00:01:50.560it's the first maybe time we've talked about on this podcast a scenario rather than a person but
00:01:56.300it's woods and peary versus coming gordon is the name of the ultimate court trial that happens but
00:02:02.540what happens is it's two women who are running a school together and one of their students accuses
00:02:06.940them of being lesbians in regency era edinburgh and all of the fallout of that and all that
00:02:14.080happens and it actually this story inspired a movie that you might have heard of called the
00:02:18.140Children's Hour, starring Shirley MacLaine and Audrey Hepburn. But we're here to talk about,
00:02:22.760we've had some other sapphic stories so far on this Regency era season. We've talked about the
00:02:26.600ladies of Hlen Goughlin. We talked about Anne Lister. And all of those stories kind of have
00:02:31.660happy endings for the sapphic couples. And this one is a much more complex situation. So I'll
00:02:37.380just say that there is homophobia in this episode. There's also some anti-Indian racism
00:02:42.440in this episode. There's some alleged sexual assault in this episode. So, you know, listeners
00:02:48.420beware or whatever, but please, I hope you will enjoy this episode and this really fascinating
00:02:53.160story and my chat with Indigo. So I'm joined today by Indigo Dunphy-Smith. Welcome, Indigo.
00:03:03.160Hi, thanks for having me. I'm really intrigued to talk to you about this story and for lots of
00:03:08.940reasons, but one of them is because it takes place in Regency era Edinburgh. And we haven't
00:03:13.560talked about what was happening in Scotland at this point in time. Can you give us sort of a
00:03:18.180lay of the land? What's it like in Edinburgh in 1811? Edinburgh is kind of divided between
00:03:24.000two towns. You have the old town, which is kind of like a medieval city that's got lots of crooked
00:03:32.900closes or wines as we call them and everyone's kind of piled on top of each other you're in
00:03:40.360these like medieval high-rise stone buildings um and you've got the big kind of Edinburgh Castle
00:03:47.100at the top of this I think it's it's like an ancient volcanic plug and then you've got the
00:03:53.680Royal Mile that runs all the way down to the bottom which has got Holyrood Palace and this
00:03:57.880big kind of parkland and then you've got so that's the old town and then you've got the new town
00:04:02.560which is in development at the time. Um, and it's all about kind of enlightenment theory of
00:04:10.300order and reasons. You've kind of got sprawling streets and, um, kind of Georgian architecture.
00:04:17.520So neoclassical design with lots of big windows and, um, columns and things like that. And it's
00:04:24.320meant to be kind of at this time, it's kind of like the expensive new development. So if you
00:04:30.100had a lot of money you could leave the old town with all its kind of uh everyone kind of living
00:04:35.500in close quarters behind and you could move over to the new town have a lovely six-story townhouse
00:04:41.200and not have to smell everyone kind of putting their waist out the window I guess it's interesting
00:04:47.860well just I've been to Edinburgh and it is it's like a compact city like it's such an old city
00:04:53.680so it's just I've like you've got the old town the new town and they're just squished up against
00:04:57.140each other. And they're only divided by, I think in 1811, they would have been in the process of
00:05:06.000draining what was a lock that ran through the center of the city, dividing the two parts of
00:05:11.700the town. And this lock had just become a kind of where everyone threw their rubbish and it smelled
00:05:19.300and you just kind of had to walk around it to get between the old town and the new town. And they
00:05:23.080did build some bridges and then slowly they started to drain it and it's now been replaced
00:05:27.940with the main train station that runs through edinburgh and beautiful princes street gardens
00:05:33.120so it's a much nicer place now but i'm just picturing that just you've described it very
00:05:37.700evocatively so there's there's a lot of smells going on in 1811 um but so in the midst of this
00:05:47.580like i just want to set our scene so this is like because we're focusing really on just kind of this
00:05:52.100one drama that happens there in that time. So, uh, two women open a girl's school and we'll talk
00:05:58.400about who they are in a minute, but like where in this context, where, where did they set up the1.00
00:06:03.760school? So the teachers set up the school in the new town. Uh, they set it up in a particular part
00:06:12.400of the new town that, um, is still in development around the West end and a place called Charlotte
00:06:18.240Square. And they set it up kind of like on the edge of the new town. So the wealthy families
00:06:24.220have moved into the area, but they're kind of newly established there. So it's a good time
00:06:28.140to establish a school for all of the young ladies who might need a kind of proper education or like0.72
00:06:35.160a finishing school. And so it's interesting, just when I was reading up on this before talking to
00:06:39.760you, that the two women are opening a school and it reminds me a bit about Mary Wollstonecraft and
00:06:45.660her friend opened a school so it's not um unheard of to as this to be sort of like a way the two
00:06:53.140women who are friends or relatives could start a business in this era where there's not a lot of
00:06:57.880options for like what job are you going to have so explain who the two women are actually explain1.00
00:07:03.560the two women are but like how they met each other these two women who opened the school1.00
00:07:06.940so the two women are uh marion woods uh who is originally from london um but she comes up to
00:07:14.800Edinburgh when she's a child, I think because her parents die and she comes to live with her uncle
00:07:19.540and aunt who retired stage performers in Edinburgh. And so that is Marianne Woods.
00:07:28.940And the other school teacher is Jane Perry. And Jane Perry grows up in Edinburgh's old town.
00:07:34.160And these are two women who are middle class and the best way for them to make it in life or to0.99
00:07:41.240have a comfortable life is to become governesses. And so they meet in an, actually meet in an art0.98
00:07:47.660class and become kind of really good friends really, really fast. And this is, I mean,
00:07:53.140we're going to get into this. What was their relationship exactly, but they are historically
00:07:57.660very good friends. And this is an era as, as we say, but this is an era like, and we saw this
00:08:03.100also in Mary Wollstonecraft story, for instance, where there's this like romantic, I would say
00:08:07.780passionate female friendship. There's a, this is not unheard of for two women to become extremely
00:08:13.420close and to write very flowery letters to each other. This doesn't necessarily mean that these
00:08:19.420women are lovers. It could mean that, but, um, Marianne and Jane Peary are of this kind of
00:08:25.040friendship, right? Yeah. They, they become extremely close. I think at one point, um,
00:08:31.040whoever Jane Peary is working for, like the family are going to move to Glasgow and they invite her
00:08:37.540to come with them as, as the governess. Um, and she actually refuses. And the reason that she0.60
00:08:42.880gives is because she doesn't want to be parted from Marion Woods. Um, and obviously it's a0.83
00:08:48.000context in which she feels quite comfortable to be honest about that. And it doesn't really raise
00:08:53.200any eyebrows. Uh, I feel like a lot of kind of what comes next is all kind of happening behind
00:09:01.120the scenes, but I guess on the surface level, no, no one's kind of thinking anything different
00:09:06.920about their relationship. Yeah. Yeah. Cause I think it does fit into this. I keep thinking
00:09:11.540about Mary Wollstonecraft, but we've seen, I've seen this in other, other episodes of this podcast,
00:09:15.660other Regency era, female friendships. Like there's no one finds it weird. The two women
00:09:20.800are very devoted to each other at this point. I think it was totally normal. Like I think it's
00:09:25.400like, um, quite fashionable, like romantic friendships. And it was encouraged that women0.81
00:09:30.580have close relationships and it wasn't uncommon for them to share beds with one another.0.63
00:09:36.920Yeah. None of that is kind of out of place, I guess. Yeah. So they're just following conventions.
00:09:42.140Exactly. So I just want to sort of track because we have done on this podcast,
00:09:46.280we've had episodes about like the ladies of Hlen Goughlin. We've talked about Anne Lister.
00:09:50.280So like we've talked about other very close female friendships, quote unquote.
00:09:55.680So describe this school. I think this is important to describe kind of how small it is,
00:10:00.580uh, how like the, the students and the teachers are sharing beds, like is how small the school
00:10:06.780is. Yeah. So I think when they set up the school, there's maybe like seven or eight students. Um,
00:10:12.620the majority of them are boarders and yeah, it's, it's a tiny school. So we know that Marianne and
00:10:19.440Jane, well, they're only a couple of bedrooms in the house and they divide the students between0.94
00:10:25.100them. And then each teacher sleeps in a room with the students kind of under their care. And that0.99
00:10:31.940was pretty normal at the time as well. And it was, I've read, also normal for teachers who think
00:10:40.180that some students need additional discipline would sleep in the same bed as that student as
00:10:46.900well. And there didn't, there was nothing kind of, no one raised an eyebrow about that either.
00:10:51.400Exactly. No, I really wanted to like really set the scene for everybody just so that everything that's happening is what any other school would be like.
00:11:00.800Basically, there's nothing different about what they're doing versus any two other women who opened a school somewhere else with a couple of students.0.99
00:11:08.160And then into this situation, you said there's like six or seven students.0.97
00:11:13.080And one of those students is explain this one student who becomes very important.
00:11:17.640So one of those students is a girl called Jane Cumming. So she's a 16-year-old girl and she's enrolled in the school with her two cousins. So Jane attends as a boarder and her two cousins attend as day students.
00:11:34.500and their grandmother, a woman called Lady Helen Cumming Gordon, lives a, let's say,
00:11:41.860two minute walk away from the school in Charlotte Square. So if you kind of stand at the coffee
00:11:48.220shop where the school used to be and you look across the road, you can see the back of Lady
00:11:53.120Cumming Gordon's house. So really, really close. I'm going to say how convenient for her. She's
00:11:59.000just like, Oh, amazing. Like this really, this good seeming like girls school is opening across
00:12:04.900the street from me. And I have these three girls like, yeah, I have these three girls and yeah,
00:12:10.120exactly. Um, and there's all the way, there's all these different ways that all the women in the1.00
00:12:14.560story are connected to one another. So Jane Perry's sister is the governess for the, um,
00:12:23.660for Jane Cumming's two cousins as well. So it's Perry's sister who recommends the school
00:12:31.440to Lady Helen Cummings Gordon. Well, and this is like, I'll just pull that thread a little bit.
00:12:36.920So Jane Cumming and her cousins are being, are treated differently. So, and I think this is
00:12:41.980where we need to talk about Jane Cumming's parentage and race. So Jane Cumming's cousins0.90
00:12:49.220are legitimate white Scottish girls and Jane Cumming was born in India and she is the illegitimate
00:12:58.860daughter of Lady Cumming Gordon's son George who goes to India as part of the East India Trading
00:13:07.020Company and instead of doing what his mother wanted him to do which is kind of make a career
00:13:15.680for himself over there in he decides that it would be more fulfilling I don't know more fun
00:13:23.380to kind of play house with this woman Indian woman that he meets while he's in Patna in India
00:13:31.100and he kind of settles down into this family man kind of role and together they have two children
00:13:37.580so we don't know Jane Cummings mother's name she's just referred to in George's letters as
00:13:44.600my lady in the north so north of india north of india so jane coming i just want i always
00:13:49.600enjoy when someone has an interesting name so there's jane and she's a brother whose name is
00:13:53.120yorick yeah which i've never come across anyone called yorick except in shakespeare place
00:13:58.260yeah um and so they grow up in india until the age of seven or eight and then everything changes
00:14:10.080because I think George kind of writes to his mom in a letter about how happy he is with this kind
00:14:17.780of like family life and that he sees himself as I don't know I haven't read the letters but I think
00:14:22.780he implies that like this is a this is a marriage in everything but name and George is due to
00:14:30.400inherit he's first in line and Lady Helen Cumming Gordon is not happy about this arrangement and so
00:14:38.380she actually threatens George to rearrange the inheritance line so that George would inherit
00:14:45.560after his brothers and their heirs. So quite far down the line. And George, being the bastard that
00:14:53.700all 18th century men are, just says, fuck this, I'm going home. And he puts Jane and Yorick into1.00
00:15:01.920institutions in Calcutta and tries to get himself on the next boat home. But he actually dies,
00:15:08.380before he gets back to Scotland. And so Jane and her brother wind up in Edinburgh as well.
00:15:14.780Was that at around the same time? Yeah. So they end up, so they, they are left in these kind of
00:15:20.540institutions in Calcutta that are set up for the many abandoned children from company men,
00:15:27.800and their kind of affairs. But I think it's a couple of years later, Lady Helen, she has a
00:15:34.920And it is this dream that changes her mind about Jane and Yorick, and she sends for them, pays for their passages from Calcutta, where they are now in India, to Scotland.
00:15:49.720And she initially wants them to set up lives for themselves at her country estate in Altair in Elgin, which is now Gordonstoun, famously attended by King Charles.
00:16:04.000But ultimately, this school opens across the street and she's like, what about sending the
00:16:09.360girls there? Yeah. So Yorick dies and Jane is sent. I think Lady Helen had plans for her to0.79
00:16:18.400become a milliner and kind of set up a quiet life in the countryside. But she then changes her mind0.99
00:16:25.640and decides that Jane should come to Edinburgh and attend this boarding school. I don't know if
00:16:31.500it's to be closer to, to Lady Helen, or because she wants her to have a more formal education,0.69
00:16:37.280but she winds up at this school. And this is just sort of, you know, it's olden times. I don't know
00:16:44.080all the ins and outs, but it seems bizarre to me that she would send her to a boarding school
00:16:48.960that's across the street from her house. It's like, you'd think she'd be a day student, but
00:16:54.200no. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't know if that had to do with wanting to kind of distance herself from
00:16:59.920Jane a little bit. Who knows what the thinking was there between the day, her cousins being day
00:17:05.020students and Jane attending as a boarder. Yeah. But this is, um, like Jane's race is a crucial
00:17:11.220part of everything that transpires really. Like she's mixed race, Indian, illegitimate. Um, and1.00
00:17:17.820she, at first I think that the two women, Marianne and Jane Peary, they were wondering, should we
00:17:22.940even admit this person? Like this, will this make her school look bad if we have an illegitimate
00:17:26.600person attending here yeah absolutely so when i know uh that when jane left india she well she
00:17:35.660later says in the court case that she could read english but she wasn't very good at speaking it
00:17:40.360and she preferred to speak in her own language with her with her ayah which is like a nurse
00:17:45.680uh kunji uh she obviously and i she obviously learns to speak english along the way um but i
00:17:52.660do think that these kind of early experiences of the colonial system really deeply shaped uh her
00:17:59.040life and the person that that she became and yeah you're absolutely right when she's enrolled in the
00:18:05.100boarding school um marion woods and jane perry quote hesitated to receive her uh because because
00:18:14.120of her mixed race um well i've got here quote girl of color and because she was illegitimate
00:18:20.200And this is kind of, it all comes back to anxieties around colonial stereotypes that framed Indian women as overly sexual.
00:18:31.280And these all weighed really heavily on, I guess, the British colonial imagination.
00:18:36.380And I think the teachers must have seen Jane as potential liability, but they were under a lot of pressure.
00:18:43.040So the school hadn't immediately been successful.
00:18:46.800I think they had been looking for wealthy parents to send their daughters to the school.
00:18:53.180And I really think that they probably ultimately decided that Lady Helen's wealth and her social
00:18:59.120standing and the fact that she lived within walking distance, like a two-minute walk from
00:19:05.580their school would bring a lot of positive endorsement and encourage other wealthy parents1.00
00:19:12.720in the area to send their daughters there.
00:19:15.020So they eventually agreed to admit Jane. I think Woods, they have very different personalities. I think Woods overcame these kind of initial reservations that she had, but Harry remains uneasy. And as everything reveals itself in the court case, she becomes increasingly hostile towards Jane Cumming as well.
00:19:36.260Yeah, definitely. Because of largely stemming from just racism, really, like just she.
00:19:45.820It is Jane Perry's kind of racist outlooks or frames of thinking combined with her inability to be flexible with her own desires and her own kind of what she wants for her life coming together and all kind of combusting for her.
00:20:11.480And also I'm just picturing to like this, you know, I think like a boarding school, I'm picturing something. It's, it's a little house. There's like six or seven students. They're like literally sharing rooms. So it's like, if, if you're going to a school and you and your teacher don't get along, it's like, okay, here, like what in most places, like you go home at the end of the day, it's a whole school full of us. But here it's just like, you're all stuck together. So these emotions would get really, you couldn't get away from it from these, especially as a boarder.
00:20:40.120I mean, yeah, the pressures of running a school, teaching adolescent girls, but I think there's another thing in the mix as well is Woods' mother is also helping to run the school.
00:20:55.440Um, and I think that, well, I guess if we, if we call it the in-law, um, to think about it in that
00:21:02.600frame is she, her, her presence, um, Mrs. Woods presence is a growing source of conflict, um,0.96
00:21:09.380between the two women. And we hear, uh, well as well in the court case, um, that the teachers
00:21:15.860are constantly screaming at each other about Mrs. Woods and the role that she, she plays, uh, in the
00:21:23.480school um because perry doesn't like the the active role that she is playing i think that the
00:21:30.200the teachers but especially perry because it's kind of it's her business project they're under
00:21:35.160significant strain um i think perry's invested quite quite a lot financially and i think we
00:21:41.660could argue as well like emotionally um in the school because she wants to set up a place for0.75
00:21:46.840her and Woods, um, to live happily ever after they're working women. So this is a way to make1.00
00:21:53.600that happen. And it's not immediately a success. Um, so her frustrations kind of manifest in her
00:22:01.120behavior. She developed this reputation, harsh discipline. Um, she has a volatile temper and0.99
00:22:08.060yeah, Jane's testimony kind of makes it very clear that, um, this was all often directed solely
00:22:16.640at jane so you mentioned this a few times i'm gonna so the court case just to sort of get to
00:22:24.820that point so it's kind of like here's this school like you you've described it i think everyone can
00:22:28.500imagine this kind of like stressful little building that they're all living in all these
00:22:33.700people with all these all these different emotions happening and then one day uh jane coming tells
00:22:40.120her grandmother oh the two teachers at the school are they're in a sexual relationship with each
00:22:46.420other and they are demonstrating that in front of us the students yes so yeah one afternoon in0.87
00:22:52.920november 1810 jane cumming visits her grandmother in charlotte square and she basically tells her
00:23:01.400grandmother that she's witnessed the two teachers uh showing inordinate affection for one another
00:23:08.420is um is the words that she that she uses and i think that this is all kind of come to a head
00:23:14.960for a few different things, everything we've discussed so far. Uh, but I think also as well,
00:23:19.880a really important point here is that over the summer holidays, when all of the school girls
00:23:25.980go home to their houses, you know, they're all rich. So maybe they go off to their country0.81
00:23:30.720estates, um, including Jane's cousins, but she is left behind at the school. So it's just her,
00:23:39.580Jane Peary and Marianne Woods. And so I think, I don't know, I'm imagining from Jane Cummings
00:23:46.120perspective, feelings of humiliation, rejection, jealousy, which feed into her kind of resentment
00:23:54.360for the situation that she finds herself in. And it is really after everybody gets back from
00:24:01.340the summer holidays that we see things beginning to snowball. She starts bullying the other students,
00:24:07.240which results in harsher discipline from Perry.
00:24:10.760And we know from the court case as well that Jane's been keeping a diary0.94
00:24:14.680where she's like recording all of the discipline that she receives from Perry.
00:24:19.700So, you know, this reads as absolutely kind of like a miserable position
00:39:10.840And so he had to remain with the established church.0.82
00:39:13.720And so by joining the free church, Jane not only kind of spiritually and politically separates herself from Tulloch, but she also publicly kind of exposes him as a man unable to control his wife and also snubs her family, the Cumming Gordons, as well.0.61
00:39:30.180Well, you're saying she was like she wanted to separate from him.0.81
00:45:44.260Kingdoms were reduced to cinders, and armies scattered like bones in the dust.
00:45:49.900Now the survivors claw to what's left of a broken world, praying the darkness chooses someone else tonight.
00:45:57.400But in the shadow dark, the darkness always wins.
00:46:01.680This is old school adventuring at its most cruel.
00:46:05.160Your torch ticks down in real time, and when that flame dies, something else rises to finish the job.
00:46:10.980This is a brutal rules-light nightmare with a story that emerges organically based on the decisions that the characters make.
00:46:18.660This is what it felt like to play RPGs in the 80s, and man, it is so good to be back.
00:46:23.400Join the Glass Cannon podcast as we plunge into the shadow dark every Thursday night at 8 p.m. Eastern on youtube.com slash the glass cannon with the podcast version dropping the next day.
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00:49:20.020So, you know, apparently Perry like dismissed the claim suggesting the conflict began because
00:49:25.440Miss Bellini prayed too loudly and was referring to her scornfully as that woman. And she insisted
00:49:34.160that it was Bellini who had started the physical altercation. And it just says in the final line
00:49:40.280of the newspaper article, it feels like a touch of exasperated diplomacy that the magistrate
00:49:47.280recommended a private and amicable settlement to the ladies. And then that's it. Then we don't
00:49:52.480hear anything else from her until her her will where we know that she dies in her sister and
00:49:59.140brother-in-law's flat in in Glasgow in 1833 and she's 54 years old so yeah I think her story is
00:50:07.360kind of marked by an escalating mental health kind of crisis pressures of running school the
00:50:15.860trauma of the defamation trial question public questions around her sexuality we could say the
00:50:22.400loss of her kind of partner, Marianne, uh, like bitter legal battle with her, with her sister,
00:50:28.400the death of another sister as well. And then like, just like falling out with her housemate
00:50:34.620and taking it to the next level. So yeah, I feel like she had a tough life.
00:50:40.860Yeah. It just, it's, I think it's important to, um, I know you have to go, but just to have like,
00:50:46.800I don't have to go to five. Okay. Well then we'll keep chatting.
00:50:50.340the I wasn't sure what the time zone was um I've got another hour well then great let's keep
00:50:58.920talking um so in terms of like queer history how a story like this I think it's really important
00:51:07.700obviously I think looking at all of queer history is important but I also like having this
00:51:11.800um story in the same context as the ladies of Lengoughlin as Anne Lister just to have like
00:51:17.180another i don't want to make it seem like the regency era was this really chill time for
00:51:22.140lesbians it's like no actually like this is the fact that an accusation of this relationship was
00:51:29.980see was so devastating to their reputation and they saw it as so devastating to their reputation
00:51:35.880that they then like that they started a defamation trial like yeah it's interesting to me because
00:51:43.240wasn't part of the trial also like is it possible for women to have sex have it has that ever
00:51:48.100happened anywhere in the world didn't that come up in the trial somewhere yeah absolutely i think
00:51:52.140that's like the main theme of of the of the court case is like is it possible for two women to have
00:51:59.700sex so yeah so we've got john clark kind of being like it is possible but it only happens in like1.00
00:52:06.760hot places where people have like elongated clitorises. Um, and yeah, but then we've got0.99
00:52:14.720Henry Erskine and his legal team that are representing Lady Helen Cumming-Gordon and
00:52:19.980they do something that's kind of really interesting, uh, as a way to argue their point,
00:52:26.220um, is that they, they counter Clark's argument that lesbianism didn't exist in, in Europe by
00:52:32.640universalizing it. Um, so they compile this extensive multilingual, uh, list of historical
00:52:39.280references, uh, to sexual passion between women. Um, and it's got a great title. It's called
00:52:44.900authorities with the regard to the practice of tributism and tributism is from the Greek, uh,
00:52:51.500which means to rub. Um, and it was like a word that was more frequently in, in circulation than
00:52:58.720lesbian, which was a term at the time, or sapphic as well. But truidism maybe is the more formal
00:53:05.020one that you would use in legal proceedings. So the list drew from classical and contemporary
00:53:11.360sources, Greek, Latin, Arabic, and English, but includes lots of references to literature and
00:53:17.960drama and travel writing as well. And it's a super kind of comprehensive list of this historical
00:53:26.700terminology and i think a surprisingly underused resource available to queer historians it's not
00:53:35.080transcribed so you have to come to edinburgh and view it in the archive um but i think it's a rich
00:53:42.020it's a rich source that's been untapped and this is this is like a document just so i understand
00:53:46.220so like the the trial was being like what a bananas trial but it was like
00:53:51.040is lesbianism possible in scotland was part of what was being discussed not just like did these
00:53:58.100women do it but it's like could they possibly have because in scotland i don't know if that
00:54:01.440happened so this guy made a document which is kind of like here are lots of examples of this0.87
00:54:05.680happening in europe basically yeah so yeah he's being like yeah it's really normal for women to
00:54:12.980touch each other and be sexual with one another um so therefore lady helen common gordon um
00:54:21.040is or like Jane Cumming is telling the truth and Lady Helen Cumming Gordon was right to have
00:54:28.140concern and express her concern so I think he quotes here there is very little doubt that in0.76
00:54:34.080all ages and in all countries women have enjoyed this mode of seeking pleasure and it is perfectly
00:54:38.920possible for ladies of the best character to find delight in sexual relationships but yeah so it
00:54:44.900kind of sounds like he's separating uh morals from sexual preference and almost arguing that
00:54:50.640same-sex attraction is natural rather than what we would consider at the time that you know people's
00:54:56.980kind of standing is that sapphic desire is shameful or criminal or non-existent but this is an argument
00:55:02.880to bolster Lady Helen's position in the case by saying that Jane Cumming was kind of telling
00:55:08.860telling the truth and that Lady Helen acted reasonably given what she believed to be true
00:55:14.900but you know the court case is obvious the courtroom is obviously scandalized by this
00:55:19.660And I've got another quote here of one judge kind of famously exclaiming, are we to say that every woman who has formed an early intimacy has slept in the same bed with another is guilty?
00:55:31.020Where is the innocent woman in Scotland?
00:55:34.640I know. Great. A great line. A great line.1.00
00:55:37.460Where is the innocent woman in Scotland? Indeed.0.96
00:55:39.740and he also kind of Erskine always kind of also kind of pulls on this kind of race uh thing as
00:55:46.060a race racial dynamics as well because he argues that Jane's Indian background because of it there
00:55:53.020was a greater risk of that Jane faced if she was caught lying um so she was kind of paradoxically
00:56:00.260uh a more reliable witness more in line I think so yeah and Jane's kind of testimony
00:56:08.140um is very lively um she testified in the court of session over four days and we there are copies
00:56:17.260of the note takers longhand uh in the archives and it spans for 49 pages um and she describes
00:56:24.460the teachers sexual practices in like considerable detail um and with such lively colors uh that the
00:56:33.420judges soon began, they were soon kind of became perplexed at how a 16-year-old girl could have
00:56:39.480come into the possession of so much kind of detailed knowledge. And I'll give you a few
00:56:44.620quotes from her testimony. So she recalls that more often than once, being disturbed early in
00:56:53.200the morning by the teachers who were speaking and kissing and shaking in her bed. And quote,
00:56:58.720when Miss Woods came into the bed she felt them both take up their shifts and she felt Miss Woods
00:57:03.720move and shake the bed and she was breathing so high and so quick and that along with this heavy
00:57:10.160breathing this this is the line that really does it for me she described hearing a noise that she
00:57:15.620likened to quote putting one's finger into the neck of a wet bottle yeah yeah so very vivid
00:57:26.200very vivid because also in terms of like what he's saying she could feel the shifts and stuff
00:57:31.220because um she and we talked earlier on about like this small space and people sharing bedrooms
00:57:38.220and stuff but she and Jane Peary shared a bed I think right so she's saying like Miss Woods came
00:57:44.760to the bed that she Jane Cumming was in with Miss Peary and the two of them were like going at it
00:57:49.520next to her, basically. Yeah, that is exactly what she is claiming. So again, another reason
00:57:56.740to be horrified as well about what is being claimed in this courtroom. And I think that
00:58:03.360these things are kind of challenging themes and challenging images to kind of hold in your head
00:58:09.880and kind of break down and decipher what we think is true and false. And yeah, I think honestly,
00:58:16.960I don't know where I sit on it but I think there are some other the thing that comes to mind when
00:58:22.000I think about it is one of the books that was written about this court case so from the 1980s
00:58:27.960that is really worth reading it's called The Scotch Verdict and the it does a kind of back
00:58:35.180and forth between some of the original court documents and then the author Lillian Faderman
00:58:41.560and her, um, partner, her female partner coming to, uh, Scotland, coming to Edinburgh from, um,
00:58:50.400from America and going into the archives and their, uh, their conversations about around what
00:58:57.400they think, um, happened in the court case and what is true and what is not true. And I think
00:59:03.680that's a, yeah, I, I like the way that they, that that book is authored of kind of this back and
00:59:09.760forth in the conversation of and her so Lillian and her partner um hold completely different views
00:59:17.160on what they think is true and what and what is not true and yeah I think everybody can make their
00:59:23.720own decisions about what they think how far the truth was um bent for lack of a better word it
00:59:31.040reminds me even when I was reading about this it reminds me so much and maybe it's because I was
00:59:35.260recently researching this for something else, but the Salem witch trials, um, it's, which also
00:59:41.840really hinged on, um, magistrates really having to decide like whether this is true or whether
00:59:48.060it's not true. And it's like young teenage girls and their testimony, but part of where the Salem
00:59:53.340witch trials, I don't know how much people know about it, but, um, the, this, um, enslaved woman
00:59:59.800Tituba was she was accused of being a witch and she came in and it was because of her and I think
01:00:05.880she also testified for like three days or something and she was such a storyteller she
01:00:09.680wove this incredible saga and it was from that that everything just kind of like exacerbated and
01:00:15.580I feel like Jane Cumming is a bit of that like you're saying like it was this lively testimony
01:00:20.120it went on for days like she clearly was whatever her motivations were like she was good at telling
01:00:26.680her story and like the details that she's throwing and it's just like well if there's this many
01:00:32.220details how can it not be true sort of well exactly yeah and you know she's a 16 year old
01:00:37.800girl who's had quite a kind of shitty childhood or quite tumultuous and like maybe she just wants
01:00:45.200someone to like listen to her and if she's been given platform um i think another really interesting
01:00:50.580part of her testimony. And if you've seen the Children's Hour, the black and white film,
01:00:58.020I think it's 1961, starring Audrey Hepburn and Shirley MacLaine, which is an American take on
01:01:05.340this original Scottish story with a lot of changes made to it. But the thing that stays the same
01:01:11.840is this kind of infamous keyhole scene. So in Jane's testimony, she claimed that the maid,0.97
01:01:19.560charlotte whiffen who's one of the people who testifies in the court case uh she had witnessed
01:01:24.660the teachers committing indecencies on the drawing room sofa um seen through a keyhole
01:01:31.280in the door and the court like so in the court records it includes hand-drawn illustrations of
01:01:40.460this kind of alleged moment uh complete with kind of a marked line of vision from the keyhole to the
01:01:47.940sofa to see if the way that the things you know the objects set out in the room could make the
01:01:53.740story possible and we know jane's descriptions are kind of highly detailed um and they're kind
01:01:59.100of uncomfortable um in their detail reading more like kind of voyeuristic fiction than actual
01:02:05.320reliable testimony and so they've kind of marked it all out drawn it all out on this map and they
01:02:10.300actually they actually go to the school and they find that there's no keyhole on the door to the
01:02:16.400drawing room. And the story unravels completely. And I think after this, Jane's confidence begins
01:02:23.140to falter and her answers become confused. And she withdraws this claim of the story of the
01:02:29.960keyhole. So yeah, it's really not clear, I think, to anybody, and I don't think we'll ever get to
01:02:35.140the bottom of it, what is true and what is not true. And I think from reading people's different
01:02:41.900opinions with Lillian Faderman in her book and other people that I've spoken to about this,
01:02:47.300this court case, everybody brings a different, a different lens to it or a different way of
01:02:53.000seeing it or their own opinion on what happened. And so it is up to everyone to make their own
01:02:58.900decisions about what they think. There's an element that we haven't discussed yet that I
01:03:02.880think is also interesting to consider in terms of how it all turned out, which is the potential
01:03:08.900queer identity of Jane Cumming and her she had I think okay so it's such a nuanced thing because
01:03:18.500there's lots of children who idolize their teachers and sometimes that can be seen as a crush
01:03:24.320and sometimes it's more just sort of like idolatry and sometimes it's like I want to be like that
01:03:28.800person or whatever but it seems like with Jane Cumming she had a romantic crush on Miss Woods
01:03:35.760right yeah i think she had a romantic crush on this was another thing that happens at the school1.00
01:03:42.160is that one of the other school girls kind of dobs jane coming in um because jane has made1.00
01:03:51.500sexual advances towards this other school girl um so there's that as well um she yeah she kind1.00
01:03:58.580of like propositions this student um and she gives like really vivid explicit testimonies0.96
01:04:04.520about sapphic acts. Like this is obviously all going on in her head. And I think another really
01:04:10.180important part of this story or ingredient is that Jane came from a place where same-sex desire
01:04:21.140was not criminalized or historically had not been criminalized. It wasn't until 1860 after Jane's
01:04:28.700death, that the British imposed section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which was really heavily
01:04:36.060based on Henry VIII's 1533 buggery act. And so colonialism played a major role in kind of
01:04:44.460reshaping and suppressing India's own ways of understanding gender and sexuality. So a really
01:04:52.660great book that I have used in my research a lot is called A Global History of Love Between
01:04:58.680Women by Leela Roop. And, um, I found a broad kind of range of examples, uh, relating to female
01:05:06.380desire, um, in India at the time. Um, you know, when you like search a document, um, on your
01:05:13.960laptop keys, um, and it had like 80 hits for India come up in this, come up in this book.
01:05:21.000And so, you know, Jane's obviously a child at this time, but she's a, she's in a context where
01:05:27.240there aren't, um, she's not taking on kind of, um, the homophobia that is, you know, has been
01:05:33.560built into the systems here in Scotland. So that's, it's yeah, her, her childhood in India,
01:05:41.800I think is a key ingredient to all of this. Cause it could be when people are like, well,
01:05:47.700how could a 16 year old girl know all these details of things? It's like, well, maybe these
01:05:51.140are things that she saw or witnessed or heard about in India. I mean, at the same point I've
01:05:55.580done episodes this series about what novels wrote it's like maybe she wrote fanny hill
01:05:59.920like there's lots of yeah exactly exactly she i mean altire in in elgin where she was sent when
01:06:08.400she first moved to scotland is like a massive house with probably a huge library like she
01:06:14.120probably did pull books off the shelf that kind of had these things in them um but i do think a
01:06:20.380really important thing to consider that has been done a little bit but could probably do with some
01:06:25.340more work is kind of decolonizing Jane's side of the story and what might come out
01:06:30.820of that, um, for us, uh, and Jane and maybe in terms of her, of her sexuality.
01:06:38.100Um, but, you know, just because, um, I know some of your, your previous episodes have
01:06:44.520been about, um, the ladies of Llangollen and Anne Lister, um, just a little bit about,
01:06:51.120Jane and Marianne as well um I think that like if we talk about their their relationship so like
01:07:00.420we kind of talked about the beginning romantic friendships between women were fashionable they
01:07:03.940were socially acceptable it wasn't unusual for women to share beds and kind of exchange
01:07:09.020passionate letters to one another um and these relationships are framed in kind of non-sexual
01:07:14.820terms um but we know because of people like Anne Lister and we could say the ladies of
01:07:20.980in Gotham as well, that these were kind of convenient cover stories sometimes for what0.54
01:07:27.640was going on to the surface. And so I've kind of tried to look at Piri and Wood's relationship
01:07:34.100through that frame as well. But it does kind of explain why we've got some Piri kind of writing
01:07:40.140quite freely about her feelings for Marianne to other people. I've got a quote here that says,
01:07:46.120I have loved Marianne for eight years with sincere and ardent affection, contemplated her as a model of every virtue and would never be and would never be able to conquer her affection if Woods had spurned her or if she had spurned me.
01:08:00.660And so, yeah, like I said, it kind of, it kind of like, it's like a cover story, I guess. And, um, I think we think about companions as well, obviously, um, Woods and Perry are in a different position because they are not part of the landed gentry, they're middle-class women, but maybe this is their opening the school is their way of, um, finding a way to be together.
01:08:21.240Well, and that's where I just keep thinking again about Mary Wollstonecraft, who was so she had so much love for her friend Fanny Blood. And she was just like, all I want is for her and me to find a way to live together. Like she wrote about this, you know, I just want her and me to live together. And, and they opened a school and it's just kind of like, how can I find a way that just her and I can, it just reminds me of that as well.
01:08:41.160And I think what's sort of compelling about this whole like fucked up situation is that through the testimony and through the letters of people, it's like you've got Jane coming, you've got Peary and Woods, who are all people who are living in a time and a place where they might not have the vocabulary to understand who they are or what their desires are.
01:09:03.720and they're saying things and we can look at those now to be like they go to a court case where you
01:09:08.860have to define things so strictly and they weren't able to because they didn't have the vocabulary
01:09:15.080to really understand like the fact that jane coming i think when you see the the intense um
01:09:22.600the creativity and the description and what she's talking about all these where it's like yeah this
01:09:27.660is clearly something she's been thinking about but maybe she doesn't realize that she has those
01:09:31.160desires herself so it's like people yeah and also she's 16 so like of course she doesn't like
01:09:36.060it's just yeah there are these people who don't really understand their own psychologies being
01:09:42.940forced into a court case where it has to be this or that absolutely yeah and i yeah it is funny
01:09:48.240thinking about like what what literature was available and how you could see yourself reflected
01:09:54.240in that literature to find different ways to live and you know we know we know that in 1809
01:10:00.740Piri gave Woods a copy of a woman called Anna Seward, her new book of poems as a kind of celebration or celebratory gift for the opening of their school.
01:10:14.780And many of the poems, so Anna Seward never marries, and many of the poems focus on her kind of thwarted love interest, this woman called Honora Snide.
01:10:25.180And Anna Seward also writes lots of poems about the ladies of Langothelin.
01:10:30.020and uh the smoking gun for me um is that like the ladies of langothlin um anna seawood also had a
01:10:37.400dog called sappho um so we can kind of i think that we can say from like things like that it's
01:10:43.280like i'm building the evidence um that that there was something going on between the two school
01:10:50.040teachers it's just to what extent that was expressed in front of young children i think
01:10:57.060that is what makes it kind of hard to stomach but yeah for for Jane like um so Jane Cumming
01:11:05.240has a biography has a biography uh it's called Scandal and Survival and the biographer in there
01:11:12.120refers to Peary as one very frustrated lesbian and there's this great quote as well that she
01:11:18.800includes from a bible that she gifts to Marianne and it says accept my beloved of that book which
01:11:25.440can give consolation in every situation and dearest earthly friend never open it without
01:11:30.740thinking of her who would forgo all friendship but her gods to possess yours um and i think
01:11:36.320it's very intense obviously in jane peary style but yes we have a little bit more i guess from
01:11:43.300the adults in the really the adults in the story so jane peary is 30 and marianne woods is 28
01:11:49.960when the court case kind of starts um but yeah maybe 16 year old jane doesn't have role models0.98
01:11:58.060to model what life could look like for her if she wanted it to in the same way that
01:12:08.700perry and woods are seeing through anna seawood's poems about the ladies of langothlin something
01:12:14.760that is possible for them. Yeah, it seems like probably Jane Cumming did have access
01:12:21.300to sensationalized novels about sapphic behavior, but not something that was
01:12:29.300positive representation, shall we say. And I think as a sapphic person in the 20th, 21st century,
01:12:39.400that kind of positive representation is really important and it can like make you or break you0.99
01:12:45.320and we can see here how how it definitely broke all of these women in the end i think
01:12:51.540we were um just setting up this interview and stuff you mentioned that there's a film
01:12:55.860in the works yes what are you able to tell us about that so uh there is a new film coming out
01:13:02.020the working title is miss perry and miss woods so if you give it a google there should be a few
01:13:08.620bits of information that come up about it but I don't think that's the kind of like finalized
01:13:13.780title for it um and I think it should hopefully fingers crossed be coming out um next year but I
01:13:21.160was heavily involved in um the organizing of the film to be shot uh in a few locations um around
01:13:30.740Edinburgh, which is really exciting. So I got to be on set and meet the cast, um, and speak with
01:13:38.900the director who I know has been working on the film for a very, very long time. And it was amazing
01:13:45.800to be in a context, uh, with so many other people who are really passionate about this story and
01:13:53.000all of the many complexities that the women in it holds, um, and wanting to, wanting to bring
01:13:59.660that to the public. Yeah. That's so exciting. I love that you got to be involved in it and I love1.00
01:14:04.400that that is going to be in the world so that this story can be more widely seen and more widely
01:14:09.160known. You've mentioned a couple of books. If people, what would be your like entry point if
01:14:15.120somebody wanted to read more about this? What's like the best first book to read about it? Do you
01:14:20.160think? I think the best thing, first thing to do is to probably actually watch the children's hour.
01:14:25.700if you haven't seen The Children's Hour. Think like sensationalized kind of black and white
01:14:31.760film where there's lots of instrumental dramatic music and people do like long stares at one
01:14:38.060another and all the credits run before the film plays. I'd watch that because I think it gives
01:14:44.220you like a good overview of the dynamics. And then I would read The Scotch Verdict by Lillian
01:14:52.580Federman, uh, which is a 1980s novel that kind of goes back and forth in time. Um, so that you get
01:14:59.860some, I say contempt modern, but, um, it's the eighties. So dated now, but kind of commentary
01:15:07.000to help you along with the story, the most kind of comprehensive and academic book is a scandal
01:15:14.920and survival. Um, it's, is scandal and survival in 19th century, Scotland, the life of Jane
01:15:21.700coming um by francis b sign um and that one that one is for the history hard hitters i think like
01:15:30.200lots and lots of detail um but a really good reference book if you're going to also deep
01:15:36.140dive into the story um and then if you just happen to find yourself in edinburgh um i would head to
01:15:42.640the signet library where you can access uh for free all of the original court case documents as
01:15:49.120well. And watch the new film when it comes out. Yes, exactly. I know like this, this episode is
01:15:53.520coming out 2026. So is it 2026 that the film is coming out or 2027? Yeah, I believe so. Yeah.
01:16:00.440So hopefully you'll be hearing more about it by the time that this episode is, which is really
01:16:05.700exciting. Yeah. And I love, I think it'll be, I think it's such a rich topic for a film because
01:16:11.980it's so multifaceted. And so there can be a lot of, maybe not as in the same level as a children's
01:16:18.160hour, but, you know, a lot of longing looks, a lot of meaningful glances.
01:16:24.840Yeah. And I think the thing about the story is that there, like I said, um, there are so many
01:16:29.540different perspectives that you can look at it from. There are so many different frames of
01:16:34.840analysis as well, um, that everyone can take away something from the story that is personal
01:16:42.460to them um and their experiences whether you're queer whether you've worked at a boarding school
01:16:50.020whether you're mixed race like there's something in there that that is um it's just a really kind
01:16:55.800of deeply human story with i'm just thinking of other things it's like if you've ever had a crush
01:17:01.340on your teacher if you've ever felt like the third wheel if you've ever had a grandmother
01:17:07.140who didn't want to spend time with you like oh my god so true there's a lot of there's i think
01:17:14.760there's something that like most people could relate to with this um just as sort of a final
01:17:19.180question and i'm curious what you'll say um but just in terms of like this episode is coming out
01:17:24.460and you first reach out to me because i'm doing this regency era series and you know this is a
01:17:28.540regency era season do you think there's anything um the fact that this happened when it did like
01:17:34.1801811 is when the court case started like is there something specific about that time period like
01:17:39.900would this have played out wildly differently if it happened a hundred years later or a hundred
01:17:44.600years before what I'm going to mention while you're thinking about it is that this is how
01:17:49.540you described at the very beginning how Edinburgh was just building the new town right so it's kind
01:17:53.780of like the two teachers like this is their opportunity to kind of make a name for themselves
01:17:58.120maybe a hundred years ago women couldn't have done that in the first place but also if Edinburgh's0.69
01:18:02.020new town wasn't just starting then there wouldn't have been this opportunity to maybe start the
01:18:06.060school so i think that was crucial that yeah the timing of it in that way yes i think the timing
01:18:11.860of it is crucial um we're in like an enlightenment period we're in a period where um scotland is
01:18:19.540really like trying to assert itself as a colonial force um and there's all of the ties with india
01:18:26.460that are beginning to really kind of speed up in development um I think if it had happened
01:18:32.520a hundred years before we're kind of at the tail end of the witch trials in Scotland as well so
01:18:38.360perhaps they would have found themselves kind of more facing down that barrel accused of witchcraft
01:18:45.640versus yeah yeah um and I think that if it had happened a hundred years later we're just kind
01:18:53.820heading into the first world war sexology has kind of developed um as a field of study maybe
01:19:05.600they would have been able to live more freely without kind of these accusations kind of
01:19:10.160absolutely destroying them yeah so i think it is very much about about the context for the way that
01:19:16.500things unfold and i think also just jane's identity like this was sort of in the early
01:19:21.280stages like when she was born the early stages of kind of like british colonialism happening in
01:19:27.200india so people weren't quite sure what to make of these mixed-race children like you said there
01:19:31.560were kind of these institutions where she went to so there's like an increasing generation of like
01:19:36.700the mixed-race children of it but 100 years later that was more common just from other research
01:19:41.080i've done i know that there were schools for mixed-race children 50 years later even but she
01:19:46.360was kind of this first generation where everyone's just kind of like, do we, can she go to a boarding
01:19:51.300school? Can she be part of white society? We're not sure, but that got codified later on. So she,
01:19:57.040I think there's a lot of this story just talking this through right now. I didn't know what the
01:20:00.440answer was either, but I'm like, yeah, I think this was like, could only really happen when it
01:20:04.660happened the way that it did. Yeah. Um, I think absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think I have
01:20:11.720anything else to add to it I think it is very like of its it's like of its time but also timeless
01:20:17.600in a way of like the emotions that are brought up by everybody as well like it is like it's about
01:20:23.760um jealousy and kind of manipulation and people kind of acting on dreams and um like power
01:20:35.740dynamics and those things are all timeless so yeah because like the the children's hour takes
01:20:42.740place in the 20th century i think so they take kind of the timeless elements of it to make that
01:20:47.500story work but the the way that it did happen in history i think was very much of its time and
01:20:53.440place yes the colonial forces that were at play absolutely and um women's education as well sorry
01:21:02.220yes yeah no i was just thinking yeah exactly just like women open it like this is i don't i forget
01:21:08.500what order all the episodes come out in or what's already aired but there's numerous instances of
01:21:13.400like women who are just like let's start a school it's kind of like that was a thing that a lot of0.74
01:21:17.800it's just kind of like what can we do i don't like being a governess let's start a school like1.00
01:21:22.140so many women are just kind of like what else can we do i guess i'll start a school0.98
01:21:26.480So it was really that era as well, I guess. But yeah, thank you so much for this. I think it's
01:21:33.440such a valuable conversation. Like when you first contacted me about it, I thought, oh,
01:21:37.020this is a perfect sort of continuation of this kind of theme of queer history, like the queer
01:21:41.680Georgian era, where I did appreciate for myself personally, that the ladies of Lengachlan and
01:21:46.620Anne Lister are largely positive queer stories in history, because I think, like you said,
01:21:51.700like you that's so crucial for people to hear and to understand but i didn't want to leave the
01:21:57.740impression that like the regency era was this like utopia for lesbians like no no society was not
01:22:05.760yeah i think class plays a massive role yes in um your future your your ability to be a queer person0.82
01:22:16.640in, in their regency period. Like if you've got the money, you can make it happen. It might be
01:22:22.660a little bit of like struggle and people might kind of look at you a bit strangely, but more or
01:22:27.460less, you can just do whatever you want. Um, but if you had to work for a living, there are a lot
01:22:32.520more hoops to jump through. Exactly. And I think that's, yeah, the class of it is such an important
01:22:38.840part as well. Thank you so much for, for taking the time to talk about this, like weird, interesting.
01:22:46.640messed up story. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So I wasn't sure if we were going to do the
01:22:59.120scandalousness scale for this. Cause I was like, well, I don't want to go through for like each
01:23:02.400person. Cause that's complicated. So what I thought we could do is kind of like for this
01:23:07.580situation. Yeah. Like, like if we look at the whole scenario and I'll just put it on the scale
01:23:14.760as such um so the first category is scandalousness how so if we look at like
01:23:21.500woods and peary versus coming gordon like how scandalous was this situation seen
01:23:30.060at the place in the time so i think the court case but also like just what was happening
01:23:35.160well i guess we don't really know what was happening so the concept of two lesbian school
01:23:40.740teachers having sex in front of a child how uh I think it's like off the charts scandaliciousness
01:23:48.880like 11 out of 10 kind of area in terms of um how people at the time would have felt about it
01:23:57.460yeah the highest I can give it was 10 but you know okay let's get 10 out of 10 10 out of 10
01:24:04.640but you know like asterisks higher if possible but yeah I think because that yeah because in
01:24:10.060terms of scandalousness because you've listened to the podcast obviously so it's kind of it's not
01:24:14.060just like how scandals do we think it is personally but how was it taken at the time and it was like
01:24:18.760the absolute most scandalous thing anyone could imagine i think so i think all the lawyers are
01:24:24.800just like absolutely scandalized by having to act like having to deal with it they're just like we
01:24:30.420don't we don't want to deal with it um yeah well the fact that like all the students withdrew from
01:24:35.980the school in a day. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And a few of them were, um, refused entry into other schools,
01:24:42.640um, on the grounds of like bringing Suffolk vices with them. Like you had been in this,
01:24:48.840like the school itself was so tainted instantaneously. It was, yeah, it was a closed
01:24:55.020court case, but I think it was, you know, whispers kind of thing. And that these,
01:25:00.500these girls that had attended the school but had nothing to do with the accusations were
01:25:06.260denied entry into other schools um because of their association with the so-called sapphic0.99
01:25:12.900vices so the next category is scheminess now i think jane cumming high high on scheminess
01:25:20.620high on manipulation high on um the other p i don't i don't know and then lady helen i feel
01:25:28.940like, is like, she's up there, like very litigious. Jane Peary, even, I think, I don't know.
01:25:35.660Miss Woods, though, I think brings it down. I don't know if she was a very schemey person.0.82
01:25:39.080Like if we're thinking of them as a collective, like how schemey was this situation?
01:25:44.000When I was kind of like thinking about it, uh, before the podcast and I was like, well,
01:25:48.920what am I going to give it? Um, I also, that was my train of thought kind of going through
01:25:52.860everyone and being like, oh, some are high, some are low, but yet Marianne Woods kind of brings
01:25:56.720it down as this like kind of like innocent woman who's like swept up in the um comings and goings
01:26:05.420and the like opinions of all these like very direct women um so I would give it like a seven0.92
01:26:12.200out of ten I think I don't know if that's still too high but um yeah I think that Jane Cummings0.98
01:26:19.120level of scheminess is so high it's like if we ever don't her and miss woods i think that might
01:26:27.000because miss woods is like a two jane cumming is like a 10 so if we like where do we live so i think
01:26:34.360seven is fair okay okay and i mean asking you this question is the significance of this story
01:26:42.460i think to you personally is very high because you've been doing all this research on it and
01:26:47.940the film and everything but if you think like including that and then also the broader context
01:26:53.280of what does this mean to like queer history um how significant do you think this whole saga
01:26:59.580was i think that it is a significant story in the way that race and sexuality are uh like play
01:27:08.060together in this story and i think that sometimes when you're a historian of um you're a queer
01:27:17.200historian. Maybe we forget about the role that race and class can play in your experience of
01:27:23.880queerness in the past. Um, and I think that this story is significant because it brings that
01:27:31.400really sharply into focus of how, um, how it can change your experience and that not all queer
01:27:40.040experiences in the past were the same, if that makes sense. So I do think that it's a bit of a
01:27:47.620forgotten story or it's like an underdog kind of story. I think it, yeah. So I think it's
01:27:52.640significant, but I think there, it should be more widely known. Um, and I hope that this film that's
01:27:58.960coming out, um, we'll, we'll do that. So for significance, I think I'd give it like an eight
01:28:07.100out of 10 in terms of like in terms of the significance that it should be having but
01:28:14.380maybe it's yet to have is that allowed anything is allowed I think that um I don't have a hand
01:28:20.460in front of me but like actually no I do let me just see what I gave what Ann Lister got
01:28:26.960Ann Lister got a 10 out of 10 for significance and I think that tv show really yeah so I think
01:28:34.600i think an eight is fair for this or it's like it's significant but it's not widely known but
01:28:38.420hopefully with this film it will become yeah it can work its way up to that and lister
01:28:43.380yeah i think um you know i think unfortunately uh marianne asked jane perry to burn all her
01:28:51.560letters so maybe we don't have like the explicit sexual detail uh from the teachers themselves
01:28:59.720even though we do get it from jane coming if she is telling the truth um but yeah so maybe it'll
01:29:08.360creep up to a 10 later down the line if i uh do more primary source kind of digging but i think
01:29:14.960for now i'd like to give it give it an eight in terms of like the different stories that it tells
01:29:20.300for for queer history in the um regency period i didn't i'd forgotten that this is yet another
01:29:26.040story where it's just like I saw somebody I think they posted on social media somewhere they're like
01:29:30.680if I had a time machine what I do is go back in time to all the times where somebody interesting
01:29:35.220had their letters burned and I would stop that from happening yes and people will respond and
01:29:41.180they're like yes I would stop Cassandra Austin I was not like there's so many people where I'm
01:29:45.200just like just be like Anne Lister and tuck them up inside your chimney or whatever it's like
01:29:49.020exactly don't destroy them just hide them and hopefully one of your cool descendants will find0.98
01:29:56.820it and they will burn it I don't know you don't have to find them just tuck them away tuck them
01:30:02.360away yeah exactly I've got like a checklist of like for because I do a lot of uh research into0.99
01:30:08.540queer people in the 18th and early 19th century and I have like a checklist of like behaviors that0.98
01:30:15.740I like check off to be like, they never married. They like lived alone or traveled a lot. They0.99
01:30:21.460burnt all their letters. They like had a really good friend. They were like a bit of an oddity,
01:30:27.500um, or like had strong opinions or like, um, personality. Um, and yeah, I think this fits all
01:30:36.040of that. Well, and to me personally, I have this book coming out when people are listening to this
01:30:40.080next month um in february my biography of caroline of brunswick and when she knew she was dying like
01:30:46.700she had a slow sort of opium-based death um and the doctors were like guess what you're dying and
01:30:53.720she's like okay i gotta get my papers in order i guess so she like wrote her will and then she
01:30:56.960told her servant she's like burned my documents and i'm like no why couldn't you have just died
01:31:03.760and then the documents would still be there but she lived long enough to be like burn it all0.97
01:31:09.160bitch i'm like but it would have been so good i know it's so frustrating anyway so that's why i0.87
01:31:16.740like the imagining a time machine that just goes back to just save documents yeah um the fourth0.92
01:31:23.020category is the sexism bonus so how much did sexism which i'm i'm interested to know in this
01:31:28.940story like you know were it not for the patriarchal culture like period woods could have had a
01:31:35.280different job maybe um they wouldn't have like although it seems like opening a school was of
01:31:41.600interest to them both but i don't know i don't know they would if they had lived in a society
01:31:47.460where it was easier to be an unmarried woman then there wouldn't have been these various pressures0.84
01:31:51.740on them maybe they wouldn't have period potentially wouldn't have reached such a1.00
01:31:58.620extreme state of mental distress if she wasn't always panicking about money yeah yeah1.00
01:32:05.140i think same for same for jane coming maybe she wouldn't have had such a kind of like1.00
01:32:10.900explosive marriage if she was allowed to just like firstly not marry um and then also if she1.00
01:32:19.860decided that she didn't like her husband anymore she could just like get a divorce
01:32:23.880i think that all of the women would have benefited a lot from not having to deal with the patriarchy1.00
01:32:33.340Well, even the court trial, which was like all male lawyers, a male judge.0.93
01:32:37.900Well, yeah, exactly. They're being, like I said, this is kind of, it's like, it's like women's1.00
01:32:43.360business, women and like, but it's being judged by men, people who, you know, have no lived
01:32:50.020experience who are kind of like equally disgusted and curious about like what is being put before
01:32:58.160them when they don't really, they might understand the culture of romantic friendships from the
01:33:04.720outside, but they can't experience them as a woman, uh, in the Regency period and, and understand
01:33:12.900where the lines are, how they might be crossed, what that might look like, what that might feel
01:33:18.800like. And so, yes, I think that the women, uh, would have had completely different experiences
01:33:26.660if they were not at the mercy of the patriarchy that's like it there's we've talked about like
01:33:32.440class and race um homophobia all these other things but it's like yeah no sexism and the
01:33:38.120patriarchy is also an ingredient in this absolutely and age situation like the young people and the
01:33:45.500old people and they're like women in their 30s and like everybody's just like trying to survive
01:33:52.480like so if I have to give it a score um in terms of like how much the patriarchy affected
01:34:02.840their lives it's like not just how much the patriarchy affected their lives but like how
01:34:07.360much better their lives could have been without it um which is like you know just as a holistic
01:34:17.520thing it's like well they were able to open a school um and maybe they would have done that
01:34:22.500if they had all the options in the world but I'm gonna say like a seven I think because I think
01:34:29.420like opening a school was a really good way for working women to be able to live together and like0.99
01:34:36.100make it work kind of thing so yeah maybe that didn't the patriarchy didn't affect them in that
01:34:41.260way but in terms of like the court case and we're thinking about jane coming and like her her father
01:34:49.120abandoning her for his inheritance and the way that jane perry i guess it's like with her sisters1.00
01:34:56.820uh but yeah her financial struggles and stuff i think it deserves yeah a seven so that gets her0.99
01:35:05.440total her by her I mean this whole situation which is a gendered female um is a score of 320.51
01:35:13.920which is the same score as Mary Wollstonecraft so I feel like the story kept I kept thinking of her
01:35:20.840as well um yeah yeah absolutely I think that fits in nicely in that in that neighborhood
01:35:27.380you know not quite top 10 scores but like in the upper echelon and Lister just so you know 36 um
01:35:34.340but her letters weren't burned so so she's we've got we know a bit more about her and so that makes
01:35:42.720sense that she she scores a little bit higher yeah no thank you for suggesting we do this
01:35:46.820because I had been thinking I'm like oh are we gonna do it and then I'm like how could we but
01:35:50.000sure this is the first time I've scored a situation and not a person I feel on it but
01:35:55.540but I think it all works. Thank you. So you can keep up with Indigo Dunphy-Smith. Her website
01:36:04.680is aqueerwashere. And I'm excited to have gotten to talk about Edinburgh again, frankly, after the0.69
01:36:12.400Mary Queen of Scots stuff. I was interested to hear about what was happening there in this
01:36:16.180Regency era. Speaking of the Regency era, I wrote a book that takes place in that time.
01:36:27.020She's like, plug your book more, Anne.
01:36:28.880So my book is called Rebel of the Regency.
01:36:30.860It is a nonfiction biography of Carolina Brunswick, who was the queen.
01:36:35.960She was, you know, the Regency era that's named after a man who was the regent.
01:36:39.760Later, he was George IV, and Caroline was his long-suffering wife.
01:36:43.920My book is coming out on February 10th in Canada, the U.S., the U.K., and Australia.
01:36:49.340and you can pre-order it from anywhere you get books in all of those places. Honestly, if you go
01:36:54.980to Amazon, you can get it if you're in another country and you want to get it. Like if you go
01:36:59.960to Amazon UK, Amazon US, you can probably Amazon Australia, you can hopefully order it for yourself
01:37:05.660as well. And when you pre-order it and you're running out of time for this to get the treats.
01:37:09.220So if you pre-order my book and then send me a picture of your receipt, you can get a Carolina
01:37:13.180Brunswick limited edition paper doll drawn by Siobhan Gallagher. You can also get a one-year
01:37:18.740free membership to my sub stack and also to my patreon all the information about my book um
01:37:24.240including links to buy it are at rebel of the regency.com and in just a few weeks i'm going
01:37:30.520to be having my book launch for my book so it's happening here in saskatoon saskatchewan so if
01:37:34.940you live here go to mcnally robinson friday february 13th at 7 p.m some of you listening
01:37:39.880might not live in saskatoon saskatchewan but don't worry you can take part as well because
01:37:43.400it's going to be on youtube live streamed and i put a link to that in the show notes for this
01:37:48.340episode and next week honestly it's our regency era we're all in and we're going to be getting
01:37:54.140into frankly another sapphic story next week i didn't when i was planning who i was going to
01:37:58.920talk about i'm just like here's some people who are notable of the era and then it turns out this0.99
01:38:02.680is just like a real sapphic season so i'm here for it having a nice time let's go lesbians and1.00
01:38:08.000i'll talk to you all next week thank you so much keep your pants on and your tits out heparin1.00
01:38:12.900everyone says goodbye too if you're watching the video that's her butt okay bye0.99
01:38:18.580vulgar history is researched scripted and hosted by ann foster editor is christina lumagi theme
01:38:26.620music is by the severin duo regency era artwork by karen moynihan social media videos by magdalena
01:38:32.960denson transcripts of this podcast are available at vulgarhistory.com by avilene malik you can get
01:38:38.840Early ad-free episodes of Vulgar History by becoming a paid member of our Patreon at patreon.com slash annfosterwriter.
01:38:45.520Vulgar History merchandise is available at vulgarhistory.com slash store for Americans and at vulgarhistory.redbubble.com for everyone else.
01:38:54.460Follow us on social media at vulgarhistorypod.
01:38:56.980Get in touch with me at vulgarhistorypod at gmail.com.
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