Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society - Heirs, Affairs & Exiles: The Powderham Scandal

Episode Date: April 18, 2023

Why would a man embroil his own nephew in a sex scandal? What was it like for a Georgian man to have his affair with another man shared in the papers? And what options were available to them after this happened?Today Betwixt the Sheets, Kate is finding out about the lives of William Courtenay and William Beckford, the sex scandal surrounding the two heirs and their different responses to it.Kate is joined by Charlie Courtenay, 19th Earl of Devon, to talk about his relative William Courtenay, the 9th Earl. She is also joined by Dr Amy Frost from Beckford’s Tower in Bath. Produced by Charlotte Long and Sophie Gee. Mixed by Sophie Gee.Betwixt the Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society. A podcast by History Hit.For more History Hit content, subscribe to our newsletters here.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Sign up to join me in locations around the world and explore the past. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. It's me, Kate Lister. I am here with your fair do's warning. What is a fair do's warning, Kate? Well, I will tell you. The fair do's warning is me letting you know that this is an adult podcast spoken by adults

to other adults about adulty things and that you have to be an adult as well. We are absolutely veering into naughty, scandalous, sexy territory this afternoon, and you just might not want to listen to a gay sex scandal of the 18th century. And if that is you, I honestly have no idea what you're doing listening to this podcast, but this is your chance to get out now while you still can, because fair dues, you have been warned.

And for the rest of you, let's do this. Lancelot and Guinevere, Claire Patra and Mark Anthony, and Caesar as well, actually, Eloise and Abelard. And let's not forget Shakespeare's Star Cross lovers, and Dirty Den and Angie. The great love stories. And you notice that a great many of the love stories that have stood the test of time

are actually about forbidden love? We love a forbidden love story, don't we? But the love story we're talking about today wasn't just forbidden. It wasn't just frowned upon. It was illegal. Because it was illegal for two men to be having a sexual relationship in Georgian Britain.

So when the relationship between aristocrat William Courtney and, quote, England's richest commoner William Beckford was discovered. Well, it was time to pack up and leave town. Today we are betwixt the sheets to hear all about the powderum scandal. Just who were Courtney and Beckford? What do we know about their relationship? And what was the impact it had on their society, on their lives and on LGBTQ history? What do you look for a man?

Oh, money, of course. You're supposed to rise when an adult speaks to you. I make perfect copies of what every my boss needs by just turning enough and putting the fun. Yes, social courtesy does make a difference. Goodness, my beautiful time. Goodness has nothing to do with it, Derry. Hello and welcome back to Betwixt the Sheets, the history of sex scandal in society, with the Kate Lister. Picture the scene, Betwixters. It's 1784.

Courtney is a future Viscount and heir to the Powderham Castle in Devon, as well as being called the most beautiful beautiful beautiful boy in England. He was a proper looker by all accounts. Beckford is a society darling and a novelist and a member of Parliament and very, very wealthy. That boy was making bank. He inherited his late father's entire fortune and he managed to marry an Earl's daughter. So you'd think that they were pretty much on their paths. They were just doing what you're supposed to do when you're loaded and you're an 18th century aristocrat getting on with it. But what is this? You open your papers, to have a read of society gossip, what's going on in the scandal columns, and

letters have been published, letters between Beckford and Courtney, which includes some rather scandalous details. Courtney and Beckford have been caught in compromising positions before, but it's never made the press, and now they have to flee into exile. Today, I'm joined by two guests. The first is Charlie, the current Earl of Devon, and descendant of William Courtney. And then I'm speaking to Amy Frye, from Beckford's Tower in Bath. Betwixt the two of them, we're going to find out more about who these men were. What kind of relationship did Courtney and Beckford have?

How did it become a scandal? Who leaked their letters to the press? And what impact did the scandal have on their lives and the lives of the people that loved them as well? And did their wealth and status in any way protect them from a legal system that executed men for the crime of sodomy? I am ready if you are. Let's get into it. And welcome to Betwixt the Sheets.

I'm going to get your full title right, because I'm hugely impressed with this. Charles Peregrine, the 9th Earl of Devon, Lord Courtney. Have I got that right? Not quite, 19th. Oh, so close. Close enough. So close.

Do you have a lot of fun with that? Is that fun to, like, whip out on forms, or if somebody wants to know your name, they're not really expecting it? Do you give them the full spiel? Because I would. No, I, try and use it as rarely as possible.

Really? So what would you kind of go by in just day-to-day life? My name's Charlie and I'm a practicing lawyer, so I meet people professionally as Charles Courtney, and every now and again I'm introduced to Zeela Devon or part of my life. I work in the House of Lords and there you are very much treated as a Lord and addressed as such. So I live in various different ways and use different names for different roles, which is interesting. That is interesting. And we are talking about one of your ancestors. today. Yes, the ninth earl actually. The ninth earl. I don't want to sing the ancestor,

but wow. Yeah, so we're talking about him and I think his fascinating life, which, you know, similar to mine, had many different elements and angles. Is this a story that you have always known growing up? Is it just part of your family history? Or is this something that you came to understand and explore yourself a little bit later on? It's a story I've always been aware of, but in very different ways. And I've been fascinated in it and therefore have recently. and sort of learn more, and also probably more entertaining me or more interestingly, I've sort of offered it to others to research and find out what others think of it, and that's been really rewarding.

It's an amazing story. I mean, it's sad and it's fascinating, and it does so much to help us understand what sexual attitudes in the 18th century were like. Yes. And you don't get many opportunities to do that, because these things by their nature are normally quite hidden. They are quite hidden and also there's not much heritage for, certainly for homosexual men because they didn't tend to have children obviously and they would conduct themselves in those times in a way that was fairly furtive and secret for their own safety and protection. And also what was written about them tended to be from the point of view of a sort of outraged heteronormative society. So you don't necessarily get a true understanding of what they were experiencing and I don't know that we still have that today but you can peel the layers back and try and understand. understand a little bit more about what life was like. Do you feel that you've got to know William Courtney, the Ninth Dale of Devon, a little bit more? Is he still quite far away from you?

I'm getting to know him better and better. You know, every now and again, you find a new piece of evidence or a new letter or a new account of him or something that he's done or his family did because he had a large family. And each time you find a new angle on him and, you know, I don't mean to venerate him in any way. I'm sure he had many imperfections. But the interest is in trying to understand them and trying to understand the impact on a life in that era of being gay. And he was, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I was going to say he was known for being, they wouldn't have used the word gay, but flamboyant perhaps, or there was definitely rumours about him, wasn't there?

Yeah, so he grew up at Powdram, where I live, with 13 sisters. 13 sisters? 13 sisters of which he was, I think, the sixth child. Wow. And his mum died very shortly after the 14th baby was born, an amazing woman, Lady Francis. And then his dad died only a few years later. So he grew up in this sort of an enormous family and quite quickly became almost the patriarch. He inherited what was then the title, which was he was a Viscount.

He was the third Viscount Courtney. He wasn't an Earl or wasn't considered an Earl at the time. So took quite a prominent role. But as you say, he was known within society for a relationship that he'd had as a young man, a teenager with William Beckford, who was a very wealthy, very high profile collector, author, writer and known to be not necessarily a gay man, a bisexual man. William Beckford married and had children, but he'd had this scandalous relationship with the young William Courtney when they were young men. And he was very young, wasn't he? William was only 16, was it

at the time? Yeah, he was a schoolboy at Westminster School when their friendship began and there are elements of the story that are discomforting for that reason because Beckley. was a few years his senior and looked upon with modern eyes that there are some really concerning issues around it and I think contemporaries considered it to be relatively indecent. And Beckford certainly when news of the relationship was leaked to the newspapers, you know, Beckford did leave the country and effectively took himself into exile for a number of years and went about actually on an extended grand tour of Europe collecting remarkable artworks and such and developing a remarkable taste in aesthetics. But leaving the younger

man, William Courtney, Kitty, as he was known to his sisters, you know, leaving him to deal with the reputation and such that obviously such rumours gave him. Why was he called Kitty? Do we have any sense of that? Was it just a family playful name or was there? Yeah, so a family playful name, and I've, over the years, resisted the urge to refer to him as Kitty Courtney just because it was his nursery name. And you can imagine being a boy amongst many, many sisters in the household. he probably would have been much looked after and doted upon. But, you know, the reason that I've tried to avoid infantilising him too much is, look, just because he's a gay man doesn't mean he should be known always by his childhood nickname. That is true.

My dad used to call me Scribler when I was very small, and I would object strongly to being called that in professional circles today. Yeah, I have a good friend who I knew as Tottie growing up. He's now a journalist in Formula One motor racing, and he doesn't like it when I call him that. No. Yeah. sense. Okay, that makes sense. Was it a very loving household that he grew up in then, sort of like just playful names and stuff? I think so, you know, part of the work that we're doing is trying to understand what was the house. Power drum very much expanded at that time.

It's an old medieval castle, but it, the family set about modernising it and building amazing rooms and remarkable interiors and establishing a really interesting library. And the library itself, his grandfather had actually started the library in the 1740s. And it was, you know, a rare example of a sort of early family library and you could imagine the sort of education and the learning and the singing we got lots of music from that period and they had a drawing master guy called william craig who taught all the girls how to draw and william to paint as well and so there was a sort of real output of creativity and learning and in this era now you know we just had international women's day and one of the sort of major global challenges is the education of women and

And this idea that a household full of all these ladies would have access to learning and then take that learning into their own families when they got married is a really interesting concept. And you'd think it's bizarre that 200 plus years later we're still dealing with the challenges of society not wanting to educate its girls. Right. Absolutely. Let's talk about the scandal itself.

What happened? What led up to it? How the story broke as well. And I suppose I'm always interested in how these things were discreet. at the time period, like in the 18th century. Now it would be splashed across tabloids, wouldn't it? And they'd probably use like lover, this, that and the other. But they wouldn't have used words like that in the 18th century.

It was all very just, shh. So what happened and how did the story break? So the friendship between William, Courtney and William Beckford began during the 1770s. So take yourself back to the 1770s. Beckford himself has recently lost his father. His father was Alderman Beckford, who was the mayor of, London and one of England's wealthiest men. Wow.

So the young Beckford loses his father, suddenly comes into all this wealth and is sent off around the country to learn some heritage, some culture, visit with some of the great families, came to Powderham and visited with William and all his sisters. And they obviously formed a very strong relationship. And, you know, the physical nature of it, you can only suppose there's no evidence, obviously, but they did write letters. And some of the letters show remarkable intensity of passion between. the two. Beckford is often writing to other people talking of his passion for the young William

Courtney, the young kitty. He gets them both painted by George Romney, who is the most famous artist of the day and there's a wonderful pair of portraits, one of which is in the United States, one of which is in England showing Beckford and the young Courtney at the time. Do you think that's like the 18th century equivalent of send nudes? Yeah, possibly. They're amazing pictures actually because Beckford is, so Beckford has come of age. He's 20, 21. He's. He's He's lost his dad and I think what he sees in William Courtney is himself as a younger man before all of that responsibility came upon him. And he's really taken with the young William Courtney's sort of artistic abilities.

He's known as the most beautiful young man in England, you know, his beauty, his abilities. And then Beckford, over his 21st birthday, has this remarkable party organized by Philippe de Luthorpe which is known as a phantasmagoria. And he sort of decorates his whole house and has lots of people to stay and they probably indulge in all sorts of entertainments. But by repute, he wrote this remarkable book called The History of the Caliph Vathek over a weekend of indulgence.

And this book is sort of one of the birthplaces of the Gothic aesthetic. And the Caliph of Vathek sets about trying to experience every sensory experience he can on the planet. But within the context of that story, he comes upon a harem of women. And within this harem of women lives this beautiful young boy called Gulchon Rouge.

And Gulton Rouge is the young William Courtney. So he immortalises him within his novel. And the relationship goes on, and I think it lasts sort of three or four years of this sort of intensity of friendship. But then Beckford, his father having died, needs to improve his reputation, become a little bit more respectable. He has political ambitions. He wants to join Parliament, etc. And so he sets about a political career and he gets married and has a child. And then they all come to visit Poudram.

And when they're staying at Poudrum, these rumours begin to circulate about them mistaking their genders and being caught in a compromising position. And no one quite knows the facts or the circumstances as to what happened. But the story hits the newspapers. And this is what is reported in the local news that Lord Courtney and Young William Beckford were found in a compromised position. And that is sufficient evidence, effectively, to condemn them both at the time. Beckford flees with his wife and lives overseas. have another child and shortly after she dies. And William Courtney stays at Poudram with this reputation kind of circulating around and the sort of local commentators begin to speak ill of him.

And over the years, there's a sort of general souring of the mood around him. And actually 20 years later, 25 years later, someone does press charges against him. And he's forced to flee the country. So in 1810, he leaves his blubbed Poudrum and all that he has done here. And he moves to New York to Manhattan Island. What were the charges brought against him? What was the... Buggery was the allegation. And who made the allegation?

Well, it's a local magistrate in Exeter. And what is quite interesting out of this, he's obviously, William was a Viscount, he was a lord. So he would have been tried by a committee of his peers in the House of Lords. He wouldn't have necessarily been tried in a typical criminal court. And that he is reputed to have explained that given all his peers were up to the same things, he felt that he wouldn't actually be in that much trouble. And there's this sense that there was a privileged group in society, the upper classes,

for whom, you know, homosexuality was possibly a way of life, and they knew they wouldn't be criminally indicted for it. And so they lived almost not an openly gay life, but were able to live with the reputation of being gay in a way that people of less means were not able to do so. You could still be executed for being gay at this point, couldn't you? And there were a spate of men being hanged. around this time. Yes, and I think there was also a shift in morality. If you think of Regency England,

of the Prince Regent, at Brighton Pavilion, and that sort of life of indulgence and that shift into the Victorian slightly more heterosexual set of morals that I think, you know, society probably still holds to this day. And I think he was probably an example of that shift in morality over those times. And there's also another sort of interesting comparison, because I was reading recently research around the expat communities in the Gulf states currently and how there is quite a party culture around the expat communities within the Gulf states where obviously homosexuality and alcohol tend to be illegal. But those with money and with privilege and with access to private spaces are able to live a relatively openly gay existence. And it actually reflects quite closely

what was able to occur in the late 18th century England, where if you had wealth, and privilege and a space such as powder room where you could create a safe space to be who you wish to be, you could achieve a life that was different from what other people were able to achieve. That makes sense. And I've got the original account of what happened between William and Beckford, and it said that Beckford entered Courtney's room and horse whipped him, which created a noise and the door being opened, Courtney was discovered in his shirt and Beckford in some posture or other, dash, strange story. Yes. Well, there are a number of accounts of it, none of which are necessarily accurate, but clearly something happened. Some people say that it was a tutor that spied them through a keyhole. There's been some interesting research done locally recently suggests it may not even have been at Poudrum. But one account does ring quite true, and that is that it was actually an argument over the correspondence that they exchanged during the height of their romance. And it was effectively a relationship that was breaking apart. And considerable generally.

jealousy and antagonism over who would retain control of the intimate correspondence, because it could be very damaging to both young men. And the other slightly tragic angle to it is that the person that really benefited from the expose was the political opponent of Beckford. And he was a gentleman called Lord Loughborough who happened to be married to William Courtney's aunt, Aunt Charlotte. And so there may have been a sort of personal family dynamic there whereby Lord Loughborough was able to gain a political one-upmanship by exposing Beckford, ruining his own career and therefore impacting his nephew William Courtney's life forever after. So there's a great sort of personal tragedy to it for him and for the family, but also it's a sort of political game as well that's going on.

There's always reasons behind the scenes, isn't there? They always are. So does he weather the storm of this scandal? I mean, is the money any help? So when I grew up, he was always known as the flamboyant and profligate third Viscount, and he did have money. challenges. He did spend a lot and he commissioned a lot of wonderful artworks and spent a lot on hospitality and entertaining. His principal role in life after the death of his father was ensuring good matches and good marriages for all of his sisters, which was an obligation and a duty for the father or the brother. And he achieved that a lot of his sisters married well and had long and happy marriages. And in doing so, that required the expenditure of quite a lot of money. So

he probably did spend a fair amount, but not so much as to leave us with nothing nowadays. Keeping you in stockings and gin. Yeah, exactly. And he ended up in America, didn't he, and built a house on the river in New York? Yeah, so he fled to Manhattan, which is, I guess, where everybody flees. All the good gays go.

Yeah. And what's interesting, I went over there in November, and the house that he lived in no longer is there, but the site of the house is there, and it's the most amazing view on the northwest tip of Manhattan Island looking up the Hudson River, with a view slightly similar to what you get from Poudreum, which is right next to the ex-estuary,

a sort of sweeping landscape down to the water and the shore beyond. And he lived there for only about two or three years. And of course, England went to war with America in 1812. And so that was slightly embarrassing because here you have an English aristocrat living in New York. So he ended up getting interned and he gets sent up the Hudson River to live, not in prison, but given he was an enemy alien, he had to live a distance from the coast so he couldn't be contacted and he lives in Pekipsey. And then he moves to Paris after Napoleon.

Falls in 1815 and he lives out his days for 20 years in Paris and never comes home. He did have exquisite taste. I know that he spent money like nobody's business, but he knew how to decorate. He knew how to decorate. I mean, ironically, my dad who had real difficulties with homosexuality and the family had a real shame around this story. But of course, we've benefited so much. We have an amazing music room at Poudrum, designed by William to celebrate his coming of age, built by James Wyatt with a fabulous dome and amazing acoustics. And he commissioned paintings by Richard Cosway, who was a fabulous miniaturist and portrait painter. And he sort of landscaped the park around Powdrum, which we still maintain to this day, his vision. So it's

nice to be able to preserve and enjoy his spaces. It feels nice that he's kind of getting a proper airing and people are talking about him and this, his, because it's really, important in sex history. Yeah, it is. And it's, you know, I don't want to sensationalise his life. His life was complicated and difficult. But we found recently his dressing gown. We had a project fixing the roof of the castle and during the lockdown actually. And we had to clear the attic rooms or I had to because no one else was around. And I pulled out this old metal chest and opened it and the inside was a whole jumble of stuff, including this rather wonderful silk embroidered gentleman's banyan, it's called. it's a sort of dressing gown and it had a little card on it.

It had obviously been exhibited in the 1950s saying gentleman's dressing gown from the 1780s made from a dress from the 1740s. And he'd obviously taken his granny's wonderful silk dress and got it made into a dressing gown. Oh my God, I love him. That was the first object that I've come upon that is a sort of direct link with him. And it still has, you know, in the collar, you can still see the dirt from his neck as it were. And it's like, oh, he's a real object of him. And we sent it, it went up to the Victoria Art Museum last year.

appeared in their fashioning masculinity's exhibition. So it sort of instantly went from the attics here to starring in South Kensington, which was rather nice. What blows my mind about this is, as somebody who researches sex history for a living, I know how hard it is to find sources and items because it's hidden away. And you find them in your house. You just go up to the attic and just go, oh yeah, this really important historical document. It's an advantage being from a family of pack rats, you know, the historians who we work with

from Plymouth University called the Attics the Wild Archive, because it is. It's literally stuff that's been left. And since William's time, we've been slightly scraping the pennies together over 200 or 200 odd years. So we've never really had the time to do the house up or to organise or whatever. So we do our best. And every now and again, we get an opportunity to clear things out. And it's amazing what you find.

And actually, one of the most interesting finds was a while back. But a family was clearing out their basement in Hampton Wick in London and came upon a dusty old bunch of books in the coal shoot and the books were a set of letters which were the carbon copy letters from William's agent in London to William in exile in Paris. Oh my God. And it's a fascinating, it's over about a year and a half, two years in the sort of 1820s recording all the work that they're doing on the estate and all of the management of his affairs. Because of course, his success is at Poudrum. It was inherited by his cousin. Either William or his successors got rid of most of the correspondence and the records, and no one really looked at William for a long time.

So suddenly to get this glimpse into the way he was able to manage Powdram and the estates around here from overseas over a period of 20, 25 years, maintaining a really strong relationship with it, but never able to come back, never able to be here. It's sort of tragic reading, but also really interesting reading, and it casts him in a new light. He's not the irresponsible, profligate, third Viscount. He's a man who was exiled for his sexuality, who loved this place with all his. his heart and was never able to return until he was in his coffin. Charlie, you have been a fascinating person to talk to and I'm not allowed to keep you here for much longer and keep asking

you about your ancestors, even though I really want to. I bet you've seen his letters as well, haven't you, like actual, the proper real, held it in your hand. Haven't seen, there's very little of his letters. I've seen examples of his signature and such like, but we have so little and where actually I think there'll be a sort of interesting hive of information is around his sisters, these remarkable 13 women, slightly from a gender perspective. We always talk about William, the third Viscount, and his 13 sisters. It's like, what about, you know, Charlotte, Caroline, Harriet and their brother? Yes.

And slightly turn it on its head. But their stories are all fascinating. We've got some interesting work going on, sort of piecing them together as well. And we'll probably snaffle you back on the podcast to tell us about them. Well, maybe. We've got a really interesting Henry the first. fifth story as well, but I'll come back to you on that one. Charlie, don't, you can't tease me like that.

You have just been amazing to talk to you. Thank you so much. And if people want to know more about Powderham and about William, where can they find the information? So we're based down in Devon near Exeter. There's a website atpowderon.com.uk. And there's an actually really nice website done by a local historian. I think it's called William Courtney 1769. And he has done some really fabulous work trawling through Williams history and puts together

a brilliant timeline of him. And, you know, there is so little heritage in this space. And it's in New York, they have lots of interest, obviously, in their LGBTQ history, but they don't have that many heritage sites of that age. So it'll be interesting piecing that together and seeing whether they can embrace his presence in New York. Thank you so much for talking to me today, Charlie.

You've just been wonderful. Thank you. Okay, really nice to meet you. I'll be back after this break with Amy Frost to talk more about William Beckford. I'm a spy doing whatever spies do. But what am I going to whip out of my pocket next? Careful. In this special month of patented, we're celebrating the 70th anniversary of James Bond

by having a look at some of the inventions that have changed espionage. From gadgets and their creators to the cars and cocktails that make Bond look oh so effortlessly cool. Join me, Campbell. Dallas Campbell, unpatented, a history of inventions, where I will have my can on a string up against the walls of some of the best historians in this field.

Look forward to your company. Welcome to Betwixt the Sheets. It's only Amy Frost. How are you doing? I'm good, thanks. I'm so happy to talk to you because I have already spoken to his earlness, to his duke-na, to the Earl of, to Charlie. I spoke to Charlie.

The Earl of Devon, who was absolutely lovely, and he was very generous talking about his ancestor, William Courtney, and he had so much to say. And I'm really interested to talk to you to try and find out a little bit more about another part of this scandal, the Beckford side, the person that William was caught having a quote-unquote affair with. Yeah, yeah.

So William Beckford and William Courtney, this kind of relationship was pivotal in both their lives, really. and changed both their lives. And certainly, I probably wouldn't be doing the job that I'm doing today as curator of Beckford's Tower in Bath if the events of William Beckford's life hadn't kind of led him to this city. That's a bonkers thought, isn't it? Is that something somebody was doing a couple of hundred years ago

and now you've got a job? Yeah, yeah. Can I ask you, as someone that has researched this person's life and is in a sort of connected to it and you have a job of it, It's always a tricky one. Do you like him? As a historical person, do you like him? It's a really interesting question because a lot of the time, no, I don't. So William Beckford inherited at just under 10 years of age in 1770 this obscene amount of money from his father. And it's all money through the transatlantic slave trade.

Oh, oh, yeah. So they are claiming in ownership in enslaved Africans. on Jamaica and he inherits this money and as you expect from a lot of gentlemen or groomed to be gentleman of that period he just spent it and he is selfish he is careless careless with the feelings of others careless with the lives and the dehumanising of others and yet sometimes when you read his letters when you read his journals you know knowing the kind of childhood he had and then knowing because of his relationships with men, he was exiled from his home. He left England for 10 years, during which time his wife dies, you read these heartbreaking letters. And it's very easy to empathise. It's really easy to feel for him in the situation that he's in. But it's very hard to forget that at the same time,

he is holding in ownership enslaved people and profiting, profiting wildly from it. Well, how much profit are we talking here? Like, in modern terms, is this billions? Did he inherit like billions at the age of 10? Yeah. So, I mean, when his father died in 1770 at probate, so the father's probate, the value of the estate, was something around 120,000 Jamaican pounds.

So in today, we're talking millions. And, you know, for that time, it was a huge amount of money. So, and then throughout Beckford's lifetime, that fluctuates. And it fluctuates with his spending. It fluctuates with the, not so much with the exile. So, you know, his money is still coming in. It fluctuates with abolition and the onset of abolition from the late 18th century all the way through. But at the same time, he doesn't care.

He just keeps spending. You know, I'm always, because, you know, I can spend money like a drunken sailor. I regularly have nonsense turning up in the post, but I'm always amazed by people of this much money. I mean, like, with millions and millions of money, what in the hell is he spending it on? What's he spending it on? Yeah, and it's quite tied up, I think. So he's spending on buildings and he's spending it on objects, yeah, and he's collecting. But you can read that as a kind of, he's spending it on creating.

his own safe spaces and he's spending it on surrounding himself with things rather than necessarily people. That's a nice way of looking at it. I wonder if people in 200 years from now say the same thing about my clana obsession was that she was all my late night vintage smashes. She was just surrounded herself. But he's buying buildings. I mean yeah, that's going to put you out of pocket, isn't it? Yeah, so he comes back from exile. So the kind of incident at Powderham Castle in 1784, yeah, or the grammatical error as it's called in the newspaper that drives him aboard, not immediately. So he stays in England for around six months. And then because the kind of gossip doesn't hit the newspaper straight away, he then hits a point where in 1785 he and his wife decide to leave

the country and they go to Switzerland. And while they're in exile after the birth of their second daughter, Begford's wife, dies. And this is sort of a really tragic moment for him. And he spends the next 10 years on and off roaming Europe. So when he comes back to Wilkshire, so the family estate is at Fonthill, Wilkshire, moves back into his father's house and starts building this monstrous building Fonthill Abbey that took about 23 years to build, fell down about four times. And it's draining the money. penny is going into building this building as quickly as possible and filling it. And filling it, you know, Beckford's collection, the only collection in England really that could rival it was the Royal Collection. So... Holy shit. Wow. Okay. Yeah. And that's also an issue in that it is a really

important collection. It's a collection that is important for British art and design, for the development of furniture. So it's a very significant collection, but we can never talk about the importance of that collection without talking about what paid for it. Of course. and balancing that idea of the fact that it's also entirely paid for from the profits of enslavement. And then there's also this idea of he's building this collection around him. He's building this huge building around him that's like a gallery with a beautiful landscape surrounding it that he spends a lot of time in and that he gets a lot of peace from being in and comfort from being in, but lives effectively in sort of two or three quite small rooms within that building.

So it's quite a lonely existence. you know, after the death of his wife, his children don't live with him. But he has relationships. I mean, he has, you know, while in exile, he meets someone in Portugal called Gourio Frankie, a young man, very talented musician. And Frankie becomes a long-term relationship for Beckford and comes back to England with him. But you always kind of get this kind of feeling that, you know, he's got these relationships and he's got employees, but he doesn't necessarily have friends.

He sort of keeps himself a little bit separate. I think, yeah, I'm starting to see a picture forming of him. I mean, we have to talk about the grammatical error. Why was it called a grammatical error? That's ridiculous. It's this really interesting thing with newspapers. So they're not overt. They're not kind of saying,

Honourable William Courtney was caught in a clinch with Mr. William Beckford. They sort of, well, largely because there wasn't enough evidence for that. But it's this sort of drip feeding of, of scandal or innuendo in the newspapers that culminates. And of course we have to remember that it's a bit like the reading public now. Everyone on Twitter or everyone on websites now, they know who is being talked about. So when it talks about one of the other newspaper reports said something like

a detestable scene acted in Wilkshire. So they got the location wrong. But because they got the location wrong, everyone kind of knew who it was. So it's like a detestable scene lately acted in Wilkshire by a pair of fashionable male lovers. And that was one of the other kind of newspaper accounts. So it's almost like everyone knows who they're talking about without you having to say their names. And that's how this kind of, without the kind of documentary evidence, the right rumour in the right ear, in the right publisher, it just spreads.

Okay, so everyone knows, but no one's kind of allowed to say. There are still rumours about celebrities and famous people like that today, aren't there? Things that, you know, they do the rounds on social media, but they haven't actually been officially confirmed. What can you tell me about Beckford's relationship with William Courtney? Because we've heard a little bit about what Charlie thought that William Courtney's relationship would have been. But what's your thoughts? What was Beckford?

What was he doing? Was he just getting his end away? Was he predatory? Or do you think he genuinely had feelings for him? Oh, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. And I think that's really important.

he was completely in love with him. And we know it from the way he writes about him. And even though, so Beckford was a ferocious letter writer and conspicuous in their absence is letters to and from William. And we know they corresponded because we know Beckford enclosed letters to William in the letters he wrote to other people and refers to them and says, you know, pass on the letter or the letter enclosed. So at some point they have been destroyed,

either by Beckford or by his daughter who inherited. But we know the evidence that does survive. I mean, the way he talks about him, it's sort of immediate infatuation. It says a lot about Beckford at that time about how high his sensibilities were, just how romantic he was. And he's writing continually about,

I think in one letter he writes sweet WM, so sweet William. So he's constantly talking about, can't wait to be by his side again, can't wait to see him again. So it's certainly, it's a sort of love verging on, not obsession. Yeah, yeah. I think there's something about what it tells us about Beckford at this time in terms of like how free he was with his feelings and his emotions. And you see that in the letters that he writes. He writes these incredibly emotive letters. And what then becomes really sad is when you start to see that change slightly in his letters. And that's

sometimes happens even before the kind of exposure of his relationship with William Courtney. So Beckford was in a relationship with a young man in Venice while he was on his grand tour and he goes and stays with his second cousin who was Sir William Hamilton in Naples. And the first lady Hamilton, there are letters from her to Beckford that are about, you know, you have to be careful. You have to be careful what you say. But you get this really sad moment where like he's being advised to be careful about what he says and how he acts. And this kind of realization. He does seem to have been very open.

I mean, obviously the letters were destroyed, so there must have been a moment of like, oh shit. But for somebody to be writing very openly, even to the point where friends have got to take you to one side and go, you need to be careful. That's indicative of somebody that isn't hiding this, which I think a lot of people find quite surprising for that particular time period.

We always think it as being very underground, very secretive, and here he is quite clearly living openly. Yeah, I think there's a really interesting kind of moment. So letters to very, very personal friends that you trust are very revealing. And, you know, as you know, there's a lot of people will say at that time that write, and you know that those letters might get passed around around a social set, so they might be shared. And within his family, I think his sexuality was known. I mean, it was known that he had relationships with men and women. And so within his family, I think it was not accepted, but it was

known. Who was his wife? Did his wife know? Yeah, yeah. So he marries into quite a prestigious Scottish family, which he's sort of connected to anyway, because his mother was a member of the Duke of Hamilton's family. And he marries in 1783. And while they're on honeymoon, they're on honeymoon in Switzerland. And there's actually quite an interesting letter where he's writing to Louisa Beckford, his cousin's wife, who he has also had an affair with.

Right. And he encloses a letter to William Courtney in his letter. to her. And he makes a comment about Lady M, so Lady Margaret, which is his wife. You know, Lady Margaret is not at all jealous and effectively sends on her love to William as well. So I think she was very accepting and very aware. And when the exposure of the relationship with William Courtney happens, her family beg her to go back to them and she refuses, she won't leave her husband. Oh, that's interesting. And I think that has a massive impact on Beckford as well. That kind of loyalty and that she is his closest friend.

Wow. And when she dies, he is absolutely distraught. What does she die of? After childbirth. So 12 days after childbirth, yeah. Oh dear. And did he have other relationships with women, or is it mostly men? Yeah.

So it's interesting. Before his marriage, we know that he has a relationship with his cousin's wife, so with Louisa Beckford, although she's much more into him than he's into her. Okay. And yeah, we know that he, you know, he had physical, he had sex with Britain. And what's interesting is that after the death of his wife, there isn't much evidence of him having, or not that I've discovered yet, of him having relationships with other women. With men, yes, but not so much with other women. Wow.

So we have this grammatical error situation where he gets caught basically in flagrante with William Courtney. How long did it take him to leave the country and where does he go? So at first, it looks like he's going to go almost immediately, and then he decides that that is like an admission of guilt. So he goes back to Fonthill, so he and his wife go home to Fonthill for a good six months. And this is the interesting thing about the so-called scandal in that it's not exposed straight away. And there's probably some sort of political manoeuvring behind its exposure in the newspaper. That's really shitty, isn't it?

Yeah. And I think there's something about the best. Beckford family are immensely powerful because of this wealth, because of this obscene wealth. So they are very powerful politically. They're very powerful in the city of London. And there's an idea or it kind of sometimes feels like the exposure of this relationship is about cutting the head off this powerful family, lessening their status and lessening their power and using the exposure of Beckford sexuality to do it. So he and his wife go to Switzerland and And then after she dies, he spends a lot of time in Switzerland, sometime in France, and then Spain and Portugal.

And it's interesting what you said about it being more open. I mean, he liked being in Paris quite a lot and certainly around those kind of, you know, 1780, 1781, all around the time of him coming of age. Because in France and in Paris in particular, being gay was less, I mean, stigmatized isn't quite the word. You could be more openly gay in Paris at that time in society than you could in English. England. And as you could in Venice, I mean, you know, the relationship that he had in Venice was quite open as well. And it's because of what the exposure that England represents is not just imprisonment. It represents, you know, the possibility of execution. Absolutely. So he goes to Switzerland and kind of hangs around Europe a bit and then very sadly his wife dies and eventually

he comes back. How does he spend the last of his days? I mean, what happens? I'm sensing this doesn't have a mega happy ending, but where does he end up? Yeah, it's interesting. So he comes back to England, builds this huge house. I mean, he's in his late 30s when he returns to England. So he builds Fontaineble Abbey and surrounds himself with painters and writers and creative people, but they're all in his employment. Let's hardly anyone come and visit. You know, it's a very private space. And then he runs out of money, so he puts it up for sale and it's like the social event of the year. Everyone comes to look at the auction. And that's when he moves to Bath. So he moves to Bath in 1822. And Bath at that time has really fallen out of fashion. It is not the Uber glamorous place that it was in the 1770s. It's sort of where you go because you can't afford London

or you can't afford a country estate. So it's kind of the ideal place for him to be. Like Regency Blackpool. Yeah. Yeah. We kind of sort of say, you know, Bath at its peak is like Montecal. And Bath, by the time that Jane Austen starts to write about it, is like Las Vegas.

You know, it's a real shift. But it's the perfect place for, you know, someone with his reputation. Someone who's a social outcast that you will tell everyone you meet that day if you'd seen him in the street, you know. Nice. And he does the same thing. He lives in a townhouse and he rents a mile long stretch of land and then builds a 120 foot high tower at the top of that land

to put his books inside and his collection inside and to retreat into you. And that's Beckfast Tower here in Bath. And he has relationships. So like I said, he has this long-term relationship with Gregorio Frankie. a man he'd met in Portugal, who becomes Beckford's sort of agent and designer. He designs a lot of the objects and the metalwork that Begford collects. And yet, Frankie also gets married and then, you know, not long after getting married, leaves his wife and comes back to live with Beckford.

So, and at the end of that relationship, there's almost a kind of parting of the ways intentionally by Beckford. Okay. Beckford doesn't handle loss very well. So it's like he controls when. people leave his life rather than death taking them. Right. Okay. So I think he gets lonely. He gets very lonely. He gets very isolated.

He takes comfort in stuff. He takes comfort in the landscape in particular and nature and retreats. You know, I think there's a lot about his life that we can reflect on today in terms of isolation and being kind of rejected and being othered while at the same time, you know, knowing that he's responsible for othering and dehumanising literally thousands of enslaved people. That leads me to the perfect question to end this on is he's a very complicated and complex character. What do you think his legacy is? I think his legacy, in particular for us and the work that we're doing at the museum and working with our local communities. And I think this legacy is about understanding his life and the narrative or the story of his life

and the lives of those that he impacted and why that's relevant to us today. So what can we understand about today, about, you know, the long-term impact of the transatlantic slave trade on systematic racism today, about the treatment. of or the mistreatment of people because of who they choose to be attracted to or who they choose to love. I think there's a lot of things that are kind of relevant that we certainly see is, you know, his legacy in the museum. It's not about, we cannot celebrate the life of someone who systematically destroyed the lives of others. But we can learn from it and we can kind of relate it to where we are today. And I'd like to think, you know, his legacy is that, you know,

what we can try and do with our museum is create a safe space for as many people as possible. So, you know, somewhere where multiple voices are telling that narrative of his life in a way that welcomes everybody. Amy, you have been incredible to talk to today. Thank you so much. And if people want to know more about you and more about the museum and the collection and the life of Beckford, where can they find that? Best thing to do is to go to the museum's website, so beckfordstower.org.

and yeah, find out about what we're doing at the museum and come and visit. We're closed this year for a big redevelopment. So from spring 2024, it'll be a great way of kind of exploring further some of these challenging but fascinating stories. Thank you so much for joining me today. It's been an absolute treat. Thank you for listening and thank you so much to Charlie and Amy for joining me. And if you like what you've heard, please don't forget to like, review and subscribe wherever it is that you get your podcasts. Join me again, Betwixt the Sheets,

The History of Sex, Scandal and Society, a podcast by History Hit.