After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal - The Secret Lesbian Affair under Mary Queen of Scots

Episode Date: June 29, 2026

16th century Scotland was a hard time to be a woman, far harder if you happened to be a woman who loved women. Yet from this dark time a dazzling lightness has survived - the secret lesbian love poetry of Marie Maitland. Marie's story is groundbreaking, uplifting and heartbreaking and is being shared with the world for the first time by our guest today Ashley Douglas whose new book With My Own Hand will be out on July 16th.Edited by Hannah Feodorov. Produced by Freddy Chick.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.You can take part in our listener survey here.All music from Epidemic Sounds. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A candle burns, its light flickering across the room as the winds of Edinburgh blow outside. Marie Maitland is writing while her blind father sits not far away. They spend so much time together now, these two. She being his secretary and scribe now that his sight has gone. And yet, despite the closeness, Marie carries a secret he has no idea of. As she writes her heart thumps in her chest at what she's pouring out onto paper. dangerous words, lines of smouldering love, sexy lines, erotic lines, all aimed at the woman who has captured Marie's heart. Her father nods as she writes, oblivious.

Outside the rattling window, the darkness swirls. It is bitter out there in every sense. This is the time in Scottish history when the harsh words of John Knox's Reformation fill the air, where women are degraded and all illicit love is seen as, devilish. Marie knows the risks she's taking and there is trouble brewing. But for now, her heart beats on and she pours forth her desires. Hello and welcome to After Dark. I'm Anthony and this is the podcast where we explore the darker side of the past. Today, we are talking about a remarkable woman who some believe wrote the first lesbian love story in British history. She did it in the time

of Mary Queen of Scots and of John Knox. at a time when a reputation would have been in peril if she was caught. Her love story is secret, at times joyous and ultimately heartbreaking, as the world she lived in crushes her at the end. Her name is Marie Maitland, and her story is being told for the first time by today's guest. Ashley Douglas, whose new book is all about this person, Marie Maitland. It's called With My Own Hand, and it's coming out in July, 26, the 16th of July, to be exact. welcome to After Dark. Thank you so much. It's an absolute pleasure to be here. I'm so excited to talk to you about this for various and many reasons, which will become clear as we get into this. But one of the first

things I wanted to do is help listeners set the scene a little bit, because I mentioned we're in the 16th century, but this is a very important time. Okay, we have Mary Queen of Scots, but there's an awful lot happening in and around a man called John Knox, isn't there? So give us an idea of who Knox was and what his impact is having on Scotland at this time? Yeah, of course. So 16th century Scotland, the main event is the Scottish Reformation, 1560. And in Scotland, this is like an overnight revolution. The Parliament declares the old church is now outlawed, that the Pope is no longer the person and the status figure he once was going to mass is illegal. Then this is like an overnight revolution in Scotland. The whole country changes, the land, the culture, the culture.

because also buildings come down, cathedrals come crashing down, nunneries are abolished, monistries are abolished, and Scotland abandones the old church, the Catholic church, for really a very extreme and austere form of the new. This is a very Scottish brand of Calvinism. So Calvinism, we're going to have another John before we get to John Knox.

So we've got John Calvin, who's the Swiss reformer. And then in Scotland, we have a very, very extreme form of Calvinism led by John Knox, who's the most influential Protestant reformer in Scotland and is at the head of this political religious revolution in Scotland. And it's safe to say that the guy had a bit of a misogyny problem. He was not a fan of women. One of his most infamous tract is literally called the first blast of the trumpet against the monstrous regiment of women.

So he's really not a fan. And this is the context that poor Mary Queen of Scots obviously comes back to Scotland as not just a women but also a Catholic woman. And so the scene is really set for that very disruptive Scottish 16th century. It's one of those things, isn't it, where when we're talking about the 16th century, and indeed we could say it in relation to today, that we know there is going to be, we expect elements of misogyny there. But I think what you're pointing out, actually, is really important to bear in mind.

With Knox, with John Knox specifically, there is a very specific strain of his attitude towards women. as you're saying, that he's publishing on. That is, I mean, it's not even as if the Catholic Church was a mecca for women either, but what we have is something that's even more insidious in many ways. So can you talk us through some of the positionings that he would have, that Knox would have Scottish women occupy in this post-1560 world? Absolutely.

And one of the main implications for women is that the only option it was to marry and bear children, Luther Calvin. It's all awareness places in the home. It is bearing children and it is being able to be able to enter a man. And that is really also promulgated by Knox in Scotland. It's also the case that they really, it's almost hard to get your 21st century head around that they really think of

women as almost like a subspecies. We're not even full humans. It's like we are emotionally weaker, morally weaker, intellectually weaker. We're more susceptible to sin. You know, the world views is really quite alien to us. I think even the worst extremes of misogy today don't come close

to this misogyny also bound up in religious ideology of Knox and Coe. And so for somebody like Marie Maitland, previously women would at least have had the option to become a nun. Great right for historical lesbians as well. We might come on to that. But now in this new poster affirmation world, it is marriage or marriage. You marry a man, you bear children, you serve a man,

and you are demure, and you are austere, and you do not show any independence of thought of character. You certainly don't show any. sexual promiscuity or appetites and certainly not for members of view on sex. We're talking about Knox and we're talking about him publishing on this topic that

he has certain strictures that he would impose on women in this society. For the rest of the people on the ground are they starting to experience this in real time? Is this something the people are getting on board with or is this a kind of an outlier, extreme Calvinist view?

Or has this very much been worked into society by the time we come to, and we will talk about her in more detail, but by the time we come to talk about Marie Maitland in a bit more detail. Yeah, it certainly embeds itself in Scottish communities up and in the country, and it's the local Kirkks really that are overseeing and implementing this new Calvinist moral code in the Kirk sessions zealously, obviously all headed by men. They are zealously implementing this. And we actually have, in Scotland, a conviction for female.

male sodomy from 1625. So I found it quite useful to situ Marie Maitland's life, we will come on to talk to, but just before we get there is quite crucial context. So let's see, we've got an execution for male sodomy in 1570. So just the death aid after the Reformation, this is an example of this new clamped English

tightening of moral control after what it is implied has been the corruption and moral decay that's been all right to flourish under the old church. So we've got this first-reporting executed execution of two poor men for sodomy in 1570. And then on the other hand, on the other end, we've got a conviction for female sodomy. That's a direct quote from the record.

They literally say female sodomy 1625 and two women. And this is the Glasgow Presbytery, the level up from the local Kirk session. And two women are found guilty of female sodomy. Because I think, I don't know if you've come across this, Antony, but I feel like there's sometimes a sense that women had it more easy and that, you know, men are being executed and condemned for sodomy and women are sort of enjoying these sapphic romances. And I just, it's really important, I think, so it was not the case

at all. Women were also heavily policed and deviant, you know, so-called deviant sexual behaviors and women were not more accepted in any way. And as I say from Scotland, sort of dubious honour, we literally have the early non-conviction for female sodomy, 1625. So, and movies born in the late 1540. So this is the world that she's born into. She's a young teenager when the reformation happens. So she is born into a world where she's going to Mass and she's celebrating saints days and feast days. And just as she's on the cusp of womanhood, we have this dramatic revolution. And then that's then the world that she grows into adulthood and lives out her days as an adult woman. I'm going to have to slightly take a bit of a side step on this, because as maybe listeners and

Ashley, whoever else is consuming this may know I've spent my fair share of time in queer archives over the last however many years. That reference to female sodomy is the first time I am encountering that phrase and I need to know more about this. Talk to me about that. So talk to me about that trial specifically because yes, there is this idea that same-sex attraction between men as Now, sodomy doesn't just mean sex between men. That's one of the things to make clear. There are sodomy laws and sodomy between men. It's not just about sex between men.

Nonetheless, it is mostly men in England, at least, that are being persecuted. But this is the first time I've heard about this case of female, Sodomy. Please tell me more. Yeah, well, as this is a dubious honour to have. I'm really happy to share Scotland's sources there. Yeah, I actually went through to Glasgow and had my hands and my eyes on. the original record. So I have, and you know, it's one of the songs. I read it in a secondary source and I needed to see it with my own eyes because as you see, it's quite uncommon and before I came

across it, I also was thinking I was under the impression of, we don't have records of convictions for female sodomy. But no, I've literally seen the primary record with my own eyes, where it's now held at the Mitchell Library in Glasgow. And yes, it's the year 1625 and it's the presbytery through in the West Coast of Scotland. And it's two women called Elspeth Falls and Margaret Armour, and they are found guilty of the slanderous crime of female sodomy and the slanderous there is doing more the job of scandalous or vile and that's some I'm jumping about a bit but the other thing that I find quite disturbing when you read records mostly relating to male sodomy as you say

it's the words that come up all the time it's filthy it's vile it's polluting these are the words that are repeated aren't they which just gives us that insight as well into how with such contempt and discussed that this sort of behaviours were viewed at the time so the record says they were fed guilty of this scandalous slanderous crime of female sodomy

and they were forced to separate from one another and to be put out of one another's company on pain of excommunication and of course excommunication at this time is a big deal when the church is the heart of everything, all life and society so

that's all the record says it's like six lines on the page, so found guilty of the crime and forced to separate under pain of excommunication. And it's Margaret that's forced to separate from Elspeth. So it's perhaps the case that maybe it's a lady and her maid, potentially. So one of them's been sent away, but we don't know that's me reading it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, but we do literally have a conviction for female sodomy there. And that's the Kirk implementing that. Now, you see, this is where the Scottish archives are really interesting once we get past, you know, if we're talking about the reformation or the aftermath of the Reformation in England and we're talking about, you know,

the early 16th century and things become a little bit more centralized when we're talking about legal records thereafter because of the power of the church has been diminished so much. But then we have this, these, I've spent very few, not very much time at all in archives in Scotland. I have spent a bit because I was living in Edinburgh for a while. And some of the some of the stories, histories, archive material between men there. It's very different because of the nature of the law that's overseeing Scotland as opposed to what's happening in England. But that is truly remarkable, actually. That's a really, really interesting case. And also interesting that it's being used by the Kirk, that it's being investigated and

managed by the Kirk because it gives this idea of local and district. management of these acts that possibly would have been dealt with differently or whatever in an English context. But that is, that's really, really fascinating. Right. I've gone off the piece too much, but that had caught my attention far too much for me to let it pass. Now I want to know a little bit about the woman we're here to talk about because that context is so vital for our understanding, I think. Marie Maitland, and I know there's another way, some people say Mary Maitland, but there's a more distinctively Scott's way of saying her first name as well, I think. So apologies if I'm bastardizing it slightly. But give us an idea about, before we get to the

poetry that we're going to talk about, give us an idea about her life, the family she's born into, and the position she occupies within that family. Of course. So, yeah, Marie Maitland, I say like Marie, because this is also Old Alliance time. Yeah. Just about so, old alliance time between Scotland and France. And my such strong sense is that this Marie was actually named an honour of Mary Queen of Scots who we know today an anglicised form is Mary Queen of Scots but who was actually Marie like her mother. We tend to refer to her mother

as Mary De Guise, don't we? But she tends to get the anglicised Mary so it's all over the place but I think that Marie Maitland was named after Mary Queen of Scots and what's fascinating is that in every single primary record referring to her it's Marie. Whereas with other people you'll see variation so it really

did jump out as me as a historian who's used to be in the archives and you're used to people even spelling their first and surname's differently from document to document. She's always Marie, always with the IE ending, and including on the front page of her manuscript, which will come to, which is very ornamental and conscious. So for all of these reasons, I just always call her Marie, because it really seems to be how she wanted to style herself and be known at that time. So Marie Maitland, so she's born into a family called the Maitland's of Lethington, who I don't think are that well known today. I think they've kind of fallen out of consciousness

a wee bit, even in Scotland. But in the 16th century, they're big political players. Her brother, William, people might know as Secretary Lethington to Mary Queen of Scots. And then her father, Sir Richard Maitland of Lettington, is keeper of the

Privy Seal to Mary Queen of Scots, and as well as being a judge and a poet. And then her other brother, John Maitland, will later become Chancellor to King James I, the 6th, the son of Mary Queen of Scots. So even from that very brief overview, you can tell we're not dealing with a normal family. She's born into the very heart of Scottish and political court life.

And she's the youngest of four daughters. And really, like her three sisters, Marie should have done nothing more in life than come of age and be married often to a good local landed family and bare children. And instead, a twist of fate happens in 1561. So Marie's born in the late 1540s, I should say. So by 1561, she's probably just in her. early teams just on the cusp of women who had just approaching manageable age. And at this pivotal moment for her, her father, Sir Richard Maitland, goes blind. And this misfortune for her father

is the twist of fate that redetermines Marie's life path in a way that would otherwise have been unthinkable. Because now instead of marrying and treading that path that her sisters and most other women of the time had to, and Marie gets this opt out, she becomes her blind father's secretary. this is the twist of fate that transforms her life and just gives her that wee bit of relative freedom, that that wee bit of a unique life for a woman in this period, which is why, as it will come on to, she gets to write this poetry and fall in love with a woman. But I think all of this would have been unthinkable had her father not gone blind in 1561, which is, it's the year that Mary Queen of Scots returns to Scotland for context of people. We've got the Reformation in

1560. So we're just the year after the Reformation. Mary Queen of Scots has just come back. Well, all this is going on at the national level on the Maitland of Leth family level, Sir Richard's gone blind. The three oldest daughters are already married, set up in households with husbands. The boys are out doing their boy things. They're off studying and making political careers because they get to do that. Marie is the only daughter still at home, and she's unwed, and she steps into this role as secretary to her father, and she stays in that role for most of her adult life. Isn't it fascinating? And I love the way you're describing Ashley. It's so perfect for the circumstances that we're dealing with here. There are

is a misfortune of sorts, particularly from the father's perspective, of course, that befalls this family and the father is still, you know, you're talking about all of the things that the boys are doing, they're off making careers for themselves, they're contributing to the family in other ways. But the dad's still at the heart of the family. He's still the person that everybody's looking to, particularly now that the queen's back in the country and, you know, this is a prominent family, etc., etc., etc., but he loses his sight. And then through this twist of fate through this misfortune comes an opportunity for somebody like Maria. And in many ways, she is accidentally the perfect person to fill this position where,

again, I'm inferring here and, you know, you'll have to forgive me, but we're allowed to use our historical imaginations every now and again. But there's a world in which perhaps knowing what we're about to discuss later, she's not necessarily overly pressed about finding a husband in the same way that perhaps her sisters had been. So as she's smart, she's educated, she's erudite, she is capable. And so she's thrust into this management role in many ways, assistant role potentially is a better phrase for whatever way you want to talk about it. But it gives her some agency. And it means we're probably left with a much bigger archival stamp from her than we might otherwise have been left with. And that's what I want to come on to

now, because in this role that she fulfills for her father, again, there's this poem, or a couple of poems hanging over, as I know, and we will come to them, but she's not just expressively creative in what she's doing for her father. She has more everyday jobs to do. So can you give us an idea of what she is leaving behind on his behalf as she's working for and alongside him at this moment in her life? Absolutely. And then, yeah, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, source that we have is this manuscript of poetry but alongside that her father was a court of sentient judge so he's composing

practice which I'd say that it's the Scots term practice so there's a very important source called Batelan's Practics that are essentially early law reports but they're an absolutely crucial source for Scottish legal history and of course once he goes blind they're called Batelan's practice but once he goes when he's not writing him down himself so he is dictating these

to somebody and Marie's an obvious candidate for what he would also have had court clerks and male court clerks at court of course, but when he's at home, he's got his dutiful daughter by his side at all times. He's also collecting things like the history of the kings of Scotland, England

and France. He's a historian. He's a bit of a polymath as Sir Richard, very educated, very scholarly man. Letters as well. So we might come onto this a bit later, but long story short, the Maitland's back, the rug political horse

in the civil war that ensues after Mary Queen of Scots' deposition. and they end up having their castle home confiscated from them and everything. But the interesting point here is that Marie's father was actually completely neutral. He's very much the euloges about him when he dies, say that he's an unspotted and blameless judge. He actually is very, very all about the common wheel, the common welfare of the country and seeking peace above everything.

And could everybody just be nice to one another actually? His poems are quite sad when you read them because it's like, this is 16th century Scotland and everything has gone to shit. Like everyone hates each other. everyone's warring and he's just like, could we all please just come together for the good of the country? That is really Richard Vaitland. And so he's actually entirely neutral. And despite this, Ed Martin, who's the King's Party regent, who are the victorious in the Civil War, they win.

And he confiscates Lethington Castle from Sir Richard, who has famously taken no part in the Civil War. He took no side whatsoever. He was shudiously neutral. And he wrote about this at length as to why the war was terrible and he wanted it to end. but his sons, Marie's brothers, all went in big time for Mary Queen of Scots and were leading lights at the Queen's Party. So, and it is really quite ruthless of Martin to confiscate Sir Richard's Castle. So this was a very long way of answered the question as the things that Marie might have written for him, but he ends up writing a letter to Elizabeth I first of England to seek her

help and say, look, I have done nothing, I did not take aside and it is surely against all the laws of man, God, for the father to be, to be punished for the crimes of the son, don't you agree? So there's this letter that is written to Elizabeth I first from Edinburgh, and we not arrive with her because it's held in the English State Archives. I didn't get responded to you. She left him on red. Oh, no, I was just about to ask. Did we get any reply? No, that's painful. Didn't reply, but again, Richard was not writing this letter himself. This is very much after the time that he's blind, and this letter is in a secretary hand. So this is what we call the script of the time, predominantly male, because predominantly used by men.

But Marie also is fluent in secretary hand, because once she steps into the role of secretary to her father, she also has to become literate in this secretary hand. And we have the letter to Elizabeth I first is, of course, not signed off by Marie. It's signed Sir Richard, Maitland of Leckington Knight. But the secretary hand in that document bears striking resemblance to other secretary hand documents that we know were written by Marie because they're sent by her. So I would say that's quite a strong candidate of Marie actually was the person writing that that letter,

although it was dictated by Sir Richard. So that's an idea of the sort of things that she's supporting him in. But you know what it's like Anthony Wood, when you're so far back, he don't, I don't, I didn't say at the bottom, I Marie Maitland wrote this. You're assuming that like he's in exile with his daughter. He's writing to Elizabeth. Who else would he have dictated that to?

the most obvious candidate and it really does look very like the secretary of man that we know that she wrote herself from from later documents. I love that you're being a proper historian with that, Ashley, because we are so taught to just restrain ourselves and those things. And you're absolutely right. And how many times we come across these things where we go? We don't know for sure, but put all the circumstantial evidence together and a compelling image starts to present itself. And that's really one of those things why I asked the question about what she was doing

beyond the poetry, which we're going to come to now. But it really puts us in rooms with her and her father, and it puts us almost as close as you can get to those conversations and to what she's hearing, to what she's processing, who potentially a Queen of England, well, not Scotland in this case, but Queens, that she is interacting with. So, you know, this really is.

an opportunity for agency for Marie. And we're left with some of the impact of that further down the line. But now let's turn our attention to possibly some of the most interesting material that we've been left. This collection of poetry. Now, it's not just poems that Marie wrote. And it's a more complex collection than that. Can you tell us what's in it?

And then we'll come on to Marie's contribution more specifically. Of course. is a bit I've been excited to get to, so surely are. Yeah, so the manuscript, we know it today as the Maitland Quarto Manuscript, Maitland, because of its connections to the Maitland family in Quarton Latin for quarter, so it's literally

just the folded pages as opposed to folio, the larger pages, so Maitland Cordo manuscript. And this manuscript is fundamentally a collection of 95 poems written in historical Scots, which was still the language of Scotland at this time. This is before Scots has been displaced by English.

And the manuscript contains predominantly the poems of Marie's father. We've already made clear they have a very close relationship. They're a scribal duo. Her father, as well as being a statesman and a judge is also a very avid historian and poet and collector. So he's also constantly

writing poetry. And indeed, one of the primary records we have for his going blind is a poem that he addressed to Mary Queen of Scots. Upon her return to Scotland and in that poem, he expresses his regret that he's not as able to serve her as he would like to be in the way that he served her mother, Mary D.

because I cannot see is what he says in his own words, which I always found quite profound when I read that poem. So we have evidence for Sir Richard's blindness at that precise point in 15601 in his own words in what must surely have been one of the first poems he dictated to Murray, to his daughter, to record. So the manuscript contains the most complete record of Sir Richard's poems that we have

that's come down to us, arranged chronologically, very beautifully, very nicely written out, because Sir Richard's poems do appear in some other sources and some other contemporary Scottish manuscript miscellanies but it's not the complete record they're in sort of quite haphazard and messy context there's some errors in them

so we can understand why Marie his beautiful daughter might have taken up on herself to collect all her father's poetry together we've already painted a bit of a picture of Hibby's quite exact as a nice collector it would have definitely pleased him to know that all his poems were together chronologically in one place but this manuscript also contains poems by other male poets of the era,

the sort of male great and good of this period in Scottish history. We've got a poem in there by King James VI. There are poems by Alexander or Berthnot. These are like just Scottish court figures quite prominent in their time. They're not so famous today, but they were big names in their time. But most interestingly, of all, of course, is that the manuscript also contains about 30 anonymous poems, and these anonymous poems are almost seven.

certainly written by women, many of them written by Marie, and three of them are lesbian love poems. So the long and short of it is that Marie has the cover story of compiling a manuscript of her father's poetry, dutiful daughter, that is her projection to society, and just a dutiful daughter serving my father, and this serves her so well throughout her life. Same with the manuscript, but really what she is doing is using this manuscript ostensibly dedicated to her father in his poetry and the great men in their lives, and she's using that to record the poetry of herself and of other women around her, including lesbian love poetry, which we have already put into context, is a astonishing thing to do, quite a dangerous thing to do, and she does that.

So if you've been excited about talking about the quarto, and I've been very excited about listening to it, I've been even more excited to ask you to do the following. So one of the things I know about Ashley is, despite her excellent... historian credentials. She's also done a master's in Scots. Am I right, Ashley? I'm right in saying this, that you have studied the language, the Scots language as well. Now, this isn't a dialect. This is a language. And one of the things I want to ask, Ashley, if she would Dane to do it for us, is to read one of these posts, whichever one you want, Ashley, I don't mind what you choose, in the original Scots so we can get a flavor for. Now, you don't have to read the whole thing.

You can read an extract or whatever it is. All up to you. But I would, love to hear it in the original language. I'd be delighted to. And yeah, you're right. I have studied historical Scots. I don't speak modern Scots. This is without taking this into a deter into linguistic history of Scotland. But yes, in the 16th century, the Scots language was still the language of court, parliament, kings, queens. And now, English is now the formal language of Scotland today, but it still continues as a spoken language. So for me, this is like reading historical Scots. So kind of similar to what I'd speak naturally, but I suppose reading Shakespeare for English speakers. What I'll do, I'll read

maybe the first two stanzas of poem 49. And this is a poem that Marie writes to the women that she loves and this is the poem in which she declares her extreme undown love and her desire even to marry her. So just do this in the Scots without any translation.

So as Phoebus in his spheris hecht priscilla the Cape Crupusculine and Phoebe all the staris licht your splendour so madame I wine does only pass all febony In sapiens superlative And duet we virtues

Say devie As Lernad Palace Reddiv And as by hidden virtue unknown The adamant draws iron Their till Your courteous nature so has drawn My heart Yours to continue still

Say great joy Does my spirit fulfil Contempling your perfection You wield me wholly at your will and ravish my affection. Well, that is, despite the fact that it's not Gaelic, just to point out, it is Scots, not Gaelic, it has stirred something in my cold Gaelic heart nonetheless.

Or should I say Celtic heart, maybe, that's the way to put it. That is amazing. Actually, I've actually got goosebumps after listening to that. It's so amazing. It's so special. Right. I understood some of that. Some of it I could get.

Let's talk through the first stanza in terms of what she is saying, for those of us ignorant of Scots because it's quite magical and it's quite moving even in its original form and that's why I wanted to hear it from you because I was like, it can do something just orally anyway

but now let's get into some of the translation work just to see what we can uncover in there. Absolutely, yeah. So the first bit is so as Phoebus and his spheris hict is essentially the sun in his sky. As the sun in his sky, Pricelis the Cape Crupusculin, out does the cape of twilight

No people might know the word like crepuscular Like animals So crepusculine The cape She's very over the top Marie a lot of the times It's not don't say twilight Say the cape crepusculine

And Phoebe all the star is leit So as the sun out does all the darkness of twilight And the moon Phoebe out does all the starst Licht the light of the stars Your splendour Madam I believe Does only surpass all womenhood That's so interesting

this pedestal making, isn't it? We're placing this woman on a pedestal. She's like, yeah, women are all great, but you're the greatest of all of them. So she's setting up this convention straight away. Amazing. Yeah. And she says, you're sapiens, superlative,

you've got virtues so divine. It's as if Lernad Palace, goddess of Theda, has come back to life. So, yeah. She's quite flattering, really. You're like a goddess. That's the only comparison she can do. you're more beautiful, more wise than this

like a goddess come back to life. And then, and I find this really, really uplifting and empowering actually as a gay woman myself. Because you know when we're often doing LGBT history, it's quite depressing, it's criminal records, it's persecution. I find this line really powerful. She says, and as

by hid virtue, hidden virtue, the adamant draws iron their title, your church's nature so has drawn my heart to you. And that adamant drawn iron and comes up in Shakespeare's plays and stuff as well. It's quite a common romantic notion at the time. Mostly is obviously in heterosexual context,

but he is using it here for a sapphic context, which is kind of cool in itself. She's taking that heterosexual motif and applying it to her love for another women. But as by hidden virtue unknown, it's that I don't know why I feel this way about you, but I just do. I just do it. And throughout this,

this is a love poem to another woman where Marie goes on to say their love is greater than any love that's ever been heard of before, and she lists out biblical and classical examples. She says they should be married, and if they could be married, then she would prove that nobody has ever been more devoted. And what comes across in this point

and every other one of the lesbian love poems that Marie writes is no sense of shame. There's no sense of trying to reconcile. And like, this is 16th century Scotland, this is post-Reformation Scotland. And she writes with such a confidence, to be honest, with greater confidence than I would have had in my 20s,

where it's more of that coming to terms with her, And here we've got an OG Presbyterian at the time of John Knox, who's just like, I love this woman. And it's just as by hidden virtue, I don't quite understand why or how, but I just do. And she goes on, such great joy, does my spirit fulfill, contemplating your perfection? And then probably don't need a translation for the next part, but you govern me wholly at your will and ravish my affection. Now, the word ravished is particularly interesting there, isn't it? Because this is, well, first, sometimes, I suppose I should caveat.

It's sometimes used when people, usually in terms of opposite sex attracted people, or women particularly have been involved in some form of rape. You can find that in the 16th century. However, there are other context, literary contexts, particularly for the word ravished. And often it is something. has happened to me beyond my control. And often that can be dressed up in very positive, which it is because we can situate this as a positive thing because of the language that surrounds it that you've just so brilliantly described there, actually. But it feels like, yes, there's a

sexual element to it. There could very well be a sexual element to it. But even beyond that, even elevating it beyond just the sexual, the overwhelming, well, this is how I read it, Tell me if you agree, the overwhelming love and devotion and joy that she's describing there. And the beauty she finds herself surrounded with is beyond her control. She, even if Knox, she's not talking to Knox specifically, but even if Knox didn't approve of this, there's nothing she can do about it. She is where she is. It's beyond her control.

And there is something so tantalizing about that. And actually, as you say, really confident about it too. Yeah. No, I totally agree with your reading. that's really what comes across is that like those this heady flush of first love where you're just like I don't even know what's happening to me I'm just so overwhelmed and out of control and it's both amazing and intoxicating and kind of scary at the same time

and that is what's coming through there I totally agree and yeah the rabis in historical sorts ravish today yet that word so you see in historical Scots specifically that word if you look up in historical Scots dictionary's primary sources that word predominantly is used to depict the rate of a woman by a man So the fact that that is the word she has gone for in the 16th century context is also quite sublime. What are we claiming? And so, for example, in Melville's memoirs when Melville is describing the rape of Mary Queen of Scots by Bothwell, that is the very word that he uses.

He says of May Queen of Scots. She could not but marry him because he had ravished her and lain with her against her will. And remember, this is also the context that Marie Maitland is living in. she's a young woman when this is all going on around her. This is the news essentially for her. And she has nonetheless grasped that word and subverted it to describe an intense sapphic romance. Because in this case it's like although it's overpowering and intoxicating, it's nonetheless obviously very consensual.

She's a very willing participant in this. So all through that poem in particular, that poem 49, to me it's Marie taking words and concepts and tropes that are dominant and used in some way in the society she lives in, but just completely subverting them and turning them on their head, whether it's taking the Shakespearean notion of adamant's drawing iron, the verb ravish, and she also later in the poem invokes biblical figures.

She invokes David and Jonathan, and she invokes Ruth of Naomi to exalt her own same-sex love. But she's like casting even biblical figures as same-sex examples. plers. And she, one of the lines later in that point is, as the scriptures say us, and again, in the context of Protestant Scotland, I probably should have said this earlier, actually. Obviously, one of the major shifts with Protestantism is people reading the Bible in their own language and on their own terms and becoming very studious of the scriptures.

And I do not think it's what John Knox had in mind with encouraging people to do this was for lesbian women to essentially read the scripture and say, it seems like, sodomy seems okay to me like it's all over the Bible. But that is what she does in this poem. She takes biblical scripture and praise it innate of sapphic love. And I love that and I love when we encounter that in the queer archive because they are

using the framework that they have to hand. We see it in terms of the talk around marriage, the talk around religion, how we legitimize, how she would legitimize those relationships. She's using the tools that she has at her disposal. And I always have said, and we'll say this differently from now on. From my own research, when we talk about the history of same-sex marriage, I have always been saying,

I begin talking about it in 1726, because that's the earliest record that I had found about the same-sex men talking about getting married. And I've always held this to be true concurrently, that that is not the first. It is just an early 18th century example. But here we are in the poem that you've dated to the 1570s, that is also now framing the here,

history of same-sex marriage. So we don't talk about the history of same-sex marriage going back to 2013 or 2015. We now can go to at least 1570 and I guarantee you that's not the first one either. There will be more. People will uncover other things. That's groundbreaking historical research actually. That's incredible. Oh, thank you. I'm so excited to share it because I think it's a lot of things that will be new to people just because we don't know enough yet. And then the common perceptions of has there been a conviction for female sodomy? When did same-sex manage start being spoken about? People can only know what

there is out there to know. And this story of Marie Lately and the story of her mind-strip has never been told before. So people shouldn't feel bad for not having heard of this stuff already. It's literally never been there's a reason before. Yeah. I will leave this part of Marie's life. There's

another poem that deals with heartache poem 89, but I will leave people to go and get your book in July. 16th of July and we go through a poem 14 and there's nine stanzas and we go through it and all the detail. And there's also paddle English translation. So if you're looking for more details on the poems specifically and upon the lesbian love poems and heartbreak poems, it has to be said, then that's going to be in there in Ashley's new book coming out on the 16th of July. Get that book. But this is covered in the book too, but I just

want to give people a kind of an outro because it's a very strange turn in many ways. Maybe it's not at all actually. Maybe that's just the queer historian to be talking about it. But what happens then after her father dies, just seems to, it's a whole different life. And, well, it's not. That's unfair. And actually, not only is it unfair, it's inaccurate about how we would represent same-sex attraction because this form of identity that we understand today is different in the 16th century. But tell us what happens after her father dies, because suddenly her life is not so much her own anymore. Yeah, it's a very sad ending. For most of Marie's life, she does get this unique opt-out, blind father needs a secretary,

and for most of her adult life, and I do like to stress this because it is depressive at the end, but for the most part, she gets to live with relative freedom. She amasses great financial independence, social autonomy, all within the relative context of 16th Central Scotland, and she gets to fall in love with and have this relationship with another woman. But once her father dies, she's still a woman. in 16th century Scotland and she becomes the property essentially of her nearest male relative, which is Chancellor John Maitland. And he is a political fixer. He's a politician through and through

and he long story short, marries her off immediately, even though she has been set up with total financial independence because as it becomes clear that in being her father's secretary, she is fast going past the age at which a woman would be married. The average age of marriage for women like Marie's 18, they'd certainly be married off by their early 20s. as Marie's father grows older, she's grown older, she's not married. So at some point it is clearly accepted that she's not being married. And by the time her father dies, she's going to have passed the age for marriage. That being the case.

And obviously what women get from marriage is financial security, place to say, etc, etc. So it is decided by the Maitland family that they need to support her in other ways. So they give her financial incomes. And this is the records that I've found for these. This was so exciting to uncover all these primary records that have been unseen for centuries. Because when I first went looking, you don't know what you're going to find, do you? It's just like, who knows? And I found so much cool stuff.

One of the coolest documents is Marie invests the money that should have been her diary. And instead of using it to get a husband, she invests in an interest earning loan. Good for her. Which is just fantastic. And we've got this record in the archives. So she invests her diary. She's got interest earning loan on that. She's got various other incomes where she's like, I've fallen over myself to keep track of all the different sorts.

of her income. She has absolutely no financial need to marry upon her father's death. It has been set up that she will have no financial wants when her father dies. She's 40 by this time. She's about 40 when her father dies. She's way past childbearing age

and she has no financial need to marry and despite this her father is barely cold in the grave and her brother marries her off because it suits his political interest. He's the king's man. He doesn't get made chance there for no reason. He does what has to be done. Even if it's getting your hands dirty like this

and marrying off your own 40-year-old sister and it's essentially a death sentence for her because she is 40 when she's married off to a young man in his 20s. It's just all goes wrong. But this being the 16th century, the marriage has to be consummated to be valid and kind of unfortunately for me in this case

despite her advanced year she was able to conceive and she bears and gives birth to four children in the space of a decade and then dies at the age of 50 and we don't have the records referring to her death doesn't tell us the exact cause but I am almost certain it will have been death and childbirth

with the fourth one. She leaves behind four children under the age of 10 and she's 50 when she's bearing the last one so I don't see any other plausible explanation than that she will have died in childbirth or complications from childbirth following the fourth one. It's strange

isn't it because it's very difficult. I'm trying to restrain myself from putting our expectations of her, because she owes us nothing, you know what I mean? She was the person that she was and she's extraordinary in very many ways. And even what you're describing now is extraordinary. It's just

a little less empowering, I think, but then that's a modern sensibility that we're kind of layering over it. But nonetheless, you can't help what you feel when you encounter these histories and those are valid responses, I think. What's strange is, there always seems

to be three Marie Maitland's in some way, where it's the Marie before her father goes blind, the Marie during her father's, for the rest of her father's life, and then you get this glimpse of what might be before the brother marries her off of this investing person. But ultimately, that's not allowed to come to fruition in the context of the time. It's extinguished. Yeah, and there's so many fantastic poems in the manuscript. There's, there's the Leger's of course, but there's other poems written by women who knew Marie, and they celebrate, or quite tongue-in-cheek poems by women who knew her well,

celebrating her great wealth and generosity. She was obviously minted. She was the friend who wanted. Marie's always handed out money. She had so much independent wealth, but there's even a poem that compares her to Sappho. I'm sure a lot of your listeners will know, but if anyone doesn't Sapple being the original lesbian poe

from whom we get the very word saffic and lesbian. And in one of the poems, Marie's literally compared to, Sappho and I'm really sorry so I forgot to answer your question properly which was about the heartbreak poem. Oh yeah. In terms of everything going wrong for me, yeah. Just at the point as her father dies as well, a very, very late poem in the manuscript that actually the last points in the manuscript are all euloges after her father has passed. And then the completion date of the manuscript is also 1586, which is the year that her father dies. So it's clear that

she's been creating this manuscript and then that's the end point. Once her father has passed away, she writes some lovely poems at the end about him and reminisce on him and at the front she writes her name twice on the title page in 1586 that's the ended manuscript just before these poems commemorating her father is a poem of utmost heartbreak it's another one by Marie to this woman

who in poem 49 she has poured out her devotion and undone love to and that Marie would never have thought from a second that they weren't always going to be just in love and that it was unbreakable poem 89 is desolate by this time And we don't know. This is where the records will they take you so far. We have these poems. Don't actually know what was going on her life. But it very much seems to be the case that absence has come between them because the opening of this poem is all about the tyranny of absence and how it kills people. This is Marie's words. I'm not even paraphrasing. It's very extreme. Like, this is killing me this absence. And the end of this poem is, if you get in touch with me again, you may remedy this yet. And if not, I will die without relief. That's the last word. If not I die. without relief. So it really all just go to shit for Marie. Her relationship has broken down. And then her father dies and she was meant to at least live an independent life and just do her own thing. And then

her brother marries her off to this 20 year old. And then she spends a couple of years conceiving and baring children. And then she dies in childbirth. That's the end. I was very depressed right in the last chapter's the roof, I have to say. Well, now, see, that's, oh, you are like a pro. You've taken me to my next question so perfectly. But then, of course, I ruin it by just going on this tangent. But you did nonetheless. I wanted to know as a way out that you have spent this amount of time with Marie Maitland and you have ultimately, yes, people have written a little bit about her before, but like you are now going to emerge on the 16th of July, although you're already there, but in terms of the public imagination, you will emerge on the 16th of July as the leading

source on Marie Maitland and her life. And I'm just wondering for you as the historian, What were the areas of, the two areas of greatest darkness, first of all, that you came across, and then greatest light? Where were those life contrasts that you encountered in the archive over the years that you spent pouring over this document, these documents? The light that I came upon, I think we've already touched upon, which is Murray's astounding sense of self and self-love, which is a very modern concept, but to apply that to her and, yeah, self-love and self-confidence as a woman who loved other women unapologetically and boldly. I find that hard to do as the 21st century lesbian growing up in modern Scotland.

So the fact that she managed to do that with such confidence and pride, really, in the 16th century, still bamboozles me every day. It is astounding that I've even had this subject to write about that a woman like her existed in the 16th century. So I do find her bravery and courage in the face of 16th century Scotland. We gave the context at the start of this recording. This is the worst, possibly the worst time in Scottish history that you could be gay.

And she's doing it with such boldness and courage. And then the darkness probably, I mean, I did have to write about Mary Queen of Scots as well. So some of the dark bits was probably Mary Queen of Scots and her rape at the heart. Hansa Boffville. She's always a very tragic figure to write about. And then for Marie, I think her, the getting married off, like the reality that a woman in this man's world, ultimately

you have no power, you have no control. She got away with it for a while. She had this opt out, but ultimately reality kicked in and it's like, you're just a woman. You're somebody's daughter, you're somebody's wife, you're somebody's sister, you don't exist as your own person.

Yeah. As soon as I kind of encountered the brother, I was a little bit like, like, oh no, don't do it. But of course... The real baddie. Yeah, and here's the thing. Maybe he's not at all, but in the story of this, he does become the baddy, doesn't he? Where it's like, don't take this from her and let her do the thing.

But again, you know, 21st century minds and all that. Ashley, it has been... When I heard of this project first, because I saw... I think I just saw being advertised on Instagram or something, or I came across your profile on Instagram or something. I was like, what is this? I need to know more about it. this. And luckily for me, you have very kindly sent me an early proof of the book, which I am

devouring at the moment. I took it on holidays with me, literally the last couple of days. So I'm almost at the end of it now. And I was so glad that producer Freddie was able to make this happen because it is a testament to what happens when, and we're recording this during Pride Month, it's a testament to what happens when queer people enter the archives and find versions of themselves there. I will always reiterate. They owe us nothing. And actually, we owe them the work. And it's really obvious to me that that work has been really diligently undertaken in your book, which I just, when it hits the shelves, go out and buy it, guys. It's called With My Own Hand. It's coming in July the 16th. You can indeed help the old shops

know how much they should pre-order now, because if you go and pre-order, they will know exactly how much that they should stock in their shops. And actually, where can people find you if they want to know more about this history, about the release of the book and about other things? are you, well, I know you're on social media if you can share your handle with people. Yeah, sure. I'm on, I'm just on Instigab, so that's just at Ash Douglas Scott. So it's SCOT. People always get confused and think I have like two surnames.

It's literally just like dot Scott instead of like dot UK, you know. So just for people to know, it's like sometimes people introduce me as like Ashley Douglas Scott. And I'm like, no, that's just like the dot Scott. But sure. Fine, I'm going with it. I'm not saying anything. Thanks very much for having me. And it's great.

Yeah. Will you be on the road, Ashley, will you be doing? Will you be doing like talks and events and everything in and around Scotland in the UK generally? Yes, I absolutely will be. I am thrilled that I will be at the Edinburgh International Book Festival on 15th of August. That's so fun. The programme will be out by the time this goes out. So yeah, I can say that.

You can say it. So Edinburgh International, which is fantastic because it's like my home city. And it's also Marie's home city. So it feels very fitting that we're going to be on the stage at Edinburgh. I'm also doing a good few other. I won't like sit and list out all the bookshop events. If you find me on Instagram, you'll find all the various bookshops that I'll be popping up at across Scotland, including I'll give a wee shout out to Lighthouse Books in Edinburgh, which I said in this radical queer bookshops.

So they're the first bookshop I'm doing on the 22nd of July. Oh, that's so exciting. I like, I love Lighthouse, first of all. Porty books are great too. I'm sure you'll have something coming up there. There's so much of it. Anyway, all these old haunts that I used to enjoy when I was there. I could talk to you forever, Ashley, and hopefully we will have some kind of an event overlap.

at some point in our book promoting futures. Hopefully we'll coincide somewhere. Thank you for listening to this episode of After Dark. As I said, go and find Ashley pre-order the book. It is a wonderful, wonderful history and just something to really think about, but also there are loads of facts in there. You can see the archival work that's been done, but the feelings that come through, both through Marie's poetry

and through Ashley's writing are remarkable, and it's a beautiful, beautiful read. Well worth everybody's time. So go out and get that book or pre-order it. Leave us a five-star of you wherever you get your podcasts. It helps other people to discover us and to find out about conversations just like this. And until next time, happy listening.