning because fair dues. We didn't tell you it was going to get rude. Right, on with the show. A 20 year old woman writes feverishly in her diary. She's recollecting the night before. Her cheeks, neck and bosom are flushing as she does so. Her heartbeat is racing, her breath is shallow. She writes by gas lamp alone at night. These words are for her and her alone. Except that they're not, because this 20 year old woman is a queen. And these pages will be put poured over by historians, royal experts and well, nosy like me. What do you look for in a man.
- [02:36]
Kate Williams
Oh, money. Of course.
- [02:38]
Unnamed Advertiser
You're supposed to rise when an adult speaks to you.
- [02:40]
Kate Lister
I make perfect copies of whatever my.
- [02:42]
Kate Williams
Boss needs by just turning a knob and pushing the button.
- [02:48]
Kate Lister
Now. Era. Now.
- [02:52]
Unnamed Advertiser
Yes, social courtesy.
- [02:54]
Kate Lister
He does make a difference.
- [02:55]
Kate Williams
Goodness.
- [02:56]
Kate Lister
What beautiful diamond. Goodness has nothing to do with it, Dearian. Hello and welcome back to Betwixt the Sheets, the history of sex scandal in society with me, Kate Lister. Queen Victoria gave birth to 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Nine children during her lifetime. That's right. One woman, one vagina. Nine children over a span of 17 years. Now, I'm sure by this point I don't need to tell you how babies are made. And with nine children, it seems that. Well, Vicky didn't need to be told either. But what do we know about Queen Victoria's sex life? Was she really as frumpy and prudish as everyone likes to make out? Did she live up to the Victorian values? And do Victorians in general conform to the stuffy stereotype we have them down for? Well, today I am going to find out. And to do so, I will be cosying up with the hosts of kings, queens and dastardly things, royal historians Kate Williams and Robert Harding.
- [04:04]
Kate Williams
Hello, Kate.
- [04:04]
Kate Lister
Hello. Thank you so much for inviting me on.
- [04:07]
Unnamed Advertiser
Well, it's certainly going to liven things up.
- [04:10]
Kate Lister
Well, I think we're about ready to tiptoe into Queen Victoria's bedroom.
- [04:14]
Kate Williams
Sounds good to me.
- [04:15]
Kate Lister
So we know quite a bit about Queen Victoria's attitude to sex. Through her voluminous diaries, she kept meticulous details on all manner of things, including. I mean, it's not graphically explicit, but she does talk about her darling husband quite a lot.
- [04:32]
Kate Williams
Yes, Kate, the word for Victoria's diary is. You coined it. Voluminous. 62 million words. In her lifetime, anything that Victoria experienced, she wrote it down in her diary. And we see in it, as you say, this outpouring of love for Prince Albert. She'd had a pretty miserable childhood. So had he. And so when they get married at this very young age, it's just all this devotion comes really streaming out of Victoria and all this physical affection as well. So in 1839, when she watches him climb the steps of Windsor Castle, she writes, he is the most handsome prince in Europe. You know, sometimes she does write a few little details. She did saynot also in 1839. So these are younger years. My dear Albert came in today from the rain. He looks so handsome in his white cashmere breeches with nothing on underneath.
- [05:21]
Kate Lister
She's absolutely thirsty for him, isn't she? She can't get enough of this man. She really can't.
- [05:26]
Kate Williams
She is totally thirsty for him. And the wedding night. You know, they say quite a few couples these days don't do much on their wedding night apart from collapse in bed with a cup of tea. But that's not what happens here. She writes after her wedding night, she didn't think it would be possible to be so happy. She talks about the bliss of watching him shave and how wonderful it is when he helps her put on her stockings. And she says, I never, never spent such an evening. My dearest, dear Albert sat on a footstool by my side and his excessive love and affection gave me feelings of heavenly love and happiness I could never have hoped to have felt before. He clasped me in his arms and we kissed each other again and again. Oh, this was the happiest day of my.
- [06:12]
Kate Lister
I'm so pleased she's getting some, though. Like, don't you just, like, I know that it's proper teenage girl heartthrob, like, oh, my God, I love him so much. But she had such a rotten time in childhood. So strict and controlled. There must have been a sense for her of just like, wow.
- [06:28]
Unnamed Advertiser
Yeah. I mean, this is someone who, you know, wasn't even allowed to walk up and down stairs together, had to share a bedroom with her mother or with her nurse for her entire life. Finally, she's in the room with someone other than a chaperone or her mom. I mean, you know, how exciting is that? And I do think. I think she writes very nicely. I mean, let's not forget she did have a talent for writing. She wrote a book when she was just 11. Sweet little sort of children's book. And she was a prolific diary writer. And I mean, Kate, you're a historian. I mean, can you think of. Or I should say both Kates. Can we think of other royal journals, British royal journals that are quite sort of, not necessarily explicit, but certainly as intimate.
- [07:11]
Kate Williams
I mean, I would say there's nothing to beat Queen Victoria's journal. And as you say, she's a very talented writer. I mean, Highland Leaves, her book, when she's a lot older, is a best seller. I mean, it would be at the Sunday Times list now for weeks, the equivalent of it. And she is very effusive, very affectionate. And I. But I think. I think, you know, this level of intimacy, you get into the life of a queen, into the thinking of a monarch, but also into the thinking of a Victorian woman. And I think she's just, as you say, she's had this very miserable upbringing and this is her first moment to really be herself. And initially she was unsure about marrying because I think she felt she either wanted to be a bit more of a Elizabeth I for a little bit longer, a bit more single. But she was told very firmly that either you marry or you have Mama in the palace. And she and Mama, no way. So Albert is like her rescuer. He's the rescuer of her from Mama and her court. And she really thinks she's finally got someone as a best friend and a supporter. And I think she also really, by the Victorian vision of the companion at marriage. So the Georgians, the door is closed. It's now a new era and it's about, you know, middle class companion, marriage. You're happily ever after, you have the children, your husband would never want to go to any frequent place of the night. And this is their future. And she actually writes about the wedding night and she says, we both went to bed to lie by his side and in his arms and on his dear bosom and. And to be called by names of tenderness I have never heard used to me before was bliss beyond belief. Oh, so it's marvellous.
- [08:44]
Unnamed Advertiser
Probably explains why she was so furious just three months later when she discovered she was pregnant.
- [08:48]
Kate Williams
What a surprise. What a surprise. I'm surprised. It was three months, you would have thought it was the next. She was pregnant very swiftly. But I think that's also part of it in the sense that everyone is watching the marriage like a hawk, that Victoria gets pregnant. This is her big job. She has to secure the throne because her naughty uncles by 1800 had between them managed 56 illegitimate children and one legitimate child. And then poor Charlotte died in childbirth. So you can see why Victoria, I think, really is. I think she kind of loves the joys of the marriage bed, but also she sees it as her duty because she has to start producing these heirs. Although she didn't, as Robert says, she wasn't expecting to get pregnant quite so quickly.
- [09:30]
Kate Lister
There was a longstanding belief as well, been around for centuries, that once you got pregnant, you couldn't have sex, that that would somehow damage the baby. And I think that's why Henry VIII was allowed to stray, or at least he thought he was allowed to stray. When Anne Boleyn became pregnant, she did not like. She did not like that. But Anne, if they'll do it with you, they'll do it to you. Moving on.
- [09:54]
Unnamed Advertiser
In the case of Victoria is This a recurring theme with all her pregnancies. Cause I mean, she gets pregnant again very quickly, doesn'?
- [10:02]
Kate Lister
Yeah. I mean she was clearly eager to get back in the sack with Albert and yeah, it probably would have been for her as well. Is like as soon as. That's it, as soon as you knocked.
- [10:12]
Kate Williams
Up, then there's, then there's no more.
- [10:13]
Unnamed Advertiser
Particularly in upper class circles, because it's perfectly acceptable, in fact it's the norm to hire a wet nurse so you.
- [10:21]
Kate Williams
Lose that contraceptive potential that breastfeeding gives you. So you're going to get pregnant straight away. And I think it might be the case that often you're more fertile quite soon after you've had a baby because sometimes the body believes the baby's no longer there, you are more fertile. So Victoria was pregnant again three months.
- [10:36]
Kate Lister
After she had her first child.
- [10:38]
Unnamed Advertiser
Kate, would Victoria have known that breastfeeding would have extended her window of opportunity with Albert?
- [10:46]
Kate Lister
I don't think she would have done. I don't think that was common knowledge at this point because in order to know that you need to know about hormone levels. Regulations and hormone theory didn't come in until into the 20th century. So I mean there might have been some received wisdom, old wives tale that was actually spot on. But I don't recall this being medical advice anymore.
- [11:07]
Unnamed Advertiser
As if only Victoria had known that. I mean, right away after her firstborn Vicky was born, she hired Mrs. Ratsey, the wife of a sailmaker from Cowes, to step in and serve as a wet nurse. But I think if Victoria had known she might have been able to.
- [11:22]
Kate Williams
Would she be able to break that taboo? Because it's obviously, it's a very important, it's totally a taboo to breastfeed your own children. Although Victoria's mother did try to do it, she felt she wanted to be close to her baby. But it is absolutely a taboo to feed your own children, you give them to a wet nurse. And I think the theory also is that you recover faster. And of course Victoria is queen, she wants to get back to work swiftly. What she also hates about being pregnant is that she is pushed out of power, that when she's pregnant it is a time when the ministers are saying, not so much dear. On top of that she has to give birth in front of her ministers with a sister screen separating them.
- [11:59]
Kate Lister
When they talk about confinement, they actually mean proper confinement. I'm not sure if they were still doing it as much up to the 19th century.
- [12:05]
Kate Williams
I think the tune of time when it was all no windows were Ever opened.
- [12:08]
Kate Lister
You were just locked in this darkened room with no sunlight and nothing and almost no contact with anybody because this idea that you can't startle the mother, the baby will come out scared or something or whatever it was that they thought was gonna happen. So it really is quite a debilitating thing to be pregnant at this particular period.
- [12:27]
Kate Williams
All of Victorian culture has the vision that when a woman is pregnant, you know, she can do nothing and her head is overwhelmed. So Victoria confronted by this, and there's a. Although she adores Albert, there is a power struggle between her and Albert for power, because he does want to be a joint monarch. His vision is William Mary all over again and hers is Victoria plus consort. But when she's pregnant, this starts to be the moment when he takes a lot more power. And of course, if she dies, he will be regent for the baby. And dying in childbirth was something that did happen to her poor cousin, Princess Charlotte, who had this nearly 50 hour labor and no one intervened because they were too scared to do so to the heir to the throne. So she has that fear. And on top of that, she loses so much power and she finds the physical difficulties of pregnancy particularly annoying.
- [13:10]
Unnamed Advertiser
Correct me if I'm wrong, but, I mean, she's the first, maybe not just monarch, but one of the first women to use some sort of relief in.
- [13:17]
Kate Williams
The form of this is Prince Leopold. Yes. So it's not her anesthetic. Yeah, it's much further on. And she is the first one to do this. And I think that part of the reason why she uses it is because there is this archaic practice that she has to give birth in front of her ministers. So obviously that was seen as fine for the consort. But as a woman who has to deal professionally with these men and they're just separated by this tiny screen. And I think one reason why she does it is because she feels very strongly that why should they listen to her going through this pain? But it's very controversial that Victoria uses chloroform, because the principle is that pain in childbirth brings a woman closer to understanding the evil of Eve. So if Eve brought down the entirety of culture by giving Adam the apple, she committed the first sin. That sin is what you must encounter by childbirth, by pain and childbirth. And if you don't have pain, it's like cheating.
- [14:07]
Unnamed Advertiser
Pretty Thomas aquinas in the 19th century, isn't it? People still believe this, that you've got to pay penance for the fall.
- [14:14]
Kate Williams
It's really fascinating. I saw this, even said 10 years ago that if a woman doesn't have a natural birth, if she has a caesarean, she'll find it harder to love and bond with her baby. Which is totally crazy, isn't it? That possible idea seems. But it still is this overhang that if you don't suffer. Obviously not all childbirth is hugely painful, but if you don't suffer the pain of childbirth, you can't love the child. You're cheating. You're a cheat.
- [14:39]
Unnamed Advertiser
Just getting back to Victoria there. I mean, her enthusiasm in the bedroom, I mean, it continues right the way till Albert's death. Am I right?
- [14:47]
Kate Lister
It really does. I mean, she is head over heels, devoted, in love with this guy, writing obsessively about how beautiful his face is and how beautiful his shirt is and his body is, and she's lying next to him. And it's real, like teenage girl crush stuff. They have arguments and there's a real power struggle. Cause you've got this weird dynamic of she's the queen, she's the monarch, but she's also attempting to adhere to this very Victorian morality of submitting to your husband, but she can't because she's the queen. And it all gets very tense. Tense.
- [15:20]
Kate Williams
She promises to obey, even though the ministers tell her not to. And they put up all these pictures, don't they, of Victoria's. Like serving Albert and being the subservient housewife. But really she's also telling him what to do.
- [15:31]
Kate Lister
And she definitely fancied him the whole way through. I've no doubt about that.
- [15:45]
Alex Von Tunzelman
This is history's heroes. People with purpose, brave ideas, and the courage to stand alone. Including a pioneering surgeon who rebuilt the shattered faces of soldiers in the first World War.
- [15:58]
Unnamed Historian
You know, he would look at these men and he would say, don't worry, sonny. You'll have as good a face as any of us when I'm done with you.
- [16:05]
Alex Von Tunzelman
Join me, Alex von Tunzelman for History's Heroes. Subscribe to History's Heroes wherever you get your podcasts.
- [16:15]
Kate Lister
Close your eyes. Exhale. Feel your body relax, and let go of whatever you're carrying today. Well, I'm letting go of the worry.
- [16:24]
Kate Williams
That I wouldn't get my new contacts in time for this class.
- [16:26]
Kate Lister
I got them delivered free from 1-800-contacts. Oh, my gosh, they're so fast. And breathe.
- [16:32]
Kate Williams
Oh, sorry.
- [16:33]
Kate Lister
I almost couldn't breathe when I saw the discount they gave me on my first order. Oh, sorry.
- [16:38]
Kate Williams
Namaste. Visit 1-800-contacts.com today to save on your first order.
- [16:43]
Kate Lister
1-800-Contacts.
- [16:58]
Unnamed Advertiser
So we're talking about attitudes to sex in Victorian times. We all have a very clear view of the Victorians as this sort of buttoned up breed of repressed, hypocritical, nymphomaniacal, straight laced people who might sit there in church on a Sunday and be ostensibly God fearing. But beneath the surface there lurked raging passions. Were they really any different from the Georgians or from 20th, 21st century Brits?
- [17:29]
Kate Lister
No, not really. We've always enjoyed sex and having sex with each other and talking about sex, gossiping about it, and they were no different at all. What changes are the social attitudes, what's taboo, what's not taboo? And if you look with a very long length at history, what you tend to get is that each generation tries to rebel in some way against the one that came before it. And for the Victorians, a big part of that was distancing themselves from the Georgians, who had been notorious for putting it about and for enjoying themselves very, very much. And just monarchs that were leaving litters of illegitimate children all over the place.
- [18:08]
Unnamed Advertiser
And recognizing them as well. Aren't they giving them titles and palaces.
- [18:12]
Kate Williams
And mistresses were openly at the theatre with you?
- [18:14]
Kate Lister
Absolutely.
- [18:15]
Kate Williams
It was a way into high society to be a mistress.
- [18:18]
Kate Lister
It was. And if you could play that game well, then you had access to an awful lot of power, actually. But the Victorians come along and they're trying to define themselves against all of that. So part of that comes with their attitude towards sex, which is that we're now gonna become quite reserved about it. But there are a few things we need to know about. That is, first of all, that's largely a middle class morality that we're seeing there. The 19th century saw a huge expanse of the middle class and there have been historians who've suggested that what we see with this, you can't talk about sex, I won't talk about sex. Oh, it's absolutely awful. That is the middle classes attempting to be better than the upper classes. And the lower classes, they can't beat the upper classes in terms of money, but they can be morally better than them. And the working classes, they had their own morality. But space is something that is a really modern concept. If you were a working class Victorian person, you almost certainly would have grown up in the same room as your entire family. You wouldn't have space and privacy the way we have it. You would probably have seen your parents having sex, you'd be aware of this. So you'd have a very different attitude to it. You need a lot of money. To have that kind of. Well, I'm not to talk about stuff. So a lot of what we're seeing here is the middle class Victorian morality. But we also need to remember these are the people that invented pornographic videos and pornographic photographs. So they're not as buttoned down and prudish as people like to think. In fact, what tends to happen when you repress something is it just explodes somewhere else. What develops is this very seedy underworld of the 19th century, if you knew where to go. And it's the Industrial revolution as well. So we've industrialized sex in many ways. So you get this weird situation of middle class, middle to upper class people denying that we're not going to talk about it. It's absolutely shocking. But of course people are still having sex and there's a lot of sex to be had as well.
- [20:14]
Unnamed Advertiser
And all those myths about people sort of covering up table legs and all that. Is that true?
- [20:18]
Kate Lister
That's not true. That was said a little bit later on in a way to sort of make fun of the Victorians for being as prudish. There have been historians who've suggested that actually the Victorians are obsessed with sex. They make the argument that if you walk around talking and thinking about something that much, you can't possibly be not interested in it. Like if I turned up and went, who's got a banana? If you got a banana? I'm not thinking about a banana. Why do you want a banana? Who's got a banana? You would not think this is a person who has no issues at all with bananas. You'd think, oh my God, this person's obsessed with. That's the Victorians.
- [20:52]
Unnamed Advertiser
And they were of course running an empire at the same time, weren't they, Kate?
- [20:56]
Kate Williams
This is the Victorian empire and the vision of upright non sexual behavior, the domestic idyll.
- [21:04]
Unnamed Advertiser
They're exporting it.
- [21:05]
Kate Williams
It's what is used to be exporting. It's on the biscuit tins. It's the image of Victoria in the perfect family and the companionate marriage. And this is all based on the vision of this upright man who's going.
- [21:14]
Alex Von Tunzelman
To rule the world.
- [21:14]
Kate Williams
He's gonna rule over court of the empire because he's Christian, he's moral, he's straight, and he would never IND in any sexual practices. And these kind of practices have to be stamped out across the empire. And this is justifying why the white man gets to rule. So it's all the ideology, the confidence and as you say, Kate, the industrialization of morality. This is all Part of the sort of ideology that allows the Victorians to say we should govern the world, but.
- [21:41]
Unnamed Advertiser
Meanwhile, back in the real world. Okay, Lister, if I could ask. As you said, the Georgians were from Nell Gwyn up to the sort of courtesans, and it was sort of free range, and then along come the Victorians. But. But what's going on with. You've suddenly got all these repressed men. One hears quite a lot about scandals going on behind the scenes, aren't there? I mean, they're these sort of houses of ill repute. Don't go away, do they? Just because the Victorians have come along.
- [22:07]
Kate Lister
Oh, no, no, no, no. In fact, they were really, really worried about what they termed the great social evil, which is people selling sex. They were completely panicked that sex work had just exploded during this period and all these women had gone on the game and. Isn't it awful? It's terrible. And there were mor estimating that there was 200,000, half a million people selling sex in the capital of London. And that gets written up as fact, but it was complete nonsense. We don't actually have accurate statistics for that to this very day, let alone how the Victorians were working out. And I think William Acton was one guy, and he estimated the number of fallen women in London by looking at the illegitimate birth records and then timing them by 10, because he figured that they would also be. And it just gets very bizarre. But all of that shows you how big a problem they thought that this was. Really, what's going on here is you get increasing urbanization. At the beginning of the 19th century, London has a population of, I think it's 1 million. And by the end, it's nearly 7 million within a hundred. So it's poof, it explodes. And what you get with that is increasing poverty. And you need an infrastructure to be able to support people. And wherever you get poverty, you will get people who are gonna sell sex. Especially if you also create an environment where no one's supposed to be having sex.
- [23:25]
Kate Williams
And it's interesting, isn't it? Because if we look at the penal code, if you steal something, you will be severely punished. I mean, it's still possible you could be hanged. And we might say, now, if I was desperate for money, I'd steal. But in those days, you are much better off. You're much safer selling sex because the authorities will turn a blind eye. And there are a lot of people who have a job and also doing it by the side. And there's a dolly mop. Exactly. Dollymop. Isn't it?
- [23:51]
Kate Lister
A dollymop is somebody who has employment but tops up their income with selling sex from time to time.
- [23:57]
Kate Williams
So maids and clerks and women couldn't earn.
- [24:01]
Kate Lister
Well, men as well couldn't earn very much money. So you would occasionally turn to a much more lucrative industry to top up your income. And that was known as dolly mopping.
- [24:10]
Kate Williams
And there's a lot of the grey area, isn't it, that we might call sugar daddying and a lot of gray areas between sex work and marriage and really. And I think, you know, until you get to the situation which you have with WT stead and underage girls, if you're an adult sex worker, blind eyes are normally turned.
- [24:26]
Kate Lister
They are. It was legal. You could be charged for prostitution under the 1824 Vagrancy Act. So if you're causing a nuisance and you are looking like a vagrant person, so if you're out on the streets trying to sell it, basically you could be prosecuted for that. You could be prosecuted for keeping a disorderly house. So again, it's noise offenses really. But by the most part people were willing to just turn a blind eye because it was so usual for men to be visiting these establishments. You hear so many stories of famous men who lost their virginities in these kind of establishments. Vincent van Gogh was one I was reading about quite recently. It just seems to have been a really common thing and it's a really strange situation because we know that these establishments were there, but we have so little records of them. Sometimes we have guides to the city of London. There's something called the Swell's Guide to London and it gives you some addresses. There was one in the 18th century called Harris List that gives you the names and addresses and expertise of some sex workers in the city. But one that we do know that was in the 19th century, a flagellation house. A lady who specialized in BDSM, she wouldn't have called it that. That was Theresa Barclay. Don't know an awful lot about her. She crops up in a few texts here or there. Arthur Henry Ashby, who compiled the bibliography of obscene books, he talks about her. She dies in 1836 and she has her house on Charlotte street and she specialised in spanking, whipping and generally humiliating upper class men who would pay an awful lot of money for that privilege.
- [26:02]
Unnamed Advertiser
It's funny how the literary canon, books and subsequently films, dramatizations is always portraying upper class men as going to these places. And it goes right the way through the Victorian era. I mean, probably the most famous Sort of example of that is anything to do with Jack the Ripper. It's always the East End, these poor sex workers of Bethnal Green and Mile End and it's always a sort of chap in a top hat coming. Is it the Prince of Wales? Is it Bertie? Is it Lord so and so. That seems to be, I think, the way that we've come to stereotype the 19th century sex worker scene. But that's probably just an extreme example, isn't it?
- [26:45]
Kate Lister
It's one example that certainly existed. There were very, very wealthy men who were taking advantage of much poorer people. The Cleveland street scandal would be a good example of that. That was in 1889 when it turned out that Telegraph boys, they were between 15 and 20 years old, had been selling sex to very wealthy men in a brothel on Cleveland street while using the telegraph system as a sort of a cover for it. And some very, very well to do highfalutin fancy names were mentioned.
- [27:18]
Unnamed Advertiser
Well, there was a rumor that the Duke of Clarence with the seventh's eldest son was one of them, but I mean there's no. I don't think there was ever any proof of that. But I think people rather like he was the one, of course that people thought was Jack the Ripper as well.
- [27:31]
Kate Williams
Prince of Wales Equ. I think the Prince of Wall's Equi had to rush away abroad before anyone started asking him too many questions about where he'd been.
- [27:38]
Kate Lister
What's interesting though is that the press were clearly colluding and covering this up at the time. They didn't want to report it. Trying to get information around it is quite difficult. They obviously just stopped talking about it. You can't imagine that happening today, can you?
- [27:52]
Kate Williams
Conspiracy of silence to protect upper class mores because we can't let it makes me think a bit about how lesbianism was not outlawed because you don't want women to find out about what they could possibly do and the law would make that so. We don't want the working classes to find out what is really happening, even though it's working class boys who are being used in these brothels.
- [28:12]
Kate Lister
But Theresa, she catered to the other.
- [28:14]
Unnamed Advertiser
This is the Charlotte Street.
- [28:15]
Kate Lister
This is Charlotte street. This is Mrs. Theresa Berkeley, or Berkeley I should say. It's written about in quite graphic detail about some of the punishments that she could administer. One of the things she was said to do was keep nettles in a long vase of water, so she would keep them pliant and that she would her paying clientele with that don't get any ideas, anybody. Just don't be writing us angry letters about this. She also invented something called the Barclay horse, which is an implement for you to be strapped over while you're being whipped. And she had a lot of women working for her as well. She was well known enough and good enough at this to have cropped up in various memoirs of people from the time. But as always with this subject, she herself disappears. We don't know anything about the boys in the Cleland street scandal. We don't know anything about Theresa. Just we know they were there.
- [29:14]
Alex Von Tunzelman
This is history's heroes. People with purpose, brave ideas and the courage to stand alone. Including a pioneering surgeon who rebuilt the shattered faces of soldiers in the First World War.
- [29:27]
Unnamed Historian
You know, he would look at these men and he would say, don't look worries, Sunny. You'll have as good a face as any of us when I'm done with you.
- [29:34]
Alex Von Tunzelman
Join me, Alex von Tunzelman for History's Heroes. Subscribe to History's Heroes wherever you get your podcasts.
- [29:43]
Kate Lister
Buying a car in Carvana was so easy, I was able to finance it through them. I just. Whoa, wait, you mean finance? Yeah, finance. Got pre qualified for a Carvana auto loan, entered my terms and shot from thousands of great car options, all within my budget. That's cool that financing through Carvana was so easy. Financed, done. And I get to pick up my car from their Carvana vending machine tomorrow. Financed, right? That's what they said. You can spend time trying to pronounce financing or you can actually finance and buy your car today on Carvana financing, subject to credit approval, additional terms and conditions may apply.
- [30:27]
Kate Williams
So women's freedom of movement was being controlled, but we also see a craze for this new fangled thing, the bicycle. And Queen Victoria was a bit of the fan of the bicycle.
- [30:38]
Unnamed Advertiser
Yes, Kate, Queen Victoria deserves a place, I think, in the hall of fame of British cycling. Although she never actually got on a bicycle herself, she did get on a tricycle. She was known to find this rather innovative and exciting mode of transport. She was in the Isle of Wight in 1881. So by this stage, long widowed and her carriage was suddenly overtaken by a girl riding a tricycle called a salvo. And the Queen thought, well, that's very impressive. So she asked to have a look at one of these things. And so the inventor duly brought one to Osborne House and Queen Victoria had a go and thought, this is very exciting. And so once the Queen Empress had effectively endorsed this new mode of transport with the Sort of royal im. Then of course, that opened the way for everybody to do it. And then we went from tricycles to bicycles. And I believe, Kate, that led to a whole new strand of Victorian erotica. Am I right?
- [31:38]
Kate Lister
You are right. It's a strange, straggled route from Victoria on the Isle of Wight on a tricycle to cycling porn a little bit later on. But there is dots to be joined up here. The first thing we need to know about the bicycle is that it played a really unacknowledged huge part in the women's liberation movement. Because do you remember when you were a little kid and the first time you got on a bicycle and it meant that you could go and see your friends and you could cycle, you could go far away. It's like when you first get in a car for the first time. Oh, my God, I can go anywhere. The bicycle did that. It made people geographically closer than they have been before. That's huge that women, so many women had these really. I don't wanna say boring. Cause that's not fair. But kind of boring lives. But there was that famous Amazon review of Pride and Prejudice that said it's just a bunch of people going to each other's houses. There's a reason for that, is because geographically they're kind of limited.
- [32:31]
Kate Williams
So put Lizzie Burns on a bicycle and what should have happened, right?
- [32:35]
Kate Lister
So you get this. So now all of a sudden it's associated with the women's liberation movement. Blue stockings loved a bicycle. And the other thing that we've got to contend with is the saddle. Now you can't really ride side saddle on a bicycle the same way that you can do with a horse. So all of a sudden you've got. Got an acknowledgement that women have crotches. Oh, my God. And that you're gonna have a saddle rubbing up against that area. And that did lead, I'm glad to say. Not in the uk, we seem to have kept our wits about us. But in America and Canada, you do get a lot of doctors absolutely panicking that women are gonna be riding bicycles so they can orgasm and that they're just gonna keep going down the street. No one's gonna have to stop them.
- [33:16]
Kate Williams
All that sexual pleasure.
- [33:18]
Kate Lister
All that sexual pleasure.
- [33:18]
Kate Williams
They won't need a man anymore if they can just get it on a bicycle.
- [33:21]
Kate Lister
That's exactly that. It might damage their reproductive organs.
- [33:27]
Kate Williams
Lose their virginity on a bicycle.
- [33:28]
Kate Lister
You could lose your virginity. That rumor was still doing the rounds when I was at school that that was possible, that it might Somehow disrupt their reproductive organs. There was a really ridiculous concern for a while called bicycle face, which was that if women were riding bicycles, they'd suddenly lose their looks and get this really pinched, old awful expression.
- [33:48]
Kate Williams
They tried everything to warn women off bicycles, get women off bicycles. It was going to ruin your internal organs, probably ruin your ch of getting pregnant and ruin your looks.
- [33:57]
Kate Lister
And also you have to wear different clothes. A corset, a tight fitting corset isn't much good to you when you're on a bicycle. Voluminous skirts with loads of petticoats. Hopeless on a bicycle. And then we get the bloomers, then we start to get more loose dress. The rational women's dress society comes along and all of this is linked to the bicycle.
- [34:15]
Unnamed Advertiser
The rational women's dress society. Yeah, I love that.
- [34:19]
Kate Lister
There was this idea that, you know, we're gonna dress more sensibly, we're gonna. You don't need corsets and huge petticoats and all this stuff. We can wear bloomers and more loose fitting clothes. We're gonna free boob it on a bicycle and all of that stuff. But because it's associated with women and them finding a new freedom and new slightly daring sexy clothes and because the discussion is already around, well, I think the saddle's rubbing on some rather intimate areas. It suddenly becomes quite an erotic implement as well. And also it does allow lovers to meet up in a way that perhaps they wouldn't have been able cycle off together.
- [34:56]
Unnamed Advertiser
Can lose their chaperone, can't they? They're emancipated. You know, the old maid or the maiden aunt who's expected to go with them everywhere, can't keep up, off they go.
- [35:06]
Kate Lister
Exactly. So the bicycle suddenly becomes quite a weirdly sexy object. And you do get. When they first start producing pornographic photographs, which must have been all of five minutes after they started producing regular photographs. I don't know what the time frame is on that, but it must have been very swift. In some of the earliest ones, you do get this reoccurring motif of a bicycle. And it's not just the fact that visually you have to sort of bend over a bicycle. You know, you get a good shot. Sometimes they're just stood next to a bicycle, like leaning on it, completely new.
- [35:40]
Kate Williams
That's all it takes.
- [35:40]
Kate Lister
That's all it takes. And they're just smiling away. You're just like, this is me on my bicycle. And it does seem that it was an erotically charged item. I don't know if Victoria knew that at the time, I'm gonna say, no, I'm not gonna link her with this. With this madness.
- [35:56]
Unnamed Advertiser
Yeah. Who would be responsible for actually telling her about this? I can't think. Anyone. So I think I'll just leave her happily pedaling up and down the driveway at Osbourne House on her salvo tricycle.
- [36:06]
Kate Lister
But you can see some of this stuff. If you are feeling very daring, you can Google Victorian erotica bicycle do. Clear your history afterwards. But you can see some of this stuff. They're in archives all around the world. It's just amazing how often, oh, they've got another bicycle. There's a bicycle in the background. Why is there so many bicycles?
- [36:24]
Kate Williams
So, Robert, now that we're dipped into the realms of erotica, often what comes to people's mind when they think about Victoria and Albert and their sex life is a certain appendage, isn't it?
- [36:34]
Unnamed Advertiser
Oh, I thought you might chuck that subject my way, Kate. I have no intimate knowledge of this subject at all. But it does, as you say, sort of. It recurs. It's become one of those sort of urban myths. I think that Prince Albert, allegedly. Who knows where it came from? It's not in any. I can assure you, it's not in the Royal Archives.
- [36:54]
Kate Williams
It's impossible to know where this myth came from.
- [36:56]
Unnamed Advertiser
It's this idea that he had a piercing in a particularly sensitive part of his anatomy. I'm being all Victorian here, aren't I? I might throw this over to Kate Lister. Kate, what is the genesis and what is the proof that, if any, that Prince Albert had a piercing down below?
- [37:16]
Kate Lister
This is still very much a thing to this very day. If you wandered into a piercing establishment right now, at this very moment, and asked them for a Prince Albert, they would pierce you through the shaft of. Of your penis with a ring in it. There is a lot of debate as to why on earth is it called a Prince Albert. We can put it to bed right now that Prince Albert himself did not have a piercing like this. I found zero record of it. I'm sure Victorian would have mentioned it.
- [37:41]
Kate Williams
She would have told us. She would have said, my Albert's jewelry was very fine tonight. She would have shown.
- [37:47]
Unnamed Advertiser
Just been appalled.
- [37:49]
Kate Lister
We don't have Albert's diaries, do we, to know how he felt about his relationships with Victoria?
- [37:55]
Unnamed Advertiser
Well, some of his letters home to his. I mean, he would write to his uncle quite a lot. I'm not sure he'd necessarily go into that sort of detail.
- [38:02]
Kate Williams
He was delighted by the love affair. He talked about how you know, he was loved and adored because his childhood wasn't great either. And so he did love that adoration that she gave him. But certainly, as we see as the relationship progresses, he becomes, I think, more and more exhausted by the levels of demands that the court makes on him, that she makes on him, that the family makes on him, and becomes more exhausted under the weight of Victoria's sort of. She is an inexhaustible little person. Victoria is inexhaustible in every way. I think Albert is much more tired, so certainly.
- [38:32]
Unnamed Advertiser
But there's no reference to Princess.
- [38:35]
Kate Williams
And it is stunning, isn't it? Because so many TV programmes have asked me about it and I just think it just doesn't exist.
- [38:41]
Kate Lister
Just listen to what you've said out loud with your own words. Did Prince Albert have his penis pierced? No, he didn't. I've done as much digging around this as I possibly can for you, and all I've been able to find out is that the actual. Well, to call it a Prince Albert piercing dates to the 1970s. That's as early as we've been able to find it. So I don't even know where it started. I've also heard it said that, oh, well, this has come from a dressing trend where he would have had a dressing ring, which would have been sort of a ring that he would have put into his penis to keep it off to one side as he was dressed. I can't find any evidence for that flattening.
- [39:21]
Kate Williams
And it's interesting because I read an interesting theory that someone was saying this is actually the opposite of Victorian male dress. Victorian male dress, you have the shorter waistcoat, don't you? So the crotch part is available to be seen. Not quite like the codpiece, but pretty like it. And Victoria, of course, compliments that saying, oh, Albert's got white trousers with nothing underneath them. And so I think they wouldn't have hidden it away.
- [39:43]
Kate Lister
No. And the Victoria and Albert Museum have a wonderful article on the history of male underwear. Nowhere do they mention a ring that was used to keep a penis to one side. I mean, do you need a ring to keep a. How big was it? You don't need a. That's just not a thing. I don't believe that that's ever happened. I'm sure fashion historians can write in and correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe that there's ever been a dressing ring that would keep a penis off to one side. I'd put my life on the fact he didn't have it. Penis.
- [40:10]
Kate Williams
I'm joining you. I'm joining you.
- [40:11]
Unnamed Advertiser
Good. I'm very glad to hear that we can clear this one up. I think we can just say that if anyone was gonna know about it, it would be the museum he founded, the Victoria he endowed, the.
- [40:21]
Kate Williams
Oh, Robert.
- [40:22]
Unnamed Advertiser
It would be the museum that bears his name, the Victorian Albert. And if they've got nothing on this, then nothing good. Well, there we are. It's always nice to clear up the odd myth on this podcast, but while we're on the subject of myths, Kate Williams, Professor Kate Williams, let me turn to another one of those sort of. Well, it's not quite an urban myth because it's not in the city, it's another Isle of Wight. But can we talk about Queen Victoria's sex button?
- [40:52]
Kate Williams
Well, Robert, we've said the Prince Albert was a myth and here's another one. This idea that in their beloved Usbourne House on the beautiful Isle of Wight, this country residence that they bought, they hugely renovated Italianate style, Albert's design dream, that in this house, which was their country house for them and their family, they had a sex button. And the purpose of this button was that when they felt like enjoying some marital congress, they'd press the button, the doors would lock and none of the children or servants would interrupt them. A bit like a modern day panic room. So in the same way that you might hear a burglar and press a button, Victoria and Albert did this when they felt like getting down to some more baby making. Well, it's not true at all. Now, Usborne House has a lot of innovations. Victoria and Albert were great adopters, the telephone, the gramophone, and there is no sex button. There is no truth to this, but we can say that Usborne House does show us a lot of the intimacy that they had because they bought each other for birthdays, sort of nude paintings, gorgeous paintings, statues of nudes, these beautiful modern paintings. So in 1852, Victoria bought Albert Florinda, which is in Osborne House, over his desk, some semi naked women around a pool. And it's from the legend of Roderick, who was watching Maids of Honour, and Victoria, you know, loved looking at it and she gave him another nude and she thought it very beautiful. And at one point, Albert himself commissions a sculpture of him posing as a Greek warrior. And he's got bare legs and feet, his left hand and his sword. And Victoria thought it very beautiful. Of course, you can imagine. Oh, marvellous. Here's a fake Albert I can look at when he's not here. But Albert had second thoughts. He thought he'd gone too far with these naked feet and he hid the sculpture before commissioning a second, more modest version. And so, you know, Victoria, Albert, they did exchange this art, which really I think goes to the heart of this intimate relationship that they have. And there's even a painting of Victoria that is Albert's favorite. And I think it's the Victorian equivalent.
- [42:54]
Kate Lister
Of a boudoir picture.
- [42:56]
Kate Williams
It's her with this loose hair, this sort of nearly off the shoulder dress. She's looking in the distance. Obviously we imagine thinking about her husband. I mean, that's the portrait he liked. Not the queen ones, not the crowns, not all the sort of done up portraits. That's his favorite.
- [43:11]
Kate Lister
It's very intimate when you look at it now, when you first hear that, oh, Victoria had a saucy portrait done for Albert and you think, oh, really? And then you look at it know, and you, oh, that's not very saucy. But for a queen, it was unbelievably erotic. The exposed shoulders, the languid look, the loose hair that was really spicy. For her to do that, who would.
- [43:35]
Unnamed Advertiser
Have seen that portrait? I mean, it was. I can't imagine the average visitor to Osborne would have come across that portrait.
- [43:41]
Kate Williams
It was in the private writing room in Windsor. Only the servants and the very intimate family would have seen any of these works of art because most of them were in their private studies, their private rooms. And Alt kept this portrait in his private writing room at Windsor, which would have been really his zone, to be his man cave. Really. It's the equivalent of Albert's man cave.
- [44:00]
Unnamed Advertiser
I mean, this is a time when institutions like the British Museum are putting on show sculptures of. I mean, there are three or four large depictions of. I can't remember which goddess it is, but she's sort of naked, bathing in a pool. You know, there's quite a lot of that sort of classical imagery which is being kind presented to the public. I mean, Kate, is that the equivalent of a sort of Carry on film or sort of soft porn for the Victorians? You know, what you could find in your museum or your art gallery?
- [44:38]
Kate Lister
I did worry about that a lot, you know, and you still get that argument today. When does it stop being art and when does it start being erotica?
- [44:45]
Kate Williams
Female nudity is very tolerated. Naked women. So I'm just thinking now of the Arthur Sullivan of Gilbert and Sullivan fame. His memorial in Embankment Gardens, which is put with a st. Half naked woman worshipping him. And that's for a musical composer and that's put up in 1903, so a bit after the Victorian period, but there is this tolerance of naked women, naked sculptures of women. But when it comes to a naked man, it's shocking.
- [45:09]
Unnamed Advertiser
Call him a muse or call him a goddess, and it's fine, isn't it?
- [45:12]
Kate Williams
It's fine. And this is one of the great feminist arguments, how few statues there are of women who aren't Queen Victoria or naked.
- [45:18]
Kate Lister
You do actually get a couple of art scandals with where there has been a nude exhibited and the woman in it does not look enough like a goddess. Interesting.
- [45:28]
Kate Williams
That happens.
- [45:28]
Kate Lister
Interesting that she looks too much like just a regular woman. So they clearly have it in their heads that as long as it's conforming to being a muse, a goddess, then that's okay. Young and beautiful, that's okay. But as soon as it steps outside of that, they get very upset, or if a woman painted it, they don't like that very much. There was a big fight on at the time for women artists to be able to access life within the academy. Eventually they had to let women artists in, and then for a long time, they wouldn't let them sketch nude people. It was just too unseemly. And apparently the first time they did it, some woman fainted. Really let the side down there. Damn it.
- [46:06]
Kate Williams
Yeah, we just shouldn't get the box of penises out for that group of artists.
- [46:11]
Unnamed Advertiser
Just thinking of Victorian curios in one of my favorite places, which is the repository for the Science Museum. So it's all the stuff that's not on display in the Science Museum. Museum has, until very recently, been kept in Blythe House in Olympia. It's a fascinating collection of all sorts of scientific instruments and implements and bits of old plane crash and models of royal yachts that never existed, you name it. But in there, there's also a rather terrifying glass case full of chastity belts. I don't know if you've ever seen that. Terrifying, actually, through the ages, and not just through the Middle Ages, but, you know, right up into the 19th century. So, I mean, the Victorian stuff, they were certainly interested in, I think, all aspects of what they would have called prurient, irreverent behaviour. But I mean, it's still there on display or just not on public display.
- [47:06]
Kate Williams
Heavens above. Well, maybe one day we'll see it out there in the. In the shows.
- [47:10]
Kate Lister
I feel I should jump in here and say that the Victorians invented the chastity belt.
- [47:15]
Unnamed Advertiser
Oh, so they are Victorian. There we go. Carry on.
- [47:19]
Kate Lister
The Victorians created them. And then they said, well, that was the medieval people who did that. We've never found one, We've never found a medieval chastity belt. The only ones that exist are Victorian imitations of what they think the medieval chastity belt would look like. They're a saucy bunch.
- [47:36]
Kate Williams
Honestly, Kate, you're writing this brilliant book about the history of the female orgasm. So tell us, at this period, how understood is the female orgasm? How understood with, say, a woman like Victoria? And I was just wondering, because we have it in the 18th century, don't we? The overhang that for a woman to pop out an egg, she needs to have an orgasm. That's that the feeling is. And do we think, we still think that in the Victorian times you do actually have this.
- [48:01]
Kate Lister
It's a Lego leg over. It's a leftover from very ancient Greek thought that. It's called the two seed theory. So a man would have to release his seed, fairly self explanatory, and a woman would have to release her seed. And we're not entirely sure what that. But they thought that a woman would have to orgasm, just like a man has to orgasm for this seed to be released. And then they would mingle and then poof, there would be a baby and everybody's happy. This stays with us for a remarkably long time. It was actually being dispelled in the 17th century. It was William Harvey of heart and blood pumping fame, who actually wrote pretty conclusively. No, he gives a bit too much away, actually. He says, I've known plenty of women who got pregnant and did an orgasm going, william, you've just told on yourself rather spectacularly there. But they knew about this. But it stays in force and at least they're still debating it. By the 19th century, you get entire medical journals dedicated to this. Mostly people going, it's not true. But yeah, so it's still enforced, but they certainly understood orgasm.
- [49:00]
Kate Williams
And it's fascinating, isn't it, because lie back and think of England, a phrase that we associate with the Victorian period and even with Queen Victoria, that doesn't come in till much later.
- [49:08]
Kate Lister
That's not Victorian. No, that was a joke. That was much, much later. That is, I think, the earliest they've been able to find that is the 1950s, that joke, to lie back and think of England.
- [49:17]
Kate Williams
So we have the chastity belt, the Albert Penis, the penis, all these acronyms. So if you have still got this overhang of the belief that you have to enjoy sex to get pregnant, then you know, some of that I think perhaps is maybe impacting on Victoria's attitude towards it.
- [49:32]
Kate Lister
It's another myth that they thought that women were entirely sexless. I mean, you can find one or two Victorian quack doctors who say something like, I think again, William Acton said, thankfully for them, women are not much troubled by sexual pleasure of any kind. But you only have to read through Victorian erotic literature to realize that they knew perfect or don't even go that far. Read Victoria's diaries that knew that sexual pleasure was very important. But they did have a very clear idea that sexual pleasure should be between a man and a woman and it should be married and they should be trying to make babies. Those were their ground rules.
- [50:05]
Kate Williams
Yes, that's what it's for.
- [50:06]
Kate Lister
That's what it's for.
- [50:07]
Kate Williams
Not just for fun, but it's all.
- [50:08]
Kate Lister
Right to enjoy it. It's been such fun to hang out with you both. Thank you everyone for listening. And if you like what you heard, don't forget to like, review and follow along wherever it is that you get your picture. Podcasts if you'd like us to explore a subject or maybe you just wanted to say hello, you just fancied a chat, then you can email us at betwixt history hit.com for listeners who want more royal shenanigans, join Kate Williams and Robert Hardman over at Kings Queens and Dastardly Things. Otherwise, join me back on this podcast, wherever it was that you found us today for more sex lives of Queens and, well, everybody else. This podcast by History Hit and the Daily Mail was edited by Tom Delaghi and produced by Benedict Devlin and Sophie G. The senior producer was Charlotte Long. Join me again Betwixt the Sheets, the History of Sex Scandal in Society, a podcast by History Hit. This podcast contains music from Epidemic Sound.
- [51:09]
Alex Von Tunzelman
This is History's Heroes. People with purpose, brave ideas and the courage to stand stand alone. Including a pioneering surgeon who rebuilt the shattered faces of soldiers in the First World War.
- [51:22]
Unnamed Historian
You know, he would look at these men and he would say, don't worry, sonny, you'll have as good a face as any of us when I'm done with you.
- [51:29]
Alex Von Tunzelman
Join me, Alex Von Tunzelman for History's Heroes. Subscribe to History's Heroes wherever you get your podcasts.
- [51:38]
Hannah Burner
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