In England during the early 1700s, the writer William King was angry. He was adamant that Lady Frances Brudenell (otherwise known as the Countess of Newburgh) owed him some money, so he took her to court. William lost the case, so in revenge, he wrote an epic satirical poem called The Toast. The poem portrayed Lady Frances as a wanton witch who also happened to be the leader of a lesbian society. It was the first time the word ‘lesbian’ was used in reference to female same-sex desire, and, unlike tribade, this one stuck…
William wasn’t the only satirist in town. The writer Delarivier Manley (1663/c.1670–1724) was also quite the comedian, and routinely parodied politicians across the country. But, unlike William, Delarivier was a woman, which meant she wasn’t safe. Arrests and libel threats ensued.
Delarivier Manley was responsible for the lesbian rumours regarding the reigning queen at the time, Queen Anne. Delarivier often targeted Queen Anne’s right-hand woman, Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough, and the romantic relationship between them. This then led to accusations that Queen Anne and Sarah were doing it. Delarivier was correct, they were doing it! And there’s even a film to prove it!
Queen Anne (Olivia Colman) and Sarah (Rachel Weisz) first met as children. They immediately grew close and even had pet names for one another: Anne was Mrs Morley, and Sarah, Mrs Freeman. As they grew older, they became even closer, and whenever Sarah would leave court, Anne would send her long and soppy love letters detailing how much she was missing her.
When Anne became queen, Sarah held great influence and often guided the Queen on her political decisions. This was all well and good until the arrival of Sarah’s cousin, Abigail Hill (Emma Stone). The Queen took a liking to Abigail, and soon Sarah found herself out of favour. Sarah was livid, so she blackmailed Anne and threatened to release all the love letters that Anne had written. Sarah then orchestrated a smear campaign against Abigail, which included a really funny song about how Abigail was a dirty chambermaid who could not write. Unfortunately for Sarah, nothing seemed to work, and Queen Anne just fancied Abigail more.1
It all came to an explosive end when Sarah publicly insulted Queen Anne at a church service after Anne had refused to wear the jewels that Sarah had chosen for her. This resulted in Sarah’s dismissal from court, and her husband was told to return Sarah’s gold key to the royal bedchamber. Not a euphemism. Sarah being Sarah decided to rob a few grand from the privy purse and then remove all the brass locks from every door in the house that she was asked to leave. Honestly, how can anyone think lesbianism is a modern concept when the story of Queen Anne and Sarah Churchill is the quintessential lesbian drama?
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Queen Anne wasn’t the only royal dabbling in the dark arts of lesbianism. Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, was at it too. Marie wasn’t exactly beloved by her people; she spent a lot of money, ate a lot of food, and didn’t seem too bothered that her subjects were starving in the streets. Although to be fair, Marie didn’t really have a say in the matter, as that was the job of her husband, King Louis XVI.
Marie and Louis were hardly love’s young dream, and initially got together to form a political alliance between France and Marie’s home country, Austria. The pair were utterly ill-suited. Louis was painfully shy, indecisive and cold. On the other hand, Marie was lavish, outgoing and extremely shallow. They were so uninterested in one another that it took them a whopping seven years to consummate their marriage.
Of course, Marie was to blame for the lack of sex and the noticeable lack of an heir. She only had one job, after all. The French media wanted her to know what a rubbish woman she was so they created cartoons about her failing sexual organs and wrote songs about how her body couldn’t do what it was supposed to do.
Marie may not have been interested in her husband, but she was most certainly into the ladies, and at one time was caught drooling over English writer Mary Robinson’s tits. The incident was later reported in Mary’s memoirs: ‘She appeared to survey, with peculiar attention, a miniature of the Prince of Wales, which Mrs. Robinson wore on her bosom…’
We’ve all done it.
But it was the nineteen-year-old widow Marie Thérèse Louise of Savoy who was Marie’s personal favourite. Marie was so charmed by Marie Thérèse Louise that she regularly showered her with gifts and made her the superintendent of the royal household, which sounds more like a punishment than anything else.
Marie and Marie Thérèse Louise wrote passionate letters to one another, addressing each one with ‘my dear heart’ and ending with ‘a heart entirely yours’. But, like all horny queens, Marie Antoinette was keeping her options (and her legs) open. Enter Yolande Martine Gabrielle de Polastron.
Yolande was dubbed the most beautiful woman in France. Marie showed her affection by paying Yolande’s debts, moving her into a massive apartment in Versailles, and eventually making Yolande’s husband a duke and therefore Yolande a duchess. This encouraged the French media to pipe up again, releasing thousands of pamphlets depicting the two in a range of sexual positions.
As we all know, things didn’t quite work out for Marie, as she famously met a grisly end with the guillotine during the French Revolution. But, before her death, Marie was allowed one final goodbye with her lover, not Louis XVI, but Marie Thérèse Louise. Marie Thérèse Louise had earlier been arrested and put on trial, where she refused to swear hatred to the King and Queen. She was then taken outside to a baying mob who murdered her. They cut off her head, took it to where Marie was being kept, and demanded that she give her one-time lover a final kiss. Bloody hell, that’s unnecessary!
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Over in Ireland, single lady Eleanor Butler (1739–1829) was embarrassing her upper-class family by refusing to marry. Not far from where Eleanor lived, Sarah Ponsonby, sixteen years her junior, was doing the same thing. One morning, while out on a walk, the pair crossed paths and were instantly drawn to one another. They decided to run away together, move abroad and buy a house. What does a lesbian bring on a second date? A removal van of course! Again, we’ve all done it.
Because it was the end of the 1700s, it was rather difficult for two women to run away together. On the night of their escape, Sarah had to jump out of her bedroom window while dressed in men’s clothing. She also brought her dog, Frisk, because a lesbian cannot skip town without her dog. Also, Frisk! The pair met up in a barn before mounting a couple of horses and galloping several miles to board a ship that would take them to England. Sadly, Eleanor and Sarah were unable to board the ship and were eventually found by their families and taken home.
Eleanor and Sarah were told never to talk to one another again, and Eleanor was threatened with the convent, although we all know what happens in the convent. Eleanor took no notice, ran away and hid in… Sarah’s bedroom. It was as effective as when a toddler hides behind a curtain with her toes sticking out. But the families were over it and agreed that the lovers could go, but that they could never return to the family home. Result!
The women settled in a small, picturesque village named Llangollen, in north Wales. The locals soon referred to Eleanor and Sarah as the ‘Ladies of Llangollen’ because they were ladies, and they lived in Llangollen. Original, right? By contrast, Eleanor and Sarah excelled in imagination; they redesigned their cottage in trendy gothic chic, studied literature and learnt several languages. They also devoted their time to hosting friends and curious visitors who had never seen real-life lesbians before. The ladies attracted all sorts of interesting people, from Mary Shelley’s husband Percy, the mad, bad and dangerous to know Lord Byron, and even the Duke of Wellington.
Eleanor and Sarah lived together for over fifty years. When they died the people of Llangollen were unhappy with the lesbian reputation that their quaint little village had acquired, so it was decided that from then on, they would tell people that the Ladies of Llangollen were simply good friends. They were friends who shared a bed, friends who had sex, friends who called each other ‘my beloved’ and ‘my better half’ and friends with other friends called Molly the Bruiser.2
Another person who visited the Ladies of Llangollen was the West Yorkshire-born iconic lesbian player Anne Lister (1791–1840). The lesbian player is well known around the gay community, and is easy to identify. She usually comes in the shape of a well-dressed, arrogant arsehole, with a charming nickname. She is smart, funny, excellent in bed, coupled with severe parental issues, a fear of commitment and a strange sense of vulnerability that is so incredibly narcissistic yet implausibly attractive, especially with a pint in one hand.
Anne’s nickname was ‘Gentleman Jack’ due to her masculine dress and love for the ladies. She was also an extraordinarily successful (and rather privileged) landowner who wasn’t afraid to take on the also successful (and rather privileged) male landowners in the area. Although the name ‘Gentleman Jack’ was initially deemed as an insult, it has, to some extent, been reclaimed, much in the same way as dyke or queer.
Anne’s womanising ways began at just thirteen years old, when she met Eliza Raine. The two ended up sharing a room at boarding school, and we all know what happens in boarding school. Anne soon broke Eliza’s heart after getting off with a couple of her classmates. At the time, it was common practice for lovers to exchange a snippet of pubic hair. Anne was so successful with the ladies that she had a whole cabinet full of bush.
Anne lived in the extravagant Shibden Hall, which she eventually inherited in 1836. The house was the ultimate shagpad, perfect for Anne’s conquests. However, after one too many women, trips abroad and mountains climbed, Anne wanted a wife. The woman in question was Ann Walker, Anne’s wealthy but painfully shy neighbour, and yet another example of a lesbian sharing a name with her lover. After a lot of graft, Anne managed to charm the introverted Ann, and in 1834 they exchanged vows and gave each other rings. They also took communion together at the Holy Trinity Church, in York, to confirm their marriage. The church now displays a commemorative rainbow plaque which dubs their nuptials the first-ever lesbian wedding.
We have Anne Lister’s diaries to thank for this little slice of history. She started her first diary at fifteen years old and documented just about everything that ever happened in her life, including sexual encounters that were written in code.
The diaries included several tips and tactics on how to seduce women. For instance, when Anne wanted to suss if a lady was into the puss, she would ask them if they were familiar with the scandalous works of Lord Byron, and could tell from their reaction. He was the Sarah Waters of his day. It might have been a clunky flirting technique, but it worked, and it shows us that Anne was trying to understand her sexuality as an identity. See! Lesbians did exist in the past, and guess what? You could even find them outside of West Yorkshire!
Take the working-class hero Wu Zao (1799–1862), a Chinese writer, musician, painter and all-around badass, who somehow managed to learn to read and write in a time when women from lower classes had no access to education.
Wu’s work was mostly about female roles in society and how to break away from them. One of her pieces was an opera (yes, she wrote operas too), which included a woman who cross-dressed and complained about gender roles. An opera that would seem quite relevant in any given century. Like Anne Lister, Wu had several relationships, affairs, lovers and associations throughout her life, ranging from mistresses to sex workers and courtesans.
Surprisingly, all the poets and scholars of the time loved it; so much so, they started singing her songs and poems all over China. Then, after people figured out what the songs and poems were really about, they stopped, and Wu Zao was buried beneath a cold slab of heteronormativity and never spoken of again.
So yes, lesbians all over the world were carving out identities for themselves through work, creativity and love. How wonderful!
Charlotte Brontë to ‘friend’ Ellen Nussey
Only a few miles away from Anne Lister, the legendary novelist Charlotte Brontë (1816–55) had fallen in love with Ellen Nussey. Charlotte first met Ellen at school. Not only was their love immediate but it lasted a whopping twenty-four years accompanied by five hundred love letters. The two were so in love that at one point, Charlotte even considered marrying Ellen’s brother Henry, just so she and Ellen could live in the same house. But Henry was too dull, even as a beard.
At the time, women were encouraged to seek intimate relationships with each other. Don’t get excited, this was just practice before hitching a permanent ride on a penis. So the internal lives of women like Charlotte and Ellen were overlooked, even when they wrote things like this: ‘I am afraid of caring too much for you…’; and, ‘If I had but been a man, thou wouldst have been the very ticket for me as a wife…’; oh, and, ‘You ought first to be tenderly kissed, and then afterwards as tenderly whipped…’; and, ‘Ellen, I wish I could live with you always. I begin to cling to you more fondly than ever I did. If we had but a cottage and a competency of our own, I do think we might live and love on till Death without being dependent on any third person for happiness…’; and, finally, ‘Less than ever can I taste or know pleasure till this work is wound up. And yet I often sit up in bed at night, thinking of and wishing for you…’
I feel ‘overlooked’ is too weak a word in this context. Let’s go with ‘buried’.
Charlotte turned down the proposals of several men since she was in love with Ellen. But, because this was the beginning of the Victorian age, and the Victorian age hated women, like those other ages, Charlotte had to marry as it would help support her ageing father. God damn you, patriarchy!
Ellen was devastated by this – breaking off correspondence with Charlotte for the first time. She even tried to enlist the help of a mutual friend, who basically told her to get over it and let Charlotte do her thing. Charlotte did marry and remained so for a whole year until her death in 1855.
Ellen spent much of her remaining life keeping the memory of Charlotte Brontë alive. Many historians didn’t like Ellen’s interference in the story of a British literary legend and decided to remove all traces of her.
Over the years it has been speculated that Charlotte Brontë and Anne Lister may have known one another, especially when you look at Charlotte’s novel Shirley, which tells the story of a female Yorkshire landowner with a penchant for the ladies. And, between 1838 and 1839, Charlotte’s sister and fellow novelist Emily lived within minutes of Shibden Hall. By then, Anne and Ann would have been married for a few years, which, as we all know, equals a few centuries in lesbian years.
Sadly, in 1840, at just forty-nine years old, Anne died while travelling in Georgia in the Caucasus. Ann had Anne’s body embalmed and shipped back to England so she could be buried in the same church as her aunt and uncle. Now that’s love.
Anne’s diaries remained hidden until they were found in the mid-1890s by the last inhabitant of Shibden Hall, John Lister. John struggled to decipher the code, so he asked his mate, Arthur Burrell, to help. The pair managed to crack the code, but upon realising what they had found, Arthur advised John to burn them. Thankfully, John didn’t take his advice and instead of burning the diaries, he hid them behind a panel at Shibden Hall.
The diaries were eventually found again, and in the 1980s they were deciphered by the writer Helena Whitbread, who would publish the material for the whole world to see. People claimed the diaries were fake because lesbians didn’t exist in the past, and if they did, they wouldn’t write about love, and… sex, would they? Yes, of course they bloody would. Lesbians love to fall in love. It’s a lesbian’s favourite thing to do, up there with calling your pets your kids, going on some kind of walking activity, and drawing a moustache on your face when drunk. Lesbians also love to have sex. And guess what? They had sex then and they have sex now, although swapping snippets of pubic hair seems to have passed its sell-by date, unless I’m missing out on something…