Jack Beasley (4:33)

Thank you so much for having me.

Professor Susanna Lipscomb (4:34)

Can you start by reminding us who William III was?

Jack Beasley (4:37)

So William III was born in 1650. He was the only child of William II, Prince of Orange, and Mary, the Princess Royal, who was the eldest daughter of Charles I and Henrietta Maria. He was born about a week after his father died of smallpox, so he became the Prince of Orange from birth. But it wasn't until 1672, after the first Stadtholderless period in the Netherlands, which coincided with the peak of the Dutch Golden Age, that he became the Dutch Stadtholder, which means steward. So Stadtholders ultimately functioned as national leaders. During his childhood, William's mother showed very little interest in him, sometimes being absent for years, and his grandmother on his father's side squabbled for control of his guardianship in opposition to his mother. I think even by royal standards, William's childhood was really quite dysfunctional and certainly lonely. Later in 1684, he described himself as being born in misfortune and brought up in misfortune. So he certainly didn't look back on it well. And like his father, William's mother also died of smallpox when he was 10. So, lacking both a mother and father figure, he became devoted to his uncle, who was called Frederick of Nassau, who was made governor of his household when William was nine. And William's strong attachment to Frederick was the first in a long line of close attachments to men, which would last until he died in 1702. I will just say that there's obviously nothing wrong with having close relationships with other men, so long as it also accompanied an interest in women. And this is where William fell short, which people commented on. So, on a visit to England in 1670, for example, when he was 20, it was noted that everyone was talking about the prince apart from the English ladies, due to the insufficient attention he paid them. And later, in 1696, Elizabeth Charlotte, who was the wife of Louis XIV's brother, wrote in a letter that William paid scarcely any attention to women and had very little to do with them. So, in a kind of stark contrast to his English uncles, Charles II and James ii, there is very little evidence that William had mistresses. There is only one reputed affair with a woman called Elizabeth Villiers, who he may have had a sexual relationship with. But apart from this, there are no other indications that he had further relationships with women apart from his wife. That brings me onto his marriage. So, being so closely related to the English royal family, he took a keen interest in English affairs and really wanted to draw England away from pro French policies. And he tried to improve his position by marrying Princess Mary, who was the eldest daughter of the Duke of York, who would then go on to become James II. So they married in 1677, when William was 27 and Mary was only 15. And the marriage really didn't get off to the best of starts. Mary cried throughout the wedding service, and their bedding ceremony sounds like an ordeal. So this was a tradition attended by the royal family, in which the newlywed couple were put to bed to publicly confirm that the marriage had been consummated. And Charles ii, who was both William and Mary's uncle, actually drew the bed curtains. But William refused to remove his woollen underwear, saying that Mary would have to learn to accept him as he was. And underwear was actually really rare in the 17th century, hence why I think he said that Mary would need to learn to get used to this. But I'm not really sure how the sex part of the ceremony would have worked if he refused to take off his pants. But they must have figured out some method of making it work. But despite this really awkward start to the marriage, the pair would eventually become devoted to each other, particularly Mary, who really came to idolize William. Despite this, they never had children. Mary is reported to have had one miscarriage really early on in the marriage, and there are pieces of evidence to suggest that she had further miscarriages, but it's not exactly clear. And their childlessness would be a really great cause of unhappiness for them as a couple. But politically, it would be weaponized against William when he became king as evidence for his sexual preference for men. But we'll come back onto that later.

Professor Susanna Lipscomb (8:47)

And in fact, there is work that's been done. We've talked about it on a previous podcast about the fact that Mary and her sister Anne sent affectionate, passionate letters to other women, which may or may not have been sexual. But perhaps there's more going on in that marriage than we see at first glance. Can I ask you, though, about the idea of sexual identity? The idea that people have a sexual identity as being homosexual or heterosexual, bisexual, all of this is really a 19th century, I want to say, construct, at least it's an idea that starts in the 19th century. What does the term mean when we talk about sodomy in the 17th century?

Jack Beasley (9:33)

I think to really understand how medieval and early modern thought was informed when it comes to sodomy, I think you need to begin with the Sodom story in Genesis chapter 19 and its significance to early Christian views on same sex relationships. So the story goes that Lot settled in Sodom, a city that was represented along with its neighbor Gomorrah, as exceedingly wicked. God then decides to try and learn the truth about the sinful reputation of Sodom's inhabitants and sends two angels to the city. And the sodomites want to know them. They want to bring them out of Lot's house and get to and know them. But they're eventually foiled by the angels who blinded them. And the next morning, Lot and his family were guided out of the city and God destroyed it with brimstone and fire. And the Old Testament depicts Sodom as a symbol of kind of total destruction and its sin, of such enormity that it merited divine destruction. And actually further biblical texts provide insight to the sins of the sodomites, which have been interpreted as arrogance, lack of hospitality, and lack of being charitable. But from the second century onwards, Christian tradition associates the story of Sodom and Gomorrah with same sex practices. So much so that sex between men was actually referred to as the sodomitic sin, or in the sodomitic manner. But then the term sodomy eventually emerges in Peter Damian's Book of Gomorrah from around 1051. And Damian was a Benedictine monk and theologian who addressed his booklet to Pope Leo ix. And the booklet offered different arguments against a sin that was most often cited as the sodomitic vice, but was once referred to as sodomy. And Damien highlights the vice's four types, which were identified as masturbation, mutual masturbation, pollution between the thighs, and fornication in the rear. And these sexual acts are unordered in terms of their increasing offense, but each belongs to Sodom. So sodomy was actually a theological category which Damien coined to group together and really condemn a series of sexual acts which could be traced back to the sinful inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah and their divine destruction. And I will just say that unlike homosexuality, which refers to sexual orientation and a person's sense of identity, sodomy was a term which assembled different acts that were seen as sexually deviant. So it's important to note that these acts were not exclusively related to sex between men, but could also refer to non reproductive sex between men and women.

Professor Susanna Lipscomb (12:14)

Yeah. So I mean, in essence, these four acts are all acts that don't produce children. It's non procreative sex, basically.

Jack Beasley (12:21)

Exactly. But later on, the term sodomy would come to really just kind of mean referring to sex between men. And it did refer to non reproductive sex between men and women too. Yeah.

Professor Susanna Lipscomb (12:34)

That really helps us understand kind of changing historical attitudes to sexuality. Why was sodomy seen as a universal threat? Is he right?

Jack Beasley (12:44)

So in contrast to how we think about sexuality today, nobody in the Middle Ages thought their choice of sexual partner had anything to do with who they were. Sexual identity and orientation didn't yet exist as concepts. Because of this, sodomy was understood as a sinful temptation that could entice all men. This is one of the most important dynamics to same sex behavior in the Middle Ages and much of the early modern period. It was not believed to be limited to a distinguishable or identifiable minority of men, but was believed a universal threat. So it was considered more than just a sexual sin like adultery. It had deep theological implications due to its supposed connection with Sodom, which likened it with rebellion against God. And we might think that this belief would ensure the strict enforcement of the law against sodomy, but in fact, it achieved the opposite. So sodomy became unmentionable across Europe, and especially in England. So in the texts, in the few texts that mention sodomy in England, it's referred to as something unmentionable by a Christian or even by a heathen or pagan. And it's also described as a sin against kind that is not to be spoken, for the matter is so foul that it is an abomination to speak it. So this reveals the practice of silence. So talk of sodomy was not only forbidden because of its theological implications, but also because it was considered the most tempting of sexual sins. There was this perceived danger of temptation in even naming sodomy, lest it give people ideas. And this is really why William's reign is very important, because it's the moment, really, when sodomy stops being unmentionable and enters the public sphere through print culture on a level never before witnessed in English history.

Professor Susanna Lipscomb (14:28)

How soon after William became William III, King of England in 1689, did rumors circulate of his intimate relationships with men?

Jack Beasley (14:39)

They started practically as soon as he became king in 1689. So so far, I've collected about 40 to 50 satires. I begin at the very start of William's rape and accuse him of sodomy, most frequently with Hans Willem Bentinck, who had been William's favorite for decades. So, upon becoming king, William loaded Bentinck with honors. So he was created the Earl of Portland and appointed groom of the stool, first Gentleman of the bedchamber. And all of these were the most physically intimate of court positions to the monarch, and therefore the most powerful. So Bentinck was William's closest advisor. And this influence over William was really resented by the English. The satires start by attacking Bentinck for his influence over William. Yeah. At the very start of William's reign in 1689, there's a satire written by Ralph Gray, who was a chaplain, and he transformed William and Mary's coronation sermon into a this kind of satirical mockery. And, yeah, returning to this childlessness, he attributed the couple's childlessness to William's sodomy. So Gray says that William was not qualified for his wife, but buggering of benting doth please to the life. So in every satire, Bentinck is referred to as benting, which is perhaps suggesting that Bentinck was bending William into submission. So this view was very, very common. So Fleetwood Sheppard, who was a gentleman usher to William, authored a satire called A Description of Hampton court life in 1689 as well. And in it, he noted that Benton Uplocks his king in a box and you see him no more until supper. So suggesting that William was being controlled by Bentinck, both politically and sexually.

Professor Susanna Lipscomb (16:27)

Yes. Right. So this extrapolation really isn't there from sexual practice into implications for William's ability to rule.

Jack Beasley (16:36)

Exactly, exactly. Another one from early on in William's reign described benting as that topping favorite at court. So that's actually suggesting that Benting was the active sexual partner in the relationship and William was the passive sexual partner, which again, is reinforcing that view that William was, you know, essentially giving all of his power to Bentinck, which was deeply resented by the English.

Professor Susanna Lipscomb (17:03)

Did this use of satire protect its writers from allegations of treason?

Jack Beasley (17:08)

That's quite an interesting question. So only a few of them that I have out of the 40 to 50, can you actually trace an author? So most of them were anonymous, which obviously protects the author from punishment. But the few that were published and people knew who published them, there were punishments. Interestingly, Fleetwood Sheppard, who I just mentioned, he doesn't seem to have been punished at all. He actually remains at the court of William and Mary. But Ralph Gray, who I also mentioned, and he, I believe was put in the stocks, some punishment similar to that. But English satire had actually changed quite a lot during this period, specifically during William III's reign, and had become quite a commercial business. And by that I mean few satirists during William III's reign were court wits, writing for targeted and specific audiences like they had been during the reigns of Charles II and James ii. They were more of a socially diverse group who were writing for print for a wider and more disparate readership. So that kind of enabled their names not to be attached to what they were writing.

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Professor Susanna Lipscomb (22:10)

Details. And you mentioned that William and Mary's continued continued childlessness was blamed on the king's sodomy. How significant was that, politically?

Jack Beasley (22:27)

I think it was very significant because in these satires, Mary isn't blamed for their childlessness or inability to have children. I think that's really interesting because when we look back into history, queens were usually blamed for their inability to have children or male heirs. So Anne Boleyn, who was executed, Catherine of Aragon, who was divorced, Catherine of Braganza, who was Charles II's wife. But Mary seems totally absolved of responsibility in all of the satires that discuss their childlessness. And I think that is very significant in terms of putting the blame on William. And it kind of makes him appear as though he's an exclusive sodmite, I think, is what I'm trying to say, which was a new kind of idea that was floating around during this period. He's presented as a man who completely rejects women, obviously, including his wife. So again, it's coming back to the idea of passivity and unmanliness and essentially not being fit to rule if he can't provide an heir to the nation because of his sexual preferences with James vi.

Professor Susanna Lipscomb (23:39)

And first, one of the things that's raised when he's king of England is that Robert Carr, who becomes Earl of Somerset, is Scottish. And so there's a sense that he has a favorite who is not of the English court. And that's problematic given that William III was a foreigner. How significant was it that both of his favorites were Dutchmen?

Jack Beasley (24:03)

Incredibly important. I think just the fact that William was a foreigner himself is really, really key. So, for example, John Evelyn, who was a diarist, he compared William to James. I said that William is renewing the shame of James I and Buckingham, who was James last favorite. And this is really key because he's comparing two foreign kings who became kings of England, both of whom were accused of sodomy. So Evelyn is kind of making this comment that sodomy isn't a vice that is kind of natural to the English. It's something that's imposed on the English by outsiders. So I think it's obviously very key that William was only really accused of sodomy with two of his Dutch favorites. But actually, in some of the satires, he was accused of sodomy with Englishmen as well. He was accused more so of sodomy with Bentinck and then later Arnold Keppel. But he was also accused of sodomy with Englishmen too. But I think there was this idea that Englishmen don't instinctively commit sodomy. Only when influenced by outsiders do they then engage in the vice. And William was accused in the satires of popularizing device in England. So I think one satire said that he turned all things harsy versy in the nation.

Professor Susanna Lipscomb (25:33)

So this extraordinary idea that by his practice, you might sort of spread it as a kind of appetite is quite interesting. Well, here's a question. This is being talked of as a vice. It's being talked of as unnatural. To what extent could this just be a weapon of slander, something that's being used to create political unrest, you know, by the Jacobite cause?

Jack Beasley (25:55)

So are you talking about kind of whether it was these satires were categories of truth or slander?

Professor Susanna Lipscomb (26:02)

Yeah. I mean, how seriously should we take it? How much as historical sources can these be trusted to tell us about the sexual preferences of William iii? And how much do they tell us about political divisions in the late 17th century?

Jack Beasley (26:15)

I don't really think we can trust them too much when it comes to William's sexual preferences, because ultimately they are biased, they are propaganda. But I do think, at least I view it in a sense, that there's no smoke without fire. And what I mean by that is that sodomy was not something that was widely discussed at all before William III's reign. And the only other kings of England that were accused of it, so William ii in the 10, 1100s and then Edward II and then James VI. You know, I think there's truth to all of those rumors or accusations about those kings. So sodomy really wasn't something that was frequently used against a monarch. So it's really interesting that as soon as William comes to the throne, this is something that he is accused of. You know, they could have just attacked him. Being a foreigner, they could have just attacked the way that he looked, or just the fact that he didn't have children, or, you know, there's. There was lots of things to attack. So it's just interesting that sodomy becomes intertwined with all of this. And there are little pieces of evidence, both before he became king and also after that do kind of hint that he. He may not have been having sex with other men, but I think he was attracted to other men. But, yeah, how far we can trust these satires to actually be telling the truth is a different kettle of fish, I suppose. But what my research is doing is moving away from that kind of viewing them as categories of truth or slander and looking more at the impact that they had on bringing the subject of sodomy to wider audiences and bringing it into the public sphere and the influence that that had on the growing persecution of sodomites during the 1690s.

Professor Susanna Lipscomb (28:09)

That's really interesting. So we have the Society for the Reformation of manners formed in 1691, and you're suggesting here we've got this kind of greater public discourse around sodomy. What effect did that society have on what had previously been thought of as the unmentionable sin of sodomy?

Jack Beasley (28:28)

Yeah, as you mentioned. Yeah. In 1691, the Society for the Reformation Manners was created, and by 1701, there were nearly 20 of these societies in London, all corresponding with each other and arranging trials and arrests and things. And they were voluntary organizations which sought to purge public vice, originally focusing, I think, on more adultery and prostitution, but also sodomy. So the leader of the societies, who was called Reverend Thomas Bray, he became fanatical in his persecution of sodomy, which he called an evil force invading our land. And that view was also commonly expressed in satires that attacked William, you know, the idea of foreignness, these foreigners invading our land with their vices. And the societies arranged the first mass arrests of men in English history, men who committed sodomy through agent provocateurs and through raids on male brothels which were known as molly houses. And these arrests, trials and raids actually led to the suicides and executions of men who were accused of sodomy, which were then reported on in early newspapers and further satirized in other poems and pamphlets, providing more publicity to sodomy. And several anti Williamite satires actually connected the growing awareness of this subculture to notions of court sodomy, again accusing the king of popularizing the vice in England. So this is really the moment when the sodomycal subculture of London was brought to public attention for the first time in English history, which was really a watershed moment in shifting public views about sodomy.

Professor Susanna Lipscomb (30:12)

So in other words, we can see a sort of a direct link between public interest in the satirical text, this growing public awareness of sodomy, to intervention in the lives of everyday ordinary men, this rise of prosecution and punishment. When were the first ordinary men arrested and brought to trial?

Jack Beasley (30:35)

The first man that the societies arranged his arrest, he was called Captain Edward Rigby, and this was in 1698. So he was essentially arrested through an agent provocateur, William Minton. Minton was actually previously arrested by the societies for committing sodomy, but they told him he was only 19. And they told him, if you work with us to entrap Rigby, then we'll let you off. So, yeah, Rigby and Minton go to a room together and start to engage in sex. And then Minton gives his shouts to the societies and they rush in and arrest Rigby. And there were satires that were published when Rigby was standing in the pillory. So he wasn't executed, he was put in the pillory and I think sent to prison as well. But there were yet further satires that were published when he was standing in the pillory that actually linked his trial to what was going on at court. So there was this kind of direct link that people were picking up on between court sodomy and then, I suppose, everyday sodomy. What was going on in the streets of London after this? The arrests become more frequent. 1707, actually, that's the year when there were mass arrests of sodomites by the Society for the Reformation of Manners. And there are quite a few further satires and poems which discuss these sodomites. They're described as the new Sodomitish crew and things like that. And their activities were reported on. So through the raids on molly houses, which were male brothels, there were actually published reports on these. So they reported on what these men in these communities were saying to each other, how they communicated. And they called each other the Mollies and sisters. They dressed as women, they performed these mock lying in ceremonies which were essentially a ceremony where a man would pretend to be a woman in labor. And this is actually sporadically described throughout the 18th century in connection with sodomites. So what it kind of reveals is this whole subculture with different method of communication, a different kind of shared language, shared space, shared communities which people just hadn't been aware of before.

Professor Susanna Lipscomb (33:15)

You mentioned 1707 there. And William had died five years earlier in 1702. I wonder if there's a causality there. Do you think that speculation about the nature of his intimate life changed after his death? How was it intertwined with his legacy?

Jack Beasley (33:31)

I think the thing about William is that he wasn't a very popular king. And as soon as Queen Anne comes to the throne, who presents herself as entirely English in contrast to the very Dutch William, he's kind of forgotten, you know, even today he's, I think, our least well known monarch. But the satires that accused him of sodomy did continue to be published. So they, a lot of them were published in poems on affairs of State. This was a collection of satires from 1660 to 1714, which had a very huge collection of satires that attacked the court for all kinds of things, including sexual misconduct. So these satires did continue to still become available, but there was more discussion about everyday astotomy, I suppose. And there were later, in 1728, there were actual kind of pamphlets and booklets published on the rise of sodomy in England. So how far that can be connected to William is, I guess, guesswork. But the damage was done, I think, is what I'm trying to say. In, like, the 1690s, when the society started to operate, this then continued and, you know, the sodomy subculture was exposed and the executions and arrests started, which, you know, lasted up until the last execution was in 1830, something. So it lasted for an extremely long time.

Professor Susanna Lipscomb (35:06)

Finally, then, let's talk straight to that point about a sodomy subculture. How do your discoveries challenge the accepted narrative of sexuality through history? You know, people have asserted that a recognizable homosexual identity can't be traced before the 19th century, or some people say the end of the 18th century. This is bringing that idea back by a century at least, isn't it? Am I interpreting you correctly there?

Jack Beasley (35:40)

I'm not trying to claim that this is the moment when we can identify homosexuality as being a concept, because we can't. That does belong to the later 19th century, early 20th century. But I think it's not right to say that people didn't have an understanding that sodomy or sodomites were considered to be a different kind of being. There's this kind of, you know, Michael Foucault's view that we can't identify sodomites as a minority or being viewed as a minority of people until we get to the 19th century. But I think what the exposure of the sodomy subculture of London reveals is that there were communitarian elements, there were ideas that these men were viewed as being completely different to, for want of a better word, you know, normal men. They were described as a kind of people or such men, which kind of really does separate them from other men who only have sex with women, for example. And like I said, they were described as the new sodomitish crew and things like that, which kind of separates them from how sodomites were viewed, like in the medieval era, for example. Yeah, it was just a kind of, I think, a real watershed moment in changing that medieval view and Tudor view of sodomy to, again, for want of a better word, a more modern view of sexuality. I suppose.

Professor Susanna Lipscomb (37:15)

Well, Jack Beasley, thank you so much for sharing your research in progress. Good luck with your thesis, and we look forward to the book of the Glorious Sexual Revolution in due course. Thank you so much for your time.

Jack Beasley (37:31)

Thank you very much for having me.

Professor Susanna Lipscomb (37:33)

Thanks for listening to this episode of Not Just the Tudors from History Hit and also thanks to my researcher Alice Smith and my producer Rob Weinberg. Remember, you can also listen to all of these podcasts on YouTube and watch hundreds of documentaries when you subscribe@historyhit.com subscribe it's well worth it. And if you would be so good as to follow Not Just the Tudors on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts, you'll get each new episode as soon as it's released.

Paige DeSorbo (38:14)

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