Henry Paget: life of the week

Summary

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HistoryExtra Podcast Summary

Episode: “Henry Paget: Life of the Week”

Date: June 8, 2026
Host: Charlotte Vosper
Guest: Michael Hall, historian and author

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Episode Overview

This episode delves into the life of Henry Paget, 5th Marquess of Anglesey—an eccentric, flamboyant, and enigmatic figure from the late 19th and early 20th century, often dubbed "the Dancing Marquess." Historian Michael Hall guides listeners through Paget’s aristocratic background, his notorious lifestyle, his ambiguous place in queer history, and his lingering legacy, including discussion of the new biopic "Mad Fabulous."

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Who Was Henry Paget?

• Background: Fifth holder of an illustrious aristocratic title, with family fortunes rooted in industrial-era coal and mineral assets, notably in Staffordshire and Anglesey.

  “He was the 5th Marquess of Anglesey and he was very rich indeed… The family were very rich, not because of anything on Anglesey… It was because they owned very large estates in Staffordshire which gave them a lot of money through coal mine and other industries there.” – Michael Hall (03:50)

• Family Intrigue: Persistent (but unsubstantiated) rumors questioned Paget’s paternity, connecting him to famed French actor Benoît-Constant Coquelin through complex family ties—a rumor dismissed by Hall as “completely ludicrous.”

  “The idea that Coquelin, the famous actor, was his father is completely ludicrous, I think completely untrue.” – Michael Hall (05:23)

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2. Upbringing, Early Influences, and Social Standing

• Paget’s early life was conventional for an aristocrat: educated at Eton, given an honorary military officer role, and married his cousin Lillian Chetwynd at 21.
• His interest in theatrical culture is speculated to have roots in his French upbringing and his mother’s social circles.
• The British mindset of the era often "othered" him, pinning his flamboyance on French influence.

  “...when people looked at his later life and thought he seemed ra. Unenglish in so many ways, they thought, well, the fact that he was born and educated in France must explain an awful lot.” – Michael Hall (06:18)

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3. Inheritance, Wealth, and Spending Habits

• Upon inheriting the marquessate, Paget gained access to a vast fortune, enabling his extravagance in jewelry, costumes, and lavish living.
• Even before inheriting, he accrued significant debts, mortgaging his future income.

  “He already was heavily in debt. But why he should have been in debt, I don't know.” – Michael Hall (07:36)

• Unlike some aristocratic peers, there’s little evidence he squandered wealth at gambling; his vices were couture and performance.

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4. Emergence as a Public Personality & Early Celebrity Culture

• Newspapers of the 1890s and early 1900s turned aristocrats into celebrities, and Paget was a prime subject due to his persona and mishaps (e.g., jewel theft).

  “It was the age of... illustrated newspapers... And they all had social columns. So people were very interested in him already.” – Michael Hall (11:36)

• Notable Incident: On inheritance, fined for an unlicensed dog at Liverpool; a jewel theft by a valet (who was caught in disguise!) made national headlines.
• Paget was unusually fond of self-promotion, giving the press photographs of himself in elaborate costumes.

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5. Queer History & Identity

• The term "queer" is discussed as a historical label that helps capture the ambiguity and fluidity of Paget's relationship with gender and sexuality, especially due to lack of personal writings or direct evidence.

  “One advantage of the term queer is that I think it keeps all the possibilities open... it's a very useful term because it's clearly anachronistic and so it carries within itself a reminder of the distance between the past and the present.” – Michael Hall (14:32)

• Marriage to Lillian Chetwynd was likely unconsummated; divorce proceedings and family anecdotes emphasize jewelry and ritual over intimacy.

  “He made her take all her clothes off, put on all the jewels and lie in bed. And that was it. Nothing else happened. This was a story that was passed down through the family.” – Michael Hall (19:24)

• Sexual orientation remains inconclusive; no evidence of romantic or sexual relationships with men or women.

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6. Theatrical Pursuits and Persona

• Paget transformed his estate’s chapel into the opulent Gaiety Theatre, inspired by contemporary aesthetic movements.
• Hosted pantomimes and plays, including Wilde’s “An Ideal Husband”—post-Wilde trial, Wilde’s name omitted from programs.
• Photographs (often in gender-bending or fantasy costumes) fueled later myths about his identity, but were largely confined to theatrical context, not daily attire.

  “He didn’t go around like that in public... Nor, so far as we know, was he a cross dresser... They were within a theatrical setting.” – Michael Hall (24:15)

• Earned the nickname "the Dancing Marquis" for his elaborate “Butterfly Dance,” modeled on Loie Fuller’s style, with flowing wings and dramatic costuming.

  “He did what he called the Butterfly dance... people knew what the source was... Loie Fuller... one of the pioneers of modern dance.” – Michael Hall (25:53)

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7. Public Perception & Early Queer Pathologies

• Mainstream fascination mingled with suspicion, with people and early sexologists (like Magnus Hirschfeld) projecting sexual/gender identities onto Paget—often inaccurately labeling him as a transvestite or homosexual.
• Within the local community, Paget was both apart from and beloved by local tenants and tradespeople (largely thanks to his profligate spending).

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8. Financial Downfall & Late Life

• Persistent overspending led to bankruptcy in 1904; trustees liquidated possessions not covered by entail (notably jewels and costumes in vivid, public sales).
• Paget relocated to France, living modestly and giving playful press interviews designed to rehabilitate his image.

  “At the end of every month. He threw all the bills into his hat and picked out three and would pay those.” – Michael Hall (34:26)

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9. Death and Aftermath

• Died aged 29, probably of pulmonary disease; attended by his mother and aunt, with his estranged wife later accompanying his body for burial.
• Family (deliberately) erased his legacy: destroyed personal papers, dismantled the theatre.
• Only in recent decades, after photographs resurfaced and the family seat became a National Trust property, did interest in Paget as a queer historical figure reemerge.

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10. Film Representation and Modern Legacy

• Comment on the recent film "Mad Fabulous"—applauded for costume design but noted for taking liberties with timelines and Paget’s relationships.

  “They have to fill out the story a bit … they hint that he's having a gay relationship with one of the men in his theatrical troupe. But they sort of pull back from saying that anything really was gay.” – Michael Hall (40:30)

• The film raises modern questions about sexuality and gender but cannot definitively categorize Paget due to lack of evidence.

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11. Reflections on Queer History and the Era

• Paget’s life underscores both the constraints and the (rare) freedoms available to wealthy queer-coded individuals in late Victorian Britain.

  “He shows what it was possible to do in going against society's norms at a time when those norms were pretty strong... But he did pay quite a heavy price.” – Michael Hall (41:30)

• The era (1890s–early 1900s) marked a period of increasing debate and anxiety about sexuality, especially following the Wilde trials.

  “It tells a lot about a new fluidity in ideas about gender and sexuality that are rooted in the 1890s...” – Michael Hall (44:16)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Family Rumors:
  “The idea that Coquelin, the famous actor, was his father is completely ludicrous, I think completely untrue.” – Michael Hall (05:23)

• On Historic Queerness:
  “Queer is just an incredibly useful term for describing him because it’s a term that avoids putting labels on him.” – Michael Hall (20:36)

• On the Power of Images:
  “If these photographs hadn’t survived... I think he would be almost totally forgotten because there are no other sources for him.” – Michael Hall (23:40)

• On Life After Bankruptcy:
  “He said what he did at the end of every month. He threw all the bills into his hat and picked out three and would pay those.” – Michael Hall (34:26)

• On Performance and Gender:
  “There is no other word for it but gender bending... But he didn’t go around like that in public... Nor, so far as we know, was he a cross dresser.” – Michael Hall (24:15)

• On Modern Remembrance:
  “I think he shows what it was possible to do in going against society's norms at a time when those norms were pretty strong... But he did pay quite a heavy price.” – Michael Hall (41:30)

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Important Timestamps

• 03:50 — Introduction to Henry Paget’s family background
• 06:18 — Rumors about Paget’s paternity and French influence
• 11:36 — Paget as an early celebrity; jewel theft incident
• 14:32 — Discussion of "queer" as a historical label
• 19:24 — Anecdotes from Paget’s marriage
• 24:15 — Clarification on Paget’s cross-dressing and gender performance
• 25:53 — Origins of the "Dancing Marquis" nickname and dance style
• 34:26 — Unconventional approach to bill-paying and insolvent lifestyle
• 41:30 — Paget’s legacy in queer history and the cost of eccentricity
• 44:16 — Reflections on his meaning for queer lives in history

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Conclusion

This episode provides a rich, nuanced exploration of Henry Paget’s life as “the Dancing Marquess,” touching on aristocratic eccentricity, performative gender transgression, and the difficulties of writing queer history with few personal sources. Paget’s story is one of spectacle and paradox: his privilege afforded him freedom for self-expression—at a high personal and social cost, and his life remains enigmatic, its memory preserved through photographs, rumors, and now, reinterpretation on screen.

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For further related content:

• Listen to the HistoryExtra episode “Untold LGBTQ Stories of the National Trust” for more on queer heritage in British history.

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Transcript

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[Narrator / Introducer]

Flamboyant Late 19th century aristocrat Henry Paget was certainly no stranger to attention in his own lifetime. And now he's the subject of new film Mad Fabulous, which was released here in the UK at the start of June. But who was Padgett and what did he do to attract so much notice? In this episode of the History Extra podcast, historian and author Michael hall guides Charlotte Vosper through the extravagant life of the man who became known as the Dancing Marquis.

[Charlotte Vosper]

Today we're going to be chatting all about the life of Henry Paget, who has become known as the Dancing Marquess. But for those who might not have heard of Henry, can you tell me in a nutshell, who was he?

[Michael Hall]

He was the 5th Marquess of Anglesey and he was very rich indeed because his family, the Pagets, are probably best remembered now for one of the great heroes of Waterloo, somebody who became the first Marquess of Anglesey, who was, I think, I'm not a military historian, but he was by Wellington's side at Waterloo and this famous exchange that he said, oh, good God, sir, I think I've lost my leg. And Wellington said, good God, sir, so you have. And so he became one legged marquis. And if you go to Place Kneud, which is their house on Anglesey, there's a rather good museum about the 1st Marquis of Anglesey and his military career and you can see his false leg. But the family were very rich, not because of anything on Anglesey, although they did own copper mines there. It was because they owned very large estates in Staffordshire which gave them a lot of money through coal mine and other industries there. They were super rich aristocratic family. Their sort of historic seat was on Anglesey, but they also had major properties in England.

[Charlotte Vosper]

So Henry part of this very wealthy aristocratic family. We're gonna be talking about his story today. So Henry was born on 16 June 1875, but right from the off, his life was the subject of some intrigue, wasn't it?

[Michael Hall]

It was. I mean, there were lots of rumours about his. He was born in France though he was pretty well largely brought up in England. And the rumour was that his father was not actually the 4th Marquis of Anglesey, but was an actor called. Very famous French actor called Benoit Constant Coquelin. And this seems to be a bit of a muddle. The Marquis's mother, the 5th Marquess's mother, was a woman called Blanche Boyd, who died when he was very, very young and very Much later, in 1891, long after the marquis was born, his mother's surviving sister married Coquelin's brother. So there was a sort of family relationship by marriage. But the idea that Coquelin, the famous actor, was his father is completely ludicrous, I think completely untrue. And there's never any suggestion that the 4th Marquis thought that Henry Paget wasn't his son.

[Charlotte Vosper]

Okay, so there's no evidence to substantiate that rumour.

[Michael Hall]

No.

[Charlotte Vosper]

But as you mentioned, he was born in France. Is that where he initially encounter this kind of theatrical culture, which later came to play such a big role in his life, as far as anyone knows?

[Michael Hall]

And it does seem an irresistible link that there was obviously this family friendship and later relationship by marriage to one of the most famous actors in France. And he would have been taken to the theater, I'm sure. And I think he was aware of that theatrical ambience. It's very hard to see where it comes from otherwise. And although he was born in France, you're quite right, and that was always rather held against him because it was thought when people looked at his later life and thought he seemed ra. Unenglish in so many ways, they thought, well, the fact that he was born and educated in France must explain an awful lot. And that sort of usual English feeling of superiority to the French, perhaps that goes back to the Battle of Waterloo, it just occurs to me. But he really had a rather conventional. He went to preparatory school in England. He went to Eton. He had a sort of brief one of those honorary military careers. He was made an officer in a smart regiment. He never saw any action or anything like that. And he did what was expected of him, which when he was 21, he got married to a famously rather attractive, lively woman called Lillian Chetwynd, who was his first cousin. She was the daughter of his mother's sister.

[Charlotte Vosper]

Okay, so then through the 1880s into the 1890s, he's had this quite traditional upbringing. Comes back to England. When did he start to develop this theatrical, extravagant Persona and style, as far

[Michael Hall]

as we know, when he inherited, because suddenly he had access to a lot of money. I mean, what his financial circumstances were before that isn't known. And one fact that struck me, when one was looking at the obituaries, one of them records that he had taken out very large mortgages on his life interest. And just to explain that, because there is quite a lot of confusion about this, the way that all aristocratic families worked, basically, there was a certain amount of the inheritance, which was usually the houses, the lands, usually important works of art that had to pass from generation to generation as heirlooms, and the person who had the lifetime use of them couldn't sell them or get them. But because the family had all this wealth from minerals, there was large income, annual income, which he did have, and that was said to be, in modern terms, absolute millions. But the fact that he had already taken out really substantial mortgages on what was called his life interest, which was this income, suggests to me that he already was heavily in debt. But why he should have been in debt, I don't know.

[Charlotte Vosper]

Okay, so prior to the time when he inherits the title, he's clearly spending some money.

[Michael Hall]

Yes.

[Charlotte Vosper]

And what sort of things might he have been spending money on? Could we speculate?

[Michael Hall]

Well, I would imagine clothes and jewels and all the things that we know that he liked. I don't know of any great evidence that he was particularly keen on gambling. I mean, he dies in Monte Carlo and he does go there quite regularly, but nobody actually says, oh, he threw away money on the gaming tables, which was a very common aristocratic way to lose a lot of money very quickly.

[Charlotte Vosper]

So if he was spending money on basically wardrobe, jewels, costumes, Was he presenting like that in public through his teens, into his early twenties?

[Michael Hall]

Not so far as we know. After he died, I mean, most of the obituarys were very hostile to him. They thought he was ridiculous figure who was a sort of wastrel who'd run through a family fortune on doing completely ridiculous things. But somebody whose old preparatory school headmaster wrote a letter to the papers. He wanted to stand up for him and say, as a boy, he was more effeminate than the other boys liked, but he was popular because he was very generous, he obviously had money, and he was very polite and kind.

[Charlotte Vosper]

Yeah, I mean, it's important to remember that as much as we've got this image of him in, like, dazzling costumes, that there's obviously a person behind this image. And that's something we're gonna hopefully talk about a little bit today. So he was the subject of intrigue a little bit in his early life. There's rumours speculating about his biological father. Do we have any sense of how Henry might've felt about this? Did he feel othered growing up? You mentioned that he was popular.

[Michael Hall]

No. And I think we have to come down to the basic Fact, which is so common for anyone study queer figures in the past, which is lack of evidence. We know it's pretty certain that after his death, and he died young, he was only 29 when he died. So it's a short life that his family, probably not the next Marquis, but the next marquis's mother, destroyed any papers that she could find at Placenoit. And nothing has come to light. And if it weren't for the fact that he was in his own right, a minor celebrity, really, and was covered very widely in all the newspapers and stories about him were retold and retold, we would know very little about him. And in fact, one of the things that's made it easier to write about him, and certainly made it easier for me to write my chapter on Plasnoid, which is about the dancing Marquis, is the digitization of Victorian and 20th century newspapers. So it's now very easy to search for references to him. Because you just look up Marquis of Anglesey and it comes up and there are dozens and dozens and dozens of references to him. People were very intrigued by him, but that is really the only source.

[Charlotte Vosper]

So we don't have anything really from his perspective to understand how he felt.

[Michael Hall]

No.

[Charlotte Vosper]

And so what were these Victorian sources saying about him? Once he's inherited the title, he starts being able to wear these costumes and outfits publicly.

[Michael Hall]

I think one important point to make is that in a way that's now rather forgotten, is that the aristocracy, in a way, were the celebrity culture of the time. It was the age of. From the 1890s, almost illustrated newspapers. Newspapers began publishing photographs quite late, around about the early 1890s. And they all had social columns. And there was great interest in the royal family, as there is now. But aristocrats, in a way that now they've slightly faded. I think they're not on a level with television or film celebrities by any means. Whereas in the 1890s and the 1910s they were celebrities. So people were very interested in him already. And he was actually in New York when his father died and arrives in Liverpool. The ship docks and he gets off. And of course, here is the new Lord Anglesey. Everyone's very interested in him. And he has with him his favorite French bulldog. And then one customs officer said, can we see your license for importing your dog? And he hadn't got one. So he was taken to court and fined 20 pounds. And this gets into all the papers and from then on it's slightly unstoppable. But then there was a big scandal. He's putting it too strongly, but the sort of thing that got the papers absolute frenzy, that he was staying at a hotel in London and went out to the theatre. And one of his valets, he always travelled with three valets, it was said, as well as his own hairdresser, stole large bag of jewels and made off with them. And so when the Marquis came back, obviously called the police, and the police set off in pursuit of him. They did actually catch the valet who was escaping to France, but they caught him as he was boarding the ferry at Dover, disguised by a false moustache. And so he was convicted and went to prison for five years, I think, or something like that. But when the press found out that the play that the Marquis had gone off to sea while all this was going on was a play about Sherlock Holmes, of course, the whole story became absolutely irresistible. And so people said, why didn't he think he should have locked up his jewels before going to see a play about the great detective? And one really sparky journalist had the idea of getting in touch with Arthur Conan Doyle and saying, what would Sherlock Holmes have done? Well, Conan Doyle was rather taken aback by this and said, what did he lose? What did he lose? Thousands of pounds worth of jewels. He said, I didn't know that any man had so many jewels to lose. So already this idea that there was something slightly, not quite conventionally masculine about him was coming out. And it was also the first real age of celebrity interviews. And so he was interviewed in his hotel room by people in the press. And it describes him sitting there and very tellingly, it says that the room he's completely surrounded by photographs of himself in very expensive frames. Well, that's rather a clue as to his personality, I think.

[Charlotte Vosper]

Yeah, I think that definitely indicates something, doesn't it? And it's important to pull out that something, actually, because we're talking here about queer history. But what do we mean by that?

[Michael Hall]

Well, queer, obviously, in a sense, is a modern term. I mean, queer as a description for people who break with conventions about sexual orientation or gender is a word that goes back quite a long way. It tended to be an abusive term, of course, and many gay men still find the term slightly problematic because nobody likes to be described as a queer, for instance. But historians have taken it up, and people who write about sexuality in the past, I would include myself in that, find it a useful term, because in the past, people didn't describe themselves as gay or bisexual or trans. But we look into the past and we can see that were people who clearly did break with norms in those sorts of areas. How should they be described? Well, the ideal is to use the terms that they themselves would have used. And for some women, calling them lesbians is fine because lesbian is a term that goes back to the 18th century and women in the 20th century call themselves lesbian or sapphire. With men it's tended to be a bit more complicated. And one advantage of the term queer is that I think it keeps all the possibilities open. You're not actually committing yourself to saying this person was gay, this person was bisexual, this person was trans. I also think as a historian, it's a very useful term because it's clearly anachronistic and so it carries within itself a reminder of the distance between the past and the present.

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[Charlotte Vosper]

We don't necessarily know about Padgett's sexuality, do we? Cause he was married. He got married in 1898.

[Michael Hall]

Yes.

[Charlotte Vosper]

What was his relationship like with Lillian?

[Michael Hall]

Well, it was obviously rather troubled. She sued him for divorce in 1902, I think. So they hadn't been married for very long, four years or something like that. And it was widely rumored, and I think it probably is the case, that the grounds for divorce was non consummation. I mean, they'd never had sex. But then rather mysteriously, although she gets the decree, and I should point out that all legal cases to do with divorce were behind closed doors. So there was no public record of what was said. So far as I'm aware. Nobody's tracked down any authoritative statements about what was said in court. But then a couple of years later, she goes back and gets the decree rescinded. And they have what? And I'm not a sort of expert on family law in the Edwardian period, but it seems to be some sort of agreed separation in which she obviously gets money, I think, but they remain married. So that's slightly mysterious. Nobody's ever quite got to the bottom of that. We know a bit about her because she actually lived a long time. She didn't die until 1962. And we know from her grandson, Christopher Simon Sykes, the historian, who in about 1982, I think, published a book called Black Sheep, which is about aristocratic. Who Went Off Rails, has a whole chapter on the dancing marquis. In a way, the most authoritative thing that was published about him for a very long time. And he is able to record what obviously were family stories about this marriage. And the story he tells, which everybody retells, is that they went to Paris for their honeymoon and he took her to all the most expensive jewelers and bought thousands of jewels. And he'd given her a lot of jewelry as a wedding present, which was recorded in all the newspapers. And then when they got back to their hotel room, he made her take all her clothes off, put on all the jewels and lie in bed. And that was it. Nothing else happened. This was a story that was passed down through the family. So I think there is probably some truth in it, but we don't know much about her other than that.

[Charlotte Vosper]

So they potentially had. Well, they did have some kind of relationship, but not necessarily a sexual one, we're pretty sure. Do you think that constitutes us describing him as a queer historical figure?

[Michael Hall]

I think so, because his sexuality is a mystery. His sense of his own gender identity is a mystery. We just don't know because there are no letters by him, There are no statements by him on those subjects. There's no evidence that he had sexual relationships with anybody. So queer is just an incredibly useful term for describing him because it's a term that avoids putting labels on him. One thing that absolutely everybody who wrote about him was united in saying was that he was extraordinarily effeminate. I mean, standards of masculine behavior were different from what they are now. But his desire to perform in public on the theater was not wholly unusual. There was quite a long tradition of aristocratic men going on the stage. I sort of looked this up and there were other aristocratic men who had quite successful careers as actors and things like that. It wasn't wholly unusual by any means, but he did it in a rather extreme way.

[Charlotte Vosper]

What kinds of performances was he doing? Did this start once he'd inherited the title?

[Michael Hall]

Yes, it seems to start pretty quickly. It's an old house, but it was done up in the 18th century in a sort of Gothic Revival style. It has this very beautiful setting just overlooking the Menai Strait towards Snowdonia. And it had a family chapel which was on the first floor with very beautiful Gothic plaster vault. And I found evidence it was already being used as a theatre in some way, because country house theatricals were a quite common thing. I mean, people went off to their country houses for the whole summer. They wanted things to do. And so charades and tableaux vivants, little plays and so on. If you think of Jane Austen and Mansfield park, that's all about people in a country house putting on a play. So the chapel does seem to have doubled to some sort of performance space of a rather modest sort. And he did it up to the 9th into a theater called the Gaiety Theatre. And there are good photographs and watercolors of it. It was pretty sumptuous, hung with hangings and curtains in a beautiful peacock blue, embroidered or woven with sunflowers. Rather aesthetic movement, turn of the century. And he began to stage what were fairly conventional ideas for country house performances. Little plays, little pantomimes and things like that. He was very keen on pantomimes, Aladdin and other things. And. And unusually, it wasn't just for his sort of family and immediate friends. He started selling tickets and inviting people for Bangor, who was the nearest big town, to come and watch it. And then he ramped it up from there and started hiring professional actors. And then towards the end of his life, he developed really what was a semi professional acting troupe. And he took them on tour in plays by Oscar Wilde and others like that. That was highly unusual and very expensive thing to do. He paid for all the costumes, he paid for sets, he paid the actors, he PA to be transported by special train to theatres and so on. And most of all, he performed in everything himself because everything was designed to have a star part for Lord Anglethea.

[Charlotte Vosper]

Wow. Okay, so he was centre stage in these performances.

[Michael Hall]

Very much so.

[Charlotte Vosper]

And how were people reacting to these performances? You mentioned there that one of the plays that was performed was an Oscar Wilde play.

[Michael Hall]

Yes.

[Charlotte Vosper]

How did that go down?

[Michael Hall]

Very well. Ideal Husband, because it was after Wilde's trial and disgrace, and this seems now incredibly hypocritical, but his plays carried on being performed because they were big sellers. But people just took his name off the programmes and the posters. So if you read the reviews of Lord Anglesey in An Ideal Husband, they don't mention Oscar Wilde, but they praise him. They say he's surprisingly. He's actually a rather good actor. But the only evidence of all this is he was very, very keen on being photographed. As I mentioned, that journalist who interviewed him after the theft of the jewels saw that. And what was unusual, I mean, it was an age which people did get photographed a lot. He got himself photographed in all his costumes and so on, but he gave them to the press. It is very early celebrity culture. And so you look at the illustrated papers and they all reproduce the same photographs of him because he was supplying them. If these photographs hadn't survived and they survived in large numbers, I think he would be almost totally forgotten because there are no other sources for him. But the photographs are compelling. I mean, he loved posing. Clearly, this has led to a certain number of misunderstandings. I have to say. All the photographs of him show his either in fancy dress, some of which are recorded, but of course, for his birthdays he had fancy dress parties. And we can tie together those photographs to some of those recorded parties. But most of what he was photographed in are theatrical costumes for Aladdin and things like that. And they are very, very striking. And obviously people have looked at this and they are extremely gender bending. I mean, everyone always says they look like Freddie Mercury because he was very tall and thin and had this sort of slightly droopy moustache like a lot of Edwardians, wearing these flowing, rather feminine. I mean, there is no other word for it but gender bending. But he didn't go around like that in public. That's something that is quite misunderstood. Nor, so far as we know, was he a cross dresser. He didn't dress up in women's clothes. I mean, some of the clothes might have been interpreted as being female costumes, but they were within a theatrical setting, an ambiance.

[Charlotte Vosper]

It's important to understand those in context then, isn't it? Cause I think often those images of him and this name, the dancing marquess, gets taken out of context a little bit. Where did he earn that nickname, though? Was there a particular moment or a particular play?

[Michael Hall]

There was, yes. It was actually quite early on, because the pantomimes, he had these. And I think, again, it wasn't that unusual. Pantomimes on the public stage often had dancing intervals with ballet dancers doing things and so on. And he did what he called the Butterfly dance, where he wore sort of transparent wings. He held sticks and had these sort of transparent wings and this flowing costume and elaborate headdresses. And he did a sort of swooping dance around the stage while the light changed color. And even in Wales, people knew what the source of that was. They said, oh, he dances a la Loe Fuller and Loey Fuller, if anyone's interested in the history of dance, is a big name because she was one of the pioneers of modern dance. And she developed this form of dancing at the Gaiety Theatre, which is well known for the Gaiety Girls and for dancing. And then she had a career of her own doing this in both England and in France. She's a very interesting woman. And the dancing marquis must have seen some of these performances. I mean, that's where he gets it from completely. And it's not an accident, I think, therefore, that he calls his theatre at Plasnoid the Gaiety Theatre.

[Charlotte Vosper]

So by the time he'd inherited the title, he was able to fund and wear incredible costumes and outfits. How was that understood by society, do you think?

[Michael Hall]

I think they thought it was highly unusual in the sense that pretty well universally he's described as being effeminate. And the fact that he was so interested in clothes and that he accumulated this very large collection of jewels was thought to be extraordinary. In fact, he should be so interested. Clothes and jewels was very unusual. So people are puzzled and intrigued and amused by that. And it becomes quickly very, very exaggerated. I mean, the Marquess himself had to say sometimes when there were all these descriptions of him on stage in costumes. And everyone always says his costume's sewn with the most valuable diamonds and rubies and emeralds. Well, he could be a fool, but he wasn't a total idiot. And he said, of course they're not real, they're all paste. But because the idea that he was uniquely extravagant has so taken hold, nobody actually believed him, I don't think. But you know, the Edwardians loved dressing up and they loved fancy dress parties. So it wasn't that unusual. Even though he did obviously look very, very feminine. But there are lots of photographs of him dressed as male characters where he's wearing relatively normal costumes. Of course those don't get reproduced because they're not so exciting.

[Charlotte Vosper]

Were people using these photographs at the time to speculate about his sexuality?

[Michael Hall]

Well, I think the gender bending notion was very attractive. And the idea that he was transvestite, that is dressed in women's clothes as part of his gender identity actually goes back quite a long way. Because he'd had an active social life to some degree in Paris, about which, as far as I'm aware, pretty well nothing is known. But then he did tour with plays on the continent. And also he was in all the newspapers. And anyone who's interested in the history of ideas about sexuality would have heard of Magnus Hirschfeld, who set up a few famous center for the study of sexuality in Berlin. And he was publishing books on aspects of human sexuality during Marx's lifetime. And he thought that Marquis must be gay or homosexual. And he was a great defender. I mean, he believed that gay men were born, they weren't made, and therefore legal penalties against male homosexuality were wrong. And as part of the arguments he put forward with that were that homosexuality was found in all parts of society. And the Marquis of Anglesey was his idea of this. There's no evidence the Marquis of Anglesey ever went to bed with men or that he was particularly attracted to men. Not that I'm aware of. But then Magnus Hirschbach returned to him later in the book. Which gives us the term transvestites, where it comes from. It's a book in German and it holds him up as an example of transvestitism. So that's where the idea that the Marquis dressed up in women's clothes comes from. It's not quite accurate, I think. So the idea that he was transvest actually has Quite long roots, but people pick that up when photographs of him started being reproduced.

[Charlotte Vosper]

So did that kind of attention impact his marriage? Do we know at this stage what his relationship was like?

[Michael Hall]

Absolutely no idea. His wife didn't participate in any of this, so far as is known. I don't think it's ever recorded that she attended the play, so it'd be surprising she didn't. But I don't know of any evidence. Although he goes on tours and things like that, his social life is very confined into Anglesey. There aren't members of the Welsh aristocracy coming to these. Absolutely not. I think they all kept him at arm's length. So he seems to live in his own little bubble, really, which he has his family and he has his tenants. And he was always said to be popular with his tenants. And it was a period when, with increasing Welsh nationalism, Orlando's were often regarded as English people extracting money from the Welsh and so on. But he seems to have escaped that. And he did make efforts to learn Welsh and he was always going to be popular with his tenants because I think partly because he was, and they were usually invited and they loved coming to the plays. And also he was spending money like water. So in that sense, if you were a local tradesman, if you ran a shop in Bangor, I mean, you were quids in.

[Charlotte Vosper]

Yeah. I mean, how brilliant to get invited into the local aristocrat's house. How brilliant. You mentioned there though that he was spending a lot of money. The title he'd inherited did obviously allow him to have access to a lot of funds. But what was his financial situation like as you were through the 90s?

[Michael Hall]

There is evidence that he was already quite heavily in debt. He'd mortgaged his life interests, so therefore his income wasn't entirely his cause. He had to service the debts. His spend on income was never as large, almost certainly as people said. I think it was said that he inherited an income of 112,000 a year, which is by modern standards in millions and millions of pounds. He spent a lot of money on jewels and costumes. I mean, all his clothes were made by aptly top Paris couturiers. And we know that some of them survived. So the money was going there. And then when he decided to take his practicality more seriously and set up his own traveling company which went to Europe as well as around England. I mean, as anyone knows, if you stage a play in the West End, it's a quick way to lose, shed loads of money. And I think it was just the same for him also, it was always said, and I see no reason to doubt it, that he didn't keep any profits for himself, that they all went to charity.

[Charlotte Vosper]

So by this stage he is spending a huge amount of money on jewellery, clothes, costumes. And in 1904 he was declared bankrupt, wasn't he? What happened at that stage?

[Michael Hall]

Well, he couldn't service his debts because he had too many people asking for payment for jewels, costumes, whatever it might be. So bankruptcy was the only way out. So trustees in bankruptcy were appointed, and of course, the fact that he was an aristocrat meant that was all quite well managed, because obviously there already were trustees of his life interest. So there were people on hand who could quickly take control of the estate. So he was deprived really of any control over his income, and everything that he owned which could be sold was sold to pay his debts. They couldn't touch any of the things which were the heirlooms, so they couldn't sell any houses that he owned, they couldn't sell any land, nor could they sell things like family portraits, which were all entailed to his heir. But he did have things which he could sell. The books, for instance, were not covered by what was called the entail, which basically means the things which can't be sold because they have to be passed through the generations. So there were big sales of books, but what was mostly sold was his jewels and his clothes, and that was something like 14 days of sales. And it all happened at Placenoit, which he renamed Anglesey Castle, by the way. And that of course, suppressed to sell an absolute field, day after day after day appeared in the newspapers of these sales. And it seems to us now rather homophobic in a way, because all these local auctioneers, they all paraded around in his costumes and things like that. But things fetched high prices, which I think was a mark of their quality, because if you have whatever it was, dozens and dozens of waistcoats and thousands of overcoats and suits, you don't get a chance to wear them very much. So I think everything was in very good condition, all made by top makers. So he had to retire, he had to give up plasnoit. He couldn't afford to carry on living there and he moved to France to rather sort of fashionable resort, and lived in a hotel and carried on giving interviews to the press. Of course, you never know with press reports whether you really are hearing his own voice, but it sounds like you are. And he always begins by saying, I apologize for the fact I'm not wearing a tiara of emeralds and I'm not swathed in diamonds and so on. And they always say, but I actually prefer to wear Scottish tweed. So, obviously, in a way, these interviews were designed trying to improve his public image. But I think there is some truth in the fact he didn't go around dressed like that all the time. And people said that. They said, if you expect to see him dressed in sort of purple robes. And wearing earrings and necklaces and so on, you will be disappointed. So that's why he retires to France to live modestly. Because his trustees would have made sure he had some income. He wasn't penniless by any means, but he didn't have a lot of money in comparison to what he had. But of course, he dies young. So a lot of them went unpaid, I'm afraid. And it was very, very serious consequences for some of the people to whom he owed money. Because I think it has to be said that he was like a lot of his Edwardian contemporaries. He was somewhat indifferent to the poor little people to whom he owed money. And he said to one of the people, Wartskiz, to whom he owed a lot of money. The jewelers who were still around, of course. And they were constantly pressing him for payment. And he said what he did at the end of every month. He threw all the bills into his hat and picked out three and would pay those. So that's not really very admirable way to treat people to whom you owe money. It has to be said.

[Charlotte Vosper]

No, it's not, is it? And, I mean, quite a lavish way of selecting which bills you're gonna repay. Definitely. So it wasn't long after his bankruptcy, then, that he did pass away. Do we know in what circumstance did he die? Do we know who was with him when he died?

[Michael Hall]

His mother and his aunt. That was said he died in the hotel where he'd been staying. It was lung disease, as I've said. As far as I'm aware. There's no hard evidence that he had tuberculosis. I think other people would have mentioned that. And he would have been ill for much longer. He probably had weak lungs in some way.

[Charlotte Vosper]

Was his wife there when he died as well? Okay.

[Michael Hall]

I think she accompanied his body back to Anglesey for burial.

[Charlotte Vosper]

Okay. So that does suggest, again, that there was some sort of positive relationship between them, that she was there.

[Michael Hall]

Yes. I mean, everyone says, including the preparatory school, her master, et cetera, Also rather lovable about. But he was nice and polite. And the obituarys were universally hostile.

[Charlotte Vosper]

Okay.

[Michael Hall]

Some of them look for Explanations, in fact, his mother had died when he was young, he was brought up in France. That was very dodgy, you know, they couldn't get around the fact he was the son of a marquis, he'd been to Eton and all the rest of it didn't seem any particular reason why he should have behaved like that. So people rather struggled to explain him, I think. But after that, total silence. I mean, as I've said, people who've tried to research him have discovered there are no family members papers at all. So there was a very, very thorough clearing out and the title was inherited by the 6th Marquess who was young man who was then in the army. But I write about that. I mean, the 6th Marquis himself was bisexual, had an affair with his valet, so it wasn't all completely sort of plain sailing. But the 5th Marquess somehow expunged from the memory. The theatre was dismantled. Everyone says it was converted back into a chapel, though the six Marx's children remembered it as being their schoolroom. So I'm not sure. And then in the 1930s, because they carried on being quite rich, they remodeled that whole wing of the house and what had been the theatre was converted into bedrooms. And I think I'm right, I think pretty well nothing of it survives. So in that sense he was rather white from memory. So all that survived was these photographs, which I don't think they completely got rid of. I've heard various accounts what happened, that they were hung in guest bedrooms or upstairs or something like that. But it was only when they house was acquired by the National Trust, was given to the National Trust that then Marquis of Anglesey, Henry Paget, who died recently, who was a very, very famous military historian and carried on living at Plasnoit despite it being a National Trust house. He did a lot to create this museum to the 1st Marquess, the hero of Waterloo, but he thought there should be more about the later history of his family. And so he'd always been amused by these photographs, so he hung them in the family museum. I had thought, did he quite know what he was doing? But somebody who did know, who knew him very well, sitting me off my book, came out and said, oh, no, he definitely knew what he was doing. He wanted them to attract attention. And people then got very curious, who is this person? And it's from that little seed that his modern reputation has grown and it's entirely based around these photographs. More recently, the idea, you know, he might have been trance has become intriguing for people. But again, he doesn't seem to have presented himself As a woman ever.

[Charlotte Vosper]

Henry Paget's legacy is an ongoing conversation. Very recently the film Mad Fabulous was released. Which tells a story of Henry's life. Do you think that film is an accurate representation of Henry?

[Michael Hall]

Well, they had the difficulty, of course, of creating a narrative when the sources are so very limited. And what they do get right is the clothes. I think the clothes are absolutely wonderful. And the costume designer deserves, you know, every Oscar gang, I would have thought. But they have to fill out the story a bit. And without going into details. One of the things they do is they make his father live much longer than he really did. As though they were living at the same time. And the idea that there's a hostility between them. And so that the dancing marquis, although they of course can't call him that. They, I have to say, get into a frightful pickle about his titles. Is somehow rebelling against what a modern historian would call heteronormativity of Edward Society. Well, that's not true. Because by the time the Nazi marquis moved to Anglesey, his father was dead. So he just lived his own life there. And they do say I think rather admirably that, you know, his extravagance did have serious consequences for tradesmen on Anglesey. But improbably, I rather think they all. The tradesman doesn't matter. We love him so we don't care. The fact, you know, we've lost a lot of money. So it's slightly rose tinted view of him, I think. But it's fair enough. That's their ticket.

[Charlotte Vosper]

And where does that film sit in terms of the labeling that we've been speaking about? Did they present him with a particular label?

[Michael Hall]

They. I think they rather hedge their bets. His first appearance, he sort of rode up the Menai straight to Anglesey. And he's wearing a woman's dress. Well, he never did that. So you immediately think that he's a cross dresser. And you're never sort of disabused of that in the film. Also, they hint that he's having a gay relationship with one of the men in his theatrical troupe. But they sort of pull back from saying that anything really was gay. So these things are sort of raised, but not really resolved. But one can understand why, because they're having to build up a picture of him with limited evidence. They also make much of his wife who's there all the way through the film. Whereas I think for much of his life the relationship was a bit more distant than they would say. But they're quite right to speculate and maybe it was closer than one realizes.

[Charlotte Vosper]

How do you think we should be remembering him? Like you say, this film raises some important points, but the evidence is a bit inconclusive, so it's hard to draw a clear judgment. What do you think we should be thinking of when we think of the dancing Marquess?

[Michael Hall]

I think he shows what it was possible to do in going against society's norms at a time when those norms were pretty strong in terms of appropriate behaviour for men, and particularly men of his class, that you could sort of get away with murder, which is in a way rather entrancing and rather admirable. And he was so much his own person and he lived the life he wanted to live and he was able to do so because he was immensely rich and he did it this one full blooded way. But on the other hand, you know, he paid a heavy penalty for it. I mean, he obviously was hopeless with money. So his bankruptcy was his own fault, I think it can be said. But he did have to undergo this disgrace, this scandal, the sort of humiliation of the sales and things like that. So he did pay quite a heavy price.

[Charlotte Vosper]

Yeah, I think that's an interesting paradox, isn't it, that the wealth and title that he had did in some sense facilitate his ability to express. But it also attracted a lot of attention and brought a kind of scandal that others might not have experienced had they not been an aristocrat.

[Michael Hall]

Yes, I agree.

[Charlotte Vosper]

And finally then, what does his experience teach us about queer lives, queer experiences in the late 19th and into the early 20th centuries?

[Michael Hall]

I think the fact that he was a boy in the 1890s. The 1890s is a period where you can see modern ideas, particularly about male homosexuality coming into focus. I mean, it's largely the Wilde trials. It's not only the Wilde trials, but that's obviously what dominates our understanding of the period. And I think it's clearly dominated understanding at the time because I said he toured in an Oscar Wilde play, but Oscar Wilde's name was never mentioned. So it was a period in which lots of norms were being questioned. But also there was a lot of pushback against people who seemed to be doing was limited in terms of what you could say. I mean, no, nobody suggests in public, in the press, that he might have been gay or anything like that. There's no hint of that at all. I think people are very, very careful to do so. It's always struck me very odd that nobody mentions the picture of Dorian Gray in connection with him. Because of course Dorian Gray himself bought extravagant costumes and jewels. I think people kept away from it because it was a very, very sensitive subject. But it is a period in which suddenly, certainly the bounds of what you could do are being loosened. Undoubtedly. So, yes, I think it tells a lot about a new fluidity in ideas about gender and sexuality that are rooted in the 1890s, I think, which at the time, Ironically, the National Trust is created at the basis of my book. And it's interesting for me that Patnoid is now owned by the National Trust and that the house's queer history certainly doesn't end there.

[Charlotte Vosper]

Absolutely. And that is actually something that we've spoken about in a different podcast episode where we spoke about Michael's book, A Queer Inheritance. In that episode we chatted all about the queer lives connected to the National Trust. And if you'd like to give that one a listen, the episode is called Untold LGBTQ Stories of the National Trust. I'll pop a link to that in the description below. You can listen to that episode ad free on the History Expert or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you very much for talking to us today about Henry's life. It's been incredibly interesting. Thank you.

[Michael Hall]

Thank you.

[Narrator / Introducer]

That was Michael hall speaking to Charlotte Fosfer. Michael is the former architecture editor of Country Life magazine and the author of several books. His latest work is A Queer Alternative Histories of the National Trust, which reveals the queer lives connected to the Trust and its properties.

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