Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society - Sex & Scandal in King James' Court

Episode Date: April 8, 2024

King James I was a man whose sexuality was known by people in France, let alone (the newly formed) Britain of the early 17th century.So it may come as no surprise that men, such as the handsome George Villiers, might use their sexuality to their advantage and gain status, money and power whilst romancing the king.Helping Kate explore the sex and scandal of the Jacobean court is Anthony Delaney, historian and co-host of History Hit sister podcast After Dark.As an added treat, Kate's also joined by Robbie Taylor Hunt, who was the intimacy coordinator on the hit TV show based on this story, Mary & George.Robbie can be found on @RTaylorHunt (X/Twitter), @robbietaylorhunt (Instagram).He's the co-creator of Pansexual Pregnant Piracy at Soho Theatre (March 26th - April 13th) which is a raucous comedy based on the true queer seafaring tale of 18th-Century pirate Anne Bonny. Was the King and George's well-known relationship purely sexual and conceited? Or was it a full blown love affair? How were same sex relationships thought of in the 17th century?This episode was edited by Tom Delargy. The producer was Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Charlotte Long.Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for £1 per month for 3 months with code BETWIXT sign up at https://historyhit/subscription/You can take part in our listener survey here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Do you want even more shocking and scandalous history? Like why the ancient Greek statues had such small manhoods? Or what went on behind closed doors in the Georgian era? We'll sign up to History Hit, where you can see me discover the scandalous side of history, as well as hundreds of hours of original documentaries, plus new releases every week, covering everything from prehistoric Scotland to the Treaty of Versailles.

Sign up to join me in locations around the world and explore the past. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. Hello, my lovely betwixters. It's me, Kate Lister. I am here with your fair do's warning to make sure that you are safe and secure with what is about to happen to your earholes. This is an adult podcast spoken by adults

to other adults about adultery things in an adulty way, covering a range of adult subjects and you should be an adult too. Do you feel safer? Well, I certainly feel safer. The lawyers definitely feel safer, so on with the show. You know what it's like,

betwixters, it's the 17th century and you've finally got back to his boudoir. Lust is in the air and the only thing that's between you and a night of Jacobian friskiness is the umpteen layers of clothing and tightly stitched garments. Quite apt, really, as it's a two-person job at the best of times. If there's one thing that a historical drama can be forgiven for doing, it's glazing over these kind of moments. Even I as a historian have to make the odd exception. How else might sex have differed in the 17th century. How was queer sex thought of at the time? What part did King James, the first and sixth, have to play in all of this in the first place? I am ready to get my codpiece off if you are. Let's do this. 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 whatever my boss needs by just turning it up and pushing the button. Yes, social courtesy does make. make a difference. Goodness, my beautiful time. Goodness has nothing to do with it, Terry. Hello, and welcome back to Vitwix the Sheets, the history of sex scandal in society. With me, Kate Lister. The Jacobians don't always get the same glitz and glamour that the Tudors do.

But that doesn't mean they're not an absolutely fascinating bunch, especially when it comes to sex. Joining me today is historian and co-host of our history hit sister podcast After Dark, Anthony Delaney, who's going to take me back to this time and explore all. all of the ins and outs, pun intended, of sex and sexuality at this time. We also have a second treat for you today, oh lovely listeners, with Robbie Taylor Hunt joining us. Robbie was the intimacy coordinator on the Sky TV show Mary and George, which features Julianne Moore, no less. And the show depicts in fabulous, lush, sexy detail, all of the intimate goings on in the court of King James.

What he has to say is fascinating. the biggest thing coming into this was going, like, great, she enters the room undresses as they start to have sex. You're like, no, she doesn't. She spends an hour getting unstitched out of her dress. See, that's a real life skill. And I also have listener, Jessica, to thank for suggesting this episode, you absolute legend. Hey, Betwixt team, this is Jessica, and I was wondering if you might consider doing an episode about George and Mary Villiers. especially with the series that's about to come out, focusing on their life and his rise to power.

Story of James I and his many lovers and how powerful they got has always kind of fascinated me, especially between Robert Carr and then kind of succeeding him, George Villiers. I just want to say that I really love Batucs the Sheets, and I was turned on to History Hit a couple years ago, and once I happened upon Pichick's The Sheets, I was totally sold and haven't missed an episode.

So thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Our pleasure, Jessica, and we hope that this episode satisfies your wonderings. And without further ado, I am ready if you are. Let's do this. Hello, and welcome to Betwixt the Sheets. It's only Anthony Delaney. How are you doing? I'm good. It's only me. We just pop next door. I'm so pleased to have you here. You are so much fun and your podcast after dark is so much fun. Are you having fun doing it? We are. It's been an absolute blast and it's amazing to be alongside other incredible historians, such as yourself, but also the listeners have been

brilliant and you know how it is. The community that it starts building up is just so lovely. And I think we probably share a lot of that community with Betwixt as well. So it's nice to, it's nice to make an appearance here. Absolutely. I mean, who else would we have on to talk about this, to talk about a bit of Jacobian sexuality, especially a bit of Jacobyan sexuality, boy-on-boy sexuality. We're all here for that. Well, this is my special... This is what I do now. Talk about gays in the past.

You and I are both big fans of the new drama, Mary and George, which absolutely leaned into the queer reading of James I, the first and his quote-unquote favourites. Or at least I'm a big fan of the show. I've not even actually checked in with you yet. Did you like it? What did you think of it? No, I'm five episodes in now, so I haven't seen the full thing,

but I'm really, really enjoying it. And I said this when I was talking about it before, and I think we probably even discussed it when we were discussing it previously. I have never seen the Jacobean court depicted like this. It really feeds into a lot of the stuff that's happening in art and in fashion. Obviously, there's twists on all of these things because we have to remember, even as historians, this is a period drama, drama being the key word here. But it really is communicating something very special about that time

and something that's very unique to that time in a way that I've never seen done before. It's beautiful to look at. Never mind the contents, which are incredible too, but just the visual is so stunning. Really sumptuous. It's really gorgeous. And it's really funny when you watch for that

because historians are notoriously ridiculously carefully careful with this stuff. Because ultimately we're not there. We don't know. We don't have someone there to go, yeah, I'm totally gay. Or yeah, I'm by. We just don't have that.

So we're super cautious of like, well, it could have this. And it might have been this. and this is the evidence. And Sky just went, nope, everyone's gay. Everyone's gay in this. Yeah. And it's actually, this is one of the things that I've said again and again.

It's quite liberating, actually, because we have, as historians, we have this reputation of us being very nitpicky and going, well, well, that's not the right teacup. And actually, they would never have had a rough like that. But, like, sometimes it gets really boring to do that all the time, just sit back, enjoy it. Yeah, there's things that might not be precise to the time period. but also why not lean into the maybes of the past sometimes? I think that can be fruitful, even on the academic side of things sometimes. Yeah.

It did get me wondering, though, going back over the source material for the court of James I, the first, of how overt was his sexuality in that court? Because if you watch Mary and George, there is no hiding, nobody's guessing what's going on here. There are willies everywhere. Like, it's definitely gay. But in actual James I first court, like what is the evidence that we're working with as historians to nitpick over?

You're going to make me be a historian now and say, oh, well, it wasn't quite like that, wasn't. Well, it wasn't. It wasn't quite like that. It wasn't nearly as blatant as it is in Mary and George. The start of James's reign is, and this is James the sixth and first we're talking about. So the sixth of Scotland and the first of England, he brings the crowns together after the reign of Elizabeth in 1603. This is also around the time when, you know, the gumpowder plots happening in 1605. And we have a lot of political and civil unrest and religious unrest in the country at this time too, because of divisions between Catholic, Protestant factions, both in England and across Europe. So there is an awful lot happening that sometimes people have. to keep their willies in their pants. It can't just be as flagrant as it is in Mary and George.

I suppose my point is that James is ruling over a country and a country that is important within Europe. And as a result, he's married to Anna Denmark. He has children with her. He has that heterosexual union as well. But obviously, as you know better than I do, people are having sex in the past. And that is something that we have to get to grips with when we're talking about this period in particular. And then in the 18th century again, when we have to piece things together. So we're very rarely, even in heterosexual relationships left with, guess what I got up to last night? Now, it happens, but it very rarely gives us a blow by blow about, literally, about what's going on in bedrooms. But we can piece things together and we can use inference and we can, and we'll

talk about this throughout this episode and put these pieces of proof together. Now, some debate still exists. There are some historians that would say that the relationship between them wasn't queer. I would challenge that. And again, we'll get into that as we keep chatting. So it's difficult. But I always say when it comes to doing queer history, which is the majority of what I do at the moment, and I'm writing a book on queer Georgians, but when it comes to putting these histories together, despite the fact that it might be difficult and that we will get pushback, that does not mean that we shouldn't explore them and talk about them and think about what that might have meant in the context of the time.

I think that's really important. It's about creating space for there to be an alternative reading of it. And it's always fine if people push back and disagree. That's what study in history is. But the important thing is that you carve out the space for that discussion to actually take place. And I think one of the things that Mary and Judge really brought across, and I really hadn't thought about it in a lot of detail, and it's not related to James's queerness.

It's related to his state of mental health. health because when you look at the two might be really, I'm not sure I tell them what they're doing with that. But it's like when you actually look at this poor bugger, I mean, you know, poor but he was a king. But he believed in witches. He was involved in several witch trials. His mother was executed. His father was murdered. He grew up in this horrendously traumatized environment. Then someone tried to blow him up in the gunpowder plot. You know, and like you'd look at it and think, oh, James, don't be so paranoid. But in some, like, people really are out to get him. that pressure must have been insane for him to be existing in.

I think that's really key because one of the things that people will bring up first when they talk about James the Six and First are his favourites. And the ways in which he uses his favourites is to comfort himself. I'm not surprised. Yeah, right? It makes total sense. And those favourites are often young, they are often handsome, they're always male. And we might say that that's usual. but actually in the same way that Ambulin was placed in front of Henry VIII,

George Villiers is placed, and we see this, we do see that it's a concerted effort. Now, it doesn't happen exactly like it happens in Mary and George. In fact, there's a lot of men involved rather than directly his mother, although his mother is involved too in the period drama. But in history, she is involved, but not to the same extent, of placing George in front of King James in order to get him into that coven of, favorites, which is at the time when he comes to the throne, that's being dominated

and we see this really clearly in the drama by Robert Carr, who's the Earl of Somerset. And he dominates everything. He's dominating politics. He decides who's getting close to the king and therefore who's policymaking and a faction of court are deciding that this isn't good enough. We need to infiltrate

that. Now, think back to Henry VIII because that's what the Boulins were doing. They were trying to garner support. They tried with their other daughter first and then they placed Anne there. And that was a successful for a while intervention. They're doing the same here, but they're doing it with young men. And that's not a coincidence.

That is one of those clues that we get when we are looking at the queer past. So nobody questions that placing Anne Boleyn was an act of sexual intervention, let's say, when it came to Henry VIII, in order for their sexuality to become harnessed in order to get power. But the same thing is happening here, but we don't accept it in the same way because it's happening between two men. And that is something that isn't really a problem in the drama, which was what you were saying at the outset, where they can just go for these things, whereas as historians we question, and I think over-question. Sometimes the obvious thing is the answer. And it seems pretty obvious to me that George Villiers, who goes on to me, the Duke of

Buckingham, is placed there for a very particular reason. And that reason includes, not exclusively, but include sex. You'd have to look at what the favourites system was with royalty, because I can completely understand why, if you're existing as a king like that or a queen, having favourites around you, people that you trust, people in your inner circle, is essential.

And I can see the fight to actually get into that inner circle. But I can't recall there being other kings where, quote-unquote, favorites are being offered up to him. I can see it with women, but I don't recall it with men. Also, it spills over a little bit into his son's reign, into Charles I first's reign. But it is the same person. It's George Villiers still.

So there is no need to place a favourite because he's already there. And in fact, George is the person who bridges both reigns. He's in a way potentially the more powerful of both of those kings. But the reason I think that you're drawing a blank there is that because there are no other kings that can be legitimately surrounded by so many men in such an intimate way. Because, you know, Kings had male favorites. That's not in itself unusual. The unusual aspect and where the threat comes in is intimacy between men, because men are deemed to be powerful in this hierarchical, patriarchal society. So when men can become intimate, then the possibilities for power are endless. So therefore, we have to regulate that power.

and, you know, again, 1533 Buggery Act is what's lurking behind this. It's, you know, it's over a century, or almost rather a century earlier, but it's still playing in the background of what we need to be remembering of the legislation and the law that's happening as this favour is being placed and what exactly James, who, by the way, is Scottish and there's an element of suspicion around him because of that too. So the law is always in the background. I mean, you can't prosecute a sitting king, but there are things you can do as Charles I finds out and eventually loses his head.

To think about the buggery act, Henry VIII brought it in, and that was the one that was executing men having sex with men for centuries, wasn't it? And people having sex with animals as well, but, you know, there we go. To think of what was the culture at the time when James I and his favourites were doing their thing? How aware would they have been? I mean, obviously they would have been aware of the law, but did they just not think it applied to them? did it create a culture of secrecy?

It would be fascinating, wouldn't it? To know how does the king square that circle? He knows that this is a criminal capital offence and yet. When I was doing my PhD, I stopped using because, you know, I looked at the queer past specifically, and I kept having to use heteronormative. And it didn't fit right with me. And, you know, we use heteronormative all the time. Historians use it.

We see it in the press, whatever. Heteranormative implies the position. of a normality. And that normality is heterosexuality. And then queerness, let's say, or homosexuality is othered as a result. So what I started using instead was heteroregulation. So the 1533 Buggery Act, to me, is one of the key points of heteroregulation in English and English colonial history. And because of that, who is overseeing the regulation during James's reign, well, James. So the regulation of sexuality is only enforced when it benefits the state to have it enforced. And it does not benefit the state to overly enforce

this when it's in relation to the king. But I will caveat that by saying, although Mary and George is brilliant and it's so entertaining, that blatancy that you see in terms of the sexual exploration between men was not so on the surface present in, let's say, 16, 14, 15, 16, when James and George meet each other for the first time. And so he's not flouting it as flagrantly as it appears he is in Mary and George. But nonetheless, there were eyebrows being raised at the time, certainly. They really were, because we're not talking about, oh, he just seemed to quite like Robert Carr and George Yuvillard. You buy Villiers more than others. He gave him. them a few more castles. That's not what we're talking about here. He, and you have to be very

careful how you're reading this, but he genuinely seems to be in love with them. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. This isn't just like my mate, have a castle. I'd give my mate's castles if I was queen and if I could do that. It would piss everybody off. But the way he speaks about them in public, the way other people speak about his relationship with them, it's infused with a type of romance. it's unavoidable, or is that just how mates were in Restoration Britain? It's a good question, right? It comes back to what we spoke about earlier about how do we piece together these elements of proof. Yes, actually mates were very effusive in Jacoby in England.

Quite jarringly so. Like if I said these things to my friends, they'd go, are you all right? Do you want to chill out? I understand that we love each other, but we don't have to keep talking about it. can you please let go of my hand? Like, it was a different way of being and a different way of men being together. What we understand as that masculine way of coming together

is really men socialising together is mostly a Victorian invention as we experience it. Intimacy and male touch and male love was certainly part of the culture in the Jacobean court. They were sharing beds, as we famously know. So this is why it's easy sometimes for people to argue that, you know, that, oh, they were lovers, they were just friends. And we hear that all the time. Nonetheless, put that with the previous bit of proof that we talked about where George is deliberately placed

in a similar fashion to the way Ambulin is placed. Then couple of that with, I'll read you a piece from a letter that James. Now, James wrote this to George in 1623, towards the end of their, well, towards the end of James's life, he dies in 1625. But this is what he says to him. This is how he expresses his love for him, right? So we're thinking about this whole picture in totality rather than just individual pieces. He says, I desire only to live in this world for your sake, and that I had rather live banished in any part of the earth with you than live a sorrowful widow's life without you. And so God bless you, my sweet child and wife, and grant that ye may ever be a comfort to your dear dad and husband. So he's mixing his worlds there. It's the language of

family. It's the language of marriage. It's the language of love. Again, not that unusual. But it's also, and this is key as well, a language of subservience. He lives, James, the king lives for nothing but to serve George. And that is an inversion of kingly rule. It's an inversion of masculinity as it would have been perceived. It's not an inversion of anything at all, but that's how it may have been perceived. And these clues altogether, Listen, we don't know what a lot of people were doing in bed. For instance, we don't know that we can't 100% know that James the 6th and 1st is the actual biological father of Charles I.

But we assume he was, because that makes the most logical sense. There has been no DNA testing on that, but general population accepts that that is just the default thing that happened. But as soon as you start to apply that same logic, well, this seems like this was happening. This seems like the most obvious thing that could have been happening. The archive is telling us this is the most obvious. thing that's possible. People then go, oh, but we can't be sure because they haven't given us a kind of an analyst or blow-by-blow account of who was in whom. And by the way, you need to be in somebody

at this time to commit sodomy. The act of oral sex is not covered by the buggery act. So this is just penetration, and not necessarily anal penetration rather, and not just anal penetration between men, either. But the penetration does have to happen. But if we liberate ourselves from just having to prove penetration, which by the way, they struggled with at the time, then we see intimacy. We see love. We see marriage-like language. And this is all adding up. And then there were, of course, times when they were seen as being physically too close as well. So we're creating an overall picture. We're not just relying on one thing. No. There was multiple reports of them sort of like George or Robert Carr sitting on his knee of being extremely affectionate kissing, cuddling. people wrote about it, people noted it. I think was it when James was defending, I think it was George or Robert from the government,

he makes this really impassioned speech where he's like, I love him, and it's beyond just friendship, I would have said. It's George that you're talking about there. He's saying, I love, Jesus had John and I have George. I'm paraphrasing, that's not the exact words. But it's interesting, isn't it? Because he frames it in this biblical,

and of course we have the King James Bible and religion is so important at this time. And he frames that intimacy within a biblical context because it's so much more acceptable. He cannot come out and say, Henry VIII had Ambelin, I have George Villiers. You can all shut up and get on with your day. He can't do that. So he frames it in something that's more acceptably homosocial. And by that I mean the ways in which same-sex people hang out together.

And he goes default for religion. But of course, even by this early stage, it is way more in the 18th century. But even by this early stage, all-male religious sect in Catholicism specifically is being looked at as a kind of an enclave for what we would now term gay men to enter into. So even religion has already got those connotations of same-sex desire. We often forget he was married, like in the midst of all of this. His wife, did she know, did she not know? How could she not have known? I suspect she did what most royal wives have done and just went, well, I've got a correct.

Yeah, this is part of... There was no expectation for monogamy from a royal wife at this time or potentially from many wives at this time, but certainly not from a royal wife. So she wouldn't have entered into the marriage thinking that that was going to happen anyway. I think she's aware, and this is the reason I think she's aware, because she tries to oust car.

She's one of the faction that is happy to see Villiers. And actually, we see that in the period drama, don't we? So, Adam Denmark is happy to have Villiers come in and on-seat the Earl of Somersetard's power because she sees him as too powerful. She can't bring her faction in because he's blocking it. And he is far more intimate with

the king than she is, despite the fact that she has access to him. But Carr is just dominating the whole thing. So she's glad to see a change when Villiers comes in. So I think it's a really interesting aspect. I'm looking at this in the book because I'm not quite finished yet, but this idea of

what are queer wives? And for me, queer wives are an overlooked phenomenon, I suppose, during the 17th and 18th centuries, where they facilitate often the queernesses of their husbands and do so dutifully as heterregulated wives, because it is part of trying to convince people that actually what you're seeing on the surface is perfectly regulated. And I will be part of that picture, but I must gain in return. And I mean, what higher gain than to be Queen Consort? Robert Carr, one of the first great loves of James the first. He made the mistake that a lot of side pieces make and that's that he went after the wife

mistake. Yeah. Like he showed a lot of disrespect and he didn't, he didn't know his place. And that was his downfall. What you see often is a cultivation of a relationship between the sidepiece and the wife. Now, one or the other will go out of their way. I'm thinking particularly here in the early part of the 18th century now for John Lord Harvey. And Stephen Fox and Mary Lapelle, his lover and his wife, had a distinct relationship of their own, which they cultivated together. And actually had Carr been a little bit more savvy like Villiers was, because Villiers worked harder at that, he would have been able to potentially secure himself. You would be a fool to discard the wife, particularly if that wife is a queen, because she has her own power.

source, and it will ultimately be more powerful than you if you are somebody who's been dragged up through placement of certain factions at court that are potentially waning that you're not as protected as maybe you once were. So the cultivation of the queer wife or the queer queen is, oh, I'm going to get in trouble for saying queer queen, aren't I, people are going to be like, there's no such thing as a queer queen. I know what you mean. But once you overlook that relationship in the context of the queer 17th century, then you're not playing the game correctly. And it's a game and it needs to be played. I'll be back with Anthony after the short break.

One of the things that I was struck by when I was watching Mary and George, and it's something I thought a lot about when you're thinking about royal mistresses or professional side pieces, which undoubtedly Villiers and Carp were, is how precarious it is. How precarious, because it's so dependent on whether or not this guy still fancies you. Look at the switch and it's all gone. It's all over. And I was trying to work out when I was watching it. It's like, is it better for men or for women? Because the guys, they can't marry him.

They can't marry James I. And they can't have an illegitimate child of his, which a royal mistress would be able to do. And then you're forever tied to him, whether or not he fancies you. That's kind of where you want to go with it. But alternatively, they can get the kind of power that women couldn't ever dream of.

And that's what happened. What's your thought on the precarity of it, of the position of these men? I'd never looked at it in relation to, the womanhood versus manhood side of it. That's really interesting, actually. It is precarious, and you're right, for a royal mistress to have a child, an illegitimate child of the king, cemented her, and that was a huge achievement. He has to take care of it. And it's seen as responsibility, despite the illegitimacy, that it has to be upheld. And there will be places made

a court, etc. But Villiers does a similar thing, I suppose, in that he sees to that all his, well, himself and his mother. His mother's made a countess, and his brothers are given titles as well. So by creating these other little pockets of power around himself, he is creating some form of protection. Now, it's not as foolproof as an illegitimate child, but at the same time, it's such a good point that you make about that men can wield power, and that's why it became such a problem, particularly in the reign of Charles I. that Villiers was so powerful because he could exercise that power, whereas, you know, a female mistress, well, she could be socially powerful, potentially culturally powerful. But a male

favourite can be legally powerful and can be militarily powerful. And that happens with Villiers, where his interference with some of the Spanish foreign policy is not taken very well and it causes problems at the English court. So these men are having actual, let me rephrase actually, because it's not these men. It's the very favourite of the favourites. Because these men are at play things often, but someone who's such a favourite like Villiers, he can shape a country. Such a terrible system of government is whoever's the favourite quink is going to be the one in charge of foreign policy and the one in charge of armies. That's what happened. A royal mistress, she would never get into the position where she was in the court passing laws with the council

or anything like that, but these men did. And it's interesting because actually, I guess a lot of coincidence was on Villiers' side because he was placed in front of the king for the first time in 1614, right, at Ape Thorpe Palace, which is the most bizarre name. You can go and visit it now if you want to,

but he was placed there for the first time in 1614. And if I remember correctly, he was 22 at the time, so Villiers was 22 at the time, and I think James was 48. and James has about another 10 years to live. So what will happen is, in terms of the handsomeness, let's just keep it on that level.

Don't volatile. Yeah, but he's going to keep that until he's in his, you know, early 30s. He's only going to be 32 by the time James dies. It becomes less safe when he goes into the next reign for Charles because that starts to wane a little bit. So if it's based purely on your looks, because you say volatile, and that's such an apt word in this case

because Villiers himself could be quite volatile. I think sometimes in Mary and George is depicted as, I don't know what's going on. I just turn up. Went beyond the ears, isn't he? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not at all. He was very tempestuous and he could be calculating to a point of problem

because he would push things that he had a personal vendetta for that there was no appetite for. And that's very much what happened in the next reign, in Charles I first reign. He started to push more and more and more. he felt more indebted to James the sixth and first. But then when it went into his son's reign, he felt that he could really step forward

and be this kind of quasi-king. But in terms of James's reign, it was good timing because he was a pretty 22-year-old described as the handsomest-bodied man in all England. And so he's placed there at the right time and he's still probably very handsome at 32, let's be honest. So in terms of catching the king's eye, he's able to maintain that he's down the gym,

doing his squats for the 10 years that he's in power. I think when you're looking at the royal court, especially like the most intimate enclaves of the king himself, there is a sort of sense of it's its own world, its own rules, it's the king, they're going to do what they like. I think you could probably make the case that it's still the same for the elite today, the super, super wealthy. But if you're not the king and if you're not in the court

and if you're not absolutely loaded and if you're just a regular person in this time and area who happens to be gay. What was the culture like for them? Was it more of an open culture? Was it, I mean, what kind of world are we talking about here? We're talking about a very domestic world in the 17th century. The figure that I studied in my PhD was the figure of the cot queen, who has its origins in the 17th century in England.

And the cock queen comes from the word cot meaning house and queen meaning woman, but it describes a man. And the cock queen was an effeminate man. who busied himself with women's work, essentially. That was the base note, right? And this man would keep a house potentially for another man. That wasn't unheard of. It was frowned upon and it wasn't celebrated, but he wasn't unheard of.

There are accounts of Welsh cop queens, for instance, who are part of the working poor, who they're operating a separate house for this man who lives in another house with his wife and children, but comes to visit this other house that he's made up with his friends. So you can imagine the beginnings of some kind of queen. enclave there. And this cock queen then becomes explicitly associated with sodomy in that that is the drive that is seen to propel these men into effeminacy and into housekeeping

because they become so effeminate, they want to be penetrated and therefore they become sodomites. And it's seen that, of course, it all comes back to women causing the problem, doesn't have. It's seen that those men were too cuddled by their mother in childhood. A cock queen was too coddled by his mother and he was kept too long in the kitchen when he should have been out hunting. So it would be wrong to say we don't have a trace and people do always say, well, it's really hard to get a trace of the working experience of this gendered nonconformity and queer sexualities. It's not the case. Cock queens are initially part of the working poor and they are housekeepers, they're homemakers, they're sewers, they're cooks,

although cook in itself is not gendered in the same way as we understand it today. But they're dusting and those are gendered activities even in the 17th century. So there is this queer idea. Now it's not until the 18th century, as we kind of famously know, that we see the emergence of queer communities in the Mali houses, let's say, but there still remains this line into the... 18th century of domestic queer men where men assemble in the home together, love there, live there, laugh there, have full lives there. So the home becomes a really key part to how men are experiencing

intimacies, sexual and emotional intimacies with other men. And transport that to the court, it makes sense. This is where these people are living to. This is their domestic setting to a certain extent. And so these relationships are living out mostly in the domestic space in the 17th century across the class brackets. If you watch Mary and George, you'd be forgiven for thinking that this was just an incredibly horny time to be alive. It's like everyone is talking about sex from all different classes, from like really graphic, nothing, especially when it goes over to France. Oh my God. I mean, it's been very difficult to kind of make that case. But there's certainly a light. when we're representing a particular time on cinema to make it particularly

bawdy and sexy and strumpet-a-fied and although what's your kind of, that's not a word, what was the culture at the time? Was this particularly open time when it comes to discussing sex? Any kind of sex? I think it would be tempting to say that it was particularly open. I'm not sure we can say that in full confidence. It's opening, shall we say. I think it's a real precursor to Georgian attitudes towards sex and sexuality rather than it being a, the Georgians kick it off in a different kind of way. But at this time, there is a particular interest in sexual deviants. Now look, I'm saying this, but the reality of the situation on the ground is that people are shagging all over the place, because that's just what happens. So it's not that that wasn't happening,

but there was an idea of deviant sex that was intriguing to people. So for instance, there was the case of the second Earl of Castlehaven, who was accused of raping his wife and of committing sodomy with his male house staff. Wow. And that case was brought against him by his son. And that's then depicted in literature, you know, slightly inspired by at the time and then on the stage as well. So these things are very much being talked about. And by the way, that trial is after the reign of James the Sixth and First, but he's very much a courtier of James the Sixth and. first. So it's happening during James the Sixth and First reign. So it's very much happening at this time. But there's an element of condemnation about it. You know, we've moved away from ecclesiastical law. But at the same time, a lot of the laws that we're left with are ecclesiastically inspired. The Buggery Act is definitely one of those. But the problem is not the sex itself. And this is why deviant sex, well, sex that's perceived to be deviant, becomes such a matter of interest during this time. It leads to societal instability. Or that's the perception. So if you are running a household like the second Earl of Castlehaven was,

and you do not honour your wife, as you should, and you entice your male house staff into sexual activity, and you are a peer, you are a part of the nobility, then you are starting to pick away at the foundations that keep England great, that make it the nation that it is. And everything can topple. If you can do that one thing, then everything can topple. So it's the threat to society and to an ever-growing society

and a society that's becoming more aware of the world around it. We're thinking about the Jamestown Colony in Virginia, for instance, about, you know, explorations around the world are growing. So things need to be monitored. And it is through that monitoring that we get condemnation of what is perceived to be deviant sex acts. So they're not necessarily always talking about it. You see that in the restoration after, when Charles is second,

comes to the throne, then sure, we see a little bit of a change there, and then that continues and elaborates well on into the 18th century. But at this point, we're interested in regulation and looking to see what's going wrong in the bedroom and elsewhere. It wasn't until I watched Mary and George. I'd completely forgotten that Francis Bacon was probably gay. Well, you see, this is interesting because there's a theory that he was same-sex attracted and that he was part of an enclave of same-sex attracted men that grew up around James Six and First. and that wanted to have a little bit more power there. Bacon is one of the people that's more usually referred to.

I will say this. For me, the evidence around James the Sixth and First is far more conclusive. Bacon, it's inferred a lot more. And that also could be got to do with his links to James the Sixth and First. Bear mind that those insinuations have repercussions for other people. But it's not impossible that, you know, as you said, we have to be open to that interpretation. And this is one of the key things I would say to people who love. looking at queer histories or who have a question mark over queer histories,

we as historians work with documentation, and that documentation doesn't change. But our interpretations of the documentation can change. Knowledge is not a static thing. And so when people get very angry about applying labels to the past and, well, this wasn't happening, they didn't know what it meant to be gay, I understand what they mean by that, because the word gay in this context didn't exist in the 17th century. Nonetheless, we can't even settle on a word for same-sex attraction in our own time. Like, in my lifetime, we were not using queer in everyday parlance.

We use it all the time now. Queer people are identifying as queer rather than when I came out back in the day, whenever that was, I came out as gay. That was because you didn't come out as queer. You didn't, it wasn't part of the language. So even in our lifetimes, the language is changing. But we still understand what we mean by those things. And so when I go into an archive and I see things to me as a queer person that seem blatantly queer,

then I have a connection with that archive where I go, I understand this. I understand this at a human level. And people say, I mean, you'll have heard this plenty of times. Oh, you need to leave yourself behind when you come to the archive. And I say, no, why would you do that? Why would you want to take the people out of history? It doesn't make any sense. And there were queer people in history.

So, you know, bring all the queerness to it. Anthony, you have been wonderful to touch. one final question and it's kind of as a bit of a flight of fancy. So I wanted to imagine that like you're a young 18 year old twink in the court of James I. As let's say George Villiers was, like you're kind of like you got a name, but it's no great shakes. What's your game plan here to get the attention of the king? Go on. Lay it out for me. I love this. This is not something I could have prepared for and I'm delighted by it. Okay. So I think I would go down the route of entertainment because James loved a bit of a party. He loved a dance and I think there'd be no point

to me trying to pursue something sporty, which was very impressive as well at the time. But Christ on a bike, I'd be wasting a time. I'd just be tripping over things. There'd be no need for that. So we'd go down the avenue of style and we'd go down the avenue of dance and we'd go down the avenue of accessories. James loved an accessory. Gloves, hats, earrings, the whole Chevang. He enjoyed being done up. You would appeal to the visual culture of the king is the way I would go about it. But then you need to stand out from a crowd of boys that are doing that too. So you need to have a little bit of something behind you, which villiers did. So I'd need to be doing a bit of reading. I'd need to know a nice bit of French. And I'd need to be cultivating some of the witchcraft talk of the time to take

his fancy. Oh, that'd be good. That'd get him, wouldn't we? Where you go, Jesus, I loved your demonology. So good. Which I could say, that's a good. That's a good. That's a good. That's a good. a sentence that's probably never been said before. But anyway, there you go. Just talk to him about witches for a couple of hours as I'm his cup bearer, because that's how you get close to the king. That I do it. And make sure that you're nice to the queen. Well, listen, Anne of Denmark was nearly killed by witches on her way over. She deserves our sympathy. How could you not be nice to her? I think that's a perfect, perfect plan, Anthony. You've been so much fun to talk to. Oh, thank you for having me. If people want to know more about you and your work, where can they find you?

Well, I co-host After Dark, Myths, Mistides and the Paranormal on History Hit with Dr. Maddie Pelling. And you can find me on socials at Anthony Delaney History. And my first book, Queer Georgians, Hidden History, is out next year. So watch out for that. I'll be promoting it as I go. Aw, Ashley, you're loads of fun. Thank you. Oh, thank you.

Thank you so much to Anthony. That was such a fun and interesting exploration of sex in Jacobin, Britain. Now, over to Robbie to find out how. how he helped create the sex scenes for this period on TV and the fascinating considerations that have to be made. Word of advice. Avoid onions for lunch. Over to Robbie.

Hello, and welcome to Betwixt the Shades. It's only Robbie Taylor Hunt. How are you doing? I'm so well, thank you. I'm thrilled to be here. Thanks for having me. This is the first time I've ever spoken to an intimacy coordinator. I'm so fascinated by you and this work.

real one of us in the wild. Can you believe it? Look at me. It seems to me like this is a relatively new role in the film industry, but that might not be true. It might just be something that there's been a few headlines around recently. Yeah, it's fairly new. So it's the first ever kind of official intimacy coordinator was in 2017 in the US on season two of the Deuce, which was Alicia Rhodes. But obviously, before that, there was all lots of people sort of plugging away, churning away, trying to get things going and make this take it more seriously. I know that some of the media attention has been slightly focused on like, oh my God, like they need an intimacy coordinator now.

Everyone's such a woke snowflake. But to me, to me it seems like one of those jobs of like, well, why haven't we had this the whole time? Of course there should be somebody there to take care of this stuff. Totally. Yeah. It's sort of weirdly nice and a bit spooky. work with kind of younger actors or new actors into the industry. You work with them and they're like, wait, so this didn't used to happen.

And you're like, no, no, no. And all the kind of older actors or more experienced actors are like, this is not what we used to have. But it's once upon a time stunt coordinators weren't really a thing. And now, of course, we wouldn't dream of not having that. So it's just the tide shifting. And we care about physical health more than we've tended to care about mental, emotional health.

So we got there first with physical health. And now we're kind of getting there a bit later. with the more emotional side of things. So the only one that's listening to this thinking, are an intimacy what now? What is? What is an intimacy coordinator? It's a very fair question.

An intimacy coordinator is a professional who works on TV and film. So we talk about intimacy coordinator for TV and film and intimacy director for live performance at theatre. So we're there to work on intimate content. Intimate content being usually simulated sex, nudity, kissing, but also scenes of childbirth, medical scenes, bodily function scenes. And we operate with kind of two hats. We have the hat of sort of protection and advocacy for the actor,

looking out for them and making sure that their boundaries are respected with a really consent forward practice. And then the other hat is the kind of creative choreography side. So helping with the director and actors and other members of the team to creatively achieve what is needed for these characters in this moment and the story. That makes perfect sense. It makes complete sense because it doesn't matter, at least my take on it would be, it doesn't matter how much of a seasoned actor you are, a sex scene must be a weird thing to do. Because when you watch it on the screen, you're like, oh, it's all rather lovely. The lighting is fabulous. It's very erotic. But in actual, when it's happening, there's like guys stood around with a sound boom and there's 50 people around. Someone's eating a sandwich. The room's cold. It must be a nightmare to do. 100%. Yeah, I mean, yeah, I'd like to think that's not always a nightmare, but it's certainly not, like, oh, sexual and sexy. Yeah, yeah. I mean, sometimes, certainly people have had nightmares. I think at best it's just kind of weird. I mean, we're there to make it as normal as possible and a professional as possible. But even then, obviously, people are like, look, I'm having to be a bit naked or perform a level of simulated sex or kiss my colleague in front of my other colleagues and then go on lunch and talk about what we were up to on the weekend, like half an hour later. So that, that is just is a strange thing. And exactly, I think people imagine it is quite, oh, gosh, that must have been so spicy and intense in that scene.

But yeah, you're sitting around doing nothing. You have modesty garment, little modesty garment on your genitals or buttocks or breasts or whatever it is. And that's falling off and need to get retaped on. And it's all that kind of stuff, which isn't nearly as glamorous as it seems. It's just really good performers and good directors and good intimacy coordinators who were helping it seem effortless and sexy and sensual or whatever you want for the scene. And it must be quite a high pressure environment as well. If anyone, you know, if you're on a film set, this is your big break. And the director's like, right, come in here, get your kit off, have sex, look like you have an amazing time.

It must actually be very difficult for someone to speak up and go, I'm not really very comfortable with this. My co-stars eating a garlic sandwich and it's terrible. And is that something else that you would do? So like, you know, advocate for people in that space. Yeah, love a garlic sandwich. Love it when the catering team on a kissing day is like only. serving garlic stuff and you're like, please, anything but garlic and onion meals. Yes, absolutely. So there are inherent power dynamics at play. I mean, in most places in the world, but I think

TV and film, they're pretty rife. Like, they're kind of built into the existence of a set and making a film or a TV show. There's quite clear power dynamics. And power dynamics aren't inherently evil. Director having a level of power is like necessary for that job. Producers, ditto, that's fine. is just when that kind of is unchecked or used in a way that people don't realize or kind of wielded against someone, which is either intentional or not, that then people's boundaries can be infringed upon and people can be not actually consenting to things that they're doing. Even if they're seemingly agreeing to it and saying yes to it and sort of doing it, there's been so much kind of contextual stuff at play that we can't really say they've properly consented because it's like you say, if there's young actor, big job, they've got this opportunity. they're like, okay, I can do it. This is a real push for me. Really want this director to like me. Really need work. Really need to pay the red. Really want this other actors like me. I want this experience. And they say, oh, actually, we also want you to do this. And they go,

oh, I might get fired if I say no. Like all that is just so tricky. And so we can't eliminate that trickiness entirely. But we're there as someone who's whole job and I is to help with that balance and go, okay, actors, you don't want to do that. But we want to achieve this kind of scene. if it's not with that level of nudity, how else might we do it? We could do this, we could do this. And they say, oh, actually, yes. And you were the intimacy coordinator for the rather marvellous Mary and George, which I was part of the history documentary, and I've got to say, I absolutely love that series.

It is loads of fun. Good, yeah. What did you think of it, the kind of historical sex point of view? Historical sex point of view. Well, do you know what I really liked about it? I like the fact that the show clearly just went, we're going to go with the gay, that's what we're going to do. We're going to absolutely lean into this.

And there wasn't much trepidation about like, oh, they might have just been friends. It was like, no, we're going full gay. And I thought it was really brave. And I thought it was really passionate. And I really liked it. And I did find myself thinking all the way through, I wonder what these scenes were like to shoot

because there's a lot of sex in this. show. There's a lot. There's a lot of sex in this show. And there's also, it's the most I've ever worked on something where it's like, yeah, there's sex, there's nudity, there is, you know, seen a put abortion that I was there for, there's bodily function scenes, there's childbirth, there's just so much. You were busy. The bread, there's an orchy. There's one person, there's four people, there's five people, there's two people, you know, there's just truly sort of like whack a mole of different intimacy experiences. It was really fun to work on. My main thing coming into it, was reading the scripts you go or the moments of intimacy feel like really important to the story.

Like big things happen for the characters and therefore sort of for the course of England in what happens in those sex scenes. So that was excited to go into. It's not gratuitous to sex, in it. I say that and that's a very fine line because the sex is a lot of fun and I'm very pleased that it's there and it's fabulous. But you're right is it does always it always serves a purpose as it's moving the plot forward. It's not. not just there are people shagging here. And there's a lot of emotion that goes into a lot of these scenes, actually. Like the scene with George, where he has his first,

I suppose it's a threesome when he's in France. And there's a real moment of he's like, am I going to do it? Am I not going to do it? Am I going to do it? Yeah. How do you go about directing something like that? What you've got to get across is not just the sex and that everyone's okay.

But there's a huge narrative, emotional thing that you've got to deliver as well. it's really the director who'll be at the helm of figuring out those emotional beats. I won't be coming in saying, we should have this emotional beat, right? They'll be giving me that. We'll talk about it. And then we'll figure out what choreographically or intimacy-wise needs to be there for that emotion to continue into the choreography or read for that person. And or for there to be the support in place for them so that they can fully access those emotions without just being so distracted and stressed about having to be naked or whatever it is.

frankly a lot of it is in conversations hopefully and usually before you come to the shoot day of everyone being on the same page very much about what you're doing with the scene and why it's there and what purpose it serves because once that's there then I think people can bring that into their body and then all the choreographic choices that I'm helping them to make or just kind of steering them in the right direction of choreography. Mary and George is it's historical drama telling the world of James I first does the history or the fact that you're trying to recreate a historical period, does that play into your work at all? Like, how did you bump into that? Are you just kind of like, well, people shagged

in all different periods of history? Yeah. Yeah, it's so interesting. I think you spoke about it a bit in your episode, the documentary about making the show. Because exactly, on the one hand, I did definitely come into it being like, okay, Jacobian culture and society, and as an intimacy coordinator, we're all about the context of a scene, whether that is the people or sexuality or where we are in the world or if it's in the future and they're all aliens or if it's in the past or whatever, right? We need to kind of know the context of what it is because that does affect what these people might decide to do. But I find it sort of difficult because any information we have of kind of maybe some norms around sex, firstly, as I'm sure you very well, though,

it's quite hard to get a detailed understanding of what sex is like because people obviously didn't write and talk about it as much necessarily. And even what they do write about, of course, just like now, people are doing all sorts of things in their sex lives that aren't necessarily what we consider the quote-unquote normal sex of a time. So I don't want to read something and be like, this is what they did in Jacobian times and therefore only do that because, of course, people were doing everything, always since the dawn of time. So exactly like you say, you know, sex is sex. People have always had sex. Not everyone. Lots of people have always had sex. And so in a way, there's something quite nicely universal and obviously human about it, that you

are aware of what the kind of cultural factors might be. But you, you also just bring it down to like, these are people and they want physical connection or they want pleasure or they want release or they want power or they want distraction or all those stuff I think is the much more important context when we're kind of trying to tap into a scene around intimacy. There's something very modern about it though. It doesn't, it makes that balance very well between the dialogue is very modern, the syntax they're using is very modern, but it manages to retain that historical lens. that works really well.

But I was wondering when I was going to talk to you about, I was like, well, you know, sex is sex. They didn't have particularly different sex in the Jacobian period. And then I was thinking, I wonder if he ran into any problems with the costumes. Like, did you have to like learn how a codpiece works, what a corset does, that kind of stuff? Well, yes, yeah, the biggest,

easily the biggest thing coming into this was going, like, great, she enters the room undresses as they start to have sex. You're like, no, she doesn't. She spends an hour getting unstitched out of her dress. to be able to, you know, so that was the biggest consideration. So amazing costume team on area, George, obviously in the like output of what they made as well as just really lovely people in that team. And it was so nice to get to work with them closely of going. The director would like to achieve this for the scene. I think it's this kind of sex acts, but like where are they

starting at? What have they just been dressed in? And then they would often, you know, go to me, well, you know, this is them in bed. So this is the kind of thing that have underneath. But if they'd got into bed and be their night dress, then it would be this instead, which would give you more playing space in terms of this, but less in terms of it. You know, it was all those kind discussions that would have to be quite clear with, as well as obviously, like, they walk into a room and undress and then having to redress before you go for another take, it's like a bigger job than it would be if someone's just putting their t-shirt and trackies back on. But like you say, with the kind of modern, the costume is a good example of how it's very based and

historical, but also Annie, brilliant designer and her team, had some modern shapes and changed it a bit for a modern body. And there were ways of modernising it and, like, you say the text as well. So that also gave us some creative license around approaching the intimacy of going, again, it should be some truth in Jacobian, but we're aware that we're making the culture of the show and the style of the show is also that you have to make sure you're being aware of and not making something which doesn't belong. The story of Mary and George, it tells a story about power and about women and men trying to get their place in court life. But it really circles around the sex life of James I and the sixth of Scotland and the fact that he had favourites, euphemistically

favourites. And there is some historical debate about whether they were just good mates. But I think that we're kind of, yeah, they weren't. They were clearly lovers. We think we just need to get past that bit. But did that make a difference for you as an intimacy coordinator? Because we have had more and more gay representation on screen and gay sex represented on screen since the 90s and queer as folk, but it's still something quite shocking about it because it's not as mainstream as heterosexual sex by a long shot. Did that play into your work on this set,

whether it's something like, how am I representing queer sex? And also, I suppose, the sexuality of the actors themselves. Does that come into this? Yeah, I'm really passionate about queer intimacy. I'm a queer intimacy coordinator and tend to increasingly work on a lot of queer content. And I do come into it with that lens on of going, how are we representing these characters? Because historically, we have represented queer people, but I particularly think queer people having sex in a very one-dimensional way and often, like, trope-laden and stereotypical and potentially harmful in ways as well. So I firstly just think

that's bad for the world and people's perception of queer people, but also for more the point of view of the show that you're working on, I just know it makes me switch off when I'm watching something. I'm like, girl, that's just so unnecessary and, like, offensive or just one-dimensional,

or it just feels really unrepresentative of my life, the life of people I know. So it's also for the sake of keeping kind of queer engagement and queer people actually feeling represented and engaging in the show, I think is also important. So I had that eye always on it. That doesn't mean it always actually, you know, makes it in. Of course, sometimes I'm going, look, this is a bit of a trope.

This would be a bit more of an interesting or subversive way of us looking at this. And people go, look, it's not right for the characters. It's not right for the seat. Like, you know, and ultimately, I'm not doing sort of sex education. I'm not doing, you know, my priority isn't that. My priority is the well-being of the actors and the storytelling. So it's a lot of things to juggle, but I absolutely do do that because it's such a pet peeve of mine. Historically, either we don't see it at all or when we do see it, it is like rough and

loveless and sort of horrible and conflicted and like, I'm having sex, but I also sort of hate you and we're going to wrestle and then have sex and all this kind of thing, which is so like, I literally so many scenes like that. And then when they do fall in love and actually it's all fine, then it's like, we don't see the sex scene then because I can't quite figure out what that looks like. You know, or like we think audiences won't quite engage with that. So what's so nice about Mary and George is that I feel like we do get a bigger breadth of sex between men and sex between women and do you every once. But my final question to you, did you find yourself wanting to know more about the history

when you were doing this work? Or were you just like, nope, I'm just focused on this. Or did you find yourself wanting to know more about James and George? I did want to know more. And because King James was one of those people being a, you know, queer boy at school, that when they were like, he had male favorites. I was like, what? So that was that kind of thing that had gone ding, ding, ding for me already.

So I already sort of had a bit of knowledge and had remembered some stuff about King James. So doing the show, I obviously researched a bit more around them. But it definitely inspired interest and I'm curious now about them. And I mean, Mary Villiers, that's just a character in herself, is just so incredible and fascinating, that all of that just feels so exciting and engaging. Robbie, you have been wonderful to talk to. I could honestly, I could talk to you forever and ever.

I've got so many questions. Let's do it. It's fascinating. But thank you so much for talking to me today. You've been an absolute treat. Oh, it's been lovely to speak to you. I appreciate it. Thank you for listening and thank you so much to Robbie and Anthony for joining me.

And if you like what you heard, please don't forget to like review and follow along, whatever it is that you get your podcasts. If you'd like us to explore a subject or maybe you just wanted to say hello, then you can email us betwixt at history hit.com. We have got episodes on everything from the history of drag to sexuality in the Aztec Empire, all marching your way. This podcast was edited by Tom Delaggy and produced by Stuart Beckworth. The senior producer was Charlotte Long.

Join me again betwixt the sheets, The History of Sex Scandal and Society, a podcast by History Hit. This podcast contains music from Epidemic Sound.