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Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 86 (previously 29e) - At the Mouth by Gurmika Mann - transcript

(Originally aired 2018/12/29 - listen here)

Welcome to the fourth story in the Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast original fiction series! I’ve been so happy with the response to the fiction series and I’ve been delighted to be able to do my part to put more lesbian historical fiction out into the world. As you already know if you’re a regular listener, I’ll be running a second fiction series in 2019. Submissions will be open for the month of January. Check out the link in the show notes if you think you have something we might be interested in.

Our author, Gurmika Mann, is a queer Punjabi-Canadian woman living in Alberta. She studied English Literature and Psychology at McGill University. When she isn't writing, she loves picking apart narratives in pop culture - especially in TV, movies and video games. Her interest in historical culture, religion and mythology is reflected in her first published piece, "At the Mouth". You can follow her on twitter: @gikhee.

Our narrator, Maya Chhabra, is a poet and fiction writer whose work has appeared in Abyss & Apex, Mythic Delirium, and The Cascadia Subduction Zone, among other venues. Her novella Toxic Bloom is forthcoming from Falstaff Press, and her novelette Walking on Knives is available from Less Than Three Press. Her translation from the Russian of Marina Tsvetaeva's Fortune was published in Cardinal Points, Volume 8. She can be found on twitter @mayachhabra.

I’ll have links for both our author and narrator in the show notes.

This recording is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License. You may share it in the full original form but you may not sell it, you may not transcribe it, and you may not adapt it.

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At the Mouth

by

Gurmika Mann

 

Ramya was the one who told her after morning prayers. “The old ladies were saying Jaya is getting married to Raju.” They were sweeping the temple courtyard together before old man Balaji told them to come inside and begin their practice.

Aayushi squinted. “Raju’s father owns their house.”

“Of course he does. He owns half this temple too.” Ramya clicked her tongue. “You’re so slow.”

“Jaya wouldn’t want to marry him,” said Aayushi, hiking up her sari to lean over, sweeping along the far wall of the courtyard. They were getting closer to the gate, both of them managing to push along an ever-growing pile of dust, grains, rice, and flower petals that had scattered from the morning prayers. “Tell Balaji I’m going out. I ripped a seam in my blouse.”

“You’re full of shit,” said Ramya, but she was grinning. “Get one of those sweets next to Jaya’s house.”

“You’re always eating!” Aayushi scolded, pushing open the gates of the temple and hurriedly sweeping the threshold clean. She dropped her broom at Ramya’s feet, smoothed out her sari, and dashed away from the temple, following the downhill path into the village.

###

Kargal wasn’t a big village but it boasted a temple devoted to Indra with six devadasis paying homage to the deity along with a dozen brahmin that oversaw the complex. The temple was situated at the open mouth of a river, and the  jungle spread around it, lush and thick. As Aayushi picked her way down the path from the temple gate to the main road of the village, the thunderous roar of the river began to fade out behind her, replaced now by the clamour of voices as the village got on with yet another day of business.

Aayushi passed the sweets shop first where Nandini wrapped up two maladus and then snuck an extra for her as she pointed to the open window of Jaya’s shop. “Did you hear she’s getting married?”

“No, she’s not,” said Aayushi before bidding her goodbye and crossing the road, into the open door of the clothes shop. There was already incense burning near the open windowsill of the shop, and Aayushi thought of kicking it over.

“Aayushi,” said Jaya from behind her.

Aayushi startled. “You scared me!”

Jaya laughed, her smile wide and her eyes crinkling. “If I can scare you, then you must be feeling off.”

“I’m fine,” she said. Jaya was wearing a green sari today, folded impeccably over her waist, the long piece coming over her shoulder elegantly, naturally. Her hair was in a long, black braid as usual, but there were flowers - small and white - tucked just behind her ear. When Jaya limped past her, Aayushi could smell the incense lingering on her skin. It was awful.

“So you are getting married.”

Jaya’s home was covered in fabrics - wool, cotton, silk - all dyed in bright colours, but still uncut and unembroidered. From the entrance all the way to the back, Aayushi could see the piles of neatly folded clothes, all carefully arranged by shades. She had been here when customers came in, watched how the new brides immediately crouched near the reds next to the windowsill, and the mourners who arrived would go to the pile of untouched whites near the back door. Aayushi always loved green, and Jaya kept it against the wall next to the red, said that’s where the devadasis liked to linger and gossip as they watched the new brides fret over which shade would suit them best.

“To Raju,” said Jaya as she limped out through the door into the back courtyard where Aayushi knew was her small stove. “He’s the only who didn’t ask for a dowry.”

“Your house is his dowry.”

With Jaya no longer in her sight, Aayushi pressed a fist against her stomach, willing the pressure to ease, but all she felt was a hopeless terror. Slowly, she made her way past the clothes into courtyard, where there was a cot under the shade, next to a stovetop and dishes.

Jaya was already seated on the cot, her bad leg propped along the length of the cot, as she busied herself portioning out water in two cups to make tea. The briquettes in her stove burnt hot, and Aayushi could smell the incense here too. It made her grimace as she crouched down next to Jaya. “Jaya…”

“I finished your sari for the next full moon,” said Jaya, not looking up while she poured the water from the cups into a pot. “It’s blue and gold. I sewed bells on the edges of the sleeves for when you dance.” She placed the pot on the flat clay of the stove and began to stoke the briquettes with a long stick.

“Don’t marry Raju,” said Aayushi softly. Her hands were fisted in the skirt of her orange sari, the colour reminding her too much of the fresh marigold garlands Jaya would have to wear at her wedding.

“I put flowers all along the hem of the skirt. The white ones you like that grow near the river.”

“Jaya,” said Aayushi, a little more loudly, desperately.

The water was slowly beginning to bubble. “Your blouse is silk, even though you asked for cotton, but it will match. I put in hooks at the sides in case you get fat with maladus before you put it on.”

The joke had Aayushi laughing, surprising herself, before looking up at Jaya. Jaya was moving to put in the tea leaves into her boiling water, a pinch of fennel and two pieces of crushed clove. Aayushi usually left by now to get goat’s milk from Nandini to use for the tea, but instead she felt stuck here, watching Jaya’s face, how Jaya refused to look at her even as she spoke.

“And there’s fish. On the shoulders.” Jaya sighed as she watched the water darken from the tea leaves and spices, letting out a smell that was much more comforting to Aayushi than the incense. “They’re climbing up against the waterfall, trying… trying to touch you.”

It was the way Jaya’s jaw was clenched so tight... Aayushi couldn’t help herself; she reached out, cupped Jaya’s cheek in her palm, and it was so easy and so familiar. Jaya leaned into the touch for just a moment before pulling away to lift the pot off the stove. There was no milk.

“I can get some from Nandini.”

Jaya shook her head. “I can drink it like this. Do you still…?”

“Yes, I’ll have some too.”

Carefully, Jaya poured the tea out into two cups, and poured some fresh water inside of the pan so the tea leaves would float instead of getting stuck along the inside. “I have no choice.”

Aayushi winced. Holding the cup meant she couldn’t hold Jaya, and the distance seemed immeasurable at that moment - with her on one side of Jaya’s cot and Jaya on the other, Jaya’s bad leg between them, tucked under the long green sari.

“I knew,” started Jaya, still not looking at her, “I knew you wouldn’t understand.”

“You don’t have to,” she said, staring at the unfinished chai in her hands.

“Raju didn’t ask for a dowry and he doesn’t mind my leg.”

“I don’t mind your leg either!” Aayushi stared up at her, hopeless. “Just because his father gave you a storefront after your parents died doesn’t mean you need to marry his son!”

Jaya reeled back, and her heavy brows drew together in anger. “I made you that sari for you to seduce some rich brahmin, Aaya. You will marry too. This - whatever this is - isn’t forever.”

“But you don’t want it!”

“It’s not about what I want!” Jaya’s shoulders were drawn tight and Aayushi couldn’t help remembering when she would massage them, knowing exactly how warm Jaya’s skin was under her touch, how she always grew so tense as she worked deep into the night to get her embroidery perfect on her saris. “It’s… It’s what’s required.”

Her small mouth was turned down at the corners. Aayushi wanted to kiss her. “Let’s run away to Bengalore, where the rajput lives.” Jaya stared at her, but Aayushi continued, unhindered. “We’ll join his harem, and be like Ravana’s wives, who kissed each other when he couldn’t kiss them.”

Jaya’s expression was soft with affection, but still she seemed so far away. “Silly Aaya.” She gestured to the house. “This isn’t a story. I am going to make more saris for you - when you’re married and when you’re pregnant and when you dance for Indra with the other devadasis. And you’re going to bless my marriage as the nitya sumangali and you’ll dance for Indra to not pass on this leg to my children.”

Before she could stop herself, Aayushi began to cry. “Just tell me what you want first.”

“I…” Looking at her hands, Jaya shook her head. “I want to prove I’m the best - at clothes, at embroidery, at sewing. I want to show everyone I can get by with this leg.”

“How?”

“By getting married for money,” said Jaya, rolling her eyes. “Really, Aaya.”

“Okay.” Aayushi wiped at her face, cleaning her tears, before putting the chai down and standing up. “I’ll give you money.”

“Aayushi!” Jaya snapped. “I don’t need your charity!”

“But I’m a devadasi - I have money. I can give you money.”

“The rest of us aren’t like you!” She shouted, startling Aayushi for a moment. Sucking in a deep breath, Jaya seemed to regain her composure, but her entire frame shimmered with anger. “The rest of us can’t live like a carefree child like you. The rest of us have responsibilities.”

“I’m not a child,” said Aayushi, stung. She was twenty, a fully-fledged devadasi, who knew the sacred dances and could sing Lord Indra’s praises. “But I’m not so scared to hide behind a some man instead of seeing I could be something more.”

“I knew you wouldn’t understand,” said Jaya, her voice flat, her gaze turning cold. “How could a child understand anything of an adult woman’s reality.”

The words felt like a physical blow. Aayushi stepped back, incomprehending for a moment. Still, Jaya sat there, her back straight, her dark eyes under her heavy brows meeting Aayushi’s as if to challenge her. She didn’t want Aayushi there. Aayushi didn’t want to be there anymore either.

She left, leaving her unfinished chai behind, and returned to the temple.

###

Before the full moon, the women in Kargal had fasted all day and arrived just after sundown at the temple for blessings of longevity and happy marriage and healthy children. Aayushi and Ramya had been busy all day with preparations - cooking and decoration and cleaning the temple along with the other devadasis - before Balaji and the other brahmins had summoned them to dance in the courtyard. As the crowd of women gathered to pay respects to Indra and the moon, Aayushi danced the familiar steps, listening to the cheers and claps from the audience, and was grateful it was over soon. She needed to find Nandini’s mother.

Though the majority of the village crowd were women, Aayushi saw some of the landowning men talking to the brahmins. Balaji was with Raju’s father, but Aayushi couldn’t spot Raju himself. She knew Jaya didn’t like making the walk to the temple in the evening where it was hard to see where to step with her bad leg. Instead, she usually sent her offerings with Nandini, who Aayushi finally spotted standing next to the statue of Indra, where the smoke from the burning incense wafted around her moon-round face. Her mother was next to her, and Aayushi ducked around the other devadasis to talk to them.

“Aaya!” Nandini’s mother was just as large and soft as the maladus her family sold. Aayushi bowed to touch her feet, bracing herself for the conversation to follow. “Jaya sent me up with her sari for you. The rajput’s sons are coming to Kargal for the winter solstice?”

“I wanted to look my best for them,” said Aayushi. “Did Raju come?”

“He’s somewhere around here.”

“He’s marrying Jaya.”

Nandini’s mother beamed. “She’s twenty-two, it’s overdue. And Raju is a good boy. His family is going to pay, so Jaya doesn’t have to worry about a thing. Now we just have to find a boy for you next.”

“And offend my true husband Indra-dev?” Aayushi relaxed as Nandini and her mother both laughed. Nandini crouched down next to the basket they had brought and got out of the silk sari for Aayushi.

“For you.”

Aayushi thanked her as she held the silk, feeling it slip between her fingers. “Jaya is only getting married for money.”

Immediately, Nandini’s mother clicked her tongue. “That’s not how women speak, Aayushi.”

“But it’s true,” insisted Aayushi, having braced herself all day for this conversation. “She wants to continue being a seamstress, but she thinks getting married is the only way she can keep doing that.”

“Aaya,” said Nandini quietly. “It took a long time for my ama to secure this match.”

Aayushi gripped onto the sari to keep it from sliding out from her arms. “We can - I can - help her. She doesn’t have to do this. She’s skilled enough to make double what she does now, but she lives in Kargal, not Siddapur or Sagar.”

Nandini’s mother shook her head, one soft hand cupping Aayushi’s cheek. “But that is not how women live, Aaya. Jaya said the same thing but she understands now what must be done.”

The topic was clearly too uncomfortable for Nandini’s mother as she soon moved away to go talk to the other older women. Nandini stood next to her basket of offerings, reaching out to snag one of Aayushi’s bangles on a finger and tugging her closer.

“Ama had to argue with Jaya day and night too.” Nandini’s face was cast half in shadow, and her chin tilted downwards, saddened. “But we don’t have any money for Jaya to borrow and Raju was there.”

“What if I gave her money?” Aayushi asked suddenly, turning towards her, the sari clutched tightly to her chest. “Then what?”

“Then nothing,” said Nandini, shrugging. “Jaya would still get married. It’s not about money anymore, Aaya. It’s just… what’s done.”

“But she doesn’t want it!”

“We have no choice!” Nandini didn’t raise her voice but she stared wide-eyed and imploring at Aayushi before looking away, embarrassed. “I mean, me and Jaya. You’re a devadasi. You are already married to a dev.”

Aayushi looked at Nandini’s finger still caught around her bangle on her wrist and felt so, so tired. “I’m a woman too.”

“Yes,” said Nandini, letting go of the bangle now. “But you’re not like us.”

###

The winter solstice would be coming in less than one full moon’s turn. Jaya would get married then, just before the rajput’s arrival here with his sons on his tour to see the temples. In the meantime, Aayushi tried on the new sari in her room with Ramya within the temple. Ramya clicked her tongue when she saw the embroidery was missing on one corner of the hem.

“You pay this girl for incomplete work?”

Aayushi smacked her arm but frowned. “She’s never done this before.” Changing back into her other sari, she carefully folded the blue silk back up. “I should get it fixed.”

“Don’t come back crying like last time,” said Ramya, waving goodbye.

Aayushi mustered a smile as if to reassure but felt it fade away as she left the temple to make her way into the village proper. The days beforehand, she had Ramya sell off a few of her jewellery in exchange for coin when the brahmins had sent them down for grocery shopping. Now, Aayushi had a small heavy purse full of coin that she tucked between the folds of the blue sari, and she could only hope Jaya would even see her much less accept her… her charity.

Still, Aayushi had to try.

The sweets storefront was being managed by Nandini’s little brother this time. He waved to Aayushi as she crossed the road to Jaya’s home. Swallowing down her anxiety, Aayushi stepped past the threshold, to be surrounded and swallowed by the piles of fabrics around her. Jaya was sitting near the open window, sewing the edges of a blouse together. Her bad leg was stretched out in front of her with a blanket thrown overtop, and her sari this time was coloured a pale yellow like the small flowers that dotted the path between the village and temple. Her rough, worked hands held the needle delicately as she sewed, her head bent downwards in concentration, her thick dark hair braided in a neat plait as usual. Standing there watching, Aayushi could recall how it felt when her fingers had carded through Jaya’s hair, how it felt like the earth after it had rained - so soft, so heavy. She could even remember the touch of Jaya’s calloused fingers, even as Aayushi massaged oil and butter into the skin to soften it, scolding her for working too hard.

“Jaya,” she called out. Immediately, Jaya jerked in surprise, head snapping up in attention. She had been so focused that she hadn’t even heard Aayushi come in.

“Aaya,” Jaya said, still clearly surprised.

“The sari,” started Aayushi before the words died away in her mouth.

Jaya looked down finally to see Aayushi holding the blue silk before gesturing for her to put it down next to Jaya. “Is there a mistake? Let me look.”

Aayushi handed the silk over, and Jaya’s precise fingers unfolded the length of it with an ease and familiarity that Aayushi wondered anyone else could imitate. It only took a few moments for the coin purse to fall out into Jaya’s lap as she spread the silk and Jaya paused, looking down. Immediately, Aayushi could feel all her awkward laughter and excuses pile behind her teeth, trying to come out, to pretend this never happened. This was a youth’s indulgence; Jaya would get married and Aayushi would continue to get her clothes done by her, and Aayushi’s frantic attempts to seemingly save Jaya would just be a pebble in the stream of their lives together.

Except Jaya didn’t look twice at the coin purse. She found the corner with the missing embroidery instead. “I haven’t done this before.”

“You haven’t,” agreed Aayushi eventually. “That’s why I had to come see you.”

Jaya looked up, a faint smile on her mouth. “That’s the only reason? Come, sit.”

Helpless, Aayushi sat down next to Jaya’s bad leg, sliding the palms of her hands over the ocean of silk spread between them. “I liked the fish on the blouse.”

“I’m glad.” Jaya put down her needle and thread for the other blouse and focused on the sari. “I can’t wait to see you dance in this.”

“You only ever come to the temple when I’m wearing something of yours.”

Jaya grinned, shameless. Aayushi couldn’t stop herself from staring at how beautiful Jaya was in this moment, looking perfectly at ease and content with her life, bantering with Aayushi as if this was any other day. As if there wasn’t a fat coin purse sitting right in her lap.

“Jaya…”

“If I take this purse,” interrupted Jaya, looking up at her from beneath her heavy brows. “If I take it, then I can never come back.”

“I…” A part of Aayushi wanted to be confident, wanted to say, “yes, of course, I knew that,” but no part of her was ready. She thought back to Nandini and her round face, her large imploring eyes. Isn’t this what she meant? That girls like Nandini and Jaya would always have to cave to the wants of the village - married off with their own aspirations relegated to the dusty corners of the courtyard. “I don’t want you to leave.”

“If I stay, I get married.”

“I don’t want you to get married either.”

Jaya sighed. “Then what do you want, Aaya? Silly girl.”

Fiddling with the silk, Aayushi looked out the window of the storefront. “I want you to be happy.”

“I’m happy with you.”

“No, you’re not.” Aayushi turned back towards Jaya. “You’re happiest… when you work. And I make you the happiest when I can show your work off.”

She doesn’t expect Jaya to reach out, her familiar rough hands cupping Aayushi’s palms. “You…” Her face was tipped down now, and Aayushi could see her long lashes cast shadows down her cheeks. “You’re like the sun. You’re so bright and warm and good. You think you can make everyone happier. You make me happy.”

“Please,” Aayushi choked out.

Jaya’s small mouth twisted in a frown. She shook her head but didn’t let go of Aayushi’s hand. “After you left last time, I was so upset. I didn’t know what to do. I only knew what I didn’t want. I didn’t want you to be angry at me anymore. I didn’t want you to be… disappointed in me.”

“I would never,” she said quickly, tangling their fingers together and squeezing.

She received a wry smile in return; Jaya was looking up at her, her dark eyes bright. “I’m sorry. I might have purposely sent an unfinished hem so you would see me.”

A laugh came to her unbidden, had her watching Jaya helplessly, holding onto her hand. “I would have come back eventually.” That was the truth of it: if Jaya thought Aayushi was the sun, then Aayushi couldn’t help but think she was the ground beneath her feet, the steadiness in knowing every day the sun would set and the moon would rise and Jaya’s eyes would glitter like the stars in the sky.

“I love you,” said Jaya softly.

That should have been the end of it. The coin purse should have been ignored. They could stay together - here. Aayushi would wear her blue silk sari and seduce one of the rajput’s sons into marrying her and she could live out her life as a devadasi surrounded by wealth as she practiced her craft. And Jaya? She would stay here, married to Raju, the rich son of the village, who would let Jaya continue to be a seamstress that would impress Aayushi’s future husband. They would be bosom-buddies, gossiping and giggling behind veils, waiting until one of their husbands was out of sight before Aayushi could press her mouth to Jaya and revel in how Jaya gasped and pressed back.

But it wasn’t enough. It never would be. Jaya would languish under the toil of housework and never have her skill recognized apart from being Raju’s limping wife with the clever hands. Aayushi had her duties to her lord-husband Indra-dev as a devadasi; she could not play second-wife to Jaya no matter how much she loved her. This wasn’t the end Aayushi wanted for them, and it was terrifying.

“But,” said Aayushi. “But I can’t keep you.”

The hurt was clear on Jaya’s face: her brows drew together and her jaw clenched. She tried to withdraw her hand but Aayushi held on.

“You deserve more.” She believed it with her entire being, as sure as she was of her dance, her song, when she prostated herself for Indra-dev in the temple courtyard. “So you need to go.”

“You’ll let me go?” Jaya asked.

“Yes,” said Aayushi, nodding to the coin purse still in Jaya’s lap.

It took a moment for her to recognize that Jaya was tearing up, her expression twisted up as she cried. Panic flared in Aayushi’s chest as she launched herself across Jaya’s lap to hug her, press her face into the crook of her neck. Jaya held onto the skirt of Aayushi’s sari, heaving shuddering breaths against Aayushi’s collarbone.

“Nandini,” she started, “Nandini has a cousin in Kodkani, and she wants… She came back from the temple that night and she said she would help me leave, if I wanted.” It took a moment for Jaya to pull back, look up at Aayushi. “If I take your money, I can take my best saris and get to Kodkani, then make my way into Siddapur.”

Aayushi nodded. “I’ll help you. We all will.”

Jaya gave a watery smile. “Thank you.”

It was a sweeter phrase than her confession.

###

The rajput’s sons were delayed by three turns of the moon due to the monsoon season. The brahmins were slick in a sheen of anxiety as they made sure to clean the temple as best they could before the arrival. The rajput’s sons came with an entourage - their soldiers, bodyguards, servants, slaves, and select women from the harem. Ramya was gossiping with the other devadasis when Aayushi finally got on her blue sari, and they crowded together in fascination as the temple gates opened to welcome the royalty.

Aayushi danced - in honour of Indra, in honour of the rajput, in honour of the village of Kargal - along with the other devadasis, keeping beat with Ramya’s high, clear voice as she sang. The sun was low in the sky by the time the welcoming festivities came to a close to the bloody sacrifice of a goat and the serving of food. The devadasis sat aside from the rajput’s sons and brahmins, but the harem women came over to chat.

It was only when one of them got close enough that Aayushi spotted a familiar embroidery of flowers along the hem of one of the women’s sari. Already, her heart was in her throat, her hand reaching out to brush against the silk as the harem women sat around them.

“Who did this?” Aayushi asked without preamble.

Ramya smacked her arm. “She meant your sari is very pretty.”

The other women laughed. The one wearing the sari sat next to Aayushi and looked at the hem. “It’s strange, isn’t it? She put fish instead of flowers, but it’s beautiful.”

“Who?” Aayushi pressed.

The woman tipped her head in recollection. “I got this one while we were in Sagar. There’s a seamstress apprentice there who makes strange designs but they’re popular. I had to get one for myself.”

Ramya leaned forward. “Sagar is south of Siddapur.”

Aayushi scoffed. “I know.” But Ramya was holding her hand now, squeezing her fingers, and Aayushi squeezed back. “That apprentice is going to be famous one day.”

The woman traced her fingers along the embroidered fish before catching the same design over Aayushi’s blouse. Her smile seemed knowing then. “She told me it was made with love.”

Aayushi ducked her head, shy.

Suddenly, the devadasis erupted in whispers as Aayushi looked up to see one of the rajput’s sons walking towards where they were sitting. His eyes were on her. Aayushi let go of Ramya’s hand and straightened her posture. Jaya was working hard to do what she loved; Aayushi wouldn’t fall behind.

---

Show Notes

The fourth story in our 2018 fiction series. Written by Gurmika Mann and narrated by Maya Chhabra.

“At the Mouth” by Gurmika Mann is set in the southern part of India in the 10th century

Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online

• Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
• Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
• RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
• Twitter: @LesbianMotif
• Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
• The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon

Links to Heather Online

• Website: http://alpennia.com
• Email: Heather Rose Jones
• Twitter: @heatherosejones
• Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)

Links to Gurmika Mann Online

• Twitter: @gikhee

Links to Maya Chhabra Online

• Twitter: @mayachhabra

Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 85 (previously 29d) - Queen Anne - transcript

(Originally aired 2018/12/22 - listen here)

Inspired by the release of the movie The Favourite, I decided to do this month’s essay on its subject: Queen Anne, her circle of female favorites especially Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough and Abigail Masham, and the rumors of lesbianism that circled around them. Originally, I was going to include a review of the movie as part of this episode, but the essay ran long enough that I’m saving the review for later.

The Historic Outline

Queen Anne of England reigned for a bare dozen years at the very beginning of the 18th century, marking the end of the Stuart dynasty and participating in the complex wrangling over the intersection of politics and religion that had disrupted much of the later 17th century and would continue in the unsuccessful claims of the Catholic branch of the Stuarts well into the mid-18th century. All this has only the barest relevance to the topic of today’s essay, but it may help to set the stage a little and lay out the major players and timelines.

Anne was the younger daughter of King James II of England, who had succeeded his dashing brother, King Charles II. Charles had restored the monarchy to England after the English Civil War, and the label Restoration with all its licentious associations covers the period of Anne’s birth and childhood. Though Charles fathered over a dozen children by his various mistresses, he left no legitimate children to inherit the throne.

Charles had treated religious adherence as something of a political strategy, flirting with Catholicism when it might secure French support, but bowing to Parliament’s pressure to support the Anglican church. But his brother James had converted to Catholicism in mid-life, which didn’t sit well with the English establishment, which was virulently anti-Catholic at a time when religious and political loyalties could not be entirely separated. James’s Catholicism and support for the inclusion of Catholics in government led to his ouster only three years after his coronation, in what was called “The Glorious Revolution.” The idea of deposing monarchs was still a touchy subject after the execution of Charles and James’s father, King Charles I earlier in the century. The Glorious Revolution was led by James’s Dutch son-in-law, William of Orange, resulting in the co-rule of William and Mary. The degree to which William came down on the anti-Catholic side still leaves traces today in how both the name and color Orange is associated with anti-Catholic political groups in Northern Ireland.

To appease the anti-Catholic elements in parliament, King Charles II had required that James’s two surviving children from his first marriage, Mary and Anne, be raised in the Church of England, while allowing the children James had from his second marriage to be raised Catholic. Religion would complicate the succession in various ways.

William and Mary had reigned jointly as equal monarchs -- an unusual approach, given that typically the monarch’s spouse would not have any independent claim to the throne. When Queen Mary died childless, William continued reigning but with the stipulation that if he re-married, his children from that marriage would come after Anne’s children in the succession. This left Anne and her descendents as the next in line. But by 1700, Anne had gone through 17 pregnancies that ended in 7 miscarriages, 7 stillbirths or deaths within a day or so of birth, and 2 early deaths from smallpox. The only child who lived beyond his first couple of years had just died at age 11. The 18th century was not a kind time to be a monarch trying to produce heirs. Anne and Mary were the only survivors of their mother’s 8 pregnancies. Mary did not bring any pregnancies to term.

Faced with the prospect of the next prospective heirs being Catholic, an Act of Parliament stipulated that after Anne the succession would pass to her cousin, Sophia of Hannover, and Sophia’s protestant descendents (thus the sequence of King Georges). A year later, at William’s death, Anne came to the throne. She just barely missed having to deal with the continuing claims by her father James, who had died the year before. Her half-brother James Stuart, known later as “The Old Pretender” was supported by several Catholic monarchs on the continent, but saved most of his active opposition until after Anne’s death in 1714.

So. That’s the political and family background of Anne’s life and reign. So why are we talking about her in a lesbian-themed podcast?

Passionate Friendships and Libertine Sex

You’ll often hear about the phenomenon of Romantic Friendship in the context of the Victorian era--the later 19th century. The term describes a social context where women were expected to have passionate same-sex friendships that were expressed in language and behavior similar to that expected of male-female romantic couples. In fact, female pairs could be even more intense in the expression of their emotional bond than was considered proper between heterosexual couples.

But there have been regular cycles throughout history of a public culture of passionate friendships between women. One of those cycles occurred in the second half of the 17th century. It can be seen expressed in the “Society of Friendship” of Katherine Phillips and the poems she addressed to her closest female friends, or the somewhat more erotic poetry of Aphra Behn. It can be seen in the préciosité movement brought from the Paris salons and associated with Queen Henrietta Maria (the wife of Charles I) that elevated women’s platonic friendships over marriage and heterosexual lust. And it can be seen in female authors toying with the idea of women-only societies, such as in Margaret Cavendish’s The Convent of Pleasure or Delariviere Manley’s The New Atalantis, though not so much in a utopian sense in the latter work as a satirical one. We’ll come back to The New Atalantis in a little bit.

Especially among the aristocracy and literati, the idea of passionate attachments between women was normalized. So when a young Princess Mary (Anne’s sister) wrote the following to courtier Frances Apsley, it was not considered outside acceptable forms of expression:

“I love you with a flame more lasting than the Vestals’ fire. Thou art my life, my soul, my all that heaven can give. Death’s life with you; without you, death to live. What can I say to persuade you that I love you with more zeal than any lover can? I love you with a love that ne’er was known by man. I have for you excess of friendship--more of love then any woman can for woman and more love then even the constantest lover had for his mistress. You are loved more than can be expressed by your ever obedient wife, very affectionate friend, humble servant, to kiss the ground where once you go.”

The young Princess Anne had passionate correspondences with several older female friends (including a rivalry with her sister over Frances Apsley’s affection). There’s some indication that those around her felt that some of these attachments were more intense than was desirable. Mary Cornwallis was a Lady of the Bedchamber (a type of lady in waiting) to Princess Anne but was dismissed from service by Anne’s father due to concerns about the relationship. This doesn’t necessarily mean sexual concerns--there are always reasons to be concerned when someone appears to have an undue influence on a potential heir to the throne--but King Charles was later said to have commented that “No man ever loved his Mistress as his niece Anne did Mrs Cornwallis.” which certainly has suggestions of erotic overtones.

But Anne’s deepest and longest lasting such relationship began when she was perhaps six years old with a girl named Sarah Jennings who would have been eleven at the time. Sarah was a great beauty, ferociously intelligent and witty, and politically savvy, though not without her blind spots. The friendship must have seemed something of an odd couple, though the later stereotype of Anne as dull, frumpy, and overweight does her something of a disservice, and comes in part from the biased memoirs Sarah wrote after their break-up. Anne would become a dedicated and knowledgeable participant in government, and in later years she dealt with crippling chronic pain and illness which contributed to her physical problems. But I get ahead of myself.

18th century society interacted with women’s same-sex relationships on several different layers. There was the mode of intense platonic friendship that might use the language of romance but was treated as being sexless. There was something of a middle ground where people might acknowledge erotic possibilities but deflect their potential in various ways. This can be seen in a poem of 1670 about two women in a “marriage of two beauties” written by a male author in a female voice. The poem’s persona expresses jealousy of male rivals and laments that the “too great resemblance” between her and her friend prevent any romantic success. Other poems written from a male point of view address intimate female couples urging them to consider their love impossible to fulfill so that they will accept the poet’s attentions instead. I’ve included these poems in a previous podcast on homoerotic poetry of the 17th century.

But this was also the era of libertine sexual excess and an era when the concept of binary sexuality--the idea that one had either heterosexual or homosexual desires--had not yet taken solid hold. In the court of Charles II it was no secret that women might engage in sexual affairs with other women. A French visitor to the court reported on love affairs between the maids of honor to the queen and the king’s mistresses. When King Charles discovered that his mistress Hortense Mancini was having an affair with Anne, Countess of Sussex, his disapproval was only because the Countess of Sussex was his illegitimate daughter. (I had fun including this affair in my historic novelette “The Mazarinette and the Musketeer.”)

This isn’t to say that there was no stigma attached to same-sex relationships. Anne’s brother in law, King William also attracted rumors of homosexual relationships with close friends after Queen Mary’s death, in part because of his lack of female mistresses--a striking lack in that era--and in part because it was a popular political weapon against relationships that were felt to exert undue influence or reap undue rewards such as titles. When Anne’s favorites came in for criticism, the primary reason was due to their political influence. Accusations of lesbianism were only a tool to bring to bear on that concern. On the other hand, extra-marital relationships with the opposite sex were similarly looked askance when influence and profit were involved. It’s unclear whether there was any basis to the rumors about William’s relationships, but they contribute to our understanding of the socio-political climate of the times. Note that, unlike sexual relations between women, those between men were a crime under English law.

This climate of romantic and even sexual possibilities between women doesn’t mean that we should interpret the subjects of rumor as being “lesbian” in the modern exclusive sense. Both Anne and Sarah were happy in their marriages, though of course they would have had little choice but to marry even if they hadn’t been. There is plenty of evidence that Sarah and John Churchill were passionately in love and during their long separations due to his military career, their correspondence smoulders so furiously it’s a wonder it didn’t spontaneously combust. Anne was, perhaps, less overt in expressions of affection to her husband, but she regularly supported Prince George against the criticism of her family. And Anne’s 17 pregnancies in their first 17 years of marriage attest to a consistently active sex life.

I’ll discuss further evidence for the public image of women’s same-sex relationships a bit later when I talk about Delariviere Manley’s political fantasy The New Atalantis.

Having looked at the social context of sexuality in the later 17th century, let’s introduce several other major players besides Anne.

Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough

Anne’s childhood friend Sarah Jennings married an able and ambitious army officer named John Churchill and devoted much of her energy to furthering his career. Shortly after, Anne married her cousin, a Danish prince named George, (she almost married a different cousin George--the Hanoverian prince who would later succeed her as George I) and as a married woman, she was entitled to set up her own household. Sarah Churchill became Anne’s Lady of the Bedchamber, serving not only as friend and confidante but as an able and loyal advisor--though one who made no distinctions between what she wanted and what she thought the princess should want. The position of Lady of the Bedchamber always had political implications due to the direct access it provided to royal women. Anne’s father James disapproved of Sarah’s appointment, fearing that the strong-willed Sarah would dominate his daughter’s opinions and decisions. He wasn’t wrong. Anne was infatuated with her friend Sarah and several times defied pressure to send her away. But Sarah, in turn, provided a rock of loyalty and support in a turbulent social context when Anne had few people she could rely on that utterly.

Princess Anne wanted the illusion of equality between the two of them in private--the ideal concept of platonic philosophy. A year after Anne’s marriage she wrote to Sarah, “Let me beg of you that you not call me your highness at every word, but be free with me as one friend ought to be with another, and you can never give me greater proof of your friendship than in telling me your mind freely in all things, which I do beg you to do.” They had pet names for each other to emphasize this informality. Anne was “Mrs. Morley” and Sarah was “Mrs. Freeman.” For the rest of Anne’s life, both the strength and weakness of their relationship was that Sarah took her at her word and told her her mind freely in all things, speaking without distinction of rank.

Two years after Anne’s marriage, her uncle King Charles II died and her father James came to the throne. Three years later, King James was deposed by his daughter Mary and son-in-law William. Through the turmoil of the transition, Sarah was at Anne’s side, advising her to distance herself from her father and helping her escape the palace by night, to go join the opposition. Sarah was also behind Anne’s maneuverings to achieve a financial independence from William and Mary’s purse strings, and as a result contributed to a falling out between the sisters that rebounded on her. The Churchills were moving up in the world--he had been named Earl of Marlborough--but between Queen Mary’s hostility and the work of political enemies they had a reversal of fortunes. Marlborough was accused of conspiring with the exiled James and dismissed from his post, though the accusation was later found to be based on forged documents. Anne’s loyalty to them was unshaken and she moved out of the palace rather than obey Queen Mary’s command to dismiss Sarah from her service.

Anne wrote to Sarah, “I have a thousand melancholy thoughts, and cannot help fearing they should hinder you from coming to me; though how they can do that without making you a prisoner I cannot imagine. But let them do what they please, nothing shall ever vex me so I can have the satisfaction of seeing dear Mrs Freeman; and I swear I would live on bread and water between four walls, with her, without repining; for as long as you continue kind, nothing can ever be a real mortification to your faithful Mrs Morley, who wishes she may never enjoy a moment’s happiness in this world or the next, if ever she proves false to you.”

In a presentiment of the later dynamics of their relationship, when Sarah suggested they might go along with Queen Mary’s demand that they separate for a time, Anne replied, “If ever you should do so cruel a thing as to leave me, from that moment I shall never enjoy one quiet hour. And should you do it without asking my consent… I will shut myself up and never see the world more but live where I may be forgotten by human kind.”

The royal sisters never reconciled from the conflict over Sarah Churchill and Mary died of smallpox two years later, leaving no living children. Anne was now officially the next in succession.

Abigail Hill Masham

Now we come to Abigail Hill Masham.

At some point during this period--I haven’t been able to pin down exactly when--Sarah Churchill took into her household a poor relation named Abigail Hill along with two of Abigail’s siblings. The impulse may have been one of charity, but the two must have developed a close and strong relationship because Sarah was happy to promote Abigail’s career. I haven’t found a reference to what position Abigail held in the Churchill household, but some time later Sarah got her appointed as one of Princess Anne’s bedchamber women.

To be clear, there was a distinction between Sarah’s position as Lady of the Bedchamber and the post of Woman of the Bedchamber, which was less ceremonial and involved more of the duties of a personal maid. But both were positions typically filled by upper class women and involved regular intimate access to the person they served.

In addition to whatever family loyalty prompted Sarah to place Abigail in this position, she clearly expected Abigail to serve as her surrogate and representative in Anne’s household, especially when Sarah’s other obligations took her away from court for extended periods. This would be a mistake. Sarah’s other major mistake with regard to Abigail was to assume that they were aligned on the same political side. I’ll talk more about that when we move on to the political context.

Unlike for Sarah Churchill, we don’t have much documentary evidence from Abigail herself regarding her life and position. Contemporary descriptions of her personality and motivations align very strongly to political allegiance: those who considered her an ally said she was, “a person of a plain sound understanding, of great truth and sincerity, without the least mixture of falsehood or disguise, of an honest boldness and courage superior to her sex, firm and disinterested in her friendship and full of love, duty and veneration for the queen her mistress.” Those on the opposite political side described her as, “exceedingly mean and vulgar in her manners, of an unequal temper, childishly exceptious, and passionate.”

Since we don’t have Sarah’s letters sent to Anne--only the memoirs she wrote after they became estranged--we don’t have an even-handed image of what she thought about Abigail before they became rivals. And after that estrangement, Sarah’s opinions were sharply personal, viewing Abigail as a traitor and a viper who failed in proper gratitude to Sarah for furthering her career.

Some time after Anne became queen, Abigail married Samuel Masham, but that belongs to the discussion of how Anne and Sarah began falling out, so we’ll come back to it later.

Delariviere Manley

Another woman who is useful for understanding why lesbian rumors stuck to Queen Anne’s court is a writer named Delariviere Manley, who combined entertainment with political satire and walked a perilous line between being a paid political operative and drawing legal censure for the pointedness of her works. Manley was not a member of Queen Anne’s circle--quite the contrary--but she was a sharp observer of the court.

In 1709--near the middle of Anne’s reign--Delariviere Manley published a roman à clef The New Atalantis, which was a satire of British politics set on the fictional island of Atlantis. Manley so clearly depicted the targets of her critique that she was arrested and questioned about it in preparation for a libel case against her. She steadfastly maintained the work was entirely fictional and the case was eventually dropped, but no one was fooled. The primary targets of her satires were the ruling Whig party, and in particular the Marlboroughs. Among the material incorporated into The New Atalantis was a skit entitled The Secret History of Queen Zarah--that’s “Zarah with a Z”, which gives you a sense of how flimsily disguised the characters were.

The New Atalantis focused heavily on sex and relationships as an alleged driver of the workings of government and of the aristocratic social circles that were intertwined with the official structures. Delariviere knew something of interpersonal drama herself. After a peripatetic childhood accompanying her father’s military postings, at his death she and her sister became wards of a cousin, John Manley. Within a few years, Manley had married her, apparently forgetting that he was already married. A few years after the birth of their son, Delariviere left her husband for the household of Barbara Villiers, Duchess of Cleveland, the one-time mistress of King Charles II. Villiers threw her out half a year later, allegedly for flirting with her son. Delariviere spent several years after that writing plays, but only became famous after the publication of The New Atalantis. From there she moved on to a career as a political pamphleteer, though she returned later to drama and sensational novels.

Although the criticisms encoded in The New Atalantis were wide-ranging, the section that concerns us here focuses on a group of women identified as “The New Cabal.” The work makes clear the homoerotic sexual exploits of the group while entirely avoiding any description of specific physical acts, invoking the reader’s imagination to fill in the silences. The targets of this satire are Queen Anne and her court, especially her female favorites. Manley perhaps felt more free to write about the topic than most authors of the day because her own moral position was fairly abandoned, but she was also writing from a position of criticism, rather than depicting desires she shared. The crucial aspect of her writing is that it reflects ideas and images that were in currency during Anne’s reign.

Although the descriptions of the women’s activities in the novel mostly go no further than “kisses and embraces”, the rules of the New Cabal not only exclude men, but exclude women who have voluntary romantic relationships with men (marriage is grudgingly tolerated as a necessary evil, but male lovers are right out).

The women join in loving couples who pledge not only devotion (and secrecy) but a sharing of property and wealth between them. Most of the descriptions of the women (including those meant to represent contemporary figures) don’t mention gender role play or cross-dressing (cross-dressing wasn’t yet a trope strongly associated with lesbian relationships) but there are a few exceptions. One woman is described as mannish in behavior (though not in dress), and another is described as preferring to “mask her diversions in the habit [i.e., clothing] of the other sex”. But this is not as part of a butch-femme relationship, for her female partner also cross-dresses and together they are said to wander through the seedy parts of the city picking up prostitutes for their shared enjoyment. But for the most part, the women described in the satire are feminine-presenting and partner with other feminine-presenting women.

The exclusively female nature of the group is only emphasized by a grudging allowance for one bisexual member who is intended to represent Lucy Wharton who, in real life, had a female lover in opera singer Catherine Tofts. Another real-life couple in The New Atalantis represents Catherine Colyear, Duchess of Portmore and Dorchester who is paired with a character representing playwright Catharine Trotter, whose work Agnes de Castro also has themes of passionate friendship between women.

One thing in common between all the women depicted in this satire is that they were associated with the Whig political party. And now it’s time to talk about English politics around 1700.

Politics and Power in the Reign of Queen Anne

I’m going to really, really oversimplify this discussion, but it’s kind of important to have at least a vague idea of the sides. At the time, England was only starting to develop something identifiable as political parties. The underlying power struggle between absolute and constitutional monarchy was in full swing--keep in mind that the 17th century was when Parliament flexed its muscles and executed a king--so general interest groups and affinities were just starting to aggregate and align as fixed political parties that competed for control of Parliament. Ministers of State were still generally appointed directly by the monarch, though influenced by the practical need to gain cooperation for goals and policies. The concept of a Prime Minister hadn’t really gelled yet. But we can identify two named political parties during Anne’s reign and the direct competition between them set the stage for the more personal conflicts within Anne’s household.

The Whig party--which, by the way, had nothing to do with the male fashion for wearing elaborate artificial hairpieces at this time--played a major role in ousting James II in the Glorious Revolution. They were strongly anti-Catholic (although that changed in later centuries), often aligned with commercial interests and Protestant dissenters, and promoted the concept of constitutional monarchy.

Their rivals, the Tory party, supported the primacy of the Anglican church against a more broadminded acceptance of religious diversity, and were more inclined to support royal power, having their origins in royalist elements during the English Civil War.

Although the key players during Anne’s reign sometimes fell indeterminately in the moderate middle between these parties and sometimes shifted allegiance, I’m going to oversimplify and identify them by party affiliation toward the latter part of her reign. Three powerful men were the core of Queen Anne’s first government: Sidney Godolphin as First Lord of the Treasury and the Duke of Marlborough--did I mention that the Churchills were elevated to a duchy when Anne came to the throne? He was named commander of the armies. Both had begun as moderate Tories but became increasingly associated with the Whigs due to that party’s support for the ongoing wars on the continent. Oh, and due to Sarah Churchill’s overwhelming support for the Whig party. So let’s just consider them functionally Whigs for the purpose.

The third important man in Anne’s initial government was Robert Harley, Speaker of the House of Commons, who started out a moderate Whig but then shifted to Tory allegiance, so we’re going to consider him the primary Tory figure in this struggle. Confusing, I know.

Queen Anne leaned toward the Tories--that whole royalist thing, you know--but was under significant pressure, not only from Sarah Churchill, to appoint more Whigs to her administration. This pressure was all the more painful as she personally disliked some of the prominent Whig leaders.

Harley initially came into power through the influence of Godolphin and Marlborough but as their interests diverged, he engaged the power of political writers like Daniel Defoe, Jonathan Swift, and Delariviere Manley to influence public opinion toward the Tory side via satirical pamphlets. He also engaged the services of a cousin...Abigail Hill, now Abigail Masham after marrying one of Prince George’s grooms.

Sarah Churchill was perhaps the most influential person at court at the beginning of Anne’s reign--far more influential than the official ministers. Marlborough and Godolphin treated her as a political equal and she was trusted to represent Marlborough’s interests at court while he was abroad with the military. Sarah not only had the queen’s ear, but she was a powerful gatekeeper. She could decide who the queen had time and interest to meet with and who she was too busy for.

Sarah Churchill’s power was not only unofficial. Anne had named her Keeper of the Privy Purse--the official in charge of finances for the royal household. If Wikipedia is to be believed, in the entire history of the English monarchy, only one monarch has ever named a woman to this post: Queen Anne. And she named two: Sarah Churchill, and then later as her replacement, Abigail Masham. The anxieties around the queen’s favorites were not simply about social influence but about real financial and political power. And to some extent about men freaking out over women holding that power and excluding them from the innermost circles of decision-making.

So when Sarah threw her considerable influence in on the side of the Whigs, people took notice and worried. And when Harley saw a chance to counter that influence with an agent inside the queen’s inner circle of favorites and confidantes, you can bet he took that chance, especially after he was forced out of office in 1708 by Whig pressure. By then, Abigail Masham was displacing Sarah Churchill in the queen’s affections, though Sarah hadn’t realized that yet. Abigail might have family feelings and personal loyalty for Sarah, but her own political inclinations were solidly on the Tory side. She didn’t need persuading to act as Harley’s agent within the court.

And with that, we move on to how the inter-personal dynamics played out as Abigail displaced Sarah in Queen Anne’s life.

The Break-Up

The relationship between Anne and Sarah had always been lopsided, but not always in the same way. As noted previously, Sarah was beautiful, brilliant, savvy, and charming. She also had, as one historian puts it, “an almost pathological inability to admit the validity of anyone else’s point of view.” She was certain of the rightness of her opinions and positions and considered it her duty to make Anne see the light and agree with her. She had promised Anne that she would always treat her as an equal and be forthright with her.

But Anne didn’t always want brutal honesty; sometimes she wanted support, companionship, and comfort. Sarah had provided that support and companionship in Anne’s youth and that built up a lot of credit. But when Anne came to the throne, Sarah’s advice and persuasion was no longer directed at helping Anne navigate tricky political waters from a vulnerable position, now it was directed at shaping Anne’s government and policy into the Marlboroughs’ desired form. Sarah ordered Anne to appoint her own Whig allies to cabinet posts, lectured her about affairs of state, and generally treated her like a child.

Anne wanted to please her closest friend but she had her own ideas about government and was developing the will and stubbornness to pursue them. And Sarah was increasingly spending her time away from the court, something that became a sore point between them. Anne’s independence caused immediate friction. In the first year of her reign, a courtier noted, “The dutchess of Marlborough has lately had two terrible Battles with the Queen and she came out from her in great heat, and when the Queen was seen afterwards her eyes were red, and it was plain she had been crying very much.”

Such conflicts were all the more painful because of the bond between them. What we know of the internal dynamics of Anne and Sarah’s relationship comes largely from Sarah’s memoirs written at a time of separation and bitterness. But that bitterness itself gives evidence of the depth of Sarah’s attachment, even if not as single-minded as Anne’s was to her. Anne was besotted with Sarah, writing, “If I writ whole volumes I could never express how well I love you.” Sarah later complained that Anne “desired to possess her wholly.”

Anne was jealous of Sarah’s other female friends, and her expectations regarding Sarah’s attention and presence would become part of their fracture. Anne wrote, “I know I have a great many rivals which makes me sometimes fear losing what I so value.” And regarding one specific friend, Lady Anne Sunderland, “You have often told me that I have no reason to be jealous of her and therefore I will not complain any more till I see more reasons for it, but I assure you I have been a little troubled at it.”

The earliest surviving mention of Abigail Hill in the correspondence Sarah received from Anne appears to portray Abigail as one of those other friends that Anne is jealous of. (Keep in mind here that references to Mrs. Freeman are to Sarah, and Anne’s references to Mrs. Morley are to herself.)

“My fever is not quite gone and I am still lame, I cannot go without limping. I hope Mrs Freeman has no thoughts of going to the opera with Mrs Hill, and will have a care of engaging herself too much in her company, for, if you will give way to that, it is a thing that will insensibly grow upon you… for your own sake, as well as poor Mrs Morley’s, have as little to do with that enchantress as ’tis possible and pray pardon me for saying this.”

But Anne herself was already under the spell of the enchantress Abigail Hill, though her enchantments may have been as simple as being attentive and kind and far more circumspect in how she attempted to use political influence with the queen. By around 1706, the queen’s irritation with the Marlboroughs led her to turn to their rival Harley for political advice. And though they weren’t aware of it at the time, Abigail was a conduit for those communications. This personal and political defection may have given Anne something of a guilty conscience.

In a letter to Sarah she wrote, “I cannot forbear telling you why I disowned my being in a spleen this morning and the cause of my being so. My poor heart is so tender that I durst not tell you what was the matter with me, because I knew if I had begun to speak I should not have been fit to be seen by anybody… The reason of my being in the spleen was that I fancied by your looks and things you have sometimes let fall, that you have hard and wrong thoughts of me. I should be very glad to know what they are that I might clear myself, but let it be in writing for I dare not venture to speak to you for the reason I have told you already… don’t let anybody see this strange scrawl.”

Sarah later annotated this letter with, “she was under the witchcraft of Mrs Hill, however she says she does not deserve the hard thoughts I may have of her and… she adds that she will not be uneasy if I would come to her and calls me unkind, but nobody of common sense can believe that I did not do all that was possible to be well with her, it was my interest to do so. And though I had all the gratitude imaginable for the kindness she had expressed to me for so many years, I could have no passion for her that could blind me so much as to make me do anything that was extravagant. But it wasn’t possible for me to go to her as often as I had done in private, for let her write what she will, she never was free with me after she was fond of Mrs Hill, and whoever reads her letters will find a great difference in the style of them when she really loved me, from those where she only pretended to do so.”

What were the “extravagant” things Sarah declined to do? Was it only a matter of not feeling required to dance constant attendance on the queen? Historians have sometimes seen coded references in texts like this, but it’s hard to be certain. What is certain is that Sarah felt hurt and rejected...even if the reason for that hurt was Anne’s refusal to obey and forgive her at every turn.

A year later in 1707 Abigail’s betrayal became overt. While Sarah was absent from court, Abigail Hill married Samuel Masham, a member of Prince George’s household. It was something of a secret wedding--secret at least from Sarah Churchill, though not from the queen who was present as a witness. But Sarah was blindsided and belatedly came to understand how solidly embedded Abigail was in the queen’s confidence.

Sarah recorded her outrage that ''her cousin was become an absolute favorite, that the queen herself was present at her marriage in Dr. Arbuthnot's lodgings, at which time her majesty had called for a round sum out of the privy purse; that Mrs. Masham came often to the queen when the prince was asleep, and was generally two hours every day in private with her; and I likewise then discovered beyond all dispute Mr. Harley's correspondence and interest at court by means of this woman.'' (I’ve seen some writers interpret the bit about Abigail “coming to the queen and being private with her” as referring to sexual encounters, but it looks more ambiguous to me. The simple personal intimacy of private time together would be enough of a challenge to Sarah’s position.)

The Duke of Marlborough, more wisely, cautioned Sarah to let things be, writing, “What you say of [Abigail] is very odd, and if you think she is a good weather cock, it is high time to leave off struggling; for believe me nothing is worth rowing against wind and tide; at least you will think so when you come to my age.” But Sarah had no intention of ceding the field so easily. She raged, “To see a woman whom I had raised out of the dust put on such a superior air and hear her assure me by way of consolation that the queen would always be kind to me! At length I went on to reproach her for her ingratitude and her secret management with the queen to undermine those who had so long and with so much honour served her majesty. To this she replied that she never spoke to her majesty on business.”

Whether or not Abigail was truthful about not advising the queen on the business of government, Sarah saw her hand at work in Anne’s loss of confidence in the Whig leaders and pressured Marlborough and Godolphin to force Harley to resign from his government positions. But she was no more successful in pressuring Anne to dismiss Abigail than anyone had ever been in pressuring Anne to dismiss Sarah herself.

With relations strained, the beginning of the end came in 1708 in the context of a church service celebrating a significant military victory on the continent. As part of her formal office for the queen, it was Sarah’s duty to select the jewels that Anne would wear for the event. In the coach ride to the church, she discovered that the pieces she’d chosen were not being worn and she concluded that Abigail had contradicted her directions. She and the queen had a terrible quarrel, spilling over in public as they arrived at the Cathedral. And Sarah did an unforgivable thing: impatient with Anne’s continued argument, she told the queen to “Be quiet!”

Even Sarah realized she’d gone too far. She tried unsuccessfully to apologize but Anne refused to respond to her letters or allow her into her presence, saying that she had been told to be quiet and therefore she would give no answer. The only reason that Sarah was not immediately stripped of her court offices was to avoid a public break with her husband who was still a vital part of the war efforts.

If that weren’t bad enough, later that year, Prince George died, and even as Sarah used the logistics of the funeral as a context for coming back into contact with Anne, she made the event all about her continuing conflict with Abigail. And we now get a glimpse of Abigail’s viewpoint, in a letter to an ally indicating that she, too, was more concerned about using Anne’s bereavement as a site for their power struggle, rather than being concerned about comforting the queen.

The break played out in correspondence for some time, with Anne alternately begging for a reconciliation and standing fast against Sarah’s demands that she dismiss Abigail. Some of Abigail Masham’s enemies even suggested putting the matter of her influence over the queen before Parliament, though one prominent Whig objected, “it is impossible for any man of sense, honour, or honesty to come in to an address to remove a dresser from the Queen… only to gratify Lady Marlborough’s passions.” Perhaps even Sarah realized that her campaign against Abigail could only bring ridicule and ruin on herself.

By the end of 1710, Sarah had lost her official positions at court. The prestigious post of Keeper of the Privy Purse was given to her rival Abigail while the posts of Mistress of the Robes and Groom of the Stole were transferred to a new favorite, Elizabeth Seymour, Duchess of Somerset. Like Abigail, Seymour’s closeness to the queen made her a target of political attacks. Even as Sarah lost her struggle, Seymore was moving into Abigail’s place as favorite, due to the latter often being away from court on family business, although there’s no evidence that the two of them had the sort of personal rivalry that had marked the transition from Sarah to Abigail.

With the end of the war in Europe, the Duke of Marlborough became somewhat more dispensable and by the end of 1711 he too had lost his government offices, based on a trumped up charge of embezzlement. With the decline of the Marlboroughs and the Whig party, Harley again climbed in power and influence though his resurgence was short-lived. He fell out of favor shortly before Queen Anne’s death in 1714. But this essay isn’t about the men.

Where Did the Accusations Come From?

Emma Donoghue’s book Passions Between Women opens with the contradictory use of the word “passion” in the correspondence between Queen Anne and Sarah Churchill. For years, their letters had concluded with salutations assuring each other that they were “most passionately and tenderly yours” and speaking of “a sincere and tender passion” felt between them. But when Sarah turned her poison pen against Abigail Masham, she warned that people were linking Anne and Abigail’s names together with descriptions of “stuff not fit to be mentioned of passions between women” with additional insinuations that made it clear that sexual relations were the topic.

Did these two uses of “passion” have separate and distinct meanings to the two women? Or did they represent two points on a continuum of meaning for the word? If Queen Anne became associated in the public mind with lesbian relationships with her favorites, the irony is that Sarah Churchill was one of the sources of that association, even though she herself was an obvious candidate for the same suspicions.

How was that association built? And do we have the evidence to determine whether it was true, either in Abigail Masham’s case or in Sarah Churchill’s? Donoghue’s book tackles the general background to the relationship between romantic friendship and sexual relations across the long 18th century. But we’re concerned with a narrower slice of history here.

The dichotomy between an acceptable image of chaste but emotional friendship between women and an unacceptable image of sordid same-sex erotics has often been used to shield the upper class women who participated in the culture of romantic friendship from accusations of lesbianism. The argument is that the openness and pervasiveness of romantic friendships must mean that they could not have been accompanied by sexual desire or sexual activity. This thinking has a strong streak of “nice girls don’t” in which women capable of expressing the elevated sentiments of friendship in literature or in their own lives are thought incapable of engaging in anything so perverted as lesbian sex. These interpretations are not only complicated by the prejudices that modern historians bring to their studies, but also by the different attitudes and language used by women in history for physical expressions of love. When women speak of “chaste kisses” it can mean something rather different for a woman who classifies only penetrative sex with a man as unchaste.

Suspending judgment regarding any sexual component of the relationship between Anne and Sarah, it’s clear the overall shape of that relationship--including its intense expressions and fierce jealousies--is indistinguishable from a romantic and sexual one. And yet Sarah Churchill was a major source of the rumors that Abigail Masham participated in a lesbian relationship with the queen--or at least that their relationship was being interpreted as such.

Sarah wrote to Anne warning her, “I remember you said… of all things in the world you valued most your reputation, which I confess, surprised me very much, that your majesty should so mention the word after having discovered so great a passion for such a woman, for sure there can be no great reputation in a thing so strange and unaccountable… nor can I think that having no inclination for anyone but one’s own sex is enough to maintain such a character as I wish may still be yours.”

That seems quite unambiguous in terms of what is being implied. The word “unacountable” is something of a code-word for sexually suspect relationships between women. But the word often brings in issues of class as well as gender. When Sarah complains of “so great a passion for such a woman” is it specifically the homoerotic aspect of the relationship that she’s targeting? Or might there be an element of considering Abigail too low-class to be worthy of the queen’s affections? Although Sarah and Abigail were cousins, there was a clear distinction of birth between the two branches of the family.

As I noted earlier in this essay, the sexual possibilities between women were solidly in evidence in the Restoration court that Anne was born into. Given this, can Sarah’s accusations be taken as evidence that her own relationship with Anne was not sexual? Or was Sarah simply so deeply invested in using any tool necessary to dislodge Abigail that she was unconcerned with the implication? After all, Sarah derided Abigail as an ungrateful bitch, a viper, and concerned with her own political interests above the queen’s welfare--which all could reasonably be applied to Sarah as well.

In any event, Anne’s response to the previous was “Sure, I may love whom I please.”

But Sarah wasn’t done. An anonymous ally--quite probably her secretary Mr. Mainwaring-- wrote an long scurrilous ballad ranting about Abigail Masham’s offenses: her ingratitude, her political connivance with Harley, her devoted allegiance to the Anglican church, and with only the thinnest of veils over the suggestiveness, the assertion that she performed “sweet service” and “dark deeds at night” to gain her place. The publication of this ballad was no longer a serious campaign to win back Anne’s attention, it was intended to discredit Abigail and to hurt and humiliate the queen in revenge for the slights Sarah believed herself to have received.

The ballad is given “to the tune of Fair Rosamund” and here are a few of the more suggestive of the 35 verses. I’ve expanded the coded references that were given as initials in the original. The ballad tune itself carries meaning, as the Rosamund of the title (and the original ballad) was a mistress of King Henry II and the song tells of how she was poisoned by the queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine. Did Sarah see herself as the avenging spouse, poisoning her partner’s mistress?

 A new ballad to the tune of Fair Rosamund [the tune is also known as “Flying Fame”]
I
When as Qu[een] A[nne] of Great Renown
Great Britain’s Scepter sway’d,
Besides the Church she dearly lov’d
A Dirty Chamber Maid.
II
O! Abi[gail] that was her Name,
She starched and stitch’d full well,
But how she pierc’d this Royal Heart,
No Mortal Man can tell.
III
However for sweet Service done
And Causes of great Weight,
Her Royal Mistress made her, Oh!
A Minister of State.
IV
Her Secretary she was not,
Because she could not write;
But had the conduct and the Care
Of some dark deeds at Night.
V
The Important Pass of the Back-Stairs
Was put into her Hand;
And up she brought the greatest R[ogue]
Grew in this fruitful land.
VI
And what am I to do, quoth he,
Oh! for this Favour great!
You are to teach me how, quoth she,
To be a sl[ut] of State.

And so on at great length, concluding with a hopeful, if irrational, prediction that the subject of the song would be rejected and cast out.

Another likely output of Sarah and Mainwaring’s collaboration was a pamphlet entitled The Rival Duchesses with an imagined conversation between Abigail Masham and Madame de Maintenon, the official mistress of King Louis XIV of France. In it, Abigail boasts, “Especially at court I was taken for a more modish lady, was rather addicted to another sort of passion, of having too great a regard for my own sex, in as much that few people thought I would ever have married. But to free myself from that aspersion some of our sex labor under, for being too fond of one another, I was resolved to marry as soon as I could fix to my advantage or inclination.”

At which Madame de Maintenon asks, “And does that female vice, which is the most detestable in nature, reign among you, as it does with us in France?”

To which Abigail responds, “O Madam, we are arrived to as great perfection in sinning that way as you can pretend to!”

Having almost certainly participated in the creation and circulation of these two items, Sarah Churchill then called them to the queen’s attention, writing with studied casualness, “I had almost forgot to tell you of a new book that is come out: ... the subject is ridiculous, and the book not well written, but that looks so much the worse, for it shews that the notion is extensively spread among all sorts of people. It is a dialogue between Madame Maintenon and Madam Masham...and there is stuff, not fit to be mentioned, of passions between women...”

Sarah even brought Anne’s physician into the matter, confiding to him, “I hear there is some [pamphlet] lately come out, which they said were not fit for me to see, by which I guess they are upon that subject that you may remember I complained to you, and really it troubled me very much upon my own account as well as others, because it was very disagreeable and what I know to be a lie, but something of that disagreeable turn there was in an odious ballad to the tune of fair Rosamund, printed a good while ago… but that which I hated was the disrespect to the Queen and the disagreeable expressions of the dark deeds in the night.”

Sarah was not the only one implying lesbian goings on among the court. As noted before, in the midst of the conflict between Sarah and Abigail, Delariviere Manley’s satire The New Atalantis was published, implying romantic and erotic relationships among an all-female cabal who were clearly identifiable with prominent women of the Whig party. (I plan to do an entire episode on The New Atalantis at some point, so I won’t hunt down excerpts for this episode.)

Were lesbian relationships actually common in those circles? Or was it simply a smear tactic? Was the satire inspired by Anne’s close relationships with her female favorites? Or was it simply one more example of anxieties about power and class being translated into anxieties about sex?

When King William III was rumored to have a homosexual relationship with a close male friend, one can trace some of the motivation for the rumors in jealousy over the man’s rapid rise to high rank. The power and influence that both Sarah Churchill and Abigail Masham had with the queen certainly provoked jealousy and anxiety, not only in each other, but among the male establishment, who felt shut out of the largely female structure of Anne’s household. Sexual accusations have always been handy weapons to use against women who are felt to have risen above their rightful station.

This isn’t to say that the free-floating motivations for people to make sexual accusations against Anne and her favorites makes those accusations untrue. Only that it provides a context in which the rumors stuck, to the point where the Dowager Duchess of Orleans in France, writing after Anne’s death, reported, “English men and women depict Queen Anne horribly here, saying she would get drunk, after which she’d make love with women, being, however, fickle and changing often. Lady Sandwich did not tell me anything, but she told my son. I had little contact with her, because she disgusted me, admitting that she had allowed herself to be used for such perversions.”

Queen Anne gets something of a bad rap in all this. She seems through it all to have been doing her best to balance personal desires with what she believed to be the good of the State, all while suffering in terrible pain from chronic illnesses. If she shifted her affections regularly from the women who left her to the women who were there to comfort and support her, who can blame her?

When one digs through the coded language, the self-deception, the imagery, and the strength of the emotional reactions, it seems quite plausible to me that Anne’s relationships with women had an erotic component. And that the gymnastics gone through to exclude that possibility in historic analysis most often reflect the biases of the analyst.

Even if one takes an extremely conservative position that the sexual allegations were all politically motivated, it’s undeniable that Anne’s deepest and most lasting emotional relationships were with women like Sarah Churchill and Abigail Masham and that those relationships existed in a cultural context where other women with such bonds definitely were engaging in sexual relationships.

So, lesbian or not? The distinction seems scarcely worth making.

---

Show Notes

The social and historic context of Queen Anne of England and the basis for the rumors of lesbianism associated with her court.

In this episode we talk about

• A brief historic timeline
• Passionate friendships and libertine sex in Restoration England
• Some dramatis personae:
  • Princess/Queen Anne
  • Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough
  • Abigail Hill Masham
  • Delariviere Manley
• English politics during the reign of Queen Anne
• Anne and Sarah’s break-up
• Where the lesbian accusations came from
• Were they or weren’t they?

Links mentioned in the text:

• LHMP episode 25d: Poetry about Love Between Women from the 16th and 17th Centuries
• The Mazarinette and the Musketeer

LHMP publications used in this research

• Crawford, Julie. 2009. “Women’s Secretaries” in Queer Renaissance Historiography, Vin Nardizzi, Stephen Guy-Bray & Will Stockton, eds. Ashgate, Burlington VT. ISBN 978-0-7546-7608-9
• Andreadis, Harriette. 2001.  Sappho in Early Modern England: Female Same-Sex Literary Erotics, 1550-1714.University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0226020099
• Traub, Valerie. 2010. “’Friendship So Curst’: Amor Impossibilis, the Homoerotic Lament and the Nature of Lesbian Desire” in Lesbian Dames: Sapphism in the Long Eighteenth Century. Beynon, John C. & Caroline Gonda eds. Ashgate, Farnham. ISBN 978-0-7546-7335-4
• Lanser, Susan S. 2014. The Sexuality of History: Modernity and the Sapphic, 1565-1830. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. ISBN 978-0-226-18773-0
• Donoghue, Emma. 1995. Passions Between Women: British Lesbian Culture 1668-1801. Harper Perennial, New York. ISBN 0-06-017261-4

Other research sources

• Wikipedia: Anne, Queen of Great Britain
• Potts, Cherry - A blog series about the women in Queen Anne’s life.

This topic is discussed in one or more entries of the Lesbian Historic Motif Project here:

• Queen Anne of England
• The New Atalantis (Mary Delarivier Manley)

Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online

• Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
• Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
• RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
• Twitter: @LesbianMotif
• Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
• The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon

Links to Heather Online

• Website: http://alpennia.com
• Email: Heather Rose Jones
• Twitter: @heatherosejones
• Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)

I've rearranged the order the next several publications come in, because this one seemed like a good one to kick off the sequence of material on Asia. I feel very self-conscious about how thoroughly Euro-centric the majority of the Project is, but at the same time, I have many of the same limitations discussed in this article. In particular, I'm largely limited to material published in English. But I've added half a dozen new items to my to-do list and maybe they'll point me towards some other useful sources.

This is the article that Donoghue references with respect to possible evidence of 18th century women in Amsterdam having meeting places for engaging in same-sex activities. The evidence is fairly tenuous but at least indicates that there may have been clusters of women who came together around this shared interest. But in considering the women discussed in this article one needs to keep in mind the nature of the record. When you’re looking at evidence for sexual behavior from trial records, one is necessarily going to be considering the lives of people who have done something they’ve been put on trial for. And in the way of the world, the question of who gets put on trial for transgressive sexual behavior is not neutral with respect to things like class and occupation. All of these women were poor, had marginal roles in society, and had a history of socially disruptive behavior.

Van der Meer comes to a tentative conclusion that there was a tradition of sex between women that was strongly associated with socially disruptive behaviors (e.g., drunkenness) and with prostitution. But I think he fails to consider the extent to which most women whose lives were detailed in court records had similar backgrounds, even when the offenses didn’t involve same-sex activities. These records certainly indicate that there was a general awareness of the possibilities (and techniques) of sex between women, and that people of that time don’t seem to have considered homosexual acts to require a specific and restricted interest in women as partners. But I don’t think that this set of data necessarily gives us an accurate picture of all sexual possibilities between women in that time and place, any more than the theories of late 19th century physicians about their homosexual patients did. A "respectable" middle-class woman who did not engage in public drunkenness or brawling wasn't going to end up in a court record discussing her sex life regardless of what went on in her bed. So a thoery of the development of lesbian identity in the Netherlands that looks narrowly at the evidence of trial records is going to come up with flawed conclusions.

But the larger historical picture is made up of small, specific individual topics like this. Then to see the whole, we need to put them together and take a few steps back.