Noble Blood - The Royal Suffragette

Episode Date: August 2, 2022

Sophia Duleep Singh was the granddaughter or Ranjit Singh, the 'Lion of Punjab,' but she had been born and raised in England, a goddaughter of Queen Victoria. But rather than spending her life quietly enjoying her wealth and social status, she fought on the front lines for women's right to vote. Support Noble Blood: — Bonus episodes, stickers, and scripts on Patreon — Merch! - Read Dana's book  'Anatomy: A Love Story' and pre-order its sequel 'Immortality: A Love Story'See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Hey, I'm Dr. Maya Shunker, a cognitive scientist and hosts of the podcast, a slight change of plans, a show about who we are and who we become when life makes other plans. I wish that I hadn't resisted for so long the need to change. We have to be willing to live with a kind of uncertainty that none of us likes. You can have opinions. You can have like a strong,

dance. And then there's your body having its own program. Listen to a slight change of plans on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of IHeart Radio and grim and mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion advised. In February 2018, Britain's Postal Service released a collection of stamps commemorating the 100,000 year anniversary of women's suffrage in the United Kingdom. If the puffed sleeves and cinched wastes in the black and white photos on the stamps weren't an obvious indicator as to when the photos were taken, the sea of sashes and protest signs makes the context pretty clear. But because the size of the stamps is only a little bigger than an inch in either direction, the captions below each

photo are helpful at distinguishing specifically what and whom we're looking at. One stamp reads, The Great Pilgrimage of Suffragists, and it features a mass of women standing shoulder to shoulder preparing to march in London for their cause. Another is titled Women's Freedom League poster parade, and it shows a procession of women holding signs. The women are being led in their parade by a young girl most likely no older than 12. I should say the photos are all inspiring in a sort of non-specific, pleasant way. They're mostly nameless women, respectfully holding signs and gathering to assert their rights.

And that makes sense when thinking about how women's suffrage is most often remembered. The whole peaceful progress narrative just doesn't play as well next to pictures of police. brutality and the prison force-feetings that those women were forced to endure. Today, the women's right to vote is so widely accepted as an indisputable right that it's almost difficult to imagine the lengths to which the government once fought against women's suffrage. Looking back 100 years to the past, I think we like to imagine the fight as sanitized and simple, easy and inevitable, which makes the inclusion of the second to last photo in the stamp collection all the more interesting. In that stamp, a woman dressed in a floor-length

fur coat stands on an empty sidewalk. A newspaper titled The Suffragette is held up in her right hand with the headline propped up on a poster to her left. That headline is just one word. Revolution. The stamp's caption reads, Sophia Duleep Singh sells the suffragette. And while it's technically true, it's enough to make you wonder in a collection of photos of women gathered en masse, why is this single woman recognized by name and given a stamp entirely her own? And given a stamp entirely her own. Well, for starters, the caption buries the lead before its first word. The descriptor to this photo should read, Princess Sophia Duleep Singh sells the suffragette, and were character count not a factor, the small caption might also include the fact that the seemingly nondescript sidewalk

that the princess is standing on was actually outside the grounds of Hampton Court, where she had been granted an apartment by her godmother, Queen Victoria. Contrary to the caption, Princess Sophia's main goal outside Hampton Court that day was not just selling newsprint, at least not the newspapers in her hand. Whether or not she sold even a single copy of the suffragette that day, the princess knew that pictures of her trying would soon be gracing the gossip pages of every newspaper in London. And considering the fact that she's the star of a women's suffrage publicity campaign a hundred years after the fact, she was absolutely correct about the power of her celebrity. But what I find especially satisfying about Princess Sophia's stamp in the Royal Mail's

collection is the implication her presence there brings with it. The other stamps show women protesting the quote-unquote right way, peacefully marching, politely posing in sashes. Even the one photo of two women being released from prison shows them smiling and waving from a flower-covered carriage. And then there is Princess Sophia, who is pictured selling newsprint advocating revolution, and it's a newspaper from an organization which had very publicly attacked, like actually attacked with very real bombs, the crown and its policies. And she's doing so on the steps just outside her royal apartments given to her by her godmother, Queen Victoria.

Now, nothing about the image itself spells out anything especially controversial, which makes it an ideal image for the royal male's portrayal of women's suffrage. but if you know your history, you know that Sophia and her association with the suffragette movement was enough to have the crown seething for retribution. The Indian princess, whose nation had been stolen by the very country she had no choice but to call home, had the power to shake this supposedly superior government with just a bag of printed paper and a sandwich. board. The revolution, as written across her poster, was coming, and Princess Sophia

Duleep Singh was ready to meet those who tried to stop it head on. The reason Princess Sophia Duleep Singh, daughter of the last Maharaja of the Sikh Empire, and goddaughter to Queen Victoria, stood holding out a copy of the suffragette, is most likely the same reason her image was specifically highlighted by the Royal Nail. She was a true changemaker. Though from the outside, she may have given off the image of the demure Indian princess, quote, unquote, her very existence was enough to shake the British government to its core, a fact she made sure to never let them forget. I'm Dana Schwartz, and this is Noble Blood. On a typical morning for the Duleep Singh children, it was not uncommon to stumble out of bed

and glance out the window to find one of their many servants chasing an exotic animal over the dew-laden lawns of Elevaden Hall in Suffolk, Sussex, England. The children's house may have lied on British soil, but that had in no way stopped their father, Maharaja Duleep Singh, from collecting a menagerie of Wyev'st, animals from his homeland and bringing them to their estate. Echoes of India ran in abundance through Elvedan Hall, which, under the Maharaj's order, had been fully stripped and remodeled to emulate the stylings and culture he had been forbidden to return to.

Following the death of his father, the Lion of Punjab Ranjit Singh, and following the British East India Company's annexation of the Punjab, what we now consider to be India and Pakistan, the then-11-year-old Maharaja was given little other choice than to emigrate to London. Upon his arrival, Queen Victoria was quick to doat on him, and of course by dot, I mean anglicize away all traces of his Indian identity and convert him to Christianity. It wouldn't be until the young royal was married and surrounded with children of his own, that he would stop to reconsider everything he had been forced to leave behind. After his 16th birthday, the Maharaja received a stipend of $25,000 a year,

the equivalent of around $2.5 million today, which may seem exorbitant, but in reality was a pittance compared to the amount of wealth he would have had had he still been ruling his own kingdom. predictably as the years passed, his resentments towards the British crown grew, and his expenses began to surpass the threshold of what the India office was willing to forgive. The upkeep for his exotic animal menagerie alone wasn't cheap, and neither was the top-down renovations he had insisted upon at Elvedon Hall.

That, paired with his unfortunate gambling habit, brought the Dilip Singh family to the brink of financial ruin. By 1885, facing bankruptcy and an irreparable reputation, the Maharaja told his family to pack their bags, they were going home to India. This was far from Dulip Singh's first attempt to return to India, but with the near constant surveillance, as well as his monetary dependence on the British,

government, all previous attempts had been stopped before they started. Considering the political turmoil in the British Raj since the Maharaja's exile, it was unsurprising that the British crown was less than enthusiastic about the idea of the son of India's beloved Lion of the Punjab, returning to his homeland. As such, it was equally unsurprising that, despite the secret of nature, of their attempted escape, the Maharaja and his family didn't make it past Egypt before they were stopped by British authorities. Order to return to England at once, Dulip Singh acquiesced to sending his wife and children on a Britain-bound ship, but he refused to board it himself.

Instead, he watched from the docks as his family sailed back to the country that had taken everything from him, and he himself turned to board a ship to France alone to start a new life. Upon the families returned to England, Duleep Singh's absence had Sophia's mother plummeting into a staggering depression. The rest of the children clung on for any remaining semblance of familial stability. Little more than a year later, 11-year-old Sophia, controlled. contracted typhoid. Her mother sat vigil at her bedside during the night. But when the doctors came to check on the young Sophia the next morning, they found her mother dead at her bedside. Doctors eventually concluded that she went into renal failure. Her recent bout of alcoholism

combined with the stress relating to her ailing daughter and absentee husband proved to be too much for her body to handle. Regardless, Sophia and her siblings were now parentless in a country that was never supposed to be their homeland. The princess would go on to spend her formative years in houses of British aristocracy until 1898 when Queen Victoria granted her and her sisters a grace and favor apartment in Hampton Court in London. It was there, Princess Sophia would truly have her first taste of freedom, from outside the near constant surveillance that she had been kept under since her mother died. After years of receiving a, quote-unquote, proper English education, culminating in a Bridgerton-esque debut into society with the white gowns and ostrich feathers,

Sophia took to her freedom with newfound vigor. Thanks to the attention garnered by her debut, the princess was a common staple at London's most exclusive social gatherings, each host clamoring to boast their connection to the young Indian royal, the goddaughter of Queen Victoria. She was often seen wearing the newest fashions in the finest fabrics, the walking envy of every British socialite. And when she wasn't the talk of London's nightlife, Sophia still managed to grab headlines with her ever-expanded,

list of unorthodox hobbies. Despite the rumors associated with its ill effect on a women's reproductive health, Sophia became an avid cyclist, procuring the latest equipment and often traversing the short distance between Hampton Court and Richmond Park, while, to the horror of many, unshaparoned. She also carried on her father's love of animals, with a her own pack of show dogs that she took pride in breeding for competitions. At any time, the air in her home was a chaotic blend of dog fur and imported foreign tobacco, which didn't take too long too great on the other two Deleip Singh daughters. Sophia's sisters, Bamba and Caroline, were famously critical of their younger sister's

fondness for her small brood of animal companions. But despite Hampton Court, technically being their shared residence, the sisters never made a habit of staying around long enough to call it home. Caroline followed their former governess abroad to Germany, while Bamba traveled to the United States to go to medical school in Chicago. That was, until Northwestern University decided women weren't fit to study medicine, citing, quote, women cannot grasp, chemical laboratory work, or the intricacies of surgery. But considering this was the same generation of scientists that believed a bicycle seat would be detrimental to a woman's reproductive health, I think it's safe to assume the scientific basis for their prejudice

may have had less to do with evidence and more with a few fragile male egos. Regardless, when Bamba Duleep Singh reluctantly returned to Hampton Court, it was with heaviness in her step. The event that had led her back to Britain obviously weighed painfully on her mind, but Sophia was intent on bringing her sister out of her slump. Sophia may not have been old enough to fully understand the extent of her mother's depression after their father had abandoned them, But her sister Bomba's discontent was not something she could stand to watch Fester. The days at Hampton Court were leaching the life out of her sister, and so Sophia said about achieving what their father had never been able to do. She was going to bring them back to India.

In the end, she found that it would be easier to ask forgiveness than permission. The sisters told no one of their plans, and possibly even used false names to gain passage to the homeland they had never known. When they finally arrived and Princess Sophia descended the ship's steps and finally set her feet on Indian soil for the first time in her life, she had expected something to happen. She had at least expected to be acknowledged, considering she and her sister had just illegally gained passage to,

the one country on earth she and her family had been expressly forbidden to travel to since before she was born, she expected some sort of reprimand once the British authorities pieced together their whereabouts. But when she stepped off the ship, the only thing to meet her, along with the blistering Indian heat, was the cool air of English indifference. The authorities had certainly taken note of the princess's arrivals, but had opted to ignore them and their disobedience altogether. This meant rather than providing a guide to the English-speaking sisters, as would have been customary for anyone else of their name and rank, the Deleep Singh princesses were now forced to embark on their travels alone. And while the crown may have felt vindicated

in their passive aggression, it unfortunately had the inverse effect of exposing Sophia and her sisters to parts of India that didn't necessarily look kindly upon British rule. For the first time in her life, Sophia was welcomed into rooms, not as the, quote, exotic Indian princess, but as the granddaughter of their beloved Rachit Singh. The stairs in her direction were not due to the color of her skin, but the blood in her veins. Despite the language barrier, Sophia took every moment she could to learn more about her country and its history. It was during this first trip to India that the princess learned of the poverty and plague her people had been subjected to under British rule. The version of history that she had been given in the halls of a Buckinghamshire estate were wildly

different from what she was learning as she rode on horseback through the Punjabi countryside, she was now determined to find out the truth for herself. When Sophia eventually made her way back to England, she found the extravagant gowns cluttering her closet, begging to be worn to the countless social events, no longer brought her the same joy they once had. Even though she had been born and raised in England, she had always known it was not her home, not really.

But it was one thing to understand that concept, and another thing entirely, to be so blatantly confronted with the inequity and destruction that had trailed in the wake of the British rule in her homeland. And even more infuriating, in theory she was in a position of power, and yet she found herself powerless to affect any meaningful change for the people

that she had met overseas. Pomp and pageantry of her life suddenly felt so insignificant. She needed to do something. It was with that fire that in 1908, Princess Sophia found herself walking into the home of one Una Dugdale, a woman holding a meeting for a group called the Women's Social and Political Union. Sophia watched as the woman spoke, her impulsed. Her impulsing passioned tone boldly declaring the necessity for progress in their country, for equal rights and equal representation, for the women's right to vote. Una described a movement of like minds, a group tired of waiting for permission to take up space, and when Sophia went home that night, for once she didn't spare thought for the countless

gown that no longer fit the person she had become. For the first time since her return from India, Princess Sophia Duleep Singh felt that she had found a home. Before we continue, I just want to make a quick note that from here on out I'll be using the term suffragette rather than suffragist, simply because that was how Sophia referred to herself. And I think in telling her story, it's important to use the language that she identified with. Now, back to that story. From that day forward, Sophia became a devout supporter

of the Women's Social and Political Union, or WSPU, throwing all of her efforts into fundraising for the cause. It didn't take long for the organization to take an interest in the royal suffragette, and soon Emmeline Pankhurst was asking to use Sophia's image strategically to promote their message. The princess didn't have to think twice.

Amidst the reports of hunger strikes and subsequent force-feedings coming out of the prisons, Sophia was more than ready to be put on the front lines. Though as excited as she was to show her support for the WSPU, even she could not have predicted the horror of what was to come. On November 18, 1910, the streets outside Kaxton Hall were cold and wet in the late autumn morning. As more and more women gathered in the narrow street, the energy between them crackled through the dreary London fog. Only a week before, Pinkhurst had stood at the head of Albert Hall and addressed her legion of supporters with grave news. The conciliation bill, which the WSPU had been working on tirelessly for months,

was on the brink of failure after a letter leaked from the Prime Minister outlining his intentions to quash the bill before it could pass through Parliament. Quote, if the bill in spite of our efforts is killed by the government, then, first of all, I have to say there is an end of the truth. Pinkhurst's anger echoed through the hall she was speaking at, and when she declared her intention to beat down the doors to the House of Commons, the roar of the crowd's support was deafening. A week later, Sophia walked alongside Pinkhurst at the head of the 300-person strong procession to the House of Commons.

Sophia was next to eight other women purposefully chosen to see. signify the face of the women's suffrage movement. The morning's tension only grew as the protesters poured steadily into Parliament Square. Sophia continued to put one foot in front of the other, but it was difficult to ignore the stairs of the police and civilian men who had been awaiting their arrival. Pankhurst's group managed to summit the steps to St. Stephen's Gate, the last obstacle between them and Parliament, but as Sophia turned to look back on her sisters and arms beside her, the cheers, she thought she heard, suddenly sent chills of horror down her spine. By the time Big Ben struck 12 noon, all hell had broken loose. The event of this day

would go on to live in infamy under the name Black Friday, a well-deserved moniker. A well-deserved moniker for possibly one of the darkest days for the women's suffrage movement in Great Britain. For the following six hours, police would attack the suffragettes, throwing them to the ground with excessive force and sexually assaulting those who had the nerve to stand back up. There were numerous reports of policemen and plain-clothes officers groping women's breasts, a practice which, at the time, was widely believed, breast cancer. Others would recall being tossed between officers, having their clothes ripped

and dislodged as they fought and clawed back in self-defense. Meanwhile, at St. Stephen's Gate, Sophia and her cohort were trapped by a line of policemen blocking their way back into the square. Pankhurst yelled herself hoarse in an attempt to get the police to rein in their men, while another woman in their party who rode alongside them on horseback took matters into her own hands. She broke the line by riding her horse through the officers, taking down as many as she could with her riding crop. Sophia had just enough time to watch her friend be pulled from her horse

before she managed to break through the line of police herself and run headfirst into the fray. The brutality from a front of her own. had been horrifying, but once within the chaos, the reality was much more gruesome. She watched a woman near her be thrown to the ground by an officer multiple times, each blow making it more difficult for the woman to stay on her feet. When Sophia could no longer stand to watch, she pushed her way through the crowd and placed herself between the two, demanding that the police officer stop his abuse immediately.

Now it should be noted that at barely taller than five feet, the princess was hardly an imposing figure. But when the officer finally stopped to take in who had stopped him, he didn't think twice before running in the opposite direction. Princess Sophia's face was a staple in all the London papers, and even if she was not the most physically intimidating figure, her social status alone was enough to make the power that the police officer flaunted so gratuitously just moments earlier, wither away into dust, after she had gotten his badge number. He was Constable V-700. Unfortunately, despite Sophia's quick thinking, Constable V-700 would not be charged with any sort of crime for the atrocities committed on black. Black Friday, nor would any of the officers responsible for the wanton bloodshed.

The Home Secretary at the time, a relatively young Winston Churchill, issued a statement saying that they would not be charging the officers with any offenses which may have taken place since all charges against those suffragettes arrested that day had also been dropped, as if that evened the score. For weeks following the incident, Sophia wrote to the office of the Home Secretary, citing specific events she witnessed, and demanding justice be handed down. Eventually, Churchill got so tired of receiving mail from the princess that he had his office flagged her name, so no further postage from her would make its way to her desk, as if she could be ignored. After the events of Black Friday, the princess's involvement in the WSPU only continued

to grow. The following February on the day the King was set to make a speech to Parliament, Sophia participated in a coordinated protest where she jumped in front of the Prime Minister's car holding a banner which read, give women the vote. After being hauled away by police, the authorities contemplated taking further action against the princess, but they ultimately decided against it. The King's speech was meant to be the story in the paper. The people, the following day, not the arrest of Queen Victoria's goddaughter. And so, much to the chagrin of the Prime Minister, the princess was allowed to walk free.

By this point, the British government was more than ready to reprimand the royal pain in their sides, but prison time for the princess remained out of the question. The reports of force-feedings and abuse within the prison system would have only acted to make the princess a murder, something the Crown could not afford in their ongoing fight against the suffrage movement. Instead, they chose to punish her through the most public legal channel they possessed. After years of participating in public protests and proudly defying the government in the name

of women's suffrage, in June 1911, Princess Sophia finally received a court summons for her failure to pay the licensing fees for her dogs. Scandalous, I know. In reality, her lack of proper canine documentation was a mere bullet point in the lengthy list of taxes the princess was refusing to pay. Sophia was an ardent supporter of the Women's Tax Resistance League, which had taken to adopting the American's Revolutionary War slogan, no taxation without representation.

Just a few weeks previously, another suffragette had been arrested for her tax insubordination, and Sophia was prepared to be led away in handcuffs as well. The court, however, was set on taking a different approach. Two weeks after her court summons, bailiffs arrived at Hampton Court with a warrant. They warned Sophia, should she once again refute, to pay her fines, they would be forced to enter her home and find goods which they could auction off

to compensate for her debts. The princess kindly informed the officers that she would be happy to pay once women had the right to vote. Predictably, this didn't sit well with the bailiffs, who proceeded to raid her home and take a seven-stone diamond ring from her collection of jewels, the value of which far surpassed the sum of her fines. But when the ring was set to be auctioned off a little over a month later, this time Sophia was not alone. By the time the auction began, the room was filled, wall to wall, with suffragettes, waiting for the moment the ring would be brought to the stage. When the seven diamonds finally glinted from the front of the hall, the auctioneer opened the bidding, to absolutely no response.

A smug silence settled over the room as the auctioneer was repeatedly forced to place the starting bid lower and lower. Only when he reduced the starting price to 10 pounds did a woman finally raise her hand. I like to imagine the auctioneer never swung a gavel so fast in his life. As soon as the ring was,

paid for, the woman in question placed the ring in Sophia's palm to the uproarious cheers of the suffragettes around them. The government's efforts to make an example of their royal suffragette only served to make her burn brighter. Over the next few years, Sophia's dedication to the cause remained unwavering, even as those around her began to falter. By 1913, the actions of the W-S-P-U had gone from civil disobedience to arson bombings and, rather ironic, considering their 2018 commemoration, the destruction of mail. Now, I want to be on the record and say, I do not support arson, bombings, or the destruction of mail, no matter how ironic the destruction of male is. But for better or for worse, Sophia was steadfast in her support of

of the W.S.P.U's efforts. The princess may have loathed public speaking, but she offered to stand on stage next to Pankers to amplify her support for the cause whenever she would have her. This was also around the time she would begin to stand outside her residence at Hampton Court with a satchel full of copies of the suffragette newspaper. With the WSP's methods resorting to more and more violent action by the day, Sophia continued to use her image to bolster support, even when their formerly ardent supporters began to desert them. But just as tensions between the British government and the WSPU threatened to reach a boiling point,

in June 1914, a bullet was fired in Sarajevo. and not even the WSP could dodge the collateral damage. In the wake of World War I, the WSPU immediately stalled their practices so they could help contribute to the war effort. The hard stop was difficult for some of the suffragettes to take, but Sophia easily pivoted to her new line of work. By 1915, Sophia was volunteering as a nurse for the British, Red Cross in Brighton. After having spent so many months abroad, wounded Punjabi men coming off the front

lines found themselves comforted by the sight of familiar brown skin, but no doubt they quickly became flustered at the realization that their wounds were being tended by the granddaughter of their beloved Rajit Singh. When the princess could, she presented some of the injured men with small carvings of ivory to take home. Keepsakes meant to brighten the dreary realities that the war held over their heads. Putting her image to use in 1917, Princess Sophia organized an India Day fundraiser,

which funded over 50,000 huts for Sepoi stationed around the world. And she wasn't alone in her efforts. Whether through fundraising, nursing, or, filling the posts left vacant by soldiers off to fight on the front lines, women carried England economy on their, previously assumed to be, meek and fragile backs. By the end of the war, women's role in the community had so completely shifted that in 1918 Parliament passed the Representation of the People Act, which widened the previous restrictions on citizen suffrage,

to include certain women among their ranks. And suddenly, as white flags were waved over trenches and soldiers were finally called back home, Sophia was confronted with the bittersweet realization that in order for the country to move forward toward the future she had helped to fight for, the home she had once found among the suffragettes no longer needed to exist.

The years following the war passed in a painfully slow pace for the princess. The void left in the wake of her social activism had already threatened to sink her into a staggering depression, but the grudges held steadfastly by the British government had her struggling to keep afloat. Across the ocean, the fight for Indian independence was growing by the day, which inversely meant that the adoration for the grandchildren of the lion of Punjab was beginning to fall by the wayside. The British government, most likely still bitter because of the public embarrassment the princess caused the crown with her actions for the WSPU,

decided it was within the best interests of the British people to all but cut off the Duleep Singh children. For Sophia's siblings, who were either married, or financially independent by this point, this was a non-issue. But for Sophia, the sudden lack of funds meant that while the government didn't dare touch the home granted to her by Queen Victoria, she could barely afford to keep it heated during the winter.

After several attempts unsuccessfully to get the India office to reconsider their decision, Sophia's brother stepped in to assist in her finances. He also hired someone. who would be able to help her manage the apartments at Hampton Court, a gesture that would indirectly shape the rest of Princess Sophia's life. Janet Ivy Bowden, or Boise, as she was known, like her employer, was a force to be reckoned with. At the time she was hired, Bozy was only 22 years old, but if she had anything, it was

the audacity. On previous occasions, when the princess's deprecogned, seemed to get the better of her, the majority of her staff had gone out of their way to avoid her. But with a full house to run on a shoestring budget, Bozy did not have time to coddle the princess as she sought, and instead she told Sophia to simply, quote, stop pouting. After a lifetime of being catered to by servants who had never dared to speak back to her, it was Bozzy's blunt but arguably fair demeanor that not only secure, cured her employment with the princess, but served to make her a lifelong friend. Bozy and Sophia grew so close that she would eventually make Sophia the godmother to her daughter, a role Sophia

took on with the same enthusiasm and devotion. She did all other roles before. From a young age, Sophia made sure to instill in her new goddaughter the importance of using her voice in the world. Bozzie's daughter would later recall her godmother making her promise, quote, You are never, ever not to vote. You must promise me. When you are allowed to vote, you are never, ever to fail to do so. You don't realize how far we've come. When we look back on social change throughout history,

we have a tendency to boil down the entirety of a movement to the outcome it achieved. Namely, this makes sense. every story needs a beginning, middle, and end. But the more time passes, the more a beginning, middle, and end, somehow shifts into a before and after binary way of interpreting history. Time giving the illusion that the after would have, given enough time, inevitably come to pass. But that's just the thing, isn't it?

the outcome of these movements, these freedoms and these rights that we have the privilege to benefit from were not given to us. They were hard fought for, tooth and nail, inch by grading inch. In August 1948, Princess Sophia Duleep Singh passed away peacefully in her sleep at the age of 72. She left behind no spouses or heirs, but in her place stands a legacy of bravery and perseverance that continues to live on in the ballots of women around the world. That's the life of royal suffragette Princess Sophia Duleep Singh. But stick around after a brief sponsor break to hear more about how she spent some of the later years of her life. Everyone, I'm Ego Vodom.

My next guest, you know, from Step Brothers Anchorman, Saturday Night Live, and the Big Money Players Network. It's Will Ferrell. Woo, woo, woo, woo. My dad gave me the best advice ever. I went and had lunch with them one day, and I was like, and Dad, I think I want to really give this a shot. I don't know what that means, but I just know the groundlings.

I'm working my way up through, and I know it's a place that come look for up and coming talent. He said, if it was based solely on talent, I wouldn't worry about you, which is really sweet. Yeah. He goes, but there's so much luck involved. And he's like, just give it a shot. He goes, but if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit.

If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat. Just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck. Yeah. Listen to Thanks Dad on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

What's up, everyone? I'm Ago Wodom. My next guest, you know from Step Brothers Anchorman, Saturday Night Live and the Big Money Players Network. It's Will Ferrell. Woo. Woo. My dad gave me the best advice ever. I went and had lunch with them one day.

And I was like, and dad, I think I want to really give this a shot. I don't know what that means, but I just know the groundlings. I'm working my way up through, and I know it's a place that come look for up and coming talent. He said, if it was based solely on talent, I wouldn't worry about you, which is really sweet. Yeah. He goes, but there's so much luck involved. And he's like, just give it a shot. He goes, but if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit.

If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar. of, you know, the cat just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be... Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck. Listen to Thanks, Dad, on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In 2002, the grieving family of a man named Michael Sarbert was sorting through his belongings when they made a peculiar discovery.

Deep within a hidden box of his possessions that were never before seen, were photos of Sarbert as a child, which would not have been all that odd, except for the inexplicable presence of an elderly Indian woman in the frame beside him. Beneath the photos, Michael had left his family a letter, explaining his final wish was to have his ashes spread around the grounds of the house in the photos. The house in question happened to be a residence in Buckinghamshire, where Sarbert and his two siblings stayed during World War II, with none other than Princess Sophia herself. During the Blitz, Sophia had evacuated her residence in Hampton Court and gone to stay with her sister, Catherine, in the British countryside.

While there, she volunteered to take in a family of three children and their mother. One of the children was Michael. You might already be familiar with the idea that children were evacuated from London during the Blitz. It's a scene that happens at the beginning of the famous lion, the witch, and the wardrobe. But this was reality. The princess quickly grew to dote on the children, and she frequently took them walking around the ground with her and her famous dogs. Michael's sister recalled, quote,

She once told me I had to tell her everything, leaving no detail out, because she had never gone to school like us and wanted to know what she had missed. After the war, Michael moved back to London with his family and eventually grew up and immigrated to New Zealand, where he would go on to have a family of his own. He never spoke of his time in Princess Sophia's home in the countryside, and so it was left to Michael's sister to explain her brother's final request, and this previously unknown chapter of his life to his family. In 2004, Sarbert's sister was able to return to England

to fulfill her brother's final wish to go back to the place he had, quote, been happiest in his life. Noble Blood is a production of IHeart Radio and Grimmin-Mild from Aaron Manky. Noble Blood is hosted by me, Dana Schwartz. Additional writing and researching done by Hannah John. Johnston, Hannah Zwick, Mira Hayward, Courtney Sender, and Lori Goodman. The show is produced by Rima Il Kiali, with supervising producer Josh Thane, and executive producers Aaron Manky, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from IHeartRadio, visit the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

Hey, I'm Dr. Maya Shunker, a cognitive scientist and hosts of the podcast, a slight change of plans, a show about who we are and who we become when life makes other plans. I wish that I hadn't resisted for so long the need to change. We have to be willing to live with a kind of uncertainty that none of us likes. You can have opinions. You can have like a strong stance. And then there's your body. Having its own program. Listen to a slight change of plans on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.